Elon Musk needs no introduction. This South African entrepreneur is one of the richest billionaires in the world. He is the Founder of PayPal (1999), SpaceX (2002), Tesla Motors (2003), and many other companies. He also founded The Boring Company and co-founded OpenAL and Neutralink.
After becoming a household name in the entire world, Elon Musk has become the talk of the town. Dedication, commitment, and relentless efforts to achieve something in life have crafted the success story of Elon Musk. Let’s take a look at his early life, education and his contributions to technology.
Elon Musk Early Life
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa to a South African father and a Canadian mother. Since childhood, he has been interested in computers. After his parents divorced, his interest in computers increased. At the age of 12, he created a video game called Blaster and sold it to a computer magazine. He was bullied regularly, but he learned how to defend himself by learning karate and wrestling.
Elon Musk Education
Musk left his hometown in South Africa and moved to Canada to pursue higher studies at the age of seventeen. He didn’t want to support apartheid through compulsory military service. After getting his Canadian passport, he started going to Queen University in Kingston, Ontario. In 1992, he left Canada and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia where he completed his bachelor’s degree in Physics and Economics in 1997.
After completing the degree, he joined Stanford University in California to study Physics. However, he dropped out of it in just two days because he thought the internet had much more potential than Physics.
Elon Musk Net Worth
Elon Musk is the richest man on Earth with approximately $198.4 Billion (as of May 2024)
The billionaire is a quick thinker and multitasker. He says, “The first step is to establish that something is POSSIBLE; then probability will occur.”
Elon Musk’s contributions to technology
The richest person on Earth, Elon Musk has contributed a lot to technology by launching various businesses and ventures. Some of them are:
Zip2
As he saw great potential on the internet, he launched his first company Zip2 Corporations in 1995. He created Zip2 to help the newspaper industry put together ‘city guides’ for online users. Consequently, it was Musk’s first web-based software company which he co-founded with his brother. Later on, Compaq which is a computer manufacturer bought the company for $307 million in 1999 and Musk received $22 million from the sale.
PayPal
The same year when Zip2 was sold, Musk founded another company X.com, which was later known as PayPal. The company focused on financial services and email payments. After a year, it merged with Confinity. However, the company was later bought by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion in stock. Musk made a huge profit from that deal and acquired $165 million.
In today’s world, PayPal is a safe platform for buyers as the platform is both secure and encrypted. Another advantage that Musk offers to its PayPal users is that it hides the financial information of its users from businesses which adds another layer of security to online shopping.
Also Read: Mark Zuckerberg: Game Changer of the century
Space X
In 2002, Elon Musk established Space X. It is a company that focuses on reducing the cost of space transportation and building spacecraft. Moreover, the company achieved another milestone when the National Aeronautics of Space Administration (NASA) awarded the company with a contract to develop a spacecraft to transport astronauts. Space X became the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).
Space X reached one more milestone in March 2017 when Falcon 9 landed successfully. Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket created by Space X. Furthermore, this is an opportunity to make space travel more affordable. However, an explosion occurred in November 2017 during the testing of the company’s new Block 5 Merlin engine.
Fortunately, no one was hurt because of the explosion and this did not impact the making of Falcon 9 rockets. Furthermore, 2018 proved to be a fortunate year for the company because of the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket and Block 5 Falcon rocket.
Tesla Motors
Tesla Motors is one of the most significant contributions of Elon Musk to the world. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded this electric car company. Tesla Motors made its first significant contribution by launching its first car, the Roadster. It could travel 394 kilometres on a single charge.
In 2015, the company was struggling to manufacture enough cars as the demand for such cars was quite high. Subsequently, the company was also planning to fund capital expenditure by selling $500 million shares.
Solar City
Solar City in California was co-founded by Musk and his cousins in 2006. It is currently the second-largest provider of solar power systems in the country. The company aims to create storage systems to facilitate the power supply produced by solar panels at night. It provides installations in selected areas of 14 other states in Columbia.
