It is likely to be Elon Musk The most famous billionaire on the planet, he is richer than Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, as his ownership of the electric car company Tesla as well as the space and satellite communications company SpaceX has propelled him into the spotlight over the past decade, in addition to his offer to buy Twitter platform recently. With 43 billion dollars.
But many wonder regarding the beginnings maskHow did he become this rich when he is still only 50, as his fortune is $264.6 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
What is his background?
Before talking regarding his beginnings and how he became rich, it is noted that Musk was born to a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971.
His mother, May, was a dietitian and model from Canada, while his father, Errol, was an engineer. The future billionaire is said to have been good with computers from a young age and designed a video game when he was just 12 years old, according to a report published by the National World website yesterday. Friday.
In addition, Musk left for Canada at the age of 17 to avoid serving in the apartheid regime and went to Queen’s University, Ontario before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 where he studied physics and business.
Elon Musk (archive – Archyde.com)
After graduation, he enrolled briefly for his Ph.D. in Physics at Stanford University, California before creating the Zip2 online business directory with his younger brother Kimball in 1995.
Subsequently, the two brothers sold the company in 1999 for $307 million, and Elon Musk himself received $22 million from the deal, when he was only regarding 27 years old.
How did he become rich?
Unlike other billionaires, Musk made his money by creating and investing in many successful projects.
After selling Zip2, he went into online banking and payments with controversial businessman Peter Thiel and created what would become PayPal.
His stake in the company earned him $180 million when eBay bought it in 2009.
Elon Musk (archive – Archyde.com)
In 2002, he founded SpaceX with the ambition to colonize Mars with affordable rockets, then invested $6 million in Tesla the following year, when the company had not yet built its first car.
Both companies struggled at first, but by 2008 SpaceX secured a $1.6 billion deal with NASA, and Tesla’s first Model S vehicle went into mass production in 2012.
While the man’s fortune has grown to astronomical levels due to the price of Tesla’s stock, which has tripled in value to more than $1 trillion over the past 18 months.
He currently owns between 17% and 21% of the company’s shares, a stake that is valued in the region at $170 billion.
Elon Musk (archive – Archyde.com)
Meanwhile, Musk’s 48% stake in the $100 billion company SpaceX makes up most of his fortune.
As if these ventures weren’t enough, Musk has also taken off with two other companies in the past five years.
The first is The Boring Company, a company that drills large holes in the ground, while the second, Neuralink, aims to develop computing interfaces that support the human brain, an innovation that might transform the lives of people with neurological disorders or serious spinal injuries.
In April 2022, he bought a 9.1% stake in the social media giant Twitter before announcing a takeover offer.
Former US President Barack Obama and SpaceX President Elon Musk tour Cape Canaveral Air Force One in Cape Canaveral, Florida in 2010 (Archyde.com)
Why is it considered controversial?
Musk has always been viewed as an eccentric person, but some of his actions have generated a great deal of controversy.
For example, he downplayed the severity of the coronavirus in a series of tweets in March 2020, and has since argued that the platform needs to water down its free-speech policy.
He also argued once morest paying more taxes, though an investigation by news site ProPublica concluded he paid a low price on his fast-growing fortune between 2014 and 2018.
While the success of his business is not in doubt, Musk’s erratic public behavior in recent years has also led to several notable gaffes that have cost him and his investors millions of dollars.
One of the most famous was when he smoked marijuana during a video podcast interview with Joe Rogan in 2018, something that crashed Tesla stock by more than 9%.
Elon Musk (archive – Archyde.com)
What is his net worth?
It is noteworthy that the value of Musk’s wealth is currently estimated at $ 264.6 billion, according to Forbes magazine, and his current wealth is greater than the gross domestic product of regarding 170 countries and global economic regions, according to the latest data of the World Bank.
This includes the GDP of countries such as New Zealand, Finland and Portugal, and it also accounts for nearly 10% of the UK’s total GDP.
