Elon Musk - Richest person in the world

It all began with a loan from his father. No more than $28,000. But from there, he has created success on success. We are all familiar with his Tesla cars, his interest in space travel and his dream of creating a world-wide Wi-Fi signal. His fortune has skyrocketed during the last couple of years and has reached $219 billion.

Recently, the Danish newspaper Politiken described Elon Musk as a modern alchemist. He indeed managed to create gold. One word from the world's richest man and the world's cryptocurrencies and stock prices rise. Or fall. And even though he now and then almost drives his companies to financial meltdown, he is somehow always saved at the finish line. Like when money was running low in his space company, SpaceX, in 2008. Right before things went wrong, he managed to land a new contract with the American space agency NASA. A contract worth $1.6 billion.

Luck? Skill? Who knows what would have happened if he and SpaceX had not become part of the American space adventure? But one thing is certain: The contract helped send his fortune rocketing towards a top seat in the billionaires' club.

Analysts describe Elon Musk as 'Cash Light and Asset Rich'. In whichever way you interpret it, his investments in the Tesla group and SpaceX during the past five or six years are giving an enormous return. In 2017, his personal fortune was “only” around $16 billion. This is put into perspective when you consider his present day personal net worth of $219 billion. Back in 2011, when he was still struggling to make a profit on his electric cars and space rockets, his personal fortune was a paltry $68 million.

Entrepreneur and dreamer

One thing is the number on the bottom line. Something quite different is his ability and willingness to create success upon success. And not least attract investors who believe in him. Something that has been necessary for the now 51-year-old entrepreneur, dreamer and multi-billionaire. Because unlike many other hyper-rich, he did not reach fortune through inheritance or marriage. Back in 1995, he and his brother, Kimbal, borrowed $28,000 from their father to start the company Zip2 – an Internet-based two-way communication system that enabled advertisers to communicate directly with their customers via the, at the time, extremely innovative medium: the fax machine. As an example, car dealers could reach potential customers via online editions of newspapers.

This was not Elon Musk's first attempt in the IT business. In fact, at the age of 12, he sold his first computer game - Blastar - which he had programmed in BASIC on his Commodore VIC-20 computer at his home in Pretoria, South Africa. He sold it for $500. But Zip2 operated in a different league. It was sold to the computer company Compaq in 1997 for just over $300 million. Elon Musk's shares alone amounted to 22 million.

The PayPal era and the future

It might not be entirely wrong to say that we have all contributed a little to Musk's enormous fortune. At least if we had a PayPal account in the beginning of the millennium and used it to transfer money and pay for online purchases. In 1999, he co-founded the first American internet bank: X.com.

No sooner than the following year, the company merged with another online bank, Confinity, the very bank that had developed the PayPal payment system. And within two years, PayPal was bought by eBay for more than $1.2 billion. In the blink of an eye, Musk's fortune grew $175 million.

It paved the way – though with certain bumps – for Elon Musk's biggest successes, namely SpaceX and the Tesla electric car. Over the years, Musk has shown that his greatest ability – as well as greatest weakness – is dreaming big and making things happen. But often at the expense of employees. Something that is often attributed to the fact that he suffers from Asperger Syndrome. This is amongst others seen in the stubbornness with which he stands his ground in the almost constant battle with trade unions as well as under continuous criticism for exploiting impoverished Chinese industrial workers.

Nevertheless, Elon Musk is a hard-nosed businessman who still manages to dream of trips to Mars and time travel. And perhaps - taught by his undoubted success - he still appears as an innovative entrepreneur, eccentric and yes, even prophet. Judge for yourself.

The text is translated by Pernille Kaufmann. See more here