Elon Musk - Expensivity

Musk’s Early Life and Education

Elon Reeve Musk (b. 1971) was born in Pretoria, South Africa.

Musk’s father was an engineer and real estate developer born in South Africa. His mother was a model who was born in Canada of American parents but was raised in South Africa from an early age.

Musk’s parents divorced in 1980, when he was nine. Afterwards, the boy chose to live with his father—a decision he has said he later regretted.

Musk acquired a Commodore personal computer at the age of 10. He taught himself computer programming (in BASIC language) with the help of a manual.

Two years later, when he was just 12 years old, Musk wrote the software for a video game he called “Blastar.” He sold the code to his game to PC and Office Technology magazine for some $500.

While Musk was extremely precocious intellectually, he was emotionally withdrawn and socially awkward. He attended a private elementary school and a public high school, before transferring to a private, college preparatory school in Pretoria.

After graduating from the prep school, Musk applied for a Canadian passport on the basis of his mother’s birth in that country. While waiting for his passport to come through, he briefly attended the University of Pretoria.

Musk arrived in Canada in the summer of 1989. He went first to the province of Saskatchewan, where he lived with the family of a cousin of his mother’s. During the 1989–1990 academic year, he worked at manual labor on a farm and a lumber mill.

In the fall of 1990, Musk enrolled in King’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where he studied for two years.

In 1992, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in physics from the College of Arts and Sciences and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School, both in 1995.

Musk’s Career

The year he graduated from college, Musk co-founded his first company with two partners and financing from his father. The company was called Zip2.

Zip2 was an Internet-based directory similar to a “Yellow Pages” with maps and directions, which was intended as a feature for the websites of big-city newspapers. Musk and his partners were able to sell the Zip2 directory to such major newspapers as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

In 1999, the Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for over $300 million, of which Musk’s share was about $22 million.

Musk immediately invested his earnings in another startup venture called X.com, which offered online financial and e-mail payment services. For the next year, he was involved in internal turmoil at the company, being appointed CEO by the board of directors, fired, then re-hired in the same position.

In 2000, X.com was purchased by a company called Confinity. As as result of this merger, Musk found himself in head-to-head competition with Confinity’s co-founder, Peter Thiel. Thiel prevailed, remaining as CEO of Confinity and forcing Musk out.

in 2001, Thiel changed the company’s name to PayPal.

The next year, in 2002, eBay bought PayPal for some $1.5 billion. The shares that Musk held in the company translated into a payday of more than $175 million.

For some time, Musk had been interested in the human colonization of other planets. With proceeds from the sale of PayPal, Musk decided to put his now-substantial financial means at the service of his futuristic vision. In 2002, he founded SpaceX, assuming the roles of CEO and Lead Designer.

After several initial, highly publicized failures, SpaceX was able to demonstrate its ability to successfully send payloads into earth orbit. Later, in 2015, it developed full round-trip capability to deliver a capsule to earth orbit and bring it safely back.

In 2008, SpaceX received a contract from NASA to service the International Space Station.

In 2019, the company undertook a major initiative involving a large network of small, low-earth-orbit, communications satellites collectively known as Starlink. Currently, Starlink provides telecommunications services for more than 35 countries. Musk’s goal for Starlink is eventually to provide worldwide coverage.

In 2020, SpaceX successfully launched a manned crew—a first for a private company.

Amazingly, Musk was pursuing a number of other large-scale and innovative projects at the same time as he was developing SpaceX.

In 2003, Musk had branched out into the design and production of an all-electric automobile—the Tesla. The company he co-founded was originally known as Tesla Motors, and is now called Tesla, Inc.

One of the factors that contributed to Tesla’s success was the company’s development of its own improved, long-lasting, lithium-ion battery.

While several partners were involved in the early phases of the development of the Tesla, by 2008, Musk had assumed full control, taking the title of CEO and Product Architect—or, as he later renamed the position, with tongue firmly in cheek, “Technoking.”

The Tesla has been wildly successful, becoming a pricey but must-have fashion statement at the sweet spot where hi-tech glamour, beautiful styling, and green virtue-signaling all meet.

Counting all of its models, some quarter million Teslas have been produced and delivered to date (2022). In 2021, the company achieved a market capitalization of $1 trillion, making it the number one American automaker by that metric.

A third project that Musk was pursuing simultaneously was the solar-panel company SolarCity, which he co-founded in 2006 and which he served as Chairman.

By 2013, SolarCity had become the second-largest manufacturer of solar-power systems in the US.

In 2016, Musk founded Neuralink, which he serves as CEO. The company’s purpose is to develop brain implants with the aid of which thoughts can directly causally influence events in the world.

The technology, if perfected, would allow some paralyzed persons with damaged spinal columns to control, for example, the cursor on a computer screen.

Early experiments using macaques have been very encouraging. Clinical trials on human beings are scheduled to begin later in 2022.

Finally, in 2017, Musk founded the Boring Company—an ironically named company aimed at boring underground tunnels as a means of high-speed intercity transportation.

Several early contracts the Boring Company obtained from Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere were later canceled, when the public was found to be reluctant to foot the bill for the tunnels.

However, the company did build a smaller local tunnel system in Las Vegas, Nevada, and another such system is currently scheduled for Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

In the spring of 2022, Musk made headlines around the world for his effort to buy Twitter, with the stated purpose of dialing back the censorship exercised by the company over its subscribers’ speech.

During the disclosure process which are a part of the negotiations in such a buy-out, it came to light that a large proportion of Twitter’s “users” are in fact “bots.” For this reason, Musk eventually withdrew his offer.

Due to this apparent miscalculation by Musk, the price of Tesla’s shares was severely negatively impacted, at least for the short term, resulting in Musk’s personal fortune suffering a loss on the order of $30 billion.

However, Musk still retains a net worth in excess of $260 billion.