On April 5, 2022, Forbes magazine recognized Elon Musk as the richest man on the planet. Who is Elon Musk and why is everyone talking about him?
Elon Musk is a 50-year-old American inventor, visionary and billionaire. With the annual update of the rating of billionaires in 2022, Forbes magazine for the first time officially named him the richest person on Earth with a fortune of $ 219 billion. Over the past couple of years, Musk has become so several times - but only in the "real time" rating, periodically yielding to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Musk is best known for two projects: electric car maker Tesla and space company SpaceX. On May 30, 2020, SpaceX made the first ever private manned launch of the Crew Dragon into space. Prior to this, for nine years, astronauts were delivered to the ISS only by Russian spacecraft of the Soyuz series. SpaceX is also actively developing a project to send Internet satellites into low Earth orbit. With the help of a grouping of such devices, Musk intends to create a global network that provides residents with broadband Internet anywhere in the world. Another well-known SpaceX project is plans for the colonization of Mars by earthlings.
The entrepreneur was born in the family of engineer Errol Musk and nutritionist and famous model May Musk on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He has a younger brother, Kimbal, who owns The Kitchen restaurant chain, and a sister, Tosca, who is currently a film director and producer.
Musk made his first $500 at the age of 12 by selling a video game of his own design called Blastar, and invested the proceeds in stocks in a pharmaceutical company. Having sold them, Musk was able to leave South Africa for Canada after the divorce of his parents, where he studied for some time before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania. There he received a bachelor's degree in physics and economics, and later entered Stanford, which he dropped out without studying even a week to start his own business: Musk, along with his brother Kimbal, opened the Zip2 Corporation. It offered software for news firms and was later sold to Compaq, an American personal computer company. For his share, the entrepreneur then received $ 22 million.
Other projects and companies of the inventor:
● X.com electronic payment system. Merged with Confinity, then renamed PayPal and bought by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion (Musk's share was $180 million).
● Manufacturer of electric vehicles and their components Tesla. Musk's only public company. Contrary to popular belief, Tesla Motors was not founded by him, but by engineers Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpenning in 2003. The entrepreneur joined the team only a year later, investing part of the proceeds from the sale of PayPal. However, the company associated with his name is still not in vain: it was he who brought this business to a fundamentally new level. For example, the Tesla Model S 70D was named the "car of the century" in 2015, and the 2013 Tesla Model S was named the best car that has received the "Car of the Year" award over the past 70 years. The company also includes SolarCity, which sells solar panels and batteries.
● The space technology manufacturer Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX. So far, it has developed the Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon spacecraft. Elon has long been fascinated by the ideas of space travel and the future colonization of Mars. So, in January 2020, he announced that he intended to send 1 million people to Mars by 2050. In ten years, he plans to design a thousand reusable spacecraft, which SpaceX is already developing. But the main business of the company now is the delivery of goods to low Earth orbit.
● A system of near-Earth satellites Starlink to provide access to high-speed Internet in any corner of the world. The plans include launching 12,000 satellites into orbit by the mid-2020s. In April 2020, there were already 418 satellites in orbit, and a year later, there were already over 1.3 thousand spacecraft.
● Hyperloop high-speed vacuum train project. At the moment it is not fully implemented. The Hyperloop was supposed to be twice as fast as an airplane and three to four times as fast as a high-speed passenger train. The project is being implemented by both Musk himself and several competing teams.
● Artificial intelligence NGO OpenAI. The mission of the project is to create a strong AI that would benefit all of humanity. Elon has repeatedly expressed concerns about our future relationship with machines. In his opinion, AI can pose the greatest existential threat to humans and become even more dangerous than nuclear weapons.
● Tunneling company The Boring Company. Originally a subsidiary of SpaceX, spun off in 2018. It is based on the concept that an urban transport system can consist of an extensive network of car tunnels with exits to the surface. The company's first commercial project is to be the laying of a high-speed underground system in Las Vegas.
