Elon Musk Companies – List of companies owned by billionaire Elon Musk and the businesses he has invested in 2022 that you need to know.
Elon Musk is a serial investor and entrepreneur. Musk is the CEO and co-founder of Tesla (TSLA), the electric vehicle company, and the CEO and lead designer of the aerospace company SpaceX.
Elon Musk has generated his wealth primarily through companies that he founded, but part of his fortune also comes from passive investments.
As with any long-time investor, some of his efforts haven’t quite panned out, but many have thrived and are among the most exciting names in technology.
The title of the world’s richest person can change on any given day, depending on corporate share prices—but as of late, that title has been held by Elon Musk. Famous for his business prowess, communication style, and role as a tech visionary, Musk has often been hailed as a genius.
Do you have any idea of Elon Musk Companies? Do you know how many companies Elon owns? From Space Exploration to Digging Tunnels, here’s a look at just a few of the companies that Elon Musk has invested in, some well-known and others still waiting to break major headlines.
List of Elon Musk companies
2. SpaceX.
3. DeepMind Technologies.
4. Tesla Motors.
5. The Boring Company.
6. Neuralink Corporation.
7. Open AI.
8. Zip2 Corporation.
9. SolarCity.
10. NeuroVigil.
11. Cryptocurrency.
1. PayPal
Musk’s innovative investments are generally focused on technology, but they are actually quite diverse in terms of the actual industry. In 1999, Musk spent $10 million to co-found X.com, online financial services, and an email payment company. A year later, X.com merged with Confinity, which in 2001 was renamed PayPal (PYPL).
On Oct. 3, 2002, PayPal was purchased by eBay (EBAY) for $1.5 billion. At the time of the sale, Musk owned 7,109,989 shares of PayPal, which made him the largest shareholder with a stake of 11.7%.
Musk no longer holds a stake in PayPal. He exited his position after the sale of the company and used his proceeds from the sale to fund investments such as SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity.
PayPal is a payment gateway that processes monetary transactions. Elon Musk is the co-founder of the company. The payment gateway PayPal is widely used all over the globe. In that sense, Musk can be considered to be the father of email payment processing as well.
2. SpaceX
The second name that most people associate with Elon Musk is SpaceX. In 2002, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly known as SpaceX. The company’s founding mission is to revolutionize space technology, including by developing spacecraft that carry humans to Mars and other places in the solar system.
As with most things that Musk touches, SpaceX isn’t “just” a rocket company. The primary appeal of SpaceX is that it is much more affordable than traditional rocket technology, due in large part to the fact that the company’s rockets are self-landing and reusable. This type of innovation is setting the stage for the next major jump in space exploration, one of founder Musk’s biggest dreams.
NASA awarded SpaceX a lucrative contract in 2006. In 2008, SpaceX launched Falcon 1, the first private liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit. In 2010, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft reached the International Space Station (ISS). In 2012, granted SpaceX a second contract to help shuttle crew members between the ISS and Earth.
Another contract with NASA was inked in 2021 for $2.9 billion, to transport astronauts aboard its Starship vehicles from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon.
3. DeepMind Technologies
The artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepMind Technologies was launched in late 2010, with Musk as one of its key angel investors. In January 2014, Google announced that it had acquired the company for an undisclosed amount.
Musk is famously worried about AI overtaking humans and is reported to have invested in DeepMind not to make money but to stay abreast of how rapidly the technology behind AI is developing.
DeepMind has focused much of its research on deep reinforcement learning, which is an AI technique that combines deep learning—which is primarily for recognizing patterns—with reinforcement learning. DeepMind developed this type of learning based on reward signals, such as a score in a game, and gave the technique its name in a 2013 white paper
Though developing deep reinforcement learning represented a breakthrough in AI, DeepMind hasn’t yet found many successful commercial applications. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has applied the technique internally to reduce the power costs associated with cooling Google’s servers at data centers.
4. Tesla Motors
Musk was not a founding member of Tesla but led an early round of financing in 2004. In 2008, Musk went from being a board member of Tesla to its CEO, even while still serving as the CEO of SpaceX. On June 28, 2010, Tesla launched its initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq with shares of common stock initially available to the public at $17 per share. As of Dec 7, 2021, shares of Tesla traded for more than $1,000.
Tesla’s mission is to accelerate sustainable transportation by introducing mass-market electric cars to the public. In November 2017, Tesla announced the creation of fully electric tractor-trailer trucks, which were preordered by companies such as United Parcel Service (UPS) and PepsiCo. The company’s electric vehicles include the Model S, the Model X, the Model 3, and the high-end Roadster supercar.
As of Dec. 2, 2021, Elon Musk owned 169.9 million shares of Tesla, worth approximately $181.5 billion. Elon Musk remains the company’s largest shareholder and has significant control over the company’s long-term plan and operational goals.
