Biography

Synopsis

Elon Reeve Musk born June 28 in 1971, is a South African-born Canadian American business magnate, investor, engineer, and inventor. Elon Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers. He achieved more success by founding X.com in 1999, which merged with Confinity and took the name PayPal, SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Musk made headlines in May 2012, when SpaceX launched a rocket that would send the first commercial vehicle to the International Space Station. He bolstered his portfolio with the purchase of SolarCity in 2016, and cemented his standing as a leader of industry by taking on an advisory role in the early days of President Donald Trump's administration. As of October 2017, Musk has an estimated net worth of $20.8 billion, ranking in the 2017 Forbes 400 as the 21st wealthiest person in America. In March 2016, he was listed by Forbes as the 80th-wealthiest person in the world. In December 2016, Musk was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People. His goals include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and reducing the "risk of human extinction" by "making life multiplanetary" by establishing a human colony on Mars.

Early Life

Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, his mother Maye Musk was model and dietician from Canada and his father Errol Musk, was South African electromechanical engineer, pilot and sailor. He has a younger brother, Kimbal and a younger sister, Tosca. After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk lived mostly with his father in the suburbs of Pretoria. During his childhood he was an avid reader. At age 10, he developed an interest in computing with the Commodore VIC-20. He taught himself computer programming at the age of 12, sold the code for a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar, to a magazine called PC and Office Technology, for approximately $500. A web version of the game is available online. Musk was severely bullied throughout his childhood, and was once hospitalized when a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs and then beat him until he lost consciousness. Musk was initially educated at private schools, attending the English-speaking Waterkloof House Preparatory School. Musk later graduated from Pretoria Boys High School and moved to Canada in June 1989, just before his 18th birthday, after obtaining Canadian citizenship. In 2002, he became a U.S. citizen.

Education

At the age of 17, Musk was accepted into Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, for undergraduate study. In 1992, after spending two years at Queen's University, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where in May 1997 he received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from its College of Arts and Sciences, and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from its Wharton School of Business. Musk extended his studies for one year to finish the second bachelor's degree. While at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk and fellow Penn student Adeo Ressi rented a 10-bedroom fraternity house, using it as an unofficial nightclub. In 1995, at age 24, Musk moved to California to begin a PhD in applied physics and materials science at Stanford University, but left the program after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations in the areas of the Internet, renewable energy and outer space.

Career

List of companies

• Zip2
• Xcon and PayPal
• SpaceX
• Tesla
• Solar City
• Hyperloop
• OpenAI
• Neuralink
• The Boring Company

Political Positions

Politically, Musk has described himself as "half Democrat, half Republican." In his own words: "I'm somewhere in the middle, socially liberal and fiscally conservative." Musk stated he was a "significant donor to Democrats, but that he also gives heavily to Republicans." Musk further stated, "in order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution." In 2016, Musk became a member of two of then President-elect Donald Trump's presidential advisory committees but resigned from both in 2017, in protest at Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Musk has described himself as "nauseatingly pro-American." According to Musk, the United States is "the greatest country that has ever existed on Earth," describing it as "the greatest force for good of any country that's ever been." Musk believes outright that there "would not be democracy in the world if not for the United States," arguing there were "three separate occasions in the 20th-century where democracy would have fallen with World War I, World War II and the Cold War, if not for the United States." Musk also stated that he thinks "it would be a mistake to say the United States is perfect, it certainly is not. There have been many foolish things the United States has done and bad things the United States has done." Prompted by the emergence of self-driving cars and Artificial Intelligence, Musk has voiced support for a Universal Basic Income. Prior to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, Musk criticized candidate Trump by saying: "I feel a bit stronger that he is probably not the right guy. He doesn't seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States." Following Donald Trump's inauguration, Musk expressed approval of Trump's choice of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and accepted an invitation to appear on a panel advising President Trump. Regarding his cooperation with Trump, Musk has subsequently commented: "The more voices of reason that the President hears, the better."

Opinions

Religion

Musk believes that religion and science could not co-exist. When asked whether he believed "there was some kind of destiny involved" in humanity's transition to a multi-planetary species, rather than "just physics", Musk responded: Well, I do. Do I think that there's some sort of master intelligence architecting all of this stuff? I think probably not because then you have to say: "Where does the master intelligence come from?" So it sort of begs the question. So I think really you can explain this with the fundamental laws of physics. You know it's complex phenomenon from simple elements.

Extraterrestrial life

Although Musk believes "there is a good chance that there is simple life on other planets", he "questions whether there is other intelligent life in the known universe".Musk later clarified his "hope that there is other intelligent life in the known universe", and stated that it is "probably more likely than not, but that's a complete guess."

Artificial intelligence

Musk has frequently spoken out about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, declaring it "the most serious threat to the survival of the human race". During an interview at the MIT AeroAstro Centennial Symposium, Musk described AI as "humanity's biggest existential threat", further stating, "I'm increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish." Musk described the creation of artificial intelligence as "summoning the demon". Despite this, Musk has previously invested in DeepMind, an AI firm, and Vicarious, a company working to improve machine intelligence. In January 2015, he donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute, an organization focused on challenges posed by advanced technologies. He is the co-chairman of OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. Musk has said that his investments are, "not from the standpoint of actually trying to make any investment return... I like to just keep an eye on what's going on with artificial intelligence". Musk continued, "There have been movies about this, you know, like Terminator – there are some scary outcomes. And we should try to make sure the outcomes are good, not bad." In June 2016, he was asked whether he thinks humans live in a computer simulation, to which he answered "probably". Elaborated as follows: The strongest argument for us probably being in a simulation I think is the following: 40 years ago we had Pong – two rectangles and a dot. That's where we were. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it's getting better every year. And soon we'll have virtual reality, we'll have augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable. Elon Musk's dark warnings over Artificial Intelligence has brought him some controversy. He and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have clashed with the latter terming his warnings "irresponsible". Musk responded to Mark's censure by saying that he had discussed AI with Zuckerberg and found him to have only a "limited understanding" of the subject.

Personal Life

Family

Musk met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while both were students at Ontario's Queen's University. They married in 2000 and separated in 2008. Their first son, Nevada Alexander Musk, died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at the age of ten weeks. They later had five sons through in vitro fertilization – twins in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006 – all of whom they share custody of. In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley, and in 2010, the couple married. In January 2012, Musk announced that he had ended his four-year relationship with Riley. In July 2013, Musk and Riley remarried. In December 2014, Musk filed for a second divorce from Riley, however, the action was withdrawn. It was announced in March 2016 that divorce proceedings were again under way, this time with Riley filing for divorce from Musk.

Philanthropy

Musk is chairman of the Musk Foundation, which focuses its philanthropic efforts on providing solar-power energy systems in disaster areas. In 2010, the Musk Foundation collaborated with SolarCity to donate a 25-kW solar power system to the South Bay Community Alliance's (SBCA) hurricane response center in Coden, Alabama. In July 2011, the Musk Foundation donated US$250,000 towards a solar power project in Sōma, Japan, a city that had been recently devastated by tsunami. In July 2014, Musk was asked by cartoonist Matthew Inman and William Terbo, the grandnephew of Nikola Tesla, to donate US$8 million toward the construction of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. Ultimately, Musk agreed to donate US$1 million toward the project and additionally pledged to build a Tesla Supercharger in the museum car park. Musk donated US$10 million to the Future of Life Institute in January 2015, to run a global research program aimed at keeping artificial intelligence beneficial to humanity. As of 2015, Musk is a trustee of the X Prize Foundation and a signatory of The Giving Pledge.

Awards and recognition

Indicative, some of the award Elon Musk earned are: