Tech billionaire Elon Musk is 50. Hardly anyone shapes as many economic sectors as the eccentric from South Africa.
Palo Alto – There is hardly any other entrepreneur that divides opinions as much as Elon Musk. Some see him alongside entrepreneurial legends like Steve Jobs, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Others consider him a con man and a skilled stock market manipulator. Nevertheless: On his 50th birthday on Monday (June 21st, 2021) things could hardly be better for the dazzling tech multi-billionaire: He has more money, more success and more influence than ever before. This is reported by the dpa.
He started small. Born in South Africa, he immigrated to Canada as a teenager. Four years later he went to the USA, where Musk studied physics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania. As a co-founder of the payment service PayPal, he later made a fortune with eBay before creating his “baby” with Tesla.
However, Musk does not have much time to breathe at the moment, because he has so many projects going on at the same time that it is a miracle that he can still see through himself. With Tesla he is expanding worldwide, in Brandenburg he is currently building his first company plant in Europe. A few years ago on the verge of bankruptcy, Tesla is now traded on the stock exchanges as the most valuable car manufacturer. He landed a lucrative NASA contract with SpaceX, and things couldn’t go any better here either.
Cult around Elon Musk: A tweet makes the stock exchange prices dance
But the real superstar is Musk himself. Despite his antics and unpredictability, the cult of the eccentric billionaire has reached unprecedented heights. He himself has developed into one of the most important pacemakers in the financial markets. After all, he has the right ego. “Technoking”, according to dpa his official title at Tesla since March 2021, does what it wants. Only recently did he stir up the crypto scene and use his tweets to send stock prices plummeting or into the stratosphere. However, not everyone likes this. In March, for example, a Tesla investor sued Musk for his “erratic” tweets, which would pose high risks for the company. Bitcoin fans were also anything but enthusiastic when Musk sent the price down because of “concerns about high power consumption”. The US Securities and Exchange Commission sanctioned the star entrepreneur several times for “manipulative tweets”. However, this has not impressed Musk so far.
Nevertheless: Elon Musk also knows limits, as he told the New York Times in an interview three years ago. Even when he was in bed with malaria in 2001, he only took a week off. His workload is 120 hours a week. “There were times when I wouldn’t leave the factory for three or four days,” said Musk. He can only sleep thanks to a sleeping pill.
Second richest man on earth and visionary: Elon Musk turns 50
But success came and Musk is one of the richest people on earth today. “Forbes” estimates his fortune at a good 154.7 billion US dollars. Only Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is richer. Musk owns 21 percent of Tesla’s shares, making him the largest shareholder in the company. Elon Musk doesn’t do much with his money, however. In May 2020, he tweeted that he wanted to part with almost all of his physical possessions. US media recently reported that he now intends to sell the last of his properties. No wonder: According to the dpa, Musk is known as a workaholic who often sleeps in a sleeping bag in his office. But this could all just be a staging. Because as the investigative portal “ProPublica” recently leaked, Musk is in no way inferior to his billionaire colleagues when it comes to creatively avoiding taxes with tricks.
However, his entrepreneurial merits are undisputed. He made e-mobility suitable for the masses, and many other companies are now following suit. With SpaceX he wants to realize his dream of a manned Mars mission soon. Apart from that, his projects were less convincing: The Boring Company, for example, was supposed to eliminate traffic chaos, but has so far been talking about clever merchandising. But just with fan articles, Musk makes a fortune. After selling flamethrowers at the latest, he is considered a marketing genius.
Elon Musk: It doesn’t work without ego and scandal
Here, too, his ego shows up again and again. Because Musk without scandal, that just doesn’t work, according to the dpa. During the peak of the pandemic in the United States, for example, he downplayed the danger posed by the virus and described restrictions on going out in California as “fascist”. Even media representatives and stock market analysts who don’t fit Musk quickly notice this when he declines with “boring” or “not cool” to answer their questions.
In his private life Elon Musk attracts attention with affairs with Hollywood stars as well as through his relationship with the Canadian singer Grimes. Married since 2018, the two gave their son the unusual name X Æ A-Xii. Musk also has five sons with his ex-wife, Canadian writer Justine Wilson. However, it is unlikely that he will have much time for a birthday party. After all, there’s nothing Musk likes to do as much as work. (as / dpa)
Header list image: © Christophe Gateau / dpa
