Elon Musk: A journey of the latest billionaire in top 10 richest people category- Part 1

Elon Musk's net worth passed Warren Buffett's after Tesla stock reached an all-time high. This made Musk the 7th richest man in the world. On the other hand, after donating almost $3 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock, Buffet shrank to the 12th place. Musk's net worth as of now is 6,090 crores USD.

Elon is famous for making controversial statements. He has even said that Tesla stock is likely overvalued. But that hasn't stopped investors from pushing the price high enough to make it the most valuable car company.

Here's a brief of Elon Musk 's professional journey

In 1995, Elon Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started Zip2, a web software company. He raised money from a small group of angel investors. The company developed and marketed an internet city-guide for the newspaper publishing industry. There were maps, directions and vector graphics mapping and direction code. Musk did it using Java. Then, in early 1999, City Search acquired Zip2 and Musk got 7% shares along with 22 million dollars.

Next month, Musk co-founded X.com. It was an online financial service and e-mail payment company. Then, a year later, the company merged with Confinity, which had a money-transfer service called PayPal. He sold PayPal to eBay in 2002 and got a whopping 165 million dollars from the deal.

Earlier, to selling off PayPal, Musk ideated a private space mission to Mars. The idea behind this was to "land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith, in an attempt to reawaken public interest in space exploration."

In 2013, Elon Musk envisioned Hyperloop. The idea was to create a fast and competent fast travel machine. Musk assigned a dozen engineers from Tesla and SpaceX who worked for nine months, establishing the conceptual foundations and creating the designs for the transportation system. Musk, in 2017, said that he had received what he described as "verbal government approval" to build a hyperloop from New York City to Washington, D.C., stopping in both Philadelphia and Baltimore. In December 2015, Musk announced the creation of OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company. OpenAI aims to develop artificial general intelligence in a way that is safe and beneficial to humanity.

The company that made Elon Musk the 7th richest man- Tesla

Tesla, or Tesla Motors, was not the active idea of Musk. He financed the Series A funding to become the Chairman of the company. He envisioned Tesla Motors as an energy-clean technology company and an independent automaker. The company aimed at eventually offering electric cars at prices affordable to the average consumer. In February 2017, Tesla Motors shortened its name to Tesla, Inc.

Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design. He was the person who insisted from the beginning on a carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer body and the design of components ranging from the power electronics module to the headlamps and another styling.

Tesla's "master plan", as Musk said was:

Build sports cars. Use that money to build an affordable car. Use that money to build an even more affordable car. While doing above, also provide zero-emission electric power generation options.

And that is the company rose. From selling 4,900 cars in Q1 of 2013 to selling 90,650 cars in Q2 of 2020, Tesla came a long way. On March 9, 2020, the company produced its 1 millionth electric car, becoming the first auto manufacturer to achieve such a milestone.

Unlike many traditional manufacturers, Tesla operates as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), manufacturing powertrain components for other automakers. Tesla has had partnerships with other auto manufacturers, such as Daimler and Toyota. It is partners with Panasonic in R&D and production of batteries and solar panels. Tesla also has a range of minor partnerships, for instance working with Airbnb and hotel chains to install destination chargers at selected locations.

Overall, the company, that Musk envisioned to bring change in the lives of the people, took to become the biggest EV company in the world.

Philanthropy

Musk is known to give in to a charity for scientific purposes. Elon Musk is chairman of the Musk Foundation, which states its purpose is to provide solar-power energy systems in disaster areas as well as other goals. In 2010, the Musk Foundation collaborated with SolarCity to donate a 25 kW solar power system to the South Bay Community Alliance's hurricane response centre in Coden. In July 2011, the Foundation donated US$250,000 towards a solar power project in Sōma, Japan, a city that had been recently devastated by a tsunami.

He has also donated to Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe when Nikola Tesla's grandnephew asked him to. Very recently, he donated 5 million yuan to China to control the Coronavirus outbreak.

Musk has over 25 awards to his name under the entrepreneur category and his down-to-earth, carefree attitude makes him an inspiration for the fictional character Iron Man.