Elon Musk, (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), is an American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm PayPal and formed SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric car manufacturer Tesla.
At Tesla, Elon oversees product design, engineering and manufacturing. The Tesla Roadster debuted in 2008, followed by Model S in 2012, the Model X SUV in 2015 and in 2017 the Model 3, a mass-market electric car. Tesla produces a unique set of energy products – Powerwall, Powerpack and Solar Roof – making it the world’s first vertically-integrated sustainable energy company. Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
Elon Musk is also the CEO and co-founder of SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company. As lead designer at SpaceX, Elon oversees the development of rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and ultimately to other planets. The SpaceX Falcon 1 was the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach orbit, in 2008. In 2017, SpaceX made further history by re-flying both a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft for the first time. By pioneering the development of reusable rockets, SpaceX is pursuing the long-term goal of making humans a multi-planet species.
Elon's Motivational Quotes:
Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.
If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.
The things that’s worth doing is trying to improve our understanding of the world and gain a better appreciation of the universe and not to worry too much about there being no meaning. And, you know, try and enjoy yourself. Because actually, life’s pretty good. It really is.
You want to be extra rigorous about making the best possible thing you can. Find everything that’s wrong with it and fix it. Seek negative feedback, particularly from friends.
Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change as the alternative is disaster.
It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.
People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.
If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it’s not.
I always have optimism, but I’m realistic. It was not with the expectation of great success that I started Tesla or SpaceX…. It’s just that I thought they were important enough to do anyway.
People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.
If you want to grow a giant redwood, you need to make sure the seeds are OK, nurture the sapling and work out what might potentially stop it from growing all the way along. Anything that breaks it at any point stops that growth.
When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars, people said, 'Nah, what's wrong with a horse?' That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.
The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.
Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.
You want to have a future where you're expecting things to be better, not one where you're expecting things to be worse.
I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
Bio:
As of December 2017, Elon Musk’s net worth is $20.2 billion, according to Forbes. He earned his first billion with the sale of PayPal in 2002; his company SpaceX is valued at more than $20 billion.
Education
Elon Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the United States. In 1989, at age 17, Elon moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University. He left in 1992 to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for a second bachelor’s degree in physics.
After leaving Penn, Elon Musk headed to Stanford University in California to pursue a PhD in energy physics. However, his move was timed perfectly with the internet boom, and he dropped out of Stanford after just two days to become a part of it, launching his first company, Zip2 Corporation. An online city guide, Zip2 was soon providing content for the new websites of both The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. In 1999, a division of Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options.
PayPal
In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services/payments company. It was bought by early PC company Compaq in 1999, who had become a leading supplier of PC systems. The Zip2 deal amounted to $307 million; Musk’s share of the proceeds was a tidy sum of $22 million.
Then Musk scored a net return of over $165 million after his financial services company, X.com, merged with PayPal – which was bought by eBay. Before the sale, Musk owned 11 percent of PayPal stock.
SpaceX
Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, in 2002 with the intention of building spacecraft for commercial space travel. By 2008, SpaceX was well established, and NASA awarded the company the contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station—with plans for astronaut transport in the future—in a move to replace NASA's own space shuttle missions.
Falcon 9 Rockets
On May 22, 2012, Musk and SpaceX made history when the company launched its Falcon 9 rocket into space with an unmanned capsule. The vehicle was sent to the International Space Station with 1,000 pounds of supplies for the astronauts stationed there, marking the first time a private company had sent a spacecraft to the International Space Station. Of the launch, Musk was quoted as saying, "I feel very lucky. ... For us, it's like winning the Super Bowl."
In December 2013, a Falcon 9 successfully carried a satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit, a distance at which the satellite would lock into an orbital path that matched the Earth's rotation. In February 2015, SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 fitted with the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite, aiming to observe the extreme emissions from the sun that affect power grids and communications systems on Earth.
In March 2017, SpaceX saw the successful test flight and landing of a Falcon 9 rocket made from reusable parts, a development that opened the door for more affordable space travel. A setback came in November 2017, when an explosion occurred during a test of the company's new Block 5 Merlin engine. SpaceX reported that no one was hurt, and that the issue would not hamper its planned rollout of a future generation of Falcon 9 rockets.
