Top 10 surprising facts about Elon Musk!
In just a few short years, he has gone from being the youngest person on Forbes’ list of the highest-paid people in 2021 to now becoming the richest man in history. When one thinks of some of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, many come to mind. But it may surprise you to know that SpaceX Co-founder and CEO Elon Musk is not only among the richest men in the world but also one of the most controversial figures within the tech industry.
Most people do not understand his true personality. They might believe him to be an outspoken entrepreneur who stands up for what he believes in. On the contrary, he is quite different. Take this step back in time and take a look at his story as a child on how he came to be where he is today. It would shock you to find out just how resilient and hard-working he was just years ago. Here are ten surprising facts about Elon Musk worth reading…
1. His childhood and early life in poverty
Born in Pretoria South Africa in 1971, Elon Musk is descended from two immigrant families. He first started attending Stellenbosch University when he was 13 years old before he moved further south to Johannesburg to study under Prof Hans-Martin Roberts at TAFE-Africa (formerly known as AfriForum). While studying, he met with the future co-founder of Tesla Inc, Martin Eberhard. In 1991 they founded Zip2 after college. Soon, he joined other companies like PayPal. This led to him getting fired from a couple of them including PayPal and eBay, where he decided instead to start his own company called X.com – which later became Twitter.
The journey did not stop for long though as in 1994, he dropped out of Harvard to begin a career in entrepreneurship. Soon enough, Musk found himself in Silicon Valley, which saw success after selling another initial Public offering totaling $1 billion in 1995 by developing Neuralink, which is artificial intelligence. With help from Jeff Bezo, their first product ‘Bingo’, made its debut in 2000 before then launching the social networking site Facebook alongside it. Soon, it turned into a powerhouse company. Today, Twitter remains dominant among every social network used across the globe as well as having a significant market share on the US search engine Bing.
2. Passion for Technology
Musk’s passion for technology began during his visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while taking a Computer Science class. Later that same year, at age 19, he dropped out of MIT and spent 4 months at Stanford University learning new skills at the prestigious school of engineering. Soon, he got a job offer after graduating from Stanford University. The opportunity opened soon after when he took over as CTO for SolarCity Systems. Shortly after joining SolarCity, he sold shares of their stocks at NASDAQ making it rise exponentially until June 2000.
After this, the sky began to turn blue for Musk and he received several offers from major corporations such as Hewlett Packard, Intel, HP, and Dell. Finally, in 2005 after spending more than 24 hours of overtime, Musk accepted a position as General Manager of AOL while taking a break between projects. At the moment, it is unclear if Musk will continue to keep his current positions at these big firms or be part of any other venture. However, given his past track record of doing so, many believe there is no reason for anything else. Nonetheless, Musk has shown again that even though he doesn’t want any publicity, neither does anyone else.
3. Being a Successful Entrepreneur
It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. Elon Musk has proved to have done the impossible in his business endeavors. Several other successful businessmen in recent times have failed due to a lack of knowledge or confidence. For instance, Jack Dorsey, the software engineer that worked for Amazon as an executive assistant in 2004, lost his entire fortune from losing money on investments within days after launching Twitter. Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg made billions by investing in his newly discovered smartphone app, but within less than three years, his investment went bankrupt. Then we had Sergey Brin, CEO of Google who invested heavily in building YouTube around 2002 before eventually quitting in 2007 alongside millions of investors. Yet, none of those cases were as infamous as that of the Tesla CEO.
4. Not the First One
Musk has been compared to Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, etc. But that won’t be the case with everyone else that followed the path he is currently leading for. Even Bill Gates admitted being unsure about whether his Microsoft empire could survive without Musk. Hence, it is safe to say that Elon Musk has indeed managed to defy the great expectations of many experts around the world.
