elon musk biography english

South African entrepreneur Elon Musk is known for founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2012.

Who Is Elon Musk?

Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur and businessman who founded X.com in 1999 (which later became PayPal), SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers.

In January 2021, Musk reportedly surpassed Jeff Bezos as the wealthiest man in the world.

Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. As a child, Musk was so lost in his daydreams about inventions that his parents and doctors ordered a test to check his hearing.

At about the time of his parents’ divorce, when he was 10, Musk developed an interest in computers. He taught himself how to program, and when he was 12 he sold his first software: a game he created called Blastar.

In grade school, Musk was short, introverted and bookish. He was bullied until he was 15 and went through a growth spurt and learned how to defend himself with karate and wrestling.

Musk’s mother, Maye Musk , is a Canadian model and the oldest woman to star in a Covergirl campaign. When Musk was growing up, she worked five jobs at one point to support her family.

Musk’s father, Errol Musk, is a wealthy South African engineer.

Musk spent his early childhood with his brother Kimbal and sister Tosca in South Africa. His parents divorced when he was 10.

At age 17, in 1989, Musk moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University and avoid mandatory service in the South African military. Musk obtained his Canadian citizenship that year, in part because he felt it would be easier to obtain American citizenship via that path.

In 1992, Musk left Canada to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for a second bachelor’s degree in physics.

After leaving Penn, Musk headed to Stanford University in California to pursue a PhD in energy physics. However, his move was timed perfectly with the Internet boom, and he dropped out of Stanford after just two days to become a part of it, launching his first company, Zip2 Corporation in 1995. Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002.

Zip2 Corporation

Musk launched his first company, Zip2 Corporation, in 1995 with his brother, Kimbal Musk. An online city guide, Zip2 was soon providing content for the new websites of both The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune . In 1999, a division of Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options.

In 1999, Elon and Kimbal Musk used the money from their sale of Zip2 to found X.com, an online financial services/payments company. An X.com acquisition the following year led to the creation of PayPal as it is known today.

In October 2002, Musk earned his first billion when PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. Before the sale, Musk owned 11 percent of PayPal stock.

Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, in 2002 with the intention of building spacecraft for commercial space travel. By 2008, SpaceX was well established, and NASA awarded the company the contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station—with plans for astronaut transport in the future—in a move to replace NASA’s own space shuttle missions.

Falcon 9 Rockets

On May 22, 2012, Musk and SpaceX made history when the company launched its Falcon 9 rocket into space with an unmanned capsule. The vehicle was sent to the International Space Station with 1,000 pounds of supplies for the astronauts stationed there, marking the first time a private company had sent a spacecraft to the International Space Station. Of the launch, Musk was quoted as saying, "I feel very lucky. ... For us, it's like winning the Super Bowl."

In December 2013, a Falcon 9 successfully carried a satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit, a distance at which the satellite would lock into an orbital path that matched the Earth's rotation. In February 2015, SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 fitted with the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite, aiming to observe the extreme emissions from the sun that affect power grids and communications systems on Earth.

In March 2017, SpaceX saw the successful test flight and landing of a Falcon 9 rocket made from reusable parts, a development that opened the door for more affordable space travel.

A setback came in November 2017, when an explosion occurred during a test of the company's new Block 5 Merlin engine. SpaceX reported that no one was hurt, and that the issue would not hamper its planned rollout of a future generation of Falcon 9 rockets.

The company enjoyed another milestone moment in February 2018 with the successful test launch of the powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. Armed with additional Falcon 9 boosters, the Falcon Heavy was designed to carry immense payloads into orbit and potentially serve as a vessel for deep space missions. For the test launch, the Falcon Heavy was given a payload of Musk's cherry-red Tesla Roadster, equipped with cameras to "provide some epic views" for the vehicle's planned orbit around the sun.

In July 2018, Space X enjoyed the successful landing of a new Block 5 Falcon rocket, which touched down on a drone ship less than 9 minutes after liftoff.

BFR Mission to Mars

In September 2017, Musk presented an updated design plan for his BFR (an acronym for either "Big F---ing Rocket" or "Big Falcon Rocket"), a 31-engine behemoth topped by a spaceship capable of carrying at least 100 people. He revealed that SpaceX was aiming to launch the first cargo missions to Mars with the vehicle in 2022, as part of his overarching goal of colonizing the Red Planet.

In March 2018, the entrepreneur told an audience at the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, that he hoped to have the BFR ready for short flights early the following year, while delivering a knowing nod at his previous problems with meeting deadlines.

The following month, it was announced that SpaceX would construct a facility at the Port of Los Angeles to build and house the BFR. The port property presented an ideal location for SpaceX, as its mammoth rocket will only be movable by barge or ship when completed.

Starlink Internet Satellites

In late March 2018, SpaceX received permission from the U.S. government to launch a fleet of satellites into low orbit for the purpose of providing Internet service. The satellite network, named Starlink, would ideally make broadband service more accessible in rural areas, while also boosting competition in heavily populated markets that are typically dominated by one or two providers.

SpaceX launched the first batch of 60 satellites in May 2019, and followed with another payload of 60 satellites that November. While this represented significant progress for the Starlink venture, the appearance of these bright orbiters in the night sky, with the potential of thousands more to come, worried astronomers who felt that a proliferation of satellites would increase the difficulty of studying distant objects in space.

Tesla Motors

Musk is the co-founder, CEO and product architect at Tesla Motors, a company formed in 2003 that is dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars as well as battery products and solar roofs. Musk oversees all product development, engineering and design of the company's products.

Five years after its formation, in March 2008, Tesla unveiled the Roadster, a sports car capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, as well as traveling nearly 250 miles between charges of its lithium ion battery.

With a stake in the company taken by Daimler and a strategic partnership with Toyota, Tesla Motors launched its initial public offering in June 2010, raising $226 million.

In August 2008, Tesla announced plans for its Model S, the company's first electric sedan that was reportedly meant to take on the BMW 5 series. In 2012, the Model S finally entered production at a starting price of $58,570. Capable of covering 265 miles between charges, it was honored as the 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine .

In April 2017, Tesla announced that it surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. car maker. The news was an obvious boon to Tesla, which was looking to ramp up production and release its Model 3 sedan later that year.

In September 2019, using what Musk described as a "Plaid powertrain," a Model S set a speed record for four-door sedan at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey County, California.

The Model 3 was officially launched in early 2019 following extensive production delays. The car was initially priced at $35,000, a much more accessible price point than the $69,500 and up for its Model S and X electric sedans.

After initially aiming to produce 5,000 new Model 3 cars per week by December 2017, Musk pushed that goal back to March 2018, and then to June with the start of the new year. The announced delay didn't surprise industry experts, who were well aware of the company's production problems, though some questioned how long investors would remain patient with the process. It also didn't prevent Musk from garnering a radical new compensation package as CEO, in which he would be paid after reaching milestones of growing valuation based on $50 billion increments.

By April 2018, with Tesla expected to fall short of first-quarter production forecasts, news surfaced that Musk had pushed aside the head of engineering to personally oversee efforts in that division. In a Twitter exchange with a reporter, Musk said it was important to "divide and conquer" to meet production goals and was "back to sleeping at factory."

After signaling that the company would reorganize its management structure, Musk in June announced that Tesla was laying off 9 percent of its workforce, though its production department would remain intact. In an email to employees, Musk explained his decision to eliminate some "duplication of roles" to cut costs, admitting it was time to take serious steps toward turning a profit.

The restructuring appeared to pay dividends, as it was announced that Tesla had met its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of June 2018, while churning out another 2,000 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs. "We did it!" Musk wrote in a celebratory email to the company. "What an incredible job by an amazing team."

The following February, Musk announced that the company was finally rolling out its standard Model 3. Musk also said that Tesla was shifting to all-online sales, and offering customers the chance to return their cars within seven days or 1,000 miles for a full refund.

In November 2017, Musk made another splash with the unveiling of the new Tesla Semi and Roadster at the company's design studio. The semi-truck, which was expected to enter into production in 2019 before being delayed, boasts 500 miles of range as well as a battery and motors built to last 1 million miles.

Model Y and Roadster

In March 2019, Musk unveiled Tesla’s long-awaited Model Y. The compact crossover, which began arriving for customers in March 2020, has a driving range of 300 miles and a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.5 seconds.

The Roadster, also set to be released in 2020, will become the fastest production car ever made, with a 0 to 60 time of 1.9 seconds.

In August 2016, in Musk’s continuing effort to promote and advance sustainable energy and products for a wider consumer base, a $2.6 billion dollar deal was solidified to combine his electric car and solar energy companies. His Tesla Motors Inc. announced an all-stock deal purchase of SolarCity Corp., a company Musk had helped his cousins start in 2006. He is a majority shareholder in each entity.

“Solar and storage are at their best when they're combined. As one company, Tesla (storage) and SolarCity (solar) can create fully integrated residential, commercial and grid-scale products that improve the way that energy is generated, stored and consumed,” read a statement on Tesla’s website about the deal.

The Boring Company

In January 2017, Musk launched The Boring Company, a company devoted to boring and building tunnels in order to reduce street traffic. He began with a test dig on the SpaceX property in Los Angeles.

In late October of that year, Musk posted the first photo of his company's progress to his Instagram page. He said the 500-foot tunnel, which would generally run parallel to Interstate 405, would reach a length of two miles in approximately four months.

In May 2019 the company, now known as TBC, landed a $48.7 million contract from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to build an underground Loop system to shuttle people around the Las Vegas Convention Center.

In October 2022, Musk officially bought Twitter and became the social media company's CEO after months of back and forth.

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Musk’s Tweet and SEC Investigation

On August 7, 2018, Musk dropped a bombshell via a tweet: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." The announcement opened the door for legal action against the company and its founder, as the SEC began inquiring about whether Musk had indeed secured the funding as claimed. Several investors filed lawsuits on the grounds that Musk was looking to manipulate stock prices and ambush short sellers with his tweet.

Musk’s tweet initially sent Tesla stock spiking, before it closed the day up 11 percent. The CEO followed up with a letter on the company blog, calling the move to go private "the best path forward." He promised to retain his stake in the company, and added that he would create a special fund to help all current investors remain on board.

Six days later, Musk sought to clarify his position with a statement in which he pointed to discussions with the managing director of the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund as the source of his "funding secured" declaration. He later tweeted that he was working on a proposal to take Tesla private with Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake as financial advisers.

The saga took a bizarre turn that day when rapper Azealia Banks wrote on Instagram that, as a guest at Musk's home at the time, she learned that he was under the influence of LSD when he fired off his headline-grabbing tweet. Banks said she overheard Musk making phone calls to drum up the funding he promised was already in place.

The news quickly turned serious again when it was reported that Tesla's outside directors had retained two law firms to deal with the SEC inquiry and the CEO's plans to take the company private.

On August 24, one day after meeting with the board, Musk announced that he had reversed course and would not be taking the company private. Among his reasons, he cited the preference of most directors to keep Tesla public, as well as the difficulty of retaining some of the large shareholders who were prohibited from investing in a private company. Others suggested that Musk was also influenced by the poor optics of an electric car company being funded by Saudi Arabia, a country heavily involved in the oil industry.

On September 29, 2018, it was announced that Musk would pay a $20 million fine and step down as chairman of Tesla's board for three years as part of an agreement with the SEC.

Inventions and Innovations

In August 2013, Musk released a concept for a new form of transportation called the "Hyperloop," an invention that would foster commuting between major cities while severely cutting travel time. Ideally resistant to weather and powered by renewable energy, the Hyperloop would propel riders in pods through a network of low-pressure tubes at speeds reaching more than 700 mph. Musk noted that the Hyperloop could take from seven to 10 years to be built and ready for use.

Although he introduced the Hyperloop with claims that it would be safer than a plane or train, with an estimated cost of $6 billion — approximately one-tenth of the cost for the rail system planned by the state of California — Musk's concept has drawn skepticism. Nevertheless, the entrepreneur has sought to encourage the development of this idea.

After he announced a competition for teams to submit their designs for a Hyperloop pod prototype, the first Hyperloop Pod Competition was held at the SpaceX facility in January 2017. A speed record of 284 mph was set by a German student engineering team at competition No. 3 in 2018, with the same team pushing the record to 287 mph the next year.

AI and Neuralink

Musk has pursued an interest in artificial intelligence, becoming co-chair of the nonprofit OpenAI. The research company launched in late 2015 with the stated mission of advancing digital intelligence to benefit humanity.

In 2017, it was also reported that Musk was backing a venture called Neuralink, which intends to create devices to be implanted in the human brain and help people merge with software. He expanded on the company's progress during a July 2019 discussion, revealing that its devices will consist of a microscopic chip that connects via Bluetooth to a smartphone.

High-Speed Train

In late November 2017, after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for proposals to build and operate a high-speed rail line that would transport passengers from O'Hare Airport to downtown Chicago in 20 minutes or less, Musk tweeted that he was all-in on the competition with The Boring Company. He said that the concept of the Chicago loop would be different from his Hyperloop, its relatively short route not requiring the need for drawing a vacuum to eliminate air friction.

In summer 2018 Musk announced he would cover the estimated $1 billion needed to dig the 17-mile tunnel from the airport to downtown Chicago. However, in late 2019 he tweeted that TBC would focus on completing the commercial tunnel in Las Vegas before turning to other projects, suggesting that plans for Chicago would remain in limbo for the immediate future.

Flamethrower

Musk also reportedly found a market for The Boring Company's flamethrowers. After announcing they were going on sale for $500 apiece in late January 2018, he claimed to have sold 10,000 of them within a day.

Relationship with Donald Trump

In December 2016, Musk was named to President Trump’s Strategy and Policy Forum; the following January, he joined Trump's Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Following Trump’s election, Musk found himself on common ground with the new president and his advisers as the president announced plans to pursue massive infrastructure developments.

While sometimes at odds with the president's controversial measures, such as a proposed ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Musk defended his involvement with the new administration. "My goals," he tweeted in early 2017, "are to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and to help make humanity a multi-planet civilization, a consequence of which will be the creating of hundreds of thousands of jobs and a more inspiring future for all."

On June 1, following Trump's announcement that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, Musk stepped down from his advisory roles.

Personal Life

Wives and children.

Musk has been married twice. He wed Justine Wilson in 2000, and the couple had six children together. In 2002, their first son died at 10 weeks old from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Musk and Wilson had five additional sons together: twins Griffin and Xavier (born in 2004) and triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian (born in 2006).

After a contentious divorce from Wilson, Musk met actress Talulah Riley. The couple married in 2010. They split in 2012 but married each other again in 2013. Their relationship ultimately ended in divorce in 2016.

Girlfriends

Musk reportedly began dating actress Amber Heard in 2016 after finalizing his divorce with Riley and Heard finalized her divorce from Johnny Depp . Their busy schedules caused the couple to break up in August 2017; they got back together in January 2018 and split again one month later.

In May 2018, Musk began dating musician Grimes (born Claire Boucher). That month, Grimes announced that she had changed her name to “ c ,” the symbol for the speed of light, reportedly on the encouragement of Musk. Fans criticized the feminist performer for dating a billionaire whose company has been described as a “predator zone” among accusations of sexual harassment.

The couple discussed their love for one another in a March 2019 feature in the Wall Street Journal Magazine , with Grimes saying “Look, I love him, he’s great...I mean, he’s a super-interesting goddamn person.” Musk, for his part, told the Journal, “I love c’s wild fae artistic creativity and hyper-intense work ethic.”

Grimes gave birth to their son on May 4, 2020, with Musk announcing that they had named the boy "X Æ A-12." Later in the month, after it was reported that the State of California wouldn't accept a name with a number, the couple said they were changing their son's name to "X Æ A-Xii."

Musk and Grimes welcomed their second child, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, in December 2021. The child was delivered via a surrogate.

Nonprofit Work

The boundless potential of space exploration and the preservation of the future of the human race have become the cornerstones of Musk's abiding interests, and toward these, he has founded the Musk Foundation, which is dedicated to space exploration and the discovery of renewable and clean energy sources.

In October 2019 Musk pledged to donate $1 million to the #TeamTrees campaign, which aims to plant 20 million trees around the world by 2020. He even changed his Twitter name to Treelon for the occasion.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Elon Musk
• Birth Year: 1971
• Birth date: June 28, 1971
• Birth City: Pretoria
• Birth Country: South Africa
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: South African entrepreneur Elon Musk is known for founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2012.
• Space Exploration
• Internet/Computing
• Astrological Sign: Cancer
• University of Pennsylania
• Queen's University, Ontario
• Stanford University
• Nacionalities
• South African
• Interesting Facts
• Elon Musk left Stanford after two days to take advantage of the Internet boom.
• In April 2017, Musk's Tesla Motors surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. car maker.

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Elon Musk Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/elon-musk
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: October 31, 2022
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• I'm very pro-environment, but let's figure out how to do it better and not jump through a dozen hoops to achieve what is obvious in the first place.
• Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

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Eight things we learned from the Elon Musk biography

Widespread access to world’s richest man allowed biographer Walter Isaacson to detail a number of illuminating anecdotes

A new biography of Elon Musk was published on Tuesday and contains colourful details of the life of the world’s richest man.

Musk afforded widespread access to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, the author of the bestselling biography of the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and the book contains a series of illuminating anecdotes about Musk. Here are eight things we learned from the book.

1. Musk’s difficult relationship with his father

Musk, 52, was born and raised in South Africa and endured a fraught relationship with his father, Errol, an engineer. Isaacson writes that Errol “bedevils Elon”.

Musk’s brother, Kimbal, says the worst memory of his life was watching Errol berate Musk after he was hospitalised after a fight at school (the book says Musk was still getting corrective surgery for the injuries decades later). “My father just lost it,” says Kimbal.

Musk and Kimbal, who are estranged from their father, describe Errol as a “volatile fabulist”. Interviewed by Isaacson, Errol admits he encouraged a “physical and emotional toughness” in his sons.

Grimes, the artist who is mother to three of his 10 children, says PTSD from Musk’s childhood shaped an aversion to contentment: “I just don’t think he knows how to savor success and smell the flowers.” Musk tells Isaacson he agrees: “Adversity shaped me. My pain threshold became very high.”

2. Elon Musk has an issue with the ‘woke mind virus’

Shortly before taking over Twitter, or X as it is now called, Musk told Isaacson that the “woke mind virus” – a derogatory term for progressive politics and culture – would prevent extraplanetary settlement (one of Musk’s fixations).

“Unless the woke mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit, and anti-human in general, is stopped, civilization will never become multiplanetary,” said Musk.

3. Musk gave Twitter executives short shrift

Musk fired Twitter’s executive team as soon as he completed the takeover of Twitter in October last year and it had been coming. When Musk bought a significant stake in Twitter months before, he agreed to meet the CEO, Parag Agrawal. After the meeting, Musk said: “What Twitter needs is a fire-breathing dragon and Parag is not that.”

They soon fell out. Agrawal texted Musk to say his tweet asking if Twitter was “dying” was not helpful. Musk, on a break in Hawaii, replied: “What did you get done this week?” He added: “I’m not joining the board. This is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.”

This was during discussions about Musk joining the board. Agrawal’s reply underlined the power imbalance, and Twitter’s fear of Musk. He texted: “Can we talk?” Musk soon lodged an official bid for Twitter, which he tried unsuccessfully to wriggle out of, but the die was cast for Agrawal and his colleagues.

4. Sam Bankman-Fried tried to get in on the Twitter takeover

The founder and CEO of the fallen cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, offered via his banker to put $5bn (£4.1bn) into the Twitter takeover, the book claims. Bankman-Fried also wanted to discuss putting Twitter on a blockchain – the technological underpinning for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

A subsequent call between Musk and Bankman-Fried in May 2022 went badly, Isaacson wrote. “My bullshit detector went off like red alert on a Geiger counter,” Musk is quoted as saying.

Bankman-Fried’s offer to invest or to roll over $100m of Twitter stock that he claimed he had invested, came to nothing.

5. Musk tried to recruit Rudy Giuliani as an adviser

In his early tycoon career, Musk pondered recruiting the then mayor of New York as a political fixer to help him turn his PayPal business into a bank in 2001. Musk sought a meeting with Giuliani, then coming to the end of his tenure in office, because he wanted to turn PayPal – an online payments company – into a “social network that would disrupt the whole banking industry”.

In 2001, Musk and an investor, Michael Moritz, went to New York to see if they could hire Giuliani to guide them through the process of turning PayPal into a bank. It didn’t go well.

“It was like walking into a mob scene,” Moritz says in the book. Giuliani “was surrounded by goonish confidantes. He didn’t have any idea whatsoever about Silicon Valley, but he and his henchmen were eager to line their pockets”.

“‘This guy occupies a different planet,’ Musk told Moritz.”

6. Musk is concerned about a dwindling human population

One of Musk’s reasons for founding a new artificial intelligence company , xAI, is addressing the threat of population collapse. In one face-to-face conversation with Isaacson, the multi-billionaire said human intelligence was in danger of being surmounted by digital intelligence.

“The amount of human intelligence, he noted, was levelling off because people were not having enough children. Meanwhile, the amount of computer intelligence was going up exponentially, like Moore’s law on steroids. At some point, biological brainpower would be dwarfed by digital brainpower.”

This conversation was conducted at the Austin, Texas house of Shivon Zilis, an executive at Musk’s Neuralink business who is the mother of two of his children. Zilis told Isaacson she agreed to have children with Musk via IVF after listening to his arguments about having children as a “kind of social duty”. She said: “He really wants smart people to have kids, so he encouraged me to.”

7. Musk is very concerned about AI

Musk tells Isaacson that human consciousness is under threat from the prospect of super-intelligent, and uncontrollable, AI systems.

He says: “What can be done to make AI safe? I keep wrestling with that. What actions can we take to minimize AI danger and assure that human consciousness survives?”

8. Musk’s complicated role in the Ukraine conflict

Musk’s satellite communications unit, Starlink, has a key role in Ukraine’s defence against the Russian invasion. When a Russian cyber-attack crippled Ukraine’s satellite comms network an hour before the invasion, Musk stepped in following an appeal for help from Ukrainian officials and the country’s deputy prime minister.

