Elon Musk asked, “Has anyone here had experience with first principles analysis?” He spoke to a group of children, many of whom recognized Musk as the head of companies producing rockets and trendy vehicles—and as the creator of Ad Astra, the microschool they attended at his Bel Air estate, as seen in a video posted by Newsthink on YouTube. To five of these kids, he was simply “Dad.”
In 2014, Musk allegedly withdrew his kids from the prestigious Mirman School in Los Angeles and recruited one of their educators to assist in founding an alternative school that did not adhere to conventional curriculum standards. At Ad Astra, students explored nuclear chemistry in middle school, worked on independent engineering projects, and attended talks from prominent tech leaders during the breaks. Kierra Wang, who claims to have been part of Ad Astra’s middle school along with Musk’s triplets, recalls taking part in college-level hackathons by the eighth grade, attributing her ability to compete with older students and the “gall and confidence” to misrepresent her age to gain entry, to her experience at Ad Astra.
With Ad Astra, Musk became a trailblazer in the growing microschool movement. These schools are typically defined as having fewer than 150 pupils, often operating for profit and outside the regulatory constraints that govern traditional public education. According to a 2024 RAND estimate, between 750,000 and 2.1 million US students are learning in some type of microschool, with Silicon Valley playing a significant role.
As Musk’s family has grown, he has broadened his educational initiatives, financing a project with Xplor Education, a California-based organization, to create a Montessori-style school in Bastrop, Texas, where several of Musk’s companies are based. His actions have encouraged other tech magnates to pursue similar paths. Xplor also assisted in launching a Montessori preschool on Hawaii’s Lanai island, which is predominantly owned by Larry Ellison, cofounder of Oracle. A resident of Lanai noted that Ellison’s own children attend that preschool.
In 2023, investors Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel reportedly spoke at the exclusive Sun Valley conference in Idaho, encouraging fellow tech giants to homeschool their children. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant have financially backed alternative education firms.
Even billionaires with more liberal political views, such as Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, have emerged as key contributors to the school-choice movement, seeking to redirect tax funds toward options outside traditional public education. (They might benefit from observing the efforts of other moguls, such as Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million initiative to transform Newark, New Jersey’s public school system, or the forthcoming closure of two Bay Area schools he helped establish for low-income families.)
The drive for educational alternatives resonates with Silicon Valley parents for multiple reasons. Many are self-taught individuals who found traditional schooling’s social expectations challenging. Others, having witnessed their children during the Zoom schooling of the Covid era, were left dissatisfied by the experience. Tech elites increasingly distanced from “woke” culture searched for options that align more closely with their political and cultural beliefs.
Silicon Valley parents are reassessing traditional educational models, considering, “This is absurd. Why would we follow outdated methods?” says Michael Strong, founder of The Socratic Experience, an alternative education initiative. He notes that many feel their high-performing children are impeded by inflexible curricula that restrict accelerated learning. “The thought is, if kids can learn more in two hours, why shouldn’t they?” Strong asserts.
