Characteristics of Ilona Mask. Biography of Elon Musk, co-owner of PayPal, founder of SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity - photos, videos, success stories, interesting facts from life. Solar power station for everyone
Take a look at the main episodes of Elon Musk's biography:
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa.
“Elon has always been an introvert. Where most people go to a great party, Elon would rather spend time in the library reading. For him, they were entertainment. Once, at the age of 3-4, he asked the question: “Where does the whole world begin and end?". Such questions made me understand that he thinks in a special way, " - in one of the interviews, the father of Ilona Errol Musk shared his memories.
Ilona's mother - Maye Musk is a Canadian by nationality, professional and a model whose face appeared on cereal packages Special K and magazine cover Time.
In 1979, parents Errol and Maya Musk divorced. 9-year-old Elon and his younger brother Kimbal decided to stay with their father.
In 1983, at the age of 12, Elon sold his first written game to a computer magazine, called "Blastar" for $ 500. Musk himself considered that game trivial.
The young researcher's school years were not the best. Ashley Vance "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and a quest to a fantastic future" tells the story of how Musk was hospitalized when a group of bully at school lowered him down the stairs and beat him unconscious.
After high school graduation, Ilon, along with his mother Maye, sister Tosca and brother Kimbal moved to. He spent the next 2 years studying at Queens University in the city of Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
However, Elon began to continue his studies in, where he received degrees in physics and economics.
While studying in Pennsylvania, Elon and his university friend Adeo Ressi rented a 10-room house, which, at times, was turned into a real nightclub. This was an early entrepreneurial experiment for both students.
After graduating from the university, Ilon decided to continue his studies to obtain an academic degree. PhD(Ph.D.) in, but eventually gave up and decided to test his luck against the incipient internet fever. Elon Musk will never remember studying at Stanford again.
Elon and his brother Kimbal (pictured below) took $ 28,000 from their father's budget to found the company. Zip2- a web startup that provided city travel guides to newspapers such as New York Times and Chicago Tribune .
According to Musk, while the company Zip2 got to his feet, he literally lived in the office and took a shower at the local branch of the youth volunteer organization YMCA . All these efforts will be richly rewarded the moment the company Compaq will acquire Zip2 per $ 341 000 000 .
Photo: Noah Berger | REUTERS After the deal, Elon Musk's own budget will amount to $ 22 million, half of which in 1999 the young entrepreneur will spend on founding another company in the field of online banking - X.com... A year later the project merge with the startup Confinity, which by that time was founded by Peter Thiel. This union will create new company who will be called PayPal.
Elon Musk was appointed CEO of the newly created company PayPal. But after a while, serious quarrels will arise within the project: Elon insisted on transferring the company's servers from a free operating system Unix on a product that the CTO disagreed with PayPal Max Levchin (pictured).
Photo: Getty | Drew angerer In 2000, Musk took his first vacation in a long time. While Elon was in, the board of directors PayPal made the decision to fire him and made Peter Thiel the new CEO.
"This is the problem with vacations.", - in one of his interviews, Ilon will later joke.
However, Musk will remain one of the largest shareholders. PayPal, which will bring him $ 165 million of the $ 1.5 billion he will pay in 2002 for PayPal company eBay.
Before the sale PayPal Science fiction lover Musk already had the idea of sending mice or plants to Mars. He even tried to acquire decommissioned Soviet missiles for these purposes. But the Russian seller wanted more than $ 8 million for the rocket, which made Musk think about building his own cheaper version.
In 2002, Elon Musk founds a company known as Space Exploration Technologies or simply Spacex... Musk's goal will be to develop processes that will help make space travel more accessible.
Photo: Mario Anzuoni | Reuters The first devices Spacex will become Falcon 1 named after a spaceship Millenium Falcon from the movie Star Wars..
..and the ship Spacex dragon named after the song "Puff the Magic Dragon"... With this name, Elon Musk wanted to answer all the skeptics who argued that Spacex will never be able to launch a spacecraft.
Long term goal Spacex is the colonization of Mars. In an interview, Musk noted that he would not withdraw the shares. Spacex on an IPO (initial public offering) as long as the "colonial transporter to Mars" does not make regular flights.
