Elon Musk just became the richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $185 billion.
Thursday’s increase in Tesla’s share price pushed Musk past Jeff Bezos, who had been the richest person since 2017 and is currently worth about $184 billion. Musk’s wealth surge over the past year marks the fastest rise to the top of the rich list in history — and is a dramatic financial turnaround for the famed entrepreneur who just 18 months ago was in the headlines for Tesla’s rapid cash burn and his personal leverage against the company’s stock.
Musk started 2020 worth about $27 billion, and was barely in the top 50 richest people.
Here are 10 Amazing Facts About Elon Musk;
1. Real Life Tony Stack
Robert Downey Jr. modelled his Legendary character in the Iron Man movies on none other than Elon Musk. Parts of Iron 2 were actually filmed inside and outside of SpaceX. To top that, Musk even made a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in the film.
He even guest-starred in an episode of ‘The Bang Theory’ and ‘The Simpsons’.
2. He has seven kids and has been married 3 times
Musk married sci-fi writer Justine Wilson in 2000. They have five sons together. They separated in 2008, and he got married to an English actress Talulah Riley in 2010. In 2012, the couple got divorced only to get married again in 2013, they got divorced again in 2016. Musk is currently dating Canadian musician grimes. They have a son who was born in May 2020.
3. Born in South Africa
Elon Musk was born in South Africa to Errol and Maye Musk on the 28th June 1971. He moved to Canada at the age of 17. Three years later, he moved to the United States to study Business and Physics at the university of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He holds South African, Canadian and U.S. Citizenship. Currently, he lives in Los Angeles, California.
4. Self taught programmer
At the age of 12, Musk Taught himself computer programming and coding. He even created a video game dubbed “Blastar” during this time. It is a sci-fi inspired, space themed game, that showed his inclination towards technology and space at an early age. He sold the code for Blastar for $500 to a computer magazine. You can still try out a game online!
5. He was pushed around as a kid
Musk was the youngest and smallest kid in his class, not to mention the smartest. So he was often tormented by the older kids. He withdrew to his books and computers to escape from it. As a result, he also learned karate, judo and wrestling at the age of 15, to defend himself.
6. Stanford dropout
After earning degrees in physics and economics from Pennsylvania, Musk moved to California to get his Ph.D. in applied physics at Stanford university. But he dropped out of Stanford in just two days, to pursue his entrepreneurial visions. He started the ‘Zip2 corporation’ along with his brother Kimbal, that provided licensed online city guide for newspaper publishers. He sold the company to compaq in 1999 for $300 million.
7. He co-founded Paypal
Musk started an online banking company in 1999, which he later merged with another software company. The name of the merged company was then changed to Paypal.AFter being the CEO for a while, he was ousted from his role in 2000 due to leadership disagreements. Paypal was later acquired by Ebay for $1.5 billion, and Musk received a share of $165 million.
8. Eccentric Ideas
Elon Musk is a creative genius and whips out some of the most unbelievable yet inventive ideas for the future. For example, hos most desired goal is to make Mars habitable for humans and colonize it. He also wants to breath his last on this red planet. He wants to build a hyperloop that travels at 1200 kmph. Of course, he also wants to make space tourism a real thing and is already planning for it. With neuralink, he wants to build a technology that will quite literally connect humans to computers, thereby improving their memory and decision-making abilities.
9. Texla and Spacex
Today Elon Musk is synonymous with these two names. He co-founded Tesla, a company that manufactures electric cars. As the co-founder and CEO, he leads all product design, engineering, and global manufacturing of Tesla products. In 2002, he founded Spacex, a company that creates space launch vehicles with the aim to reduce space transportation costs and make humanity multiplanetary. No investor was willing to invest in it and he channeled his own money to make it a reality. Today, Spacex is the most innovative venture and is valued at nearly $36 billion.
10. Rich and Powerful
Well, he became the richest person in the world with a net worth of $185 billion while writing this. He has been a consistent name on Forbes’ list of the world’s most powerful people. He also features on the list of America’s most innovative leaders.