Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X celebrating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Area Station. Space, 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 cars and spacecraft. He was likewise one of the first significant financiers in, along with primary executive officer of, the electrical vehicle maker Tesla. Top Questions, Elon Musk was born upon June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment company Pay, Pal and established the spacecraft company Space, X.
Elon Musk established Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the president and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical cars. Musk was born to a South African dad and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computer systems and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer system magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa since he was unwilling to support apartheid through obligatory military service and since he sought the higher economic opportunities 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 established Zip2, a company that supplied maps and company directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system producer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later ended up being Pay, Buddy, which focused 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 survive, mankind needs to end up being a multiplanet types. Nevertheless, he was disappointed with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more economical rockets.
A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first released in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, almost two times as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Business's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Space, X has announced the follower to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy very 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 quick transportation in 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 sought to reduce the cost of spaceflight by developing a fully reusable rocket that could raise off and return to the pad it released from. Beginning in 2012, Space, X's Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to unique material. Subscribe Now Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electrical automobiles, and in 2004 he became one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric cars and truck company established by business owners Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.