Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf, to our Tree of Knowledge. 

Today's episode is on the fecund Elon Musk who is currently only one short of a soccer team.  He nearly has as many companies, with his recent acquisition of Twitter costing him a stupendous $44 billion. 

He loves to learn as shown by him reading the encyclopedia by age nine, he is not afraid to speak his mind, and he seems to be able to turn his mind to a multitude of highly technical challenges and endeavours, whilst at the same time, presenting as a charismatic figure that can both influence and move markets.

Today’s mnemonic is on his top 6 companies/foundations.

 So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

 

 

Wikipedia Summary

 

Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner, CTO, and chairman of Twitter; founder of the Boring Company and X Corp.; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the philanthropic Musk Foundation. Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes's Real Time Billionaires list as of June 2023, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, with an estimated net worth of around $225 billion according to Bloomberg and $235 billion according to Forbes.[4][5][6]

Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and briefly attended the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at age 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen's University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University. After two days, he dropped out and, with his brother Kimbal, co-founded the online city guide software company Zip2. In 1999, Zip2 was acquired by Compaq for $307 million and Musk co-founded X.com, a direct bank. X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002.

With $175.8 million, Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, a spaceflight services company. In 2004, he was an early investor in the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (now Tesla, Inc.). He became its chairman and product architect, assuming the position of CEO in 2008. In 2006, he helped create SolarCity, a solar energy company that was later acquired by Tesla and became Tesla Energy. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. The following year, he co-founded Neuralink—a neurotechnology company developing brain–computer interfaces—and the Boring Company, a tunnel construction company. Musk has also proposed a hyperloop high-speed vactrain transportation system. In 2022, his acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion was completed.

Musk has expressed views that have made him a polarizing figure. He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including that of spreading COVID-19 misinformation. In 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk for falsely tweeting that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. Musk stepped down as chairman of Tesla and paid a $20 million fine as part of a settlement agreement with the SEC.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk]

 

Mnemonic

Elon Musk – Top 6 Companies/Foundations Mnemonic – Musk Twitter STiNT

(Picture Elon Musk as the head of Twitter for a short stint, before he gets bored and goes on to his next project) 

1.       Musk Foundation

2.       Twitter

3.       Space X

4.       Tesla

5.       Neuralink

6.       The Boring Company

 

 

Five Fun Facts

 

1.       Musk was so keen to hit the ground running that he dropped out of his physics course at Stanford, after only two days.  He then set up his first company, Zip2, with his brother Kimbal Musk and Greg Kouri, which they sold, just four years later for more than 300 million.

 

2.      Before the mega million-dollar deals, at age 12, Elon Musk created a video game that he sold for $500 to a magazine called “PC and Office Technology”.

He also worked for a gaming start-up called “Rocket Science”.

 

3.      The early days of Tesla were not easy and at one point Musk reached out to Larry Page, Google CEO regarding the possibility of buying his company.  They allegedly agreed to a price of 6 billion in 2013 but this never came to fruition.

There has also been a rumour that Musk is going to pull Tesla out of California.  Investors have been left in the dark as to what he is really thinking.  But just for my two-bobs worth, I would never trust a guy with 10 kids that says, he’s going to pull out!

 

4.      Talent runs in the Musk genes with his mum, Maye Musk having been a model for the last 50 years.  She now has the distinction of being the oldest “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit cover model at the tender age of 74 years old.  She has also modeled for the Covergirl makeup brand.

 

5.      In 2013 Musk purchased the Lotus Esprit that was used for the movie “The Spy Who Loved Me” for almost $1 million.  The high price tag at the time was because it was modified to become an underwater car in the movie.

6. Bonus Fact:  Musk co-founded X.com which was an online bank.  X.com then merged with Confinity to form Paypal.  And Paypal was then bought by eBay for US$1.5 billion in 2002.

 

 

Three Question Quiz

 

Q.1.  Musk lived in South Africa until he was 17.  Which country did he then move to?

 

Q.2.  Musk taught himself computer programming at what age?  Options are 7, 10 or 13

 

Q.3.  Name a movie or series that Musk has appeared in?

 

Bonus Q.  Was Musk the founder of Tesla?

 

 

Mnemonic Recap

 

Elon Musk – Top 6 Companies/Foundations Mnemonic – Musk Twitter STiNT

(Picture Elon Musk as the head of Twitter for a short stint, before he gets bored and goes on to his next project) 

1.       Musk Foundation

2.       Twitter

3.       Space X

4.       Tesla

5.       Neuralink

6.       The Boring Company

 

 

Three Question Quiz Answers

 

Q.1.  Musk lived in South Africa until he was 17.  Which country did he then move to?

A.   Canada

 

Q.2.  Musk taught himself computer programming at what age?  Options are 7, 10 or 13

A.     Age 10.  Commodore Vic-20

 

Q.3.  Name a movie or series that Musk has appeared in?

A.        Iron Man 2, Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons, South Park and Rick and Morty

 

Bonus Q.  Was Musk the founder of Tesla?

A.       No, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded the company in 2003 and Musk came aboard a year later

 

 

Word of the Week

 

swizzle

[ swiz-uhl ] 

to agitate a beverage with a rod for stirring highballs and cocktails.

a tall drink, originating in Barbados, composed of full-flavored West Indian rum, lime juice, crushed ice, and sugar: typically served with a swizzle stick.

 

Example

With all the money Elon Musk has, you wonder why he doesn’t just buy an island a swizzle stick and drink swizzle cocktails to his heart’s content.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]

 

 

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References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

https://financebuzz.com/elon-musk-facts

https://www.scrolldroll.com/interesting-facts-about-elon-musk-his-futuristic-venture-tesla/

https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/swizzle-2022-11-20/