Elon Musk Facts
Elon Musk is world-famous for his Tesla cars and SpaceX. While not shy about his private life, there are many fascinating facts about Elon that you might not know about. Did he really name one of his sons after Professor Xavier of X-Men? What is his latest amazing project? Here are some of the best and least known facts about one of the most influential people of the 21st century!
1) Elon was born in South Africa in 1971, then moved to Canada at age 17 and currently lives in Los Angeles, California. He holds citizenship in each of those countries.
2) At age 27 he became a millionaire after selling his web-software company Zip2. He became a billionaire in 2012 at age 40.
3) His parents thought he was deaf since he was incredibly quiet as a child.
4) At age 12 he had already learned to code and created a video game called Blastar that he sold to a computer magazine for $500 dollars.
5) Elon was often bullied for being the smallest and youngest boy in his class. He was even sent to the hospital after being pushed down a flight of stairs. So, at age 15, he learned karate, judo and wrestling.
6) Musk co-founded PayPal in 1999. eBay bought the online payment company for $1.5 billion.
7) Musk has five sons. One set of twins and one set of triplets. One of his sons is named Xavier after the character Professor Xavier of the X-Men.
8) Elon’s dreams that his Falcon rocket (named after the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars) will someday bring people to Mars and make space tourism a reality.
9) Like Steve Jobs of Apple, Elon take a one dollar annual salary at Tesla.
10) Esquire magazine named Elon one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.
11) Musk’s latest project is called Hyperloop. In theory, this system of pressurized tubes could send people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour.
“Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.”
— Elon Musk