Who Is Elon Musk
Elon Musk
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Elon Reeve Musk FRS (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. With an estimated net worth of around US$242 billion as of July 25, 2022,[5] Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes' real-time billionaires list.[6][7]
Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, where he grew up. He briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at age 17, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen's University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received bachelor's degrees in Economics and Physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University but decided instead to pursue a business career, co-founding the web software company Zip2 with his brother Kimbal. The startup was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999. The same year, Musk co-founded online bank X.com, which merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal. eBay bought PayPal in 2002, for $1.5 billion.
In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, of which he serves as CEO and Chief Engineer. In 2004, he was an early investor in electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.). He became its chairman and product architect, eventually assuming the position of CEO in 2008. In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy company that was later acquired by Tesla and became Tesla Energy. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company promoting friendly artificial intelligence (AI). In 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain–computer interfaces, and founded The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company. He agreed to purchase the major American social networking service Twitter in 2022, for $44 billion, but later stated he was terminating the deal; he is currently involved in a legal battle with Twitter which intends to complete the transaction. Musk has proposed a hyperloop high-speed vactrain transportation system and is the president of the Musk Foundation, which donates to scientific research and education.
Musk has been criticized for making unscientific and controversial statements, such as spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk for falsely tweeting that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla; he settled with the SEC but did not admit guilt, and he temporarily stepped down from his Tesla chairmanship. In 2019, he won a defamation case brought against him by a British caver who had advised in the Tham Luang cave rescue.
Early life
Childhood and family
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, one of the capital cities of apartheid South Africa.[8][9] His mother is Maye Musk (née Haldeman), a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, but raised in South Africa.[10][11][12] His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer who was a half-owner of a Zambian emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika.[13][14] Musk has a younger brother, Kimbal (born 1972), and a younger sister, Tosca (born 1974).[12][15] His maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, was an adventurous American-born Canadian who took his family on record-breaking journeys in a single-engine Bellanca airplane to Africa and Australia.[16][17][18] Musk has British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.[19][20] He was baptized into the Anglican Church.[21][22]
Musk's family was wealthy during his youth. His father was elected to the Pretoria City Council as a representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party, with the Musk children reportedly sharing their father's dislike of apartheid.[8] After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk mostly lived with his father,[19] a choice he made two years after the divorce and subsequently regretted.[23] Musk has become estranged from his father.[23] He has a paternal half-sister and a half-brother.[16][24]
As a child Musk's adenoids were removed because doctors suspected he was deaf, but his mother later decided that he was just thinking "in another world".[25] Aged 10, Musk developed an interest in computing and video games and acquired a Commodore VIC-20.[26] He learned computer programming using a manual and, at age 12, sold the code of a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500.[27][28] In his biography, Ashlee Vance described Elon as an awkward and introverted child.[29] He attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School.[30]
Education
Aware it would be easier to enter the United States from Canada,[31] Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother.[32][33] While awaiting the documentation, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months; this allowed him to avoid mandatory service in the South African military.[34] Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989 and lived with a second cousin in Saskatchewan for a year,[35] working odd jobs at a farm and lumber-mill.[36] In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.[37][38] Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the Wharton School in 1995.[39][40]
In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley during the summer: at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which investigated electrolytic ultracapacitors for energy storage, and at the Palo Alto-based startup Rocket Science Games.[41] In 1995, he was accepted to a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) program in materials science at Stanford University in California.[42] Musk tried to get a job at Netscape but never received a response to his inquiries.[32] He dropped out of Stanford after two days, deciding instead to join the Internet boom and launch a startup.[43]
SpaceX
In early 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society and discussed funding plans to place a growth-chamber for plants on Mars.[69] In October the same year, he traveled to Moscow with Jim Cantrell and Adeo Ressi to buy refurbished intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could send the greenhouse payloads into space. He met with companies NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras; however, Musk was seen as a novice[70] and the group returned to the United States empty-handed. In February 2002, the group returned to Russia with Mike Griffin (president of In-Q-Tel) to look for three ICBMs. They had another meeting with Kosmotras and were offered one rocket for $8 million, which Musk rejected. He instead decided to start a company that could build affordable rockets.[70] With $100 million of his early fortune,[71] Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and became the company's CEO and Chief Engineer.[72][73]
SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006.[74] Though the rocket failed to reach Earth orbit, it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA Administrator (and former SpaceX consultant[75]) Mike Griffin later that year.[76][77] After two more failed attempts that nearly caused Musk and his companies to bankrupt,[74] SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 into orbit in 2008.[78] Later that year, SpaceX received a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services program contract from NASA for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, replacing the Space Shuttle after its 2011 retirement.[79] In 2012, the Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, a first for a private enterprise.[80] Musk credited the NASA award, one of the last actions by Mike Griffin as NASA Administrator, for saving the company.[81]
Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in 2015 SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 on an inland platform.[82] Later landings were achieved on autonomous spaceport drone ships, an ocean-based recovery platform.[83] In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy; the inaugural mission carried Musk's personal Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload.[84][85] Since 2019,[86] SpaceX is developing Starship, a fully-reusable, super-heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to replace the Falcon 9 and Heavy.[87] In 2020, SpaceX launched its first crewed flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place astronauts into orbit and dock a crewed spacecraft with the ISS.[88]
SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites in 2015 to provide satellite Internet access,[89] with the first two prototype satellites launched in February 2018. A second set of test satellites and the first large deployment of a piece of the constellation occurred in May 2019, when the first 60 operational satellites were launched.[90] The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation is estimated by SpaceX to be about $10 billion.[91][c] Some critics, including the International Astronomical Union, have alleged that Starlink blocks the view of the sky and poses a collision threat for spacecraft.[94][95][96] During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk sent Starlink systems to Ukraine to provide internet access and communication,[97] an action praised by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.[98][99] However, he refused to block Russian state media on Starlink, declaring himself "a free speech absolutist."[100][101]
Tesla
Tesla, Inc.—originally Tesla Motors—was incorporated in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding.[102] Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement.[103] Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004; he invested $6.5 million, became the majority shareholder, and joined Tesla's board of directors as chairman.[104][105] Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.[106]
Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm.[107][108] Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008.[109] A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others.[110][111] As of 2019, Musk was the longest-tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally.[112] In 2021 Musk nominally changed his title to "Technoking" while retaining his position as CEO.[113]
Tesla first built an electric sports car, the Roadster, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells.[114] Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model S sedan in 2012.[115] A cross-over, the Model X was launched in 2015.[116][117] A mass market sedan, the Model 3, was released in 2017.[118][119] The Model 3 is the all-time best-selling plug-in electric car worldwide, and in June 2021 it became the first electric car to sell 1 million units globally.[120][121] A fifth vehicle, the Model Y crossover, was launched in 2020.[122] The Cybertruck—an all-electric pickup truck—was unveiled in 2019.[123] Under Musk, Tesla has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle factories, such as Gigafactory 1 in Nevada,[124] Gigafactory 2 in New York,[125] Gigafactory 3 in China,[126] Gigafactory 4 in Germany,[127] and Gigafactory 5 in Texas.[128]
Since its initial public offering in 2010,[129] Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020,[130][131] and it entered the S&P 500 later that year.[132][133] In October 2021 it reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion, the sixth company to do so in US history.[134] On November 6, 2021, Musk proposed on Twitter selling 10% of his Tesla stock, since "much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance".[135] After more than 3.5 million Twitter accounts supported the sale, Musk sold $6.9 billion of Tesla stock in the week ending November 12,[135] and a total of $16.4 billion by year end, reaching the 10% target.[136] In February 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that both Elon and Kimbal Musk were under investigation by the SEC for possible insider trading related to the sale.[137]
SEC lawsuit
In 2018, Musk was sued by the SEC for a tweet claiming funding had been secured for potentially taking Tesla private.[138][139][d] The lawsuit characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies.[139][143][144] Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations. As a result, Musk and Tesla were fined $20 million each, and Musk was forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman but was able to remain as CEO.[145][146]
Musk has stated in interviews he does not regret posting the tweet that triggered the SEC investigation.[147][148] In 2019, Musk stated in a tweet that Tesla would build half a million cars that year.[149] The SEC reacted to Musk's tweet by filing in court, asking the court to hold him in contempt for violating the terms of a settlement agreement with such a tweet, which was disputed by Musk. This was eventually settled by a joint agreement between Musk and the SEC clarifying the previous agreement details.[150] The agreement included a list of topics that Musk would need preclearance before tweeting about.[151] In 2020, a judge prevented a lawsuit from proceeding that claimed a tweet by Musk regarding Tesla stock price ("too high imo") violated the agreement.[152][153] FOIA released records showing that the SEC itself concluded Musk has subsequently violated the agreement twice by tweeting regarding "Tesla's solar roof production volumes and its stock price".[154]
SolarCity and Tesla Energy
Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive founded in 2006.[155] By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.[156] In 2014 Musk promoted the idea of SolarCity building an advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York, triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States.[157] Construction on the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until early 2020.[158][159]
Tesla acquired SolarCity for over $2 billion in 2016 and merged it with its battery unit to create Tesla Energy. The announcement of the deal resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla's stock price. At the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues.[160] Multiple shareholder groups filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla's directors, claiming that the purchase of SolarCity was done solely to benefit Musk and came at the expense of Tesla and its shareholders.[161][162] Tesla directors settled the lawsuit in January 2020, leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant.[163][164] Two years later, the court ruled in Musk's favor.[165]
Neuralink
In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup company with an investment of $100 million.[166][167] Neuralink aims to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence (AI) by creating devices that are embedded in the brain to facilitate its merging with machines. Such technology could enhance memory or allow the devices to communicate with software.[167][168] The company also hopes to develop devices that treat neurological conditions like Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and spinal cord injuries.[169]
In 2019, Musk announced work on a device akin to a sewing machine that could embed threads into a human brain.[166] At a 2020 live demonstration, Musk described one of their early devices as "a Fitbit in your skull" that could soon cure paralysis, deafness, blindness, and other disabilities. Many neuroscientists and publications criticized these claims,[170][171][172] with MIT Technology Review describing them as "highly speculative" and "neuroscience theater".[170] During the demonstration, Musk revealed a pig with a Neuralink implant that tracked neural activity related to smell.[169]
Neuralink has conducted further animal testing on Macaque monkeys at the University of California, Davis' Primate Research Center. In 2021, the company released a video in which a Macaque played the video game Pong via a Neuralink implant. The company's animal trials—which have caused the deaths of some monkeys—has led to claims of animal cruelty. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has alleged that Neuralink's animal trials have violated the Animal Welfare Act.[173] In 2022, Neuralink announced that clinical trials would begin by the end of the year.[174]
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