"What's driving Elon Musk?"

CREATIVITY & DISRUPTION 

What's driving Elon Musk?

By Amit Katwala  via Wired UK

Elon Musk is a science-fiction character. That’s how one friend puts it. In some ways, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is the archetypical cartoon billionaire – Tony Stark meets The Simpsons’ Hank Scorpio – with the rockets, the rollercoaster personal life and the fast cars – one of which is currently speeding away from us at 13,000kph. Those who know Musk talk about the inevitability of his own ascension to the stratosphere. After setting up online mapping and directory service Zip2 in 1995 with his brother Kimbal, and netting $22 million from its sale four years later, Musk ploughed much of that money into X.com, an online bank. That eventually became PayPal, which scored him a further $165 million. Musk then found another interest, and has dedicated the last 17 years of his life to it. Saving humanity from itself, as he sees it, is what wants to achieve through electric-vehicle company Tesla, rocket firm SpaceX, plus interests in energy startup Solar City, brain-hacking company Neuralink, tunnel-construction firm The Boring Company, and, of course the hyped Hyperloop. Musk’s entrepreneurial journey has been characteristically unpredictable. “He is absolutely burning the ships to shore. There is no way back. The only way to go is forward and through” Dave Lyons, former director of engineering, Tesla. Money may be a means to a larger end for Musk, but his fascination with storytelling,  “You don't get the feeling that he wants to be a billionaire, or that he wants to be famous. He wants to save humanity” Scott Halderman, uncle.