elon musk biography spacex

South African entrepreneur Elon Musk is known for founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2012.

Who Is Elon Musk?

Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur and businessman who founded X.com in 1999 (which later became PayPal), SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers.

In January 2021, Musk reportedly surpassed Jeff Bezos as the wealthiest man in the world.

Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. As a child, Musk was so lost in his daydreams about inventions that his parents and doctors ordered a test to check his hearing.

At about the time of his parents’ divorce, when he was 10, Musk developed an interest in computers. He taught himself how to program, and when he was 12 he sold his first software: a game he created called Blastar.

In grade school, Musk was short, introverted and bookish. He was bullied until he was 15 and went through a growth spurt and learned how to defend himself with karate and wrestling.

Musk’s mother, Maye Musk , is a Canadian model and the oldest woman to star in a Covergirl campaign. When Musk was growing up, she worked five jobs at one point to support her family.

Musk’s father, Errol Musk, is a wealthy South African engineer.

Musk spent his early childhood with his brother Kimbal and sister Tosca in South Africa. His parents divorced when he was 10.

At age 17, in 1989, Musk moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University and avoid mandatory service in the South African military. Musk obtained his Canadian citizenship that year, in part because he felt it would be easier to obtain American citizenship via that path.

In 1992, Musk left Canada to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for a second bachelor’s degree in physics.

After leaving Penn, Musk headed to Stanford University in California to pursue a PhD in energy physics. However, his move was timed perfectly with the Internet boom, and he dropped out of Stanford after just two days to become a part of it, launching his first company, Zip2 Corporation in 1995. Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002.

Zip2 Corporation

Musk launched his first company, Zip2 Corporation, in 1995 with his brother, Kimbal Musk. An online city guide, Zip2 was soon providing content for the new websites of both The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune . In 1999, a division of Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options.

In 1999, Elon and Kimbal Musk used the money from their sale of Zip2 to found X.com, an online financial services/payments company. An X.com acquisition the following year led to the creation of PayPal as it is known today.

In October 2002, Musk earned his first billion when PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. Before the sale, Musk owned 11 percent of PayPal stock.

Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, in 2002 with the intention of building spacecraft for commercial space travel. By 2008, SpaceX was well established, and NASA awarded the company the contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station—with plans for astronaut transport in the future—in a move to replace NASA’s own space shuttle missions.

Falcon 9 Rockets

On May 22, 2012, Musk and SpaceX made history when the company launched its Falcon 9 rocket into space with an unmanned capsule. The vehicle was sent to the International Space Station with 1,000 pounds of supplies for the astronauts stationed there, marking the first time a private company had sent a spacecraft to the International Space Station. Of the launch, Musk was quoted as saying, "I feel very lucky. ... For us, it's like winning the Super Bowl."

In December 2013, a Falcon 9 successfully carried a satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit, a distance at which the satellite would lock into an orbital path that matched the Earth's rotation. In February 2015, SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 fitted with the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite, aiming to observe the extreme emissions from the sun that affect power grids and communications systems on Earth.

In March 2017, SpaceX saw the successful test flight and landing of a Falcon 9 rocket made from reusable parts, a development that opened the door for more affordable space travel.

A setback came in November 2017, when an explosion occurred during a test of the company's new Block 5 Merlin engine. SpaceX reported that no one was hurt, and that the issue would not hamper its planned rollout of a future generation of Falcon 9 rockets.

The company enjoyed another milestone moment in February 2018 with the successful test launch of the powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. Armed with additional Falcon 9 boosters, the Falcon Heavy was designed to carry immense payloads into orbit and potentially serve as a vessel for deep space missions. For the test launch, the Falcon Heavy was given a payload of Musk's cherry-red Tesla Roadster, equipped with cameras to "provide some epic views" for the vehicle's planned orbit around the sun.

In July 2018, Space X enjoyed the successful landing of a new Block 5 Falcon rocket, which touched down on a drone ship less than 9 minutes after liftoff.

BFR Mission to Mars

In September 2017, Musk presented an updated design plan for his BFR (an acronym for either "Big F---ing Rocket" or "Big Falcon Rocket"), a 31-engine behemoth topped by a spaceship capable of carrying at least 100 people. He revealed that SpaceX was aiming to launch the first cargo missions to Mars with the vehicle in 2022, as part of his overarching goal of colonizing the Red Planet.

In March 2018, the entrepreneur told an audience at the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, that he hoped to have the BFR ready for short flights early the following year, while delivering a knowing nod at his previous problems with meeting deadlines.

The following month, it was announced that SpaceX would construct a facility at the Port of Los Angeles to build and house the BFR. The port property presented an ideal location for SpaceX, as its mammoth rocket will only be movable by barge or ship when completed.

Starlink Internet Satellites

In late March 2018, SpaceX received permission from the U.S. government to launch a fleet of satellites into low orbit for the purpose of providing Internet service. The satellite network, named Starlink, would ideally make broadband service more accessible in rural areas, while also boosting competition in heavily populated markets that are typically dominated by one or two providers.

SpaceX launched the first batch of 60 satellites in May 2019, and followed with another payload of 60 satellites that November. While this represented significant progress for the Starlink venture, the appearance of these bright orbiters in the night sky, with the potential of thousands more to come, worried astronomers who felt that a proliferation of satellites would increase the difficulty of studying distant objects in space.

Tesla Motors

Musk is the co-founder, CEO and product architect at Tesla Motors, a company formed in 2003 that is dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars as well as battery products and solar roofs. Musk oversees all product development, engineering and design of the company's products.

Five years after its formation, in March 2008, Tesla unveiled the Roadster, a sports car capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, as well as traveling nearly 250 miles between charges of its lithium ion battery.

With a stake in the company taken by Daimler and a strategic partnership with Toyota, Tesla Motors launched its initial public offering in June 2010, raising $226 million.

In August 2008, Tesla announced plans for its Model S, the company's first electric sedan that was reportedly meant to take on the BMW 5 series. In 2012, the Model S finally entered production at a starting price of $58,570. Capable of covering 265 miles between charges, it was honored as the 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine .

In April 2017, Tesla announced that it surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. car maker. The news was an obvious boon to Tesla, which was looking to ramp up production and release its Model 3 sedan later that year.

In September 2019, using what Musk described as a "Plaid powertrain," a Model S set a speed record for four-door sedan at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey County, California.

The Model 3 was officially launched in early 2019 following extensive production delays. The car was initially priced at $35,000, a much more accessible price point than the $69,500 and up for its Model S and X electric sedans.

After initially aiming to produce 5,000 new Model 3 cars per week by December 2017, Musk pushed that goal back to March 2018, and then to June with the start of the new year. The announced delay didn't surprise industry experts, who were well aware of the company's production problems, though some questioned how long investors would remain patient with the process. It also didn't prevent Musk from garnering a radical new compensation package as CEO, in which he would be paid after reaching milestones of growing valuation based on $50 billion increments.

By April 2018, with Tesla expected to fall short of first-quarter production forecasts, news surfaced that Musk had pushed aside the head of engineering to personally oversee efforts in that division. In a Twitter exchange with a reporter, Musk said it was important to "divide and conquer" to meet production goals and was "back to sleeping at factory."

After signaling that the company would reorganize its management structure, Musk in June announced that Tesla was laying off 9 percent of its workforce, though its production department would remain intact. In an email to employees, Musk explained his decision to eliminate some "duplication of roles" to cut costs, admitting it was time to take serious steps toward turning a profit.

The restructuring appeared to pay dividends, as it was announced that Tesla had met its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of June 2018, while churning out another 2,000 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs. "We did it!" Musk wrote in a celebratory email to the company. "What an incredible job by an amazing team."

The following February, Musk announced that the company was finally rolling out its standard Model 3. Musk also said that Tesla was shifting to all-online sales, and offering customers the chance to return their cars within seven days or 1,000 miles for a full refund.

In November 2017, Musk made another splash with the unveiling of the new Tesla Semi and Roadster at the company's design studio. The semi-truck, which was expected to enter into production in 2019 before being delayed, boasts 500 miles of range as well as a battery and motors built to last 1 million miles.

Model Y and Roadster

In March 2019, Musk unveiled Tesla’s long-awaited Model Y. The compact crossover, which began arriving for customers in March 2020, has a driving range of 300 miles and a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.5 seconds.

The Roadster, also set to be released in 2020, will become the fastest production car ever made, with a 0 to 60 time of 1.9 seconds.

In August 2016, in Musk’s continuing effort to promote and advance sustainable energy and products for a wider consumer base, a $2.6 billion dollar deal was solidified to combine his electric car and solar energy companies. His Tesla Motors Inc. announced an all-stock deal purchase of SolarCity Corp., a company Musk had helped his cousins start in 2006. He is a majority shareholder in each entity.

“Solar and storage are at their best when they're combined. As one company, Tesla (storage) and SolarCity (solar) can create fully integrated residential, commercial and grid-scale products that improve the way that energy is generated, stored and consumed,” read a statement on Tesla’s website about the deal.

The Boring Company

In January 2017, Musk launched The Boring Company, a company devoted to boring and building tunnels in order to reduce street traffic. He began with a test dig on the SpaceX property in Los Angeles.

In late October of that year, Musk posted the first photo of his company's progress to his Instagram page. He said the 500-foot tunnel, which would generally run parallel to Interstate 405, would reach a length of two miles in approximately four months.

In May 2019 the company, now known as TBC, landed a $48.7 million contract from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to build an underground Loop system to shuttle people around the Las Vegas Convention Center.

In October 2022, Musk officially bought Twitter and became the social media company's CEO after months of back and forth.

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Musk’s Tweet and SEC Investigation

On August 7, 2018, Musk dropped a bombshell via a tweet: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." The announcement opened the door for legal action against the company and its founder, as the SEC began inquiring about whether Musk had indeed secured the funding as claimed. Several investors filed lawsuits on the grounds that Musk was looking to manipulate stock prices and ambush short sellers with his tweet.

Musk’s tweet initially sent Tesla stock spiking, before it closed the day up 11 percent. The CEO followed up with a letter on the company blog, calling the move to go private "the best path forward." He promised to retain his stake in the company, and added that he would create a special fund to help all current investors remain on board.

Six days later, Musk sought to clarify his position with a statement in which he pointed to discussions with the managing director of the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund as the source of his "funding secured" declaration. He later tweeted that he was working on a proposal to take Tesla private with Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake as financial advisers.

The saga took a bizarre turn that day when rapper Azealia Banks wrote on Instagram that, as a guest at Musk's home at the time, she learned that he was under the influence of LSD when he fired off his headline-grabbing tweet. Banks said she overheard Musk making phone calls to drum up the funding he promised was already in place.

The news quickly turned serious again when it was reported that Tesla's outside directors had retained two law firms to deal with the SEC inquiry and the CEO's plans to take the company private.

On August 24, one day after meeting with the board, Musk announced that he had reversed course and would not be taking the company private. Among his reasons, he cited the preference of most directors to keep Tesla public, as well as the difficulty of retaining some of the large shareholders who were prohibited from investing in a private company. Others suggested that Musk was also influenced by the poor optics of an electric car company being funded by Saudi Arabia, a country heavily involved in the oil industry.

On September 29, 2018, it was announced that Musk would pay a $20 million fine and step down as chairman of Tesla's board for three years as part of an agreement with the SEC.

Inventions and Innovations

In August 2013, Musk released a concept for a new form of transportation called the "Hyperloop," an invention that would foster commuting between major cities while severely cutting travel time. Ideally resistant to weather and powered by renewable energy, the Hyperloop would propel riders in pods through a network of low-pressure tubes at speeds reaching more than 700 mph. Musk noted that the Hyperloop could take from seven to 10 years to be built and ready for use.

Although he introduced the Hyperloop with claims that it would be safer than a plane or train, with an estimated cost of $6 billion — approximately one-tenth of the cost for the rail system planned by the state of California — Musk's concept has drawn skepticism. Nevertheless, the entrepreneur has sought to encourage the development of this idea.

After he announced a competition for teams to submit their designs for a Hyperloop pod prototype, the first Hyperloop Pod Competition was held at the SpaceX facility in January 2017. A speed record of 284 mph was set by a German student engineering team at competition No. 3 in 2018, with the same team pushing the record to 287 mph the next year.

AI and Neuralink

Musk has pursued an interest in artificial intelligence, becoming co-chair of the nonprofit OpenAI. The research company launched in late 2015 with the stated mission of advancing digital intelligence to benefit humanity.

In 2017, it was also reported that Musk was backing a venture called Neuralink, which intends to create devices to be implanted in the human brain and help people merge with software. He expanded on the company's progress during a July 2019 discussion, revealing that its devices will consist of a microscopic chip that connects via Bluetooth to a smartphone.

High-Speed Train

In late November 2017, after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for proposals to build and operate a high-speed rail line that would transport passengers from O'Hare Airport to downtown Chicago in 20 minutes or less, Musk tweeted that he was all-in on the competition with The Boring Company. He said that the concept of the Chicago loop would be different from his Hyperloop, its relatively short route not requiring the need for drawing a vacuum to eliminate air friction.

In summer 2018 Musk announced he would cover the estimated $1 billion needed to dig the 17-mile tunnel from the airport to downtown Chicago. However, in late 2019 he tweeted that TBC would focus on completing the commercial tunnel in Las Vegas before turning to other projects, suggesting that plans for Chicago would remain in limbo for the immediate future.

Flamethrower

Musk also reportedly found a market for The Boring Company's flamethrowers. After announcing they were going on sale for $500 apiece in late January 2018, he claimed to have sold 10,000 of them within a day.

Relationship with Donald Trump

In December 2016, Musk was named to President Trump’s Strategy and Policy Forum; the following January, he joined Trump's Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. Following Trump’s election, Musk found himself on common ground with the new president and his advisers as the president announced plans to pursue massive infrastructure developments.

While sometimes at odds with the president's controversial measures, such as a proposed ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Musk defended his involvement with the new administration. "My goals," he tweeted in early 2017, "are to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and to help make humanity a multi-planet civilization, a consequence of which will be the creating of hundreds of thousands of jobs and a more inspiring future for all."

On June 1, following Trump's announcement that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, Musk stepped down from his advisory roles.

Personal Life

Wives and children.

Musk has been married twice. He wed Justine Wilson in 2000, and the couple had six children together. In 2002, their first son died at 10 weeks old from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Musk and Wilson had five additional sons together: twins Griffin and Xavier (born in 2004) and triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian (born in 2006).

After a contentious divorce from Wilson, Musk met actress Talulah Riley. The couple married in 2010. They split in 2012 but married each other again in 2013. Their relationship ultimately ended in divorce in 2016.

