Elon Musk dropped out of education and fathered many children. The super-rich eccentric became known through his companies PayPal and Tesla. You can find exciting facts from Musk’s professional and private life and how he became so successful in the article.
Elon Musk: His childhood days and education
Elon Reeve Musk was born in Pretoria on 28 June 1971. The son of a South African engineer and a Canadian author and nutritionist, Elon grew up together with his younger brother Kimbal in South Africa’s capital.
But things have not always been as successful as they are today: as a child, Elon Musk was often bullied and even ended up in hospital because of it. He was pushed down a flight of stairs and beaten unconscious.
In his childhood, Elon Musk was keen to experiment. In addition to his favourite hobby of reading, he started programming a computer game and making small model rockets with nitric acid at an early age.
The road to North America: education in Canada and the USA
To escape military service under the South African apartheid regime, Musk applied for passports at the Canadian embassy with his brother Kimbal at the age of 15. With success: about a year after applying, Elon and Kimbal emigrate.
- First Musk enrols at Queen’s University in Kingston. He then moves to the USA: in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania he graduates with a bachelor’s degree in economics and physics.
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In 1995, Musk moved to Silicon Valley for the first time. In Palo Alto, California, at the elite Stanford University, he is admitted to a Ph.D. programme in physics.
- However, his plans quickly change: after only 2 days, Elon Musk quits his studies and starts his first company.
Elon Musk founded his first company together with his brother. The idea behind it seems very simple by today’s standards – but back then it was revolutionary: with Zip2, Elon and Kimbal wanted to create a directory of companies that would also show the corresponding companies directly on the map.
And even though in times when the internet was hardly present in the everyday world and both the majority of customers and businesses didn’t really understand the purpose of Zip2, the company was the beginning of an immense success story.
- In 1999, computer manufacturer Compaq bought the company for a whopping $307 million – the highest price ever paid for an internet company to that date.
- Elon Musk received around $22 million for his shares, making him a multi-millionaire at the tender age of 28.
PayPal, Tesla & Co.: Musk’s most important companies
But unlike most, who would probably only spend a few months in Hawaii on the money, Musk founded other companies that, in retrospect, were even more significantly successful than Zip2.
- In the same year, 1999, he founded the online payment system X.com. When it merged with direct competitor Confinity a year later, it became PayPal. In the years that followed, this company became the most important online payment system in the world and is still considered one of Elon Musk’s greatest successes.
- No less revolutionary is the idea behind the company SpaceX: the resettlement of humans on Mars. With SpaceX, Musk wants to offer space transport so cheaply that it will be possible for people to travel to Mars.
- You can read everything you need to know about the historic SpaceX launch in May 2020 here.
- The company he is most often in the public eye with these days is Tesla. At the electric car manufacturer, Musk is CEO and Product Architect. His latest goal: an e-car production facility near the German capital Berlin.
- Also, employees of Elon Musk tell how the cooperation with Elon Musk.
Current assets of Elon Musk
Elon Musk is one of the most influential and wealthy people today. How much money his fortune amounts to is not entirely clear or changes again and again.
- He owns 21.7 percent of Tesla Motors. Elon Musk’s next goal is to conquer space with his company SpaceX. Over the course of 2020, he has knocked Jeff Bezos off the throne of the super-rich. He is currently the richest person in the world. His fortune is currently said to be $185 billion (as of January 2021).
- At the beginning of 2020, he was just among the 50 richest people with around 27 billion dollars. The reason for the explosive growth of his fortune was the Tesla rally. This caused the company’s stock market value to increase almost tenfold within a year, reaching 744 billion at the beginning of 2021.
- In March 2021, there was a temporary drop in Tesla’s share price. The reason was false reports about Musk’s death, who according to them died on 5 March 2021 due to the explosion of a car battery in a Tesla plant. The share price quickly recovered when the false report was debunked as such.
- Elon Musk shares tips on how to get more out of your workday.
New projects from the multi-billionaire
Musk continues to cause a stir with his projects. Most recently, he announced that he would take measures to fundamentally change the starry sky and abolish physical suffering:
- To provide the whole world with internet, Musk plans to launch 40,000 satellites into the sky. There are currently around 2000 satellites orbiting the Earth. Astronomers fear dramatic aesthetic consequences for the observation of the night sky. For this would then be fundamentally changed forever.
- With the Neuralink project, he wants to abolish ailments such as paraplegia and deafness. Neuralink is a chip transplanted into the head that provides an interface between the brain and the internet. In addition to expanding physical capabilities, Neuralink is designed to store and retrieve memories.
- Musk dreams that all humans will be linked to each other via this chip and, connected to artificial intelligence, will form a pool of boundless knowledge. These transhumanist possibilities of Neuralink are still dreams of the future. But Musk did manage to successfully implant the chip in the head of a pig in 2020.
Father of 6 children: The private life of Elon Musk
Elon Musk tries to keep his private life out of the public eye as much as possible. He also deactivated his Instagram account. But one thing is certain: in Elon Musk’s life, his professional career is not the only thing that is unusual. His private life has also been anything but ordinary.
- Musk was married to the writer Justine Wilson. With Wilson he has 5 sons – triplets and twins!
- In 2010, he married actress Talulah Riley. The marriage lasted just over a year – then Musk filed for divorce. Another year later, Musk had obviously changed his mind; the couple married again in the summer of 2013. But again, Musk did not last longer than a year. At the end of 2014, he again asked for a divorce.
- After the couple withdrew their divorce shortly after, Riley demanded a final divorce in 2016 – a never-ending back-and-forth.
Musk and his relationship with Grimes
Since early 2018, Elon Musk has been in a relationship with musician Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher.
- In May 2020, the couple announced the name of their newborn son was “X Æ A-12”. This is Grimes’ first child.
- Numbers, however, are not allowed under California law, so the number 12 is now replaced with the Roman version. The boy shall now be called “X Æ A-Xii”.
- Grimes explained on Twitter: “X” stands for the unnamed variable, “Æ” for “artificial intelligence” in what she writes is her “elf language”; “A12” refers to a military aircraft that is fast but not armed, “A” is also a tribute to her favourite song “Archangel”.
- The Musk family has resided in Austin, Texas since 2020. Previously, they lived in Bel-Air – one of Los Angeles’ celebrity neighbourhoods.
Twitter missteps and stoner interviews: His scandals
Where there is much light, there is also shadow. In other words: genius and madness lie close together. This is also the case with Elon Musk. While it is now known that Musk, as a tough and narcissistically inclined boss, has no problem throwing employees out the door if they are not successful, the visionary has had a few lapses in the recent past:
- Mud fight with rescue diver: In the drama about a trapped football team in a Thai cave, Musk wanted to rescue the children with a company-owned submarine. When he arrived in Thailand, the children had already been freed. Afterwards, Musk insulted a rescue diver via Twitter as a paedophile, among other things.
- The Stoner Interview: In an interview with a Californian YouTuber, Musk took a drag on a joint on camera. It hailed masses of criticism for the entrepreneur.
- Musk takes a shot at Bill Gates:When Bill Gates buys himself a Porsche Taycan, the Tesla boss gets personal
Elon Musk: Interesting Quotes
Despite his occasional missteps, Elon Musk remains one of the greatest visionaries of our time. His view on things and his innovative approach are unique. By the way, Musk summarises these in his biography. The most important quotes that show what makes the entrepreneur tick at a glance:
- “I don’t start companies to start companies, I start companies to get things done. “
- “Great companies are built on great products. “
- “If you wake up in the morning thinking the future is going to be better, that’s a good day. Otherwise, it is not. “
