Elon Musk’s life has been voluminous, so much that it can never be bound by a single echelon, regardless of his denomination or accomplishments. Musk garnered attention across the globe, once he stepped into the feisty universe of Tesla Inc, as its CEO. His prowess and relentless spirit have prompted him to not just lay his eyes on varied pursuits, but also leave his deep footprint on the realms he has scaled.
(On Cover of British Herald Magazine July-August 2021)
While his worldview regarding an array of things is often perceived to fall on the extremes, it is either too phenomenal, non-partisan or it marks itself on the cusp of being outlandish. In spite of all, Musk is a man of great power, someone who can sway the opinions of people, skyrocket Wall Street shares or determine the fate of counterparts and upcoming firms, with a single tweet. Musk has never been bridled by fears of failure or deep thought.
Whether it was making electric vehicles, producing reusable rockets for launching into space or tumbling down the state of cryptocurrency with his sheer opinion on social media, he has delved into life impulse by impulse. That said, it was not always a winning streak for ‘the baron of technology and business today, and his evolution into the current stature goes a long way.
GENESIS
SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks on as he visits the construction site of Tesla’s gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Michele Tantussi 
SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk pose after arriving on the red carpet for the Axel Springer Award, in Berlin, Germany, December 1, 2020. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/Pool
Elon Reeve Musk, who is today the co-founder of PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors has not had a smooth ride during his childhood. Born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa to parents Maye Musk and Errol Musk, it was all about humble beginnings for little Elon. While Maye was a model and a dietician, his father was an electromechanical engineer, pilot and sailor. Elon is the eldest of the three children, with siblings Kimbal Musk, who is now a venture capitalist and environmentalist and Tosca Musk, a recipient of multiple awards as producer and director. Musk has a British and Pennsylvania Dutch lineage.
With his parents opting for a divorce in 1980, Musk lived with his father, a decision which had left him scarred in many ways and left their relationship as estranged today.
As a child, Musk immersed himself in reading books and was an ardent follower of comics. However, spurts of his wizardry were witnessed as early as when he was ten years old. Those days, in addition to the shaky domestic front, the young Musk was put through a harrowing experience in the form of bullying, which has had a drastic effect on him. Musk had in May 2021 divulged that he has had Asperger Syndrome.
He had a penchant for programming, of which he had a hands-on experience through ‘Commodore VIC-20’. It did not take long enough for the then prodigy, who was 12 years old, to make ‘Blastar’, a video game, the basic code of which was handed over to a magazine named PC and Office Technology in return for $500.
THE FRAMEWORK
Before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School, he had been to Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
In pursuit of moving to the United States, he sought citizenship through his mother. Fate had other plans for him after he reached Canada, as he was meandering through unforeseen pathways.
Musk’s academic itinerary was such that as he touched one milestone after another, love for Physics seeped into his mind and soul, leaving a strong imprint. He had shared his thoughts about it earlier, “[Physics is] a good framework for thinking. … Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.”
When somebody has a breakthrough innovation, it is rarely one little thing. It’s usually a whole bunch of things that collectively amount to a huge innovation”
Two years spent by Musk at Queen’s University, Canada, at the age of 17, was followed by higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. He attained two majors there, which significantly threw light on the course his life would take in the coming few years.
He came out with a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. During the early years of Silicon Valley, Musk interned for two programmes, in 1994. At the age of 24, he shifted to California for a PhD programme in Applied Physics at Stanford University, however, for the impetuous persona that he had, Musk called it quits in just two days to embark on his ambitious entrepreneurial voyage.
When the taste of knowledge and triumphant ventures allured him, Musk stayed true to the renowned lines of Alfred Tennyson‘s poem Ulysses, ‘All experience is an arch wherethrough, Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move’, and goes on to make him part of the same enchanting experience.
