Elon Musk

FRS (/ˈiːlɒn/; born June 28, 1971) is an engineer, industrial designer and technology entrepreneur.[2][3][4] He is a citizen of South Africa, Canada, and the United States. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX;[5] early investor[6][note 1], CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.;[9][10] founder of The Boring Company;[11] co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI.[12] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018.[13][14] In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People,[15] and was ranked joint-first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019.[16] As of May 2020, he has a net worth of $36.5 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 31st-richest person in the world.[17][1] He is the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally.[18]

Born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving 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 a business career. He subsequently co-founded (with his brother Kimbal) Zip2, 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 subsequently bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002.[9][19][20][21]
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 Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.), an electric vehicle manufacturer, in 2004, the year after it was founded,[9] and became its CEO and product architect. In 2006, he helped create 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 optimized for electric vehicles.
In addition to his primary business pursuits, Musk has envisioned a high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop. Musk has said the goals of SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity revolve around his vision to "change the world and help humanity".[22] His goals include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and lessening the risk of human extinction by establishing a human colony on Mars.[23][24][better source needed]

In 1995, Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started Zip2, a web software company, with money raised from a small group of angel investors.[38] The company developed and marketed an internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions and yellow pages,[59] with the vector graphics mapping and direction code being implemented by Musk in Java.[60] Musk obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune,[61][62] and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch.[63] Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted by the board.[41] Compaq acquired Zip2 for US$307 million in cash[41]:109 in February 1999.[64] Musk received US$22 million for his 7 percent share from the sale.[61][41]:109[62]

X.com and PayPal

Main articles: PayPal and X.com

In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with US$10 million from the sale of Zip2.[63][62] One year later, the company merged with Confinity,[61][65] which had a money-transfer service called PayPal.[62] The merged company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001.[66] Musk was ousted in October 2000 from his role as CEO (although he remained on the board) due to disagreements with other company executives over his desire to move PayPal's Unix-based infrastructure to Microsoft Windows.[67] In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received US$165 million.[68] Before its sale, Musk, who was the company's largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal's shares.[69]
In July 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, stating that it has sentimental value to him.[70]

SpaceX

Main article: SpaceX

In 2001, Musk conceived Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith, in an attempt to reawaken public interest in space exploration.[71][72] In October 2001, Musk traveled to Moscow with Jim Cantrell (an aerospace supplies fixer), and Adeo Ressi (his best friend from college), to buy refurbished Dnepr Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could send the envisioned payloads into space. The group met with companies such as NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras; however, according to Cantrell, Musk was seen as a novice and was consequently spat on by one of the Russian chief designers.[73] The group returned to the United States empty-handed. In February 2002, the group returned to Russia to look for three ICBMs, bringing along Mike Griffin. Griffin had worked for the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, as well as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was just leaving Orbital Sciences, a maker of satellites and spacecraft. The group had another meeting with Kosmotras and were offered one rocket for US$8 million. Musk considered the price too high, and stormed out of the meeting. On the flight back from Moscow, Musk realized that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed.[73] According to early Tesla and SpaceX investor Steve Jurvetson,[74] Musk calculated that the raw materials for building a rocket were only 3 percent of the sales price of a rocket at the time. It was concluded that, in theory, by applying vertical integration and the modular approach employed in software engineering, SpaceX could cut launch price by a factor of ten and still enjoy a 70-percent gross margin.[75] Ultimately, Musk ended up founding SpaceX with the long-term goal of creating a true spacefaring civilization.[76]

With US$100 million of his early fortune,[77] Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp., traded as SpaceX, in May 2002.[78] Musk is chief executive officer (CEO) and chief technology officer (CTO) of the Hawthorne, California-based company. By 2016, Musk's private trust held 54% of SpaceX stock, equivalent to 78% of voting shares.[79]
SpaceX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles with a focus on advancing the state of rocket technology. The company's first two launch vehicles were the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets (a nod to Star Wars' Millennium Falcon), and its first spacecraft was the Dragon (a nod to Puff the Magic Dragon).[80] SpaceX designed a family of launch vehicles and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft over a span of seven years. In September 2008, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket became the first privately funded liquid-fueled vehicle to put a satellite into Earth orbit.[41]
SpaceX is both the largest private producer of rocket engines in the world and holder of the record for the highest thrust-to-weight ratio for a rocket engine (the Merlin 1D).[81][82] SpaceX has produced more than 100 operational Merlin 1D engines. Each Merlin 1D engine can vertically lift the weight of 40 average family cars. In combination, the 9 Merlin engines in the Falcon 9 first stage produce anywhere from 5.8 to 6.7 MN (1.3 to 1.5 million pounds) of thrust, depending on altitude.[83]

In 2006, NASA announced that the company was one of two selected to provide crew and cargo resupply demonstration contracts to the International Space Station,[84] followed by a US$1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services program contract on December 23, 2008, for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the Space Station, replacing the US Space Shuttle after it retired in 2011.[85]
On May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, making history as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station.[86] Astronaut transport to the ISS is currently handled solely by the Soyuz, but SpaceX is one of two companies awarded a contract by NASA as part of the Commercial Crew Development program, which is currently projected to develop a US astronaut transport capability by 2020.[87]
Musk believed the key to making space travel affordable was to make rockets reusable, though space industry experts believed reusable rockets were impossible or infeasible.[88] On December 22, 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon rocket back at the launch pad, the first time this had been achieved by an orbital rocket—a significant step to rocket reusability and lower cost access to space.[89] The first stage recovery was replicated several times in 2016 by landing on an autonomous spaceport drone ship, an ocean-based recovery platform,[90] and by the end of 2017, SpaceX had landed and recovered the first stage on 16 consecutive missions where a landing and recovery were attempted, including all 14 attempts in 2017. Twenty out of 42 first stage Falcon 9 boosters have been recovered overall since the Falcon 9 maiden flight in 2010.[91]
In 2017 SpaceX launched 18 successful Falcon 9 flights, more than doubling their highest previous year of 8.[92]