A well-known name in innovation and technology, Elon Musk has contributed greatly to the future of our nation. Musk’s successful career began after he co-founded X.com, which was sold to Ebay for 1.5 billion and is now the most frequently used international money transfer system, Paypal. The entrepreneur’s main interests are the preservation of the human race and space exploration. They have been the inspiration behind the other companies he has founded that all operate under The Musk Foundation, which is committed to exploring space and discovering clean, renewable energy sources.

Tesla Motors is one of Musk’s leading ventures, and was founded with the intention of producing affordable electric cars. The company launched its initial public offering in June 2010, which raised in excess of $226 million, and has since produced many different vehicles that have been favorably accepted worldwide. In 2017, Tesla surpassed General Motors as the most valuable car maker in the United States. The company continues to develop ideas that are decreasing the number of gasoline fueled vehicles on the road, while still appealing to buyers’ needs. In 2006, Musk co-founded SolarCity Corp, with his cousins, and 10 years later purchased an all stock deal in the company. Tesla and SolarCity Corp have now been combined to create fully integrated products which improve the way in which energy is generated, stored and consumed.

Launched in 2002, SpaceX is another of Musk’s companies, whose mission is to build space crafts for commercial space travel. In 2008, the company was awarded a contract from NASA to handle cargo transportation to their International Space Station, with plans to include astronaut transportation in the future. In May 2012, SpaceX launched an unmanned capsule with 1000 pounds of supplies, making history as the first private company to send a spacecraft to the facility. The company has had other successful space ventures, as well as developed a way for more affordable space travel with the creation of their Falcon 9 rocket made from reusable parts.

Elon Musk continues to expand his interests, with more innovative methods of transportation. He has introduced the idea of the Hyperloop, which would facilitate travelling between major cities in a much shorter period of time. The concept consists of a network of low pressure tunnels, which will propel passengers along in pods, would be weather resistant and powered by renewable energy. Although the Hyperloop is currently just a proposal, Musk founded The Boring Company with the intention of creating transportation tunnels underground and decreasing the amount of traffic on bus interstates and city streets.

Elon Musk has also shown an interest in artificial intelligence, and promotes the advancement of digital intelligence to benefit mankind. This interest has led to the entrepreneur’s support of Neurolink, which aims to create devices that would be implanted in the human brain, facilitating a merger with software.