Writing when you have a word limit to stick to is stimulating and challenging at the same time. The leveraging character limit for your own good is simply at another level. And that’s the idea behind Twitter. This social media platform has revolutionized concise messaging through the concept of tweets.
News, views, reviews, and whatnot are exchanged on Twitter. Sports, politics, movie industry, social workers, businessmen, organizations, the ordinary public…nearly every class and kind of person could be found on Twitter. It’s hard to follow that favourite celeb of yours had it not been for Twitter. Twitter now X is social media platform founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and Noah Glass
Jack Dorsey is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter. He is also the founder of Block, Inc. (Formerly Square). The net worth of Jack Dorsey is $4.1 billion, as of February 2025. Dorsey remained the CEO of Twitter till November 29, 2021, when he stepped down from the coveted position and was replaced by Parag Agrawal. Dorsey also resigned from Twitter’s Board of Directors on May 25th, 2022.
This StartupTalky article explores Jack Dorsey’s success story, including his early life, history, childhood, personal life, education, awards, net worth, and more.
Jack Dorsey Biography
Name
Jack Dorsey
Born
November 19, 1976
Place
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Nationality
American
Parents
Marcia Dorsey, Tim Dorsey
Education
Bishop DuBourg High School, Missouri University of Science and Technology, New York University
Known for
Co-Founder and Ex-CEO of Twitter, Co-Founder of Block, Inc.
Jack Patrick Dorsey was born on November 19, 1976, in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Jack grew up in a middle-class Catholic family. He grew to be one of the most famous entrepreneurs alongside his brothers, Andrew and Dannie Dorsey. Tim Dorsey & Marcia Smith Dorsey are the parents of Jack Dorsey.
When Jack Dorsey was young, he was an observant kid who had a speech impediment. As a result, he normally stayed at home and developed a fascination for simplicity. An introvert in childhood, Jack overcame his shyness by participating in various oratory competitions. After many failed attempts, he overcame his fear of speaking in front of the public.
As a teenager, Dorsey loved spending time with computers. An early version of the IBM computer fascinated him and he spent hours, if not days, analyzing and understanding it. His ambition was to draw a live map of New York City, comprising several dots or legends that represented vehicles and landmarks.
Jack Dorsey – Education
Jack Dorsey attended Bishop DuBourg High School and after leaving high school, he enrolled in the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Missouri University of Science and Technology
He left after two years to pursue his dream of living in New York and joined New York University only to drop out in the final year to work on his idea of Twitter. His goal of creating the live map took over his academics but fate has its quirks.
During the summer of 1991, Jack Dorsey joined Mira Digital Publishing Company. A young Dorsey interrupted his boss in the middle of a project. Although his boss promised to talk to him within a minute, Jack didn’t get to speak to him. After the meeting, his boss saw him standing at the same spot. Jack had a thing for patience. He went on to lead a team of programmers in their thirties.
Jack Dorsey Young
Jack Dorsey – The Dot-Com Setback
Jack Dorsey got into the Dispatch Management Services Corp by hacking their security system and emailing the company’s manager, Greg Kidd, on how to patch the hack. He worked for the company for several years and worked for Greg Kidd’s project called dNet.com. However, the dot-com bubble destroyed the efforts that were put in for dNet.com, and Dorsey was left unemployed. His condition was so bad that he had to go for massage therapy courses.
Dorsey was then saved by Odeo Company, which specialized in internet startups. The company was headed by Evan Williams and faced a financial crisis and ideological difficulties amongst the employees.
Jack Dorsey – Launch of Twitter
Jack Dorsey created Twitter because he wanted to combine the SMS concept with an algorithm so that the would-be read only by the sender’s network. This was the only core logic behind Twitter. After two weeks, Dorsey and his friend came up with the iconic blue bird logo for Twitter.
Twitter Logo
The first tweet was done by Dorsey which read – “just setting up my twttr” (yes, twttr, and not Twitter). Twitter went public in the year 2006.
In the start, many people labelled the Twitter concept as “useless”. Even Williams was sceptical about its potential. It was a hard time since companies like Odeo, which supported young programmers to build their own companies, were not available to help Dorsey with his Twitter venture.
Naturally, there was a concern for funds to keep Twitter away from shuttering. However, the Twitter team soon found a scanned image of half a million dollars in its checkbox. A guy named Fred Wilson offered this cheque and was willing to work for Twitter as a strategic consultant. His plans assisted Twitter in building a global reach.
