ELON MUSK

These are the inspirational stories of great men and women who have blazed the next generations' trail with their remarkable feats.

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Musk before a&nbsp;Model X&nbsp;at the 2014 Tesla Inc. annual shareholder meeting

Tesla began delivery of an electric sports car, the Roadster, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first&nbsp;serial production&nbsp;all-electric car to use&nbsp;lithium-ion battery&nbsp;cells.&nbsp;Tesla began delivery of its four-door&nbsp;Model&nbsp;S&nbsp;sedan in 2012.&nbsp;A cross-over, the&nbsp;Model X&nbsp;was launched in 2015.&nbsp;A mass-market sedan, the&nbsp;Model 3, was released in 2017.&nbsp;The Model 3 is the all-time bestselling plug-in electric car worldwide, and in June 2021 it became the first electric car to sell 1&nbsp;million units globally.&nbsp;

The brothers persuaded the board of directors to abandon a merger with&nbsp;CitySearch&nbsp;however, Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted.&nbsp;Compaq&nbsp;acquired Zip2 for $307&nbsp;million in cash in February 1999,&nbsp;and Musk received $22&nbsp;million for his 7-percent share.

Musk attended&nbsp;Waterkloof House Preparatory School,&nbsp;Bryanston High School, and then&nbsp;Pretoria Boys High School, where he graduated.&nbsp;Musk was a good but not exceptional student, earning a 61 in Afrikaans and a B on his senior math certification.

Musk applied for a Canadian passport&nbsp;through&nbsp;his Canadian-born mother,&nbsp;knowing that it would be easier to immigrate to the United States this way.&nbsp;While waiting for his application to be processed, he attended the&nbsp;University of Pretoria&nbsp;for five months.

In 1995, he was accepted to a PhD program in&nbsp;materials science&nbsp;at&nbsp;Stanford University.&nbsp;However, Musk decided to join the&nbsp;Internet boom, dropping out two days after being accepted and applied for a job at&nbsp;Netscape, to which he reportedly never received a response.

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Two years later, he transferred to the&nbsp;University of Pennsylvania, an&nbsp;Ivy League&nbsp;university in&nbsp;Philadelphia, where he earned two degrees, a&nbsp;Bachelor of Arts&nbsp;in physics, and a&nbsp;Bachelor of Science&nbsp;degree in economics from the university's&nbsp;Wharton School.

Although Musk said he earned the degrees in 1995, the University of Pennsylvania maintains that they were awarded in 1997.&nbsp;He reportedly hosted large, ticketed house parties to help pay for tuition, and wrote a business plan for an electronic book-scanning service similar to&nbsp;Google Books.

In 1994, Musk held two internships in&nbsp;Silicon Valley: one at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which investigated electrolytic&nbsp;ultracapacitors&nbsp;for energy storage, and another at&nbsp;Palo Alto–based startup&nbsp;Rocket Science Games.

Elon Musk is a businessman and investor. He is the second wealthiest person in the world with an estimated worth of $232 billion.

Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa on June 28, 1971. His family was wealthy. He has got a sister and a brother. After his parents got a divorce in 1980, Elon chose to live with his father but later regretted his decision and became estranged from his father.

In early 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit&nbsp;Mars Society&nbsp;and discussed funding plans to place a&nbsp;growth chamber for plants&nbsp;on&nbsp;Mars.&nbsp;In October of the same year, he travelled to Moscow with&nbsp;Jim Cantrell&nbsp;and&nbsp;Adeo Ressi&nbsp;to buy refurbished&nbsp;intercontinental ballistic missiles&nbsp;(ICBMs) that could send the greenhouse payloads into space. He met with the companies&nbsp;NPO Lavochkin&nbsp;and&nbsp;Kosmotras however, Musk was seen as a novice&nbsp;and the group returned to the United States empty-handed.

In February 2002, the group returned to Russia with&nbsp;Mike Griffin&nbsp; to look for three ICBMs. They had another meeting with Kosmotras and were offered one rocket for $8&nbsp;million, which Musk rejected. He instead decided to start a company that could build affordable rockets.&nbsp;With $100&nbsp;million of his own money,&nbsp;Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and became the company's CEO and Chief Engineer.

ELON MUSK

In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded Global Link Information Network, later renamed to&nbsp;Zip2.&nbsp;The company was financed mainly through a financing round of US$200,000, of which 10% was contributed by his father&nbsp;Errol Musk.&nbsp;The company developed an Internet&nbsp;city guide&nbsp;with maps, directions, and&nbsp;yellow pages, and marketed it to newspapers.

They worked at a small rented office in&nbsp;Palo Alto,&nbsp;with Musk coding the website every night.&nbsp;Eventually, Zip2 obtained contracts with&nbsp;The New York Times&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Chicago Tribune.

Tesla, Inc., originally Tesla Motors, was incorporated in July 2003 by&nbsp;Martin Eberhard&nbsp;and&nbsp;Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the&nbsp;Series A round&nbsp;of funding. Both men played active roles in the company's early development before Musk's involvement.&nbsp;Musk led the Series

A round of investment in February 2004; he invested $6.5&nbsp;million, became the majority shareholder, and joined Tesla's board of directors as chairman.&nbsp;Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw&nbsp;Roadster&nbsp;product design, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.

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