Elon Musk

Eowyn Arendt

12/7/2020

Ms.Clark Evans

British Literature

Elon Musk: Hero for Our Future

Elon Reeve Musk is a business magnate, industrial designer, and engineer. He is the founder, CEO, CTO, and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. (“Elon Musk.” Tesla ) Also that year, he was ranked 25th on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People and was ranked joint-first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. His journey to become the second richest man in the world, and in my opinion, one of the most future-forward. In each of his companies and partnership, he has been geared towards making our planet a better place. From using more solar energy to weaning us off single-use resources through electric cars, he is one of the people taking the steps to care for our planet. All his work is great for the Earth, but by the time BFR Mission to Mars makes its way to Mars, all of his work will help us live on Mars. Elon Musk strives to give us a better future on Earth and Mars and has accomplished goals the world has dreamed of for years.

Musk has done so much for the world of technology that the word genius is very applicable. Going from South Africa to Canada to the United States, he had earned dual bachelor's degrees in economics and physics and quit school to start his career (“Elon Musk Biography”). Starting with zip2, a software company, and an online bank, and PayPal then moving straight into SpaceX. He has created ideas for a greenhouse oasis on Mars to high-speed transportation of a capsule on an air cushion called hyperloop. His ideas may start with Earth but they don’t stop there. His team at SpaceX started with Elon reading as many books on rocket science as possible and only went up from there. With a lot of convincing fellow entrepreneurs and pulling together scraps, SpaceX was able to get their first launch of Falcon 1 in September of 2008. “I admire them for not being afraid to fail, the engineers learn more from their failures than they do from incremental improvements,” says Steve Nut, Usc, professor of materials science, aerospace, and mechanical engineering (Sheetz). People were surprised by Elon’s inability to give up, and that’s what made his ideas so valuable. 

Elon Musk has put many ideas into action that many children used to dream about. He is creating technology to better our sustainability on Earth and Mars. Using his creativity he can further advance humans and create a better, brighter future. Because of his use of intelligence and perseverance, he is a hero for the future. Though with all heroes comes fault. Elon Musk has been known to make false promises to the public and his employees. For example, “No words can express how much I care about your safety and wellbeing. Going forward, I’ve asked that every injury be reported directly to me, without exception. I’m meeting with the safety team every week and would like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well so that I can understand from them exactly what we need to do to make it better. I will then go down to the production line and perform the same task that they perform,” said Elon Musk in a mass email to his employees (Tesla Workers). Many injured employees reported that they never met with Elon nor saw him in the production line. Tesla, along with Apple, Alphabet, Dell, and Microsoft are also being sued for benefiting from the children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo cobalt mine (Togoh).

Even with his faults, Musk has done more to further advance us than most can dream of and continues to dream big for the future of the world. His creativity and intelligence have created ideas and projects (successful or in progress) that the world could only imagine not too long ago. All of this means that we have the potential to undo the harm done to earth or at least prevent it from happening in other places as we explore space. Without his advancements and his dream of putting humans on Mars, we would be stuck with trying to fix earth or waiting until she gave out on us. He presents us with another option, another opportunity. 

Citations:

“Elon Musk Biography” 17 Nov. 2020, www.biography.com/business-figure/elon-musk . 

“Elon Musk.” American Physical Society, www.aps.org/careers/physicists/profiles/musk.cfm . 

Musk, Elon. “Elon Musk.” TED, www.ted.com/speakers/elon_musk. 

“Elon Musk.” Tesla, Inc, www.tesla.com/elon-musk . 

Togoh, Isabel. “Apple And Tesla Among Tech Giants Being Sued Over The Deaths And Injuries Of Child Cobalt Miners In DRC.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 18 Dec. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2019/12/17/apple-and-tesla-among-tech-giants-being-sued-over-the-deaths-and-injuries-of-child-cobalt-miners-in-drc/?sh=3bdcd03e3107 . 

“Tesla Workers Say They Pay the Price for Elon Musk's Big Promises.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 June 2018, www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/13/tesla-workers-pay-price-elon-musk-failed-promises . 

Sheetz, Michael. “Elon Musk Is 'Highly Confident' SpaceX Will Land Humans on Mars by 2026.” CNBC, CNBC, 1 Dec. 2020, www.cnbc.com/2020/12/01/elon-musk-highly-confident-spacex-will-land-humans-on-mars-by-2026.html .