Elon Musk, From South Africa to Paypall, Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX

1 Introduction

The story of Elon Musk is the story of a man who has constantly taken big risks, and they have often paid off in a big way. When he was just a boy, he was teased for the size of his head and body—but in the end it gave him confidence. He taught himself to code, building his first website at age 10. He helped PayPal go global and then paid back the friend who gave him his start by buying out their idea for Tesla Motors, which has since become one of the most successful car companies on Earth. SpaceX is getting ready to send people into space for the first time ever—and according to Musk’s predictions, this could happen as early as next year!

2 He was teased as a kid.

As a kid, he was teased for being too smart and nerdy. He was also teased because he was quiet and reserved; when he did speak, it often came out as a mumble. The kids called him “Musky.”

He was also teased for being too tall—he grew to be 6 feet 7 inches—and for having an awkward frame (in addition to his height, Musk has a very narrow face). He says that he’s been overweight and underweight at different periods in his life; during one period of being teased about his appearance, Musk even tried to lose weight by eating only candy bars.

3 He taught himself to code.

In high school, he taught himself to code by reading a book on C++ and then writing a video game. He was able to build an arcade-style flying game called Blastar, which he later distributed as shareware via BBSs (bulletin board systems), an early form of the internet.

In 2010, Musk said that his coding skills were not good enough for him to be considered a programmer: “I couldn’t have been hired as a programmer if I didn’t learn how to program.”

4 His first company made software for video games.

In 1994, Elon Musk left South Africa to attend the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. It was while he was at Wharton that he started his first company: Zip2.

Zip2 was a city guide website that provided online maps, directions, and business listings for major cities. The startup made money by selling ads on its site. In 1999, Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for $307 million—and Elon Musk made $22 million from the sale (about $45 million today).

With this new fortune in hand, he used some of it to start X.com—which would later become PayPal—and put the rest into Tesla Motors and SpaceX—two companies that have since revolutionized their respective industries with bold ideas and innovative products.

5 He helped PayPal go global, then paid back the friend who gave him his start.

Musk’s first billion came from PayPal, the online payment system he co-founded with Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. Musk was the largest shareholder when eBay acquired it for $1.5 billion in 2002—and made a few other people very rich as well.

However, there was one person who gave Musk his start: Adeo Ressi, an entrepreneur who gave the young South African a place to stay in Los Angeles when he moved there in 1995. When Ressi finally got around to asking Musk for his share of what PayPal had earned him—something like $30 million—Musk paid him back by giving him a stake in Tesla worth more than $30 million today.

6 He bet his fortune on Tesla, and made another one.

In the early 2000s, Elon Musk invested $100 million of his own money into Tesla in order to get the company off the ground. He also became its largest shareholder and was instrumental in getting it running properly. As CEO, he oversaw all aspects of Tesla’s operation: from product development to marketing strategy to manufacturing processes. In 2008, he took over as chairman when Chairman Martin Eberhard left amid some controversy surrounding his resignation from the board after being accused of sexual harassment by another employee (the lawsuit was settled out of court).

In 2017, Elon Musk resigned as CEO but remained on as both chairman and largest shareholder until 2019 when he stepped down from both roles due to potential conflicts with his other companies SpaceX and The Boring Company.

7 SpaceX is getting ready to send people to space for the first time.

SpaceX is getting ready to send people to space for the first time. The company has a contract with NASA, under which it will fly astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The first flight is scheduled for April 2019.

The company is also developing a rocket that can take people to Mars—Musk’s ultimate goal. He’s hoping to use this rocket as well as others he’s developing at SpaceX to build a city on Mars by 2050.

8 He wants to link human brains to computers by the year 2020.

Elon Musk wants to link human brains with computers. By the year 2020.

Though Musk has made a habit of proposing audacious ideas, this one is particularly wild: He wants to create a brain-machine interface that he calls “neural lace.” In an interview with Wait But Why, Musk explained that he believes it’s possible for humans to significantly improve their intelligence by merging with AI and creating what he calls “symbiosis between human and machine.”

The goal is not just to make us smarter but also immortal—the neural lace could be used not only as an interface between our bodies and technology but also as an implant in our brains so we can always be connected to the cloud.

9 He named his son X Æ A-12.

His son’s name is X Æ A-12. That’s the name of a rocket, and it’s also a nod to the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets—two different types of craft that Musk has built over his career in aerospace engineering. The first letter of each is an abbreviation for “Space Exploration Technologies.”

The second letter stands for 12, which is the number of engines on each rocket (nine on the first stage, three on the second). This could be an homage to how many engines are used at once during launch or simply because Elon loves using numbers with lots of zeros in them: His Twitter handle is @elonmusk, after all!

10 Elon Musk has made a career out of taking big risks, and they have often paid off in a big way.

Elon Musk has made a career out of taking big risks, and they have often paid off in a big way. He is a self-made billionaire who has turned his vision for the future into reality.

If you want to be successful, you must take risks and make your own luck. Elon Musk is an excellent example of someone who has achieved success through hard work, intelligence and taking risks.

11 Conclusion

Elon Musk has certainly lived an interesting life, and we can only imagine what the future holds for him. From his childhood in South Africa to his work as CEO of Tesla Inc., SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink Corp., it’s clear that he has always had a vision for how technology should be used to improve our lives on this planet. Elon Musk is not just an ordinary man - he is an inspiration!