TED Talks are my favorite thing to surf through on YouTube. They are so informative and proactive, and always leave me thinking. So to my excitement, I see one with debate the most popular billionaire in the world: Elon Musk. It’s a 40 minutes interview with Musk about his latest breakthrough idea of setting up underground tunnels to reduce traffic, which is set to start in Los Angeles since LA is notoriously known for its traffic. The interview continues by diving into his newest company, The Boring Company, which is working on creating more efficient methods of transportation and solving traffic. Boldly, when the interviewer asked Musk how much of his time he spends working on this new company he replies, “about 2%”, to which the interviewer replies, “so it’s basically a hobby for you?”. To which Musk just laughs. The part that stuck to me the most was when Musk says, “I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior, I just try to think about a future and not be sad”. Those nineteen words instantly won me over, because he said something that probably a good portion of the world has been thinking about, but he can be able to do something about it. As I reached this point in the video, I began wondering, and I recall that I don’t remember hearing about him anytime before 2020. And I know i may not be his target audience, the business world has known him for years. But, as I continue thinking about it, it’s like he suddenly came out of nowhere and all of a sudden, he’s the most popular billionaire in the world. So I got to digging, and here’s some stuff that everyone should know about our coolest billionaire, (and Mr.Musk if you ever get the chance to read this, I would love to have a sit-down interview, if your demographic ever turns to college kids.)
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. He was born to a Canadian mother and a South African father. He was born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa. Which is something that shocked me. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; early-stage investor, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. With an estimated net worth of around US $273 billion as of April 2022. As of this writing, he is currently the wealthiest person in the world according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the Forbes real-time billionaires list. It’s also shocking that he founded SpaceX in 2002 and he joined Tesla in 2004 as a chairman.
What stuck out to me was how he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy services company, and he later acquired it with Tesla and it became Tesla Energy. Tesla Energy is used in over 50 countries and has 1,000 sites in operation. As stated in an excerpt on the website, “Install solar to start converting sunlight into clean energy and power your business at a fraction of the cost of buying from the grid. We’ll take care of everything from the permitting process to installation on your site roof, ground, or carports.” This is a mind-blowing company that encourages renewable energy. It’s estimated that around my home, one would save about $7,000 if they were to switch to solar power energy. Musk also states that his goal is that every house in America will have a solar power roof in about 50 years. It’s a tall task, but doable. Realistically, every house is supposed to change its roofs every decade.
Everyone knows that solar power is the future. Especially since climate change is becoming more problematic. Some advantages to solar power energy are that its pollution free and cause no greenhouse gasses to be emitted into the atmosphere after installation. It also reduced the dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels. Lastly, it’s renewable clean power that is available every day of the year, even on cloudy days the sun still shines and can produce some power.
It’s no secret that renewable energy is the future, and it’s refreshing to see someone in such high power take initiative. Getting to know more about the person in charge and what they stand for to make sure that the Earth is in good hands in the future makes me personally excited to see what’s yet to come.