[4] He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across the United States.

[5][6][7] Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers.

His mother, Maye Musk (née Haldeman), is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa.

[15][16][17] His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, who partly owned a rental lodge at the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve.

[18][19][20][21] After finishing high school in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk left to meet his brother in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and enrolled at Queen's University to pursue a degree in business.

[2] Musk's first venture was a residential painting business with College Pro Painters in 1994, the same year he and his elder brother, Elon, started their second company, Zip2.

[29][30][31] After seven years of supporting the Growe Foundation to plant school gardens in the Boulder community,[32] in 2011 Musk and Matheson established Big Green[33] (originally named The Kitchen Community), a 501c3 nonprofit to help connect kids to real food by creating dynamic Learning Garden classrooms in schools across America.

Learning Gardens teach children an understanding of food, healthy eating, lifestyle choices and environment through lesson plans and activities that tie into existing school curriculum, such as math, science, and literacy.

[37] By the end of 2015, four years after its founding, The Kitchen Community had built 260 Learning Gardens across Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Memphis.

Musk has been profiled in major publications such as The New York Times,[41] CNN,[42] The Wall Street Journal,[43] Fast Company,[44] WIRED,[45] Chicago Sun Times,[46] CBS News,[47] Business Insider,[48] Entrepreneur Magazine,[49] Musk was named a Global Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 by the World Economic Forum.

As a result of that poll, Elon Musk sold billions of dollars of Tesla shares and the stock price sank.