Who Is Elon Musk?

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa to father Errol and mother Maye Musk.

In 1989 he moved to Canada and from 1992 lived in United States after receiving a scholarship from The University of Pennsylvania.

In 1995, created his first IT company Zip2.  Sold it in 1999 for $307 million.  Musk founded the company with his brother Kimbal.

In 1999, he wanted to make online payments easier so he founded a company that is now known as PayPal. He sold it to eBay in 2002. for $1.5 billion.

In August of 2019, Elon Musk spoke out along with Jack Ma of China about what they think the biggest problem the world will face in the future is.  Surprisingly, it was not running out of water or other resources but rather a collapse in the population is what Musk fears most.  This is in part due to a steadily declining fertility rate.  

PayPal founders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk (right)

In 2004 he wanted to make serial production of electric cars, so he invested $70 million in Tesla Motors and became the chairman of the board of directors. Tesla Motors made a series of electric super-cars which were pretty expensive, but Musk used earned money to further invest in electric vehicles and in early 2016. Tesla unveiled their $35,000 Tesla Model 3 electric car intended for mass production.  This has extended to things like self driving electric trucks and delivery robots.  

Elon Musk in front of the Tesla model S

In 2015, Tesla Motors unveiled its new product called Powerwall, a wall-mounted lithium ion battery that charges using electricity generated from solar panels, or from city power system when utility rates are low, and can provide 7-10 kWh of electric power. Any excess amount of power can be stored in batteries for later usage.  Tesla Motors is on the cutting edge of developing and deploying self driving electric trucks initially for the logistics industry and self driving cars.  Musk certainly knows about how self driving cars work.  

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SolarCity is yet another of Musk’s companies. He is not the founder, but he is a shareholder since 2003 when he invested $10 million in the company. SolarCity provides homes, companies and governments with electric power generated with solar panels. In 2008, the company built solar-powered electric systems for British Motors and eBay to power their headquarters and servers.

He founded SpaceX in 2002, because he was fascinated by an ambitious idea of reducing space transportation costs to enable people to colonize Mars. In 2006 Musk invested over $100 million in the company to boost the development. Grasshopper and Falcon 9 are experimental launch vehicles that are able to make vertical landings and vertical takeoffs, meaning we could be able to re-use space transportation vehicles in near future.  The concept of space elevators is also linked to this venture and thought process.  In September of 2019, Elon Musk tweeted out some teasing photos and images of the proposed spaceship capable of traveling to Mars and other planets.  

Elon Musk / SpaceX

As it wasn’t enough, in 2013 he published a blog post about a new type of transportation called Hyperloop. It is a high speed solar powered transportation system driven by induction motors and air compressors. It should transport people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes covering the distance of 614.44 km (381.8 miles).

Hyperloop concept

In early 2015, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) signed an agreement to begin construction of the first full-scale test track in 2016  in the town of Quay Valley, CA, and complete the construction by 2017 – accepting passengers by 2018.

Elon Musk Tunnels

Musk is also extremely passionate about constructing high speed tunnels to ease congestion and traffic.  He has been very vocal about being able to easily build a tunnel underneath Los Angeles and Hollywood that provides immense benefits to society.

Interesting Facts About Elon Musk

As 2017 and 2018 plowed forward things certainly did not get any less interesting regarding Elon Musk.  Musk stared down the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in a showdown over Musk tweets that were taunting short sellers of Tesla stock.  Tesla stock has long been one of the more heavily shorted stocks in the market.  SHort selling is when investors borrow shares of the stock to sell now so that they can buy back later to cover the short for a profit (if it works in their favor).  “Naked shorting” takes place when the shares aren’t truly borrowed and exchanges allow shares to be sold that don’t even exist or are not in their inventory.

Musk tweeted threats about taking the company private and that “funding was secured” which got him in hot water with the SEC.  It was all settled.

Other interesting facts recently with Elon Musk relate to cryptocurrency scams and Musk’s The Boring Company and its tunnels.  Many people believe Musk to be a strong supporter of Bitcoin like his pal Peter Thiel.  Scammers have taken to using Musk’s name and likeness to runs scams trying to scam people into buying bogus coins or invest in bogus projects.

Here is some updated information on The Boring Company and the tunnels.

SpaceX

SpaceX has been making steady progress in 2018 and 2019.  Musk recently updated folks about the SpaceX launch.  More details are available here courtesy of space.com.   

SpaceX Dragon recently returned to Earth after its second Space Station discovery and trip.  

Here are some images of how Musk sees humans traveling into space.

SpaceX is now preparing the Falcon 9 for static fire in anticipation of the Crew Dragon mission.  The launch date is anticipated to be February 16, 2019.  

2019 Drama

Early 2019 has showcased a lot of drama between Musk, ex girlfriends, and potential court cases.  Elon Musk girlfriends Grimes and Azealia Bank are engaged in a scathing battle that also connects the Elon Musk Twitter account.  Here is a snapshot of where things stand in late January.  

In April of 2019 it was reported that the SpaceX Falcon rocket could ultimately be the driving force behind NASA’s commitment to sending humans to the moon by 2024. Musk has always been determined to take humanity into the solar system beyond Earth.  