At the same time, Elon Musk still has a lot of tasks on Earth. In 2004, he makes his first investment of $ 70 million in Tesla motors- a manufacturing company he co-founded with one of the most experienced executive managers, Martin Eberhard.
Elon Musk took an active role in the work on the company's products, and also took over as chairman. He also helped develop the first electric car - Tesla roadster, the release of the first version of which began in 2006.
Photo: Scott Olson | Getty Images Since that was not enough, in 2006 Musk implemented the idea. SolarCity- a manufacturing company whose products were supposed to help in the fight. Elon Musk brought in his cousins Peter and Lyndon Raive to develop the company.
Returning to business Tesla, everything did not go exactly as Elon himself expected. Led by Eberhard Tesla burned more financial resources than she was able to bring. In 2007, on the initiative of Musk, at one of the board meetings, Eberhard was removed from further work.
In 2008, with the onset of the global financial crisis, Musk had to invest $ 40 million in Tesla and lend another $ 40 million to avoid bankruptcy. In the same year, Musk becomes CEO. Tesla, which, of course, is not accidental.
That year the company SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity completely ruined the Mask. He describes 2008 as the worst year of his life since Tesla still continued to lose money and Spacex faced rocket launch problems Falcon 1... By 2009, Elon survived only through personal loans.
Photo: Bobby Yip | REUTERS Around the same time, Elon Musk is going through a divorce from his first wife, Justin Musk, a Canadian writer who gave him 6 sons.
2008 brings two good news to Ilona: Spacex receives a $ 1.5 billion contract with NASA for space flights, and for business Tesla finally, outside investors are found.
By 2010, the situation changed dramatically again: in June of that year Tesla is valued at $ 226 million for an IPO and becomes the first public since Ford in 1956. At this point, Elon is selling $ 15 million worth of shares in the company to get his financial condition back on track.
Photo: Brendan McDermid | REUTERS Elon Musk's extraordinary career has become noticeable in other circles as well. Image of Tony Stark from "Iron Man" was based in part on Elon's real life. Moreover, in the second part of the film, Musk himself appears in the frame.
All this time, Ilona's personal life was filled with a series of different events. In 2008, he begins dating actress Talulah Riley. In 2010 they will get married, and in 2012 they will get divorced. By July 2013, they will get married again, but in December 2014, Elon Musk will again file for divorce, although he will then take back the documents. In March 2016, Riley will file for divorce.
Photo: Pascal Le Segretain | Getty Images Business with work during that period will be going well. By the end of 2015 Spacex will make 24 successful launches to the International Space Station, doing a lot of research in the process. Some time later Falcon 9 will make the first successful landing of a reusable orbital rocket on a water platform.
Ideas still do not stop visiting Elon Musk. Despite the move towards solar energy, electric vehicles and the colonization of Mars, Musk set to work on a new project called Hyperloop- a transport system capable of moving passengers over long distances at a speed of more than 1000 km / h.
Elon Musk is convinced that in the near future, humanity may face the threat of losing control over artificial intelligence, and therefore, at the end of 2015, the entrepreneur presented another - OpenAI whose goal will be development monitoring.
Photo: jurvetson | Flickr At the beginning of 2016, it became known about another incredible project by Elon Musk - the production of lithium-ion batteries, the area of which will be more than 300,000 square meters. The Gigafactory is expected to be able to produce more batteries than all comparable factories around the world combined. The launch of the project is scheduled for 2020.
In June 2016, Elon Musk presented his , with the aim of bringing together its two largest energy projects “under one roof”. The $ 2.6 billion deal was finally confirmed later in August.
In December 2016, Elon Musk founds another business - THE BORING COMPANY- a drilling and construction company whose tasks will be to create underground infrastructure in busy metropolitan areas, thanks to which residents and motorists will be able to avoid traffic jams, as well as help in the development of bullet train projects Hyperloop.
Elon Reeve Musk is a Canadian-American billionaire, inventor and philanthropist. Born June 28, 1971 in South Africa, later moved to Canada and then to the United States.
This is the perfect embodiment of the seemingly long-lost American dream: having arrived in the United States with a few dollars in his pocket, he became a billionaire.
Got higher education and a bachelor's degree in physics and economics.
Made his fortune in the creation and development of many innovative companies (X.com, PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, etc.). He is engaged in active entrepreneurial and philanthropic activities, maintains a political lobby in the US Congress, reads a lot, starred in feature films ("Iron Man 2", "Machete Kills", etc.).