With time, Twitter cemented its place and the rapid developments in smartphone tech only bolstered Twitter’s growth. Twitter has around 2.2 billion visits per month at present. During the Southwest Film Festival in 2007, employees used multiple screens to show the facility of the real-time messages offered by Twitter. This helped increase the daily tweets count from twenty to sixty thousand.
In May 2008, the billionth tweet was posted. In the same year, the market capitalization of Twitter reached a whopping $1.5 billion. The market cap of Twitter was last recorded at $26.10 Billion in February 2022.
In October 2009, Twitter gained its first revenue of around $25 million. Google Inc. and Microsoft had a role to play in this deal. The deal was centred on the condition that Twitter messages would become visible to Google and Bing search engines. Later, Dorsey refused to work with Facebook.
In 2013, there was a 182% increase in Twitter’s shares. This was due to an increase in the stock’s value in IPO (the stock price was $26, but increased to more than $46 on the first day of trading). At present, 85% of the revenues come from online advertisements.
Jack Dorsey, being the brain behind one of the most popular social media platforms of our times makes him an iconic social media entrepreneur. Jack Dorsey is currently worth around $4.1 billion, as of February 2025 reports.
Jack Dorsey Net worth
Jack Dorsey – Exit From Twitter
Jack Dorsey served as the CEO of Twitter since he founded Twitter in 2006. However, he had to resign due to the alleged problems in the functioning of the platform and in the management of the company for which he was pushed out of his role by the board in 2008.
The genius, however, witnessed a Steve Jobs– style return to his home company as a CEO in 2015 and had finally opted to resign on November 29, 2021, when he left the office to give way to Parag Agrawal, who replaced him immediately the very same day.
Speaking about Agrawal, Dorsey has mentioned that firstly, he wants to stop Twitter to be an entity that is founder-led. Furthermore, he mentioned that his trust in him “is bone-deep”.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said that he won’t be hanging there on the Board of Twitter for long. This is vital because he thinks that it is “important to give Parag the space he needs to lead”. Dorsey took to his homegrown platform to post his resignation letter, which reads:
Jack Patrick Dorsey quit the Twitter Board of Directors on May 25, 2021. Though he stepped down from being the Twitter CEO on November 29, 2021, he still remained aligned with the social media giant’s Board of Directors, however, he had already planned to leave the Board since he stepped down from the CEO position. Twitter is witnessing a visible change in its administration and is going through a major transformation since the days when Jack Dorsey stepped down. Now, Parag Agrawal is the CEO of Twitter, while Elon Musk is on the verge of acquiring the popular social media platform, which would bring in more change to follow.
Dorsey is now working on the development of Block, Inc. (Formerly Square). While Square still exists as one of the company’s main products, the company changed its name to Block on December 10, 2021.
Block Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA, and is financial services and digital payments company founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2009. The company Block derived its former name “Square” from its square-shaped card readers. Block is currently a public company that was registered on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2015.
Square, which is a payments platform that helps small and medium-sized businesses accept credit card payments and use tablet computers as payment registers for a point of sale system, is one of the core businesses of Block. Some other products/businesses of Block include:
Cash App – A mobile app that allows money transfers between users and businesses.
Afterpay – A buy-now-pay-later service of Block.
Weebly – Weebly is a website hosting service.
Tidal – Tidal offers audio and music videos to the users as a subscription-based music podcast and video streaming service.
In the year 2012, Starbucks invested $25 million in Square, Inc. The CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz joined Square’s board and became one of the most important personalities on the board.
Jack Dorsey – Awards and Achievements
Jack Dorsey’s Major Achievements:
Co-founded Twitter and led its expansion into a global social media platform.
Founded Square (now Block), transforming mobile and digital payments.
Philanthropic contributions, supporting education, COVID-19 relief, and universal basic income.
Jack Dorsey’s Awards & Recognitions:
MIT Technology Review (2008): Named one of the Top 35 Innovators Under 35.
The Wall Street Journal (2012): Awarded Innovator of the Year in technology.
Crunchies Awards (2012): Honored as Founder of the Year at the 5th Annual Crunchies.
Jack Dorsey is an American entrepreneur best known for co-founding Twitter and founding Square (now Block). He played a key role in shaping social media and digital payments.
Where did Jack Patrick Dorsey go to high school?
Jack Dorsey went to Bishop DuBourg High School.
