Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who took over the social media platform Twitter, is commonly known as the CEO of Tesla. But he is not just limited to Tesla. There are a lot of companies owned by him. Musk founded quite a few companies most people are familiar with, but not everyone knows the role Musk has played in their success.
Let us take you through the list of companies owned by Elon Musk.
Tesla
The company Musk is probably most well known for is Tesla. An American electric vehicle and clean energy company, Tesla has made headlines since its founding in 2003 thanks to its advancements in the automotive industry and its clean energy efforts.
Tesla hopes to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy by producing energy storage systems such as solar panels and solar roof tiles, as well as batteries for electric vehicles. While the company has a number of accolades under its belt, it notably designed the first premium all-electric sedan and is currently developing its most affordable vehicle yet to be released in 2023.
The company currently holds the spot as the number one automotive company in the world, with a market cap of nearly $583 billion.
The Boring Company
Musk founded American construction company The Boring Company in 2016. Its projects are primarily designed for intra-city transit systems to solve traffic challenges and enable point-to-point transportation.
According to its website, The Boring Company believes major cities need either flying cars or tunnels in order to get rid of traffic.,. Musk settled on the latter solution because tunnels aren’t impacted by weather changes and “won’t fall on your head.”
In April 2021, The Boring Company introduced its first project at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The company created two parallel tunnels measuring 1.7 miles long, each with Tesla vehicles carrying passengers to their desired destination across the center.
Neuralink Corporation
Musk is also the owner and co-founder of Neuralink Corporation, a neurotechnology company developing implantable brain-machine interfaces. The company’s main goal is to create brain implants that can communicate with phones and computers as well as help people with paralysis regain independence.
“Our devices are designed to give people the ability to communicate more easily via text or speech synthesis, to follow their curiosity on the web, or to express their creativity through photography, art, or writing apps,” Neuralink’s website states.
As of this year, total investment in the company has surpassed $363 million.
Zip2
Although Zip2 is no longer in business, it was the first enterprise Musk founded back in 1995. The company provided a searchable business directory — basically an “internet version of the yellow pages” with maps included.
The company’s mission, according to Musk, was “that everyone ought to be able to find the closest pizza parlour and to be able to figure out how to get there.”
In 1999, Compaq Computer Corporation acquired Zip2 for $307 million.
OpenAI
Musk founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research and development company, in 2015. Although he resigned from the board in 2018, he remains a major donor.
The company is a DeepMind competitor with the goal of ensuring that “artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”
OpenAI is one of the leading AI research labs in the world, with the ultimate goal of being the first company to design a machine with the learning and reasoning powers of a human mind.
SpaceX
To reduce the cost of space exploration, Musk created SpaceX in 2002. SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches advanced aircraft.
Since its founding, SpaceX has launched 144 rockets and spacecraft, 106 of which successfully landed. Its most recent mission on February 3, dubbed the “Starlink Mission,” saw Falcon 9 launch 49 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit.
SpaceX is the only private company to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit and take humans to and from the International Space Station. The company believes in the power of a reusable rocket; it has reflown 83 of its own to embody this philosophy.
The company, valued at over $100 billion, is the second most valuable private company in the world.
SolarCity
Tesla also acquired SolarCity, a company focused on door-to-door sales of solar energy generation systems. The company, which was founded in 2004 by two of Musk’s cousins, was acquired by Tesla in 2016 for $2.6 billion.
However, some investors didn’t approve of the deal, as Musk had ties to the founders and “overpaid for SolarCity, ignored their own conflicts of interest and failed to disclose ‘troubling facts’ essential to a rational analysis of the proposed deal.”
PayPal
This one may be a shock, but Musk is also a co-founder of PayPal. PayPal is a multinational financial technology company that works as an electronic alternative to checks or money orders by supporting online money transfers.
Founded in 1998, PayPal merged with Musk’s former company, X.com, in 2000. Since then, PayPal has become a Fortune 500 company and had its best year yet in 2020 with nearly 73 million net new accounts.
• And now comes –
Twitter becomes the third tech company in Musk’s portfolio. That is Tesla, SpaceX, and now the social media giant. Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder who stepped down and handed the reigns to Parag Agrawal this year, will be around for a few more months. He has given his backing to Musk as the man to lead Twitter forward, while also lending his support to Agrawal. While calling Twitter the “closest thing to global consciousness”, he posted a series of tweets.
Twitter tried every trick in the book, including the much-talked-about “poison pill” response in which existing shareholders were expected to prevent the deal from happening. Yet, it never transpired that way. In fact, Musk’s April 14 offer of $44 billion valuing the company at $54.20 per share, has finally been accepted, a couple of weeks or so later.
While Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey has supported Elon Musk, the analysts and activists have pointed out that there will be more focus now on attention and profit rather than on promoting healthy online conversations. Fellow billionaire and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos said Mr Muck’s deal gives China “a bit of leverage over the town square”.
So, the list makes a total of 9 including Twitter, but apart from these, Musk even has shares in some small startups. As per the experts, Musk’s main projects take on almost every major industry and global problem conceivable, and imagine a disruptive fundamental rewiring of that space or sector.
