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In October, Tesla surpassed GM to become the most valuable car company in the US. It currently has a market cap of $76 billion compared to GM's $52 billion and Ford's $37 billion.
Beyond his work with Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has gained attention over the last decade for his Twitter presence, controversies like smoking pot during a podcast interview, and his romantic relationships with celebrities.
Here, we gathered some of the highs and lows of his decade.
Elon Musk has had a busy decade. He led 2 companies, took Tesla public, feuded on Twitter, married and re-married, founded a third company, and had a few other high-profile relationships.
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He ended the decade on a high note: Tesla's stock price hit an all-time high, resulting in Tesla dethroning GM as the most valuable US car manufacturer, and Musk successfully defended himself in a defamation lawsuit that gained national attention.
To catch up on everything he got up to in the last 10 years, keep scrolling.
Justine Musk, ex-wife of Elon, wrote a September 10 article for Marie Claire about her marriage and divorce, titled "'I Was a Starter Wife': Inside America's Messiest Divorce."
In 2015, Tesla released the Model X, the company's first crossover SUV, with its signature falcon wing doors. The release was pushed back nearly three years after the prototype was first revealed.
Things got busier than ever for Musk in the latter half of the decade. On a 2016 earnings call, Musk revealed that he was sleeping in a Tesla factory ahead of production deadlines.
Musk and Riley divorced for the second time in 2016. The relationship reportedly ended on good terms, and she told People "We still see each other all the time and take care of each other."
In the summer of 2017, Musk left his role on 2 White House councils, tweeting "Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world," after the US pulled out of the Paris climate accord.
At a speech in September 2017, Musk said that he hopes to land a spaceship on Mars by 2022, and his new spaceship, "Mars City," will take passengers from New York to LA in 25 minutes.
At a November 2017 event, Tesla unveiled prototypes of both the new Roadster, which Musk said would have a battery range of 620 miles, and the Semi electric truck.
Elon Musk and the pop artist Grimes (Claire Boucher) attended the 2018 Met Gala together, and confirmed that they were dating. Musk reportedly reached out the singer after discovering she had already made the same joke about an AI theory on Twitter.
In July, Elon Musk proposed a submarine to rescue the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave. After one of the divers involved in the rescue called Musk's submarine a PR stunt, Musk called him a "pedo guy" in a tweet that would later land him in court.
Musk has since been in trouble with the SEC for his tweet about taking Tesla private. They landed on a settlement that placed constraints on his Twitter use going forward, which the SEC says he violated in February.
He also faced a defamation lawsuit for his comments about the rescue diver. It went to trial in 2019, and Musk successfully defended himself against the charge.
In November, Tesla announced the Cybertruck, which quickly gained hundreds of thousands of preorders, according to Musk, despite its controversial design and a flubbed demo where the windows broke.
On the last day of the decade, Tesla stock was trading at nearly $419 per share. Tesla is currently worth $76 billion compared to GM's $52 billion and Ford's $37 billion.
