On Elon Musk’s 48th birthday, we take you through his life, career highlights and some of the milestones that make him the most iconic technology entrepreneurs and inventors of his time.
June 28, 1971: Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa.
1981: He taught himself computer programming at 10 on the Commodore VIC-20
1983: By the age of 12, he had already sold his first video game, Blastar. The BASIC-based video game was sold to a magazine called PC and Office Technology, for about $500.
1989: He moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University at 17.
1992: He went to University of Pennsylvania to Study Business and Physics and graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics. He ended up staying back for a second bachelor’s degree in physics.
1995: Along with his brother, Musk started Zip2, a web software company that developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry.
February 1999: Zip2 was sold to Compaq for US$307 million in cash and US$34 million in stock. Musk received US$22 million for his 7 percent share from the sale.
March 1999: Cofounded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with US$10 million from the sale of Zip2.
2000: X.com merged with Confinity to form a money-transfer service called PayPal. Musk became the CEO and company’s largest shareholder by owning 11.7% of shares.
October 2000: Musk was ousted from his role as CEO of PayPal due to disagreements with other company leadership. However, he remained on the board.
2001: His interest in space exploration took form in the conceptualization of Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars that contained food crops to grow on Martian regolith.
February 2002: As a result of 2 failed trips to Russia to buy refurbished Dnepr Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), Musk realized that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed.
May 2002: SpaceX is founded, with Musk becoming its chief executive officer (CEO) and chief technology officer (CTO).
October 2002: eBay acquires PayPal, Musk receives US$165 million.
July 2003: Tesla, Inc was incorporated by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding.
February 2004: Musk joins Tesla, leads the Series A round of investment and joins Tesla’s board of directors as its chairman.
2006: Musk provides the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which was then co-founded in 2006 by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive. SpaceX gets various contracts from NASA to transport cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.
2007: Eberhard is ousted from Tesla; Musk becomes the CEO and product architect.
2012: To combat global warming, he announced a collaboration vetween SolarCity and Tesla to use electric vehicle batteries to smooth the impact of rooftop solar on the power grid. It went live in 2013.
May 25, 2012: SpaceX’s vehicle, Dragon, docked with the International Space Station (ISS)for the first time, making it the first commercial company to do so.
2013: SolarCity became the second largest solar power provider in the US.
August 12, 2013: Unveiled a concept for a high-speed transportation system that incorporates incorporating reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on an air cushion driven by linear induction motors and air compressors.
2014: In a bid to increase the speed of development of electric cars, he announced that Tesla would allow its technology patents to be used by anyone in good faith.
June 17, 2014: He committed to building a SolarCity advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York. Triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States, the Tesla Gigafactory 2 is a photovoltaic (PV) cell factory. Leased by Tesla subsidiary, its construction began in 2014 and was completed in 2017.
January 2015: He made a hilarious cameo as playing himself on The Simpsons in an episode titled “The Musk Who Fell to Earth”. The episode made light of his extravagant ideas.
June 2015: Announced Hyperloop design competition for students and other similarlarly inclined people to build Hyperloop pods to operate on a SpaceX-sponsored mile-long track. After the track was used in January 2017, Musk also started building a tunnel.
November 2015: He made a cameo in a Big Bang Theory episode, again as himself.
December 2015: He announced the creation of OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company that aims to develop artificial general intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial to humanity.
2016: SolarCity is acquired by Tesla, and Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup company to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence.
September 2016: Musk revealed details of his architecture to explore and colonize Mars.
May 12, 2017: Hyperloop One, a company participating in the Hyperloop competition, announced their first successful test run on its DevLoop track in Nevada on July 13, 2017. It lasted 5.3 seconds, reaching a top speed of 70 mph.
July 2017: Musk purchased x.com domain from PayPal, stating it has sentimental value for him.
September 2018: Musk sends out a tweet that claimed that funding had been secured for taking Tesla private. As a result, he is charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a resulting lawsuit characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors. Musk and Tesla are fined $20 million each, with Musk being forced to step down as Tesla chairman within 45 days while remaining it’s CEO.
September 2018: In what became a viral sensation and a meme, Musk appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. They discussed various topics for 21/2 hours, with Musk puffing from a cannabis-laced cigarette offered by Rogan. Within five days, the appearance had registered 10 million YouTube views and reports of his instability started going around in the media.
October 2018: To help solve the Flint water crisis, Musk donated over $480,000 to install new water fountains with filtration systems for access to clean water at all Flint, Michigan schools.
October 2018: What started off as an April Fool’s tweet, Musk eventually filed an actual ‘intent to use’ trademark application for Teslaquila, a distilled agave liquor. He tweeted a mockup of the bottle on October 12.
Teslaquila coming soon … https://t.co/AtoVGOtvVR
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 12 October 2018
January 2019: Traveled to China for the groundbreaking of Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory, the company’s first large-scale plant outside the U.S.
June 2019: SpaceX completes what it claims was the ‘most difficult launch ever’, a Falcon Heavy rocket carrying 24 research satellites. These satellites need to be placed in three different orbits, and required sevral hours to release them all.
Falcons landing pic.twitter.com/BjlvhppAw2
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) 26 June 2019
