Elon Reeve Musk (born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria) is an American businessman, investor and tycoon. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; Angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc; founder of The Boring Company; and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. With an estimated net worth of about $252 billion as of April 2022, Musk is the richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the Forbes list of billionaires in real-time.
Elon Musk was born to a Canadian mother and a white South African father, and grew up in Pretoria, South Africa. He studied briefly at the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at the age of 17. He enrolled at Queen’s University and moved to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he earned a degree in economics and physics. In 1995, he moved to California to attend Stanford University, but instead decided to pursue a business career, co-founding the web software company Zip2 with his brother Kimbal. The company was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999. That same year, Musk co-founded online banking X.com, which merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal. The company was purchased by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
In 2002, Elon Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company, of which he is the CEO and chief engineer. In 2004, he joined electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.) as president and product architect, becoming its CEO in 2008. In 2006, he helped found SolarCity, a solar energy services company that was later acquired by Tesla and became Tesla Energy. Later, in 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a non-profit research company that promotes AI-enabled intelligence. In 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain-computer interfaces, and founded The Boring Company, a tunneling company. He also agreed to buy the leading US social network Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion. Musk also proposed the Hyperloop.
He has been criticized for making unscientific and controversial statements. In 2018, he was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for falsely tweeting that he had secured funding for a private acquisition of Tesla. He reached an agreement with the SEC but did not admit guilt, temporarily resigning as chairman and agreeing to limitations on his use of Twitter. In 2019, he won a defamation lawsuit brought against him by a British speleologist who advised him on rescuing Tham Luang Cave. Musk has also been criticized for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and for his other views on issues such as artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, and public transportation.
Childhood, youth and training
His parents, Errol Musk and Maye Haldeman; met in high school. He was a South African engineer and real estate developer who was once co-owner of an emerald mine in Zambia, near Lake Tanganyika. His mother is a nutritionist and model; originally from Canada, she moved to Pretoria in 1950. They married in 1970 and in three years had three children: Elon (June 28, 1971), Kimbal (September 20, 1972) and Tosca Musk (July 20, 1974). The family was very wealthy in Elon’s youth; his father once said, “We had so much money that sometimes we couldn’t even close our safe.”
Elon Musk grew up in a big house with his brothers and several cousins. Her mother worked at home as a nutrition consultant. On weekends, she also worked as a model, so her children barely saw their parents and had a lot of freedom to pursue their interests.
“I was raised by books. Books, and then my parents.”
Elon Musk
At the age of nine, he began programming a Commodore VIC-20 that had 8 kilobytes of RAM. After, at the age of ten, he learned to program. At the age of twelve, he designed his first program, a space game called Blastar, and sold it for the equivalent of $500 to the South African magazine PC and Office Technology. In 1984, they published the 167 lines of source code and examined “In this game, you have to destroy an alien cargo ship carrying deadly hydrogen bombs and state beam machines. The program makes good use of sprites and animations, and in this sense it is worth reading.»
The money he earned on programming was spent on comics, computers, and in role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons.
In 1979, to escape the mistreatment of her husband, who was beating her, Maye divorced and moved to Durban. Errol filed the terms of the divorce in court. In 1981, Elon decided to move to Johannesburg with his father. Kimbal joined them four years later.
At school, he had no friends and was abused by his peers. After taking classes in karate, judo, wrestling and at sixteen he reached 180 cm, he began to defend himself. Aware that it would be easier to immigrate from Canada to the United States, she applied for a Canadian passport through her mother, who was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, to American parents. While waiting for documents, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months; this allowed him to avoid conscription in South Africa.
As many of their parents lived in Western Canada, in 1989 Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk, along with Maye Haldeman, moved to Kingston, Ontario. When he arrived, all of Maye’s savings were blocked, so he had to work in several jobs. He rented a small apartment in Toronto where they spent three weeks removing the staples from the floor and the wallpaper from the walls. In doing so, she cut off her hand and jeopardized her work as a model.
With the first money she earned, Maye bought a thick carpet so they could sleep on the floor of the apartment, and a computer for Elon. She then worked as a researcher at the University of Toronto and simultaneously taught nutrition and modeling classes two nights a week, also worked as a nutrition consultant and studied for her second master’s degree in dietetics. Her three children had to get scholarships, take out loans and work to study at university. Often they could not eat red meat, even once a week.
In 1992, Elon Musk was awarded a scholarship to study economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his degrees in economics and physics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He then enrolled at Stanford to do his PhD, but within two days he gave up to start his own business. In 1995, he intended to work for Netscape and went to their offices, but he didn’t dare to talk to anyone out of shyness.
One of his professors at the University of Pennsylvania was CEO of a company in Los Gatos, Silicon Valley, dedicated to the search for electrolytic ultracapacitors for electric vehicles. Elon worked for a summer at Pinnacle Research. These ultracapacitors had a very high energy density, but their chemical components were very expensive and sold in milligrams because there were very few mines that extracted them and they were not scalable for mass production.
After graduating with his bachelor’s degree, and inspired by innovators such as Nikola Tesla, he decided to enter three areas in which he considered there were “significant problems”, as he would later indicate himself: “One of them was the Internet, another was renewable energy, and the other was space.”
Elon Musk career
Zip2
Kimbal accompanied Elon Musk on a road trip across the United States in a month, from Silicon Valley to Philadelphia, where Elon had to finish his studies at Penn. During the trip, they talked a lot about starting a business. In 1995, Musk enrolled in Stanford University’s Doctoral program in Applied Physics and Materials Science, but within two days he dropped out of classes so he could found Zip2, along with his brother Kimbal Musk and friend Greg Curry. Elon Musk was the CEO of Zip2.
Zip2 has managed the development, hosting and maintenance of specific websites for media companies. This allowed them to establish a web presence through auto-editing by adding maps and routes to go door-to-door to directions (a company that anticipated what would be Google Maps combined with Yelp). To that end, they obtained the free use of Navteq’s mapping, which had cost $300 million. They applied the Java language to send maps and directions as vector images rather than bitmaps, which were very slow to transmit over the nascent Internet. Elon engaged in programming and engineering, while Kimbal made the sales and sought capital.
Elon was an immigrant on a temporary visa and Kimbal was an illegal immigrant to the United States. Due to the lack of financial resources, Kimbal and Elon lived for a while in the 4m x 9m zip2 office and used the YMCA facilities to shower. They ate very cheaply at Jack in the Box. When they could afford it, they moved into an apartment and Kimbal cooked for all the Zip2 staff. His sister Tosca moved from Toronto to San Francisco and worked with them on Zip2.
As of February 1999, he managed nearly 200 websites, including New York Today, which was a local Directory of the New York Times. Zip2 also managed part of the Hearst Corporation, Times Mirror, Knight-Ridder and Pulitzer Publishing chains. Zip2 was sold to Compaq Computer in 1999 for $307 million, of which Elon received $22 million.
