Elon Musk, often dubbed the “real-life Tony Stark,” built a business empire by repeatedly betting on industries others considered too established to disrupt. The article says that despite several ventures nearly collapsing financially, they became among the world’s most valuable businesses. Today, Musk is described as the world’s richest person and the first to reach a net worth of $1 trillion, with interests spanning electric cars, rockets, artificial intelligence, brain implants and underground tunnels.
His path began at age 12, when he sold the source code for a computer game to a computer magazine for about $500. His first major business move came in 1995 with Zip2, a company that helped newspapers put local business directories online. Four years later, Zip2 was sold for more than $300 million, giving Musk about $22 million. He then put that money into X.com, an online banking startup that became part of PayPal, a deal that brought him another $176 million.
Much of his wealth, however, came from owning shares in the companies he founded and developed. SpaceX, launched in 2002, is presented as his crown jewel. Musk initially thought the company had less than a 10% chance of succeeding, but it is now among the world’s most valuable firms, after a public offering pushed its market value above $2 trillion. Alongside rockets, SpaceX controls Starlink, a satellite internet provider, and is tied to Musk’s ambitions in AI and the X social network.
Tesla, which Musk has led since 2008, grew from a niche electric-car maker into one of the world’s most important companies. The article notes that political activity by Musk has caused sales disruptions, but his focus is now on autonomous driving, robotaxis, and the Optimus humanoid robot. Tesla bought SolarCity in 2016, expanding into solar energy and battery storage, and its current value is about $1.5 trillion. Musk’s empire also includes Neuralink, which is testing a brain-computer interface in early clinical trials, and The Boring Company, which is building underground tunnels, including Las Vegas’s Vegas Loop.
