Fake self-made .. How could Elon Musk deceive the world?

The year 2021 was certainly a happy year for Elon Musk, as the first days of the year did not pass until the famous businessman rose to the list of the richest men in the world (1), and it was almost over before his fortune exceeded the $300 billion barrier, becoming the first to achieve that number. Well, why did Elon Musk make such a huge fortune? The obvious answer is that he did this thanks to his inventions. The man, according to many, is one of the most important inventors of this century, but what did the billionaire invent to gain this honor? Maybe some mean "Paypal"? Or maybe they mean the famous Tesla electric cars?

If you are a fan of science fiction and technology, you will most likely know the “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” series, and it is likely that you also admire Elon Musk because of his pioneering space company, SpaceX. Do you remember that time, or rather the times, that appeared Where in science fiction films and series such as “Iron Man” and “The Big Bang” and other works that establish the model of the self-made emperor who made his fortune thanks to his intelligence? In fact, Musk has a huge fan base for these same reasons, but what if we told you that all this is not as real as many think?

the affluent poor

Well, the baby Elon Musk was born, to his father, Errol Musk and his mother, May Haldeman, on June 24, 1981 in South Africa, and contrary to what is portrayed in the media and portrayed by Musk himself, both of his parents’ families belong to the velvet class, as his father once stated: “We had money unless we can even close our treasury” (2). Musk Sr. was an engineering consultant, real estate developer and owner of an emerald mine in South Africa, and his family lived a life filled with yachts, snowboard trips and expensive computers, while Elon himself was educated at prestigious schools that are expensive, which he now denies altogether. (3)

When his parents divorced, Elon stayed with his father in South Africa for a while, but later moved to Canada with his mother after completing the age of 17 to evade enlistment in the South African army, after which Musk enrolled on a scholarship at Queen's University. Musk complains a lot about the debt that burdens him at that period, but many do not know that he did not graduate from the scholarship, as he violated the conditions and did not complete them, so he had to pay the costs of the scholarship to the university (4), and when he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, “Poor Mask” participated with A co-worker bought ten bedrooms used by an unlicensed nightclub.

The main thing that Elon Musk has succeeded in promoting himself is his sharp intelligence, as he is rumored to have an IQ of 155, which is a relatively high rate, but this intelligence was never put to the test to confirm it, and most importantly, his behavior does not indicate such High level of intelligence. (5)

For example, Musk was out of the public interest for a long time, only attracting the attention of some of those interested in technology and science, and they were most of his fans, until the cave incident in Thailand. At the time, a group of teenagers had been locked in a sea cave with their teacher, only to have Musk decided that this was the best time to publicize himself by providing a submarine that would rescue the children and their teacher. The idea was so bizarre, and so illogical that Vernon Anthurs, captain of the divers assigned to rescue the children, slammed it, and said it was unsuitable for this case for good reason; Which is that there is a very narrow low area, not even enough for the oxygen tanks that divers carry, so they have to take them off so that they can cross. Exceeding this point was so dangerous that one of the most skilled divers, Saman Gunan, died while delivering oxygen during the rescue.

Anthurs was right, then, when he refused Musk's submarine because it would not be able to pass that deadly point, but this refusal was taken personally by the billionaire, and the embarrassment prompted him to attack Anthurs on Twitter, and I wish it was enough, but he paid a private investigator more than fifty thousand dollars To search for information questioning the British cave explorer. (6)

Then everyone wondered; Is this idea really from a self-proclaimed man as one of the smartest men in the world, or is it a heavy joke by someone? Many of Musk's followers were shocked by this news, which not only reflects a strange nature, but also calls into question the man's intelligence, but the real shock about Elon Musk's intelligence was not his inability to understand the problem of the submarine, but rather in the research paper on the "Hyperloop" that he "invented". .

Ideas that have been researched

Elon Musk's dreams are filled with cutting-edge transmission technologies, super-fast worldwide connectivity, and open source production. But is the "Hyperloop" initiative announced in this context really possible, or is it just another unrealistic plan? The Hyperloop is a transportation initiative designed to simplify travel, in which the Hyperloop is mounted on a magnetic cushion and travels inside a closed, vacuum tube to reduce friction. The hyperloop seeks to move goods and people very quickly between two points, like any means of transportation, but the surprise is that the idea is not new at all.

The Hyperloop is a rapid transport system for passengers and goods that can reach speeds of around 1200 km/h. Musk's first plan was to get people from downtown Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes, over a distance of just over 600 km. The idea is to push specially designed pressurized capsules using electromagnetic force into a semi-vacuum tube to reduce friction. These capsules move on a cushion of air inside the tube using specially designed rods, similar to magnetic trains, while an electric compressor at the front of the capsule pushes the air back. (7)

The Hyperloops, which are installed on earthquake-resistant towers up to 30 meters high, can extend alongside highways, and are powered by motors, batteries developed by Tesla, and solar panels on the outside of the tube. Forward and deceleration motion is handled by a flat electric motor ideal for creating straight line motion.

Well, in theory everything looks perfect, and the idea looks very futuristic, but in fact it is very expensive, and most importantly, it does not offer anything new, everything mentioned is already in modern vacuum trains, and even when Elon Musk made his idea open source and took it The companies to implement it did not know that they would discover its ineffectiveness, and that they would have to remove the "cushion" from the wagon, so that the exit would eventually become a train like the Shanghai Express, but at a higher cost. (8)

Surprisingly, Elon Musk deceived his Twitter followers when he told them that he had received a verbal acceptance of his company, "Boring" for the Hyperloop, when it turned out that this did not happen at all.

