The Most Famous
INVENTORS from South Africa
This page contains a list of the greatest South African Inventors. The pantheon dataset contains 426 Inventors, 2 of which were born in South Africa. This makes South Africa the birth place of the 24th most number of Inventors behind Latvia, and Egypt.
Top 2
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary South African Inventors of all time. This list of famous South African Inventors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity.
1. Elon Musk (b. 1971)
With an HPI of 86.81, Elon Musk is the most famous South African Inventor. His biography has been translated into 153 different languages on wikipedia.
Elon Reeve Musk ( EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in the world since 2021; as of May 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$424.7 billion. Born to a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated in 1989 to Canada. He received bachelor's degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997 before moving to California, United States, to pursue business ventures. In 1995, Musk co-founded the software company Zip2. Following its sale in 1999, he co-founded X.com, an online payment company that later merged to form PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in 2002. That year, Musk also became an American citizen. In 2002, Musk founded the space technology company SpaceX, becoming its CEO and chief engineer; the company has since led innovations in reusable rockets and commercial spaceflight. Musk joined the automaker Tesla as an early investor in 2004 and became its CEO and product architect in 2008; it has since become a leader in electric vehicles. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research but later left; growing discontent with the organization's direction and their leadership in the AI boom in the 2020s led him to establish xAI. In 2022, he acquired the social network Twitter, implementing significant changes and rebranding it as X in 2023. His other businesses include the neurotechnology company Neuralink, which he co-founded in 2016, and the tunneling company the Boring Company, which he founded in 2017. Musk was the largest donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, and is a supporter of global far-right figures, causes, and political parties. In early 2025, he served as senior advisor to United States president Donald Trump and as the de facto head of DOGE. After a public feud with Trump, Musk left the Trump administration and announced he was creating his own political party, the America Party. Musk's political activities, views, and statements have made him a polarizing figure, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including COVID-19 misinformation and promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, racist, and transphobic comments. His acquisition of Twitter was controversial due to a subsequent increase in hate speech and the spread of misinformation on the service. His role in the second Trump administration attracted public backlash, particularly in response to DOGE.
2. Phil Ramone (1934 - 2013)
With an HPI of 54.63, Phil Ramone is the 2nd most famous South African Inventor. His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.
Philip Rabinowitz (January 5, 1934 – March 30, 2013), better known as Phil Ramone, was a South African-born American recording engineer, record producer, violinist and composer, and co-founder of A & R recording studio. Its success led to expansion into several studios and a record production company. He was described by Billboard as "legendary", and the BBC as a "CD pioneer".
People
Pantheon has 2 people classified as South African inventors born between 1934 and 1971. Of these 2, 1 (50.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living South African inventors include Elon Musk. The most famous deceased South African inventors include Phil Ramone. As of April 2024, 2 new South African inventors have been added to Pantheon including Elon Musk, and Phil Ramone.
