Billionaire Paypal founder gives wife just $4.2m in divorce

Paypal founder Elon Musk, one of the world's most successful technology and business pioneers...

16:32 22 August 2012

Paypal founder Elon Musk, one of the world's most successful technology and business pioneers, has divorced his wife and granted the actress just $4.2m from his net worth of roughly $2bn. 

 

Musk's marriage to British actress Talulah Riley, 26, lasted just two years - they were together for four years in total, getting married after the first two years and separating just 10 months after exchanging vows. 

 

Riley also gets to keep her Gucci and Cartier watches gifted to her by the businessman, as well as an assortment of jewelry and a Telsa Roadster car. 

 

Court documents obtained by celeb site TMZ reveal that the starlet will receive $1.4m up front as an initial payment, thought of as loose change for the billionaire who is said to spend $200,000 on personal expenses each month. 

 

Musk is a South African who went to university in America. He started his empire with Zip2 - an online content publisher that was bought out in 1999 for over $300m. 

 

Next up, he had a major hand in creating online money transaction service Paypal which has been adopted worldwide. Auction site eBay took a shine to the service and used it as their recommended method of payment for millions of transactions. They later bought the service for $1.2bn in 2002. 

 

Then Musk's aspirations went through the glass ceiling and into space, setting up space exploration company Space X also in 2002. In 2009, they launched the first ever privately-owned liquid-fueled rocket into space. They now hold a massively lucrative contract (worth between $1.6 and $3.1bn) to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.

 

Back to earth in 2010, he founded electric car company Telsa Motors. 

 

Also in 2010, he divorced his first wife, the novelist Justine Musk who was also the mother of his two sons. 

 

Actress Riley was born in Hertfordshire in 1985. Best known for her film work in 'St Trinians' (and its sequel) as well as 'Pride and Prejudice' alongside Keira Knightley, Riley has also acted on stage opposite Kevin Spacey and been an Esquire cover girl.