Elon Musk

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Elon Musk, the somewhat irresponsible space and technology pioneer, is well-versed in controversy and dramatic situations. His staggering net worth of over $193 billion (£154 billion) places him as the third wealthiest individual in the world, as reported by Forbes. Who is the genuine Elon Musk, then, putting away his enormous wealth?

He picked up coding at the age of 10.

At the youthful age of 10, Musk began to demonstrate his intellect by taking up computer programming.

He had created Blastar, the game you see in the photo, by the time he was twelve years old and had sold the source code to a computer magazine for about $500 (or about $1.5k/£1.2k in 2024). Even as we speak, you may play the game online.

Leaving Stanford to launch his first startup, he

In his first major risk, Musk withdrew from his doctoral program at Stanford University after only a short time in the program. Zip2 Corporation, his first startup, created online city guides for news organizations; he chose to focus on it instead of furthering his schooling.

It was a successful bet. In 1999, when Compaq Computer Corporation bought the firm, 28-year-old Elon Musk allegedly made $19 million—equivalent to around $36 million (£29 million) in today's money.

Musk wasted no time piling on the riches; he established X.com, an online payment platform, with a significant portion of his windfall. After changing its name to PayPal in 2001, the investment paid off handsomely when eBay paid an estimated $1.5 billion to purchase the firm in 2002. With today's exchange rates, Musk made almost $320 million (£256 million)—a massive sum—from the deal.

Musk had risen to prominence as a global corporate titan by the turn of the millennium. There was no denying PayPal's success, but Musk had other ambitions, including rockets and space travel.

He started SpaceX in 2002, but getting rockets into orbit was his first obstacle. When Musk nearly bought three Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles with intentions to modify them—after determining they were too pricey in the US—he displayed his rebellious side.

Still, he chose to construct the rockets himself in the end. The Falcon 1 rocket, built by SpaceX, became the first privately built spacecraft to launch a satellite into orbit in 2009.

He maneuvered his vehicle into orbit

Launched on its first flight on February 6, 2018, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket became the most powerful operational rocket in the world.

The Falcon Heavy is able to reportedly launch five double-decker buses into orbit, fully loaded with people, their belongings, and fuel. Musk intends to use the mega-rocket to transport humans into space as part of his ambitious goals.

Musk, however, opted for a somewhat lower load—his old cherry-red Tesla sports car—for its experimental premiere trip in 2018. The driver's seat was occupied by a spacesuit mannequin called "Starman," and the car's radio was programmed to play David Bowie's Life on Mars repeatedly. The daring launch made headlines all across the globe, even if the rocket missed its target orbit of Mars.

Opening pizza shops on Mars is his dream.

By 2020, Musk's efforts had paid off when SpaceX partnered with NASA to launch astronauts to the ISS (shown).

Nothing he has accomplished thus far compares to Musk's grand cosmic dreams. Musk laid forth his intentions to colonize Mars in a study published in the New Space magazine. These ambitions included a fleet of spaceships that could transport hundreds of people to and from Mars, as well as the construction of houses and "pizza shops" before the century came to a close.

According to Musk's past statements, he intends to use half of his fortune to make Earth a better place for humans and the other half to set up a colony on Mars.

With Tesla, he rose from shareholder to CEO.

Tesla was another massive undertaking that Musk became involved with while his space exploration firm was still getting off the ground. Despite popular belief, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning really started the automotive behemoth Tesla in 2003, not Musk.

In the time that followed, Musk rose through the ranks to become a major stakeholder and, in 2008, served as CEO. In the same year, Tesla debuted its first vehicle, the Roadster, which sold over 2,400 units in 30 countries—amazing figures for electric vehicles back then.

Apparently, even Donald Trump has a few cars, including a Roadster.

His name is on the tallest structure in the world.

Despite ongoing development, Tesla's first "gigafactory" in Nevada formally opened to the public in 2016.

When finished, the plant will have the potential to surpass all other buildings in terms of footprint, and it will be the main factor in Tesla's capacity to distribute its electric cars to the general public.

