Much has been said about Elon Musk. He is the Business person of the year for Fortune Magazine, and easily one of the most recognized names in the tech world. He has more successful venture to his name than most entrepreneurs can dream of, and his work with Tesla Motors and Space X has already led to various media publications referring to him as the Iron Man of the real world.
So who is Elon Musk?
Before Tesla and Space X, Musk first made a name for himself when he created PayPal. PayPal today is the world’s preferred way of sending money across countries and is the most used online payment system in the world. But he had made a name for himself in the startup world way before PayPal. In fact, his company called Zip2 was the first successful startup that Musk founded, and was sold for a whopping $ 32 million. In 1999 he started the company which would later become PayPal, and in just 3 years it was bought by eBay for a mind boggling sum of $ 1.5 billion.
Musk was a multimillionaire before he hit thirty, and a multi billionaire while still in his 40s. What distinguishes Elon Musk from the tech startups of his generation is the fact that while he was immensely successful in the internet services sector, he still left it to work in a hardcore tech sector.
The Space X Project
After conquering the internet world, Musk set his eyes on the sky, and quite literally at that. He started Space X, or Space Exploration Technologies with the dream of taking humans to Mars and settling them there. After a few initial setbacks, business at Space X flourished and the company today is officially contracted by NASA to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. In fact, Musk was able to reduce the cost of a single trip by a mind boggling 90%.
The Tesla Project
While Musk did not start Tesla, he invested heavily in it within years of it being founded and quickly became the Chairman for Tesla. Tesla was trying to produce completely electric cars that could be driven by regular people. This is a feat at which some of the biggest car manufacturers in the world had failed thus far. Tesla has since then launched cars for public use and in August 2014 even became an officially profitable venture. What is really amazing on the part of Musk is that he is trying to bring the cost of these electric car engines down so that other car manufacturers can utilize the technology for affordable prices as well. As with Space X, Musk is making sure that the technologies developed by his companies profit the mankind as a whole.
So where does the Iron Man comparison fit in?
If you have read the Iron Man comics, or seen the recent blockbuster movies, you know that Tony Stark, the billionaire genius, loves technology and tries to create things that benefit the human race. Musk and Stark share the love for both technologies as well as philanthropy, and it seems that Musk also has similar taste in women as the fictional playboy does. Musk recently divorced Talulah Riley, who is a British actress, and he also has five children from his previous marriage with Justine Musk. The comparison with Iron Man primarily stems from his love for technology and his quest to take humans of the green and blue ball and into the space.
Musk is currently the chairman of the SolarCity, and working on the Hyperloop project. Both of these projects aim to make the world a better place in their own unique ways.
