Elon Musk Infographic

Elon Musk:

The Most Man in the World

(Insert your own opinion here)

You may not have heard of him, but Elon Musk is actually a pretty big deal (just ask him). He’s founded or co-founded some very successful companies, though he’s probably best known for being the public face of Tesla, a pioneer and leader in electric vehicles. Here’s a look at the companies he built and how he became the richest man in the world for a time. Will he regain that crown, or will his increasing appetite for risky and speculative ventures pull him in too many directions at once?

presents

Role: Co-founder Valuation: Sold for $307MM

Role: Co-founder Valuation: Sold for $1.5B

Role: Co-founder Valuation: $137B (est.)

Role: Early backer Valuation: Bought by Tesla for $2.6B

Role: CEO Valuation: $520B

Role: Co-founder Valuation: $29B (est.)

Role: Founder Valuation: $5.7B (est.)

Role: Co-founder Valuation: $500M - $1B (est.)

Role: CEO and “Chief Twit” (his words) Valuation: Purchased for $45B

The Pitch: The Yellow Pages for the 21st century. • Elon’s first startup • Co-founded the online business directory with his brother in 1995 • Sold Zip2 to Compaq in 1999

The Pitch: Pay anyone—or get paid—online in seconds. • Elon’s second startup • Began as online bank X.com in 1999 • Merged with fellow startup Confinity to form PayPal • PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 • In 2015, eBay spun off PayPal into an independent publicly traded company

The Pitch: A private company making space travel cheaper than governments ever could. • Founded in 2002 by Musk and aerospace engineer Tom Mueller • Elon used some of his $180M earnings from PayPal sale to launch SpaceX • Manufactures its own launch rockets, rocket engines and spacecraft • Also operates the Starlink satellite network

The Pitch: We’ll make solar power as cheap and accessible as any other energy. • Founded by two of Elon’s cousins in 2006 • Sold solar energy systems to residential, commercial and industrial customers • Was the largest residential installer of solar panels in the U.S • Acquired by Tesla in 2016 and folded into Tesla Energy, their clean energy division

The Pitch: The first EV that everyone will want to drive. • Founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning • Tesla raised their first major funding in 2004, which included $6.5 million from Elon Musk • Musk became CEO in 2008 • Currently the largest automaker in the world by market cap

The Pitch: Develop hyper-advanced AI technology to benefit humanity • AI research company founded in 2015 by a consortium of VC investors, technologists and tech companies • Elon left the board of directors in 2018 due to conflicts of interest with Tesla’s AI research • OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022 to generally amazed feedback

The Pitch: Eliminate soul-destroying traffic with super-fast underground tunnels. • Founded in 2016 to create networks of tunnels to move people and cargo around cities faster • They claim their Loop concept will one day be able to shuttle people through tunnels in pods at up to 150mph

The Pitch: What if we could control computers with our minds and bio-hack our brains? • Founded in 2016 by Elon and a group of seven scientists and engineers • Manufactures small devices to implant in the brain to treat serious diseases and, eventually, enhance cognition

The Pitch: Twitter sucks, but I can fix it. • Elon finalized a deal to take Twitter private in October 2022 after making an unsolicited offer for the company • Upon taking control, ousted the CEO, CFO and over 50% of its workforce • Aims to remake the company and take it public again in the future

Elon’s Companies

How Much Is Elon Musk Worth?

Sources for value estimates: Barron’s, CNBC, Wall Street Journal. Tesla valuation as of 4/30/23.

$350

(in billions)

$300

$250

$200

$150

$100

$50

Jan 2014

Jan 2015

Jan 2016

Jan 2017

Jan 2018

Jan 2019

Jan 2020

Jan 2021

Nov 2021

Jan 2022

Jan 2023

Mar 2023

$7.9B

$10.6B

$12.3B

$10.7B

$20.0B

$24.1B

$27.6B

$170B

Passes Jeff Bezos to become world’s richest person

$338B

(high point)

$270B

$138B

$187B

Source: Bloomberg

Tesla: A History in Four Cars

The Founding

Early Investors

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Contrary to popular belief, Elon Musk isn't the original brainchild of Tesla. And while he’s surely played a huge role creating the company we know today, he doesn’t deserve all the credit. Tesla Motors (the original company name) was founded in 2003 by two engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. With all the good buzz around GM’s experimental EV1 all-electric car in the late 90s, the pair set out to create an all-electric model of their own. What would set Tesla apart? Eberhard wanted to build “a car manufacturer that is also a technology company”—with the battery, software and proprietary motor all designed and produced in-house.

Series A: In February 2004, Tesla Motors raised $7.5 million in series A funding—with $6.5 million of it coming from Elon Musk, who soon became the company’s chairman of the board of directors. Series B: In February 2005, Tesla went back to the well for another round and raised $13 million, mostly from Elon and venture capital firm Valor. Series C: The hype around Tesla was starting to build, and in May 2006—two months before the announcement of the Tesla Roadster—a third round raised $40 million from investors including J.P. Morgan, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the co-founders of Google), and (yet again) Elon.

