Nature abhors a vacuum, Aristotle is alleged to have said. So, when I realized that one of the world’s wealthiest men did not have a known birth time, I felt compelled to address this void. The multi-billionaire in question is Elon Musk, for whom Astrodienst (astro.com) provides only birth date and place.
I won’t burden the reader by recounting my trials and tribulations in rectifying this chart, but will say that my process typically involves a combination of many techniques. These include the attribution of known personality traits to the condition and placement of grahas in the hypothetical chart, the correlation of known life events with dashas and bhuktis, the cross-referencing of status and events against multiple amshas, and a certain reliance on the concept of ruling planets as espoused by Krishnamurti Paddhati.
Let’s start with what we know about Elon Musk. By all accounts, he appears to be a cross between Einstein, the Hulk, and the hookah-smoking caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.
There’s no doubting his genius. His early involvement in PayPal made him a multi-millionaire. Since then, he’s gone on to become a prime player in a significant number of high-tech enterprises, any one of which would provide a normal person a full-time job. These include electric-car manufacturing Tesla, aerospace transport SpaceX, tunnel-drilling The Boring Company, and vacuum-train technology Hyperloop. Not to mention solar energy services, artificial intelligence, and neurotechnology focused on developing brain/computer interfaces!
There’re also no doubts about his volatility. Accounts of his temper tantrums are legion, even in comparable CEO circles where staff bullying and mass firings are just another day in the office. And he’s got in trouble with the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) several times over as a result of rash pronouncements — unvetted by any Board of Directors — about Tesla’s financial deals, stock price and other related matters. And although chastised, fined and partially muzzled on Twitter, he’s remained largely unrepentant.
His relationships are irregular, to say the least. He married and divorced a Canadian author, with whom he had six kids. He married and divorced a British actress, later remarried her, and then re-divorced her. For months he pursued without success actress Amber Heard. He later dated a Canadian musician who bore his seventh child, but as of a few months ago, he confirmed reports that they are now “semi-separated.”
Last but not least, he’s reputed to be a user of recreational cannabis, despite many coy denials to the contrary. Some attribute his volatility to a combination of his Mercurial temperament and his slightly-altered state.
Based on all of the above, I put my stake in the sand and decided that a Capricorn lagna was a logical place to start. After further tweaking of birth time to see various aspects of his life — personal, professional, and financial — reflected in a number of key amshas, this resulted in my selecting 8:43 PM (South Africa) as the basis for a hypothetical chart.
This gave him a Ruchaka yoga with exalted Mars rising, accompanied by Rahu. At one stroke, a powerful Mars gives us much of what we know of Musk — his science acumen, his leadership abilities, and his contentious personality. Malefics in the kendras lend a bias for the physical sciences, with Mars suggesting engineering in particular, while the nodes nudge that bias into the experimental cutting-edge technologies that have become his trademark.
Mars is a Kshatriya-caste graha with a command-and-control disposition that fights for dominance and power. Note as well that Mars as a powerful 4th lord is a significator for vehicles and property. In this speculative horoscope, Mars is also his 11th lord, further evidence of both his financial acumen and his great earning power. Indeed, he’s the modern equivalent of a maharaja.
On the opposite horizon, see his 7th lord Moon, relatively dim in the 8th bhava. Recall that the Moon is the most ephemeral of grahas, so when it’s either lord or occupant of the 7th, this can suggest a revolving door of relationships. This is all the more relevant when the Moon itself occupies a trikasthana, as it does here, and is destabilized by that powerful Mars.
Family-wise, Musk’s parents are divorced. Musk is close to his mother (4th lord Mars in the lagna) but estranged from his father (9th lord Mercury in the adversarial 6th bhava).
