detail from: KRK Art dizajn

ELON MUSK-AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN

Dr sci. SIMO JELAČA

Elon Musk, American businessman, the richest man in the world, owner of Tesla Motors Inc. and the scientific research company SpaceX, a man who wants to send a man to Mars in his lifetime and reach Mars himself, maybe even die on Mars.

He was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971. After his university education, he immigrated to Canada, which granted him an immigrant visa based on Maya's mother's Canadian citizenship. Before immigrating to Canada, Elon's parents separated, so Elon lived for a while with Errol's father, expressing that it was not fair that his father lived alone and his three children lived with their mother (him. brother Kimball and sister Tosca).

He studied at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and after two years he transferred to Pennsylvania University, where he graduated in economics. He took his second degree in physics. After those studies, he went to California, with the intention of enrolling for a Ph.D. at Stanford University. in applied physics. But, after only two days, he gives up and decides to start a business with his brother, in the field of computer technologies. He received American citizenship in 2002.

Based on computer games, which he fell in love with at an early age, and working with his father on engineering jobs, he also fell in love with computer jobs and activities in the fields of engineering. He joined the Pinnacle Research Institute with his brother, where they founded Zip2. The father gave them $28,000 to start. However, despite the initial difficulties, they managed to get positive income from that job. Based on information from the New York Times, the Knight Ridder company has invested 50 million dollars in Zip2, so that project has progressed more and more. And when it was sold, Elon Musk got $22 million ($18 million after tax), and his brother got $15 million. After that, Elon registered the company X.com, in which he invested 12 million, for tax purposes. The business program of that company was mainly in the domain of banking activities. Soon after that, Musk entered the production of solar collectors, the company Solar City. This is followed by work at the company PayPal, from which, after the sale, Musk receives 250 million (180 million, after tax). After that, he decided on industrial production.

He was interested in space, so he went into business with NASA, investing money in the company SpaceX, and worked on the preparation of experiments in space, with rockets, with the intention of sending a man to Mars, where he himself wants, while he is alive. to leave. He even expressed his wish that he wanted to die on Mars. The US Army also helps him in these tests. His initial tests were unsuccessful, but as the technique was perfected, the experiments became positive.

Elon Musk was still thinking about electric cars as a boy in South Africa. He read a lot, he certainly learned what Nikola Tesla did and proposed. And, when in 2003 he met with Straubel, who was already working on a model of an electric car based on lithium batteries, Musk offered him $10,000 and they made an agreement to register the company. They are then joined by Eberhard and Tempening, who invested $7 million, while Musk invested $6.5 million, making him the largest shareholder. He also brought Gene Berdichevsky, from Stanford University, who was then working on solar batteries. And finally, Musk invested another 9 million dollars, so they registered the company Tesla Motors Inc. 2004.

The production of electric car models with lithium batteries started successfully, and already in May 2006 they had a hundred employees. And then Musk added another $12 million, and everyone else added another $40 million. The first car model EP2 achieved acceleration from zero to 60 km in 4 seconds. At that time, the production of that car cost them 90,000 dollars, which was still too expensive for buyers, although some wealthier people started investing and waiting for delivery. In 2007, Tesla had 50 million dollars in the bank account, and 260 employees. As Musk had the most invested money in all the companies where he worked, he was the CEO or President of them. Since 2012 the Model S has been on sale.

In principle, Musk employed good engineers, and for workers, they say that he hired them easily and fired them even more easily. How true that is, those who have experienced it know best.

For Elon Musk, my first thought was to compare him with Nikola Tesla, but comparing their achievements, I got the impression that Musk can be better compared to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.. Nikola Tesla was born a genius, who invented new and new inventions every day, and personally put them into practice. Unfortunately, he always lacked money to implement more and more inventions into products faster. Nevertheless, he accomplished works that no one before or after him had achieved, thus advancing the entire human race to unprecedented proportions. Elon Musk is a type of engineer, who knows a lot and reads a lot, so he boldly enters into new products, and since he got his first money, he invests it in expanding his ideas. He is certainly a genius in his field of activity and makes a great contribution to the economic development of America and the world. He will certainly remain recorded in the history of the United States of America, as one of the national greats.

It is interesting to compare Elon Musk's patents with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Here's what it looks like.

Patents Applied Registered

Steve Jobs 1114 960

Bill Gates 365 73

Elon Musk 23 9

It is a fact for all authors who apply and register patents in America, that they are patents, not only of one author, but joint patents of all employed collaborators. That's how it was during the life and work of Thomas Edison, who is credited with 1093 patents, and the patents of all of Edison's associates are certainly included in that number. Therefore, the associates of Elon Musk certainly contribute to improvements in his companies.

Elon Musk has become the richest man on Earth and it is expected that he will most likely become the first man with a fortune of one trillion dollars. For now, it is evident that the value of the company Tesla Motors is 682.5 billion dollars, SpaceX 210 billion and SolarCity 3.5 billion dollars. That's a total of 895 billion dollars, of which Elon Musk has 241.7 billion personally. His wealth increased by $83.5 billion after Trump's reelection.

I respect Elon Musk as an outstanding engineer and a hardworking businessman, but I also, as an engineer, do not approve of his plans to send people to Mars. Not so long ago, I wrote about Mars research, so I wouldn't repeat it, (See the article in the Kordun Literary Workshop "Mars-Human Life Reality or Illusion") I am more determined that money and research efforts should be directed to improving living conditions on the planet Earth, because it is the only one we have on which human survival is possible.

Elon MUsk

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