Who’s Elon Musk and why should you know him?

Elon Musk is a visionary and maverick entrepreneur who is co-founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SolarCity and is the founder of SpaceX. His eccentric personality and weird sense of humor have made him popular on Twitter. Some considered real-life Tony Stark (Iron Man) while others find him fulfilling all the characteristics of James Bond villains.

Musk was born and raised in South Africa before moving to the USA. He started his first company Zip2 with his brother. He sold it and used the proceeds to start X.com which merged with a rival to create PayPal. He used his PayPal riches to start his future businesses.

All his current businesses started to build innovative products that were seen to be something beyond the current technical capabilities. With SpaceX he has shown that there is scope for private companies in outer space. SpaceX has reduced the costs of launches by creating reusable components.

His eventual goal is to help humankind colonize Mars. As part of testing the Falcon Heavy launcher in 2018, Musk sent Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload “Starman”, a mannequin dressed in a spacesuit, occupies the driver’s seat. It was a quirky way of showing the ability to send payloads to Mars.

Tesla, another of his companies, has made electric cars popular and mainstream by breaking the perception that they are not powerful. He has also creatively minimized pain related to charging by designing swappable batteries and a network of charging stations.

Tesla is also leading the way in self-driven vehicles. Autopilot mode in Tesla can navigate through traffic, recognizing signals, signs, pedestrians and other vehicles.

Less known companies of Elon Musk

Solar City is providing new ways to harness and store solar energy. They created innovative solar roof tiles that are stronger than traditional shingles. They have also created a solution to store solar energy so that it can be used at night. Solar City has been able to provide these solutions at scale during disasters and in areas where providing grid power is difficult.

His Borring Inc. provides new thinking around solving city gridlocks. He is also co-founder of OpenAI which researches in AI. Musk is vocal about AI being an existential threat to humanity.

Musk has been at the forefront of advances in multiple areas. His quest to advance science and technological capabilities is impacting our lives now and will change the course of the future forever. This is the reason he has been compared to the fictional Tony Stark multiple times. No wonder Musk had a cameo in Iron Man 2.

Maverick lifestyle

Musk has achieved a lot in the business world but that hasn’t stopped him from living a colorful life. His quirky sense of humor has made him a darling of the internet. He reviews and shares memes on Twitter and provides ready soundbites. His of the cuff tweets have gotten him in trouble with regulators but has provided him a platform to cut through the noise created by overly negative Tesla analysts.

The love life of Elon Musk

Musk is dating Claire Elise Boucher aka Grimes with whom he had a son named X Æ A-Xii. There were speculations of break up after the revelation of his secret trysts with his previous girlfriend, actress and model Amber Heard. However, his son proved lucky for him and things seem to be cool between Musk and Grimes.

He has also dated and married actress Talulah Riley. His first wife was Justine Wilson with whom he shares custody of five sons.

Riley and Musk shared a complicated relationship. They started dating in 2008 and got married in 2010. In March 2012, Musk sought a divorce from Riley. However, in July 2013 the divorced couple remarried. In another U-turn, Elon filed for divorce on 31 December 2014. The second divorce was finalised in October 2016.