Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He is of British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His mother, Maye Musk, is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer.

His maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman, was a renowned chiropractor, aviator, and political activist. His paternal grandfather, Walter Henry James Musk, was a World War II veteran.

Elon was raised in Pretoria and demonstrated exceptional intelligence at a very young age. He was a prolific reader who would read books for hours on end, with a photographic memory that allowed him to retain vast amounts of information.

At age 10, Elon received his first computer — a Commodore VIC-20. At 12, he taught himself programming and sold his first video game, Blastar, for $500. He was bullied throughout school but learned karate and wrestling at 15, allowing him to defend himself. He later identified his social difficulties as symptoms of Asperger’s syndrome.

At age 17, in 1988, Musk moved to Canada against his parents’ wishes to attend university and avoid mandatory military service. He enrolled at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, studied for two years, then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992.

He graduated with bachelor’s degrees in both Economics and Physics. He subsequently began a graduate physics program at Stanford University, but left after just a few days — convinced the internet had far more potential to change the world than an academic career ever could.

Musk and his brother Kimbal built and launched homemade model rockets and experimented with chemical propulsion mixtures — a childhood obsession that would later define the 21st century’s most ambitious space company.