He became the prototype for the character of Tony Stark in the film Iron Man. He is twice married and has five sons from his first marriage. Esquire magazine included Musk in the list of 75 most influential people 21st century.
From the Editor: An amazing person. While preparing his biography, we faced many conflicting opinions: for some he is a genius, for others he is a PR man who is devouring budget money. Doesn't leave you indifferent. A dreamer who embodies the most daring and unrealizable dreams into reality. An amazing person.
Major achievements
Elon Musk is known primarily as a successful businessman and innovator. Almost all of his projects are highly profitable, have brought him substantial income and widespread popularity.
His first company was Zip2, which he founded with his brother using his father's money ($ 20,000). The company was engaged in the development of the Internet for the media industry, entered into contracts with popular newspaper publications The new York Times and Chicago Tribune, and after 4 years it was sold for a huge amount of about $ 350 million, from which Musk got about $ 22 million.
Just a month later, Musk co-founded X.COM, an online payments company. A year later, his company merges with Confinity and takes the name PayPal. In 2002, the company will be sold at a price of $ 1.5 billion, and Musk's stake was about $ 170 million.
There is a legend that after the sale of PayPal, Musk came to Russia in order to finance the creation of a private space company based on Russian developments. But not a single official took his idea seriously. Samples in Moscow for several days, he bought several books by Tsialkovsky and decided that he could create a rocket on his own. The principles are well known. I don't know if this legend is true, but ...
In 2001, Musk took up the space industry, creating the concept of "Oasis on Mars" - a settlement on Mars that would grow food on the "Red Planet" and independently provide for its own needs. According to him, this was done in order to draw public attention to the study of outer space.
In 2002, he founded Space Exploration Technologies, or Space X, with a $ 100 million investment. The company was engaged in the development and production of launch vehicles, and for seven years developed the Falcon family of launch vehicles, creating the Dragon spacecraft.
In September 2009, a Falcon 1 rocket became the first private launch vehicle to launch a satellite into Earth orbit. In 2006, Space X was awarded a $ 1.6 billion contract with NASA and also received significant government orders.
In 2011, Musk announced that he hoped to send people to colonize Mars in 10-20 years and create the first colony there.
In 2004, Musk also invested in Tesla Motors, a company that designs and manufactures electric vehicles. The businessman entered the board of directors, becoming the chairman of the board. He took an active part in the development of the company's product - the Roaster sports car, which gained wide popularity, and Musk himself was awarded the prestigious "green" prize "Global Green" for the development of an environmentally friendly car.
Musk's financial flexibility and tenacity, his subsequent investments in the project, allowed the company to survive the financial crisis of 2008, while replenishing the company's lineup with new successful models (Model S, Model X, etc.). The company's profit is growing day by day, amounting to many tens of millions of dollars a year.
Musk has also invested in SolarCity, a private power plant for households and organizations, and has invested in the Hyperloop project, which he envisions could become the foundation for the transportation system of the future. Hyperloop will allow passenger capsules to reach speeds of more than a thousand kilometers per hour, at a distance of up to one and a half thousand kilometers.
Elon Musk's secrets of success
Musk believes that the reason for his success is his critical mind, escape from stereotypes and stereotypes of thinking, endless enthusiasm and energy. “I have always been critical of what my parents told me. I never took their word for it and always asked why? Then I tried to understand the meaning and logic of their answer "
Also, according to the entrepreneur, you need to be completely immersed in the business, without any distractions. Only full dedication, seven days a week without interruptions, full focus on business - this kind of perfectionism is one of the roots of a person's success.
Musk sees the main obstacle to innovation in the human predilection for analogies. Therefore, instead of doing something qualitatively new, people try to improve the old. The businessman calls to throw out all the limitations and frames of stereotypes, and start building concepts and projects from scratch, from the very beginning. This is the only way to create exceptional and first-class items.
Opinion: Musk's secret of success lies in the US logistics base and in the enormous resources the government provides him. There are no miracles. Innovation is very expensive. We need personnel, not only engineers, but also managers, lawyers, financiers. Look at attempts in other countries to create innovative products, for example, the same electric vehicles: where there is no base, this idea fails.
