Musk, whose full name is Elon Reeve Musk, is a Canadian, American, and South African entrepreneur with three nationalities, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, he also has a younger brother and a younger sister, Musk is a dual major in economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a member of the Royal Society.
Musk's father is of mixed British and Dutch descent, an electromechanical engineer in South Africa, and his mother is a Canadian model, part-time writer and nutritionist.
Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa, the capital of South Africa, when Musk was 9 years old, his parents divorced, and he lived with his father.
Musk has been smart and motivated since he was a child, under the influence and edification of his father, he has a soft spot for scientific research, and it can be said that he is in a state of obsession, in 1981, when he was ten years old, he used his usual savings to save New Year's money and pocket money, with the help of his father, he bought the first computer and a textbook of computer programming, and began to learn computer programming, through Musk's hard work, it took three years to conduct research and study, and in 1984, that is, when he was 13 years old, he successfully developed a game, which he named"Bomb" and sold it to a magazine for $500, and at a young age, he earned his first pot of gold.
In 1992, when Musk was a student at the University of Pennsylvania, he began to pay attention to the Internet, clean energy, and space, which became the three main aspects of his life, and he received a double degree in economics and physics from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1995, Musk enrolled at Stanford University to pursue a Ph.D. program in materials science and applied physics.
On the second day of Musk's enrollment, he had a whim, dropped out of school to start a business, and after dropping out of school, he and his younger brother started their first real business in their lives, and since then they have been out of control and started his brilliant life.
Musk's entrepreneurial journey
From 1995 to 2002, he co-founded Zip2 and PayPal.
In June 2002, Musk invested $100 million to establish SpaceX, served as CEO and CTO, began to study how to reduce the cost of rocket launches, and planned to realize Martian immigration in the future and create a real space civilization for mankind.
In 2004, it invested $6.3 million in Tesla. In 2006, it invested in the establishment of SolarCity, a photovoltaic power generation company.
In April 2022, Musk joined Twitter's board of directors after acquiring a 9.2% stake in Twitter, becoming its largest single shareholder. With his innovative thinking and disruptive business model, Musk has made many achievements in the fields of automotive, energy, aerospace and artificial intelligence.
Musk has been selected as the world's most influential person by Time Magazine many times, won the 2019 Hawking Prize for Science Communication, and the 2023 World Space Award.
On March 2, 2021, in the "2021 Hurun Global Rich List", Musk became the world's richest woman for the first time with a wealth of 1.28 trillion yuan, and in October of the same year, his wealth exceeded 300 billion US dollars, becoming the richest person in the history of Forbes statistics.
In 2024, he ranked No. 2 on the 2024 Forbes list of the world's billionaires with a fortune of $195 billion
Musk and his Tesla
In 2004, Musk invested $3.4 million to buy Tesla's electric car and served as the chairman, having the absolute right to speak in the company and the right to decide on various affairs.
In 2008, Musk's SpaceX company failed to launch three rockets, resulting in huge capital consumption, coupled with the spread of the financial crisis in 2008 and Tesla's high R & D costs, so that Tesla fell into a shutdown, once made Tesla on the verge of bankruptcy crisis, in the face of a serious shortage of funds, and finally he took out his only $40 million to invest in Tesla, personally served as CEO, adjusted his work ideas, turned the tide, and saved the company in the most difficult moment, and then in 2010, after the then President Obama visited the company, Obama spoke highly of Tesla, which also enabled Tesla to get a low-interest government loan of $465 million and successfully go public.
In 2019, Tesla turned to the development of the Chinese market, selected a site in Shanghai, and achieved three steps of start-up, production and delivery, becoming the first wholly foreign-owned automobile company in China and Tesla's first overseas factory at the speed of "Tesla" Gigafactory.
On June 10, 2020, Tesla's stock price exceeded $1,000 for the first time, becoming the world's largest car company by market capitalization. Tesla has gradually formed a new energy vehicle camp such as Model S, Model X, Model Y, and Model 3, and also develops and sells clean energy products such as solar panels and solar roofs
Tesla Data Transfer Controversy
In 2021, Chinese users were worried that Tesla cars would transmit video and image data taken in China to the United States, leak state secrets, and cause harm to the motherland, to which Musk responded twice, Musk said that Tesla would not provide the U.S. government with any user information and data collected by China and other countries.
In 2021, at the World Internet Conference, Musk said that Tesla has established a data center in China, and all of Tesla's production, sales, service, charging, and user personal data are securely stored in China through encryption and access control and other measures, and will not be transmitted abroad.
Musk's SpaceX company, after a lot of hardships, after many experiments and research, has gradually accumulated valuable experience in countless failures and explosions, from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9, gradually making Falcon 9 the company's most mature rocket, as of April 2024, has launched 6145 Starlink satellites into low earth orbit.
STARL Service Disputes
In 2022, Musk provided Starlink terminal services and 20 drones to Ukraine, promising to use them only in the event of widespread power outages and communication failures.
In January 2023, the Ukrainian military confirmed the news and carried out the reception of the Starlink device.
In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that if these "Starlink" are used by Ukraine to attack Russian troops in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, then Russia will target these satellites and shoot them down.
In February 2023, Elon Musk's SpaceX company took steps to ensure that Starlink technology was not used by Ukraine for drones. Musk said that Starlink will not be weaponized, which will lead to the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and trigger World War III.
In September 2023, the Ukrainian military requested to enable the Starlink function to carry out an attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, to which Musk said that this feature was not enabled from the beginning and will not be enabled.
In November 2023, Musk responded to the theory that "closing Starlink is treason", saying, I am only an American citizen and have no obligation to fight for Kyiv.
In addition, in October 2023, Musk announced the provision of Starlink communication services for international relief organizations in the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so that communications in the Gaza Strip can be restored.
epilogue
Musk has been involved in four of the five major fields that affect mankind, including film and television, aerospace, artificial intelligence, new energy, and the acquisition of Twitter, and all of them have achieved good results.
Donald Trump, the former president of the United States at the time, compared Musk to Edison and called Musk a great genius.
Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, said that Musk is a very amazing entrepreneur, and the success of Tesla has promoted the popularization of technology and social progress.
Musk has visited China many times, expressed his impression of China on many occasions, he thinks that Chinese people are really great, very diligent and intelligent, he has a very special sense of affinity with China, he thinks that China's infrastructure is very good, such as stations, high-speed railways, high-rise buildings and other facilities, he believes that from a historical point of view, China is not a greedy country, will not invade other countries. He believes that China is a world leader in renewable energy generation and electric vehicles, and few people pay attention to this, but these are facts. He believes that in the future, planes, cars, ships and other means of transportation will be electrified, and China is an indispensable force in the world's new energy revolution.
Musk firmly supports the one-China policy, he said that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, he said that China's military will soon surpass the United States, and can take back Taiwan 100 percent, regardless of peaceful reunification or military means, China will eventually unify Taiwan.
Musk's greatest wish and ideal is to use rockets to send human beings to Mars to live or travel, and eventually convert solar energy into electricity to provide human beings with survival and living energy on Mars, and Tesla cars will be responsible for human transportation and travel on Mars, so as to achieve the goal of human colonization of Mars.