Elon Musk: biography, personal life, career, net worth. Elon Musk
Elon Musk. Photo incimages.com Being the CEO of two largest companies in the world - Tesla and SpaceX -, as well as the co-founder of OpenAI, Musk seems to consider it necessary to be involved in every area he can get his hands on. Once he even stated that he would not be happy until humanity moved from Earth to Mars.
Success awaited him in almost any business. Now Elon Musk is new, ambitious young people who know what they want look up to him. Elon Musk is the “Iron Man” of our time (it is no coincidence that he even appeared in a cameo role in the second film about this character).
But was the path to success easy? Elon Musk has experienced a lot in his lifetime - and today “Rubik” invites you to familiarize yourself with the biography of this unusual person.
Pretoria, South Africa. Photo: Wikimedia Commons His father, Erron Musk, an engineer by profession, describes his son this way: “Elon has always been . Therefore, it is not surprising that at parties, when everyone was discussing rugby, Elon would find the owner’s library and leaf through the books.”
Elon as a child. Photo Bloomberg News
Elon's mother, Maye Musk, is Canadian by nationality. She is a professional nutritionist and model, and has appeared on Special K cereal boxes and even on the cover of Time magazine.
Maya Musk. Photo by Business Insider In 1979, Erron and Maye divorced. Nine-year-old Elon and his younger brother Kimbal decided to stay with their father.
Elon with his brother Kimbal. Photo by Bloomberg News In 1983, at the age of 12, Elon sold the simplest game Blastar computer magazine for $500. Musk once said: “It's an unremarkable game... but better than Flappy Bird (Flappy Bird is a game for mobile devices, developed by Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen, in which the player, by touching the screen, must control the flight of a bird between rows of green pipes without touching them - ed.) “.
School years Elon's turned out to be difficult. According to the book “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,” Elon was once hospitalized after bullies pushed him down the stairs and beat him until he lost consciousness.
After graduating from high school, Musk moved to Canada with his mother, sister Tosca, and brother Kimbal. He studied at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario for two years.but completed his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a degree in physics and economics.
Elon at a meeting with Caltech students in 2012. AP Photo While studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk and fellow student Adeo Ressi rented out a 10-bedroom house and turned it into an informal nightclub. This was an early entrepreneurial experience.
The house that Elon rented out. Photo AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar After graduation, Musk went to Stanford University to pursue his Ph.D. He stayed in California for only two days, deciding first to try his luck in the growing Internet business (the so-called dot-com bubble, which was formed as a result of the rise in shares of Internet companies, as well as the emergence of a large number of new Internet companies and the reorientation of old companies to Internet business at the end of the 20th century. These new business models turned out to be ineffective, and the funds spent mainly on advertising and large loans led to a wave of bankruptcies - ed.) Elon never completed his studies at Stanford.
Musk and his brother Kimbal used their father's money—about $28,000 in all—and founded Zip2, a Web startup that provided city guides to newspapers like the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal. Photo: Wikimedia Commons When Zip2 first began its development, Elon practically lived in the office and at the YMCA volunteer organization. His work paid off when Compaq bought Zip2 for $341 million in cash and stock, netting Musk $22 million.
Of this money, Elon Musk invested $10 million into his new online banking company, X.com. In 2000, X.com merged with Confinity, a startup co-founded by Peter Thiel. Thus a new company appeared called
Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Photo: PAUL SAKUMA/AP Musk was appointed CEO of the new company. But the happiness did not last long: in October, Elon began pressuring the co-founders of PayPal to move the servers from Unix to Microsoft Windows. PayPal co-founder and then CTO Max Levchin did not ignore this.
Max Levchin. Photo Getty/Drew Angerer At the end of 2000, Elon decided to go on vacation for the first time. While Musk's plane was still in the air en route to Australia, PayPal's board fired him and appointed Peter Thiel as new CEO.
At the same time, the company did not leave Elon Musk completely penniless: he continued to be the largest shareholder of PayPal. When the company struck a $1.5 billion deal with eBay in 2002, Elon received $165 million.
But even before the deal with eBay, Musk, who has always been interested in science fiction, conceived a grandiose project: to launch mice or plants into space, to Mars. For these purposes, he even planned to buy old rockets from the Russians, but they asked for a fabulous $8 million for each rocket, and Musk decided that it was easier to build his own spaceships.
Therefore, in early 2002, Musk founded the company Space Exploration Technologies, which is better known as SpaceX. Its goal is to reduce the cost of space flights tenfold.
Elon Musk at SpaceX. Photo: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters SpaceX's first rockets were Falcon 1 and 9, named after Han Solo's famous ship, the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. in English“Falcon” - ed.), as well as the Dragon spaceship, named after the song “Puff the Magic Dragon”.
Falcon 9 rocket. Photo Flickr/spacexphotos SpaceX's long-term goal is to colonize Mars.
However, Musk also has goals on Earth. In 2004, he made his first investment in electric vehicle company Tesla Motors, founded by startup veteran Martin Ebergart.
Musk has been active in the company's development and helped develop the all-electric Tesla Roadster, the company's first car, which was released in 2006.
Tesla Roadster. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images But this was not enough for Musk. In 2006, he came up with the idea of SolarCity, a company that produces solar energy. This is how Musk fights global warming. He gave his cousins Peter and Lyndon Reeve working capital to get the company off the ground. In 2016, Tesla entered into a deal with SolarCity worth $2.6 billion.
Let's return to Tesla. Under Ebergart's leadership, Tesla suffered heavy losses, and Musk staged a coup and ousted Ebergart.