However, the book alleges that Musk told his engineers to “turn off” Starlink coverage that would have facilitated an attack by drone submarines on Russia’s navy at the Sevastopol base in Crimea.

However, Isaacson has subsequently clarified this excerpt after Musk used his X platform to state that there was no Starlink coverage in that area and he refused a Ukrainian request to activate it. Musk posted: “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson is published by Simon & Schuster. To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

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Businessman (born 1971) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dear wikiwand ai, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:.

Can you list the top facts and stats about Elon Musk?

Summarize this article for a 10 year old

Elon Reeve Musk ( / ˈ iː l ɒ n / ; EE -lon ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman and investor. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX ; angel investor , CEO, product architect, and former chairman of Tesla, Inc. ; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X Corp. ; founder of the Boring Company and xAI ; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI ; and president of the Musk Foundation . He is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$190   billion as of March   2024 [ update ] , according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index , and $195   billion according to Forbes , primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. [5] [6]

A member of the wealthy South African Musk family , Elon was born in Pretoria and briefly attended the University of Pretoria before immigrating to Canada at age 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen's University at Kingston in Canada. Musk later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania , and received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University , but dropped out after two days and, with his brother Kimbal , co-founded online city guide software company Zip2 . The startup was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999, and that same year Musk co-founded X.com , a direct bank . X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal .

In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5   billion, and that same year, with $100   million of the money he made, Musk founded SpaceX, a spaceflight services company. In 2004, he became an early investor in electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.). He became its chairman and product architect, assuming the position of CEO in 2008. In 2006, Musk helped create SolarCity , a solar-energy company that was acquired by Tesla in 2016 and became Tesla Energy . In 2013, he proposed a hyperloop high-speed vactrain transportation system. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. The following year, Musk co-founded Neuralink—a neurotechnology company developing brain–computer interfaces —and the Boring Company, a tunnel construction company. In 2022, he acquired Twitter for $44   billion. He subsequently merged the company into newly created X Corp. and rebranded the service as X the following year. In March 2023, he founded xAI, an artificial intelligence company.

Musk has expressed views that have made him a polarizing figure. [7] He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including COVID-19 misinformation and antisemitic conspiracy theories . [7] [8] [9] [10] His ownership of Twitter has been similarly controversial, being marked by the laying off of a large number of employees, an increase in hate speech and misinformation and disinformation on the website, as well as changes to Twitter Blue verification . In 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued him, alleging that he had falsely announced that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. To settle the case, Musk stepped down as the chairman of Tesla and paid a $20 million fine.

Early life and education

Childhood and family.

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria , South Africa's administrative capital. [11] [12] He is of British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. [13] [14] His mother, Maye Musk ( née   Haldeman ), is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan , Canada, and raised in South Africa. [15] [16] [17] His father, Errol Musk , is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, who partly owned a rental lodge at the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve . [18] [19] [20] [21] Elon has a younger brother, Kimbal , and a younger sister, Tosca . [17] [22]

The family was wealthy during Elon's youth. [21] Despite both Musk and Errol previously stating that Errol was a part owner of a Zambian emerald mine, [21] in 2023, Errol recounted that the deal he made was to receive "a portion of the emeralds produced at three small mines." [23] [24] Errol was elected to the Pretoria City Council as a representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party and has said that his children shared their father's dislike of apartheid . [11]

Elon's maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman, was an American-born Canadian who took his family on record-breaking journeys to Africa and Australia in a single-engine Bellanca airplane. [25] [26] [27] [28]

After his parents divorced in 1980, Elon chose to live primarily with his father. [13] [18] Elon later regretted his decision and became estranged from his father. [29] In one incident, after having called a boy whose father had committed suicide "stupid", Elon was thrown down concrete steps. [30] [31] Elon has four paternal half-siblings. [32] [25] [33]

Elon was an enthusiastic reader of books, later attributing his success in part to having read The Lord of the Rings , the Foundation series , and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . [20] [34] At age ten, he developed an interest in computing and video games, teaching himself how to program from the VIC-20 user manual. [35] At age twelve, Elon sold his BASIC -based game Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500. [36] [37]

Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School , Bryanston High School , and then Pretoria Boys High School , where he graduated. [38] Musk was a good but not exceptional student, earning a 61 in Afrikaans and a B on his senior math certification. [39] Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother, [40] [41] knowing that it would be easier to immigrate to the United States this way. [42] While waiting for his application to be processed, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months. [43]

Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989, connected with a second cousin in Saskatchewan, [44] and worked odd jobs including at a farm and a lumber mill. [45] In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario . [46] [47]

Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania , an Ivy League university in Philadelphia , where he earned two degrees, a Bachelor of Arts in physics, and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the university's Wharton School . [48] [49] [50] [51] Although Musk has said that he earned the degrees in 1995, the University of Pennsylvania did not award them until 1997. [52] [49] [53] He reportedly hosted large, ticketed house parties to help pay for tuition, and wrote a business plan for an electronic book-scanning service similar to Google Books . [54]

In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley : one at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which investigated electrolytic ultracapacitors for energy storage, and another at Palo Alto –based startup Rocket Science Games . [55] [56] In 1995, he was accepted to a PhD program in materials science at Stanford University . [49] [53] [57] However, Musk decided to join the Internet boom , dropping out two days after being accepted and applied for a job at Netscape , to which he reportedly never received a response. [58] [40]

Business career

In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded Global Link Information Network, later renamed to Zip2 . [59] [60] The company was financed mainly through a financing round of $200,000, of which 10% was contributed by his father Errol Musk . [61] The company developed an Internet city guide with maps, directions, and yellow pages , and marketed it to newspapers. [62] They worked at a small rented office in Palo Alto , [63] with Musk coding the website every night. [63] Eventually, Zip2 obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune . [54] The brothers persuaded the board of directors to abandon a merger with CitySearch ; [64] however, Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted. [65] Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307   million in cash in February 1999, [66] [67] and Musk received $22   million for his 7-percent share. [68]

X.com and PayPal

In March 1999, [69] Musk co-founded X.com , an online financial services and e-mail payment company with $12 million of the money he made from the Compaq acquisition. [70] X.com was one of the first federally insured online banks, and over 200,000 customers joined in its initial months of operation. [71]

Musk's friends expressed scepticism about the naming of the online bank, fearing it might have been mistaken for a pornographic site. Musk brushed off their concerns, emphasizing that the name was meant to be straightforward, memorable, and easy to type. Additionally, he was fond of the email configuration derived from it, such as "[email protected]". [69]

Even though Musk founded the company, investors regarded him as inexperienced and replaced him with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year. [72]

In 2000, X.com merged with the online bank Confinity to avoid competition, [63] [72] [73] as the latter's money-transfer service PayPal was more popular than X.com's service. [74] Musk then returned as CEO of the merged company. His preference for Microsoft over Unix -based software caused a rift among the company's employees, and eventually led Confinity co-founder Peter Thiel to resign. [75] With the company suffering from compounding technological issues and the lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in September 2000. [76] [lower-alpha 2] Under Thiel, the company focused on the money-transfer service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. [78] [79]

In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5   billion in stock, of which Musk—PayPal's largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8   million. [80] [81] In 2017, more than 15 years later, Musk purchased the X.com domain from PayPal for its "sentimental value". [82] [83] In 2022, Musk discussed a goal of creating "X, the everything app". [84]

In early 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society and discussed funding plans to place a growth-chamber for plants on Mars . [85] In October of the same year, he traveled to Moscow with Jim Cantrell and Adeo Ressi to buy refurbished intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could send the greenhouse payloads into space. He met with the companies NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras ; however, Musk was seen as a novice [86] and the group returned to the United States empty-handed. In February 2002, the group returned to Russia with Mike Griffin (president of In-Q-Tel ) to look for three ICBMs. They had another meeting with Kosmotras and were offered one rocket for $8   million, which Musk rejected. He instead decided to start a company that could build affordable rockets. [86] With $100   million of his own money, [87] Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and became the company's CEO and Chief Engineer. [88] [89]

SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006. [90] Though the rocket failed to reach Earth orbit , it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA Administrator (and former SpaceX consultant [91] ) Mike Griffin later that year. [92] [93] After two more failed attempts that nearly caused Musk and his companies to go bankrupt, [90] SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 into orbit in 2008. [94] Later that year, SpaceX received a $1.6   billion Commercial Resupply Services contract from NASA for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station , replacing the Space Shuttle after its 2011 retirement . [95] In 2012, the Dragon vehicle docked with the ISS , a first for a commercial spacecraft. [96]

Working towards its goal of reusable rockets , in 2015 SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 on an inland platform. [97] Later landings were achieved on autonomous spaceport drone ships , an ocean-based recovery platform. [98] In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy ; the inaugural mission carried Musk's personal Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload . [99] [100] Since 2019, [101] SpaceX has been developing Starship , a fully-reusable , super-heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to replace the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy. [102] In 2020, SpaceX launched its first crewed flight, the Demo-2 , becoming the first private company to place astronauts into orbit and dock a crewed spacecraft with the ISS. [103]

In 2015, SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites to provide satellite Internet access , [104] with the first two prototype satellites launched in February 2018. A second set of test satellites, and the first large deployment of a piece of the constellation, occurred in May 2019, when the first 60 operational satellites were launched. [105] The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation is estimated by SpaceX to be about $10   billion. [106] [lower-alpha 3] Some critics, including the International Astronomical Union , have alleged that Starlink blocks the view of the sky and poses a collision threat to spacecraft. [109] [110] [111]

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine , Musk sent Starlink terminals to Ukraine to provide Internet access and communication. [112] In October 2022, Musk stated that about 20,000 satellite terminals had been donated to Ukraine, together with free data transfer subscriptions, which cost SpaceX $80   million. After asking the United States Department of Defense to pay for further units and future subscriptions on behalf of Ukraine, [113] Musk publicly stated that SpaceX would continue to provide Starlink to Ukraine for free, at a yearly cost to itself of $400   million. [114] [115] [116] At the same time, Musk refused to block Russian state media on Starlink, declaring himself "a free speech absolutist". [117] [118]

The Washington Post reported that Ukraine had asked for Starlink support to attack Russian naval vessels located at the Crimean port Sevastopol , Musk denied the request, citing concerns that Russia would respond with a nuclear attack. [119]

Tesla, Inc. , originally Tesla Motors, was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning , who financed the company until the Series A round of funding. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement. [120] Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004; he invested $6.5   million, became the majority shareholder, and joined Tesla's board of directors as chairman. [121] Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. [122]

Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007, and the financial crisis of 2007–2008 , Eberhard was ousted from the firm. [123] [ page   needed ] [124] Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008. [125] A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others. [126] [127] As of 2019, Musk was the longest-tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally. [128] In 2021, Musk nominally changed his title to "Technoking" while retaining his position as CEO. [129]

Tesla began delivery of an electric sports car, the Roadster, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells. [130] Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model   S sedan in 2012. [131] A cross-over, the Model X was launched in 2015. [132] A mass-market sedan, the Model 3 , was released in 2017. [133] The Model 3 is the all-time bestselling plug-in electric car worldwide, and in June 2021 it became the first electric car to sell 1   million units globally. [134] [135] A fifth vehicle, the Model Y crossover, was launched in 2020. [136] The Cybertruck , an all-electric pickup truck, was unveiled in 2019. [137] Under Musk, Tesla has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle factories, named Gigafactories . [138]

Since its initial public offering in 2010, [139] Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020, [140] [141] and it entered the S&P 500 later that year. [142] [143] In October 2021, it reached a market capitalization of $1   trillion, the sixth company in U.S. history to do so. [144] In November 2021, Musk proposed, on Twitter , to sell 10% of his Tesla stock, since "much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance". [145] After more than 3.5   million Twitter accounts supported the sale, Musk sold $6.9   billion of Tesla stock within a week, [145] and a total of $16.4   billion by year end, reaching the 10% target. [146] In February 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that both Elon and Kimbal Musk were under investigation by the SEC for possible insider trading related to the sale. [147] In 2022, Musk unveiled a robot developed by Tesla, Optimus . [148] On June 20, 2023, Musk met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York City , suggesting that he might be interested in investing in India "as soon as humanly possible". [149]

SEC and shareholder lawsuits regarding tweets

In 2018, Musk was sued by the SEC for a tweet stating that funding had been secured for potentially taking Tesla private. [150] [lower-alpha 4] The lawsuit characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies . [150] [154] [155] Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations. As a result, Musk and Tesla were fined $20   million each, and Musk was forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman but was able to remain as CEO. [156] In April 2022, the shareholder who sued Musk over the tweet, along with several Tesla shareholders, said that a federal judge had ruled that the tweet was false, although the ruling in question has not been unsealed. [157] In February 2023, the jury found Musk and Tesla not liable. [158] Musk has stated in interviews that he does not regret posting the tweet that triggered the SEC investigation. [159] [160]

In 2019, Musk stated in a tweet that Tesla would build half   a   million cars that year. [161] The SEC reacted to Musk's tweet by filing in court, asking the court to hold him in contempt for violating the terms of a settlement agreement with such a tweet; the accusation was disputed by Musk. This was eventually settled by a joint agreement between Musk and the SEC clarifying the previous agreement details. [162] The agreement included a list of topics that Musk would need preclearance before tweeting about. [163] In 2020, a judge prevented a lawsuit from proceeding that claimed a tweet by Musk regarding Tesla stock price ("too high imo ") violated the agreement. [164] [165] FOIA -released records showed that the SEC itself concluded Musk has subsequently violated the agreement twice by tweeting regarding "Tesla's solar roof production volumes and its stock price". [166]

SolarCity and Tesla Energy

Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity , which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive founded in 2006. [167] By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States. [168] In 2014, Musk promoted the idea of SolarCity building an advanced production facility in Buffalo , New York, triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. [169] Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until early 2020. [170] [171]

Tesla acquired SolarCity for over $2 billion in 2016 and merged it with its battery unit to create Tesla Energy . The deal's announcement resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla's stock price. At the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues. [172] Multiple shareholder groups filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla's directors, stating that the purchase of SolarCity was done solely to benefit Musk and came at the expense of Tesla and its shareholders. [173] [174] Tesla directors settled the lawsuit in January 2020, leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant. [175] [176] Two years later, the court ruled in Musk's favor. [177]

In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink , a neurotechnology startup company, with an investment of $100   million. [178] [179] Neuralink aims to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence (AI) by creating devices that are embedded in the brain to facilitate its merging with machines. Such technology could enhance memory or allow the devices to communicate with software. [179] [180] The company also hopes to develop devices with which to treat neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease , dementia , and spinal cord injuries . [181]

In 2019, Musk announced work on a device akin to a sewing machine that could embed threads into a human brain. [178] He is listed as the sole author of an October 2019 paper that details some of Neuralink's research, [182] although Musk's being listed as such rankled the Neuralink team's researchers. [183] At a 2020 live demonstration, Musk described one of their early devices as "a Fitbit in your skull" that could soon cure paralysis, deafness, blindness, and other disabilities. Many neuroscientists and publications criticized these claims, [184] [185] [186] with MIT Technology Review describing them as "highly speculative" and "neuroscience theater". [184] During the demonstration, Musk revealed a pig with a Neuralink implant that tracked neural activity related to smell. [181] In 2022, Neuralink announced that clinical trials would begin by the end of the year. [187]

Neuralink has conducted further animal testing on macaque monkeys at the University of California, Davis ' Primate Research Center . In 2021, the company released a video in which a Macaque played the video game Pong via a Neuralink implant. The company's animal trials—which have caused the deaths of some monkeys—have led to claims of animal cruelty . The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has alleged that Neuralink's animal trials have violated the Animal Welfare Act . [188] Employees have complained that pressure from Musk to accelerate development has led to botched experiments and unnecessary animal deaths. In 2022, a federal probe was launched into possible animal welfare violations by Neuralink. [189]

In September 2023, the company was approved to intitiate human trials; the company will conduct a six-year study. [190]

The Boring Company

In 2017, Musk founded the Boring Company to construct tunnels, and revealed plans for specialized, underground, high-occupancy vehicles that could travel up to 150 miles per hour (240   km/h) and thus circumvent above-ground traffic in major cities. [191] [192] Early in 2017, the company began discussions with regulatory bodies and initiated construction of a 30-foot (9.1   m) wide, 50-foot (15   m) long, and 15-foot (4.6   m) deep "test trench" on the premises of SpaceX's offices, as that required no permits. [193] The Los Angeles tunnel , less than two miles (3.2   km) in length, debuted to journalists in 2018. It used Tesla Model Xs and was reported to be a rough ride while traveling at suboptimal speeds. [194]

Two tunnel projects announced in 2018, in Chicago and West Los Angeles, have been canceled. [195] [196] However, a tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2021. [197] Local officials have approved further expansions of the tunnel system. [198] In 2021, tunnel construction was approved for Fort Lauderdale , Florida. [199]

Twitter / X

Elon Musk Twitter @elonmusk I made an offer https://sec.gov/Archives/edgar... April 14, 2022 [200]

Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter as early as 2017, [201] and had questioned the platform's commitment to freedom of speech . [202] [203] Additionally, his ex-wife Talulah Riley had urged him to buy Twitter to stop the "woke-ism". [204] In January 2022, Musk started purchasing Twitter shares, reaching a 9.2% stake by April, [205] making him the largest shareholder. [206] [lower-alpha 5] When this was publicly disclosed, Twitter shares experienced the largest intraday price surge since the company's 2013 IPO. [208] On April 4, Musk agreed to a deal that would appoint him to Twitter's board of directors and prohibit him from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company. [209] [210] However, on April 13, Musk made a $43   billion offer to buy Twitter, launching a takeover bid to buy 100% of Twitter's stock at $54.20 per share. [206] [211] In response, Twitter's board adopted a "poison pill" shareholder rights plan to make it more expensive for any single investor to own more than 15% of the company without board approval. [212] Nevertheless, by the end of the month Musk had successfully concluded his bid for approximately $44   billion. [213] This included about $12.5   billion in loans against his Tesla stock and $21   billion in equity financing. [214] [215]

Tesla's stock market value sank by over $100   billion the next day in reaction to the deal. [216] [217] He subsequently tweeted criticism of Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde 's policies to his 86 million followers, which led to some of them engaging in sexist and racist harassment against her. [218] Exactly a month after announcing the takeover, Musk stated that the deal was "on hold" following a report that 5% of Twitter's daily active users were spam accounts. [219] Although he initially affirmed his commitment to the acquisition, [220] he sent notification of his termination of the deal in July; Twitter's Board of Directors responded that they were committed to holding him to the transaction. [221] On July 12, 2022, Twitter formally sued Musk in the Chancery Court of Delaware for breaching a legally binding agreement to purchase Twitter. [222] In October 2022, Musk reversed again, offering to purchase Twitter at $54.20 per share. [223] The acquisition was officially completed on October 27. [224]

Immediately after the acquisition, Musk fired several top Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal ; [224] [225] Musk became the CEO instead. [226] He instituted a $7.99 monthly subscription for a " blue check ", [227] [228] [229] and laid off a significant portion of the company's staff. [230] [231] Musk lessened content moderation, including reinstating accounts like the Bee , [232] [233] and in December, Musk released internal documents relating to Twitter's moderation of Hunter Biden's laptop controversy in the leadup to the 2020 presidential election . [234]

Comments on these internal documents by journalists, Matt Taibbi , Bari Weiss , Michael Shellenberger and others were posted at Twitter as the Twitter Files . The United States House Committee on the Judiciary held hearings on the Twitter Files on March 9, 2023, at which Taibbi and Shellenberger gave testimony. [235]

The Southern Poverty Law Center noted that Twitter has verified numerous extremists; [236] hate speech also increased on the platform after his takeover. [237] [238]

In late 2022, Musk promised to step down as CEO after a Twitter poll posted by Musk found that majority of user wanted him to do so. [239] [240] Five months later, Musk stepped down from CEO and placed former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino in the position and transitioned his role to executive chairman and chief technology officer. [241]

On November 20, 2023, in a U.S. District Court in Texas, X filed a lawsuit stating that Media Matters "manipulated" the X platform. X stated that Media Matters used accounts that followed accounts for major brands, and "resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing" the feed until it found ads next to extremist posts. [242]

Leadership style

Musk is often described as a micromanager and has called himself a "nano-manager". [243] The New York Times has characterized his approach as absolutist . [244] Musk does not make formal business plans . [244] He has forced employees to adopt the company's own jargon and launched ambitious, risky, and costly projects against his advisors' recommendations, such as removing front-facing radar from Tesla Autopilot . His insistence on vertical integration causes his companies to move most production in-house. While this resulted in saved costs for SpaceX's rocket, [245] vertical integration has caused many usability problems for Tesla's software. [243]

Musk's handling of employees—whom he communicates with directly through mass emails—has been characterized as " carrot and stick ", rewarding those "who offer constructive criticism" while also being known to impulsively threaten, swear at, and fire his employees. [246] [247] [248] Musk said he expects his employees to work for long hours, sometimes for 80 hours per week. [249] He has his new employees sign strict non-disclosure agreements and often fires in sprees, [250] [251] such as during the Model 3 "production hell" in 2018. [251] In 2022, Musk revealed plans to fire 10 percent of Tesla's workforce, due to his concerns about the economy. [252] That same month, he suspended remote work at SpaceX and Tesla and threatened to fire employees who do not work 40 hours per week in the office. [253]

Musk's leadership has been praised by some, who credit it with the success of Tesla and his other endeavors, [243] and criticized by others, who see him as callous and his managerial decisions as "show[ing] a lack of human understanding." [248] [254] The 2021 book Power Play contains anecdotes of Musk berating employees. [255] The Wall Street Journal reported that, after Musk insisted on branding his vehicles as "self-driving", he faced criticism from his engineers for putting customer "lives at risk", with some employees resigning in consequence. [256]

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Early Life and Education

Notable accomplishments, personal eccentricities, the bottom line.