What is Jack Dorsey education?
Jack Dorsey attended Missouri University of Science and Technology and New York University, but he dropped out in his final year to work on Twitter.
Where was Jack Dorsey born?
Jack Patrick Dorsey was born on November 19, 1976, in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, United States.
When did Jack Dorsey start Twitter?
Jack Dorsey started Twitter in 2006 and his first tweet was “just setting up my twttr”.
How did Jack Dorsey start Twitter?
When Odeo went out of business, Jack Dorsey started work on his idea where he wanted to combine the SMS concept with an algorithm so that the would-be read-only by the sender’s network.
Did Jack Dorsey graduate college?
No, Jack Dorsey dropped out first from the Missouri University of Science and Technology and after two years he transferred to the New York University but dropped out from there too to work on Twitter.
Did Jack Dorsey leave Twitter Board?
Yes, Jack Dorsey resigned from Twitter’s Board of Directors on May 25, 2022.
When did Jack Dorsey leave Twitter?
Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, stepped down from the Twitter CEO position On November 29, 2021, which brought Parag Agrawal as the new Twitter CEO. Furthermore, on May 25, 2022, Jack Dorsey left the Twitter Board of Directors, which was when Jack Dorsey left Twitter altogether.
Who are Jack Dorsey siblings?
Jack Patrick Dorsey has two brothers Daniel and Andrew.
Where did Jack Dorsey go to high school?
Jack Dorsey went to Bishop DuBourg High School.
How did Jack Dorsey start Twitter?
Jack Dorsey started Twitter in 2006 with Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. It began as an idea for a simple status-sharing platform. The first tweet was posted by Dorsey on March 21, 2006. Twitter quickly grew into a major social media platform.
What did Jack Dorsey invent?
Jack Dorsey co-invented Twitter (2006), a social media platform for short messages, and founded Square (now Block) (2009), a mobile payments company.
Today when we talk about the world’s most influential and richest entrepreneurs, Elon Musk comes to our minds for sure. He has always been in the news, let it be his new venture, his way of working, or his net worth.
Elon Musk’s tweets catch the attention of the masses; be it Elon Musk naming his baby X Æ A-12, which created a lot of buzz around the globe, or the “How Strange. Well, back to work…” one after Bloomberg announced him the richest person in the world, but only a few know about his life story.
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa. Elon Musk is an innovative business person, financial specialist, and engineer who is one of the most popular entrepreneurs in the world. He holds South African, Canadian, and U.S. citizenship. Elon Musk is the founder, CEO, and lead planner of SpaceX as well as a fellow benefactor, CEO, and item engineer ofTesla, Inc.
Elon Musk became the Richest Man in the World on January 7, 2021, after Tesla’s share price surged by 7.9%. It helped him to surpass Jeff Bezos. Musk was featured on the top of the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, a list of the top 500 richest people in the world, on 7th January 2021. Musk had added more than $122 billion to his fortune in the year 2021, which pushed his net worth to $292 billion, according to the reports dated October 2021. This made Elon Musk the first person to be the owner of such a huge fortune. Elon Musk’s net worth was then estimated to be $195 billion, which is currently estimated to be over $220 billion. He debuted on the list of the world’s richest persons back in 2012, when his net worth was estimated at $2 billion.
The tech tycoon went ahead with a bid to buy out Twitter by acquiring 100% of the Twitter stakes on April 26, 2022, in a deal worth $44 billion. However, the deal is still pending and the popular social media platform is yet to turn into a privately held entity.
To know more about the entrepreneur Elon Musk, Elon Musk biography, the answers to “what has Elon Musk studied?”, “what companies has Elon Musk founded?”, “what is Elon Musk famous for?” and more, stay glued!
Founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; CEO and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.; Founder of The Boring Company; and Co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, to a White South African electromechanics Engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant and product developer, who was his father and a Canadian Dietitian and model mother. Errol and Maye Musk divorced in 1980. Though Musk initially started to live with his father in Pretoria and elsewhere immediately after the separation of his parents, Elon later regretted his choice and started to be estranged from his father. Elon Musk has been described as an awkward and introverted child throughout his childhood and he has also been a victim of regular bullies in his school days. In one such incident, Musk was pushed by a group of boys down a flight of stairs and he was hospitalised later.
Elon Musk – Career
Elon Musk joined Anglican Sunday school in his youth. He later entered Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario in 1990. He was soon transferred to the University of Pennsylvania after 2 years, from where he graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Economics.
