Photos of Elon Mask. Biography of Elon Musk, co-owner of PayPal, founder of SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity – photo, video, success story, interesting facts from life

Elon Musk– engineer, inventor, entrepreneur and investor. Co-founder of PayPal and SpaceX. Chairman of the Board of Directors, CEO and Chief Inspirer Worldwide famous company Tesla.

For outstanding services to science, on May 9, 2018, Elon Musk was awarded membership of the Royal Society of London.

According to Forbes magazine, as of 2017, his 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. Her mother, May, worked as a nutritionist and model.

It’s interesting that Elon’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 into the Musk family.

Childhood and youth

WITH early years the future inventor was a very withdrawn and taciturn child. By the way, the great physicist was just as uncommunicative in his youth.

Elon spent whole days reading, managing to read two sets of encyclopedias.

An interesting fact is that Musk has a photographic ability that allows him to hold 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 beaten repeatedly, and once even had his nose broken.

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 in construction. Thanks to this, they learned 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. He will subsequently sell it for $500.

Interestingly, Musk did not spend his earnings on any entertainment or acquisitions typical of his age.

Instead, he began investing the proceeds in a pharmaceutical company, noticing its promising growth.

Soon, Elon Musk was able to earn a substantial amount from the sale of shares. As a result, he and his brother decide to leave for Russia, despite his father’s ban.

Education

After settling with his relatives, Elon enters Queen's University in Kingston. He then continues his studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His student years turned out to be much more fun than school ones.

Musk made many friends with whom he often organized parties. For such a lifestyle, he was almost expelled from educational institution. However, he still managed to graduate and become a bachelor in physics and economics.

The beginning of Musk's career

The first company in the career 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 money system that could be used all over the world. Soon the project was successfully launched.

Peter Thiel and Elon Musk at PayPal

After some time, the founders were faced with the question of which brand to choose for the developing payment giant: X.com or PayPal.

As a result, a conflict arose, since Elon Musk was strongly in favor of 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 to be 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. From this sale, Musk, who has 11.7% of the shares, gained $180 million. He invested almost all of this amount in his SpaceX and Tesla Motors projects.

SpaceX

Since childhood, Elon has been reading science fiction. Perhaps it was for this reason that 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, Elon's company announced that it plans to fly to . According to their calculations, this should happen before 2025.

Tesla

In 2003, big events took place in the biography of Elon Musk. He became ideological inspirer and the leader of Tesla, and also invested about $70 million in it.

Tesla continues to successfully produce electric powered vehicles today.

Personal life

Elon Musk's first wife was Justine, whom he met as a student. The couple got married in 2000. They had six boys, but after 8 years of marriage they decided to separate.

The second wife in Musk’s biography was 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. His chosen one was actress Amber Heard. It is interesting to note that before this the girl was married to.

In 2018, Musk appeared in public with Canadian singer Grimes, which sparked rumors of his new romance. However, there is no reliable information on this matter.

By his own admission, Elon Musk has problems 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 the show of American comedian Joe Rogan. During the conversation, Rogan suggested that he smoke a mixture of marijuana and tobacco live on air.

The Tesla founder agreed, after first asking the comedian if it was legal.

Elon Musk smokes live

Musk also said that he rarely smokes marijuana, explaining that the drug does not affect him.

After this broadcast, the next day, Tesla shares fell by 10%, and 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 joined 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 countries.

In the same year, Elon Musk founded another company called Neuralink. She is engaged in the study and invention of devices aimed at treating .

On October 7, 2017, Musk helped restore power to Puerto Rico, which suffered after a serious...

Today, as before, Elon Musk devotes a lot of free time to reading. In addition, he likes extreme types. He is often written about in the press and shown on television.

Perhaps in the future he will be able to surprise humanity more than once with his fantastic inventions and personal achievements.

Photo by Elon Musk

Below are the most famous and popular photo by Elon Musk. 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)

Elon has a very stylish and beautiful mother. At 68 years old, Maya Musk has appeared in advertising campaigns for leading brands as a model and fashion icon.

Musk in 2013 in Dublin

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Elon Musk

Elon Reeve Musk. Born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria (South Africa). Canadian-American engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, investor, billionaire. Founder of SpaceX, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tesla Motors.

Mother - May Musk, was a model, has two higher educations, and worked as a nutritionist for 45 years. At age 21, she became a finalist in the Miss beauty pageant. South Africa. At 69 years old.