• Business Leaders
• Entrepreneurs

Who Is Elon Musk?

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Elon Musk, born in Pretoria, South Africa, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time. Musk has achieved global fame as the chief executive officer (CEO) of electric automobile maker Tesla ( TSLA ) and the private space company SpaceX. Musk was an early investor in several tech companies, and in October 2022, he completed a deal to take X (formerly Twitter) private.

His success and personal style have given rise to comparisons to other colorful tycoons from U.S. history, including Steve Jobs , Howard Hughes, and Henry Ford . He was named the richest person in the world in 2021, surpassing Amazon ( AMZN ) founder Jeff Bezos. Musk is the richest person in the world as of Feb. 15, 2024.

Let’s look briefly at the life of the man who has scaled the pinnacle of the business world.

Key Takeaways

• Elon Musk is the charismatic CEO of electric car maker Tesla and rocket manufacturer SpaceX.
• Following a contested process, Musk completed a deal to buy the company behind X in October 2022, becoming the owner of the social media company.
• Born and raised in South Africa, Musk spent time in Canada before moving to the United States.
• Educated at the University of Pennsylvania in physics, Musk started getting his feet wet as a serial tech entrepreneur with early successes like Zip2 and X.com, which merged with a company that became PayPal.
• Musk has behaved eccentrically from time to time.

Bailey Mariner / Investopedia

Elon Reeve Musk was born in 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa, the oldest of three children. His father was a South African engineer, and his mother was a Canadian model and nutritionist. After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk lived primarily with his father. He would later dub his father “a terrible human being...almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.”

“I had a terrible upbringing. I had a lot of adversity growing up. One thing I worry about with my kids is they don’t face enough adversity,” Musk would later say.

Bullied as a Child

Musk attended the private, English-speaking Waterkloof House Preparatory School—he started a year early—and later graduated from Pretoria Boys High School. A self-described bookworm, he made few friends in those places.

“They got my best (expletive) friend to lure me out of hiding so they could beat me up. And that (expletive) hurt,” Musk said. “For some reason, they decided that I was it, and they were going to go after me nonstop. That’s what made growing up difficult. For a number of years, there was no respite. You get chased around by gangs at school who tried to beat the (expletive) out of me, and then I’d come home, and it would just be awful there as well.”

Early Accomplishments

Technology became an escape for Musk. At 10, he became acquainted with programming using a Commodore VIC-20, an early and relatively inexpensive home computer. Before long, Musk had become proficient enough to create Blastar—a video game in the style of Space Invaders. He sold the BASIC code for the game to a PC magazine for $500.

In one telling incident from his childhood, Musk and his brother planned to open a video game arcade near their school. Their parents nixed the plan.

Musk’s College Years

At 17, Musk moved to Canada. He would later obtain Canadian citizenship through his mother.

After emigrating to Canada, Musk enrolled at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. It was there that he met Justine Wilson, an aspiring writer. They would marry and have six sons together, a first son, twins, and then triplets, before divorcing in 2008.

Entering the U.S.

After two years at Queen’s University, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. He took on two majors, but his time there wasn’t all work and no play. With a fellow student, he bought a 10-bedroom fraternity house, which they used as an ad hoc nightclub.

Musk graduated with a bachelor of science degree in physics, in addition to a bachelor of arts in economics from the  Wharton School . The two majors foreshadowed Musk’s career, but it was physics that left the deepest impression.

“(Physics is) a good framework for thinking,” he would say later. “Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.”

Musk was 24 years old when he moved to California to pursue a Ph.D. in applied physics at Stanford University. But, with the Internet exploding and Silicon Valley booming, Musk had entrepreneurial visions dancing in his head. He left the Ph.D. program after just two days.

In 1995, with $15,000 and his younger brother Kimbal at his side, Musk started Zip2, a web software company that would help newspapers develop online city guides.

In 1999, Zip2 was acquired by Compaq Computer Corp. for $341 million. Musk used his Zip2 buyout money to create X.com, a fintech venture before that term was in wide circulation.

X.com merged with a money transfer firm called Confinity, and the resulting company came to be known as PayPal. Peter Thiel ousted Musk as PayPal CEO before eBay ( EBAY ) bought the payments company for $1.5 billion, but Musk still profited from the buyout via his 11.7% PayPal stake.

“My proceeds from PayPal after tax were about $180 million,” Musk said in a 2018 interview. “$100 (million) of that went into SpaceX, $70 (million) into Tesla, and $10 (million) into SolarCity. And I literally had to borrow money for rent.”

In 2017, Musk purchased the X.com domain name back from PayPal, citing its sentimental value.

Musk became involved with the electric cars venture as an early investor in 2004, ultimately contributing about $6.3 million, to begin with, and joined the team, including engineer Martin Eberhard, to help run a company then known as Tesla Motors. Following a series of disagreements, Eberhard was ousted in 2007, and an interim CEO was hired until Musk assumed control as CEO and product architect. Under his watch, Tesla has become the world’s most valuable automaker.

In addition to producing electric vehicles, Tesla maintains a robust presence in the solar energy space, thanks to its acquisition of SolarCity. The company currently produces two rechargeable solar batteries. The smaller Powerwall was developed for home backup power and off-the-grid use, while the larger Powerpack is intended for commercial or electric utility grid use.

Musk used most of the proceeds from his PayPal stake to found Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the rocket's developer commonly known as SpaceX. By his own account, Musk spent $100 million to found SpaceX in 2002 .

Under Musk’s leadership, SpaceX landed several high-profile contracts with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Air Force to design space launch rockets. Musk has publicized plans to send an astronaut to Mars by 2025 in a collaborative effort with NASA.

The company was founded in March 2006 as Twitter by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. Originally a private company, it went public in November 2013. It raised $1.8 billion through its initial public offering (IPO) .

Musk joined the site in June 2009. A frequent poster on the messaging network, Musk disclosed a 9.2% stake in X in April 2022. The company responded by offering Musk a seat on the board, which he accepted before declining days later. Musk then sent a bear hug letter to the board proposing to buy the company at $54.20 per share.

The company’s board adopted a poison pill provision to discourage Musk from accumulating an even larger stake, but they ultimately accepted Musk’s offer after he disclosed $46.5 billion in committed financing for the deal in a securities filing.

In July 2022, Musk attempted to cancel the deal , arguing that X had failed to provide certain information regarding fake accounts. The company sued Musk to require him to complete the deal.

After months of legal wrangling, the billionaire’s plan to buy the social media platform came to fruition, and Musk took control of the company on Oct. 28, 2022. The company was renamed X the following year.

During his May 8, 2021, appearance on the TV show Saturday Night Live , Musk revealed that he has Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. “I’m actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL . Or at least the first to admit it,” he said. How does the neurodevelopment condition manifest itself? “I don’t always have a lot of intonation or variation in how I speak, which I’m told makes for great comedy,” Musk explained.

On Sept. 7, 2018, Musk smoked cannabis during a filmed interview for a podcast.

Just a month earlier, Musk posted an infamous tweet claiming he was considering taking Tesla private and had secured the needed funding. Musk subsequently settled a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint alleging he knowingly misled investors with the tweet by paying a $20 million fine along with the same penalty for Tesla and agreeing to let Tesla’s lawyers approve tweets with material corporate information before posting.

In March 2022, Musk filed a court motion to overturn the consent decree stemming from that case. In April 2022 during a live TED Talk, Musk called the SEC regulators on the case “bastards.”

Is Elon Musk Married?

Elon Musk has been divorced three times—twice from his second wife, Talulah Riley. From 2018 to 2022, he was in a relationship with Canadian singer/songwriter Claire Elise Boucher, professionally known as Grimes, with whom he had a son in 2020, a daughter in 2022, and a third child revealed in 2023. They remain best friends. He also has six boys from his first marriage to Justine Musk. He also shares twins with Shivon Zilis. Musk has a total of 11 children.

How Rich Is Elon Musk?

Elon Musk’s net worth was estimated at $205 billion as of Feb. 15, 2024, making him the wealthiest person on the planet.

Was Elon Musk Born Rich?

No, Elon Musk was born into a middle-class family. In 1995, when he founded X.com, he reportedly had more than $100,000 in student debt and struggled to pay rent.

What Does Elon Musk Do at Tesla?

Elon Musk is officially listed as the co-founder and chief executive officer of Tesla on the company’s website. In a 2021 securities filing, the company disclosed an additional Musk title as “Technoking of Tesla.”

What Companies Does Elon Musk Own?

Elon Musk is a large stakeholder in several companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Co., Neuralink, and X Corp.

Musk’s early interests in philosophy, science fiction, and fantasy novels are reflected in his idealism and concern with human progress—and in his business career. He works in fields he has identified as crucial to humanity’s future, notably the transition to renewable energy sources, space exploration, and the Internet.

Musk has defied critics, disrupted industries, and made the most money anyone ever has from PayPal, Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX—game changers all, despite the inevitable missteps.

The New York Times. “ Elon Musk Has Become the World’s Richest Person, as Tesla’s Stock Rallies .”

Bloomberg. “ Bloomberg Billionaires Index .”

Rolling Stone. “ Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow .”

Bloomberg. “ Bloomberg Billionaires Index: Elon Musk .”

The Washington Post. “ The 22 Most Memorable Quotes from the New Elon Musk Book, Ranked .”

Gizmodo. “ Elon Musk: The Tech Maverick Making Tony Stark Look Dull .”

Anna Crowley Redding, via Google Books. “ Elon Musk: A Mission to Save the World .” Feiwel & Friends, 2019.

Esquire. “ Elon Musk: Triumph of His Will .”

Marie Claire. “ ‘I Was a Starter Wife’: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce .”

CNBC. “ Elon Musk Ran a Nightclub Out of His College Frat House to Make Money for Rent .”

Inc. “ Elon Musk Just Said MBAs Are Overrated, and He’s Dead Right .”

TED. “ Elon Musk: The Mind Behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity... ,” read transcript, 19:19 (Video).

Fortune. “ Why Elon Musk Dropped Out of Stanford After Only Two Days .”

X. “ Elon Musk, Dec. 28, 2019, 6:22 PM .”

CNBC. “ Elon Musk Tried to Pitch the Head of the Yellow Pages Before the Internet Boom: ‘He Threw the Book at Me’ .”

Compaq Computer, via U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Form 10-Q for the Quarterly Period Ended Sept. 30, 1999 ,” Page 6.

PayPal, via U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Form S-1 ,” Page 9.

PayPal, via U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended Dec. 31, 2001 ,” Pages 75–78.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Exhibit 99.1: eBay to Acquire PayPal .”

YouTube. “ Elon Musk Interview [I Made 180 Million Dollars but Still Had to Borrow Money for Rent] ,” 1:58–2:14 (Video).

X. “ Elon Musk, July 10, 2017, 9:10 PM .”

Wired. “ How Elon Musk Turned Tesla into the Car Company of the Future .”

Tesla. “ Tesla and SolarCity .”

Tesla. “ Powerwall .”

Tesla, via Internet Archive. “ Powerpack .”

SpaceX. “ Updates .”

YouTube. “ People Should Arrive on Mars in 2025 .” (Video)

Britannica. " X ."

X. " Elon Musk ."

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Schedule 13G, March 14, 2022 .”

X. “ Parag Agrawal, April 5, 2022, 8:32 AM .”

X. “ Parag Agrawal, April 10, 2022, 11:13 PM .”

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Amendment No. 2 to Schedule 13D/A, April 13, 2022 .”

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Form 8-K, April 15, 2022 .”

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Amendment No. 3 to Schedule 13D, April 20, 2022 .”

CNBC. “ Elon Musk Now in Charge of Twitter, CEO and CFO Have Left, Sources Say .”

The New York Times. " From Twitter to X: Elon Musk Begins Erasing an Iconic Internet Brand ."

YouTube. “ Elon Musk Monologue—SNL .” (Video)

YouTube. “ Joe Rogan Experience #1169—Elon Musk ,” 2:10–2:11 (Video).

X. “ Elon Musk, Aug. 7, 2018, 12:48 PM .”

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Elon Musk Settles SEC Fraud Charges; Tesla Charged with and Resolves Securities Law Charge .”

U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. “ Defendant Elon Musk’s Notice of Motion to Quash & to Terminate Consent Decree .”

YouTube. “ Elon Musk Talks Twitter, Tesla and How His Brain Works—Live at TED2022 ,” 27:15–29:11 (Video).

Vanity Fair. “ Elon Musk Splits with Actress Talulah Riley for the Second (or Third?) Time .”

TODAY. " Who Are Elon Musk's Children? "

X. “ Grimes, March 10, 2022, 11:32 AM .”

Vanity Fair. “‘ Infamy Is Kind of Fun’: Grimes on Music, Mars, and Her Secret New Baby with Elon Musk .”

The Economic Times. “ Elon Musk Had Over $100K of Student Debt When He Started 1st Company, Turned His Room into Nightclub to Pay Rent .”

Tesla. “ Elon Musk .”

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “ Form 8-K, March 15, 2021 .”

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk: His career and biography

• Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla. He's also cofounder other major companies, including SpaceX.
• He was born in South Africa and founded his first startup in the '90s.
• Musk is a polarizing figure who has incited lawsuits and SEC investigations. 

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa.

His mother, Maye Musk , is a professional dietitian and model, appearing on boxes of Special K cereal and the cover of TIME magazine. Last year, at the age of 74, she was on the cover of Sport Illustrated's swimsuit edition.

Maye and Musk's father, Errol, were married for nearly a decade before they divorced. Maye said in her book that she'd wanted to end the marriage earlier, but the Divorce Act, which legalized the termination of a marriage in South Africa, was not enacted until 1979. The couple was divorced the same year the law was passed.

After their parents divorced, 9-year-old Musk and his younger brother, Kimbal , decided to live with their father. It wasn't until after the move was made that his notoriously troubled relationship with his dad began to emerge. "It was not a good idea," Musk said of the move in an interview with Rolling Stone.

In 1983, at the age of 12, Musk sold a simple game called "Blastar" to a computer magazine for $500, according to a WaitButWhy report from journalist Tim Urban. Musk described it as "a trivial game ... but better than Flappy Bird."

Musk's school days weren't easy — he was once hospitalized after being beaten by bullies. The bullies threw Musk down a set of stairs and beat him until he blacked out, as detailed in Ashlee Vance's book "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future." Musk's father told Insider the incident took place after Musk made some insensitive comments to a classmate.

The Tesla CEO has said he didn't always feel he was on the same wavelength as his classmates.

"Social clues were not intuitive" Musk said during a  TED conference last year. In 2021, the billionaire said during his performance on " Saturday Night Live " that he has Asperger's syndrome.

Musk has said he spent a lot of his childhood reading and coding late into the night — and it paid off. At 17, he took a university-level aptitude test on his computer programming skills. Examiners made him retake the test because they had never seen such a high score, his mother said in a tweet. 

After graduating from high school, Musk moved to Canada with his mother, Maye; his sister, Tosca, and his brother, Kimbal, and spent two years studying at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, according to the school.

He later finished his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, earning degrees in physics and economics.

While studying at the  University of Pennsylvania , Musk and a classmate rented out a 10-bedroom frat house and turned it into a nightclub. The move, which Musk undertook with Adeo Ressi, was one of his first entrepreneurial experiments, Vogue reported.

After graduation, Musk traveled to Stanford University to study for his Ph.D. — but he barely started the program before leaving it. He deferred his admission after only two days in California, deciding to test his luck in the dot-com boom that was just getting underway. He never returned to finish his studies at Stanford.

Musk's college girlfriend Jennifer Gwynne would later auction a set of photos of Musk from his time studying at the University of Pennsylvania.

Late 1990s - 2000: Early career

With his brother, Kimbal, Elon Musk launched Zip2. A cluster of Silicon Valley investors helped to fund the company, which provided city travel guides to newspapers like The New York Times and Chicago Tribune, per the Rolling Stone interview with Musk.

While Zip2 got off the ground, Musk lived in the office and showered at a local YMCA, he said in a Stanford University video. The hard work paid off when Compaq bought Zip2 in a deal worth $341 million in cash and stock, earning Musk $22 million.

Musk next started  X.com , an online banking company. He launched the company in 1999 using $10 million of the money he got from the Zip2 sale, Investopedia reported. About a year later, X.com merged with Confinity, a financial startup cofounded by Peter Thiel, to form PayPal.

Musk was named the CEO of the newly minted PayPal — but it wouldn't last long. In October 2000, he started a huge fight among the PayPal cofounders by pushing for them to move its servers from the free Unix operating system to Microsoft Windows, according to a Forbes report. PayPal cofounder and then CTO Max Levchin pushed back — hard.

While Musk was en route to Australia for a much-needed vacation, PayPal's board fired him and made Thiel the new CEO. "That's the problem with vacations," Musk told Fortune years later about his ill-fated trip in late 2000.

2002-2004: Elon Musk starts SpaceX and invests in Tesla

But things worked out for Musk — he made another windfall when eBay bought PayPal in late 2002. As PayPal's single biggest shareholder, he netted $165 million of the $1.5 billion price eBay paid, Money.com reported.

Even before the PayPal sale, Musk was dreaming up his next move, including a wild plan to send mice or plants to Mars. In early 2002, Musk founded the company that would be known as Space Exploration Technologies , or SpaceX, with $100 million of the money received from the PayPal sale. Musk's goal was to make spaceflight cheaper by a factor of 10.

One early SpaceX vehicle was named after the song "Puff the Magic Dragon." The name of the spacecraft, the Dragon, was Musk's jab at skeptics who told him SpaceX would never be able to put vehicles into space, Musk later shared on Twitter.

SpaceX's long-term goal is to make colonizing Mars affordable. Musk has said that SpaceX won't file for an initial public offering until what Musk calls the "Mars Colonial Transporter" is flying regularly.

Musk had also been keeping plenty busy here on Earth, particularly with Tesla Motors. In 2004, Musk made the first of what would be $70 million of total Tesla investments , an electric car company. Tesla's founders were veteran startup executives Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.

Musk has said he took an active product role at the carmaker, helping develop its first car, the Tesla Roadster , the Roadster.

The Roadster was built on the chassis of a Lotus Elise — a tiny British sports car that Tesla remade into an electric car with a lithium-ion battery. The all-electric Roadster debuted in 2006 when Musk was serving as Tesla's chairman. 

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Musk also came up with the idea for SolarCity, a solar energy company. Musk gave his cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive the working capital to get SolarCity off the ground in 2006, according to a VentureBeat report. 

2008: Elon Musk becomes Tesla CEO

In 2007, Musk staged a boardroom coup at Tesla, first ousting Eberhard from his CEO seat and then from the company's board and executive suites entirely.

In 2008, with the financial crisis seriously limiting his options, a Tesla bankruptcy was personally halted by Musk. He invested $40 million in Tesla and loaned the company $40 million more. Not coincidentally, he was named CEO the same year.

But between SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, Musk nearly went broke. He described 2008 as "the worst year of my life" in an interview with 60 Minutes. Tesla kept losing money, and SpaceX was having trouble launching its Falcon 1 rocket. By 2009, Musk was living off personal loans just to survive.

Right around Christmas 2008, Musk got two pieces of good news: SpaceX had landed a $1.5 billion contract with NASA to deliver supplies into space, and Tesla finally found more outside investors.

Musk's career was starting to get noticed in other circles, too, most notably in Hollywood. Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Tony Stark in the "Iron Man" movies is at least partially based on Musk, director Jon Favreau said on the "Recode Decode" podcast. Musk even had a cameo in " Iron Man 2 ."

2015: OpenAI

In late 2015, Musk also cofounded OpenAI , a nonprofit dedicated to researching artificial intelligence and ensuring it doesn't destroy humanity. He later announced that he would step down from the board to avoid any potential conflicts of interest with Tesla , which has made strides into artificial intelligence for its self-driving car technology.

The billionaire has since spoken out against the company on multiple occasions and is even attempting to launch his own competitor, which he jokingly dubbed " Truth GPT " after the success of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

By the end of 2015, 24 SpaceX launches had been made on assignments like resupplying the International Space Station, setting some records along the way. 

That year, Tesla also released its first version of Autopilot , a driver-assist feature for its EVs. Musk later went on to release an enhanced version of Autopilot called Full Self-Driving beta several years later.

He has since said that Tesla FSD is the difference between being "worth a lot of money or worth basically zero." Though, Autopilot has generated its fair share of lawsuits, as well as investigations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the years.

2016: SolarCity and The Boring Company

In late 2016, Tesla bought SolarCity in a $2.6 billion deal. That same year some Tesla shareholders filed a lawsuit accusing Musk of putting pressure on Tesla's board members to buy SolarCity and bail it out. Musk later won the lawsuit in 2022.

In 2016, he also started The Boring Company , which has a mission to dig a network of tunnels under and around cities for high-speed, no-traffic driving.

Boring's first tunnel network for commercial use, located in Las Vegas, opened in April 2021.

2017: Neuralink

Musk founded another company: Neuralink , in 2017, which is trying to build devices that can be implanted inside the human brain. The billionaire has described the device as a " Fitbit in your skull " and has said it will allow people to perform tasks using only their mind. The company has experimented with putting the device in pigs and monkeys and won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin human trials in 2023.

In 2017, Musk also joined President Trump's business advisory council — a move that caused a huge public backlash. He initially defended the move but then quit after Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Musk said he tried to convince Trump not to withdraw.

2018: Tesla Roadster in space

The Falcon Heavy, the successor to the Falcon 9 and the most powerful rocket SpaceX has built to date, completed a successful maiden launch in February 2018. The Falcon Heavy carried a unique payload: a dummy dubbed "Starman," and Musk's personal cherry red Tesla Roadster, which were launched toward Martian orbit .

"We really wanted to get the public here to wonder, to get excited about the possibility of something new happening in space — of the space frontier getting pushed forward," Musk told an audience at the 2018 South by Southwest conference. "The goal of this was to inspire you and make you believe again, just as people believed in the Apollo era, that anything is possible."

