Here's What You Need to Know About Elon Musk

Here's What You Need to Know About Elon Musk

CAROLYN SUN, ENTREPRENEUR STAFF

Research Editor

  

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There is a joke that serial entrepreneur Elon Musk tells during a 2013 interview for TED Talks that goes:  

“Did you hear the joke about the man who made a small fortune in the space industry?”

He subtly pauses before delivering the punchline:

“He started with a large one.”

Musk, currently the chief executive of SpaceX, Tesla Motors and chairman of SolarCity, is all too aware of the enormous risks -- and upsides -- involved in sinking his time and fortune into high-risk tech ventures.

He came into millions at the age of 27, after he sold his first company, Zip2, an online-media services company, to Compaq for $307 million in 1999. He founded another startup, X.com, that same year, which eventually becamePayPal and was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. He reportedly netted approximately $180 million from the sale.

So, Musk was already deemed successful when he launched SpaceX in 2002. However, six years later, following three failed launches for his flagship rocket, his prospects looked grim. He was down to his last $75 million, says The Telegraph, which is a fortune for many startups, but considering the rockets at the time cost approximately $90 million to build -- and he was the sole funder of SpaceX at the time -- another launch failure would have likely meant financial ruin.

Plus, things were touch and go at his other company, Tesla Motors. The company (launched in 2003) had released its first electric car in 2008, a $100,000 Roadster, which encountered multiple quality issues that led to multiple recalls.

To top it off, Musk was going through a very acrimonious divorce from his first wife, the mother of his five children.

“Both Tesla and SpaceX were very close to dying,” admits Musk looking back. “SpaceX had our third launch failure. We just barely had enough resources to do a fourth.”

The fourth launch took place in September 2008 and was successful. As a result, the company was awarded several multibillion-dollar contracts from NASA to help the U.S. resupply the International Space Station (ISS) and reestablish astronaut travel to and from the space station.

As of 2015, SpaceX was valued at $12 billion, reports the Wall Street Journaland has moved on to successfully test a more advanced and powerful launcher, the Falcon 9. The next generation of launcher, the Falcon Heavy, is slated to test this year and “will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two,” reads the SpaceX website.

Tesla, which teetered close to bankruptcy in 2013, according to a report from Bloomberg, also powered through its rough patch and won back public trust. In a tweet dated April 3, 2016, Musk announced that Tesla’s third generation of car, which comes out in 2017, to date has 325,0000 orders in pre-sales, says CNBC.

And Musk’s personal fortune is back in the billions. As of 2016, he is estimated to be worth $14.4 billion, according to Forbes.

The Musk titillates and fascinates as a larger-than-life figure who risks where most don’t dare, so his moments of humanity are oddly reassuring. He’s come close to tears during multiple televised interviews. His romantic life is rocky: he’s two-times divorced -- soon to be three times -- and married his second wife, twice.

Check out these additional six facts that shed light on what makes the man who wants to colonize Mars truly unique.

Related: An Emotional Elon Musk Admits He's only 'Tried' to Take Two Weeks Off in Past 12 Years

1. Musk hails from an adventurous family.

Image credit: Charles Eshelman | Getty Images

Musk, who grew up in South Africa, comes from an energetic and pioneering stock, according to Esquire.

His great-grandmother was the first female chiropractor in Canada. His grandparents were the first to fly from South Africa to Australia in a single-engine plane, and his grandfather once won a race from Cape Town to Algiers.

"We risk more,” says his sister, Tosca Musk -- a filmmaker, about her family.

His father, Errol Musk, was an engineer and serial entrepreneur who invested in emerald mines in Zambia, and his mother, Maye Musk, is asuccessful dietician and fashion model who posed nude on the cover ofNew York magazine in 2011.

 

2. Musk wants to do with Tesla what Henry Ford did for the Model T.

Image credit: JPstock | Shutterstock

Musk shares a similar vision as Henry Ford.

Ford wanted to make automobiles, which at the time were expensive playthings for the few and rich, into mass-marketed, low-priced vehicles for the many. Musk confessed he shared this desire for his Tesla electric car in a 2013 TED Talk, which came out with its first high-priced sports car in 2006, costing approximately $100,000.