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The Roadster:

Tesla’s First EV

Range:

0-60mph:

Top Speed:

Launched:

Price:

Officially revealed to the public in July of 2006, the Roadster was Tesla’s first production car. This stylish all-electric sports car had a range of around 250 miles on a single charge. The biggest problem? Its battery took 24-48 hours to fully charge on a home outlet. Not to mention it carried a hefty price tag of over $100,000—not so affordable for the general population. While Tesla’s original Roadster model has been discontinued, it’s become a bit of a collector’s item—some have sold for over $250,000. But all was not well with Tesla behind the scenes. Co-founder Martin Eberhard was asked to step down as CEO by the board of directors (led by Elon Musk) in August 2007. By January 2008, both he and fellow co-founder Marc Tarpenning had left Tesla completely, and Elon became CEO in October 2008. Amidst the turmoil, Tesla ran into more financial troubles in 2009 with only $10 million cash on hand. The solution? Mercedes-Benz bought a 10% stake in the company for $50 million, plus a cool $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. Tesla now had plenty of capital to keep growing.

Come January 2012 it was out with the Roadster—in came the Model S in June of that same year. While this initial lineup of Model S cars boasted a 265-mile range on a single charge, they missed the mark in terms of affordability at $106,000 before tax credits. 2012 was also the year Tesla built its first set of Superchargers, giving Tesla drivers access to charging stations that were much faster than typical wall outlets. In 2014, Musk and Tesla became even more ambitious and announced Tesla Autopilot, a highly advanced driver-assistance system. In September that same year, the company rolled out Autopilot Hardware 1.0, which was included in all future Model S vehicles.

Model S:

The First Breakthrough Model

2008

$109,000

244 miles

125 mph

3.7 seconds

0-60mph:

3.9 seconds

130 mph

Top Speed:

265 miles

Range:

Price:

$106,000

2012

Launched:

0-60mph:

5.6 seconds

130 mph

Top Speed:

220 miles

Range:

Price:

$35,000

2017

Launched:

In 2016, Tesla teased its lowest-priced car ever, which became available for purchase in July of 2017. The Model 3 was a big hit with consumers—so big, in fact, that Tesla struggled to keep up with the demand. In August of 2017 the Model 3 had around 455,000 reservations. Plagued with production problems and rollout delays, Tesla soon became one of the most shorted companies in the market. The situation started to spiral even more in August 2018 when Musk tweeted plans to take Tesla private at $420/share, a premium of more than 20% above the share price at the time. While it never came to fruition, it did cause a frenzy of trading as investors scrambled to buy shares before the anticipated privatization. This caused a 10% rise in Tesla’s stock price until trading was halted. The SEC charged Musk with securities fraud, alleging he shared false and misleading information to boost the company’s stock price. Musk ultimately settled with the SEC, agreeing to pay a $20 million fine and step down from his position on Tesla’s Board of Directors, though he remained the company’s CEO.

Model 3:

An Affordable Mass-Market EV

0-60mph:

4.8 seconds

135 mph

Top Speed:

326 miles

Range:

Price:

$60,190

2020

Launched:

Tesla started deliveries on its 5th car, the Model Y crossover SUV, in March of 2020. By January 2020, the company reached the highest valuation ever for an American automaker with a market capitalization of $86 billion. The Model Y quickly became a bestseller, leading all EVs sold in the U.S. in both 2021 and 2022. In August of 2022, Musk stated that Tesla had made more than 3 million cars. While difficult market conditions and supply chain issues made 2022 a tough year for Tesla (losing almost 70% of its value), the company’s been seeing brighter days since the start of 2023. Plans are already well underway for the first ever all-electric Semi truck, a futuristic-looking pickup truck called the Cybertruck and a new and improved Roadster.

Model Y:

The Best-Selling EV in the U.S.

SpaceX: To the Moon! (and Mars)

By some estimates, SpaceX is the most valuable privately held company in the U.S. Will they go public one day? Elon Musk has vowed that SpaceX will never go public, but he’s also said that he would buy Twitter… then he wouldn’t… then he did. So who knows? So what does SpaceX do? They build their own rockets and spacecraft, then launch them into space. Simple enough. It’s not rocket science. Interestingly, the company might never have existed if not for a small puddle of spit. Wait, what? About a year before SpaceX was founded, Musk had traveled to Russia hoping to buy rockets for a future project. This is where he met with the chief designer of the Russian National Space Agency, who got very annoyed by Musk because he insisted on talking business, while the Russians were more interested in small talk and drinks. At one point, the lead designer got so tired of listening that he spat on Musk’s shoes. On the flight back home, a deeply offended Musk decided he wouldn’t need to buy their rockets—he'd just make his own. SpaceX launched less than 12 months later.

SpaceX by the Numbers

Publicly Traded or Private

Private

Market Cap

$137,000,000,000

(Based on 1/2023 fundraising round)

Did you know?

Tesla IPO'd in 2010, the first American car company to do so since Ford in 1956.

