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Frequently asked questions

Q1: Can I write a message to Elon Musk here? (No.)

A1: No. The "Talk:Elon Musk" page is not for writing messages to Musk. It is only for discussing changes to the Wikipedia article about him. Writing a message to Musk here is pointless and disruptive, and such messages will be removed as an improper use of the page.

Q2: Can you update the article to call Musk a "business magnet"? (No.)

A2: No. Musk once suggested in an interview that his Wikipedia article be changed to describe him as a "business magnet." The tone of that interview was not very serious; he also claimed to be an alien.^[1] Wikipedia doesn't have to do what Musk says, and this request has been made and declined dozens of times already. New requests may be removed without a response so that other discussions are not disrupted.

Q3: Should Musk be identified as South African in the opening sentence?

A3: Musk is a US citizen (since 2002) born and raised in South Africa, and also acquired Canadian citizenship via his mother. Including these nationalities in the opening sentence in a balanced way would be complex, and the consensus is that they should instead be explained later in the lead.

Q4: Can you change "Tesla CEO" to "Tesla Technoking"?

A4: No, because he is still CEO according to company records and that is a common corporate title that readers will understand, while "Technoking" is a vanity term. The goal of the article is to inform people, and not to raise a technicality that would confuse them.

Q5: What is the deal with Musk's father supposedly having partly owned an emerald mine?

A5: Both Elon and Errol have said as much in the past but recently changed their stories, leaving the facts murky. In terms of prior confirmation, journalists with access to them have reported it as part of Elon's background. Specifically, a 2014 report originally printed in the San Jose Mercury News (and cited in the article) stated that Errol Musk had "a stake in" a mine. Elon affirmed his father's mine involvement in an interview with Jim Clash, a career interviewer of public figures, that was published by Forbes and withdrawn without explanation a few months later. Elon biographer Ashlee Vance likewise confirmed Errol's mining interest, with Elon's objections but not denials, in a 2020 interview report with Elon.

While today Elon disputes almost everything about the story, Errol has stated that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of emeralds from his dealings.

Q6: Should "Bachelor of Arts in Physics" be "Bachelor of Science" instead?

A6: No. Although it may seem counterintuitive, "Bachelor of Arts in Physics" is the degree that the University of Pennsylvania (among other schools) awards.

Q7: Should the article acknowledge doubts about Musk's academic record?

A7: Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons requires that negative information about a person must be attributed to reliable published sources, and excludes both self-published sources (e.g. Twitter threads) and court trial records. The article states that sources disagree about when Musk obtained bachelor degrees, and that he did not attend Stanford for any significant amount of time. Any doubts beyond this require appropriate sources.

Q8: Is Musk an engineer?

A8: Musk is chief engineer of SpaceX, a title that applies within the company and that the press regularly mentions. He is not a professional engineer, a distinction within engineering that carries certain legal privileges in the United States, nor has he completed an engineering training program, nor has he ever been hired as an engineer. The article therefore does not include any of these claims. It does note that, from time to time, Musk has made initial product proposals at his companies that his trained engineers then research and develop. He does hold IEEE Honorary Membership.

Q9: Why doesn't the article identify Musk as co-founder of PayPal?

A9: Because that could mislead readers that Musk was involved in the creation of the PayPal service and brand, when he was not. Instead, as the article states, he co-founded a company (X.com Corporation) that acquired the company that had developed PayPal (Confinity Inc.) and then renamed itself as PayPal, Inc.

Q10: Why does this page include criticism of Musk's actions and stances?

A10: Musk is criticized/praised a lot in many reliable sources, and as such we need to talk about these criticisms and praise. To quote from Wikipedia's policy on a neutral point of view, articles must represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."

Q11: Why is this a "good article" when some people consider Musk a bad person?

A11: "Good article" on Wikipedia refers to the way the article is written, not what kind of person Musk is. Good articles have been found to satisfy Wikipedia editorial standards for accuracy, verifiability and balanced presentation.

Q12: Why doesn't this page call Musk African American?

A12: African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. Musk does not have ancestry from the Black racial groups of Africa; his ancestry is European.

References

^ "Joe Rogan Experience #1169 - Elon Musk". The Joe Rogan Experience. September 6, 2018. Event occurs at 9:53. Retrieved October 2, 2020 – via YouTube.

Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments, look in the archives, and review the FAQ before commenting.

