The title of the world's richest man is back to Elon Musk. The No. 1 richest person according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index was recently replaced by Elon Musk from LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault. Although it fluctuates depending on the stock price, the Americans who sell "dreams and the future", not the French who sell "luxury goods and champagne", are the richest people in the world at the moment. ▶ (See related article)

It's not just the "richest people", but the world's best companies and entrepreneurs in people's minds have changed with the times. It has moved from Microsoft and Bill Gates to Apple and Steve Jobs, and arguably, Tesla and Elon Musk are now taking their place.

Elon Musk has been subjected to many comparisons with Steve Jobs. Tesla has developed a fandom comparable to Apple. However, there is also a much stronger anti than Apple. Musk's electric car is bringing innovations comparable to Jobs' smartphones. However, it presents a more vain and dangerous vision. Tesla, which is a little more "floating on the clouds" than Apple, and Musk, who is more "spicy" than Jobs. Is he an innovator, or is he more of a fraudster? Why would he blow up his achievements with controversial statements or tweets? In this newsship, let's take a look at what kind of person Elon Musk is.


The dream of "turning humanity into a 'multiplanetary race'"

Drop several nuclear missiles on Mars. This will melt the Martian ice cap and lower the temperature, making it habitable for life. Then, the spaceship will be used to relocate humans, animals and plants to live. This is not a sentence from a science fiction novel. It's Elon Musk's dream. Since his youth, Musk has made it his ultimate goal to "migrate to Mars", that is, to make humanity a "multiplanetary race" that lives on multiple planets other than Earth.

According to Musk, SpaceX's rockets and Tesla's electric cars aren't just moneymakers. It is a step towards the goal of relocating humans to Mars using rockets and making it possible to live on Mars through solar power and electric vehicles. Musk doesn't want to be a CEO who strives to maximize profits, but a savior who creates a sustainable environment so that humanity doesn't perish on its own.

With such an unparalleled sense of calling and overwhelming vision, Elon Musk has become an icon of innovation. It became the real-life model for the Marvel series superhero Iron Man. A billionaire who has a bit of an eccentric personality like Tony Stark as Iron Man, but burns his body for his beliefs and goals. That was the image of Elon Musk.


As a child who was a victim of 'rape and rape'

Who is Elon Musk, who devotes all his money and all his time to the wild dream of conquering Mars? If you look into personal details such as childhood and love history, you may get a little sense.

Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa. My childhood was unhappy. This is because he suffered from domestic violence from his father. The father, Errol Graham Musk, beat his mom in front of his son, and even when he was pregnant, he beat her to the point where he had bruises all over his body. Elon Musk rarely mentions his father, as he once said in an interview, "He did every evil thing imaginable." His father, Errol Musk, shot and killed two people and was once charged with murder. It was recognized as self-defense and was not punished.

Even at school, Elon Musk couldn't be happier. Mother May Musk says she realized her son was a genius from the age of three. He was a genius, but he didn't get along well with his friends. Elon Musk, who seemed shy and a little strange to the kids, was bullied and bullied at school. There was systematic bullying for years, and the level of violence was severe. On one occasion, a group of bullyers pushed Elon down the stairs and beat him so badly that he was hospitalized for several weeks.


"He was sweet, but he was preoccupied with his work" Musk's femininity

Elon Musk has met several women and has been married and divorced several times. After his business became successful and famous, he met glamorous people such as movie stars and singers. But my first marriage was with a couple who were studying together in college. When Musk left South Africa to attend Queen's University in Canada, he did it with Justin, with whom he was studying.

After six years of dating, they married and had twins and triplets one after the other. It was Musk who became a father of five children, but he was preoccupied with his work. Justin said, "Elon invests 6 percent of his mental energy into his work." During his first marriage to Justin and when his five children were young, Musk needed to get his first foot in Silicon Valley and get his business back on track. "There's no such thing as an eight-hour work day in Silicon Valley," Musk said, spending most of his time at the company sleeping on the sidelines. In this situation, she ends up divorcing Justin.

Musk's second marriage is to British actress Tallulah Riley. Musk, who filed for divorce from Justin and went to London on business, meets her at a nightclub. In an interview recalling their first meeting, Riley said that "Musk was sweet and shy" and that when they first went on a date, he said, "Why don't you watch the rocket video in your hotel room together?" In fact, Musk is said to have only watched footage of the rocket from his hotel room. Ten days after they met, they moved in together, and Riley raised Musk's five children. They married in London in 95 but divorced, and again Musk and Riley married for the second time before divorcing a second time in 8. In an interview with Tallulah Riley, who has been married for quite some time, you can get a sense of what kind of person Elon Musk is.



