Elon Musk: The Tech Titan

The inside story behind one of the world's most powerful entrepreneurs.

Elon Musk is one of those names that everyone knows. He’s always in the news. Whether it is his groundbreaking activity in the world of technology, or his recent foray into the combative battlefield of political discourse, Musk always knows how to make an entrance. 

As the real-life Tony Stark, Musk’s life is about as interesting as they come. He is smart and witty. He is handsome and well-dressed. He drives the best cars, and dates the finest women. Charisma is his middle name. Elon gets things done, and he does it all with the nonchalance of an ordinary college geek. 

Here is the extraordinary story behind one of the modern world’s most influential entrepreneurs. 

Early life and education

Elon was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. His Canadian mother worked in the diet industry, while his father was a mechanical and electrical engineer. From an early age, Musk had a natural proclivity for technology. He purchased his first computer, the Commodore VIC 20, with money saved since he was aged 10. By the age of 12, he created his own video game, called Blaster, which he sold for $500. As a pre-teen, he taught himself computer programming. 

He was forced into South Africa’s compulsory military service in his late teens. Musk was deeply dissatisfied with South Africa’s apartheid regime, and he refused to participate in that system. His desire was to reach America, the land of freedom and opportunity. In the United States, there was a growing fascination with computer technology; Elon knew he had to go there. To do so, Elon used his connections to Canada via his mother. He took steps to acquire Canadian citizenship for himself. 

After graduating from Pretoria Boy’s High School, the 17-year-old Musk migrated to Canada in June of 1989. Upon arriving in the West, Elon had no money or connections; he only had a small cadre of distant relatives through his mother’s line. Elon began to work as a farmer, tending vegetables and shoveling grain. He soon found a job at a lumber mill, where he cleaned boilers. Then, he secured a job as an intern clerk at a local bank. 

In 1990, Musk moved to Kingston, Ontario, where he pursued his science degree at Queen’s University. Two years later, he finally managed to get to America by transferring his studies to the University of Pennsylvania. Within another two years, he graduated with two degrees, in science and business. 

Around this time, Musk became fascinated by Douglas Adams’ book Guide to the Galaxy. The book’s central premise is about a supercomputer which finds the answer to life’s deepest questions. After 7.5 million years, it gives a very underwhelming answer: the number 42. This is because, as the book declares, questions are much harder to know than answers. This almost humorous anti-climatic event was, for Musk, a eureka moment. 

Musk began to explore three of the world’s burgeoning fields: the Internet, clean energy, and outer space. He would eventually revolutionize all three of them. In 1995, Elon enrolled himself in Stanford University, where he took up a PhD program for energy physics. After attending just two days, he quickly dropped out. Ever a pragmatic man, he decided to instead launch his first business. His love for physics never waned, but Elon saw much more opportunity in the nascent Internet Revolution. 

Zip2

Elon realized that, as companies were moving online, they needed a way to convert their printed documents into digital ones. Working with his younger brother Kimbal, Musk developed a content publishing software designed for news and media companies. 

At the time, it was a major risk. The Musk brothers came up with their product, called Zip2. It started out as a tool for people to search maps and directions online. It operated similarly to a micro-blogging system. 

Elon’s early career was strewn with struggle. He barely had enough money to pay the rent on his office and apartment. 

The future billionaire Musk had live as a pauper, cutting costs dramatically. He rented out a tiny office, where he slept on a small cushion mattress. Starting with small newspapers, Musk was able to quickly grow his client base. Elon’s product eventually attracted the attention of big-time media giants, such as the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. 

By 1999, the Zip2 Corporation had expanded its services to include web hosting, web development, and maintenance for as many as 200 websites. CitySearch, an online city guide, became interested in a merger with Musk. Soon after, Musk sold off his company to Compaq Computers for $307 million in cash, and $34 million in stock options. 

PayPal

By the age of 28, Musk was already a multi-millionaire. But his ambitions knew no bounds, and he immediately dove into his next venture: X dot com. 