The company enjoyed another milestone moment in February 2018 with the successful test launch of the powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. Armed with additional Falcon 9 boosters, the Falcon Heavy was designed to carry immense payloads into orbit and potentially serve as a vessel for deep space missions. For the test launch, the Falcon Heavy was given a payload of Musk's cherry-red Tesla Roadster, equipped with cameras to "provide some epic views" for the vehicle's planned orbit around the sun.
In July, Space X enjoyed the successful landing of a new Block 5 Falcon rocket, which touched down on a drone ship less than 9 minutes after liftoff.
BFR Mission to Mars
In September 2017, Musk presented an updated design plan for his BFR, a 31-engine behemoth topped by a spaceship capable of carrying at least 100 people. He revealed that SpaceX was aiming to launch the first cargo missions to Mars with the vehicle in 2022, as part of his overarching goal of colonizing the Red Planet.
In March 2018, the entrepreneur told an audience at the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, that he hoped to have the BFR ready for short flights early the following year, while delivering a knowing nod at his previous problems with meeting deadlines.
The following month, it was announced that SpaceX would construct a facility at the Port of Los Angeles to build and house the BFR. The port property presented an ideal location for SpaceX, as its mammoth rocket will only be movable by barge or ship when completed.
Internet Satellites
In late March 2018, SpaceX received permission from the U.S. government to launch a fleet of satellites into low orbit for the purpose of providing Internet service. Ideally, the system would make broadband service more accessible for people in rural areas, while also boosting competition in heavily populated markets that are typically dominated by one or two providers.
Tesla Motors
Elon Musk is the co-founder, CEO and product architect at Tesla Motors, a company dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars as well as battery products and solar roofs. Musk oversees all product development, engineering and design of the company's products.
Five years after its formation, in 2008, the company unveiled the Roadster, a sports car capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, as well traveling nearly 250 miles between charges of its lithium ion battery. With a stake in the company taken by Daimler and a strategic partnership with Toyota, Tesla Motors launched its initial public offering in June 2010, raising $226 million.
Additional successes include the Model S, the company's first electric sedan. Capable of covering 265 miles between charges, the Model S was honored as the 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine.
In April 2017, Tesla announced that it surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. car maker. The news was an obvious boon to Tesla, which was looking to ramp up production and release its Model 3 sedan later that year.
In November, Musk made another splash with the unveiling of the new Tesla Semi and Roadster at the company's design studio. The semi truck, which enters into production in 2019, boasts 500 miles of range as well as a battery and motors built to last 1 million miles. The Roadster, set to follow in 2020, will become the fastest production car ever made with its 0 to 60 time of 1.9 seconds.
After initially aiming to produce 5,000 new Model 3 cars per week by December 2017, Musk pushed that goal back to March 2018, and then to June with the start of the new year. The announced delay didn't surprise industry experts, who were well aware of the company's production problems, though some questioned how long investors would remain patient with the process. It also didn't prevent Musk from garnering a radical new compensation package as CEO, in which he would be paid after reaching milestones of growing valuation based on $50 billion increments.
By April 2018, with Tesla expected to fall short of first-quarter production forecasts, news surfaced that Musk had pushed aside the head of engineering to personally oversee efforts in that division. In a Twitter exchange with a reporter, Musk said it was important to "divide and conquer" to meet production goals and was "back to sleeping at factory."
Tesla then met its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of June, while churning out another 2,000 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs. "We did it!" Musk wrote in an celebratory email to the company. "What an incredible job by an amazing team."
Uproar over Going Private
On August 7, 2018, Musk dropped a bombshell via a tweet: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured."
The announcement sent Tesla stock spiking, before it closed the day up 11 percent. Meanwhile, the CEO followed up with a letter on the company blog, calling the move to go private "the best path forward." He promised to retain his stake in the company, and added that he would create a special fund to help all current investors remain on board.
However, the announcement also opened the door for legal action against the company and its founder, as the SEC began inquiring about whether Musk had indeed secured the funding as claimed. Additionally, several investors filed lawsuits on the grounds that Musk was looking to manipulate stock prices and ambush short sellers with his tweet.
