Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur and businessman who became a multimillionaire in his late 20s and became a billionaire at the age of 40.
He was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa to a Canadian mother who was a model and South African father who was an engineer.
During his childhood, Musk was an avid reader. He read 10 hours per day. At the age of 8, he ran out of books to read at library. He also read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.
His childhood reading included Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, from which he drew the lesson that “you should try to take the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, minimize the probability of a dark age and reduce the length of a dark age if there is one”.
As a child, Musk was so lost in his daydreams about inventions that his parents and doctors ordered a test to check his hearing.
In grade school, Musk was short, introverted and bookish. He was bullied until he was 15 and went through a growth spurt and learned how to defend himself with karate and wrestling.
At about the time of his parents’ divorce, when he was 10, he developed an interest in computers and entrepreneurship. He taught himself how to program. He learnt BASIC – a computer programming language, and finished a 6-month course in 3 days. And when he was 12 he sold his first software to a computer magazine: a game he created called Blastar for $500.
Amid an often difficult childhood, Musk developed a relentless work ethic (he is known to work as many as 80 to 100 hours per week)
Although his father insisted that he attend college in Pretoria, Musk became determined to move to the United States, saying, “I remember thinking and seeing that America is where great things are possible, more than any other country in the world.” Aware that it would be easier to enter the United States from Canada, he applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother.
Musk attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor’s degrees in physics and economics in 1997. He enrolled in graduate school in physics at Stanford University in California, but he left after only two days because he felt that the Internet had much more potential to change society than work in physics. In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers.
In 1999, Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million. With a 7% share of the company, Musk received $22 million for the deal and became a millionaire.
Musk cofounded X.com, an online financial services company, in March 1999 using $10 million form the Zip2 sale. In 2000 the online financial services and e-mail payment company merged with Confinity, a company that had Paypal as a service. The company was renamed Paypal once the company decided to focus on that service. Musk was kicked out of his CEO role in October 2000. Paypal was acquired by eBay in October 2002 for $1.5 billion in stock. Musk received $165 million from the deal.
Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp., traded as SpaceX, in May 2002. An aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, of which he is CEO and lead designer. He decided to launch SpaceX when he attempted to buy a rocket but was told it would cost him $8 million. Seeing this as far too expensive, he then started SpaceX as a quest to develop and manufacture affordable space launch vehicles.
SpaceX’s goal is to reduce the cost of human spaceflight by a factor of 10. In a 2011 interview, Musk said he hopes to send humans to Mars’ surface within 10–20 years. In Ashlee Vance’s biography, Musk stated that he wants to establish a Mars colony by 2040, with a population of 80,000 humans. Musk stated that, since Mars’ atmosphere lacks oxygen, all transportation would have to be electric (electric cars, electric trains, Hyperloop, electric aircraft). Musk stated in June 2016 that the first unmanned flight of the larger Interplanetary Spaceship was aimed for departure to the red planet in 2022, to be followed by the first manned ITS Mars flight departing in 2024. In September 2016, Musk revealed details of his architecture to explore and colonize Mars.
He joined Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.), an electric vehicle manufacturer, in 2004, the year after it was founded, becoming its product architect that year and its CEO in 2008.
Musk reached the billionaire-status in 2012. The jump had to do with Tesla Motors experiencing a 30% increase in stock price year over year. Tesla stock jumped when they introduced the Model X in February 2012. At the time, Musk’s 29% stake in Tesla was worth just over $1 billion.
In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy services company. Seven years after the company’s founding, the company was the second largest provider of solar power in the country. In 2016, SolarCity was acquired by Tesla and remains a subsidiary of the company.
In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company that aims to promote friendly artificial intelligence.
In July 2016, he co-founded Neuralink. The neurotechnology startup company is working towards creating devices that will integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence. These devices will be implanted in the brain in hopes to help people keep pace with advancements in AI.
In December 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel construction company focused on tunnels optimized for electric vehicles. In addition to his primary business pursuits, he envisioned an open-source high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop based on the concept of a vactrain.
About three-quarters of Musk’s net worth comes from his stake in Tesla, but he is also involved in spacecraft through his company SpaceX.
The 49-year-old entrepreneur’s net worth hit $186bn at 10.15am in New York on Wednesday, making him $1.5bn richer than Bezos, who had held the top spot since October 2017.
Tesla & SpaceX are the two companies responsible for Elon Musk’s growing fortune. Elon Musk’s wealth has increased by over $150 billion during the last year, and most of that growth comes from Tesla’s stocks which have increased 720% in 2020.
His current net worth is $209bn. IST Billionaire investor, Chamath Palihapitiya, said Tesla’s stock could be worth three times its current valuation, which would make CEO Elon Musk the first trillionaire.
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