Elon Musk
Elon Musk
Elon Musk
Neuralink, for which he works all day long. He's worried about population collapse. has nine
children with three women, including triplets and two sets of twins.
As a kid in South Africa, Musk taught himself to code; he sold his first game, Blastar, for about $500.
Early life
Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for
computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer
magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport.
Graduate school in physics at Stanford University in California, but he left after only two days
because he felt that the Internet had much more potential to change society than work in physics.
In 1995 he founded Zip2 a company that provided maps and business directories to online
newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million.
Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which
specialized in transferring money online. The online auction eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5
billion.
Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet species.
In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to make more affordable rockets. Its
first two rockets were the Falcon 1 (first launched in 2006) and the larger Falcon 9 (first launched
in 2010), which were designed to cost much less than competing rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon
Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly
twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company’s Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost.
SpaceX has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy–
Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000
pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing
fast transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and Mars. SpaceX also
developed the Dragon spacecraft, which carries supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
Dragon can carry as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts Doug
Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. The first test flights of the Super Heavy–Starship
system launched in 2020.
As CEO of SpaceX, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and
Starship. SpaceX is contracted to build the lander for the astronauts returning to the Moon by 2025
as part of NASA’s Artemis space program.
Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the
major founders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric car company founded by
entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
In 2006 Tesla introduced its first car, the Roadster, which could travel 245 miles (394 km) on a
single charge. It was a sports car that could go from 0 to 60 miles (97 km) per hour in less than four
seconds. In 2010 the company’s initial public offering raised about $226 million. Two years later
Tesla introduced the Model S sedan, which was acclaimed by automotive critics for its performance
and design. The company won further praise for its Model X luxury SUV, which went on the market
in 2015. The Model 3, a less-expensive vehicle, went into production in 2017 and became the best-
selling electric car of all time.
Dissatisfied with the projected cost ($68 billion) of a high-speed rail system in California, Musk in
2013 proposed an alternate faster system, the Hyperloop, a pneumatic tube in which a pod
carrying 28 passengers would travel the 350 miles (560 km) between Los Angeles and San
Francisco in 35 minutes at a top speed of 760 miles (1,220 km) per hour, nearly the speed of sound.
Musk claimed that the Hyperloop would cost only $6 billion and that, with the pods departing every
two minutes on average, the system could accommodate the six million people who travel that
route every year. However, he stated, between running SpaceX and Tesla, he could not devote time
to the Hyperloop’s development.
Musk joined the social media service Twitter in 2009, and he became one of the most popular
accounts on the site, with more than 85 million followers as of 2022. He expressed reservations
about Tesla’s being publicly traded, and in August 2018 he made a series of tweets about taking the
company private at a value of $420 per share, noting that he had “secured funding.” The value of
$420 was seen as a joking reference to April 20, a day celebrated by devotees of cannabis . Its
terms included Musk’s stepping down as chairman for three years, though he was allowed to
continue as CEO; his tweets were to be preapproved by Tesla lawyers, and fines of $20 million for
both Tesla and Musk were levied.
Early in April 2022, Twitter’s filings with the SEC disclosed that Musk had bought more than 9
percent of the company. Shortly thereafter Twitter announced that Musk would join the
company’s board, but Musk decided against that and made a bid for $54.20 a share, for $44
billion. Twitter’s board accepted the deal, which would make him sole owner of the company. In July
2022 Musk announced that he was withdrawing his bid, stating that Twitter had not provided
sufficient information about bot accounts and claiming that the company was in “material breach of
multiple provisions” of the purchase agreement. In September 2022, Twitter’s shareholders voted to
accept Musk’s offer. Facing a legal battle, Musk ultimately proceeded with the deal, and it was
completed in October.
Work Ethics
“I go to sleep, wake up, work, go to sleep, wake up, work—do that seven days a week,” says Musk.
“I'll do that for a while—no choice—but I think once Twitter is set on the right path it is a much
easier thing to manage than SpaceX or Tesla.”
By using the time blocking method, Musk intentionally plans his day out in five-minute increments or
'time blocks. ' Each time block is assigned to a specific task or activity. For example, Musk would use
the time blocking method when responding to overdue emails, eating meals, or timing work
meetings.
Steve Jobs
American businessman
Apple unveils a $3,500 headset as it wades into the world of virtual reality will place its users
between the virtual and real world, while also testing the technology trendsetter’s.
Apple has a long history of designing products that redefine the market
Founding of Apple
Raised by adoptive parents in Cupertino, California, located in what is now known as Silicon Valley.