Musk’s vision was to create the world’s first online bank. He invested $10 million in this new project. The goal was to offer every conventional service found at a brick-and-mortar bank, but all online. The added benefit was that a customer could send and receive money securely via email. 

X dot com was an instant smash hit. After just a single year of operation, it successfully merged with Confinity, a money transfer company. The merger conglomerate was renamed PayPal in 2001. 

Working alongside Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, both founders of Confinity, Musk’s company refocused its attention from online banking to another innovative idea: online money transfers. 

At this early stage, Musk’s company relied on a Windows-based handheld device. In the first months of the merger, from January of 1999 to October of 2000, Musk was the CEO of X dot com. During this time, he set up a viral system that grew into the world’s largest email payment processor. New customers were offered $20 cash cards, along with $10 for referring a friend. Within two months, more than 100,000 new customers flocked to the company. 

Musk’s management style was not always appreciated by his associates. He had a tendency to micromanage everything. Thiel and Levchin stopped working with him. There were disputes about which technologies to use, and how to brand them. 

Thiel and Levchin organized a coup against CEO Musk. From there, they took over the company as PayPal, this time with a second P in the logo. It grew exponentially, before being bought out by Ebay in 2002 for an impressive $1.5 billion. Being still the company’s largest shareholder, Musk walked away with $165 million.

SpaceX

Even before PayPal was sold off, Musk was already working on his next business venture. 

Since childhood, the real-life Iron Man had always been smitten by space exploration. A lifelong enthusiast of science fiction, Musk now had the money to turn fiction into reality. Elon was convinced that Earth could not indefinitely sustain life. The visionary Musk saw the need for humanity to pioneer new methods of interplanetary travel. For him, humans had to colonize other planets beyond Earth. 

As Musk saw it, the technology industry had exploded, but the space industry had lagged pathetically behind. Since the Moon landing in 1969, no serious progress had been made in exploring space. Musk was determined to change that. He founded his third company called Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX. Musk’s goal was to design a space vehicle that could safely transport people and equipment to Mars. He wanted to create the infrastructure needed to colonize the Red Planet, and transform humanity into an interplanetary species. 

When Musk revealed his vision, it was met with ridicule and laughter. The industry’s so-called experts mocked it as the dreamy musings of a rich playboy with too much time. But Elon would not be so easily underestimated. He quickly hired some of the finest engineers from such aerospace companies as Boeing, NASA, and TWA. 

Elon was irritated by NASA’s apparent lack of interest in his proposals. So he sought to stimulate the public’s appetite for space exploration as a means of persuading NASA to deploy its funds toward building a Mars vehicle and a bubble bioverse. He wanted to design a cheaper and safer alternate to travel by space shuttle. He was impressed by Russia’s ability to produce rockets that were cheaper and safer than anything invented by the US. Musk traveled to Russia, where he attempted to purchase a modernized ICBM, but the deal fell through. 

Elon decided to create a reusable rocket, which he called Falcon 1. The first scheduled launch was in 2005. Three years later, the Falcon made its first successful flight. On its fourth attempt, it successfully launched. Having demonstrated the viability of this idea, Elon’s SpaceX was able to persuade NASA for a $1.6 billion contract, including 12 future flights on the Falcon 9 to the International Space Station. Musk estimated that SpaceX could reduce the US government’s expenses by $1 billion per year. 

Tesla

The Iron Man always had a passionate interest in fast cars. He dreamed of building a breed of electric cars that could revolutionize the driving experience. 

As a sophomore in university, Elon became acutely aware of the world’s depleting resources. He knew that the world needed to create an alternative source of fuel, one that could avoid carbon emissions which damage the environment. For Musk, the answer lied in electric cars. 

A year after launching SpaceX, Musk was introduced to Al Ciccone and Tom Gage of AC Propulsion. This company had produced an all-electric car known as the tZero. Elon was interested in mass-producing this invention, but Ciccone and Gage were uninterested. 

Through those two men, Elon became acquainted in July 2003 with a team of three: Ian Wright, Marc Tarpening, and Martin Eberhard. Together, Musk and his new friends formed the Tesla Corporation. It was named after Nikola Tesla, the man who first invented AC induction motors. 

