Right now the world is being taken by surprise by a multi-talented person and he is none other than Elon Musk. Elon Musk is like those characters straight out of comic books like Iron Man and Batman but he is real and special.
What makes him so special?
- He has his own private rocket company, SpaceX, and he is the chief engineer of it.
- CEO and product architect of Tesla Inc. the company that produces electric vehicles.
- He is ranked 31st on Forbes for billionaires of 2020, number one Innovative Leader of 2019, and ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People in 2016.
- He and his brother were the makers of X.com which later was bought by eBay, now known to people as PayPal.
- He is one of the biggest examples of a successful entrepreneur and founded The Boring Company and Zip2.
- Elon Musk is a self-made Billionaire, his net worth was estimated at $42.6 billion.
- Elon Musk, with at least $257 million contributed so far, is the sole founder of the Musk Foundations. He is a philanthropist who covers all manner of developments in water purification, disaster relief, and sustainability.
Background of Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28 of the year 1971, in Pretoria of South Africa. He was born to South African father Errol Musk who was an engineer and Candian mother Maye Musk who was a model and a nutritionist. Musk has a brother Kimbal and sister Tusco.
From childhood, Elon was fascinated by technologies and innovations. He was so deep in thought about them that he hardly heard what was going around him. Therefore, his parents took him to a doctor to get his hearing tested.
His parents divorced when he was 10 years old. During that time he grew interested in computers and learned to program by himself. At the age of 12, he made his own video game Bluster and sold it to a computer magazine.
In his school, he was introverted and bookish, he was often bullied. Later he defended himself by learning karate and wrestling.
Education
In 1989 Musk moved to Canada after getting his citizenship and also to avoid attending the compulsory service to the South African Military. There he enrolled in Queens University in Kingston, Ontario but transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia in 1992. In 1995 he graduated with bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Physics.
Musk then left for Stanford University in California to get a Ph.D. on energy physics. But he quit Stanford after attending it only 2 days and followed the Internet boom. He believed at that time the Internet had much more to give and change in society than physics.
So he proved he wasn’t wrong. He successfully became a U.S citizen in 2002.
Accomplishment
After he left Stanford, he started to make one after another and brought the most thriving projects. He established himself as a successful entrepreneur and engineer.
Zip 2
In 1995, Musk with his brother Kimbal launched his very first company Zip2 which gave maps and business directories to online newspapers. Musk formed the idea of how computer users can find local businesses through the internet which formed the base of Zip2. Later in 1999, the computer manufacturing company Compaq bought the company from Musk for $307 million.
X.com or PayPal
Elon and Kimbal used the money from Zip2 to bring another successful project. They introduced X.com, an online financial payment company. X.com went on to become PayPal, the online money transferring company.
In October 2002 in an online auction, Paypal was acquired by eBay with $1.5 billion in stock. Along with that Musk owns 11% of the stock share of PayPal.
SpaceX
Musk believed that if mankind wants to survive they have to be a multi-planet species. He was aware of the high budgets that were needed to launch rockets. So his next project took everyone with surprise.
With a goal of reducing the space-traveling cost and to colonize Mars and Moon Musk launched Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), which is an aerospace manufacturer. The industry makes reusable rockets and tries to minimize the cost of launching a rocket. They are the first and only company to achieve this feat with the purpose of constructing spacecraft for commercial space travel. Musk is the chief engineer of SpaceX
By 2006, NASA declared SpaceX one of two companies that will handle crews and cargo transport from Earth to the International Space Station.
In September 2008, Falcon 1 was launched which became the very first privately funded rocket running on liquid fuel and orbited the Earth like a satellite. Falcon 9 followed soon, it was designed with a lower cost than its competitor and it was launched first in 2010.
The third rocket Falcon Heavy could carry weights 117000 pounds and it was launched in 2018 for the first time. It is two times bigger and costs one-third of the cost that was used to make competitor Delta IV Heavy by Boeing Company.
Starship, a spacecraft built to quickly transport goods from earth and Moon and Mars buildings. SpaceX also designed the Dragon spacecraft, which transports goods to the International Space Station ( ISS). Dragon was capable of transporting as many as seven astronauts and had a crewed flight with astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk successfully designed Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper.
Tesla Inc.
Elon Musk also went on to become the co-founder, product architect, and CEO of Tesla Inc. Tesla Inc. produces vehicles that run on electricity rather than on petrol and diesel.
Named after the inventor and famous electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, the enterprise started its journey in 2003 and was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
Formerly named as Tesla Motors which became Tesla, in 2004 started receiving major funds from Musk. In 2006 Tesla unleashed their first electric and sports car Roadster, with a single charge it can travel up to 245 miles. The company then produced powerful and award-winning electric cars like the Model S sedan in 2012 and Model X luxury SUV in 2015. Model 3 was launched in 2019 at a much cheaper price than other cars.
The Boring Company
Musk again came up with a new venture in 2017 The Boring Company. The company mainly dealt with boring and digging tunnels underground to make roads and to reduce traffic.
The business won a $48.7 million Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority contract in May 2019 to create an underground loop network to move people around the Las Vegas Convention Center.
A Man With Power to Turn Dream into Reality
Elon Musk had lots of ups and downs in his life and yet he came out successful each time. He has done quite a number of incredible projects which took a powerful turn in society. Over the years he has been ranked as the most inspirational figure in the line of Technology. He falls to the list of powerful tech people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Elon Musk and his company SpaceX is a dream come true, with the skills, hard work and technology they are advancing space-traveling will be easier than ever.
Musk recently had a baby boy with musician Grimes. He got married three times and has a set of triplets and twins. With his status Musk has lots of controversy going around him. But to the startup holders and the young generation, he is someone to look up to.
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