In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, Elon Musk saved Tesla from bankruptcy by investing $40 million in the company and giving it another $40 million for financial stability. In the same year, he was appointed CEO of the company.
But 2008 still turned out to be an extremely difficult year for Musk; he calls it his worst year. Tesla continued to suffer losses, SpaceX had problems launching the Falcon 1 rocket. At the beginning of 2009, Elon Musk lived off personal loans.
During the same period, Musk’s wife Justin, with whom he had six children, also divorced.
Justin Musk. Photo cdn.co But at Christmas 2008, a miracle happened: SpaceX signed a contract for space supplies with NASA worth $1.5 billion, and Tesla unexpectedly found the investors it needed so much.
By 2010, things started to look up. Tesla issued its first shares worth $15 million.
Elon Musk's meteoric rise and amazing career have not gone unnoticed in circles where he wasn't particularly keen. The character of Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr., was partially based on Elon Musk. And in the film “Iron Man 2” Musk even starred in a cameo role.
At the same time, Musk's personal life left much to be desired. In 2008, he began dating actress Talulah Riley, whom he married in 2010. They divorced in 2012, got married again a year later, and a year later Elon filed for divorce again, but eventually changed his mind. But Talulah did not change her mind - in March 2016, she finally divorced Elon Musk.
Elon Musk with his wife Talulah Riley and children. AP Photo But everything went well with Musk’s companies. By the end of 2015, SpaceX had already completed 24 successful launches to the International Space Station, and in 2016, the company made its first successful water landing of a reusable orbital Falcon 9 rocket.
Musk never stops bursting with ideas. In addition to the colonization of Mars, electric vehicles and solar energy production, he conceived a device called . This is the kind of vehicle that will take you from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes.
Hyperloop. Photo by Hyperloop Transportation Technologies At the end of 2015, Musk launched OpenAI, a non-profit organization he created to conduct research on the dangers of artificial intelligence to humanity. This issue seriously worries him.
And at the same time, he continues to introduce the “autopilot” function into Tesla cars, assuring that this is the future.
At the end of 2016, Musk posted a joke on Twitter that he was going to build a network of tunnels under the bridge to reduce traffic flow. Everyone then thought it was a joke. However, the companyThe Boring Company recently completed the first section of the tunnel under Los Angeles.
Is this not enough for you? Musk loves to surprise. Therefore, he created, one of the goals of which is to introduce computer chips into people’s brains. Elon believes that this is the only way people will be able to cope with the threat from artificial intelligence.
Despite all this, Musk cannot hide from criticism. Thus, the public was outraged by his participation in the board of directors of technology companies created for Donald Trump. Musk ultimately withdrew from that council when Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images And everything is fine with Musk. Tesla recently released a new electric car, the Model 3, which Rubik already talked about. The car was created for mass production and its cost is $35,000. Time will tell what will come of it.
Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa) is an American entrepreneur, inventor, co-founder of PayPal, founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, member of the Board of Directors of SolarCity.
His personal fortune, according to Forbes, is $20 billion (as of March 2018).
In the Forbes list for 2017, the businessman:
- #12 Tech Billionaires
- No. 21 on the list of “The Most Influential People on the Planet”
- No. 30 among the “Richest People in the United States.”
Elon Musk is taking on the development of global industries for humanity: solar energy, automobile and rocketry. Over the past decade, he has made the greatest contribution to these industries. The Model S electric car released by Tesla accelerates to 96 km/h in 2.28 seconds, and the spent upper stages of SpaceX's Falcon launch vehicles successfully return to Earth and are ready for reuse.
For his contribution to the commercialization of space, Elon Musk was awarded the Heinlein Prize and received $0.5 million (2011). Fortune awarded him the title of "Businessman of the Year" (2013), and The Wall Street Journal - "CEO of the Year" (2013).
Elon Musk's main goal is space exploration and the colonization of Mars. In this he sees the salvation of humanity
How did a guy born in South Africa into the family of an engineer manage to make a fortune to realize his fantastic ideas? What turned yesterday's student into a successful billionaire innovator? The biography of Elon Musk will tell you about this.
Childhood and family
Parents
The future inventor was born on June 28, 1971 in the capital of South Africa, Pretoria. Elon was the first child of the Musk couple, the eldest of three children.
Musk's mother, (born 1948), was a model and nutritionist with Canadian-British roots. May was a good student and loved science; from the age of 15 she studied at a modeling school and entered the finals of the Miss South Africa" Her portfolio is growing, May is still invited to photo shoots by glossy publications.
Father Musk Errol Musk, worked as an engineer on large construction projects and made good money.
Musk's parents lived on the same block and first met when May was 11. Errol became May's constant admirer: "He fell in love with my legs and my teeth," she comments. Dating periodically while studying at the university, the couple legalized their relationship in 1970. 9 months after the marriage, Elon was born, then the Musks had a boy, Kimbal (1972) and a girl, Tosca (1974).
The family lived in one of the largest mansions in Pretoria and lived the lifestyle of wealthy whites whose wishes were carried out by black servants.
Little Elon was teased because of his non-standard name; the boy was named after his great-grandfather on his mother’s side, John Elon Haldeman. Elon believes that he inherited the ability to take risks from his grandfather, the son of John Haldeman. Grandfather Joshua Haldeman (1902-1974) was an extraordinary man. He traveled with his wife and children in a single-engine plane across Canada and North America, and in 1954 he covered 48,000 km on a flight to Australia and back! Haldeman was obsessed with exploration and adventure and died when the plane landed.
