Elon Musk Creates Future

The recent introduction of Tesla’s Cybertruck, and numerous successful launches of SpaceX (The Falcon Heavy, the PAZ satellite and the Hispasat 30W-6 satellite) continue keeping Elon Musk in the limelight. Yes, we’ve heard from — and about — Elon Musk before, but you have to admit that his endeavors as well as vision of the future are fascinating.

So who is the person whom many consider one of the most influential minds of our time? Elon Musk is a talented engineer, inventor and a successful businessman on a mission to make the future better — or to put it differently, ensure the future — for humanity.

At 48, Musk thinks BIG and does big new things boldly, not intimidated by the prospect of potential failure. (His self-assurance is likely rooted in his extra-ordinary track record. After all, he is the power behind such multi-billion companies as Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City.)

What threats to the world and the human kind does Elon Musk foresee?

• Climate change

• Humanity being taken over by artificial intelligence

• The total destruction of our natural environment that will eventually annihilate Earth along with all life on it

What’s Musk’s vision for improving and saving the world? If one were to categorize Musk’s broad agenda, he focuses on three main areas:

1/ Delaying global warming and environmental destruction by developing and facilitating renewable energy use as well as creating new, better, clean energy-powered transportation, home and industry models.

• Tesla manufactures electric vehicles (and now, the Cybertruck), energy storage and solar panels.

• Hyperloop system built by SpaceX develops high-speed terrestrial transportation technology.

• The Boring Company develops tunnels that feature internal transportation system capable of transporting cars at the speed of 125 MPH through most congested metropolitan areas.

• Powerwall is a home battery (capable of supplying energy as a backup to a solar-powered home or conventional utility home). It can power a house as its only energy supply for up to 7 days.

• Solar Roof is a revolutionary version of a solar roof (invisible!) that affords the homeowner the freedom to choose the appearance of the home’s roof. It’s available with integrated Powerwall as a backup.

• Powerpack is an industrial / commercial power supply and distribution system with a huge array of customizable usage types.

2/ Preventing artificial intelligence from taking control over humanity by its superior knowledge, not modified by such human qualities as ethics, creativity or compassion. (Musk’s non-profit organization OpenAI explores options for controlling dangers of artificial intelligence. His other organization Neuralink explores ways of expanding the capacity of the human brain to eventually make it compatible with computer software.)

3/ Preparing for the inevitable death of the Earth’s life-supporting environment by developing new space transportation technologies (SpaceX) that would enable the colonization of other planets and eventually make relocation of people from the Earth to established colonies in space possible therefore ensuring the continuity of human kind.

Knowing the scope of his accomplishments and ambitious plans it is somewhat surprising to learn that yes, Elon Musk is… human.

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa as the son of a Canadian model / dietician mother and South African electromechanical engineer. He has two younger siblings (a brother and sister.)

His parents’ marriage didn’t last and they divorced when Elon was just 9 years old. The children stayed with their mother. Elon was the only child that felt bad for his father and eventually decided to live with him, to keep him company. Unfortunately, that’s a decision he grew to regret.

His successful and rich father — whom Musk describes today as unethical and uncaring, if not outright abusive — didn’t care about raising his son. Left to his own devices young Elon became an avid reader and a fan of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, the influence of which is clearly recognizable in adult Musk’s work. About the same time — at the tender age of 10 — Elon became interested in computer programming. He sold his first code (for a video game called Blastar) at the age of 12.

At school however, Musk was a bullies’ magnet. He was hospitalized once following a particularly ferocious attack that left him unconscious. Even this incident didn’t move his father who enjoyed belittling his young son.

Elon couldn’t wait to leave home. Right after graduating from Pretoria Boys High School in his native South Africa — not even 18, yet — he obtained Canadian citizenship (his mother is a Canadian by birth) and moved to Canada. Shortly after, he was accepted into Queen’s University in Kingston in Ontario. Two years later, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. In 1997 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics. He planned on earning PhD in applied physics and materials science at Stanford University in California but dropped out shortly after being accepted to embark on an entrepreneurial career with a focus on technology, Internet, economics, clean energy and space exploration.

