Among the talents of Ilona Mask, the profession of an architect does not appear. However, according to Jan Böhlen, Rector of the German School of Design at the Karlsruhe University of Art and Design, Musk is the greatest living architect in the world.
Boehlen argued that this billionaire thinks on a more ambitious scale than anyone else living today, and through his business is changing the world.
“Elon Musk is the greatest architect of our time,” Jan Böhlen told Dezeen. – He builds the largest infrastructures around us. And he doesn’t even ask anyone for permission to do this. He just does it. It expands on the concept of architecture. He uses his imagination to design projects that no one else would have thought of. “
Speaking of the concept of the Hyperloop High Speed Travel Mask, Yang Byelen states, “This is even more than China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Now he is going to colonize Mars. And all this is in the hands of one person. “
“I think we need more visionaries,” added Belen. – We need visionary ideas for the world. Elon Musk’s strength lies in the fact that he does not deal with the restrictions that are imposed on us or that we impose on ourselves. He is a real thinker with a rich imagination. We need these people with their imaginative thinking. “
But looking at the range of topics of interest to Musk, one can inevitably ask the question: “Is he a human being?”
Especially if you remember that not so long ago Elon Musk announced that his company Neuralink, which develops intelligent technologies, is preparing to introduce its first implant for reading the minds of a human recipient with a chip “embedded” directly into the skull …
Elon Musk himself, speaking not so long ago in front of the Russian audience within the framework of the New Knowledge marathon, jokingly said: “I am often asked if I am an alien. Of course, an alien. “
In light of the popularity of conspiracy theories about the reptilians ruling on Earth, there will certainly be those who will take this statement seriously. But for all its unusualness, the Musk phenomenon has a completely terrestrial origin.
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Elon Musk was born half a century ago in South Africa, in Pretoria, in the family of engineer Errol Musk and model and finalist of the Miss South Africa contest, Canadian by birth, May Haldeman. The future tech guru was named after his great-grandfather John Elon Haldeman, who was born in 1872.
In his childhood in South Africa, Elon, who remained with his father after his parents divorced, devoted almost all his free time to reading – and, as you know, they do not like smart people. Unsurprisingly, Musk was bullied at school by his classmates. Once the boys pushed him down the stairs – and Ilona had to be hospitalized.
When the boy turned ten, he was presented with a computer on which Musk quickly learned to program. And already at the age of 12, the future billionaire earned $ 500: he sold his first program – the video game Blastar.
Despite the fact that his father insisted that Elon go to college in South Africa, the guy himself decided to move to the United States. “I remember thinking and seeing that America is a country where great things are possible more than in any other country in the world,” Musk later recalled.
Since it was easier for him to get to the States from Canada, Elon, shortly before his 18th birthday, moved to the Country of the Maple Leaf and got a Canadian passport thanks to his mother.
Well, and then Musk, after studying at Queens University, transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Physics degrees. And in 1995 he entered Stanford University to get a PhD in applied physics and materials science. But the music did not play for long – and after a couple of days, Elon left Stanford to launch his first startup, Zip2 Corporation. This company was so successful in developing software for the media that in 1999 Ilon and his brother Kimbal managed to sell their startup for $ 307 million.
Musk became one of the founders of the electronic payment system, which also brought him tens of millions of dollars. And nearly twenty years ago, Elon Musk founded his third company – SpaceX, where he invested $ 100 million received from the sale of his previous projects.
Back in the early 2000s, a little-known young Elon Musk came to Russia to buy converted ICBMs, in which he was going to launch mice to Mars. As the author of the biography of the billionaire Ashley Vance writes, Musk did not agree on the price with his Russian partners, who did not take him seriously, and flew back without missiles. And there is an opinion that it was allegedly on the way from Russia that Musk decided to build missiles on his own …
Already at the end of 2008, NASA signed a $ 1.6 billion contract with Musk for 12 launches of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, as an alternative to the shuttles after the termination of their launch program in 2011.
And in 2019, Musk unveiled a reusable spacecraft capable of transporting people and cargo to the Moon or Mars. At a time, the ship will be able to carry up to 100 people and take on board a large amount of cargo, which will allow, according to the head of Space X, to colonize other planets.
And, of course, a kind of crown – bye! – The billionaire innovator’s activity was last year’s successful launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft from Cape Canaveral.
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Elon Musk can hardly be called “white and fluffy”. He is full of ill-wishers, envious people.
Not so long ago, a picture with the image of Elon Musk and the appeal: “Protect billionaires. We are the same as you. ” Of course, a storm arose in social networks around such “arrogance” on the part of one of the richest people on the planet. But as the fact-checking organized by USA Today showed, the billboard calling to protect billionaires was not real. It was created by a designer specializing in digital art on Instagram. However, the fact remains: the rich are not well liked.
Yes, and Musk himself readily provides reasons for trenches of harsh criticism to fall on him on various occasions.
Take, for example, his position related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Musk has been accused of spreading misinformation about the virus, including claiming that 3 death statistics are being manipulated. The billionaire said that “children are practically immune” to SARS-CoV-2 and called the “panic” over the coronavirus “dumb.”
Musk has repeatedly criticized and violated the restrictions imposed due to the pandemic. In March last year, he predicted that by the end of April there would be “almost zero new cases” in the United States – and, apparently, got his finger in the sky. The publication Politico called this statement one of the “most audacious, confident and completely wrong predictions” for 2020. ” So the “visionaries” have mistakes.
In June, hackers from the Anonymous group accused Musk of overly influencing cryptocurrencies through Twitter posts and neglecting the investments of ordinary people. Cyber burglars declared war on the billionaire: “While hardworking people are dashed by your public hysteria, you continue to mock them with memes while in one of your mansions. You may consider yourself the smartest person, but now you have met your equals. We are Anonymous. Our name is legion. We are going”.
Indeed, Elon Musk’s Twitter posts had a strong impact on cryptocurrency quotes. So, when he mentioned bitcoin in his signature on a page on a social network in January, its cost sharply exceeded the level of 37 thousand dollars. Later, Musk began to mention another cryptocurrency more often, Dogecoin, which caused its growth. And a few weeks ago, the billionaire again caused Bitcoin to fluctuate when he joked on the social network about his parting with this cryptocurrency, attaching a broken heart emoji – which led to a serious drop in the Bitcoin exchange rate.
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