Elon Reeve Musk and His Ventures PDF

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Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971) is an engineer and technology entrepreneur. He holds South African, Canadian, and U.S. citizenship and is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People, and was ranked (co-)first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. He has a net worth of $23.6 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 40th-richest person in the world. He is the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally. Born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk moved to Canada when he was 17 to attend Queen's University. He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he received a Bachelor's degree in economics from the Wharton School and a Bachelor's degree in physics from the College of Arts and Sciences. He began a Ph.D. in applied physics and material sciences at Stanford University in 1995 but dropped out after two days to pursue an entrepreneurial career. He subsequently co-founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal, a web software company, which was acquired by Compaq for $340 million in 1999. Musk then founded X.com, an online bank. It merged with Confinity in 2000, which had launched PayPal the previous year and was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002. In May 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, of which he is CEO and lead designer. He joined Tesla, Inc., an electric vehicle manufacturer, in 2004, the year after it was founded, and became its CEO and product architect. In 2006, he inspired the creation of SolarCity, a solar energy services company (now a subsidiary of Tesla). In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company that aims to promote friendly artificial intelligence. In July 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain–computer interfaces. In December 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel-construction company focused on tunnels specialized for electric vehicles. In addition to his primary business pursuits, Musk has envisioned a highspeed transportation system known as the Hyperloop, and has proposed a vertical take-off and landing supersonic jet electric aircraft with electric fan propulsion, known as the Musk electric jet. Musk has said the goals of SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity revolve around his vision to change the world

and humanity. His goals include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and reducing the risk of human extinction by establishing a human colony on Mars.

Early life Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa, the son of Maye Musk (née Haldeman), a model and dietitian from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, and sailor. He has a younger brother, Kimbal (born 1972), and a younger sister, Tosca (born 1974). His maternal grandfather, Dr. Joshua Haldeman, was an Americanborn Canadian. His paternal grandmother was British, and he also has Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk lived mostly with his father in the suburbs of Pretoria, a choice made by Musk two years after his parents separated but which he subsequently regretted. Musk is estranged from his father who he has referred to as "a terrible human being". He has a half-sister and a half-brother. During his childhood, Musk was an avid reader. At the age of 10, he developed an interest in computing with the Commodore VIC-20. He taught himself computer programming and, by the age of 12, sold the code of a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500. A web version of the game is available online. His childhood reading included Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, from which he drew the lesson that "you should try to take the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, minimize the probability of a dark age and reduce the length of a dark age if there is one". Musk was severely bullied throughout his childhood and was once hospitalized when a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs and then smashed his head into the pavement until he lost consciousness.The damage to his nose required corrective surgery. Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School. Although Musk's father insisted that Elon go to college in Pretoria, Musk became determined to move to the United States, saying "I remember thinking and seeing that America is where great things are possible, more than any other country in the world. "Knowing it would be easy to get to the United States from Canada, he moved to Canada against his father's wishes in June 1989, just

before his 18th birthday, after obtaining a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother.

Education In Canada, Musk entered Queen's University in 1989, avoiding mandatory service in the South African military. He left in 1992 to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania; he graduated 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 an energy storage start-up called Pinnacle Research Institute which researched electrolytic ultacapacitors for energy storage; and at the Palo Alto-based start-up Rocket Science Games. His work at Rocket Science Games involved assembly programming of device drivers. Bruce Leak, the former lead engineer behind Apple’s QuickTime who had hired Musk noted: “He had boundless energy. Kids these days have no idea about hardware or how stuff works, but he had a PC hacker background and was not afraid to just go figure things out.” In 1995, Musk commenced a PhD in energy physics/materials science at Stanford University in California. Eager to pursue opportunities in the Internet boom, he dropped out after just two days to launch his first company, Zip2 Corporation.

Companies

Zip2 (1995–1999) PayPal (1999–2002) SpaceX (2002–present) Tesla, Inc. (2004–present) SolarCity (2006–present) OpenAI (2015–present) Neuralink (2016–present) The Boring Company (2016–present)

Other endeavors

Hyperloop Tesla Roadster in space Boring Test Tunnel

Family

Maye Musk (mother)

Justine Musk (first wife) Talulah Riley (second wife) Grimes (girlfriend) Kimbal Musk (brother) Tosca Musk (sister) In culture

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future "The Musk Who Fell to Earth" (The Simpsons, 2015)

PayPal PayPal Holdings Inc. trading as PayPal, is an American company operating a worldwide online payments system that supports online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders. The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites, and many other commercial users, for which it charges a fee in exchange for benefits such as one-click transactions and password memory. PayPal's payment system, also called PayPal, is considered a type of payment rail. Established in 1998 as Confinity, PayPal had its initial public offering in 2002, and became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay later that year. eBay spun off PayPal in 2015. The company ranked 222nd on the 2018 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.