Girlfriends

Musk reportedly began dating actress Amber Heard in 2016 after finalizing his divorce with Riley and Heard finalized her divorce from Johnny Depp . Their busy schedules caused the couple to break up in August 2017; they got back together in January 2018 and split again one month later.

In May 2018, Musk began dating musician Grimes (born Claire Boucher). That month, Grimes announced that she had changed her name to “ c ,” the symbol for the speed of light, reportedly on the encouragement of Musk. Fans criticized the feminist performer for dating a billionaire whose company has been described as a “predator zone” among accusations of sexual harassment.

The couple discussed their love for one another in a March 2019 feature in the Wall Street Journal Magazine , with Grimes saying “Look, I love him, he’s great...I mean, he’s a super-interesting goddamn person.” Musk, for his part, told the Journal, “I love c’s wild fae artistic creativity and hyper-intense work ethic.”

Grimes gave birth to their son on May 4, 2020, with Musk announcing that they had named the boy "X Æ A-12." Later in the month, after it was reported that the State of California wouldn't accept a name with a number, the couple said they were changing their son's name to "X Æ A-Xii."

Musk and Grimes welcomed their second child, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, in December 2021. The child was delivered via a surrogate.

Nonprofit Work

The boundless potential of space exploration and the preservation of the future of the human race have become the cornerstones of Musk's abiding interests, and toward these, he has founded the Musk Foundation, which is dedicated to space exploration and the discovery of renewable and clean energy sources.

In October 2019 Musk pledged to donate $1 million to the #TeamTrees campaign, which aims to plant 20 million trees around the world by 2020. He even changed his Twitter name to Treelon for the occasion.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Elon Musk
• Birth Year: 1971
• Birth date: June 28, 1971
• Birth City: Pretoria
• Birth Country: South Africa
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: South African entrepreneur Elon Musk is known for founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2012.
• Space Exploration
• Internet/Computing
• Astrological Sign: Cancer
• University of Pennsylania
• Queen's University, Ontario
• Stanford University
• Nacionalities
• South African
• Interesting Facts
• Elon Musk left Stanford after two days to take advantage of the Internet boom.
• In April 2017, Musk's Tesla Motors surpassed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. car maker.

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Elon Musk Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/elon-musk
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: October 31, 2022
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• I'm very pro-environment, but let's figure out how to do it better and not jump through a dozen hoops to achieve what is obvious in the first place.
• Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

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SpaceX: Facts about Elon Musk's private spaceflight company

SpaceX is the maker of Starship and a private space company known for its International Space Station missions.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk

Spacex's first rocket: falcon 1.

• Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy
• Cargo missions to ISS

Crewed launches to the ISS

• Commercial flight
• Starlink controversy
• Future plans

Additional resources

SpaceX is a private spaceflight company that sends satellites and people to space, including NASA crews to the International Space Station (ISS). Founder Elon Musk is also creating and testing a Starship system for lunar landings and, he hopes, future crewed Mars missions.

The company sent its first two astronauts to the ISS on May 30, 2020, aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon and has sent several more crews aloft on behalf of NASA and other entities. 

As of mid-2022, it is the only commercial spaceflight company capable of sending astronauts to space, although it may soon face competition from Boeing's CST-100 Starliner .

Related: 8 ways that SpaceX has transformed spaceflight

SpaceX was founded by Musk, a South African-born businessman and entrepreneur. At age 30, Musk made his initial fortune by selling his two successful companies: Zip2, which he sold for $307 million in 1999, and PayPal, which eBay purchased for $1.5 billion in 2002, The New York Times reported . Musk decided his next major venture would be a privately funded space company. 

Initially, Musk had the idea of sending a greenhouse, dubbed the Mars Oasis, to the Red Planet. His goal was to drum up public interest in exploration while also providing a science base on Mars. But the cost ended up being too high, and instead, Musk started a spaceflight company called Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, now based in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, California. 

He spent a third of his reported fortune, $100 million, to get SpaceX going. There was skepticism that he would be successful, which persisted into SpaceX's first years.

After spending 18 months toiling privately on a spacecraft, SpaceX unveiled the craft in 2006 under the name Dragon . Musk reportedly named the spacecraft after "Puff, the Magic Dragon," a 1960s song from the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. He said he chose the name because critics believed his spaceflight aims were impossible.

Musk was already an experienced businessman when he started SpaceX, and he strongly believed that more frequent and more reliable launches would bring down the cost of exploration. So, he sought out a stable customer that could fund the early development of a rocket: NASA . (Later, he wooed launch clients from various sectors to diversify his customer base.) As such, his goal for SpaceX was to develop the first privately built, liquid-fueled booster to make it into orbit, which he called the Falcon 1. 

The company experienced a steep learning curve on the road to orbit. It took four tries to get Falcon 1 flying successfully, with previous attempts derailed by problems such as fuel leaks and a rocket-stage collision. But eventually, Falcon 1 made two successful flights: on Sept. 28, 2008, and July 14, 2009. The 2009 launch also placed the Malaysian RazakSat satellite into orbit.

Related: See The Evolution of SpaceX's Rockets in Pictures

In 2006, SpaceX received $278 million from NASA under the agency's  Commercial Orbital Transportation Services  (COTS) demonstration program, which was created to spur the development of systems that could transport cargo commercially to the ISS. The addition of a few more milestones eventually boosted the total contract value to up to $396 million. SpaceX was selected for the program along with Rocketplane Kistler (RpK), but RpK's contract was terminated with only partial payment after the company failed to meet the required milestones.

Multiple companies participated in the COTS program in its early stages, in funded or unfunded contracts. In 2008, NASA awarded two contracts for commercial-resupply services. SpaceX received a contract for 12 flights (worth $1.6 billion), and Orbital Sciences Corp. ( now Orbital ATK ) received a contract for eight flights (worth $1.9 billion). 

Better rockets: Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy

The workhorse rocket of the SpaceX fleet is the Falcon 9 , and one of its features is reusability. Falcon 9 hefts much more cargo than Falcon 1: 28,991 lbs. (13,150 kilograms) to low Earth orbit, compared to Falcon 1's capacity of 1,480 lbs. (670 kg). 

The first Falcon 9 booster landing took place on Dec. 21, 2015, and SpaceX now strives to make its boosters retrievable as a matter of course. They generally land on a robotic drone ship nearby the launch pad. Many of the Falcon 9 boosters have been used multiple times, to reduce launching costs.

A more powerful rocket, known as Falcon Heavy , made its debut on Feb. 6, 2018, meeting almost all of its major milestones. Falcon Heavy successfully flew to orbit, carrying a Tesla Roadster (an electric car made by Tesla, another company owned by Musk) and a spacesuited mannequin nicknamed Starman. SpaceX ran a live stream of the launch and the Roadster's first few hours in space, which attracted attention from all over the world.

The two rocket boosters landed successfully near Kennedy Space Center, as expected, but the core stage hit the ocean at 300 mph (480 km/h), which was too fast, and it didn't survive the impact. Falcon Heavy then performed an engine burn in space that is expected to bring the Roadster at least as far as Mars' orbit. 

April 2019 saw a setback for SpaceX when a test of the crewed Dragon spacecraft, intended to bring NASA astronauts to space, experienced a malfunction while on the ground. This created a smoke plume visible for miles around Cape Canaveral, Florida. The incident set back the company's timeline for bringing people to the International Space Station. That said, the company has recovered and has been bringing people to orbit with few issues since the debut crewed mission in 2020.

SpaceX Dragon: Cargo missions to ISS

The next and most crucial milestone for SpaceX was space station delivery. Dragon , riding a Falcon 9 rocket, delivered its first cargo to the space station in May 2012 under a test flight for the COTS program. The launch was delayed for a few days because of an engine problem, but the rocket lifted off safely on the next try. 

Spaceflight observers commended SpaceX's ability to send a cargo spacecraft to the ISS. Private spaceflight hadn't even been considered when the space station was developed in the 1980s and 1990s.

SpaceX fulfilled the first of its regular commercial flights to the space station in October 2012. That flight achieved most of its objectives, but it experienced a partial rocket failure during launch. The failure ended up stranding a satellite, Orbcomm-OG2, in an abnormally low orbit, which led to the mission's failure. 

That said, the first version of the Dragon spacecraft ran 20 flights to the space station through 2020, with all but one of them (CRS-7, in June 2015) arriving successfully. CRS-7 was lost due to a rocket anomaly and SpaceX made redesigns before the next, successful launch on April 8, 2016, which brought the inflatable Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) to space. 

A new version of Dragon's cargo variant began flying in December 2020 and has executed all five of its planned missions successfully to date, as of mid-2022. 

SpaceX developed several prototypes ahead of flying the Crew Dragon to space. One set, called DragonFly, performed a pad abort test at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Facility (now Cape Canaveral Space Force Facility), as well as tethered hover tests at the SpaceX Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas.

The company also used a pressure vessel qualification module and an environmental control and life support system module to test out key systems ahead of spaceflight. The first Crew Dragon to fly into space completed Crew Demo-1, which flew to the ISS on an uncrewed test on March 2, 2019, and splashed down successfully after eight days in space. That flown Crew Dragon spacecraft was unexpectedly destroyed after the flight during a separate set of tests to evaluate the abort system.

SpaceX launched its first crewed test flight, Demo-2, on May 30, 2020, safely delivering astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS. On the company's newly built Endeavour SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, the two men returned safely to Earth on Aug. 2, 2020.

On Nov. 15, 2020, the first successful operational flight, Crew-2, used a Falcon 9 rocket to safely launch four astronauts to the ISS aboard a Crew Dragon craft that the astronauts had named "Resilience," in honor of ongoing efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As of this writing, SpaceX has sent four crews of astronauts (NASA and international astronauts) to the ISS aboard Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2, Crew-3, and Crew-4. One more mission, Crew-5, is planned for 2022 and there is room in the current contract to order more missions as required for space station needs.

Helping SpaceX's case has been ongoing issues in developing the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, but Boeing plans to run a second, uncrewed test flight in 2022 with aims to launch astronauts in 2023 if the test goes to plan.

In pictures: Amazing launch photos of SpaceX's Crew-4 mission

Starship is the centerpiece of Musk's eventual plans to head to Mars. While the spacecraft remains in early testing, it is NASA's choice of lander to send Artemis astronauts to the moon no earlier than 2025. (NASA's selection had to overcome legal protests by Blue Origin after the agency pivoted to a sole-source contract over multiple vendors, citing a lack of money, but another solicitation was pledged in 2022.)

The testing program began with a smaller vehicle known as Starhopper, which performed a series of tethered and untethered flight tests in 2019 and 2020. Then SpaceX began testing a series of Starship vehicles in high-altitude flights, starting with a cautious hop test of SN5 in August 2020. One of the program's greatest challenges was executing flip maneuvers in mid-air, which led to the demise of several Starships before SN15 achieved a soft landing on May 5, 2021.

Starship is designed to launch to orbit and deep space aboard Super Heavy, the 230-foot (70-meter) tall booster that holds roughly 3.6 tons of liquid oxygen and methane in its propellant tanks. Like all of SpaceX's boosters, Super Heavy is planned to be reusable. It will feature four grid fins to assist in controlling the booster's descent. 

The fully stacked Super Heavy and Starship were put together on a launchpad for the first time in August 2021, standing 395 feet (120 meters) tall. That's more than 30 feet (9 m) taller than NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket. 

This Starship-Super Heavy version is set to perform an orbital test in 2022, pending a delayed environmental review of the Federal Aviation Administration of SpaceX's launch facilities in Boca Chica, Texas. The public response to the review added more data points than FAA was anticipating, lengthening the process.

Commercial: Axiom Space, Inspiration4, Polaris Program, dearMoon

SpaceX's success in running Crew Dragon missions to the space station attracted missions from other companies, which use similar spacecraft to run high-Earth orbit missions, ISS missions and in one case, a crewed moon mission.

The first Crew Dragon spacecraft used by non-professionals was the one that flew Inspiration4 into space. Four people rode to orbit on a mission to raise money and awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. The crew used a variant of Crew Dragon with a large cupola window, flown in place of a docking mechanism as they didn't need to reach the ISS.

The success of Inspiration4 inspired Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who had paid for the four seats, to begin his own private space program. Called the Polaris Program, it will run a series of missions for charity and for research purposes in space. Isaacman is expected to participate in all three missions. The first mission, Polaris Dawn, is scheduled to fly in late 2022.

Another company, Axiom Space , plans to run a long series of research-oriented missions to the ISS using SpaceX Crew Dragons. The debut of the series was Ax-1, a 10-day mission in April 2022. Axiom's manifest calls for the company to launch a research module to ISS that will also allow for a film studio.

Moon missions appear to be in play for further in the future. In 2018, Musk announced that Yusaku Maezawa, an artist and billionaire founder of the Japanese e-commerce giant Zozo, and a handful of artists will launch the trip around the moon in the 2020s. SpaceX did not disclose how much Maezawa paid for that trip. The mission is called dearMoon and Maezawa is seeking crewmates for the trip who have an artistic bent.

Starlink expansion and controversy

In 2019, Musk and SpaceX ignited controversy in the field of astronomy over the company's plans to place a constellation of 12,000 small satellites in orbit around the Earth in order to provide reliable internet access to remote places. So far, only 60 of these Starlink satellites have launched but they have already left unsightly trails in astronomers' telescope observations of the night sky. Many researchers fear that an increased number of satellites will cause problems for vital data-collecting enterprises.

SpaceX has been testing out a special coating on the next round of Starlink satellites that could help make them less reflective and, therefore, less obtrusive in the night sky. That said, astronomers continue to sound alarms about the potential of intrusions in telescopic images. Wide-field imaging, and imaging at dawn and dusk, appear to be particularly affected by satellite streaks.

While SpaceX has been in conversation with the astronomical community, studies continue to show the impact of Starlink on observations. For example, a 2022 research paper in the Astrophysical Journal showed the wide-field Zwicky Transient Facility's images are becoming more affected with time, as SpaceX deploys more satellites.

NASA also raised concerns about Starlink in 2022, noting a proposal to place 30,000 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit will not only affect ground observations but may also interfere with launch windows due to the number of satellites passing overhead. Increasing space debris collision risk was also noted by the agency, although SpaceX says it has automation to reduce the risk as much as possible.

SpaceX's plans for the future, Mars and more

– SpaceX Starship: Key milestones for the world's most powerful rocket

– Every SpaceX Starship explosion and what Elon Musk and team learned from them (video)

– The history of rockets

SpaceX has customers from the private sector, military and nongovernmental entities, which pay the company to launch cargo into space. Although SpaceX makes its money from launch services, the company is also focused on developing technology for future space exploration. 

