Elon Musk - Product Architect & Ceo @ Tesla - Crunchbase ...

1. Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment company Pay, Pal and formed Area, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also among the first considerable investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric car producer Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Pal and founded the spacecraft company Space, X. Elon Musk established Area, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a major funder of Tesla, that makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and offered it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa due to the fact that he was reluctant to support apartheid through mandatory military service and due to the fact that he sought the higher financial chances offered in the United States. Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997. In 1995 he established Zip2, a business that supplied maps and organization directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services business, X.com, which later on became Pay, Pal, which concentrated on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Pal in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long persuaded that for life to endure, humanity has to end up being a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Exploration Technologies (Area, X) to make more cost effective rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially introduced in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly two times as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very first phase would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing quick transport between cities on Earth and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars. Dragon can bring as numerous as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to decrease the cost of spaceflight by developing a fully reusable rocket that could take off and go back to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made several short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was also primary designer in developing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper. Get a Britannica Premium membership and gain access to unique content. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on relabelled Tesla), an electric automobile company founded by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.