THE BILLIONAIRE WHO IS CHANGING THE WORLD: ELON MUSK

Elon Musk has had an interesting life so far to say the least. Born in South Africa and raised by his father who was an engineer and his mother who was a nutritionist, he soon moved to Canada as a teenager when his parents divorced. By the time he was 24, he sold his first company, Zip2, which was a web software company that provided maps and directories to online newspapers, to Compaq Computer Corp in 1999.

WHO IS ELON MUSK?

Born on June 28, 1971, Elon Reeve Musk is a Canadian-American entrepreneur, engineer, and magnate. Musk earned a degree in both physics and economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He is listed by Forbes as the 53rd richest person in the world as of August 2018. In September 2017, he was ranked 21st on Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People. Some of his goals are sustainable energy production and consumption, as well as reducing the risk of human extinction by establishing a human colony on Mars.

WHAT DOES ELON MUSK DO?

Musk became a billionaire at the age of 30 after he sold his company, PayPal, to eBay. He started SpaceX in 2002 with $100 million of his own money and won a NASA contract in 2008 to build cargo ships to send supplies to the International Space Station. He was also born in South Africa and moved to Canada with his family when he was 17. Musk wants people on Mars. His ultimate goal is to establish a human colony that can sustain itself independently from Earth. When questioned about how many people he expects will live on Mars by the end of this century, Musk said: I think it's important for us to be on as many planets as possible.

WHAT ARE HIS GOALS?

In 2012, he outlined his desire to put people on Mars. In 2015, he founded The Boring Company, which intends to build underground tunnels for cars and high-speed trains. His most recent venture was in March 2018 when he announced that SpaceX has been approached by two customers about putting payloads of over 100 pounds on Mars .

HOW HE DEALS WITH PRESSURE?

Many people might be familiar with Elon's successes in the automotive industry, but many are unaware of his recent ventures into space exploration. By founding a company dedicated to manufacturing rockets for NASA and SpaceX, he changed how we view space travel forever. Like all great inventors, he knows that it's not enough to just dream up something--to make it happen you need to take a risk and make sacrifices.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HIM?

Elon Musk has had a profound effect on society because of his creations and inventions. If not for him, we would be just about where we were before, especially considering how he's managed to innovate our life and give us all easier ways to commute in these modern times. In fact, without him, humanity might have been even more primitive than it was with our limited resources and inventions. Just imagine how far away from modern times we would be if his developments never existed.