SUCCESS

CEO
THE RISE
OF
MAGAZINE THE CEO’S
“Inspiring
The
Business World”

ELON MUSK
ENGINEER. INNOVATOR
ABSOLUTE GENIUS
 to cost much less than competing rockets. A third pneumatic tube in which a pod carrying 28 passen-
rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was gers would travel the 350 miles (560 km) between Los
ABOUT PayPal and SpaceX designed to Angeles and San Francisco in

Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly 35 minutes at a top speed of 760 miles (1,220 km) per
Musk attended Queen’s University in Kingston, twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing hour, nearly the speed of sound. Musk claimed that
South Africa) South African-born Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University
American entrepreneur who co- Company’s Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. the Hyperloop would cost only $6 billion and that,
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received SpaceX has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 with the pods departing every two minutes on aver-
founded the electronic-payment bachelor’s degrees in physics and economics in
firm PayPal and formed SpaceX, and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy–Starship sys- age, the system could accommodate the six million
1997. He enrolled in graduate school in physics tem. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of people who travel that route every year. However, he
maker of launch vehicles and at Stanford University in California, but he left
spacecraft. He was also one of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth or- stated, between running SpaceX and Tesla, he could
after only two days because he felt that the Inter- bit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft not devote time to the Hyperloop’s development.
the first significant investors in, net had much more potential to change society
as well as chief executive officer designed for providing fast transportation between
than work in physics. In 1995 he founded Zip2, a cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and
of, the electric car manufacturer company that provided maps and business di- Mars. SpaceX also developed the Dragon spacecraft,
Tesla. In addition, Musk acquired
Twitter (later X) in 2022
rectories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was which carries supplies to the International Space Sta- X (formerly Twitter)
bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq tion (ISS). Dragon can carry as many as seven astro-
for $307 million, and Musk then founded an nauts, and it had a crewed flight carrying astronauts
online financial services company, X.com, Musk joined the social media service Twitter in 2009,
Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020.
EARLY LIFE which later became PayPal, which specialized in The first test flights of the Super Heavy–Starship sys-
and, as @elonmusk, he became one of the most pop-
ular accounts on the site, with more than 85 million
trans- ferring money online. The online tem launched in 2020. In addition to being CEO of
auction eBay bought PayPal in 2002 followers as of 2022. He expressed reservations about
Musk was born SpaceX, Musk was also chief designer in building the Tesla’s being publicly traded, and in August 2018 he
for $1.5 billion. Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Starship. SpaceX is con-
to a South Af- made a series of tweets about taking the company pri-
rican father tracted to build the lander for the astronauts return- vate at a value of $420 per share, noting that he had
Musk was long ing to the Moon by 2025 as part of NASA’s Artemis
and a Cana- convinced that for life to “secured funding.” (The value of $420 was seen as a
dian mother. space program. joking reference to April 20, a day celebrated by dev-
survive, humanity has to
He displayed become a multiplanet otees of cannabis.) The following month the U.S. Se-
an early tal-
ent for com-
species. However, he TESLA curities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk
for securities fraud, alleging that the tweets were “false
was dissatisfied with
puters and the great expense of and misleading.” Shortly thereafter Tesla’s board re-
entrepre- rocket Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of jected the SEC’s proposed settlement, reportedly be-
neurship. At age launch- electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the ma- cause Musk had threatened to resign. However, the
12 he created a ers. In jor funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), news sent Tesla stock plummeting, and a harsher deal
video game and 2002 an electric car company founded by entrepreneurs was ultimately accepted. Its terms included Musk’s
sold it to a com- he Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. In 2006 Tes- stepping down as chairman for three years, though he
puter magazine. la introduced its first car, the Roadster, which could was allowed to continue as CEO; his tweets were to be
In 1988, after travel 245 miles (394 km) on a single charge. Unlike preapproved by Tesla lawyers, and fines of $20 million
obtaining a most previous electric vehicles, which Musk thought for both Tesla and Musk were levied.
Canadian were stodgy and uninteresting, it was a sports car that
passport, could go from 0 to 60 miles (97 km) per hour in less Musk was critical of Twitter’s commitment to prin-
Musk left than four seconds. In 2010 the company’s initial pub- ciples of free speech, in light of the company’s con-
South lic offering raised about $226 million. Two years later tent-moderation policies. Early in April 2022, Twit-
Africa Tesla introduced the Model S sedan, which was ac- ter’s filings with the SEC disclosed that Musk had
b e c au s e claimed by automotive critics for its performance and bought more than 9 percent of the company. Shortly
he was design. The company won further praise for its Model thereafter Twitter announced that Musk would join
unwilling X luxury SUV, which went on the market in 2015. The the company’s board, but Musk decided against that
to support founded Model 3, a less-expensive vehicle, went into produc- and made a bid for the entire company, at a value of
apartheid through compulsory Space Exploration Technolo- tion in 2017 and became the best-selling electric car $54.20 a share, for $44 billion. Twitter’s board accept-
military service and because he sought the greater gies (SpaceX) to make more affordable of all time. ed the deal, which would make him sole owner of the
economic opportunities available in the United States. rockets. Its first two rockets were the company.
Dissatisfied with the projected cost ($68 billion) of a
Falcon 1 (first launched in 2006) and the larger Fal- high-speed rail system in California, Musk in 2013
con 9 (first launched in 2010), which were designed proposed an alternate faster system, the Hyperloop, a