Snake Mask is actually a businessman who is or is given to the imagination

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The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, the founder of The Boring Company and co-founder of OpenAI - Mask seems to be making it everywhere. Surrounded by space rockets, electric cars and solar panels, he researches killer robots - and manages to make billions in between. However, Mask did not reach this level easily. How did a boy who laughed at so many at school become such a businessman, and then the head of two big companies that came to life from the pages of a science fiction novel - and didn't fall into disrepair in that way? BusinnessInsider shared this information.

Snake Mask was born on June 1971, 28 in Pretoria (JAR). According to his father, Musk was "always a thoughtful introvert."

"When he had another child, he could go to a party with his friends and spend time with them, and even if Ilon went to a party, he would immediately find a library and immerse himself in the world of books," said Errol Mask, Mask's father, an engineer.

Mask's mother is a professional dietitian and model. Liquid Mask was born in Canada. You can see pictures of her on the boxes of Special K breakfasts and even on the cover of Time magazine.

After her parents divorced in 1979, 9-year-old Ilon and her brother Kimbal decided to live with their father.

In 1983, at the age of 12, Mask wrote a simple game called "Blastar" and sold it to a computer magazine for $ 500.

He said the game was "not that important… but better than Flappy Bird"

However, it was not easy for him at school - one day he was beaten so badly by his peers that he even had to be hospitalized.

Ashley Vance writes in Snake Mask: Tesla, SpaceX, and Fantastic Future that thugs threw Mask down the stairs and beat him until he lost consciousness.

After graduating from high school, Mask traveled to Canada and studied at Kingston Royal University in Ontario for two years.

Musk moved to Canada with his mother, sister Tosca and brother Kimbal.

However, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received two diplomas (physics and economics).

While studying at the University of Pennsylvania, Mask rented a student commune building for a nightclub with classmate Adeo Ressi.

This was one of Musk’s first business experiences.

Musk then went to Stanford University to pursue a doctorate, but quickly dropped out.

He decided to leave the university after the second day of school, instead trying his luck at the now-famous Dotcom boom. He did not return to Stanford.

Snake co-founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal.

His father gave his sons $ 28 to launch a city-oriented website for newspapers such as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Mask lived almost in the office while working on Zip2 and took a shower at the YMCA local youth organization building.

However, after Compaq bought Zip2 for $ 341 million, all efforts paid off. The deal brought Mask 21 million.

Mask then founded the X.com online payment system.

In 1999, he launched the project using almost half of the proceeds from the sale of Zip2. About a year later, X. com merged with Peter Til’s Confinity financial startup - thus PayPal was born.

Mask was the CEO of PayPal, but did not stay in office long.

In October 2000, he tried to persuade PayPal co-founders to move the company's servers to the free Unix operating system on Microsoft Windows, but was strongly opposed by the CEO.

When Musk went on vacation to Australia, the board fired him and appointed Til as the new CEO.

"Holidays are expensive," Musk said, recalling his 2000 trip many years later.

But for Musk, it all turned out well: at the end of 2002, eBay bought the company for $ 1,5 billion, and the deal brought him a lot of benefits.

He earned $ 165 million as the largest shareholder in PayPal.

Before PayPal's sale, Mask dreamed of new projects, including plans to launch mice or plants to Mars.

An avid fan of science fiction, Musk even tried to buy obsolete Soviet missiles. However, the Russian side demanded $ 8 million for each missile, and Mask was convinced that it would be cheaper to build a personal missile.

In early 2002, Mask founded a company known today as Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.

Mask's goal was big: to make space flights ten times cheaper.

SpaceX's first spacecraft was named the "Millennium Falcon" in honor of the spacecraft in Star Wars.

Of course, we are talking about Falcon 1 and 9 missiles.

Another device is named after the song "Puff the Magic Dragon".

The name of the spacecraft, Dragon, seems to be a response to critics who say SpaceX will never be able to launch rockets into space.

SpaceX’s long-term goal is to conquer Mars.

Mask said SpaceX will not apply for an IPO until transport and passenger ships begin regular flights to Mars.

