Who is Elon Musk?
Elon Reeve Musk FRS (born June 28, 1971) is an entrepreneur and business magnate. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; early stage investor CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. A centibillionaire, Musk is one of the richest people in the world.
Musk was born to a Canadian mother and South African father and raised in Pretoria, South Africa. He briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada aged 17 to attend Queen's University.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Zip2
In 1995, Musk, Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded web software company Zip2 with funds from angel investors They housed the venture at a small rented office in Palo Alto. The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow page Musk says that before the company became successful, he could not afford an apartment and instead rented an office and slept on the couch and showered at the YMCA, and shared one computer with his brother. According to Musk, "The website was up during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time."
X.com and PayPal
In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company. The startup was one of the first online banks to be federally insured, and, within its initial months, over 200,000 customers joined the service The company's investors saw Musk as inexperienced and had him replaced with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year The following year, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to prevent unnecessary competition Founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel Confinity had its own money-transfer service, PayPal, which was more popular than X.com's service Within the merged company, Musk returned as CEO. Musk's preference for Microsoft software over Linux created a rift in the company and caused Thiel to resign. Due to resulting technological issues and lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in September 2000 Under Thiel, the company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.7%—received over $100 million
In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, explaining it has sentimental value.
Tesla
Musk next to a Tesla Model S in 2011 at the Tesla Fremont Factory
Tesla, Inc.—originally Tesla Motors—was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement. Musk led the Series A round of investment in 2004, joining Tesla's board of directors as chairman Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008 A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others.
Managerial style and treatment of employees
Musk's managerial style and treatment of his employees has been heavily criticized One person who worked closely with Musk said he exhibits "a high level of degenerate behavior" such as paranoia and bullying Another described him as exhibiting "total and complete pathological sociopathy" Business Insider reported that Tesla employees were told not to walk past Musk's desk because of his "wild firing rampages".The Wall Street Journal reported that, after Musk insisted on branding his vehicles as "self-driving", he faced criticism from his engineers, some of whom resigned in response, with one stating that Musk's "reckless decision making... ha[d] potentially put customer lives at risk".
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