New York, Shanghai, Berlin, Texas, and California are among the other locations where gigafactories have been constructed.

He plans to introduce a novel form of transportation.

If you think Musk is busy enough with SpaceX and Tesla, you'd be wrong. He has other tricks up his sleeve. "What if there was a fifth mode?" was a thought that Musk had in July 2012 when contemplating various modes of transportation; the following year, he unveiled ideas for his Hyperloop system.

Pods would be propelled down a vacuumed tube at incredible speeds in his futuristic new method of transportation; for instance, the four-hour trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco would be reduced to just thirty minutes. It should come as no surprise that Musk established a company devoted to tunneling, given that a network of tunnels is essential to the idea. In 2016, the Boring Company (get it?) began excavating a tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center shortly after its founding.

Perhaps Musk and his team have been diverting their attention to risky devices, as the Hyperloop project has met with little success thus far. The contentious "flamethrower" was created by The Boring Company in January 2018. A blowtorch in the shape of a rifle was put up for pre-order in quantities of twenty thousand. By the month's end, they had all sold out, which is perhaps not unexpected.

His own scent has been launched by him.

It seemed inevitable that Musk would launch his own scent given his moniker. It was less anticipated that the millionaire would choose the name and aroma of his debut fragrance Burnt Hair.

According to Musk, the product will be released in October 2022 and he described Burnt Hair as the "finest scent on Earth" on Twitter, which is now calling X. "The essence of unpleasant desire" is another way the scent is described on the website of The Boring Company.

In addition to an unusual aroma, the price tag is a little steep, at $100 (£80) for a bottle. Reportedly, Musk made almost $1 million (£800,000) in a matter of hours when the initial shipment of the fragrance sold out entirely.

The pig's brain was implanted with a chip by him. Additionally,

One of Musk's most contentious initiatives to date, Gertrude the pig, was revealed to the public in August 2020.

A wireless device capable of collecting data from over a thousand of Gertrude's neurons was created and inserted into her brain. The initiative has been a success, but animal rights organizations like PETA are worried about the animals' well-being.

Neuralink, Musk's neurotech business that is working on technologies to modify neuronal firing patterns, conducted the investigation. Finding a cure for neurological diseases like dementia and Parkinson's is the end objective.

A human brain-chip was put into his skull with great success.

The green light to begin human trials was given to Neuralink in September 2023. The business had inserted a chip into a human brain by the beginning of 2024. The patient has fully recovered and can now use their thoughts to operate a computer mouse, according to Elon Musk, who stated that the treatment was successful.

Thanks to the Neuralink implant, 29-year-old patient Noland Arbaugh, who is paralyzed below the shoulders, has since shown an incredible capacity to play online chess on his laptop and control the cursor with his thoughts.

It looks like we've entered the future!

At X (formerly Twitter), he has ambitious plans for reform.

One of Elon Musk's most spectacular commercial deals to date was the $44 billion (£35 billion) purchase of Twitter in October 2022. He intends to make several contentious changes to the corporation, including rebranding the social networking platform to X.

"X is moving to having a tiny, monthly cost for usage of the X system," Musk said in a September 2023 livestreamed discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He went on to say that there are 550 million unique visitors to the social media platform every month.

His tweets have sparked controversy (part 1)

When it comes to X, Musk has always been a divisive character on the network, but in March of 2020, he really turned it up a notch.

Even though the World Health Organization had not yet officially labeled the worldwide emergence of the infectious disease a pandemic, he went on what was then Twitter to say that "the coronavirus fear is silly" five days earlier.

After a few weeks, he infuriated even more people by tweeting, "kids are largely resistant" to the virus, even though there was obvious proof to the opposite.

He's known to tweet inflammatory things (part 2)

In May 2020, Musk made another contentious post on the social networking site, claiming that the stock price of Tesla was too expensive. This caused the stock price to plummet instantly, erasing over $15 billion (£12bn) off the company's worth in a single day.

The stock dropped roughly 10% from its all-time high of $760 (£613). Even if his remark had little long-term impact, a few weeks later Tesla surpassed Toyota as the most valuable manufacturer in the world.

