For as long as I can remember I have always been interested in new inventions and machines that improve life and that put a modern twist on basic everyday necessities. When I read the outline for this book report I was enthused and had one particular person that automatically popped up in my mind to write about. For this book report, I am researching the CEO and creator of the car brand Tesla. I chose to write about Elon Musk because his contribution to society has made a great impact on our environment and the world as we know it.
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa on June 28, 1971. In Elon’s youth, he was always so consumed with daydreaming and pondering about various inventions that his parents began to show concern for him and wanted doctors to check his hearing. When Elon was 10 his parents got a divorce, and he suddenly developed an interest in computers to get his mind off the worries of his parent separation. He was a self-taught programmer, and he created a little game called Blastar. This was his first sold software game at the age of 12. In middle school, Elon Musk was small, shy, and brilliant. He was constantly bullied in school until the age of 15. After that, he went through puberty and a major growth spurt thus learning how to defend himself.
Elon Musk moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University at the age of 17, in 1989. This was mainly to avoid mandatory military service in South Africa. Musk later that year attained Canadian citizenship and following that gained American citizenship. Elon left Canada in pursuit to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania In 1992. He received an undergraduate degree in economics and managed to get a second bachelor’s degree in physics. After earning two different degrees he then planned to study at Stanford University to gain a Ph.D. in energy physics. His move, however, was short-lived because the timing of when he got to school was when the Internet had boomed. Elon then dropped out of Stanford after two days of becoming a student, this was to launch his first corporation “Zip2 Corporation”.
In 1995 Elon propelled his first organization, Zip2 Corporation, with his sibling, Kimbal Musk. In 1999, Zip2 was purchased for $307 million as a cash payment via a division of Compaq Computer Corporation. This also supplied them with $34 million in investment opportunities. In 1999, Elon and Kimbal Musk utilized the cash from their closeout of Zip2 to establish X.com. X.com was an online money installment organization. X.com which is now known as PayPal, earned Elon’s initial billion for it to be obtained by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock.
In 2002 he established his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX. This was with the sole purpose to build a spacecraft for economic space travel. In 2008 NASA gave SpaceX a contract to move cargo for the International Space Station for NASA’s space shuttle missions. SpaceX made history when Falcon 9 rocket was launched into space as one of the first unmanned capsules on May 22, 2012. SpaceX put in motion a fruitful practice run with Falcon 9 rocket which was produced using reusable parts, this makes reasonable space travel more probable for future endeavors. In September 2017, Elon presented a model plan for his BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), which can carry 100 people. He announced that SpaceX was going to launch its first mission to Mars in 2022 with the BFR. This is with the intention of soon colonizing Mars. Since BFR is a mammoth rocket the only way to transport it will be by ship.