March 19, 2015 2 min read

Elon Musk was an early bloomer when it came to money. Before he co-founded PayPal and Tesla Motors, and before he helmed SpaceX, the eccentric engineer had already struck it rich.

Now estimated to be worth a whopping $11.9 billion, Musk made his first millions thanks to his Internet software company called Zip2. He quit grad school just two days into the curriculum to launch the venture with his younger brother, Kimbal, in 1995.