And Musk's dreams of flying to Mars are undimmed. In 2011, he told delegates at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in San Diego that he planned to take people to Mars in 10 to 15 years. Three years later, at the International Space Development Conference, he said the reusable rocket stage would be a step in getting to the Red Planet.

"The reason SpaceX was created was to accelerate the development of rocket technology, all for the goal of establishing a self-sustaining, permanent base on Mars," Musk said at the time. "And I think we're making some progress in that direction — not as fast as I'd like."

In 2016, Musk unveiled his technological plan for Martian transport, which is a part of his plan to create a self-sustaining Red Planet colony in the next 50 to 100 years. The Interplanetary Transport System, as the rocket is called, is essentially a larger version of the Falcon 9. The spaceship, however, will be quite a bit larger than the Dragon, as it is slated to carry at least 100 people per flight. (The crewed version of the Dragon for the ISS is expected to carry four people, on average.) 

Musk followed up his announcement in 2017 by publishing a paper describing a future Red Planet city of a million people and providing more details about how the ITS would transport cargo and people.

Musk updated his Mars plans in September 2017 in an address in Australia. He didn't mention the ITS during the talk; instead, he talked about a system called the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR). The spaceship that BFR will carry will be 157.5 feet (48 meters) tall and have 40 cabins for passengers, likely with a capacity of 100 people.

Musk once again unveiled an update to his Mars plans, in September 2019, renaming the first BFR to Starship Mk1 and switching its outer coating from expensive carbon fiber to stainless steel. Photos of the shiny, sci-fi-looking craft being assembled at SpaceX's South Texas facilities, near the village of Boca Chica, circulated on the internet.

Related: No more BFR: SpaceX changing name of Mars-colonizing rocket, spaceship

Starship continues to feature in Musk's Mars plans. In a February 2022 update, Musk said it may be possible to reach a launch rate of one Starship vehicle every six to eight hours, and one Super Heavy rocket every hour, on missions that would send up to 150 tons of payload to orbit. Such a high launch rate is expected to bring down costs, Musk said, making Mars settlements more financially feasible.

You can follow SpaceX on Twitter . Watch videos of SpaceX's successful and failed launches on the company's YouTube channel . Check out NASA's SpaceX blog for the latest news on collaborations between the two entities. Read about the series of collaborations to stay up to speed.  

Bibliography

Federal Aviation Administration. "SpaceX Starship Super Heavy Project at the Boca Chica Launch Site." 2022, March 25. https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_starship/

Government Accountability Office. "Decision Matter of: Blue Origin Federation, LLC; Dynetics, Inc.-A Leidos Company." 2021, July 30. https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-419783.pdf

Mroz, Przemek et. al. "Impact of the SpaceX Starlink Satellites on the Zwicky Transient Facility Survey Observations." The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 924, Number 2. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ac470a . 2022 Jan. 14.

SpaceX. "Starlink." 2022. https://www.starlink.com/

SpaceX. "SpaceX." 2022. https://www.spacex.com/

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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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Biography of Elon Musk

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Elon Musk is best known for being the co-founder of PayPal, a money-transfer service for Web consumers, for founding Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX, the first private company to launch a rocket into space and for founding Tesla Motors, which builds electric cars.

Famous Quotes from Musk

• "Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."
• "It is where great things are possible" [Musk on moving to the USA]

Background and Education

Elon Musk was born in South Africa, in 1971. His father was an engineer and his mother is a nutritionist. An avid fan of computers, by the age of twelve, Musk had written the code for his own video game, a space game called Blastar, which the preteen sold for a profit.

Elon Musk attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned two bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He was admitted to Stanford University in California with the intention of earning a PhD in energy physics. However, Musk's life was about to change dramatically.

Zip2 Corporation

In 1995, at the age of twenty-four, Elon Musk dropped out of Stanford University after just two days of classes to start his first company called Zip2 Corporation. Zip2 Corporation was an online city guide that provided content for the new online versions of the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune newspapers. Musk struggled to keep his new business afloat, eventually selling majority control of Zip2 to venture capitalists in exchange for a $3.6 million investment.

In 1999, the Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for $307 million. Out of that amount, Elon Musk's share was $22 million. Musk had become a millionaire at the age of twenty-eight. That same year Musk started his next company.

Online Banking

In 1999, Elon Musk started X.com with $10 million dollars from the sale of Zip2. X.com was an online bank, and Elon Musk is credited with inventing a method of securely transferring money using a recipient's e-mail address.

In 2000, X.com bought a company called Confinity, which had started an Internet money-transfer process called PayPal. Elon Musk renamed X.com/Confinity Paypal and dropped the company's online banking focus to concentrate on becoming a global payment transfer provider.

In 2002, eBay bought Paypal for $1.5 billion and Elon Musk made $165 million in eBay stock from the deal.

Space Exploration Technologies

In 2002, Elon Musk started SpaceX aka the Space Exploration Technologies. Elon Musk is a long-standing member of the Mars Society , a nonprofit organization that supports the exploration of Mars, and Musk is interested in establishing a greenhouse on Mars. SpaceX has been developing rocket technology to enable Musk's project.

Tesla Motors

In 2004, Elon Musk cofounded Tesla Motors, of which he is the sole product architect. Tesla Motors builds electric vehicles . The company has built an electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, the Model S, an economy model four door electric sedan and plans to build more affordable compact cars in the future.

In 2006, Elon Musk co-founded SolarCity, a photovoltaics products and services company with his cousin Lyndon Rive.

In December 2015, Elon Musk announced the creation of OpenAI, a research company to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.

In 2016, Musk created Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup company with a mission to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence. The aim is to create devices that can be implanted in the human brain and merge human beings with software.

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Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Paperback – Illustrated, January 24, 2017

A New York Times Bestseller

In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs—a real-life Tony Stark—and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new “makers.”

Elon Musk spotlights the technology and vision of Elon Musk, the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, who sold one of his Internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius’s life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits.

Vance uses Musk’s story to explore one of the pressing questions of our age: can the nation of inventors and creators who led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk—one of the most unusual and striking figures in American business history—is a contemporary, visionary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy.

Thorough and insightful, Elon Musk brings to life a technology industry that is rapidly and dramatically changing by examining the life of one of its most powerful and influential titans.

• Print length 416 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Ecco
• Publication date January 24, 2017
• Dimensions 1.3 x 5.2 x 7.9 inches
• ISBN-10 006230125X
• ISBN-13 978-0062301253
• Lexile measure 1200L
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

“Mr. Vance tells the stories of both SpaceX and Tesla with intricacy and insight. . . . What does come through is a sense of legitimate wonder at what humans can accomplish when they aim high, and aim weird. — Dwight Garner, New York Times

“[T]his work will likely serve as the definitive account of a man whom so far we’ve seen mostly through caricature. By the final pages, too, any reader will sense the need to put comparisons to Steve Jobs aside. Give Musk credit. There is no one like him.” — New York Times Book Review

“[A] spirited and riveting biography.” — Wall Street Journal

“The SpaceX and Tesla founder certainly sees setbacks as an unavoidable part of innovation. But a brilliant new biography paints a picture of him as an obsessive, intolerant perfectionist.” — Financial Times

“Fascinating and superbly researched…” — The Guardian UK

From the Back Cover

Veteran technology journalist Ashlee Vance offers an unprecedented look into the remarkable life of the most daring entrepreneur of our time. Elon Musk paints a portrait of a complex man who has renewed American industry and sparked new levels of innovation—from PayPal to Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity—overcoming hardship, earning billions, and making plenty of enemies along the way.

About the Author

Ashlee Vance is the New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk and a feature writer at Bloomberg Businessweek . He's also the host of Hello World , a travel show that centers on inventors and scientists all over the planet. Previously, he worked as a reporter for The New York Times , The Economist , and The Register . 

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ecco; Reprint edition (January 24, 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 006230125X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062301253
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1200L
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.3 x 5.2 x 7.9 inches
• #28 in Environmental Economics (Books)
• #186 in Biographies of Business & Industrial Professionals
• #220 in Rich & Famous Biographies

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About the author

Ashlee vance.

Ashlee Vance is an award winning feature writer for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. Vance is also the host and writer of the Emmy-nominated "Hello World" TV series and producer of several upcoming documentary films. Previously, he worked for The New York Times and The Register. He's the author of the best-selling biography on Elon Musk and his most recent work is "When The Heavens Went on Sale" about the rise of the commercial space industry. HBO is currently developing a TV series and a documentary based on Vance's books.

Vance was born in South Africa, grew up in Texas and attended Pomona College. He has spent more than two decades covering the technology industry from San Francisco and is a noted Silicon Valley historian.

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Customers say

Customers find the pacing fast and enjoyable. They also describe the character as brilliant and a brilliant individual. Readers find the themes inspiring, balanced, and confident. They describe the narrative depth as insightful, eye opening, and exceptional. They praise the writing quality as incredibly well researched and written. Customers also find the book comprehensible, complete, and thorough. They find the storyline interesting and quick. However, some customers feel the writing style is repetitive and redundant.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the storyline interesting, logical, and spectacular. They also say it's a quick read that offers important early details into the life of Elon Musk. Customers also say the book is fair about how Elon was presented and presents a unique person.

"...This is a very interesting piece [pages 355-56] not linked to Musk: “I don’t think we’re doing a good job as a society deciding what things are..." Read more

"...In fact, this is how Musk operates as well. This book provides genuine insights into Musk’s life by elaborately recounting his life’s events in..." Read more

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"...What an absolutely fascinating book on so many levels ...." Read more

Customers find the book incredibly well researched and written, with clarity of ideas and flow of words. They also say it's a quick read and the reader will get a growing understanding about what makes this man the best biography of a businessman. Customers also say the book goes into enough detail about Musk, his businesses, and the research.

"...He didn’t just survive. He kept working and stayed focused .”..." Read more

"...The book provides extensive detail of this time period and shows the reader how Musk was not always the media darling he sometimes appears to be..." Read more

"...The writing is easy and even more enjoyable to read the Walter Isaacson's authorized Jobs biography...." Read more

"...I can’t say enough, this book is incredibly well researched and written !..." Read more

Customers find the themes in the book incredible, inspiring, and relevant. They say the author does a great job getting into Musk's psyche, and provides a comprehensive point of view. Readers also mention that the book is highly relevant, allowing for an efficient, productive existence for humankind on earth.

"... Musk is direct and tough but “He comes from the school of thought in the public relations world that you let no inaccuracy go uncorrected” [page 91]...." Read more

"...Musk’s motivations are conveyed especially well throughout the biography and help to give insight into his immense drive as well as his choice of..." Read more

"...The book is an incredible inspiration for anyone who has a business as it details the many times that he could have failed and didn't because of his..." Read more

"...As a side effect, this book has also become an incredible source of inspiration for me...." Read more

Customers find the character brilliant, intelligent, driven, visionary, and odd. They also say the author does a good job describing the life so far. Customers say the book is great for tinkerers, engineers, and entrepreneurs. They mention the space X and Tesla are well represented.

"...A really unique and tough character . And obviosuly, very much criticized and hated too...." Read more

"...This is a great book for tinkerers, engineers and entrepreneurs ." Read more

"... He is brilliant . I don't usually read biographies, but when I saw this I just had to have it...." Read more

"...: You should read this biography for an interesting take on a very interesting personality .“..." Read more

Customers find the narrative depth of the book insightful, excellent, and balanced. They say the author's portrait of Musk is compelling, fascinating, and tasty. They also say the book provides an excellent template for those who may not be able to match Musk's vision.

"...it not only paints a picture of who he is, but also gives a small glimpse into his life and how he thinks.Pros:..." Read more

"...I’m fascinated with his vision , breadth of skills and knowledge, and his determination...." Read more

"This book delivers what it promises -- in excellent detail , with a healthy dose of Musk's complex personality and world view...." Read more

"...The author’s portrait of Musk is so compelling , I found myself muttering “Get back to our guy!”..." Read more

Customers find the pacing of the book fast, quick, and enjoyable. They also say it's history written in almost real time. Readers also mention that the book reveals a profoundly powerful formula that makes it hard to argue that it'll function for days.

"...Elon Musk is driven by his passion for his vision. He has incredible energy and the ability to function for days on next to no sleep...." Read more

"...The style is fast paced , yet detailed enough to give some great insight into the man and his companies...." Read more

"...High readable index. Finished it very quickly without missing a word . Overall, a solid book delivering insights of Elon's psyche...." Read more

"Tore through this book in about 5 days. It is a quick read , and written in simple language, which helps when you want to read as many books as I do...." Read more

Customers find the book not overly complicated, thorough, and objective. They also say the author does a great job of piecing everything together and covering the beginning of Musk's career.

"...Vance does an excellent job of covering the beginning of Musk’s career including his companies Zip2 and Paypal...." Read more

"...job at knitting Elon and his relatives’ stories in a coherent, easy to follow way , and that comes from someone who reads in English as a second..." Read more

"This is a thorough and very well written look into Elon Musk's life. I devoured this thing...." Read more

"... Reading this book was hard going . The chapters are long, and so are the paragraphs. But I ended up satisfied and glad that I'd made the effort." Read more

Customers find the writing style repetitive, less objective, and confusing. They also say the book loses some context during the dark days of 08-09. Readers also mention there is a lot of swearing, disjointed, and sporadic. They feel the later life information is redundant.

"...For a biography, it bothered me just a bit because it lost some of the context during the dark days of 08-09...." Read more

"...The only thing is that there is some vulgar language , so definitely be careful with that." Read more

"...While so many trash this man and his vision, the book feels well balanced in it's presentation of a complicated individual." Read more

"... Chapter 11 was kind of lame too." Read more

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‘Elon Musk,’ a Biography by Ashlee Vance, Paints a Driven Portrait

By Dwight Garner

• May 12, 2015

“We’ve become a nation of indoor cats,” Dave Eggers wrote in “A Hologram for the King” (2012), his existential novel about an American doing IT work in the Saudi Arabian desert. “A nation of doubters, worriers, overthinkers.”

Ashlee Vance, in his new biography of the celebrity industrialist Elon Musk, delivers a similar notion of the deflating American soul. An early Facebook engineer tells Mr. Vance, “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” The author quotes the venture capitalist Peter Thiel: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”

If Silicon Valley was holding out for a hero after Steve Jobs’s death, a disrupter in chief, it has found a brawny one in Mr. Musk. This South African-born entrepreneur, inventor and engineer is the animating force behind companies (Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity) that have made startling advances in non-indoor-cat arenas: electric cars, space exploration and solar energy. He is all of 43.

