Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk

Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

• After a rough childhood,
  • Born in South Africa, his parents divorced when Elon was 9. He was mistreated by his father and faced severe bullying at school. Despite these barriers, Elon managed to secure a couple of victories.
    • Musk had photographic memory, which he used to gain a lot of knowledge in various fields. At age 10, he won a programming competition with his Blastar game.
    
    
    
• Elon Musk experienced early success in Silicon Valley.
  • Even with a couple of hiccups,
    • He was ousted as a CEO of Zip2 and was sued for ownership of the original business idea.
      
  • he sold his first company Zip2 for $307 million.
    • He pocketed $22 million and bought his famous McLaren.
      
  • The next company, X.com merged with his competitor – Peter Thiel's PayPal – which made it public and eventually was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion.
    • Musk netted about $250 million and moved to LA to pursue his space ambitions.
    
    
    
• He wildly risked his next ventures Tesla & Space X.
  • Elon was investing his personal money.
    • To secure his control over the companies.
      
  • They were using consumer–grade electronics
    • Conventional ethernet cables in spaceships, LCD touch monitors as automotive displays in Model S
      
  • and making as much low-cost and in-house production as possible.
  • Space X underwent three unsuccessful rocket lunches. Tesla was also very close to bankruptcy.
    • In April 2013 Tesla Motors almost got acquired by Google for $6 billion.
    
    
    
• The risks paid off and he got on top of his game.
  • Space X secured a large U.S. government deal and became the only private company to dock with ISS.
    • $1.6 billion for twelve flights to the space station.
      
  • Tesla Motors raised a big round of funding and introduced the new Model X.
    
    
• Elon has great empathy for the human race,
  • Breaking our dependency on oil. Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity created thousands of jobs. In 2013 he introduced Hyperloop — a new high-speed ground transport system. Musk’s ultimate goal, though, remains turning humans into an interplanetary species.
    
• but not so much for individuals.
  • Personal life has lower priority on his busy schedule. Musk is twice divorced. Multiple employees got burnt out by his high expectations and aggressive deadlines.