Musk's equivocations didn't begin with this incident, but he credits himself alone with founding PayPal. Well, it all started in 1995, and instead of studying for a Ph.D. at Stanford, Elon and his brother Kimball tried to take advantage of the early days of the Internet to create a "directory" or global information network that would later be known as "Zip 2", whose role was to convince businessmen of a digital presence. them in a digital directory similar to the well-known telephone directory.

And here comes the question: Where did the money that Musk started with come from? Yes, you can expect now, the source of the money was his father who bestowed on him 28 thousand dollars, it is true that the man does not stop mentioning his hatred for his father, but apparently this hate did not prevent him from enjoying this gift (9), as well as the gifts of his mother May Haldeman.

As for PayPal, his story begins with the sale of the company "Zip2" and the establishment of what he called at the time "X.com". Here, you may find yourself familiar with what Musk said about his desire to develop the banking sector and turn it into digital banks, but you will not find him mentioning the names of his associates in those endeavors, such as Harris Fricker, the other founder of the “X” company and the banking expert, as well as the assistant managers such as Edward Ho and Christopher Bien. To see what's going on, you might have to look at the x.com page on the English Wikipedia, where you will only find the name of Elon Musk, and then move to the Spanish version where you will find the names of everyone, who is rewriting the history of the company for Elon Musk?

Most important among these names is Harris Fricker, a banker with a master's degree from the prestigious Oxford University and the perfect fit for X.com at the time. Musk met Fricker during his grant at the Bank of Nova Scotia, and persuaded Fricker to join him in his project in November 1999, and by buying the largest share of the company, Musk was keen to gain the upper hand in the company, so he appointed another person (Bill Harris) as director CEO, which Fricker rejected because he came from Canada to Silicon Valley specifically to found the company. (10)

There was also a difference in visions, Fricker wanted to establish a digital bank, and Musk wanted a financial revolution in the banking sector. His endeavors failed and he eventually left with the company's best software engineers six months after its founding. (11) Meanwhile, a company with the same idea of ​​"X.com" appeared called "Conventi", founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchen, best known for its payment service under the name "Paypal". The service was developed in 1998 and launched in July of the following year, before Fricker turned on Musk. Here we clearly see that Musk did not establish the parent company of PayPal "Confinity" or write its code, and that the company changed its name from "Confinity" to "Paypal" in 2001 when Musk was expelled for a while from managing his company. And here is the truth of Elon Musk's biggest allegations that he is the founder of PayPal.

Market manipulation

But that doesn't mean that Elon Musk doesn't know what he's doing. The man clearly understands his weight and influence, and how he can move the markets through his Twitter account as he has repeatedly done with the cryptocurrency market. Musk tweeted a lot about bitcoin, which drove its price up, and his tweets caused other currencies like Dogecoin to move up and down.

In one of his tweets, Elon Musk caused the price of Bitcoin to rise nearly 10%. Although Musk's tweets are not necessarily posted for his own financial gain, they can have a significant impact on cryptocurrency investors, as well as raise questions about the market's solidity. In April, crypto exchange Coinbase became the first major cryptocurrency company to go public in the United States, and it looked like we had already entered the crypto era.

Then the prices started moving again in the opposite direction. In May, Elon tweeted that Tesla was no longer accepting Bitcoin due to environmental concerns about its use of polluting energy, just two months after declaring it accepted. As a result, the price of Bitcoin fell by about 15%.

Similarly, the CEO of SpaceX pushed Dogecoin prices up 30% in the same month, after tweeting that he was working with Dogecoin developers to improve the coin's efficiency. A similar tweet later sent the currency up again, and in the same month, SpaceX said it would accept payments in cryptocurrency to fund a trip to the moon. All this means that Musk's tweets have a significant impact on currency prices, and the following figure shows how Musk's tweets affected Bitcoin during one month (May-June 2021).

“In cryptocurrency, understanding memes and social interactions is as important as understanding technology,” says Galen Moore, director of data and indexes at CoinDesk, adding that Musk raises uncomfortable questions about price gouging. In the end, she advises those who trust the man's words to think twice before buying or selling any digital currency, because he has caused many losses due to his control of the market. (12)

But Musk isn't the only person making money with his tweets about cryptocurrency, as the Federal Trade Commission recently reported that consumers have been scammed out of $2 million by Musk's impersonators in the past six months. This indicates that Musk's control over the cryptocurrency markets is so strong that it extends to imitators as well, and we should not expect the demise of Musk's huge impact on cryptocurrency prices soon, as cryptocurrencies are becoming more popular, and Musk's empire is growing, so you should be careful before To give your trust to someone so mixed with facts and allegations about him. (13)

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Sources

1. Elon Musk becomes world's richest person as wealth tops $185bn
2. Elon Musk's Dad tells BI about the family's insanely casual attitude to wealth:
3. previous source
4. Elon Musk says he had about $100,000 in student debt after college: 'I couldn't even afford a 2nd PC'
5. Elon Musk – Estimated as 155
6. Elon Musk Paid A Private Investigator $50,000 To Dig Up Dirt On A British Cave Rescuer He Called A "Pedo Guy"
7. Hyperloop: How Elon Musk's Tube Travel Concept Works
8. previous source
9. Inside the Complicated Relationship Between Elon Musk and His Estranged Father, Errol Musk
10. Elon Musk by Ashlee vance
11. previous source
12. When Elon Musk tweets, crypto prices move
13. Elon Musk impersonators have stolen more than $2 million in cryptocurrency since October