<ul>
<li>In the 1980s, when Elon Musk was reaching college age, military service was mandatory in South Africa. However, Elon had no interest in the military. So, he decided to leave the country.</li>
<li>The US was his dream destination, but he instead opted for Canada as a starting point.</li>
<li>Elon’s first year in Canada did not go exactly to plan. He struggled for money, as he drifted between odd jobs, and he struggled to find a real home. Instead, he was moving from relative to relative for short periods at a time.</li>
</ul>

The 80s: South Africa To Canada

Elon Musk’s motivations do not lie with money. He cares for humanity more than he cares about money.
<ul>
<li>These characteristics have allowed Elon to create two separate sustainable technology companies, Tesla Motors and SolarCity, that are each worth billions of dollars. Sustainability is a highly competitive industry, and without Elon’s internal drive, he probably would have failed.</li>
<li>He also has more elaborate plans for saving humanity. He states that his main goal in life is to save the human race. He wants to provide people with the opportunity to relocate to Mars before Earth is destroyed by climate change and asteroids.</li>
</ul>

Driven by the Idea of Saving Humanity

Elon Musk does not let worries consume him but instead uses them as motivation to get things done. However, this motivation can sometimes be overwhelming.
<ul>
<li>He has also become well known for setting unrealistic goals for his companies and unrealistic expectations of his employees. Subsequently, several previous employees have provided examples of the unbearable workloads and his verbal abuse.</li>
<li>Despite this, he is still respected by his employees. His clear sense of mission helps motivate them to follow his lead. They see he is successful in almost all his pursuits. He also demands unrealistic expectations of himself.</li>
</ul>

Paranoid-Like Focus

<ul>
<li>To escape from his complicated relationship with his father and the turmoils of school, Elon retreated into reading and studying. </li>
<li>Elon had the remarkable ability to memorize information photographically. Hence, he was able to read two encyclopedias and remember everything. </li>
<li>However, out of all books, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was the one that had the most significant impact on him. Specifically, the book taught him that answering a question is easy, but asking the right question is much more challenging.</li>
</ul>

Saved By Books

This ethos of looking to ask the right questions led to Elon Musk considering how he could expand and improve human civilization from a young age.
For example, by high school, he already had strong opinions on solar power, moving to other planets, paperless banking, and space rockets. On top of this, during this time, Elon started to learn more about entrepreneurship. He created his own video game, Blastar, which he sold for $500 when he was just 12 years old.

Asking The Right Questions

Elon created his first company in 1995, straight out of college. He and his brother founded the Global Link Information Network. This company would later be renamed Zip2.
<ul>
<li>The USP of this company was that they guided businesses that are struggling to understand how to set up and use the internet. Although this idea would eventually make Elon and his brother millions of dollars, they were not immediately successful. As the internet was a completely new concept, several businesses did not yet understand the value of putting their business online.</li>
<li>Elon and his brother struggled to gain traction with their new startup until a venture capital firm was impressed by Elon’s energy and drive. Mohr Davidow Ventures decided to invest in the start-up after meeting Elon. They hired Rich Sorkin as CEO of the company, moving Elon further down the business.</li>
</ul>

Musk’s First Start-Up

<ul>
<li>Zip2 saw a considerable growth opportunity when, in February 1999, PC-maker Compaq Computer offered $307 million in cash for the company. </li>
<li>Elon did not even have to think about selling his share. He already had several other projects in mind, and this money would help make those dreams a reality. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, Elon wanted to become a CEO who was heavily involved in the company’s decision making.</li>
</ul>

The Compaq Takeover

<ul>
<li>After selling Zip2, Elon Musk had started to develop a strong reputation. Hence, he was able to partner with Barclays for his next business venture, X.com. At this time, people were still very wary of the internet. People were not even willing to buy books online, as they worried about using their bank details on the internet.</li>
<li>However, Elon opened one of the first online banks, X.com, and managed to increase people’s confidence in online banking through his innovative approach.</li>
<li>X.com’s executives asked the company board if they could demote Musk as CEO. The executives succeeded, and Musk became an advisor. </li>
<li>In July 2002, the company was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion. From this, Musk received $250 million. </li>
</ul>

X.COM

Elon Musk has always had a passion for space travel. Just before PayPal was sold, Elon moved from near Silicon Valley to Los Angeles. He was fed up with Silicon Valley and wanted a new adventure.
This adventure was space travel. He moved just around the corner from the US space industry hub, where they were considering the possibility of putting life on Mars. To investigate this possibility, the Mars Society was sending mice into orbit. Although Elon was interested in this idea, he believed they could go one step further. He preferred the idea of just sending the mice straight to Mars.

