10 Untold Facts about Elon Musk You Didn't Know

Elon Musk is a successful entrepreneur that has been creating and building things like a rocket and digging tunnels under Los Angeles. He has also done many other incredible things, including creating Tesla cars, SpaceX rockets and the Hyperloop.

Based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes’ most up-to-date billionaire list as of December 8, 2022, Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of roughly $171 billion.

The list of untold facts about Elon Musk continues. He is also the author of numerous patents in fields as diverse as pneumatics, artificial intelligence, solar power and reusability. His unique business personality has made him a household name.

Elon Musk’s Early Life and Achievements

Born on July 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, Elon Musk grew up in a middle-class family. His father was an engineer, and his mother was a teacher. As a child, Musk enjoyed playing video games and studying physics. In high school, he developed an interest in computer programming and started a company with three friends to design and sell video games.

According to Esquire, he was “the youngest and shortest person in his school.” His mother, Maye, said he was shy and reserved, preferring books over sports, which ran counter to South Africa’s hyper-macho norms.

Errol Musk, Musk’s father, told Biz News that when his son was 12, he was brutally beaten by classmates, and his father didn’t recognize him when he went to the hospital. Two weeks were lost as Musk recovered in the hospital. As a result of the event, Musk was expelled.

Before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School, Musk spent a year at the prestigious, English-speaking Waterkloof House Preparatory School. He was a self-proclaimed nerd who had trouble making friends in social settings.

In 1998, Musk moved to Toronto to attend Queen’s University. While there, he began working on his first business: Zip2. The company created a web search engine that became the most popular in the world. In 2002, he sold the company for $307 million.

In 2003, Musk founded X.com, an online payment system that became the second largest in the world after PayPal. Two years later, he sold X.com for $380 million to eBay.

In 2006, Musk founded Tesla Motors to create affordable electric cars that the masses could use. The company faced many challenges early on but eventually succeeded in making electric cars commercially viable. In 2018, Tesla announced it would move its operations from Fremont to a new plant in Nevada due to increasing competition from other automobile companies.

In 2007, Musk founded SpaceX to develop reusable rockets capable of taking people into space and transporting cargo back to Earth. SpaceX has achieved several milestones, including launching two astronauts into orbit.

Musk, a prolific Twitter user, admitted in April 2022 that he owned 9.2 per cent of the company.

The company’s response was to give Musk a position on the board, which he accepted but turned down a few days later.

Following untold fact about Elon Musk is that he proposed to purchase Twitter for $54.20 per share in a bear embrace letter he delivered to the company’s board.

Twitter’s board put a poison pill clause in place to prevent Musk from amassing an even more significant stake. Still, the board finally approved Musk’s bid when he reported $46.5 billion in committed funding for the purchase in a securities filing.

Musk sought to get out of the contract in July of 2022, citing Twitter’s omission of critical data on false accounts. The corporation filed suit against Musk to compel him to fulfil his contractual obligations.

On October 28, 2022, after months of legal fighting, the billionaire finally realized his goal to purchase the social media site, and Musk assumed ownership of Twitter.

As a follow-up to his Twitter acquisition announcement, Musk has (jokingly?) stated his desire to acquire Coca-Cola and reinstate cocaine into the beverage’s recipe. Elon Musk’s fortune is $285 billion, so he could have some problem affording the company’s price tag of $290 billion.

Exciting Facts About Elon Musk

Elon Musk, one of our most innovative entrepreneurs, has had an exciting life – from being a computer programmer at age 12 to founding SpaceX and Tesla. And while you may know that Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink, here are some untold facts about Elon Musk that you might not have known before:

1. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Musk worked as a software engineer for PayPal.

2. He founded PayPal in 2002 with fellow Stanford graduates Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek. At the time of its IPO in 2004, it was worth $1 billion.

3. Musk co-founded Tesla Motors with Martin Eberhard and JB Straubel in 2003. Initially funded by Elon’s father (who remains Tesla’s largest shareholder), the company went public in 2010 at $17 per share and has since generated over $5 billion in revenue.

4. In 2007, he co-founded SolarCity with two other entrepreneurs to expand solar energy access and utilization across the U.S., which became one of the world’s leading installers of rooftop solar systems within just four years of inception (and still ranks number one today).

5. In 2013, he founded The Boring Company with Dennis McClendon to develop tunnels under Los Angeles to reduce highway congestion; the project is still in development.

6. In 2017, he co-founded The Hyperloop with SpaceX co-founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The Hyperloop is a high-speed transportation system that consists of a pod that sits on an air pillow and is propelled through a tube at speeds of up to 800 mph.

7. He’s also invested in several other startups, including Home Depot, Zipcar, and Palantir Technologies.

8. In 2013, he was ranked #1 on Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of $13.7 billion.

9. He was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2017.

10. On September 29, 2018, another untold fact about Elon Musk is that he announced his plan to create a space elevator. This project has yet to receive any funding or concrete details but is still being pursued by the entrepreneur.

Conclusion

Musk started as a computer hacker and entrepreneur, founding companies like Zip2 and PayPal. Then one of the untold facts about Elon Musk turned his attention to developing innovative technology for businesses, including Tesla Motors and SpaceX. These ventures have made him one of the wealthiest people in the world and helped him become known as a visionary leader in the tech industry.