Elon Musk is not just the richest man in the world, his name has become synonymous with success, wealth, philanthropism, innovation, and every other thing that connotes affluence. His unbelievable wealth is still surging upward as he ended the year 2021 as the world’s richest man.
He’s very well known as the co-founder of payment systems Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company. His astronomical growth as a billionaire has earned him comparison with the former richest man in the world John D Rockefeller and other multi-billionaires.
Elon was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother in 1971 and he’s currently worth US$304 billion. While he’s been a big inspiration for both the young and old people of the world, many are wondering how he attained his wealth. Of course, his attainment of wealth is not without sweat and stress but what makes his story unique is the fact that he had a turbulent childhood and built his wealth from the scratch.
Life as a child
Elon Musk was the first of three children from his parent. Coincidentally, his two siblings are also high-flyers in their respective endeavours. His sister is named Tosca Musk and she has won several awards for producing and directing movies. Also, his immediate younger brother Kimbal Musk is described as a successful venture capitalist and environmentalist.
They were all living with their parent, Maye Musk and Errol Musk, until 1980 when they divorced and had the children move in with their father. Growing up as a boy, Elon revealed that he had done the most terrible thing imaginable “I had a terrible upbringing. I had a lot of adversity growing up. One thing I worry about with my kids is they don’t face enough adversity,” Musk was quoted as saying.
So, he grew up without the care and attention of both parents, which accounted for why he exhibited some of the demeanours that he mentioned.
Turbulent Childhood
He was easily the smartest kid among the lots in his school. According to him, he read whatever he laid his hands on. Because of his intellect and high IQ, he attracted intelligent friends at Waterkloof House Preparatory School. He eventually moved to Pretoria Boys High School, where he graduated with flying colors despite being bullied.
“They got my best friend to lure me out of hiding so they could beat me up. And that hurt,” Musk said. “For some reason, they decided that I was it, and they were going to go after me nonstop. That’s what made growing up difficult. For a number of years, there was no respite. You get chased around by gangs at school who tried to beat the (expletive) out of me, and then I’d come home, and it would just be awful there as well.”
Early Achievement and Accomplishment
Even before he clocked 10, Elon had already started programming using the Commodore VIC-20 home computer. He created a video game at that tender age and sold the code that he used to make the game for $500 to the magazine dubbed PC and Office Technology.
It was at the point of selling codes for the game that he realized how to make money. So he went on to make a plan with his brother to establish a video game arcade near their school but they couldn’t get a permit to open this arcade because it was exclusively for adults who were granted permits by the city.
Education
He attended the University of Pretoria briefly, and it was during a waiting period that he applied for a Canadian passport, the fact that he was in school allowed him to avoid conscription in South Africa. And then when he travelled to Canada, he enrolled in Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, before moving to the University of Pennsylvania two years later where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics.
Following his graduation, he proceeded to Silicon Valley for an internship where he made research on electrolytic ultracapacitors. And then, he proceeded to the Stanford University of California, where he got admitted into a doctorate program in material science. Somehow, he called it quits and didn’t complete the doctorate program and then joined the internet market.
Innovations by Elon Musk
· Tesla, inc
Formerly Tesla motors, this company was incorporated in 2003 by the duo of Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk invested a staggering $6.5 million in the business and then a financial crisis set in between 2007 and 2008 – this led to Musk taking over the helm of the company as the CEO and architect of product in 2008.
When Musk took over the reins of the company, his goal was to transform the entire automotive industry from using combustible energy to green energy. And this led to the launching of the Tesla Roadster, the first electric car that was launched in 2007.
He sold 10% of his stock in the company and the worth of the company is still surging upwards.
- X.Com and Paypal
X.com is one of the numerous companies co-founded by Elon Musk, Christopher Payne, Ed Ho, and Harris Fricker in 1999. Musk realized that Confinity Inc had a good payment system and he led the buying of the company for a merger in 2000. Following the merger, the name of the company was changed to Paypal and then eBay bought it in 2002 for 1.5B USD. Paypal would later be spun off to become an independent company.
Space X is one of the innovations of Elon Musk that was founded in 2002. The company was established in 2002 with the sole aim of lowering the cost of transportation to space in a bid to colonize the planet Mars. This company has constructed some heavy space rockets and vehicles and other communication satellites.
Space X is the first private company to fund a liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit, and they were also the first company to send astronauts to orbit and the international space station, this is among their numerous achievements.
Zip2 was founded by Elon Musk and Kimbal Musk in 1995. The primary goal of this company is to assist newspapers to provide city guide software. In 1998, Zip2 attempted to stop competition as it tried to buy its biggest industry rival CitySearch. Although Musk initially wanted the merger, he realized they had different cultures and technology, so he asked the board of directors to pull out of the merger.
Zip2 was eventually bought by Compaq Computer in 1999.
