Elon Musk is a man of many talents. He’s the genius behind Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and PayPal, to name just a few.
But as with any entrepreneur who has made it big in the business world, there will always be people who question his success.
So, what does Elon Musk have that sets him apart from other entrepreneurs? And can you call him an “overnight” success? Answers may surprise you, and we are the ones in charge of providing you with them!
Who Is Elon Musk?
It seems hard to believe, but some people don’t know who he truly is.
Yes, they have heard his name and feel familiar with it every time someone mentions him, but they don’t usually take the time to go over the details. If you are part of this team, let’s change that.
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971, from parents Maye Musk, a Canadian-born model, and Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer with many other perks such as a pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer.
In 1980, his parents divorced, making him decide to live with his father two years after the divorce. He reportedly regretted this decision as he has mentioned on several occasions that his father is “a terrible human being…”
As a result, Elon’s childhood and early years weren’t easy not only because of his father’s abuse, he was also bullied in school and even hospitalized once after a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs.
However, there is something to remember from his early years: the talent he was born with and developed.
When he was 10, he grew interested in computers and video games. After acquiring a Commodore VIC-20 (a home computer), he took his time to learn computer programming with ONLY a manual.
After this, no one would believe he sold a code for a video game for $500, thanks to this when he was only 12.
Though he was an introvert and always kept himself. However, when he was 15, things changed. He grew a lot in height and took karate and wrestling lessons to defend himself from bullying.
But after his learning, what did he do?
Since he lived in South Africa for most of his childhood and teenage years, no one would expect him to move from there. However, he was ambitious and decided to move to Canada in 1989, when he was 17, to attend Queen’s University in Ontario and avoid mandatory South African military service.
It wasn’t until 1990 when he was able to enter the university, and before that, he worked at a farm, lumber mill, and other places.
He only lasted two years in the university when he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics.
Instead of aiming for Canada, Elon was interested in entering the United States and only applied for a Canadian passport to attend university and have better chances to travel to the USA.
In fact, he spent time in Silicon Valley in 1994 during the summer while he was holding two internships.
In 1995, he was accepted at Stanford University to a Ph.D., but he dropped it after two days in order to go with the flow of the moment: The Internet.
A Lifetime in Business: X.com, SpaceX, Tesla & More
Here’s the main dish: how he truly makes money.
Since he dropped Stanford University and decided to join the boom, the first idea was to launch an Internet startup.
This is when Greg Kouri and his brother, Kimbal, enter the picture since they, along with Elon, founded the web software company Zip2 thanks to angel investors.
The company provided licensed online city guide software to newspapers.
For it, we only have a word: success.
Zip2 was quite the boom, but following how the board of the company dealt with the business, things didn’t go too well for Musk when becoming CEO or making decisions.
As a result, the company was sold to Compaq for $307 million in cash in 1999.
He did receive his share ($22 million), but he just wanted to continue going after feeling the previous project wasn’t enough.
Therefore, during the same year, Elon founded X.com. This company was designed as an online financial service and e-mail payment business.
It was so successful that 200,000 people joined the service during the first months. However, the story repeated itself.
The investors replaced Musk after considering him inexperienced.
This is why X.com merged into one of Confinity’s most extensive services: PayPal. For this project, he returned as CEO but was replaced by Thiel in 2000.
After that, the company focused on PayPal as its only service. Thus, why you won’t find ‘Confinity’ anywhere since it was renamed as ‘PayPal.’
eBay later acquired the company in 2002, and since Musk was the largest shareholder, he received a great sum for it.
But is this his entire story in business? We’re just getting started.
After PayPal, Elon approached another field: space.
In 2002, he founded his third company, SpaceX, to build spacecraft and send them to Mars. Commercial space travel was the main intention.
SpaceX came with a lot of difficulties since Elon wasn’t taken seriously in many opportunities. However, after six years, the company was more than established and quite promising, which led it to earn a contract with NASA to handle cargo and, later on, astronaut transport.
The company only started to grow even more from here, and in 2012, it made history after launching the Falcon 9 rocket into space.
In 2013 and 2015, others Falcon 9 were launched and met their missions and allowed the company to move onto the next stage: using reusable parts.
Since then, SpaceX has only been a successful project for Musk, which includes over 60 satellites launched recently in 2019.
So far, you can notice that Musk has a long record in the industry and through several types of companies, unlike many business people nowadays.
Another we HAVE TO include is Tesla Motors.
Many people who know about Elon are actually familiar with this electric car company to the point of thinking about it before any other (a bit weird, in our opinion).
For this company, Elon is a co-founder, CEO, and product architect. It started in 2003 and produced ONLY affordable electric cars, battery products, and solar roofs.
For the entrepreneur, this is one of his favorite projects since he looks forward to helping the planet by reducing air pollution and continuously looking for better options with these products.
This is why he used to oversee product development, engineering, and design of EACH of the products. But changed this in 2018 to “divide and conquer.”
