Elon Musk

Elon Musk is the well-known successful South-African born American entrepreneur and inventor who has set his goals beyond just our home planet Earth. By the age of 10 he purchased his first computer and by 12 had already sold his first video game, coded and programmed by himself. Musk left South Africa in 1992 and traveled to the United States to attend the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Physics. He went on to study applied physics and materials science at Stanford University, however dropped out after the second day and at the age of 24 started his own first online company, Zip2, which provided online content publishing software for news organizations.

Zip2 was later sold to Compaq for over $300 million, of which Musk’s shares got him about $22 million, enough for him to start his second internet company X.com. X.com, an online bank where Musk developed his innovative method of securely transferring money via users email addresses, and later merged with the online company Confinity, renaming the company Paypal and focusing solely on global payment transfers. Musk was instrumental in propelling Paypal into a successful global e-commerce business, eventually leading to Ebay’s purchase of Paypal 2002 for $1.5 billion, laying the foundation for Paypal to become the world’s largest online payment system.

Always having his sights set on the cosmos, Musk started the rocket and space transport company Space Exploration Technologies Company in the same year, which made history in 2012 when it became the first privately held company to successfully deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Musk is also the co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors (2003), which manufactures electric vehicles in the US. He is also co-founder and Chairman of SolarCity (2006), America’s largest solar power systems provider.

Musk has invested most of his personal wealth and time into these three companies, reflecting his devotion to causes global in scope for the benefit of humanity. He believes that there are three industries that are critical to the future of humanity, the internet, clean energy, and space exploration. He has earned countless awards for both entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to his work, and is even said have been the inspiration for the character featured in the movie “Iron Man.” Elon Musk’s accomplishments and continued efforts are a global inspiration to continued cooperation between the great nations of the world to secure humanity’s future.