Who is Elon Musk: If you have been reading news, which we advise you should, you must have heard about Elon Musk- A man who needs no introduction. Elon Musk is a South African-born billionaire, who is known for founding PayPal, electric car company Tesla, and SpaceX.
He is crowned as the richest man in the world- certainly ahead of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates- and is famous for his net worth and high-profile relationships. Recently, Elon Musk has been making news due to his recent intention to acquire the micro-blogging platform, Twitter, Inc.
Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, and space exploration business, SpaceX, are renowned companies. It is because of these companies that he gained a lot of popularity all around the globe over the past decade. Mr. Musk further shot to fame when Forbes reported his net worth of $253.7 billion in May 2022.
However, the number continues to fluctuate frequently as most of his wealth is tied to Tesla’s stock price which goes up and down depending upon the movement of stock markets. Long story short, his worth crosses the GDP of over 150 countries and territories as per World Bank data. Mr. Musk’s wealth is ~10% of the entire GDP of the United Kingdom.
This article talks about Who is Elon Musk and how did he become the richest man on earth. Keep reading to find out more.
Who is Elon Musk & How did He become rich? What’s the story?
Elon Musk belongs to a wealthy family in South Africa. His mother, Maye, was a dietitian and model who came from Canada. His father, Errol, was an engineer. In 2021, the billionaire entrepreneur made an announcement that he has Asperger’s syndrome.
That is to say, he interprets and evaluates the world around him in a different manner in comparison to other people. As expected, Mr. Musk found his interest in computers when he was a child. In fact, at the age of just 12, he even designed a video game.
He then landed in Canada at the age of 17, studied at Queens University, Ontario, and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. There he studied physics and business. Elon Musk made the bulk of his fortune with the help of several successful ventures rather than one big venture.
In 1995, he started an online business directory, Zip2, with his younger brother during the dot-com boom. The company helped newspapers come online. The business was then sold for $307 million to Compaq, and Elon Musk made a whopping ~$22 million from this deal.
After this deal, he spent ~$1 million on a McLaren sports car. The remaining proceeds were invested into an online bank, PayPal. Mr. Musk founded PayPal when he was 27. At the age of 31, he sold PayPal to eBay for $1.4 billion. Elon Musk made ~$100 million from this successful deal and founded SpaceX with the majority of the proceeds.
In 2004, Mr. Musk joined Tesla, founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, as one of the first investors. In just a year i.e., 2005, Tesla unveiled its first car on the road, the Tesla Roadster. Both firms, Tesla and SpaceX, struggled initially. But SpaceX came into the news in 2008 after it penned a deal worth $1.6 billion with NASA.
Tesla hit bourses in 2010 at just $17 per share, making a market capitalization of only $1.33 billion. At that time, Mr. Musk was only 39 years old. Last year, Tesla reached a valuation of $1 trillion. In 2012, Tesla unveiled the first high-volume production car, the Tesla Model S. Later on, in the year 2017, the Tesla Model 3, which became the best-selling car of the company, was launched.
Then came the year 2021, a year Mr. Musk will never forget. SpaceX touched a valuation of more than $100 billion, based on the financing rounds. Due to its phenomenal success, the company sealed various contracts with NASA.
Elon Musk is quite popular in the cryptocurrency world too. Both his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, are invested in Bitcoin. With Mr. Musk tweeting now and then, Dogecoin’s price has fluctuated quite a lot in the past. Elon Musk’s fortune has grown exponentially in the past few years due to Tesla’s share price, which tripled in value in 2021.
Getting sight of the Twitter deal
On April 4, 2022, Elon Musk purchased a 9.1% stake in Twitter, Inc. a Few days later, he announced a takeover bid. Initially, the social media giant sought to halt this takeover. Later on, they agreed to sell Twitter for $44 billion to Elon Musk. However, the billionaire entrepreneur decided to put the deal on hold after he feared that there are more spam or fake Twitter accounts than the company officially stated.
In Closing
While most entrepreneurs shot to fame because of their unique ideas or running one business successfully, Elon Musk has seen his fortune grow from a number of businesses.
That is all for the article on Who is Elon Musk, and how did he become the richest man on earth, Hope you liked it. Happy Investing!
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