5. Billionaire Complexity
In 2006, Musk announced the acquisition of solar power companies SolarCity and NextEra Energy together with billionaire Chris Borge, the former CEO of Sun Microsystems. From scratch, both deal with massive solar energy projects which include the construction of photovoltaic solar panels on rooftops. As such, these deals were viewed very differently as these were in the private sector and not publicly traded before.
The fact that he now owns 50% of SolarCity and 20% of NextEra meant that he now owned 1/1 of the largest collection of clean energy projects on Earth. Furthermore, Musk is well aware that owning assets like this means that he must maintain control of them as well as ensure that they run optimally. The fact that SolarCity generated $12 million in revenue in 2019 and a Net Income of $3.5 million in 2020, it could be noted that Musk is already a millionaire. Moreover, since 2014, the cost of electricity costs have increased drastically across the country. Therefore, Musk seems to be confident in generating profits now instead of waiting till the markets are clear.
6. Having Many Companies Under Water
The question arises where is Musk going to put all his energy? There were reports in 2015 that stated that he wanted to build multiple mega projects. However, the information was retracted a couple of days later with the clarification saying that the project was only to construct a large wind turbine farm. In November 2015, Musk shared some pictures from inside of Mars on Instagram and wrote: “Mars is our last frontier and I have no desire to revisit earth until it falls into pieces and needs sorting again. It’s important to remind ourselves why we get here first, but we can’t afford to go back. Mars is just beginning. We need to make sure we create value first.”
7. Getting Fired at Apple
On April 27th of 2018, Elon Musk said that he planned to leave Apple, owing to the high level of scrutiny which surrounded the tech giant. Ever since then, Musk has made rumors that he would quit his current job to pursue another venture which ultimately changed his plans. These rumors continued right until December 2019 when he was asked by a reporter whether he would leave with Tesla. That question was answered with a yes. Since then, rumors and speculations surrounding the possibility of leaving the electric car maker have become rampant. However, despite his intentions to resign, Musk recently revealed in an interview that he was staying at Tesla until 2025. Despite this, Musk hasn’t officially confirmed yet the reasons behind that statement either.
8. Looking at Bigger Picture
While looking at the larger picture, the fact that it’s a boy who grew up in poverty and developed an interest in startups makes him unique compared to others. However, since we know how dedicated he has been over the past 5 years, no one could claim that he has failed. Though Tesla may have been considered expensive for its launch, the reality is that Musk wasn’t a stranger to failure.
9. Becoming Homeless
There has been a lot of speculation regarding homeless Elon Musk and it’s one of the biggest mysteries that has plagued us for so long. An idea popped up when a professor from Georgia Tech asked the young entrepreneur how the hell he ended up with an apartment full of junk and trash. To him, this seemed to show one thing: “I’m far too smart to waste my time on something useless.” It is a fact that the teenager’s logic was correct since nothing indicates that his financial problem was solvable.
According to some sources, the genius businessman decided to rent out his house so that people would pay him rent. Nevertheless, according to TMZ, Tesla CEO didn’t have much choice but to move as he couldn’t manage to keep his property as well as pay rent all alone. Eventually, the landlord agreed to buy the property from him once Tesla had a proper plan. Hence, Elon managed to save a lot of cash on rent, and thus he managed to purchase the house that he is now renting out. Musk has always held his ground to whatever is necessary and he will surely stay true to it.
10. Living More Like Rich Than Poor
Despite having an astonishing wealth of $200 billion and counting, it can be argued that for certain reasons, the world is richer than expected. Such reasons may range from Elon not wanting fame to him simply enjoying every penny that comes his way. Still, despite the latter, his lifestyle shows that he is a decent human being. Just as much as he enjoys living lavish, unscripted lives, he is also someone who takes things easy and understands that good work rarely gets rewarded. Overall, if Tesla decides to give him some profit, he will use it to settle his bills instead.
One final word on Elon Musk
You might think Elon Musk isn’t as popular as others because it’s easy to imagine Elon sitting home drinking coffee and tweeting. However, the truth is that
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