While he’s not one to shy from the limelight, there’s not much that’s known about Elon Musk – the reluctant South African – that he doesn’t want known.
And with his $44-billion purchase of Twitter being finalised, he could now be dominating the global conversations even further.
Before another billionaire takes control of yet another media platform, let’s take a look at the man behind the tweets.
1. A controversial Twitter history
With more than 80 million followers, there are many who are keen to hear what Elon Musk has to say. But what he says can often get him into trouble. In 2018, he came in the line of fire of US financial regulators who accused him of misleading Tesla investors with his tweets. The following year, after his suggestion of a child-sized submarine for rescue effort was rebuffed by Thai authorities, Musk responded by referring to a rescue diver as ‘that pedo guy’.
2. The family man
His actual parenting skills have never been that evident, but that hasn’t stopped Musk from procreating at quite a rapid rate. His first child with Justine Musk, Nevada, tragically died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome at only 10 weeks old. With in vitro fertilisation, he and Justine went on to have twins Griffin and Xavier, followed by triplets Damian, Saxon and Kai. More recently, Musk had the unintelligibly named son, X Æ A-Xii with pop star Grimes, followed by a daughter Exa Dark Sideræl, also with Grimes via a surrogate.
3. The self-made millionaire
Musk, his brother Kimbal and Greg Kouri established Global Link – later renamed Zip2 – which was a searchable online business directory like a digital ‘yellow page telephone directory with maps included’. This was bought by Compaq Computers in 1999 for $300-million with Musk’s share of the sale $20-million. This was just the start of many lucrative businesses to be established by Musk.
4. The innovator
For Elon, one billion-dollar idea simply isn’t enough. In fact, the man has co-founded four companies all worth more than $1-billion each, as well as PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity. He has since amassed a wealth of more than $273.6-billion, making him the richest man in the world.
5. The man for Mars
After selling PayPal, Musk was able to pursue his goal of space missions. With Nasa not planning any manned missions to Mars, Musk took it upon himself to start work on the Mars Oasis project that would create a greenhouse on the planet. This led to the co-founding of SpaceX, making space missions more affordable by creating dependable and reusable rocket systems. In 2018, SpaceX booked its first paying passenger to the moon.
Sources: www.bbc.com, www.cnn.com, www.howstuffworks.com
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