Elon in childhood
Elon grew up as a curious and gifted boy. Sometimes he “withdrew into himself” and did not hear when they spoke to him. His parents were worried: was he developing deafness? But the child’s condition was not related to hearing, but to a peculiarity of brain functioning: Elon could mentally imagine pictures with great detail.
In 2010, Tesla became the first US auto company to hold an IPO since 1956.
In 2012, a network of electric Supercharger filling stations was launched for long-distance trips. Supercharging stations use solar energy and provide “zero” cost per trip for Tesla owners.
In 2014, a Tesla Model S “ran” a distance of 5,500 km from Los Angeles to New York in 76 hours, recharging only at branded gas stations. The mileage is included in the Guinness Book of Records for the time spent by an electric car on recharging.
Tesla is increasing the number of “Gigafactories” – factories for the production of batteries for electric vehicles. Elon Musk claims that to provide the energy potential of the entire planet, about 100 gigafactories will be needed.
In the Russian edition of the life story of I. Musk “Tesla, SpaceX and the road to the future,” the head of the department of entrepreneurial leadership A. Komissarov in the preface is amazed at the capabilities of the Tesla Model S: “How could a person with zero experience in the automotive industry create the perfect car?”
To understand what this car is like, look at the reaction of people who drove it for the first time in their lives. In the video, acceleration to hundreds in 3 seconds, latest models accelerate in 2 seconds and this is not the limit, very soon the updated Tesla will accelerate in 1.9 seconds:
Video: Reaction of people who drove Tesla for the first time
SolarCity: The sun will rise tomorrow
SolarCity (2006) is an energy company that develops and installs solar power systems, a subsidiary of Tesla, which bought it in 2016. Founded by Peter Rive and his younger brother Lyndon, who are Elon Musk's cousins (the sons of his mother's sister).
The idea to launch a solar energy project belongs to Elon Musk, who is the Chairman of the Board of Directors.
The company installs solar power plants for private households and enterprises, and installs charging stations for electric vehicles.
Elon Musk's projects: vacuum train, drilling company, neural interfaces
Hyperloop– high-speed pipeline passenger transport project. To move the capsule through the tunnel, from which the air has been partially evacuated, it is supposed to use mainly “green” energy: wind and sun. The capsule is expected to reach a speed that is 2 times the speed of the aircraft.
Elon Musk has been involved in the project since 2015; SpaceX and Tesla jointly released a capsule, which during testing accelerated to 355 km/h. Other companies are also involved in this project, for example, Virgin Hyperloop One, where the investor is also involved in the design of high-speed transport.
In the summer of 2017, Musk received permission from the US government to open construction of a hyper-tunnel between New York and Washington D.C. It is planned to cover a distance of 250 km in less than 30 minutes.
The Boring Company(2016) - another transport project of a businessman. The infrastructure and tunnel drilling company plans to dig tunnels for both platform cars and the Hyperloop vacuum train.
Neuralink(2016) is a neurotechnology company developing brain-computer implantable interfaces. Research in the field of neural interfaces (i.e., connections between a computer and the human brain) is important in the treatment of brain diseases.
OpenAI(2015) is a non-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research organization, where Musk is a co-founder. The company’s activities do not involve banning AI developments, but are aimed at controlling this area. The project is aimed at making the results of scientists’ work accessible, thereby avoiding the emergence of malicious AI. Elon is predisposed to gloomy scenarios for the development of AI: he fears that machines could gain power over people. In 2018, Elon resigned from the Board of Directors, but plans to financially and consultatively support OpenAI.
Entrepreneur founded a charitable organization foundation Musk Foundation(2002). In 2015, the Charitable Foundation donated $10 million to the Oxford Institute for the Future of Humanity for research on AI control. Musk also helps financially to eliminate the consequences of the hurricane in Alabama and the tsunami in Soma (Japan).
Personal life of Elon Musk: three weddings, two wives, five children
Elon Musk and Justin have a baby (Nevada Alexander) in May 2002, but 10 weeks later the child dies from “sudden infant death syndrome.” In 2004, they again made an attempt to become parents, thanks to the IVF method, twins Griffin and Xavier were born. In 2006, the family was replenished again: the IVF procedure brought the birth of triplets: Damian, Saxon, Kai.
Justin admits that Elon “was always missing something.” When she objected to his demands: “I’m your wife, not an employee,” Elon replied: “If you were my employee, I would fire you.” The couple divorced in 2008; the wife initiated the separation. She calls married life with Musk “unreal”: parties with celebrities, a huge mansion with servants. But the ex-wife recalls the emptiness inside: even while at home, Elon’s thoughts “wandered” elsewhere. She called herself Elon’s “starter wife”.
The reason for their divorce is sometimes cited as Elon’s passion for British actress Talulah Riley, but the billionaire himself denies this. The decision to divorce, according to him, came before he met Talulah. At their first meeting in 2008, the girl seemed to Elon to be “one of the kindest and gentlest people.”
Elon and Justine continue to raise their sons together; Musk spends 4 days a week with the children.
Elon has an active life position: if he doesn’t like something, he creates a product that suits him. He did the same with education for his children. Musk believes that education should develop individual abilities and “did not see that regular schools could do this.” In 2014, he founded the experimental school “Ad Astra” (Latin for “to the stars”). Most of the students' parents work for SpaceX, the school is quite closed (no website on the Internet).
