Elon Musk Says He Had Almost Nothing When He Moved To Montreal As A 17-Year-Old

It's hard to imagine what you might do with billions of dollars at your disposal. Elon Musk probably doesn't have that problem anymore. Still, the famous tech mogul didn't start out with that much. He claims he had very little at the beginning of his adult life.

After being embroiled in a Twitter flame war with Ken Klippenstein over a photo that shows Musk with Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, Musk defended himself against a tweet that claimed he started off with immense wealth.

"He is a multi-billionaire who got his start as the heir to an emerald mine owner he isn't furthering mankind," Twitter user ReadCoal wrote.

In his reply to this tweet, Musk wrote "This is false. I landed in Montreal at age 17 with $2000, a backpack of clothes & suitcase of books. My father is bankrupt & has been for a long time. I inherited literally nothing from him."

Musk also shared stories about his lack of wealth growing up back in December 2019 when people on Twitter claimed that his father owned an emerald mine.

"He didn’t own an emerald mine & I worked my way through college, ending up ~$100k in student debt. I couldn’t even afford a 2nd PC at Zip2, so programmed at night & website only worked during day. Where is this bs coming from?"

Musk claimed in another tweet that he worked on a cousin's farm in Saskatchewan, as well as at a lumber mill in Vancouver.

Elon's mother, Maye, told The Huffington Post in 2015 that when she divorced her husband, Errol, and moved back to Canada with Elon and his two siblings, they lived in a rent-controlled apartment in Toronto for three weeks because her funds from South Africa were blocked due to strict capital control.

Musk now has a personal net worth of $53.8 billion, according to Forbes.

When he's not launching new SpaceX missions or hanging out with Kanye West, he's sharing memes all over his Twitter feed.