Quotes by Elon Musk
- I would like to die thinking that humanity has a bright future
- I think that people today are somehow too carried away by all kinds of Internet, finance and law. This is one of the reasons why we have little innovation.
- Maybe I read too many comics as a child. After all, they are always trying to save the world. Everything there looked like everyone should try to improve this world, it simply could not be otherwise.
- The only thing that should be done is to contribute to the general enlightenment of mankind.
- I do like computer games, but if I create the coolest games - how will this affect earthly affairs, the world in general?
- I like to bring to life technologies that, in my opinion, are important for the future and bring some kind of benefit.
- While we are throwing away rockets and ships, we are not really exploring space.
- As a samurai, I would rather die than surrender.
Elon Musk's ideas and goals
Musk sets global goals: he wants to save the human race from voluntary or accidental destruction.
The idea of making humanity an interplanetary species originated in Musk a long time ago. And first of all, we are talking about the settlement of Mars. At the SpaceX headquarters, at the entrance hangs an inspiring picture with two states of Mars - current and planned:
And if you pay attention, all of his current projects are subordinated to this goal. To get to Mars, you need to make space flights an order of magnitude cheaper than they are now - this is being successfully implemented by SpaceX. There is no suitable fuel on Mars, so electric vehicles will come in handy there, which will be charged from solar panels (and there are hundreds of stations where any Tesla owner can charge their car for free throughout the United States).
And this is not just a waste of money - all three companies are profitable, they are commercially successful and are at the forefront of technology.
Canadian-American inventor who founded the electronic payments company PayPal and the private space company SpaceX, the creator of launch vehicles and spacecraft.
Since childhood, he thought in a special way
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria. The developed scientific city, in which Musk was born, is the administrative capital of South Africa.
Elon's father, Errol Max, was a civil engineer by profession. Mother, May Musk, from the age of 15 went on the catwalks and was a professional model, later became an expert in the field of nutrition. Elon's parents lived in the same area of Pretoria and had known each other since childhood. As soon as the lovers turned 18, they got married. 9 months after the wedding, they had their first child.
The future inventor became the first and eldest child in the family. Ilona has a brother, Kimbal, and a sister, Tosca.
According to his father's stories, Elon was always an introvert, he loved reading. If most children prefer to have fun and play games, then Elon spent all the time in the library. Due to the fact that he differed in behavior from his peers, they made fun of him and mocked him in every possible way. So, after another squabble with the boys, he was taken to the hospital unconscious, and the doctors had to restore his broken nose.
Once, at the age of 3-4, he asked: "Where does the whole world begin and end?" Such questions made me understand that he thinks in a special way, ”Ilona's father shared his memories in one of the interviews.
When Ilona was 9 years old, his parents divorced. First, the mother took the children and went with them to another city in the country. However, Ilon and his brother Kimbal after a while moved to their father, in a suburb of Pretoria.
First entrepreneurial experience
At the age of 9, the boy received his first computer as a gift. It was from this time that he became interested in programming. Musk learned the BASIC programming language, completed a six-month course in less than a week.
The results of the childhood craze bore fruit: at age 12, Musk sold his first game, Blastar, for $ 500. As planned, the player fired at the ranks of aliens from a laser cannon.
Musk himself later said about his first development: "a trivial game ... but certainly better than Flappy Bird" (we are talking about a popular and simple mobile game released in 2013).
Formation of a worldview
The goal of Musk's current developments is to preserve the consciousness of humanity in the Universe, even if the Earth dies. Musk himself proclaimed himself the pioneer of deep space. This kind of thoughts began to form in Ilona as early as adolescence.
Then he buried himself in the literature of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and other philosophers in search of the meaning of life. At the same time, he got hold of Douglas Adams's book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which deals with aliens destroying the Earth to build a hyperspace highway. Turning the last page, Musk realized: "Only one thing makes sense - the fight for universal insight."
His ex-wife Justine Musk told Esquire magazine: “Elon is not afraid to take risks. If necessary, he is ready to sacrifice himself. "
Moving to Canada and doing odd jobs
After graduating from school, Musk entered the university without any problems in his hometown... However, due to political instability, it was decided to move to the mother's homeland - to Canada. According to other sources, the move allowed Musk to avoid being drafted into the army.
May helped her son obtain Canadian citizenship and solve the housing issue.
In Canada, Elon enrolled in an undergraduate degree at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. In his student years, the current businessman had a hard time. In the biography of the inventor, it is said that he managed to live on $ 1 a day. In Canada, he managed to work on a farm, a lumberjack and a boiler room cleaner at a sawmill.
At this time, she and her brother tried in every possible way to make useful acquaintances. Different ways young people searched for phone numbers of successful entrepreneurs and invited them to dine. One of those who did not ignore the brothers' offer was Peter Nicholson, the head of the Bank of Nova Scotia. He was impressed by the tenacity of the young people and invited Ilona to work at the bank.
Moving to the USA
In 1992, Elon made his dream come true by moving from Canada to the United States. There he entered the University of Pennsylvania and majored in physics and economics at the same time.
During his studies in the United States, Elon Musk lived in a student dormitory, which he rented together with his classmate Adeo Ressi. Young people turned the hostel into a nightclub, which, it should be noted, was popular. However, Musk himself did not take part in parties and simply went to his room to play video games.
In May 1997, Elon received his Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Science in Economics.
After graduating from the university, the 23-year-old boy decided to continue his studies and receive a PhD at Stanford University. After studying for a while, Elon abandoned the idea to develop his entrepreneurial ambitions for the Internet and outer space.
Musk was granted United States citizenship in 2002.
First major projectZip2
Elon and his brother Kimbal started the first company called Zip2 in 1996. The brothers received money in the amount of 28 thousand dollars for the development of the startup from their father.
The organization was engaged in the production of software that allows news outlets to post content on the Web and offer their customers additional paid services. Elon spent all the time within the walls of the office in order to save money on rental housing, and invested all free funds in the company.
Then the Internet was going through a boom period, and on this wave the brothers managed to attract investors. The company developed successfully and two years after its creation was sold for $ 307 million. Elon owned 7% of the company, and he earned about $ 22 million from its sale. Elon invested half of his fee in the creation of the next project.
The bank payments revolution
In March 1999, Musk founded X.com. A year after its creation, the company merged with Confinity (both systems specialized in electronic payments) and received the name PayPal. The company grew at a fast pace, and in 2002 its shares were listed on the stock exchange. In October 2002, PayPal was bought by eBay for $ 1.5 billion. Musk managed to bail out $ 175 million from this deal (11.7% of the company's shares). The funds available allowed Musk to bring to life the ideas that originated in his adolescence.
In July 2017, Musk bought X.com from PayPal due to the company's "sentimental value". The cost of the deal was not disclosed.
The idea of sending rodents to Mars
In 2002, Elon Musk founded the first private company to fly into space. The young businessman has invested $ 100 million in its development. Few believed that a private company could compete with the world's major state space agencies. The idea for SpaceX was born out of Musk's childhood dream of sending rodents or plants to Mars. At the initial stages, Ilon even tried to acquire decommissioned Soviet Dnepr missiles for these purposes. But the seller allowed to buy only one and asked for $ 8 million for it, which Elon thought was too high a price. Then he seriously thought about creating his own version of the rocket. According to Elon's idea, the cost of a man's space flight was supposed to decrease by 10 times.
The first devices private company Ilona steel Falcon 1, named after the Millennium Falcon spacecraft from the movie Star Wars, and SpaceX Dragon, named after the song “Puff the Magic Dragon”.
In 2006, SpaceX won a NASA competition and in 2008 was awarded a $ 1.6 billion contract for 12 launches of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon spacecraft to the ISS as a replacement for the Space Shuttle following the termination of their launch program in 2011.
The long-term goal of SpaceX is to colonize Mars. In January 2016, at an investment forum in Hong Kong, the inventor announced that his company hopes to carry out a flight to Mars in the next 3-5 years.
In September 2017, Elon Musk posted a video on his Instagram telling about the new idea of using SpaceX rockets. It consists in using rockets and spaceships for flights to any point on the earth instead of airplanes.
New generation cars
In July 2003, Elon invested in the newly formed company Tesla, which specialized in the creation of electric cars. From the very beginning, Elon Musk took part in the formation of the long-term development strategy of the company, actively participated in the design of cars and entered the board of directors.
