Elon Musk
| Elon Musk | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Elon Musk in 2020 visiting his Tesla Gigafactory 6 in Brandenburg (Grünheide), Germany, | |||
| Born | 28 June 1971 in Pretoria, Province of Transvaal, South Africa | ||
| Citizenship | |||
| Occupation |
| ||
| Spouse |
| ||
| Children | 12 (as of 2024)[1] | ||
| Parents |
| ||
| Relatives |
| ||
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society, elected in 2018 John Fritz Medal (2021) | ||
Elon Reeve Musk (b. 28 June 1971) is a multi-national businessman and investor as well as one of the wealthiest people in the world; as of July 2024, his net worth is estimated to be US$244.7[2] to US$250 billion.[3] He cofounded the electronic-payment firm PayPal and formed SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric car manufacturer Tesla. In addition, Musk, a great free speech advocate and Wikipedia critic, acquired Twitter (later X) in 2022.
Life
Musk's grandfather Dr. Joshua Norman Haldeman (1902–1974), chiropractor and amateur archaeologist, is American-born (Minnesota), his father Errol Musk (born 1946), engineer, politician, and businessman, is South African-born and his mother is Canadian-born, from Regina, Saskatchewan, and also has American antecedents. Elon is of English, German, Afrikaner (largely French Huguenot, Dutch, German, and Belgian) and Scottish descent. His name comes from his maternal German American great-grandfather John Elon Haldeman (1871–1909), originally of Illinois. Musk graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in physics and economics. In his younger years, he trained in Kyukushin Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Judo and he did some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
- Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the United States. Musk attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor’s degrees in physics and economics in 1997. He enrolled in graduate school in physics at Stanford University in California, but he left after only two days because he felt that the Internet had much more potential to change society than work in physics. In 1995 he founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online. The online auction eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
- Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to make more affordable rockets. Its first two rockets were the Falcon 1 (first launched in 2006) and the larger Falcon 9 (first launched in 2010), which were designed to cost much less than competing rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company’s Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. SpaceX has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy–Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing fast transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars. SpaceX also developed the Dragon spacecraft, which carries supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Dragon can carry as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. The first test flights of the Super Heavy–Starship system launched in 2020. In addition to being CEO of SpaceX, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Starship. SpaceX is contracted to build the lander for the astronauts returning to the Moon by 2025 as part of NASA’s Artemis space program.[4]
Awards for his contributions to the development of the Falcon rockets include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics George Low Transportation Award in 2008, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal in 2010, and the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal in 2012. In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering and technology from Yale University and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Honorary Membership. Musk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. In February 2022, Musk was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
Time has listed Musk as one of the most influential people in the world on four occasions: in 2010, 2013, 2018, and 2021. Musk was selected as Time's "Person of the Year" for 2021. Then Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote that "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too".
Influences
There are eight books that Musk credits to his success:
- 1. Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down by J. E. Gordon
- 2. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
- 3. Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
- 4. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom
- 5. Merchants of Doubt by Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes
- 6. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- 7. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Andreas Thiel (German American entrepreneur)
- 8. Foundation, trilogy by Isaac Asimov
2024
After the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on 13 July 2024 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Musk, who was always benevolent towards Trump, but also critical, and therefore remained politically neutral, endorsed Trump only 30 minutes later on X:
- I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.
After woke California governor Gavin Newsom (Democrat) signed a law that bans California school districts from notifying parents if their child "identifies as transgender" was 'the final straw'. “This is the final straw,” Musk tweeted on 16 July 2024.
- “Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ to Texas.”
The billionaire noted that he’d warned Newsom a year ago that “laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children.” Newsom & Co. arrogantly think the state is better suited to raise children than their own mother and father: The new law bans school boards outright from requiring parents be notified. This “final straw” comes atop a host of deranged mandates and policies, such as Cali’s “green” agenda, which invites brownouts and bans gas-fueled cars by 2035.[5] Musk added on 20 July 2024 at X:
- "AB 1955, authored by pedophile-apologist Scott Wiener and which @GavinNewsom just signed into law in California, is a child predators dream."
Quotes
- "The woke mind virus is killing Western Civilization." – Elon Musk, X, 22 February 2024
- "The legacy media is a propaganda machine." – Elon Musk, X, 12 July 2024
Honours
Honorary doctorates
- Honorary doctorate in design from the Art Center College of Design
- Honorary doctorate (DUniv) in aerospace engineering from the University of Surrey, Surrey Graduate, Surrey Alumni Society, Autumn/Winter 2009
- Honorary doctorate in engineering and technology from Yale University, 2015
