Billionaire, Elon Musk, has made headlines recently after social media giant Twitter accepted his bid to take over the company. Mr Musk, the world's richest man according to Forbes magazine, struck a deal on Monday to buy the 16-year-old business for roughly $44 billion (£36.2bn).
The company initially refused the billionaire's bid, but will now ask shareholders to vote to approve the deal. The South African-born businessman is known for being the founder of various companies, from internet businesses to an aerospace manufacturer. It is said that his net worth is estimated around $273.bn, but how did he make his fortune? Here's how he got to this point.
In 1995, Elon Musk alongside his younger brother, Kimbal Musk, started an internet business called Zip2 Yellow Pages. The aim of the company was to help newspapers go online. Then in 1999, Mr Musk made $22 million at the age of 27 when he sold the company to Compaq Computer.
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The businessman then went on to buy a McLaren sports car for $1 million and used the rest of the money for his second startup - X.com, which was later named PayPal. The company was sold to eBay for $1.4billion in 2002, and saw Elon rake in more than $100 million from the deal at the age of 31.
The eBay proceeds then went into launching Space Exploration Technologies in 2002. The company, also known as SpaceX, is an aerospace manufacturer that provides space transportation services. Last year, it was estimated that the company was worth $100 billion and has won various contracts with the likes of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), such as a deal to build a new capsule to land astronauts on the moon.
Meanwhile, the automotive and clean energy company, Tesla, was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. Elon Musk joined the company as a first-round investor a year later. The company unveiled its first care, the Roadster, in 2006, and its first high-volume production car, the Model S, began deliveries in 2012. The Model X sport-utility vehicle was launched in 2015, and the Model 3 - its biggest seller, was launched in 2017.
In 2021, it was announced that company's market capitalization had topped the $1 trillion mark. Musk, who is the company's CEO and owns around 15.6% of its stock, continues to sell shares. In December 2021, he tweeted that he would pay around $11 billion in taxes for that year, making him the biggest individual US taxpayer ever.
Other ventures include launching Neuralink - a company which aims to implant tiny brain electrodes that could help people that are paralysed to walk again, and also Boring Co. - an infrastructure and tunnel construction services that sold a flame thrower to the public in 2018.
In 2022, Forbes' magazine announced that Elon Musk now topped their annual list of the World's Billionaires with a worth of $219 billion - $48 billion more than Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who had made number one of the same list four years prior. Despite selling billions of dollars in Tesla stock last year and owing taxes, it was estimated that Musk was $68 billion richer than a year ago.
The businessman will now take on Twitter - a platform with many influential users such as world leaders, organisations and celebrities. Mr Musk himself has 80 million followers and a rather controversial history on the platform. In 2018, US financial regulators accused the businessman of misleading Tesla investors with a series of tweets, claims that were later resolved with a $40 million settlement and Mr Musk continues to deny. In 2019, he was struck with a defamation case - but later won, after he called a diver involved in rescuing schoolboys in Thailand as "pedo guy" on the social media platform.