●Neurotechnology company Neuralink. In July 2019, the billionaire announced her latest development, the N1 brain chip. A small wireless device is installed in the brain and is designed to help people with dementia or paralysis. In August 2020, Neuralink held the first presentation of the chip, and in the spring of 2021 demonstrated a macaque playing a video game using an implanted chip. In the future, the device will be able to smooth out the disparity in the abilities of a person and a robot if the latter suddenly get out of control (see point 6).
The entrepreneur admitted that he loves the Russian language. So, he repeatedly responded in Russian to messages from ordinary users, companies and other famous personalities on Twitter, and also stated that he liked his sound. In the spring of 2021, Musk spoke via video link at the Russian scientific and educational forum "New Knowledge", however, he conducted the conversation in English.
Musk is also known for some of his controversial actions and words. For example, in 2018, he smoked a mixture of marijuana and tobacco right on the show of the American comedian Joe Rogan, and later spoke out against imprisonment for selling marijuana in the United States.
Musk has expressed skepticism about the coronavirus panic and lockdown, calling the former stupid and the latter “fascism.”
In May 2020, Musk announced that he was selling almost all tangible property. “I won’t have a home,” Musk wrote on his Twitter.
Several well-known Internet memes and catchphrases have also been associated with Musk, such as “haha, awesome” and “How do you like it, Elon Musk?”.
Elon Musk has been married three times (two of them to the same woman). He met his first wife, writer Justine Wilson, while studying in Canada. The couple have five sons in common. With his second wife, actress Talulah Riley, the entrepreneur met in London a little later than the start of the divorce proceedings with his ex-wife. They did not have children during their relationship. Divorced in January 2012, the couple got back together and remarried a year later, only to end their marriage permanently in 2014. Now Elon is in a relationship with 33-year-old Canadian singer Grimes, who recently gave birth to his son.
The name chosen by the couple surprised fans: the boy was named X Æ A-12, which can be pronounced X Ash Hey Twelve Musk or X Ash Archangel Mask. Grimes herself gave her newborn son the nickname Little X (Little X), and grandmother May Mask calls her grandson X.
Ten secrets of Elon Musk's success:
Forbes has compiled a list of lessons we can learn from the life of one of today's most famous and successful innovators.
● Read more. Elon read the entire Encyclopædia Britannica as a child and loved to spend time reading books later, when he got older. To succeed in life, you need to constantly continue self-education, broaden your horizons and be fueled by new ideas.
● Don't waste money on advertising. The high quality of the product itself will lead to increased word of mouth and eventually lead to success.
● Take risks before it's too late. The best time to be entrepreneurial is when you're young and not yet bound by the sheer amount of commitment that comes with every person over time. In addition, as you get older, the risks also begin to affect the family and children.
● Work hard and hard. Elon Musk is known for his strict work ethic. He often works up to 100 hours a week. No one says that you need to do the same, but you can set a pace for yourself, push yourself, remembering that if you slow down, you risk losing your potential.
● Create, don't complain or criticize. Instead of complaining about the circumstances, Musk tries to find a solution to the problem. So, instead of complaining about traffic jams, the entrepreneur founded The Boring Company, whose goal is to reduce traffic congestion by creating a system of tunnels.
● Love stakeholders like your own family. Business leaders treat customers and colleagues like family. Musk, for example, regularly expresses gratitude to customers via Twitter. It may seem like a small gesture, but people pay attention to such things.
● Plan for success, but prepare for failure. You need to make every effort to follow your dream, but at the same time be prepared for the fact that it will not work. It's easier to bounce back from a setback if you already have a fallback plan.
● Don't follow trends, create them. The most successful companies are focused on creating new innovative solutions. It's better to focus on your uniqueness instead of following others.
● Create a feedback loop. Constantly think about what you could improve and do not be afraid of criticism: it often reflects key points that you could not see before.
● Look for a positive purpose in the work you do. No matter how small it is, it will help keep you motivated.
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