From a difficult childhood in South Africa to the dream of colonizing Mars. Point by point the whole story of Elon Musk, who will participate in the Italian Tech Week.
FIND OUT WHEN AND WATCH THE PROGRAM AND SPEAKERS
Childhood in South Africa
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa, an hour’s drive from Johannesburg. Little Elon grows up with the myth of his grandfather, Joshua Norman Haldeman, who once in Africa spends ten years of his life searching for a legendary lost city in the Kalahari Desert. Elon’s mother, Maye Haldeman, married Errol Musk in 1970. When their first child, Elon, was born, they were in their twenties. Then two other children will arrive: Kimbal, in 1972, and Tosca, in 1974. The family does not last long: Maye and Errol divorce after just 9 years.
SpaceX, the first four space tourists landed off Florida
The family mine
Elon Musk’s mother Maye Haldeman is a nutritionist and model who also appeared in Vogue. Papa Errol, on the other hand, is an enigma. Elon called him a brilliant engineer and a terrible human being. Rumors have long circulated about an alleged emerald mine that Errol Musk would have owned in Zambia in the 1980s. No one has ever confirmed this story.
A violent father
At 10, when his parents separate, Elon and his younger brother, Kimbal, choose to live for a short time with their dad. It’s not a good idea. “He was violent with me when I was little – revealed Elon in an interview with Rolling Stone -. You have no idea how evil he was. Think of a crime and he committed it. Think of anything evil and he did it ”.
Being Elon Musk / 25: The first meeting with Steve Jobs doesn’t end well
The first deal at 12
While still living in South Africa, Elon creates a video game called Blastar. “I never would have started coding if it weren’t for video games,” he said. Young Elon sells Blastar’s code for $ 500 to a magazine for computer enthusiasts.
Beaten up by bullies at school
When he was still a teenager and attending college in South Africa, Elon was often a victim of bullies. He was once beaten so badly that he ended up in hospital. “The situation in South Africa was extremely violent,” Musk said.
Being Elon Musk / 24: the riddle he uses to choose his employees
The nightclub at the university
Elon Musk holds a BA in Physics and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Here they also remember him for the night club he ran off campus. It is 1992 and Musk and his roommate, Adeo Ressi, transform a ten-room house into a local. There is an open bar, you pay $ 5 to get in and up to 500 students participate in each party. That’s enough money for college tuition.
The first startup
The first company founded by Elon Musk in 1995, together with his brother Kimbal, is called Zip2. At that time Elon has a girlfriend. that to be with him she is forced to sleep in his office. In 1999 the Musk sacrifices paid off: they sold Zip2 to Compaq for about $ 300 million. Of these, 22 million end up in Elon’s bank account.
Being Elon Musk / 23: the brilliant intuition with which he saved Tesla from bankruptcy
The holiday problem
With half of the money raised for Zip2, Elon founds X.com, one of the first online banks. Sometime later Musk merges his bank with PayPal, a new service for making electronic payments quickly and easily. While on vacation in Australia, Musk is taken off the board. “This is the problem of holidays” the entrepreneur will say bitterly. When eBay bought PayPal for $ 1.5 billion in 2002, Elon instantly made $ 180 million.
How SpaceX was born
Elon Musk’s original goal, when he becomes interested in Space, is to ship a greenhouse to Mars. The dream collides with the harsh reality: the transport of plants has a crazy cost, between 60 and 80 million dollars. Musk also tries to buy a Russian ICBM, but fails because it costs too much. Eventually he realizes that he will have to build the rockets himself.
The ship busted
When Elon Musk founded SpaceX, in 2002, someone made him understand that he will never be able to fly vehicles and people into space. For this Musk calls his first spaceship Dragon, after the title of a song from 1963, Puff The Magic Dragon, which became popular due to the alleged references of its lyrics to soft drugs. “People told me I was high because I thought the spacecraft could work,” Musk said. I called her that in response to their insults ”.