While still enrolled in his course, Musk then held 2 internships in the summer of 1994 in Silicon Valley, at the Pinnacle Research Institute and Rocket Science Games. He then was accepted as a PhD scholar in Materials Science at Stanford University in California in 1995. However, Musk later dropped out of the course and decided to join the internet boom and launch an internet-based startup.
Elon Musk – Personal Life
Elon Musk is the eldest of the three siblings, Kimbal and Toska, who are the younger brother and sisters of Musk. Elon’s adenoids were removed when he was a child because his parents were apprehensive that he was deaf, however, they discovered later on that it wasn’t true. His parents divorced in 1980. After their divorce, though Musk initially gravitated towards his father, he chose his mother later.
Musk’s marital life started with Justine Wilson, a Canadian author, whom he married in 2000 when he was at Queen’s University. They first had a son, who died of SIDS at 10 weeks. After that, the couple gave birth to a twin and a triplet. Talulah Riley was the second wife of Musk. However, they eventually got divorced and then remarried, and again got divorced for the second time. After ending this marriage, Musk dated Canadian musician Grimes, who later gave birth to a son in May 2020. Their son was named X AE A-XII.
How Elon Musk started his Journey?
Musk developed an interest in computing and video games from a very early age. He acquired Commodore VIC-20 when he was only 10. He started learning computer programming using a manual and successfully sold the code of a BASIC-based video game called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for $500, which he created, at the tender age of 12.
At 17, Elon Musk chose to move to the United States for finishing his auxiliary tutoring. Rather, Musk left for Canada and got selected at Queen’s University in Ontario at 19 years old. His calling came when he got a grant from the University of Pennsylvania. Then, he moved to the United States and acquired a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. He proceeded with his training further, acquiring himself a Bachelors of Science qualification from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
He started with a PhD programme at Stanford University in 1995 yet dropped out just after 2 days to seek an enterprising vocation. As published in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Elon Musk accepted that the internet, sustainable power sources, and space travel would be the ones having the greatest effect on the lives of individuals in the future.
As chosen, the three noteworthy subjects of worry for giving his life’s central goal, Elon Musk, alongside his brother Kimbal Musk, began an organization named ‘Zip2’. Elon Musk dropped out of the Applied Physics and Material Science program at Stanford University after two days in the wake of beginning this new pursuit known as Zip2.
Elon Musk story
Elon Musk’s Business Ventures
Elon Musk has evolved different and distinct categories in his comprehensive business field. From automobile miracles to secured money handful-application, from artificial intelligence (AI) research organizations to uplifted propagation throughout the space, Musk has achieved huge feats everywhere with his proficient signature and discretion. Those catalysts of his supremacy are listed below-
Zip2
Zip2 logo
In 1995, Musk with his brother Kimbal Musk began a web programming organization – Zip2, with cash raised from a little gathering of holy messenger investors. The organization created and advertised an Internet city control for the newspaper distributing industry with maps, directions, and yellow pages. Zip2 enabled all real print distributions to offer extra business administrations to their clients.
Musk got contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. Musk convinced the governing body to devise plans for a merger with CitySearch. While at Zip2, Musk wanted to move toward becoming CEO but the board members opposed it.
In February 1999, Compaq, a noteworthy web crawler at that point, procured this IT organization – Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options. The deal made it one of the greatest money acquisitions in those days. Musk got $22 million for his 7% share from the sale.
X.com and PayPal
Logo of x.com and PayPal
In March 1999, Musk established X.com, an online budgetary administration and email payment company with $10 million from the closeout of Zip2. One year later, the organization merged with Confinity, which had a payment service application called PayPal.
After merging, they concentrated on the PayPal administration and were renamed PayPalin 2001. PayPal’s initial development was driven essentially by a viral showcasing effort where new clients were selected when they got cash through the service. Musk was removed in October 2000 from his job as CEO because of conflicts with other organization authorities.
Musk wished to move PayPal’s Unix-based foundation to Microsoft Windows, which was opposed by all. In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk got $165 million. Before its deal, Musk, who was the organization’s biggest investor, claimed 11.7% of PayPal’s shares.
In July 2017, Musk bought the domain X.com back from PayPal for an undisclosed sum, expressing that it has sentimental value to him.
