Elon Musk – love him or hate him, Musk is one of the brightest minds of our generation
and has been behind a number of pioneering inventions over the past two decades.
The lead designer of SpaceX, the co-founder, and CEO of Tesla Inc and Neuralink, as well
as the co-founder of PayPal, and much, much more.
Whether it’s electric cars, space travel, or currency transfer, Musk seems to be able
to turn his brilliantly innovative and inventive mind to just about anything.
I’m Seb, and this is our ten pioneering inventions from the brilliant mind of Elon Musk.
Number Ten
Musk started Zip2 in 1995 alongside his brother Kimbal, and with the help of a group of angel
investors.
The company specialized in web software and developed a city guide service for the newspaper
publishing industry.
The software was so impressive that Musk managed to obtain contracts with both the New York
Times and the Chicago Tribune.
In 1999, just four years after the company started up, it was sold to Compaq for $307
million in cash, as well as $34 million in stock options.
Thanks to his 7% stake in the business, Musk was paid $22 million for the acquisition.
Number Nine
Not one to lay about and let his talents go to waste, within one-month Musk had co-founded
a new company, X.com.
He used $10 million of his payout from Zip2 to set up the online financial services and
email payment company, building it up for a year before merging with Confinity.
Who at the time had developed a piece of money-transfer software by the name of PayPal, which the
merged company would concentrate on, from there onward.
In 2001, they renamed the merged company PayPal.
Despite being ousted as CEO in 2000, he still received $165 million when eBay paid $1.5
billion in stock for PayPal.
Number Eight
In 2002, after spending a year conceptualizing a project to land a mini greenhouse on mars,
Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies with $100 million of his fortune.
Conducting business as SpaceX, the first two launch vehicles made by the company were dubbed
Falcon 1 and Falcon 9.
In 2008, the Falcon 1 became the first ever privately-funded vehicle to use liquid-fuel
to carry a satellite into Earth orbit.
In 2012, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft also became the first from a commercial company
to dock at the International Space Station.
After being awarded a NASA contract for developing and testing in 2006, SpaceX were eventually
handed a $1.6 billion contract in 2008 for a series of Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft
flights.
These vehicles would be used in place of the US Space Shuttle, which was due to retire
just three years later.
If the name Falcon 9 rings a bell, you may remember it from the time LA residents mistook
one of the rocket launches for a UFO.
Musk’s aim was to develop reusable rockets in order to make space travel more affordable,
a feat that many believed to be impossible.
However, at the end of 2015, SpaceX achieved just that, landing the first stage of its
rocket back onto the launchpad.
By the end of 2017, SpaceX had achieved this on 16 mission attempts in a row.
In 2018, the fourth-highest capacity rocket ever built, the Falcon Heavy, successfully
launched and carried Elon Musk’s very own Tesla Roadster into space.
In interviews, Musk has stated that he wats to reduce human spaceflight costs by a factor
of ten, sending humans to Mars in 10-20 years, and establish a colony on the planet by 2040.
Number Seven
Musk co-founded Solar City back in 2006, alongside his cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive, with Elon
providing the initial concept and cash behind the project.
Since then, it has become the second-largest solar-power systems provider in the whole
of the US.
In 2016, the company was bought out by none other than Tesla Inc, with Musk aiming to
use the collaboration to combat global warming.
The combination of renewable solar energy and electric cars allowed him to do just this,
along with easing the impact of rooftop solar on the power grid, and offering free Tesla
charging stations for owners travelling on Route 101.
Number Six
Although Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 and Elon Musk is listed as a co-founder, he
didn’t actually join the team until a little way through Series A funding.
Musk is the current CEO of the company today known simply as Tesla, which is now a leading
force in electric car manufacturing.
One of the biggest announcements out of the company in recent years came in the form of
the Tesla Roadster, with the prototype being unveiled back in 2017.
Manufacturing is said to start in 2020, and the specs released by Tesla have definitely
raised a few eyebrows.
With a listed acceleration of 0-60 mph in a blistering 1.9 seconds, if true, the car
would become the fastest in the world.
Tesla also boasted the Roadster can travel a quarter mile in just 8.8 seconds, achieve
speeds of over 250 mph, and has a mile range of 620 miles.