If this be the correct lagna, Musk’s horoscope has many potent yogas. Aside from the Ruchaka yoga it forms all on its own, Mars’s association with Rahu also creates a yoga wherein Rahu acts as a proxy for its rashi dispositor Saturn. Thus, 4th lord Mars and 1st lord Saturn (represented by its proxy Rahu) forms the nodal equivalent of a Dharma-Karma Adhipati (DKA) yoga that facilitates fortunes through vehicles, property, education, etc.
For any Saturn-ruled lagna, Venus becomes yogakaraka, since it rules both a kendra and a trikona, specifically, the 5th and 10th in Musk’s horoscope. Note, however, that yogakaraka status merely indicates potential to form yogas with another planet, and does not in itself confer magical powers upon such a planet. Many a horoscope has an isolated yogakaraka that forms no bond with any other graha, and thus remains akin to someone who only dreams of greatness as opposed to achieving it.
But in Musk’s case, his Venus realizes its potential. Its association with lagnesh Saturn allies the 1st lord with both the 5th and 10th lords, thus forming two Dharma-Karma Adhipati yogas, one correlated with intellectual power, the other with command and control. In parallel, the VE/SA pair can also be viewed as a Dhana yoga, since it involves an alliance of 2nd lord Saturn with 5th lord Venus. Furthermore, these three VE/SA yogas are strong, since Venus is swa-rashi, Saturn occupies a friendly sign, and both grahas are stabilized by a powerful retrograde Jupiter in the 11th bhava.
Musk also has a Kesari yoga of moderate strength, formed with Moon and Jupiter in mutual kendras, wherein retrograde Jupiter is the graha with the “juice” while Moon is dim of light and placed in the problematic 8th bhava. Musk has obviously been a good marketer of his own projects, since he has by now established himself as both an automotive and aerospace entrepreneur of world caliber. But he has also been outspoken on many occasions, perhaps most notably in calling one of the Thailand cave rescuers a “pedo guy” and being forced to apologize, nonetheless seeing the libel case go to court before it was ultimately dismissed in his favor.
Speaking of narrow escapes, both from libel court and the substantial wrath of the SEC, Musk is fortunate to have a robust Viparita yoga in this speculative horoscope. Recall that Viparita can be formed by either (1) a strong trik lord going to another trikasthana not its own, or (2) two trik lords in sambandha in any bhava(s). In either case, the operative graha(s) must have some strength, and there must be no involvement with any positive bhava lord, else the collateral damage will negate the yoga.
In Musk’s case, the pro forma is fulfilled by the latter scenario. His 6th lord Mercury can’t meet the criteria on its own, because it hasn’t left its own bhava. But 6th lord Mercury and 8th lord Sun could combine in any house, so long as at least one of them is strong. It just so happens that here, they associate in the 6th, where Mercury is swa-rashi, thus providing the necessary strength which the Sun doesn’t bring to the alliance. Critically, no other graha influences the pair, so this is a full-blown Viparita Raja yoga.
The premise of Viparita is that it can rescue the individual from misfortune, at times even converting it to something fortunate. Thus far, this isn’t a major theme of Musk’s biography, but he’s only 50 years old, and life is long. He did contract malaria in 2000 while vacationing in South Africa, and almost died, but recovered fully to become a force to be reckoned with. He was sued for libel in the Thailand rescue case but the court ruled in his favor. He’s been sanctioned by the SEC multiple times but is still a major-power industrial player. And on the financial front, Tesla’s stock value and his personal assets have oscillated like a seismograph in an earthquake, yet his net worth is still on a trajectory for the stars, wherein he and Jeff Bezos jockey from one week to the next as to who is the world’s richest man.
This speculative horoscope is also validated by multiple life events, whereby dasha and bhukti periods correlate with their respective positions in the natal horoscope and/or certain amshas based on this speculative birth time.
During Moon dasha, Jupiter bhukti, Musk immigrated from South Africa to Canada to attend one of the country’s premier universities. The Moon rules the 7th bhava, one of the houses of travel, while Jupiter rules the 12th, another bhava for foreign travel, especially immigration.
