Who Is Elon Musk? Is He An African American?

If you are living under the rock, you might have already heard about Elon Musk multiple times. And as a non-tech-savvy person, we can relate to the questions you are having in your mind at the moment.

Even when we first heard about the guy, we wanted to know who he actually is. But upon further investigation, we found out that people say that is he is not an American. However, he looks white. So, we were thinking, is Elon Musk an African American or not.

That is where we got into researching. We wanted to learn more about the guy and the things he achieved and find out his origins. Eventually, upon going through his biography, we did manage to get all the answers we wanted to know about. And we are here to share all that information here in this article.

Who Is Elon Musk?

Many people will refer to Elon Musk as the tech Jesus. However, would you believe us if we told you that he started his career by becoming an entrepreneur? Yes, we were as shocked as you when we first learned about that. But if you are not getting why it is a shocking thing, let us elaborate a bit about what he is today.

Study Life

Before we get into the achievements he has, let us talk a bit about his study life. That will give you a better knowledge regarding what the person actually was. He started his studies at Queen’s University, Ontario. He got into that university but did not finish his bachelor’s there.

In the year 1992, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he pursued his physics and economics degrees. Later down the road, he enrolled in graduate school, which was Stanford University. But he did not stay there for more than two days. But why did he leave?

He believed the internet had much more potential in terms of changing society. That is why he decided not to pursue physics. Instead, he wanted to become an entrepreneur and improve the overall condition of society by using the resources that are available on the internet.

Zip2 and X.Com

Elon musk’s first foundation was the Zip2. He founded this organization in 1995, and the company had the aim to provide maps and business directories. They mainly provided their service to online newspapers. And it gained a lot of attention for that service.

In 199, the computer manufacturer Compaq bought Zip2. He sold the company for a staggering $307 million. With that money, he decided to invest in an online financial service company called X.com. This financial company focused on transferring money virtually.

And the interesting thing is that X.com is the PayPal we know today. However, in the year 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion.

SpaceX

Both the Zip2 and Paypal were handed over to other companies. Then Musk was long convinced that to extend the lifespan of humans, humanity needs to become a multiplanet species. However, there was only one way of getting people out of the Earth, which was rockets. And they cost a great expense.

So, in 2002, Musk founded SpaceX. It stands for Space Exploration Technologies. The primary goal of the company was to make rocket trips more affordable. The first two rockets were launched in 2006 and 2010. And they costed a whole lot lesser than the competing rockets.

But there was a challenge. Even though the first two rockets did cost less, they could not carry that much load. That is where the third one stepped in, which was the Falcon Heavy. It could carry up to 117 thousand pounds. And that load capacity was twice the amount that competitor could carry.

Nevertheless, the flight to make the rockets cheap and capable of carrying more load did not end there. Now, there are successors to the third and the second rockets. They are capable of carrying more load while costing a lot less than what the competitors have to offer.

The basic idea is to make enough of them to carry the load from Earth to Mars and the Moon. This company also developed the Dragon spacecraft. The spaceship can carry supplies from our planet to the International Space Station. And to further reduce the cost of these crafts, Musk is seeking a fully reusable rocket.

A fully reusable rocket will reduce the cost of these flights and lower the debris that is floating around in space and on the Earth. The first time this technology was tested was at the beginning of 2012. It was named the Grasshopper. The technology is still being fine-tuned.

Tesla

Another company that is still under the supervision of Musk is Tesla. He had long been interested in changing how vehicles work on Earth. Instead of relying on gas, he wanted to make something that utilizes electricity.

Considering that fossils are pretty limited and how gas and fuel are polluting the Earth, the idea was a major success. Tesla introduced its first electric car in 2006, which was named the Roadster. It had the ability to travel up to 245 miles with a single full charge. However, this was not the first electric car that existed.

In comparison, the Roadster was a sports car that could reach from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just 4 seconds. This was a major achievement for the electric car genre. And the best part is the company was just getting started. In 2010, the company raised about $226 million. And two years later, two more models came out.

Those two models considered all the flaws that the first one had and were an improved version in many ways. The company won many praises and got acclaimed by the automative critics for its design and performance. Later down the road, these electric automotive are getting more affordable and better.

That being said, he expressed that the company was being publicly traded. In 2018, he made an expression noting that the company is private and has “secured funding.” That is when he started to face backlashes. The SEC sued Musk for security fraud and alleging that he was falsely misleading information.

Nonetheless, the dispute was later solved, but Musk had to step down as the chairman of the company instead of a CEO of the company. That period lasted for three years.

High Speed Rail System

Elon also had a vision of constructing a high-speed rail system in California. However, the project cost came up to be $68 billion, which dissatisfied Musk. Instead of following it through, Musk proposed an alternative system in the year 2013. It was called the HyperLoop.

Like the name, the idea is pretty technologically advanced. It would be a pneumatic tube that would carry about 28 persons per tube. And the main idea was to make it travel 350 miles. The starting point would be Los Angeles, and the ending point is San Franciso.

Hyperloop had a lot of potentials. It planned to depart pods every two minutes, and the system could accommodate about 6 million people every year and provide a faster traveling means to them. However, due to focusing on two current projects, which are Tesla and SpaceX, he could not devote that much to its development.

Maybe later down the road, he will focus on the project again as it is not fully scraped at the moment. But when it that happens is still a question.

Is Elon Musk African American?

Now that you know loads about this guy let us get to the point that matters to most to you. Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa. His father was a South African, while his mother was Canadian. Due to his birth location, he is an African. However, as his mother was Canadian, that made him African Canadian.

But the thing he does not live in Africa at the moment. He is a US citizen now who has conducted and is conducting all the business in the states. So, that would make him African-Canadian-American, right?

Well, the case is not that simple either. He is not living in Canada. As his birthplace is in Africa and as he is currently living in the states, he is officially an African American. But the fact is that he is not black. He is a white African American.

Final Words

To answer the question of is Elon Must African American or not, he is! Even though his mother was Canadian, we can refer to him as an African American instead of African Canadian due to having US citizenship. And he got the “African” part for being born in Africa.