An all-electric supercar, with a removable roof, and the first supercar ever to set every
performance record while still seating four people.
Forget about the specs though, just look at the Roadster and marvel.
The sleek red curves somehow give off a futuristic but classic vibe, all at the same time.
Number Five
Next up, a throwback to Musk’s youth, as he showed a passion for inventing from an
early age.
In 1984, at just 12 years old, Elon wrote and created a computer game by the name of
Blastar.
The video game may seem simple to youths of today, but it was quite the feat for a lad
not even in his teens back in the 80s.
Blastar has a Space Invaders vibe about it, and the source code was actually published
in a magazine, with Musk getting $500 for his troubles.
An online version can still be played to this day.
Number Four
Perhaps Musk’s most ambitious idea yet, and that’s saying something on a list literally
containing rocket ships.
The Hyperloop idea basically involves a passenger capsule being shot around a tube at 760 miles
per hour in a low vacuum environment.
The low air pressure would, in theory, reduce drag enough to reach these crazy-high speeds,
allowing travel between LA and San Francisco in just 35 minutes.
The initial design was released jointly by Tesla and SpaceX in 2013, but has since been
open sourced, as Musk urges others to take the idea and develop it.
Numerous companies and teams have been set up to do just that, but we have yet to see
any major breakthroughs in the technology.
Some experts have claimed that concerns over earthquakes, terror attacks, heat, and power
outages could make the tech impractical.
Number Three
Back to Tesla, and how could we have an Elon Musk list without including the best-selling
all-electric car in US history?
The Model 3 represented Musk and Tesla’s aim to manufacturer an affordable electric
car for the mainstream masses, and they certainly look as if they are on the way to meeting
these goals.
A compact executive four-door sedan, the Model 3 has a standard range of 220 miles, with
the long-range version reaching 310.
The different models also have a 0-60 mph ranging from 3.5 to 5.6 seconds.
The luxury car can boast a 15-inch touchscreen display, keyless entry, voice activation controls,
eight airbags, heated seating, five-star safety ratings, and much more.
Just one week after unveiling the car in 2016, Tesla had already taken 325,000 reservations,
up to 455,000 by the end of August 2017.
Fast forward to 2019, and the Model 3 is a best seller, despite various issues with finish
quality, performance problems, and delays.
Number Two
Perhaps the most Elon Musk announcement of a company ever, in December 2016 the inventor
simply tweeted: ‘Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.’
He even cheekily named the business, The Boring Company.
Musk claims that he’s aiming to reduce tunnel boring costs by a factor of ten to make the
project feasible.
In February 2017, digging began on the premises of the SpaceX offices for a 30-foot-wide,
50-foot-long, and 15-foot-deep test trench.
In December 2018, they opened up their first mile-long test tunnel in California to the
public as a proof-of-concept.
The designs for their third-gen boring tech, Prufrock, is now complete, and is said to
improve tunnelling speed by a factor of 15, with testing scheduled for 2019.
The Boring Company also hit internet fame when they released their ‘Not A Flamethrower’
product, of which they sold 20,000.
Number One
In July 2018, twelve members of a junior football team and their 25-year-old assistant coach
entered a Thai cave by the name of Tham Luang Nang Non.
After heavy rain caused flooding in the cave, the group of 11 to 17-year-olds became trapped.
No contact was made with the group for more than a week, and a certain Elon Musk decided
to step in to provide technological assistance.
The inventor got in contact with the Thai government, before organizing for engineers
from both SpaceX and The Boring Company to design a submarine, able to fit a child and
aid the rescue.
The sub was built out of a Falcon 9 liquid oxygen transfer tube, five feet long, and
twelve inches wide.
It was named ‘Wild Boar’ after the soccer team of the trapped children.
However, the Thai authorities decided the technology was not practical for the rescue,
and eventually all 13 of those trapped were saved by divers.
And there we have it, ten genius, sometimes wacky, inventions from one of the brightest
innovating minds of our generation, Elon Musk.
Did you like the list?
Want to see more of them?
Hit us up with some of your favourite inventors and engineers in the comments below, and who
knows, maybe one of our next videos will be about them.
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