Mr. Musk is about as close as we have, circa 2015, to early industrial titans like Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Along with his swagger, he totes surprise, style and wit. Tesla’s Model S sedan was not only Motor Trend’s car of the year in 2013 — the first non-internal-combustion engine vehicle to win that award — but it also has a sound system that, in a homage to the film “Spinal Tap,” you can turn up to 11.

“Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” isn’t the first biography we’ve had of Mr. Musk, nor will it be the last. But it is easily the richest to date. It’s also the first one Mr. Musk has cooperated with, though he had no control, the author says, over its contents. Mr. Vance is a technology writer for Bloomberg Businessweek . He won over Mr. Musk, who initially declined to be interviewed, impressing him with his diligence after he had interviewed some 200 people.

The result is a book that is smart, light on its feet and possesses a crunchy thoroughness. Mr. Vance can occasionally veer toward hagiography and the diction of news releases. After noting that Mr. Musk’s grand vision is to colonize Mars, for example, Mr. Vance writes:

“He’s the possessed genius on the grandest quest anyone has ever concocted. He’s less a C.E.O. chasing riches than a general marshaling troops to secure victory. Where Mark Zuckerberg wants to help you share baby photos, Musk wants to ... well ... save the human race from self-imposed or accidental annihilation.” As the Beast from “X-Men” likes to remark, Oh my stars and garters.

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14 big moments in the history of Elon Musk's SpaceX — from nearly going bankrupt in 2008 to the fiery Starship explosion

• SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded on Thursday, but it's far from the company's first hiccup.
• In 2008, the company almost went under after three failed attempts to launch its rocket into orbit.
• SpaceX was founded in 2002. It has since become one of the most successful private companies.

Elon Musk was inspired to start building his own rockets in 2001 after a Russian rocket designer spat on his shoes.

"This act so completely offended Elon that he decided on the flight home that he would start his own rocket company to compete with them," former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver wrote in a book about the commercialization of space. "If Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships, this was the spit that launched a thousand spaceships."

At the time, Musk was visiting Russia in order to negotiate a deal to buy space rockets for a future mission to Mars. He initially had wanted to create a greenhouse on the red planet called the "Mars Oasis."

SpaceX cofounder Jim Cantrell also recalled the incident in a Channel 4 documentary that aired in May and in a biography on Musk by Ashlee Vance, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future."

SpaceX was founded as Space Exploration Technologies Corporation less than a year later in 2001, and Musk has continued his rivalry with Russia for decades — eventually turning SpaceX into a competitor to Russia's Soyuz rocket.

Sources: Insider ,   "Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, " "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future."

SpaceX first rocket — Falcon 1 — was unveiled in 2005.

Musk named the rocket Falcon in a nod to the Millennium Falcon from "Star Wars." Falcon 1 was an expendable two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle that cost about $100 million to build.

The company unveiled its second spaceship, the Dragon, a year later, naming it after the hit song "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary. Musk said he used the name because many considered his vision for the company impossible.

At the time, the company was one of very few to attempt to make a commercial space rocket.

By 2006, Musk — who had made millions when PayPal sold to eBay — had invested a third of his fortune into the space venture. The company also received $278 million from NASA under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, as well as funding for its first two Falcon launches from the United States Department of Defense.

Sources: Wired , NASA,  SpaceReview

Between 2006 and 2008 SpaceX had three failed launch attempts that threatened to end the company.

In 2006, SpaceX's first launch attempt failed as a result of a fuel leak and resultant fire. A later review of the launch vehicle found that a fuel-line nut had corroded due to nearby ocean spray. SpaceX altered its design to replace aluminium hardware with stainless steel as a result.

The next two launches executed the first stage of flight, but encountered issues after separation that prevented the spacecraft from reaching orbit.

SpaceX almost went bankrupt as a result of the failed attempts.

At the same time, Musk was also facing issues with financing at Tesla and reportedly "waking from nightmares, screaming and in physical pain" due to the stress, according to Eric Berger's book about SpaceX, "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX."

—Pranay Pathole (@PPathole) March 5, 2021

Sources: Space.com, SpaceX , "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX"

SpaceX's fourth flight represented the company's last chance, as funding was beginning to run dry.

The Falcon 1's first successful launch was on September 28, 2008 from Omelek Island in the Marshall Islands. It was also the first successful orbital launch from a privately funded company, representing a major shift in an industry that had been dominated by government programs.

No major changes were made to the rocket between the third and forth launch, but SpaceX did increase the time between first-stage burnout and second-stage separation as the previous failure had been attributed to a timing issue.

SpaceX's rocket launches are divided into two stages. The first stage is the booster, which makes a big push to a certain altitude and then falls away. The second stage continues on and pushes the spaceship into orbit.

"I messed up the first three launches. The first three launches failed," Musk said in an interview nine years later. "That was the last money that we had for Falcon 1. That fourth launch worked. Or it would have been — that would have been it for SpaceX. But fate liked us that day."

Following the company's first successful launch, SpaceX was able to secure more funding from NASA, as well as some private investors.

The Falcon 1 rocket was retired after its fifth launch in 2009.

Sources: Space.com , CNBC, "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX"

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft reached the International Space Station in 2012.

It was the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to ISS, and led to several more contracts between NASA and SpaceX.

Dragon 1 flew 23 cargo missions to ISS until it was retired in 2020. SpaceX began developing Dragon 2 — a version that would be able to carry astronauts, as well as cargo — in 2014.

Sources: SpaceX , CNET, EndGadget

SpaceX faced its second major setback in 2015 when the Falcon 9 exploded two minutes into the flight.

The rocket was carrying supplies to ISS when it broke apart shortly after liftoff.

The problem was traced to a steel strut that contained a helium pressure vessel and broke apart from the spacecraft due to the force of the liftoff. 

The Falcon 9 had a second failure in 2016 when the rocket exploded during the pre-launch static fire test.

Source: Los Angeles Times, NBC

SpaceX achieved its first successful recovery of the first stage of a rocket a few months later.

In 2016, SpaceX successfully recovered the first stage of another Falcon 9 rocket on an autonomous spaceport drone ship located in the Atlantic Ocean.

Recovering and reusing the first stage of rockets allows SpaceX to reduce its costs by about 30%, Musk has said.

Within the year, Musk's space venture began offering to transport payloads using the reused first stage for a 10% discount. The company launched its first reused Falcon 9 in 2017.

Sources: CNBC , SpaceNews , The Washington Post

In 2018, SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster into space using SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket.

The red sports car was occupied by a mannequin in a spacesuit, dubbed "Starman."

The electric car was sent into space as a test load. At the time, Musk said he wanted the dummy payload to be the "silliest thing we can imagine."

The car is still in orbit — making it the fastest sports car to ever exist. There's even a website that tracks the car's space journey. As of December 20, the Roadster was over 200 million miles from earth, moving away from the planet at a speed of 6,473 miles per hour, according to whereisroadster.com.

Source: CNN, whereisroadster.com

SpaceX hit a major milestone in 2020 when the company brought human spaceflight back to the US for the first time in years.

SpaceX launched its new Crew Dragon spacecraft using its Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020 with two astronauts onboard, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. The men were the first humans to ever take off on a SpaceX rocket.

It was also the first time the US had launched an astronaut into orbit on a new spacecraft since the inaugural space shuttle launch in 1981.

The mission was a result of NASA's Commercial Crew space program, which was designed to spur the development of private launch vehicles after the agency officially retired its Space Shuttle in 2011.

Later that year, NASA certified SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon human spaceflight system for crew missions to and from ISS – meaning the US would no longer have to rely solely on Russia's Soyuz rocket to transport US astronauts to and from the space station.

Source: Space.com, NASA

Starship, which SpaceX is designing to one day build settlements on Mars, completed a suborbital test flight without exploding for the first time in May 2021.

Musk's long-term ambitions are to populate Mars by building self-sustaining settlements there. To send enough people and materials all the way to the red planet, SpaceX needs a powerful and completely reusable rocket. Enter Starship-Super Heavy.

Starship is the cornerstone spacecraft of Musk's plans beyond Earth. NASA has picked it to land the first astronauts on the moon since 1972. And Musk has described a vision of one day building 1,000 Starships to fly regular shuttle trips to and from Mars. 

With Starship, SpaceX aims to make the rocket's second stage reusable — something that it accomplished with Falcon 9's first stage. That would make the launch system fully reusable, which has never been done before.

Starship had a rocky start at its development facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, where SpaceX began launching prototypes 6 miles high to ensure they could fly and land themselves in one piece. The first four prototypes exploded, either in mid-air, by crashing into the landing pad, or 10 minutes after touchdown.

But the fifth Starship landed in one piece, proving that SpaceX could reuse the second-stage spacecraft of its Mars launch system. That full reusability could slash the cost of reaching space by "a factor of 100 or more," Musk has said.

Source: Insider

Almost two years later, SpaceX attempted to launch Starship into orbit for the first time and it exploded mid-air.

The rocket was launched on Thursday usings the company's giant Super Heavy booster. The megarocket, which was unpiloted, launched and flew successfully for nearly three minutes. Starship was then supposed to separate from the booster and continue its journey into space, but instead it spiraled downwards and exploded.

SpaceX announcer and engineer John Insprucker said on the company's livestream that the rocket "experienced what we call a rapid unscheduled disassembly."

It was the first time the Starship and Super Heavy flew together and it's unclear what caused the issue. The rocket was supposed to spend about an hour at orbital heights and splash back down in the ocean, but SpaceX engineering manager Kate Tice said during the broadcast that it was a success the rocket even cleared the launch tower.

Musk congratulated the SpaceX team on an "exciting" launch and had previously said the launch had a 50% chance of success.

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2023

Sources: Insider , Insider

In 2021, SpaceX launched its first all-civilian spaceflight, Inspiration4.

On September 15, 2021, billionaire Jared Issacman chartered a private spaceflight with three other passengers and spent three days in space. The mission launched the Crew Dragon Resilience atop a Falcon 9.

The flight was part of a charitable effort to raise funds and awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and led to over $243 million in donations.

The spaceflight was the first crewed mission to reach orbit without any professional astronauts on board.

Source: Space.com

Over the past two decades, SpaceX has smashed through several records, becoming one of the world's top private space companies.

In 2021, SpaceX broke a record for the longest streak of orbital launches without a mission failure or partial failure for a single rocket type after its Falcon 9 completed 101 launches without a snag.

Last, the space venture achieved the highest number of launches of a single rocket type in a year when it successfully launched the Falcon 9 60 times in a year.

SpaceX is also one of the most valuable private companies in the world, with a valuation over $100 billion.

Sources: Guinness World Records, CNBC , SpaceX.com

Outside of rocket launches, SpaceX has also built a sprawling satellite network.

The company has launched about 4,000 of its satellites into Earth's lower orbit with plans to create a network of 42,000 satellites for SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet.

Since SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019 the company has generated over 1 million users . The satellite internet service was launched across several airlines and cruise companies earlier this year, and it has also proven pivotal for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

SpaceX has spun some of its work into a subsidiary called The Boring Company, which has plans to build underground transportation systems in several US cities.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, Space.com

• Main content

• Falcon Heavy
• Human Spaceflight

MAKING HUMANITY MULTIPLANETARY

Building on the achievements of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, SpaceX is working on a next generation of fully reusable launch vehicles that will be the most powerful ever built, capable of carrying humans to Mars and other destinations in the solar system.

MAKING HISTORY

SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company capable of returning a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit, and in 2012 our Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station. And in 2020, SpaceX became the first private company to take humans there as well. Click through the timeline above to see some of our milestone accomplishments.

FALCON 1 MAKES HISTORY

Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit.

DRAGON REACHES THE SPACE STATION

Dragon becomes the first private spacecraft in history to visit the space station.

FIRST LAND LANDING

On December 21, 2015, the Falcon 9 rocket delivered 11 communications satellites to orbit, and the first stage returned and landed at Landing Zone 1 — the first-ever orbital class rocket landing.

DRONESHIP LANDING

On April 8, 2016, the Falcon 9 rocket launched the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, and the first stage returned and landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship.

FIRST REFLIGHT

On March 30, 2017, SpaceX achieved the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket. Following delivery of the payload, the Falcon 9 first stage returned to Earth for the second time.

FALCON HEAVY FIRST FLIGHT

On February 7, 2018, Falcon Heavy made its first launch to orbit, successfully landing 2 of its 3 boosters and launching its payload to space. With more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, Falcon Heavy is one of the most capable rockets flying. By comparison, the liftoff thrust of the Falcon Heavy equals approximately eighteen 747 aircraft at full power. Falcon Heavy can lift the equivalent of a fully loaded 737 jetliner—complete with passengers, luggage and fuel—to orbit.

DRAGON DOCKS WITH ISS

Dragon docked with the International Space Station on March 3 at 3:02 a.m. PST, becoming the first American spacecraft to autonomously dock with the orbiting laboratory.

SPACEX RETURNS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TO THE UNITED STATES

Launched atop Falcon 9 on May 30, 2020, Dragon's second demonstration mission to and from the International Space Station, with NASA astronauts onboard the spacecraft, restored human spaceflight to the United States. Later that year, NASA certified SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon human spaceflight system for crew missions to and from the space station – becoming the first commercial system in history to achieve such designation.

Reusability

SpaceX believes a fully and rapidly reusable rocket is the pivotal breakthrough needed to substantially reduce the cost of space access. The majority of the launch cost comes from building the rocket, which historically has flown only once.

Compare that to a commercial airliner – each new plane costs about the same as Falcon 9 but can fly multiple times per day and conduct tens of thousands of flights over its lifetime. Following the commercial model, a rapidly reusable space launch vehicle could reduce the cost of traveling to space by a hundredfold.

While most rockets are designed to burn up on reentry, SpaceX rockets can not only withstand reentry but can also successfully land back on Earth and refly again.

SpaceX’s family of Falcon launch vehicles are the first and only orbital class rockets capable of reflight. Depending on the performance required for the mission, Falcon lands on one of our autonomous spaceport droneships out on the ocean or one of our landing zones near our launch pads.

SpaceX Facilities

SpaceX designs and builds its reusable rockets and spacecraft at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California. As a company, SpaceX is vertically integrated, building the vast majority of the vehicle on the Hawthorne campus. SpaceX headquarters remains one of the few facilities in the world where you can see an entire launch vehicle or spacecraft come together under one roof.

SpaceX tests its engines, vehicle structures, and systems at a 4,000-acre state-of-the-art rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. Outfitted with 16 specialized test stands, the facility validates for flight every Merlin engine that powers the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and every Draco thruster that controls the Dragon spacecraft.

