Elon Musk's resume: A look at his entrepreneurial journey
The world's richest man, the CEO of the most valuable automaker, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, the owner and CEO of Twitter... if there is a thing called a perfect resume, this would be it. This belongs to none other than Elon Musk, the enigmatic and unpredictable billionaire. Let's take a step back and look at his incredible journey.
Musk was an awkward and introverted child
Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He was the oldest of the three children of Errol and Maye Musk, a South African engineer and property developer and a Canadian model, respectively. When he was 10, Musk developed an interest in computing and video games. According to his biographer Ashlee Vance, Musk was an awkward and introverted child.
Bachelor's in physics and economics from University of Pennsylvania
Musk did his schooling at Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School, and the prestigious Pretoria Public School. After graduation, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months before moving to Canada. There, he went to the Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. In 1992, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor's degree in physics and economics.
Musk built and sold PCs in his college dorm
Musk's business acumen can be traced back to his childhood. According to his father, he wanted to be a millionaire since childhood. At 12, Musk sold Blaster, a BASIC-based game, to PC and Office Technology Magazine for $500. During his time at Queen's University, he sold computer parts and full PCs in his dorm. He built PCs that suited the needs of the people.
Musk and friend converted off-campus house into nightclub
At the University of Pennsylvania, Musk lived off-campus in a large 10-bedroom house. He and his roommate Adeo Ressi converted the place into a nightclub. They charged $5/person. The lackluster social scene in the university attracted many people to these parties. Musk had the occasional vodka and Diet Coke. According to Ressi, he never got drunk during those parties.
Musk's first company Zip2 was an online 'yellow pages'
In 1995, at the age of 24, Musk founded Zip2 along with his brother Kimbal and Gregory Kouri, a friend. It was his version of an online 'yellow pages.' The company aimed to make it possible for computer users to find businesses by combining business listings and maps. It expanded the database by convincing businesses in the area to pay for inclusion.
Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million
The company received its first investment of $3 million from Mohr Davidow Ventures in 1996 in exchange for majority ownership. Musk was replaced as CEO by an experienced Richard Sorkin. In 1998, Musk blocked Sorkin's plan to merge Zip2 with CitySearch. He prevailed over the board to oust Sorkin as CEO. The company was acquired by Compaq Computer Corp in 1999 for $307 million.
X.com was renamed PayPal in 2001
The next chapter in Musk's entrepreneurial career was X.com, an online financial service. He co-founded it with Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in 1999. In 2000, it merged with rival Confinity. The new company was called X.com and Musk became the CEO. Later that year, he was ousted and replaced by Peter Thiel, Confinity's founder. The company was renamed PayPal in 2001.
Musk received $175.8mn when eBay acquired PayPal
The next year, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. Musk, being the largest shareholder, received $175.8 million. In 2017, Musk bought back the X.com domain name from PayPal for the sentimental value it holds. He plans to name his all-encompassing super app 'X' app.
He saw colonization of Mars as future of space exploration
Musk saw Mars as a way to reinvigorate public interest in space exploration. At a convention of the Mars Society, he spoke about landing a miniature greenhouse on Mars and growing plants there. For the project, he tried to obtain intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Russians. However, that didn't work out. This led him to establish SpaceX in 2002 to build affordable rockets.
SpaceX is now valued at over $120 billion
In 2006, SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket. The company became the first privately-owned company to send a liquid rocket into orbit after Falcon 1's successful launch in 2008. In 2013, the company launched the first commercial mission for a private customer. SpaceX now controls most of the commercial launch market. It now has an effective valuation of $127 billion.
Musk became the CEO of Tesla in 2008
Musk has always been fascinated with electric cars. However, contrary to popular belief, he is not the founder of the electric car marque Tesla. The company was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. Musk led the company's Series A funding. In 2008, he stepped in as Tesla's CEO and product architect. The company currently has a market capitalization of $708.74 billion.
SpaceX and Tesla were very close to bankruptcy
It wasn't always smooth sailing for Musk. In 2008, the richest man on the planet was broke and was living off of loans from his friends. At that time, he had invested all he had in SpaceX and Tesla. Continuous launch failures and the global recession brought the companies and Musk very close to bankruptcy. Tesla was running out of cash at that time.
Tesla received $50mn investment from Daimler at the last moment
The successful launch of Falcon 1 in 2008 and contracts from NASA helped SpaceX turn around its fortunes. For Tesla, it was a $50 million investment from Daimler that helped. Fast forward to now, the two companies are the dominant forces in their respective sectors.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015
Musk's entrepreneurial resume doesn't end there. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman and others. The company focuses on fundamental advances in AI. The company is behind DALL-E and DALL-E 2, two machine language models there are capable of generating digital images from descriptions. In 2018, Musk resigned from the company's board. He continues to support the company.
He founded Neuralink and The Boring Company in 2016
The year 2016 was a busy one for Musk. He co-founded Neuralink with Max Hodak and Paul Merolla. The company aims to help people with paralysis using a fully-implantable brain-machine interface. With Neuralink, people will be able to use their neural activity to operate computers and mobile devices. The Boring Company is a tunnel construction venture established by Musk in 2016.
Boring Company aims to provide a solution for traffic issues with loop travel
The Boring Company started as a subsidiary of SpaceX but became a separate entity in 2018. The company focuses on building underground tunnels for loop travel. The company's Series C funding in April this year valued it at $5.7 billion.
The Musk-Twitter saga was full of twists and turns
Lastly, we have Twitter. The controversial social media platform that Musk acquired last month for $44 billion and is now the CEO of. The Musk-Twitter saga has been one for the ages. The billionaire even walked out of the deal before coming back in. The acquisition of Twitter is seen as the beginning of Musk's 'X' app.
