11 Facts About Elon Musk: Explore The Less Known

Elon Musk (Credit: Pagesix)

One of the most significant and divisive personalities of the twenty-first (21st) century is Elon Musk who is credited with founding some of the most revolutionary businesses in our era, such as Neuralink, SpaceX, and Tesla. His business endeavours have transformed the energy, automobile, and space sectors, representing creativity and forward-thinking. Even so, the public is still largely unaware of Musk's personal background, early setbacks, and intense love of technology and science fiction. In this blog post article, we will explore 11 remarkable and little-known facts about Musk's life that shed light on his perspective on the world and his aspirations to change the course of human history.

1. Musk Once Sold a Video Game for $500: When Elon Musk was barely 12 years old, there was one of the first indications of his potential as a tech entrepreneur whereby at this age, Musk developed Blastar, a video game with a space theme. Players had to avoid asteroids and destroy opposing spaceships in this straightforward 8-bit shooter. For a 12-year-old, the game was astounding despite its simplicity. Musk made $500 selling the source code to a computer magazine and even though $500 might not seem like much now, for a young person at the time, it was a substantial amount not forgetting that Blastar is particularly intriguing because it not only demonstrated Musk's early interest in technology but also hinted at his lifelong love of space exploration, which would ultimately inspire him to found SpaceX, one of the most advanced space company worldwide.

2. He Was a Brilliant Reader: At a young age, Elon Musk had a passion for learning whereby he studied the entire Encyclopedia Britannica by the time he was nine years old with also reading a great deal of science fiction and fantasy literature in addition to other works because he was such a voracious reader. Musk's imagination was shaped by authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Isaac Asimov, who fuelled his aspirations for technical advancement and space flight while being able to make connections across a wide range of subjects, including energy technology, artificial intelligence, and space exploration, thanks to the diverse and extensive information he gained during these formative years. His innovative work in a variety of fields would later be built around this unquenchable curiosity.

3. He Was Rejected by a NASA Internship: Musk dreamed of working with NASA even before he was associated with space exploration to a point that he submitted an application for an internship at NASA's esteemed Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the beginning of the 1990s but he was turned down. Why? He was judged too inexperienced by NASA and given that Musk would later create SpaceX, a private enterprise that would eventually collaborate with NASA to transport humans to the International Space Station (ISS), this refusal seems almost poetic in retrospect, hence the irony of this denial is evidence of Musk's tenacity; rather than allowing a setback from one of the top space agencies in the world to discourage him, he used it as a springboard to further his goal of transforming space exploration.

4. Musk's Parents Were a Special Blend: A rare union of two exceptionally successful people shaped Elon Musk's childhood. His mother, Maye Musk, worked as a nutritionist and model, while his father, Errol Graham Musk, was an electromechanical engineer. Musk's own varied interests were shaped by his upbringing in such a diversified environment because while his mother's work in the arts and fashion gave him a feeling of creativity and a wider perspective, his father's technical intellect surely fuelled his love of engineering and problem-solving. Musk frequently discusses his parents' divergent personalities and how their skills influenced his outlook on life, fusing both critical thinking with aspirations for creativity.

5. He is a Self-Taught Programmer: Self-starting has always been Elon Musk's style whereby at the age of nine, he started his programming career training himself to code by reading books and manuals rather than taking traditional coding classes. Blastar, his first significant project, was completely self-programmed with his enthusiasm for technology coming from an innate curiosity and a profound fascination with how things operated rather than a desire for approval from others. Musk's self-directed learning and problem-solving style would persist throughout his career, enabling him to explore a wide range of disciplines, from physics and coding to renewable energy and aerospace.

6. He Plans to Colonise Mars in Several Ways: Making humans a multi-planetary species is one of Musk's boldest objectives, and his business SpaceX is the most well-known example of this aspiration where Musk has been outspoken about his long-term goals for Mars, including a number of colonisation proposals. In order to build a self-sufficient city, he has talked about transforming the Red Planet, establishing a healthy ecology, and transporting millions of people in Starship spacecraft. Musk wants to establish the possibility of life on Mars so that people have a fallback option in the event that Earth becomes unsustainable which some may find this vision unrealistic, but many believe Musk has the best chance of making interplanetary colonisation a reality because of his history of accomplishing seemingly impossible things.

7. Before PayPal, Musk Played a Significant Role in X.com: Elon Musk launched a business called X.com in 1999 before PayPal rose to prominence as the world's largest online payment provider where he wanted to build a comprehensive online financial services platform and although he was the CEO of X.com, his time there was brief. Musk's idea for an online payment system endured despite his departure as CEO in a boardroom coup. After merging with Confinity, which was established by Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, and others, X.com was renamed PayPal, thus it is impossible to overstate Musk's influence on the direction of digital payments, and the success of PayPal allowed him to raise the capital necessary to take on even more ambitious projects.

8. Short-Term Profits Are Not Important to Him: Elon Musk's readiness to disregard immediate financial gain in favour of long-term objectives is one of his most distinctive traits like for instance, Musk is well-known for refusing to accept a salary when he founded Tesla and rather, he contributed millions of his own funds to the business, frequently at the price of his own financial stability with also his numerous endeavours, such as SpaceX and Tesla, demonstrating this emphasis on long-term sustainability and innovation. Musk has stated time and time again that his objective is to develop technologies that advance humanity, even at the expense of short-term financial benefit or self-interest where his innovative strategy has elevated him to the status of a modern-day entrepreneur.

9. He Was Once a Billionaire on Paper, Then Lost It All: Musk's fortunes took a serious turn in 2008 where both SpaceX and Tesla experienced significant financial challenges during the global financial crisis. Once valued at over $1 billion, Musk's net worth fell precipitously, forcing him to take out loans to cover his personal costs where he almost lost everything at one time but his perseverance and risk-taking skills paid off after Tesla started to acquire popularity and SpaceX was able to land government contracts with NASA. One of Musk's most pivotal moments, the turning point demonstrated that even the most innovative businesspeople encounter major challenges, and that overcoming them requires resilience.

10. Elon Musk Was Once a Canadian Citizen: Although Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, he started the process of obtaining U.S. citizenship in Canada. Musk relocated to Queen's University in Canada when he was seventeen years old where he was able to acquire Canadian citizenship because his mother was born there. Additionally, this action facilitated Musk's subsequent immigration to the US, where he eventually obtained U.S. citizenship in 2002 and Musk's path to Silicon Valley, where he would go on to build some of the most innovative businesses of the twenty-first century, was greatly aided by his dual citizenship.

11. Musk Does Not Want to Die on Impact, But Rather on Mars: Elon Musk's personal aspirations are just as ambitious as his career objectives whereby Musk has expressed his desire to die on Mars in public adding that he would rather not die in a disastrous crash while on a space trip, hence this declaration demonstrates his dedication to space travel and his strong conviction that humans may coexist on distant planets. Musk has made it apparent that his love of space is a deeply personal mission to secure the continuation and growth of human civilisation rather than just a corporate endeavour.

Summary

The achievements of Elon Musk's life and career serve as a monument to the strength of resilience, vision, and intellectual curiosity whereby from his first days of selling video games to founding ground-breaking businesses in technology, energy, and space, Musk has always aimed to push limits and question the current norm. Failures, rejections, and setbacks have all been a part of his journey, but so have resiliency, creativity, and an unwavering dedication to influencing the future. The above lesser-known elements of Musk's life reveal more about the man behind the public image, one who is fuelled by a desire to learn, a thirst for advancement, and an unflinching faith in humanity's capacity to achieve greatness.