During the entire existence of the company, the developers have managed to achieve colossal results: cars have been created that are able to move exclusively with the help of electricity. The minimum distance that an electric car can cover is 300 km. Tesla's creators are developing parts for other electric car manufacturers as well. A whole network of "electric filling" stations has been created.
Despite the fact that Tesla faced both major financial problems and technical problems during operation, Musk does not plan to stop there and has already announced his intentions to add a truck and a bus to the line of electric vehicles.
Solar power station for everyone
In 2006, Musk founded SolarCity, a solar power company. The company is a subsidiary of Tesla. Both organizations are dedicated to fighting global warming.
By 2013, SolarCity had become the second largest supplier of solar power systems in the United States. SolarCity supplies solar power plants for both manufacturing and home use. By the beginning of 2018, the capitalization of SolarCity was estimated at $ 3 billion.
Personal life of Elon Musk
The Canadian-American inventor has been married twice.
He met his first wife Justine Wilson while studying in Canada. The couple got married some time after graduation. In 2002, the couple had a son who died of sudden infant death at 10 weeks. In 2004, the couple attempted to have children with IVF. As a result, the twins Griffin and Damian were born. In 2006, the couple had triplets in the same way. Over time, the relationship between Justine and Elon began to deteriorate, and the couple filed for divorce in 2008. On the this moment ex-spouses maintain relationships and raise children together.
For the second time, the businessman married the English actress Talulah Riley, with whom he began dating immediately after the divorce. The relationship between the spouses did not work out: they diverged several times and then converged again. Finally, in 2016, the couple decided to split up completely.
After that, the businessman was in a relationship for almost a year with actress Amber Heard, who had just gone through a divorce proceedings. They broke up in August 2017.
To date, Elon Musk's fortune is estimated at more than $ 20 billion. Musk ranked 12th among tech businessmen with $ 20.7 billion, ahead of businessmen such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen ($ 20.5 billion) and Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt ($ 12.4 billion).
Elon Musk- engineer, inventor, entrepreneur and investor. Co-founder of PayPal and SpaceX. Chairman of the Board of Directors, general manager and the main ideological inspirer of the world famous Tesla company.
For his outstanding service to science, on May 9, 2018, Elon Musk was awarded a membership of the Royal Society of London.
According to the Forbes magazine, as of 2017, its capital exceeds $ 21 billion.
Biography of Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria (capital). His father, Eroll, was an engineer. Mother, May, worked as a nutritionist and model.
It is interesting that Ilon's parents grew up in the same yard, so they knew each other well. In addition to Elon, another boy and one girl were born in the Musk family.
Childhood and youth
From an early age, the future inventor was a very reserved and taciturn child. By the way, the great physicist was just as uncommunicative in his youth.
Elon spent whole days reading, having managed to read two sets of encyclopedias.
An interesting fact is that Musk has a photographic one, which allows him to retain and reproduce in detail the image of an object or phenomenon.
However, the more he learned, the more it irritated his peers. At school, Elon was constantly mocked and repeatedly beaten, and once even broke his nose.
Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal When Musk was 8 years old, his parents divorced, leaving the children to live with their father. The head of the family was a very tough and demanding person.
He often took both sons with him to work, who had to work on a construction site. This gave them many useful skills.
When Elon reached the age of ten, his father gave him a computer. Soon he managed to master the programming language, and even create his own video game. Subsequently, he will sell it for $ 500.
Interestingly, Musk did not spend his earnings on any entertainment or acquisitions inherent in his age.
Instead, he began to invest the funds received in a pharmaceutical company, noticing its promising growth.
Soon, Elon Musk was able to bail out a substantial amount from the sale of shares. As a result, he and his brother decide to leave for, despite the ban of their father.
Education
After settling with his relatives, Elon enters Queen's University in Kingston. Then he continues his studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His student years turned out to be much more fun than his school years.
Musk made many friends with whom he often organized parties. For such a lifestyle, he was almost expelled from the educational institution. However, he still managed to graduate from it and become a bachelor in physics and economics.
Musk's early career
The first company in the careers of Musk and his brother was Zip2, founded in 1996. They borrowed money for the start-up capital from their father.
Zip2 developed software for news companies. In less than 3 years, the brothers will sell it for $ 308 million.
As a result of the sale, Elon received $ 22 million, and invested the bulk of the funds in new project... With the remaining money, he bought a McLaren F1 sports car.
