by Elon Musk is an entrepreneur who is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Inc.; co-founder and chairman of SolarCity; founder of Neuralink. In 2002, Musk founded X.com which later became PayPal. He then pursued with SpaceX what would make him a multi-billionaire: to revolutionize space technology.
About Elon Musk
Elon Musk is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Inc.; co-founder and chairman of SolarCity. Elon Reeve Musk was born in the Pretoria neighborhood of South Africa on June 28, 1971. He was raised mostly by his mother, Maye Musk. As a kid, Elon Musk enjoyed reading science fiction books. His favorite authors were Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein.
Life of Musk
His birth
The Musk family immigrated to the United States in 1980. He grew up in Northridge, California, where he attended public schools. Elon Musk received a B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and an M.S. from Stanford University a year later.
His education
Musk attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied physics and economics, before moving to Stanford University to study physics. He began reading up on much things-including artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and space exploration-and that was when he came up with the idea for The Boring Company.
Musk during this time wanted to attend graduate school in applied physics at Stanford; however, the majority of his professors did not share his enthusiasm and thought him too unfocused.
His personal life
In 2000, at age 30, Elon Musk married Canadian author Justine Wilson. They had six sons before separating in 2008 and divorcing in March 2012.
In 2010, Musk met actress Talulah Riley; they married in the same year and divorced after two years. He then dated actress Amber Heard from 2013 to 2016 and she filed for divorce from him in 2016. Musk then began dating singer Grimes, after musing that his “life is amazing” but “I’m too busy”.
Career
On January 6, 2002, Musk personally funded a start-up company that would not be publicly listed but would help send both himself and his brother to the International Space Station. The venture, called X.com, was acquired by eBay in September 2003.
In 2004 Musk became chairman of the electric car company Tesla Motors; he then served as a chief executive officer from 2007 to 2008 and as a chief technical officer from 2008 to 2009. He did not accept any salary for three years until the company’s valuation hit $1 billion in March 2012.
Business career
Zip2
In 1999, Musk invested in a company called X.com, which later became PayPal. Musk became the company’s chairman in 2000 and his initial investment made him a multi-billionaire. In 2001, he dropped out of Stanford University to focus solely on the venture.
In 2002, Elon Musk founded X.com which later became PayPal Holdings Inc., on May 1 after eBay acquired it for $1.
X.com and PayPal
In August 2002, Musk started X.com. PayPal acquired the company in September 2003 and Musk became its chairman. He stepped down as head of the company in January 2004, six months after PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.4 billion.
In 2005, Tesla Motors was incorporated as Tesla Electric Vehicle, Inc. and began accepting orders for the Roadster — an electric sports car that was unveiled in 2006 at a price of $109,000 and went into production in 2008.
SpaceX
In 2002, Elon Musk publicly announced that he would start a new rocket company called SpaceX. The main goal of SpaceX was to provide cheap space transportation for everyone and to send humans to Mars. The company was founded in 2002 and started by a group of engineers from the company PayPal.
On June 28, 2009, Space Exploration Technologies (better known as SpaceX) held an IPO on NASDAQ with the ticker symbol ‘SCTY’. The company sold 7.3 million shares of stock at a price of $17.93, raising $153 million for the company.
In 2010 SpaceX won a contract from NASA to develop and build the primary launch vehicle for the US government’s new space transportation service, which aims to lease cargo transport capacity to US customers who wish to send payloads beyond Earth orbit.
Tesla
In 2003, Musk co-founded Tesla Motors which specializes in electric vehicles. In 2004, he drove across the United States along. With his former wife Justine Musk, in a Tesla, he named “the alpha”.
In 2008, Tesla was awarded a contract by the US Department of Energy. To build the world’s largest lithium-ion battery plant in Nevada. In 2010, after delivering over 200 specialized Tesla electric cars to Google. Musk officially opened its first retail outlet in Menlo Park.
SolarCity and Tesla Energy
In 2006, Elon Musk co-founded SolarCity, a company that aims to “solve the cost of solar energy”. In 2010, Tesla acquired SolarCity for $2.6 billion in cash from its own board of directors. The acquisition included a system designed by Musk’s cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive for Tesla.
Later in 2012, Solar City sold ‘Solar Roof’ panels that use electricity generated from solar power to generate electricity for your home. In 2016, Tesla Motors announced that its cars can be equipped with autonomous driving technology by paying $8,000.
SpaceX Launch
In 2012, SpaceX completed the first private space mission when the Dragon spacecraft delivered cargo to and from the International Space Station. In 2013, SpaceX won a contract from NASA to fly unmanned cargo missions to the space station. The contract is worth $1.6 billion and was signed with NASA in 2014.
Neuralink
In 2016, Musk revealed that he was already in talks with the government about developing a neuroprosthetic device for medical purposes. The project, which is currently still in the early stages of development, has been nicknamed Neuralink and consists of “brain-computer interfaces” to be used by those with paraplegia, quadriplegia, and ALS.
The Boring Company
In 2017, Musk announced that he would create a new tunneling venture called The Boring Company – named after his personal Twitter handle @elonmusk. The company’s main goal is to build an underground network of tunnels in various cities to reduce traffic. In December 2017, Elon Musk was name a Tesla awards honoree by the company.
Managerial style and treatment of employees
In 2018, Musk was criticize for his management style after tweeting that he was thinking about taking Tesla private and removing himself from the company’s board of directors. He later backtracked on his statements.
The media also accused Musk of using Twitter to give updates in regards to production times of Tesla cars. He later deleted his Twitter account after receiving backlash from the media for posting a tweet about the British cave rescue team being a “pedo” – an abbreviation for the pedophile.
Other activities
Hyperloop
In 2013, Elon Musk began work on the Hyperloop transportation system, which aims to minimize travel time between London and Paris by shrinking the distance required to be travel.
In July 2015, SpaceX announced that it would begin construction on a Hyperloop test track in Hawthorne, California. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is testing the transportation system in South America and Europe without any profit for now.
OpenAI
Musk has also invested in the AI-focused venture fund OpenAI. Musk contributed $10 million to the nonprofit company’s most recent fundraising round. Which ended in January 2018 and brought total funding to $149 million.
Musk is the co-chairman along with Sam Altman of OpenAI, a non-profit artificial intelligence research company.
Tham Luang cave rescue & defamation case
In 2018, Musk tweeted about the rescue of the Thai boys trapped in a cave being a “PR stunt”. He also accused British diver Vernon Unsworth of being a pedophile.
On July 13, 2018, Elon Musk was sue by Vernon Unsworth for defamation over his “abhorrent” comments. The lawsuit was file against the South African-born Unsworth at Surry County Court in Virginia on behalf of his family members and their 20-year-old daughter Nisa.
Awards and Honor
Elon Musk won an honorary doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 2007. In 2012, he was rank 83rd on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People due to his influence on the world economy and his own companies. He was describe as the “Businessperson of the Year 2013” by Fortune magazine after SpaceX became the first private company to finish a space mission.
Inside Contents
