Elon Musk Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers
Who is Elon Musk?
A: Elon Reeve Musk is a business magnate and investor.
Musk has citizenship in what countries?
A: South African, Canadian, and U.S.
Elon is the founder, CEO, and lead designer of what rocket related company?
A: SpaceX.
He is co-founder, CEO, and product architect of what
car company?
A: Tesla, Inc.
In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of what?
A: The World's Most Powerful People.
As of October 2018, he has a net worth of how much?
A: $19.8 billion.
He is listed by Forbes as the what?
A: 46th-richest person in the world.
When was Musk born?
A: On June 28, 1971.
Where was he born?
A: In Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa.
Who was his mother?
A: Maye Musk, a model and dietitian from Regina, Saskatchewan,
Canada.
Who was Elons father?
A: Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, and sailor.
He has a younger brother with what name?
A: Kimbal (born 1972).
What is his younger sister’s name?
A: Tosca (born 1974).
His paternal grandmother was of what nationality?
A: British.
His maternal grandfather Joshua Haldeman was American, from where?
A: Minnesota.
When did his parents’ divorce?
A: In 1980.
Musk lived mostly with whom?
A: With his father in the suburbs of Pretoria.
As an adult, Musk has severed relations with whom?
A: His father.
During his childhood, Musk was an avid what?
A: Reader.
How old was he when he developed an interest in computing with the Commodore VIC-20?
A: 10.
He taught himself computer programming at what age?
A: Also at the age of 10.
By the age of 12 he sold the code of a BASIC-based video game he created to what magazine for approximately $500?
A: PC and Office Technology.
Musk was severely bullied throughout his what?
A: Childhood.
He was once hospitalized when a group of boys did what to him?
A: Threw him down a flight of stairs and then beat him until he lost consciousness.
What preparatory school did Musk attend?
A: Waterkloof House Preparatory School.
What high school did he attend?
A: Bryanston High School before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School.
Musk's father insisted that Elon go to college where?
A: In Pretoria.
Musk became determined to move where?
A: To the USA.
What did Musk do against his father’s wishes in June 1989, just before his 18th birthday?
A: Moved to Canada.
How did he get a Canadian passport?
A: Through his Canadian-born mother.
At age 17, in 1989, Elon Musk moved to Canada to attend Queen's University and avoid what?
A: Mandatory service in the South African military.
He left in 1992 to study what at the University of
Pennsylvania?
A: Business and physics.
He graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for a what?
A: Second bachelor's degree in physics.
After leaving Penn where did Elon head?
A: To Stanford University in California to pursue a PhD in energy physics.
However, his move was timed perfectly with what?
A: The Internet boom.
He dropped out of Stanford after just two days to do what?
A: Launch his first company, Zip2 Corporation.
In 1995, Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started Zip2, a web software company, with what money?
A: Money raised from a small group of angel investors.
What did the company do?
A: It developed and marketed an Internet "city guide" for the newspaper publishing industry.
Musk obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and persuaded the board of directors to do what?
A: Abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch.
While at Zip2, why couldn’t Musk become CEO even though he wanted to?
A: None of the board members would allow it.
In February 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for what?
A: $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options.
How much did Musk received for his 7 percent share from the sale?
A: $22 million.
In March 1999, Musk co-founded what online financial services and e-mail payment company?
A: X.com.
One year later, the company merged with Confinity which had a money-transfer service called what?
A: PayPal.
PayPal's early growth was driven mainly by a what?
A: A viral marketing campaign where new customers were recruited when they received money through the service.
Musk was ousted in October 2000 from his role as what?
A: CEO (although he remained on the board).
Why was he removed?
A: Due to disagreements with other company leadership, notably over his desire to move PayPal's Unix-based infrastructure to Microsoft Windows.
In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by whom?
A: eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock.
How much did Musk receive?
A: He received $165 million.
Before its sale, Musk, who was the company's largest shareholder, owned what percentage of PayPal's shares?
A: 11.7%.
In 2001, Musk conceptualized "Mars Oasis", a project to do what?
A: Land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars.
In October 2001, Musk travelled to
Moscow with Jim Cantrell and Adeo Ressi to buy what?
A: Refurbished Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could send the envisioned payloads into
space.
Musk was seen as a novice and was consequently spat on by whom?
A: One of the Russian chief designers, and the group returned to the United States empty-handed.
In February 2002, the group returned to Russia to look for what?
A: Three ICBMs.
The group met again with Kosmotras, and were offered what?
A: One rocket for US$8 million.
Musk thought it was too expensive and he consequently did what?
A: Stormed out of the meeting.
On the flight back from Moscow, Musk realized what?
A: That he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed.
With US$100 million of his early fortune Musk founded what in May 2002?
A: Space Exploration Technologies, or
SpaceX.
Musk is chief executive officer (CEO) and chief what?
A: Technology officer (CTO) of the Hawthorne, California-based company.
What does SpaceX do?
A: It develops and manufactures space launch vehicles with a focus on advancing the state of rocket technology.
The company's first two launch vehicles are called what?
A: The Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets (a nod to Star Wars' Millennium Falcon).
Its first spacecraft is called the what?
A: Dragon (a nod to Puff the Magic Dragon).
In seven years, SpaceX designed the family of what?
A: Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft.
In September 2008, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket became what?
A: The first privately funded liquid-fueled vehicle to put a satellite into Earth orbit.
On May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, making history as the first commercial company to do what?
A: Launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station.