Free speech activist? Space cowboy? With Trump allowed back on Twitter, who is Elon Musk anyway?

Paypal, Tesla and fathering many children: behind the man taking over Twitter.

Elon Musk has been involved in a number of different companies around the world Source: SBS, Getty

Elon Musk has been in the news in a big way following his takeover of Twitter and subsequent drastic moves at the messaging platform, which have included terminating half its workforce.

But what else do we know about the world’s richest man?

From electric cars to colonising Mars, the South African-born entrepreneur father of nine is a curious character with a wide variety of business pursuits.

The Twitter owner

Mr Musk, 51, bought Twitter in late October, for US$44 billion ($67 billion), marking the moment with a tweet, “The bird is freed’, in a reference to the social network's iconic logo.

This week he followed up with, “Twitter is alive”. However, a number of advertisers are not so sure. Projected advertising revenue is well down as companies hold off to see which direction Mr Musk takes the platform in.

With staff being slashed and flexible working conditions shifting, users are watching the evolution of Twitter with interest.

Before taking over the platform, Mr Musk described himself as a "free speech absolutist".

And there has been some backlash with high-profile users such as actor Whoopi Goldberg and singer Toni Braxton leaving the platform. Ms Braxton raised concern about online safety for people of colour.

Now after a public vote by Twitter users, Elon Musk has reinstated former US President Donald Trump's account on the platform.

More than 51 per cent of participants in the poll voted in favour of his return.

But Mr Trump said he has no interest in using Twitter despite having more than 88 million followers before he was banned in January last year.

Outsourced moderators have recently discovered they have lost their work. The contractors had been hired to trace hate speech and track harmful content on the platform.

The other risk for Twitter is the prospect of the platform becoming bankrupt, with Mr Musk telling Twitter employees on a call that the company’s finances could be in trouble.

Mr Musk has other ideas about Twitter giving a revenue share for content makers to earn a living, as well as extending video lengths.

"It's kind of a no brainer to enable a longer video," he said this week on the evolution of Twitter.

The space pioneer

Mr Musk is also the lead designer at rocket firm SpaceX.

The billionaire oversees the development of rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth's orbit and other planets. In 2021, Mr Musk set the challenge of creating a multi-planet species.

“SpaceX is pursuing the long-term goal of making humans a multi-planet species by creating a self-sustaining city on Mars,” Mr Musk stated on his official website.

“It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past,” he said about SpaceX.

The testing of the company's Starship is part of building a fully resuseable transportation system to carry crew and cargo to the Moon and Mars.

Elon Musk hopes to colonise space. Source: AFP / Hannibal Hanschke

“I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars,” Mr Musk said.

SpaceX also activated his Starlink satellite internet system over Ukraine after Russia's invasion began in February this year, giving residents access to the internet outside of domestic telecoms connections.

At one point, Musk expressed concern about providing internet services indefinitely but then indicated it was an example of a ''good deed.'

Starlink provides high-speed broadband internet in locations where it has been otherwise unavailable.

He also runs the electric vehicle company Tesla, which hopes to fast-track the world's transition to sustainable energy, and is involved in producing battery and solar energy products.

Speaking from the Bali Business 20 summit this week, he flagged that Tesla will be developing a more affordable vehicle in future. At the moment, the cheapest model, the Telsa 3, starts at about $63,000 in Australia.

He previously co-founded and later sold PayPal, an established online payment system used globally. The 2002 sale netted him US$180 million ($268 million) which he used to plough into other ventures, including SpaceX.

Family life

Musk has fathered 10 children, with one dying shortly after birth.

Elon Musk at the 2022 Met Gala fundraising dinner in New York. Source: Getty

According to Forbes magazine, he has nine children with three women including triplets and two sets of twins.

His daughter with pop star Grimes is named Exa while his other child with her is a boy born with the name X Æ A-12.

As well as juggling family demands, Musk said he is working seven days a week.

"This is not something I'd recommend frankly," he said.

But he also contacted staff on Wednesday, noting that in an increasingly competitive world, employees "will need to be extremely hardcore."

with AP and Reuters