The site’s location on the southeast coast of the US provides access to a wide range of low and medium inclination orbits frequently used by communications and Earth-observing satellites and by supply missions to the International Space Station. The site also allows access to geostationary orbits, as well as departures to the Moon and interplanetary destinations.

SpaceX is honored to launch from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Complex 39A, home of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. In addition to commercial satellite launches and space station resupply missions, LC-39A supports crew launches of the Dragon spacecraft.

The site’s location on the California coastline provides customers with access to high inclination and polar orbits, frequently used by satellite communication constellations, defense intelligence and Earth-observing satellites, and some lunar missions. Launches from Vandenberg heading straight south traverse open ocean all the way to the Antarctic, by which time the vehicles have long since reached orbit.

Development, manufacturing, testing, and launch of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – collectively referred to as Starship – takes place at Starbase in Texas. One of the world’s first commercial spaceports designed for orbital missions, launches from Starbase will provide access to destinations in Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

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Interested in becoming a SpaceX supplier? Please email [email protected] . For information about trademarks, copyrights and other IP at SpaceX, click here .

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How Elon Musk took SpaceX from an idea to the cusp of making history

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – On Wednesday, SpaceX, Elon Musk's nearly 20-year-old company, is slated to fulfill its most important mission to date.

Two astronauts are scheduled to board a Crew Dragon capsule and launch from Florida on a trajectory toward the International Space Station. It’ll mark the first time the company has launched humans, as well as the first time in nearly a decade that astronauts take flight from American soil on American rockets.

To succeed, everything – launch, orbit, docking, then departure and splashdown – will have to be perfect. Astronauts Robert Behnken and Doug Hurley depend on it.

That Musk built this kind of high-risk, high-reward scenario isn’t by chance. For decades, the 48-year-old entrepreneur has used his business acumen to break into entrenched industries ranging from finance to launch services to transportation. It’s no secret that he knows the hustle – and embraces it.

His hard-work-pays-off attitude has elevated him and his employees to run business worth billions. SpaceX, traded privately, passed a $30 billion valuation, and Tesla  became the most valuable American carmaker this year, eclipsing veterans such as Ford and General Motors.

Musk's hard-charging ways have sometimes landed him in hot water. He stepped down as Tesla's chairman over government concerns sparked by tweets he made about taking the company private.

How did Musk, worth about $35 billion, get to the point of putting humans on pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center? And what does he want in the long run?

To understand, we’ll need to start about 8,000 miles away in South Africa.

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Early life and move into business

Born to a model mother and engineer father in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk grew up with a voracious appetite for reading, technology, and computers. Those interests became particularly important when he was bullied in school, he has said during interviews, and they helped form the basis for his technical disposition.

Before his teenage years, he had started writing computer software.

“He’s a guy with unlimited ambition,” his brother, Kimbal Musk, said during a " 60 Minutes" interview in 2014. “It’s not a typical type of ambition. His mind just needs to be constantly fulfilled, and the problems that he takes on therefore need to be more and more complex over time in order to keep him interested.”

He found more complex problems to solve in North America, where he had ties through his Canada-born mother and American grandparents. Degrees in physics and economics from the University of Pennsylvania paved the way for him to pursue graduate school at Stanford, but he left before earning a degree. Business ideas dominated his mind.

“It seemed like the vast majority of such things came from the United States,” Musk told " 60 Minutes ," speaking on the topic of Silicon Valley-produced software. “I also read a lot of comic books, and they all seemed to be set in the United States. So it’s like, ‘Well, I’m going to go to this place.’ ”

His first major business venture was Zip2, a kind of online directory founded in 1995 that included maps – a major feature considering digital directions wouldn’t become ubiquitous until smartphones came along more than a decade later. The company  developed online city guides for The New York Times, which reported in 1999 that  Zip2 was sold to Compaq Computer for $300 million.

In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, one of the first online financial services companies. After a series of mergers and transitions, it was renamed to something more familiar to today’s users: PayPal.

When the company was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, Musk made about $160 million from the deal, setting him up to personally invest in his long-forming dream of starting Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.

How NASA saved SpaceX

To get his spaceflight ambitions – primarily taking payloads and humans to Mars – off the ground, Musk  attempted to buy refurbished Russian ballistic missiles. That proved to be too expensive, and working with Russian officials was difficult.

“After my second or third trip back from Russia, I was like, ‘Whoa, there’s got to be a better way to solve this rocket problem,’ ” Musk said at the 2018 South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. “So we embarked on that journey to create SpaceX in 2002.”

Musk knew he was entering an entrenched, high-risk industry: “In the beginning, I actually wouldn’t even let my friends invest because everyone would lose their money. I thought I’d rather lose my own money.”

Musk was convinced he could bring down the cost of access to space. Enter Falcon 1.

Over the years, Musk has been clear: NASA saved SpaceX. After Falcon 1 failed to reach orbit three times but succeeded on the fourth try, his upstart company was strapped for cash and turning the page to its final chapter. Two days before Christmas 2008 , NASA announced SpaceX had been awarded a $1.6 billion contract to fly supplies to the International Space Station, a program now known as Commercial Resupply Services.

Since 2012, SpaceX has flown Dragon to the ISS 20 times on newer Falcon 9 rockets. Its Crew Dragon capsule has flown to the station once and is slated for a second trip with Behnken and Hurley.

Along the way, his company staged coup after coup. In 2007, it acquired the rights to lease Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40, which hosted Titan rockets.

“He was most impressive in cobbling together what was needed for a successful launch site with scraps and whatever was available,” said Dale Ketcham, Space Florida vice president of government and external relations. “Some of his most impressive achievements were based on his ability to make stuff happen by using what was available and using simple physics to get done what needed to get done.

“That was contrary to how things had been done up until that point,” Ketcham said.

Aside from Mars, one of Musk’s primary goals is reusability. An airline doesn’t discard a Boeing 747 after each flight; similarly,  Musk wants rockets to be reused.

More than 50 SpaceX boosters have flown back to Earth – either to Florida, California or an offshore drone ship – where some were refurbished for future flights.

The launch provider's pricing supports Musk's belief that reusability will bring down the cost of flying people and cargo to orbit. A typical Falcon 9 launch costs $50 million to $60 million, which is significantly cheaper than other orbital vehicles in its class.

With Starlink , the company’s constellation of low-orbit satellites that beam internet connectivity to the ground, Musk is building the revenue streams necessary to fund his desire to build a vehicle capable of going to Mars. That vehicle, known as Starship, is a massive rocket in prototype form at SpaceX's remote facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

Garrett Reisman, a space shuttle astronaut and engineer who joined SpaceX in 2011 and consults for the company, said a portion of Musk’s success is driven by his fascination with engineering and technology.

“I first met Elon for my job interview,” Reisman told the USA TODAY Network's Florida Today. “All he wanted to talk about were technical things. We talked a lot about different main propulsion system design architectures.

“At the end of my interview, I said, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to hire me? You’ve already got an astronaut, so are you sure you need two around here?’ ” Reisman asked. “He looked at me and said, ‘I’m not hiring you because you’re an astronaut. I’m hiring you because you’re a good engineer.’ ”

Musk’s tech and engineering involvement doesn’t stop at SpaceX.

Electric car and solar energy company Tesla fits into his overall vision of colonizing Mars while making Earth more habitable. Musk invested in the fledgling company in 2004 and ascended to its leadership position, though he often works on the factory floor.

The luxury Model S sedan helped pave the way for newer, more affordable vehicles such as the Model 3 and Model Y. Tesla heavily markets energy options such as solar roof tiles and battery-supported grids that can help power entire communities.

Despite heavy fluctuations on Wall Street, the company routinely speeds past valuations in excess of $100 billion, fighting for top spots among the most valuable automakers in the world.

Managing SpaceX and Tesla, building out new businesses and maintaining relationships with his family makes Musk a busy billionaire.

“He’s obviously skilled at all those different functions, but certainly what really drives him and where his passion really is, is his role as CTO,” or chief technology officer, Reisman said. “Basically his role as chief designer and chief engineer. That’s the part of the job that really plays to his strengths."

Controversies

Having Musk's personality intertwined with his companies comes with drawbacks. He's no stranger to controversy.

In July 2018, he took to Twitter – his most consistent means of communicating with the outside world –  and slammed a British diver who criticized Musk's attempt at rescuing a Thai soccer team stuck in a cave. Musk called the diver a "pedo guy," which caused considerable backlash and a lawsuit, but Musk was cleared by a jury .

A few months later, the Securities and Exchange Commission set its sights on the billionaire, who had tweeted  private funding was “secured” to buy all the company's outstanding shares and make it private. When the claim about financing didn’t prove true, the SEC sued, claiming that his tweets misled investors and stockholders.

Musk settled with the SEC . Aside from fines, he was forced to step down as Tesla chairman but continued as CEO. He agreed to have his tweets monitored and cleared by higher-ups in the company.

More recently, he’s found himself in the crosshairs of medical professionals and government officials around the world. His tweet  claiming that the coronavirus pandemic would involve “close to zero new cases in the U.S.” by the end of April proved to be false, and he reopened a Tesla factory in California before officials gave the go-ahead.

“Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules,” he tweeted  May 11. “I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

The controversies haven’t slowed SpaceX and Tesla.

“He’s a guy that’s brilliant, successful and has more irons in the fire than almost any human on the planet,” Ketcham said. “He’s under a lot of pressure and is doing what he thinks is right. When he thinks he’s on the right path, he’s not afraid to tell people. But that’s worked for him, and that will work for him until it doesn’t.”

Follow reporter Emre Kelly on Twitter:  @EmreKelly

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Gwynne Shotwell: The brilliant (non-Musk) mind behind SpaceX

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Gwynne Shotwell had the unenviable task of selling a rocket that kept crashing.

The year was 2007. Shotwell, then vice president of business development for a fledgling company called SpaceX, was pitching satellite communications firm Iridium on why the veteran player should sign a deal with a company that hadn’t successfully launched any rocket, much less the larger and more complex one it was offering up.

She was so confident her company would deliver that she was willing to negotiate a deal with terms very favorable to Iridium, and less favorable to SpaceX, should anything go wrong.

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“She was not trying to just sell us something,” said Suzi McBride, Iridium’s chief operations officer. “She believed in it, and she was gonna make it happen and ensure that it was there.”

Billionaire Elon Musk may be the visionary behind SpaceX’s multi-planetary ambitions, but Shotwell, 60, is the steady hand behind the company’s earthly success.

As president and chief operating officer, Shotwell runs the Hawthorne company’s day-to-day operations and manages finances, customer negotiations, human resources and relationships with government entities — in short, all of the people-focused parts of a business that help it thrive.

She’s a rarity at a Musk company — an executive, the second-in-command, no less, who has lasted for more than two decades. More than that, she has Musk’s ear and his trust.

The partnership between the mercurial technologist with the brash personality and penchant for making headlines and the engineer-turned-businessperson who cares little about the public spotlight has driven SpaceX to the highest echelons of the aerospace industry.

The company commands lucrative contracts with the U.S. military , NASA, commercial firms and the European Space Agency . At the same time, it is building a massive Mars rocket and venturing into the broadband internet market with its Starlink satellite network .

In all, the privately-held SpaceX is currently valued at about $210 billion.

“I see Gwynne sometimes like the orchestrator inside the circus ring, who’s spinning the plates and just keeping all of the various different elements in equilibrium,” said Martin Halliwell, former chief technology officer of satellite firm SES who negotiated six contracts personally with Shotwell and now considers her a friend. “Without her, it may have been successful, who knows? We’ll never know. But I think it would have been a lot more abrasive.”

Reared in a Chicago suburb, Shotwell, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was popular and well-rounded, excelling in academics while also playing varsity basketball and cheerleading.

‘I see Gwynne sometimes like the orchestrator inside the circus ring, who’s spinning the plates and just keeping all of the various different elements in equilibrium.’

— Martin Halliwell, former chief technology officer of satellite firm SES

Her mother jump-started her interest in engineering after taking Shotwell to a Society of Women Engineers conference. The panel discussion featured different types of engineers, but Shotwell was immediately drawn to the words of a mechanical engineer, as well as her “beautiful suit [and] fabulous shoes,” according to a 2014 Orange County Register article .

“I thought, ‘OK, engineers can be cool too. I’ll just be a mechanical engineer,’” Shotwell told the alumni magazine of Northwestern University , her alma mater, in 2012 about that fateful encounter. “I never wavered from that decision.”

After graduation, Shotwell went to work at Chrysler and was identified early on as management material. But she balked at being placed in a leadership training program, preferring instead to work on engineering problems. She made the jump to the aerospace industry, worked in thermal analysis for Aerospace Corp. in El Segundo and then transitioned into business development at a small South Bay company called Microcosm.

There, she formed a successful partnership with Hans Koenigsmann , the company’s chief scientist, and together, they set out to sell studies to government and commercial customers.

“We were kind of like a tag team — I was the German, slightly grumpy scientist, and she was the bubbly American businessperson,” said Koenigsmann. “I think we were complementary.”

It was Koenigsmann who would help get Shotwell to SpaceX, suggesting she meet Musk when she dropped him off at the startup’s office after one of their regular lunches. Musk had invested $100 million of his PayPal fortune into the company , a move that gave Koenigsmann confidence that the yet-unproven SpaceX had at least a bit of a runway.

“The job is certainly safe for three to five years,” Koenigsmann remembers telling Shotwell as his main argument for why he had joined SpaceX and why she should join the company as its vice president of business development. “We will have a hard time spending $100 million in three years.”

While Shotwell was impressed with Musk’s ideas for bringing rocket-part manufacturing in-house, the timing of the offer wasn’t ideal, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography, “Elon Musk.” At the time, she had two young children, was going through a divorce and wasn’t sure she wanted to take a chance on a startup. Eventually, she was sold on SpaceX’s potential to revolutionize the space industry.

“I’ve been a f— idiot,” she told Musk in 2002, according to Isaacson’s book. “I’ll take the job.”

Gwynne Shotwell ‘was the one that was keeping us all of the right mindset and moving forward together.’

— Tim Buzza, former SpaceX vice president

Her immediate tasks were selling customers on SpaceX’s first rocket, Falcon 1, and securing the appropriate permissions to launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base (now Vandenberg Space Force Base) near Lompoc and test rocket engines in McGregor, Texas.

“While we were all working hard on engineering … she was opening up all the doors that were viewed by commercial companies as being some of the most difficult doors to open,” said Tim Buzza , a former SpaceX vice president and the company’s fifth employee, who stayed at the company for almost 12 years.