Musk sought to clarify his position on August 13 with a statement in which he pointed to discussions with the managing director of the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund as the source of his "funding secured" declaration. He later tweeted that he was working on a proposal to take Tesla private with Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake as financial advisers.
On September 29, Musk agreed to step down as chairman of Tesla's board for three years as part of an agreement with the SEC. He also has to pay a $20 million fine.
SolarCity Acquisition
In August 2016, in Musk’s continuing effort to promote and advance sustainable energy and products for a wider consumer base, a $2.6 billion dollar deal was solidified to combine his electric car and solar energy companies. His Tesla Motors Inc. announced an all-stock deal purchase of SolarCity Corp., a company Musk had helped his cousins start in 2006. He is a majority shareholder in each entity.
“Solar and storage are at their best when they're combined. As one company, Tesla (storage) and SolarCity (solar) can create fully integrated residential, commercial and grid-scale products that improve the way that energy is generated, stored and consumed,” read a statement on Tesla’s website about the deal.
Other Inventions & Innovations
Outside of his roles at SpaceX and Tesla, Musk has continually attempted to make his innovative ideas a reality.
Hyperloop
In August 2013, Elon Musk released a concept for a new form of transportation called the "Hyperloop," an invention that would foster commuting between major cities while severely cutting travel time. Ideally resistant to weather and powered by renewable energy, the Hyperloop would propel riders in pods through a network of low-pressure tubes at speeds reaching more than 700 mph. Musk noted that the Hyperloop could take from seven to 10 years to be built and ready for use.
Although he introduced the Hyperloop with claims that it would be safer than a plane or train, with an estimated cost of $6 billion — approximately one-tenth of the cost for the rail system planned by the state of California — Musk's concept has drawn skepticism. Nevertheless, the entrepreneur has sought to encourage the development of this idea. After he announced a competition for teams to submit their designs for a Hyperloop pod prototype, the first Hyperloop Pod Competition was held at the SpaceX facility in January 2017.
AI and Neuralink
Elon Musk has pursued an interest in artificial intelligence, becoming co-chair of the nonprofit OpenAI. The research company launched in late 2015 with the stated mission of advancing digital intelligence to benefit humanity.
In 2017, it was also revealed that Musk was backing a venture called Neuralink, which intends to create devices to be implanted in the human brain and help people merge with software.
Boring Company
In yet another innovation, in January 2017 Elon Musk suddenly decided he was going find a way to reduce traffic by devoting resources to boring and building tunnels. He launched his venture, named "The Boring Company," with a test dig on the SpaceX property in Los Angeles. In late October, Musk posted the first photo of his company's progress to his Instagram page. He said the 500-foot tunnel, which would generally run parallel to Interstate 405, would reach a length of two miles in approximately four months.
Flamethrower
The entrepreneur also reportedly found a market for the Boring Company's flamethrowers; after announcing they were going on sale for $500 apiece in late January 2018, he claimed to have sold 10,000 of them within a day.
High-Speed Train
In late November 2017, after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for proposals to build and operate a high-speed rail line that would transport passengers from O'Hare Airport to downtown Chicago in 20 minutes or less, Musk tweeted that he was all-in on the competition with his Boring Company. He said that the concept of the Chicago loop would be different from his Hyperloop, its relatively short route not requiring the need for drawing a vacuum to eliminate air friction.
Facts:
Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971.
He became famous for starting Tesla Motors and SpaceX but he first made his fortune as a co-founder of PayPal.
Musk provided a large amount of inspiration for the Hollywood character Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man). In fact, parts of Iron Man 2 were actually filmed inside and outside of SpaceX. Musk even has a cameo in the film!
Like Steve Jobs and other famous entrepreneurs, Musk's official annual salary for Tesla Motors is just $1. At age 12, Musk taught himself computer programming and created a video game called Blastar, which he sold for $500.
Elon Musk didn't become an American citizen until 2002, at age 31.
When Elon Musk was 17, he moved from South Africa to Canada. Eventually, he attended college in the U.S. at the University of Pennsylvania.
