Who Is Elon Musk? Elon Musk is an American entrepreneur and businessman who was born in South Africa in 1975, founded X.com in 1999, SpaceX in 2002, and Tesla Motors in 2003. In his late 20s, as a result of selling his start-up business, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers, Musk became a multi-millionaire. In the spring of 2012, Musk's company, SpaceX, launched a rocket that would be the first commercial vehicle to carry supplies to the International Space Station. He bol