Elon Musk: Big and Small Revolutions

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Years ago I knew Mr. Musk would be big–would be a billionaire. The guy was planning on disrupting several industries. He and partners already disrupted the payment industry with PayPal. Now he’s starting to deliver.

MUSKS’ MANY CONTROVERSIES

Now, I’m aware that the billionaire has received a lot of money from the government (billions?), his businesses haven’t made much, if any, money and that some people just don’t like him, his companies or his politics. I understand.

But…

WHAT THE GUY HAS ACHIEVED

…is so significant that it’s now hard to ignore. Here’s a list of some of Musk’s work that is sure to get longer:

  • Co-founded Zip2 at about 24 years old, sells for $341 million
  • Co-founded X.com, turned into PayPal, sold for $1.5 billion
  • Founded SpaceX private space company
  • Space X successfully, privately and profitably supplies International Space Station
  • Invests in and now runs & controls Tesla Motors (TSLA, $195.64)
  • Tesla grows from $204 million in revenue (2011) to $4.046 billion in 2015
  • Tesla sales estimates are $8.56 billion (2016) and $11.71 billion for 2017
  • Essentially co-founds SolarCity (SCTY, $22.24) by supplying the concept and money
  • Went from non-billionaire to $2 billion net  worth (2012) and currently $11.5 billion net worth

Those are some pretty big successes. I know I can learn a lot from him. I hope he writes a book soon.

SO, WHAT’S THE GUY DOING NOW?

Musk and his companies are busy revolutionizing the way we drive, store solar power, interact with power company monopolies, delivering record-busting sales growth, delivering billions of dollars in cars, privatizing space travel and supply, changing commuting patterns and probably a dozen more things I forgot to mention.

So, yeah, are his stocks risky? Sure. I wouldn’t recommend them. Is he controversial? At times, definitely. Has he taken a lot of money from the government? Yep. Have other wealthy billionaires taken money and breaks? More times than we’ll ever know. But I sure wouldn’t bet against this new titan and his concepts.

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