Tesla CEO Elon Musk Troubled Friendships During School Days

[CEONEWS=Reporter Oh Young-joo] Who was the central figure in the recent U.S. presidential election? Trump and Harris? No, it was Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, who was at the heart of it all. It was Elon Musk's Tesla, with its focus on electric cars, that everyone thought would support Harris instead of Trump. In reality, many large corporations backed Harris, but they failed. Elon Musk, with his firm belief that Trump would be elected, strongly supported him, ultimately becoming the "head of government efficiency" in the Trump administration.
 

Troubled Friendships During School Days... Started His Company at 24 Elon Musk was born in 1971 in the Republic of South Africa. Unlike today, his childhood was unhappy. He struggled to adapt to school life and was so engrossed in reading that he did not have smooth relationships with his peers. However, his genius was evident from a young age. A prime example is when he created video games and sold them to a computer magazine at the age of 12. He also had to serve in the military. At that time, South Africa had a conscription system, and Musk was no exception. He wasn't particularly negative about the military, but he did not want to join because the South African army was involved in the apartheid policy at the time. In this situation, his mother became his savior. Since she was Canadian, it was easy for Elon Musk to obtain Canadian citizenship according to the law. At 17, Musk moved to Canada, completed his college education there, and entered a Ph.D. program at Stanford University but dropped out after just two days. In 1995, at the age of 24, he jumped into the entrepreneurial world by founding a company called ZIP2, which provided regional information services. After making some money, he targeted the online financial market and succeeded with PayPal, an email payment service. He then embarked on his grand dream project to save humanity.

 

His Plans Always Surpassed Expectations... From Eco-Friendly to Space Elon Musk's plans are meticulous and consistently surpass everyone's expectations, just like he supported Trump in this election. Musk founded a company called Space-X. On Earth, nuclear weapons capable of exterminating all of humanity are scattered all over. In Musk's view, humanity, bearing this risk, must find an alternative, and pioneering another colony would be the best solution. First, Musk chose Mars, one of the closest planets, as his new colony. He then planned to launch a rocket toward Mars. However, people's reactions were cold. Most laughed at Musk for having unrealistic dreams. In reality, they even attempted rocket launches. But things did not go according to plan. After failing three times and facing bankruptcy, Musk did not give up. He finally succeeded on his fourth attempt, leading to Space-X signing an astronomical contract with NASA, continuing Musk's success story. Musk is also introducing another plan: electric vehicles to replace existing internal combustion engine vehicles in response to the climate crisis. Indeed, electric vehicles first appeared in the early 20th century. However, they were overshadowed by internal combustion engines in terms of fuel efficiency and eventually faded into history. Musk believes electric vehicles are necessary to slow down the climate crisis because they are much more eco-friendly when powered by electricity compared to fossil fuels. However, fuel efficiency was also an issue. Nevertheless, Musk challenged himself in this area and ultimately achieved innovation, improving the fuel efficiency that had been problematic for electric vehicles. He also made innovations in solar systems. Existing solar systems appeared inefficient due to high initial installation costs. However, Musk managed to reduce prices by introducing more efficient panels and turning them into a cost-saving model, further reducing the price burden through a solar panel rental business, thus lowering the barrier to solar adoption.

Was the Twitter Acquisition a Failure? Was acquiring Twitter a failure? Elon Musk's obsession with Alphabet X goes back to the birth of PayPal. At that time, Elon's X.com, competing in fintech businesses like Peter Thiel and Max Levchin's Confinity, decided to merge after a conflict, but there was disagreement over the new mission of the merged company. Musk pushed for X.com, but it was opposed by other board members who thought it was inappropriate. Despite this, when Musk persisted, the board sought advice from an advisory group composed of several focus groups, but they also objected, saying it "sounded more pornographic than a reputable company name." However, Musk did not relent, and in September 2000, Thiel and Levchin conspired with the board to oust Musk as CEO while he was on vacation, then installed Thiel as CEO and rebranded it to what is now PayPal. Musk has since reacquired the X.com domain from PayPal, unable to let go of his obsession, and his fixation has resulted in the Twitter rebranding, which caused trillions to tens of trillions of dollars in brand value losses.

What Role Will He Play in Trump's Administration? Elon Musk's personal political orientation is conservative, but he was not a Trumpist. In his autobiography, he stated, "I am not a fan of Trump; he is destructive." He is not a supporter of President Joe Biden either, but he mentioned that he would have voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election if he had voted. On October 5, 2024, Musk gave a speech of support at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where former President Trump had been shot. On November 6, 2024, as Donald Trump's presidential candidacy was confirmed to win, Trump thanked his supporters in Palm Beach. His family and running mate Vance were present, and he also mentioned Elon Musk, not sparing any praise for Tesla's rocket technology, devoting a significant amount of time to Musk. He is slated to be appointed as the first minister of the newly established Ministry of Government Efficiency following Trump's election.