Elon Musk took a major risk when he had ‘no money’ which led him to become a millionaire at just 27 years old.
Musk, now 53, is currently the richest man in the world, with a net worth of more than $428 billion, as per Forbes.
The Tesla CEO took a punt on the internet back in the mid-90s and, boy, did it pay off.
But the tech billionaire was headed on a slightly different life path before becoming mega rich.
The South African-born entrepreneur grew up in Pretoria before moving to Canada for college.
He then relocated to California to attend the prestigious Stanford University after gaining a spot on their materials sciences PhD program.
But he reportedly dropped out after just two days, instead, starting up a revolutionary company with his brother, Kimbal, in 1995.
That business – called Zip2 – would change the course of their lives forever.
What was Zip2?
Zip2 was essentially a cross between the Yellow Pages and Google Maps.
It served as a searchable business directory, at a time when, well, people didn’t really believe in the internet…
In fact, Musk, his brother and their business partner Greg Kouri were forced to live in their office to cut down on costs.
A fresh-faced Musk talks more about this during a CBS Sunday Morning interview, which you can watch below:
Anyway, Musk managed to convince electronic map company Navteq to give him free mapping software.
Taking a business listing database, Musk then wrote the necessary code to combine that and the map, creating Zip2.
Musk said that ‘everyone ought to be able to find the closest pizza parlour and to be able to figure out how to get there’.
While Zip2 initially provided local businesses with an internet presence, it later went on to help newspapers design online city guides.
In 1999, IT company Compaq bought it out for $307 million. Musk, who was 27, kept $22 million of that.
That same year, he went on to co-found direct bank X.com, which merged with Confinity to form PayPal in 2000.
In 2002, Musk acquired United States citizenship, and that October eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion.
He then used $100 million of the money he made from the sale of PayPal to found astronautics company SpaceX – which will help NASA to destroy the International Space Station.
Fast forward to the present day, and Musk is about to begin his role as an adviser to President-elect Donald Trump as part of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with trimming the US federal budget.
The new department will sit outside government but will offer guidance to the Trump White House, with Musk leading it alongside former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
That’s quite the chain of events, and I’m sure Musk would agree…
