Whilst South Africa was in a frothy over a presidential member, a South African billionaire was creating history on the other side of the ocean. Elon Musk (41), a computer prodigy, entrepreneur and inventor saw the rocket ship built by his company, SpaceX, lift off. It is the first trip by a private, non-government agency to take supplies and equipment to the space station. If all goes as planned, the unmanned Dragon capsule, lifted into orbit by the Falcon 9 rocket, will berth at the International Space Station on Friday bearing cargo: 162 meal packets, a laptop computer, a change of clothes for the station astronauts and 15 student experiments. The Dragon is scheduled to stay at the station until the end of the month as astronauts unpack its cargo and replace it with items to bring back to Earth. Undocking on 31 May, the Dragon will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off California. With the completion of a successful demonstration, SpaceX would begin a $1.6 billion contract to fly 12 cargo missions to the space station.
It is the latest achievement of Elon Musk, who was born on 28 June 1971 in Pretoria to a South African father and Canadian-American mother. His maternal grandfather was from Minnesota, and had moved to Saskatchewan, where Elon's mother was born. His father is an engineer and his mother is an author, nutritionist and model (appearing on the cover of New York Magazine in 2011 and a Time Magazine supplement in 2010). Elon went on to co-found SpaceX, Tesla Motors and X.com (which later became Paypal).
He bought his first computer at age 10 and taught himself how to program. By the age of 12 he sold his first commercial software for about $500, a space game called Blastar. After matriculating at Pretoria Boys High School, he left home in 1988 at the age of 17. He spent two years at Queen's University in Canada. In 1992 he started studying business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania on a full scholarship. He stayed on to complete a second bachelor's degree in physics. In 1995 he enrolled for a graduate programme in applied physics and materials science at Stanford, but dropped out after two days. He started Zip2, which provided on-line content publishing software for news organisations, with his brother Kimbal Musk. In 1999, Compaq's AltaVista division acquired Zip2 for US$307 million in cash and US$34 million in stock options. He then founded X.com, which provided financial services and payment by e-mail. X.com merged with another company, Confinity, to form PayPal. PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. He got involved in complex technology ventures, putting almost all of his PayPal fortune into them: $100 million into SpaceX, which he founded in 2002, $50 million into Tesla and $10 million into SolarCity. He currently runs SpaceX and Tesla Motors, which in 2008 brought out an all-electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster. He is also chairman of SolarCity, a company that designs and installs solar energy systems. SpaceX is based in Hawthorne, California, and Tesla is in Palo Alto, northern California.
Four years ago, SpaceX saw the first three launchings of the small Falcon 1 rocket fail. One more failure and it would have run out of money. As Elon went through a divorce from his first wife, sci-fi novelist Justine Musk, with whom he has five sons, he had to borrow money from friends. The fourth launching succeeded. Late in 2008, NASA awarded SpaceX the cargo contract. The first two Falcon 9 launchings, in 2010, also succeeded.
In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the year. His life story inspired actor Robert Downey jnr's portrayal of fictional billionaire inventor Tony Stark in the blockbuster Iron Man movies.
Elon met his first wife, Justine, at Queen’s University. They married in 2000. In 2002, their first child, a boy called Nevada, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome at 10 weeks old. They later had twins Griffin and Xavier, and triplets Saxon, Damian and Kai. During the marriage she had three science fiction novels published by Penguin and Simon & Schuster. The marriage ended in divorce. In July 2088 Elon met Talulah Riley, a British actress who starred in Pride & Prejudice, and St Trinian's, at a nightclub in London. Six weeks later they got engaged. They were married in September 2010 at Skibo Castle in Scotland. The marriage ended in 2011.
