Elon Musk is born in Pretoria, South Africa
The early life of the entrepreneur, from a boyhood programmer in South Africa to university in North America.
Archive entry. This article looks back at an event from June 28, 1971. It was drafted with AI assistance from public records and is being fact-checked. See our About page.
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He showed an early interest in computers and taught himself to program. At about the age of 12 he sold the code for a simple video game he called Blastar to a magazine for around $500.
Moving to North America
In 1989, at 17, Musk left South Africa for Canada and studied at Queen's University in Ontario. He later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned degrees in economics and physics.
In 1995 he enrolled in a graduate program at Stanford University, but he left almost immediately to start a company with his brother Kimbal. That company was Zip2, the first of several ventures that would follow.
