logo
The Elon Musk you did not know: From Tony Stark connection to launching a perfume

The Elon Musk you did not know: From Tony Stark connection to launching a perfume

Mint31-05-2025
The world's richest man, Elon Musk, is well known as the owner of Tesla, the electric car maker, and SpaceX, his private space company. He also took over the social media platform Twitter, renaming it X. Until recently, Musk worked within the US government as head of the Department of Government Efficiency - known as DOGE - which was part of Donald Trump's dispensation.
After nearly 130 days in the role, Musk announced his departure from the department. His time there and his close ties with Trump kept him in the headlines more than ever. But there are many lesser-known facts about the billionaire entrepreneur, according to a report by Sky news.
At just 12 years old in the early 1980s, Musk created a video game called Blastar. Using coding skills he had learned from the age of nine, Musk designed a game where players used their keyboard to shoot alien spaceships.
By 1984, the game was sold to PC and Office Technology magazine for $500 (£371) and appeared in their December issue.
Read | Elon Musk 'willingly accepted outrageous abuse because…': Donald Trump bids DOGE head farewell | Top 10 points
Musk's talent for business showed early. In 1995, at 24, he and his brother Kimbal started their first company, Zip2, which developed online city guides for newspapers. The business began with just $28,000 (£20,000) but was sold for nearly $300 million (£222 million) in 1999.
Before the sale, Musk and his brother were almost broke and slept on their office floor—something Musk later repeated in Tesla's early days. He earned $22 million from the sale and bought a McLaren F1 sports car. He told CNN, 'Just three years ago I was sleeping on the office floor, and now I've got a million-dollar car.'
Not all Musk's ventures have been long-lasting. In 2022, he launched a perfume called Burnt Hair, described on The Boring Company's website as 'the essence of repugnant desire.' The scent was priced at $100 (£74) a bottle and sold 10,000 bottles within hours, earning Musk a million dollars.
He joked, 'With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable - why did I even fight it for so long!?' The perfume is no longer available on the company's website.
Besides perfume, Tesla released tequila in 2020 and Musk even sold limited edition Tesla short shorts as a playful challenge to investors betting against the company.
Read | Black spot near Elon Musk's eye raises speculations amid reports of drug use
Before Twitter became X, Musk founded X.com, an online banking and financial service company. The platform merged in 2000 with Confinity, which was co-founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, and was later renamed PayPal.
Musk served as PayPal's CEO but was ousted after disputes over the company's direction. eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion (£1.4 billion). In 2017, eBay sold the domain X.com back to Musk.
Read | 'Did Elon Musk get punched?' His bruised eye at Oval Office baffles netizens
Musk's life inspired Hollywood. The screenwriter of Iron Man, Mark Fergus, said the character Tony Stark was partly based on Musk, alongside Donald Trump and Apple's Steve Jobs.
'Musk took the brilliance of Jobs with the showmanship of Trump. He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and actual business substance,' Fergus told New York Magazine.
Musk even made a cameo appearance in Iron Man 2 in 2010.
Despite popular belief, Musk did not start Tesla. The company was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk was an early investor and became Tesla's fourth CEO in 2008, shortly after the first Tesla Roadster was launched.
He is credited with taking Tesla onto the global stage.
After buying Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and renaming it X, Musk has been working to create an 'everything app.' He wants X to be like WeChat in China, offering messaging, payments, social media, business services and more.
X's chief executive Linda Yaccarino said 2025 would be the year X 'connect [s] you in ways never thought possible,' with features like X TV, X Money, and Grok.
In January, Musk announced a partnership with Visa to allow users to move money between traditional banks and an X digital wallet, making payments to friends easier.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Coldplay Kiss Cam Scandal: Astronomer Hires Chris Martins Ex-Wife Gwyneth Paltrow As Temporary Spokesperson
Coldplay Kiss Cam Scandal: Astronomer Hires Chris Martins Ex-Wife Gwyneth Paltrow As Temporary Spokesperson

India.com

time40 minutes ago

  • India.com

Coldplay Kiss Cam Scandal: Astronomer Hires Chris Martins Ex-Wife Gwyneth Paltrow As Temporary Spokesperson

