Biography Of Elon Musk Founder Of SpaceX
Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.
Introduction Of Elon Musk:
Elon Reeve Musk FRS ( 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$216 billion as of June 2022,Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the Forbes real-time billionaires list.
Born: Elon Reeve Musk June 28, 1971 (age 50) Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa
Citizenship: United States
Education: University of Pennsylvania (BS, BA)
Title: >>Founder, CEO and Chief Engineer of SpaceX
>>CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.
>>Founder of The Boring Company and X.com (now part of PayPal)
>>Co-founder of Neuralink, OpenAI, and Zip2
President of Musk Foundation
Spouse(s):
Justine Wilson(2000-2008)
Talulah Riley(2010-2012)
Talulah Riley(2013-2016)
Partner(s): Grimes (2018–2022)
Parents: >>Errol Musk (father)
>>Maye Musk (mother)
Musk was born to White South African parents in Pretoria, 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. He matriculated at Queen's University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he received a bachelor's degree 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. The company was bought by eBay 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 joined electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.) as 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 that promotes 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 also agreed to purchase the major American social networking service Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion. Musk has proposed the Hyperloop, a high-speed vactrain transportation system. He is the president of the Musk Foundation, an organization 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, he was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 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 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.
Business career:
Zip2>>>
In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded web software company Zip2 with funds borrowed from Musk's father. They housed the venture at a small rented office in Palo Alto.The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow pages. Musk says that before the company became successful, he could not afford an apartment and instead rented an office and slept on the couch and showered at the YMCA, and shared one computer with his brother. According to Musk, "The website was up during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time."The Musk brothers obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune,and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch. Musk's attempts to become CEO, a position held by its Chairman Rich Sorkin, were thwarted by the board. Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999,[55][56] and Musk received $22 million for his 7-percent share.
X.com and PayPal:
In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company.The startup was one of the first federally insured online banks, and, in its initial months of operation, over 200,000 customers joined the service. The company's investors regarded Musk as inexperienced and had him replaced with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year.The following year, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to avoid competition.Founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel,Confinity had its own money-transfer service, PayPal, which was more popular than X.com's service.
Within the merged company, Musk returned as CEO. Musk's preference for Microsoft software over Unix created a rift in the company and caused Thiel to resign. Due to resulting technological issues and lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in September 2000. Under Thiel, the company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001.In 2002 PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8 million.In 2017 Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, explaining it has sentimental value.
SpaceX:
In 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society. He was inspired by plans to place a growth-chamber for plants on Mars and discussed funding the project himself. In October 2001, Musk traveled to Moscow with Jim Cantrell and Mike Griffin 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 and was even spat on by one of the Russian chief designers.
The group returned to the United States empty-handed. In February 2002, the group returned to Russia to look for three ICBMs. They had another meeting with Kosmotras and were offered one rocket for $8 million, which Musk rejected. Musk instead decided to start a company that could build affordable rockets. With $100 million of his early fortune, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp., traded as SpaceX, in May 2002. As of 2021, he remains the company's CEO and also holds the title of Chief Engineer.
SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006, and although the rocket failed to reach Earth orbit, it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA later that year.[80] After two more failed attempts, which reportedly caused Musk so much stress that he was "waking from nightmares, screaming and in physical pain",SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 into orbit in 2008, making it the first private liquid-fuel rocket to do so. 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. In 2012 the Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, a first for a private enterprise.
Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in 2015 SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9.Landings were later achieved on an autonomous spaceport drone ship, an ocean-based recovery platform. In 2018 SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy; the inaugural mission carried Musk's personal Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload. In 2017 SpaceX unveiled its next-generation launch vehicle and spacecraft system, Big Falcon Rocket, later renamed to Starship, which would support all SpaceX launch service provider capabilities. In 2018 SpaceX announced a planned 2023 lunar circumnavigation mission, a private flight called dearMoon project. In 2020 SpaceX launched its first crewed flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place a person into orbit and dock a crewed spacecraft with the ISS.
SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites in 2015 to provide satellite Internet access,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. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation is estimated by SpaceX to be about $10 billion.During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk sent Starlink systems to Ukraine to provide internet access and communication, an action praised by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The company has attracted criticism from astronomers who say Starlink's satellites are blocking the view of the skies, and from experts arguing that they risk colliding and causing dangers in space. In 2021, the International Astronomical Union petitioned the United Nations to protect the nightsky from Starlink satellites,and later created its own center to combat Starlink.
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. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement.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. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.
Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm. Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008. A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others. As of 2019, Elon Musk was the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally. In 2021 Musk nominally changed his title to "Technoking" while retaining his position as CEO.
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. Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model S sedan in 2012; a cross-over, the Model X was launched in 2015. A mass market sedan, the Model 3, was released in 2017. The Model 3 is the all-time best-selling plug-in electric car worldwide, and, in June 2021, became the first electric car to sell 1 million units globally. A fifth vehicle, the Model Y crossover, was launched in 2020. The Cybertruck, an all-electric pickup truck, was unveiled in 2019. Under Musk, Tesla has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle factories, such as Gigafactory 1 in Nevada, Gigafactory 2 in New York, Gigafactory 3 in China, Gigafactory 4 in Germany and Gigafactory 5 in Texas.
Since its initial public offering in 2010, Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020, and it entered the S&P 500 later that year. In October 2021 it reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion, the sixth company to do so in US history. 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". 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,and a total of $16.4 billion by year end, reaching the 10% target. 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.