Musk’s revolutionary concept of electric cars was again met with ridicule. The idea was years away from being practical. The question was again asked how a guy with no industry experience could successfully found a company. Elon would once again prove them all wrong! 

To Elon’s detractors, the electric car was simply not possible. Many of the car industry’s giants had already attempted it. Robert Lutz of General Motors claimed that lithium ion technology for cars would only come at least ten years into the future. The industry had no enthusiasm for Elon, and very few investors wanted anything to do with Tesla. Musk had to fund most of the company’s operations personally. 

By 2007, Elon had failed to produce an assembly-line electric car. To make matters worse, there were fractures within management. Musk was the Chairman of the Board, and he disliked the company’s president Martin Eberhard. Before long, Eberhard was ousted and Musk gained full control. 

As the CEO of two start-ups, Elon now found himself in a precarious situation, even for someone of his dynamism. His master plan was to build a luxury electric sports car through Tesla, along with a line of more affordable cars, and an electric-powered car with zero carbon emissions. 

In 2008, the first Roadstar hit the market. At the high price of $110,000, this ground-breaking invention could run up to 200 miles on a single charge. It was capable of racing from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than four seconds. Musk’s brand produced a more affordable option, the Tesla Model S, in June of 2012. Sales boomed, reaching as high as 500 per week. 

SolarCity

In addition to Tesla, Musk also dipped his hands into other bold proposals for alternative clean energy. As the Chairman of the Board of Directors of SolarCity, he made revolutionary advances in solar technology. By offering free installation and zero down payment for homeowners, Musk made it easier for consumers to afford solar energy. SolarCity boomed, reaching clients as large as eBay, Walmart, and even the US military. It became America’s number one provider of solar services. 

Hyperloop

In August of 2013, the Iron Man set his sights on another vision, this time a revolution in personal transportation. He called it Hyperloop. According to this concept, Musk sought to allow people to travel across large cities at the speed of sound. Ideally, a person could travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a mere 30 minutes. 

The design involved a vacuum-sealed pod that rides atop electromagnetic waves. The pod would glide across the track at speeds reaching many hundreds of miles per hour. This would eliminate the problem of friction created by wheels on tracks. 

The month that Musk revealed his plans, the crowd-source website JumpStartFund was established. Consisting of over 100 engineers, developers, and investors, the company gladly took on Elon’s project as their first. In 2014, they formed Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. They conducted a feasibility study. 

In 2015, Musk ran a student competition to design HyperLoop pods. SpaceX sponsored a mile-long track to run the pods on. On July 20, 2017, Musk announced that he had received government approval for a Hyperloop track between New York City and DC. 

The aforementioned projects are just the tip of the iceberg regarding Elon Musk’s revolutionary ideas. In twelve months, from December of 2015 to December of 2016, he founded no less than three companies. This included Open AI, a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Another was Neuralink, a neurotechnology start-up with the aim of integrating the human brain with AI. A third project was the Boring Company, which aimed to slash the cost of tunnel boring by tenfold. 

Personal life

As the real-life Iron Man, Elon Musk lives the dashing lifestyle of a billionaire playboy. He has been married twice. 

The first woman love of his life was Justine Wilson, whom he met as a student at Queen’s University in Ontario. They officially got married in 2000. She worked as a fantasy novelist. Wilson felt that Elon was too preoccupied with his work to give her enough attention. After a messy public fallout, their romance ended in bitter divorce in 2008. Elon and Justine had five kids together, including a set of twins and a set of triplets. 

Musk met his second wife, Talulah Riley, at a London nightclub. They got married a mere six weeks after Musk’s divorce from Justine. The wedding took place at Skibo Castle in Scotland. Elon was 39, while she was 23. After only two years of marriage, Elon announced his second divorce via Twitter, a company that he would later own. “It was an amazing four years. I will love you forever,” Musk told the world online. “You will make someone very happy one day.” Elon’s romance with Riley didn’t seem to work out. They got back together briefly in 2014, but the divorce was finalized toward the end of 2016. 

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