The founder and head of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, co-founder of SolarCity and PayPal, this technomessiah, as he is often called in the press, personally participated in the development of new technologies in alternative energy, the design of environmentally friendly electric vehicles and economical solar power plants.
He was involved in the creation of superhuman-level artificial intelligence OpenAI, a conceptual high-speed (twice as fast as an airplane) Hyperloop transport system, and the design of spaceships designed to realize his main goal - the creation of a human colony on Mars.
A recognized genius of our time is characterized by such personal qualities as perseverance, well-developed critical thinking, accurate analysis of events and one’s own actions, high diligence and efficiency. It is reliably known that Musk devotes up to one hundred hours a week to work.
Forbes placed Musk in 21st place on the list of the most influential people world, and he turned out to be one of the youngest people in this ranking, behind in this parameter only the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, the creators of Google Sergey Brin and Larry Page, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the inventor of the Uber service Travis Kalanick.
As of January 2018, Elon Musk's net worth was estimated at $20.9 billion, making him the 53rd richest person in the world.
Childhood and family
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, one of the three capitals of South Africa. He was the eldest of three children in the family of South African-born English engineer Errol Musk and Canadian-British model and nutrition expert Maye Musk. 
Elon has a younger brother, Kimbel, born in 1972, and a sister, Tosca, born in 1974. Kimbel, although not as successful as his older brother, still made a million-dollar fortune in the restaurant business, and Maya became a film producer.
After his parents' divorce in 1980, Elon and his brother and sister stayed with their father in a suburb of Pretoria. He rarely saw his mother. Errol had several houses, a farm with thoroughbred stallions and a yacht.
The family traveled a lot: the trip could begin in Europe, then they flew to Hong Kong, visiting the States along the way. Since Elon’s father had a pilot’s license, he sometimes rented a plane when he flew somewhere for work and took his children with him. So, as a child, Elon visited the emerald mine - the head of the family helped equip the face. Already in adulthood, Elon also received a pilot’s license, but he simply does not have time for this hobby.
Elon learned to read early and spent most of his free time reading books. At the age of 3, he dumbfounded his father with the question: “Where does the world begin and where does it end?” The boy grew up as an introvert, avoided his peers and did not get along very well with people. IN private school for the boys he attended, he often had to endure bullying from his classmates. Once he was beaten until he lost consciousness and was hospitalized.
At the age of 9, Elon received his first computer as a gift - a Commodore VIC-20. He independently studied the popular programming languages of those years and became interested in creating programs. At the age of 12, he himself wrote the shooter video game Blastar in BASIC, which he sold for $500 to PC & Office Technologies, which published the code in one of the issues.
Game developed by 12-year-old Elon Musk
Education
In 1988, Musk graduated from school and entered the University of Pretoria, but due to political instability in South Africa, he moved to Canada just before his 18th birthday. Since his mother is a native of Canada, Elon also obtained citizenship of this country. Here began the strangest period of his life: Elon entered a bachelor's degree at Queen's University in Kingston (Ontario), while changing many jobs in different parts of Canada, and he had something to tell about each of them. 
He first picked fruit and carried baskets of grain on his relatives' farm in Waldeck, then got a job as a lumberjack in Vancouver. He was paid mere pennies for cutting logs with a chainsaw. After quitting, he went to the labor exchange and asked to find a job with a better salary, and he got a job... as a boiler room cleaner at a sawmill. For $18 an hour (actually good money in 1989), he crawled around the floor in a suit made of heat-resistant but toxic material, scooping up trash in extremely high temperatures.
At this time, his younger brother also moved to Canada. Having united, Elon and Kimbel decided to make useful contacts. By hook or by crook, they found the phone numbers of successful entrepreneurs and called them, inviting them to lunch. One of those who agreed was the head of the Bank of Nova Scotia, Peter Nicholson. Impressed by the persistence of the young people, he met them personally and decided to take Elon, as the more gifted of the Musk brothers, under his wing. Elon worked at his bank for the whole summer, earning, however, less than in the boiler room - $14 an hour.
In 1992, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, located in the American state of Philadelphia. He studied simultaneously at the Faculty of Arts and Science and at the Wharton Business School at the university. Having stayed at the university a year longer than ordinary students, in May 1997 he received two bachelor's degrees at once: in physics and economics.
While studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk became friends with the future founder of TheFunded, Adeo Ressi. The friends rented a ten-bedroom house and turned it into an underground nightclub, which was very popular with students. While everyone was getting drunk, Musk remained sober to keep order. But in one night he could earn enough money to cover a month's rent for this gigantic mansion. He spent the rest to pay for college.
In 1995, 24-year-old Elon moved to California, where he became a graduate student at the legendary Stanford University to obtain a doctorate in physics. But just 2 days later he changed his mind and decided to continue working on his developments. He had many ambitious ideas from the fields of IT, renewable energy and space exploration.
First business projects
In 1995, in partnership with his brother Kimbel and business coach Greg Kauri, Elon founded his first company, the Yellow Pages site Zip2, which specialized in developing maps and catalogs for online publications. His father offered him starting capital, $28 thousand, but Elon refused to take it. Musk worked from early morning until late at night and lived in a rented office to save on rent and invest all the money in the company. 
His perseverance and tenacity paid off handsomely. The Internet was then experiencing a boom, and in 1999 the brothers sold their startup for $307 million in cash (and $34 million in securities) to the search engine AltaVista, which was later acquired by Compaq. Elon, who at that time owned only 7% of the company, earned $22 million from the sale.