SpaceX
In 2001, Musk considered Mars Oasis, an undertaking to send a small test nursery on Mars, in the hopes of revolutionizing the aerospace industry and making affordable spaceflight a reality. In February 2002, Elon Musk came to Russia to search for three ICBMs (missiles), bringing along Mike Griffin. Griffin had worked for the CIA’s investment arm, In-Q-Tel, just as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was simply leaving Orbital Sciences, a producer of satellites and rockets.
Kosmotras, a Russian Space Company, offered one rocket for $8 million. But Musk found it excessively costly and refused to purchase it. While on the trip back from Moscow, Musk understood that he could begin an organization that could manufacture the moderate rockets he needed. Musk calculated that the raw materials needed to structure a rocket really were just 3% of the commercial cost of a rocket at the time.
In 2002, Musk ultimately established SpaceX with the long-term objective of making a genuine spacefaring civilization. With US$100 million of his initial fortune, Musk established Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX, in May 2002. Musk is CEO and boss of innovation official (CTO) of the California-based SpaceX organization.
Logo of SpaceX
SpaceX creates and makes space dispatch vehicles with an emphasis on propelling the condition of rocket innovation. The organization’s initial two dispatch vehicles were the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets (a gesture to Star Wars Millennium Falcon) and its first shuttle is the Dragon (a gesture to Puff the Magic Dragon).
In seven years, SpaceX planned the group of Falcon dispatch vehicles and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft. In September 2008, SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket turned into the main privately financed fluid-powered vehicle to place a satellite into Earth orbit. On May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle berthed with the International Space Station (ISS), impacting the world forever as the primary business organization to dispatch and compartment a vehicle to the ISS.
In 2006, SpaceX was granted an agreement from NASA to proceed with the improvement and trial of the SpaceX Falcon 9 dispatch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft so as to ship freight to the International Space Station. It was followed by a $1.6 billion NASA Commercial Resupply Services program contract on December 23, 2008, for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon shuttle to the Space Station.
On December 22, 2015, SpaceX effectively handled the principal phase of its Falcon rocket back at the platform. This was the first run in history such an accomplishment had been accomplished by an orbital rocket. It became the first step towards rocket reusability, bringing down the expenses of access to space.
In the entire year of 2017, SpaceX launched its eighteen Falcon 9 flights, successfully, which are more than the previous year’s 8 flights. On February 6, 2018, SpaceX effectively launched the Falcon Heavy, the fourth-highest capacity rocket ever built and the most powerful rocket in activity in 2018. The debut mission carried a Musk’s Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload.
Today, SpaceX is both the biggest private maker of rocket motors on the planet and holder of the record for the most noteworthy push-to-weight proportion for a rocket motor (the Merlin 1D). SpaceX has created in excess of 100 operational Merlin 1D motors. Every Merlin 1D motor can vertically lift the heaviness of 40 normal family vehicles.
Tesla Motors
Logo of Tesla, Inc.
Tesla, Inc. (initially Tesla Motors) was established in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. They financed the organization until the Series A funding. The two men were actively involved in the company’s development. In February 2004, Musk joined Tesla’s board of directors as its chairman and led the Series A round of investment.
Musk played a functioning job inside the organization and supervised the Roadster item structure at a definite level, yet was not profoundly engaged with everyday business operations. Following the money-related emergency in 2008 and after a progression of raising clashes in 2007, Eberhard was expelled from the firm. Musk expected initiative of the organization as CEO and item engineer, positions which he holds even today.
In 2008, Tesla Motors initially built an electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, with sales of 2,500 vehicles to 31 nations. On June 22, 2012, Tesla started the conveyance of its four-door Model S car. On February 9, 2012, it uncovered its third item, the Model X for the SUV/minivan market but Model X dispatch was postponed until September 2015.
Tesla’s income in 2018 was $21.46 billion. In 2013, Tesla’s Model S was the first electric vehicle to get the Car of the Year Award by Motor Trend. Over the most recent four months of 2018, Tesla’s US piece of the overall industry was about 2%. It costs $13.66 to completely charge a Tesla Model X at home.
The general Tesla total assets were evaluated to be $2.2 billion in 2018, dependent on its income and benefits. Nearly 75% of every single electric vehicle sold in the US in 2019’s first quarter were Teslas. Tesla saw an income of $21.461 billion in 2018. The total assets of Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, were $18.1 billion as of May 2019.
