15 Uncommon Facts About Elon Musk That Anyone Hardly Knows: Elon Musk is known to be the real-life Tony Stark. He lives the most exotic life and comes with the outlandish ideas & innovations. Everyone knows Elon Musk as a Billionaire who lives a lavish lifestyle. But he has actually gone through a lot before reaching the heights of enormous success. From being a bullied child at a young age to becoming the CEO of companies like Tesla & SpaceX. There are interesting facts about Elon Musk that people would love to know about. I have made it easy for you. Keep reading down below to read uncommon but interesting facts about Elon Musk that no one knows.
Never Heard Interesting Facts About Elon Musk
The Bullied Child
Today, Elon is worth millions of dollars but growing up he was never that rich. Elon’s mom was a Canadian model and his dad was an engineer based in South Africa. They both fell in love and got engaged and married. After a few years, they gave birth to Elon. He didn’t have a stable childhood. His dad was quite abusive. In fact, on records, Elon has called his dad ‘Demon’. He also has been a victim of bullying during school days. One time he got bullied so severely that he was hospitalized for a night.
Started Coding at 10
Elon was kind of a prodigy, he learned programming languages when he was just 10 years old. His dad was doubting his potential and refused to buy him a better computer so Elon thought of making software and sell to prospective buyers & buy a new computer with that money. Even at an early age he was thinking like an entrepreneur. Elon coded his own game called ‘Blaster’ he then sold it to the magazine for 500 dollars.
College Drop Out
Elon Musk is a college dropout with two degrees but still, he is extraordinary. Elon got his graduation done with Pennsylvania University not only with one but two degrees. One was in Physics & the other was in Economics. Then, he went to pursue his Ph.D. at Stanford University. He could not be made even two days there and dropped out from there. He thought to continue with the company idea with his sibling and he would come back to Stanford only if the company fails. The company never failed & he never came back.
Elon was Jobless
Before starting things on his own Elon Musk tried to hunt for job opportunities. Internet was a new thing at that time and companies like Internet Explorer or Netscape were the top dotcom MNCs. All the computer science geeks and tech guys were looking for jobs only at these two places. Elon was also one of them. He was interviewed at Netscape & faced rejection. Then, He decided to start his own company named Zip 2.
From Being Broke to Millionaire
Another interesting fact about Elon Musk is that He was learning coding since childhood, so it was natural that his first business was a software company. The Internet was new at that time, companies were still trying to adapt to it. And Elon somehow found an opportunity out of it. With the help of his brother, he came out with the company Zip2.com. They worked so hard on this company at the initial stage and within 3.5 Years, they sold it to Compaq computers for 305 Million Dollars. Out of that Elon’s share was 22 Million Dollars adding him to the millionaire list in the USA.
Elon at Paypal
Elon Musk is a true entrepreneur at heart. Out of the money he got from selling Zip2.com, he invested that money and found x.com. Within a year of launch, they had around a million customers. X.com is a company that we now know as Paypal.
- Within the 2 years of Paypal’s launch, eBay came up and purchased it at a crazy valuation of $1.5 Billion.
- eBay bought Paypal at such a high price because in 2002 around 25% of the transactions were happening through Paypal.
- Elon make sure to utilize the perfect timings and got $105 Million out of the deal.
Elon Has Many Kids
Elon was married three times. This is the very less known fact about Elon musk, he actually has 6 kids. Most people knew about only one. His name is X AE (Pronounced as Ash) A-12. Later on, decided to change 12 with the Roman numeral (XII) because it looks way cooler.
The name goes like this- X AE A-XII.
Uncommon Yet Interesting Facts About Elon Musk That No One Knows
Tesla’s CEO
After becoming a multi-millionaire he didn’t stop. Elon decided to help the planet in going green and sustainable. Tesla is one good example of it. Tesla company was never started by Elon Musk. It was started by two engineers who were Stanford’s alumni. They always knew EV cars are something those big companies would never step in. So they decided to start on their own and were looking for good & reasonable funding. Elon decided to give them $6.3 Million worth of funding in a series A round. By 2008 he became the CEO of Tesla. His idea’s were always appreciated and brought enormous success to tesla’s bucket.
SolarCity
His contribution to green energy doesn’t ended with Tesla. He knew there would be a need of charging stations for Electric cars. He came up with SolarCity in 2006. A company that designs, finances, and install solar panels. Elon was managing an entire electric ecosystem and that’s pretty insane.
Worst Year of Elon Musk
Elon Musk launched a masterpiece car named ‘Tesla Roadster’ in 2008. The same year world economy was hit by Financial Crash that also affected tesla’s revenue. It was so bad that Tesla was an inch near to filing its bankruptcy.
- He wasn’t letting his friends invest in Tesla because he thought they might also lose all their money.
- Things were not going well even on the personal fronts, His first wife filed for divorce and their marriage came to an end.
Elon always knew that after hitting the rock bottom there is only one to go and that was up. A short while after his divorce he started dating another girl and proposed to her within 10 days. She agreed to him. And after five years Tesla’s stock skyrocketed to an all-time high. They were up by 400%.
Race to Mars
In 2016, he announced his mission to send people to mars which were to achieve within the next 8 years. Elon is working on it with a company that he started in 2022 which was SpaceX. Elon knew NASA spends too much on the rockets. Elon wants to make rockets and sell them to NASA at only 3% of the budget that NASA spends now. Elon Musk calls his rockets Falcons because he is a Star Wars fan.
Elon’s Political Ideology
You all would be surprised to know that Elon is quite political too. Unlike others politicians, Elon is very sincere about his beliefs. He joined Trump’s cabinet to shape the country’s policies in 2017. Because he was a man of his principals he quit the same year after Trump decided to withdraw the USA from the Paris agreement for climate action.
1 Dollar Salary
While Elon Musk has a net worth of over $20 Billion, his official annual salary is just 1 dollar for Tesla. It is very similar to the policy followed by people like Steve Jobs when they used to head Apple. In compensation, they received shares of his company and ends up saving huge cash from hefty taxes.
Iron Man is Elon Musk
If you’re an Iron man fan or love Robert Downey Jr., you will be pleased to know that Tony Stark’s personality was inspired by Elon Musk. In fact, Elon Musk has played a cameo in Iron Man-2 movie.
Cameo Superstar in Hollywood
Apart from Iron Man, Elon has given so many Cameos in different Tv Shows and movies. You should know he has done cameos in The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory, South Park, & most recently in Saturday Night Live.
He is also planning to shoot a film scene in space with Tom Cruise using SpaceX tech.
Elon Musk’s Future Plans
We can expect a lot of things from Elon in the Future as well.
Hyperloop
- Elon is currently working on a project called ‘Hyperloop’ which is probably the fastest mode of transportation at 800 KM/hour.
- Hyperloop is solar-powered and is cheaper than railways.
- It is Sustainable & immune to disasters.
- The project is in trials right now but will be live and someday we will be watching it in reality.
Starlink
Elon is also working on Starlink which is the idea of launching 12000 satellites in space to relay the internet even to the poorest places of the world.
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Clearly, If we keep up Elon’s brain then the future is very exciting. It is very much clear that Elon Musk has an adventurous life like that of a roller coaster ride. There were days when he was struggling to pay his rent and now being the richest man in the history of entire mankind. There are a lot of learnings from his life that youth can impart. His life offers lots of insight that what calculated risk-taking, fore sighting and compounding can do for a person. I think we all can learn from his epic journey.
