I always found the tale of Elon Musk's childhood all the way through Zip2, PayPal, Solar City, SpaceX and Tesla fascinating and inspiring.
So, who is this man? How is it humanly possible to achieve what he has achieved? What else can he achieve in the future? Will he become the richest man on Earth? Or on Mars?
Elon Musk is not exactly a name that rolls easily off the tongue, like say Tony Stark, the fictional person to whom he is most often compared, or even Steve Jobs, a real-world visionary, whose mantle Musk now wears. There is no question that Musk is a special individual, someone with BIG dreams and the drive, talent, and money to make them happen. But, like Jobs, and Stark for that matter, he might be an acquired taste on a personal level.
As for the first, the number of near-death experiences that Tesla, SpaceX and earlier companies went through is almost a running joke throughout this story. The Falcon 1 failed three times, exhausting the company's funds, before achieving a successful fourth flight. Tesla avoided bankruptcy by taking on a NASA-approved loan from SpaceX plus a last-minute acquisition of a company Musk invested in pulled through, and avoided being derailed by a predatory investor by a bluff on the order of $40 million. Combine these with the many situations where it didn't look like Tesla was going to build anything substantial, plus the negative media attention—the fact that Musk continued to persevere and pull through at times where most normal people would have given up is crazy
South Africa
His upbringing was difficult, in South Africa. He did not have many friends. Musk’s parents separated. He chose to live with his dad, to give him company, even though it was still very tough to do this, as there was turmoil between them. He was bullied in school regularly, and once even had to miss a whole week of school due to the severe beating he received.
Musk withdrew into books, to avoid the hardships of everyday life. Musk had a photographic memory. He read two encyclopedias and remembered “everything”. His favorite book was: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. This book taught him that it’s easy to answer a question, but knowing what the right question in the first place, was hard
Elon escaped military service in South Africa, by immigrating to Canada, although he originally wanted to go to the US. He attended Queens University, where his confidence began to soar, and his character took shape. He became even more ambitious. He began participating in public speaking contests, studying business, and wooed the woman of his dreams: Justine Wilson, who ended up becoming the mother of his 6 sons
Musk was learning Entrepreneurship when he was young. We were already selling his video game Blaster, for $500, when he was just 12 years old. In high school, he already formed very strong opinions about solar power, colonizing other planets, paperless banking, and space rockets.
Zip 2
After Musk graduated, he was eager to jump on the dotcom bandwagon. He founded the Global Link Information Network in 1995, which was renamed to Zip2, which helped businesses clueless about the internet, to get online. Most companies dismissed the internet as a fad, or didn’t get it. Elon and his brother received a lot of rejections when running this company.
In February of 1999, Compaq Computer offered to pay $307 million for Zip2 in cash. Musk, however, was not interested in working for Compaq, and was already planning to become a successful CEO. With the money from the Compaq acquisition, Musk bought a McLaren sports car, a condo and a prop plane. The rest of the money went into a new internet company: X.com
Musk’s competition came in the form of Peter Thiel and Max Levchin at Confinity and their new product Paypal. There was a brief battle between Confinity and X.com, but shortly after they decided to join forces because of complementary positions: Confinity’s sexy product, Paypal, and X.com’s money and superior banking products. Thus this merger made sense. Two months after the merge, Thiel resigned, and Levchin also threatened to do so. Musk still kept pushing the X.com brand, although most employees preferred PayPal. The company was divided, and their websites frequently were down and their computer systems were frequently crashingThere was then a coup against Musk, removing him as CEO, and putting Peter Thiel in his place. This happened as Musk was away on his honeymoon. Musk was left as an advisor of the company. The company was renamed from X.com to PayPal. In 2002, it was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion. Musk’s share was $250 million. This set him up to try and achieve his wildest dreams.
Space X
In June, of 2002, Elon started SpaceX. (Space Exploration Technologies). He wanted it to become the “South-West Airlines of Space”. At this time, sending 500lbs into orbit had cost $30 million and up. Elon was able to improve this, and sent 1,400lbs into space at a cost of $6.9 million with the Falcon 1 rocket.
Musk had extremely aggressive goals for his first launch. He wanted the first engine to be complete in May of 2003, a second engine in June, the rocket body in July, and full assembly in September, with launch in November. This would be a launch only 15 months after the start of the company…
Musk knew that most launches failed to date, for example: Atlas’ 9 out of 20 had failed. He was prepared for failure. It actually took him 4 years to achieve the first successful launch. This dedication paid off, as SpaceX became the first commercial company to carry the Dragon capsule to space and retrieve it back to earth, with an ocean landing.
Tesla
Electric cars were not considered cool prior to Elon musk had his contribution. Musk helped the world recognize electric car technology as exciting and ever-progressing.
J.B. Straubel, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning were already working on lithium-ion powered electric cars. Eberhard and Tarpenning founded Tesla Motors on July 1st, 2003. Straubel then joined them.
Tesla’s first product was the “tzero” — a body from a Lotus Elise, and propulsion technology licensed from AC Propulsion. The tzero was supposed to accelerate faster than a Ferrari, and be fully electric. No one would invest in the idea at the time, besides Elon Musk, who invested $6.5 million. This made Elon the sole shareholder, and the chairman of the company. He wanted to revolutionize electric cars, and eliminate polluting emissions.
By 2012, Tesla’s Model S has been named Motor Trend’s “car of the year”. Consumer Reports gave it the highest rating ever in history, of 99/100. Tesla has been considered the most successful emerging car company since Chrysler in 1925. The Model S has been called a “Computer on Wheels”, as it had continuous internet access on launch and a button-less start
Solar city
Musk partnered with the Rive brothers, who spent 2 years studying the feasibility of solar power. The main issues were: affordability of the panels, and the costs of installation. They needed someone to define the entire process: from purchasing to installation.
Elon Musk joined the Rive brothers to become the chairman and largest shareholder. Six years later, SolarCity became the largest installer of solar panels in America. SolarCity was valued close to $7 billion in 2014, and has expanded to the business sector, servicing customers like Walmart and Intel.
Hyperloop
Musk’s plans are often perceived by people as too “far-fetched”. One such plan is the Hyperloop, which is a large-scale pneumatic tube used for fast, short-range transportation, for people and cars using pods. This idea is different from similar designs proposed before, by using low pressure, and floating pods. The pods themselves have motors built in for added boost, but the main thrust comes from electromagnetic pulses. This is a solar-powered mechanism that accelerates a pod to 800 miles per hour, enabling you to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes.
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