"Elon knows from experience as a kid what it's like to be on the street. So there's the trauma of being hurt by someone you believe."

- Tallulah Riley


But Musk, who manages his schedule on a minute-by-minute basis and spends all his time on work, had no choice but to part ways with Tallulah Riley. Around the time he broke up with her, Musk asked journalist Ashley Barnes, who is writing his biography. "I want to have a girlfriend. I'm thinking about 5~10 hours a week to dating. How many hours a week do women want to see their lovers? For Elon Musk, who is obsessed with achieving his goals, dating or love may be a secondary task that requires a significant amount of time.

After divorcing Justin and Tallulah Riley, Musk continues his relationships with other women. However, I don't have a relationship as long and stable as when I met the previous two. Just as Musk traveled after his business got back on track and became the richest man ever, so too does his love life and marriage in a more unique way. We'll get to that later.


Successive start-ups and reinvestments "create something that is not in the world"

Musk, who came to the United States from South Africa via Canada, is starting his first business. Together with my brother, I created a company called 'ZIP2'. ZIP2 has developed a technology that links store information to Naver, Kakao, and Google Maps. It's a technology that everyone uses naturally, and it's the way it is found on most portals, but it wasn't there at the time. After the success of ZIP2, Musk sold PC maker Compaq Computer for more than $3 million. At the age of 27, Musk, who had become a successful rich man, bought a McLaren F1 sports car and drove it around. At the time, CNN featured an interview with Musk riding a McLaren as a "successful young businessman."

After selling ZIP2 to buy a McLaren, Musk invests the rest of the money in PayPal. It's a pattern that goes on and on, where Musk succeeds in one business and then goes all-in on the next one. Whether you're a billionaire or a slumper, you've been building up a house of cards by gambling every time. What PayPal did was an attempt to bring finance and banking services online. Now, everyone uses mobile banking and payments online, but it was also an innovative technology back then.

Musk, who joined PayPal as a co-founder with Peter Thiel, became the majority shareholder with the most money. However, shortly thereafter, he was forced to remove himself as CEO in a coup d'état by the board of directors. It seems to overlap with the dismissal of Steve Jobs at Apple, which he created. PayPal's other founders and board of directors were uneasy about Musk. He was described as a "self-righteous, stubborn geek who always made the wrong decisions."

For Musk, who was ousted as CEO but retained his stake as a major shareholder, PayPal has made a lot of money. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $15.2 billion, leaving Musk with $5 million. Created by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and others, PayPal had a lot of talented engineers. Later called the "PayPal Mafia," which is considered to be the real ruler of Silicon Valley, grew up in this company. The PayPal mobsters have spawned numerous startups, including Tesla, YouTube, Palantir (AI, big data software) and Yelp.


Musk's Core (1) - Rocket

The two big pillars that made Elon Musk are rockets and electric cars. Musk, who earned more than 300 billion won by selling PayPal, invests that money in building rockets. He founded SpaceX and took on the daredevil challenge of launching the world's first civilian rocket into space. With the money invested in SpaceX, it was possible to launch only three rockets. The rocket, named Falcon 1, exploded 28 seconds after its first launch. The second launch crashed into the sea during the second stage after the first separation, and the third launch, which was thought to be the last, failed.

At that time, Tesla was also struggling with financial difficulties due to poor performance. In the meantime, the financial crisis of 2008 made investors more conservative. Many startups fail the moment the money stops flowing. Even if you're on your way to success, the moment you don't deliver solid results or lose the trust of investors, your funds will run out and your company will fail. Even if it doesn't work, if the economy is good and there's a lot of hope for investment, there will be an influx of investments, but that wasn't the case in 2008.

In this situation, Elon Musk chooses to sit on a pile of debt on his own. Combining his entire fortune with money he borrowed from acquaintances, he invested $40 million in Tesla and SpaceX. Commenting on the decision, Musk said, "The company is like a child. What would you do if your child was hungry?" I explained. At the time, Musk didn't even have a house in his name. When the head of the company showed the courage to give his all to the company, the employees' fear turned to greed. A SpaceX employee said Musk's decision was partly motivated by his "narcissistic nature." Elon Musk is a man who sees through the future and thinks that "there is no way that the future he thinks will not come."

The fourth rocket launch, made with such squeezed money, succeeded like a drama. The Falcon 1, the first civilian satellite to land in Earth orbit, brought back a lot of money. NASA has signed a $1.5 billion contract with SpaceX. Musk, who used to be the laughing stock, is now a truth preacher. Following the successes and failures of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk's reputation has changed from moment to moment.