His parents divorced and the boy remained to live with his father, who had his own business. At school, Elon was subjected to violence from his peers; after one of the beatings, he had to have his broken nose repaired.

At the age of ten, Elon received his first Commodore VIC-20 computer as a gift and learned to program on it. At age twelve, he sold his first program for $500, a Space Invaders-style video game called Blast Star, in which the player blasted rows of aliens with a laser gun.

Musk invested in shares of a pharmaceutical company that he followed through newspapers. With the proceeds of several thousand dollars from the sale of shares, he leaves for Canada, despite the protests of his parents.

Before attending university, he lived with relatives in Kingston, Ontario. Over time, he transferred to Stanford, but did not complete his studies.

In 1996-1997, Musk and his brother founded the company Zip2, which specialized in software for news companies.

In 1999, Zip2 was acquired by Compaq for $308 million. Musk received 7% of the sale amount - $22 million.

In March 1999, Musk became one of the founders X.com. In 2000, X.com merged with Confinity, one of whose branches was called PayPal. Both systems (X.com and PayPal) were engaged in providing personal electronic money transfers through Email, and the purpose of the deal was to merge both payment systems, but in reality this did not happen.

Musk strongly advocated for the X.com brand instead of PayPal, which caused internal disagreements that ultimately ended with Musk's resignation by decision of the Board of Directors. However, Elon's strategic decision to merge the two companies, along with the active promotion of electronic payment systems on Internet auctions (primarily eBay), led to the rapid growth of the business in 2001, which was finally renamed PayPal.

Such impressive results allowed the company to place shares on the stock exchange in February 2002 (and at the same time become the first dot-com company to go public after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001).

In October 2002, PayPal was purchased by eBay for US$1.5 billion. At the time of the sale, Musk owned 11.7% of the company's shares, which allowed him to gain $165 million.

In June 2002, Musk founded his third company - SpaceX. It is a private developer of a series of launch vehicles and a commercial operator of space systems.

In December 2008, NASA signed a $1.6 billion contract with the company for 12 launches of the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, as a replacement for the Space Shuttle after its launch program ended in 2011.

According to Elon himself, he was greatly influenced by the series of science fiction novels “Foundation” and his views on space exploration as the development and preservation of human existence. Musk argued that the spread of life to several planets could serve as a defense against the threat of human extinction.

“An asteroid or supervolcano can destroy us, and in addition we are exposed to risks never dreamed of by dinosaurs: an artificially created virus, the accidental appearance of a microscopic black hole as a result of a physical experiment, catastrophic global warming, or some destructive technology unknown to date could "To end our existence. It took millions of years for humanity to develop, but in the last sixty years atomic weapons have created the potential for self-destruction. Sooner or later, our lives will have to move beyond this blue-green ball - or we will become extinct.", says Musk.

Elon Musk has set a goal for himself to reduce the cost of space flights by 10 times. To do this, he founded SpaceX, investing $100 million in it, earned from the sale of his previous companies.

Elon Musk's flight plan to Mars:

In January 2016, at an investment forum in Hong Kong, Musk announced that his company hopes to fly to Mars in 2020-2025, in about 9 years.

Speaking at the congress of the International Astronautical Federation, he spoke of the need to develop an “interplanetary civilization” and announced plans to send a million people to Mars. Musk's speech was broadcast on the company's official website. SpaceX published a video about its projected interplanetary transport system (ITS), which simulated a manned flight to Mars.

"To fly to Mars, the space system must meet four basic principles. It must be suitable for reuse", it must be possible to refuel it in orbit, the fuel for return to Earth must be available on the surface of Mars, and this fuel must be optimal for use," Musk explained.

According to the founder of SpaceX, the company's employees initially considered the possibility of using a hydrogen-oxygen engine, but came to the conclusion that an engine running on methane and oxygen would be most suitable for a Mars expedition.

During his speech, Musk emphasized the need to develop an “interplanetary civilization.”

“We can live on Earth and not move anywhere, or we can become an interplanetary civilization. The main goal is to create a settlement, a city on Mars. That’s when we can become an interplanetary species,” he explained.

The choice in favor of Mars as a planet that needs to be developed was due to the unsuitable conditions on Venus and the close location of Mercury to the sun, Musk noted. At the same time, he did not rule out that in the future humanity will be able to head to the satellites of Jupiter.

"If we go to the Moon, then we will not become an interplanetary civilization, because the Moon is a satellite. Previously, Mars was like the Earth is now. Mars receives enough sunlight, it has a fairly thin atmosphere. We will be able to grow plants on its surface ", noted the head of SpaceX.

