Open In App

Elon Musk Success Story: Personal Life, Businesses, Achievements

Last Updated : 22 Sep, 2023
Improve
Improve
Like Article
Like
Save
Share
Report

For several years, Elon Musk has been the talk of the town. Despite the odds, his extraordinary feat has astounded and thrilled large crowds. He is most known for co-founding SpaceX while also overseeing the operations of his other firm, Tesla Motors. His incredible accomplishment in the area has prompted parallels to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others. Let’s get to know more about Elon Musk’s success story in this article. 

Despite his rough background, Elon Musk’s achievement was well-planned by him. However, his unwavering work ethic was crucial to Elon Musk’s success.

Elon Musk – Personal Life:

Following his divorce from Justine in 2008, Musk married Talulah Riley, an English actress, in 2010. Musk’s first wife was Canadian novelist Justine Wilson, whom he wed in 2000. In 2013, he wed Riley again, and they were together until 2016. Musk had twin sons from his first marriage, followed by triplet boys. When he was a 10-week-old baby, his first son, Nevada, passed away from sudden infant death syndrome. Musk was allegedly related to Amber Heard, a famous actress. He began dating Canadian artist Grimes in 2018, who later revealed she was expecting baby X A-12. The founder of Tesla is the father of seven children, the youngest of them, baby X A-12, is 19 months old.

Elon Musk – Background: 

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. He was born in Pretoria, South Africa’s third capital city. He is the eldest of three siblings. Elon Musk’s father, Errol Musk, is a renowned engineer, and his mother, Maye Musk, is a model and nutritionist. His brother, Kimbal Musk, is a venture capitalist and environmentalist. Tosca Musk, Elon Musk’s sister, is an award-winning director and producer.

Elon began school approximately a year ahead of schedule. He went to Waterkloof House Preparatory School. He then graduated from Pretoria Boys High School. Elon Musk’s parents split when he was 10 years old. While Elon Musk was one of the brightest students in his class, he struggled. He has few Afrikaner friends. Elon grew up to be a firm believer in the importance of adversity in shaping one’s character.

Elon Musk – Education & Qualifications: 

Elon Musk has a bachelor’s degree in physics as well as a bachelor’s degree in economics. Musk attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada after migrating from Africa. He was thereafter moved to the University of Pennsylvania, USA, where he earned his BSC (Physics) and B.A. (Economics) from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (one of the best and most prestigious Business Schools in the World).

Businesses of Elon Musk:

Elon Musk has ventured into a number of enterprises and helped them grow. Here is a chronology of his entrepreneurial and business journey.

1. Zip2

Elon Musk and his younger brother Kimbal Musk founded a business named Zip2 in the year 1995. Newspapers received licensed city guide software from Zip2. For $340 million, Compaq’s AltaVista purchased Zip2 in 1999. Elon Musk had a tremendous exit with this transaction, which sparked the development of X.com.

2. X.com

X.com was created by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Ed Ho, and Christopher Payne. Online bank was the business, which ultimately merged with Confinity Inc. This merger resulted in the founding of a fantastic new business.

3. PayPal 

PayPal was produced through the combination of X.com and Confinity Inc. One of the most widely used systems for making payments online is PayPal. He presented his suggestion for the operating system to be utilized to Max Lechin, the CTO, while he was still working at PayPal. Later, Musk was fired as CEO of the business. Later, eBay paid $1.5 billion to acquire PayPal.

4. Tesla Motors

Elon continued to realize his dream of creating future electric automobiles after being fired from PayPal. He set out to secure finance for Tesla and established the business in 2003. Changing the automobile industry’s reliance on explosive energy to clean, renewable energy was the primary goal of Tesla Motors.

The first electric vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, was finally released. After multiple arguments with Elon Musk, Eberhard, a co-founder of Tesla Motors, was fired from the organization in 2007. After then, Musk took over as the company’s CEO and product architect.

5. SpaceX

Elon Musk launched Space X while overseeing Tesla’s operations. He was awarded high-profile contracts to design rockets for the NASA and US Air Force. He also started working on missions for the military. Musk hopes to deploy an astronaut to Mars by the year 2025 with the aid of NASA.

Elon Musk Businesses – Some Businesses Which Required Extra Care:

1. Tesla

During the financial crisis in 2008, struggling Tesla came dangerously close to failing. Instead of letting Tesla fail when it required money to finance the Model S, Musk decided to declare bankruptcy and forfeit the money he had made from his success with PayPal (a company he sold).

He invested his final $35 million in the business. Musk acknowledged his financial situation in a court document on February 23, 2010, writing,

About four months ago, I ran out of funds”. 

He claimed in a document filed in connection with his divorce from Justine Musk, his now ex-wife, that he had been reliant on friend loans since October 2009.

Elon Musk persisted and was adamant about maintaining the company’s existence, and as a result, Tesla is now among the most prosperous niche automakers in the world, making electric vehicles.

2. SpaceX 

SpaceX spent 16 months attempting to show that one of its rockets could land on its ocean-going recovery drone ships. On January 10, 2015, the first attempt was made. It was really rather successful, as the business demonstrated the kinds of precise control required to get the rocket within yards of landing on the ship. “Within mere yards” is the essential term here.

SpaceX didn’t make the first of three straight successful landings on the drone ship until April 28, 2016. The attempt in June for four in a row failed with the rocket in flames, but this did not deter Elon Musk and his SpaceX team. Instead of getting disheartened, they took these failures and evaluated them in order to learn from their blunders.

Engineer Kate Tice spoke for Musk when she said of the mishap, 

Important thing to bear in mind is that we did acquire a lot of really useful data from this [SpaceX accident].” 

Musk’s failure at SpaceX does not deter him from imagining the future and “sending humans to Mars by 2024.” “If you’re going to select a location to die, I don’t believe Mars is a horrible decision,” he remarked.

In conclusion, despite all of his failures and damaged rockets, Musk’s motivation, perseverance, and risk-taking are the reasons why he is still working towards his goals with strong motivation, in addition to being a successful entrepreneur and role model.

Also Read: 7 Valuable Lessons You Can Learn From Elon Musk


Like Article
Suggest improvement
Previous
Next
Share your thoughts in the comments

Similar Reads