Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X commemorating its Dragon capsule, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Area Station. Area, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Friend and formed Space, X, maker of launch cars and spacecraft. He was also one of the very first considerable financiers in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric automobile manufacturer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Space, X.
Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the ceo and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars and trucks. Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early skill for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through required military service and because he sought the greater economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk went to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he got bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.
In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that supplied maps and company directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was purchased by the computer system manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online monetary services company, X.com, which later on became Pay, Friend, which concentrated on moving cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, mankind has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was disappointed with the great cost of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.
A 3rd rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially released in 2018), was created to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost twice as much as its largest rival, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. Space, X has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would can lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft developed for offering fast transport between cities in the world and constructing bases on the Moon and Mars.
Dragon can bring as lots of as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk sought to minimize the expense of spaceflight by establishing a fully reusable rocket that might raise off and go back to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made numerous brief flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electric cars and trucks, and in 2004 he ended up being one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electrical vehicle company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.