Part 39
My third South African who was not content with the wide-open spaces and rolling plains of the Highveld that once teemed with game is Elon Musk. His name alone is enough to attract attention and it seems that he was endlessly bullied and teased at Pretoria Boys High. Born of a South African father Errol and Canadian mother Maye (nee Haldeman) on 28 June 1971, he attended the University of Pretoria after school before leaving for overseas.
His parents divorced in 1980. He stayed with his father in Pretoria until they became estranged. Musk left for Canada against his father’s wishes at the age of seventeen and enrolled at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. It is not known what he studied there but they do have the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute, which may have caught Musk’s interest. However, his long-term goal was to live in the United States, and two years later he left to study at the University of Pennsylvania where he obtained Bachelor degrees in both Economics and Physics.
In 1995, he travelled to Stanford University for the purpose of obtaining a PhD in Applied Physics and Material Sciences. Somehow he got sidetracked and decided to go into business with his younger brother Kimbal. They founded Zip2, a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers. Zip2 was acquired by COMPAQ for $340 million in 1999, which formed the basis for Musk’s burgeoning fortune.
He then created Xcom, an online bank, which merged with Confinity in 2000. Confinity had launched PayPal in 1999, Musk was its CEO for a time and this company in turn was bought by E-bay for $1.5 billion in October 2002.
Turning away from purely software projects, in May of the same year, Musk also founded Space X Aerospace Manufacturer and Space Transport Services. Musk served as CEO and lead designer. As a child, he had been fascinated by the writings of Isaac Asimov, so perhaps it was natural that he should gravitate towards space-oriented projects. He was particularly impressed by a quote from Asimov and took much of his future thinking from it.
“You should try to take a set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, minimize the probability of a dark age and reduce the length of a dark age, if there is one!” – Isaac Asimov
I find it quite amazing that important quotes ranging from people like Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and this one, revered by Elon Musk, could all apply to the purpose and intention of ExoBrain.
Sadly, Musk seems to have interpreted the only causes of a potential dark age as the need for science to create a better future for Mankind, whereas, at this very moment, it is Mankind itself that is threatening a dark age upon us by seeing anarchy and destruction as a legitimate way forward to bring about change.
This has proved to be disastrous for many civilizations. Certainly science has the means to bring about a better quality of life, hopefully for all and not just for an elite. Applied equably, it is a goal well worth striving for. I just hope I’m wrong and Musk does see the bigger picture!
In 2004, Musk joined Tesla, an Electric Vehicle and Clean Energy Company. Today, he owns 21.7 percent of the stock and is the major shareholder.
In 2016, Musk founded Neurolink, a neurotechnology company with the purpose of developing implantable brain-machine interfaces. Frankly, this freaks me out. Is this leading towards total control of the brain? In an interview, Musk explained that this technology can stimulate sections of the brain for healing purposes. Maybe so, but the longer-term implications are worrisome.
He also launched “The Boring Company” for creating infrastructure and tunnel construction for electric vehicles. Huh? It may be more boring but rather leave the brain to the ExoTeam who understands who is boss, namely yourself!
On 30 May 2020, Space X launched its first manned flight called Dem-2. It is the first private company to place a person in orbit and dock a manned spacecraft with the International Space Station.
This is certainly a positive step towards future space travel. He has also created Hyperloop, which states the goals of Space X, Tesla and Solar City which all revolve around his vision to “change the world and help humanity reduce global warming, as well as establish a human colony on Mars.”
Elon Musk along with Mark Shuttleworth and Johann Schutte are all visionary South Africans in varying degrees. Musk is perhaps the most controversial but with a fortune of $38 billion, he is certainly a mover and shaker who is intent, in his own way, on building a better world.
Perhaps he should look at ExoBrain as the answer to getting truthful communications back on track and restoring people’s ability to honestly express their thoughts and opinions without the sly intervention of fake news and false data!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.