Bullied as a child, BBC reveals how Elon Musk became one of the most successful men in the world

Whatever your opinion of Elon Musk, there’s no denying that he’s a fascinating individual.

But just how did the multi-billionaire go from being a bullied child to becoming one of the most successful and controversial men in the world?

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971, Musk displayed an early talent for entrepreneurship, creating a video game selling it to a computer magazine aged just 12.

From then, he moved to Canada, before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, and enrolling in graduate school in physics at Stanford.

In 1995, he founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers. Four years later, he sold it to the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million.

Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, and was bought by eBay in 2002 for $1.5billion.

That year, he also founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to make more affordable rockets.

Meanwhile, Musk had long been interested in electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors, the company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.

In 2006, Tesla introduced its first car, the Roadster, which could travel 245 miles on a single charge, and could go from 0 to 60 mph in less than four seconds.

Musk joined Twitter in 2009 and, as @elonmusk, he became one of the most popular accounts on the site, with more than 85 million followers.

However, he has long been critical of it commitment to principles of free speech, and earlier this year, he made a bid for the entire company for $44billion.

Twitter’s board accepted the deal, but Musk then caused a stir, stating that his plans included “enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”

In July, he announced that he was withdrawing his bid, stating that Twitter was in “material breach of multiple provisions” of the purchase agreement.

Nevertheless, last month, Twitter’s shareholders voted to accept his offer.

In light of these and other recent developments, 72 Films – the people behind Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad and The Trump Show – have interviewed the people that know the Tesla tycoon best in an effort to understand his life story.

Using extensive and unseen archive from his time in Silicon Valley, the three-part series analyses the key moments in his career, from his first tech start-ups through to Tesla, Space X, and most recently Twitter.

We begin in 1995, at the start of the Silicon Valley tech boom.

Elon is a geeky young South African battling to make his fortune, while sleeping on the floor of his office and washing at the local YMCA.

Then, in San Francisco, he begins his ascendency, using his genius to build and sell a major new internet technology business, and becoming a multi-millionaire at the age of just 28.

Then he falls in love with glamorous up-and-coming British actress, Talulah Riley.

But just as he’s enjoying newfound success, Elon encounters his first major challenge.