New Delhi: Astronomer, the AI tech company that shot to global fame after the Coldplay kiss cam scandal, has now made an unexpected PR move to take what many are calling 'revenge.' The company has hired Hollywood actress and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow who also happens to be Coldplay frontman Chris Martin's ex-wife as a 'temporary spokesperson.' This comes after a video from the band's Boston concert, shown on the stadium's kiss cam, unintentionally exposed an affair between Astronomer's former CEO Andy Byron and ex-HR head Kristin Cabot. The clip went viral, and both employees have since resigned. In a new tongue-in-cheek video posted on Astronomer's official X (formerly Twitter) account, Paltrow says: 'Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. I've been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer.' Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. — Astronomer (@astronomerio) July 25, 2025 She adds, 'Astronomers have gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones." However, rather than directly addressing the scandal, the Iron Man actress pivots smoothly to promote the company's data workflow tools and AI products. The video begins with the caption, 'OMG! What the actual F,' before cutting to Paltrow who brightly declares that Astronomer is the 'best place to run Apache Airflow.' She adds, 'We've been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation.' When asked, 'How is your social media team holding up?', viewers braced for a response about the scandal. But instead, Paltrow promoted the company's Beyond Analytics conference, scheduled for September, adding that vacancies are still open. 'We will now be returning to what we do best: Delivering game-changing results to our customers,' she concludes. 'Thank you for your interest in Astronomer.' Netizens React: One user wrote: 'I want to know what prompt you used on what system to come up with this PR response because chef's kiss.' Another exclaimed: 'You got Chris Martin's ex-wife???!!! Savage.' A third added: 'Astronomer, whose CEO was caught cheating on his wife with the head of HR at a Coldplay concert, just released an ad starring Coldplay's lead singer's ex-wife, Gwyneth Paltrow. Yes, they think adultery and marriage is a joke… Other than that, clever marketing.' Another summed it up with: 'You hired the Coldplay singer's ex-wife. Extraordinary.'

Tesla beats Chinese rivals BYD, Xiaomi & Huawei in driving assisted tests: Report
Tesla beats Chinese rivals BYD, Xiaomi & Huawei in driving assisted tests: Report

Hindustan Times

timean hour ago

  • Hindustan Times

Tesla beats Chinese rivals BYD, Xiaomi & Huawei in driving assisted tests: Report

Billionaire Elon Musk's Tesla outperformed Chinese rivals, including BYD, Xiaomi and Huawei in a test of assisted driving technologies on China's highways, according to results published by TikTok owner Bytedance's auto unit Dcar. Tesla scored the best in the highway test among 36 models, with its Model 3 and Model X passing five out of six scenarios. State television CCTV and Dcar jointly tested the level 2 advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) from more than 20 electric vehicle brands in China and rated their performance in a series of scenarios with higher risks of accidents on highways and urban traffic. Also check these Cars Find more Cars Tesla Model Y 75 kwh 75 kwh 622 km 622 km ₹ 59.89 Lakhs Compare View Offers MG M9 EV 90 kWh 90 kWh 548 km 548 km ₹ 69.90 Lakhs Compare View Offers Volvo C40 Recharge 78 kWh 78 kWh 530 km 530 km ₹ 62.95 Lakhs Compare View Offers UPCOMING VinFast VF7 75.3 kWh 75.3 kWh 450 km 450 km ₹ 60 - 65 Lakhs Alert Me When Launched Kia EV6 84 kWh 84 kWh 663 km 663 km ₹ 65.97 Lakhs Compare View Offers BMW iX1 66.4 kWh 66.4 kWh 417 km 417 km ₹ 66.90 Lakhs Compare View Offers The test videos posted by Dcar went viral on Chinese social media. Tesla scored the best in the highway test among 36 models, with its Model 3 and Model X passing five out of six scenarios, while BYD's Denza Z9GT and Huawei-backed Aito M9 failed in three scenarios. Xiaomi's SU7 passed in one of six. In a Weibo post on Friday, HIMA, the Huawei-led auto alliance, said it declined to comment on the "so-called test." BYD and Xiaomi didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. "Due to laws against data export, Tesla achieved the top results in China despite having no local training data," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on his X account on Friday. Tesla has been caught in what Musk described as a "quandary", as the U.S. doesn't allow its AI software to be trained in China, while the automaker has been seeking approval from Chinese regulators to transfer data saved locally in Shanghai back to the United States for algorithm training. Domestic brands should face up to the gap with Tesla in autonomous driving, Wang Yao, deputy chief engineer of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, told an auto forum in Shanghai earlier this month. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, in remarks after a Tesla Model Y delivered itself from an Austin, Texas factory to its owner in the area roughly 30 minutes away, said "we will continue to learn" from Tesla which has led industry trends. The test came amid growing safety concerns in China about the ADAS after a highway accident involving a Xiaomi SU7 killed three people in March. State media have blamed misleading promotions for resulting drivers' improper uses of the technologies and the authorities have banned the uses of terms such as "smart driving" and "autonomous driving" for marketing driving assistance features. The public security ministry said this week that the country will set out legal responsibilities related to the technology that has yet achieved true autonomous driving. Drivers face safety and legal risks if they are distracted in accidents when assisted driving is turned on, the ministry warned. Xiaomi had seen a slump in new EV orders as a consumer backlash began in April following the fatal trash, but the impact seems short-lived, with its new electric SUV receiving exceptionally strong initially orders after it went on sale last month. Tesla's sales of its China-made electric vehicles edged up 0.8% in June from a year earlier, snapping an eight-month losing streak, but they continued to fall on a quarterly basis in the face of lower-cost new models from its Chinese rivals. Tesla's assisted driving suite is available in China for nearly $9,000, while the technology from its local rivals including Xiaomi and BYD is without extra cost, pressuring the U.S. automaker's self-driving future. Tesla's technology approach relies solely on cameras as sensors and artificial intelligence while most Chinese peers including BYD use lidar (light detection and range sensors) additionally to ensure performance. Check out Upcoming EV Cars in India. First Published Date:

