Here are all the companies led by Elon Musk and what they do — from digging tunnels to making brain implants
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Hannah ToweyMay 11, 2022, 03:37 IST
Elon Musk gestures as he speaks during a press conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas on February 10, 2022.JIM WATSON / AFP
Elon Musk entered a deal to buy Twitter for $44 million. If approved, it will be his fifth company.
Musk runs Tesla and SpaceX alongside two smaller start-ups, Neuralink and The Boring Company.
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Elon Musk is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Tesla, which he helped start in 2003. The automaker has since designed seven electric vehicle models, four of which are currently in production.
CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party on April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas.SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images
Tesla's headquarters recently relocated from Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas. Nearly 100,000 people are employed by Tesla around the world, with over 28,000 new hires in 2021 alone.
Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing facility during the "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party on April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas.SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images
Tesla is one of six US companies that have reached a $1 trillion market cap — more than its nine largest competitors combined.
Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, stands on a stage at the Tesla Gigafactory for the open day in Grünheide, east of Berlin.Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images
In 2016, Tesla acquired SolarCity, the US' leading provider of solar panels. Today, Tesla sells four solar energy storage and generation products: Powerwall, Powerpack, Megapack, and Solar Roof.
Tesla solar panels on top of a hospital roof in San Juan, Puerto Rico.REUTERS/Alvin Baez
Next up: SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Musk in 2002. According to his company bio, Musk is the "lead designer" at SpaceX, where he oversees the spacecraft and rocket development "for missions to Earth orbit and ultimately to other planets."
SpaceX CEO Elon MuskHannibal Hanschke-Pool/Getty Images
SpaceX is headquartered in Hawthorne, California. However the company's launch site, known as "Starbase," is located in Boca Chica, Texas.
A prototype of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft at the company's Texas launch facility on September 28, 2019 in Boca Chica, Texas.Loren Elliott/Getty Images
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SpaceX was privately valued at $100 billion in October — making it the second most valuable private company in the world behind TikTok owner Bytedance, according to CNBC. As of 2021, it has nearly 10,000 employees.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at the Kennedy Space Center on April 26, 2022 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
SpaceX also owns the business Starlink, which provides low-orbit satellite internet services designed for rural areas with unreliable internet. The first batch of Starlink satellites were launched in 2019.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk speaking about Starlink.Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images
You've probably never heard of it, but Musk is also the co-founder of a San Francisco startup called Neuralink. The company's mission sounds straight out of a sci-fi movie: to connect the human brain to computers.
Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Musk is listed as Neuralink's CEO on Tesla's website, but his exact involvement isn't clear. The company previously stated in legal documents that the billionaire "has no executive or management role at Neuralink."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The company has recently recalled tens of thousands of cars.Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images.
Through the development of a brain chip Musk has described as a "FitBit in your skull," Neuralink aims to treat neurological conditions ranging from paralysis to depression.
The billionaire helped found Neuralink to "help those with brain injuries in the near term and reduce AI risk to humanity in the long term," according to its website. Last summer, Neuralink raised $205 million in Series C funding.
Musk is also the founder of The Boring Company, a tunnel construction startup based in Texas that launched in 2016.
ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
Musk's tunnel-digging venture aims to solve traffic within and between major US cities. One of its future projects is a "Hyperloop," which would theoretically allow passengers to travel at 700 miles per hour.
The interior of a Hyperloop tube after the first test of a propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada.David Becker/Getty Images
Beyond Musk's core business ventures, the billionaire has been tied to at least seven additional companies, per The New York Times. This includes Wyoming Steel, an LLC he has reportedly used to purchase real estate.
Elon Musk's former home in Bel Air.Sotheby's International Realty
As if all that wasn't enough, Elon Musk reached a deal in April to buy Twitter for $44 billion. The deal hasn't closed yet, but Musk has shared some thoughts publicly — and privately to investors — that indicate what some of the company's direction and priorities would be under his ownership.
Photo illustration by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Musk said he doesn't "care about the economics at all" and bought the platform because he believes it's "important to the function of democracy." Twitter currently has over 7,000 employees and a market cap of around $37 billion.
Musk may soon have to divide his attention between five companies spanning transportation, neuroscience, and social media — and somehow find time to tweet about them all in between.
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