X.com and PayPal
In March 1999, Elon Musk, Ho, Harris Fricker and Cristopher Payne founded X.com as a financial start-up. Musk initially invested $12 million. Five months after its founding, Harris Fricker threatened that if he wasn’t CEO, he would leave with the others to start another company. Elon Musk told him he should. Fricker, Ho and other key engineers left X.com. Fricker had a successful career as CEO of GMP Capital. Payne founded a private equity firm in Toronto.
X.com was one of the first online banks. He had to fight against many banking regulations. Their deposits were insured by the FDIC.
Confinity Inc. was a Silicon Valley software company founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek as a crypto company processing electronic payments. In late 1999, Confinity launched its flagship product, PayPal, which, via the infrared port, allowed money to be sent between users of PDAs such as the Palm Pilot.
In March 2000, X.com and Confinity decided that it made more sense to join forces than to waste money on advertising to attract the same customers. By combining the PayPal product with the sophisticated services of X.com merged into a new entity called X.com of which Elon Musk was named CEO to be the largest shareholder of the resulting merged company. In just a few weeks, X.com raised $100 million in investment from Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. At that time, X.com had more than one million customers.
The two companies have tried to bring their cultures closer together with little success. There have been battles over the design of the company’s technological infrastructure. The Confinity team, led by Levchin, wanted to use open-source Linux software, while Musk wanted to use Microsoft’s data center software.
X.com have faced tough battles over technology infrastructure, online fraud and branding. In September 2000, tensions within the management team increased.
In January 2000, Elon Musk married Justine Wilson. The work had not allowed them to go on their honeymoon. Nine months later, they planned to combine business and leisure to take a trip in search of investment capital and finish it on honeymoon at the Sydney Olympics. At 10:30 p..m m., as Musk flew, an extraordinary meeting of X.com was held during which Elon Musk was removed as CEO and Peter Thiel was appointed.
Elon Musk canceled his honeymoon, flew the first plane to California and asked the board to reconsider its decision. Musk eventually agreed to the reorganization and although his influence in the company diminished, Musk remained an advisor and continued to invest by increasing his position as the largest shareholder. In June 2001, X.com changed the name of its PayPal product to PayPal Inc.
In 2002, PayPal began trading on the stock exchange. At that time, the company had a turnover of $240 million per year with PayPal. When eBay showed interest in buying PayPal most wanted to sell as soon as possible. Musk and Mortiz asked the board to reject the first offers. In July 2002, eBay increased the offer to $1500 million and the board and Musk agreed to the sale.
In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1500 million in inventory. Prior to the sale, Musk was the majority shareholder, holding 11.7% of PayPal shares.
With the sale, Elon Musk earned $180 million after taxes. He spent $100 million on the founding of SpaceX, $70 million on Tesla, Inc. and $10 million to SolarCity. Several members of the PayPal team have founded their own businesses, including YouTube (Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim), LinkedIn (Reid Hoffman), Yelp (Russel Simmons, Jeremy Stoppelman), Palantir Technologies, and Jammer.
Others, like Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman and Botha, have become big investors in the tech industry. In 2015, eBay separated from PayPal and made it an independent company.
Elon Musk and SpaceX
In 2002, Elon Musk began studying the feasibility of sending a rover to Mars. Each Delta-2 rocket cost between $50 million and $60 million per mission and at least two missions were needed. He made three trips to Russia and tried unsuccessfully to buy ICBM intercontinental rockets without the nuclear warheads. On the plane back with his partners Mike Griffin and Jim Cantrell, Elon showed them a spreadsheet he had been working on for months. It was SpaceX’s first prototype where he detailed all parts of the company.
The design would use reusable rockets. It would have a vertical integration strategy. In the needs of customers, there was an emerging niche to launch small satellites. It analyzed the cost-benefit criteria. The business model would be that of a private aerospace company. He also studied the physics behind the structure and launch of the rocket.
In June 2002, Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), of which he is currently the CEO and Chief Technology Officer. SpaceX is dedicated to the development and production of space shuttles, with a focus on cost reduction and high reliability. The first two transport rockets developed by SpaceX are the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, and its first capsule is the Dragon.
On December 23, 2008, SpaceX signed a $1600 million contract with NASA for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, replacing the Space Shuttle after its withdrawal in 2011. Initially, the Falcon 9 and the Dragon will replace the cargo transport function of the shuttle, while the personnel transport function will be provided by the Soyuz. However, SpaceX designed the Falcon 9/Dragon for the transport of astronauts, and the Augustine Commission recommended that the transport of astronauts be handled by commercial companies such as SpaceX.
Elon Musk sees space exploration as an important step in the expansion, if not preservation, of human consciousness. Musk said that life on multiple planets can serve as a defense against threats to the survival of the human species.
“An asteroid or supervolcano could destroy us, and we face risks that dinosaurs have never seen: a manufactured virus, the unintentional creation of a mini black hole, catastrophic climate change, or a technology we don’t yet know could be the end of what we know. Humanity has evolved for million of years, but over the past sixty years, our nuclear weapons have brought with it the possibility of extinguishing us. Sooner or later, we must extend our lives beyond that green and blue ball or we will disappear.”
Musk’s goal is to reduce the cost of manned space travel by a factor of 100. He founded SpaceX with $100 million of his previous cumulative fortune and continues to be the CEO and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of his Hawthorne, California-based company.
In seven years, SpaceX designed the Falcon family of rockets and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft from scratch. In September 2009, falcon 1 became the first privately funded liquid fuel vehicle to put a satellite into Earth orbit. NASA chose SpaceX to be part of the first program that would hand over responsibility for transporting goods to the International Space Station to private companies. This contract, with a minimum value of $1600 million and a maximum value of $3100 million, has become a key part of the space station. In addition to these services, SpaceX’s goals include reducing the costs of orbital flights and increasing their reliability, both by a factor of ten, while creating the first reusable orbital launcher. In the coming years, Musk will focus on sending astronauts to the International Space Station, and even Mars.
Starlink
Starlink is a project of the company SpaceX for the creation of a constellation of Internet satellites with the aim of providing high-speed Internet service, low latency and low-cost global coverage. In 2017, regulatory requirements were completed to launch 11,943 satellites by the mid-2020s. SpaceX also plans to sell satellites for military use,51 scientific and exploration. In November 2018, the company received approval from the U.S. Government Agency (FCC) to deploy 7518 broadband satellites, in addition to the 4425 approved in March of the same year. Development began in 2015 and the first satellite prototypes were launched on February 22, 2018.
The launch of the first 60 satellites took place on May 23, 2019, and the start of commercial operations of the constellation is expected to begin in 2020. Research and development for the project is taking place at SpaceX’s facilities in Redmond, Washington. Internet traffic via a geostationary satellite has a minimum theoretical latency of at least 477 ms from one user to another but, in practice, this latency is 600 ms or more. StarLink’s satellites would orbit between 1/30 and 1/105 of the distance from geostationary orbits and thus offer latencies between 7 and 30 ms, comparable to or lower than existing cable or fiber networks. In May 2018, SpaceX estimated that the total cost of developing and building the constellation would approach $10 billion.