Musk focused the attention of those gathered on the fact that 7 billion people live on Earth, and not a single one on Mars. “This needs to change,” he added.

The head of SpaceX added that the current cost of a flight to Mars is $10 billion, and this pricing policy needs to be changed. According to him, the flight should cost no more than 200 thousand dollars, that is, be comparable in cost to a house in the United States.

Presenting a model of a ship designed for flights to Mars, Musk said that each ship can be used 12-15 times, one ship can accommodate about 100 people along with their luggage. Over 10 thousand flights, the company plans to deliver 1 million people to Mars.

“From the moment of the first flight, we will need from 40 to 100 years to build an independent civilization on Mars,” Musk shared his plans. According to him, by 2035 it will be possible to fly to Mars in 80 days. Until now, not a single spacecraft has reached this planet in less than five months.

Elon Musk is the chairman of the board of the Musk Foundation, through which he makes his donations.

In January 2015, he donated $10 million to research on the control of artificial intelligence.

In 2008, Esquire magazine included Musk in its list of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.

In June 2011, he was awarded the Heinlein Prize for achievements in the commercialization of space worth 500 thousand US dollars.

In February of the same year Forbes magazine included Musk in the list of the 20 most influential CEOs under the age of forty.

In November 2013, Fortune Magazine named him Businessman of the Year, and The Wall Street Journal named Musk CEO of the Year.

Elon Musk's height: 188 centimeters.

Personal life of Elon Musk:

First wife: Justin Musk. They studied together at university in Canada. We got married in 2000. The couple had five sons.

In September 2008, Elon and Justin announced their divorce.

In 2010, Musk married British actress Talulah Riley. In 2016, Elon Musk filed for divorce.

Musk owned an Aero L-39 Albatros aircraft made in Czechoslovakia.

He later bought a Dassault Falcon 900 jet.

After selling Zip2 in 1999, Musk bought a McLaren F1 supercar, but crashed it the following year when Peter Thiel was driving with him.

In October 2013, Musk bought the Wet Nellie submarine car from the 1977 James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me” at auction for $997,000.

Wet Nellie Elon Musk

According to the director of the film “Iron Man” (2008), Jon Favreau, Elon Musk served as the prototype for Tony Stark, whom he played.

In 2010, Musk appeared in the film Iron Man 2 as himself. In the story, Elon is Tony Stark's friend.

In 2013, he also played himself in an episode of the film Machete Kills. Musk is visible among the audience who came to the presentation artificial intelligence in the science fiction film Supremacy (2014), but his name is not in the credits.

Elon Musk voiced a cameo in season 26, episode 12 of the animated series The Simpsons, released on January 25, 2015.

He makes a cameo appearance in episode 9 of season 9 of The Big Bang Theory.

? - one of famous people on the planet. Not a month goes by without him becoming the hero of all the news: he will either announce his intention to colonize Mars, or start digging some kind of tunnel, or break up with Amber Heard. And suspicions creep into the mind of the attentive reader: why does this smiling American guy talk so much and do so little? Where are people on Mars? Why aren’t beautiful Tesla cars driving on Russian roads? Why was this whole capsule story needed to save Thai children? Is Musk really an inventor and engine of progress or just a self-promoter?

Probably, in general terms, the creator of SpaceX can really be called Ostap Bender, who could. But he was able to because he became not only a daring adventurer, but also a really good inventor and manager. No one knows how to develop revolutionary ideas and find money for them like Musk. He founded his first computer company with $30,000 borrowed from his father, and two years later he sold it to a computer giant for $300 million. This allowed the young entrepreneur not only to repay his father, but also to bring to life an idea for which the whole world is grateful to him. So, 1999. Internet users from all over the world actively visit pages offering all kinds of goods: “our own” and foreign, exclusive and publicly available, for fans of simplicity and for lovers of luxury. Nowadays we process orders within a minute, but in 1999 purchases could only be made in the store. Musk decided to correct this by launching the electronic payment system X.com. He was not a pioneer in online banking - before X.com there was the eCash system, which laid down the basic principles of electronic payment systems, but in 1998 it went bankrupt. Her endeavors were taken up by a daring entrepreneur. Without regret, he gave most of the millions he earned to clean water adventure - well, which ordinary citizen in 1999 would trust his money to the Internet? Elon Musk and his super-professional team made people believe what initially seemed like a pure scam, and then the problems began. Musk fell out with the main programmers of his project, and X.com lost the trust of customers. The site worked poorly, money disappeared, personal data of users leaked - in general, the project was on the verge of complete collapse. The founder's money and reputation were saved by a merger with a competitor - another student startup, Confinity. X.com employees argued that it was Musk's leadership that led the company to crisis and merger with a competitor. But we should not forget that the idea of ​​an online bank, as well as its implementation, belonged to Elon and without his money there would be no company. Seeing that things were going badly, he put his brainchild in good hands and in 2000 completely stepped aside from management. And the symbiosis of two student startups turned into PayPal - the largest electronic payment system in the world.

