If you were to think of someone who is currently inventing life-changing projects, Elon Musk would most likely be at the top of your list. Most well-known for being the founder of Tesla, Musk has constantly come up with new prototypes and projects that could change the way everyone travels. Here is some background information on how he got to where he is today.
How He Started
Musk began to learn computer programming when he was just 12 years old. When he turned 17, he moved from South Africa to attend Queen’s University in Toronto, Canada. From there, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and earned two degrees: a bachelor’s degree in physics from the College of Arts & Sciences and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Wharton School of Business. At age 24, he moved to California to get a PhD in applied physics and materials science at Stanford University, but left to become an entrepreneur.
His Most Notable Accomplishments
His first major accomplishment was creating his own startup in 1995 named Zip2 with his brother, Kimbal Musk, and investor Greg Kouri. Zip2 provided the software needed to create city guides for various newspapers and would eventually be acquired by Compaq computers in 1999.
From there, he went on to create X.com, which later became known as PayPal. After X.com merged with another company called Confinity, which offered PayPal as an extension of the company’s services, it changed its name.
Around the same time PayPal became popular, he founded SpaceX to secure numerous space missions. SpaceX was awarded a contract by NASA to develop and test the SpaceX Falcon 9, which would deliver needed materials to the International Space Station.
His most well-known company is Tesla, an electric automobile manufacturer that was started in 2003. Since then, Tesla has expanded to also offer charging stations for other electric cars and has become the world’s leading manufacturer of electric cars.
What Is He Up To Today?
Elon Musk has worked on developing new projects on a regular basis. Currently, the Hyperloop is one of his most well-known projects with a third installment of the competition taking place last month on the design of the pods. Musk has also started a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company called OpenAI, a neurotechnology startup named Neuralink, and an infrastructure project called The Boring Company. It will be interesting to see what Musk creates in the years to come.
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