After graduating, Musk moved to California in order to begin graduate school in physics at Stanford University. He left Stanford after just two days, deciding instead to take advantage of the Internet boom, which was in full swing. After dropping out of grad school, Musk quickly established his first company --Zip2, which provided online newspapers with maps and business directories. He sold the company in 1999 for $307 million.
In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online payment company that eventually became PayPal before being acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock (of which $165 million was given to Musk).
Musk co-founded Tesla Motors, a company that designs and manufacturers electric sports cars. Tesla was able to succeed in the electric car market where other large manufacturers failed. He now serves as CEO and chief product architect at Tesla.
The Tesla Model S was awarded a 5.4-out-of-5 safety rating from the National Highway Safety Administration, the highest rating ever given an automobile.
Musk is one of the major driving forces behind SolarCity, a company founded by his cousins. He is also the largest shareholder of the company.
Elon Musk also founded SpaceX (a.k.a. Space Exploration Technologies), a company that creates and manufactures space launch vehicles, with a particular focus in rocket technology. His aim is to reduce the cost of space flight in hopes of expanding human life beyond Earth.
Musk initially found it impossible to get funding for SpaceX, which investors saw as a pipe dream. Musk channeled all his own money into the company to make SpaceX a reality.
SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to resupply (and eventually ferry people to) the International Space Station, effectively replacing the Space Shuttle.
Musk has reduced the cost of reaching the International Space Station by 90%, bringing it down from $1 billion per mission to just $60 million.
Musk aspires for his Falcon rocket to someday make space tourism and the colonization of Mars a realistic goal for mankind.
The Falcon rocket gets its name from Star Wars' Millennium Falcon.
SpaceX is the first commercial company ever to successfully recover a spacecraft from Earth's orbit, and its Dragon spacecraft is the first commercial vehicle to attach to the International Space Station.
Despite his enormous recent success, both his flagship companies (SpaceX and Tesla Motors) came alarmingly close to failing. Tesla'a first electric car, the Roadster, faced an ongoing string of production problems, and SpaceX had three launch failures before its fourth and final effort was a success.
Elon Musk established the Musk Foundation, which is a group committed to space exploration and discovering clean energy sources. The Foundation runs the Musk Mars Desert Observatory telescope in Utah.
The Musk Foundation also runs a simulated Mars environment that allows visitors to experience what life on Mars might be like (complete with waste-burning toilets).
Musk has been referred to as a "thrillionaire," a new class of high-tech entrepreneurs looking to use their wealth to make science-fiction dreams into a modern reality.
Musk is a firm supporter of fighting global warming and working toward sustainable energy use -- he cites it as his primary incentive for founding Tesla Motors and SolarCity.
Elon Musk has signed the Giving Pledge, in which pledges promise to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropic efforts. The Giving Pledge has also been signed by Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg, among others.
Elon Musk owns Wet Nellie, a custom-built Lotus Esprit submarine car from the James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me.
Musk was named one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire magazine.
In 2013, Musk was named Fortune's "Businessperson of the Year" for SpaceX, SolarCity, and Tesla Motors.
On January 25, 2015, Elon Musk made a guest appearance on The Simpsons episode titled "The Musk Who Fell to Earth," playing himself. Musk was a good sport about the episode, which poked fun at many of Musk's ideas.
The Federation Aronautique Internationale, which is the world governing body for aerospace records, presented Musk with the FAI Gold Space Medal in 2010 for designing the first privately developed rocket to reach orbit. It's the organization's highest award (and has also been awarded to Neil Armstrong).
In 2013, Musk introduced his latest endeavor -- the Hyperloop, a new form of transportation that could theoretically send people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour by way of pressurized tubes. Musk has said if no one else will build it, he will do it himself.
Elon When He Was Young:
He went door-to-door selling candy to rich people
He was bullied
His parents thought he was deaf
He made his own explosives and rockets
He had a penchant for reading
He coded his own video game at 12 and got $500 for it
He was master at Dungeons & Dragons
He tried opening his own video arcade at 16
He moved to North America as a teenager