MR ‘ANTHROPOCENE’
It was in Queen’s University that Musk met Canadian author Justine Wilson, with whom he later entered wedlock in the year 2000. However, eight years later, the marriage hit splitsville. Musk has had a few personal rough patches in his life, with whirlwind experiences, unlike his professional bouts. His son Nevada Alexander Musk, with Justine, succumbed to death due to ‘Sudden Infant Death Syndrome’, in ten weeks of his birth. Together, they have five children.
After dating for a few years, he married English actress Talulah Jane Riley in 2010, which lasted only for two years. However, their story was quite convoluted and would continue on bumpy ground. The couple got back together the next year after the divorce. Again, Musk filed for divorce in December 2014, which was repealed. A second divorce was mooted in 2016, post which he dated actress Amber Heard for a while.
Musk again went back to his Canadian roots, when he dated musician Grimes, who gave birth to a son in May 2020. The unconventional Musk’s son got an equally bizarre name in ‘X Æ A-12’, which after a few hassles was changed to ‘X AE A-XII’, with X as the first name and the rest as the middle.
If you can’t beat em, join em
Neuralink mission statement
Jul 9, 2020
If you can’t beat em, join em
EXPLORING ENTREPRENEURSHIP
While the world better knows Musk as Tesla Man and for being the propellant of Bitcoin to levels never heard or seen before, that is not all. He has conscientiously built his empire, with not just each brick of aspiration, but making sure the imaginations that thrived in his mind are ventured into reality. Tesla is just one among the vibrant end products of his effulgent mind.
PAYPAL OVERHAUL
Musk’s first stint in entrepreneurship came in the form of a collaboration with his brother Kimbal in 1995, named as ‘Zip2’, a software company helping newspapers create online city maps. Their first startup witnessed the acquisition by Compaq’s ‘AltaVista’ web search engine for $340 million. Soon, one achievement led to another, and Musk employed the money that he received out of Zip2 to further build another company that would work towards cementing the future of banking, named ‘X.com’. It emerged to be the first online bank to get federally insured and claimed to have more than 200,000 customers joining hands for the service within the first few months. However, Musk fell into troubled waters, after the company’s investors projected him to be lacking inexperience.
Bill Harris, who served as ‘Intuit’ CEO became his successor towards the end of the year. The company carved a niche for itself in a limited span of time that it was brought for a merger with online bank ‘Confinity’. This collaboration gave birth to PayPal, an online money transfer service. Confinity, originally owned by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, had Musk redeem himself as its CEO. However, this achievement seemed too good to last, and ideological differences and technological disparities became vivid as the bone of contention. Musk was again asked to leave, with the already ousted Thiel replacing him in September 2000.
It was probably predetermined that ‘PayPal’ and Musk’s association were intertwined. The venture acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion, had $100 million come Musk’s way, being the largest shareholder with 1.7 percent. His strong personal association with X.Com was reflected when Musk purchased the same from PayPal in 2017.
It was after PayPal gradually shut its door against him that destiny worked wonders on Elon Musk with Tesla Inc, which was originally Tesla Motors.
SPACE ODDITY
Elon Musk has always been a proponent of the conservation of the Earth and sustainability. This fire was kindled when in 2001, he teamed up with the non-profit organisation Mars Society. Together, they ideated positioning a chamber of growth for plants on Mars. He was in forefront of talks regarding funding the project. By October that year, he was preoccupied with purchasing revamped ‘Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), with a capacity to drive green payloads into space, from Moscow. His meetings with companies such as NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras went in vain, as for them, he was nothing less than a neophyte. However, Musk was not cowed down by this, and he came back to them in February next year to get hold of three ICBMs. Kosmotras offered one rocket in return for $8 million. Instead of conceding at that moment, Musk chose to create his own company that would build rockets, which are affordable. This incident marked another new chapter in his life – Space Exploration Technologies Corp, which was traded for SpaceX in May 2002. He continues to be the CEO of SpaceX and has the title Chief Engineer to his credit.
the Dragon V2 spacecraft in Hawthorne
He became the epitome of persistence by striving towards achieving his goals. Following three unsuccessful launches, ‘SpaceX’ had Falcon 1 in 2008, with a positive response. It became the first liquid-fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit. It also received a contract from the Commercial Resupply Services programme of $1.6 billion for Falcon 9’s 12 flights, along with Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). The latter was taking the place of Space Shuttle after its retirement in 2011. In 2012, the ‘Dragon’ vehicle landed alongside ISS, the first of its kind for any private endeavour.
In a few years, SpaceX successfully landed Falcon 9 in its first stage in 2015. Two years later an upgraded launch vehicle and spacecraft system ‘Big Falcon Rocket’, equipped for all resources of SpaceX launch service provider were brought forth. SpaceX also started developing the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites in the year 2015 to provide satellite internet access.
Then came ‘Falcon Heavy’ in 2018, which had carried ‘Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload. It was in the same year that the tycoon of technology made an announcement of a lunar circumnavigation mission planned for 2023, under the name ‘dearMoon project’.
The world saw Musk gleam again with pride, as in the year 2020 it launched its first manned flight titled Demo-2, being the pioneer in placing a person into orbit, at the same time dock a crewed spacecraft, with the ISS.
MARKING AN ERA WITH TESLA
The year 2004 had Musk enter the universe of Tesla Motors, spearheaded by engineers Martin Eberhand and Marc Tarpenning at that time. He seeped into the effective management of the company to further play an intrinsic role in the product design of Tesla’s first electric car Roadster. The stormy series of disagreements that followed led to the ouster of Eberhand, and gave Musk the leverage that he was anticipating for, in his position at Tesla. Having found a semblance of control and equipoise amid the worst of disconcerting storms throughout his life, Musk has always ensured to make ‘Carpe Diem’ is his motto. He soon assumed responsibility as Tesla’s CEO and to primarily oversee the product in 2008. The more responsibilities he was ascribed with, the more nonchalant he became.
Apr 24, 2019
Tesla vroomed with its first electric vehicle ‘Roadster’ in the same year, with panache. And, this accomplishment made it the all-electric car to be endowed with lithium-ion battery cells. Its four-door ‘Model S’ sedan in 2012 was an anomaly for Tesla and the world over when it comes to electric cars. Even the ever-vibrant Tesla was brought to the verge of a cliff, in 2013, questioning its sustenance. It was Musk’s shrewd persona that made him seize the moment and come out stronger than before. A quick deal with Google helped salvage Tesla’s ship and manoeuvre its voyages in future.
‘Model X’ followed suit in 2015, the latest add-on to be ‘Model Y’, another deviation and fifth vehicle, unveiled in 2020. With Musk steering ahead of the company’s effective management, Tesla launched a line of lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle subassembly factories such as Gigafactory 1 in Nevada and Gigafactory 3 in China.
JUGGLING ROLES
As Musk was exposed to more daunting situations, he faced them all with verve. It was astounding how at the same time when Tesla faced one of its adverse situations in 2013, he revisited his inclination with ‘Hyperloop’, a train design to travel to the farthest places in a quick span of time. A number of states are eyeing to incorporate Hyperloop routes, which act as a bridge between major cities. While one venture was in a labyrinth of uncertainties, he robustly showcased his prowess in another to scale it to glorious heights. He was all things at all times for all his enterprises, being a human melting pot of sorts. Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur founded his startup ‘Virgin Hyperloop’ to create the technology required to make this concept a reality. Universities too have formed teams for the same.
Musk stepped into envisioning and adding another milestone to his empire in 2016, the ‘Boring Company‘, which was all things but decrepit. The idea was brought to fruition with the aim of constructing tunnels. One of its achievements was building a tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center at the beginning of the year 2021, the expansion of which has been sanctioned by local authorities. The Boring Company sold 2000 flamethrowers in 2018 under Musk’s leadership, clinching $10 million, in no time. It garnered wide media scrutiny, due to the legal complications it was witness to, for purchasing, selling and even owning flamethrowers. However, for the clout that Musk is and holds, to a great extent, this negative publicity was taken in good stride by him. By selling more than 50,000 hats for the Boring Company for $20 each, he raked in $600,000, which made him change his Twitter bio as the Hat Salesman. The bohemian Musk had sold $3.5 million flamethrowers, that day.
