Elon Musk

South African entrepreneur and now the world’s richest person Elon Musk is known for founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in the year 2012.

Who Is Elon Musk?

Elon Musk is a South African American entrepreneur and businessman who founded X.com in the year 1999 (which was later referred to as PayPal), SpaceX in the year 2002 and Tesla Motors in the year 2003. Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers.

Musk made headlines and came into limelight in May 2012, when SpaceX launched a rocket that will send the primary commercial vehicle to the International space platform. He bolstered his portfolio with the acquisition of SolarCity in 2016 and guarded his standing as a frontrunner of industry by taking up an advisory role within the early days of President Donald Trump's administration.

In January 2021, Musk surpassed the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos and became the wealthiest man in the world.

Early Life

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria region of South Africa. When he was a child, Musk was always lost in his daydreams about inventions that his parents and doctors ordered a test to check his hearing.

When he was 10, att the time of his parents’ divorce, Musk developed a deep interest in computers. He learnt programming at the age of 12 that too by himself and when he sold his first software: which was a game called Blastar.

In grade school, Elon Musk was an introverted and bookish. He was bullied by his friends and classmates until he was 15 and went through a growth spurt and learned how to defend himself with karate and wrestling.

Companies

Zip2 Corporation

Elon Musk launched his first company, Zip2 Corporation, in 1995 along with his brother, Kimbal Musk. It was a web city guide, Zip2 was also providing content for the new websites of both The new york Times and also the Chicago Tribune. In 1999, a division of Compaq Computer Corporation bought Elon Musk’s first company Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options.

PayPal

In 1999, Elon and Kimbal Musk used the money from their sale of Zip2 to found X.com (later named PayPal), an online financial services/payments company. An X.com acquisition the subsequent year led to the creation of PayPal because it is known today.

In October 2002, Musk earned his first billion when PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. Before the sale, Musk owned 11 percent of PayPal stock.

SpaceX

Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, in 2002 with the intention of building spacecraft for commercial spaceflight . By the year 2008, SpaceX was very well established, and NASA awarded the corporate the contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station—with plans for astronaut transport in the future—in a move to switch NASA’s own spacecraft missions.

Inventions and Innovations

Hyperloop

In August 2013, Elon Musk released a brand new concept of transportation called the "Hyperloop," an invention that might speed up commuting between major cities while severely cutting period of time. Ideally avoiding the weather and powered by renewable energy, the Hyperloop would propel riders in pods through a network of low-pressure tubes at speeds reaching over 700 mph. Elon Musk also noted that the Hyperloop could take from 7 to 10 years to be built and ready for use.

AI and Neuralink

Elon Musk has pursued an interest in artificial intelligence (AI), becoming co-chair of the non-profit OpenAI. The research company launched in the late 2015 with the stated mission of advancing digital intelligence to benefit humanity.

High-Speed Train

In late November 2017, after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for the proposals to build and operate a high-speed rail line that would transport passengers from O'Hare Airport to downtown Chicago in 20 minutes or less, Musk tweeted that he was in one on one competition with The Boring Company. He said that the concept of the Chicago loop would be very different from his Hyperloop, as it is a short route not requiring the need for drawing a vacuum to eliminate air friction.

Flamethrower

Elon Musk also found the market for The Boring Company's flamethrowers. After announcing that they were going on sale for $500 apiece in late January 2018, he claimed to have sold 10,000 of them within a day.