T - Elon Musk: Biography of the Mastermind Behind Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors

Elon Musk is primarily known for the part he played in founding the widely known electronic money transfer site Paypal.com . Though the company been the subject of several controversies, it remains the most trusted medium for Internet commerce. These days, Musk applies the same imagination and ability to innovate that he used to make PayPal a success to his leadership of Tesla Motors, of which he is presently chairman. The small automobile manufacturer appears to be on the brink of major breakthroughs the industry, seeking to create usable, practical electric cars that can truly compete with gasoline-powered vehicles. Musk, an engineer, has played an integral part in the development of the company's flagship vehicle, the Tesla Roadster.

Image via Brian Solis .

Musk is not limiting his creative capacities to online finance and battery-powered automobiles, however. He has his eye set on a goal even larger than the worlds of money and oil; namely, space. He is the chief executive officer and chief technology officer of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, a company many refer to simply as SpaceX, which won the contract to design the replacement for the NASA space shuttle. It is the larger goal of both companies to address the matter of climate change.

Musk was born in the South African City of Pretoria during the apartheid era. Musk has attributed his personal drive to his maternal grandfather, an explorer who moved to South Africa from Canada, and to the general culture of South Africa itself, which he has described as "entrepreneurial.

His family was moderately wealthy, though nowhere near as wealthy as Musk is now. Musk's father, Errol, was an electrical and mechanical engineer, and his mother, Maye, a dieticien and model. The two divorced when Musk was nine years old. Musk was physically small and considerably smarter than other children his age, and bullying was a major issue in his childhood. The stereotypical "nerd," Musk was not only a bookworm, but taught himself to program at age ten, making his first sale, a video game he had written called Blastar, to a magazine at 12. He sold the game for $500.

Musk has two siblings, a brother and a sister. His brother, Kimbal, joined him as partner in his first successful venture, Zip2. Kimbal Musk would go on to be head of his own startup, a social search engine called Oneriot, and also chef and owner of a restaurant in Colorado called The Kitchen. Musks sister, Tosca, is a film producer with over a dozen films under her belt.

In various interviews, Musk has described himself as using literature, and later, computer programming, as escape mechanisms during his childhood. Musk's favorite authors as a child included Jules Verne, Robert Heinlein, and J.R.R. Tolkien. His interest in computers developed on its own, seemingly without any encouragement from his engineer father, who told him that computers were toys that would never amount to anything. After the divorce of his parents, young Elon Musk was moved around to different schools, seven in total, and never had a chance to truly make friends. Dreams about moving to America were also in his head from a young age. He saw it as a refuge, a new frontier where smart and the innovative people like himself went to follow their dreams.

Leaving South Africa

At age 17, Musk graduated from the Pretoria Boys High School, and rather than do service in the South African Defense Force, he decided on a move to Canada, where his maternal relatives lived. He did this on his own, without the support of his parents. He has stated that he chose to move in part because he did not want to participate in the oppression of the country's mostly-black population.

Musk enrolled at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where he studied business and physics. He earned money working on the farm of a cousin, cleaning out sawmill boilers. He later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, then moved to California with the intention of studying physics at Stanford. Fate had something else in store for him, however; he decided to drop out of school and form a company called Zip2.

The Zip2 Era

Zip2 was started in 1995, at the beginning of the dotcom bubble, prior to there being any evidence of the billions of dollars that Internet startups would make in the coming years. Zip2's model was to provide content and merchant solutions for Internet companies such as one early client, The New York Times . The intention was to expand the hosting and e-commerce services to include local merchants, to help them to sell their products locally.

Zip2 functioned as a host and developer of websites and was focused on developing the fledgling concept of commerce via the Internet. From the company's inception to the point at which it was sold, Musk was again on a tight budget, running Zip2 out of the apartment in Palo Alto that he and his brother shared. The company was bought by Compaq in 1999 for $300 million, cash.

X.com Turns Into Paypal

Musk next ventured into the world of online payments, sensing an opportunity there. Within weeks of selling Zip2, Musk started X.com, which quickly absorbed and took on the name of a rival payment company called Paypal. The new company made dramatic changes to the way commerce was handled, both online and for financial transactions outside of the Internet. It came to be viewed as a viable payment option as practical as paying with cash and credit cards. The revolutionary concept came to be a pillar of online commerce.

In its early days, Paypal was the epitome of the free-wheeling, youthful and relaxed atmosphere that would come to associated with dotcom startups of the era. Paypal.com drew talented people who went on to create, or help create, other significant online entities, such as Youtube and Facebook. As a result of Paypal's incredible success, Elon Musk became a billionaire.

Tesla Motor Company

After selling Paypal, Musk moved to further his dream of reducing emissions and creating a cleaner environment. He invested a little over six million dollars in Tesla Motors. The company's plan was simple: it sought to develop a flagship electric vehicle that could hold its own against established automobile icons like Ferrari, then to create a line of luxury cars to compete with the likes of Mercedes-Benz and Toyota's Lexus line, followed by affordable, electric cars that would be mass produced. The company has since expanded its goal to include releasing an SUV after the debut of its luxury sedan.

The flagship vehicle, the Roadster, is intended to prove the viability of the electric car both to the public and to potential investors.The Roadster is a high performance, all-electric, two-seater sports car. The company later intends to market the somewhat more affordable all-electric luxury sedan called the Model S. In addition to making its own line of electric vehicles, Tesla also supplies batteries to major auto companies for use in their electric and hybrid cars. For the moment, the sale of these batteries is Tesla Motors' main source of income. Musk has said that he intends Tesla to become a fully independent auto manufacturer that specializes in zero emissions all electric vehicles. His goal is to make a major difference in the world's consumption of oil. As the Roadster's Product Architect, prior to becoming CEO, Musk won a Global Green Award that was presented to him by Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Tesla Model S is expected to ship in June of 2012, and analysts have stated the future of the company hinges specifically on how well these do in the marketplace. Tesla shares have declined in value in early February, but this was expected; investors were warned as early as 2010 that just prior to the release of the Model S, Tesla Motors' revenues would decline. Still, this has led to heavy criticism of Elon Musk's leadership abilities. Musk has said that reports of the company's financial issues are exaggerated, and that the company is in position to produce both the Model S and the upcoming Model X Crossover SUV.