SEC subpoenas Tesla

Musk ran into some trouble in 2018 when he sent a tweet declaring he was considering taking  Tesla private at $420 per share and had already secured funding. Just a few days later, the SEC sent Tesla subpoenas about the company's plans to go private and Musk's comments.

By September, the SEC had formally filed a lawsuit against Musk, accusing him of making "false and misleading statements." Musk settled with the SEC, which resulted in both him and Tesla paying a $20 million fine and Musk stepping down as chairman of Tesla's board. Additionally, Tesla was required to appoint a committee to oversee Musk's communications.

One month later, Musk won a victory in court when a jury ruled he was not guilty of defaming the British diver Vernon Unsworth, Insider previously reported. Unsworth had filed a defamation lawsuit in 2018 after Musk called him a "pedo guy" on Twitter.

2021: Musk becomes richest person in the world

Musk's wealth has soared in recent years. The Tesla CEO became the richest man in the world in 2021 when his fortune surpassed $200 billion, passing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' net worth.

Musk said he commemorated the occasion by sending Bezos, his longtime rival, a silver medal. Musk's status as the richest man in the world was eclipsed by LVMH owner Bernard Arnault in 2023. Since, he has remained near the top of the list of wealthiest people in the world.

He also won Time's Person of the Year award in 2021.

2022: The 'Technoking' sets his sights on Twitter 

In 2022, Musk started buying up shares of Twitter and later turned down an offer to join the board in favor of buying Twitter outright for $44 billion.

Musk, who has become one of the most-followed accounts on the social media site, attempted to backtrack on his offer to buy Twitter in July.  Twitter sued Musk promptly, in order to force him to go through with the purchase. 

After months of back and forth leading up to a trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery, Musk agreed to buy the company in October. The same day he took over Twitter, he ousted several key executives including then-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. Musk took over as "Chief Twit" and proceeded to cut the Twitter workforce in half in the chaotic months following the Musk acquisition .

He later brought in a new CEO for Twitter in May, 2023 after the billionaire said Twitter was no longer "in the fast lane to bankruptcy."

The billionaire has also expressed interest in launching his own AI venture. In April, Musk confirmed reports that he's planning to create an AI startup to build a ChatGPT rival .

Katie Canales, Matt Weinberger, and Mary Meisenzahl contributed to an earlier version of this story. 

• Main content

Elon Musk co-founded and leads Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company.

As the co-founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon leads all product design, engineering and global manufacturing of the company's electric vehicles, battery products and solar energy products.

Since the company’s inception in 2003, Tesla’s mission has been to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. The first Tesla product, the Roadster sports car, debuted in 2008, followed by the Model S sedan, which was introduced in 2012, and the Model X SUV, which launched in 2015. Model S received Consumer Reports’ Best Overall Car and has been named the Ultimate Car of the Year by Motor Trend, while Model X was the first SUV ever to earn 5-star safety ratings in every category and sub-category in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s tests. In 2017, Tesla began deliveries of Model 3 , a mass-market electric vehicle with more than 320 miles of range, and unveiled Tesla Semi , which is designed to save owners at least $200,000 over a million miles based on fuel costs alone. In 2019, Tesla unveiled Cybertruck , which will have better utility than a traditional truck and more performance than a sports car, as well as the Model Y compact SUV, which began customer deliveries in early 2020.

Tesla also produces three energy storage products, the Powerwall home battery, the Powerpack commercial-scale battery, and Megapack , which is designed for utility-scale installations. In 2016, Tesla became the world’s first vertically-integrated sustainable energy company with the acquisition of SolarCity, the leading provider of solar power systems in the United States, and in 2017 released Solar Roof – a beautiful and affordable energy generation product.

As lead designer at SpaceX , Elon oversees the development of rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and ultimately to other planets. In 2008, the SpaceX Falcon 1 was the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach orbit, and SpaceX made further history in 2017 by re-flying both a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft for the first time. Soon after, Falcon Heavy , the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two, completed its first flight in 2018. In 2019, SpaceX’s crew-capable version of the Dragon spacecraft completed its first demonstration mission, and the company will fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time in 2020. Building on these achievements, SpaceX is developing Starship – a fully reusable transportation system that will carry crew and cargo to the Moon, Mars and beyond ­– and Starlink , which will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable. By pioneering reusable rockets, SpaceX is pursuing the long-term goal of making humans a multi-planet species by creating a self-sustaining city on Mars.

Elon is also CEO of Neuralink , which is developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.

He also launched The Boring Company , which combines fast, affordable tunneling technology with an all-electric public transportation system in order to alleviate soul-crushing urban congestion and enable high-speed, long-distance travel. The Boring Company built a 1.15 mile R&D tunnel in Hawthorne, and is currently constructing Vegas Loop, a public transportation system at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Previously, Elon co-founded and sold PayPal, the world's leading Internet payment system, and Zip2, one of the first internet maps and directions services.

Elon Musk’s life story: the highs and lows of the Tesla and SpaceX boss

The road to becoming the world’s richest person was littered with failures and controversial comments. Here is how Elon Musk made it.

With his offer to buy Twitter for $43 billion (€39.8 billion), Elon Musk may end up controlling the social media platform that contributed to his rise to fame.

Musk is the richest person in the world with a fortune of $262 billion (€240 billion), but it wasn’t plain sailing for the South-African entrepreneur. There were multiple bumps along the road.

Despite being at the helm of companies like Tesla and SpaceX, he was ousted multiple times from his own enterprises, had numerous rocket crashes and it was a slow start before his electric vehicles (EVs) really took off.

Here’s a look back at the various failures and successes underpinning his controversial image.

The early years and enterprises

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa.

His first business venture was at the age of 12 when he sold the code for the PC space-fighting game Blastar for $500 (€460) to the magazine PC and Office Technology. "[It was] a trivial game... but better than Flappy Bird," Musk said.

After graduating high school in South Africa, he moved to Canada, where he studied at Queen’s University in Kingston in Ontario for two years.

But he finished his studies in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a degree in physics and economics.

To pay for rent while he was a student in Pennsylvania, Musk and a classmate rented a 10-bedroom frat house and transformed it into a nightclub.

Musk then studied for his PhD at Stanford University but dropped out of the programme just two days after it began and decided to work in the dot-com bubble.

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43 billion and take it private

The start of his fortune

Musk then founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal in 1995. It was Musk’s first enterprise and it provided online city guide software to newspapers. With no money, Musk actually lived in the office.

As the business took off, the company Compaq bought Zip2 in a deal worth over $300 million (€278 million) .

In 1999, Musk then launched X.com, an online banking company. A year later, X.com merged with the Peter Thiel-founded financial start-up Confinity, and PayPal was formed.

Musk was then named PayPal’s CEO, but that didn’t last long. After many disagreements over branding and micro-managing, Musk was fired from PayPal in 2000 while he was on holiday in Australia. Musk told Fortune years later: “That’s the problem with vacations”.

But he still had a stake in PayPal, and when eBay bought the company in 2002, Musk took home $165 million (€150 million).

Out of this world and electric ideas

With $100 million of the PayPal money, he founded the company Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, in 2002. His goal was to make spaceflight 10 times cheaper.

Proving the critics wrong, SpaceX began developing the Dragon space capsule in late 2004. It was called Dragon in a jab at those who said he couldn’t do it, in a reference to the song “Puff the Magic Dragon”.

In 2010, the spacecraft made its maiden voyage and became the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to be recovered successfully from orbit.

But Musk was also making moves on Earth. In 2004, Musk began investing in the electric car company Tesla. He took an active role in the company and helped develop the first all-electric car, the Roadster. In 2006, Musk was appointed as Tesla’s chairman.

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During this time, Musk came up with the idea for the energy company SolarCity, which he put his cousins in charge of in 2006. Tesla would later buy the company in a deal worth $2.6 billion (€2.3 billion).

In 2007, Musk staged a coup at Tesla’s boardroom and ousted Martin Eberhard as CEO and then from the board.

A year later during the financial crisis, Tesla got a $40 million (€36 million) lifeline to save it from bankruptcy, raised by investors and also from Musk's personal fortune.

Musk was then named Tesla’s CEO.

Neither SpaceX, Tesla, nor SolarCity were doing well and were losing money. Musk was living off personal loans to survive.

But by December 2008, SpaceX won a $1.5 billion (€1.3 billion) contract with NASA to deliver supplies into space.

Meanwhile, Tesla secured more outside investors and in 2010, Tesla held an initial public offering and raised $226 million (€209 million).

During this time, SpaceX set many records and supplied the International Space Station multiple times. The company also built the Falcon 9, SpaceX’s most powerful rocket.

Musk’s other business ventures

Musk also pursued other ideas. In 2013 he published a white paper on a Hyperloop high-speed train that could in theory transport passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes.

• Elon Musk bets big on a humanoid robot. Here’s what it will do and the rest of Tesla’s 2022 plans
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In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a non-profit research company aiming to ensure artificial intelligence benefits humanity. He later stepped down from the board to avoid conflicts with Tesla, which is building its own AI for self-driving cars.

In 2016, Musk started The Boring Company, which aims to build a network of tunnels both underground and around cities for high-speed travel.

In 2017, Musk founded Neuralink, which develops devices to be implanted inside human brains.

Personal life

In 2008, Musk divorced his then-wife Justine. Their first son died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at 10 weeks old. The couple later had twin and triplet boys.

In 2020, Musk and the singer Grimes had a son, called X Æ A-12, or X for short. In 2021, he had a daughter with Grimes via surrogate called Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, who goes by Y.

Musk is all for procreation and said in 2021 that rapidly declining birth rates are “one of the biggest risks to civilisation... I can’t emphasize this enough, there are not enough people”.

Getting into trouble

Musk has made controversial comments. In 2018, he offered to build a submarine to rescue 12 boys and their football coach who were stuck in a cave in Thailand. A British diver said Musk’s actions were a PR stunt. In response, Musk called the diver a “Pedo guy” on Twitter.

He also made a series of false claims on Twitter over coronavirus. He first called COVID-19 “dumb” and falsely claims that children are "essentially immune" to the virus. He also falsely claims on Twitter that the malaria drug chloroquine could be a possible COVID treatment.

• Elon Musk blames 'the fun police' for a Tesla Boombox recall over safety concerns
• Is Elon Musk planning to open a 50s Diner for Tesla drivers?

Musk also got into trouble with authorities in 2018 after he said on Twitter he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 (€386) per share, adding: "Funding secured" .

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Musk, accusing him of making “false and misleading statements”. Musk settled with the SEC and he and Tesla each paid a $20 million (€18 million) fine. Tesla was also ordered to appoint a committee to oversee Musk’s communications.

In 2020, SpaceX partnered with NASA to launch astronauts into space and the company had its first operational human spaceflight, sending four astronauts to the ISS. The same year, Tesla joined the S&P 500.

Meanwhile, Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were feuding over NASA contracts being granted to SpaceX and not Blue Origin for satellite projects.

• Elon Musk wants Bitcoin to become environmentally friendly. Can he convince the crypto's devotees?
• Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin takes NASA to court over SpaceX moon landing contract

Ruffling feathers

In 2021, Musk ruffled a few feathers in the Bitcoin community.

Tesla said it would accept Bitcoin as payment and fill the company’s coffers with $1.5 billion (€1.2 billion) in the cryptocurrency. But Musk later made a U-turn over the environmental concerns of Bitcoin mining and met with miners to try and convince them to turn to greener ways.

In April 2022, Musk bought a 9.2 per cent stake in Twitter, making him the biggest shareholder. But he will not join the board. Meanwhile, former Twitter shareholders in the United States have decided to sue him for allegedly delaying his stake in the social media company so he could buy more of the stock at lower prices.

On April 14, 2022, Musk offered to buy all of the remaining shares in Twitter in a bid valuing the company at $43 billion (nearly €40 billion).

In a letter to Twitter's chairman, Musk said the company needed to be transformed into a private company to become "the platform for free speech around the globe".

"Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it," he said.

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Elon Musk Hardcover – September 12, 2023

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• Print length 688 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Simon & Schuster
• Publication date September 12, 2023
• Dimensions 6.13 x 1.9 x 9.25 inches
• ISBN-10 1982181281
• ISBN-13 978-1982181284
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster (September 12, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 688 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1982181281
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1982181284
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.25 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 1.9 x 9.25 inches
• #1 in Computer & Technology Biographies
• #2 in Scientist Biographies
• #3 in Business Professional's Biographies

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Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

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About the author

Walter isaacson.

Walter Isaacson is writing a biography of Elon Musk. He is the author of The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race; Leonardo da Vinci; Steve Jobs; Einstein: His Life and Universe; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution; and Kissinger: A Biography. He is also the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He is a Professor of History at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chairman of CNN, and editor of Time magazine.

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Elon Musk Wants to Save Humanity. The Only Problem: People.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of the billionaire entrepreneur depicts a mercurial “man-child” with grandiose ambitions and an ego to match.

Credit... Illustration by Jan Robert Dünnweller; Photo reference by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images

Supported by

By Jennifer Szalai

• Published Sept. 9, 2023 Updated Sept. 11, 2023
• Apple Books
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-A-Million

When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.

ELON MUSK , by Walter Isaacson

At various moments in “Elon Musk,” Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the world’s richest person , the author tries to make sense of the billionaire entrepreneur he has shadowed for two years — sitting in on meetings, getting a peek at emails and texts, engaging in “scores of interviews and late-night conversations.” Musk is a mercurial “man-child,” Isaacson writes, who was bullied relentlessly as a kid in South Africa until he grew big enough to beat up his bullies. Musk talks about having Asperger’s, which makes him “bad at picking up social cues.” As the people closest to him will attest, he lacks empathy — something that Isaacson describes as a “gene” that’s “hard-wired.”

Yet even as Musk struggles to relate to the actual humans around him, his plans for humanity are grand. “A fully reusable rocket is the difference between being a single-planet civilization and being a multiplanet one”: Musk would “maniacally” repeat this message to his staff at SpaceX, his spacecraft and satellite company, where every decision is motivated by his determination to get earthlings to Mars. He pushes employees at his companies — he now runs six, including X, the platform formerly known as Twitter — to slash costs and meet brutal deadlines because he needs to pour resources into the moonshot of colonizing space “before civilization crumbles.” Disaster could come from climate change, from declining birthrates, from artificial intelligence. Isaacson describes Musk stalking the factory floor of Tesla, his electric car company, issuing orders on the fly. “If I don’t make decisions,” Musk explained, “we die.”

By “we,” Musk presumably meant Tesla in that instance. But Musk likes to speak of his business interests in superhero terms, so it’s sometimes hard to be sure. Isaacson, whose previous biographical subjects include Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs, is a patient chronicler of obsession; in the case of Musk, he can occasionally seem too patient — a hazard for any biographer who is given extraordinary access. At one point, Isaacson asks why Musk is so offended by anything he deems politically correct, and Musk, as usual, has to dial it up to 11. “Unless the woke-mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit and anti-human in general, is stopped,” he declares, “civilization will never become multiplanetary.” There are a number of curious assertions in that sentence, but it would have been nice if Isaacson had pushed him to answer a basic question: What on earth does any of it even mean?

Isaacson has ably conveyed that Musk doesn’t truly like pushback. Some of his lieutenants insist that he will eventually listen to reason, but Isaacson sees firsthand Musk’s habit of deriding as a saboteur or an idiot anyone who resists him. The musician Grimes, the mother of three of Musk’s children (the existence of the third, Techno Mechanicus, nicknamed Tau, has been kept private until now), calls his roiling anger “demon mode” — a mind-set that “causes a lot of chaos.” She also insists that it allows him to get stuff done.

It’s a convenient assessment, one that Isaacson seems mostly to accept. “As Shakespeare teaches us,” he writes, “all heroes have flaws, some tragic, some conquered, and those we cast as villains can be complex.” Well, yes — but couldn’t this describe anyone? What is there to say specifically about Musk himself?

For that we can turn to Isaacson’s reporting, of which there is plenty. (Another thoroughly reported biography, by Ashlee Vance , was published in 2015 — four years before SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites and seven years before Musk acquired Twitter.) Isaacson even managed to get Errol, Elon’s intermittently estranged father, to talk — though mostly what Errol offers are rambling bigoted comments (while insisting he isn’t racist) and self-aggrandizing tales (at least one of which turns out to be “provably false”).

Errol has two children with his stepdaughter. As for Elon, he has 10 children with three women, one of whom — Shivon Zilis, who bore his twins in 2021 — is an executive at one of his companies. (Another child, Musk’s first, born in 2002, died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when he was 10 weeks old.)

“He really wants smart people to have kids,” Zilis said of Musk, who offered to be her sperm donor so that, Isaacson adds, “the kids would be genetically his.” At the time, Grimes and Musk were expecting their second child, a girl. Musk didn’t tell Grimes that he had just had twins with one of his employees.

But the details of such domestic intrigues are, in the book and in Musk’s life, largely beside the point. He is mostly preoccupied with his businesses, where he expects his staff to abide by “the algorithm,” his workplace creed, which commands them to “question every requirement” from a department, including “the legal department” and “the safety department”; and to “delete any part or process” they can. “Comradery is dangerous,” is one of the corollaries. So is this: “The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.”

Still, Musk has accrued enough power to dictate his own rules. In one of the book’s biggest scoops, Isaacson describes Musk secretly instructing his engineers to “turn off” Starlink satellite internet coverage to prevent Ukraine from launching a surprise drone attack on Russian forces in Crimea. ( Isaacson has since posted on X that contrary to what he writes in the book, Musk didn’t shut down coverage but denied a request to extend the network’s range.) Musk decided that he was saving humanity from a nuclear war. When Ukraine’s vice prime minister texted him to say that Starlink service was “a matter of life and death,” Musk instructed him to “seek peace while you have the upper hand.”

Counseling the Ukrainians to “seek peace” sounds especially rich coming from someone who is “energized,” Isaacson says, by “dire threats.” But then the overall sense you get from this biography is that for all of Musk’s talk about the world-changing magic of “the algorithm,” he ultimately does what he wants. He will order his companies to scrimp fanatically on some things while insisting that they spend lavishly on others. At Tesla, Musk’s obsession with the minutiae of automotive design inflated costs and drained the company of cash. At SpaceX, instead of spending $1,500 for the kind of latch used by NASA, an engineer figured out how to modify a $30 latch intended for a bathroom stall. When Musk acquired Twitter last year, he eliminated 75 percent of the staff.

Since Musk’s acquisition, hate speech on the platform has proliferated while ad sales have plunged . Reading this book, one begins to wonder if the old bird-site will be Musk’s Waterloo. “He thought of it as a technology company,” Isaacson writes, “when in fact it was an advertising medium based on human emotions and relationships.” Isaacson believes that Musk wanted to buy Twitter because he had been so bullied as a kid and “now he could own the playground.” It’s an awkward metaphor, but that’s also what makes it perfect. Owning a playground won’t stop you from getting bullied. If you think about it, owning a playground won’t get you much of anything at all.

ELON MUSK | By Walter Isaacson | Illustrated | 670 pp. | Simon & Schuster | $35

Jennifer Szalai is the nonfiction book critic for The Times. More about Jennifer Szalai

Driverless Cars and the Future of Transportation

Autonomous taxis have arrived in car-obsessed Los Angeles, the nation’s second most populous city. But some Angelenos aren’t ready to go driverless .

Cruise, the embattled self-driving car subsidiary of General Motors,  said that it would eliminate roughly a quarter of its work force , as the company looked to rein in costs after an incident led California regulators to shut down its robot taxi operations.

Tesla, the world’s dominant maker of electric vehicles, recalled more than two million vehicles  to address concerns from U.S. officials about Autopilot , the company’s self-driving software.

An Appetite for Destruction: A wave of lawsuits argue that Tesla’s Autopilot software is dangerously overhyped. What can its blind spots teach us about Elon Musk, the company’s erratic chief executive ?

Along for the Ride: Here’s what New York Times reporters experienced during test rides in driverless cars operated by Tesla , Waymo  and Cruise .

The Future of Transportation?: Driverless cars, once a Silicon Valley fantasy, have become a 24-hour-a-day reality in San Francisco . “The Daily” looked at the unique challenges of coexisting with cars that drive themselves .

Stressing Cities: In San Francisco and Austin, Texas, where passengers can hail autonomous taxis, the vehicles are starting to take a toll on city services , even slowing down emergency response times.

A Fast Rise and Fall: Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, wanted to grow fast. Now, the company faces safety concerns  as it contends with angry regulators, anxious employees and skepticism about the viability of the business .

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The history of Elon Musk's Tesla

The history of elon musk's tesla, the 20-year-old electric vehicle maker has flirted with bankruptcy, dueled with regulators, and unleashed new innovations.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle giant, isn’t even old enough to legally drink.

Tesla is the 14th most valuable company in the world , with a market capitalization of $566 billion as of March 27 — despite experiencing a series of complications in 2024. The EV maker has factories across three continents, and its chief executive is the second richest person in the world ( at least for now ).

Tesla has gone through a lot in less than 21 years: It’s introduced six passenger vehicles and the Tesla Semi trucks, built several factories, flirted with bankruptcy, and battled federal regulators.

Here are 11 of the most important moments in Tesla’s history.

A titan is born

In July 2003, Silicon Valley engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning formally founded Tesla Motors, named after famous Serbian-American inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla. The duo would later be joined by Ian Wright, the company’s third employee.

Elon Musk would hop on board in February 2004 as the largest investor in the company, fueling Tesla through cash earned from selling his stake in PayPal two years earlier. J.B. Strausel would join in May 2004 as chief technical officer.

Due to a lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in 2009, all five men are considered the company’s co-founders. Eberhard sued after he was ousted as CEO, alleging that his successor, Musk, was trying to “rewrite history.”

The Tesla Roadster hits the streets

A prototype of the Lotus-based Tesla Roadster was first revealed by Tesla in July 2006, before deliveries began two years later; the first recipient of the Roadster was Musk in February 2008. By the next month, regular production was up and running

The Roadster was Tesla’s first-ever electric vehicle — or product in general — and was a major “milestone for the company and a watershed for the new era of electric vehicles,” according to then-CEO Ze’ev Drori. Drori took over as chief executive in 2007, after Musk pushed for Eberhard to step down.

