Elon Musk

We all know Elon Musk as the memeworthy man behind Tesla, the person who named his son X Æ A-12, but who really is he and how did he become so successful? 

Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971 to a Canadian mother and a South African father. As a child, Elon Musk was constantly daydreaming about new inventions, to the point where his parents got him tested for hearing. When Elon Musk was only 10 years old, he designed and sold his first computer game “Blastar” for $500.

At the age of 17, Elon moved to Canada and attended Queen’s University in order to avoid mandatory military service in South Africa. Soon after, he went to the University of Pennsylvania to study physics and business. After 2 years at UPenn, Elon Musk went to Stanford to pursue a PhD in energy physics. During this time, the internet boom started, and Musk decided to drop out of college to start his own company, Zip2 Corporation, with his brother. Later he went onto founding many more companies, including X.com (Paypal) and SpaceX, and Tesla Motors.

Elon Musk was determined to move to America, the land where dreams come true, saying "I remember thinking and seeing that America is where great things are possible, more than any other country in the world.” (not sure where to put this but I think it’s interesting) 

Although Elon Musk is one of the most successful innovators and entrepreneurs, the road to success wasn’t easy for him. Elon Musk founded Tesla Motors in 2003, wanting to challenge gas-fueled cars with a lithium-battery rechargeable car. The biggest obstacle Musk overcame was the production of the Model 3.

Musk had high hopes, aiming to produce 5,000 Model 3 cars per week by December 2017. Musk pushed that deadline up to March 2018, then later up to June. Many investors were becoming impatient with the constant pushbacks. In April of 2018, Musk posted to twitter that he was “back to sleeping at the factory” in order to meet production goals. A couple months later in June, Elon Musk announced that Tesla was laying off 9% of its workforce, in order to cut costs and turn a profit. However, by the end of June 2018, Musk accomplished his goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars per week as well as producing 2,000 other Tesla models. In an email to his employees, Elon Musk wrote “We did it! What an incredible job by an amazing team.”