Biography on Elon Musk: The world’s richest billionaire

Entrepreneur Elon Musk has achieved global fame as a chief executive of electric autos maker Tesla Inc. the CEO and the lead designer of the space company SpaceX and recently the world’s richest man. He is the co-founder of PayPal and was an early investor of Tesla. In April 2022, he negotiated a deal to take over Twitter privately.   

His success and lifestyle have compared him to other colorful tycoons from USA history, including Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, and Howard Hughes. According to recent data, Elon Musk is the world’s richest man, with a net worth of $201 billion as of May 23, 2022. Musk achieved this distinction in 2021 by surpassing the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. 

Let’s take a brief look at the life of the billionaire man who has created a milestone in the world of business.

Early Life

Elon Musk Early Life

The real name of Elon Musk is Elon Reeve Musk was born in 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa, the eldest of three children. In childhood, he was so lost daydreaming about new inventions that his parents and doctors advised a test to check his hearing. 

At the time of his parent’s divorce, when he was just 10, Elon developed an interest in computers. He learned how to program, and when he was 12, he sold the first software game he created, Blastar

When Musk was in grade school, he was short-heightened, bookish, and introverted. He was bullied until he was 15, went through a growth spurt, and learned defense techniques like wrestling and karate. 

Family

Elon Musk's Family

Elon’s mother, Maye Musk, is a Canadian model and the oldest woman to star in a Covergirl campaign. When he was growing up, she worked five jobs at one time to support her family. Elon Musk’s father is a wealthy and successful South African engineer. 

Musk spent his early childhood with his sister Tosca and brother Kimbal in South Africa. His parents parted away when he was only 10.

Education

Elon Musk Education

When Musk was 17, in 1989, he moved to Canada to study at Queen’s University and avoid mandatory service in the South African military. He also obtained his citizenship in Canada in the same year. 

Musk left Canada in 1992 to study physics and business at the University of Pennsylvania. There he graduated with an undergraduate degree in Economics and stayed for a second bachelor’s degree in Physics. 

After leaving Pennsylvania, Musk headed to Stanford University in California to pursue his Ph.D. in energy Physics. The time of his move to California was perfect with the boom on the internet. He dropped out of Stanford University just in two days to become a part of it by launching his first company Zip2 Corporation in 1995. In 2002, he got citizenship in the United States of America.

Elon Musk Accomplishments

Elon Musk Accomplishments

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Zip2

Elon Musk Zip2

Musk launched his first company, Zip2, in 1995 with his brother, Kimbal Musk. As an online city guide, Zip2 soon provided content for the new website, the Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times. In 1999, the division of Compaq computer corporation bought it for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock. 

X.com or Paypal

Elon Musk's X.com or Paypal

In 1999, Kimbal and Elon used the money from the sale of Zip2 to create a new company X.com. It is an online financial company for payment and services. The acquisition of X.com the following year led to the creation of Paypal as it is known currently. 

eBay acquired Paypal in October 2002 for $1.5 billion in stocks; this was Musk’s first earned billion. Before the sale, he owned 11 percent of Paypal stock. 

SpaceX

Elon Musk SpaceX

In 2002, Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation also known as SpaceX. It was his first project on Mars Oasis to carry out a greenhouse experiment on Mars, having food crops growing on Martian regolith. In 2001, Musk, Adeo Ressi, and Jim Cantrell traveled to Moscow to purchase refurbished ICBMs that could send payloads in space. In February 2002, this group of three went to Russia to look at ICBMs and returned with Mike Griffin; he is an American Aerospace Engineer. They had a meeting with Kosmotras and were offered the first rocket for US$8 million, which is considered highly priced. 

After returning from Moscow, Musk calculated the price of raw materials required for building a rocket. Then he founded SpaceX, which can build affordable rockets per his requirements. 

In May 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, where he was the CTO and CEO of the company. This company develops space launch vehicles. The first two rockets of this company were Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, and his first aircraft was Dragon. 

In September 2002, his first rocket Falcon 1, put a satellite into the orbit of the Earth and became the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket. 

Tesla Motors

Elon Musk Tesla Motors

Elon Musk is the product architect, co-founder, and CEO of Tesla. The company was formed in 2004, contributing approximately $6.3 million to start with, and joined the team, including engineer Martin Elberhard. Following Eberhard was ousted as an interim CEO in 2007 until Elon assumed control as CEO and product architect. 

Tesla became the world’s most valuable automaker and one of its best-known brands. In addition to electric cars, Tesla maintains a robust presence in the solar energy space. 

Solar City

Elon Musk Solar City

The SolarCity project of Elon Musk is a provider of energy services that has a headquarter in San Mateo, California, USA. The co-founder of this project is two cousins, Peter Rive and Lydon. Musk is a company shareholder, and in 2003, he invested about $10 million after selling his 11 percent of the Paypal stock. 

SolarCity is a project that helps provide power systems to governments, businesses, and homes. It also offers several programs for homeowners. 

The company built a solar-powered electric system for eBay and British Motors to power their headquarters and servers. It, in particular, provides solar energy systems for supercharger stations of Tesla motors. 

Twitter

Elon Musk Twitter

On April 14, 2022, billionaire world’s richest man Elon musk purchased American social media company Twitter for $43 billion after acquiring 9.1 percent of the company’s stock for $2.64 billion by becoming its largest shareholder. 

Company then invited Elon to join their boards of directors, which he subsequently declined. Twitter then announced a poison pill strategy the next day. On April 25, the company’s board of directors unanimously accepted the buyout offer of Musk of $44 billion, with the company set to become private.

Inspiring Quotes By Elon Musk

Inspiring Quotes By Elon Musk

The early interest of Elon Musk in philosophy, science fiction, and novels reflects in his idealism and concern for human progress and his business career. His work in the field has been identified as essential for the future of humanity, the transition of renewable energy sources, the internet, and space exploration. Despite the inevitable missteps, he defied critics and became the wealthiest man in the world from Paypal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity. 

Some famous quotes from Musk:

“If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it is not”

“Persistence is essential. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.”

“If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic-being able to talk to people over long distances, transmit images, fly, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These things would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.”

“The first step is establishing that something is possible; then, the probability will occur.”

“I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.”

“When something is essential, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

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