History PayPal was established in December 1998 as Confinity, a company that developed security software for handheld devices. PayPal was founded by six people: Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, Ken Howery, Yu Pan and Russel Simmons. PayPal was developed and launched as a money transfer service at Confinity in 1999, funded by John Malloy from BlueRun Ventures. In March 2000, Confinity merged with X.com, an online banking company founded by Elon Musk. Musk was optimistic about the future success of the money transfer business Confinity was developing. Musk and thenpresident and CEO of X.com, Bill Harris, disagreed on this point and Harris left the company in May 2000. In October of that year, Musk made the

decision that X.com would terminate its other Internet banking operations and focus on the PayPal money service. In the same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com. The X.com company was then renamed PayPal in 2001 and expanded rapidly throughout the year until company executives decided to take PayPal public in 2002. Paypal's IPO listed under the ticker PYPL at $13 per share and ended up generating over $61 million.

Tesla, Inc. Tesla, Inc. (formerly Tesla Motors, Inc.), is an American automotive and energy company based in Palo Alto, California. The company specializes in electric car manufacturing and, through its SolarCity subsidiary, solar panel manufacturing. It operates multiple production and assembly plants, such as Gigafactory 1 near Reno, Nevada, and its main vehicle manufacturing facility at Tesla Factory in Fremont, California. As of 2019, Tesla sells Model S, Model X, and Model 3 cars. It is accepting reservations for the Model Y, Roadster (2020), Cybertruck, and Semi vehicles. Tesla also sells Powerwall, Powerpack and Megapack batteries, solar panels, solar roof tiles and some related products. Tesla was founded in July 2003, by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, under the name Tesla Motors. The company's name is a tribute to engineer Nikola Tesla. In early Series A funding, Tesla Motors was joined by Elon Musk, J. B. Straubel and Ian Wright, all of whom are retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders of the company. Musk, who formerly served as chairman and is the current chief executive officer, said that he envisioned Tesla Motors as a technology company and independent automaker, aimed at eventually offering electric cars at prices affordable to the average consumer. Tesla Motors shortened its name to Tesla in February 2017. After 10 years in the market, Tesla ranked as the world's best-selling plugin passenger car manufacturer in 2018, both as a brand and by automotive group, with 245,240 units delivered and a market share of 12% of the plugin segment sales. Tesla vehicle sales in the U.S. increased by 280% from 48,000 in 2017 to 182,400 in 2018, and globally were up by 138% from 2017. However, Tesla has never had a profitable year.

History Tesla Motors was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning who financed the company until the Series A round of funding. The founders were influenced to start the company after GM recalled all its EV1 electric cars in 2003 and then destroyed them. Elon Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004, joining Tesla's board of directors as its chairman. Tesla's primary goal was to commercialize electric vehicles, starting with a premium sports car aimed at early adopters and then moving into more mainstream vehicles, including sedans and affordable compacts. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level. In addition to his daily operational roles, Musk was the controlling investor in Tesla from the first financing round, funding $6.5M of the Series A capital investment round of US$7.5 million with personal funds. Musk later led Tesla Motors' Series B, $9M of US$13 million, and co-led the third, $12M of US$40 million round in May 2006. Tesla's third round included investment from prominent entrepreneurs including Google co-founders Sergey Brin & Larry Page, former eBay President Jeff Skoll, Hyatt heir Nick Pritzker and added the VC firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Capricorn Management and The Bay Area Equity Fund managed by JPMorgan Chase. The fourth round in May 2007 added another US$45 million and brought the total investments to over US$105 million through private financing.

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., doing business as SpaceX, is a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. SpaceX has developed the Falcon launch vehicle family and the Dragon spacecraft family.

History In 2001, Elon Musk conceptualized Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars. "This would

be the furthest that life’s ever traveled" in an attempt to regain public interest in space exploration and increase the budget of NASA. Musk tried to buy cheap rockets from Russia but returned empty-handed after failing to find rockets for an affordable price. On the flight home, Musk realized that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed. According to early Tesla and SpaceX investor Steve Jurvetson, Musk calculated that the raw materials for building a rocket actually were only three percent of the sales price of a rocket at the time. By applying vertical integration, producing around 85% of launch hardware in-house, and the modular approach from software engineering, SpaceX could cut launch price by a factor of ten and still enjoy a 70% gross margin. In early 2002, Musk was seeking staff for his new space company, soon to be named SpaceX. Musk approached rocket engineer Tom Mueller (later SpaceX's CTO of Propulsion) and Mueller agreed to work for Musk, and thus SpaceX was born. SpaceX was first headquartered in a warehouse in El Segundo, California. The company grew rapidly, from 160 employees in November 2005 to 1,100 in 2010, 3,800 employees and contractors by October 2013, nearly 5,000 by late 2015, and about 6,000 in April 2017. As of November 2017, the company had grown to nearly 7,000. In 2016, Musk gave a speech at the International Astronautical Congress, where he explained that the US government regulates rocket technology as an "advanced weapon technology", making it difficult to hire non-Americans....