Elon Musk is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Elon Musk has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 4, 2021	Good article nominee	Listed
July 24, 2021	Peer review	Not reviewed
August 23, 2022	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
November 1, 2022	Good article reassessment	Kept
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on June 15, 2021. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Elon Musk* lost $16.3 billion in a single day, the largest in the history of the* Bloomberg Billionaires Index?
Current status: Former featured article candidate, current good article

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Elon Musk in popular culture was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 14 May 2022 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Elon Musk. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Isobel Asher Hamilton (December 23, 2019). "Elon Musk fact-checked his own Wikipedia page and requested edits including the fact he does 'zero investing'". Business Insider. Retrieved December 23, 2019.
Don Reisinger (December 23, 2019). "Elon Musk Took Issue With His Wikipedia Page, So He Asked the Community to Fix It. They Did". Inc. Retrieved December 23, 2019.
Sissi Cao (December 23, 2019). "Elon Musk Says His Wikipedia Page Is 'Insanely' Inaccurate". Observer. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
"Wikipedia locks Elon Musk's page after he 'begs' Twitter users to 'trash him' on site". The Tribune (Chandigarh). August 17, 2020. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
Sanya Jain (August 17, 2020). "Elon Musk Is Begging - Yes, Begging - To Be Trashed On Wikipedia. True Story". NDTV. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
Stephen Harrison (May 3, 2022). "The Controversy Brewing on Elon Musk's Wikipedia Page". Slate. Retrieved May 3, 2022.
Dave Lee (October 26, 2023). "Now Elon Musk is attacking Wikipedia". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved October 31, 2023.
CT Jones (October 24, 2023). "Elon Musk Offers to Also Ruin Wikipedia". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 5, 2023.

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Text and/or other creative content from this version of Elon Musk's submarine was copied or moved into Elon Musk with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

Section sizes

Section size for Elon Musk (42 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	8,969	8,969
Early life and education	29	22,469
Childhood and family	12,460	12,460
Education	9,980	9,980
Business career	20	116,470
Zip2	3,073	3,073
X.com and PayPal	5,460	5,460
SpaceX	11,152	22,700
Starlink	11,548	11,548
Tesla	17,331	35,439
SEC and shareholder lawsuits regarding tweets	10,814	10,814
SolarCity and Tesla Energy	7,294	7,294
Neuralink	9,081	9,081
The Boring Company	5,673	5,673
Twitter / X	25,372	25,372
Leadership style	9,652	9,652
Other activities	21	42,978
Musk Foundation	8,874	8,874
Hyperloop	6,830	6,830
OpenAI and xAI	5,510	5,510
Tham Luang cave rescue and defamation case	9,750	9,750
2018 cannabis incident	2,128	2,128
Music	2,627	2,627
Private jet	7,238	7,238
Wealth	1,214	1,214
Personal views and Twitter usage	6,298	90,389
Finance	9,244	9,244
Technology	5,845	5,845
Existential threats	13,534	13,534
Politics	27,824	27,824
Accusations of antisemitism	12,891	12,891
COVID-19	14,753	14,753
Personal life	6,162	39,871
Relationships and children	18,185	18,185
Legal matters after 2020	15,524	15,524
Public perception	16,532	16,532
Notes and references	25	80
Notes	26	26
Citations	29	29
Works cited	1,480	1,480
Further reading	922	922
External links	5,435	5,435
Total	346,809	346,809

This article has been viewed enough times to make it onto the all-time Top 100 list. It has had 108 million views since December 2007.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 56 times. The weeks in which this happened:

Heard

Allegations that Amber Heard abused Elon Musk in their relationship are not mentioned, although they gained widespread media attention when Musk's biography was published. In that biography, several of his family members testified that Heard was abusive to him during their relationship.

https://metro.co.uk/2023/09/12/elon-musk-biography-relationship-amber-heard-brutal-19488551/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12509267/Amber-Heard-despised-Elon-Musks-family-drew-Tesla-founder-dark-vortex-book-reveals.html

https://pagesix.com/2023/09/12/elon-musks-brother-grimes-friends-hated-amber-heard-bio/

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/elon-musk-amber-heard-friends-dating-reaction-b2409694.html

https://nypost.com/2023/09/12/elon-musks-friends-hated-amber-heard-new-bio/

https://www.geo.tv/latest/511896-amber-heard-toxic-and-abusive-to-elon-musk-a-nightmare

https://www.skynews.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity-life/elon-musks-friends-and-brother-hated-his-toxic-ex-amber-heard/video/b3bcc06a30e82f4e097506cea11b815f

https://www.eonline.com/news/1385474/elon-musk-reflects-on-brutal-relationship-with-amber-heard-in-new-biography

https://radaronline.com/p/elon-musk-friends-family-hated-ex-amber-heard/ Eenchantedd (talk) 17:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A quote saying she abused him from one of the few RS here would be nice. Slatersteven (talk) 17:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Biography writer Walter Isaacson claims the Tesla CEO was drawn ‘into a dark vortex’ around the time they made things official. He added: ‘That lasted more than a year and produced a deep-seated pain that lingers to this day.’

According to The Los Angeles Times, Isaacson further claimed that Musk’s ‘brother and friends hated her with a passion’ and described it as a ‘hellacious’ period.

Kimbal Musk, Elon’s brother, said his brother ‘falls in love with these people who are really mean to him’, calling it ‘very sad’. The chef added: ‘They’re beautiful, no question, but they have a very dark side and Elon knows that they’re toxic.’