Investigating Life on Mars

Elon Musk is the entrepreneur behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk’s mission with each of these companies was to save humanity.
Elon has always dreamed big. Plus, he eventually achieved many dreams people claimed he never could. From throwing massive parties to pay his way through his education at the University of Pennsylvania, to plans to create one of the first online banks. Elon has always been an innovator.

Elon Musk: An Introduction

Before Tesla, electric cars were available but were not mainstream. Wealthy individuals would always opt for a Jaguar or Ferrari over buying an electric car. However, Tesla changed the game. They provided powerful and stylish electric cars. Elon Musk made electric cars cool.
Tesla had slow growth at first but has now become one of the world’s most successful companies. Tesla’s Model S is the most influential of Tesla’s cars, with its release in 2012 changing the way we interact with cars.

Tesla Inspired an Electric Car Future

Elon Musk unveiled the Hyperloop in 2013. The Hyperloop is a large scale pneumatic tube. These are the same tubes used to send mail around offices. However, Elon has taken this idea and applied it on a grand scale. Large versions of these tubes will be used to transport people and their cars within pods.
The innovative approach that Hyperloop adopts allows the pods to travel as fast as 800 miles per hour. If adopted on a large scale, people will travel from LA to San Francisco in just 30 minutes.

The Hyperloop

<ul>
<li>Growing up in South Africa, Elon had very few friends.</li>
<li>After his parents separated, Elon decided to live with his father. However, this decision led to a problematic young life for Elon. The Musk family has been unwilling to elaborate on how he behaved. Still, they are willing to describe him as an unpleasant man to be around.</li>
<li>As well to a difficult life at home, Elon was also bullied by his classmates because he was more intelligent than most of them. On some occasions, Elon would receive such a severe beating from the bullies that he couldn’t attend school for a week.</li>
</ul>

A Difficult Childhood

We bring you lessons from self-made billionaires to point you in the right direction

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Lessons From Self Made Billionaires

South African born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey Junior. The personal tale of Musk's life comes with all the trappings one associates with a great, drama-filled story. He was a freakishly bright kid who was bullied brutally at school, and abused by his father. In the midst of these rough conditions, and the violence of apartheid South Africa, Musk still thrived academically and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he paid his own way through school by turning his house into a club and throwing massive parties. He started a pair of huge dot-com successes, including PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk was forced out as CEO and so began his lost years in which he decided to go it alone and baffled friends by investing his fortune in rockets and electric cars. Meanwhile Musk's marriage disintegrated as his technological obsessions took over his life ... Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of the present and the future, and for the past twelve months, he has been shadowed by tech reporter, Ashlee Vance. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the real-life Iron Man.

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Technology & The Future

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Entrepreneurship

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Creativity

South African born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey Junior. The personal tale of Musk's life comes with all the trappings one associates with a great, drama-filled story. He was a freakishly bright kid who was bullied brutally at school, and abused by his father. In the midst of these rough conditions, and the violence of apartheid South Africa, Musk still thrived academically and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he paid his own way through school by turning his house into a club and throwing massive parties. He started a pair of huge dot-com successes, including PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk was forced out as CEO and so began his lost years in which he decided to go it alone and baffled friends by investing his fortune in rockets and electric cars. Meanwhile Musk's marriage disintegrated as his technological obsessions took over his life ... Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of the present and the future, and for the past twelve months, he has been shadowed by tech reporter, Ashlee Vance. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the real-life Iron Man.

Ashlee Vance is an award winning feature writer for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. Vance is also the host of the "Hello World" TV show. Previously, he worked for The New York Times and The Register.Vance was born in South Africa, grew up in Texas and attended Pomona College. He has spent more than a decade covering the technology industry from San Francisco and is a noted Silicon Valley historian.