Elon Musk is an inventor, physicist and
South African businessman with American Nationality and
also, one of the most brilliant industrial minds of this time
called by many the engineer of engineers,
ironman or the Nikola Tesla of our days.
Today is one of the most respected men in the matter
but not everything was fantastic in his career,
not all of his success appeared overnight
as many people think.
Elon´s life is filled with hard and amazing moments
which makes it an inspiration for who wants to follow his path
or at least to think about where we are going.
Musk was born in June 28th, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa.
He was raised by his father a South African engineer
and her mother. a nutritionist and Canadian model.
In his first scholar years was where they started noticing
that he wasn´t a kid like the others
or at least from children of his age
being a prodigy in every subject.
According to his professors, one of the main qualities of the kid
was an absurd sense of persistence.
One day when he was six his parents grounded him without leaving the house
and her mother and brothers went to his cousin party all across the city,
Elon thought on riding a bike but his mother told him
that you need a license to not get arrested,
she told him this so he doesn´t go.
Then, Elon decided on go walking 16 kilometers to his cousin´s house,
after 4 hours he was near the house when his mother saw him
and the little Musk climbed a tree and denied to climb off for a while,
outraged because his mother didn't let him salute his cousin.
At a young age, he started developing a strong love for reading in all ambits,
but everyone knew that he was incapable of living a normal social life,
this caused him to be introvert,
looking for refuge in comics
which was a huge fan of,
Mainly Ironman.
Fun fact: In his adulthood,
the new design of the superhero would be based on him,
actually, a lot of the movie scenes were filmed on the headquarters of SpaceX,
he even appeared on a movie scene.
Musk bought his first computer, a Commodore VIC-20
when he was 10
and started programming on his own.
According to his brother at that same age,
he tried the IBM test
and the results showed that the young Elon had the necessary knowledge
to work as a programmer in the company.
2 years later he sold his first program,
a space game called Blastar,
for the amount of 500 dollars.
Like any kid of his age every dollar he earned programming
he spends it on comics, more computers,
and role-playing games.
After graduating from high school he left his house when he was 17
without the support of his parents and because of the
obligatory military service in the South African army.
From this period of time, I would like to highlight a quote said by Musk back then:
" I have nothing against serving the army,
but serving the South African army to suppress black people
didn't seem a good way to spend my time".
Youth.
Once the service was done
he went back home to find out that his parents got divorced
and her Canadian mother was going to emigrate back to her motherland.
He saw this as an opportunity to achieve his dreams,
he wanted to live in the USA.
Look how interesting, he saw this as an opportunity.
His father, jealous by the situation told him
that he wasn't going to pay college
unless it was located in South Africa.
That is how in 1992 he obtained a scholarship
to study Business and Physics at the University of Pennsylvania
and later, do a Master in Physics
in the prestigious Stanford University, California.
In 1999 the internet had already appeared
and started being an important thing in the life of America.
Elon knew that there is where he needed to start.
So on the very second day,
he dropped off school to fund ZIP2,
along with his brother Kimbal Musk
and his friend Greg Kouri.
Zip2 managed the development, lodging,
and maintenance of specific web sites to communication companies.
In February of 1999, it managed almost 200 web sites,
including the site New York Today,
which was a New York Times local directory.
Only a few months later, still 1999,
the company was sold to Compaq Computer
for the amount of 300 million dollars.
The Young Millionaire wasn't satisfied
with having the life figured out.
So only a few moments after founded X.COM
a financial services and e-mail payments company
that later would be named Paypal,
and the rest of the story, well,
we all know it.
In October 2002, eBay acquired Paypal
for the amount of 1500 million dollars,
before the sale, Musk was the main shareholder so,
with this sale he gained 150 million dollars,
many PayPal members founded their own companies
like YouTube or LinkedIn,
he had a tremendous ability to hire people.
He said that in his life he had three principal interests:
Internet, Renewable energy and Space exploration.
By having conquered Internet,
his second goal was to conquer Space,
so in July 2002, Musk founded his third company:
Space Exploration Technologies, or as we all know:
SpaceX which develops and produce space shutters
with a low-cost and high-reliability emphasis.
At December 23rd, 2008
SpaceX signed a contract with the NASA
for the amount of 1600 million dollars
for 12 launches of his Falcon 9 rocket
and the Dragon spacecraft to the  International Spacial Station.
Musk sees spatial exploration as a great step for expansion
and even the preservation of human consciousness.
From this period we can highlight the following phrase
that explains Elon´s philosophy:
"An asteroid could destroy us, a manufactured virus,
the unintentional creation of a mini black hole,
catastrophic climate change
or technology that we do not know yet
could be the end of all we know,
humanity evolved through millions of years
but in the last 60 years, our nuclear weapons
brought the possibility to extinct us with just a click,
sooner or later we would need to expand our lives
far away from this green and blue ball".
In April 2004, Elon Musk
decided to invest 6,3 million dollars in Tesla Motors,
he wasn´t the only investor
but he contributed with the 98% of the financing.
His inexperience in the subject led him
to underestimate the money needed
to run a company of this size.
He had in mind to spend 25 million dollars
before his first delivery
and he ended up spending 140 million
plus the financial crisis in 2008
they almost go bankrupt and leave Musk in the ruin.
After in 2006
motivated by the urgent need to fight global warming,
Musk founded along with his cousin SolarCity,
its mission is to extend the solar energy and make it more reachable.
Later in 2013, he creates Hyperloop
some sort of bullet train that runs the 600 kilometers
that separate Los Angeles from San Francisco
in just 30 minutes.
He is currently working with all of his companies
in the Mars colonization, our spatial neighbor.
Even that he had great success this
doesn't mean that he didn't have failures,
as I said earlier, Tesla Motors almost went bankrupt
and SpaceX had 3 failed launches.
