When I was 12 years old, I taught myself how to code computers
and built my own video game that sold for $500 dollars
I went from near poverty to becoming an overnight millionaire and risking every dollar on my life's purpose
To create an impact on the future of humanity's destiny
I've been nicknamed the real-life Tony Stark as the 54th richest person in the world
with a net worth of $20.3 billion dollars
I was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria South Africa
We were a family of four with my younger brother Kimball,
my father who was an electro-mechanical engineer, and my mother who was a model and dietician
From a very early age my family saw how different I was compared to those around me
I'd often daydream to the point that I would forget my surroundings
and not hear a single word being said to me
And instead of going out to play with friends, I'd be in the library reading novels, mainly science fiction with
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" as my greatest influence
Comic books or playing Dungeons and Dragons
I was every bit the definition of an introvert and geek.
Because I was labeled a geek, I was the target at school and would regularly get beaten up
One day, I got bullied to the point where I was bloodied and thrown down a set of concrete stairs
causing me to lose consciousness and being sent to the hospital
To make matters worse, my parents divorced
and my brother and I lived with our father while our mother moved to Canada
I found light in the darkness in the form of a computer
When I turned 12, I got my first computer and instantly loved everything about it
I wanted a better one, so I decided to teach myself computer coding
and built a game called "Blastar" that sold to a PC magazine for $500 dollars
It may not seem like a lot of money, but for a 12-year-old to build a computer game
when computers were still a very new thing is pretty unique.
Before I turned 18, I decided to move to Canada and live with my mom,
but things didn't go as planned causing me to work odd jobs and living in a youth hostel.
I was lost and soon realized, doing this would never bring me closer to my goals or dreams
So I enrolled at Queen's University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania
graduating with a double major in economics and physics
It was there I found my interests in the internet, renewable energy, and space exploration
I thought about getting a PhD in physics and was accepted into Stanford,
but something greater caught my attention; The internet bubble
I knew I had to be apart of it and after 2 days at Stanford, I dropped out to pursue my entrepreneurial ambitions
I had nothing
No money, home or job.
All I had was an indescribable drive
I asked my father for a loan because my brother and I wanted to start our own company, Zip2
It was an online city guide providing content for various newspapers
Like every start-up, it wasn't easy. The office we rented and worked out of was also where we were living
I slept on the couch or sometimes the floor switching off with my brother
It took a few difficult years before our company slowly began to grow and gain profit , but in 1999,
Compaq Computer bought our company Zip2 for $300 million dollars in cash and stock options
We were now apart of Silicon Valley joining others in the tech bubble that had exploded
Armed with enough cash to start my next project, I invested more than half of my money into co-founding X.com
You know it as PayPal
PayPal was a money transfer service done entirely on the internet; something never before imagined
This all happened in 1999 when online money transfers were unheard of
Banks and investors didn't believe in the idea stating it wouldn't be secure enough
or that people wouldn't feel comfortable putting their money online
But with my close team of young and ambitious computer coders, we built PayPal into a billion-dollar company
and were given the nickname "PayPal Mafia"
Many of us have since founded or become CEOs for multimillion and billion-dollar tech companies including:
LinkedIn , YouTube , Yelp , and Reddit to name a few. With 6 of us becoming tech billionaires
In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion dollars, with my portion earning me, $165 million dollars
You'd think that much money would make me stop working
But it didn't
No amount of money could fill my childhood dreams in changing humanity
I have always looked up at the stars wanting to travel to different planets and extend humankind's reach
At the same time, I've always wanted to help solve humanity's problems
I traveled to Moscow looking to purchase old rockets to refurbish and use
But they were charging me far too much money with their engineers laughed to my face
Returning empty-handed, I came to the realization
that rockets didn't need to cost or be so wasteful if built correctly
Investing my own $100 million dollars, I did the unthinkable
I built my own rocket company with the goal to create a true space faring civilization
It would be named, SpaceX
At the same time, I co-founded an electric car company, putting in another $70 million dollars
Friends were calling me crazy saying there was no better way to lose all of my fortunes
It didn't matter to me.
Because throughout my life, I have always risked everything for what I believed in
And I never give up
6 years later with rocket after rocket exploding or failing its launch purpose,
it got to the point that I had to borrow money from friends to pay for rent
I had gone from millionaire to this
You see, we only planned for 3 rocket launches, and when all 3 didn't go as planned,
I had nothing left
Not only this, but the electric car company I helped create was unable to make any working cars
With the help of last-minute investors we managed to bring together just enough money for 1 final launch
If this rocket failed we wouldn't have enough money to continue and there would be no SpaceX
When that fourth rocket ignited
Time stood still
Our heads starred up towards Earth's horizons with not a single sound made
and when we saw our rocket reach Earth's orbit,
The entire room roared
We became the first privately funded rocket company to reach Earth's orbit
Not only this, but our rockets are re-usable programmed to self-land after every launch. We had done it.
After the launch, NASA called us with a $1.6 billion dollar contract to send supplies into space
My goals to advance humankind are slowly becoming a reality
as we plan to launch our first rockets to Mars by 2024 and create a space faring civilization
I became CEO of the electric car company I invested in and within 10 years,
Tesla Motors is the most influential and revolutionizing electric car company
producing the fastest, safest, and autonomously driven electric cars in the world
That's right
I not only built my own rocket company but built one of the world's leading electric car companies
changing the entire automotive industry during a time when everyone said wouldn't work
I continue to go against traditional thought by building and investing in what some may say is a waste or won't make money:
Solar panel farms; producing clean energy; and new modes of transportation to lower traffic congestion like the Hyperloop
All of this because I believe in advancing humanity for the better
Money was not my objective, nor fame, nor power
It was always about the purpose.
There was a point, like you, when I was worth nothing to some
But I believed in my own self-worth, my abilities, my goals, and my dreams
I wanted a better world.
One without the worries of climate change and one that pushed humankind beyond Earth
I took a chance on what I believed would help others and went from being worth millions to nearly nothing,
and now billions.
I was beaten by other kids,
laughed at by rocket engineers,
told to my face that my ideas wouldn't work
But, as I went through all of this, I kept my head high,
and continued to stare at the stars never stopping in my dreams to create a better world
I never gave up, didn't listen to those who tried to put me down, worked hard,
and believed in helping the world.
My name is Elon Musk. And I founded Tesla Motors and SpaceX