Elon Musk (34) owns and pilots three jets, including a Russian fighter plane, and has produced a movie starring Katie Holmes. He sold two Internet companies made him a rand billionaire 10 times over. The former Pretoria Boys and Bryanston High School pupil has spent more than R600-million in making space travel cheaper. Still a South African citizen, Elon has lived in Canada and Bel Air, California for 17 years. He left South Africa in 1989, to avoid conscription, and landed in Canada. He later moved to the US where he studied economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania.
He is set to become the first person in history to send his own rocket into orbit when he launches his brainchild Falcon rocket from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands any day now. His Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), based in El Segundo, Texas, was set up 3 years ago and has a staff of 150. The United States Defence Department was his first customer, with the US Air Force signing a $100-million contract until 2010. His company also beamed up the ashes of Star Trek’s legendary engineer Scotty, actor James Doohan, into space.
In 1999 Elon and his co-founders sold Zip2, a Web software business, for more than $300-million to Compaq. From there, he founded the online payment service company Paypal. Three years ago he sold it to eBay, keeping $1,5-billion in stocks.
Elon was the executive producer of the movie, Thank you for smoking, which recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and stars Robert Duvall, Rob Lowe and Katie Holmes. The married father of twin babies has a Porsche Turbo, a MacLaren F1, and an e-Type Jaguar. For his 30th birthday, he flew friends and family from South Africa to Ashby Castle in England, the medieval fortress where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned.
His uncle, Midrand medical doctor Michael Musk, said that Elon had a life-changing experience when he almost died from malaria after a holiday to Londolozi Game Reserve in 2000. His first-born child died soon afterwards.
