Elon Musk’s photo with his college sweetheart was recently auctioned. Can you make a rough guess for how much those pictures were sold for? Well, the pictures of the world’s richest man with his ex-girlfriend from college Jennifer Gwynne were sold for more than Rs 1.3 crores (USD 1,65,000)! at an auction house in the US. Boston-based RR Auction said it was a collection of never-before-seen photos and memorabilia from Musk’s college girlfriend, Jennifer Gwynne.
Elon Musk’s photos with college sweetheart auctioned
The gold necklace with a small green emerald that Musk gave to Gwynne in late 1994 as a birthday present sold for $51,000 (Rs 40 lakh). A photo of Musk and Gwynne posing with four other resident advisors before a school formal in 1995 sold for $42,000, the auction house said. The birthday card Musk signed to Gwynne, calling her “Boo-Boo,” sold for nearly $17,000 (almost Rs 13 lakh).
There were a total of 18 candid photos, according to the auction house, and each was sold individually.
Musk and Gwynne began dating in the fall semester of the 1994-1995 school year when they both lived and worked as Resident Advisors (RAs) in the ‘Spruce Street’ part of the University of Pennsylvania’s Quadrangle dorm. In 1995, after graduating from Penn with a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the Wharton School, Musk migrated to Stanford University where had been accepted into the school’s PhD program in materials science. He left after two days to join the Internet boom and launch his first startup.
According to Gwynne: ‘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. 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).’
Gwynne said she was selling the items to fund her stepson’s college education.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the 21st century, hasn’t publicly commented on the auction but appeared to be aware of the sale, as he changed his Twitter account profile picture to one of the photos sold at auction.
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