Story of how Elon Musk’s mother Maye Musk financed his move to Canada

Elon Musk’s recent stock market trading tips made his mother Maye Musk recall her first stock story. She mentioned winning R100 in 1969, from a beauty contest. A stockbroker friend advised her to invest it. The valuation dropped to R10. She recounted being disappointed in 1971 and, putting the stocks in the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s name. The model and dietitian found the stocks again in 1989 when they were valued at $2,000 and financed Musk’s move to Canada from South Africa. 

His move to Canada was not smooth and at the start, Musk had to work various odd jobs like cutting logs in Vancouver, British Columbia. However, his toughest employment was cleaning the boiler room of a lumber mill. When Musk’s remaining family, including siblings Tosca and Kimbal, made the move as well, the family reunited and marked a more positive shift in Musk’s journey. 

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While in Canada, Musk enrolled at the Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1989. Elon and Kimbal Musk also impressed Peter Nicholson, a top executive at the Bank of Nova Scotia. After a cold call, the boys managed lunch with Nicholson, who ended up offering Elon Musk a summer internship. The entrepreneur ended up becoming Nicholson’s trusted financial advisor for a time. 

After two years at Queen’s University, Musk moved to the University of Pennsylvania, on a scholarship and then pursued dual degrees in economics from Wharton, and a physics degree.

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Even during his college years, Musk believed the internet, renewable energy, and space to be three areas which would see significant changes in the future, as per excerpts from ‘Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future’. 

The innovator’s foresight was brought to light in another series of tweets from his mother, Maye, where she recalled how a 14-year-old Musk had given her the same investment tips he’s tweeted now.