What is so special about Elon Musk? What makes his words so valuable and impactful? The several facts below will convince you that the Musk effect is not just a buzzword but a revolution that happens to all of us. With the help of Musk's genius mind, of course.
1. Natural born entrepreneur
Elon earned his first big money at the age of 12. And that wasn't just a good toy bartering thing, something that most of us did while being teenagers. Elon went a bit far from that. He developed his own game called Blastar, sold it for $500, and invested money into the pharmaceutical company shares.
At the age of 24, he entered Stanford but decided to leave it a week after to start his own business. Musk and his brother Kimball opened the Zip2 Corporation. It was later sold to the American computer company Compaq, and Musk received $22 million for his share.
2. Re-inventing astronautics
On May 30, 2020, his most ambitious company, SpaceX, performed the first-ever privately manned space launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX is also actively developing a project to send Internet satellites into low-earth orbit. By doing so, Musk intends to create a global network that provides the Internet anywhere in the world.
3. Revolutionising automotive industry
Though Elon Musk joined Tesla Motors only a year after its foundation, his impact is genuinely revolutionary. Musk brought Tesla to an entirely new level. Thus, the Tesla Model S 70D was named "The Car of the Century" in 2015, and the Tesla Model S (2013) became the best car in the last 70 years that received the "Car of the Year" award.
Moreover, Tesla sells solar panels and batteries within its SolarCity affiliate company.
4. Mars colonisation plans
At the moment, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, developed the Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and the Dragon spacecraft. Elon has long been fascinated by the ideas of space flight and the future Mars colonisation. Thus, in January 2020, he announced that by 2050 he plans to send 1 million people to Mars. Musk intends to build a thousand reusable spacecraft in ten years, which SpaceX engineers are already working on.
5. Bringing aeroplane speed to trains
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies company is the first full-scale hyperloop system. The Hyperloop is supposed to be twice as fast as an aeroplane and three to four times as fast as a high-speed passenger express train. Both Musk and several competing teams are implementing the project.
6. Protecting humanity from an AI negative impact
Elon repeatedly expressed concerns about the future of relationships between humanity and machines by saying that AI can pose the biggest threat to humans and become even more dangerous than nuclear weapons. OpenAI non-profitable organisation is a project that aims to direct artificial intelligence (AI) in ways that benefit humanity as a whole.
7. Breakthrough technology for the brain
In July 2019, the billionaire announced its latest development, the N1 brain chip. A small wireless device is installed in the brain and is created to help people with dementia or paralysis. In August 2020, Neuralink held the first presentation of the chip, and in the spring of 2021, it showed a monkey playing a video game using an implanted chip.
As you can see, Elon is not just another billionaire focused just on making money. His projects are a standing illustration of how technology can become the nearest friend of humankind. That humanistic approach is one of the key reasons why the whole world is so careful about what Elon says and why a single tweet can trigger so many changes in the market.