Tesla sold 2,450 Roadsters for $109,000 each until the line was discontinued in January 2012. Known celebrity buyers include actors such as George Clooney and Matt Damon, musicians like Michael “Flea” Balzary of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Will.i.am., and former California governor and movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Tesla is set to unveil a second-generation Roadster by the end of the year, with production scheduled for 2025, according to Musk. He’s boasted that it will have “ rocket technology ” used by his other venture, SpaceX.

Troubled times at Tesla

The late 2000s was a rough time for U.S. businesses, and the auto industry was no exception; Chrysler and General Motors were both forced into bankruptcy by the 2008-2009 financial crisis, while Ford Motor Co. barely avoided a similar fate.

Elon Musk briefly saved Tesla from bankruptcy through a $40 million investment, which he later followed up with a $40 million loan. That same year, he was named CEO, taking over for Ze’ev Drori.

But Tesla was still on the brink of falling apart. In June 2008, the Department of Energy gave the carmaker $465 million in low-interest loans , much of which was directed toward producing the newly-announced Model S luxury electric vehicle.

However, it was Daimler — now Mercedes-Benz — that bailed Tesla out. The German automaker took a nearly 10% stake in Tesla for $50 million, saving the company from death’s door.

“Daimler’s $50M investment in May 2009 was the crucial money that saved Tesla,” Musk said in a post on X last month . “We would have bounced payroll one month later.”

Tesla slides onto the Nasdaq

Tesla officially launched on the Nasdaq on June 28, 2010, becoming the first U.S. carmaker to go public since Ford Motor Co. in 1956 . The automaker raised $226 million through its initial public offering , selling 13.3 million shares at $17 each.

Fast forward nearly 14 years and Tesla is one of the most valuable companies in the world with a $570 billion market capitalization. However, the electric vehicle maker is having a rough year, and remains the worst performer in the S&P 500 year to date.

Tesla’s flagship factory

In May 2020, Toyota agreed to invest $50 million in Tesla , which planned to takeover the NUMMi plant in Fremont, California , that had been jointly operated by the Japanese carmaker and General Motors since the 1980s. The facility would become Tesla’s flagship — and, for a time, only — factory in the U.S. The facility is the only production site for the Model S and Model X, but also produces the Model 3 and Model Y.

Tesla Autopilot

Tesla’s driver assistance system , Autopilot, was first introduced to the world with Model S sedans in October 2014, although it wasn’t active. About a year later, the automaker released software enabling Autopilot as a feature combining adaptive cruise control and Autosteer, a lane-centering function.

In a blog post, Tesla explicitly states that Autopilot is designed for convenience and “relieves drivers of the most tedious and potentially dangerous aspects of road travel.”

Elon Musk in January 2016 makes the first of many broken promises related to Autopilot, and later its Full Self-Driving driver assistance system , promising that Teslas will be able to drive better than humans within three years. He also pledged that owners can “summon” a Tesla “anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders”; the feature has a distance limit of 213 feet, according to Tesla’s Model Y owner’s manual .

Later that year, multiple people would die in related incidents, including Joshua Brown of Canton, Ohio . The Tesla enthusiast was killed in Florida after his Model S crashed into a truck, which U.S. auto safety regulators later determined was caused by an over-reliance on Autopilot. The crash was the first Autopilot-related death in the U.S. and would lead to updates to the software.

Several crashes would occur in the future, some of which led to lawsuits. Last October, Tesla won its first U.S. jury trial over a fatal Autopilot crash. However, the company faces at least a dozen more cases in the U.S. Tesla has also found itself in hot water with regulators, consumers, and investors who say the company’s marketing of FSD and Autopilot is misleading and deceptive.

Elon Musk v. the SEC

Elon Musk is known for many things. One of them is an obsession with posting on social media. Sometimes that’s a good thing — especially as he now owns X, formerly Twitter — but very often it has negative consequences.

“Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” Musk wrote on Twitter on August 7, 2018 . “Shareholders could either to sell at 420 or hold shares & go private.”

That tweet raised many questions — namely, who would fund his sudden push for privatization — and triggered suspicion from the SEC and shareholders. Subsequent lawsuits cost Tesla and Musk $40 million , and a settlement with the SEC forced Musk to step down as Tesla’s chairman and have his social media posts supervised by lawyers.

The Tesla CEO has since gone to court to remove the supervision requirements — which he has labeled a “muzzle — and most recently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his appeal after a lower court upheld the SEC’s order. Last week, the Department of Justice asked the court to dismiss the appeal .

The Tesla Model Y

Tesla launched the Model Y SUV in March 2019 as the final addition to the electric vehicle maker’s “sexy” lineup (Tesla sells the Model S, E, X, and Y). The Model Y entered production at the Fremont, California, in January 2020 and is now produced at three other factories. In the years since, the electric SUV has dominated the EV field, becoming the first electric model to claim the title of the world’s best-selling car.  

Tesla goes big in China

China is, by and large, the largest auto market in the world. In May 2018, Tesla decided to cash in, launching a Shanghai-based subsidiary to carry out production in the country. Elon Musk later signed an agreement with the Shanghai regional government to build its third gigafactory, Giga Shanghai , which began operations in 2019. The factory currently builds Model 3 compact cars and has a production capacity of over 950,000 units per year .

Tesla moves into Germany

Tesla decided to pick up the speed in 2022, opening two new gigafactories: Giga Texas and Giga Berlin-Brandenburg.

Construction on the gigafactory in Austin, Texas, began in July 2020, before it was completed in April 2022. The factory produces Tesla’s best-selling Model Y SUVs and the Cybertruck electric pickup (more on that later). It’s also Tesla’s modern-day corporate headquarters and employs more than 20,000 people.

Giga Berlin-Brandenburg was first announced by Elon Musk in November 2019 as Tesla’s first plant on the European continent, specifically in the Brandenburg state of Germany. The factory opened in March 2022 and assembles the Model Y and electric vehicle battery cells; Tesla claims it’s the first facility in Europe to make both vehicles and their batteries .

The long-delayed Tesla Cybertruck arrives in Austin

Elon Musk made a major promise in November 2019 when he introduced the Cybertruck , his vision for the “truck of the future” and said it would be entering production in 2021. The first model of the “trapezoid on wheels,” as it has been not-so-lovingly nicknamed, wouldn’t be built until last summer.

Then, in November 2023, Musk took the stage in Austin, Texas to deliver the first 10 models of the electric pickup truck.

The Cybertruck, unlike traditional pickups, is outfitted with a stainless steel body and sharp angles designed to imitate the appearance of the Starship spaceship developed by Musk’s SpaceX. The eccentric billionaire has long been obsessed with making the Cybertruck bulletproof ; famously, the pickup’s window shattered when lead designer Franz Von Holzhausen chucked a steel ball at it (Musk stands with the damaged specimen, pictured above).

“If Al Capone showed up with a Tommy gun and emptied the entire magazine into the car door, you’d stay alive,” Musk told a crowd last November. “Why did you make it bulletproof?” he then asked himself, before stating, “Why not?”

Elon Musk Biography in English: Family, Education, Career, Music, Personal Life & More

By sayyed ayan

Published on: November 28, 2023

Hello friends , all of you are welcome to my website  wikikida.com . In today’s article we will talk about  Elon Musk Biography in English: Family, Education, Career, Music, Personal Life & More .

Table of Contents

Elon Musk’s Biography

Elon Musk is a forward-thinking entrepreneur and CEO. He was a co-founder of PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX. He is the CEO of Tesla as well as the CEO of SpaceX, which he started with the purpose of decreasing traffic congestion on roadways by using tunneling techniques to build quick, affordable tunnels in urban areas.

He is also the founder of The Boring Company, which plans to develop a network of high-speed tunnels to relieve traffic congestion in Los Angeles. The first tunnel built by the business was finished in December 2017 and officially opened in December 2018.

Elon Musk Personal Life

His personal life has sparked considerable public attention. He dated British actress Talulah Riley for several years before marrying her in 2002, with whom he had two boys before divorcing in 2008. He married Canadian Grimes in October 2017, and her first solo single “Flesh Without Blood” was released on April 7, 2018.

Elon Musk and his wife have a total of six children. Among those present are Griffin, Xavier, Damian, Saxon, Kai, and X A-Xii.

Elon Musk Biography

Elon musk childhood.

Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971. His parents are both Canadian: his mother was a model and dietitian before becoming a dietician, and his father is an electromechanical engineer.

Elon grew up in a tragic family. When he was a child, he was shoved down the stairs and sustained significant injuries. Fortunately, he healed. He even had a terrible injury when he was ten years old and was shoved down a flight of stairs. This experience, on the other hand, made him resolved to achieve and to make the world a better place for everyone in the future.

Elon’s father purchased him a Commodore VIC-20 microcomputer when he was ten years old. He taught himself how to code. Back then, computer programming was seen as a difficult ability that few children could learn. But Elon not only mastered it, but he also acquired a genuine liking for it. As a child, he enjoyed reading. He then developed a strong interest in computers and taught himself computer programming when he was ten years old.

Elon cut links with his father later in life: “I had absolutely no contact with my father from the age of about 12 or 13 until I left for university,” he said in an interview last year. “When I returned [for a visit] two or three years later, I had a million questions for him about how to perform various things on the computer… And he was very uninterested in discussing it. ‘I don’t know anything about computers,’ he said. You’re now on your own.

Also Read :- Axl Rose Biography : Wife, Awards, Net Worth, Musician’s Life and Career

Elon Musk Education

Elon Musk was born in South Africa but raised in Canada. Musk, the son of a Canadian model and a South African engineer, attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in physics (1992) and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics (1994).

He subsequently went on to Stanford University, where he got his Masters of Business Administration in 1998 and his Ph.D. in business administration in 2002.

Musk worked for an Internet firm called Zip2 after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School before joining PayPal as vice president of business development. Following that, he established his own company, X.com, which ultimately merged with Confinity and then with PayPal. He sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, roughly 13 times what Musk had invested.

Elon Musk Startups

• Tesla Motors

The billionaire recently introduced Hyperloop, a transit system designed to transport people on high-speed trains between major cities across the world at speeds of more than 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h), drastically cutting journey times between cities compared to conventional rail.

Who are Elon Musk girlfriends?

It’s not clear who, if anyone, Elon Musk is dating at the moment. Musk reportedly split last year with actress Natasha Bassett, believed to be his last public girlfriend. Before Bassett, Musk dated Grimes for almost three years and before that, actress Amber Heard.

Who is Elon’s ex wife?

Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Musk has been divorced three times, dated celebrities, and has ten children, including twins and triplets. His ex-wives are  Justine Wilson and Talulah Riley .

Height, Weight And Body Measurements

What is Elon Musk’s career?

He and his brother Minbal founded ZIP2, a technology firm. His start-up was a success, and his company was sold to Compaq for 307 million dollars and 34 million dollars in stock in just four years. Elon made $22 million with a 7% stake at the age of 24. Later, thoughts began to emerge in his mind, and he built the website x. com to send money online by mail. After a year, he merged this company with Confinity, and the company was renamed PayPal, which is today widely used to send and receive money. Consider PayPal to be Paytm for international countries.

However, he eventually had difficulties when he was driven out of his CEO role owing to internal arguments. But he made it, and things got better for him when Ebay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock. He made around 165 million dollars as the company’s largest shareholder (11%). Later, he decided to explore another enterprise that was more personal to him.

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1- Who is writing biography of Elon Musk?

Ans- Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.  Walter Isaacson  is writing a biography of Elon Musk.

2- How did Elon Musk learn?

Ans- He spent many years reading 60 times as much as an avid reader. He read widely across different disciplines. He constantly applied what he learned by  deconstructing ideas into their fundamental principles and reconstructing them in new ways .

3-What type of books do Elon Musk read?

Ans- Musk’s take on the book — In an interview with The New Yorker, Musk said that as an “undersized and picked upon smart-aleck,” he turned to reading  fantasy and science fiction . He added, “The heroes of the books I read, The Lord of the Rings and the Foundation series, always felt a duty to save the world.”

4- Why is Elon famous?

Ans- He has helped shape several industries including AI and space travel with his leadership . Elon Musk may be one of the most famous billionaire entrepreneurs, and his name appears in the news regularly, making him a household name. He has co-founded a number of businesses, including SpaceX and PayPal.

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Elon Musk’s Twitter a year later: Everything you need to know

Welcome to Elon Musk’s Twitter ( now X ), where the rules are made up and the check marks don’t matter.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced his bid to buy Twitter in April 2022, zealously driven to rid the platform of spam bots and protect free speech; now, it’s the one-year anniversary since he made his dramatic entrance to the company in October 2022, and the platform has changed so much that even its name is different.

“This is just my strong, intuitive sense that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” Musk said at a TED conference on the day he made his offer. “I don’t care about the economics at all.”

Even for one of the richest men in the world, $44 billion is a lot of money to cough up to buy a middling social platform. Despite his fervent declarations about expanding “the scope and scale of consciousness” through public discourse, the billionaire got cold feet. A month later in May, he tried to kill the deal , claiming that Twitter had more bots than its public filings let on. After a truly chaotic legal discovery process, which even included some embarrassing texts , Musk was forced to seal the deal . By October, the platform was his.

Since Musk bought Twitter and took the company private, the news around the microblogging platform has been a whirlwind, rife with verification chaos, API access shakeups, ban reversals, staggering layoffs, and most notably, rebranding to X .

Musk also transitioned from his role as Twitter/X CEO to serving as its executive chair and CTO. It was announced on May 12 that Linda Yaccarino will step in as the next X CEO . Yaccarino left her role as chairman of Global Advertising & Partnerships at NBCU.

As X enters year two of Musk’s ownership, here’s a comprehensive timeline of everything that’s happened since Elon let that sink in .

Here’s a complete timeline of what’s going down at X, starting with the most recent news:

Elon musk says certain free users will get access to x premium features.

In a post on X, Musk said that accounts with more than 2,500 “verified subscriber followers” will get access to Premium features for free . Accounts with more than 5,000 of those followers will get access to features from the Premium+ tier for free.

Going forward, all 𝕏 accounts with over 2500 verified subscriber followers will get Premium features for free and accounts with over 5000 will get Premium+ for free — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2024

X is apparently testing NSFW adult communities

According to app researchers, X is working on an addition to its Communities feature that would let users create groups for adult content . As one of the few social networks that allows NSFW content, the new feature could give creators a more direct way to reach their audience.

This is how it'll look like on the community page! pic.twitter.com/Sou18ze7Va — Nima Owji (@nima_owji) February 28, 2024

Elon Musk says all X Premium subscribers will gain access to Grok chatbot

In a post on X, Musk announced that Grok will become available to all Premium subscribers . Previously, the AI chatbot was only available to subscribers of the higher-end tier Premium+ tier.

Later this week, Grok will be enabled for all premium subscribers (not just premium+) https://t.co/4u9lbLwe23 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2024

X usage has fallen by nearly a fifth since Elon Musk’s takeover, according to a new report

According to a recent report from Sensor Tower, X usage in the U.S. was down 18% year-over-year as of February 2024 , and down 23% since Musk’s acquisition. The report claims that the U.S. daily active user base has flatlined or declined every month since Musk’s takeover.

Don Lemon says Elon Musk has canceled his deal for a show on X

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon announced that Elon Musk has canceled the deal for his upcoming talk show on X . In a statement, Lemon says the partnership was terminated hours after he interviewed Musk for the first episode of the show. In response, Musk said the show’s “approach was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media.”

News from me… #TheDonLemonShow pic.twitter.com/PzlKuvkZtj — Don Lemon (@donlemon) March 13, 2024

X to launch a video streaming app on Samsung and Amazon TVs

Continuing on his promise to make X the “everything app,” Elon Musk is planning to launch a YouTube-like streaming app for Samsung and Amazon smart TVs. Musk said the dedicated app will allow users to watch videos from X on larger screens, like the Samsung TV and Amazon’s Fire TV.

Coming soon https://t.co/JlnlSL7eS9 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 9, 2024

X now allows Premium+ users and organizations to publish articles

X Premium+ subscribers and verified organizations can now publish longer posts on the platform . The Articles feature lets users publish posts with text formatting, other X posts and embedded videos and images — similar to a blog post or a Medium article. The change comes after X increased the limit for long posts to 25,000 characters for paying users.

https://t.co/dlJ6rIEONa — Write (@Write) March 7, 2024

X turns on voice call feature that could impact your privacy

Elon Musk launched audio and video calling on X in another bid to make it the “everything” app. The new feature is switched on by default, leaks your IP address to anyone you talk with, and can be incredibly confusing to figure out how to limit who can call you. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to turn it off.

audio and video calling are now available to everyone on X! who are you calling first? pic.twitter.com/DYvB7ZRrbY — News (@XNews) February 28, 2024

Former Twitter executives sue Elon Musk, alleging owed severance payments

Four former Twitter executives, including ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, sued Elon Musk, alleging that they’re owed over $128 million in severance payments. The lawsuit quotes Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, which quotes the X CEO as saying he would “hunt every single one” of Twitter’s C-suite “till the day they die.”

February 2024

X goes to court in elon musk’s war against the center for countering digital hate.

X Corp is in court against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) after accusing the extremism research organization of “actively working to assert false and misleading claims about X” in a lawsuit last year. The nonprofit, formed in 2018, conducts research on social media platforms to track hate speech, extremism and misinformation. A judge has hinted that the suit may be dismissed .

X says it’s withholding accounts and tweets in India to obey orders

X said it is withholding specific accounts and posts in India in response to executive orders issued by the Indian government. The company said it disagrees with the action, but noncompliance would have subjected the firm to “potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment.

X will soon let advertisers run ads next to a ‘curated list’ of creators

Advertisers will soon be able to run ads next to select content creators on X. The move will allow advertisers to ensure that their ads don’t run next to controversial or offensive content, following an exodus of numerous brands from X last year after their ads appeared next to pro-Nazi content.

Sports betting is coming to X with BetMGM partnership

X has forged a deal with BetMGM , making it X’s exclusive Live Odds Sports Betting partner and will introduce access to the betting service on X. Initially, X users in the U.S. will be able to explore the betting odds on pro football, with more professional and college sports to roll out over time.

Sports never sleep on @X . And now with @BetMGM , we'll bring fans on X even closer to the action to cheer and now bet on their favorite teams!! Let’s do this! pic.twitter.com/MFrzhKLE78 — Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) February 9, 2024

X becomes No. 1 app on U.S. App Store following announcement of Tucker Carlson-Putin interview

After Tucker Carlson announced he would be interviewing Russian president Vladimir Putin on X, downloads of the app sent it to the top of the U.S. App Store overnight. Appfigures’ early estimates indicate X gained 117,000 new downloads on Tuesday, up from 93,000 the day before.

𝕏 is now the #1 most downloaded app of any kind! pic.twitter.com/TeqWxcmZfs — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2024

January 2024

X ceo linda yaccarino claims company has 90m us users, less than 1% are teens.

During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focused on kids’ online safety, Linda Yaccarino said that less than 1% of the app’s U.S. users were teens aged 13 through 17 . Yaccarino also claimed that there were 90 million X users in the U.S. — a drop from its reported 95.4 million estimated users as of January 2023.

X announces plans to hire 100 moderators in Austin

X announced that it would staff a new “Trust and Safety” center in Austin, which will include 100 full-time content moderators. The move comes more than a year after Elon Musk acquired the company, which saw him drastically reducing headcount, including trust and safety teams, moderators, engineers and other staff.

Taylor Swift fans strike back after explicit deepfakes flood X

Nonconsensual deepfake porn of Taylor Swift went viral on X, with one post garnering more than 45 million views before it was removed . In response, Swifties organized a fandom-driven campaign to bury the AI-generated content searched under terms “taylor swift ai” or “taylor swift deepfake.”

X removes support for NFT profile pictures

X quietly removed a feature for paid subscribers: the ability to set an NFT as their profile picture . The feature, which allowed Twitter Blue subscribers to set NFTs minted on Ethereum as custom hexagonal profile pictures, was originally launched by previous management in January 2022. Those who had NFT profile pictures still have hexagonal avatars, though it’s unclear if X will remove those as well.

X promises peer-to-peer payments, AI advances in 2024

In a blog post , the company claims it will launch peer-to-peer payments this year, to unlock “more user utility and new opportunities for commerce.” X also said that AI would be used to “increasingly power the X user and advertising experience” in search, ads and a forthcoming “See Dissimilar Posts” feature.

Journalists critical of Elon Musk had their X accounts temporarily suspended

X temporarily suspended the accounts of multiple journalists , commentators and podcasters who have been critical of Elon Musk, including The Texas Observer’s Steven Monacelli, The Intercept’s Ken Klippenstein, MintPress News’ Alan MacLeod and The TrueAnon podcast. The impacted accounts were reinstated a few hours later.

X brought back, then removed, then brought back again, headlines to link previews

X started showing headlines at the bottom of link preview cards again using a small font. Multiple users reported that they could see titles on link cards on the web, with some titles being cut off due to character limits. The company seemingly pulled the new format hours later, but it’s now back.

X launches “Verified Organizations” feature for small businesses

X’s “Verified Organizations” program now has a $200 per month tier intended for small businesses. The basic tier comes after X launched the $1,000 per month offering for businesses on the platform.

Fidelity marks down X’s valuation by 71.5%

Mutual fund company Fidelity marked down its investment in X holdings by 71.5% from the original valuation of shares. Fidelity spent $19.2 million to acquire a stake in X back in October 2022 and made a valuation cut of 65% a year later.

December 2023

Musk says x is bringing video to spaces soon.

X will be bringing video to Spaces in an attempt to get users to further engage with their audience without having to go to a third-party platform. Musk said X plans to launch the feature by the end of the year, but “certainly by early next year.”

Musk brings Alex Jones and Infowars back on X after user poll

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his media site Infowars are back on X after they were “permanently banned” from Twitter by the previous management in 2018. 