Elon Musk managed to get $180 million for PayPal, and then the inventor began to think about the eternal. A supervolcano, a meteorite, a new virus, the Large Hadron Collider - all this and much more could easily destroy humanity - perhaps the only intelligent life form in the Universe. It's time to move to other planets: people dispersed in different places will no longer be so easy to destroy. According to the official version, this is exactly what Musk was thinking about when creating SpaceX, the first private company to build spaceships. To settle on Mars, people will need reusable launch vehicles, which were developed before SpaceX, but never entered production. From 2002 to 2016, Musk's engineers sent several Falcon series rockets into space, and in 2016, the first stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle returned to earth. This feat was repeated by the super-heavy launch vehicle Falcon Heavy - it was on it that SpaceX employees sent Tesla on an eternal journey this winter, and it is this rocket that will deliver spaceships to Mars. The first ship of the Mars series, by the way, is also ready - the reusable Dragon cargo vehicle has already made several flights to the ISS, and a model designed to transport people is expected to be released soon. Musk has repeatedly noted that SpaceX is striving to make space flights as cheap as possible, but so far each launch costs about $100 million. Government grants help cope with such expenses.

SpaceX cost Elon Musk about $100 million. Instead of spending the remaining money on luxury goods, he rushed into a new adventure - he joined the board of directors of Tesla, a company specializing in electric sports cars. Large companies produced cars with electric drive back in the 90s, but in the early 2000s all the cars were seized and destroyed, so Tesla actually revived the industry. Musk was not the founder of the company, but his merits are so great that the creators of Tesla consider him the face of the company. He actually invented a new and improved car design and attracted major investors to the project, including himself. In total, the inventor spent about $70 million on Tesla. Other investments also turned out to be very impressive, so production is thriving, despite the unprofitability of the project. From the very beginning, Elon Musk expected Tesla to release a budget series, and finally announced it. The only problem is that Tesla is often accused of shortcomings - the company has repeatedly confiscated all cars sold to fix problems. Twice everything ended in tragedy: cars with installed unmanned control did not detect obstacles on the road and got into fatal accidents. Unmanned control is not a fully developed technology. It will become habitual only after a few years.

Another progressive project is associated with Tesla. Musk's cousins ​​opened a company specializing in solar panels. With the help of an inventive relative, the young engineers managed to turn SolarCity into the largest solar panel manufacturer in California and the second largest in the country. Of course, SolarCity is also engaged in new projects: together with Tesla they are working on gas stations for electric cars, developing batteries that can store energy. And in all these projects, Musk clearly does not have the last role.

The Boring Company

One day Elon Musk got stuck in a traffic jam. Once he got out, he announced on Twitter that he was no longer going to take it. He will make tunnels under Los Angeles so that everyone can bypass traffic jams underground. At first the news was taken as a joke: who among us has not dreamed of tunnels or airways while stuck in endless traffic jams? But Musk is no stranger to doing what others can only dream of. His next company, The Boring Company (“boring” means “drilling” and “boring”), began construction immediately after receiving city permission. Initially, it was assumed that elevators for cars would be installed in the tunnel - they would lower cars underground and transport them at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour (the company posted a video where all this is demonstrated). Now The Boring Company has focused on passenger transportation and even introduced an unmanned carriage that can travel 240 kilometers per hour. Thus, you can get from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about 35 minutes. Of course, the indefatigable Musk has already planned a whole network of tunnels and promised that a ticket for his miracle train will cost only one dollar. The entrepreneur really wants to make his futuristic new products available to everyone, but so far he hasn’t quite succeeded.

Elon Reeve Musk is a Canadian-American billionaire, inventor and philanthropist. Born on June 28, 1971 in South Africa, he later moved to Canada and then to the USA.

This ideal embodiment seemed long lost American dream: Arriving in the US with a few dollars in his pocket, he became a billionaire.

Received higher education and a bachelor's degree in physics and economics.

