Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk born June 28, 1971) is an entrepreneur and business magnate. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; early-stage investor, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. With an estimated net worth of around US$243 billion as of February 2022, Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the Forbes real-time billionaires list.
Musk was born to a Canadian mother and South African father, and raised in Pretoria, South Africa. He briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at age 17 to avoid conscription. He 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, co-founding 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.
In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, of which he is CEO and Chief Engineer. In 2004, he joined electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.) as chairman and product architect, becoming its CEO in 2008. In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy services company that was later acquired by Tesla and became Tesla Energy. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company that promotes friendly artificial intelligence. In 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain–computer interfaces, and founded The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company. Musk has proposed the Hyperloop, a high-speed vactrain transportation system.
Musk has been criticized for unorthodox and unscientific stances and highly publicized controversial statements. In 2018, he was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for falsely tweeting that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. He settled with the SEC, temporarily stepping down from his chairmanship and agreeing to limitations on his Twitter usage. In 2019, he won a defamation trial brought against him by a British caver who advised in the Tham Luang cave rescue. Musk has also been criticized for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and for his other views on such matters as artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and public transport.
Education
An ornate school building
Musk graduated from Pretoria Boys High School in South Africa.
Aware that it would be easier to enter the United States from Canada,Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother.While awaiting the documentation, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months; this allowed him to avoid mandatory service in the South African military.Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989, and lived with a second-cousin in Saskatchewan for a year, working odd jobs at a farm and lumber-mill In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics.
In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley during the summer: at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which researched electrolytic ultracapacitors for energy storage, and at the Palo Alto-based startup Rocket Science Games. In 1995, he was accepted to a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) program in materials science at Stanford University in California.Musk attempted to get a job at Netscape but never received a response to his inquiries He dropped out of Stanford after two days, deciding instead to join the Internet boom and launch an Internet startup.
SpaceX
SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006,and although the rocket failed to reach Earth orbit, it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA later that year.After two more failed attempts, which reportedly caused Musk so much stress that he was "waking from nightmares, screaming and in physical pain,"[74] SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 into orbit in 2008, making it the first private liquid-fuel rocket to do so.Later that year, SpaceX received a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services program contract from NASA for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, replacing the Space Shuttle after its 2011 retirement.[76] In 2012, the Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, a first for a private enterprise. Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 Landings were later achieved on an autonomous spaceport drone ship, an ocean-based recovery platform. In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy; the inaugural mission carried Musk's personal Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload.In 2017, SpaceX unveiled its next-generation launch vehicle and spacecraft system, Big Falcon Rocket, later renamed to Starship, which would support all SpaceX launch service provider capabilities.[82] In 2018, SpaceX announced a planned 2023 lunar circumnavigation mission, a private flight called dearMoon project. In 2020, SpaceX launched its first crewed flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place a person into orbit and dock a crewed spacecraft with the ISS.
SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites in 2015 to provide satellite Internet access,with the first two prototype satellites launched in February 2018. A second set of test satellites and the first large deployment of a piece of the constellation occurred in May 2019, when the first 60 operational satellites were launched. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation is estimated by SpaceX to be about $10 billion.
The company has attracted criticism from astronomers who say Starlink's satellites are blocking the view of the skies, and from experts arguing that they risk colliding and causing dangers in space.Musk rejected the criticism, stating that the impact of satellites is "nothing" and that "space is just extremely enormous, and satellites are very tiny.
Tesla
Musks stands, arms crossed and grinning, before a Tesla Model S
Musk next to a Tesla Model S at the Tesla Fremont Factory in 2011
Tesla, Inc.—originally Tesla Motors—was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement.musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004; he invested $6.5 million, became the majority shareholder, and joined Tesla's board of directors as chairman. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm. Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008. A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others. As of 2019, Elon Musk was the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally. In 2021, Musk nominally changed his title to Technoking while retaining his position as CEO
Tesla first built an electric sports car, the Roadster, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first serial production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells.Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model S sedan in 2012;a cross-over, the Model X was launched in 2015.[ A mass market sedan, the Model 3, was released in 2017. As of March 2020, it is the world's best-selling electric car, with more than 500,000 units delivered. A fifth vehicle, the Model Y crossover, was launched in 2020.The Cybertruck, an all-electric pickup truck, was unveiled in 2019. Under Musk, Tesla has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle subassembly factories, such as Gigafactory 1 in Nevada and Gigafactory 3 in China.
Musk at the 2019 Tesla annual shareholder meeting
Since its initial public offering in 2010, Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020, and it entered the S&P 500 later that year.in October 2021 it reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion, the sixth company to do so in U.S. history. On November 6, 2021, Musk proposed on Twitter selling 10% of his Tesla stock, since "much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance". After more than 3.5 million Twitter accounts supported the sale, Musk sold $6.9 billion of Tesla stock in the week ending November 12, and a total of $16.4 billion by year end, reaching the 10% target.
SEC lawsuit
In September 2018, Musk was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a tweet claiming funding had been secured for potentially taking Tesla private. The lawsuit claimed that discussions Musk held with foreign investors in July 2018 did not confirm key deal terms and thus characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies Musk called the allegations unjustified and claimed he had never compromised his integrity. Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations. As a result, Musk and Tesla were fined $20 million each, and Musk was forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman but was able to remain as CEO
Musk has stated in interviews he does not regret posting the tweet that triggered the SEC investigation. On February 19, 2019, Musk stated in a tweet that Tesla would build half a million cars in 2019. The SEC reacted to Musk's tweet by filing in court, initially asking the court to hold him in contempt for violating the terms of a settlement agreement with such a tweet, which was disputed by Musk. This was eventually settled by a joint agreement between Musk and the SEC clarifying the previous agreement details. The agreement included a list of topics that Musk would need preclearance before tweeting about. In May 2020, a judge prevented a lawsuit from proceeding that claimed a tweet by Musk regarding Tesla stock price violated the agreement.FOIA released records showing that the SEC itself concluded Musk has subsequently violated the agreement twice by tweeting regarding "Tesla's solar roof production volumes and its stock price".
Main articles: SolarCity and Tesla Energy
Two green vans sporting the SolarCity logo
SolarCity solar-panel installation vans in 2009
Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive co-founded in 2006. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.[144] In 2014, Musk promoted the idea of SolarCity building an advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York, triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. Construction on the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until early 2020 when Panasonic departed.
Tesla acquired SolarCity for over $2 billion in 2016 and merged it with its battery energy storage products division to create Tesla Energy. The announcement of the deal resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla's stock price. At the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues; however, Tesla shareholders were not informed. Consequently, multiple shareholder groups filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla's directors, claiming that the purchase of SolarCity was done solely to benefit Musk and came at the expense of Tesla and its shareholders. During a June 2019 court deposition, Musk acknowledged that the company reallocated every possible employee from the solar division to work on the Model 3, and, according to Musk, "as a result, solar suffered." This had not previously been disclosed to shareholders. Court documents unsealed in 2019 have confirmed that Musk was also aware of the company's liquidity issues. Tesla directors settled the lawsuit in January 2020, leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant.
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