Ad Astra has two caregivers, serves graham crackers and apples for snacks and has personalised cots
Elon Musk, is the richest man in the world with a net worth that recently reached $600 billion. Space, automobile, AI, social media, administration, there is no progressing industry he hasn’t tapped into and excelled at. But what many remain unaware of is that the 54-year-old had also visualised transforming the education sector. Learning should be interactive and “as close to a video game as possible,” he once said. Schools should let children progress at their own pace, and education should match their aptitudes and abilities, he added. But at his own school, Ad Astra, things are a bit misty for Musk and his students.
Elon Musk’s schooling dreams
Since 2023, Musk has tried to venture into the education industry and has even set up an elementary school in Bastrop, Texas. The tech giant bought nearly two dozen acres of land, interviewed school teachers across the country and created an institution that would include students from prekindergarten to fifth or sixth grade. He named the school ‘Ad Astra’, Latin for “to the stars” and when enrolment opened in 2024, for about 50 children, thousands applied. “Everyone wants their kid to be like Elon Musk,” said Judah Ross, 37, a real estate agent in Bastrop who applied for his 3-year-old son to the New York Times.
Elon Musk’s schooling failure
One would imagine Elon Musk’s school to be a top-tier building with the latest technology, an interesting syllabus and world-class teachers. Instead, Ad Astra is a white-columned house with a Texas flag, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Rather than the school it was deemed to be, it is a “licensed child care program” that oversees ten children aged 5 and under, as per the documents obtained from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Ad Astra has two caregivers, serves graham crackers and apples for snacks and has a nap scheduled where children have their own cots with their names on them, a January state report said. “The operation does not care for school-age children,” the report added.Ad Astra first opened in 2014 at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. It had fifty students and half of them were related to SpaceX employees, as per a 2022 podcast interview with Josh Dahn, who co-founded the school with Musk.Musk himself sent his five children with Justine Musk to the school. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, the school shifted online and later, its control was transferred to a charity. In 2021, he created the same school in Texas but by 2024, the school appeared closed to the public.The Ad Astra in Bastrop aimed to follow a Montessori-style curriculum with 54 students and full-time faculty. However, as per state documents, it faced troubles like having to resubmit an application for a permit to operate a child care program and handle paperwork for a staff member who did not have education credits. The school’s opening was delayed twice and in October 2024, officials had an informational Zoom meeting for parents where they described the school as focusing on STEM and flexibility, said parents to the outlet. The tuition fee was $1,000 a month with mixed grade levels.
A doomed effort
Dreamt of as a revolutionary elementary school, Ad Astra is a $600 million effort by Musk that has turned into a day care. Since 2021, Musk has tried to open elementary schools, a high school, and a university, as per state documents and interviews with nine people close to his efforts. The X-owner has created three schools but two have closed and a third has moved online. That year, Jared Birchall, Musk’s chief personal advisor, established a nonprofit called the Foundation aimed at founding these institutions and Musk donated $100 million to the organisation in 2023. The Musk Foundation, Musk’s main charity has given the Foundation about $607 million since 2022. Interestingly, the father of 14 does not have his own children at his school most likely. He and his partner Shivon Zilis, with whom he has four children, have informed people that they are homeschooling their kids. While he has been able to crack every industry he has tapped into, it seems schooling is something Musk needs, when it comes to entrepreneurship in education. Go to Source
