Where on one side, 2020 was not a good year for the entire world, there was one person who earned more than 150 billion dollars in this one year.
I am talking about Elon Musk who became the world’s richest man on 7Th January 2021. At the beginning of 2020, his net worth was $27 billion which made him the world’s 35th richest person.
But in one year, his net worth increased to more than $190 billion. What is interesting is that he did not even do anything special this year. He did special... he does special every year. He is quite a hard-working person.
I mean that he did not do anything extra or different in 2020 that he did not do in 2019, 2018, 2017, or 2016. Had he not done anything at all this year, even then the chances of him becoming as rich as he has become were quite high.
How did it become possible?
What is the secret behind his success?
Think about it- when you are a billionaire, then how do you earn your money?
It isn’t that you do some work and you get a salary in return and you keep saving that salary in your bank account until it becomes billions of dollars.
This is next to impossible because one billion is such a big amount that earning money through normal ways such that you earn one billion is next to impossible.
What happens in most cases is that billionaires are owners of some valuable company. They are the owner of such a company which has great value in the world.
For example, Mark Zuckerberg is the owner of Facebook, Jeff Bezos is the owner of Amazon, Bill Gates is the owner of Microsoft. Similarly, Elon Musk is the owner of Tesla which is a company that manufactures electric cars.
The wealth of all these people is interlinked with their companies. It is to such an extent that these people can both earn and lose billions of dollars in a day, depending upon the current value of their company in the share market.
If their company’s share price climbs up then they become rich instantly. If the share price of their company falls then they can lose billions of dollars instantly. Something similar happened with Tesla.
In 2020, Tesla’s stock price increased 720% in a year and this is the main reason for Elon Musk becoming the World’s richest man. What may surprise you is that Elon Musk did not found Tesla! Tesla was founded in 2003 by two people named Martin and Mark.
Elon Musk joined this company in 2004 by investing $30 million. Only after 2008, Elon Musk became Tesla’s CEO.
In 2009, this company was going through financial problems therefore he decided to list the company in the stock market so that the public can invest and the company can recover.
In 2010, this company was listed in the stock market. It had its Initial Public Offering (IPO)- about which I have explained in many past videos.
And at that time when it happened, the price of one share of TESLA was $17. On 14th January 2021*, the price of its one share was $854.
Today, the market capitalization of this company has surpassed $800 billion due to which this has become the fifth most valuable company in the world after Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet.
Alphabet is the company that owns Google. Elon Musk owns a 20% stake in Tesla and this is how his wealth has increased so much.
Before talking more about this, let’s get to know Elon Musk’s personal story. He was born in 1971 in South Africa. His mother was American and his father was South African.
It is said that from a very young age he started using computers. At the age of 10, he was given his first computer and he learned to code himself.
At the age of 12, he coded a computer game which he sold for 500 dollars. So this was his first earning which he earned at the age of 12.
In 1989, he went to Canada and then studied at Pennsylvania University in the USA. He believes three things that have influenced him the most were the internet, renewable energy, and space travel.
In 1995, you can say that he got his first break. He founded a company called Zip2 along with his brother which was a telephone directory much like yellow pages. And this company was sold off at quite a high price.
After that, he founded a financial service company named X.com which merged with another company in 2000 to form PayPal. In 2001, Elon Musk became the CEO and Chairman of Paypal after which it was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion. So, at this point, Elon Musk had already become a billionaire.
After this, he focused on his passions. He invested more than $100 million in founding a company named SpaceX.
The main objective of the company is to send humans to Mars and to establish a colony there. In 2020, SpaceX became the first private company that had sent a person to Space by 2025, SpaceX plans to send the first human being to Mars.
Let’s discuss how successful this turns out to be.
But due to such big plans, ideas, and vision, Elon Musk is often called Real-life Tony Stark. He has highlighted the fact time and again that you don’t need a college degree if you want to make a good career.
He tweeted, “You still don’t need a college degree to work for Elon Musk.”
Elon Musk doesn’t value a degree much but rather he values exceptional ability.
If someone can show that he can work efficiently, then this person is more valuable to him as compared to a person who can only show his degree.
A lot is to learn from Elon Musk’s story of how you can succeed only based on passion, skill, and hard work. If you have knowledge and skills then you don’t even need a degree and here I would like to introduce you to a great platform that will help you up-skill.
Coding Ninja, one of the largest coding education companies in India. It provides great structured courses for college students. If you are going to give a job interview then you can ups-kill yourself through these courses
and make yourself knowledgeable enough such that the employers consider you useful for the job.
You don’t have just a degree to show. On their website, one-on-one doubt resolution support is also available for the students.
The teachers too are former Facebook and Amazon employees. All the courses suit the college students perfectly. Coding Ninja has sponsored this blog therefore there is a special discount for you as well.
You will get 15% off on any course that you will buy on their website. You will find the link in the description below. Now, let’s get back to Elon Musk and being a billionaire.
I said that for a billionaire, his wealth is associated with a company in such a way that when the share price goes up and down then the net worth of the billionaire will also go up and down.
The money is often stuck in that company itself. To be able to withdraw and access that money always is quite difficult sometimes. The value of shares of a company increases when there is a higher demand for it in the market.
If the public thinks that this company will be successful then they invest in that company resulting in a rise in its share price. Normally, this happens when the future potential of the company looks good.
What is happening in the future?
Many developed countries want to reduce the number of petrol and diesel vehicles to reduce pollution and carbon emissions. More and more countries want to switch to electric cars. Tesla is one of the most popular electric car brands so people can see that in the coming 10 years, Tesla can become quite popular.
Their cars will be sold worldwide which is why people are investing in them. Although, some feel that Tesla is overvalued.
We agree that it is a good company and its future looks good but so many people have invested so much of their money is quite too much.
J P Morgan has said in December 2020, “Tesla’s shares are in our view and by virtually every conventional metric, not only overvalued but dramatically so.” In May 2020, Elon Musk has said himself that the share price of Tesla is quite too much.
He also warned his employees not to hope too much because the share price can fall as well. But on the other hand, some people believe that the share price of Tesla can rise more in the coming years. A billionaire investor says that Tesla’s stock can increase 3 times more.
If this happens, if Tesla’s stock price increases 5 times, As of now, the net worth of Elon Musk is around 200 billion dollars then Elon Musk’s net worth which is currently around $200 billion will reach $1000 billion.
It means he can become the world’s first trillionaire. Till now, we have heard about millionaires and billionaires, he can become a trillionaire.
A lot of people believe that this is possible if Tesla’s stock rises so much then Elon Musk will become a trillionaire. What is interesting here that Elon Musk calls himself cash-poor i.e he doesn’t have much cash. If he wants to spend so much money then he wouldn't have this money to spend.
He says that he doesn’t draw even a single penny as salary for being the CEO of Tesla and keeps quite less cash with himself. 99% of his wealth of $190 billion is stuck in the shares of these two companies. One of which is Tesla and another is SpaceX.
Now, if he wants to take out so much of this money from these companies and keep it to himself, then this won’t be possible because he would have to sell his shares for this. If Elon Musk sells the shares of Tesla himself then what would be in the news?
How would other people react?
Other people would feel that he doesn’t believe in his own company, so the share price would crash drastically. All this money that is there would cease to exist.
You are the world’s richest person but when it is said that you have $190 billion then it is not in your pocket. You won't be able to spend it. What is interesting is that Elon Musk is not too attached to money!
He says that he is not interested in materialistic things such as buying a private jet or island with so much money. He looks at money as less of a medium of exchange and store of value but as a means to an end.
He looks at it like a financial tool that is quite useful to achieve one’s goal. For this very reason, when the news broke out that Elon Musk has become the richest man in the world then he tweeted, “Strange!”
After which he wrote, “Well back to work...”
In another tweet, he had written, “About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth.” Half of his money will be used to solve the problems of the Earth and the rest half will be used for the continuation of life for all the species.
In case the Earth ceases to exist, some asteroid hits Earth and destroys it such that happened at the time of dinosaurs then a colony can be established on Mars and the species living on Earth can be saved.
So, friends, this is the interesting story of Elon Musk. Today, he is not the richest person anymore because as I told you share price fluctuates so much that it came down a little bit and Jeff Bezos crossed him yet again.
Elon Musk has a wealth of $179 billion while Jeff Bezos is at $182 billion.
I hope you found this story to be inspirational. If you like the post then do share it. Tell me in the comments below if you want to attend more such post on other inspiring people.
0 comments: