The South-African business mogul Elon Musk has become a force to reckon with! After investing in tech, the aerospace industry, and fintech, the billionaire has finally set his foot in the social media space. Though the journey was turbulent to finally seal the deal, Musk has already planned to revamp the microblogging app.
The successful CEO and founder of Tesla and SpaceX that we see today had a long journey. In 2012, Forbes announced the then 41 years old Elon Musk as a billionaire. Since then, with his new endeavors in solar energy space and already existing businesses, Musk has been minting money. Thanks to the pandemic, the billionaires including him utilized the pump of money from the Central Bank. But, was Elon Musk already rich? How did he accumulate his billion dollars of wealth?
Also Read: “The Bird Is Freed”: Elon Musk Finally Closes Twitter Deal After Months Of Delay
Was Elon Musk Born Poor?
The economic status of Musk has always been contested. The internet is polarized on whether the Tesla owner was born with a silver spoon in his mouth or not. Many netizens, blogs, and websites claim that Elon Musk’s father Errol Musk was a millionaire who was ‘half owner’ of an Emerald mine. He was born to a mother who was a model and a dietician.
However, the business magnate refuted the claims on his Twitter. In a defense of a Twitter user, Elon Musk explained that it is difficult for kids with lots of money to have a kickstart. Explaining his situation, he said, “When we started our first company (Zip2) in 95, I had over $100k of student debt, a computer I built myself, and a few thousand dollars.”
Even his mother, Maye Musk recounted their days when they shifted to Toronto. In a tweet, she shared a throwback picture of the family in their Toronto house which was a rent-controlled apartment. “Before we moved into the rent-controlled apartment, we removed the peeling green velvet wallpaper and had a really low quote to paint the walls white.” she tweeted.
This was when his parents divorced and after years of living with his father, for whom he had nothing but resentment, shifted with his mother to Toronto. It was Musk’s determination and interest in programming that pushed him to do better in his life. Unlike Zuckerberg and Gates, Elon had to struggle to reach the steps of a college. Musk took a loan of $100,000 to enroll in the University of Pennsylvania for a programming course.
After his graduation, he and his friend Greg Kouri and Kimbal Musk, his brother started working on a map navigation website for the newspaper, Global Link Information Network. Navteq provided him with the software. Finally, in 1996, Mohr Davidow Ventures acquired the program for $3 million and changed it to Zip2.
Also Read: Why Did Elon Musk Fire Twitter’s CEO And CFO After Closing The Deal?
How Did Musk Make Money?
The billionaire acquired $22 million from the stakes that he owned in Zip2 in 1999. Elon channeled that money into a fintech venture named ‘X.com’. The website worked as what today all banks have as their websites. It helped the consumers to have a check on their bank transactions. However, their security was hampered. But, another company was emerging at the end of the millennium called ‘Confinity’.
They provided transactions between the two parties from a single device. In 2001, the two companies confluence and rebranded themselves as PayPal. But, in 2002, the company decided to go public with an IPO and sold PayPal on eBay for $1.5 million.
After PayPal, the business mogul was not on a hunt for a business venture but stumbled upon the idea of building his rockets which birthed the idea of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation i.e., SpaceX. Musk personally funded the first project with $100 million and recruited Tom Mueller to work on ‘Falcon 1’. The space shuttle ventured onto its journey into space in 2008.
Two years later, SpaceX launches Falcon 9 for traveling around the Earth’s orbit. He wanted to create a sustainable aerospace venture. In 2021, Musk received $1.16 billion in funding from equity financing. The same year SpaceX stood at $74 billion in terms of its valuation. It has a tie-up with NASA which safely transported and landed two men from space to earth via SpaceX Crew Dragon.
The other ventures include Tesla, the electric car that revolutionized the automobile industry in 2003. With that, he invested in The Boring Company and Solar City (Tesla Energy), which is utilizing solar energy making his foray into renewable resources and traffic-solving technologies. Currently, Elon Musk has a net worth of $228 billion.
Also Read: Why Did Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey Retain His Stake After Elon Musk Took Over?
