ELON MUSK
Elon Musk was born in 1971, in South Africa. Little information is known about his early life, but it clearly wasn’t happy. His parents divorced when he was ten, and Elon lived with his father. It seems there was a great deal of harsh discipline around, and not a lot of love, and he was bullied at school. He thinks all these difficulties made him strong, however, and worries that his children have too few struggles in life!
Elon left South Africa in 1989, to avoid doing military service for apartheid government. He graduated in Physics and Economics in the USA, and started a PhD in Physics, but dropped out after only two days. The Internet was booming, and Elon wanted to seize the countless opportunities it offered. In a short time, he made $187m from founding and selling Zip2, which produced online city guides and PayPal. He used the money to fund the ventures closest to his heart – alternative technology and space travel.
Elon Musk’s automotive company, Tesla, is renowned for producing electric vehicles that capture the interest of automotive enthusiasts. The Tesla Roadster sports model can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.7 seconds. In addition to his contributions to the automotive industry, Musk founded SpaceX, which achieved a significant milestone by successfully launching the Falcon 9 rocket in 2012. While several private sector entrepreneurs are involved in aerospace, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Musk’s rockets were the first to dock successfully with the International Space Station. Furthermore, in 2018, the larger Falcon Heavy rocket carried a Tesla Roadster into space. Both variants of the Falcon rockets feature reusable technology, allowing each rocket booster to land and be reused for subsequent missions, exemplifying innovative advancements in space exploration.
Musk currently has several companies on the go, and a great number of projects, including artificial intelligence, solar energy, and a new tunnel-boring machine (the idea came while he was stuck in traffic). His tunnelling company is called The Boring Company.
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