This was only the beginning of successful endeavors in his biography.
PayPal
In 2000, Elon met Peter Thiel. Together with him, he decides to create an electronic monetary system that could be used all over the world. The project was launched successfully soon after.
Peter Thiel and Elon Musk at PayPal After some time, the founders were faced with the question of which brand to choose for the emerging payment giant: X.com or PayPal.
As a result, a conflict arose, as Elon Musk strongly advocated the X.com brand. Ultimately, by decision of the board of directors, Musk was fired from the company. At the same time, some considered this decision unfair, since many of the ideas that contributed to the development of the company belonged to Elon.
In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $ 1.5 billion. Musk, who owns 11.7% of the shares, raised $ 180 million on this sale. He invested almost all of this amount in his SpaceX and Tesla Motors projects.
Spacex
Since childhood, Elon has been reading science fiction. Perhaps for this reason, in 2002, he created a large company "SpaceX", which was engaged in the manufacture of launch vehicles and spacecraft.
After 6 years, NASA entered into an agreement with SpaceX for an amount exceeding one and a half billion dollars.
In 2016, Ilona's company announced that it plans to fly to. According to their calculations, this should happen before 2025.
Tesla
In 2003, great events took place in the biography of Elon Musk. He became the ideological inspirer and leader of Tesla, and also invested about $ 70 million in it.
Tesla continues to successfully produce electrically powered products today.
Personal life
The first wife of Elon Musk was Justin, whom he met during his student years. The couple got married in 2000. They had six boys, but after 8 years of marriage, they decided to leave.
The second wife in the biography of Musk was the actress Talulah Riley. This union lasted 6 years, after which the couple divorced in 2016.
A year later, the inventor married for the third time. The actress Amber Heard became his chosen one. It is curious to note that before that the girl was married to.
In 2018, Musk appeared in public with canadian singer Grimes, which became the reason for the rumors about his new romance. However, there is no reliable information on this matter.
By his own admission, Elon Musk, he has trouble sleeping and uses sleeping pills.
According to The New York Times, some members of Tesla's board of directors have expressed their concerns about this.
Smoking Elon Musk
In September 2018, Musk attended a show by American comedian Joe Rogan. During the conversation, Rogan suggested that he smoke a mixture of marijuana and tobacco on the air.
The Tesla founder agreed after asking the comedian if it was legal.
Elon Musk smokes live Musk also said that he rarely smokes marijuana, explaining that the drug has no effect on him.
After this broadcast, the next day, Tesla shares fell by 10%, and the smoking Elon Musk became real on the Internet.
Elon Musk today
Today, Elon Musk is still in the spotlight. At the end of 2016, he became a member of the Presidential Forum on Strategy and Policy.
The purpose of this organization is to advise the President on issues related to the creation of new jobs and economic development country.
In the same year, Elon Musk founded another company called "Neuralink". She is engaged in the study and invention of devices aimed at treatment.
On October 7, 2017, Musk helped restore power to Puerto Rico, which was hit by a serious accident.
Today, as before, Elon Musk devotes a lot of free time to reading. In addition, he likes extreme views. He is often written about in the press and shown on television.
Perhaps in the future he will be able to surprise mankind more than once with his fantastic inventions and personal achievements.
Photo by Ilona Mask
Below are the most famous and popular photo by Ilona Mask... There will also be a photo with his mother, who, despite her advanced age, retains an amazing appearance. All photos of Elon Musk are taken from open sources.
Elon Musk with his father (far left) and brother (center) 
Ilona is very stylish and beautiful mother... At 68, Maye Musk has been involved in advertising campaigns for leading brands as a model and fashion icon. 
Musk in 2013 in Dublin If you liked the biography of Elon Musk - share it in in social networks... If you like biographies of great people in general, and in particular, subscribe to the site. It's always interesting with us!
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Elon Musk is an American entrepreneur and engineer. He took part in the creation of the PayPal payment system, which was sold to EBay in 2002 for $ 1.5 billion. Chairman of the Board of Directors of SolarCity and Tesla Motors. According to Forbes, Musk is worth $ 2.4 billion.
short biography
Musk was born in Pretoria in 1971. The place where Elon Musk was born is an administratively developed scientific city. His father was an engineer and his mother, a former Canadian model who later worked as a nutritionist, lived there. The family had three children.