Tesla
In 2003, JB Straubel and Elon Musk visited the company AC Propulsion, which had a prototype electric sports car based on a gasoline car kit to which they had adapted an electric motor and lithium-ion batteries. The prototype accelerated from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 4 seconds and had a range of 300 kilometers. For months, Elon Musk tried to convince them to market the vehicle, but they weren’t interested in doing so. Ac Propulsion members put him in touch with Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning and founded Tesla Motors with the intention of making an electric sports car.
In April 2004, Elon Musk invested $6.3 million in Tesla Motors. He wasn’t the only investor, but he contributed 98% of the funding. Other investors included Eberhard and smaller venture capital firms. Musk continued to invest in all subsequent rounds. Following the 2008 financial crisis and Tesla’s forced retirements, Musk agreed to take over as CEO in 2008.
Elon designed the logos and lettering for Tesla and SpaceX.
In 2006, he announced his master plan for Tesla:
“Build a sports car. Use this money to build an affordable car. Use this money to build an even more affordable car. While doing above, also provide zero-emission electric power generation options.”
They underestimated the capital needed to set up a car manufacturing company. Effectively, they planned to spend $25 million before the first delivery and ended up spending $140 million. They bought Lotus Elise bodies on which they installed batteries, an electric motor and controllers that increased the weight by more than 60%, so they invalidated the original crash tests. In the end, the Tesla Roadster had only 7% of parts in common with the Lotus Elise.
The assembly of the components was carried out in a facility leased by a Ford dealer.
Elon has repeatedly claimed that Martin Eberhard is the worst person he has ever worked with. Financial difficulties almost ruined Tesla. As of June 2012, 2100 Tesla Roadsters had been sold in 31 countries. The Tesla Roadster two-seater sports car cost around $100,000.
“Tesla’s fundamental intention, at least my motivation, was to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. That’s why I opened the patents. This is the only way to better transition to sustainable energy.”
The Tesla name was a trademark registered by an individual in 1995 and Marc Tappening managed to negotiate its purchase for $75,000.
In February 2016, after ten years of effort, they bought the tesla.com domain for $10 million from Stu Grossman, who did not use it to host websites.
Since Tesla’s early days, Elon has remembered:
“I was literally told that it was impossible and that I am a huge liar. But I have a car and you can drive it. It’s not like a dashing unicorn. It’s real. Go for a drive. It’s unbelievable. How can you be in denial?”
Learning from the mistakes made with the Roadster, they designed from scratch a luxury electric car with 5 doors and the performance of a sports car. It had telematics software updates and could make trips by charging on Tesla’s fast charger network, superchargers.
In October 2010, Tesla bought the old NUMMI factory, which it had made for GM and Toyota, from which they could barely use machines or tools and most went to scrap.
Suppliers of automotive components were reluctant to sell them quality parts and Tesla was forced to manufacture them vertically so as not to disappear.
On June 22, 2012, production of the Tesla Model S 5-seater electric liftback plus two child seats began. In 2020, the Tesla Model S P100D Ludicrous was on sale with acceleration from 0 to 100 km/ h in 2.3 seconds, making it the world’s fastest production car in acceleration.
The Tesla Model X is an electric SUV manufactured by Tesla Motors based on the Model S platform. The gull rear doors are hinged and open upwards.
It began deliveries to the US market in September 2015. In July 2016, Musk released the second part of Tesla’s master plan:
“Create beautiful solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage. Expand the electric vehicle product line to meet all major segments [including small SUVs and pickup trucks]. Develop autonomous driving capability that is 10 times safer than manual with massive fleet learning. Allow your car to make money for you when you’re not using it.”
In July 2016, Tesla began developing its Autopilot hardware and software within the company, ending its collaboration with Mobileye. In November 2016, SolarCity was acquired by Tesla, Inc.
The Tesla Model 3 is an electric vehicle that was announced with a base price of $35,000. Its production began in mid-2017. In 2018, 2019, and 2020, it was the best-selling electric model in the world. In 2019, the Tesla Model 3 was the seventh best-selling passenger car in the United States with 154,836 units.
Also, on January 2019, Elon Musk traveled to China for the start of work on Gigafactory Shanghai, which was Tesla’s first major factory outside the United States. The time between the start of construction and the production of the first cars was less than one year.
The Tesla Model Y is an electric crossover that shares 75% of the parts with the Tesla Model 3. Their deliveries began in March 2020.
By 2020, Tesla had sold one million vehicles accumulating its Roadster, Model S, Model X and Model 3 models and the imminent production of the Tesla Semi, 2020 Tesla Roadster and Tesla Cybertruck had been announced.
All Tesla vehicles manufactured since 2014 come standard with electronic components for Autopilot operation (driver assistance) and, since April 2019, all Tesla vehicles have activated the basic functions of the system. Advanced fully autonomous driving capabilities are optional. Autopilot capabilities are updated telematically without taking the cars to the workshop. The Autopilot system trains a deep learning neural network with data it collects from the entire fleet of Tesla vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware, which as of March 2020 were already 950,000. This made Tesla the company that had collected the most real data for autonomous driving in all sorts of situations.
In early 2020, Tesla became the second largest automaker by market capitalization after Toyota.
As of January 2016, Musk held 28.9 million shares of Tesla, or 22 percent of the company.
SolarCity
SolarCity is a photovoltaic products and services company founded in 2006, of which its cousin, Lyndon Rive, is the CEO and co-founder. Elon Musk is the lead investor and chairman of solarcity’s board of directors. The idea for the project came when Musk participated in the Burning Man festival in 2004.
Elon Musk doesn’t run the day-to-day operations of the company. In 2011, SolarCity was the largest supplier of solar energy systems in the United States. Their goal is to expand solar energy and make it as affordable as possible. The underlying motivation for founding SolarCity and Tesla Motors is to fight global warming. In 2016, SolarCity merged with Tesla, Inc.
Molecular Halcyon
He is a member of the Board of Directors, along with other founders of PayPal, Luke Nosek and Peter Thiel. Halcyon Molecular was founded with the aim of researching drugs, thus prolonging longevity.
Tesla Energy
On April 30, 2015, Tesla introduced two energy storage systems: Powerwall and Powerpack. The Tesla Powerwall is a lithium-ion battery used as a backup solution in a home’s power grid and can store electrical energy from renewable energy generation, such as solar or wind installations. , or store electricity at night when electricity is cheaper. It can be installed outdoors or indoors and does not require a closed room. It also makes it possible to carry out an electrical installation in remote locations without access to the network.
Elon Musk and Neuralink
Neuralink is a nanobiotechnology company founded by Musk that aims to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence. The company was founded in 2016 and first became known to the general public in March 2017. The company is focused on creating devices that can be implanted in the human brain, with the ultimate goal of helping humans merge with software and keep pace with advances in artificial intelligence. These improvements could improve memory or allow for more direct interaction with computing devices.
OpenAI
OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company that aims to promote and develop user-friendly artificial intelligence, so that it benefits humanity as a whole.