“Whenever you’ve got new technology, it takes about three generations to make it a compelling mass-marketed product,” said Musk during the interview. “The goal of Tesla was always to have a three-step process. Where version one was an expensive car and low volume, version two was medium price and medium volume and version three was low priced and high volume.”

In April 2016, Musk unveiled the third generation of Tesla, which comes out in 2017 and starts at $35,000. Already, the car has 325,0000 orders in presales.

 

3. He just wants to make things better.

Image credit: SpaceX

If his motivation behind what he does in his rocky personal life isn’t clear, the entrepreneur from Pretoria, South Africa is able to decidedly articulate what his motivations are in entrepreneurship:

“A lot of my motivation comes from me personally looking at things that don’t work well and feeling a bit sad about how it would manifest in the future,” he says to The Telegraph. “And if that would result in an unhappy future, then it makes me unhappy. And so I want to fix it.”

Related: Elon Musk's Advice for Jack Dorsey: Don't Run Two Companies

 

 

4. He almost died.

Image credit: Phil Stafford | Shutterstock

The father of five almost died from malaria following a trip to his native South Africa in 2000, according to biographer Ashley Vance Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.  

Musk jests in the book, “That’s my lesson for taking vacation: vacation will kill you.”

This from the man who reportedly said in a Danish television interview that he’d only taken two weeks off in the last 12 years. (On a related note, he has clocked in 100 hour work weeks for 15 years and gets an average of six hours of sleep per night.)

 

5. He’s had two tumultuous marriages.

Image credit: Helga Esteb | Shutterstock

Nevermind his first marriage to novelist Justine Musk, whom he met at university and later penned a not-so-flattering tell-all for Marie Claire in 2010 titled, “I Was a Starter Wife: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce.”

His ex-wife wrote that her husband found her lacking during their marriage, telling her, ”’If you were my employee, I would fire you.’"

It’s his back-and-forth second marriage that has captured the public’s attention. He married British actress Talulah Riley -- best known for her role as “Kitty” in Pride and Prejudice -- in 2010, after meeting her in a London nightclub and getting engaged six weeks later.  

According to Vanity Fair, the two divorced in 2012 only to remarry 18 months later. Riley filed for divorce on New Year’s Eve in 2014 -- only to withdraw her petition seven months later.

Then, in March 2016, Riley filed for divorce in a Los Angeles courthouse.

Related: Elon Musk Is Not Impressed With Apple

6. He was severely bullied during childhood.

Image credit: Scott Olson | Getty Images

He was "the youngest and smallest guy in his school," says Esquire. His mother Maye, described him as introverted and quiet, more interested in reading than athletics -- which goes against the hyper-macho culture of South Africa.

According to Biz News, Musk’s father, Errol, recalls an incident when his 12-year-old son got beat up so severely by his school mates, he didn’t recognize him when he visited the hospital. Musk was laid up in the hospital for two weeks.

After the incident, Musk was removed from the school.

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[이철호의 시시각각] 한국보다 뛰어난 오바마 창조경제

“스티브 잡스가 우리 생활을 바꿨다면, 머스크는 세상을 바꾸고 있다.” 요즘 세계에서 가장 핫(hot)한 인물이 일론 머스크다. 최근 그의 테슬라 전기차와 스페이스X가 기적을 이뤄냈다. 이달 초 공개한 테슬라의 보급형 전기차는 일주일 만에 32만 대가 넘는 예약 주문이 밀렸다. 머스크가 “10년 내에 애플을 제치고 시가총액 800조원에 오르겠다”고 큰소리칠 정도다. 과연 10년 안에 40조원의 시총이 20배나 폭등할 수 있을까. 하지만 지난 6년간 테슬라 주가가 15배 치솟았으니 빈말이 아닐 수 있다.

