From Tesla tequila to Iron Man inspiration: 7 things you may not know about Elon Musk | US News

The identify Elon Musk is maybe one of the vital recognisable within the modern-day.

The richest man on this planet is thought for being the proprietor of assorted firms together with electrical automobile maker Tesla and Area X, his takeover of social media firm Twitter – which he renamed X – and, till most just lately, his work within the US government.

After practically 130 days as head of the Department of Government Efficiency – generally known as DOGE for brief – Musk introduced he’s leaving his position inside Donald Trump’s administration.

His work throughout the division and his shut relationship with Mr Trump led to Musk being within the headlines greater than ever, however there’s a lot to the billionaire businessman that’s hardly ever reported.

Listed here are seven issues chances are you’ll not find out about Musk.

Baby online game creator

Within the early Eighties, on the age of 12, Musk created the online game Blastar.

He created the sport, which duties gamers to make use of their keyboards to shoot at alien fighter spaceships, by means of his information of coding and programming, which he picked up on the age of 9, in keeping with Ashlee Vance’s 2015 biography of the tech mogul.

By 1984 the sport was so good, Musk bought it to PC and Workplace Expertise journal for $500 (£371), the place it featured within the publication’s December problem.

First large pay cheque

From the get-go, it was clear Musk had a expertise for enterprise. In 1995, age 24, he arrange his first firm, Zip2 along with his brother, Kimbal.

The pair arrange the corporate, which created on-line metropolis guides for newspapers, for round $28,000 (£20,000). It was bought for round $300m (£222m) 4 years later in 1999.

Earlier than cashing in on the success of Zip2, Musk mentioned he and his brother had been just about broke and each slept within the workplace the place they labored – a behaviour he reportedly replicated within the early days of Tesla.

From the sale of the corporate, Musk walked away from Zip2 with a cool $22m, and the very first thing he purchased was a McLaren F1.

He instructed CNN on the time: “Simply three years in the past I used to be sleeping on the workplace ground, and now I’ve received a million-dollar automotive.”

Musk’s musk

Regardless of having enormous success, a few of Musk’s concepts haven’t proved to be as long-lasting.

In 2022, he launched a fragrance known as Burnt Hair, which is described on his The Boring Firm web site as “the essence of repugnant want”.

The scent, which value $100 (£74) a bottle, was a smash hit, in keeping with Musk, who mentioned it had bought 10,000 bottles in only a few hours, incomes him one million {dollars}.

“With a reputation like mine, moving into the perfume enterprise was inevitable – why did I even combat it for thus lengthy!?” Musk mentioned on the time.

It’s unknown if the product was severe, and (sadly) is now not accessible on The Boring Firm web site.

Along with fragrance, Tesla launched its personal tequila in 2020, and in the identical 12 months, Musk adopted by means of on a joke to promote limited edition pairs of Tesla short shorts as a approach to show traders who wager towards the electrical automobile maker mistaken.

The unique PayPal

Lengthy earlier than Twitter turned X, Musk created X.com, an internet banking and monetary companies firm.

The platform rapidly attracted a big buyer base, and within the 12 months 2000, it merged with Confinity, which was co-founded by tech entrepreneurs Peter Thiel and Max Levchin.

The platform was later renamed PayPal.

Musk went on to turn out to be chief government of PayPal, however was later ousted from the place as arguments over the corporate’s identify and total path emerged.

In 2002, the banking web site was purchased by eBay for $1.5bn (£1.4bn). Years later, in 2017, eBay bought the area X.com again to Musk.

Inspiration for Iron Man

Musk’s life as a billionaire entrepreneur appears like the beginning of a Hollywood blockbuster. And in actuality, Musk’s persona and accomplishments had been partly used as inspiration for Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Iron Man within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In a 2022 interview, Iron Man screenwriter Mark Fergus mentioned his model of Tony Stark was primarily based on a fruits of Musk, Mr Trump and Apple creator Steve Jobs.

“Musk took the brilliance of Jobs with the showmanship of Trump. He was the one one who had the enjoyable issue and the movie star vibe and precise enterprise substance,” Mr Fergus instructed New York Journal.

Musk’s uncommon connection to the fictionalised billionaire was performed out on digital camera when he made a cameo in Iron Man 2 in 2010.

The actual Tesla founder?

Opposite to perception, Musk did not start Tesla. He was truly an early investor within the firm and was the fourth chief government when he took over the position in 2008 – shortly after the corporate launched its first automotive – the Roadster sports activities automotive.

It was in truth, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning who based the corporate in 2003, albeit Musk was the one to propel it on to a worldwide stage.

Need for the ‘the whole lot app’

After taking on social media platform X for $44bn in 2022, Musk turned one step nearer to attaining his objective of making an “the whole lot app”.

The tech mogul has beforehand mentioned he needs for X to turn out to be just like WeChat – a Chinese language app that provides a variety of options past messaging, together with funds, ordering taxis, sharing social media posts and conducting enterprise – consider it as a mixture between Fb, Apple Pay, WhatsApp and Google.

Musk’s imaginative and prescient of this “tremendous app” appears to be shared by these at X, together with chief government Linda Yaccarino, who mentioned on the finish of final 12 months that 2025 could be the 12 months that X “join[s] you in methods by no means thought potential. X TV, X Cash, Grok and extra”.

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And this seems to be considerably coming true.

In January, Musk introduced X had partnered with fee big Visa, which can enable customers to maneuver funds between conventional banks and a digital X pockets and make funds to buddies.