From the genius way he paid for his college tuition to where he ranks among the world’s
wealthiest--Here are 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Elon Musk!
Number 15.
"Origins" Elon Musk was born in 1971 in Pretoria, South
Africa.
He lived there until the age of 17 when he moved to Kingston, Canada in order to avoid
the mandatory military service required of South African citizens.
There he attended the prestigious Queen’s University before moving to the United States,
where he finished his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania with two
bachelor’s degrees, one in Physics and one in Economics.
He became an American citizen in 2002 and his main residence is currently in Bel Air,
California.
Number 14.
"Drop-Out" After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania,
he set his sights on getting his doctorate in energy physics.
He was accepted into one of the best graduate programs for science in the United States
at Stanford University so he packed up and moved across the country to California.
His attendance didn’t last long however, as after two days he grew bored with class
and decided he’d rather get right down to business and dropped out to form the company
Zip2 with his brother Kimbal.
Number 13.
"Zip2" The Musk brothers founded the company Zip2
in 1995, on the idea of creating an online version of yellowpages.
They used a $28,000 loan from their father to start and after finally finding some prominent
investors the company took off, becoming one of the main creators of business directories
and maps for the websites of newspapers throughout the country.
Only four years later, the Musk brothers had multiplied that initial $28,000 almost 11,000
times as they sold Zip2 to the computer company Compaq for $307 million.
Elon’s cut of which was $22 million.
Number 12.
"PayPal" Musk used the money he made from the sale
of Zip2 to help found the website X.com which would eventually merge with the company Confinity
and become the online banking and money transfer service juggernaut PayPal.
Three years after starting X.com, PayPal was sold to eBay for a whopping $1.5 billion.
Notably, Musk wouldn’t be the only former employee of PayPal that would go on to further
success, as the founders of LinkedIn, Yelp, Youtube and the current CEO of Reddit all
worked there and are part of what is now referred to as the PayPal Mafia.
Number 11.
"McCrashin F1" Back in his days at PayPal, Musk purchased
a brand new McLaren F1, which was at the time the fastest car in the world, and cost him
around one million dollars.
However, the thrills that come with owning one out of 106 of these cars that were made,
didn’t last long.
Only a couple of years later, during a reckless ride with fellow billionaire Peter Thiel,
he hit an embankment and totaled the car.
The worst part?
He never insured the car, his reasoning?
"I had read all these stories about people who made money and bought sports cars and
crashed them.
But I knew it would never happen to me, so I didn’t get any insurance”.
Number 10.
"Club Tuition" Education can be expensive and though he is
a billionaire now, Musk was once a broke college student who spent nights worrying about how
he was gonna pay for his tuition.
Except Musk isn’t the normal person, he didn’t worry too long as he was born with
an entrepreneurial superbrain and quickly thought of a brilliant way to make money.
Along with his best friend, he rented a mansion and turned it into nightclub-themed party
hotspot, charging a five dollar admission.
With parties that sometimes reached upwards of 500 people, he no longer had to worry about
debt after graduation.
Number 9.
"Cheap Date" Another way that Musk helped to pay for his
education and save money for his future was by surviving on very little.
In several interviews he has said that he spent less than a dollar a day on food in
college, fueling his studies with cheap noodles that he dressed up with free condiments like
red pepper packets.
So if you are currently a college student scraping by or will be in the future, you
can add extra flavor to that Ramen with the thought that even some of the most successful
businessmen have had to pay for food with pocket change
Number 8.
"Triple & Double" Though he is only 46, Musk has already had
a whirlwind personal life having been married three times.
In his defense, two of the marriages were to the same person, Talulah Riley, though
they both ended in divorce.
His first marriage, to Justine Wilson, produced all five of his children.
His five children are all boys and in what sounds like a bit of barroom trivia, were
all born within a three year span.
In fact, the five Musk boys were the result of only two pregnancies, as in 2004 Justine
had twins and followed that up with triplets in 2006.
The bountiful pregnancies were products of in vitro fertilization which does significantly
increase the odds for multiple births.
The boys are named Saxon, Griffin, Damian, Kai and Xavier who he admitted was named after
Professor X from the X-Men comic books.
The boon of offspring couldn’t have come to more deserving parents as their first son,
Nevada, did not live past infancy.
Number 7.
"Wiz Kid" Even before reaching puberty Musk had come
into his own as wizard with technology.
He coded his first video game at the age of twelve and of course it space-themed.
The game was called Blastar and he actually sold the code to a magazine called PC and
Office Technology for $500.
