Exploring the world of Elon
How Elon Musk is the most important visionary in generations.
How he got his initial fortune
Born in South-Africa in 1971 and interested in technology, Musk moved to Silicon Valley in 1995 where he started his first company called Zip2. Which he sold just 4 years later for 280 million euros.
He then went on to create what would later be called PayPal, selling it as early as 2002 for an astronomical 1.3 billion euros. Not a bad start.
Risking it all
Most of us who would get this rich this quickly would be punching the air for a few moments. Then going on to either buy expensive items or putting it into a savings account because ‘you can never be too safe’.
But this man was different, he saw our world having three existential problems which no one was making meaningful progress towards solving. These being climate-change, the dangers of AI and our dependency on planet earth.
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. — Elon Musk
Seeing this he decided to put it all on red, using his entire fortune to fund Tesla and Space X. His first steps to addressing these existential problems.
Countering climate-change
Arguably the biggest and most difficult problem our world has ever faced. The vision of Elon Musk could be what is getting us out of this mess. If his projects are successfully used on a global scale, the effect his actions will have on countering climate-change would be astronomic. But what exactly are these projects ?
Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster. — Elon Musk
Tesla
Tesla is doing a lot to change the world we live in for the better. Not only are they pushing the sale and innovation of electric cars but profits also all go to countering climate-change even more.
Driving electric cars is a great way of tackling carbon emissions, Musk’s company is what started the process of achieving this on a global scale. This is incredibly important for shaping a sustainable future in car transportation. The impact Tesla has had on starting the electric car conversation, getting other companies involved and pushing the consumer towards them can not be underestimated.
The Boring Company
With his other project, The Boring company, Musk is looking to hugely reduce traffic. He’s looking to achieve this by building an entire underground network of tunnels in heavily populated areas. Again tackling climate-change because less traffic equals less emissions and I think that’s something we can all get behind.
Tackling the dangers of AI
OpenAI
What OpenAI tries to do is ensure artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. Trying to pioneer a safe form of AI that isn’t just about innovation but about ensuring it benefits the well-being of humans first. If successful, the dangers of AI could be limited greatly.
Escaping earth
Space X
One of his most famous companies as well as the most exciting is probably Space X. When global governments were suddenly done exploring space at a great pace. Elon stepped in with Space X, working together with NASA to create the first ever commercial space program with the ultimate mission of creating a planet B on Mars.
If all goes wrong and we can’t stop climate change Space X could just be the only hope we have left. If that isn’t worthy of being crucially innovating I don’t know what is. There is no planet B ? You could be retracting that statement if Elon Musk works his magic yet again.
