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Elon Musk

CEO and Product Architect

Tesla Motors



At SpaceX, Elon is the chief designer, overseeing development of rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth’s orbit and ultimately to other planets. In 2008, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft won the NASA contract to provide a commercial replacement for the cargo transport function of the Space Shuttle, which retired in 2011. The SpaceX Falcon 1 was the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach orbit. In 2010, SpaceX became the first commercial company to successfully recover a spacecraft from Earth’s orbit with its Dragon spacecraft. In 2012, SpaceX became the first commercial company to dock with the International Space Station and return cargo to Earth with the Dragon.


Prior to SpaceX, Elon co-founded PayPal, the world’s leading Internet payment system, and served as the company’s Chairman and CEO. Before PayPal, Mr. Musk co-founded Zip2, a provider of Internet software to the media industry.