The game itself is very simple, you are a spaceship that tries to fight off alien ships
with a laser gun.
It doesn’t look like much, but it is an impressive feat when you consider it was made
in the early 80s and Musk was only twelve years old.
Thanks to Tomas Lloret, a software engineer for Google, you can now find a playable version
of Blastar online.
Number 6.
"Awards and Honors" Over his career which continues to skyrocket
towards legendary innovator status Musk has picked up several prestigious awards.
In 2010, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale also known as The World Air Sports Federation
bestowed on him the Gold Space Medal which is one of their highest honors.
In 2013, Fortune Magazine named him businessperson of the year.
Though there are many other awards he has won, one of the most esteemed list he has
made was when Esquire put him at number 39 on their list of the 75 most influential people
of the 21st century, which with his current endeavors we can’t see him leaving in the
foreseeable future.
Number 5.
"Money-Man Musk" Elon Musk is one of the richest people in
the world but where exactly does he rank among the world’s wealthiest?
Well with his current net worth of just over 20 billion dollars he currently holds the
position of the 58th richest person in the world.
What is more astonishing is his place as the 7th richest person on Earth under the age
of 50.
With his brilliant knack for being ahead of the curve on technology and his tone-setting
dealings in the field of space travel it isn’t hard to see him eventually overtaking Gates
and the closer-in-age Zuckerberg in the near future.
Speaking of Gates and Zuckerberg, Musk has recently joined them in the Giving Pledge
movement, which is a willful promise some of the world’s wealthiest have made to donate
the majority of their wealth to charity over the years.
Number 4.
"Gigafactory" One of the projects that Elon Musk holds most
dear to his heart is that of the Gigafactory.
In what Musk claims will be the biggest building in the world, the gigafactory, (currently
being built in the desert of Nevada) he hopes to become the leading manufacturer of rechargeable
eco-friendly lithium-ion batteries and run whole shebang on wind and solar power.
He not only has broken ground on this site but has at least four other gigafactories
in the works in Europe and North America.
Nevada has already felt a significant impact in its economy from the factory (which although
it was technically opened in 2016, isn’t anticipated to be fully completed until 2020)
and several experts have predicted that the state could earn billions on a yearly basis
by merely hosting it.
Number 3.
"The Musk Who Loved Me" If you have ever seen the 1977 James Bond
Film ‘A Spy Who Love Me’ you will recognize this car.
It’s a Lotus Esprit S1 also known as ‘Wet Nellie’ and you might remember it having
the cool feature of being able to turn into a submarine.
As you can probably guess the car couldn’t really transform in real-life.
Well, that didn’t bother Musk as he was such a big fan of the movie--especially this
gadget-laden car-- that he decided to buy it.
He bought at an auction in 2013 for close to one million dollars and if you have learned
anything about Elon Musk you probably realize that he wouldn’t be content just keeping
this beauty in the garage.
No, not only does he drive it but he has been busy modifying and customizing it so that
it can actually convert into a submarine and of course, make it completely electric with
a suped-up Tesla electric powertrain.
Number 2.
"Real Life Tony Stark" If you have seen any of the live action Iron
Man movies you will know that the main character of Tony Stark is a suave yet brash billionaire
genius who almost has no filter between his brain and hist mouth.
Robert Downey Jr. plays the role excellently with controlled bravado and just a hint of
quirkiness.
What does this have to do with Elon Musk?
Well if you know anything about Musk’s personality the traits we just listed might sound familiar.
This is more than just a coincidence as Downey actually based of much his portrayal of Tony
Stark off the mannerisms and attitude of Musk.
A big comic book fan himself, Musk was flattered by this and even appeared in a cameo role
in Iron Man 2.
Number 1.
"Dragon" Musk has recently made significant strides
with his company SpaceX and the successfully test launch Falcon Heavy, the most powerful
working rocket in the world.
But before that, Musk and SpaceX had already changed the game when it comes to space travel.
One could even say that he helped bring it into the 21st Century.
With their revolutionary Dragon spacecraft that is completely reusable they helped reduce
the cost of transporting cargo to the International Space Station from $1 billion dollars to $60
million, a cost reduction of over 90 percent.
Dragon also has the distinction of being the first commercial spacecraft to ever dock at
the International Space Station and the first commercially operated spacecraft to be recovered
after achieving orbit.
Since its first supply trip in 2012, Dragon has successfully completed eleven out of twelve
missions as part of the Commercial Resupply Service Contract SpaceX has with NASA.