Employees

12,000

First Rocket Launch

2006

First Rocket Launch That Didn’t Explode

2008

Rockets Launched in 2022

Price Charged per Satellite Launch

$62,000,000

How Does SpaceX Make Money?

What’s Next?

Elon’s Future Projects

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In 2016, Elon declared that a Tesla would be able to drive itself from LA to New York with no human interaction in 2017. Spoiler alert: Didn’t happen. But Tesla has offered its car owners Full Self-Driving (FSD) software for selected models since 2016—for a price between $5,000-$15,000. While the technology is not there yet, Tesla has a big advantage in terms of data. Their proprietary software has millions of miles driven autonomously (or semi-autonomously) that they can learn from and use to tweak their code. This future bet of Elon’s seems the closest to realization.

Fully Autonomous Vehicles

Ever wanted to control things with your mind? Neuralink’s vision is to make that possible, via a chip and electrodes implanted in your brain that allows it to wirelessly interface with a computer. The company’s goals include treating serious neurological disorders and, eventually, being able to enhance human cognition. This Elon venture seemed overly ambitious when it was first announced in 2017—and it probably still is. While the company has provided several examples of success of this brain implant device in animals, the FDA again turned it down for human experimentation in March 2023. The FDA had a laundry list of concerns, including whether the implant could be safely removed without causing brain damage. So we’ll see where Elon decides to go from here, but don’t plan on being able to turn the TV on with your mind anytime soon.

Neuralink

Back in 2013, Musk proposed creating a high-speed transportation system that would carry passengers in pods through a vacuum tube at 760 mph—which would get you from LA to San Francisco in just about 30 minutes. While Musk's Boring Company had started working on a mile-long Hyperloop test track in 2016, it was torn down in 2022 to make room for SpaceX employee parking. Elon’s hyperloop plans may not have panned out in California, but they seem to be proceeding in Vegas. In April 2021, the company launched the long-anticipated Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) Loop—a three-station transportation system intended to end traffic jams throughout the city. The Boring Company has 55 more stations planned, one of which includes the Vegas Loop that will run all along the Strip and downtown Las Vegas.

Hyperloop Ultra- High-Speed Rail

Elon has said many times that he believes the future of human civilization will not be confined to Earth. As one of the closest habitable planets, Mars is a logical first stop for human exploration and, eventually, colonization. It sounds like science fiction, but it may not be as far off as you might imagine. In fact, Musk’s most recent prediction has the first humans landing on Mars in 2029 (NASA, however, sees late 2030s / early 2040s as a more realistic timeline). In Elon’s thinking, this would eventually be followed by building permanent colonies on Mars, at first supported by cargo ferried from Earth before becoming self-sustaining. He has predicted that one million people will go to Mars by 2050, carried there by a fleet of 100 SpaceX Starships.

Destination: Mars

80-150 Days

“I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact.”

- Elon Musk

TIME TO FLY TO MARS

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Space Tourism

Commercial Cargo Hauling

SpaceX also offers transportation services for commercial purposes, mostly launching private satellites for companies in the communications industry. While the price tag for this cargo service runs into the millions of dollars, it’s still significantly cheaper than purchasing your own rockets and launching them into space. Think of it as Uber for satellites.

Commercial Cargo Hauling

Government Contracts

Launching cargo, satellites and astronauts into space for the U.S. government has long been a major source of revenue for SpaceX. The government does this because it’s cheaper to pay SpaceX to give them a ride than for NASA to launch the rockets themselves–mainly due to SpaceX’s reusable rockets that can be reconditioned to launch again, as opposed to the traditional one-time-use rockets employed by NASA. SpaceX has also tapped into the military defense market with Starshield, a new line of satellites designed to help the Department of Defense address U.S. national security needs. Little is known about the top-secret program, though we do know that a Starshield satellite circles Earth about every two hours.

Government Contracts

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Starlink Satellite Network

Want to take a ride to outer space? You can if you’ve got $55 million to $200 million (don’t worry, meals are included). In September 2021, SpaceX hosted a four-passenger crew of amateur space-goers aboard the Dragon Crew spaceship. Then, in 2022, a trio of billionaire space tourists blasted off into space aboard a SpaceX ship and spent a week at the International Space Station before returning to Earth. SpaceX isn’t the only player in the space tourism industry. However, other companies like Virgin Galactic (Ticker: SPCE) and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin only operate low-orbit flights that last 15-90 minutes.

Space Tourism

SpaceX’s Starlink is a network of satellites that surround the earth and provide internet access to over 40 countries. Starlink gives subscribers access to high-speed satellite internet with unlimited data, even in rural areas and remote areas, for a price ranging from $110-$500/month. During the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Starlink satellites provided internet access to the Ukrainian people when critical internet infrastructure was destroyed or cut off.

Starlink Satellite Network

(as of March 31, 2023)

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Tesla also released the Model X in September 2015, a luxury crossover SUV version of the sedan-styled Model S.

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The Pitch: The Yellow Pages for the 21st century. • Elon’s first startup • Co-founded the online business directory with his brother in 1995 • Sold Zip2 to Compaq in 1999

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