“All these things, just having a commercial company get onto Vandenberg Air Force Base for our first go-round there ... was really important,” he said. “It gave us some credibility even though we hadn’t done anything yet.”

As Shotwell was piecing together the company’s business strategy, she was also already serving as the glue between Musk and the rest of the team. She helped structure the organization of the company, down to what individual leaders were doing.

“She was the one that was keeping us all of the right mindset and moving forward together,” Buzza said.

That would become important as Falcon 1 rocket development began to sputter. In March 2006, the small rocket lifted off for the first time and cleared the launch pad at the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands before falling back to Earth and crashing into a reef . The rocket was carrying a satellite built by cadets from the U.S. Air Force Academy.

A second and then third launch attempt ended in similar fashion. All the while, Shotwell was trying to sell customers on SpaceX’s launch capabilities. In discussions with potential customers, Shotwell would highlight the positives: After all, the rocket had cleared the launch pad.

Speaking to reporters after the first launch attempt, Shotwell described the failure as a “setback,” but pledged “we’re in this for the long haul,” according to space news website space.com .

“When these failures were happening, we would just as quickly as we could just ... find the problem, fix the problem and get to another flight, but she was always having to deal with all the other stuff, which is the customers, the press, dealing with financial stuff,” Buzza said. “All of that — that’s probably equally or more difficult than fixing the rocket.”

In 2008, the Falcon 1 rocket finally launched and reached orbit. Armed with that success, Musk and Shotwell went to meet with NASA officials to make their case for a contract to resupply the space station, according to Isaacson’s book.

It was then that Musk asked Shotwell to become president of the company, saying that NASA was concerned he had too much on his plate between SpaceX and his electric car firm, Tesla, and that he needed a partner, according to the book.

SpaceX would go on to win a $1.6-billion contract from NASA to transport cargo to the space station — a deal that saved the company from ruin — followed by contracts to ferry astronauts . In March, the company took a step toward its goal of returning people to the moon — and someday carrying them to Mars — with a largely successful test flight of its massive Starship rocket.

The partnership between SpaceX and NASA wasn’t always easy. The space agency was used to engineering rockets and spacecraft itself, or at least being in charge of the process, and SpaceX often had its own way of doing things.

“This is where her leadership became really obvious — she stepped into some pretty difficult discussions to help the teams see each other’s point of view and then to move forward,” said Michael Suffredini, NASA program manager for the space station from 2005 to 2015, and now chief executive of spaceflight company Axiom Space. “So Gwynne not only led her team, but she really helped evolve NASA’s thinking in these kinds of engineering challenges associated with human spaceflight. And that’s no small feat.”

After an uncrewed SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on a Florida launchpad in 2016 , destroying a customer’s satellite, Shotwell allowed satellite customer SES to embed a U.S. employee in SpaceX’s failure review team to give the company a firsthand look at the problem and the solution. The savvy business strategy worked .

“I don’t know any other organization that would have allowed that,” said Halliwell, the former SES executive. “It was through that relationship, which I think was quite extraordinary, that we managed to get the confidence to continue to use SpaceX.”

Her time at SpaceX, however, hasn’t been without controversy.

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Shotwell allegedly retaliated against one of her employees after wrongly accusing the employee of having an affair with her husband. Shotwell did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment on the allegation. In the article, which focused on Musk’s behavior toward some female SpaceX workers, employees also criticized Shotwell for defending Musk and not taking harassment allegations seriously.

In a statement to the Journal, Shotwell said SpaceX fully investigates all allegations of harassment and takes appropriate action. She also told the Journal that Musk was “one of the best humans I know.”

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Elon Musk Biography

Birthday: June 28 , 1971 ( Cancer )

Born In: Pretoria, South Africa

Elon Musk is one of the greatest and most prolific modern inventors and is responsible for monumental advancements in futuristic technology like renewable energy and space travel. Many of his innovations seem to be right out of a science-fiction movie, but throughout his career he has brought about huge scientific breakthroughs. After making his first fortune from the internet payment service ‘PayPal’, he invested $100 million in his space travel company, ‘SpaceX’ and began building satellites, launch vehicles and other spacecraft both for NASA and for his own company, creating new milestones with his privately funded spacecraft. Many of his revolutionary ideas and inventions focus on space travel, renewable energy, commercial electric cars and other technologies, that look to a future where fossil fuels and other resources may be in shorter supply. His futuristic and visionary ideas have won him both scientific and philanthropic recognition and awards. The pop culture sometimes portrays him as a sort of real life super hero, dedicated to providing worldwide solutions to international problems. Musk looks to the future, hopes for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and continues to plan far-reaching futuristic goals such a human colony on Mars. Scroll down to learn all about this illustrious personality.

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Girlfriend: Grimes (2018)

Also Known As: Elon Reeve Musk

Age: 53 Years , 53 Year Old Males

Spouse/Ex-: Justine Musk (m. 2000–2008), Talulah Riley (m. 2010–2012; m. 2013–2016)

father: Errol Musk

mother: Maye Haldeman

siblings: Kimbal Musk , Tosca Musk

children: Damian Musk, Griffin Musk, Kai Musk, Nevada Alexander Musk (died), Saxon Musk, Xavier Musk

Born Country: South Africa

CEOs Automobile Industry

Ancestry: German American, South African American, South African Canadian

Personality: INTJ

City: Pretoria, South Africa

Founder/Co-Founder: PayPal, SpaceX, Zip2, X.com, Musk Foundation, Tesla Motors

education: University Of Pennsylvania

You wanted to know

What companies does elon musk own, what is elon musk's role at tesla, what is neuralink and what is elon musk's involvement with it, what is the hyperloop and how is elon musk associated with it, what are some notable achievements of spacex, founded by elon musk.

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Elon Musk was briefly in a relationship with American actress Amber Heard in 2016, but the couple split owing to their conflicting schedules.

Elon Musk started dating Canadian musician Grimes in 2018. In May 2020, Grimes gave birth to their son. In March 2021, Musk stated that he was single. In March 2022, Grimes revealed that they have broken up and she further stated that they welcomed a daughter through surrogacy in December 2021. 

In 2022, Insider, an American financial and business news website published court documents stating that Musk fathered twins with Shivon Zilis, the company's top executive, in November 2021. As of June 2022, Elon Musk has nine children with three different women.

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Elon Musk biography

Elon Reeve Musk was born on the 28th of June of 1972 in Pretoria, South Africa. He is known for being one of the founders of Paypal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, OpenAl, and Hyperloop, among other companies. The entrepreneur and inventor appears in the list of the richest in the world, occupying the position number 56, in 2017, with 17.4 billion dollars. Forbes magazine, for the December 2016 publication, named him the 21st person with the most power in the world. His greatest goal, according to Musk, is to change humanity drastically; for this purpose, he works in SolarCity, SpaceX, and Tesla. One of his interests is the abandonment of petroleum fuels in order to reduce global warming. Perhaps Elon’s most ambitious project, so far, is the establishment of a human colony on Mars, with nearly a million people.

He spent his childhood in South Africa with his parents, an engineer from South Africa and a nutritionist from Canada. At age 10, with his first computer, a Commodore VIC-20, he began to learn to programme on his own. Two years later he sold his first videogame called Blastar for about $ 200. At that time he went through difficult times; his schoolmates subjected him to bullying because of his uncommon interests for them. Elon spent his money on science fiction books, comics, and video games.

In the period between 12 and 15 years of age, he entered into an existential crisis influenced by the readings of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. The situation went to the extreme of taking him to the hospital because of beatings by his companions. In his home things were not better, the relationship with his father was quite complicated. He suffered the emotional violence of a father unable to understand him. Compulsory military service bothered him. For these reasons, at age 17, after graduating from high school in Pretoria, he decided to leave South Africa and take refuge with his mother in Canada.

What Musk wanted most was to reach the United States. He found in that country a way to make possible everything he imagined. Elon’s father conditioned his support: he would not pay for a university outside of South Africa. In 1989, while in Canada, he found a chance to study thanks to his maternal relatives, who came from North America. By 1992, Elon counted on a scholarship in the University of Pennsylvania. The young entrepreneur began his studies in Business Administration, in parallel he began his career in Physics. He was fortunate to have the support of one of his teachers, who turned out to be the executive director of Los Gatos, a company located in the southern part of San Francisco Bay, California. The experience gained on ultracapacitors in that company, and then in Pinnacle Research, along with the inspiration it had for inventors such as Nikola Tesla, made him define the fields in which he would focus on the future: renewable energy, the Internet and outer space.

The beginning on the Internet began with Zip2, in 1995, along with his brother Kimbal Musk and a friend named Greg Curry. The company was dedicated to the development and maintenance of web pages dedicated to the media. The idea was a success, managing around 200 sites on the Internet in the year of 1999. For that year the company was sold to Compaq for 300 million dollars; money that would help him found X.com. The next plan was to systematize payments and money management through the Internet, offering security and speed. The ease offered by X.com and security made the project a very profitable idea, as well as merging, in 2000, with Confinity; company that provided a similar service, but only between Palm Pilot devices. In 2001 X.com decided to change its name to Paypal.inc a well-known company that provides the service to make online payments internationally.

With the growing success, problems soon appeared. Different companies tried to close Paypal, including eBay, which ended up buying it in October 2002, for 1.5 billion dollars. The sale of Paypal gave way to the creation, by its former members, of companies such as LinkedIn and YouTube. The next Musk project was called Tesla Motors, the company that created the first functional electric car. The main investment in Tesla was solar energy. The idea was born in 2003 in the company AC Propulsion, which had a prototype electric car. Musk wanted to help design a sports car with the same base of AC Propulsion.

In 2004, along with Matt Tappenhig and Martin Eberhard, Tesla Motors was created, with the intention of mass producing the model T-Zero of AC Propulsion. Musk invested nearly 98% of the capital. The start of the company was hard; the budget for the first models exceeded what was expected, but they managed to sell enough to continue developing models. For 2012, 2100 Tesla Roadster was sold in different countries. In 2015 the Tesla Model X was launched, designed to cover all types of terrain.

Another of Musk’s three projects involves SpaceX. Thinking of establishing a colony on Mars, he began, in 2002, to investigate how to send a rocket to Mars. His initial idea was to obtain reusable rockets to carry out the two trips for reconnaissance missions. For that year, Space Exploration Technologies was founded, focused on launching rockets and reducing fuel costs and materials for launch with increases in viability. In 2008, an agreement was made between NASA for twelve rocket flights. Currently, SpaceX is responsible for the development of Falcon rockets, which use liquid fuel.

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Nipsey Hussle

Nipsey Hussle Biography

Ermias Asghedom (August 15, 1985 – March 31, 2019), better known as Nipsey Hussle, was an American rapper, businessman, and community activist, who rose to fame in 2018 with his debut album Victory Lab . Nipsey began his career towards the mid-2000s releasing several successful mixtapes such as Slauson Boy Volume 1, Bullets Ain’t Got No Name series and The Marathon. His fame came to him, along with his first Grammy nomination, with his debut album in 2018. He had previously created his label All Money In No Money Out (2010).

Following his death, he received two posthumous Grammys for the songs Racks in the Middle and Higher. He was known for his social work on behalf of the Crenshaw community.

Early years

He was born in Los Angeles, United States, on August 15, 1985 . Son of Angelique Smith and Eritrean immigrant Dawit Asghedom, he grew up in Crenshaw, a neighborhood located south of Los Angeles, with his siblings Samiel and Samantha. He attended Hamilton High School but dropped out before graduating. Since he was little he looked for a way to help around the home, so over time, he began to work selling different products on the street.

After leaving school he became involved in the world of gangs, however, he turned away from it when he realized that it was not what he expected for his future. Decided then to dedicate himself to music, he sold everything that linked him to the gangs and worked for a time to buy his own production tools. After finishing his studies, he began to write and produce his own mixtapes, which he sold from a car. After finding inspiration from a trip he took to Eritrea with his father and spending time in prison, Nipsey turned fully to his career and business. He always looked for ways to start and help the community in which he grew up: giving jobs, helping students, renovating public spaces, etc …

Community activist

Nipsey was admired for his work at Crenshaw because instead of moving or investing in hedge funds, he preferred to help the community by boosting the local economy.

In late 2005, Nipsey Hussle released his first mixtape, Slauson Boy Volume 1, independently, to great local success. By then he already had a fan base at the regional level, so it took him a while to sign a contract with the Epic Records and Cinematic Music Group labels. Later, the first volumes of the Bullets Ain’t Got No Name series appeared, with which he expanded his popularity. Burner on My Lap, Ridin Slow, Aint No Black Superman, Hussle in the House and It’s Hard out Here , were some of the songs included in the series.

By 2009, Nipsey would make a name for himself collaborating with Drake on Killer and with Snoop Dog on Upside Down. He also released Bullets Ain’t Got No Name vol.3 and in 2010, he left Epic and opened his own label All Money In No Money Out. Under this label, he would soon release The Marathon, a mixtape in which hits such as Love ?, Mr. Untouchable, Young Rich and Famous and Late Nights and Early Mornings appeared. He also created The Marathon Clothing at that time, a sports and casual clothing brand that was based in his neighborhood. He then released the mixtape The Marathon Continues (2011), participated in the We Are the World 25 for Haiti campaign, and was featured in the popular XXL Magazine Annual Freshman Top Ten.

In 2013 came Crenshaw , a mixtape that would become famous because Jay-Z himself bought 100 copies for $ 100 each.

Victory Lap

After many delays, Nipsey would release his long-awaited debut album Victory Lap , on February 16, 2018, to great success. It was praised by critics and received a Grammy nomination for best rap album of the year. It was such a success that many singles entered the Billboard and Itunes charts. However, Nipsey did not enjoy much fame.

Hussle was assassinated on March 31, 2019, outside his store in South Los Angeles. He was shot multiple times by a man he had previously clashed with, he was arrested and charged with murder on April 2 of the same year. After his death, many personalities expressed the pain caused by the news. It is worth mentioning that the Mayor of Los Angeles himself gave his condolences to the family, recognizing Hussle’s social work in Crenshaw.

He was the partner of actress Lauren London and was the father of two children.

Sales strategies and greatest hits

Hussle was known for his sales strategies, since, he used to upload his singles in free download and then sell some limited editions for a cost of 100 to 1000 dollars . It promoted the sale of his work with campaigns such as Proud2Pay and Mailbox Money, in which he gave special incentives (autographed photos, dedication calls, tickets to his studio, and special events) to buyers. His revolutionary ideas promised him a fruitful career.

