Elon Musk is giving Jeff Bezos a run for his money as he has now been declared the richest man in the world. Musk’s net worth stands at a hundred and eighty-seven billion. He is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and considered to be also, one of the most controversial men in the world of technology.
Knowing hard beginnings, as he was bullied as a child, he attended university before becoming the CEO of two companies and founded three more. On a personal level, he has been married three times, has triplets and twins, together with another baby quite recently with his girlfriend.
Earlier on, we mentioned that Elon Musk is one of the most controversial people in the world of technology. Quite recently he has been quite outspoken in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, where he downplayed the illness and encouraged businesses to resume their operations.
Presently, apart from being the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, he also founded The Boring Company and is cofounder of both OpenAI and Neuralink. It is quite clear to see that his plate is quite full, as he is involved in spearheading ambitious technology projects. One of his most ambitious objectives is to colonise Mars and escape Earth, allowing humanity a totally new beginning.
Musk’s early years were anything but easy, having to go through his parent’s divorce and a problematic relationship with his father, whom he lived with. When he was just twelve years of age, he created a game which he sold to a computer magazine for five hundred Dollars.
His school days were challenging as he was once hospitalised by school bullies, where he was thrown down the stairs and beaten until he blacked out.
Following his graduation from high school, Musk went to Canada with his mother, sister and brother. He studied for two years at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He completed his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, having read for degrees in both economics and physics.
One of his first business experiments was renting out a ten-bedroom house and converting it into a nightclub. Together with his brother, Elon Musk launched Zip2. The company was funded by investors. Growing Zip2 was indeed a struggle as Musk would typically spend the larger portion of his hours at the office. His reward came when Compaq bought the company in a deal which was worth three hundred and forty-one million dollars. Through this deal, Elon Musk earned twenty-two million.
His next major project was X.com which would later merge with Confinity, to become PayPal. He would become the CEO of the company for a brief stint, due to a large fight between the co-founders. He still managed to make a substantial amount of money when eBay bought PayPal in 2002. Being the company’s biggest shareholder, he made a hundred and sixty-five million from the one and a half billion that eBay invested.
A hundred million from the eBay sale was used to launch SpaceX, with the objective of making spaceflight extensively cheaper. Musk is also quite busy with Tesla Motors, an electric car company. He holds a hands-on role within Tesla, where he helped in the development of its first car, the Roadster. He is both Chairman and CEO of the company.