Ford launched an all electric Mustang in November of 2019.  Musk responded by congratulating Ford on the all electric Mustang.  

Tesla Stock Plunges

In May of 2019 the stock price of Tesla really tanked hard.  Musk was forced to cut prices on Tesla EVs and analysts were debating if the company could survive and how.  It remains a challenge to get the Lithium batteries produced at a cost where the EV final sale price is competitive enough.  Nonetheless, Tesla marches forward and continues to strive towards it’s immense goals and objectives.  

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Musk has ever been an outspoken man. It wants to set a colony on Mars for the following reason. It recommends that you only check your phone 23 times per day, or just limit yourself to 20minutes of social media per day, the rest of the time it should be in airplane mode. Elon Musk is among those folks who are quite serious regarding the safety problems that would arise from the creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It may be one of the biggest innovators of this century so far. So it’s safe to say that Elon Musk is extremely serious regarding the problems posed by AI.

Why join another auto company, once you can join the business that’s attempting to redefine the vehicle. In the same way, oil and gas businesses have dramatic returns on investments on account of the economics and repeatable procedure of fracking. The organization is training Ozlo to develop into a better and much better assistant with each conversation and user and to turn into a meaningful portion of our everyday lives. The general public utility businesses are highly indebted.

The business launched its very first Falcon 9 in September. Massive worldwide businesses and top tier investors were now attempting to acquire a part of the action. The spaceflight business is attracting big sharks, and of course Virgin Galactic from Richard Branson. There’s one particular company which delivers all my electricity.

In a tweet, Musk reported the funding to earn the buyout is secured. Elon Musk is famous for his fiery tweets. It will not be allowed to be re-elected to the board chairman position for at least three years. Because it is one of the most influence rich people on the planet.

Tesla was never the very first electric vehicle business in the world. It is one of the most shorted stocks in the United States.  If it needs to pay back its debt with cash and if the company lacks the cash to pay it Tesla could raise the money by issuing more debt or stock.

Tesla will probably need to boost capital in 2019 to fulfill its expansion objectives. It must hire an independent chairman to oversee the company. Without Musk, it is just an auto maker burning too much cash and holding too much debt, Whiston told the Journal.

A couple of weeks later, though, Tesla announced that it wouldn’t go private. Though it was not named as a defendant in the case, news that its leader risks being ousted from the company represents a serious blow. It is, of course, a publicly-traded company. It gets a premium because of Elon Musk’s celebrity status.

Neuralink – A New Musk Backed Venture

Musk claims that Neuralink will enable humanity to wire their brains and connect them to computers – a sort of peaceful merging with AI – or artificial intelligence.

Whether you know him as the geeky guy that tweets about the deletion of Fortnite or the tech genius leading innovative inventions, Elon Musk is definitely one of the most influential CEOs in the history of the world.

Early Life

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in South Africa. His father was an electromechanical engineer, pilot and sailor and his mother was a dietitian and a model. After their divorce, Musk would spend the next few years with his father. He himself made this choice, but now he clearly says that this was a mistake.

In his childhood, he developed a habit of reading and computing. He became a self-taught programmer at the age of 10 and created a game by the age of 12 called Blastar.

He attended the Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School which would eventually lead him to the Pretoria Boys High School. At the age of 17, he left South Africa to attend Queen’s University and avoid mandatory services of the South African Military. And then went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania and tried to get a PhD from Stanford University in energy physics. However, just two days after getting into Stanford, he dropped out to launch his first company, Zip2 Corporation.

Personal Life

Musk has a sister who is a filmmaker. Tosca Musk, who is also the founder of Musk Entertainment and has produced quite a few movies.

Musk has five children with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson. His first died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and he would proceed to concede five time through vitro fertilization.

He would then marry actress Talulah Riley in 2010 but got divorced after four years. He’d eventually remarry Riley and divorce her once again. Musk is currently dating Canadian musician Grimes since May 7, 2018.

Musk is widely known as a philanthropist. His Musk Foundation focuses on providing solar power energy in disaster areas. Musk primarily donates millions towards the excelling of tech. He has helped foundations like the Future of Life Institute, a solar power project in Soma (that was affected by a tsunami) and Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe.

Achievements

  • Musk and his brother started Zip2 in 1995 which was a web software company. Musk wanted to be the CEO of the company, however, the board members would not allow it. Zip2 would be acquired by Compaq for $300 million in 1999.
  • Musk started X.com with the money from his shares in Zip2. X.com would be merged with a company called Confinity where this money transfer service would be renamed to the current PayPal. Musk owned 11.7% of PayPal and when ebay acquired it, Musk received $165 million. Musk would later buy the x.com domain  saying that it meant a lot to him.
  • SpaceX was Musk’s next and biggest venture. The original idea was to create a greenhouse on Mars and grow crops on Mars. SpaceX is doing a lot of different stuff which we’re not going to discuss at too much length. Let’s just say that if Musk had his way, he’d send a rocket with a 100 people to Mars today.
  • He is currently a product architect for Tesla, a leading manufacturer of eco-friendly cars.
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