The story goes that when Robert Downey Jr. was figuring out how to portray eccentric
billionaire inventor Tony Stark, he knew exactly where to look for inspiration: billionaire
business magnate Elon Musk.
And it's easy to see why.
Like Stark, Musk aims to take fantastic concepts and turn them into real-life technologies.
But where did a character like Elon Musk come from?
What's his story?
Not surprisingly, Musk has lived an interesting life … which, if he gets his way, will one
day end on Mars.
Here are just a few bizarre things you may not know about the life of Tesla and SpaceX
founder Elon Musk.
A quiet kid
From an early age, Musk's quiet, intense, and introverted personality stood out.
According to biographer Ashlee Vance, Musk's mother, Maye, was dazzled by her son's brilliance.
However, his demeanor also worried her, primarily because of his strange habit of distantly
gazing off, seemingly oblivious to when others called out his name.
This also concerned doctors, who determined that Musk was probably deaf.
In response, Musk's parents had his adenoid tonsil surgically removed, hoping to restore
his hearing.
When this didn't change his behavior, Maye realized her son didn't have hearing loss
at all.
She told Vance,
"He goes into his brain, and then you just see he is in another world.
[…] Now I just leave him be because I know he is designing a new rocket or something."
Bonus Musk-related trivia: Elon's mom Maye has been a model for decades, and even became
the new face of CoverGirl at age 69.
Game boy
According to The Verge, Musk coded his own Space Invaders-like computer game, titled
Blastar, in 1984 when he was only 12 years old.
The magazine PC and Office Technology found Blastar impressive enough that it bought the
code from Musk, earning the preteen a $500 check.
Not surprisingly, Musk's gaming ambitions didn't end there.
According to Esquire, by 16 he was trying to open his own arcade business around the
corner from his high school - without his parent's knowledge! - though this effort was
ultimately blocked by the city.
College hustle
Vogue magazine reports that while attending the University of Pennsylvania in the early
'90s, Musk and his roommate regularly threw parties with up to 1,000 attendees, all of
whom paid a cover charge to get in.
For Musk, this was just a clever way to pay the rent.
While the party raged on in the normally empty 10-bedroom frat house, he'd be by himself
playing video games.
After wrapping up his time at U Penn with degrees in both physics and economics, Musk
flew out to Stanford University to get a Phd. in Applied Physics, but dropped out only two
days later.
Musk said he saw the internet boom happening around him, and he wanted to strike while
the iron was hot.
His chemical romance
Musk told Inc. magazine in 2007 that he used to be a major Diet Coke fiend, drinking about
eight cans per day, in addition to, quote, "several large cups of coffee."
The intense caffeine rush fueled his 100-hour work weeks in his post-PayPal entrepreneur
days.
He told the magazine,
"I got so freaking jacked that I seriously started to feel like I was losing my peripheral
vision."
Musk's relationship to substances frequently makes headlines.
In 2013, Musk openly tweeted ideas for Tesla products while on painkillers following a
minor surgery.
In 2016, he joked that he uses, quote, "large amounts of crack" to keep himself focused.
And in August 2018, the New York Times reported that Tesla board members expressed concern
about Musk's admitted reliance on Ambien, which they think is leading to late-night
Twitter sessions that are bad for his image.
"Elon Musk is right behind the president in using Twitter to cause a lot of trouble."
Musk revealed to the Times, however, that he's not a fan of cannabis, despite his market-rocking
tweet about taking Tesla private at $420 a share.
He said in the interview,
"It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419.
But I was not on weed, to be clear.
Weed is not helpful for productivity.
There’s a reason for the word 'stoned.'
You just sit there like a stone on weed."
What about booze?
In a Reddit AMA in 2015, Musk said his drink of choice was whiskey.
But Musk's biographer wrote that he's not really a fan of the hard stuff, noting,
"Musk will have the occasional vodka and Diet Coke, but he’s not a big drinker and does
not really care for the taste of alcohol."
Overworked
2018 has been an bizarre year for Musk.
In January, Musk started selling a $500 propane-based flamethrower called the "Not-A-Flamethrower"
for legal purposes.
The "totally-a-flamethrower" ended up selling out, earning him a cool ten million dollars
to put toward his tunnel construction company, cheekily called The Boring Company.
In July, Musk personally delivered a child-sized submarine built by his team of engineers to
Thailand in an attempt to help save a dozen boys and their soccer coach trapped in a cave.
But the rescuers on-site reportedly didn't want Musk's help, with the head of the search
operation telling the New York Times,
"I assure you that the equipment he brought to help us is not practical for our mission."
The sub, which Musk noted on Twitter was, quote, "made of rocket parts," went unused,
so Musk left it Thailand, hoping it could prove useful in the future.
Musk later got into a war of words with one of the actual rescuers, culminating in baselessly
calling him a "pedo guy," AKA a pedophile, on Twitter.
But that's not all.
In August, Musk sent Tesla shares sliding after an off-kilter interview with the New
York Times was published.
Musk, reportedly in tears, revealed that he hasn't had more than a week off since 2001,
worked for 24-hours straight on his birthday in June, and had recently been working 120
hour weeks on the mass-market Tesla Model 3.
"When things get really intense, I don't have time to go home and shower and change, so
I just sleep here."
Despite reported pressure from his board to hire a "Number 2" executive to take some of
the burden off, Musk told the Times he had no plans to switch gears, adding,
"If you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know.
They can have the job.
Is there someone who can do the job better?
They can have the reins right now."
Here's hoping Musk doesn't work himself to death before finally getting a chance to retire
on Mars.