From Tesla tequila to Iron Man inspiration: 7 issues you could not find out about Elon Musk | US Information

The title Elon Musk is maybe some of the recognisable within the modern-day.

The richest man on the earth is understood for being the proprietor of assorted corporations together with electrical automobile maker Tesla and Area X, his takeover of social media firm Twitter – which he renamed X – and, till most not too long ago, his work throughout the US authorities.

After practically 130 days as head of the Division of Authorities Effectivity – often known as DOGE for brief – Musk introduced he’s leaving his function 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 may be a lot to the billionaire businessman that’s not often reported.

Listed here are seven issues you could not find out about Musk.

Little one online game creator

Within the early Nineteen 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 way of his information of coding and programming, which he picked up on the age of 9, in response to Ashlee Vance’s 2015 biography of the tech mogul.

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

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 together 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 offered for round $300m (£222m) 4 years later in 1999.

Earlier than cashing in on the success of Zip2, Musk stated 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 informed CNN on the time: “Just three years ago I was sleeping on the office floor, and now I’ve got a million-dollar car.”

Musk’s musk

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

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

The scent, which price $100 (£74) a bottle, was a smash hit, in response to Musk, who stated it had offered 10,000 bottles in just some hours, incomes him one million {dollars}.

“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” Musk stated on the time.

It’s unknown if the product was critical, 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 yr, Musk adopted by way of on a joke to promote restricted version pairs of Tesla brief shorts as a method to show traders who wager towards the electrical automobile maker unsuitable.

The unique PayPal

Lengthy earlier than Twitter turned X, Musk created X.com, a web-based banking and monetary companies firm.

The platform rapidly attracted a big buyer base, and within the yr 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 change into chief government of PayPal, however was later ousted from the place as arguments over the corporate’s title and general route emerged.

In 2002, the banking web site was purchased by eBay for $1.5bn (£1.4bn). Years later, in 2017, eBay offered 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 character 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 stated his model of Tony Stark was primarily based on a end result of Musk, Mr Trump and Apple creator Steve Jobs.

“Musk took the brilliance of Jobs with the showmanship of Trump. He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance,” Mr Fergus informed New York Journal.

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

The actual Tesla founder?

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

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

Want for the ‘everything app’

After taking up social media platform X for $44bn in 2022, Musk turned one step nearer to attaining his purpose of making an “everything app”.

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

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Musk’s imaginative and prescient of this “super app” appears to be shared by these at X, together with chief government Linda Yaccarino, who stated on the finish of final yr that 2025 could be the yr that X “connect[s] you in ways never thought possible. X TV, X Money, Grok and more”.

And this seems to be considerably coming true.

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