Prove $\operatorname{rank}A^TA=\operatorname{rank}A$ for any $A\in M_{m \times n}$

Let $\mathbf{x} \in N(A)$ where $N(A)$ is the null space of $A$.

So, $$\begin{align} A\mathbf{x} &=\mathbf{0} \\\implies A^TA\mathbf{x} &=\mathbf{0} \\\implies \mathbf{x} &\in N(A^TA) \end{align}$$ Hence $N(A) \subseteq N(A^TA)$.

Again let $\mathbf{x} \in N(A^TA)$

So, $$\begin{align} A^TA\mathbf{x} &=\mathbf{0} \\\implies \mathbf{x}^TA^TA\mathbf{x} &=\mathbf{0} \\\implies (A\mathbf{x})^T(A\mathbf{x})&=\mathbf{0} \\\implies A\mathbf{x}&=\mathbf{0}\\\implies \mathbf{x} &\in N(A) \end{align}$$ Hence $N(A^TA) \subseteq N(A)$.

Therefore $$\begin{align} N(A^TA) &= N(A)\\ \implies \dim(N(A^TA)) &= \dim(N(A))\\ \implies \text{rank}(A^TA) &= \text{rank}(A)\end{align}$$

Let $r$ be the rank of $A \in \mathbb{R}^{m \times n}$. We then have the SVD of $A$ as $$A_{m \times n} = U_{m \times r} \Sigma_{r \times r} V^T_{r \times n}$$ This gives $A^TA$ as $$A^TA = V_{n \times r} \Sigma_{r \times r}^2 V^T_{r \times n}$$ which is nothing but the SVD of $A^TA$. From this it is clear that $A^TA$ also has rank $r$. In fact the singular values of $A^TA$ are nothing but the square of the singular values of $A$.

Since elementary operations do not change the rank of a matrix we have $\text{rank}(A^TA) = \text{rank}(E^TA^TAE)$, where $E$ is a multiplication of several elementary operations which make $AE = [A_1, A_2]$, where $A_1$ is a column full rank matrix with $\text{rank}(A_1) = \text{rank}(A)$.

Thus we can find a matrix $P$ such that $A_1P= A_2$ and $AE = [A_1, A_1P] = A_1[I, P]$.

Thus $\text{rank}(E^TA^TAE) = \text{rank}(A_1[I, P])^T(A_1[I, P])$. In this equation, the matrices are all of full rank and the rank equals $\text{rank}(A)$, so on a real space $\text{rank}(A^TA) = \text{rank}(A)$, completing the proof.