PEAKLIFE

On Elon Musk’s 48^th 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.

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.