Actually, after a year after Musk's tweet cutting shares, Tesla's value exceeded that of Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, General Motors, and Ford all together.

X "burner" accounts were his, he owns, he admitted.

Earlier this year, during a libel deposition, Musk once again came under investigation for his questionable social media practices. He acknowledged to having two hidden X accounts, which are called "burner" accounts.

Musk is being sued over a string of tweets from June of last year in which he implied that 22-year-old Jewish man Ben Brody had been an undercover agent provocateur at a neo-Nazi demonstration; this deposition occurs at the same time as the lawsuit. The abuse and threats that Brody endured because of Musk's comments prompted him to seek damages.

Musk admitted to having a "secondary" account where he tweets anonymously more often and a "test" account that he uses infrequently. One account was mentioned as "baby smoke 9,000" in the court record, although it seems to be a mistake for @babysmurf9000, an account that has showed ties to Mr. Musk. Court documents seen by HuffPost verified the identification of the second suspected account, @ermnmusk.

He often acts in a way that hurts himself.

Musk had already shot himself in the foot before tweeting that the price of Tesla's shares was too high. The eccentric millionaire appears to be quite good at sabotaging his own success.

His alleged use of cannabis on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in September 2018 caused widespread indignation and led to yet another decline in the value of Tesla shares.

Musk has lately used the term "gigantic money furnaces" to characterize his Tesla gigafactories, asserting that they are incurring losses in the billions of dollars due to problems with the supply chain and a lack of electric vehicle batteries.

He's been through a lot of relationships.

Musk wed Justine Wilson in 2000, and they have six children together. Their 2008 divorce was finalized.

In 2010, Musk wed English actress Talulah Riley, who is also featured here with Musk. Riley subsequently described their marriage as "very challenging, quite the crazy rollercoaster," and the pair finally called it quits in October 2016 after divorcing in 2012 and remarrying in 2013.

After Musk's divorce, he had an erratic romance with actress Amber Heard; lately, his focus has been on Canadian artist Grimes. Even that connection seems to have failed. They officially split up in September 2021, according to Musk. They got back together quickly, but they appeared to break up again not long after (where else?) with Grimes confirming the breakup. in a Twitter post.

The "underpopulation catastrophe" is something he's helping with.

"Doing my best to help the underpopulation situation. A plummeting birth rate is the worst peril society confronts by far." The eccentric businessman was most definitely not joking when he made that comment, which raised eyebrows on X. To our knowledge, he has fathered eleven children.

Musk and his first wife Justine Wilson had a family of nine: Griffin, Damian, Saxon, Nevada, Vivian, Kai, and Saxon. The marriage lasted from 2000 until 2006. Nevada, his firstborn son, tragically passed away at 10 weeks old due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

He and Grimes have three children together. In 2020, X Æ A-12 came into our world, and in 2021, Exa Dark Siderael was born through surrogacy. Scientist Mechanicus is the couple's third kid, according to Walter Isaacon's latest biography of the tycoon.

When or whether Musk and Grimes rekindled their romance is unknown, as is the date of Techno Mechanicus's arrival. Their relationship is "fluid," according to the singer. When it comes to the three children she had with the millionaire, though, Grimes has now petitioned the court for custody.

Surprisingly, Musk's hidden paternity of twins Azure and Strider with Neuralink director Shivon Zilis came to light last year. Despite the twins' November 2021 birth, little is known about Zilis and Musk's romance.

The law was violated under his son's name.

Musk and Grimes had their first son on May 4, 2020. The couple chose the odd name X Æ A-12 for their child, as previously stated.

"Ç" is the elven spelling of AI, which signifies both love and artificial intelligence, and "X" stands for "the unknown variable," according to Grimes, who explained to her Twitter followers the significance of the unconventional decision.

The couple's favorite plane, the Lockheed A-12, which features "no armaments, no defenses, just speed," is referenced by the "A-12" element. Lastly, the letter "A" standing alone stands for Grimes's favorite song, Archangel.

