Elon Reeve Musk FRS is an entrepreneur and business magnate. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; early stage investor, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. A centibillionaire, Musk is one of the richest people in the world.
Elon Musk is one of the greatest and most prolific modern inventors and is responsible for monumental
advancements in futuristic technology like renewable energy and space travel. Many of his innovations
seem to be right out of a science-fiction movie, but throughout his career he has brought about huge
scientific breakthroughs. After making his first fortune from the internet payment service ‘PayPal’, he
invested $100 million in his space travel company, ‘SpaceX’ and began building satellites, launch
vehicles and other spacecraft both for NASA and for his own company, creating new milestones with his
privately funded spacecraft. Many of his revolutionary ideas and inventions focus on space travel,
renewable energy, commercial electric cars and other technologies, that look to a future where fossil
fuels and other resources may be in shorter supply. His futuristic and visionary ideas have won him both
scientific and philanthropic recognition and awards. The pop culture sometimes portrays him as a sort of
real life super hero, dedicated to providing worldwide solutions to international problems. Musk looks to
the future, hopes for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and continues to plan far-reaching
futuristic goals such a human colony on Mars. Scroll down to learn all about this illustrious personality
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. The oldest of three siblings
with a prodigious family name, he grew up in the last decades of Apartheid.
His parents were Maye Musk, a British-Canadian model and Errol Musk, a South Africa born
British electrical engineer. When they divorced in 1980, Elon stayed mainly with his father in
South Africa. A few years later, he began teaching himself computer programming and sold his
first video game at the age of 12.
For his undergraduate education he attended the Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in
1990. He eventually transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, earning dual degree in Physicsand Economics.
In addition to the bachelor’s degrees, he earned in physics and economics, he also holds an
honorary doctorate in Design from the ‘Art Center College of Design’ and an honorary
doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from the ‘University of Surrey’.
He moved to California to attend Stanford for a PhD in applied physics in 1995, but quit within a
few of days to pursue his own interests in avenues of technology and entrepreneurship. Later that
year, he worked with his brother, Kimbal Musk, to develop the software company ‘Zip2’, which
provided services to high end newspaper clients like ‘The New York Times’ and the ‘Chicago
Tribune’.
After the successful sale of Zip2 to Compaq in 1999, Musk went straight into his next venture, an
online financial service called ‘X.com’. Shortly after the company acquired a money transfer
service called ‘PayPal’, through a merger, they began to focus their efforts exclusively on
building this internet payment service. The success of ‘PayPal’ led Musk to sell his stock in the
company to ‘eBay’ for $165 million.
In 2002, he invested his millions in his third company ‘Space Exploration Technologies’ or just
‘SpaceX’. Within seven years, the company had designed the ‘Falcon’ line of space launch
vehicles and the ‘Dragon’ line of multi-purpose spacecraft and was making history with their
privately funded innovation. ‘SpaceX’ received contracts from NASA to create a launch craft to
deliver cargo to the ‘International Space Station’.
Tesla Motors was founded with the mission of designing and building electric cars. Musk
invested in the company and became its chairman in 2004, a year after its inception, taking on an
active role in the design of the ‘Roadster’, which won the ‘Global Green’ product award.
During the recession when the company was adversely affected, he went on to become the CEO
and product architect of the company, a role he holds till today.
After designing the initial concept for ‘SolarCity’, Musk remains its biggest shareholder. Today,
it is the second largest provider of solar energy in the United States, with a focus on combating
global warming.
On August 12, 2013, Musk announced revolutionary plans for a high speed travel technology
that, in theory, could replace airplane travel as a faster and cheaper option. His company
‘SpaceX’ is currently working on putting his plans into practice, with the design intended to run
entirely on solar energy.
He has envisioned a high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop. It incorporates
reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on air bearings driven by linear
induction motors and air compressors.
In July 2017, he announced that first successful test run of Hyperloop has been done in Nevada.
He also said that he has got verbal approval to build a hyperloop from New York City to
Washington D.C.