Some of his greatest hits

• Rose Clique
• Forever On My Fly Shit
• Thas Wat Hoes Do Proud of That (with Rick Ross)
• Face the world
• Bless, 1 of 1
• Where Yo Money At
• Fuck Donald Trump
• Young Rich and Famous

Jimmy Hoffa

Jimmy Hoffa Biography

James Riddle Hoffa (February 14, 1913 – July 30, 1975), better known as Jimmy Hoffa, was an American union activist. A reference to the working class of the 20th century, Hoffa began his union activity at the age of 18 within the trucker union. With time, he was gaining importance and enemies. He mixed with the mob and was the leader of the most important union organization in the U.S.A ., the International Brotherhood of Truckers. His actions took a toll on him and in 1967 he was arrested for bribery. In 1975, he disappeared after having dinner at a Detroit restaurant. To date, it is unknown what happened or where his body is. His disappearance was portrayed in Scorsese’s The Irishman .

He was born in Brazil, Indiana, on February 14, 1913. James was the son of John Hoffa and Viola Riddle. His father passed away when he was 7 years old, of Irish descent and working as a miner. When the dad died, the family moved to Detroit, where Hoffa lived the rest of his life. He studied until he was 14 years old and began working as a teenager, to help the family. At the age of 18, he began to participate in the union demonstrations of the truck driver’s union, and over time he gained recognition. However, Hoffa had never driven a truck.

Jimmy Hoffa, the truckers, and the mob

Despite his clear inexperience, Hoffa managed to earn the respect of all road workers thanks to his charisma and effective acting. He was thus elected president of the famous International Brotherhood of Truckers or “Teamsters” in 1957. From then on he would be known for his aggressive methods and connections with the Cosa Nostra (Italian mafia). It is known that Jimmy used the mob to gain notoriety and destroy his competitors, while the union served as a front to clean up dirty money from the mob.

As time went by, his relationship with Cosa Nostra became increasingly evident, becoming the target of various investigations (fraud, conspiracy, evasion, extortion, laundering…). Behind them was the prosecutor Robert Kennedy, who later became a solicitor, his sole objective being the capture of Hoffa. Although he managed to leave the courts unscathed on several occasions – thanks to his intimidation and bribery strategies – he was finally locked up in 1967.

Hoffa had faced justice several times, so the confinement did not scare him, he planned to continue running the union and all its businesses from jail, leaving someone manageable in command. But this did not turn out as he expected, his puppet rebelled and the mafia took advantage of his confinement to expand their business with more facilities. It was clear that everyone was better off without Hoffa at the helm.

The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa

In 1971 his sentence was commuted and Hoffa returned to work, he tried to regain his place and strength, but had little luck, because the mafia was clear that the business was better without him. The day he arrived, on July 30, 1975, he was summoned by Anthony Provenzano and Anthony Giacalone, two gangster bosses who were tired of his instance. They summoned him to a restaurant in Detroit, but never showed up, Hoffa waited for more than an hour and then got into a car, disappearing ever since. Nobody saw him again.

Jimmy was powerful, but he had made many enemies and was in the crosshairs of the mob, making his disappearance one of the most famous of the 20th century. His body was never found and in 1982 he was presumed dead. Although over time many took credit for his disappearance (and his death) from him, little is known for sure.

One of the possible culprits is perhaps Frank Sheeran, the Irishman , Hoffa’s henchman, who, pressured by the gangsters, would have killed the union leader. According to Sheeran’s version, that day he would have taken Hoffa to a house, where he shot him three times, and then moved his body to a still uncertain place.

His body and his disappearance became one of the best-known mysteries of the time . To date, the fate of his body is unknown. Many say it is buried, others that it was dismembered and thrown into a river, and others that it was compacted. There were many complaints about the discovery of his body, but all false.

His legacy was continued by his son, the current head of the International Brotherhood of Truckers, James P. Hoffa.

He was married to Josephine Poszywak and was the father of James P. Hoffa and Barbara Ann Crancer.

On July 30, 1982, he was declared legally dead.

Scorsese’s The Irishman

Scorsese’s The Irishman premiered on Netflix in 2019. The film follows Hoffa’s hitman and right-hand man, Frank Sheeran, as he thus narrates his story and participation in the disappearance of Hoffa. In the film, Hoffa is played by Al Pacino , while Sheeran and the prosecutor Kennedy are played by Robert De Niro and Jack Huston.

Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker biography

Peter Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) writer, consultant, entrepreneur, and journalist. He was born in Vienna, Austria. He is considered the father of the Management to which he devoted more than 60 years of his professional life. His parents of Jewish origin and then converted to Christianity moved to a small town called Kaasgrabeen. Drucker grew up in an environment in which new ideas and social positions created by intellectuals, senior government officials and scientists were emerging. He studied at the Döbling Gymnasium and in 1927, Drucker moved to the German city of Hamburg, where he worked as an apprentice in a cotton company.

Then he began to train in the world of journalism, writing for the Der Österreichische Volkswirt. Then he got a job in Frankfurt, his job was to write for the Daily Frankfurter General-Anzeiger. Meanwhile, he completed a doctorate in International Law. Drucker began to integrate his two facets and for that, he was a recognized journalist. Drucker worked in this place until the fall of the Weimar Republic. After this period he decided to move to London, where he worked in a bank and was also a student of John Maynard Keynes .

Although he was a disciple of Keynes, he assured, decades later, that Keynesianism failed as an economic thesis where it was applied. Because of the ravages of Nazism and persecution of Jews, he emigrated to the United States, where he served as a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, from 1939 to 1949 and simultaneously was a writer. His first job as a consultant was in 1940. He then returned to teaching at Bennington College in Vermont. Thanks to his popularity he received a position to teach in the faculty of Business Administration of the University of New York.

He was an active contributor for a long period of time to magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and was a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. The quality and recognition of his writings assured him important contracts both as a writer and as a consultant with large companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Quickly and surprisingly his fortune grew. Drucker served as honorary president of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management.

In 1971, he obtained the Clarke Chair of Social Sciences and Administration at the Graduate School of Management at the University of Claremont. Now, at present Drucker is considered the most successful of the exponents in matters of administration, his ideas and terminologies have influenced the corporate world since the 40s. Drucker was the first social scientist to use the expression “post-modernity” something that caught the attention of this man is that he does not like receiving compliments. He was simple, visionary, satirical and vital.

Within his studies, he says that his greatest interest is people. His work as a consultant began in the General Motors Multinational Companies, from that moment begins to raise the theory of Management, Management trends, the knowledge society. Thanks to this theory he has published several books, these are consulted often and are fundamental for the career of business administrator. In his works, he deals with the scientific, human, economic, historical, artistic and philosophical stage.

He was founder and director of a business school that bears his name. For Drucker, it was beneficial that many of his ideas have been reformed because of the innovative way of thinking and analyzing business issues. Although approaches such as the knowledge society are the basis of the current company and the future is still maintained. He has published more than thirty books, which include studies of Management, studies of socio-economic policies and essays. Some are Best Sellers. The first book was The end of economic man (1939), The future of industrial man (1942), The concept of Corporation (1946). Later he published The Effective Executive (1985). He focused on personal effectiveness and changes in the direction of the 21st century. In 2002 the society of the future was published.

His first book caused much controversy because he talked about the reasons why fascism initiated and analyzed the failures of established institutions. He urged the need for a new social and economic order. Although he had finished the book in 1933, he had to wait because no editor wanted to accept such horrible visions. Now, Drucker has dealt with such controversial issues as individual freedom, industrial society, big business, the power of managers, automation, monopoly, and totalitarianism.

We must indicate that his analysis of the Administration, is a valuable guide for the leaders of companies that need to study their own performance, diagnose its failures and improve its productivity, as well as that of your company. Several companies have taken their approaches and put them into practice, such as Sears Roebuck & Co., General Motors, Ford, IBM, Chrysler, and American Telephone & Telegraph.

The consultant assured that there are some differences between the figure of the manager and that of the leader. For him, true leaders recognize their shortcomings as mortal beings, but they systematically concentrate on the essentials and work tirelessly to acquire the decisive competences of management. Actually, the contributions of this character in the world of administration and in the economic and social world have been significant. Drucker died on November 11, 2005, leaving a great legacy.

Jeff Bezos biography

Jeff Bezos (January 12, 1964). His birth name is Jeffrey Preston Bezos. Businessman and founder and CEO of Amazon. He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. His mother, Jacklyn Gise, had him as a teenager and his biological father, Ted Jorgensen, left them as soon as he heard the news. Years later his mother married Miguel Bezos a Cuban. Now, Miguel adopted Jeffrey and he received his last name. The family moved to Houston, Texas. Jeffrey Bezos studied at River Oaks Elementary, he was always a very smart and witty little boy.

They moved to Miami, where he studied at Miami Palmetto Senior High School. And upon graduating he entered Princeton University to study Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, his thesis was cum laude. In 1996, he started working in a fiber optic company, FITEL, where he was responsible for the development of computer systems, his performance was so good that he became vice president. After moving to New York with the idea of ​​entering the world of finance, in Bankers Trust, he also held the position of vice president in 1990. In the following four years, Bezos worked with another Wall Street company: D.E. Shaw and Co.

Bezos realized that the purchase/sale of products and services on the internet or other electronic means would be a great field to explore and exploit. For this reason, he founded the electronic commerce company Amazon in 1995. Its service was something new for the netizens, which produced an increase in the visits quickly. Only in the first month of operation had books been sold in all corners of the United States. Months later it reached 2,000 daily visitors, a figure that would multiply abysmally in the next year. In 1997, the success made Amazon become one of the most important companies online.

Bezos had managed to conquer the internet business. Encouraged by the reception of consumers, he undertook the diversification of products, including CD and DVD media and electronic devices. As demand increased, this ingenious man included new products to his virtual store. The growth and its popularity were such that today it distributes from food to home, clothes and shoes, video games and music, to toilet paper and diapers. Amazon has experimented with the lucrative benefit of advertising since it gives the possibility to companies to advertise their products and mark them as featured products.

Bezos established independent Amazon websites for United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Austria, France, China, Italy, Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, Brazil, India and Mexico, the variety of products can be several in each country. Currently, the services are enjoyed by companies such as Target Corporation, Marks & Spencer, the NBA, Sears Canada, Timex or Bombay Company. The AOL online sales service also supports. In 2007, Bezos shook the world with the creation and launch of Amazon’s alter ego: Amazon Kindle, a device specially designed for the visualization of electronic books. Amazon Kindle was launched for the first time in North America and is currently available in 45 countries.

In 2011, The Economist awarded Bezos and Gregg Zehr an Innovation Award for the Amazon Kindle. The following year, Bezos was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Fortune. It is part of the Bilderberg Group. Bezos has given several conferences in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and participated in the conference in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Business Council in 2011 and 2012. In 2018, he appeared on the Forbes list, where a net wealth of 106 billion dollars was estimated. He has also received other awards as the best CEO in the world by Harvard Business Review. Jeff Bezos has also been on Fortune’s list of the 50 best leaders in the world. In September 2016, he was awarded the Heinlein Prize for advances in Space Marketing. He donated the prize money to the international student organization Students for the Exploration and Development of Space by Bezos.

Since 2017, he has seen an increase in Amazon shares. They went up more than 130%, which made him have a profit of more than 100 billion dollars, after this, he returned to be the richest person in the world. He was named Person of the Year in Time magazine and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science and Technology degree at Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. Really, the awards and awards have been impressive. Much of this is because Bezos, started in the field of journalism, looking beyond its commercial horizons; beyond the web. Bezos entered the world of media, acquiring the traditional newspaper The Washington Post for the sum of 250 thousand dollars.

Henry Gantt

Henry Gantt Biography

Henry Laurence Gantt (May 20, 1861 – November 23, 1919) industrial engineer . He was born in Calvert County, Maryland, United States. During his childhood and youth, he and his family lived devastating moments, especially in the economic part. His parents owned crops in Calvert but remained in ruins after the devastation caused during the Civil War. After that political and social event, they did not overlap economically so they had to live various hardships.

In spite of this, his parents did everything possible so that the young Gantt finished his school training at McDonogh School in 1878 and went to Johns Hopkins University to study industrial engineering. His performance was very good, when he graduated he started working as a teacher and draftsman, Gantt had a great skill for drawing since he was a kid. Then he studied mechanical engineering at the same university. In 1887, he was hired in Frederick W. Taylor to carry out an application of the principles of the Scientific Administration with his work in Midvale Steel and Bethlehem Steel, he carried out this work until 1893. In his career as a consultant, he invented the Gantt diagram.

Later, he designed some systems to measure the efficiency and productivity of workers, such as task bonds and the payment system and other methods that facilitate this process. This diagram became very popular for its simplicity, performance, and quality at that time, as well as at this time, pointed out the various tasks to be performed in a horizontal timeline, it has been used as a tool in operations that require strict temporal planning. However, Henry Gantt’s studies focused on the analysis of the performance of work methods, which depends on his judgment of the willingness to use the correct methods and skills.

Gantt was very concerned about leaving his knowledge embodied in paper, therefore, in 1908 presented before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers the text: Training of workers in habits of diligence and collaboration, in which he exposed the need to change the employer’s tactics; it is not a way of acting in the place, in the techniques, in the work, in the information, in the habits, in the possibilities, in the efficiency and in the efficiency of his work. As a complement to this, it is a bonus system that has been added to work and work done in a standardized time standard.

With these measures we tried to raise, not only the quantity, but above all the quality of work, following Taylor’s theory, the so-called common prosperity theory: what he says is that the worker has a kind of personal satisfaction to do the job well, this generates a feeling of pride that will make you try harder. For his part, the employer will notice an increase in productivity and the sum of a reduction in labor disputes. This is exposed with mastery in work, wages, and benefits (1913).

In the field of administration, his most known contribution is the graph of the bars such as the chart or the Gantt chart, which is composed in a diagram in which the horizontal axis represents the units of time, and in the vertical is recorded the different functions, which are represented by horizontal bars. With the help of this engineer, companies and the discipline of business administration is very broad, some of them are: the Gantt diagram, the development of the concept of industrial efficiency, the implementation of the system of Bonds of Tasks, with this adopted the premium to the workers. And he also implemented the Daily Balance Chart.

It was also very emphatic to ensure that companies have a social responsibility, in their opinion, companies have obligations for the welfare of society. His support for the scientific organization of work is also highlighted. When he worked for Frederick W. Taylor, with whom he collaborated in the application of his own doctrine to improve productivity, and in the second stage of the Industrial Revolution .