Musk invested 12 million of this amount in the online bank X.com, believing that electronic payment systems were the future. In 2001, X merged with rival company Confinity. The new venture was named PayPal. As the majority shareholder (and taking advantage of the conflict in the Board of Directors after the merger), Elon Musk took the place of PayPal's CEO.
In 2002, against Musk's advice, the Board of Directors approved the sale of PayPal to trading giant eBay for $1.5 billion. After taxes, Musk received $180 million, giving him enough money to pursue his plans for solar energy and space.
Creation of SpaceX
Back in 2001, Musk developed a project to create an experimental greenhouse on Mars, which would mark the beginning of a closed and independent ecosystem on the regolith, which in the future would help with the colonization of the Red Planet. He hoped to restore public interest in the space industry, which had seriously declined after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the space race between the two superpowers.In October 2001, Musk traveled to Moscow with Adeo Ressi and space equipment engineer Jim Cantrell. The purpose of the trip was to purchase refurbished Dnepr intercontinental ballistic missiles, which he needed for experiments with delivering cargo into space. They met with aircraft designer Semyon Lavochkin and the management of Kosmotrans, the company that developed these Dneprs. However, the purchase fell through - they refused to sell missiles to Elon, considering him insufficiently experienced in this matter. The second attempt also failed - six months later, Musk tried to buy rockets again, and he was allowed to buy one for $8 million.
The history of SpaceX and the Falcon-1 rocket
The price seemed unreasonable to Elon. He refused, and during the flight home the idea came to the inventor: he could found a company that would provide him with the same rockets, or even better. According to calculations, it turned out that the cost of one missile during production would be only 3% of the price asked at Kosmotrans. In addition, he intended to reduce the cost of each launch by 70% by using reusable media.
In May 2002, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX for short, was launched. Musk invested $100 million in the enterprise, then attracted a number of large investments from the US Department of Defense agency DARPA, SpaceDev, Celestis, ATSB and others. The first two models of launch vehicles: the lightweight carrier Falcon-1 and the medium-heavy carrier Falcon-9 (“Falcon-1” and “Falcon-9”). The name is a reference to the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's ship from Star Wars. The first aircraft developed by Musk's company was called Dragon.
In 2006, NASA entered into a $1.6 billion contract with SpaceX to send 12 cargo shipments to the ISS. In September 2008, for the first time in history, a launch vehicle, the development and creation of which was financed from private sources, successfully delivered cargo into Earth orbit. It was Falcon-1. Elon put almost everything on the line - if the launch was unsuccessful, the company would most likely cease to exist. On June 4, 2010, Falcon-9 was successfully launched. On May 25, 2012, Dragon, launched into space by a Falcon-9 rocket, docked with the ISS for the first time. In the same year, Musk’s company received its first commercial order: the launch of the Intelsat satellite using the Falcon Heavy rocket, which was still in development at that time.
On December 22, 2015, Falcon-9 made its first vertical landing at the Cape Canaveral Space Center. Before this, the rocket fell into the Atlantic Ocean twice, but the third attempt was successful and opened a new milestone in the history of space exploration - reuse carrier meant colossal savings.
First successful landing of Falcon 9 (behind the scenes)
In February 2018, SpaceX made another breakthrough: the Falcon Heavy rocket, designed to transport multi-ton cargo (in the case of delivering cargo into Earth orbit, the carrier could withstand more than 60 tons), launched a Tesla Roadster into space with an installed camera recording everything that happens outside cabins
The significance of the launch of Flacon Heavy for humanity
The launch was successful, but during landing the central of the three boosters was unable to slow down and crashed into the ocean. The two side boosters landed exactly at the designated location.
Other projects of Elon Musk
In July 2003, Musk invested in Tesla Motors, which had just been founded by inventors Martin Eberhard and Mark Trapenning and was positioned as a pioneer among manufacturers of mass-produced electric cars. 
Musk personally took part in the development of the Tesla Roadster electric sports car based on the English Lotus Elise. At the initiative of the inventor, the weight of the model was significantly minimized, the battery compartment was improved, and new design elements were introduced into the headlight design. For this work, Elon received the Global Green 2006 environmental award and found investors who invested $100 million in Tesla.
Despite the difficulties in business development and miscalculations that forced Elon to fire some of his employees, the company avoided bankruptcy thanks to a 50 million investment from the German automobile corporation Daimler, as well as the provision of a preferential loan to Tesla at the initiative of the US Department of Energy.
The success of Tesla spurred the “electric segment” of the automobile market: every self-respecting automobile company began developing its own electric car or at least a hybrid. In 2010, Tesla became the first American automobile company in more than 50 years to go public (Ford did so in 1956).
The financial success of the enterprise was facilitated by the release of the premium S sedan. The billionaire provoked public interest in the development by participating in a debate with a New York Times correspondent. He said that in 20 years more than 50% of cars coming off the production line will be equipped with electric motor. As a result, 10.5 thousand Tesla S were sold in the first half of 2013 alone.
When Henry Ford created cheap and reliable cars, people said, "No, thanks. What's wrong with horses?" Ford risked everything and it worked.
The successful entrepreneur is also developing charging stations for electric vehicles, work on which is being carried out under the auspices of the SolarCity project, the founders of which were his cousins. 
The company specializes in the installation of solar power plants for both production and home use. These include platforms for charging Tesla cars and home stations for converting solar energy. By the beginning of 2018, SolarCity's capitalization was estimated at $3 billion.