A little change was made to the baby's name later that month, with "A-Xii" replacing "A-12". Grimes commented on the name change on Instagram, writing that the new spelling "looks nicer" and that the inclusion of Roman numerals ensured compliance with Californian law, which prohibits using more than 26 letters of the alphabet in a baby's name.

Initiating a school

Musk founded his own school in 2014 after becoming dissatisfied with traditional education. He and Joshua Dahn, an educator, co-founded the Los Angeles-based Ad Astra School in a conference room at SpaceX.

Academically, the little school focused on artificial intelligence (AI), engineering (EE), and ethics (Ethics). There was no grading system and no instruction in areas like sports, music, or foreign languages.

But Astra Nova, which operates exclusively online, took its place when the school closed its doors in 2020. "Ad Astra was the school we developed at SpaceX that served 50 students; Astra Nova is the internet school that reaches millions," stated the official website.

Inspiring the Iron Man films, he

Robert Downey Jr.'s decision to go to Musk for inspiration after securing the main role of superhero Tony Stark in the Iron Man films is evidence that Musk has become one of the most notorious mavericks in modern society.

The SpaceX facility served as a backdrop for several Hollywood hits, including Iron Man 2 (in which Musk made a brief appearance).

Still, Musk has dabbled with acting before. Among his many film and television appearances as himself are the action picture Machete Kills and the comedy Why Him?as well as the comedy series Young Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory. The Simpsons, South Park, Rick and Morty, and others have included his voice.

This internet magnate went so far as to host Saturday Night Live in May of 2021; he was the first person other than an actor or athlete to do so since Donald Trump in 2015.

"Dungeons & Dragons" is his game.

Cousin Peter Rive claims that Musk's admiration for the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) reveals the tycoon's greatest traits.

"Even as a youngster, Elon had a whole variety of different demeanours and emotions," Rive told Elon Musk's biographer Walter Isaacson, but that playing D&D helped Elon develop a more positive disposition.

In most games, Musk would take on the roles of Dungeon Master, head storyteller, and game referee, according to Rive. "In his role as Dungeon Master, he exhibited an extraordinary level of patience, which is not necessarily indicative of his basic disposition," Rive elaborated. "When it happens, it's very stunning."

His AI startup just got off the ground.

Another of Musk's new ventures, the AI startup xAI, set out to "understand the true essence of the world" in the last year.

Reportedly, Musk didn't spend much time after incorporating xAI in Nevada in March 2023 to acquire 10,000 GPUs. Graphics processing units (GPUs) are the building blocks of sophisticated artificial intelligence systems, in case you were wondering.

Despite the lack of clarity around the company's finance, Musk had previously explored seeking investment for his other ventures, according to a piece in the Financial Times the month after. Former employees of industry heavyweights like DeepMind, Microsoft, and Tesla are among xAI's recruits.

Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence startup most renowned for creating ChatGPT. Reportedly on pace to give roughly $1 billion (£821m) in 2015, he was one of the prominent IT heavyweights who helped fund the firm. But he left in 2018 and has been vocal about his disapproval of the company's for-profit model change ever since.

On his view, AI poses a threat to human safety.

Even though he started an AI startup, Musk is more known for his dire predictions about the future of humanity and the perils that AI may bring. In his view, AI has the potential to make people dependent on it, and he has even foretold a future when robots rule over humans.

According to Musk, "AI is more hazardous than, say, mishandled aircraft design or production maintenance or faulty vehicle manufacture" and "it has the possibility of civilization death" when he was interviewed by Tucker Carlson earlier this year.

Musk has been vocal about the need to go cautiously while developing AI, and in March 2023 he even signed an open letter in support of a temporary halt to its research. Not only that, but he has said that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, two other tech millionaires, are ignorant on the matter.

His diagnosis is Asperger's syndrome.

Recent public statements by Musk have shown that he suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by confined and repetitive patterns of behavior and social problems.

