With a new round of tesla stock rising, Tesla CEO Elon Musk topped the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with personal assets of more than $180 billion, surpassing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest man.
Elon Musk's net worth has soared $150 billion over the past year
The speed at which this wealth is accumulated is staggering.
After understanding elon Musk's story, it is not difficult to find that the Internet, space exploration, and clean energy, three seemingly unrelated terms, are really gathered into one person, which also gives Elon Musk a legendary color
The new world's richest man is unusual, judging by nationality.
Musk himself has a triple citizenship of Canada, South Africa and the United States
In his current role, he is CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO of Tesla, and chairman of the board of directors of SolarCity. Not only that, in terms of mobile payment, the X.com company founded by Musk and his partners has become a common online payment method in Europe and the United States and other countries after the merger of the PayPal; in space exploration, Musk established Space Exploration Technology (Space X), as CEO and chief technology officer, opening a new era of private space; in the use of clean energy, Musk invested $6.3 million in Tesla. And he's chairman of the company, he himself said,
Tesla's vision for the future is to accelerate the global shift to sustainable energy, and its solar city is also a company that provides sustainable energy based on solar energy.
In fact
Musk has shown a talented teenager since he was a teenager
。 Musk was born in a large city in northeastern South Africa to an engineer father and a model mother, the eldest of three children. Genius is always lonely, Musk lives with his father after his parents' divorce, maybe his parents' divorce, maybe he is too smart, Musk was always incompatible with his peers when he was young, when other children played, he was an outsider reading next to him, according to his mother's recollection, Musk had read the entire encyclopedia britannica at the age of eight or nine, and could still remember its contents. Perhaps influenced by his father, an engineer, Musk also showed a keen interest in science and technology.
At the age of 10, when he first met programming, he showed his genius side, and at the age of 12, Musk used the programming skills he learned to successfully design a game software and earned the first pot of gold in his life.
According to past experience, this kind of talented teenager will often break through on the academic road, all the way forward, like a star rising, but Musk did not choose this path, in 1995, Musk was ready to study for a doctorate in materials science and applied physics at Stanford University, but he dropped out of school only two days after enrolling, because "he could not stand to watch the advent of the Internet era, but he stayed out of it." Still, it's gold that shines wherever it goes, and it's in response to this sentence that Musk dropped out of school, got a lot of fun in the business world, and after getting a random angel investment from a small group in Silicon Valley,
Musk and his brother started their first company, Zip2
。 The company was later acquired by U.S. computer maker Compaq, from which Musk raised $22 million.
In the early days of the business, Musk was already beginning to emerge in the business world. The benefits from the Zip2 acquisition were thrown into another project by Musk, X.com, an Internet company he and his partners founded that specializes in online financial services and email payments. This company may not be well-known, but PayPal (PayPal) should be a household name in Europe and the United States.
and PayPal is the product of X.com's merger with Confinity
。 The company was later wholly acquired by eBay, the world's largest online merchant at the time, for $1.5 billion, and Musk also received $165 million in the deal.
While everyone thought musk would continue to dominate the business world, the billionaire began his dream of chasing the stars and the sea. In fact, as early as 2001,
Musk has planned a project called "Mars Oasis", where he wants to build a small experimental greenhouse on Mars and grow crops in it.
He also made two special trips to Russia to buy a launch vehicle to achieve his project, but the Russian quotation made Musk play a small calculation, which found that the development cost of the launch vehicle was much lower than the purchase price. Therefore, I don't know whether it is because of the businessman's keen sense of smell, which feels profitable, or because he wants to pursue his dream of the sea of stars.
In 2002, Space X was launched, and Musk became CEO and chief technology officer. The Internet and rockets, two unrelated fields, and Musk has served as chief technology officer while becoming CEO. It turned out that when Musk started his second business, he began to collect the best university textbooks in the entire American rocket manufacturing major to teach himself about rockets, but rockets and programming are not the same field, will Musk's talent in programming also show in rocket manufacturing? A quote from the designer of the top rocket engine in Space X can solve our doubts, he said:
"The CEOs of other companies may understand business, society, politics, but the level of expertise, no one can compete with Elon Musk." So, the answer is no doubt certain, in the name of genius, worthy of the name.
Perhaps it was space X that gave him a taste of sweetness, or maybe he wanted to further pursue his dreams, Musk began to make frequent shots, which can be called a cross-border business adventure. And how did the curtain of this cross-border investment open? First in 2002, Space X was born, followed by Musk invested $6.3 million in electric car maker Tesla Motors in 2004 and became the company's chairman, with the final say on all matters, and then in 2006, Musk personally invested $10 million to found SolarCity, with his cousin as CEO and co-founder, the company provides everything from system design, installation and financing. Comprehensive solar services such as construction supervision, to the establishment of the nonprofit Open AI in 2015. Investments in various fields are dizzying, but what is the ultimate goal of the billionaire?
His brother once said, "He [Musk] was able to see things in a clearer way that no one else I knew could understand." Referring to his brother's early love of chess, he added:
"In chess, if you can see 12 moves in advance, you're a high-end player. In any case, Elon can see twelve steps in advance. In fact, as early as the university era, Musk often began to think about "what is the real problem facing the world, what can best affect the future of mankind".
The answers he was more optimistic about at the time were: the Internet, sustainable energy and space exploration. From now on, Musk in the college era actually has a very far-reaching strategic consideration, has a vision beyond the development of ordinary people, and we look at his legendary journey is not difficult to find, from PayPal (PayPal) to Space X to Tesla Company (Tesla), Musk is in his college years more optimistic about the development of three areas, step by step, seemingly cross-border investment and operation, in fact, are in the Musk University era planning. And why would Musk do these things? What is the purpose of doing these things? Is it for wealth? For fame? Or something else?
In an unprecedented in-depth interview with Elon Musk for nine months at Rolling Stone magazine, musk said he tried to do what was useful, and that being useful meant being valuable to the rest of society. Are useful things that make people's lives better and make the future look better and, in fact, better? He believes we should try to make the future better. Asked what is "better," Musk explains:
"If we mitigate the effects of global warming, have cleaner air in our cities, and don't drill a lot of coal, oil and gas in some parts of the world — there are already problems in those places, and the energy will eventually run out anyway." If we were a multi-species species, this would reduce the likelihood of a single event occurring, either artificially or naturally destroying civilizations, as we know them, as dinosaurs do. According to the fossil record, there have been five mass extinction events. People don't understand these things. Unless you're a cockroach or a mushroom — or a sponge — you're done. These are the guarantees of life. Our future would be much more encouraging if we were in the starry sky, and you could move to another planet if you wanted to. ”
That may be Musk's idea, and he's putting it into practice for his own sake, musk once said in an interview that he was selling all his assets to have as much money as possible to support future Mars colonization projects. He believes that becoming a space civilization and a multi-planetary species is very important for humans. Building a city on Mars will require a lot of resources, and he hopes to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars. This means that a lot of capital is needed. That is, the purpose of his wealth accumulation was not to own property, but to better help martian colonists in the program.
All indications are that Musk may have accumulated wealth in the business world just for his Mars colonization plan, but what is the truth, what does the legendary world's richest man really want to do, is it really for the Mars immigration plan, for a better life for mankind? This is up to time to prove.