From modest beginnings in South Africa, tech entrepreneur, and visionary engineer, Elon Musk is on his way to possibly become the first-ever trillionaire.
For the last 25 years, Elon Musk has been leaving his distinct mark in many areas of endeavor. Now the head honcho of several well-known companies like Tesla and SpaceX.
He has indeed come a long way from the 10-year old boy who taught himself how to go about in writing programming code with the help of a manual.
Early Years
Born in Pretoria in South Africa, Elon Musk exhibited his interest in technology. At age 12, he made his own video game Blastar and sold it to PC and Office Technology magazine.
After finishing the Pretoria Boys High School, Musk briefly studied at the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada. In 1989, he attended Queen’s University before entering the University of Pennsylvania to study physics and economics. In 1995, he began his Ph.D. at Stanford but dropped out to pursue the opportunities opened up by the internet boom. He then launched his first-ever company that year.
Companies Established
Zip2.
Zip2 is Elon Musks’s first real business venture. He established this IT company with Kimbal Musk, his brother. As a web software company, it developed an online city guide software designed for use of the newspaper industry. After a shaky start, several national and local newspapers eventually used the software. Four years after, AltaVista of Compaq bought Zip2.
X.com and Paypal
The next year, the company had a merger with Confinity, a software company that created PayPal. The merged company, renamed PayPal in 2001, focused on its money transfer service.
SpaceX
Using his earnings from his previous business endeavors, Musk started SpaceX or Space Exploration Technologies Corp, in 2002. The company primarily focuses on developing and manufacturing space launch vehicles, emphasizing improving rocket technology. In 2008, SpaceX launched its Falcon 1 rocket to the Earth’s orbit. In 2012, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule carried supplies, the first private company to do so, to the International Space Station. SpaceX is also part of NASA’s efforts to develop its astronaut transport capability. Aside from NASA, SpaceX was also able to land several contracts with the US Air Force.
After SpaceX launched many successful missions, Musk announced his vision of sending humans to Mars and establishing a colony there by 2040. In 2016, he revealed details of his plans to explore and, ultimately, colonize Mars.
Tesla
Tesla was incorporated in 2003 but Musk only joined the company in 2004. He became its CEO in 2008, the year when it built the first electric sports car. Aside from its cars, Tesla made electric powertrain systems for a number of car manufacturers.
In 2016, Tesla started developing its very own autopilot software and hardware.
SolarCity
Providing the financial capital and initial concept, Musk co-founded SolarCity in 2006. After 7 years, it became the second major solar power systems provider in the United States. In 2016, it was acquired by Tesla. It completed in 2017 the construction of its advanced production facility that was originally planned to be 3 times larger than the biggest solar plant in America.
Hyperloop
The initial designs for the system aim to shorten travel time between San Francisco and Los Angeles in just 35 minutes. According to Musk, if the system will work, it will make travel a lot cheaper and faster than other modes of transportation. In 2015, Hyperloop spearheaded a design competition to build Hyperloop pods and the Hyperloop pod competition from 2015 to 2017.
OpenAI
This company announced its vision of developing artificial intelligence that is beneficial and safe for humanity. OpenAI intends to counteract entities and organizations that may use artificial intelligence to the detriment of the people and humanity.
Neuralink
The company aims to integrate artificial intelligence with the human brain. Neuralink focuses on the creation of devices for implantation to the brain that will help humans merge with software and be abreast of developments in the field of artificial intelligence.
The Boring Company
In 2016, Musk started The Boring Company. The next year, the company started digging a deep “test trench” on SpaceX’s premises in Los Angeles. By 2018, The Boring Company had tunnel boring works in several US states. Its first test tunnel was opened at the end of that year in Hawthorne, California. The company announced that this was their proof of their concept for the technology and that the design for its new tunnel boring machine was complete. In February 2020, the company released photos of its working Prufrock prototype.
For the last 25 years, from 1995 to 2020, Elon Musk established one innovative company after another. Through all these, he showed that no failure or challenge can stop him from pursuing his vision. After all, it was him who said, “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
Entrepreneurs all over the world can learn a lot from Elon Musk. For any bright idea to work, one must have the perseverance, grit, and passion to pursue it. And don’t be afraid of risks. As they say, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. Just look at Elon Musk.
