Elon Reeve Musk Documentary

ELON REEVE MUSK

INTRODUCTION:

Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner, CTO and chairman of Twitter; founder of the Boring Company and X Corp.; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the philanthropic Musk Foundation. Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and second-wealthiest according to the Forbes's Real Time Billionaires list as of June 2023, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, with an estimated net worth of around $205 billion according to Bloomberg and $211.4 billion according to Forbes.

Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at age 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen's University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University. After two days, he dropped out and, with his brother Kimbal, co-founded the online city guide software company Zip2. In 1999, Zip2 was acquired by Compaq for $307 million and Musk co-founded X.com, a direct bank. X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002.

With $175.8 million, Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, a spaceflight services company. In 2004, he was an early investor in the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.). He became its chairman and product architect, assuming the position of CEO in 2008. In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy company that was later acquired by Tesla and became Tesla Energy. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligenceresearch company. The following year, he co-founded Neuralink—a neurotechnology company developing brain–computer interfaces—and the Boring Company, a tunnel construction company. Musk has also proposed a hyperloop high-speed vactrain transportation system. In 2022, his acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion was completed.

Musk has expressed views that have made him a polarizing figure. He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including that of spreading COVID-19 misinformation. In 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk for falsely tweeting that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. Musk stepped down as chairman of Tesla and paid a $20 million fine as part of a settlement agreement with the SEC.

NET Worth:

Musk made $175.8 million when PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002. He was first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, with a net worth of $2 billion.

At the start of 2020, Musk had a net worth of $27 billion. By the end of the year his net worth had increased by $150 billion, mostly driven by his ownership of around 20% of Tesla stock. During this period, Musk's net worth was often volatile. For example, it dropped $16.3 billion in September, the largest single-day plunge in Bloomberg Billionaires Index's history. In November of that year, Musk passed Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest person in the world; a week later he passed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the second-richest.

In January 2021, Musk, with a net worth of $185 billion, surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world. Bezos reclaimed the top spot the following month. On September 27, 2021, after Tesla stock surged, Forbes announced that Musk had a net worth of over $200 billion, and was the richest person in the world. In November 2021, Musk became the first person worth over $300 billion.

On December 30, 2022, it was reported that Musk had lost $200 billion from his net worth due to declining stock values in Tesla, becoming the first person in history to lose such a large sum of money. In January 2023, Musk was recognized by Guinness World Records for experiencing the "largest loss of personal fortune in history" with regards to his financial losses since November 2021, which Guinness quoted a Forbes estimate of $182 billion.

SOURCES OF WEALTH:

Around 75% of Musk's wealth derived from Tesla stock in November 2020, a proportion that fell to about 37% as of December 2022, after selling nearly $40 billion in company shares since late 2021. Musk does not receive a salary from Tesla; he agreed with the board in 2018 to a compensation plan that ties his personal earnings to Tesla's valuation and revenue. The deal stipulated that Musk only receives the compensation if Tesla reaches certain market values. It was the largest such deal ever done between a CEO and a company board. In the first award, given in May 2020, he was eligible to purchase 1.69 million Tesla shares (about 1% of the company) at below-market prices, which was worth about $800 million.

Musk paid $455 million in taxes on $1.52 billion of income between 2014 and 2018. According to ProPublica, Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018. He claimed his 2021 tax bill was estimated at $12 billion based on his sale of $14 billion worth of Tesla stock.

Musk has repeatedly described himself as "cash poor", and has "professed to have little interest in the material trappings of wealth".In May 2020, he pledged to sell almost all physical possessions. Musk has defended his wealth by saying he is accumulating resources for humanity's outward expansion to space.

PUBLIC PERSEPTION:

Though Musk's ventures were influential within their own industries in the 2000s, Musk only became a public figure in the early 2010s. He is often described as an eccentric who makes spontaneous and controversial statements, contrary to other billionaires who prefer reclusiveness to protect their businesses. Celebrated by fans and hated by critics, Musk was described by Vance as having become very polarizing because of his "part philosopher, part troll" role on Twitter.