Elon Musk is probably the most hated man on earth. Americans hate him, because in a tight job market, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is busy firing people. People outside America hate him, because he is seen as the brain behind his boss Donald Trump’s hugely damaging and unpopular policies. Many people may rank, Musk’s boss, Trump ahead of him in an unpopularity contest, but while Musk is almost universally disliked, Trump does have his admirers in the backwoods of America.

Except for his association with Trump, there is no ostensible reason for Musk’s unpopularity. His life is an American dream come true; Musk is a self made billionaire, and at the age of fifty-four, Musk is the world’s richest man, with a net worth of US $345 billion. Musk is the key person behind a host of the world’s biggest companies ~ Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal, OpenAI, Twitter (now X) and America PAC. Musk was born to moderately rich parents in South Africa. His political instincts, future ambitions, and overall worldview should be judged in context of a person, who was regularly beaten by bullies in his childhood, and emotionally tortured by his father ~ a highly complex character ~ an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist. Musk emigrated to Canada at eighteen years of age.

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After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Musk moved to California, founding the software company Zip2, and an online payment company, X.com. Musk acquired US citizenship in 2002, and in the same year founded SpaceX, and became its CEO and chief engineer. Presently, SpaceX is the world leader in reusable rocket technology and commercial spaceflight; its technical prow – ess could be gauged by the fact that a SpaceX craft rescued NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who had been stranded in space for the last nine months.

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Musk joined Tesla Inc, the current market leader in electric vehicles, in 2004, and became its CEO and product architect in 2008. Musk co-founded OpenAI to advance AI research in 2015, only to quit it in 2018. In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a company focused on brain computer interfaces, and in 2017, Musk launched the Boring Company, which aims to develop tunnel transportation. Musk was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2021. Musk owns Twitter (now X), one of the world’s most visited websites, and one of the........

© The Statesman