Recent Achievements of Elon Musk

Elon Musk is a South African-born engineer, industrial designer, and entrepreneur in the technology field who founded American space transportation and aerospace manufacturing firm SpaceX in 2002 and is the current CEO and Product Architect of the electric vehicle company Tesla Inc.

Born in Pretoria, South Africa on June 28th, 1971 to Canadian mother Maye Musk and an electromechanical engineer South African father, Errol Musk, the Tesla CEO has been influential in very key avenues throughout his formidable career, from being Co-founder of PayPal, Neuralink, OpenAI and Zip2 to being Chairman of SolarCity.

SpaceX

With SpaceX, Elon Musk aimed to reduce the cost of space transportation as means to enable his idea of reducing global warming and lessening human extinction by colonizing mars and the use of its space endeavors to revive public interest in space exploration.

In 2008 SpaceX launched the first privately-funded liquid-propellant rocket called Falcon 1 which was eventually superseded by the Falcon 9 and in 2010 launched a cargo spacecraft called SpaceX Dragon into orbit; the SpaceX Dragon then became the first commercially built and operated development to be successfully recovered from orbit, also superseded by the SpaceX Dragon 2.

Tesla

Elon Musk who is vehement about changing the world, humanity and the environment has contributed to his visions through Tesla, which manufactures electronic vehicles to tackle climate change, as he is against the use of fossil fuel. A quote from the official Tesla website states:

“Electric vehicles are not only important due to the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere, but also due to the reduction of poisonous gases around us. Pollutants cause about 4.2 million deaths every year globally. According to researchers, such pollutants cause more premature deaths than smoking or infectious disease. EVs not only reduce the total carbon footprint but also help to reduce city pollution.”

One of the World's Most Influential People

Elon Musk has been recognized as one of the most influential people in the world due to his contributions through his ventures.

Ranked by various magazines for his influence some of which include, Esquire Magazine’s 2008 75 most influential people of the 21st century, Time Magazine’s 2010 100 people who most affected the world, he was ranked joint first by Forbes on the list of the Most Innovative Leaders in 2019 and also named Fortune business person of the year in 2013, amongst other accolades.

5th Richest Person in the World

According to a July 2020 report, he is the fifth richest person in the world with a net worth valued at over $74 billion with the majority of his wealth tied to SpaceX and Tesla Inc. shares. In March 2020 he was valued at almost $25 billion and ranked 31st richest person in the world by Forbes but has since tripled his worth by the recent boost in Tesla stock prices. The company is now valued at nearly $300 billion according to recent reports.

Crew Dragon Demo-2 Launch

After several attempts to launch the Falcon 9 into orbit, the first crewed orbital launch finally succeeded on May 30th after close to nine years with Elon’ Musk’s Falcon 9 which was manufactured by SpaceX from the International Space Station.

Onboard the spacecraft were NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley who are expected to remain on the station for four months. Quoting Elon Musk at the Crew Dragon Demo-2 post-launch press conference, “It’s been 18 years working towards this goal. It’s hard to believe that’s happened.”

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