Hyperloop
Introduced in 2013, it is a transportation system that aims to send commuters to travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco in only 35 minutes. This is much faster than a commercial flight. However, in December 2023, Hyperloop Company was shut down as the technology failed to materialise.
Also Read: Sundar Pichai- The Face Behind Google
Blaster, a video game
When Musk was only 12 years old, he made his own video game which he named Blaster. Later, he sold the game to a magazine for only $500. The making of the game reflected that Musk was going to be an extraordinary person with remarkable and exceptional skills and qualities.
Elon Musk Owns Twitter
Elon Musk acquired Twitter, a very famous microblogging platform in 2022. He made an unsolicited offer to buy the platform for $44 billion in April 2022. The process went through a lot of legal and business confrontations but the acquisition was finally completed in October 2022. After the deal’s completion, he fired top Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal, legal and policy head Vijaya Gadde, and CFO Ned Segal.
Twitter (now X) regularly faces content moderation challenges. Moreover, the company struggles with misinformation and hate speech. To solve this issue, they hired Kylie McRoberts as the head of safety and Yale Cohen as head of brand safety and advertiser solutions. This decision has led to some of the advertisers such as IBM and NBC Universal to withdraw their ad spend.
Elon Musk Foundation
As Musk sees great potential in space exploration, he has founded the Musk Foundation. The purpose of the foundation is-
- To do renewable energy research
- Human space exploration research, science, & engineering education
In 2016, Musk donated $1.2 million shares ($254, 614,000 worth) of Tesla stock to the foundation. The foundation has also made many small contributions to some non-profit organizations. In 2005, Citizen Against Government Waste received $10,000 in grants. In 2007, an organization named Libertarian Think Tank Cato Institute received $5000.
Also Read: Corporate Social Responsibility: Endeavour To Make Society A Better Place
Unknown Facts About Elon Musk
- Elon Musk holds triple citizenship. He was born in South Africa, became a Canadian citizen at 17 and 2002, gained US citizenship.
- He almost sold Tesla to Google for $11 billion in 2013 when the company was in trouble.
- Elon Musk made a cameo on the famous show ‘The Simpsons.’ Moreover, he also appeared in the popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory.
- He has Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism that causes a person to hyperfocus on topics of interest and creates difficulty having social interaction.
- Elon Musk’s wealth is based on stocks and his ownership of companies. However, as the CEO of Telsa, he makes no salary.
Summing Up
We can say that one of the richest billionaires on Earth, Elon Musk has become a well-known personality today. He is known for his prolific inventions and farsightedness, and his phenomenal work in the field of science and space exploration. Subsequently, this has made him a great entrepreneur who is admired by all. His extraordinary thinking skills have made him an extraordinary, who can be called Thomas Edison of the 21st century.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many children does Elon Musk have?
He has 11 children with three different women.
Is Elon Musk a scientist?
He is more of an engineer than a scientist.
Famous quote by Elon Musk
You want to have a future where you’re expecting things to be better, not one where you’re expecting things to be worse.
Is Elon Musk Looking For a Market In India?
According to reports, Elon Musk would come to India to meet the Prime Minister and give confirmation that Tesla plans to build a factory in the world’s most populous country. He was also planning to meet Indian space tech startups during his visit. However, the Tesla CEO has postponed the trip that was supposed to happen on April 21 and 22, because of obligations related to Tesla.
What is Elon Musk’s education?
Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Physics.
What is the full form of Tesla?
The full form of Tesla is ‘Tera Electron Volt Energy Superconducting Linear Accelerator.’ Tesla’s namesake is Serbian American inventor Nikola Tesla.
Great post. It’s interesting to read what other people thought and how it relates to them or their clients, as
their view could possibly assist you in the future.
Best regards,
Thompson Cannon
Amazing post. Articles that have meaningful and insightful remarks
are more enjoyable, at least to me. It’s interesting to read what
other people thought and how it relates to them or their customers, as their
perspective could possibly help you in the future.
King regards,
Boswell Cannon
You’re doing a excellent job Man,Keep up it.
King regards,
Boswell Cannon