Man of The Year

Jawasi Man Of The Year: Elon Musk| Elon Reeve Musk FRS (born June 28, 1971) in Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital. He is of British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His mother, Maye (née Haldeman), is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, who partly owned a rental lodge at the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. Errol was elected to the Pretoria City Council as a representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party and has said that his children shared their father's dislike of apartheid. Elon's maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman, was an American-born Canadian who took his family on record-breaking journeys to Africa and Australia in a single-engine Bellanca airplane; Haldeman died when Elon was still a toddler. Elon has recounted trips to a wilderness school that he described as a "paramilitary Lord of the Flies" where "bullying was a virtue" and children were encouraged to fight over rations. After his parents divorced in 1980, Elon chose to live primarily with his father. Elon later regretted his decision and became estranged from his father. Elon attended Bryanston High School. In one incident, after an altercation with a fellow pupil, Elon was thrown down concrete steps and beaten severely by the boy and his friends, leading to him being hospitalized for his injuries. Elon described his father berating him after he was discharged from the hospital, saying, "I had to stand for an hour as he yelled at me and called me an idiot and told me that I was just worthless." Errol denied berating. Elon was an enthusiastic reader of books. At age ten, he developed an interest in computing and video games, teaching himself how to program from the VIC-20 user manual. At age twelve, Elon sold his BASIC-based game Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500. Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Bryanston High School, and then Pretoria Boys High School, where he graduated. Musk was a good but not exceptional student, earning a 61 in Afrikaans and a B on his senior math certification. Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother to avoid South Africa's mandatory military service, which would have forced him to participate in the apartheid regime, and to ease his path to immigration to the United States.While waiting for his application to be processed, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months. Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989, connected with a second cousin in Saskatchewan, and worked odd jobs including at a farm and a lumber mill. In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied until 1995. Although Musk has said that he earned his degrees in 1995, the University of Pennsylvania did not award them until 1997 – a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the university's Wharton School. He reportedly hosted large, ticketed house parties to help pay for tuition, and wrote a business plan for an electronic book-scanning service similar to Google Books. Musk decided to join the Internet boom, applying for a job at Netscape, to which he reportedly never received a response. The Washington Post reported that Musk lacked legal authorization to remain and work in the United States after failing to enroll at Stanford. In 2017, Musk founded The Boring Company to construct tunnels, and revealed plans for specialized, underground, high-occupancy vehicles that could travel up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) and thus circumvent above-ground traffic in major cities. Musk is president of the Musk Foundation he founded in 2001,whose stated purpose is to: provide solar-power energy systems in disaster areas; support research, development, and advocacy (for interests including human space exploration, pediatrics, renewable energy and "safe artificial intelligence"); and support science and engineering educational efforts. In July 2018, Musk arranged for his employees to build a mini-submarine to assist the rescue of children trapped in a flooded cavern in Thailand. In March 2019, Musk, through his own label Emo G Records, released a rap track, "RIP Harambe", on SoundCloud. Musk was first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, with a net worth of $2 billion. By early 2024, Musk had become a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump. By October 2024, he was Trump's second-largest individual 2024 presidential campaign donor. Musk's views are generally described as right-wing and conservative. Musk was a registered independent voter when he lived in California. Historically, he has donated to both Democrats and Republicans many of whom are in states in which he has a vested interest. US president-elect Donald Trump announced on November 12, 2024 that Musk would become an inaugural leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a governmental advisory body that will "slash excess regulations [and] cut wasteful expenditures". Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of December 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$432 billion.