Model S Beta Event at the Tesla factory
NEURALINK POTENTIAL
Musk became the co-founder of ‘Neuralink’ in 2016, a technology based on neurotechnology, which would assimilate the human brain with Artificial Intelligence. As per the technology, it would produce devices embossed in the human brain making the integration of the brain with machines a translucent process.
He has been meticulously working on enhancing the human brain, coupled with artificial intelligence, ever since. The maverick entrepreneur had once described one among his earlier devices as ‘a Fitbit in your skull’, which could be a panacea for deafness, paralysis, blindness and other ailments, in a live event in August 2020.
Neuralink’s formulation comes as a continuation of ‘OpenAI‘, a non-profit artificial intelligence company based on research, started in December 2015. Its prerogative is to provide safe and beneficial technology to human beings.
“I’m interested in things that change the
world or that affect the future and
wondrous, new technology where you
see it, and you’re like, ‘Wow, how did that
even happen? How is that possible?’”
“I’m interested in things that change the
world or that affect the future and
wondrous, new technology where you
see it, and you’re like, ‘Wow, how did that
even happen? How is that possible?’”
CREATING RIPPLES
The fact that Elon Musk can make or break the opinions of people across the world, has been time and again reiterated in the fate of Bitcoins, GameStop and a few others.
While his tweets were deliberately implied at upcoming cryptocurrencies and companies, certain references indirectly benefitted firms that made use of the same. His tweet, ‘use Signal’, surged the stock price of a small company by over 5,000 percent. Shares for GameStop climbed 92 percent in a single day with Musk tweeting ‘Gamestonks’. His announcement over social networking app Clubhouse, when he made his debut appearance on the platform that Tesla might accept Bitcoin as the mode of payment took the cryptocurrency to an all-time high. And one fine day, the very mention of the word Bitcoin sent share market aficionados in a state of tizzy from early this year.
MAN OF CONTRADICTIONS
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin crumbled when he went back on his words regarding payments for Tesla citing climatic concerns and suspended vehicle purchase transactions using the same. Bitcoin plunged as much as seven percent following the tweet, from $54,819 to $45,700, its lowest since March 1. That said, Musk hasn’t written off the future of Bitcoin completely, asserting that it would resume its use as soon as it switched to being more sustainable. Moreover, his tweet on another obscure meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin on May 19, left it soaring at $0.40 from $0.29, within hours. His intermittent change of opinions has made Musk a man of contradictions.
Despite the wavering stance of Musk regarding stocks and shares, financial experts and followers have keenly laid their eyes on his opinions regarding cryptocurrency, to further place their bet on it.
CHAMPION OF NATURE
While Musk has been a man of technology, he has unabashedly been working towards finding a sustainable solution for planet Earth, equally offering futuristic support for forging a life on Mars at the same time. He has often said humans are the biggest threat to their own existence, referring to global warming and climate change and the drastic effects it will have on society. The work he has done on electrification so far and SpaceX are aimed towards addressing these problems.
Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International
Space Station from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral
His vision of vehicles powered by solar energy has been a revolutionary concept. Musk had also contributed a million dollars to a tree-planting initiative, ‘Team Trees’ by YouTuber MrBeast, post which he changed his first name on Twitter to Treelon.
He had also recently made an announcement that he would invest $100 million in XPrize, an incentive-based competition, as a solution for carbon removal. His view on ways to protect Earth or deriving methodologies that would strengthen humans’ footing on the planet has often faced contending opinions by experts due to its practicality. Musk, however, continues to have that zest for making a conducive and safe environment for people to thrive on. And each time, he blatantly refuses to yield, which sets him apart from his peers.