‘Inaccurate': Starlink Denies Elon Musk Ordered 2022 Ukraine Shutdown
‘Inaccurate': Starlink Denies Elon Musk Ordered 2022 Ukraine Shutdown

News18

timean hour ago

  • News18

‘Inaccurate': Starlink Denies Elon Musk Ordered 2022 Ukraine Shutdown

Last Updated: A report claimed Elon Musk shut down Starlink service during Ukraine's 2022 counteroffensive in Kherson in fear of a nuclear response from Russia. Elon Musk's satellite service company, Starlink, denied a report by Reuters that claimed that the tech mogul had ordered a shutdown of services during a critical phase of Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian forces in late September 2022. Citing three people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that Musk told a senior engineer at the California offices of SpaceX, which controls Starlink, to cut coverage in areas including Kherson, a strategic region that Ukraine was trying to reclaim. However, the spokesperson did not provide answers to several questions regarding the incident, Starlink's role in the Ukraine war, or any other relevant details. The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country's Ministry of Defence also didn't respond to requests for comment. This came after a Starlink outage on Friday that heavily affected battlefield communications in Ukraine. A senior commander said Starlink systems used by the Ukrainian forces were down for over 2.5 hours overnight. Several combat operations had to be postponed as a result of the outage, as per a Ukrainian drone commander. Ukraine's military depends significantly on thousands of SpaceX Starlink terminals for battlefield communications and certain drone operations, as these devices have consistently withstood espionage attempts and signal jamming during the three and a half years of Russia's invasion. How Elon Musk's Shutdown Order Affected Ukraine According to the Reuters report, Elon Musk's directive caused a communications blackout that affected Ukrainian drone operations, artillery targeting and frontline coordination. Ukrainian military officials and advisors said the blackout caused soldiers to panic and long-range artillery units struggled to aim their fire. As a result, Ukrainian troops failed to surround a Russian position in the town of Beryslav, east of Kherson. 'The encirclement stalled entirely. It failed," said a military official. However, Ukraine eventually reclaimed Beryslav and Kherson city. Sources familiar with Elon Musk's decision said, as per the report, that it stemmed from his concerns that a Ukrainian advance could provoke nuclear retaliation from Moscow. The decision shocked some Starlink employees and effectively reshaped the front line of the fighting, enabling Musk to take 'the outcome of a war into his own hands," a source said. view comments First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store