Top 10 Remarquable Facts about Elon Musk

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk by NORAD and USNORTHCOM Public Affairs – Wikimedia Commons

Top 10 Remarquable Facts about Elon Musk

Elon Musk is an entrepreneur and one of the world’s most recognized business leaders and visionaries. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; early-stage investor, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc. He is the founder of The Boring Company and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. He had an estimated net worth of around US$221 billion as of March 2022. Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the Forbes real-time billionaires list.

Musk is one of the brilliant minds who helped reshape the global economy following the tech boom of the late 1990s. The South African native became a millionaire many times before achieving billionaire status. Since launching Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in 2002, Musk has contracted with NASA and the U.S. government to develop his company’s fleet of rocket ships. He fully believes in the importance of colonizing Mars to extend human existence. 

Here are the top 10 Remarquable Facts about Elon Musk.

1. Musk dropped out of University to become an entrepreneur 

Elon Musk at the Summit 2013 by Heisenberg Media – Wikimedia Commons

Elon was enrolled 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. He co-founded 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. 

2. Musk often claimed that books have raised him

Born in South Africa, Musk is the offspring of Maye, a Canadian nutritionist and model, and Errol, a South African engineer. Despite having siblings, Musk himself says that books, stacks, and stacks of them were his constant companions as a child.

By the age of 9, Musk read the entire encyclopedia. Around age 10, Musk developed an interest in computing and video games and acquired a Commodore VIC-20. He learned computer programming using a manual and, at age 12. He sold the code of a video game he created called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500

3. Elon founded SpaceX to make space travel more practical 

President Obama toured the SpaceX facilities with Elon Musk by Steve Jurvetson – Wikimedia Commons

With PayPal out of the picture, Musk was free to pursue a bigger goal: space. He also had the money to do that. Disappointed that NASA had no plans for a manned mission to Mars, he dreamed up a project called Mars Oasis. He co-founded SpaceX in 2002, a company meant to make space travel more practical.

SpaceX was born in part after Musk did the math and realized that space missions would be much more affordable if someone could develop a dependable and reusable rocket system. In 2020 alone, SpaceX flew a record 26 missions, 22 of those using refurbished rockets. SpaceX landed a $2.89 billion contract with NASA to put the first astronauts on the moon in the 21st century

4. Musk co-founded Tesla, the first electronic vehicle to use lithium-ion battery cells

The company was founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Tesla is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company based in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric cars, battery energy storage from home to grid-scale, solar panels, and solar roof tiles.

Tesla launched the first semi-autonomous car, a move many of the big automakers have emulated. Since then, Musk has said that Tesla models will have the technology to be fully driverless. Tesla can also automatically update software in its cars without drivers having to make a trip to a dealership. This is something legacy automakers might find harder to do since they have a franchise system.

Musk delivered on affordability, too. Some models, like the Model 3, now start at around $40,000. In a March 15, 2021 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company disclosed that Musk is also adopting the title “Technoking of Tesla.”

5. Elon’s official annual salary for Tesla Motors is just $1

Elon Musk during the Tesla 2019 Annual Shareholder Meeting by Steve Jurvetson – Wikimedia Commons

This is similar to a policy followed by the likes of Steve Jobs and despite Elon having a personal net worth of over $20 billion.

Tesla Inc said its Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s total compensation for 2020 was nil, compared to $23,760 in 2019.

The pay package of Musk, who is also a major shareholder and CEO of rocket maker SpaceX, requires Tesla’s market capitalization and financial growth to hit a series of rising targets.

6. Elon has a son named X Æ A-XII

Musk met his first wife, Justine, when they were both enrolled at Queen’s University in Ontario. As PayPal’s success multiplied, they married in 2000. The two had children with the help of in vitro fertilization, which often produces multiple births. In the Musks’ case, it happened not once, but twice first they had twins in 2004, and then triplets in 2006, all boys.

In 2018, Musk started dating pop star Grimes. They had a son named X Æ A-XII. His name is pronounced X Ash A Twelve. Grimes later confirmed that they had changed the name to “X Æ A-Xii”, adding: “Roman numerals. Looks better.” She explained the meaning behind the name, saying “X” stands for “the unknown variable”

7. Elon Musk is regarded as controversial on Twitter

Elon Musk by Tesla Owners Club Belgium – Wikimedia Commons

Elon is famous for his provocative tweets. He boasts over 75M followers on Twitter. In August 2018, Musk tweeted he was considering taking the company private at $420 a share and he had the funding secured. Right after that tweet, the Tesla stock price went up 11% and then fell 7%. 

Two shareholders filed class-action lawsuits in August 2018. They said Musk’s tweet was just a ploy to get the stock price to rise and mess with all the short-sellers. People who bet the stock price would fall and make money from buying at a lower price.

When asked about his Twitter attacks, Musk responded to a Bloomberg Businessweek journalist by saying, “If you’re on Twitter, you’re in the arena. And so essentially if you attack me, it is, therefore, OK for me to attack back.”

8. In 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company to construct tunnels

The Boring Company is essentially a train inside a big airtight tube. Elon created the company to construct tunnels. In early 2017, the company began discussions with regulatory bodies and initiated construction of a 30-foot wide, 50-foot long, and 15-foot deep “test trench” on the premises of SpaceX’s offices as it required no permits.

Musk said the Hyperloop might be used in heavily populated areas like Southern California, zipping people from San Francisco to Los Angeles at speeds approaching 700 or 800 miles per hour. This would drastically reduce travel times and avoid the gridlock that plagues the highways. For instance, someone could go from San Francisco to LA in 85 minutes instead of the six hours it normally takes by car.

9. Elon’s leadership style has been heavily criticized

Elon Musk by Duncan.Hull – Wikimedia Commons

Musk’s managerial style and treatment of his employees have been heavily criticized. At Tesla, allegations of unfair low pay for workers, as well as unsafe working conditions, and mandatory overtime, have surfaced in recent years. Musk has refuted these allegations time and again.

Workers at some Tesla facilities have attempted to unionize and Musk has been vocally against it. On March 25, 2021, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Tesla violated labour laws and ordered the company to stop interfering with workers seeking to unionize at one of its plants. 

Musk said: “Nothing stopping the Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tomorrow if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?” Some Tesla workers said they felt these were intimidation tactics meant to keep them from organizing.

10. Musk is the only person to Start Four Billion-dollar Companies

Musk is so business-savvy that he’s created and co-founded four companies that are worth more than $1 billion each. These are; PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity.

SpaceX is valued at more than $74 billion, and some economists say Tesla’s valuation could soar to $1 trillion as demand for the EVs skyrocket in China. Tesla acquired SolarCity in 2016 for $2.6 billion in stock.

It was originally stated that he invested $10 million in it in 2006. SolarCity designs and sells solar panels for residential and commercial purposes. Both Tesla and SolarCity share the goal of making sustainable energy more practical and efficient.

Elon joined the ranks of filthy-rich folks who commit to philanthropy. He signed the Giving Pledge, an idea conjured by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, meant to spur more charitable donations. Signing the Giving Pledge means agreeing to leave at least 50% of your wealth to charity either during your lifetime or in your will.