Elon Musk is setting the world on fire. He has displaced Jeff Bezos as the richest man in the world. Who is this controversial, multidimensional man?
Born in South Africa, his mother is from Canada. He holds South African, Canadian and U.S. citizenships. He has been married 3 times, twice to the same spouse, and his current partner is Canadian electropop musician, Grimes. He has fathered 7 children, including a set of triplets and twins conceived using in vitro fertilization. His first son died at 10 weeks from sudden infant death syndrome. His 5 living children from his first marriage have pronounceable names: Griffin, Xavier, Damian, Saxon and Kai. His son with Grimes is named: X Æ A-12, simply pronounced X, Ash, A, Twelve. X stands for unknown variable.
Æ is the Elven spelling of artificial intelligence (AI). A-12 is Musk’s favorite aircraft. Eventually the A-12 had to be changed to A-Xii to conform with California law, which forbids the inclusion of numbers in a legal name. They must have had fun reviewing this recent Musk birth certificate application!
Sleeping at the Tesla factory and showering at the YMCA, popping Ambien, wishing he could find a way to avoid eating so he can work more, and smoking pot while being interviewed on air, are topped off with Twitter comments that have resulted in numerous lawsuits, a $20MM fine from the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and loss of his role as Chairman of the Board of Tesla. Can you imagine a CEO saying: “Excuse me. Next. Boring bonehead questions are not cool”, after a well-meaning analyst asked about Tesla’s future capital requirements, or calling a rescuer of children trapped in a cave in Thailand a “pedo”? OMG!!!
"When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars, people said, 'Nah, what's wrong with a horse?' That was a huge bet he made, and it worked." (Elon Musk)
It is clear, this man is far from ordinary. Regardless of his erratic behavior and crazy ideas, he is a force, he is important.
Whether he likes it or not, Elon Musk is a man of immeasurable influence right now. From how we view space travel, shop and pay online, to how we drive, or soon don’t drive? The co-founders of audio app Clubhouse must be thanking their lucky stars for their great fortune when Musk interviewed Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev about the Game Stop drama and turned the app into a household name. We wrote a blog about Democratizing the Financial System with call-outs to Robinhood and Game Stop last week.
“The odds of me coming into the rocket business, not knowing anything about rockets, not having ever built anything, I mean, I would have to be insane if I thought the odds were in my favor.” (Elon Musk)
Most recently, Elon Musk has single-handedly influenced the price of Bitcoin. Tesla made the shocking announcement that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, sending the per Bitcoin price to over $50,000, up 350% over the last 12 months. It has been revealed that Musk has been given legal advice to stop his Bitcoin-boosting tweets, as they could cause him further problems with the SEC … but it doesn’t seem like he is heeding this advice, as usual.
For a man who sold his first video game (Blastar) for $500 at age 12, to his next career high (selling PayPal to eBay for $1.5B), this remarkable man has no intentions of going with the flow. He is a man on a mission, who still has a lot to accomplish in his unwavering quest to change the world.
“Failing is an option. If you’re not failing, you’re not innovating enough.” (Elon Musk)