Did you know that Robert Downey Jr took character advise from Elon Musk back in 2008 when he was shooting for Iron Man? And do you know that Elon Musk is richer than Iron Man? Yes, that’s right. Elon Musk’s enthusiastic embrace of technology and his pursue the dreams of achieving technological breakthrough made him a close real-world referent for Marvel’s billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark. He appeared in Iron Man 2 as well, but at that stage Robert has stolen the show.
Who is Elon Musk & for what is he famous for? (summary)
Born in South Africa in 1971 to an American mother and a South African father, he was always fond of computing (coding). He made his first $500 at the age of 12, selling computer games he had coded for the magazine PC & Office Technology. In 1989, he paid off his tuition fees at Pennsylvania university by arranging house parties.
His first break came in 1995, when he and his brother Kimbal started the web software company Global Link Information Network, which created and licensed online guides to cities to newspapers. The company rebranded as Zip2 and won contracts with the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, before selling to Compaq in 1999 for more than $300m.
Musk reinvested those proceeds into X.com, an online financial services and payment company, which became PayPal – customers found the name X.com confusing, and some assumed it was pornographic in nature, according to the firm’s market research. PayPal grew rapidly, but largely without Musk; he was pushed out as chief executive in 2000, but remained on the board with enough stock to get a windfall of $165m when the company was sold to eBay in 2002.
In 2001, he started thinking seriously about spaceflight, driven by a desire to send a rocket to Mars. The dream hardened into a genuine goal towards the end of the year, according to an early SpaceX investor, when a back-of-an-envelope calculation on the cost of rockets convinced Musk that the cost of reaching orbit could be slashed tenfold.
In 2004, Musk invested heavily in an electric car company called Tesla Motors, founded a year earlier by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk’s early investment and active role bought him the right to call himself a co‑founder, and he took over as chief executive in 2008. The same year the firm shipped its first car: the Roadster, a luxury sports car.
How rich is Elon Musk?
Elon Musk, is not only a billionaire-entrepreneur, but is also the richest person alive. On the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, he ranks first with a net worth of $ 252 billion. He is also on top of the Forbes Rich List with a net worth of $264 billion [source: https://www.businesstoday.in/ ]
source: Visual Capitalist
With Twitter been the highlight of the month globally, Elon Musk’s name came up across all media channels, which of course isn’t a mystery.
Why Elon Musk is planning to buy Twitter?
“Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” he said Thursday. “I don’t care about the economics at all.” – Elon Musk
With 81 million followers on a platform like Twitter, getting the word out is easy. So why not own the company?
But, with a tech company planning to have a new chairman shortly, the tension inside the company is ever increasing as employees are wondering how the management will be under the billionaire’s watch as news of Elon Musk’s takeover bid of the company spread across the service on Thursday.
To quell employee concerns, Twitter management called an emergency all-hands meeting for 2 p.m. on Thursday. It was led by Parag Agrawal, the company’s chief executive, according to five employees who attended and were not authorized to talk publicly. (source: NY Times)
In a surprise announcement, Mr Musk said he would pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, valuing it at about $40bn. It recently emerged that Mr Musk was Twitter’s biggest shareholder after he built up a large stake in the firm.
Musk mentioned that if his offer was not accepted: “I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder”.
Mr Musk also said that if the board of directors at Twitter chose to reject the offer, it would be “utterly indefensible not to put this offer to a shareholder vote”. (BBC.com)
source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514686582745284651
Twitter’s share price rose jumped by 5.3% to $48.32 in early trading, before falling back to more than $46.20 later on. Mr Musk had been invited to join the board, but Twitter announced on Sunday he had decided against it.
I made an offer https://t.co/VvreuPMeLu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022
To check Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) bid on Elon Musk’s Twitter : Purchase of Twitter SEC
Why Elon Musk select Twitter out of all social platforms?
To start with, he has suggested changes to the Twitter Blue premium subscription service, which was launched last year in Canada and Australia, including slashing the price, banning advertising and giving users the option of paying the monthly fee with the cryptocurrency, dogecoin.
With over 81 million followers to grow your own community in your own social media platform, why not buy the whole company? After all, he is the richest man on the planet. Management of Twitter already offered Mr. Musk a seat on its board after it emerged that he held a 9.2% stake in the company.
But the real question is, why not build your own platform? Well, to answer that question, Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform’s struggle for relevance and technical woes has proven that building a social network is perhaps not so easy.
While some were shocked Mr Musk rejected a position on Twitter’s board, seasoned watchers commented that accepting it would come with rules and conditions that might not be a good match for the world’s richest man and his fondness for speaking his mind on the platform.
Do you think Elon Musk owning Twitter is a bad thing to the society? Or do you think its good that social media doesn’t fall under a monopoly since Mark Zuckerberg owns majority of all other highly used social media platforms?
Let me know your thoughts!