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 in a pharmaceutical company, which he followed in the newspapers. He later sold the shares for several thousand dollars. At the age of 17, Musk moved to Canada with this money, where he learned what poverty is. For example, he tried to live on $ 1 a day without getting an upset stomach.
In 1992, Musk moved to the United States and entered the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied physics and business. He writes his doctorate at Stanford University, but does not attend lectures. Together with his student friends, the future entrepreneur founds the Zip2 company. In 1999, it was bought by Compaq Computer for $ 307 million, of which Musk receives $ 20 million. With this he buys a McLaren F1 jet and moves to a condominium.
Solar power station 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 opens SolarCity, a company he still owns and engineer. 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 our own, but to lease them on a long-term basis. The client can calculate the benefits of using such a power plant and receives a personal solar power plant almost free of charge. The buyers are usually ordinary Americans.
Elon Musk, whose biography contains both ups and downs, hit the mark with an innovative idea. Nowadays, the company is growing faster than its competitors. It has more than 30 operating centers in the US, a new customer every five minutes and a huge queue of people looking to use solar power. SolarCity has already installed such panels in tens of thousands of buildings and is considered the largest company in this segment.
The path to colonization of Mars
Elon Musk, whose biography teaches us not to give up, opens the rocket company SpaceX in 2002, the main goal of which is to reduce the cost of space flights and the Company has already developed several space rockets and spaceship Dragon.
In 2010, Dragon was the first spacecraft to be successfully launched, placed into orbit, and returned. Later, in 2015, it became the first spacecraft docked to the International Space Station.
In 2006, the company won the NASA competition for the delivery of goods to space stations and received a prize fund of $ 278 million. At the moment, five successful flights have already been completed.
Other achievements and awards
In 2010, Tesla Motors, which has never shown a profit since its inception, was listed for public sale. However, the offer was so successful that on the first day of trading, the share price soared 41%. Forbes named them the most profitable stock of the year.
Many awards have been given for being invented by Elon Musk. 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 Excellence in the Commercialization of Space. In the same year, Forbes added him to the list of 20 Most Influential Young CEOs.
Elon Musk is the second businessman to have created three companies worth more than $ 1 billion. Many have tried to repeat this 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. but greatest influence he was influenced by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. According to the entrepreneur, he realized that he needed to ask the right questions. When Musk entered college, he wondered exactly how he wanted to influence the fate of humanity. 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 us not to be like everyone else, believes that innovation is hampered by the ability of people to think in analogies. Therefore, they do not create something new, 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. To master it, you need a huge budget. However, Musk is confident that costs can be greatly reduced if a new flight goal is set. So he founded SpaceX, which aims to colonize. The businessman says that if you need to relocate 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 all cars would be electric in a few decades. He started working in this direction and in 2008 released the first electric car, which went into mass production. Analysts, however, are skeptical about Musk's claim that the entrepreneur is not at all embarrassed.
The mask is often compared to Steve Jobs. The latter used the term "reality distortion field", convincing 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 people say that the entrepreneur does not seem to be lying, but it is impossible to believe him.
His company Tesla Motors has often found itself on the brink of bankruptcy, although it has achieved admirable success in Elon Musk's business. The biography of Tesla, the creator, shows that the entrepreneur tried in every way to keep the company afloat. Things got better over time. According to the businessman, the world is too dependent on oil. This is driving climate change, and Musk believes using electricity will fix the situation.
One of the company's accomplishments is Gemeral Motors' decision to create the Chevy Volt. It is a small car with electric charging capability. In electric vehicle mode, it can travel 65 km. At the time of graduation, 33 thousand people signed up for the purchase of this car.
Elon Musk, whose photos are always cheerful, became successful, embodying ideas that seem crazy at first glance. He not only became independent and provided for his family, but also went down in history. The entrepreneur strives to change life for the better and works on projects that can save humanity in the future.
However, at the moment, he is pleased that with his help many changes have occurred in the field of energy, automotive and rocketry.
Musk even acted in films. In 2008, the film "Iron Man" was released, the prototype of which was Elon Musk. Later, in 2013, he played a small role in Machete Kills, but his name is not in the credits. He also played himself in episode 9 of season 9 of The Big Bang Theory.