Elon Musk is a tech mogul and innovator, known for his investments in companies such as PayPal and Tesla. He is a master at finding, investing in and creating companies that produce innovative technological solutions. But what did Elon Musk own at the point of his meteoric rise to fame?
Initially, Elon Musk owned a company called Zip2 Corporation. He co-founded Zip2 Corporation with his brother, Kimbal Musk, in 1995. Zip2 Corporation was an online media management platform which provided media storage and information services to big customers such as The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. Elon Musk gained millions of dollars in the sale of Zip2 Corporation to Compaq in 1999.
Besides his shares in Zip2 Corporation, Elon Musk also gathered investments in a payment processing company called X.com. X.com merged forces with Confinity to form PayPal, a convenient and popular financial processing service. When eBay acquired PayPal in the early 2000s, Elon Musk gained a handsome sum for his investments. Not to mention, he currently owns a 10.9% stake in Tesla, Inc. and is on the board of directors.
In terms of real estate, Elon Musk also has a diverse portfolio. Musk purchased a home in Bel Air, California, in 2012 for a reported $17 million. He owns a Musk Architect House in Los Angeles, California, which is close to the headquarters of SpaceX and The Boring Company. Musk also owns a mansion with an infinity pool in the fancy San Francisco suburb, Hillsborough.
Keen to focus his attention on cutting-edge technology, Elon Musk has made large investments in artificial intelligence. He co-founded OpenAI, an AI research and development organization, with several other investors in 2016 to promote AI, for research and for making it widely accessible and affordable. Consequently, in 2018, Elon Musk’s investments in OpenAI totalled $1 billion alone.
Additionally, Elon Musk also has stakes in Neuralink, a company focused on developing ways for people to interact with computers. Neuralink is investigating technology for brain-to-computer interfaces and seeks to create a pathway for humans to control computers with their brains.
Aside from investments and acquisitions, Elon Musk’s most influential company is SpaceX, a company he founded in 2002. SpaceX is a commercial space venture and reported to have raised $1.33 billion in funding by March 2020. SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecrafts, transforming the space exploration industry.
Tesla Inc.
One of Elon Musk’s most renowned companies is Tesla Inc. Founded in 2003, Tesla Inc. is a publicly-traded automaker and energy storage company. Before becoming the world’s leading electrical vehicle company, Tesla Inc. struggled to stay afloat due to accruing debt and financial losses. Musk provided the resources needed to save the company from bankruptcy. In contrast, Tesla Inc. is now one of the most valuable public companies in the world, with a market capitalization of over $310 billion
Tesla Inc. has revolutionized the automotive industry and changed the way people think about electric cars. Through the development of its vehicles, Tesla Inc. has introduced new technologies, such as autonomous driving, improved batteries and wireless charging. Tesla Inc. has also provided the resources to make electric cars more affordable, readily available and efficient.
Besides manufacturing electric cars, Tesla Inc. has also taken an innovative approach to energy production and consumption. The company produces solar panels, energy storage systems and grid-connected power stations. All of these solutions are developed to reduce domestic electricity consumption and maximize renewable energy use.
The Boring Company
The Boring Company is a tunnel engineering and transportation firm led by Elon Musk. Founded in December 2016, The Boring Company plans to revolutionize transportation via the development of subterranean tunnelling systems. To date, The Boring Company has ordered 25 tunnel boring machines, which will be used to construct tunnels for public use.
These tunnels will dramatically reduce journey times, as they will bypass traffic and enable cars to travel up to 200 miles per hour. Moreover, The Boring Company is in the process of developing a Vehicular Tunnel Network (VTN) to enable passengers to travel in autonomous electric vehicles from one point to another with virtually no delay.
Although the project is still in its early stages, the potential for a fully integrated transportation network is remarkable. The Boring Company has already completed a 2-mile test tunnel in Hawthorne, California and plans to develop a 6-mile tunnel between Dodger Stadium and the Los Angeles International Airport.
Solar City
SolarCity was a solar energy services company and one of Elon Musk’s early ventures. SolarCity was founded in 2006 by brothers, Peter and Lyndon Rive with Musk serving as the chairman. Musk’s vision for the company was to make solar energy more accessible and affordable for businesses and residents.
The company offered a range of services such as solar panel installation, solar leasing, and solar energy system design. SolarCity also produced its own solar panels, known as Solar City panels, to help reduce solar energy loss. SolarCity rapidly grew in reputation and established itself as one of the largest solar energy companies in the United States.
Unfortunately, due to increased competition and financial losses, SolarCity faced an uphill battle to remain in business. Ultimately, in 2016, Tesla Inc. acquired SolarCity in a controversial $2.6 billion deal. While the actual reasons behind Musk’s decision remain unclear, some speculate that the merger was a means of extracting more synergy and cutting costs.
Hyperloop
Hyperloop is one of the latest endeavors of Elon Musk to revolutionize transportation. Hyperloop is a transportation system that uses a low-pressure tube constructed above or below the ground to shoot pods full of passengers between two destinations. Musk proposed the concept of Hyperloop in 2013, noting that people could travel from L.A. to San Francisco in 35 minutes.
Since then, Musk and SpaceX have invested in multiple startup companies that are developing the Hyperloop concept. Additionally, a Hyperloop Competition was created to incentivize universities to develop the best Hyperloop prototype. Unfortunately, the development of a commercially viable Hyperloop system is still years away.
So far, Hyperloop has been proposed in multiple countries, including the United States, India, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. The Hyperloop concept has been well-received, but many challenges remain in terms of cost, efficiency, scalability and safety.
