Elon Musk's Timeline
In my eyes, Elon Musk is the greatest Entrepreneur of all time. Even though several notable Entrepreneurs could be considered in the conversation for GOAT of Entrepreneurship such as Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford, none of them had or have the range Elon has.
From Paypal to SpaceX none before Elon has successfully conquered the world of business from atoms to bits the way Elon has. Here’s a glimpse into Elon’s journey towards world conquest. This blog only covers his career of Elon and does not include his personal life.
0-20 years
Elon was born on the 28th of June 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. His parents divorced when he was only 8. When he turned 10, he got hold of his first computer, a Commodore VIC-20 and soon became a self-taught programmer. By 12, he had created a game called ‘Blastar’ and sold it for $500 to the PC and Office Technology Magazine.
By 17 Musk had decided to move to USA. However, he thought it was best to move first to Canada to make that entrance easier. He attended Queen’s University.
20-30 years
By 1992 Elon studied Business and Physics at the University of Pennsylavania graduating with an undergraduate degree in economics. His 2nd degree was in Physics.
When Musk was 24 he founded Zip2, a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers with his brother Kimbal Musk. Within 4 years, Elon sold Zip2 to Compaq for $307 Million.
1 month later in March, 1999 Elon co-founded X.com with $10 Million from the sale of Zip2. In 2000, X.com merged with Confinity to form PayPal.
By October, 2000 Elon got fired from his post of CEO of PayPal because he tried to strong hand the shift of PayPal’s Unix-based infrastructure to Microsoft Windows.
30-40 years
By 2001 Elon had conceptualized the Mars Oasis and attempted to raise public interest in space exploration. By October 2001, he travelled to Moscow, Russia to purchase Dnepr inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) which have the ability to send payloads into space. But, the Russians behaved boorishy, and Elon returned to USA empty handed.
However, Elon was determined and wanted to start a Space company by February, 2022 and launched Space X by May, 2022 with a $100 investment of his own money. He understood one of the fundamental obstacles for space exploration was the high cost involved with space launches. One of his key objectives was to build affordable rockets.
By October, 2022 eBay acquired Paypal for $1.5 Billion and Elon being the largest shareholder of the company walked away with $165 Million.
In February, 2004 Elon joined the Electric Manufacturer Tesla’s board of directors as the Chairman leading the Series A round of investment. Tesla was founded an year earlier by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Elon’s investment in the company was $6.5 Million, making him the largest shareholder of the company.
2006 was an interesting year for Elon as SpaceX got a much needed break via NASA’s contracts to send Cargo and Astronauts to the ISS. He also funded Solar City founded by Pete Rive and Lyndon.
40-50 years
In 2011 Elon announced his plan was to send humans to Mars within the next 10-20 years. In 2012, SolarCity and Tesla announced they will be collaborating with each other for the creation of better electric vehicle batteries. In the same year SpaceX Dragon docked on the International Space Station.
By 2013, SolarCity had become the second largest solar power provider. He made his Hyperloop concept public at this time, inviting companies to take on this idea and solve a long standing problem of road transportation.
In 2014 Elon announced via a letter that he will be open sourcing Tesla’s technology as long as other companies use it with good faith. His aim was to speed up the progress made on the sustainability transportation front.
By December 2015, Elon Musk announced the creation of Open AI. By 2016, Elon acquired SolarCity via Tesla causing quite an uproar from Tesla Shareholders. By July, 2016 Elon had co-founded neurotechnology company Neuralink with Max Hodak.
In the same year he had further solidified his position in SpaceX with 54% of SpaceX stocks and 78% voting rights. In December, 2016 Elon founded tunnel construction venture The Boring Company (TBC) with the aim of making his hyperloop concept a reality.
Hyperloop’s test run began in May, 2017 in Nevada state. In 2018, Elon had to leave Open AI to avoid possible conflicts as Tesla CEO.
Construction of the Tesla Gigafactory commenced in 2018 and started production by December 2019.