Elon Musk

When you hear the name Elon Musk, you think of the great entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal and SpaceX. You’ll also think of the vehicles and the spacecraft that he created and on top of them, the Tesla electric vehicles. His name was on the list of The Most Innovative Leaders in 2019. Moreover, Elon Musk is labeled the second-richest person in the world.

Elon was born in 1971 in South Africa but lived almost all of his life in America. His mother is Canadian, and his father is South African. Musk showed a great interest in computers and technology in general. His passion led him to create a video game at the age of twelve.

Later in his life, he attended a university in Pretoria for a brief time, but he dropped out of it when he was seventeen. Musk went to Canada, where he applied to Queen’s University to get away from the military. In the same year, he acquired Canadian citizenship, then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania after two years. Finally, he double majored in economics and physics and received dual bachelor’s degrees.

In 1995, Musk moved to California and applied for a Ph.D. in physics and material sciences. However, after spending two days at Stanford University, he dropped out and decided to pursue a business career. Musk’s goal was to get American citizenship, which he acquired in 2002.

Career

One of his earliest foundations was a software company called Zip2, which he sold later on. After that, he established an online bank called X.com, which merged later on with Confinity. That company launched PayPal, and of course, we cannot talk about Elon Musk without mentioning SpaceX and Tesla cars.

Zip2 Corporation

Zip2 was Musk’s first company that he co-founded with his brother Kimbal Musk. As soon as it was established, it started providing website content for The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune. However, in 1999, Zip2 was sold to Compaq Computer Corporation for 307 million dollars in cash and another 34 million dollars in stock.

PayPal

Musk founded an online bank called X.com, and later on, he developed it to become the widely-known online banking website, PayPal. Nowadays, it specialized in different money transfers and online shopping. In an online auction in 2002, PayPal was sold to eBay for 1.5 billion dollars. 

SpaceX

Musk's endeavors were not limited to Earth, as he believed that humanity must have a backup plan for survival. To do that, he must explore outer space. However, the expenses of rockets and their launchers are too high. That’s why he decided to establish Space Exploration Technologies known as SpaceX to create affordable rockets.

The first rocket was launched back in 2006 and was called Falcon 1. In 2010, a much bigger rocket called Falcon 9, which was meticulously designed to cost less than other ones in the market was launched. The third one is Falcon Heavy, which was created in 2018 and could carry 53,000 kg.

The Super Heavy–Starship system is the successor of the previous rockets. It surpassed them as it was capable of carrying 100,000 kg. To solve the issue of carrying supplies to the International Space Station, Musk launched the Dragon spaceship. It is capable of carrying cargo and up to seven astronauts. He also made sure the fuel consumption would be kept to a minimum to travel long distances.