As college students, we’re always looking for successful role models. Elon Musk has attained the kind of success and fame we as students can only dream of. But how did he get to be the engineer, CEO, inventor, and world changer he is today? Read below to get the 411 on this billionaire and get ready to take some notes.
1. He ran a night club out of an empty frat house in college
Before Musk became a billionaire he was just a college student, and that means he was broke. In order to pay the bills and eat, Musk and his friend had a crazy idea to rent out a vacant frat house and run a nightclub out of it. The nightclub became popular enough for the two students to pay rent for the enormous house and still have money left over afterward.
2. He sold his first computer program at age 12
The program was a space-themed computer game called Blastar. In the game, you play as a ship and your mission is to defeat the enemy ship that is trying to blow you up. It’s a simple game, but for a 12 year old, it’s a big feat. He ended up selling the game to a computer magazine for $500 ($1,200 in today’s money!). If you want to play a web browser version of the game you can here. Don’t worry, the website is safe and virus free.
3. Elon musk was bullied as a kid
Musk is a genius and has been his whole life, but being a genius usually means not fitting in with the crowd or what is the norm. This led to him being bullied a majority of his childhood. One instance in particular involved him being beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs. The incident landed him in the hospital and left him with breathing problems which he still has to this day. He recently underwent surgery to fix a deviated septum, which was a direct result of that incident.
4. His company recently sold flamethrowers
Late last year, Musk announced via Twitter that his company, The Boring Company, would soon be selling flamethrowers to the general public. To many people, including myself, this was seen as a joke, for hopefully obvious reasons.
Nevertheless, a little over a month after his tweet, Musk announced the launch of the Boring Company Flamethrower. They would sell at $500 apiece and would include a complimentary fire extinguisher. In a matter of four days, Musk sold 20,000 flamethrowers making his company a quick $10 million. Safety concerns regarding the devices were raised (for obvious reasons). Furthermore, Musk tweeted that he was having trouble getting his flamethrowers through customs (for more obvious reasons). Musk though, being the genius that he is, solved all of this by changing the name of his flamethrower to “Not a Flamethrower”.
5. He just launched a sports car into space
Musk’s company SpaceX just recently had the successful launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket ever created with the ability to lift 64 metric tons of payload into orbit. Musk did not send 64 tons of payload, but he did send brand new Midnight Cherry Tesla Roadster into space with its mannequin pilot named Starman. Why? Because he can.
6. He was inspiration for Iron Man’s Hollywood character
Before filming the first Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. told the movie’s director, Jon Favreau, that there was someone that he needed to speak with that could give him “some insight into what it’d really be like to be Tony Stark.” The person he was referring to was, of course, Elon Musk. Furthermore, parts of Iron Man 2 were filmed in SpaceX and Musk also made a cameo at the beginning of the movie.
7. He’s plans to colonize Mars
One of SpaceX’s future projects is to put people on Mars. According to their website, the company plans to send their first cargo mission in 2020, which will survey the planet and prepare it for a follow up cargo mission in 2024. The second mission will differ from the first because it will be accompanied by a crew of humans who will set up a base for permanent living.
8. He co-founded Paypal
One of Musk’s first big business ventures was an online banking company called X.com. Within a year the company merged with its competitor Cofinity with Musk being the largest stockholder and acting as the CEO. Musk didn’t get along well with the rest of the company’s board, so one day when he was on vacation, the board ousted him as the CEO. He did not find this out until he got back (what a great way to be welcomed back).
The company then changed its name to Paypal and became the service we know of today. Regardless of being fired, he was still the largest stockholder, so when the company was sold to Ebay in 2002, Musk made a total of $180 million after taxes. Not a bad deal in my opinion. Later on he bought back the domain for X.com from Ebay for what he called sentimental reasons. There’s nothing on the website, but it does redirect you to his Boring Company website.
9. He dropped out of Stanford after two days
After having majored in physics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk was accepted into a P.h.D. program at Stanford University for applied physics and material sciences. After two days of having been accepted, Musk dropped out of the university to co-found a startup company with his brother called Zip2. The decision proved to be an excellent move because four years later they sold the company for $307 million, with Musk taking home $22 million from the deal. Not bad for a 28 year old.