Elon Musk: where does the billionaire’s fortune come from and which companies he runs

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One of the richest people in the world, Musk makes his money from social media, aerospace, infrastructure and automotive companies. He currently has a fortune approaching US$200 billion. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Paris, France 06/16/2023 REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes The name of billionaire Elon Musk has been gaining the spotlight in Brazil after he made posts on the social network X, formerly Twitter, attacking minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), and threatening to fail to comply with the Court’s orders. With a fortune valued at US$195 billion, Musk is today the second richest person on the planet, according to Forbes. He is only behind Frenchman Bernard Arnault, president of the luxury group LVMH, which manages Louis Vuitton and Sephora. On the Bloomberg list, the billionaire is considered the third richest in the world, with US$ 186 billion, behind Arnault and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. Musk’s wealth comes from at least six large companies, such as X, Tesla and SpaceX. He also had a stake in other companies, such as OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, which he ended up leaving in 2018. Below, find out about Musk’s businesses and where his fortune comes from. 🏤 Musk’s first companies His first venture was Zip2, a company he created in 1995 with his brother Kimbal and friend Greg Kouri and which offered a directory to find companies online. It was sold in 1999 to Compaq. Shortly after this sale, Musk founded X.com, which was an online financial and email services company. A year after it was created, the company merged with Confinity, which had a money transfer service called PayPal – which ended up becoming the name of the business. An enthusiast of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, he has also ventured into the fields of solar energy, ultra-fast transport, satellite internet and neuroscience. Read also: 👨‍🦳 Who is Elon Musk 🎧 THE SUBJECT: how the billionaire came into Moraes’ crosshairs Musk attacks national sovereignty, says the federal government’s digital policy secretary 🐦 X, former Twitter Twitter is the most recent company in the portfolio by Elon Musk. The acquisition was made on April 25, 2022 and, according to Reuters, the billionaire paid US$44 billion for the social network. To raise this amount, Musk needed loans and sold Tesla shares, which began to fall on the stock market. According to CBC News, it is estimated that, today, the platform is worth around 71% less than it was worth when Musk bought it, according to a market valuation released in January 2024. Even before acquiring it, the businessman was already a frequent user of Twitter and, after the acquisition, promised “improvements” to the social network. According to him, the platform had “tremendous potential” and should be a kind of “arena” for defending freedom of expression. In May 2023, the billionaire chose Linda Yaccarino, formerly of NBCUniversal, to take on the role of executive president of Twitter. Musk started to take care of the areas of product design and new technologies. 🚗 Tesla Since 2004, Elon Musk has been the largest shareholder and chief executive of the electric car manufacturer founded in 2003 by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Unlike his other companies, Tesla is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2021, it was valued at around US$700 billion and, at times, surpassed traditional automakers such as Ford and General Motors, which have much higher production and sales numbers. Musk boosted the company to the point of opening a factory in China, a major consumer of electric cars, in addition to Germany. With its Tesla Energy arm, the company also produces panels for capturing solar energy. Tesla gained notoriety for adopting a controversial semi-autonomy system for cars, Autopilot, which allows them to drive alone for a certain time, as long as the driver keeps his hands on the steering wheel. Some accidents and incidents of drivers sleeping on board these vehicles make the feature quite controversial to this day. 🚀 SpaceX In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, focused on aerospace transport. He is also the company’s chief executive. SpaceX specializes in developing and launching reusable rockets, something that did not exist in the industry and that can make travel cheaper. The company’s first rocket launch only took place in 2008. Ten years later, in order to test its most powerful rocket yet, Musk sent a Tesla car into space. Then, it started sending satellites and has also transported people off Earth. In 2021, SpaceX achieved an important milestone in space tourism with the launch of 4 “ordinary” people into Earth’s orbit – which until then had only received professional astronauts. The rich man also makes plans for the colonization of Mars with SpaceX. To this end, it has been developing superships, such as Starship, with which it has been carrying out tests, still without a crew, since 2023. In March, SpaceX made its best test flight of Starship, the largest ship in the world 🛰️ Starlink Starlink is an arm of SpaceX aimed at satellite internet provision. In this segment, Musk also competes with Bezos and his Blue Origin. Both work in so-called “satellite constellations”, which aim to bring connections to remote areas across the planet. SpaceX is ahead in the race and has already launched more than 1,800 units. The company also operates in Brazil, especially in the Amazon. Ibama has already pointed out that the expansion of Musk’s technology also drives illegal activities, such as mining. Who is Elon Musk? 🧠 Neuralink Neuralink is a brain chip neuroscience startup co-founded by Musk in 2016. The company was also created by engineer Tim Hanson, who worked for two years with the billionaire and left the company in 2018. The chip produced by Neuralink ” connect brains to computers.” The goal is that, in the future, people with motor limitations will be able to control electronic devices, such as computers and cell phones, just with their thoughts. Recently, Musk reported that Neuralink made its first chip implant in a human brain. The company is not the only one investing in this technology. The billionaire also has the ambition of, later on, using the chip to achieve telepathy. He says this would help humanity prevail in a supposed war against artificial intelligence, but experts say the practice is not viable. The Boring Company Musk also owns The Boring Company, which designs a system similar to a bullet train that relies on a modified tunnel to reach high speeds (a system dubbed “hyperloop”). According to technology portal The Verge, the Boring Company started drilling in a SpaceX parking lot, in California (USA). Now, the company is trying to promote its business in other areas and already has tunnels in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Chicago. The company’s objective is to alleviate and speed up vehicle traffic in large cities. In 2022, the company was worth almost US$6 billion, according to the North American CNN. Elon Musk attacks national sovereignty, says the federal government’s digital policy secretary See other Elon Musk controversies involving authorities and court decisions The Musk case and the regulation of social networks

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