Isaacson claims that the SpaceX founder admitted the relationship ‘was brutal’ while Heard confessed she still loves him ‘very much’. The Danish Girl actress added: ‘Elon loves fire, and sometimes it burns him.’

Aware of his own downfalls, Musk said: ‘I’m just a fool for love. I am often a fool, but especially for love.’

https://metro.co.uk/2023/09/12/elon-musk-biography-relationship-amber-heard-brutal-19488551/ Eenchantedd (talk) 21:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Child Elon didn't read a book published in 2003

He probably read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, not the Walter Isaacson book 100.4.180.238 (talk) 01:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutely right. He didn't. The source said he was inspired by Ben Franklin as a child and read the book (presumably as an adult unless he got an advance copy ;)). Removed. Schierbecker (talk) 06:31, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the sources in this article are ridiculously bad

I don't get how this article seriously can have something like that as a source: https://newrepublic.com/article/177695/elon-musk-scoundrel-year-2023-new-republic

It's literally a straight up hater article on the level of an angry reddit user, where they claim he is the ultimate evil and make statements that almost hurt from it's stupidity like this one "The rockets from his rocket company, SpaceX, keep exploding".

It apparently does not matter what quality a source has, as long as it supports the point of view of the (generally left leaning) Wikipedia editors. Lrzw (talk) 22:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Remove FAQ Q5: Why does the article state that Musk's father partly owned an emerald mine, which Musk has disputed?

I recommend we remove the question

Q5: Why does the article state that Musk's father partly owned an emerald mine, which Musk has disputed?

and its answer:

A5: Because journalists with access to them have reported it as part of Elon's background. Specifically, a 2014 report originally printed in the San Jose Mercury News (and cited in the article) stated that Errol Musk had "a stake in" a mine. Elon affirmed his father's mine involvement in an interview with Jim Clash, a career interviewer of public figures, that was published by Forbes and withdrawn without explanation a few months later. Elon biographer Ashlee Vance likewise confirmed Errol's mining interest, with Elon's objections but not denials, in a 2020 interview report with Elon.

My reason:

- The article now reads: "Despite both Musk and Errol previously stating that Errol was a part owner of a Zambian emerald mine, in 2023, Errol recounted that the deal he made was to receive "a portion of the emeralds produced at three small mines."

ReferenceMan (talk) 01:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or we change the article back? Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not opposed to this. Errol even says in the Daily Beast interview that everything he knows about (including the mines) was wrongly addressed by Isaacson.QRep2020 (talk) 05:48, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 19 March 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Change the sentence "A member of the wealthy South African Musk family" to "A member of the South African Musk family." There is no evidence that the family was wealthy, and in fact, his father declared bankruptcy at some point. 72.80.249.97 (talk) 03:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: present-day, inclusive. Hyphenation Expert (talk) 04:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not present-day inclusive. The sentence is about his birth and early life. If the family wasn't wealthy in South Africa at that time, then saying "wealthy" is flagrantly misleading. 2601:642:4600:D3B0:4C96:F586:9E76:D8D0 (talk) 21:19, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is Musk a US citizen?

In the info box he is apparently a RSA - Canada - US citizen; but there is no reference cited for his US naturalization. Cross Reference (talk) 03:38, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"A member of the wealthy South African Musk family"

This is what I'd expect when describing the Kennedy's. It's a bizzare opening considering just how inconsequential Elon's family was. His father had an $80k share in an emrerald mine? But even that's disputed. Tikaboo (talk) 03:18, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"In one incident, after having called a boy whose father had committed suicide "stupid", Elon was thrown down concrete steps."

I don't understand the relevance of the father suicide comment. There's no indication in the sources that the father's suicide had anything to do with Elon calling the boy stupid. The source of this is Elon's father and he only mentions it as a reason why he didn't go hard on the boy who attacked his son. Tikaboo (talk) 03:21, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Joe Rogan Experience #1169 - Elon Musk". The Joe Rogan Experience. September 6, 2018. Event occurs at 9:53. Retrieved October 2, 2020 – via YouTube.

[1]

@@ Line 201: / Line 201: @@
 This is what I'd expect when describing the Kennedy's. It's a bizzare opening considering just how inconsequential Elon's family was. His father had an $80k share in an emrerald mine? But even that's disputed. [[User:Tikaboo|Tikaboo]] ([[User talk:Tikaboo|talk]]) 03:18, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
+== "In one incident, after having called a boy whose father had committed suicide "stupid", Elon was thrown down concrete steps." ==
+I don't understand the relevance of the father suicide comment. There's no indication in the sources that the father's suicide had anything to do with Elon calling the boy stupid. The source of this is Elon's father and he only mentions it as a reason why he didn't go hard on the boy who attacked his son. [[User:Tikaboo|Tikaboo]] ([[User talk:Tikaboo|talk]]) 03:21, 30 March 2024 (UTC)