Being Elon Musk / 22: Asimov’s books that changed his life
At the helm of Tesla
Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. Elon Musk comes on board just a year later with an initial investment of $ 6.3 million. His first meeting with Eberhard and Tarpenning takes place at a gathering of Mars enthusiasts. Musk became Tesla CEO in 2008, when he saved the company from bankruptcy by investing another $ 40 million.
The attack on the media
Musk has been promising a car that can travel alone for years. A project troubled by accidents: at least three Tesla drivers have died, starting in 2016, while they had the Autopilot function on. Musk did not like the way the media reported about the crashes: “Think about it when you write such negative articles – he said – because you are dissuading people from using self-driving cars. In practice, you are killing them ”.
Being Elon Musk / 21: the relationship with the abusive father
Smart operation
In 2007, Tesla risks bankruptcy. Musk invests another 20 million dollars and studies ways to make money by selling batteries alone. Among the companies concerned is the Daimler group, which controls the Mercedes-Benz and Smart brands. When the Germans tell Musk that they would join him in California, Elon has an epiphany: to let him find an electric Smart obviously powered by his own battery. For six weeks, the engineers worked day and night on the prototype. The Daimler executives, impressed, close the deal and also decide to invest in Tesla.
The first humans on Mars
Elon Musk wants to get humans to Mars by 2026. But that rush could come at a price. Elon said in an interview, even with some lightness, that “a group of people could die at first.” There are risks, it is clear. Just think of the 14 NASA astronauts who lost their lives aboard the Challenger shuttle, in 1986, and the Columbia shuttle in 2003. “Of course – says Elon – We don’t force anyone to go to Mars, it’s on a voluntary basis”.
Bombs on the red planet
According to Musk, hydrogen bombs could make Mars more hospitable. His theory is that by bombarding the two poles of the planet, the enormous amount of water that is under the surface would vaporize instantly, releasing CO2 and generating a greenhouse effect. A study published in Nature Astronomy pointed out that there is not enough CO2 on Mars to put the entrepreneur’s plan into practice.
A microchip in the brain
In 2016 Musk co-founded a visionary company called Neuralink that makes electrodes and microchips to be implanted in the human brain. Through these microchips we will arrive at a direct communication between the brain and machines. When Neuralink was unveiled in 2019, Musk said some chips had already been successfully implanted in monkeys.
Marijuana e PornHub
In September 2018, Tesla’s shares suddenly dropped 9%. All because of its CEO, Elon Musk, who smoked marijuana while recording a podcast. Elon repeatedly referred to soft drugs on Twitter. On December 23, 2019, when the price of a Tesla stock hit $ 420.69, Musk called this figure “pure art.” “Four / Twenty” (“Four / twenty”) is the slang for marijuana. Is it 69 ‘? That day, Porn Hub ironically tweeted that they made a lot of money.
The meeting with Steve Jobs
Musk said he met Jobs at a party. “He had no idea who I was – Elon said – I thought he was a kind of idiot.” On another occasion, during a photo shoot, he was asked to wear a black turtleneck. “If I were on the verge of death with a turtleneck on – said Musk – with the last energy in my body I would take it off and throw it as far as possible”.
Coronavirus controversy
On Covid-19, unfortunately, the billionaire gave the worst of himself: On January 31, 2020 Elon writes on Twitter: “I think the coronavirus will turn out to be something similar to a cold”. On March 6, 2020 he adds: “The panic over the coronavirus is silly”. A few days later, he insists with another tweet: “I think panic will do more damage than the virus.”
A little blonde wife
2008 is the worst year in Musk’s life. His marriage to Canadian writer Justine Wilson, married in 2000, is at an end. The two had five children: twins in 2004 and triplets in 2006. But Justine is unhappy, she feels diminished by a millionaire who keeps repeating: “If I were my employee, I would fire you”. “Elon – Wilson will tell – always wanted me more blonde. ‘Make them platinum’, he repeated to me, but I didn’t want to ”. Musk’s current partner is Grimes, a Canadian musician. The two have a son born in May 2020.
.