English Essay (Topic 1+2)

How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future
"When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor."

Elon Reeve Musk is the oldest of three, born to a dietician and an engineer on June 28,
1971, in Pretoria. As a child, Musk was constantly lost in daydreams about inventions that
his doctors ordered a test to check his hearing. Around the time of his parents’ divorce,
when he was 10, he found himself interested in computers, He taught himself how to
program, and when he was 12 he sold his first software: a game he created called Blastar. In
grade school, Musk was short, anti-social and was considered a nerd. He was bullied until he
went through a growth spurt and learned how to defend himself through karate and
wrestling.

He briefly attended the UP before moving to Canada to attend Queen's University. He

transferred to the UPenn two years later, where he received bachelor's degrees in
economics and physics. He then moved to California to begin a Ph.D. in applied physics and
material sciences at Stanford, but decided to pursue a business career instead of enrolling.
With his brother, he co-founded Zip2, a web software company, which was acquired by
Compaq for $307 million in 1999. Musk then founded X.com, an online bank. It merged with
Confinity, which had launched PayPal the previous year.

In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport company
that rivaled NASA, of which he is CEO and lead designer. He later joined Tesla Motors, Inc.,
an electric vehicle manufacturer, became its product architect and its CEO. In 2006. In 2015,
Musk co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company that aims to promote friendly
artificial intelligence. In July 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company
focused on developing brain–computer interfaces. In December 2016, Musk founded The
Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel construction company focused on tunnels
optimized for electric vehicles.

He was ranked 25th on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People, and was
ranked on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. As of September 2020, his
net worth was estimated by Forbes to be US$93.3 billion, making him the 5th richest person
in the world.

Learning about Elon’s journey is what sparked the love of computers in me, the fact that
everything he’s done revolves around his vision to “change the world and help humanity”
inspires me. I learned from him that I shouldn’t hide, instead, I should show people what I
can do and that things won’t happen overnight but the hard work pays off in the end.
I hope what I wrote about him inspires the reader as much as it did me.

Lana Turson – Nour Harir – Lamar alMobarah – Sara AlKadi – Hiba Aabid
 Sources:

 Wikipedia

 Forbes

 Biography

 NY Times

 TED

 Britannica

 CCN

 The verge