Tech Messiah of Humanity

“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds aren’t in your favor,” are the exact words quoted by Elon Musk when he was living off of just a dollar a day, long before the days of Tesla and SpaceX. Currently worth about $11.4 Billion (Forbes, 2016), the self-made billionaire who is currently the founder of some of the most advanced tech companies in the world, was once just a man with a dream and not a penny in his pocket. In an interview with famous astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Musk explained how fascinated he was as a freshman at Queen’s University in Ontario and how he could help shape the future of humanity through the internet, energy, efficiency and space exploration (Feloni, Richard, 2015).
In 1992, Musk Left Queen’s University to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for a second bachelor’s degree in physics. After leaving Penn, Elon Musk headed to Stanford University in California to pursue a Ph.D. in energy physics. However, his move was timed perfectly with the Internet boom, and he dropped out of Stanford after just two days to become a part of it, launching his first company, Zip2 Corporation (Biography.com, 2016).
At 28 Musk sold his first startup, Zip2 to a division of Compaq computers which led to the founding of x.com in 1999, SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla motors in 2003. An online city guide, Zip2 provided content for the new Web sites of both the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and in 1999, a division of Compaq Computer Corporation bought Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options (Biography.com, 2016).
Also in 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services/payments company. An X.com acquisition the following year led to the creation of PayPal as it is known today, and in October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. Before the sale, Musk owned 11 percent of PayPal stock (Biography.com, 2016).
Normally, someone as successful as he was, at that young an age, one would be content with his achievements but, Musk was never the one to rest on his laurels. So that’s when he founded his third company, Space exploration Technologies corporation, or SpaceX, in 2002 with the intention of building spacecrafts for commercial space travel. By 2008, SpaceX was well established and NASA awarded the company the contract to handle cargo transport for the International Space Station, with plans for astronaut transport in the future as an effort to replace NASA’s own space shuttle missions.
While the wheels of the SpaceX mission were turning, Musk ventured into another passion of his, building a clean, renewable and sustainable energy source, which led to Tesla Motors taking shape, with the intent of providing affordable, mass market electric cars. Five years after its formation, Tesla launched its first car, The Roadster, a sports car capable of acceleration from 0 to 60mph in 3.7 seconds, as well as travelling nearly 250 miles between charges of its lithium ion battery.
In June 2010 Tesla motors launched its initial public offering raising $226 million (Biography.com, 2016) leading to the launch of Model S, the company’s first electric sedan capable of covering 265 miles between charges.
As Tesla was gaining praise and appreciation all around the world, for their ingenious design and uncompromising performance, the demand for the cars grew tremendously. Electric cars were once considered a myth and a joke were now being taken seriously as the next evolution of automotive engineering.
So, in an effort to make this technology main stream, in 2014 Musk announced that Tesla will let other companies use its inventions under open-source-inspired agenda to the companies and released the company’s technology patents to the world. “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.” Said Musk, on his blog post (Vance, 2014).
Also looking into the future of sustainable technology, Elon Musk has been working on a battery production factory called the Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. By 2017, the company aims to begin production of its more affordable Model 3. And by 2020 it plans to ramp up production to build as many as 500,000 vehicles per year, an ambitious goal considering the company currently only produces about 50,000 vehicles a year. The factory is located in Storey County, Nevada on a 3,000 acre lot of land. The original site was 1,000 acres, but in June 2015, the company purchased an additional 1,864 acres of adjacent land. The purchase will enable the company to expand the size of the factory by 50 or 100 times, Said Musk. Currently, the factory is 71 feet tall and stretches for more than 5.5 million square feet, or the equivalent of 126 acres. To put that into perspective, that is more than 95 football fields. By 2020, total planned floor space is 13.6 million square feet (Thompson, 2015).
Another interesting fact about the Gigafactory which is in line with Musk’s vision is that the factory will be equipped with a state-of-the-art recycling system that will help recycle old battery packs, any and all manufacturing scraps. The factory would be completely powered by renewable solar energy with the help of solar panels on the roof of the factory and additional panels on the surrounding hilltops (Thompson, 2015).
Once the Gigafactory is fully operational, it will not only be able to provide battery packs for Tesla cars but will also be able to support Tesla’s power wall (a complete energy solution for homes which includes solar paneling on the roofs and battery packs to power the energy requirements of a home) and also Tesla’s automotive counterparts who have used Tesla’s technology to build their cars.
Moving along in jet speed (literally) with Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has continued his work in attempting to make his innovative ideas a reality. In August 2013, he released a concept for a new form of transportation called the "Hyperloop," an invention that would foster commuting between major cities while severely cutting travel time. Ideally resistant to weather and powered by renewable energy, the Hyperloop would propel riders in pods through a network of low-pressure tubes at speeds reaching more than 700 mph. Musk noted that the Hyperloop could take from seven to 10 years to be built and ready for use.
Although he introduced the Hyperloop with claims that it would be safer than a plane or train, with an estimated cost of $6 billion, approximately one-tenth of the cost for the rail system planned by the state of California, Musk's concept has drawn skepticism. Nevertheless, the entrepreneur has sought to encourage the development of this idea. In June 2015, he announced a competition for teams to submit their designs for a Hyperloop pod prototype, with participants getting the chance to test their creations on a track at the SpaceX facility in June 2016 (Biography.com, 2016).
As Steve Jobs is to Apple and as Henry Ford is to the ford motor company, there is not one company that one can associate Elon Musk with except for the fact that he tries to still believe in the preservation of humanity through the use of internet, energy, efficiency and space exploration (his exact words as a freshmen at Queen’s University). In line with his vision, some of his other ventures include, The Submarine Car (Yes! Exactly like the one James Bond uses), Automated driving (not just a self-driving car) and Solar City (Affordable solar paneling solutions for homes).

References
Biography.com. (2016, 01 30). Retrieved from Elon Musk Biography: http://www.biography.com/people/elon-musk-20837159#hyperloop
Feloni, Richard. (2015, 03 28). Business Insider. Retrieved from Elon Musk explains why living off a dollar a day as a teenager convinced him he could do anything he wanted with his life: http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-living-off-a-dollar-a-day-startalk-2015-3
Forbes. (2016, 01 30). Retrieved from #38 Elon Musk: http://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/
Thompson. (2015, 11 18). Tech Insider. Retrieved from 12 incredible facts about Elon Musk's Gigafactory: http://www.techinsider.io/facts-about-the-tesla-gigafactory-2015-11
Vance. (2014, 06 12). Bloomberg Business. Retrieved from Why Elon Musk Just Opened Tesla's Patents to His Biggest Rivals: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-06-12/why-elon-musk-just-opened-teslas-patents-to-his-biggest-rivals