Musk ran a poll asking whether it was appropriate to bring Jones back to the platform. Nearly 2 million people voted, with about 70% saying Jones’ account should be restored.

Reinstate Alex Jones on this platform? Vox Populi, Vox Dei. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2023

xAI’s chatbot ‘Grok’ launches to X Premium+ subscribers

‘Grok,’ xAI’s “rebellious” AI chatbot, has rolled out to all U.S. X Premium+ subscribers . Musk cautioned that the beta would face many issues, though it would be steadily improved. He also said that all English language users who subscribe to Premium+ would gain access to Grok in “about a week or so.”

X is now licensed for payment processing in a dozen U.S states

Musk is moving forward with his plans to morph X into a payments platform . The company in late November was granted three additional money transmitter licenses in South Dakota, Kansas and Wyoming, bringing the total number of states where the company is allowed to engage in money transfers to 12.

X says it will chase SMB ad dollars after losing major advertisers

A new report by the Financial Times says X will turn to small and medium-sized advertisers to shore up revenue. This comes after Elon Musk alienated big brands fleeing the platform over his endorsement of an antisemitic post.

November 2023

X sues media matters for defamation.

X filed a lawsuit alleging defamation by Media Matters over claims that major companies like IBM, Apple and Oracle had ads appear next to antisemitic content. 

“The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and all those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” Musk said.

Musk says X will bring headlines back to link previews

X will reportedly start showing headlines in preview cards with URLs on the platform after removing them in October. Musk said an update will overlay the headline in the upper portion of the image of a URL card. He didn’t mention any specific timeline for rollout for the update.

In an upcoming release, 𝕏 will overlay title in the upper potion of the image of a URL card — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2023

Major X advertisers pause spending after Musk endorsed an antisemitic post

After Musk amplified antisemitic conspiracy theories on X, numerous high-profile advertisers paused their spending on the platform. They include: Apple, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, IBM, Paramount Global, Lionsgate, European Commission, Walmart and as of the time of this update’s publication, TechCrunch.

X also lost a high-profile brand campaign with Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media , which would have seen Hilton promoting key X features like live video, live e-commerce, X Spaces and more over a two-year period.

At the DealBook conference, Musk told advertisers who recently paused their ad spending on X to “go fuck yourself.”   X CEO Linda Yaccarino later publicly backed Musk and his remarks.

X introduces job search tool

In pursuit of becoming the “everything app,” X is attempting to compete in the hiring space. X unveiled its new job search feature, where Verified Organizations can post job listings that users can then search through by keyword and location. X plans for more updates in the future, including more sophisticated filtering tools, a job recommendations feature and the ability to bookmark roles.

Introducing our job search tool. Start exploring jobs on web at https://t.co/0A5snlK8Ne . pic.twitter.com/4KS0016M5N — Hiring (@XHiring) November 16, 2023

Ads watchdog files FTC complaint against X over unlabeled ads

X was caught running unlabeled ads in September. Now the issue is in the hands of the FTC. Independent non-profit Check My Ads filed a formal complaint with the FTC urging an investigation over the advertising practices at X, including the lack of disclosure about which posts are ads.

X changes algorithm to highlight smaller accounts

X’s For You feed typically surfaces popular and trending posts from its broader network alongside highlights from those you follow. The new algorithm update instead surfaces posts from smaller accounts, according to an X post by Elon Musk.

X runs ‘timeline takeover’ ad promoting anti-trans film

As part of a timeline takeover, conservative media nonprofit PragerU promoted the hashtag “#DETRANS” to advertise an anti-trans film . In a press release, PragerU noted that it chose X specifically for its ad campaign “as it is one of the least censored social media platforms” after being purchased by Elon Musk.

October 2023

X shuts down its circles feature.

On October 31, X shut down Circles , the much-beloved feature that allowed users to post to a small, exclusive audience similar to Instagram’s Close Friends. It remains unclear why Circles was sunsetted a bit more than a year after its August 2022 launch.

X tests charging $1 per year in select markets

“This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform, and bot activity while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. It is not a profit driver,” the company said.

The company plans to use payment, phone and ID verification to stop bots .

Starting today, we’re testing a new program (Not A Bot) in New Zealand and the Philippines. New, unverified accounts will be required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to be able to post & interact with other posts. Within this test, existing users are not affected. This… — Support (@Support) October 17, 2023

A new report claims X traffic and monthly active users are down

According to  data from market intelligence firm Similarweb , X’s global site traffic was down 14% YoY in September. U.S. traffic was down by 19%. Performance had also declined 17.8% YoY on mobile devices in the U.S., based on monthly active users on iOS and Android.

X now requires users to answer a question before joining private Communities 

Admins of private Communities on X can now require users to answer a question when they request to join, along with agreeing to the group’s rules. The new feature could help admins and moderators decide who should be able to join and offer some protection against spammers and bots.

X updates Community Notes

A series of updates were made to Community Notes after the fact-checking system took multiple days to correct misinformation related to the Israel-Hamas war. The changes include:

• X CEO Linda Yaccarino promised Community Notes would “appear more quickly on X”
• Note previews are now supported on both Android and the web, with support “coming soon” to iOS
• Improved media matching
• Notifications will send to users who Liked, Reposted or Replied to a post that later received a note

X changes its “Public interest expectations”

X/Twitter removed the requirement of having at least 100,000 followers for posts to be newsworthy. Prior to the policy change, only verified accounts would be considered for newsworthy posts. However, now that X allows  people to get verified by paying for a subscription , the new version of the policy says posts only by “a high-profile account” counts as newsworthy posts.

However, the updated page doesn’t give details on what kind of accounts are considered “high-profile.”

X can now limit replies to verified users

The new control is not restricted to paid/premium accounts. Users who don’t pay for X Premium can also choose to not let non-verified users reply to their posts.

The feature originally limited replies to either “Accounts you follow” or “Only accounts you mention” in 2020, but users could only choose this setting before posting a tweet. In 2021, they updated the feature to allow users to control replies after a tweet was published.

X to test its three premium tiers

X CEO Linda Yaccarino discussed the plan in a briefing to X debt holders on October 5th.

It’s not clear when the three-tier subscription plan would go live,  but references found in the X app’s code by @aaronp613  reference a “Premium Basic,” “Premium Standard” and “Premium Plus” plan, which have full ads, half the ads or no ads, respectively.

X is cutting headlines from link previews

Now you will only be able to see an image with the domain name of the link on the bottom left, which is easy to miss. The change is part of Musk’s efforts to get users to post “long-form content” directly on the platform rather than encouraging users to click out of the platform with link cards.

X Corp. faces a trademark lawsuit

Trademark attorney  Josh Gerben and his firm are representing what seems to be the first client to sue X over its trademark — a Florida-based social media ad agency, X Social Media.

The  complaint , which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, states that X Social Media, LLC  “has continuously used the X Social Media Mark in commerce since at least early 2016,”  and has significantly invested in marketplace awareness, which included developing a distinctive “X” mark that’s associated with its social media advertising services.

September 2023

X is shutting down its circle feature.

“X is deprecating Circles as of Oct 31st, 2023. After this date, you will not be able to create new posts that are limited to your Circle, nor will you be able to add people to your Circle. You will, however, be able to remove people from your Circle, by unfollowing them as described below,” X said on  its support page .

Audio and video calls will be available to premium subscribers

New code in the X app reveals that both audio and video calls will be supported. However, the feature will only be available to those with an X Premium membership, it appears. The new findings were uncovered by tech veteran- turned-investor   Chris Messina  inside the X app’s code.

X may no longer be a free site

In a live-streamed  conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, X Owner Elon Musk said the company was “moving to a small monthly payment” for the use of the platform. He suggested that such a change would be necessary to deal with the problem of bots.

Musk didn’t confirm what the new subscription payment would cost, but described it as a “small amount of money.”

X launches account verification

X has launched government ID-based account verification via a partnership with Israel-based Au10tix for paid users to prevent impersonation and give them benefits such as “prioritized support.” The pop-up for ID verification indicates that the Au10tix could store this data for up to 30 days.

X caught running unlabeled ads in users’ Following feeds

While scrolling the Following feed on a Mac using the Chrome web browser, TechCrunch encountered a handful of unlabeled ads amid other posts from people we follow, as well as other ads that did properly display the “Ad” label at the top right of the post.

Because many of X’s ads are still labeled, this makes the unlabeled ones even harder to spot.

It’s unclear if the issue is a glitch with X’s advertising platform or a deliberate change.

X bans scraping and crawling

The  new terms , which are effective from September 29, ban any kind of scraping or crawling without “prior written consent.”

NOTE: crawling or scraping the Services in any form, for any purpose without our prior written consent is expressly prohibited.

The previous version of the terms allowed crawling in accordance with robots.txt.

Community Notes is now available for videos on X

Community Notes is an existing program for crowdsourced moderation. X announced that notes by contributors attached to a video will show up in all posts with that video.

August 2023

X will begin collecting user’s biometric data along with education and job history on september 29.

“Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes,” the updated policy reads . X hasn’t specified what it means by biometric information, but it is usually used to describe a person’s physical characteristics, such as their face or fingerprints. X also hasn’t provided details on how it plans to collect it.

X allows paid users to hide their likes

Paid users on X now have a setting under profile customization that lets them hide the Likes tab. The move comes after rival social networks Threads and Bluesky rolled out the ability for users to see their own likes.

X confirms it’s lifting the ban on political ads

X confirmed  it’s lifting its ban on paid political ads — a move it  committed to earlier this year , shortly after Elon Musk took over the social network previously known as Twitter. The company had originally banned these ads in 2019 under then-CEO Jack Dorsey’s management.

X lures advertisers with a $250 ad credit

The company  announced  it would offer a one-time ad credit of $250 to select businesses when they spend $1,000 or more on new ad campaigns over the next 30 days.

X makes changes to retire some of the legacy API endpoints

The company said in  a post that it’s discontinuing some of the endpoints while migrating others to the new v2 API. X also said that it is retiring the legacy Essential and Elevated tiers, and customers using them will need to move to any of the new tiers.

X plans to hide headlines from news links

Musk confirmed the move to roll out a new way to display news links without any headline or description in a post, saying the move was coming “directly” from him. The change would “greatly improve the aesthetics,” he said.

As of right now, a Twitter card for a news article shows the headline and summary text along with the header image in the preview card of a post. If the proposed change comes through, X will only show the image with a link in a post. That means if a publication or a blog doesn’t post any accompanying text with the link, users will only see the link and the image for that article.

Elon Musk says the ‘block’ feature is going away

“Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs,” Elon Musk wrote on X . “Makes no sense.” The post was a response to a Tesla fan account who asked whether there was any reason to use block instead of mute.

X now sorts posts by like counts 

Posts, formerly called tweets, still appear in chronological order on profiles when you’re logged into the social network, but once you log out, they are sorted by performance.

Our tests show that even if you have a pinned post, it won’t appear at the top of your profile feed when logged out, which defeats the point of a pinned post.

X rolls out a new ‘Highlights’ tab for paid users

X began rolling out the new ‘Highlights’ tab to some subscribers in mid August. But according to the updated support page , the company is now making the feature available to all paid users.

X makes X Pro a subscriber-only

Previously known as TweetDeck, X Pro is now a subscriber-only product. The move isn’t entirely surprising, as on July 3, the company said that within 30 days TweetDeck would be accessible to only verified users. However, the social network was delayed in implementing the new rule by a few days.

X lowers requirements for its creator payout program

The company said that creators who have garnered 5 million impressions in the last three months will be eligible for ad revenue sharing. That requirement was previously set to 15 million impressions.

Creators will be able to withdraw as low as $10 instead of $50, X said. Users still need to be verified and must have at least 500 followers to qualify for payouts.

X CEO claims the company formerly known as Twitter is almost breaking even

“I’ve been at the company eight weeks,” Yaccarino said in her first broadcast interview since taking on her new role. “The operational run rate right now… we’re pretty close to break even.”

“Our data licensing and API with X is an incredible business. Our new subscription business [is] growing,” Yaccarino said. “And then, part of my, what I would say, expertise and experience, and what I came to do, was to drive advertising at the company.”

Video calls are coming to X

CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed in her first TV interview that video calls will be a new feature coming to the service, as part of its transformation into an “everything app.”

X expands its partnership with Integral Ad Science

The partnership began in January to tell advertisers if their ad is placed around inappropriate content. Now, X is testing sensitivity settings, powered by machine learning, that let advertisers choose their thresholds for the kinds of content they want their ads to appear around — and according to a tweet from X owner Elon Musk, advertisers can buy these less desirable, “relaxed” sensitivity ad slots for less.

Brands can reduce adjacency to gore, excessive profanity and obscenity, targeted hate speech, sexual content, drugs and spam. Soon, X will add its “relaxed” setting, which offers cheaper advertising opportunities while only filtering for targeted hate speech and explicit sexual content.

X takes over @music handle, hinting at future music plans

The @music account was originally operated for 16 years by software developer Jeremy Vaught, who grew the @music handle to roughly half a million followers. Vaught posted in anger that X had commandeered the account for itself.

“Super pissed,”  Vaught wrote on X , sharing a screenshot of the email X had sent him informing him of the change.

X streamlines Community Notes

The feature historically provided information to users about why they were seeing a fact check appended to a tweet. After three years of development, the company says this extra context will now be removed for those who are already experienced with Community Notes.

TweetDeck is renamed to XPro

The company has adopted the @Pro handle instead of @TweetDeck for the tool. However, many parts of the tool, including the help page, still have “Twitter” and “TweetDeck” mentions. Musk hinted at the change a week prior , adding that XPro will come with a “wide range of psy op plugins.” There are no details about what kind of plug-ins those might be.

X now allows paid users to hide their checkmarks

Paid verification was introduced last year with the Twitter Blue relaunch. The service was recently renamed to XBlue during the Twitter rebrand to X.

The idea is to help users benefit from subscription features without showing that they are a verified account. The option to hide the checkmark will show up in the “Profile customization” section of account settings.

The company has updated  the help page for paid subscriptions , saying that even if you hide the checkmark it might be visible in some places. The company didn’t give any further details about those placeholders.

Want to change back to the old Twitter app icon on iOS? Here’s how:

• On your iPhone, navigate to the Shortcuts app. If you have a newer iPhone, this should be pre-installed, but if not, you can find it in the App Store. If your iPhone is running on iOS 12.0 or higher, you’re good to go.
• From the main Shortcuts screen on the Shortcuts app, you’re going to tap “All Shortcuts.”
• Hit the blue plus sign in the top-right corner of your screen to set up a new Shortcut.
• You should see a suggested action of “Open App” to build your new shortcut. Tap that.
• Now, you’ll be prompted to set up a new “Open App” shortcut. Next to where it says “Open,” click on “App” to search for the X app. Select that.
• Once you’ve selected the “X” app, tap the share icon on the navigation bar at the bottom of your screen. This will bring up another menu, where you can select “Add to Home Screen.”
• Go ahead and type in Twitter instead of “Open App.” Then, tap the small Shortcut icon next to where you typed in Twitter.
• Here, you can upload an image of the Twitter logo. However, you probably don’t have that already saved to your phone. Just Google “Twitter icon.” We used this one .

Apple accepts Twitter app’s rebrand to X in the app store

Apple typically doesn’t allow developers to name their apps as a single character, but they seemed to have made an exception.

X also changed its App Store tagline from “Let’s talk.” to “Blaze Your Glory!!” Musk himself posted a twee t with this tagline without any context.

X opens up its ad revenue sharing program globally

The company announced  its “Ads Revenue Sharing” program is now available for eligible creators globally. The program, according to  posts by X owner Elon Musk, aims to give out $5 million in the first round of creator payments.

Twitter is now X

The iconic bird logo is officially replaced with ‘X’ after Elon Musk announced the change the weekend of July 22. Notably, Musk x.com now also redirects to twitter.com. Musk also called this an “interim” logo, so we might see another logo change in the future.

The app also changed its official handle to @x as part of the ongoing rebranding. The original @Twitter handle is now inactive, and its bio reads, “This account is no longer active. Follow @x for updates.” However, the original owner of the @x handle , Gene X Hwang  of the corporate photography and videography studio  Orange Photography , confirmed to TechCrunch that the company took over his account without warning or financial compensation , telling him the handle is property of X.

https://t.co/bOUOek5Cvy now points to https://t.co/AYBszklpkE . Interim X logo goes live later today. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

Twitter preps a job listing feature 

Twitter hasn’t officially announced the job postings feature yet, although some verified   organizations have already been able to post job listings under their bios. The job listings take applicants directly to the company’s website, where they can learn more about the position and submit an application.

Twitter Notes is back…kinda

Twitter Notes, the feature that allows Twitter users to publish long-form content , appears to be back on track, according to a post from Twitter owner Elon Musk on Tuesday. Musk confirmed the company’s plans in response to a user’s tweet which claimed the Twitter Notes project had recently been rebranded as “Articles.”

On Tuesday, July 18, user @FaustoChou tweeted that Notes had been renamed to Articles, signaling perhaps renewed development efforts on Twitter’s part. His screenshot showed the Notes interface, looking much like it did before, as well as other unlaunched features, like Twitter Coins. Musk replied to the tweet , confirming Twitter’s plans.

Twitter shares ad revenue with verified creators

Twitter will now pay creators for a share of the ad revenue earned from ads served in the replies to their posts. Twitter Blue subscribers who have earned more than 5 million tweet impressions each month for the last 3 months are eligible to join the creator payouts.

According to Elon Musk, the first round of creator payouts will total  $5 million , and will be  cumulative  from the month of February onward. These payouts will be delivered via Stripe.

Despite the program’s significant payouts, some creators weren’t happy — and took their complaints to Twitter owner Elon Musk. In a series of tweets, Musk addressed creators’ concerns over things like the types of accounts that were eligible for monetization, rate limits and other issues .

With the announcement of new DM settings, Twitter admits to having a Verified spammer issue

Starting “as soon as” July 14 , Twitter will introduce a new messages setting aimed at reducing spam in DMs by moving messages from Verified users you don’t follow back to your “Message Request” inbox instead of your main inbox. Only messages from people you follow will arrive in your primary inbox going forward. Notably, these changes will also now apply to everyone who has their inboxes open to allow messages from anyone.

Before becoming pay-to-play, Twitter verification indicated a person was a public or notable figure of some sort — like a politician, celebrity, athlete, journalist or other well-known individual. By making the Verified blue checkmark accessible to anyone who purchased it, Twitter diluted the value of verification.

That apparently escalated to the point that people have become bothered by Verified users spamming their main inbox, when they had set it open to receive DMs from the blue-badged crowd. In other words, Twitter has a Verified user spam problem.

Twitter blocks links to Threads

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is pushing back at reports that Twitter traffic is tanking as a result of the July 5 launch of a new competitor, Instagram Threads . However, on Monday, July 10, users reported that Twitter seems to be selectively blocking links to Threads.net’s website in Twitter searches, making it more difficult for anyone to surface conversations on Threads or locate users’ profiles.

Twitter threatens to sue Meta over its new Threads app

Less than 24 hours after Threads launched, the Elon Musk-owned company accused Meta of poaching former Twitter employees to create the new platform.

“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Spiro wrote in the  letter , which Semafor shared online. “Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta.”

Only verified users will be able to access TweetDeck after 30 days from now

After swaths of users were unable to  access parts of TweetDeck over the last few days , Twitter started rolling out a new version of the web app to users July 3. The company also added that in 30 days, users will have to be verified to access TweetDeck. This means only Twitter Blue subscribers, verified organizations and some folks who have been gifted verification by Twitter will be able to use TweetDeck come August.

Twitter limits the number of tweets users can read in a day

Twitter is putting limits to how many tweets its users can read as the social media platform suffers extended outage that has stymied users’ ability to track new posts.

Verified account holders can peruse a maximum of 6,000 posts daily, while unverified users must contend with a drastically reduced limit of 600 posts. Newly registered, unverified users face even tighter restrictions with an allowance of a mere 300 posts per day, according to Elon Musk. (He has since increased the limit to 10,000, 1,000 and 500, respectively.)

These read limits impacted TweetDeck users in particular, reporting major problems including notifications and entire columns failing to load.

Twitter requires an account to view tweets

If you’re not logged into your Twitter account, or don’t have one, and try to view a tweet, you’ll be presented with a sign-in screen. However, days later, Twitter silently removed the login requirement for viewing tweets .

When Twitter started enforcing the login requirement, Musk said that he took these “temporary” measures to prevent data scraping.

The company hasn’t made any official announcement about allowing users to view links when you aren’t logged in or given any details on what measures it has taken to stop scraping.

Subscribers can now post 25,000-character-long tweets

The company made the change to its Twitter Blue page today, indicating the limit. An engineer at Twitter, Prachi Poddar, also announced the change by posting a long tweet .

Twitter faces a $250 million lawsuit filed by major music publishers

The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), representing 17 publishers, listed 1,700 songs for which it sent multiple copyright violation notices to Twitter. The lawsuit , filed in Federal District Court in Nashville, says that Twitter didn’t take any action against these notices. The publishers’ organization said in the filing that it is seeking fines of up to $150,000 for each violation.

The lawsuit alleged that the social network “fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical ‘compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law.” It added that, unlike its competitors TikTok and Instagram, Twitter hasn’t struck a music licensing deal for the use of copyrighted music.

Twitter is being evicted from its Boulder office

Court documents show that Twitter owes three months’ rent to its Boulder landlord, and a judge has signed off on evicting the tech giant from that office.

In May the landlord took it to court, and on May 31 the judge issued an order that the sheriff should assist in the eviction of Twitter within the next 49 days — i.e. before the end of July. The case number is 2023CV30342 in Boulder District Court.

As many as 300 employees once worked in Twitter’s Boulder offices, but between layoffs, other firings, and resignations, it is probably less than half of that now.

Window to edit tweets is increased to one hour for Blue subscribers

The time limit to edit tweets has increased from 30 minutes to one hour for Blue subscribers, giving users a bigger window to change their tweets and correct any typos.