He made his fortune by creating and developing many innovative companies (X.com, PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, etc.). He is engaged in active business and philanthropic activities, maintains a political lobby in the US Congress, reads a lot, acts in feature films (“Iron Man 2”, “Machete Kills”, etc.).

He became the prototype for the character Tony Stark in the film Iron Man. Married twice, has five sons from his first marriage. Esquire magazine included Musk in its list of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.

From the editor: an amazing person. While preparing his biography, we encountered many conflicting opinions: for some, he is a genius, for others, a PR man who devours budget money. Doesn't leave you indifferent. A dreamer who makes bold and, for most, impossible dreams come true. Amazing man.

Main achievements

Elon Musk is best known as a successful businessman and innovator. Almost all of his projects are highly profitable and have brought him significant income and wide popularity.

His first company was Zip2, which he founded with his brother with money from his father ($20 thousand). The company was developing the Internet for the media industry, entered into contracts with the popular newspapers The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and after 4 years it was sold for a huge amount of about 350 million dollars, from which Musk received about 22 million.

Literally a month later, Musk became a co-founder of the online payment company X.COM. A year later, his company merges with Confinity and takes the name PayPal. In 2002, the company will be sold at a price of one and a half billion dollars, and Musk's share was about 170 million dollars.

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 considered his idea serious. Tests 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 known. I don’t know if this legend is true, but...

In 2001, Musk entered the space industry with the concept of an “Oasis on Mars,” a settlement on Mars that would grow food on the “Red Planet” and provide for its own needs. According to him, this was done in order to attract public attention to the study of outer space.

In 2002, he founded the company Space Exploration Technologies or Space X, investing one hundred million dollars in it. The company was engaged in the development and production of rocket launch vehicles, and for seven years developed the Falcon family of rocket launch vehicles, creating the Dragon spacecraft.

In September 2009, the Falcon 1 rocket became the first private launch vehicle to launch a satellite into Earth orbit. In 2006, Space X signed a $1.6 billion contract with NASA and also received significant government orders.

In 2011, Musk said 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, which develops and produces electric vehicles. The businessman joined the board of directors, becoming 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 “Global Green” green award for the development of an environmentally friendly car.

Musk’s financial flexibility and tenacity, and his subsequent investments in the project, allowed the company to survive the financial crisis of 2008, while replenishing the lineup companies with new successful models (Model S, Model X, etc.). The company's profits are growing day by day, amounting to many tens of millions of dollars a year.

Musk also invested in the SolarCity company (the production of private power plants for households and organizations), and also invested in the Hyperloop project, which, according to his plan, could become the basis for the transport system of the future. Hyperloop will allow passenger capsules to reach speeds of more than a thousand kilometers per hour, over a distance of up to one and a half thousand kilometers.

Secrets of Elon Musk's 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. Never took them at their word 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 complete dedication, seven days a week without breaks, complete concentration on the task - it is this kind of perfectionism that is one of the roots of personal success.

The main obstacle in innovation activity Musk sees people's penchant for analogies as a problem. Therefore, instead of doing something qualitatively new, people try to improve the old. The businessman calls for throwing away all restrictions and stereotypes, and starting to build concepts and projects from scratch, from the very basics. This is the only way to create exceptional and first-class things.

Opinion: The secret of Musk’s success lies in the material and technical base of the United States and in the enormous resources that the government provides him. There are no miracles. Innovation is very expensive. We need personnel, not only engineers, but also managers, lawyers, and financiers. Look at attempts in other countries to create innovative products, for example electric cars: where there is no base, this idea fails.

Quotes from Elon Musk

• I would like to die with the thought that humanity has a bright future
• I think that people today are somehow too carried away with all the Internet, finance and law. This is one of the reasons why we have little innovation.
• Maybe I read too many comics as a kid. They're always trying to save the world. Everything there looked like everyone should try to improve this world; it simply couldn’t be any other way.
• 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 as a whole?
• I like to bring to life technologies that I believe are important for the future and bring some benefit.
• While we are throwing away rockets and ships, we are not truly mastering space.
• I'm like a samurai - I'd rather die than give up.

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 with 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 cost now - this is being successfully implemented by SpaceX. There is no suitable fuel on Mars, so electric cars that will be charged from solar panels will be useful there (and there are already hundreds of such stations where any owner of a Tesla car can charge their car for free throughout the United States).

And this isn't a waste of money - all three companies are profitable, commercially successful and at the cutting edge of technology.

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 solve the housing problem.

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 vehicles of Elon's private company were Falcon 1, named after the Millennium Falcon spaceship 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).