The Boring Company
The Boring Company is an excavation and infrastructure company founded by Elon Musk in late 2016, after first mentioning the idea on his Twitter account. Musk claimed that the difficulty of Los Angeles’ traffic and the limitations of a 2D transportation network inspired the project. In February 2017, the company began digging a test trench 9 meters wide, 15 meters long and 4.5 meters deep at SpaceX’s Los Angeles offices, as construction at this location does not require a permit. In early 2018, the Boring Company separated from SpaceX by forming a separate company. 90% of the shares went to Elon Musk and 10% to the first employees. In December 2018, 6% of the shares were reallocated to SpaceX.
The company’s goal is to improve the excavation method and speed sufficiently to establish an economically feasible underground network of tunnels.
“If we think about tunnels 10, 20 or 30 layers deep (or more), it’s obvious that 3D construction will encompass the transportation needs of any city, regardless of its size.”
In late April 2017, the company began using a TBM to begin construction of a tunnel that could be used at SpaceX, as Musk announced in March of the same year. Moreover, in May 2019, the company won a $48.7 million project to transport people under Las Vegas. In September, preparations and construction began in October 2019. On 15 November 2019, the digging of the first tunnel97 began and ended on 27 December 2019. Musk has announced that it will be operational in 2020.
The method of work of Elon Musk
He uses his version of the scientific method:
- A question arises.
- Gather all possible evidence on the issue.
- He develops evidence-based axioms and tries to assign a probability of truth to each.
- He comes to an evidence-based conclusion to determine: Are these axioms correct? Are they relevant? Do they necessarily lead to this conclusion? With what probability?
- Try to falsify the conclusion. Look for rebuttals from others to help you break your conclusion.
- If no one can invalidate your conclusion, then you’re probably right, but not absolutely right.
Hydrogen
To power an electric car, there were two viable options: batteries or a hydrogen-powered fuel cell.
While other automakers — such as Toyota, Honda, Kia — are betting on hydrogen, Musk has done so for batteries in Tesla vehicles. At the Automotive World News Congress in Detroit in 2015 and answering a question Musk asked in two minutes:
“I don’t want to have a debate about fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). I think they are extremely stupid. It is very difficult to make hydrogen, store it and use it in a car. Hydrogen is an energy storage mechanism. It is not a source of energy. So you have to get the hydrogen out of somewhere. If you take it out of the water, you need to break H2O and electrolysis is an extremely inefficient process. If you take a photovoltaic panel and use its energy to directly charge a battery, instead of breaking water, taking hydrogen, removing oxygen, compressing hydrogen at extremely high pressure (or liquefying it) and putting it in a car and running a fuel cell, it’s almost half as efficient, That’s terrible. Why would you do that?
It does not make sense. Hydrogen has a very low density. It is a pernicious molecule that tries to occupy all the space, produces fragility in the metal and is an invisible gas. If you have a leak, you don’t see it. It is extremely flammable and burns without flame. If you had to choose an energy storage system, hydrogen is the stupidest choice. Choose methane, which is easier, or propane. The best hydrogen fuel cell does not beat current batteries. So, obviously, it doesn’t make sense. This will become evident in the coming years. There is no reason for us to have this debate. My position on this will be super obvious over time. »
Hydrogen fuel cell cars began to be sold commercially in 2013. In 2017, they sold 6475 units worldwide. In 2019, global sales reached 7574 units of the three available models: Hyundai Nexo, Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity. However, in 2019, 2.2 million battery-powered vehicles were sold, of which Tesla sold 367,820 units.
Autonomous driving
A lidar (LIDAR, Light Detection and Ranging or Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) is a device that determines the distance between a laser emitter and an object or surface using a pulsed laser beam. The distance to the object is determined by measuring the delay time between the emission of the pulse and its detection through the reflected signal. In 2019, a LIDAR car sold for about $75,000.
In 2019, in the development of autonomous driving techniques, most companies (Waymo, Ford, Uber and Alphabet’s GM Cruise) used LIDAR while Tesla chose to solve the problem without LIDAR and using a computer that processed camera images to recognize and understand the world.
“They’re all going to throw away LIDAR, that’s my prediction, mark my words. LidAR is a crazy race. Anyone who relies on LIDAR is doomed. Condemned. Expensive sensors that are not necessary. It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive annexes… You’ll see. (…) Once you’ve solved the vision, [LIDAR] is worthless. It’s worthless. So you have expensive hardware that is worth nothing on the car. »
In 2019, Tesla developed and produced its own FSD computer for autonomous driving that processed 2300 fps (frames per second) consuming only 72 watts. Elon Musk said that high-precision GPS maps for autonomous driving were a very bad idea because they led to the system becoming extremely fragile by relying too much on them and not being able to adapt.
As of April 2019, Tesla had 425,000 vehicles equipped with the necessary equipment for autonomous driving. As of March 2020, there were already 950,000 cars that, when on the road, provided Tesla with real (unsimulated) driving data that powered its deep learning neural network for autonomous driving.
Philanthropy
Musk is the chairman of the Musk Foundation, which focuses its philanthropic efforts on science education, pediatric health and clean energy.
He is one of the trustees of the X Prize Foundation, which promotes the use of clean energy. He serves on the boards of the Space Foundation, the National Academy of Aeronautics and Space Engineering, the Planetary Society, and the Space Engineering Advisory Board of Stanford University.
Musk is also a board member of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
In 2010, Musk launched a multi-million-dollar program through his foundation to donate solar energy systems for critical needs in disaster areas, giving preference to areas where SolarCity does not operate and does not intend to establish operations. The reason he chose these areas was to clarify that it was a strictly philanthropic non-profit business.
The first of these pieces of equipment to be used was at a hurricane response center in Alabama that had not received state or federal assistance. In July 2011, the Musk Foundation donated $250,000 to a photovoltaic energy project in Sōma, Fukushima, Japan, that had been devastated by a recent tsunami.
In 2001, Musk intended to carry out the “Oasis on Mars” project, which would bring a miniature experimental greenhouse to Mars, which would contain edible plants that would grow in the Martian regolith. However, he decided to postpone the project indefinitely because he concluded that the fundamental problem preventing humanity from becoming a space civilization is the lack of development of rocket technology. He decided to solve this problem by founding SpaceX so that he could create new interplanetary rockets.
He is one of the signatories of The Giving Pledge formed by millionaires who acquire the moral commitment to give part of their fortune.
In July 2014, comic book artist Matthew Inman and Nikola Tesla’s great-grandson, William Terbo, asked Elon Musk to donate $8 million to build the Tesla Science Center in Wardenclyffe. Musk donated $1 million to the project and agreed to install a Tesla Supercharger in the museum’s parking lot.
In January 2015, Musk donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute to set up a global research program to keep artificial intelligence beneficial to humanity.
In October 2018, in an effort to help solve the lead poisoning water crisis in Flint, Michigan, Musk and the Musk Foundation donated $480,000 to install new fountains with filtration systems so that all schools in Flint could have clean water. By October 2019, they had ensured access to safe drinking water for 30,000 children in the 12 school zones.
Musk is one of the largest donors to the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU.
In October 2019, Musk donated $1 million to the #TeamTrees 20 million tree planting initiative led by members of the YouTube community and in collaboration with the Arbor Day Foundation.
Despite this, philanthropic attitudes must be put to the test. On the 24th and 25th of 2020, Musk published a series of tweets regarding the political crisis in Bolivia of 2019 in Bolivia, in which he talked about the lithium deposits that lie in that country.
Prizes and distinctions
Mikhail Gorbachev presented him in 2006, on behalf of Global Green, with the product design award for Tesla Roadster. In 2007, the Index Design Award awarded him the same model. That year, R&D magazine named Musk Innovator of the Year by SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity.
Inc Magazine awarded him the Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2007 for his work at Tesla and SpaceX. He also received the George Low Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for his outstanding contribution to aerospace transportation in 2008. Musk was recognized for his design of the Falcon 1, the first private vehicle powered by liquid fuel to reach Earth orbit. He was awarded the Von Braun Trophy by the National Space Society in 2008/2009, for his leadership in a significant achievement in space.
He was included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 people who most influenced the world in 2010. Esquire magazine named him one of the 75 most influential people of the twenty-first century. In 2010, he was named Global Automotive Leader of the Year for demonstrating technological leadership and innovation with Tesla Motors. Musk is the youngest man to receive this award. In a survey conducted by the Space Foundation in 2010, Musk ranked No. 10 (tied with rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun) among the most popular space heroes. He was recognized as a living aviation legend the same year by the Kitty Hawk Foundation for creating the successor to the Space Shuttle (F9/Dragon).
In June 2011, Musk received the Heinlein Award for advances in space commercialization. In February of the same year, Forbes magazine included Musk on its list of the “20 Most Powerful CEOs Under 40 in the United States.”
The International Aeronautic Federation, the organization responsible for recording flight recordings, awarded Musk the institution’s highest honor, the FAI Space Gold MEDAL, for designing the first rocket to reach orbit with private funds. Other award winners include Neil Armstrong, Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites and John Glenn.
He received the National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation for Tesla Motors and SolarCity.
He was awarded at Aviation Week 2008 for achieving the world’s most important achievement in the space industry.
In June 2016, Business Insider named Musk one of the “Top 10 Business Visionaries Creating Value for the World,” along with Mark Zuckerberg and Sal Khan. In December of the same year, Musk was ranked 21st on Forbes’ list of the world’s most powerful people.
The Honorary Doctorates of Elon Musk
- Honorary Doctor of Design from the Art Center School in Pasadena.
- Honorary Doctor (DUniv) in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Surrey.
Participation in television
On January 25, 2015, the 12th episode (564 of the total series) of the 26th season of the animated series The Simpsons, titled The Musk Who Fell to Earth, was presented, in which Elon Musk was introduced as a guest star, playing himself. In this story, Musk portrays himself as a man who, having lent his ideas to the further evolution of the automotive industry (without necessarily referring to the firm Tesla, Inc.), decides to travel the country aboard a spaceship with which he lands in the garden of the Simpson family. Quickly, Musk and Homer become friends because some of the latter’s reflections stimulate new ideas in the young inventor. Homer takes him to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant where Elon quickly moves Montgomery Burns from his post, causing the plant to close and generating discontent in society.
After this chapter aired, Musk was unhappy with an expression at the end of it, where Lisa expresses after she leaves that “For a man who loves electric cars, his ship burned a lot of fuel.” Such a joke received the response of Elon who expressed that:
“If after watching The Simpsons, you wonder why SpaceX doesn’t build electric rockets, it’s because it’s impossible.”
Elon Musk interests
He has read many books, including Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Musk described himself as a workaholic who typically devotes between 80 and 100 hours a week to his work at Tesla and SpaceX. On average, he sleeps between 6 and 6 and a half hours a day. On the rare occasions when she has free time, she spends it playing with her children. She has twins and triplets who have been together for two years.
Politics
Politically, Musk has described himself as half-Democratic and half-Republican.
“I’m somewhere in the middle, socially liberal and fiscally conservative.”
In 2018, he claimed he was not a Conservative. “I am registered as an independent voter and I am politically moderate.” Due to the rise of automation and artificial intelligence, Musk supports universal basic income. It also supports direct democracy. He described himself as a socialist.
“I’m actually a socialist. It is simply not the kind that moves resources from the most productive to the least productive, pretending to do good, while causing harm. True socialism seeks the greatest good for all.”
Musk said that the United States is the best country that has ever existed on Earth, that democracy would not exist without the United States, because it prevented its demise in both world wars and in the Cold War. He also claimed that it would be a mistake to say that America is perfect, because it is not, and that America has done bad and stupid things.
Before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, Musk criticized him, saying:
“I feel a little stronger that he’s probably not the right guy. He doesn’t seem to have the kind of character that reflects the United States well.”
After Trump’s inauguration, Musk agreed to serve on Trump’s advisory boards.
In June 2017 and in protest at Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, Musk renounced his participation on advisory boards, declaring: “Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
In August 2019, Musk supported presidential candidate Andrew Yang on Twitter during the Democratic presidential primary, Andrew Yang, whose agenda revolved around the problem of moving work through automation and artificial intelligence. Musk said in a tweet that universal basic income is “obviously necessary.”
Lobbyists
In an interview, Musk said he was a major donor to the Democratic Party, but he also gave a lot to the Republican Party. He also claimed that donations to political parties were a requirement to have a voice to speak to the U.S. government.
A 2012 report by the Sunlight Foundation, an independent foundation that studies government spending, found that since 2002, SpaceX has spent more than $4 million lobbying for the U.S. Congress and more than $800,000 in contributions to Democrats and Republicans. SpaceX’s campaign for political support was systematic and sophisticated, and unlike most startups, SpaceX has maintained a significant lobbying presence in Washington since day one and Musk has donated some $725,000 to various campaigns since 2002.
In 2004, he contributed $2,000 to George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, $100,000 to Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, and donated $5,000 to Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who represents Florida, a critical state for the space industry. Together, Musk and SpaceX donated about $250,000 in the 2012 election cycle.
SpaceX also hired former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott to represent the company by pressuring Patton Boggs LLP. SpaceX also employs other lobby groups.
The religion of Elon Musk
When asked if he believed in some kind of destiny, other than physics, in humanity’s transition to a multi-planetary species, Musk replied:
“Well, I do. Do I think there is some kind of master intelligence that conceives all this? I think probably not because then you have to say, “Where does master intelligence come from?” So that kind of raises the question. So I really think you can explain this with the fundamental laws of physics. You know it’s a complex phenomenon from simple elements.”
Life as a simulation
As a possible solution to the Fermi paradox that asks where the extraterrestrials are, Musk considered the simulation hypothesis.
“The absence of any perceptible life can be an argument in favor of our simulation… Like when you play an adventure game, and you can see the stars in the background, but you can never make it. If it’s not a simulation, then maybe we’re in a lab and there’s an advanced alien civilization looking at how we’re developing, out of curiosity, like mold in a petri dish… If you look at our current level of technology, something strange must happen to civilizations, and I mean strange in the wrong way… And it could be that there are many civilizations that died on a single planet.”
“If you assume any rate of improvement, then the games will be indistinguishable from reality, or civilization will end. One of these two things will happen. Therefore, we are most likely in a simulation, because we exist. I think most likely — it’s just a matter of probability — there are many, many simulations. You might as well call them reality, or you might call them multiverse.”
