Memes

This is a common misconception. His daddy loaned him a whopping 28 grand. Nothing mind blowing, and certainly not what you'd expect the heir of a freaking emerald mine to get their hands on.

Elon Musk got most of his capital early in his career from the sale of his first company, Zip2, which he co-founded with his brother Kimbal in 1995 using $28,000 borrowed from their father[1][6]. In 1999, Zip2 was sold to Compaq for $307 million, with Musk earning $22 million[1][6]. Musk then invested $10 million of his Zip2 proceeds into founding X.com, one of the first attempts at online banking, which later became PayPal[1]. After PayPal, Musk invested all of his proceeds into his new projects: SpaceX ($100 million), Tesla ($70 million), and SolarCity ($10 million) [1]. By 2008, he was almost penniless and living on $200 thousand monthly loans from his friends after a $20 million divorce[1]. However, his fortunes changed, and by 2017, his net worth had risen to $16 billion[1].

Citations: [1] https://www.toptal.com/finance/venture-capital-consultants/elon-musks-investments [2] https://time.com/6127754/elon-musk-net-worth-person-of-the-year/ [3] https://money.com/8-innovative-ways-elon-musk-made-money-before-he-was-a-billionaire/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk [5] https://financebuzz.com/jobs-elon-musk-had-before-wealthy [6] https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/origin-stories/elon-musk>