If you were to ask people about a modern-day entrepreneur that inspires them, many would say Elon Musk. It’s easy to see why. He is known for creating massively successful businesses, and they are all very innovative and creative in their own right.
His companies continue to grow and expand, which is a testament to how much work he does and how committed he is to succeed. That’s not all, there are some amazing things you didn’t know about our real-world Iron Man – Elon Musk. Here are a few I’ve gathered for you.
#10 – He created a game called Blastar
Elon Musk taught himself how to code at the age of 12. As he did that, he created a game called Blastar. On top of that, he sold the source code to the PC and Office Technology magazine for $500.
Read also 40 Elon Musk Quotes On Starting Your Own Company
The interesting thing is that you can still play the game today. It shows that even from a young age, Musk was an innovator and he really wanted to do something different.
#9 – He has 2 younger siblings
A misconception that most people have is that they think Musk is an only child. He actually has 2 siblings, both of which are younger. He has a sister named Tosca and a brother named Kimbal.
Both of them are not in the IT industry, but it’s said that they have a very good relationship with their brother. However, they’ve been left outside of the public eye. While they support their brother wholeheartedly, they want to live their lives privately and not have to deal with any downsides.
#8 – Elon Musk was born in South Africa
What a lot of people don’t realize is that Musk is not from the US. Yes, he speaks perfect English, but at the same time he is not from here. He managed to change his accent during the years, but he is actually from Pretoria, South Africa. His mother was a dietitian and a model and an electromechanical engineer.
He was born on June 28 1971. So yes, while it’s interesting to see another side of Musk through his origins, the truth is that he came to the US early on and he started to innovate and come up with a lot of creative ideas.
#7 – Musk and his brother started the company Zip2 in 1995
This was their first venture and it was designed to create online city guide software to newspapers. The company managed to grow quite a bit, and Compaq eventually paid $300 million for it in 1999, with Musk getting $22 million from the entire sale.
That was a great starting point for him to fund new businesses and come up with new creative ideas on his own.
Elon was an inspiration for Tony Stark in Marvel’s Iron Man movies
Robert Downey Jr has a lot of charisma and his presence in the movies oozes charm and exciting ideas. The great thing to note here is that portrayal was inspired by Elon Musk, who was all those things in real-life at that time.
It was an exciting thing to see, and it brought in a lot of interesting ways for the character to grow and evolve. A lot of people believed it was all Downey’s character and charisma, but it seems they did want to pay a tribute to Musk too.
He had 6 kids with his first wife
The first child died when he was 10 weeks old. He only had boys with her, 2 twins and 3 triplets. The marriage did last for quite some time, but due to his insane schedule and his idea to pursue more growth, Musk eventually left her.
He is the richest person in the world
At the time of this writing, thanks to the massive power brought by the Tesla stock, Elon Musk is actually the richest person in the world. His net worth is said to be around $200 billion, and the trajectory continues to go up and up.
It finally shows that after all this time, Musk manages to bring in a lot of growth to his businesses, while also expanding his worth as well.
Musk read the entire encyclopedia when he was 9
While some kids struggle to read a lot at the age of 9, Musk managed to read the entire encyclopedia. He is one of the people that continually say reading will help you learn new things and expand your knowledge. Aside from publishing multiple books, he is an avid reader himself and he made numerous recommendations during the years as well.
He dropped out of Stanford just after 2 days
He came to Stanford to study physics but he dropped out just after 2 days. At that time, he already had 2 different degrees and he created his own business. So he thought that career path might not exactly help him.
When he came to the US, Musk lived on $1 per day
Yes, it might sound crazy, but when his family came to the US, he had a budget of $1 per day. The only way that he survived was by buying food in bulk. Even today, Elon Musk is making a very low amount of money as the Tesla CEO.
So even if he might be quite rich stock-wise, he is trying to live a frugal life. His focus is on creativity and success, not on richness.
Finally
Even though Elon Musk is rich, he is still very frugal. He also likes to learn and understand new things. It was big a challenge at first to move to the US and create his businesses, but he always managed to stay creative and come up with solutions to help our society.
From Space X to Tesla or Solar City, all of these are forward-thinking companies, and they do manage to stand out of the crowd quite a bit. There’s so much to learn from Elon Musk and his journey to becoming the Richest Man in the world.
Tell us something about Elon Musk that amazed you, we would love to hear from you.