Elon Musk cars
In 1994, he bought for $1400 an old 1978 BMW 320i that he repaired himself. He had it for about two years until he had an accident when a wheel came off when he was driven by a Zip2 employee. While working at Zip2, he bought a 1967 Jaguar E-Type.
In 1999, after selling Zip2, Elon bought a million-dollar McLaren F1 that he used every day. While Elon was driving, Peter Thiel asked him what the car could do. Musk said “Look at this!” as he accelerated and changed lanes. As the car did not have traction control, it triggered a spin that invaded the opposite lanes, it flew off the road to fall destroying the body, suspension and glass. Musk got out of the car laughing and Thiel asked him what he was laughing at.
Musk told him, “You don’t know the best. The car is not insured. The McLaren F1 had a 6.1-liter V-12 engine and 627 horsepower, had a carbon fiber body. Only 64 units were manufactured. Fortunately, Elon and his partner, Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, were not injured. Probably from this accident, his priority was to create the safest cars in the world. After repairing the McLaren F1, he then sold it for money. The McLaren F1 was capable of reaching 100 km/h in 3.2 seconds. At the unveiling of the Tesla Model S P85D, Elon said it had equaled the McLaren F1’s 0-100 km/h mark in 3.2 seconds. In 2016, the Tesla Model S P100D managed to cross this mark and adjust it in 2.28 seconds, making it the world’s fastest production car in acceleration.
In June 2019, Musk hinted that the design of an amphibious vehicle based on the one Wet Nellie made for the underwater car in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) might be possible. Musk bought Wet Nellie’s car in 2013 at a Sotheby’s auction for nearly $166 million and in 2019 he exhibited it at the Tesla Cybertruck presentation.
He also had an Audi Q7 whose access to the third row of seats he did not like. It was a spur to design the Seagull wing doors of the Tesla Model X.
In 2007, he had a Hamann BMW M5.
After, in 2012, he had a Porsche 911.
In 2017, a friend gave him a Ford Model T.
In 2018, he launched his Tesla Roadster into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and will be in orbit around the Sun for millions of years.
It also has a Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X and Tesla Model 3 Performance.
Cinema
In 2010, the SpaceX factory was used for the filming of Iron Man 2 and Musk made an appearance in the film.
In 2013, he made a cameo in Machete Kills, and SpaceX’s installations appeared.
He appeared in the science fiction film Transcendence in 2014.
In 2015, he lent his voice to his character in the Simpsons episode titled The Musk Who Fell to Earth in which Elon Musk travels to Springfield and Homer suggests an idea that could revolutionize the city, but that ends up costing Mr. Burns a fortune.
Also, he made an appearance in the series The Big Bang Theory, in episode 9 of the ninth season, The Platonic Permutation, playing himself in 2015.
In 2016, he appeared as himself in the film Why Him? , with James Franco and Bryan Cranston, where he attends a party that takes place in the film.
In 2014, he appeared in the series South Park in the episode Handicar Solo as a reference. But already later in 2016, he appears in the episodes “Members Only”, “Not Funny” and “The end of the series as we know it” playing himself.
In 2017, he made an appearance in the series Young Sheldon, in chapter 6 of the first season, a patch, a modem and a Zantac, in the role of himself.
In 2019, he appeared in episode 3 of Rick & Morty’s fourth season “One Crew Over the Crewcoo’s Morty”, playing a version of himself of an alternate universe in which humans have big fangs called Elon Tusk.
Hyperloop
On August 12, 2013, he proposed the Hyperloop system as a system that would transport people between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 35 minutes. Currently, the 563 kilometers can be driven in about 5 and a half hours on existing roads.
Hyperloop is a new mode of transportation that seeks to change the current paradigm by being fast and cheap for people and goods. Hyperloop is an open design concept, similar to GNU/Linux, in which community input can advance design and make it a reality. It is a fast and cheap system, with almost immediate departures for the traveler and is environmentally friendly.
It consists of a tube containing low-pressure air through which the capsules circulate on an air mattress. The nose of the capsule contains an electric compressor that transfers high air pressure from the nose to the tail of the capsule. The compressor provides levitation and, to a lesser extent, propulsion.
The two-pipe project between San Francisco and Los Angeles is covered with rooftop solar panels that would generate more of the energy it needs to run. The solar panels would have a width of 4.25 m and cover a distance of 563 km. With a solar power output of 120 W/m², one would expect the system to produce a maximum peak of 285 MW of solar power generation.
The system as a whole would consume an average of 21 MW. This includes the energy required for propulsion, aerodynamic drag, battery charging and vacuum pumps. The solar panels would provide an average of 57 MW, which is more than enough to run the Hyperloop.
Finally, the total cost would be $6 billion for the single version and $7500 million for the large version capable of carrying cars. Amortizing this capital in twenty years and adding the operating costs of each single note would come out to about 20 USD.
The single version of Hyperloop would cost 9% of what the high-speed train between Los Angeles and San Francisco would cost.
In January 2015, Elon Musk announced that a test track for the Hyperloop would be built in Texas for companies and students to test their designs.
The aircraft of Elon Musk
He had a Czech Aero L-39 aircraft worth about $250,000. The Dassault Falcon 900 aircraft used in the movie Thank You for Smoking is registered in Musk’s name. Musk is listed as one of the film’s executive producers.
Music
On March 30, 2019, Musk released a rap single on the SoundCloud music platform under the username “Emo G Records“. Titled “RIP Harambe“, the song was performed by Yung Jake, written by Yung Jake and Caroline Polachek, and produced by BloodPop. Within ten days, the song had reached more than 2,000,000 views. On January 30, 2020, Musk released a second song on his SoundCloud profile titled “Don’t Doubt Your Vibe.”
Musk is reportedly a fan of the South Korean girl group Loona. This, after Grimes, his current partner and who has already collaborated with this group, published on the social network Twitter how his experience in the studio with the girls went.
Elon, after a month, responded with a tweet with the word “Loona,” stylized in capital letters and with flash emoticons at the end. Loona fans enthusiastically welcomed Musk’s growing interest in the K-Pop group.
In addition, it has been confirmed that Go Won, the eleventh member of Loona, would be, according to Grimes, the godmother of the son of the latter and Elon, X Æ A-Xii Musk.
Tributes in their products
Tesla vehicles include Easter eggs: hidden or undocumented features or functions included as jokes in a computer program.
Musk dubbed the Tesla Model S’s superior acceleration mode as Ludicrous and the later level as Plaid, copying spaceship speeds (Ludicrous Speed, Plaid Speed) in Mel Brooks’ satirical comedy Spaceballs (1987). The ridiculous speed would be a speed greater than the speed of light at which the visible stars leave a linear trace, while the Plaid speed would be an even higher speed at which the stars would leave longitudinal and transverse traces creating a tartan pattern (plaid) of crossed lists as in a Scottish kilt.
In Teslas with Ludicrous if the Ludicrous button is pressed and held for 3 seconds, the screen changes and represents what it would be like to go into space at a speed higher than that of light. This is a reference to the movie Spaceballs.
