Video released by spacecraft maker Space, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, ended up being the first industrial 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 company Pay, Buddy and formed Space, X, maker of launch automobiles and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the very first considerable financiers in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electrical automobile manufacturer Tesla. Leading Questions, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft business Space, X.

Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a significant funder of Tesla, that makes electrical vehicles. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mother. He showed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a video game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after acquiring a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he hesitated to support apartheid through compulsory military service and since he sought the higher economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk participated in 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 Additional hints 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that supplied maps and organization directory sites to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online monetary services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Pal, which concentrated on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay purchased Pay, Buddy in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to make it through, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the terrific expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Area Exploration Technologies (Space, X) to make more cost effective rockets.

A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to bring 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its biggest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has actually revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft created for providing fast transport between cities on Earth and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can carry as lots of as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS Helpful site in 2020. Musk looked for to decrease the cost of spaceflight by establishing a fully recyclable rocket that might lift off and return to the pad it launched from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Grasshopper rocket made numerous short flights to check such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Space, X, Musk was likewise chief designer in constructing the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric cars and truck business established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.