Elon Musk: Biography, networth, family life, achievements
American entrepreneur and businessman Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, created X.com in 1999 (which eventually evolved into PayPal), SpaceX in 2002, and Tesla Motors in 2003. When Musk sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers in his late 20s, he became a multimillionaire. When SpaceX launched a rocket in May 2012 to deliver the first commercial vehicle to the International Space Station, Musk made headlines. By adding SolarCity to his portfolio in 2016 and accepting an advising position in the early months of President Donald Trump’s administration, he solidified his position as an industry leader. According to reports, Musk will overtake Jeff Bezos as the richest person in the world in January 2021.
Biography
Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971. When Musk was younger, his parents and physicians demanded a hearing test because he was so engrossed in his invention-related daydreams.
When Musk was 10 years old, just around the time of his parents’ divorce, he started to get interested in computers. He learned how to write on his own, and at the age of 12, he sold his first piece of software—a game he had made named Blastar.
Musk was a bookish, withdrawn, and short student in elementary school. He went through a growth spurt, was bullied until he was 15 years old, and learnt karate and wrestling as self-defense techniques.
Education
Musk left South Africa at the age of 17 in 1989 to attend Queen’s University and avoid serving in the South African military’s conscription program. In part because he believed it would be simpler to get American citizenship through that route, Musk became a citizen of Canada that year.
Musk left Canada in 1992 to attend the University of Pennsylvania to study physics and business. He earned an economics undergraduate degree before staying on to earn a second bachelor’s in physics.
Musk moved to Stanford University in California to seek a PhD in energy physics after leaving Penn. He left Stanford after just two days to join the Internet boom, starting his first firm, Zip2 Corporation, in 1995. However, his decision was made at the exact right time. In 2002, Musk acceded to citizenship.
Achievements
In 1995, Musk and his brother Kimbal Musk founded their first business, Zip2 Company. Zip2, an online city guide, quickly started contributing content to The New York Times and Chicago Tribune’s new websites. For $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options, a division of Compaq Computer Corporation acquired Zip2 in 1999.
Elon and Kimbal Musk founded the online financial services and payments company X.com in 1999 with the proceeds from the sale of Zip2. The following year, X.com was acquired, which resulted in the birth of PayPal as we know it today.
When PayPal was purchased by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock in October 2002, Musk made his first billion dollars. Musk controlled 11% of PayPal equity before the deal.
Space Exploration Technologies Company, or SpaceX, was formed by Musk in 2002 with the goal of developing spaceships for private space travel. In an effort to replace NASA’s own space shuttle missions, NASA gave SpaceX a contract in 2008 to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station, with intentions to include crew transport in the future.
Musk is a co-founder, CEO, and product architect at Tesla Motors, a business founded in 2003 with a focus on mass-market, reasonably priced electric vehicles as well as battery goods and solar roofs. Musk is in charge of all aspects of product development, engineering, and design for the business.
Along with his cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive, Elon Musk co-founded SolarCity in 2006 with the basic concept and funding. With its headquarters in San Mateo, California, SolarCity is a company that specializes in solar energy services. It rose to the position of second-largest US supplier of solar power systems in 2013. In 2016, Tesla purchased SolarCity and turned it into a full-fledged subsidiary of Tesla Inc.
Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup established to combine artificial intelligence with the human brain, is led by Elon Musk as CEO. The business is working on implantable memory-improving gadgets for people. As artificial intelligence develops, the technologies will also assist the human brain.
Elon Musk announced the founding of Open Al, a non-profit artificial intelligence research organization, in December 2015. Open Al aspires to create safe artificial intelligence that is advantageous to humanity. The business was established to combat the acts of organizations that might acquire excessive power through ownership of highly intelligent systems focused on profit-making and governments that might utilize AI to consolidate control and repress their populace.
Musk established The Boring Company in January 2017, a business focused to drilling and constructing tunnels to lessen traffic on the streets. On the SpaceX facility near Los Angeles, he started by digging a test hole.
Musk published the first image of his company’s development to his Instagram feed in late October of that year. He stated that it would take about four months for the 500-foot tunnel, which would typically run parallel to Interstate 405, to reach a length of two miles. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority awarded the business, now known as TBC, a $48.7 million contract in May 2019 for the construction of an underground Loop system to transport visitors around the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Following months of back and forth, Musk finally acquired Twitter in October 2022 and was named the social media company’s CEO.
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Elon Musk Personal Life
In 2000, Elon Musk wed Justine Wilson, a Canadian author whom he had met while attending Queen University in Ontario, Canada. Nevada Musk, their son, passed away from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) 10 weeks after his birth. With in vitro fertilization, Elon and Justine went on to have five sons; twins in 2004 and triplets in 2006. They divorced in 2008, dividing custody of their five sons equally.
In 2008, Musk began a relationship with English actress Talulah Riley; the two later married. Riley and Musk had been together for four years before Musk announced their breakup on Twitter in January 2012. However, the couple wedded in 2013.
In 2016, Musk and Talulah finally got divorced after multiple failed attempts. Elon also had a romance with American actress Amber Heard, however it terminated due to schedule conflicts. Elon disclosed his relationship with Canadian musician Grimes in May 2018. In a March 2019 feature in the Wall Street Journal Magazine, the couple talked about their love, with Grimes stating, “Look, I adore him, he’s fantastic… He’s a goddamn intriguing individual, that’s for sure. “I admire c’s crazy fairy creative inventiveness and hyper-intense work ethic,” Musk said in response to the Journal.
On May 4, 2020, Grimes gave birth to their son, who they called “X A-12,” as Musk announced. The couple announced they were renaming their kid “X A-Xii” later in the month after it was reported that the State of California wouldn’t allow a name containing a number. Exa Dark Siderael Musk, the couple’s second child, was born to them in December 2021. The baby was born using a surrogate.
Elon Musk’s Net worth
With a projected net worth of $180 billion by 2023, Elon Musk, who completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on October 27–28, 2022, is currently the second-richest person in the world. Yet, his current net worth could fluctuate between $170 billion and $190 billion at times.
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