After 14 years of being at Taylor’s side, he made the decision to separate from this because his interest was the humanization of industrial practices and the dehumanized theories of Frederick Taylor . Unfortunately, in his last years of life, Gantt did not have the opportunity to finish several of his projects because his health was undermined. Finally, Henry Gantt died on November 23, 1919, in the town of Pine Island in New York .

His importance lies in the fact that it is the founder of scientific administration , an activity developed in the United States that later spread throughout the world with the idea of ​​achieving humanization, rationalization, and performance.

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11 WTF Moments From the New Biography ‘Elon Musk’

• By Miles Klee

Tuesday saw the release of Elon Musk , author Walter Isaacson’s mammoth new biography of the controversial tech mogul , and hardly a chapter of the nearly 700-page book goes by without a weird anecdote about the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s eccentric, sometimes self-destructive behavior. We are treated to insights about volatile relationships with family and partners, his caustic managerial style, and the toll that burnout takes as Musk struggles to deliver on promises of a fantastical future. Isaacson had total access to Musk himself, and, throughout the narrative, features perspectives from dozens of people in Musk’s inner circle (or formerly close with him) on exactly what makes the man tick.

The Emotional Wreckage of Musk’s First Marriage

Musk split with his first wife, Justine Musk, in 2008, after the relationship devolved into constant and bitter verbal fights, with Musk saying things like, “If you were my employee, I would fire you” or calling her an “idiot,” Justine told Isaacson. She also recalled once trying to explain the concept of empathy to Musk, but he said his lack of such a quality gave him an advantage when it came to running major companies. He also grew irritated by her suggestions that he try therapy, and blamed her own anger on Adderall, which a psychiatrist had prescribed to her for attention deficit disorder. Justine Musk said that although the drug was “an amazing help” for her, Elon “would go around the house throwing away the pills” that he believed were contributing to their marital strife.

Musk Has Suffered From Years of Neck and Back Pain Because of a Birthday Party Stunt

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Tesla’s Autopilot has been involved in hundreds of car crashes and at least 17 fatalities , with such accidents surging along with increased use of the system. Surely, Musk’s habit of exaggerating what it can do hasn’t helped. Though when it comes to Autopilot-involved deaths, he doesn’t seem to think they matter much in the grand scheme, believing the tech “should be judged not on whether it prevented accidents but instead on whether it led to fewer accidents.” After the first two reported Autopilot-involved fatalities in 2016, Musk did not immediately issue a statement, and Isaacson notes that he “could not understand why one or two deaths caused by Tesla Autopilot created an outcry when there were more than 1.3 million traffic deaths annually.” He then got angry during a press conference where reporters opened with questions about those accidents, firing back that they were the ones “killing” people if they turned public sentiment or government regulators against autonomous driving systems.

What Was Secretly on Musk’s Mind During a Rolling Stone Interview

In 2017, Musk gave an interview to Neil Strauss for a Rolling Stone cover story . He seemed distracted from the beginning and walked out on Strauss, coming back several minutes later to explain that he had recently broken up with his girlfriend, actress Amber Heard . Later in the conversation, Musk spoke unforgivingly of his estranged father, Errol Musk. “He was such a terrible human being,” Musk said. “Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.” He didn’t offer specifics at the time, but Isaacson reveals that shortly before this, Musk had learned that in 2016, Errol had impregnated Jana Bezuidenhout, a woman more than four decades younger, whom Errol had raised as his stepdaughter. Elon and his siblings were profoundly disturbed by the news, which seemed to weigh on him during his talk with Strauss, who wrote, “There is clearly something Musk wants to share, but he can’t bring himself to utter the words.”

The Personal Turmoil Behind the Infamous ‘Pedo Guy’ Tweet

An unexpected consequence of smoking weed on joe rogan’s show.

Musk’s 2018 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience was intended to be a bit of damage control at a precarious time for the CEO, who was seen as increasingly erratic. So, naturally, when Rogan offered him a toke on a tobacco-and-cannabis blunt, he confirmed that it was legal before gamely taking a puff. Even so, Tesla investors were rattled as the image of Musk wreathed in pot smoke went viral, and the company’s share price tumbled to almost its lowest point that year. There was one other, hidden ramification, too: “SpaceX was a NASA contractor, and they are big believers in the law,” Musk is quoted as saying in the biography. That meant, for the next couple of years, he was subject to random drug tests. “Fortunately,” he said, “I really don’t like doing illegal drugs.”

Why Musk and Grimes Got into Couples’ Spats

Throughout their courtship and co-parenting journey, Musk and occasional girlfriend Grimes have had their share of blowups, some of them sparked by truly unusual behavior. In 2021, for example, he was obsessed with the civilization strategy game The Battle of Polytopia , which in time began to distract him from work meetings and social events. Grimes started playing as well, noting that video games are one of Musk’s only outlets for relaxation, but, she said, “he takes those so seriously that it gets very intense.” In one game they played together, having agreed to an alliance, she betrayed him with a surprise attack, triggering “one of our biggest fights ever.” When she tried to argue it was only a game and not a big deal, he said, “It’s a huge fucking deal,” and didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day. On the flip side, Grimes was angry with Musk when he sent a photo of her having a C-section during childbirth to friends and family, without her consent. “He was just clueless about why I’d be upset,” she told Isaacson.

When Musk’s Reproductive Habits Made for a Curious Coincidence

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At the end of 2022, as Musk tried to get Twitter under control in the wake of a contentious acquisition, he expressed an alarming opinion of a humanitarian crisis in China. Talking to reporter Bari Weiss, Isaacson writes, he said that “Twitter would indeed have to be careful about the words it used regarding China, because Tesla’s business could be threatened.” He also told her that the country’s repression of the Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim minority group, had two sides. The Chinese government is placing this population in concentration camps and has been widely accused of crimes against humanity with the U.S. even going so far as to call it “ genocide .”

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Elon Musk : how the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is shaping our future

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Star de la Silicon Valley, utopiste rêvant d’espace et de planète rouge , l’homme le plus riche du monde a amorcé un virage conservateur en l’espace de quelques années.

Cette semaine, il était encore au cœur des débats au Royaume-Uni , critiqué par le gouvernement britannique pour ses messages incendiaires à propos des émeutes qui secouent le pays . "Une guerre civile", assure-t-il alors que les violences ont été accentuées par les fake news qui pullulent sur X, son réseau social sans modération ou presque.

Personnalité complexe -ses différentes opinions lui valent même une page à part sur Wikipédia -, bavard sur Twitter, bien moins loquace dans la vraie vie, Elon Musk ne cache plus son virage conservateur rappelant les débuts politiques de Donald Trump lorsque celui-ci multipliait les provocations avant de finalement devenir président. Comment en est-il arrivé là? C’est probablement l’aboutissement naturel de cet esprit singulier, marqué par un égo impressionnant.

Une histoire de famille

Elon Musk, c’est aussi une histoire familiale complexe. Son grand-père, Joshua Norman Haldeman, né aux États-Unis, mais qui grandit au Canada, devient dans les années 1930 le leader du mouvement Technocratique, qui plaide pour un gouvernement d’une petite élite de scientifiques et d’ingénieurs. En 1950, il part s’installer en Afrique du Sud qui vient de mettre en place l’Apartheid. Comme le relate la biographie officielle d’Elon Musk, le grand-père flirte déjà avec les idées complotistes et antisémites, imputant les guerres mondiales aux Juifs, et craignant "une conspiration internationale pour établir une dictature mondiale".

Elon Musk nait donc en 1971 à Pretoria, de Maye Haldeman -finaliste de Miss Afrique du Sud en 1969- et d’Eroll Musk, aviateur et surtout homme d’affaires sulfureux. Le couple divorcera en 1979. Si Elon Musk reste proche de sa mère, il a coupé les ponts avec son père, ouvertement raciste et complotiste. "Presque toutes les mauvaises choses auxquelles vous pourriez penser, il les a faites", racontait Elon Musk en 2017 au magazine Rolling Stones.

De cette jeunesse dorée en Afrique du Sud -dont il ne parle pratiquement jamais- et de sa famille encombrante, l’entrepreneur semble peut-être avoir gardé quelques idées. Mais selon le New York Times , qui a enquêté sur ces années, le jeune Elon ne semble pas avoir adhéré aux idées ségrégationnistes du régime, faisant sa scolarité dans un lycée progressiste. Il a même pu développer cette obsession pour la liberté d’expression dans ce pays marqué par le verrouillage de l’information.

À 17 ans, il obtient, grâce à ses origines, la nationalité canadienne pour partir étudier aux États-Unis. Que reste-t-il de cette enfance sud-africaine? L’homme reste très secret. Il a néanmoins forgé son côté "geek”: passionné de jeux vidéo, il fera du Guide du voyageur galactique -un classique de la science-fiction- son livre de chevet.

"L’ego d’Elon Musk lui a déjà causé des ennuis"

Au milieu des années 1990, le voici au cœur de la Silicon Valley où tout ce qui touche à internet se transforme en or. Avec son frère Kimball, il fonde une sorte d'annuaire en ligne pour les professionnels qui sera revendu 300 millions de dollars, raconte le New Yorker . Il fonde alors X.com, une banque en ligne en 1999. La même année, l’influent magazine Salon en tire un portrait ambivalent : "L’ego d’Elon Musk lui a déjà causé des ennuis, et il pourrait bien lui en causer encore d’autres".

Musk affiche sa richesse et son ambition: créer la plus grande banque en ligne du monde. "Il n'a aucune connaissance du secteur bancaire", grince Salon. Le magazine lui trouve tout de même une certaine audace. "Dans la Silicon Valley, tout le monde cherche l’homme chanceux qui pourra les mener au succès. Musk a un talent, mais personne n’arrive à le deviner."

"Peut-être qu’Elon Musk a vraiment une étincelle spéciale qui lui permet de penser de manière plus stratégique que tout le monde autour de lui. Peut-être qu’Elon Musk est vraiment la prochaine grande star."

En 2000, X.com fusionne finalement avec Confinity de Peter Thiel. L’alliance des deux s'appellera PayPal et fera d’Elon Musk un homme riche après le rachat du service pat eBay en 2002.

Ambition spatiale

À l’époque, il apparaît comme un jeune et ambitieux entrepreneur made in Silicon Valley. Déjà fantasque, certes, mais largement dans l’ombre des nouvelles stars de la tech, Mark Zuckerberg en tête. S’il n’est pas encore connu du grand public, il est admiré pour son audace, surtout lorsqu’il lance SpaceX avec l’ambition délirante de viser la planète Mars. L’idée de SpaceX est de créer des lanceurs réutilisables , dont tout le secteur spatial se gausse. À tort: l’histoire lui donnera raison.

En parallèle, il investit dès 2004 dans une petite entreprise en vogue, Tesla. Quatre ans plus tard, il prend la tête du fabricant de véhicules électriques et en fera un mastodonte financier. C’est grâce à la valeur du cours Tesla qu’Elon Musk est actuellement l’homme le plus riche du monde . Viendront ensuite The Boring Company pour construire des tunnels et Neuralink pour les implants cérébraux . Mais le point de bascule est évidemment le rachat de Twitter .

Une acquisition comme un blague , qui entraînera l’homme d’affaires dans plus de galères qu’autre chose. Toujours dans l’ombre de Mark Zuckerberg -qu’il va défier en combat singulier dans une énième blague ou provocation- Twitter est finalement l’occasion pour le milliardaire d’obtenir son média.

Celui qui affirme être atteint du syndrome d’Asperger n’est pas encore, du moins totalement, le "troll" provocateur que l’on connait. On l’imagine plutôt libertarien, ce courant typiquement américain qui promeut la liberté sous toutes ses formes. Il reste éloigné des démocrates comme des républicains, mais reconnaît, en 2022, avoir voté pour Hillary Clinton en 2016 puis Joe Biden en 2020.

L’arrivée de Trump et son programme plus libéral l’intéresse, mais c’est bien le rachat de Twitter qui semble avoir changé l’homme. Car, ce réseau social, acheté à prix d’or - 43 milliards de dollars- en réalité, il n’en voulait pas mais il a rapidement été piégé par son engagement verbal, devenu engagement légal.

En novembre 2022, le voici donc à la tête d’un réseau social qui lui a coûté une fortune à l’achat, lui coûte une fortune au fonctionnement. Il va donc licencier la majeure partie des salariés pour réduire les coûts et tout faire pour rendre la plateforme rentable. Mais il va surtout prendre conscience de l’effet communautaire de cet outil puissant qui lui permet de faire passer ses messages.

Natalité, immigration, "virus woke"...

Fin 2023, il réalise par exemple le poids qu’a pris son service d’internet par satellites Starlink dans le conflit entre la Russie et l’Ukraine. Le voici faiseur de rois, dragué par les uns, conspué par les autres. Forcément pas de quoi apaiser son égo alors que la plupart des médias et observateurs critiquent sa gestion de Twitter, qui deviendra X. Absence de modération, réintégration de profils controversés … au lieu de lutter contre la désinformation, Elon Musk voit de la jalousie et des attaques personnelles. Les médias "traditionnels" qui multiplient les rapports alarmants deviennent des ennemis de X, seule source fiable d’informations, selon Musk. Les annonceurs, qui refusent de revenir sur son réseau social sont aussi sa cible.

Mais d’autres sujets semblent aussi le tourmenter: la natalité, l’immigration ou une potentielle guerre civile en Allemagne ou dernièrement en Angleterre.

Lui, qui compte désormais 12 enfants de plusieurs femmes différentes, évoque aussi les questions de genre, affecté par la transition d’un de ses fils, qu’il estime avoir été tué par le "virus woke". Si sa proximité avec les idées conservatrices de Donald Trump ne faisait plus vraiment de doutes, la tentative d’assassinat contre l’ex-président l’a incité à officiellement apporter son soutien au républicain.

Le méchant de service

Prompt à relayer des fake news -comme cette fausse de vidéo de Kamala Harris qu’il juge "communiste"- il a aussi été contraint de s’excuser après avoir validé un message complotiste et antisémite sur son réseau.

Désormais isolé des annonceurs, seuls à pouvoir maintenir financièrement à flot X, il entretient aussi une haine féroce contre les démocrates et leurs attaques contre lui comme contre ses entreprises.

À peine semble-t-il retrouver un semblant de normalité lorsqu’il s’occupe de SpaceX ou Tesla. Mais derrière sa photo de profil X, où il arbore pour Halloween un costume de "champion du mal", l’entrepreneur semble se complaire dans cette image de "méchant". A-t-il des ambitions politiques? Il ne sera jamais président des États-Unis, faute d’être né dans le pays, mais son influence et celle de réseau social joueront un rôle majeur dans l’élection de novembre, qui accouchera du prochain président américain.

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