A woman who dated Elon Musk in college earned just over $165,000 after auctioning a personal collection of photos and other items linked to the tech billionaire.
Among the items sold by Jennifer Gwynne of South Carolina: a birthday card he sent to her that sold for $16,643, a dorm room picture of Musk laying upside down that sold for $21,889 and a 14k-gold necklace Musk gifted to her in 1994 that sold for $51,008. The necklace has a small green emerald charm that supposedly came from a mine Musk’s father owns in Africa.
Gwynne sold 18 photographs from her days with Musk at the University of Pennsylvania, including images of her and Musk eating and socializing with friends. Gwynne sold the items to help pay college tuition for her stepson, British newspaper The Independent reported. Each photo was auctioned off individually, RR Auction said.
In one photo from 1995 that sold for $2,733, Gwynne and Musk sit a bench outside the school’s freshman dorms.
Gwynne told RR Auction that Musk’s mother, Maye, took the photo during a trip to visit her son in Philadelphia.
“As I remember, the three of us were planning to drive to NYC to see the musical ‘Tommy.’ The whole trip was a lovely gift from Maye,” Gwynne told the auction company. “But as we were getting ready to leave, something on Elon’s car broke. So we ended up spending five or so hours at an auto parts store so Elon could fix the issue himself. He did. We made it to NYC and had a wonderful time.”
Another photo, which sold for $1,155, shows an overexposed close-up of a 23-year-old Musk in brown leather jacket behind the wheel of a BMW. “We were heading out to see Pulp Fiction on one of our first dates off campus,” according to a description by Gwynne on the auction house’s website.
Gwynne and Musk began dating in 1994, when she was a resident adviser in the same Penn dorm where Musk lived. Musk graduated from Penn with a bachelor’s degree in physics and economics, then attended Stanford University, where he received a doctorate in materials science.
Musk is now CEO of Tesla Motors and founder of SpaceX, as well as the world’s richest man with a net worth of about $219 billion, according to Forbes.
In an interview last month with Inside Edition, Gwynne said the entrepreneur was her first serious relationship and described Musk during his college years as “sweet,” “kind,” “smart” and “engaging,” although typically not big on public displays of affection. He also already showed a strong interest in electric cars, she said, noting that the couple haven’t spoken since breaking up 27 years ago.
Gwynne told The Boston Globe she read about an auction of test papers that Musk graded and realized she had far more personal items she could sell.
Musk and Gwynne dated from 1994 to 1995. They split when Musk graduated, moved to California and said he couldn’t talk on the phone because it seemed like a waste of time to him, Gwynne said. The two are no longer in contact,
“We broke up just before he started conquering the world,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