Elon Musk conference
In August 2013, Musk presented a plan to create a grandiose transport network called Hyperloop (“Hyperloop”). The project represented absolutely the new kind transport that would be 2 times faster than an airplane, powered by solar energy and not tied to a specific schedule, but set off at short intervals, like subway trains.
The Hyperloop was a closed elevated highway made of two tubes parallel to each other, with giant solar panels along the route. It was promised that the route would connect San Francisco and Los Angeles: the distance between the cities is 560 km. Musk promised that his invention would cover this route for 35 minutes, and estimated the cost of the project at $6 billion.
How does Hyperloop work?
However, Musk did not intend to implement the Hyperloop himself (although SpaceX and Tesla subsequently jointly created a capsule that demonstrated a speed of 355 km/h). As a result, further development was undertaken by the company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which operates through volunteer engineers and crowdfunding, as well as Virgin Hyperloop One. The latter tested a model of a vacuum capsule in December 2017, which accelerated to 387 km/h.
The millionaire inventor has repeatedly called on society to control research in the field of artificial intelligence and neural networks. He is convinced that AI poses a threat to humanity, because sooner or later machines will gain too much power over people.
The role of a pet for machines is the future of humanity.
However, in 2016, Elon founded the neurotechnology company Neuralink. It was planned that its employees would treat brain diseases (in the short term) using neural interfaces and “improve people” by creating a connection between the brain and the computer. Musk promised to create by 2027 the so-called “neural lace” - microimplants that improve cognitive abilities.Elon Musk in the movies
Like many famous billionaires (just remember the appearance of Donald Trump in the movie “Home Alone”), Elon Musk sometimes appears in popular television projects. Even in those where they make fun of him. 
Thus, the founder of SpaceX appeared in the animated series “The Simpsons” (the “Musk That Fell to Earth” series) and “South Park” (the “Handicar” series), as well as in the trash action movie “Machete Kills” with Danny Trejo.
He also played a cameo in the second part of Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr. (in fact, Elon is often called the prototype of the main character of the film, inventor Tony Stark). He also appeared as himself in the TV series “The Big Bang Theory” and his prequel “Childhood of Sheldon.” In one of the episodes of the latter, the story of the creation of the “reusable” Falcon carrier is amusingly played out.
Elon Musk in The Big Bang Theory
The businessman, who aims to usher in an era of affordable space tourism, owned a Czech-made Aero L-39 jet trainer. He then purchased a Dassault Falcon 900, which was used in 2005 during the filming of No Smoking Here. The millionaire not only produced this film, but also played a cameo role in it as a pilot who opens the door to the captain played by the famous Robert Duvall. Musk was also the owner of the Wet Nellie car-submarine (created on the basis of the Lotus Esprit from the film “The Spy Who Loved Me” about the British agent 007 James Bond).
Sister Ilona, by the way, is involved in cinematography - she owns the film company Musk Entertainment.
Personal life of Elon Musk
Billionaire and philanthropist who donated $10 million to research ways to control... artificial intelligence, was married twice. 
He met his first wife, Justine Wilson, while studying at a Canadian university. She is a year older than Musk - maybe that’s why he didn’t make the right impression on her when they met, but was able to earn it later. After graduating from university, their paths diverged for a while, but in 2000 the couple got married.
In 2002, a boy, Nevada Alexander Musk, was born into the family, who died of sudden infant death syndrome at 10 weeks. After this, Elon “withdrew into himself” for a while. In 2004, the couple tried to have children using IVF. As a result, twins Griffin and Damian were born. In 2006, Justine became a mother again - again through the IVF procedure. This time, triplets Xavier, Saxona and Kaya were born into Elon’s family.
Over time, family relationships began to deteriorate. The entrepreneur spent a lot of time at work and little time with his family. In 2008, Justine filed for divorce. The former spouses maintain a relationship and raise children together.
The billionaire has repeatedly complained about the lack of time for women: “I can allocate 5-10 hours a week for a woman... Is 10 hours of attention normal? Will this be enough for a woman?”
The businessman got married for the second time in September 2010. His chosen one was the English actress Talulah Riley, with whom he began dating shortly after the divorce. It is this girl that the press attributes to the role of the “insidious beauty” who stole the businessman from the family. But their love story was not smooth sailing. 
A year and a half after the wedding, Musk filed for divorce from Tallulah. They got married again in the summer of 2013, giving the relationship a second chance. In December 2014, Elon divorced his wife again, and six months later he annulled his decision. Finally, in March 2016, the couple finally decided to separate completely “by mutual consent.”
For about a year, Elon dated actress Amber Heard, who had just gone through a difficult divorce from Johnny Depp. In August 2017, they separated.
“Amber constantly lied to Elon. She said that she spent the night at home, although in fact she was partying at a club. When she went to Australia to film, she acted like she didn't have a boyfriend. But while shopping, she did not hesitate to use Elon’s credit card,” a source close to the billionaire claimed to Metro.
In May 2018, Musk appeared in public with his new girlfriend, 30-year-old singer Grimes (real name Claire Boucher). They attended the annual Met Gala together in New York. The couple met on the Internet: Musk wanted to tweet the phrase “Basilisk Rococo,” combining the name of the virtual reality thought experiment “Basilisk Roco” and the Rococo architectural style, but it turned out that Grimes had already used it in one of her videos. They started communicating, then users noticed Musk’s strange comments on Grimes’ Twitter (about the fact that comets are actually made of cocaine).
