Elon Musk, the man behind SpaceX, Tesla and PayPal, started on his path to success by reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.
Worth an estimated $3.5bn, Elon Musk is one of the world’s best-known innovators, bringing electric cars to the masses and deliveries to astronauts.
Musk has been heavily involved in three of this age’s biggest businesses and even inspired Robert Downey Jnr’s portrayal of Iron Man. But he wasn’t just born with these companies, this persona. As the below infographic by Anna Vital shows, Musk started out just like anyone else.
A thirst for knowledge and a few good decisions later and he was on his way to becoming an artificial intelligence, electric car and spacecraft supremo – a name as big as any in the world of technology.
At the beginning of last year, for example, Musk joined the likes of Stephen Hawking to sign an open letter calling for greater regulation of AI technology over fears of it one day running amok.
Last week, his SpaceX rocket finally, after numerous failures, landed successfully on a drone ship after delivering cargo into space. Tesla’s first ‘affordable’ electric car, the Tesla Model 3, although well over 18 months away, has secured hundreds of thousands of orders.
One man is the driving force behind all that, and here’s how he did it:
Elon Musk image via OnInnovation/Flickr