The volume of the Tesla Model S and X reaches level 11 in homage to a sequence from the fake documentary film This is Spinal Tap (1984) directed by Rob Reiner. In the film, a musician shows his amplifier in which all the dials reach up to 11.
Teslas incorporate the Tesla emissions test mode that produces fart noises in any of the seats and can be programmed to produce them when you turn on the turn signal.
At SpaceX, the dragon’s first launch sent cheese as a secret cargo in homage to Monty Python.
In the Tesla, if the name of the vehicle is changed to Patsy, Caerbannog Rabbit, Mr. Creosote, Biggus Dickus or Empty Swallow, Cupid’s foot appears and a fart sounds in reference to Monty Python.
Since October 2018, all Tesla vehicles have integrated the old Atari games: Missile Command, Asteroids, Lunar Lander and Centipede.
Since September 2018, Teslas with Autopilot can select Mad Max mode as the most aggressive for automated lane changes. It is a tribute to the film Mad Max (1979) directed by George Miller.
For the Tesla Model 3, he designed a sophisticated tank for the refrigeration system called Superbottle (Superbottle) that printed a drawing of a bottle with a cape in the style of superheroes.
In Tesla vehicles, when Sentinel mode is enabled, the HAL 9000 computer image from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 film A Space Odyssey appears. It can be activated with the Keep Summer Safe voice command in reference to episode 6 of season 2 of Rick and Morty, in which Rick orders his vehicle to protect Summer (Morty’s sister), who remains inside the vehicle.
In Tesla cars, when the vehicle name is changed to “42”, the message “Life, the universe and everything” appears. Effectively, in Douglas Adams’ book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Deep Thought supercomputer is asked what the meaning of life is and after 7.5 million years, it answers: “42”.
In Tesla vehicles with air suspension after pressing the T logo and writing the code 007 comes the Amphibious Lotus Spirit that appeared in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.
Also, in Tesla cars activating the Autopilot lever 4 times, the road is shown with the colors of the rainbow. This is a reference to the Mario Kart game for Nintendo 64.
When a Tesla car has the battery charged for a range of 121 km and the phone’s app is open, multiple references to the 1985 movie Back to the Future appear.
If you press the Tesla logo for 5 seconds and enter the code “MARS”, the navigation screen shows what a vehicle would see on Mars.
In a Tesla, if you press the phone icon for 3 seconds, the text changes to Ahoy-Hoy which was the phrase proposed by the inventor of the phone Alexander Graham Bell to answer a phone.
In November 2019, Musk introduced the Tesla Cybertruck, an electric pickup truck. The presentation took place in Los Angeles, the same city, in the same month and year as the movie Blade Runner, which inspired the cybertruck’s design.
Personal life of Elon Musk
In December 2000, he took a vacation in Brazil and in a game reserve in South Africa. In January 2001, he returned to California and a few days later he began to feel unwell. He was first diagnosed with viral meningitis, a condition he treated and was discharged from. A few days later, it got worse and was transferred to Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. He was diagnosed and treated for malaria. While he was in the intensive care unit, it was found that the strain corresponded to plasmodium falciparum, which is the most deadly. They changed the treatment to a more aggressive treatment that could have dangerous side effects such as arrhythmias and organ failure. He was about to die, lost 20 pounds and took 6 months to fully recover.
Musk lives in Bel-Air, California. In 2000, Elon married his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, whom he met while they were both students at Queen’s University. In 2002, they had a son named Nevada Alexander Musk, who died at ten weeks of sudden death syndrome. Musk and Wilson have five children: a pair of twins and triplets. They separated in 2008.
That same year, he met British actress Talulah Riley. They married in 2010 and divorced in 2012. They remarried in 2013 and eventually separated legally. In November 2017, he ended his relationship with actress Amber Heard due to their scheduling conflicts.
On May 7, 2018, Musk began dating Canadian singer Grimes and in January 2020, they announced that they were expecting their first child, Musk’s sixth. On May 4, 2020, their son, X AE A-XII Musk, was born. The couple announced their separation in September 2021. The couple returned in December 2021. In March 2022, it was made public that their second biological daughter was born to Grimes, whom they named Exa Dark Sideræl, through surrogacy in December 2021; their eighth child in total.
Kimbal Musk is a director at Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX. In turn, he is the trustee of Elon’s two companies in case his brother becomes incapable.
While appearing on Saturday Night Live in May 2021, Musk claimed to have Asperger’s syndrome.
Controversies about Elon Musk
In October 2008, after Musk confirmed that Tesla Motors was short of cash, it emerged that he had hired an external ITC company to verify all of Tesla’s emails and instant messages. Subsequently, a forensic investigator took fingerprints of fingerprints that had been thrown near the photocopier that was used to disclose the email. The investigation indicated that the employee responsible for posting the message indicating the company’s financial situation was Peng Zhou. Musk offered Zhou the opportunity to apologize to the company and resign, an option he took to avoid prosecution.
On May 26, 2009, former Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard filed a lawsuit in San Mateo County, California, against Tesla Motors and Musk for defamation and breach of contract. The case was based on the question of who should be called the true founder of Tesla. On July 29, 2009, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge dismissed Eberhard’s application to be declared one of only two founders of the company. Tesla said in a statement that the resolution was “consistent with Tesla’s belief in a team of founders, including current CEO Elon Musk and CTO JB Straubel, who were instrumental in the creation of Tesla from its inception.”
At the beginning of August, Eberhard dropped the case and the parties reached a settlement on 21 September. Although the terms of the agreement were confidential, it included a provision in which the parties considered Eberhard, Musk, JB Straubel, Marc Tarpenning and Ian Wright to be the five co-founders of Tesla Motors.
In 2018, Musk announced the creation of a project called “Pravda” (or Pravduh), which in Russian means “Truth” that would assess the credibility of media and fake news. This announcement came after his controversies with various journalists on social networks, including after pointing out that the media would be – according to Elon Musk – under pressure from oil companies and motorists through advertising payments.
During a debate on social media, Elon Musk was accused of anti-Semitism by some netizens and journalists after responding to a message from journalist Joshua Topolsky in which he explained to Elon how “powerful people” controlled polls, to which Elon Musk replied that the same “powerful people” who controlled polls, they also controlled the media. This has been misinterpreted by some social media users, personalities and journalists, forcing Elon Musk to give a thorough explanation of the situation.
SEC
On August 7, 2018, Elon posted the following tweets:
“I’m considering taking Tesla private at $420. Guaranteed financing.”
“Investor support is confirmed. The only reason it’s not certain is that it depends on a shareholder vote.”
The SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) filed charges against Elon Musk alleging that the potential transaction was dangerous and depended on many contingencies. Musk had not agreed on the details of the deal with potential financial partners, and his claims did not match the facts. The SEC claimed that the misleading tweets pushed Tesla shares up 6% on Aug. 7, causing market disruption. On September 29, 2018, Musk and Tesla reached a settlement without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations that required that:
- Elon Musk will cease to be president of Tesla to be replaced by an independent for at least 3 years.
