Elon Musk has just become the richest person in the world, overtaking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
The Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur's net worth has topped $185bn (£136bn) after the electric car company's share price rose. What is the secret of its success? A few years ago, I spent almost an hour discussing exactly that with him. To celebrate his new milestone, we decided to revisit the interview and share it with you. Here is Elon Musk's guide to business success. It's not about the money. It's absolutely fundamental to Elon Musk's attitude towards business. When I interviewed him in 2014, he said he didn't know how rich he was. "It's not like there's a lot of money out there," he said. "It's really fair that I have a number of votes in Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity, and the market has value on those votes.The Tesla Model X 90D all-electric luxury crossover SUV on display at Brussels Expo on January 9, 2020 in Brussels. IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES Image caption A Tesla Model X 90D on display at a fair in Brussels. He has nothing against the pursuit of wealth "if it's done in an ethical and good way," but he said that's just not what drives him. The approach certainly seems to be working. The actual inspiration for Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark portrayal of Iron Man fame was worth perhaps $10 billion when we spoke in 2014. His electric car company, Tesla, has performed particularly well. The stock has risen over the past year to take its value to over $700 billion.
For that you could buy Ford, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen and Fiat Chrysler, and they still have enough to buy Ferrari.A sculpture of Iron Man, a fictional Marvel Comics superhero, outside a shopping mall in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan province, turns 50 this year, he won't don't expect to die rich. He said he believed most of his money would be spent building a base on Mars and he wouldn't be surprised if the project consumed his entire fortune. In fact, like Bill Gates, he would probably consider ending his life with billions in the bank as a sign of failure because he didn't use that money wisely. Pursue your passions This base on Mars is a clue to what Elon Musk sees as the key to success: "You want things to be better in the future," he told me."You want these exciting new things that make life better. Take SpaceX. He told me he started the company because he was frustrated that the US space program wasn't more ambitious." a person on Mars, and has a base on the moon, and has, you know, very frequent orbital flights," he said. When that didn't happen, he came up with the idea of the "Mars Oasis Mission", which he aimed to send a small greenhouse to the Red Planet.The idea was to bring back space enthusiasts and persuade the US government to increase NASA's budget. It was while trying to get her off the ground that he realized the problem wasn't space technology, it was "a lack of will, but rather a lack of road." Space technology was a lot more expensive than it needed to be. Lo and behold, the cheapest rocket launch company in the world was born.IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS According to the image caption, SpaceX's Starship rocket is preparing for a test launch at the company's facility in Boca Chica, Texas in December And here's the big thing, its genesis was not to make money, but to land a person on Mars.
Musk told me he considers himself an engineer rather than an investor, and says what gets him up in the morning is the desire to solve technical problems. It is this, more than the dollars in the bank, that is its measure of progress. He knows that every obstacle his company has overcome helps everyone who tries to solve the same problem and does so forever. This is why, shortly before our meeting, the entrepreneur announced that he would open all Tesla patents to accelerate the development of electric vehicles in the world. How Elon Musk intends to revolutionize battery technology Elon Musk's vision for autonomous vehiclesDon't be afraid to think big One of the truly surprising things about Elon Musk's activities is how bold they are. He wants to revolutionize the automotive industry, colonize Mars, build super-fast trains in vacuum tunnels, embed AI into the human brain, and disrupt the solar power and battery industry. There is a common thread here. All of his designs are the kind of futuristic fantasies you might find in a children's magazine in the early 1980s. Put it this way, his tunnel company is called The Boring Company. Musk makes no secret that he was inspired by the books and movies he consumed as a child in South Africa. Tesla factory under construction in Shanghai. Spring 2019 image caption A new Tesla factory under construction in Shanghai, China.
