PayPal.
The sale of both companies amounted to close to $2 billion, which allowed Musk to focus on his life long passions in science, engineering, and space.
Musk is founder
of and currently runs three different companies
: Space X
(which made history in May 2012 as the first private company to deliver a cargo payload to the International Space Station with its Dragon spacecraft), Solar City (basically the Walmart of solar panel installations for business and residential customers), and Tesla Motors, an all electric American car company. It is Tesla where Mr. Musk is currently focusing most of his attention.
As we have discussed, the U.S. automotive industry is characterized by high entry barriers. However, rather than attempting to overcome these barriers through large scale entry using traditional internal combustion technology, Mr. Musk uses new technology to sidestep them altogether. In particular, Tesla Motors develops all electric powertrains and cars, and currently offers three models. Unlike complex gasoline engines, electric cars are powered by relatively simple motors and gearboxes that have few parts. In fact, the Tesla Roadster, an expensive sports car, has already successfully demonstrated that electric vehicles can be more than mere golf carts by outperforming a Porsche 911 on key metrics such as acceleration. In a move to appeal to a more mass market and to reach a larger production scale to drive down unit costs, Tesla next developed the Model S, a four-door family sedan. The model S received an outstanding market reception, and was awarded the 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year. Tesla is also working on a newly designed seven-seat electric vehicle- the Model X – in an attempt to combine the best features of an SUV with the benefits of a minivan.