Tristan Garland ’22
Contributor
Elon Musk is the world’s richest man, the man who sees a problem and changes it.
Musk was born June 8, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, and is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. He started his career by creating PayPal in 1999 because he wanted a safer way to pay for goods and services on the Internet.
Musk has said, “Well what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?” And so, he created Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla is a car company that produces only electric cars. It was created on July 1, 2003, and is situated in Palo Alto, California.
So far, the company has created six vehicles: the Model 3, Model S, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, and Roadster. These vehicles are some of the most popular and best-selling in their categories. Currently, the electric vehicle with the greatest range is the Tesla Roadster with a battery range of ~1000 km at full charge.
The other company headed by Musk is SpaceX. SpaceX aims to put people on Mars and reduce the cost of space travel. In total, SpaceX has launched 112 rockets, landed 74 rockets, and re-flown 54 rockets.
In the year 2020, SpaceX launched 26 rockets and had their 100th successful mission; one of their most recent launches was on February 2, 2021. This launch was not a successful one, as the rocket was launched Tuesday at 1:19 PM and they attempted the landing 28 hours later Wednesday at 5:14 PM.
The footage was broadcast to the world which ended in a large explosion and the loss of the rocket. In 2021, the company plans to launch 40 rockets with the hopes of landing all of them and reusing as many as possible, while also optimizing space travel so that year the human race will be able to live on Mars.
Elon Musk is a connoisseur for the future. He is the man who can make the world and the other planets in our solar system a place that can be lived on for many generations.
Photo credit: Getty Images
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