Tesla has produced many cars that are worth mentioning, including Model X SUV and Model S sedans.
Sports cars, sedans, semi-truck, compact crossovers, and other designs are included in the manufacturing and production of the company.
On another note, other companies from the entrepreneur are:
- SolarCity was acquired by Tesla in 2016 to emerge with it and created Tesla Energy.
- Neuralink, which is focused on integrating the human brain with AI.
- The Boring Company that aims to construct tunnels.
How Much Does the Magnate Earn?
If we go back to the first company, we already know he earned $22 million for Zip2 after its sale.
However, we didn’t mention he was paid over $100 million after PayPal was sold.
This alone places him as a multimillionaire and someone you need to look up to if you want to become an entrepreneur.
But what we want to really know nowadays is how much the magnate is making.
Considering that he is SpaceX, Tesla, and Tesla Energy, and the latest mentions owner, his revenues come from different sources.
According to Forbes, Elon Musk’s net worth is at $160.7 billion to this date.
Although he hit the billionaire milestone a few years ago, his fortune was $24.6 billion in 2020.
Then, what made him go from this sum to the astronomical one nowadays? Tesla.
The company capitalized on many markets, and its worth and stock when from one to a hundred during the last year.
Of course, his other companies continue to grow and add to his net worth. However, Tesla is definitely the game changer in his fortune, and no one can deny that.
This is why (going back to this point for a bit) many people know him for it instead of SpaceX or other companies despite them being as old.
But don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying people don’t know a company as famous as SpaceX, especially now with the competition of who is going to space first among the most prominent companies.
In Fact, SpaceX is worth over $74 billion.
Elon Musk’s Impact & Influence
As the second wealthiest person in the world, you can expect Elon to have a lot of influence in business and everything he does.
A great example of this is the significant loss for the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
On May 21, 2021, announced on Twitter that Tesla, Inc. would stop accepting payments in Bitcoin and any transactions related to it, including selling the cryptocurrency.
Why? Because if there are something people who follow the man know, he is keen to protect the environment, and a great proof of that is Tesla itself.
Bitcoin (for those who don’t know) isn’t cheap to mine in terms of how our planet is affected by it since it involves fossil fuels.
If you think about it, it makes sense Tesla isn’t up for the alternative of accepting it as a payment and, instead, started to aim for cryptocurrencies that use less energy and can be efficiently mined.
But before this controversy, Elon influenced the cryptocurrency market back in 2017 and made it earn billions.
Nowadays, it is more about the specific digital currency he recommends.
Now, cryptocurrencies aren’t everything in what his influence is critical.
Environment and companies in every field and industry are always looking at what Elon Musk has to say since the magnate is known for his brilliant ideas regardless of the market he is in.
Should You Follow His Steps?
Short answer: YES!
If we continue with the fact that Elon Musk is a genius when it comes to business ideas, we will be able to give you great reasons why he is a great example to follow.
However, we believe this article alone is proof enough of this.
Just think about it, space, cars, online transactions, and money, and we don’t know what else is in his brain.
Many would say that compared to Jeff Bezos, Elon is falling short in many things. However, his success doesn’t come from one company alone, and despite having a lower net worth than the first one, the impressive part is how Musk has made sure to make every company successful.
Of course, every entrepreneur has their merits, and we genuinely don’t want to fall into comparisons here.
Therefore, we want you to consider him a role model for his business plans, ideas, investments, decisions, and person when it comes to the environment and planet.
If you ask us, it is possible to take an idea or two from him and decide to invest in something similar.
His first company was around the Internet boom, and if we follow this road, we can help you by recommending an idea: renting websites.
But before that, let’s set this straight: everything is about the Internet.
Businesses and companies aren’t going back to the old days when people had to go to offices. This doesn’t mean this traditional design is dead, considering that some need it no matter what.
However, over 60% of the ideas are about making money online, which is why we consider renting websites to be a great alternative.
This business focuses on building websites for small companies or individuals who want to obtain clients.
Your job is to contact them, build their sites and make sure they are ranked at the top in Google to bring leads that will turn into clients.
But why is it called “renting”? Because, usually, companies and people would create their own websites, but since this takes time, money and can be a lot of work, some go for the option of asking someone else to handle the task.
This is your role: creating them and then just earning a percentage based on the clients the company gets.
Talent Isn’t Required
Just like we said, you don’t need talent for this business.
Many ideas come with the limitation of not being good enough in it.
Yes, we believe people can learn, but some are just born with it. Well, this is not the case for renting websites.
Indeed, you need to learn a thing or two, but it isn’t going to take you too much time nor money and brain cells.
Instead, you’ll find it relatively easy and profitable by the end of the day.
Having reached this point, we can recommend you a #1 training program that focuses on explaining what the business is about in detail and how you can get started with only your computer.
The program will provide technical terms, knowledge about small companies and clients, and anything you need to succeed.
But more importantly, it will focus on you and the set of skills required for the journey.
Pitched your interest? It’s free to click here for more info!
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