However, Mask has a lot to do on Earth, especially at his other company, Tesla.

The company was founded by Martin Eberhard in July 2003, and in 2004 Mask invested in the company for the first time. Today, the total investment in Tesla is about $ 70 million.

Mask became actively involved in Tesla, now he is one of the co-founders of the company. With his participation, Tesla developed its first car, the Roadster.

In 2006, when the e-Roadster went on sale, Mask was chairman of Tesla's board of directors. He is now the CEO of the company.

Musk was not satisfied with this, and soon he came up with another idea: the SolarCity project, aimed at developing solar energy.

In 2006, Musk provided start-up capital to his cousins, Peter and Lyndon Reeves, and offered to implement the idea.

At that time, things were not so smooth at Tesla.

When Eberhard was CEO, he spent more money than the company earned. In 2007, Musk staged a "coup" that initially fired Eberhard as CEO and then removed him from the board of directors and the company's board.

In 2008, when the crisis severely limited funding opportunities, Musk himself saved the company from bankruptcy.

Mask invested $ 40 million in Tesla and provided the company with a loan of the same amount. That same year, he was appointed CEO of the company.

Mask has been at odds with SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity.

According to Musk, 2008 was the most difficult year of his life. Tesla continued to lose money, and SpaceX had problems with the Falcon 1 flight. By 2009, Mask was almost in debt.

Moreover, almost at the same time, Mask divorced his wife.

Musk's ex-wife, Canadian writer Justin Musk, has given birth to six sons.

Soon two good news awaited Mask.

SpaceX has signed a $ 1,5 billion deal with NASA, and Tesla has finally managed to attract foreign investors.

By 2010, things had changed dramatically, with Tesla launching a successful IPO in June.

The company initially raised $ 226 million and became the first public car company after Ford, which hit the market in 1956. To solve his financial problems, Mask sold $ 15 million worth of shares.

Musk's extraordinary career began to attract attention in other circles, especially in Hollywood.

Junior Robert Downey Jr.'s character in the Iron Man series, Tony Stark, is based in part on the image of Mask.

At the time, Musk's personal life was very active.

In 2008, Mask began dating actress Talula Riley, who they married in 2010 but divorced in 2012. In July 2013, they remarried. In December 2014, Mask filed for divorce, but soon withdrew the documents. Riley filed for divorce in March 2016, and they finally divorced in October.

And business was going much better - especially at SpaceX.

By the end of 2015, SpaceX had flown 24 flights (mostly based on cargo to the International Space Station) and set many records along the way. In 2016, for the first time, SpaceX was able to land a multiple Falcon 9 rocket on an ocean platform.

Mask is always in the throes of new ideas. One of the latest is Hyperloop.

Hyperloop is a high-speed vacuum tube train that travels the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg in almost 35 minutes. To speed up the implementation of the idea, Mask allows other companies to create their own versions of Hyperloop.

Recently, Snake Mask launched another project - The Boring Company. Its name can be translated from English as "Boring Company", but it is a deliberate pun: in fact, it means "Drilling Company".

The Boring Company's mission is to provide high-speed traffic by bypassing tunnels in and around cities. Musk also said he had discussed with the White House the idea of ​​building a tunnel for Hyperloop between New York and Washington.

In late 2015, Mask became one of the founders of OpenAI. OpenAI is a non-profit organization engaged in research in the field of artificial intelligence. Its mission is to ensure that robots do not destroy humanity.

Mask fears that the race for the best artificial intelligence could turn into World War III.

However, these developments do not prevent him from developing artificial intelligence for driverless Tesla cars.

The "Autopilot" system is present in all models of Tesla cars.

Last year, Tesla bought SolarCity for $ 2,6 billion.

This allowed Mask to combine two major projects in the field of “green” energy under one roof.

2017 was not a good year for Mask, at least not in politics.

Musk joined the Trump administration's advisory board, which sparked a public outcry. He initially defended his decision, saying he could use his proximity to the White House to implement his progressive ideas. However, Musk left the council after Donald Trump refused to participate in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

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