During Mars dasha, Musk moved to California, ostensibly to attend Stanford University, but quickly abandoned academia to launch his career as a business entrepreneur. Note that Mars is the exalted lord of both the 4th and 11th bhavas, and is well-placed in the D4 chart of net worth. He founded the web software Zip2 with his brother, and later sold it to Compaq for $300 million. He then founded an online bank called X.com, which later merged with another company to form PayPal, which was subsequently bought by eBay for $1.5 Billion in 2002, the year of his transition from Mars to Rahu dasha.
Rahu dasha saw even more spectacular expansion of Musk’s projects, and his growing profile as a daring entrepreneur in high-tech arenas. Recall that Rahu acts as a powerful proxy for his Ruchaka Mars with which it is closely associated in the lagna. Rahu also represents its dispositor Saturn, which associates with Venus to form a powerful DKA and Dhana yoga. In RA-RA, he founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company. During RA-VE, he co-founded the non-profit company OpenAI to research artificial intelligence, co-founded Neuralink to develop brain/computer interfaces, founded The Boring Company for tunnel construction, and proposed the Hyperloop, a high-speed vacuum-train transportation system.
In RA-SA, Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX achieved its first successful launch of the Falcon liquid-fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit. Later the same year, SpaceX received a $1.5 Billion contract for resupply services to the International Space Station. In the same bhukti, Musk also assumed leadership as CEO and product architect of car manufacturer Tesla.
During RA-MO, Musk was sued for defamation by a British cave expert involved in the Thailand cave rescue, although a California jury later dismissed the court case in his favor. Note that his relatively dim 7th lord Moon occupies the contentious 8th bhava. During the same period, he was also sued by the SEC for falsely tweeting that he’d secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. He settled with the SEC, temporarily stepped down from his chairmanship, and submitted to limitations on his Twitter usage. The reconciliations of both his court case and his relationship with the SEC were completed during RA-MA.
Jupiter dasha has been nothing less than spectacular thus far for the growth of Musk’s financial fortunes. Note that Jupiter is a powerful (retrograde) occupant of the 11th bhava of income. And during its periods, Jupiter also gives results for its nakshatra lord Saturn, which forms a DKA and Dhana yoga with Venus. Tesla entered the S&P 500 during JU-JU and its stock price has since gone up like one of Musk’s SpaceX rockets. In 2020, Musk’s net worth was estimated to be approximately $27 Billion; a year later it was $185 Billion.
Based on this speculative birth time, the disposition of Musk’s dasha lord Jupiter is indeed impressive in all three of the amshas that reflect business distinction. In the D4 of net worth, Jupiter enjoys positive bhava placement without affliction; in the D10 of professional reputation, Jupiter occupies a kendra without affliction; in the D11 of spectacular wealth, Jupiter is in optimal condition, occupying its own sign Pisces in the 9th bhava while enjoying benefic aspects.
And since Musk is still in the opening bhukti of his 16-year Jupiter dasha, the sky (indeed, space) is the limit for his wealth!
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Alan Annand studied with Hart de Fouw. He’s a graduate of the American College of Vedic Astrology and a former tutor for the British Faculty of Astrological Studies.
He’s also the author of several books. Kala Sarpa is a first-of-its-kind reference text on a unique pattern in jyotisha that is not discussed in shastra yet is part of India’s rich oral tradition. Stellar Astrology, Volumes 1-3 offer a wealth of time-tested techniques via biographical profiles, analyses of world events, and technical essays. Parivartana Yoga is a reference text for one of the most common yet powerful planetary combinations in jyotisha.
Aside from his Montreal-based crime novels, his New Age Noir crime series (Scorpio Rising, Felonious Monk, Soma County) feature astrologer and palmist Axel Crowe, whom one reviewer has dubbed “Sherlock Holmes with a horoscope.”
Websites: www.navamsa.com, www.sextile.com
You can find his books on Amazon, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.