"When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor."
"Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster."
"Failure is an option here."
ELON MUSK, (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm PayPal and formed SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric car manufacturer Tesla.
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa.[6] His mother is Maye Musk (née Haldeman), a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada,[7][8][9] but raised in South Africa. His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer.[10] Musk has a younger brother, Kimbal (born 1972), and a younger sister, Tosca (born 1974).[9][11] His maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, was an American-born Canadian.[12][13] His paternal grandmother had British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.[14][15] After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk lived mostly with his father in Pretoria and elsewhere,[14] a choice he made two years after the divorce and subsequently regretted.[16] Musk has become estranged from his father, whom he has described as "a terrible human being... Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done."[16] He has a half-sister and a half-brother on his father's side.[12][17] At the age of 10, he developed an interest in computing while using the Commodore VIC-20.[18] He learned computer programming using a manual and, by age 12, sold the code of a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500.[19][20] An awkward and introverted child,[21] Musk was bullied throughout his childhood and was once hospitalized after a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs.[16][22] He attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School.[23]
Aware it would be easier to enter the United States from Canada, Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother. While awaiting the documentation, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months; this allowed Musk to avoid mandatory service in the South African military. Arriving in Canada in June 1989, Musk failed to locate his great-uncle in Montreal and instead stayed at a youth hostel. He then traveled west to live with a second-cousin in Saskatchewan. He stayed there for a year, working odd jobs at a farm and lumber-mill. In 1990, Musk entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania; he graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in economics from the Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in physics. In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley during the summer: at an energy storage startup called Pinnacle Research Institute, which researched electrolytic ultracapacitors for energy storage, and at the Palo Alto-based startup Rocket Science Games. In 1995, Musk was accepted to a Ph.D. program in energy physics/materials science at Stanford University in California.Musk attempted to get a job at Netscape but never received a response to his inquiries. He dropped out of Stanford after two days, deciding instead to join the Internet boom and launch an Internet startup.
In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company.[48] The startup was one of the first online banks to be federally insured, and, within its initial months, over 200,000 customers joined the service.[49] The company's investors saw Musk as inexperienced and had him replaced with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year.[50] The following year, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to prevent unnecessary competition.[38][50][51] Founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel,[52] Confinity had its own money-transfer service, PayPal, which was more popular than X.com's service.[46][53] Within the merged company, Musk returned as CEO. Musk's preference for Microsoft software over Linux created a rift in the company and caused Thiel to resign.[54] Due to resulting technological issues and lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in September 2000.[55][note 3] Under Thiel, the company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001.[57][58] In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.7%—received over $100 million.[59][60].In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, explaining it has sentimental value.[61][62]
In 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society. He was inspired by plans to place a growth-chamber for plants on Mars and discussed funding the project himself.[63] In October 2001, Musk traveled to Moscow to buy refurbished Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could send the greenhouse payloads into space. He met with companies NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras; however, Musk was seen as a novice and was even spat on by one of the Russian chief designers. The group returned to the United States empty-handed. In February 2002, the group returned to Russia to look for three ICBMs. They had another meeting with Kosmotras and were offered one rocket for $8 million, which Musk rejected. Musk instead decided to start a company that could build affordable rockets.[64] With $100 million of his early fortune,[65] Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp., traded as SpaceX, in May 2002.[66].After three failed launches, SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 in 2008. It was the first private liquid-fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit.[67] Later that year, SpaceX received a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services program contract for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, replacing the Space Shuttle after its 2011 retirement.[68] In 2012, the Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, a first for a private enterprise.[69] Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9.[70] Landings were later achieved on an autonomous spaceport drone ship, an ocean-based recovery platform.[71] In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy; the inaugural mission carried a Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload.[72][73] In 2017, SpaceX unveiled its next-generation launch vehicle and spacecraft system, Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which would support all SpaceX launch service provider capabilities.[74] In 2018, SpaceX announced a planned 2023 lunar circumnavigation mission, a private flight called dearMoon project.[75] In 2020, SpaceX launched its first manned flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place a person into orbit and dock a crewed space-craft with the ISS.[76]SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites in 2015 to provide satellite Internet access,[77] with the first two prototype satellites launched in February 2018. A second set of test satellites and the first large deployment of a piece of the constellation occurred in May 2019, when the first 60 operational satellites were launched.[78] The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation is estimated by SpaceX to be about $10 billion.[79][note 4]
Tesla, Inc.—originally Tesla Motors—was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding.[82] Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement.[83] Musk led the Series A round of investment in 2004, joining Tesla's board of directors as chairman.[84][85] Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.[86] Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm.[87][88] Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008.[89] A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others.[4][5] As of 2019, Musk is the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally.[90]Tesla first built an electric sports car, the Roadster, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells.[91] Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model S sedan in 2012;[92] a cross-over, the Model X was launched in 2015.[93][94] A mass market sedan, the Model 3 was released in 2017.[95][96] As of March 2020, it is the world's best-selling electric car, with more than 500,000 units delivered.[97] A fifth vehicle, the Model Y crossover, was launched in 2020.[98] The Cybertruck, an all-electric pickup truck, was unveiled in 2019.[99][100] Under Musk, Tesla has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle subassembly factories, such as Gigafactory 1 in Nevada and Gigafactory 3 in China.[101][102][103]Since its initial public offering in 2010,[104] Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020.[105][106] It entered the S&P 500 later that year.[107][108]
