I usually do reviews on products or services. But today I am going to do a review on the famous Elon Musk (and more after having seen his name everywhere during this last week). But who is this Elon Musk for the few who don’t know him?
He is the richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine in January 2021. To become the next Elon Musk your life has to be full of achievements and challenges, cars orbiting in space, Twitter and angry ex-wives. Elon has managed to become an example and an idol for many, but let’s see what is behind this man, both in his professional and personal life and how he became all that heis now:
PASSION AND DETERMINATION:
These would undoubtedly be two adjectives that best describe Elon Musk and have made him a success man. He was born in South Africa and is the eldest of three brothers. He spent most of his childhood hours reading science fiction books, studying and researching. When his parents divorced he decided to be the only one to go and live with his father because he was very lonely, but when he was 17 he moved to Canada with his mother and siblings. He studied Physics and Economics at Queen’s University in Ontario thanks to the scholarships he received since they were having economic difficulties. After that he started a PhD in physics at Stanford University but left it after two days (literally). I don’t think there is a person on the whole earth who after leaving something halfway has done so well, because it was thanks to this that he began his great professional career, the beginnings of Musk.
ENTREPRENEURIAL SOUL & WORKAHOLIC.
If anything characterises the multi-millionaire Musk, it should be these words. Elon has created numerous companies since its inception and is always involved in new projects. He also considers himself a workaholic. He sleeps only a few hours and works a lot; about 80–100h a week, and he considers this the only way to achieve more than the others.
Risks and difficult things are his passion and he likes to prove that the impossible only takes more effort. That’s why he left his PhD in physics and founded with his younger brother Zip2. Then he sold it to create X.com (which later became Paypal.)
Through the time, his dreams and ambitions became bigger and he created Tesla. Tesla is an electric vehicles company, an idea that seemed unlikely to succeed, in fact, Tesla was close to bankruptcy, and now it has become the most valuable automotive company in the United States today. With Tesla, Elon seems to have marked a before and after in the automotive industry and many brands are following in his footsteps but he is ahead of the game. In fact, one of his cars has been launched into space (it seems that someone is not a millionaire if he does not do extravagant things like this).
And no, it is not by chance that a Tesla ended up in space. As if that weren’t enough, Elon is also immersed himself in the aerospace industry with very, very ambitious plans, such as reaching Mars in 2024. Yes, you read that right. Elon Musk also has an aerospace company called X Space and this has been accredited by NASA as a commercial transport system for the space agency. One of X Space’s goals is to reach Mars before 2022 and to do so with people in 2024, although NASA believes that it will take 10 years longer than Elon has planned for this to be possible. If this happens Elon would not only be recognised for its cars or its great fortune but would also be known for carrying out a historic event.
But there is more. It seems that Elon Musk wants to experiment in all possible fields and that is why its companies range from the financial sector to artificial intelligence (Open AI, a non-profit company that aims to make artificial intelligence benefit mankind, however it is not exempt from controversy because of the risk that artificial intelligence itself entails), as well as excavation and infrastructure companies (as is the case of The Boring Company, created in 2016 to try to make tunnels at kilometres deep where people can be transported at more than 200km/h avoiding traffic jams and public transport). So no, there is no sector that can resist Mr. Musk.
So if you want to be the next one, you’ll have to put in a lot of hours, work very hard and dream big. This is the only way to reach the top.
TWITTER:
Twitter, Twitter and a lot of Twitter. There is not a single day Elon Musk does not publish something and that is because his influence on that social network is enormous. In fact, he was able to make Signal# shares (a private messaging app) go up by 6600% with just one tweet. Could it be that now Elon, apart from innovating, seeks to do so ethically? Maybe in a few days we’ll see him talking about other services that also protect the user’s privacy such as Internxt Drive, Tutanota and Vpn Express, among others. So if you want to be the Musk 2.0 you’d better get a grip on this social network.
Thanks to Twitter, Musk was in charge (at the request of his followers) of making a tunnel that would be able to get out the children who were trapped in a cave in Thailand in 2018. The tunnel was built in one day but was finally not used as the children were rescued using anaesthesia and the help and collaboration of expert divers. But many people wonder if the things he does are really honest or just for posting on Twitter and getting social recognition. In fact, one of the rescuers of the children trapped in the cave said that Elon Musk only wanted free propaganda and not to rescue the children. After an exchange of insults by both sides, they ended up in court, with Elon charged for defamation (finally he was acquitted).
Personally, I don’t think that everything Elon does is intended to improve his own image as it would be too much effort just for this, but I do think that he takes advantage of some of the opportunities to do so. Although I recognise that this does not surprise me since is something that most people do.
A LOVE LIFE WITH UPS AND DOWNS:
Well, to be real, this is not a fundamental requirement. In fact, it is not even a requirement. But I have always admired Elon’s ability to concentrate despite the different situations he has experienced. The death of his newborn son, a divorce, numerous girlfriends and break-ups have not caused this man to sink, but rather have increased his desire and strength to work, surely because he is a workaholic and that is his best therapy.
Although I don’t know if it’s true, what makes me distrust Elon Musk are all those adjectives that his ex-wife has used to describe him, saying that he is a controlling being who forced him to dye his hair more and more blond and who continuously gave him orders because he was the “alpha male”. Not to mention that in the middle of his honeymoon he turned around for work reasons or that 10 weeks after his divorce he announced his engagement to his new girlfriend…
What cannot be denied is that Elon Musk stands out for his great ability to innovate, fight for his ideas and make the impossible possible through work. What about you? What do you admire most about Musk?
