Outspoken entrepreneur, inventor and basically, cultural icon Elon Musk, more than deserves a place on our list. From amazing electric vehicles with crazy tech to space exploration to satellite cell transmission to cranial implants, this guy is involved in everything. A tweet from him has the power to dramatically increase OR decrease stock/commodity prices as does a video of him possibly taking a small hit of cannabis. Let’s look at some facts about Elon.
- Musk has six kids, all boys. He also tragically lost a son to SIDS in 2002.
- At age 12, he created a video game and sold it for $500.
- Musk is the motivation for Robert Downey’s portrayal of Tony Stark character in The Avengers.
- He dropped out of Stanford after only 2 days (he has other degrees).
- In 2013, Musk almost sold Tesla to Google.
- While at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk and his roommate opened a nightclub.
- Musk founded Ad Astra, a school for SpaceX employees. His children also attend.
- Musk’s earliest successful venture was Zip2 which he later sold for $307M.
- Musk became famous (and extraordinarily wealthy) after selling Paypal.
- He was often bullied while growing up in South Africa and recalls almost being beaten to near death.
- He took up judo, wrestling and karate by age 16.
- As a child, he would read sometimes 10 hours per day. He says he read the entire encyclopedia by age 9.
- He has Canadian, American and South African citizenship.
- He is estranged from his father and has referred to him as “evil.”
- He was so quiet as a child and would dive deep into his own world that his mother thought he may be deaf.
- Musk takes a salary of only $1 from Tesla.
- Musk once took a hit of cannabis on the Joe Rogan podcast. Tesla’s stock fell 9% directly related to the event.
- At time of publishing, Musk is worth ~$183B making him the richest man alive.