Jennifer Gwynne, a former girlfriend of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, has sold memorabilia from their time together for $165,000 at auction.
The lot, sold by RR Auction in Boston, was mainly made up of photographs from the pair's days when both were studying at the University of Pennsylvania, plus a birthday card and jewellery.
A 14k gold necklace with a small green emerald was the most expensive item, fetching $51,008.
Mr Musk presented it as a birthday gift to Ms Gwynne, and the necklace came with two original photos of the pair — one depicting them standing with Mr Musk’s mother, Maye, during a visit to New York City (date-stamped to May 13, 1995), and the other of Mr Musk and Ms Gwynne posing with four other Resident Advisers before an end-of-the-year formal at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995.
“When we went to visit Elon’s mother in Toronto during the Christmas break of 1994, Elon gave me both the small ‘love, love, love’ note and the necklace,” Ms Gwynne is quoted as saying in the lot description on the RR Auction website.
“His mom had a number of these necklaces in a case in her bedroom and Elon told me they were from his father’s emerald mine in South Africa — he pulled one from the case. And because I had not gotten him anything as a Christmas gift (and I felt very guilty about that), he said we would consider the necklace an early birthday present for me.
“I wore the necklace for a number of years on and off, but it’s mostly been in my jewellery box for the last 10 years (always reminding me of Elon, of course).”
The birthday card, said to be in very fine condition, signed by Mr Musk, sold for $16,643.
The most expensive photo sold for $21,889. It showed Mr Musk as a 23-year-old senior at the University of Pennsylvania, “goofing about upside down on the floor of his girlfriend’s Quadrangle dorm room in 1994”, according to the lot description.
“Elon was usually very reserved, but occasionally he would just get very silly and just want me to laugh along with him. So I decided to document him actually smiling,” Ms Gwynne said.
Another photo showing Mr Musk relaxing sold for more than $10,000.
Mr Musk, who is also founder of SpaceX, is the world's wealthiest person. He has a net worth of $264 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, ahead of Gautam Adani ($147bn) and Jeff Bezos ($147bn).
“We broke up just before he started conquering the world,” Ms Gwynne told The Boston Globe.
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Huddersfield Town permanent signings:
- Steve Mounie (striker): signed from Montpellier for £11 million
- Tom Ince (winger): signed from Derby County for £7.7m
- Aaron Mooy (midfielder): signed from Manchester City for £7.7m
- Laurent Depoitre (striker): signed from Porto for £3.4m
- Scott Malone (defender): signed from Fulham for £3.3m
- Zanka (defender): signed from Copenhagen for £2.3m
- Elias Kachunga (winger): signed for Ingolstadt for £1.1m
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Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
The Bio
Favourite place in UAE: Al Rams pearling village
What one book should everyone read: Any book written before electricity was invented. When a writer willingly worked under candlelight, you know he/she had a real passion for their craft
Your favourite type of pearl: All of them. No pearl looks the same and each carries its own unique characteristics, like humans
Best time to swim in the sea: When there is enough light to see beneath the surface
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More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
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Five famous companies founded by teens
There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.
- Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc.
- Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway.
- Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
- Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