- Tesla would appoint two new independent directors to its board of directors.
- Tesla would establish a new board of independent directors and control and oversee Musk’s communications.
- Musk would pay $20 million and Tesla would pay an additional $20 million. The 40 million would be distributed among the aggrieved shareholders.
On October 4, 2018, Elon wrote the tweet:
“I just want to say that the Commission for the Enrichment of Short Sellers is doing an incredible job. And the name change is so tight.”
It was a reference to the stock market attacks of short sellers who were betting on the collapse in the value of Tesla shares. As of May 21, 2019, 31% of Tesla’s available shares were short-term.
The short attacks have occurred for years and at unprecedented levels in the stock market without the SEC opening an investigation and setting limits.
In a program on the 60-minute show aired in 2018, he said:
“I want to be clear: I don’t respect the SEC, I don’t respect it.”
On February 20, 2019, at 1:15 am, he wrote the tweet:
“Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make about 500k in 2019”
And at 5:41 a.m., he wrote the tweet:
“That is to say, an annualized production rate at the end of 2019 is probably around 500k, or 10k cars/week. Deliveries for the year are still estimated at around 400k.”
The SEC took the opportunity to sue him on February 25, 2019, for contempt and violation of The September 2018 regulations, because those tweets had not been approved in advance by Tesla’s attorney. On April 30, 2019, the judge imposed an amendment to the September 2018 agreement whereby Tesla’s attorney must approve in advance all of Elon Musk’s public written communications containing information from:
- Tesla’s financial condition, statements, results, earnings or governance,
- Mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, offers or joint ventures potential or proposed by Tesla.
- Production, sales or delivery numbers (actual or calculated) that had not been shared or that differed from Tesla’s official address.
- Proposed business lines not related to Tesla’s current business lines (defined in the registry as vehicles, transportation, and sustainable energy products).
- Changes in the status of securities, credit facilities, financing or loan agreements.
- Legal decisions, regulatory recommendations or non-public decisions.
- Anything that requires the registration of an SEC 8-K form, including changes in control of the company, its officers and directors.
- Any other matter that Tesla or the majority of its independent board members believe requires prior approval.
Rescue in Tham Luang Cave
In July 2018, Musk tried to help rescuers during the rescue of Luang Cave by directing his employees into making a small rescue capsule with a diameter of 38 cm in which a child could fit. Musk, responding to requests from Twitter users, contacted the Thai government. He organized the work of his company’s engineers to design a small time trial submarine to help with the rescue and documented the entire process on Twitter. Richard Stanton, director of the international rescue team, also urged Musk to build the mini-submarine as a backup solution in case the flood worsened. and moved him to Thailand. They named it “Boar” after the children’s soccer team.
Its design, based on the contributions of diving equipment, was a tube 150 cm long and 30 cm in diameter weighing 41 kg. It was propelled manually by divers and had compartments to place dive weights and adjust buoyancy, intended to safely transport children who might have difficulty learning the diving techniques needed to get out of the cave without panicking.
In the event that the mini-submarine did not fit into certain sections of the cave, Elon Musk asked the Californian inflatable boat company to build inflatable evacuation capsules. By the time the mini-submarine arrived in Thailand, 8 of the 12 children had already been rescued under anesthesia, diving masks and oxygen. Thai authorities have decided not to use the submarine. In March 2019, Elon Musk received from the King of Thailand the Order of the Direkgunabhorn (Member of the Order of the Direkgunabhorn) for his contributions and those of his team in the rescue mission.
Reactions
The supervisor of the rescue operation, Narongsak Osatanakorn, claimed that the submarine was technologically sophisticated, but did not fit the mission of entering the cave. Vernon Unsworth, an amateur spy who had spent 6 years exploring the cave and advising on rescue, criticized on CNN that the submarine was nothing more than an advertising operation because it had no chance of success and Musk did not understand what the cave passages looked like. And this in addition:
“can stick your submarine where it hurts”
Musk claimed on Twitter that the device would have worked and called Vemon Unsworth a “pedo guy,” which provoked a backlash against Musk. Musk deleted the tweets. He also deleted a tweet in which a reviewer of the device was informed.
“Keep listening, crazy ass.”
On July 16, 2018, Unsworth said it was considering taking legal action against Musk’s comments. Two days later, Musk apologized for his comments. On August 28, 2018, in response to a Twitter review, Musk wrote the tweet:
“Don’t you think it’s strange that he didn’t pursue me?”
The next day, a letter from lawyer Lin Wood dated August 6 showing that he was preparing a defamation action was made public. A self-proclaimed private investigator sent an email to Musk with an offer to search for trash in Unsworth’s past. Musk accepted the offer in August 2018 and paid him $50,000. It was later learned that the investigator was a criminal convicted of fraud. On August 30, using details of the alleged investigation, Musk sent an email to a BuzzFeed News reporter, who had written about the controversy, titled “Off the Record” in which he claimed Unsworth was a:
“A white man from England who has been traveling or living in Thailand for 30 or 40 years… until he moved to Chiang Rai to marry a 12-year-old girl.”
The latter was denied by Unswoth’s partner. On September 5, the reporter tweeted a copy of the email saying that the “off the record” was a deal between two and that he had not accepted it. In mid-September, Unsworth filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles. In his defense, Musk argued that, in colloquial language, “pet guy” was a common insult in South Africa where it has become synonymous with “sinister old man” and is used to insult appearance and behavior. The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang defines the term “fart” as follows:
“No one unpleasant or unhappy… adopted as an insult for all intents and purposes…”
The defamation case, in which Unsworth claimed $190 million, began on December 4, 2019, in Los Angeles. During the trial, Musk again apologized to Unsworth for the original tweet. On December 6, the jury found Musk not guilty of defamation.
Joe Rogan
In the September 7, 2018 podcast show 1169, The Joe Rogan Experience, Elon recommended rogan, a fan of fast cars, to buy a Tesla Model S P100D Ludicrous, which he did shortly after. Elon drank whiskey. Rogan invited him to smoke marijuana and Elon smoked a puff. Recreational marijuana use is legal in California, where the interview was conducted. Musk posted the tweet:
“I get text messages from friends who say, ‘What are you doing by smoking weed?’”
The interview had a negative impact on his image, that of Tesla and that of SpaceX.
Elon Musk and the COVID-19
Musk spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, including promoting chloroquine as a treatment for the virus and claiming that death statistics had been manipulated by researchers and doctors for financial reasons. At the beginning of the pandemic, he claimed that children are “essentially immune” to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Musk has repeatedly criticized the lockdowns and violated local protocols by reopening a Tesla factory in Fremont, California.
In March 2020, commenting on a New York Times report that China had not reported new cases of internal spread of the novel coronavirus, Musk predicted that there would be “likely nearly zero new cases in the United States.” Also at the end of April. Politico later called the statement “one of the boldest, safest, and most spectacularly incorrect predictions [of 2020].” In November 2020, he tweeted false information about the effectiveness of COVID-19 testing. In April 2021, he tweeted a modified version of a Ben Garrison comic book with a caricature of Bill Gates and an anti-vaccine message.
References (sources)
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