Though he was interested in engineering, his passions of youth varied. He dropped out of Reed
College, in Portland, Oregon, took a job at Atari Corporation as a video game designer in early
1974, and saved enough money for a pilgrimage to India to experience Buddhism.
Back in Silicon Valley in the autumn of 1974, Jobs reconnected with Stephen Wozniak, a former
high school friend who was working for the Hewlett-Packard Company. When Wozniak told Jobs of
his progress in designing his own computer logic board, Jobs suggested that they go into business
together, which they did in 1976. The Apple I, as they called the logic board, was built in the Jobs’
family garage with money they obtained by selling Jobs’s Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak’s
programmable calculator.
Wozniak designed an improved model, the Apple II, complete with a keyboard, and they arranged
to have a sleek, molded plastic case manufactured to enclose the unit.
In 1981 the company had a record-setting public stock offering. In 1983 the company recruited
PepsiCo, Inc., president John Sculley to be its chief executive officer (CEO).
Macintosh, or Mac, as the new computer was the centrepiece of an extraordinary publicity
campaign. It would later be pointed to as the archetype of “event marketing.”
The first Macs were underpowered and expensive. But Jobs’s apparent failure to correct the
problem quickly led to tensions in the company, and in 1985 Sculley convinced Apple’s board of
directors to remove Jobs.
In 1986 Jobs acquired a controlling interest in Pixar, a computer graphics firm that had been
founded as a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company of Hollywood movie director George
Lucas. Over the following decade Jobs built Pixar into a major animation studio first full-length
feature film to be completely computer-animated, Toy Story. In 1995. Pixar’s public stock offering
that year made Jobs, for the first time, a billionaire. He eventually sold the studio to the Disney
Company in 2006.
In late 1996 Apple, saddled by huge financial losses and on the verge of collapse, hired a new chief
executive, semiconductor executive Gilbert Amelio. When Amelio learned that the company, had
failed to develop an acceptable replacement for the Macintosh’s aging operating system (OS), he
chose NEXTSTEP, buying Jobs’s company for more than $400 million—and bringing Jobs back to
Apple as a consultant. However, Apple’s board of directors soon became disenchanted with
Amelio’s inability to turn the company’s finances around and in June 1997 requested Apple’s
prodigal cofounder to lead the company once again.
Innovate he did. In 1998, Jobs introduced the iMac, an egg-shaped, one-piece computer that
offered high-speed processing at a relatively modest price and initiated a trend of high-fashion
computers. By the end of the year, the iMac was the nation’s highest-selling personal computer, and
Jobs was able to announce consistent profits for the once-moribund company. 1999, he triumphed
once more with the stylish iBook, a laptop computer built with students in mind, and the G4, a
desktop computer sufficiently powerful that (so Apple boasted) it could not be exported under
certain circumstances because it qualified as a supercomputer. Though Apple did not regain the
industry dominance it once had, Steve Jobs had saved his company, and in the process
reestablished himself as a master high-technology marketer and visionary.
Reinventing Apple
In 2001 Jobs started reinventing Apple for the 21st century. That was the year that Apple
introduced iTunes, a computer program for playing music and for converting music to the compact
MP3 digital format commonly used in computers and other digital devices. Later the same year,
Apple began selling the iPod, a portable MP3 player, which quickly became the market leader. In
2003 Apple began selling downloadable copies of major record company songs in MP3 format over
the Internet. By 2006 more than one billion songs and videos had been sold through Apple’s online
iTunes Store. In recognition of the growing shift in the company’s business, Jobs officially changed
the name of the company to Apple Inc. on January 9, 2007.
In 2007 Jobs took the company into the telecommunications business with the introduction of the
touch-screen iPhone, a mobile telephone with capabilities for playing MP3s and videos and for
accessing the Internet. Later that year, Apple introduced the iPod Touch, a portable MP3 and
gaming device that included built-in Wi-Fi and an iPhone-like touch screen. Bolstered by the use of
the iTunes Store to sell Apple and third-party software, the iPhone and iPod Touch soon boasted
more games than any other portable gaming system.
Health issues
In January 2011, however, Jobs took another medical leave of absence. In August he resigned as
CEO but became chairman. He died two months later.
Steve Jobs had an incredible work ethic. Jobs told his biographer that when he returned to Apple in
1996, he worked from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, since he was still also leading Pixar's operations.
He worked tirelessly, and suffered from kidney stones. Steve Jobs was a workaholic and had the
reputation of being a tyrant.