After the successful launch of the first civilian rocket, SpaceX continues to be the world's first. For the first time, the Falcon 9 successfully landed the launch vehicle back on the ground, setting off a wave of "rocket reuse." Crew Dragon is the first time a private company has successfully launched a manned spacecraft with a crew to dock with a space station. Starship, a huge spacecraft that weighs 100 tons and can carry more than 100 people, is still conducting various experiments with the goal of exploring Mars.


Musk has said that his adventurous tendencies come from his maternal grandfather, Joshua Holdman. Joshua Holdman was driving by one day when he saw an airplane on sale and was adventurous enough to trade it for a car. He became a pilot after that day, but eventually died of a broken neck during landing. Joshua Holdman was a leading figure in the idea of "technocracy" at the time, which refers to the idea of absolute power of science. Technocracy believers believe that politicians should be eliminated and that scientists and engineers should rule the world. Musk also considers himself a "techno-utopian" and believes that technology will save humanity. Beyond believing, he seems to want to be a savior through technology.


Musk's Core (2) - Electric Vehicles

When describing Elon Musk, one thing that cannot be left out is electric cars. Electric cars existed before Musk, but after Musk, EVs have become a symbol of innovation and a "cool" image. Originally, there was a popular perception that hybrid electric cars like the Toyota Prius were "environmentalists' rides." Electric cars were more like the image of cars ridden by "" who ride fuel-efficient cars to save money on gas, or "geeks" who eat vegetarians and shout to protect the planet.

In this situation, Tesla came up with the Roadster as its first electric car. A roadster is a two-seater sports car with an open lid. A car with a zero-back time of only 3.9 seconds and no fumes. A car that can compete with Ferrari or Porsche sports cars. Tesla has created the image of an electric car as a movie star or a car ridden by the rich of Silicon Valley. In fact, one of the people who bought Tesla's first roadster was Arnold Schwarzenegger, a movie star and former governor of California.

A monster car whose zero-back is faster than an internal combustion engine vehicle. Tesla hasn't let go of this identity since the release of its mass-produced model, the Model S. The Model S Plaid released this year has a zero-back time of 2.1 seconds. The internal combustion engine supercars from Lamborghini and Porsche had a power output of 1020 horsepower. Tesla explained that the upcoming second generation of the Roadster will have a top speed of 400 kilometers per hour in 1.9 seconds of zero-back and can travel up to 1,000 kilometers on a single charge. However, the second generation of Roaster, which was supposed to be released in 2020, has not yet been released, and it has been pointed out that the specifications are quite exaggerated.

Other automakers have borrowed gasoline-engine model designs to develop electric vehicles. For companies with internal combustion engine know-how, this is a natural procedure. Tesla, which had never built a car, designed a new car from start to finish for electric cars. When Tesla built its first mass-produced vehicle, the Model S, it had a flat battery placed on the bottom of the car's chassis. Thanks to this design, the Tesla electric car has a downward center of gravity, which improves handling and greatly improves safety. In addition, the battery of the existing electric car took up space, so the passenger space and luggage compartment were narrow, and this problem was also solved. Rather, it is an electric car that has more luggage space than a similarly sized gasoline vehicle.


Tesla has changed the concept of electric cars, making cars look like smartphones. It is a vision that the car will be transformed into a 'smart car' that becomes a tool for storing software. In addition to the aforementioned "cool image" and design elements, there are too many reasons why Tesla is dominant in the electric vehicle race, such as autonomous driving, big data collection, the "Falcon Wing" with car doors that open upwards, the "Gigafactory" built in the Nevada desert, and the "Superchargers" that it has built in more than 4,000 charging stations around the world for its electric vehicle infrastructure.

Tesla, which was ridiculed for selling cars in advance and receiving investment money from a company that had never released a car, has achieved a lot in the 15 years since it released its first car. There was even a website called "Tesla Death Watch" waiting for Tesla to get, but Tesla's "Death Watch" shows no signs of coming yet.


"Why do you bother to speak up on Twitter?"

Repeated failures in the field of rockets and electric vehicles were no longer a risk. More success than failure, SpaceX and Tesla became the most advanced companies in their respective fields. The problem came from owner risk. Since his success and rise to the world's richest man, Elon Musk has generated a lot of buzz and travelogues.

After Tesla's 2018 earnings announcement, investors asked questions at a meeting, and Musk insulted them, calling them "boring and stupid questions." There was also the issue that Tesla had violated environmental regulations and dumped the waste. Worse than the problem was Elon Musk's response. The journalist who reported the story was publicly criticized on Twitter, and the employee who was identified as the whistleblower was fired.

(The rest of the story is from the soup)