Linda Yaccarino is officially Twitter CEO

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino officially started her new gig on Monday, June 5, according to a tweet.

It happened — first day in the books! Stay tuned… — Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) June 6, 2023

Trust and safety lead resigns

Ella Irwin took over for Yoel Roth, who famously left the company during the early days of Elon Musk’s chaotic Twitter takeover.

Twitter launched Community Notes for images in posts

The latest feature is an effort to put more onus on crowdsourced moderation by allowing users to address scenarios of morphed images or AI-generated images across the platform where the photos are posted. The launches comes days after a fake AI-generated image about an attack on the Pentagon spread quickly as prominent accounts retweeted it.

Twitter’s new API tier costs $5,000 per month

Twitter API Pro for startups gives developers the ability to fetch 1 million tweets per month and post 300,000 tweets per month, and gives them access to the full archive search endpoint.

Twitter Blue users can now upload two-hour videos

Twitter made changes to its paid plan, allowing subscribers to upload two-hour videos — expanding the previous 60-minute limit .

The company also  modified its Twitter Blue page  and said the video file size limit for paid users is now increased from 2GB to 8GB. While earlier longer video upload was only possible from the web, now it’s also possible through the iOS app. Despite these changes, the maximum quality for upload still remains 1080p.

The rumors are confirmed: NBCU’s leader Linda Yaccarino as the next CEO of Twitter

Musk confirmed Yaccarino’s new role in a tweet this morning (May 12), a day after he announced that he had completed his search for a new CEO.

Elon Musk tweets that he has found a new CEO 

“Excited to announce that I’ve a new CEO for X/Twitter,” Musk wrote in a tweet on May 11. “She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”

Twitter released its first version of encrypted DMs

Currently, this feature is only available to verified Blue users or accounts associated with verified organizations. Additionally, the encryption feature isn’t compatible with group messages and Twitter doesn’t offer protection against man-in-the-middle attacks.

Twitter now allows you to react to DMs with emojis

Twitter has introduced a new feature that lets users choose almost any emoji to react to a DM in a conversation. Previously, the company allowed you to react to only the most recent DM with only a select set of emojis. CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the new feature is rolling out with the latest app update.

Twitter is purging old accounts and freeing up desired usernames, according to Elon Musk 

According to recent tweets by owner Elon Musk, Twitter is purging inactive accounts that have had “no activity at all for several years.”

We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2023

Twitter is contemplating a cheaper verification plan for organizations

Twitter is thinking about an organizational verification plan that doesn’t cost $1,000 a month. Over the Cinco de Mayo weekend, Elon Musk tweeted that the company is working on a cheaper plan for small businesses, but didn’t give any details about the cost.

We will have a lower cost tier for small businesses, but need to manage the onboarding of organizations carefully to prevent fraud. The $1000/month is meant for larger organizations. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2023

Twitter confirmed Circle tweets were temporarily not private 

Twitter confirmed a security error that made Circle tweets  surface publicly. TechCrunch reported the glitch in early April, but the platform confirmed the issue May 5 in an email sent to Twitter Circle users.

“In April 2023, a security incident may have allowed users outside of your Twitter Circle to see tweets that should have otherwise been limited to the Circle to which you were posting,” the email said. Twitter claims that the bug has now been fixed, and that the team knows what caused it.

Twitter makes its API free for public announcement accounts 

Twitter announced on May 2 that it is making its API free for verified government or public-owned services posting about public utility alerts such as weather alerts, transportation information and emergency warnings. This comes a month after the company announced its new API pricing tiers .

A bug on Twitter causes legacy blue checks to reappear by updating your bio

It doesn’t seem to matter what text you’re adding to your bio — TechCrunch reporter Amanda Silberling added a few spaces, then got her check back for a moment. It even showed up with the old text that designates that she is “notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category,” and she did not, in fact, pay for this. But once you refresh the page it disappears. In fact, it’s unclear whether anyone else can even see your check briefly reappear.

EU warns Twitter over disinformation

Twitter was confirmed April 25 as one of 19 major tech platforms subject to centralized oversight by the European Union’s executive starting this fall, when so-called very large online platforms (VLOPs) are expected to be compliant with the Digital Services Act (DSA). But the Commission has not wasted any time warning the Elon Musk-owned social network that things aren’t looking good for staying on the right side of the incoming law.

In a pair of tweets , Vera Jourova, the EU’s values and transparency VP, warned of “yet another negative sign” by Twitter — accusing the platform under Musk of “not making digital information space any safer and free from the Kremlin #disinformation & malicious influence”.

Twitter now shows labels on tweets with reduced visibility

Twitter said that labels will be shown to both authors and viewers. Usually, these tweets will show text such as “Visibility limited: this Tweet may violate Twitter’s rules against Hateful Conduct.”

The app’s enforcement policy  says that tweets with such labels will not show up in search results, recommendations or timelines — those tweets will be hidden in both the “For You” and “Following timelines. Additionally, there will be no ads placed adjacent to posts with reduced visibility.

Twitter restored Blue verification mark for top accounts, even if they didn’t pay for Twitter Blue

Over the April 21st weekend, multiple top accounts (with more than 1 million followers) got their verification marks back. However, many of them, including writer Neil Gaiman, footballer Riyad Mahrez, musician Lil Nas X, actress Janel Parrish Long and British TV presenter Richard Osman said that they didn’t pay for the blue badge.

In March,  The New York Times  reported that Twitter was considering handing out a free verification mark to the top 10,000 brands and companies. It’s not clear if the company is applying the same policy to personal accounts.

Twitter removes ‘government-funded’ news labels

Twitter has removed “government-funded media” labels on all accounts, from NPR to the Chinese state-affiliated Xinhua News. The app even appears to have deleted  its  web page  explaining the “government-funded media” labels.

Twitter sends an email seemingly requiring advertisers to have a verified checkmark

Several users  have posted screenshots of an email reportedly sent by Twitter, which states that starting from April 21, verified checkmarks are required to continue running ads on the platform.

WOW… Twitter is now telling advertisers it MUST subscribe to Twitter Blue or Verified Organisations to continue running ads! pic.twitter.com/4DrDu82Zi0 — Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) April 21, 2023

Twitter officially kills legacy blue checkmarks on 4/20

With the legacy checks gone , the app will have verification marks  only for paid users and businesses, as well as government entities and officials. Now if a user sees a blue check mark and clicks on it, the label reads: “This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”

Microsoft drops Twitter from its advertising platform

Microsoft is dropping the bird app from its advertising platform starting on April 25, nearly two months after Twitter announced that it will begin charging a minimum of $42,000 per month to users of its API, including enterprises and research institutions. The moves mean users will no longer be able to access their account, or create, schedule or otherwise manage tweets through Microsoft’s free social media management service.

Twitter owner Elon Musk threatened to take legal action:

They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023

Twitter quietly removes policy against misgendering trans people

Twitter updated its content moderation guidelines regarding hateful content, removing a policy that prohibited the targeted deadnaming or misgendering of transgender people. Enacted in 2018, the policy explicitly stated that it violated Twitter’s rules to repeatedly and purposefully call a transgender person by the wrong name or pronouns.

Twitter to label tweets that get downranked for violating its hate speech policy

Twitter plans to “soon” begin adding visible labels on tweets that have been identified as potentially violating its policies, which has impacted their visibility. It did not say when exactly the system would be fully rolled out across its network.

Typically, when tweets violate Twitter’s policies, one of the actions the company can take is to limit the reach of those tweets — or something it calls “visibility filtering.” In these scenarios, the tweets remain online but become less discoverable, as they’re  excluded from areas  like search results, trends, recommended notifications, For You and Following timelines, and more.

Historically, the wider public would not necessarily know if a tweet had been moderated in this way. Now Twitter says that will change.

10,000-character-long tweets for Blue subscribers

Twitter’s new feature will let Blue subscribers post 10,000-character-long posts — as if the social network is trying to compete with a rival newsletter platform . Twitter has also added support for bold and italic text formatting.

Long-form writing is also not entirely new. Last June, the company introduced a program called  Twitter Notes for select writers . However, that program was shut down under Musk. After taking over the company  he also killed newsletter tool Revue , a startup Twitter had acquired in 2021.

NPR, PBS and a handful of other news organizations bail on Twitter as Musk meddles with account labels

A PBS spokesperson  confirmed  to Axios that PBS had “no plans to resume tweeting” after Twitter gave it a murky “government-funded media” label over the weekend. A few  other news entities  appeared to have followed suit, including the prominent Boston NPR affiliate  WBUR , Hawaii Public Radio and LA-based local news source  LAist .

The Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC Australia), Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), New Zealand’s public broadcaster RNZ, Sweden’s SR Ekot and SVT, and Catalonia’s TV3.cat a were labeled “government-funded media” weeks later.

Twitter partners with eToro to show real-time stock and crypto information

This expands upon the social network’s Cashtag feature, which provided info about  a limited number of stocks and crypto coins through TradingView data .

The new partnership with eToro goes beyond just displaying information. It also redirects users to the eToro site where they can engage in trading. If you search for a stock on Twitter, you will see a button saying “View on eToro,” which redirects to the site.

🎉Very excited to be launching a new $Cashtags partnership with @Twitter which will enable Twitter users to see real-time prices for a much wider range of stocks, crypto & other assets as well as having the option to invest through eToro. @elonmusk https://t.co/Iv2q9iNxbf — eToro (@eToro) April 13, 2023

Elon Musk says he only bought Twitter because he thought he’d be forced to 

Elon Musk gave a rare interview to an actual reporter late on Tuesday, speaking to BBC reporter James Clayton on Twitter Spaces. During the  interview , Clayton pressed Musk on whether his purchase of Twitter was, in the end, something he went through with willingly, or whether it was something he did because the active court case at the time in which Twitter was trying to force him to go through with the sale was going badly.

The answer was that Musk did indeed only do the deal because he believed legally, he was going to be forced to do so anyway.

Elon Musk says Twitter will officially remove legacy checkmarks on 4/20

This is the “final date,” he said in a tweet. If the move goes through, Twitter will have  verification marks  only for paid users and businesses, and government entities and officials.

Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 11, 2023

Twitter, Inc. is now X Corp.

Twitter, Inc. is now called X Corp., according to a  court filing  in California.

Since Twitter is no longer a public company, it does not have to report updates like name changes to the SEC. But in any case, the new name was spotted in an April 4 document related to far-right activist Laura Loomer’s  lawsuit  against Twitter and Facebook.

“Twitter, Inc. has been merged into X Corp. and no longer exists,” the document states.

Ex-Twitter CEO and other execs sue firm over unpaid legal bills

The  lawsuit , filed in Delaware Chancery Court, alleged that Twitter has to pay more than $1 million to the former executives for legal bills they incurred while at the company to respond to requests by the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission.

Twitter Circle tweets aren’t very private

Numerous Twitter users reported a bug on April 10 in which Circle tweets are surfacing on the algorithmically generated For You  timeline. That means that your supposedly private posts might breach containment to reach an unintended audience, which could quickly spark some uncomfortable situations.

TechCrunch has spoken to multiple users who have also experienced this glitch firsthand;  many   more   have   reported  the glitch in their tweets. Most often, it seems that Circle tweets are being surfaced in the For You timeline to users who follow the poster, but are not in their Circle. Others have reported that their Circle tweets are reaching even further than those who follow them.

A year later, Twitter is now resurfacing official Russian accounts in search results

The Elon Musk-owned platform has resumed surfacing accounts of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Embassy in search results. A former Twitter employee told the publication that this move is likely because of a policy change.

Twitter won’t let you retweet, like or reply to Substack links

Twitter is censoring Substack links by making the posts impossible to reply to, like or retweet. While quote-tweeting works, simply pressing the retweet button surfaces an error message: “Some actions on this Tweet have been disabled by Twitter.”

You didn’t hear this from us, but if you link to a Substack via a redirected URL, it seems to post without restrictions.

Twitter Blue subscribers will now be shown ‘half ads’ on the platform

Twitter is rolling out additional features for Blue subscribers including showing 50% of ads in their timeline compared to non-paid users and a visibility boost in search.

“As you scroll, you will see approximately twice as many organic or non-promoted Tweets placed in between promoted Tweets or ads. There may be times when there are more or fewer non-promoted Tweets between promoted Tweets,” Twitter’s description of the feature says.

While Twitter is claiming to reduce ads on paid subscribers’ feeds, it is hard to prove if they are actually seeing fewer ads apart from anecdotal experiences.

Twitter singles NPR out with misleading state-backed media label

NPR’s Twitter account on the platform now comes with a tag denoting it as “US state-affiliated media.” But NPR doesn’t meet Twitter’s own definition for a state-affiliated account:

State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution… State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy.

GET REKT @NPR Nicely done, @elonmusk 🤣 pic.twitter.com/jvX15QWSf5 — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 5, 2023

NPR later announced that it will no longer be posting content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform.

Twitter’s verification changes feel like an accidental April Fools’ joke

Musk had claimed that starting on April 1, blue checkmarks that previously indicated that an account was legitimate, verified and notable would be maintained only for those who have a subscription to Twitter Blue. The change would be part of a wider push for Twitter to gate previously free features, and bundle new ones, under the $8 per month Twitter Blue subscription, which costs $11 on iOS and Android devices.

As numerous celebrities and businesses spoke out to say they wouldn’t pay the $8 fee, it appeared that removing so many blue checks would be easier said than done. Instead, Twitter merely updated the text accompanying a blue check to make it unclear whether someone was verified for being notable, or for paying for Twitter Blue. In an ultimate act of pettiness, Twitter removed The New York Times’ verification check when the news giant said it wouldn’t pay for verification.

Based on early returns, the revamped Twitter Blue has yet to contribute significantly to Twitter’s bottom line , with just $11 million generated from mobile signups in its first three months.

Twitter announces new API tiers; free, basic and enterprise levels

The three API tiers include a free level meant for content posting bots, a $100/month basic level and a costly enterprise level. Subscribing to any level gets access to the Ads API at no additional cost. 

Twitter mentioned that over the next 30 days, the company will discontinue old access levels, including Standard (for v1.1), Essential and Elevated (for v2), and Premium.

Developers remain unhappy with Twitter’s new API structure.

Introducing a new form of Free (v2) access for write-only use cases and those testing the Twitter API with 1,500 Tweets/month at the app level, media upload endpoints, and Login with Twitter. Get started: https://t.co/CqCRD3vbE5 — Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) March 29, 2023

Elon Musk says Twitter will only show verified accounts on its “For You” timeline starting April 15

Musk justified the move by saying this was the “only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over.”

Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations. The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle. Voting in polls will require verification for same reason. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 27, 2023

New Twitter accounts now have to wait only 30 days to purchase Twitter Blue

Twitter decreases the wait to purchase Twitter Blue for newly created Twitter accounts from 90 days to 30 days.

“New subscriptions to Twitter Blue are available globally on web, iOS, or Android. Not all features are available on all platforms. Newly created Twitter accounts will not be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 30 days. We may also impose waiting periods for new accounts in the future at our discretion, and without notice,” the Twitter Blue page reads.

Twitter to kill ‘legacy’ blue checks on April 1

Twitter announced that the removal of legacy blue checkmarks will begin April 1 for users that are not subscribed to Twitter Blue.

Elon tweeted back in December that the company will remove legacy checkmarks “in a few months.” After that, users with legacy blue checks had been seeing a pop-up when they clicked on their checkmark, which read, “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable .” But once Twitter botched this removal of checkmarks, they changed the copy again — as of now, users cannot distinguish whether someone has a checkmark because they paid, or because they were deemed notable.

On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue here: https://t.co/gzpCcwOpLp Organizations can sign up for https://t.co/RlN5BbuGA3 … — Twitter Verified (@verified) March 23, 2023

Twitter’s privacy-preserving Tor service goes dark

Twitter’s Tor service , a version of the site that could be accessed even in countries where the social network is banned, has gone dark after the company failed to renew its certificate, which expired on March 6.

Pavel Zoneff, director of strategic communications at the Tor Project, told TechCrunch that the site “is no longer available seemingly with no plans to renew.”

Twitter Blue is now available in more than 20 countries

This expansion makes the social network’s subscription service available in more than 35 countries across the world.

These countries include Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Romania, Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus.

February 2023

Layoffs continue.

Twitter laid off more than 200 employees in its fourth round of cuts, including loyalist Esther Crawford — the chief executive of Twitter payments who oversaw the company’s Twitter Blue verification subscription.

Twitter’s staff is down from about 7,500 employees to less than 2,000 since Musk.

Lots of speculation among ex employees that Musk must be about to install a whole new regime and that’s why he is cleaning house. Otherwise the cuts don’t make sense. “Hard to keep the lights on with the people who are still left,” one ex manager told me. — Alex Heath (@alexeheath) February 26, 2023

One of the numerous rounds of cuts eliminated the platform’s entire accessibility team. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) called on Elon Musk to bring the accessibility team back in an open letter . Markey requested a response by March 17.

Twitter allows cannabis ads in states where it’s legal

After updating its ad policy on February 15, Twitter became the first social media app in the U.S. to allow cannabis advertising. Cannabis ads will run on Twitter in U.S. states where cannabis is legal and in Canada.

Twitter delays launch of its new API platform…again

The initial date set to cut free access to Twitter’s API was February 9, which was then extended to February 13. Now, the social network has delayed the shutdown again, this time with no date set.

There has been an immense amount of enthusiasm for the upcoming changes with Twitter API. As part of our efforts to create an optimal experience for the developer community, we will be delaying the launch of our new API platform by a few more days. More information to follow… — Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) February 13, 2023

The delay jeopardizes the plans of developers and startups building tools around the Twitter API as they wouldn’t have any clarity on future spending and budget allocation on the developer platform.

Twitter’s basic tier of its API will cost $100 per month

The company originally planned to shut down free access to its API on February 9. Now it has extended this deadline to February 13. Twitter said that it will charge $100 per month for the basic tier of API. This will get developers access to a “low level of API usage,” as well as the Ads API.

We have been busy with some updates to the Twitter API so you can continue to build and innovate with us. We’re excited to announce an extension of the current free Twitter API access through February 13. Here’s what we’re shipping then 🧵 — Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) February 8, 2023

When developers trying to seek clarity around the new API rules went to the developer forum website , they found that the site had been put behind a login . The forum was finally accessible four days later on February 13.

Twitter Blue introduces 4,000-character tweets

Twitter announced the ability to post longer tweets for paid users on February 8. Instead of being limited to 280 characters, paying Blue subscribers can post tweets that are up to 4,000 characters.

While only Twitter Blue subscribers can post long tweets, all users will be able to read them. You will see only the first 280 characters on the timeline, and if you want to read more, you can click on “Show more.”

need more than 280 characters to express yourself? we know that lots of you do… and while we love a good thread, sometimes you just want to Tweet everything all at once. we get that. so we’re introducing longer Tweets! you’re gonna want to check this out. tap this 👉… — Twitter Blue (@TwitterBlue) February 8, 2023

Elon Musk claims Twitter will start sharing ad revenue with creators

Elon Musk announced in a tweet on February 3 that the company would soon begin sharing advertising revenue with creators on the platform for the first time. He follows up the announcement with a catch: Eligible users must be signed up for Twitter Blue.

Payouts have yet to reach creators’ wallets .

More monetization pushes: Twitter Blue expands new countries, brings back Spaces curation

Twitter Blue subscriptions are now available in Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, making it 12 regions in total to which users can subscribe to it as of February 2. On February 8, Twitter Blue extended services further to India, Indonesia and Brazil .

Twitter also announced launching a new Spaces tab with curated stations for live and recorded spaces, along with podcasts. The social network is making podcasts available only to Blue subscribers and “some people on Twitter for iOS and Twitter for Android apps.”

Twitter to end free access to its API

Twitter will discontinue offering free access to the Twitter API starting February 9 and will launch a paid version, Twitter said as it looks for more avenues to monetize the platform.

Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead 🧵 — Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) February 2, 2023

A week later and days before the February 9 deadline, Elon Musk said that after getting feedback from developers, Twitter will provide a write-only API for “bots providing good content that is free.”

Twitter discontinues CoTweets

Twitter announced February 1 that it is discontinuing CoTweeting, a feature that allowed two users to co-author a tweet. Users will be able to view the set of co-tweets for a month. After that, they will be automatically converted to retweets on the co-author’s profile.

January 2023

Twitter partners with doubleverify and ias on brand safety initiative.

Due to declining ad revenue and advertiser exits , Twitter announced on January 25 that it has teamed up with adtech companies DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science (IAS) to tell advertisers if their ad is placed around inappropriate content. The program, available first for U.S.-based advertising campaigns, allows brands to analyze the content adjacent to — primarily tweets above and below the ad — all types of ads, including promoted tweets.

Twitter rolls out its bookmark feature on iOS

The new design displays the bookmark button under the expanded tweet view, making it easier to add a post to your bookmarks.

Before the change, you had to tap on the share button to open the sharing card and then tap on the bookmark option to save a tweet. In addition to the new button, as soon as you tap on the button, you will see a banner at the top of the screen that says “Show all bookmarks.”

The option is currently visible only on the iOS app, but we can expect that Twitter will roll this out to Android and the web soon.

Image Credits: Twitter

Twitter quietly bans third-party clients

After cutting off prominent app makers like Tweetbot and Twitterific, Twitter quietly updated its developer terms to ban third-party clients altogether on January 19.

The “restrictions” section of the company’s developer agreement was updated with a clause prohibiting “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” Earlier in the week, the company said that it was “enforcing long-standing API rules” in disallowing clients access to its platform but didn’t cite which specific rules developers were violating.

As a result, third-party Twitter clients began offloading their apps from App Stores .

How the recently shuttered third-party apps contributed to Twitter’s development

Twitter now offers an annual Blue subscription

Users now have a chance to get a discount for $84/year if they purchase an annual Blue subscription on the web.

Twitter Blue, including the new annual plan, is currently available in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan .

Twitter HQ furniture auctions

In a strange attempt to make money, Twitter is auctioning off surplus office furniture (auction is now closed) that it doesn’t need anymore, now that thousands of employees have either left the company or been laid off . When you’re rapidly losing advertisers and apparently not paying your rent , why not go for the hail mary?

Twitter makes algorithmic “For You” timeline the default

The company has tried to pull this stunt previously , only to give the option to switch back to a chronological timeline after a lot of backlashes .

What’s different this time? The Elon Musk-led company is now showing both algorithmic and chronological feeds side-by-side. Users can switch between them by swiping on their phone screens. Until now, users had to tap on the sparkle icon in the top-right corner to switch between the “Home” and “Latest” timelines. Twitter is justifying its latest change by saying that users can now easily swipe between the renamed “For You” and “Following” timelines.

• January 13: Twitter rolled out the dual-timeline update to the web but at that time the social network used to remember your choice.
• January 20: The company made the “For You” feed default on the web when users first opened Twitter in a tab or refreshed the page.
• January 24: Now, Twitter remembers your choices again.
• February 7: Twitter remembers your choices again on iOS and Android , too.

You can now easily switch between “For you” and “Following” on web. Android coming soon 👀 — Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 13, 2023

Twitter’s advanced search filters for mobile are said to be coming soon

According to social media analyst Matt Navarra, Twitter’s advanced search filters for mobile are coming soon.

Here’s what it looks like:

NEW! Twitter Advanced Search feature on iOS is coming soon 👀👇 https://t.co/ae56yE3JTU pic.twitter.com/xbQUpQJAlS — Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) January 4, 2023

Twitter lifts the political ad ban to bolster revenue

The company originally enforced the ban back in 2019 . At that time, it said that “political message reach should be earned, not bought.” Twitter charted a different path from other social networks like Facebook and Instagram, which allowed political ads.

The company’s announcement to lift the political ad ban comes at a time when advertisers have been pulling back spending on the platform, and the company has been cutting down its internal revenue projections.

December 2022

Twitter blue users can now upload 60-minute videos.

On December 23, the Twitter Blue page was updated declaring that subscribers can now upload 60-minute videos from the web at 1080p resolution and 2GB in file size.

Layoffs continue, impacting employees in public policy, engineering

According to posts on Twitter and LinkedIn from a former public policy employee on December 22, Twitter cut half of its public policy team.

The company also laid off some engineers in infrastructure via email on December 16. Across all of Twitter, it’s estimated that about 75% of employees have either chosen to leave or have been laid off since Elon Musk took ownership of the company in October.

Twitter now displays stock and cryptocurrency prices directly in search results

To access the new feature, users have to just type the dollar symbol followed by the relevant ticker symbol, e.g. “$GOOG” or “$ETH” (minus the quote marks), in the search bar and Twitter will display the current price. This also works without using the $ symbol in some instances, but it’s less consistent and doesn’t always return the stock or crypto prices as requested.

If someone wants to know more details about a stock or cryptocurrency, they can hit the “View on Robinhood” button.

$Cashtags, now with data 📈 👀 $SPY 👇 pic.twitter.com/XgOK6gf02E — Twitter Business (@TwitterBusiness) December 21, 2022

You can now see how many people view your tweets

A tweet’s View Count will be visible to everyone, not just the owner of the account.

“Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video,” Elon Musk wrote in a tweet . “Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.”

Twitter Blue for Business now allows companies to identify their employees

Twitter’s product manager Esther Crawford said the social media platform is launching a pilot program for Blue for Business with select businesses. The company plans to expand this to more organizations next year.

We’re launching the pilot of Blue for Business so beginning today you’ll start seeing company badges on select profiles. We’ll soon be expanding the program and look forward to having more businesses added in the new year! https://t.co/ytnMRO5rcE — Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) December 19, 2022

Twitter goes on an account suspension spree, including prominent journalists

A day after Twitter crafted a new policy to explain its decision to ban an account that tracks Elon Musk’s private jet , Twitter also suspended its open source competitor Mastodon from the service.

Within the same day, Twitter suspended a number of prominent journalists on the platform without warning. “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” Elon Musk tweeted in a reply about the journalists’ suspensions.

The company seemingly had a glitch that allowed banned users to still participate in Twitter Spaces. A group of the banned journalists started a group conversation on Spaces where Musk himself joined in. Shortly after, the app pulled its Spaces group audio feature temporarily.

Twitter shuts down Revue, its newsletter platform

Revue, the newsletter platform acquired by Twitter in January 2021, sent a message to newsletter writers on December 14 declaring, “We’ve made the difficult decision to shut down Revue.” Writers had until January 18, 2023 to retrieve their data before everything was deleted.

Twitter disperses the Trust & Safety Council

Twitter dispersed the advisory group consisting of roughly 100 independent researchers and human rights activists from around the world. The council members received an email on Monday, December 12 from the company saying that the Trust & Safety Council is “not the best structure” to get external insights into the company product and policy strategy.

Elon Musk says Twitter will remove all legacy verifications ‘in a few months’

Twitter will remove all legacy blue checkmarks “in a few months,” Elon Musk tweeted on December 12. Before Musk bought Twitter, checkmarks were used to verify individuals and entities as active, authentic and notable accounts of interest.

This past week, many blue checkmark holders have been seeing a pop-up when they click on their blue checkmark that reads, “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.”

Twitter Blue relaunches with new verification process, plus Blue for Business

Twitter is officially bringing back the Twitter Blue subscription on December 12, starting in five countries before rapidly expanding to others . The app updated its terms to specify that users will need to verify their phone numbers before purchasing the Twitter Blue subscription.

Web sign-ups will cost $8 per month and iOS sign ups will cost $11 per month for “access to subscriber-only features, including the blue checkmark,” per a tweet from the company account. Twitter Blue became available on Android at the same price as iOS in January 2023.

In addition to the relaunch of Twitter Blue, the company also began rolling out a new offering called Blue for Business that adds a gold checkmark to company accounts.

Twitter’s Community Notes feature is now global

Community Notes, previously known as Birdwatch, are now visible around the world. Community Notes is the social media giant’s crowdsourced fact-checking system.

Moderators who are part of the program can add notes to tweets to add context and users can then vote if they determine the context to be helpful. Prior to this global expansion, Community Notes were only visible to users in the U.S. Twitter added moderators from the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand in January 2023.

Twitter announces charging $11 on iOS for Blue subscription to offset App Store fees

When Twitter launched its new subscription plan with a verification mark on November 9, it charged users $7.99 per month. In an attempt to offset App Store fees, the company is charging iOS users $11 for the new subscription plan — though the Twitter Blue plan is on halt.

November 2022

Twitter’s community notes updated to better address ‘low quality’ contributions.

The platform’s crowdsourced fact-checking system, Community Notes, are notes written by users that are appended to tweets to provide further clarification and context.

The Community Notes algorithm change involves scoring notes where contributors explain why a tweet shouldn’t be deemed misleading.

Twitter announces a new multicolored verification system

Elon Musk announces that Twitter will tentatively roll out a new multicolored verification system where companies will get a gold checkmark, government officials will get a grey checkmark and the blue checkmark will be dedicated to individuals even if they are not celebrities. That means the blue checkmark will be used with legacy verified accounts and folks who buy the company’s proposed $8 per month paid plan .

If you’re confused about all the checkmarks, you’re not alone. Here’s a quick guide on what each checkmark and badge means.

Twitter Blue verification chaos ensues

On November 9, CEO Elon Musk floated changes to Twitter’s system for verifying user accounts, including charging $8 per month for it . The social media company seemingly began rolling out a new tier of Twitter Blue, its premium subscription service. According to a tweet by Esther Crawford, a former product lead, the new Twitter Blue plan wasn’t yet live, but some users saw notifications as part of a live test.

The new Blue isn’t live yet — the sprint to our launch continues but some folks may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing changes in real-time. The Twitter team is legendary. 🫡 New Blue… coming soon! https://t.co/ewTSTjx3t7 — Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 5, 2022

The company also launched grey-colored official checkmarks for notable accounts such as companies and politicians. But within hours of the launch, Elon Musk killed it. Crawford clarified that the grey “Official” labels are still going out as part of the new Twitter Blue product.

The new $8 Twitter Blue plan began rolling out to iOS users in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K with the only feature available at the time being the blue “verified” checkmark. This caused a number of fake accounts pretending to be celebrities, brands and otherwise influential people to create accounts and spread misinformation.

The Twitter exodus begins with mass layoffs and exits

Elon Musk laid off 3,700 people on November 3, almost half its staff, shortly after completing the acquisition. Twitter was sued in a class action lawsuit in response to not giving employees advance notice of a mass layoff, alleging Twitter violated worker protection laws.

A week later, the app reached out to some former employees to return as they were laid off “by mistake.”

In addition to layoffs, a round of executive departures also swept through the company. In Musk’s first email to his new staff , he talked about ending remote work and making the fight against spam a priority.

Musk poses workers with a choice: quit Twitter, or prepare to get ‘hardcore’

October 2022

Elon musk is revamping twitter’s verification system.

Twitter begins overhauling a new and more expensive version of Twitter Blue, the platform’s paid plan, that will reportedly cost $19.99 per month and give users a verified badge. At the time, Twitter Blue cost $4.99 per month in the U.S.

According to a report from The Verge , the company plans to remove verification badges from current holders if they don’t pay for Twitter Blue within 90 days of launching the new verification system.

Elon Musk officially owns Twitter

Elon Musk closed on his $44 billion acquisition of the bird app on October 27, 2022. The deal came after months of legal drama , bad memes and will-they-or-won’t-they-chaos . After sealing the deal, Musk took Twitter private and began clearing house . On day one, he fired former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, general counsel Sean Edgett and head of Legal, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde.

Elon Musk brings controversial AI chatbot Grok to more X users in bid to halt exodus

Musk is expanding access to Grok, possibly to revitalize Premium user base

Premium subscribers of all tiers for the X social media platform will soon gain access to its generative AI chatbot , Grok . Previously, the chatbot was only accessible to users who subscribed to the most expensive subscription tier, Premium+,  for $16 a month (approximately £12 or AU$25). That’s set to change, with X’s owner Elon Musk announcing the expansion of availability to the large language model (LLM) to Basic Tier and Premium Tier X users in a post. 

Grok has been made open-source , reportedly to allow researchers and developers to leverage Grok’s capabilities for their own projects and research. If you’re interested in checking out its code, you can check out the Grok-1 repository on GitHub . It’s the first major offering from Musk’s own AI venture, xAI . 

As Dev Technosys, a mobile app and web development company, explains , Grok is Musk’s head-on challenge to ChatGPT , with the billionaire boasting that it beat ChatGPT 3.5 on multiple benchmarks. Musk describes the chatbot as having “a focus on deep understanding and humor,” and replying to questions with a “rebellious streak.” The model is trained on a massive dataset of text and code, including real-time text from X posts (which is what Musk points to as giving the bot a unique advantage), and text data scraped from across the web such as Wikipedia articles and academic papers.

Some industry observers think that this could be a push to boost X subscriber numbers, as analysis performed by Sensor Tower and reported by NBC indicates that visitors to the platform and user retention have been dropping. This has seemingly spooked many advertisers and hit the platform’s revenues, with apparently 75 of the top 100 US advertisers cutting X from their ad budgets entirely from October 2022 onwards. 

It does look like Musk is hoping that an exclusive perk like access to such a well-informed and entertaining chatbot as Grok will convince people to become subscribers, and to keep those who are already subscribed. 

The Elon-Musk led ChatGPT that never was

Earlier this year, Musk leveled a lawsuit against what is undoubtedly Grok’s largest competitor and the current industry leader in generative AI, OpenAI . He was an early investor in the company but departed after disagreements about several aspects, including the mission and vision for OpenAI , as well as control and equity in the company. Now, Musk asserts that OpenAI has diverted from its non-profit goals and is prioritizing corporate profits, particularly for Microsoft (a key investor and collaborator), above its other objectives -  violating a contract called the ‘Founding Agreement.’

According to Musk, the Founding Agreement laid down specific principles and commitments that OpenAI had agreed to follow. OpenAI has responded to this accusation by denying such a contract, or any similar agreement, existed with Musk at all. Its overall response to the lawsuit so far has been dismissive, characterizing it as ‘frivolous’ and alleging that Musk is driven by his own business interests. 

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Apparently, it was established from early on by OpenAI that the company would transition into being a for-profit organization, as it wouldn’t be able to raise the funds necessary to build the sorts of things it was planning to as a non-profit company. OpenAI claims Musk was not only aware of these plans and was consulted when they were being made, but that he was seeking to have majority equity in OpenAI, wanted to control the board of directors at the time, and wanted to assume the position of CEO. 

Elon Musk's Grok gambit

Musk didn’t give an exact date for Grok’s wider rollout, but according to Tech Crunch , it’s due sometime at the end of this week. Having seen what Musk considers funny, many people are morbidly curious about what sort of artificial intelligence Grok offers. One other aspect of Grok that might concern (or please, depending on your point of view) people is that it will respond to queries and topics that have been made off-limits for the most part with other chatbots, including controversial political ideas and conspiracy theories. 

The sourcing from X in real-time is one unique advantage that Grok has, although before Musk’s takeover, this would have arguably been a much bigger prize.

Despite my misgivings, Grok does give users another option of chatbot to choose from, and more competition in this emerging field could spur on more innovation as companies battle to win users.

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Kristina is a UK-based Computing Writer, and is interested in all things computing, software, tech, mathematics and science. Previously, she has written articles about popular culture, economics, and miscellaneous other topics.

She has a personal interest in the history of mathematics, science, and technology; in particular, she closely follows AI and philosophically-motivated discussions.

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Elon Musk Spotted on Rare Father-Son Outing With His and Grimes’ Son X Æ A-XII

Amid elon musk and grimes’ ongoing custody battle, the tesla ceo stepped out with his 3-year-old son x æ a-xii at the company’s car plant in germany..

Elon Musk is getting his son into the family business. 

In fact, the Tesla CEO stepped out with his son X Æ A-Xii at the company's electric car plant in Gruenheide, Germany on March 13. 

Elon—who shares his 3-year-old son with Canadian singer Grimes —donned a black Gigafactory T-shirt with the words "We are the future" on the front and matching black jeans. Meanwhile, X wore blue jeans and a gray short sleeve henley shirt. 

The 52-year-old was photographed carrying his son and, at one point, putting him on his shoulders as he addressed a group of employees at the Gigafactory. According to NBC Right Now , Elon visited Gigafactory staff after production had halted for over a week due to a suspected arson attack. 

Based on the photos, Elon appeared to be in good spirits and enjoyed the rare public father-son bonding time. After all, the SpaceX founder is amid a custody battle with his ex girlfriend, whose real name is Claire Boucher . The couple—who dated for four years before splitting in 2022—have been at odds over the care of their children X, daughter Exa Dark Sideræl , 23 months, and son Techno Mechanicus .

Late last year, Grimes filed a petition for parental rights in California, NBC reported in October, but it appears Elon has yet to formally respond to his ex-girlfriend's filing. E! News previously reached out to both Elon and Grimes' reps for comment and has not heard back.

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And while the ongoing battle has yet to be fully resolved, Elon—who shares 11 children from three different mothers including Grimes, Justine Wilson and Shivon Zillis —is experienced in coparenting. 

Read on to untangle the businessman's entire family tree.

Maye was born in Saskatchewan, Canada and emigrated with her parents to Pretoria, South Africa in 1950, when she was 7. She and Elon's father,  Errol , split in 1979. After Elon moved to Canada at age 17, Maye obtained Canadian citizenship by birthright and moved there too, as did his siblings.  There, she established a dietician practice and became President of the Consulting Dieticians of Canada, per Forbes . She also worked as a model. In 2019, after Elon sold his company Zip2 to Compaq for more than $300 million, he bought his mom an apartment in New York City, where she lived for 13 years and continued her modeling career. She is signed to the IMG Models agency.  "I brought my children up like my parents brought us up when we were young: to be independent, kind, honest, considerate and polite," Maye wrote in an essay  for CNBC. "I taught them the importance of working hard and doing good things."

Elon's father is an engineer and like Elon, was born in South Africa. In the 2015 biography Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future , author Ashlee Vance wrote that Elon and his dad had a difficult relationship. In an emotional 2017 Rolling Stone interview, Elon criticized his father and talked about his upbringing, saying that after his parents split, he moved in with his dad, which, he said, "was not a good idea." However, Errol told  Rolling Stone , "I love my children and would readily do whatever for them." In a 2015 Forbes  interview, Elon's dad said he used to take his kids on trips overseas. "Their mother and I split up when they were quite young and the kids stayed with me," he said. "I took them all over the world." After divorcing Elon's mother Maye , Errol married Heide , whose daughter  Jana Bezuidenhout  was 4 years old at the time. Errol and Heide went on to have two daughters together before they, too, broke up.  Years later, Jana reached out to Errol following a breakup. "We were lonely, lost people," Errol explained  in a 2018 interview with The Sunday Times . "One thing led to another—you can call it God's plan or nature's plan." Either way, the duo welcomed son Elliott in 2017 and then a baby girl in 2019. As Errol put it to The Sun , "The only thing we are on Earth for is to reproduce. If I could have another child I would. I can't see any reason not to."

Kimbal, born in 1972, is a restauranteur. He is the founder of The Kitchen, a collective of five restaurants that source directly from local farmers, Forbes reported in 2018. He also runs a non-profit, Big-Green, that has built 200 learning gardens in schools across the U.S., the outlet said. Tosca, born in 1974, is a filmmaker. In 2017, she founded Passionflix, a female-focused streaming service that targets the billion-dollar romance novel industry, according to Forbes . 

Elon and Canadian-born Justine, his college sweetheart from Queen's University in Ontario , married in 2000.  In a 2010 article she penned for  Marie Claire , titled I Was a Starter Wife: Inside America's Messiest Divorce , Justine said that while dancing at their wedding reception, Elon told her, "I am the alpha in this marriage." "I shrugged it off," Wilson wrote, "just as I would later shrug off signing the postnuptial agreement, but as time went on, I learned that he was serious." The two welcomed their first child, son Nevada Alexander , in 2002. The baby died at age 10 weeks from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). "Nevada went down for a nap, placed on his back as always, and stopped breathing," Justine wrote in her article. The couple pursued IVF to conceive again and went on to welcome five more kids: 19-year-old twins Vivian  and Griffin and 17-year-old triplets Kai , Saxon and Damian .  In 2008, Elon filed for divorce. They share custody of their children. 

In a July 2022 snap shared on social media, Elon revealed he took his oldest sons to meet  Pope Francis . While he was "honored" to meet the head of the Catholic church, Elon added of his 'fit, "My suit is tragic."  That same year, Elon's daughter Vivian filed a petition to change her full name in accordance with her new gender identity, writing, "I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form."

Elon and Tallulah—who played host greeter Angela on HBO's Westworld— married in 2010.  "It all happened very fast," she told CBS News . "We were engaged after, I think, two weeks of knowing each other."  The two divorced in 2012, then remarried a year later before divorcing again in 2016.

Elon and Amber went public with their romance in early 2017, a year after she filed for divorce from Johnny Depp and Elon ended his second marriage to his second wife  Tallulah Riley . Months later, Elon and Amber called it quits .  "I just broke up with my girlfriend," Elon told Rolling Stone   at the time. " I was really in love , and it hurt bad...Well, she broke up with me more than I broke up with her, I think."

Elon and the singer dated on and off for about four years, starting in 2018. In September 2021, Elon told Page Six that he and Grimes "are, I'd say, probably semi-separated," adding, "It's mostly that my work at SpaceX and Tesla requires me to be primarily in Texas or traveling overseas and her work is primarily in LA. She's staying with me now and Baby X is in the adjacent room." In a March 2022 interview with Vanity Fair , the singer said she and Elon "live in separate houses" and are "best friends." She later tweeted, "Me and E have broken up *again* since the writing of this article haha, but he's my best friend and the love of my life, and my life and art are forever dedicated to The Mission now."  When news broke in September 2023 that the couple share three children together, the "Crystal Ball" singer confirmed that, yes, their most recent addition Techno Mechanicus had joined son  X Æ A-12 , 3, and daughter  Exa Dark Sideræl , 20 months.

In 2020, Elon and then-girlfriend Grimes welcomed their first child together, a son. They soon modified the spelling of his name in order to meet California's legal guidelines, which only permit letters from the English alphabet. Switching over to roman numerals, the parents agreed to spell his name, X Æ A-Xii. "X, the unknown variable," Grimes explained on Twitter . "Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence) A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent."  Grimes continued, "A=Archangel, my favorite song" adding a rat and sword emoji. "Metal rat."

In her 2022  Vanity Fair interview, Grimes revealed she and Elon privately welcomed a baby girl via surrogacy. "Exa is a reference to the supercomputing term exaFLOPS (the ability to perform 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second)," she said. "Dark, meanwhile, is the unknown. People fear it but truly it's the absence of photons. Dark matter is the beautiful mystery of our universe.'" Sideræl—pronounced "sigh-deer-ee-el," is "the true time of the universe, star time, deep space time, not our relative earth time," and a nod to her favorite Lord of the Rings character, Galadriel, who "chooses to abdicate the ring." A year later, the  New York Times ' Sept. 9 review of Walter Isaacson's biography  Elon Musk  stated that Elon and Grimes share three children, not two as previously believed. The on-again, off-again couple at one point welcomed a child named  Techno Mechanicus , nicknamed  Tau , a report Grimes  confirmed soon after . "I wish I could show u how cute little Techno is," she  wrote on X , "but my priority rn is keeping my babies out of the public eye, Plz respect that at this time."

In 2022,  Business Insider  published court documents that stated Elon welcomed twins with Neuralink executive  Shivon Zilis in November 2021. The babies were reportedly born in Austin, Texas, where the businessman lives. He also seemingly weighed in on the report on Twitter, writing , "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far." "Mark my words," he added, "they are sadly true." In September 2023, a  Time magazine cover story, adapted from biographer Walter Issacson 's book about Elon, revealed that their twins were named  Strider and Azure .

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