At this point, Elon Musk has been the topic of conversation for several years. His extraordinary success in facing formidable challenges has astounded and surprised many people. He is well renowned for creating SpaceX while also supervising the operation of his other firm, Tesla Motors, at the same time. His phenomenal accomplishment in the industry has earned him parallels with industry giants such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, among others.
Despite having a challenging upbringing, Elon Musk has carved a successful path for himself. However, Elon Musk’s accomplishment could not have been achieved without the dogged determination with which he approached his job. In this post, we are going to take a look at Elon Musk’s early life, schooling, and the history of his professional career.
Elon Musk’s Early Life
Elon Musk was born on June 28th, 1971, making him 47 years old. Pretoria, one of the three capital towns of South Africa, is where he made his debut in the world. He is the eldest of his three younger brothers and sisters. Maye Musk, Elon Musk’s mother, was both a model and a nutritionist before she gave birth to her son. Maye Musk’s father, Errol Musk, is a prominent engineer. Kimbal Musk, the brother of Elon Musk, is a venture investor and an environmentalist. Tosca Musk, Elon’s sister, is a successful filmmaker and producer who has won several awards for her work.
Elon began his academic career almost one year earlier than his peers. He received his education at Waterkloof House, which is a preparatory school. After that, he received his diploma from Pretoria Boys High School. Elon Musk was ten years old when his parents split while he was still a young child. Elon Musk was recognized as one of the most academically capable students in his class; nonetheless, he struggled throughout his academic career. He has a minimal number of pals that are of the Afrikaner culture. As a child and adolescent, Elon was subjected to a significant amount of hardship; hence, he came to the conclusion that experiencing hardship is necessary for the development of a person.
Elon Musk was the victim of bullying when he was a student at Waterkloof House and Pretoria Boys High. He said, “They tricked my closest buddy into luring me out of hiding so they could beat me.” Moreover, it was painful. Elon further elaborated on this by stating, “For whatever reason, they determined that I was it, and they were going to go after me continuously.” Because of this, I had a tough time developing into an adult. There was not the slightest bit of a break throughout those many years. When I was in school, I was followed by groups of students who wanted to attack me. After that, I would come back here, where things would go on being so terrible.
Elon’s Educational Journey
Elon Musk continued his education in physics and economics after graduating high school to pursue his interests in those fields. He attended Queen’s University in Canada for a total of two years. When these two years were out, he moved on to continue his education at the University of Pennsylvania. In the end, he decided to double major while he was here at this institution. Even though pursuing a dual degree might involve a significant amount of work that often does not leave space for other activities, he made it a point to include time in his schedule for activities that were unrelated to his academic study. Elon and his colleague student purchased a 10-bedroom fraternity home together, which they converted into a makeshift nightclub.
When he graduated, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania awarded Elon Musk a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. Elon’s successful professional development may be directly attributed to his two degrees. He is convinced that physics provides an excellent conceptual framework for his thinking since it enables him to investigate and comprehend fundamental realities. In addition, it assisted him in reasoning numerous business concepts and determining the effectiveness of his ideas.
In later years, when Musk was 24 years old, he relocated to the state of California to attend Stanford University and get his doctorate in applied physics. Although he entered the PhD program with the highest enthusiasm and aspirations for the future, he left the program after just two days. The proliferation of online businesses in Silicon Valley was his primary impetus to leave school. Because he was an entrepreneur by temperament, he started thinking of innovative ways to capitalize on the emerging market presented by the internet.
Elon Musk’s Personal Life
Musk’s first marriage was in the year 2000 to the Canadian novelist Justine Wilson, and his second marriage was to the English actress Talulah Riley in the year 2010, after his divorce from Justine in 2008. He wedded Riley in 2013, and their union remained strong all the way until 2016. Musk’s first marriage resulted in the birth of his two sets of twins and later his triplets. The sudden infant death syndrome took the life of his first son Nevada when he was only ten weeks old. Reportedly, Musk had a romantic relationship with the actress Amber Heard. In 2018, he began a relationship with the Canadian artist Grimes, who subsequently revealed that she was expecting a child with the initials X A-12. The inventor of Tesla has seven children; the youngest is baby X A-12, who is just 19 months old.
A Venture Into Businesses
Elon Musk was successful in several enterprises that he had tried his hand at earlier in his career. His path through company ownership and entrepreneurship is outlined in the following timeline.
Zip2
Zip2 was the name of the business that Elon Musk and his younger brother Kimbal Musk established and launched in 1995. Zip2 offered newspapers with licensed versions of their city guide software. In 1999, Compaq’s AltaVista division paid a total of $340 million to buy Zip2. Due to the fact that this acquisition resulted in the establishment of X.com, Elon Musk was able to depart the market successfully.
X.Com
X.com was established by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Ed Ho, and Christopher Payne. Other co-founders include Christopher Payne. The firm started out as an online bank but subsequently merged with another company called Confinity Inc. This combination resulted in the establishment of yet another successful business.
PayPal
PayPal was born out of the combination of X.com and Confinity Inc. When it comes to making payments online, PayPal is among the most widely used of all the systems. During his tenure at PayPal, he discussed his concept for the future operating system with Max Lechin, who was then the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Musk was eventually removed from his position as CEO of the firm. In later years, eBay completed the purchase of PayPal for $1.5 billion.
Tesla Motors
After Elon was fired from his position at PayPal, he moved on to pursue his dream of creating forward-thinking electric vehicles. He then began the process of raising capital for Tesla and established the firm in the year 2003. Tesla Motors was founded with the primary objective of transitioning the automobile industry away from the use of combustible energy and toward the use of clean and green energy.
In the end, Tesla Roadster became the first production electric automobile available to the public. After having multiple arguments with Elon Musk, Tesla Motors co-founder Eberhard was fired from the firm in 2007. Their falling out was the result of several conflicts. After then, Musk took over the administration of the firm and became the CEO as well as the product architect.
SpaceX
Elon Musk founded Space X at the same time as he was overseeing the day-to-day operations of Tesla. He was successful in securing high-profile contracts to develop rockets for the United States Air Force and NASA. Additionally, he engaged on initiatives that included the execution of military operations. Musk has a goal of sending an astronaut to the planet Mark with the assistance of NASA in the year 2025.
In a Nutshell
The achievements of Elon Musk have served as a model for other successful businesspeople and entrepreneurs. The path to success for Elon Musk included overcoming a number of obstacles. However, Elon never failed to find a solution that allowed him to realize his goal for the firm that he founded and bring about a great conclusion.