Elon Musk's work week goes something like this. On Monday, he wakes up in his mansion in Bel Air (an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood) and drives to SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne. He spends the night at his workplace, and on Tuesday he flies on a private jet to Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley, where Tesla's head office is located. On Thursday, Musk returns to Los Angeles and inspects SpaceX. At the same time, he communicates with his sons at least 4 times a week.
The entrepreneur became the founder of a charitable foundation named after him. He donates part of his fortune to clean up the consequences natural Disasters(hurricane in Alabama, tsunami in the Japanese city of Soma).
Elon Musk now
Elon Musk's main goal remains the creation of a human colony on Mars. In a 2011 interview, he stated that the first settlers would travel to the Red Planet within the next two decades. By 2040, Musk predicts, 80 thousand people will live on Mars.Work continues on the BFR - Big Falcon Rocket - a launch vehicle and spacecraft with a payload of 150 tons. The BFR is expected to replace previous generations of Falcon and become the primary instrument for transporting cargo and people to Mars.
Only a lazy person would ignore one of the most outstanding achievers in modern technology. Elon Musk is a man of extraordinary talent. His quotes have become colorful expressions, his incredible dreams have come true and his achievements are doing a world of good.
What kind of education do you think he had? Quite often people think only about his university background. Elon Musk’s education began much earlier. As a young child, he asked: “Where does the world start and end?” It’s certainly not every child that has such questions on their mind.
Elon Musk's education background is rich. When he was 8 years old, once he had read all the books in the local library, he started reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica – a wide-ranging English-language encyclopaedia. It is difficult to imagine how one could concentrate on reading for 10 hours a day, but it was Elon’s favorite hobby. And thanks to his awesome photographic memory he retained all that new information. Elon Musk’s homeschool education curriculum was full of books on many different aspects of life.
After his parents’ divorce, Elon stayed with his father. He spent his early years in South Africa. He was a reserved boy. For example, he pretended to be deaf although he was not. He was bullied at school and did not stand up for himself. Once, some boys broke his nose kicking him down the stairs. His relationships with his peers were not good. Probably, it was the after-effects of the divorce, that led to him immersing himself in his hobby and disliking communication.
He was presented with his first computer, a Commodore VIC-20 when he was 10 years old. Elon used it for programming. The BASIC course he took was designed to last 6 months, but he completed it in 3 days. His habit of needing to understand everything new thoroughly was invaluable. Perhaps, it was the reason he wrote the game Blaster at the age of 12, which he later sold for $500.
He was overcome by an existential crisis when he was 14 years old. He read “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and decided that his mission would be world salvation. Elon emigrated to Canada with his brother in order to avoid military contract in South Africa.
With no-one waiting for him there, he spent his first year job-hunting. He worked on sawmill for a salary – $18 per hour. He worked in a narrow tunnel removing hot coals, sand and mud. It was impossible to move aside. By the end of the first week only 3 of the original 30 workers remained, including Elon. He tested himself in many different occupations, even those not related to his interests. So, Elon Musk’s skills and characteristics are quite diverse.
Elon Musk's Educational Background
Elon studied physics at Pretoria University in his last six months in South Africa. His passion for knowledge did not abate. He decided to study at King’s University when he was in Canada. After that, when he went to the US he was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and physics. He applied to Stanford University later, where he planned to pursue a PhD, but dropped out after a few days. He decided that the future would depend on the Internet not on academic degrees.
Elon Musk's education quotes are quite profound. For example: “My background educationally is physics and economics, and I grew up in sort of an engineering environment – my father is an electromechanical engineer. And so there were lots of engineering things around me.” Many of his quotes are truly inspiring. For example, “I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.”
He has proven that anyone’s dreams can come true. They are much deeper than we can imagine. You have to agree that his biography, education is pretty interesting and inspiring. Here are some more of his quotes:
“I think it matters whether someone has a good heart” and “I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly thinking about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”
It is fascinating to get to know the story of how Elon Musk started to realize his ideas. He is living proof that if you want to change the world, start with yourself. So, Elon Musk’s timeline can be summed up in the following words: “Did you know that by 2040 Mars could be colonized, by us, with a city?”
He has destroyed stereotypes and made massive technological breakthroughs. Follow Elon Musk's Twitter
Canadian-American inventor who founded the electronic payment company PayPal and the private space company SpaceX, 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, appeared on the catwalks and was a professional model from the age of 15, and 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. Elon has a brother, Kimbal, and a sister, Tosca.
According to his father, Elon has always been an introvert and loved reading. While most children prefer to have fun and play games, Elon spent all his time in the library. Due to the fact that his behavior was different 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 repair his broken nose.
Once, at the age of 3-4 years, he asked: “Where does the whole world begin and end?” Questions like these made me understand that he thinks in a special way,” Ilon’s father shared his memories in one interview.
When Elon was 9 years old, his parents divorced. First, the mother took the children and left with them to another city in the country. However, Elon and his brother Kimbal after some time moved to their father, in the suburbs 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 began to be interested in programming. Musk learned the BASIC programming language, completing a six-month course in less than a week.
The results of his childhood hobby bore fruit: at the age of 12, Musk sold his first game called “Blastar” for $500. As planned, the player fired at rows of aliens with 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 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 has proclaimed himself a pioneer of deep space. These kinds of thoughts began to form in Elon as a teenager.
Then he delved into the literature of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and other philosophers in search of the meaning of life. At the same time, Douglas Adams’s book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” came into his hands, which talks about aliens destroying the Earth to build a hyperspace highway. Turning the last page, Musk realized: “Only one thing makes sense - the fight for universal enlightenment.”
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 in his hometown. However, due to political instability, it was decided to move to his mother’s homeland - Canada. According to other sources, the move allowed Musk to avoid being drafted into the army.
May helped her son obtain Canadian citizenship and resolve the housing issue.
In Canada, Elon enrolled in a bachelor's degree at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. During his student years, the current businessman had a hard time. The inventor's biography says that he managed to live on $1 a day. In Canada, he worked on a farm, as a lumberjack and as a boiler room cleaner at a sawmill station.
At this time, he and his brother tried in every possible way to make useful contacts. Different ways young people looked up the phone numbers of successful entrepreneurs and invited them to lunch. One of those who did not ignore the brothers’ proposal was Peter Nicholson, head of the Bank of Nova Scotia. He was impressed by the tenacity of the young people and invited Elon to work at the bank.
Moving to the USA
In 1992, Elon fulfilled his dream by moving from Canada to the USA. There he entered the University of Pennsylvania and simultaneously majored in physics and economics.
During his studies in the USA, Elon Musk lived in a student dormitory, which he rented together with his classmate Adeo Ressi. The young people turned the hostel into a nightclub, which, it should be noted, was popular. However, Musk himself did not take part in the parties and simply went to his room to play video games.
In May 1997, Elon received a bachelor's degree in physics and a bachelor of science in economics.
After graduating from university, the 23-year-old decided to continue his studies and get a PhD at Stanford University. After studying for some time, Elon abandoned the idea in order to develop his entrepreneurial aspirations in the field of the Internet and outer space.
In 2002, Musk became a United States citizen.
First major projectZip2
Elon and his brother Kimbal founded 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 production software, which gives news publications the opportunity to post content on the Internet and offer their clients additional paid services. Elon spent all his time in the office in order to save money on rent, and invested all his available funds in the company.
At that time, the Internet was experiencing 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 into the creation of his next project.
Revolution in bank payments
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 rapidly and in 2002 its shares were listed on the stock exchange. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by online auction site eBay for $1.5 billion. Musk managed to earn $175 million from this deal (11.7% of the company’s shares). The available funds allowed Musk to bring to life the ideas that originated with him as a teenager.
In July 2017, Musk bought X.com from PayPal due to the company's "sentimental value" to him. 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 invested $100 million in its development. Few believed that a private company could compete with the world's large government space agencies. The idea for SpaceX was born from Musk's childhood dream of sending rodents or plants to Mars. On initial stages Elon even tried to purchase decommissioned Soviet Dnepr missiles for these purposes. But the seller allowed the purchase of only one and asked for $8 million, 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 human space flight should have been reduced by 10 times.
The first devices private company Elon's Falcon 1, named after the Millennium Falcon from the movie star Wars» ( Star Wars), and the SpaceX Dragon ship, named after the song "Puff the Magic Dragon".
In 2006, SpaceX won a NASA competition and in 2008 a $1.6 billion contract was signed for 12 launches of the Falcon 9 carrier and Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, as a replacement for the Space Shuttle after the termination of their launch program in 2011.
SpaceX's long-term goal is to colonize Mars. In January 2016, at an investment forum in Hong Kong, the inventor announced that his company hopes to fly to Mars in the next 3-5 years.
In September 2017, Elon Musk posted a video on his Instagram about a new idea for using SpaceX rockets. It consists in using rockets and spaceships to fly to anywhere on earth instead of airplanes.
New generation cars
In July 2003, Elon invested in the newly created Tesla company, which specialized in creating electric cars. From the very beginning, Elon Musk took part in the formation of the company's long-term development strategy, actively participated in the design of the car and joined the board of directors.
Over the entire period of the company's existence, the developers have managed to achieve colossal results: they have created cars that are capable of moving exclusively with the help of electricity. The minimum distance that an electric car can cover is 300 km. The creators of Tesla are developing parts for other electric car manufacturers. A whole network of “electric” filling stations has been created.
Despite the fact that Tesla has faced both major financial problems and technical operational problems, Musk does not plan to stop there and has already spoken about his intentions to add a truck and a bus to the line of electric vehicles.
Solar power plant for everyone
In 2006, Musk founded the company SolarCity, which specializes in the production of solar energy. The company is a subsidiary of Tesla. Both organizations are aimed at combating global warming.
By 2013, SolarCity had become the second largest supplier of solar energy systems in the United States. SolarCity supplies solar power plants for both industrial and home use. By the beginning of 2018, SolarCity's capitalization was estimated at $3 billion.
Personal life of Elon Musk
The Canadian-American inventor was married twice.
He met his first wife, Justine Wilson, while studying in Canada. The couple got married some time after graduating from university. In 2002, the couple had a son who died of sudden infant death at 10 weeks. In 2004, the couple attempted to have children using IVF. As a result of this, twins Griffin and Damian were born. In 2006, triplets were born to the couple in the same way. Over time, the relationship between Justine and Elon began to deteriorate, and the couple filed for divorce in 2008. On this moment ex-spouses maintain relationships and raise children together.
The businessman married the English actress Talulah Riley for the second time, with whom he began dating immediately after the divorce. The relationship between the spouses did not work out: they separated several times and then got back together. Finally, in 2016, the couple decided to separate completely.
After this, the businessman was in a relationship with actress Amber Heard, who had just gone through divorce proceedings, for almost a year. In August 2017, they separated.
Today, Elon Musk's fortune is estimated at more than $20 billion. Musk ranked 12th among tech businessmen with $20.7 billion, ahead of such businessmen as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen ($20.5 billion) and Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt ($12.4 billion).
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