Elon Musk has set the facts straight and said that his family did now own an emerald mine while he was growing up. He continued by saying that he survived college through scholarships and student loans that run up to six figures when he was completing college.
Elon Musk has opened up about his growing up struggles on twitter after twitter users started claiming his family owned an emerald mine. These users were accusing him of having been financed by his parents through the funds obtained from the mine. Elon shared a backstory of his struggles in college and his life growing up.
Elon Musk sets record straight
Elon musk started by refuting claims that his family owned an emerald mine in South Africa by calling the report a big lie meant to malign his family’s name. He explained that he was only 17 when he left South Africa. He continued by saying that he worked on his Mom’s cousin’s farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver.
This is a pretty awful lie. I left South Africa by myself when I was 17 with just a backpack & suitcase of books. Worked on my Mom’s cousin’s farm in Saskatchewan & a lumber mill in Vancouver. Went to Queens Univ with scholarship & debt, then same to UPenn/Wharton & Stanford.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 28, 2019
Elon Musk continued by saying that he then proceeded to Queens University where he studied using scholarships and debts. Elon continued by saying that, by the time he left college, his debts had already accumulated to six figures.
Another Twitter user responded on the thread by claiming that Elon’s dad had invested more than $30,000 in his startup. Elon was quick to refute that claim and said that his dad invested much later in his company when he had already established himself. He said that his dad bought around 10 percent stake in his company.
We started Zip2 with ~$2k from me plus my overclocked home-built PC, ~$5k from my bro & ~$8k from Greg Kouri (such a good guy — he is greatly missed).
My Dad provided 10% of a ~$200k angel funding round much later, but by then risk was reduced & round would’ve happened anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 28, 2019
In the tweet, Elon said,
We started Zip2 with ~$2k from me plus my overclocked home-built PC, ~$5k from my bro & ~$8k from Greg Kouri (such a good guy — he is greatly missed). My Dad provided 10% of a ~$200k angel funding round much later, but by then risk was reduced & round would’ve happened anyway.
Elon would later sell the Zip2 $300 million to Compaq and use the money to open a new startup, X.com, a financial service company. The company then merged with Confinity in 2000 in what would later be called Paypal. Paypal was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion.
Elon would later open SpaceX in 2002, Tesla motors in 2003 and Neuralink in 2016. His success story has motivated many but has also created a lot of scrutiny and online trolls which mostly leads him to clarify time and time again.
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