스페이스X가 지난 8일 우주 발사 1단 로켓을 바다 위에서 회수한 것도 놀라운 기적이다. 13년간 25번의 실패 끝에 일궈낸 성공이다. 우주 로켓은 1단 발사체가 가장 비싸지만 미항공우주국(NASA)은 무조건 바다에 폐기했다. 정부 예산이니 펑펑 쓴 것이다. 머스크는 개인회사 스페이스X를 세우면서 “1단 로켓을 회수해 재활용하면 비용을 10분의 1로 낮출 수 있다”고 장담했다. 그는 2030년까지 화성에 인구 8만의 식민지를 만들어 그곳에서 환갑 잔치를 여는 게 꿈이다.

머스크는 스탠퍼드대 물리학과 박사과정에 입학한 뒤 이틀 만에 자퇴했다. 그리고 ‘집2’라는 인터넷 벤처를 세워 4년 뒤 컴팩에 넘겼다. 매각대금 250억원을 챙겼을 당시 그의 나이는 28살이었다. 웬만하면 청년갑부로 호화롭게 살았겠지만 그는 또 도전에 나섰다. 인터넷 결제 시장의 가능성을 내다보고 페이팔을 인수한 것이다. 4년 뒤 그는 페이팔을 1조7000억원에 이베이에 팔았다. 또 2002년엔 그 돈으로 스페이스X를 세웠고, 이듬해에는 공기가 없는 화성 식민지의 운반수단으로 테슬라 전기차를 인수했다. 영화 ‘아이언맨’이 주인공으로 삼을 만큼 머스크가 꿈꾸면 현실이 되었다.

과연 한국이었다면 머스크는 성공했을까? 100% 불가능했다. 스페이스X는 10년간 연거푸 로켓 발사에 실패했다. 사방의 싸늘한 눈초리 속에 그 도전을 눈여겨보는 곳이 있었으니, 바로 NASA였다. 미국은 로켓 발사 비용이 너무 비싸 지난 20년간 러시아·유럽에 밀려났다. 우주정거장 화물 운반도 러시아에 부탁할 정도였다. 하지만 NASA는 최고 전문가 답게 스페이스X의 실패에서 성공의 냄새를 맡았다. 그리고 과감하게 3조원을 베팅했다. 스페이스X는 파산 직전에서 간신히 살아났다.

테슬라도 한때 ‘죽음의 계곡’에 빠졌다. 전기차 설비투자가 집중되던 2008년 리먼 사태를 맞은 것이다. 머스크는 개인 재산을 모두 쏟아부었지만 소용 없었다. 개인적으로 이혼까지 당했다. 머스크는 구글에 테슬라 인수를 부탁하는 SOS를 칠 만큼 궁지에 몰렸다. 이때 수호천사로 나선 게 오바마 정부였다. 2009년 “청정 에너지 전기차는 꼭 필요하다”며 5500억원을 긴급 투입한 것이다. 이후 테슬라는 날개를 달았으며 불과 4년 만에 구제금융을 모두 갚았다.

과연 한국 정부라면 돈키호테 같은 스페이스X와 적자에 허덕대는 테슬라를 구원해 주었을까. 아마 국정감사와 감사원 감사에서 난도질당했을 게 분명하다. 서울대 공대 이정동 교수는 “미국 창조경제의 원형질은 ‘실패도 공공자산’이라며 전 사회가 위험을 공유한다는 점”이라며 “스페이스X·테슬라 지원처럼 미 정부의 혁신친화적 공공투자도 배워야 한다”고 강조한다. 박근혜 대통령이 창조혁신센터를 순방하는 것은 참 좋은 일이다. 하지만 진짜 창조경제를 하려면 미국 오바마처럼 전문가 집단에 충분한 자율성을 주고, 그들의 눈으로 가능성 있는 벤처를 골라 집중 지원하는 게 지름길이 아닐까 싶다.

지금 전 세계 정보기관들이 미국에서 가장 훔치고 싶어하는 것은 스텔스기나 미사일 방어체계가 아니라 일론 머스크라고 한다. 창의력이 곧 국력인 세상이다. 머스크는 이미 17조원의 자산가가 되었다. 하지만 더 부러운 건 그의 무모한 도전이 끝날 기미가 없다는 점이고, 아마존의 창업자인 제프 베조스까지 머스크와 우주 경쟁에 가세하고 있다는 점이다. 어쩌면 미국의 압도적 경쟁력의 비밀이 여기에 숨어 있는지 모른다.

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