During his speech at the TED2022 conference, Musk discussed his Asperger's and how "social cues were not intuitive" during his childhood. He then revealed, "I would just tend to take things very literally but then that turned out to be wrong. [People are not] simply saying exactly what they mean, there are all sorts of other things that are meant, and [it] took me a while to figure that out."

"It was satisfying to spend all night programming computers, all by myself. But I think it is not normal." He admitted when questioned if his illness may have an impact on his company performance, saying it was "absolutely feasible."

The fact that Musk has been open and honest about his condition has inspired many. Studies have shown that individuals with Asperger's and other invisible disabilities often attempt to disguise them at work in order to prevent prejudice.

He is well-connected with global leaders.

Not only is Elon Musk the wealthiest man alive, but he is also a major player in global politics. French, Italian, Indian, South Korean, Turkish, and Israeli officials were among those he met with in 2023.

A number of global leaders have met with Musk to explore the future of artificial intelligence; others are interested in receiving financial support for a new Tesla plant or investments in infrastructure through SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet services. One example is the ambitions of French President Emmanuel Macron, who is depicted, to build a gigafactory for Tesla in his nation.

Nevertheless, there are those who are worried about Musk's increasing grip on global politics. Walter Isaacson said in his biography that in 2022, Musk had his Starlink satellite communications network disabled on the coast of Crimea to stop a drone strike by the Ukrainians on Russian vessels. Since then, Putin, Russia's president, has praised Musk, calling him a "great guy."

In addition to his growing interest in politics, Musk has lately joined the German migrant discussion and plans to visit the US-Mexico border for a "unfiltered perspective" of the situation.

The individual in question possesses a Bond vehicle.

A James Bond movie automobile is in Musk's possession, which comes as no surprise given that he has been likened by some critics as a real-life villain from the Bond series.

He paid about $895,000 (about £736k) in 2013 for the Lotus Esprit (shown), the automobile that James Bond drove in The Spy Who Loved Me. "As a small child in South Africa, I thought it was incredible when James Bond drove his Lotus Esprit off a pier, pressed a button, and it turned into a submarine underwater in The Spy Who Loved Me," Musk gushed about the vehicle, expressing his affection for it.

"It can't truly morph," he continued. "I was sorry to find that."

As far as anybody can tell, the billionaire's joke about trying to "update [the car] with a Tesla electric powertrain and make it morph for real" never materialized, but we wouldn't be surprised if he did.







Musk only became a public figure in the early 2010s. He has been described as an eccentric who makes spontaneous and impactful decisions, while also often making controversial statements, contrary to other billionaires who prefer reclusiveness to protect their businesses. Biographer Ashley Vance described people's opinions of Musk as polarized due to his "part philosopher, part troll" role on Twitter.[593]

Musk was a partial inspiration for the characterization of Tony Stark in the Marvel film Iron Man (2008).[594] Musk also had a cameo appearance in the film's 2010 sequel, Iron Man 2.[595] Musk has made cameos and appearances in other films such as Machete Kills (2013),[596] Why Him? (2016),[597] and Men in Black: International (2019).[598] Television series in which he has appeared include The Simpsons ("The Musk Who Fell to Earth", 2015),[599] The Big Bang Theory ("The Platonic Permutation", 2015),[600] South Park ("Members Only", 2016),[601][602] Young Sheldon ("A Patch, a Modem, and a Zantac®", 2017),[603] Rick and Morty ("One Crew over the Crewcoo's Morty", 2019),[604][605] and Saturday Night Live (2021).[606] He contributed interviews to the documentaries Racing Extinction (2015) and the Werner Herzog-directed Lo and Behold (2016).[607][608]

Awards for his contributions to the development of the Falcon rockets include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics George Low Transportation Award in 2008,[609] the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal in 2010,[610] and the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal in 2012.[611] In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering and technology from Yale University[612] and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Honorary Membership.[613] Musk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018.[614] In February 2022, Musk was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.[615]

Time has listed Musk as one of the most influential people in the world on four occasions: in 2010,[616] 2013,[617] 2018,[618] and 2021.[619] Musk was selected as Time's "Person of the Year" for 2021. Then Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote that "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too".[620][621]