Elon Musk
By Johan Huang
September 2015
BEGINNings / SCHOOL
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28 June 1971: Born in Pretoria, South Africa
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1983: Writes and designs a video game called Blastar; sells for $500
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1989-1991: Attends college at Queen's University (Ontario) but transfers to University of Pennsylvania; completes BS in Economics and a BA with a major in Physics
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1995: Begins graduate program at Stanford; drops out after two days to found Zip2
Spacex
- Founded in 2002
- Musk is currently CEO and CTO
- Develops and manufactures space launch vehicles
- Create a "true spacefaring civilization"
- Reduce cost of spaceflight
SOlarCity
- Musk provided initial concept and early funds
- Co-founded in 2006 by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive
- Second largest provider of solar power systems in the US
Tesla Motors
- Incorporated in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning
- First product was the Roadster
- Roadster based on Lotus Elise but featured all-electric drivetrain
- Musk took over as CEO and product architect in 2008
How did he do it?
- Creative thinker & very innovative
- "Brains of an engineer, guts of an entrepreneur"
- "How can I make this better?" mentality
- Described as a real-life Iron Man/Tony Stark