An in-depth look at Elon Musk’s Success Story
In the year 1971, Pretoria, a city in South Africa witnessed the birth of a man who was named Elon Musk. A model and nutritionist mother and an engineer father raised him. After the birth of this man, two other children were born to the family, thus making him the eldest. However, after a few years in 1980, his parents got divorced and he lived with his father. Unfortunately, his father was a terrible human being. He did every possible worst thing he could do for his child. He had thus a lot of adversity growing up because of his father’s terrible upbringing.
His schoolmates enjoyed bullying him
The man was smart, intelligent and a complete bookworm. Whether it was comic books or encyclopaedias, he read everything extensively. His intelligence and intellect made him different from the other kids at school. This also stood for him to make fewer friends compared to most of the kids of that age. He went to a private school namely Waterkloof House Preparatory School. Afterwards, he graduated from Pretoria Boys High School.
Elon had also a difficult school life. His years at school were lonely and brutal. He would always hide from the bullies but they would use his best friend to lure him out from the hiding. Then, they would beat him so badly he suffered a lot of pain. His life while growing up was grim. At school, bullies would chase him and beat the heck out of him. At home, his father would make things even more awful.
He found his escape
The year when Elon turned ten, he had his first encounter with technology. His home computer, the Commodore VIC-20 helped him in learning programming. His second step was to create a video game in the style of Space Invaders which he named Blaster. He then sold the BASIC code for the game to PC and Office Technology, a magazine. The selling happened for 500 dollars.
Above all, Elon decided with his brother to open a video game arcade near their school. However, their parents refused their plan and they also needed a city permit. Only an adult is eligible for the city approval, so they sadly couldn’t do anything about it. His time spent with technology was his only pleasure and the right thing in his life. Technology gave him hence the safe space and a shelter for escape.
Moving to Canada
Elon was now 17 and he had to move to Canada for fleeing from the South African Military. It was difficult to be in the Military in those times when the only duty was to enforce apartheid. So he had no other option but to move to some other country. He, therefore, landed in Canada and acquired citizenship there through his mother.
Being a citizen of Canada he joined Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. This was going to be probably the best time of his life. He soon met a woman named Justine Wilson who’s a wonderful writer. The writer later became his wife and they had 5 children (sons) two twins and triplets. Unfortunately, the couple got divorced in the year 2008.
Buying a ten-bedroom house and acquiring two bachelor’s degrees
After studying for two years at Queen’s University, Elon transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. Apart from investing himself in his studies, he kept a hold on other things as well. For example, he and one of his friends bought a fraternity house consisting of 10 bedrooms. The purpose was to use it as an ad hoc nightclub.
In addition to having a physics degree, Elon was also an economics major. His Economics degree was from the Wharton School. He had his interest in both the subjects but he liked Physics the most. He said, “Physics is a good framework for understanding things. It boils things down to their simplest truths, and then reasons from there.”
A time for accomplishments
Elon was now 24 years old and moved to California for further studies. He enrolled himself on a PhD in Physics at Stanford University. His attention was diverted from studies to business by two intriguing things happening at that time. The booming internet and Silicone Valley were the exponents of his distraction. Elon thus ended up leaving the PhD only after two days and chasing his vision of entrepreneurship.
X.Com, first big success
It was the year 1995 now and Elon already had a big plan. He started a web software company, Zip2 with the help of his younger brother and an amount of 28,000 dollars. His company’s motive was to assist newspapers to generate online city guides. After a few years in 1999, Elon sold his company to a web search engine Compaq’s AltaVista. The sale of Zip2 netted him 340 million dollars.
He had a further big plan with the investment of this money. Elon’s plan goes beyond getting technology into the world, but also looks at how it can benefit society. So this time, he created X.Com to improve the banking system. He combined the X.Com with a money transfer firm namely Confinity. This later became the company named PayPal.
eBay purchased this company for 1.5 billion dollars from him. However, Elon left with 180 million worth in stock. He purchased the domain name back from PayPal in 2017 based on its sentimental value.
Tesla, another milestone achieved
Elon by now gave about 70 million dollars in funding. The year 2004 came and he joined two engineers namely Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in helping them run Tesla Motors. Here, Elon designed an electric car, Tesla Roadster. However, Eberhard was expelled from the company in 2007 due to some disagreements. This was a turning point for Elon as he managed to become the CEO and product architect of Tesla. It was Elon who changed the stars of Tesla by making it one of the world’s most popular and unbeatable car brands.
As discussed earlier, Elon not only targets the technology but the betterment of the planet also remains in his thought box. By introducing electric cars and acquiring SolarCity, he has maintained a healthy presence in the solar energy space. The establishment of this clean-energy-services company took place in 2006. It has produced two rechargeable solar batteries which work for stationary energy storage purposes. One of these rechargeable solar batteries is a smaller Powerwall that provides home backup power and off-grid capability. The other one is a larger Powerpack intended for commercial and utility grids.
SpaceX, let’s move to Space
Remember his PayPal company? Elon used a large portion of PayPal’s sales to establish Space Exploration Technologies Corporation and launch SpaceX. This is an interstellar travel company. The idea of launching SpaceX had been with him for a long time, which accounts for the 100 million dollars he had already invested in 2002.
This interstellar travel company got him several high-profile contracts with the U.S. Air Force and NASA. He would conduct military missions and design rockets under these contracts. Moreover, Elon has been working on his next biggest plan of sending an astronaut to Mars by 2025. This will happen in collaboration with NASA. We all are waiting to witness the execution of this plan.
Lastly
Elon’s sense of idealism, concern for human progress, and business career is influenced by his early interest in philosophy, science fiction, and fantasy novels. His expertise is in the fields he considers crucial for our future, such as the internet, renewable energy sources, and space migration. PayPal, Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX, Elon has paced in all of these frontiers by challenging his critics and shaking up the industries. Even though some of his creations gave a rocky performance, it would not dent him and his reputation. For he is the one and there can be no stopping him.
He is a man who works for 80 to 120 hours per week. He didn’t let his difficult childhood get in his way; rather he moulded it into developing a relentless work ethic with a resolute, single-minded vision. His success has a saying in comparison to other ardent businessmen namely Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Howard Hughes.
Jeff Bezos has been surpassed as the richest person in the world by this man in 2022. While Bezos’s net worth is 178 billion dollars, Elon’s stands at 223 billion dollars.
Author: Simran K Parmar
A post graduate in English Literature, secular humanist, critical thinker, an outspoken atheist, follower of equality and a lover of philosophy. craftedfashion94@gmail.com
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