His rich father didn’t provide him with financial support since Musk left South Africa. As a student Elon worked to support himself and relied on scholarships to finance his education.

His fortune and success are self-made. Musk’s career as entrepreneur has begun with Zip2 in 1995. He created the company with his brother Kimbal and financing provided by a group of angel investors. Two years later the company was purchased by Compaq. Musk walked away with 22 million dollars.

Then came X.com and PayPal which were a joint venture at the time. When PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002, Elon Musk made $165 million. (He was able to buy back his domain name X.com, later.) The same year (2002) Elon Musk became a U.S. citizen.
And the rest is history: SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity, Hyperloop, OpenAI, Neuralink and The Boring Company. And more is likely to come from the man whose creativity and passion seem boundless.

Elon Musk is a massive success and a self-made billionaire who remains true to his childhood ideals and still nurses scars from his traumatic childhood. The abuse he suffered could have made him vengeful. It didn’t. It made him compassionate, instead.

Today his compassion extends to us all as he tries to break the confines of time and space, delay global warming and environmental destruction, enhance human intellect and colonize space to avert the distinction of our species.

Elon Musk’s vision of the future may seem dystopian to some. His outrageous imagination, courage and sheer range of interests and inventions maybe overwhelming and intimidating to the average person. But considering the dramatic challenges (climate change chief among them!) ahead, Musk’s fearless work creates the much needed counter-balance we need – and will need – to survive.

Hats off to Elon Musk’s guts, talent, pioneering and entrepreneurial spirit for carrying on his work while the powers that be taut coal as “clean energy” and build walls to separate us from our humanity.

There were no public announcements to alert us that the use of pesticides, herbicides, additives and preservatives in mass food production will endanger our health. (GMOs are the next mixed blessing. They have no benefits and don’t increase crops as expected. The long term impact of consuming genetically modified foods — which may affect our own DNA — is unknown. And yet, GMOs won’t come with a warning label: presumably to ensure that consumers will buy and consume genetically modified foods and bear the consequences without a legal recourse.)

There were no public announcements to warn us of the dangers of synthetic building materials, floor coverings, furniture, etc.

We stepped into the environmental havoc created by the use fossil fuel-based technologies unaware that they will endanger the world and our survival. Those who realized it early stayed silent to protect their profits.

In other cases (like the legal sale of cigarettes or addictive prescription drugs), we were sold falsehoods. Many enriched themselves (and many continue to do so!) knowing that their lavish lifestyles are paid for with our health and our children’s lives.

These “environmental” factors are relatively new. So is the massive rise of allergies, food sensitivities, infertility, cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease …. That’s not a coincidence! Neither is the catastrophic increase in “natural” disasters.

Elon Musk is a visionary. A modern prophet seeing reality as it is (Incidentally, the future of the world anticipated by Elon Musk closely resembles the one Stephen Hawking — whom we have lost recently — warned us about!), not how we would like it to be. There are too many conformists around us who assure us that all is good while we can clearly see that it isn’t. Musk — the dreamer — tells us the inconvenient truth, but unlike many others he doesn’t preach impending doom. He creates solutions that make the future conceivable.

Our individual and collective efforts to delay global warming and preserve the environment are of utmost importance. But let’s get real: they are also too little and too late. Considering the extent of damage already done and still growing, the sustainability of Earth is limited in time. Its end is inevitable.

Some disasters can’t be avoided. The only way to survive them is to be prepared. Keep on working on the “arc”, Mr. Musk! Build colonies in Space! Climate change deniers are attempting to keep us in the dark to cash in while they still can. The rest of us are aware that the time for “Noah” and “Noah’s arc” is coming.

The world doesn’t stand still to accommodate the fossils in power. Today, other countries spearhead efforts to prepare for “doomsday”. Norway – for instance – created the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, The Nordic Gene Bank and NHMO DNA Bank (a DNA zoo, if you will). Still other nations took over the vacancy America left behind and lead in science, technology and space exploration.

We have Elon Musk. And we are grateful.

Photo credit: Steve Jurvetson from Menlo Park, USA – Elon Musk at TED 2017, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72830002