# Elon Musk

CEO, SpaceX. TIME100 AI 2026, Leaders. At 12, he sold Blastar, a game he had written in BASIC, to PC and Office Technology magazine for about $500. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk))

- Born: 1971-06-28, Pretoria, South Africa ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk), [britannica.com](https://www.britannica.com/money/Elon-Musk))
- Education: BA, Physics, University of Pennsylvania; BS, Economics (Wharton), University of Pennsylvania; attended, no degree, Applied physics and materials science (PhD), Stanford University, 1995 ([biography.com](https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/elon-musk), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk))
- Career: SpaceX (CEO and CTO, 2002 to now); Tesla (CEO); US government (Advisor to the President, de facto head of DOGE, 2025); PayPal (Co-founder); Zip2 (Co-founder) ([unifygtm.com](https://www.unifygtm.com/insights/executives/spacex-ceo), [britannica.com](https://www.britannica.com/money/Elon-Musk), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk))
- TIME profile: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/elon-musk/
- Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/most-influential-people-in-ai/elon-musk

- Enrolled in Stanford's applied physics PhD program in 1995 and quit after two days to start an internet company. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk))
- Taught himself to code as a boy and at 12 sold a space shooter game he wrote, Blastar, to a South African computer magazine. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk))
- Folded his AI company xAI into SpaceX in February 2026 at a $250 billion valuation; the unit was later renamed SpaceX Super Intelligence. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceXAI))
- SpaceX ended its first trading day on June 12, 2026 at a $2.1 trillion valuation, the world's sixth-biggest company. ([reuters.com](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/live-elon-musks-spacex-set-stock-market-trading-after-worlds-biggest-ipo-2026-06-12/))
- Told biographer Walter Isaacson that "AI and robots" will need to fix the US deficit. ([axios.com](https://www.axios.com/2026/10/17/elon-musk-doge-walter-isaacson-podcast))