What You Need to Know to Understand Elon Musk

Elon Musk seems like the billionaire straight from central casting of the latest superhero blockbuster. After making his first fortune in online publishing, he moved on to build several increasingly ambitious — and lucrative — companies.

Musk is dead serious when he says things like he wants to die on Mars, “just not on impact” and outlandish enough to claim that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s understanding of artificial intelligence is “limited.” Even the name Elon seems like the name of a character whose true intentions won’t be revealed until the third act.

These days, there’s little downtime between Musk headlines. But beyond the quick-hit headlines, Musk sees a bigger picture. He has said the goals of his companies are to change the world and humanity, and he wants to reduce the risk of human extinction by establishing a colony on Mars. But first, he has to transform Twitter. 

Musk is more than just controversial. He’s one of the leading visionaries of our time. This guide offers a quick study to understand the man who once declared, “Vacation will kill you,” with little hint of irony.

In 2017, his electric car company Tesla released a new model and, within a week, Musk revealed on Twitter that he may be bipolar. All this came amidst his criticism of Zuckerberg.

“The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress,” Musk tweeted. “Don’t think people want to hear about the last two.”

Five years later, he bought Twitter and has plans to monetize tweets. Funny how life works. 

The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress. Don't think people want to hear about the last two.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2017

Maybe not medically tho. Dunno. Bad feelings correlate to bad events, so maybe real problem is getting carried away in what I sign up for.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2017

If you buy a ticket to hell, it isn't fair to blame hell …

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2017

I'm sure there are better answers than what I do, which is just take the pain and make sure you really care about what you're doing

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2017

Musk is the oldest of the three children of Maye Haldeman Musk, a model and dietician from Canada and Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer.

Elon Musk was born in South Africa on June 28, 1971, where he grew up, before moving to Canada and obtaining citizenship through his mother in 1989.

He gained U.S. citizenship in 2002.

Growing up, Musk was an avid reader, and by the age of 12, he had taught himself computer programing well enough to sell a video game he wrote to the computing magazine PC and Office Technology for about $500. A version of the game is still available online.

But Musk was also the target of bullies. According to “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,” a 2015 biography by Ashlee Vance, he was hospitalized as a teen after a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs and beat him until he was unconscious.

After moving to Canada, Musk was accepted by Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. After two years. he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he extended his studies into a fifth year to complete a double major in physics and economics.

While at Penn, Musk was housemates with Adeo Ressi, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor. Musk and Ressi ran an unofficial nightclub out of the ten-room fraternity house they rented, according to Vance’s biography of Musk.

Musk’s formal education ended in 1995, when he dropped out of a Ph.D. program at Stanford University after just two days.