Elon Musk: biography, photo. What did Elon Musk invent?

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Elon Musk is an American entrepreneur and engineer. He took part in the creation of the PayPal payment system, which was sold to EBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. He heads the board of directors of SolarCity and Tesla Motors. According to Forbes, Musk's net worth is $2.4 billion

Short biography

Musk was born in Pretoria in 1971. The place where Elon Musk was born is the administrative capital of South Africa, a developed scientific city. There lived his father, an engineer, and his mother, a former Canadian model who later worked as a nutritionist. There were three children in the family.

At the age of 10 Musk is given his first computer, and at the age of 12 he sells his first game for $500. The teenager invests the money received in a pharmaceutical company, which he followed in the newspapers. He later sold the shares for several thousand dollars. At 17, with this money, Musk moves to Canada, where he learns what poverty is. For example, he tried to live on $1 a day without getting an upset stomach.

In 1992, Musk moved to the US and entered the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied physics and business. Hewrites at Stanford University but does not attend lectures. Together with fellow students, the future entrepreneur establishes the company Zip2. In 1999, it was bought out by Compaq Computer for $307 million, of which Musk receives $20 million. With them, he buys a McLaren F1 aircraft and moves into a condominium.

A solar power plant for everyone

Elon Musk, whose biography is full of amazing events, founded X.com in 1999. In 2001, the company was renamed PayPal, which was sold a year later for $1.5 billion. The entrepreneur owned 11.7% of the shares.

In 2006, Musk opened SolarCity, a company he still owns and engineers. The company is engaged in the installation of small power plants for personal use on the roofs of houses and companies. However, the main idea is not to create power plants on their own, but to rent them out on a long-term lease. The client can calculate the benefits of using such a power plant and receives a personal solar power plant almost free of charge. Buyers are usually ordinary Americans.

Elon Musk, whose biography contains both ups and downs, hit the mark with an innovative idea. Today the company is growing faster than its competitors. It has more than 30 US operations centers, a new customer every five minutes, and a huge line of people who want to use solar energy. SolarCity has already installed such panels in several tens of thousands of buildings and is considered the largest company in this segment.

The Path to Mars Colonization

Elon Musk, whose biography teaches not to give up, opens the SpaceX rocket company in 2002, the main goal of which is to reduce the cost of space flights and the colonization of Mars. The company has already developed several space rockets and the Dragon spacecraft.

In 2010 Dragon was the first spacecraft to successfully launch, orbit and return. Later, in 2015, it became the first spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.

In 2006, the company won the NASA competition for the delivery of cargo to space stations and received a prize fund of $278 million. Five successful flights have already been made at the moment.

Other achievements and awards

In 2010, Tesla Motors, which has never shown a profit since its inception, was placed for public sale. However, the offer was so successful that on the first day of trading, the share price soared by 41%. Forbes named them the top earning stocks of the year.

Many awards have been given for what Elon Musk invented. In 2008, Musk was named one of the 75 Most Influential People of the Year by Esquire magazine. In 2011 he received the Heinlein Prize for outstanding achievements in the commercialization of space. That same year, Forbes named him one of the 20 Most Influential Young Executives.

Elon Musk is the second businessman to create three companies worth more than $1 billion. Many have tried to repeatsimilar success. It seems that the entrepreneur lives by different rules. However, the businessman does not hide the fact that there are several simple points that he follows.

Ask the right questions

As a teenager, Musk read a lot of philosophical and religious literature. However, his biggest influence was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. According to the entrepreneur, he realized that you need to ask the right questions. When Musk entered college, he thought about exactly how he wanted to influence the fate of mankind. There he decided that he would be engaged in the resettlement of people from Earth to other planets. The businessman decided that he would do his best to contribute to this industry. And he started looking for money.

Dissect reality

Elon Musk, whose biography teaches not to be like everyone else, believes that innovation is hindered by the ability of people to think in analogies. Therefore, they do not create a new one, but try to improve the existing one. The entrepreneur believes that it is necessary to dissect reality to the ground and create something fundamentally different.

For example, space seems out of reach for business. It takes a huge budget to develop it. However, Musk is confident that costs can be greatly reduced if a new goal of flights is set. So he founded SpaceX, whose goal is colonization. The businessman says that if you need to move the population of the Earth to another planet, you need to do it economically.

I don't think he's lying, but I don't believe him

In 2012, Musk expressed confidence that throughFor several decades, all cars will be electric. He began to work in this direction and in 2008 released the Tesla Roadster, the first electric car to go into mass production. Analysts, however, are skeptical of Musk's claim that the entrepreneur is absolutely not embarrassed.

The mask is often compared to Steve Jobs. The latter used the term "reality distortion field" to convince himself and others that the impossible is possible. Musk's colleagues assure that he selects the facts so that they correspond to his reality. Many say that the entrepreneur does not seem to be lying, but it is impossible to believe him.

His company Tesla Motors often found itself on the verge of bankruptcy, although Elon Musk achieved amazing success in business. The biography of Tesla, the creator, shows that the entrepreneur tried in every way to keep the company afloat. Everything got better over time. According to the businessman, the world is too dependent on oil. This leads to climate change, and Musk believes that using electricity will fix the situation.

One of the company's accomplishments is Gemeral Motors' decision to build the Chevy Volt. This is a small car with the possibility of electric charging. In electric vehicle mode, it can travel 65 km. At the time of release, 33,000 people signed up to buy this car.

Elon Musk, whose photos are always cheerful, has become successful, embodying ideas that are crazy at first glance. He not only became independent and provided for his family, but also entered intohistory. The entrepreneur strives to change lives for the better and works on projects that can save humanity in the future.

However, for now, he's pleased that he's helped make a lot of changes in energy, automotive, and rocket science.

Musk even acted in films. In 2008, the film "Iron Man" was released, the prototype of which was Elon Musk. Later, in 2013, he had a small role in Machete Kills, but his name is not in the credits. He also played himself in The Big Bang Theory season 9 episode 9.