Musk and Tesla continue to innovate, from the original roadster to the newer Model S, Model 3, and new Roadster models. Tesla stock surged about 700% in 2020 alone, helping make Musk the richest person in the world.
Tesla has a number of subsidiary companies – Solar City, Tesla Grohmann Automation, Maxwell Technologies, Deep Scale & Silicon.
5. The Boring Company
Musk founded the infrastructure and tunnel construction company known as The Boring Company in late 2016. The company was founded on the premise that traffic is awful but traveling above ground isn’t necessary—traffic woes could be “solved” by using the miles and miles of earth beneath roadways. The company’s goal is to reduce the cost of tunneling while also making production more efficient.
In May 2019, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority approved a $48.6 million proposal from The Boring Company to build an underground tunnel, called the LVCC Loop, that will travel underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center and feature three stations and a pedestrian tunnel. By February 2020, The Boring Company had finished the first of the two planned tunnels in the loop. In 2020, The Boring Company had projects underway in Baltimore, Chicago, Hawthorne, Calif., Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.
6. Neuralink Corporation
Neuralink is a company that Musk co-founded in 2016 that has recently raised $205 million in additional capital from Google Ventures and others. As the name implies, the company aims to create a neural link between brains and computers via high-bandwidth brain implants. While this can seem a bit “Terminator-esque,” the company’s first goal is to help quadriplegics interact with digital devices like computers and phones.
Neuralink Corporation is a Brain-Computer Interface Neuroprosthetics company, in simple words, it is a Neurotechnology Company. Recently the company has released a video, in which a Monkey is playing a video game using Neuralink Implant.
7. Open AI
Open AI, the company aims to research Artificial Intelligence for well being of Humanity. Elon Musk was one of the founders of Open AI. Open AI also provides an opportunity to learn about AI through its non-profit Board.
8. Zip2 Corporation
Zip2 Corporation is notable because it is the first of Elon Musk’s many known investments. Back when the internet needed yellow pages — that is, before search engines like Yahoo and Google — Zip2 Corporation filled in the blanks, way back in 1995. Musk later sold the company to Compaq in a $307 million deal, which at the time was the largest sum ever paid to acquire an internet company.
9. SolarCity
As the CEO of Tesla, Musk is well-known for supporting environmental and sustainable causes. Thus, it should be no surprise that he’s a fan of SolarCity, which is one of the country’s largest installers of solar panels. In fact, in 2016 Musk’s Tesla actually acquired the company. This actually created legal problems for Musk, as he is currently in court defending the acquisition, which was said to unjustly enrich family members.
10. NeuroVigil
Musk seems to be very interested in technology and the mind, as NeuroVigil is yet another of his investments in that field. The company develops brain monitors and uses algorithms to look for indications of pathology in those that are not displaying other symptoms, such as those with brain cancer or neurodegeneration. Musk was one of a number of investors participating in the company’s second financing round in 2015.
11. Cryptocurrency
While cryptocurrency is not a company, it’s an important investment to Musk and dominates the news headlines. Some investors even call Musk the “DogeFather” for pumping up formerly obscure crypto Dogecoin into national prominence. But Musk has also made huge best on Ethereum and Bitcoin, the two largest cryptocurrencies. In fact, two of his companies, SpaceX and Tesla also own Bitcoin themselves. Musk is so influential in the crypto space that a single tweet can cause the prices of those assets to rise or fall precipitously.
Should You Invest Like Elon Musk?
As the world’s richest person and founder of more than one company that has disrupted its respective industry, people around the world are interested in Elon Musk and how he’s accumulated such a fortune. Few would deny that Musk is a talented entrepreneur, given the track record of his investments. Though you can choose to invest in one or more of Musk’s companies, your investment and business decisions are personal choices that you should customize.
What Companies Does Elon Musk Own?
Musk is primarily known for his leadership of the electric vehicle company Tesla, although he co-founded and leads Tesla, SpaceX, the neurotechnology company Neuralink, and The Boring Company.
How Much Money Did Elon Musk Make From PayPal?
Musk earned upward of $175 million when PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002, based on the total estimated purchase price of $1.5 billion. As the largest shareholder at the time of the sale, Musk held an 11.7% stake or 7,109,989 shares of PayPal.
Summary
Visionary Elon Musk is constantly in the news for his outlandish quotes and inspired ideas. Musk often holds the distinction of being the world’s richest person. According to Bloomberg.com, Elon Musk’s current net worth is estimated to be $278 billion.
Elon Musk is also a serial investor and entrepreneur. Musk’s best investments include PayPal, SpaceX, DeepMind Technologies, Tesla, The Boring Company, and several others. Elon Musk is an engineer, industrial designer, and technology entrepreneur known for disrupting multiple industries.
