Elon Musk’s empire explained: Tesla, SpaceX, X, xAI and Neuralink

Few business leaders have built or controlled as many high-profile companies as Elon Musk. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, on 28 June 1971, he moved to Canada at 17 and later to the United States. Here is a simple guide to his main businesses.

The early years: Zip2 and PayPal

Zip2 (1995) made online city guides for newspapers. Musk and his brother Kimbal sold it to Compaq in 1999.
X.com (1999) was an online bank. It merged with Confinity, co-founded by Peter Thiel, and became PayPal, which eBay bought in 2002 for about $1.5 billion.

SpaceX

Founded in 2002, SpaceX builds rockets and spacecraft. Its reusable Falcon 9 dominates the global launch market, its Dragon capsules carry astronauts for NASA, and its Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time in September 2026. SpaceX also runs Starlink, the satellite internet service.

SpaceX listed on the Nasdaq in June 2026 in the largest IPO ever. In 2026 Musk’s AI company xAI — which already owned X — became part of SpaceX.

Tesla

Musk invested in Tesla in 2004, shortly after it was founded, and became chief executive in 2008. Tesla makes electric cars — including the Model 3 and Model Y, among the best-selling electric vehicles in the world — as well as batteries for homes and power grids.

Tesla is also working on self-driving software, robotaxis and a humanoid robot called Optimus. In November 2025 shareholders approved a long-term pay plan for Musk tied to very ambitious targets.

X (formerly Twitter)

Musk bought Twitter for about $44 billion in October 2022 and renamed it X in 2023. He cut a large share of the staff, changed verification and content rules and added features such as Community Notes and long videos. The changes have been both praised and criticised. In 2025 X was merged into xAI.

xAI

Founded in 2023, xAI develops artificial intelligence. Its main product is the Grok chatbot, available on X and as a separate app. xAI has built very large data centres in Memphis, Tennessee, to train its models. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left its board in 2018 and has since become one of its critics.

Neuralink

Founded in 2016, Neuralink develops brain implants. Its device, placed in the skull, reads signals from the brain so that a person can control a computer with their thoughts. The first human patient received an implant in January 2024, and later patients with paralysis have used it to move cursors and type.

The Boring Company

Also founded in 2016, The Boring Company digs tunnels to reduce traffic. Its best-known project is a tunnel loop under the Las Vegas Convention Center, where passengers travel in Tesla cars.

How the companies connect

Musk’s businesses often share technology, people and ideas:

xAI’s Grok chatbot is built into X and into Tesla cars.
SpaceX now owns xAI and X, bringing rockets, satellites, AI and social media under one company.
Engineers and executives have moved between the companies, which share Musk’s approach of building parts in-house and testing quickly.

Critics say this concentration of power raises conflict-of-interest questions, especially since Musk led the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in 2025. Supporters see it as a unique way of combining talent and resources.

The common thread

Musk describes his goals in big terms: making life multi-planetary, speeding the move to sustainable energy and developing AI that benefits humanity. Not every project has succeeded on schedule, and many of his predictions have been late. But the companies he leads have reshaped rockets, cars, social media and AI — and made him the world’s richest person.