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Interesting Facts About Elon Musk
January 08, 2021
15 Fascinating Facts About Elon Musk and Tesla
- At the age of 12, Elon Musk created and sold a video game to a magazine. The space fighting game called "Blastar" was sold to PC magazine and Office Technology for $ 500. Musk also worked at a game startup called "Rocket Science."
- Musk's first venture was founding Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to newspapers and was later sold to Compaq for $ 307 million.
- Paypal, formerly X.com, was what ultimately made Musk his fortune. Paypal, founded in 1999, was later acquired by eBay for $ 1.5 billion, of which $ 165 million was given to Musk in stock.
- In 2002, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX. Musk was convinced that humanity's survival depended on its ability to become a multi-planetary species, but current rocket launch technologies were too expensive. This was achieved with the launch of the Falcon 1 in 2006, the Falcon 9 in 2010 and the Falcon Heavy in 2018.
- The Falcon Heavy was capable of carrying 53,000 kg into orbit, twice as heavy as its closest competitor at almost a third of the cost.
- Due to lack of funding, Musk had to invest his own money in developing SpaceX rockets. Currently, the company has a $ 1.6 billion contract with NASA for refuelling missions and eventually transporting people to and from the International Space Station.
- Thanks to developments at SpaceX, Musk has managed to reduce the cost of travelling to the space station by up to 90 per cent. What then cost a billion dollars per mission now costs 60 million dollars.
- Musk later became one of the main funders of Tesla Motors, now called Tesla. Largely disinterested in electric vehicles then, Tesla introduced the Roadster, a car with a futuristic appearance and a battery with a range of 394 km on a single charge.
- Musk's two successes, SpaceX and Tesla, came very close to failure. While the first three rockets were not launched, the fourth was a success and the Roadster went through several production problems.
- In 2010, Musk received the FAI Gold Space Medal from the Federation Aronautique Internationale for designing the first privately developed rocket to reach orbit.
- In 2018, Musk introduced Hyperloop, a transportation system that is theoretically capable of transporting people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 90 minutes.
- Musk named one of his sons, Xavier, who, he confessed, was in honour of Professor Xavier from the X-Men.
- Musk is sometimes referred to as a billionaire, a high-tech entrepreneur looking to turn science fiction into reality.
- Musk also owns a custom James Bond car called Wet Nellie. The Wet Nellie is a custom made Lotus Espirit underwater car in the movie The Spy Who Loved Me.
- Musk also appeared in the Simpsons episode, "The Musk Who Fell to Earth."
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