Tesla recently saw a surge of 4.8% in the share price helping Elon Musk surpass Jeff Bezos to become the richest man in the world.
Neuralink Corporation is another company of which Elon Musk is the co-founder. Founded in July 2016, Neuralink is a neurotechnology company that is engaged in developing implantable brain-machine interfaces (BMIs). Headquartered in Pioneer Building, San Francisco, California, Neuralink shares its office with OpenAI.
In an hour-long interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that his neuro-tech company Neuralink is going to launch the first product that can make any brain function as a superhuman AI. San Francisco-headquartered Neuralink is developing implantable brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) or Cyborg that could improve memory or allow for more direct interfacing with computing devices.
Neuralink Corporation is an American neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk in 2016. Elon Musk claims that the moto of Neuralink is a human enhancement and the technology, which will be able to merge the computers with the human brain. Thus, it will obtain a symbiotic relationship between the human brain and Artificial Intelligence.
“ If your biological self-dies, you can upload into a new unit. Literally. It will enable anyone who wants to have superhuman reasoning and intelligence.” – Elon Musk
Developing such implantable brain-computer interfaces(BCIs) or cyborg will be quite a challenge and to be on top of the game, Elon Musk needs to stay ahead of Neuralink’s competitors with a heavy focus on applied engineering. BCIs must incorporate features that are a thousand times better than the existing interfaces with no surgery, no aesthetics, and definitely no drilling holes in the skull.
Elon Musk further points out that there has been a significant advancement in the field stating, “I think Neuralink will have something interesting to announce in a few months that’s at least an order of magnitude better than anything else, probably better than anyone thinks is possible.”
You can see the podcast here:
Elon Musk’s Interview with Joe Rogan
In early 2017, he made a jaw-dropping revelation stating that robots will disrupt our job scenario and that there’s nothing much that can be done and the competition between the countries with the most sophisticated AI will be the reason for World War 3. Probably to him, the merging seems like a better option which might give a human a better chance of surviving. “The merge scenario with AI is the one that seems like probably the best. If you can’t beat it, join it,” Musk said.
OpenAI
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory that consists of OpenAI LP, which is a for-profit organization, and OpenAI Inc, its parent company. OpenAI is another Elon Musk-founded company, which he founded in December 2015, along with Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman. OpenAI was founded with an aim of promoting and developing a friendly AI that will benefit humanity as a whole. The collective pledging of $1 billion by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and others resulted in the birth of the company. It is important to note that Musk has already resigned from the Board of the company in February 2018, but he still remains a donor.
The Boring Company
Logo of The Boring Company
In December 2016, Elon Musk founded the infrastructure and tunnel construction services company, The Boring Company is also known as TBC. Musk has experienced difficulty with Los Angeles traffic and limitations with the current two-dimensional transportation network. This led to the inspiration for the project.
The Boring Company currently has active construction and is planning future projects in the Los Angeles and Baltimore–Washington areas. They have also been selected to build a downtown-to-airport loop by a government program for high-speed transport in Chicago. There have been three boring tunnel projects proposed in the Los Angeles area out of which one test tunnel was completed in November 2018.
Though The Boring Company was initially formed in December 2016 as a subsidiary of SpaceX, it become a separate and fully independent company in 2018. In this, 90% of the equity was owned by Musk and 6% held by SpaceX in return for the use of SpaceX resources during the initial startup of the company. Outside investments during 2019 have changed the equity split.
Twitter
Twitter Logo – A firm owned by Elon Musk
Elon Musk is one of the most famous tweeps who almost keeps his audience hooked with his Twitter profile. Musk has always been an avid Twitter user and was on the brink of becoming a 100% owner of Twitter, the bid for which he placed on April 26, 2022, where he was looking forward to acquiring 100% stakes in Twitter in an all-cash deal worth around $44 billion. However, he finally turned down the deal, citing multiple breaches of the deal.
Musk first expressed his interest in buying the platform in 2017. In the wake of 2022, Musk started materialising this dream of his by buying significant stakes in Twitter first on January 31, 2022, which reached 5% on March 14, 2022. He became the largest stakeholder in Twitter on April 1, 2022, owning over 9% of its stakes. Musk then agreed to a deal on April 4, 2022, which prohibited his possession of more than 14.9% of the shares of his company and would assert his joining the board of directors of Twitter. However, Musk decided to not join the board before April 9, 2022, when the appointment became effective. Elon Musk then placed a bid to buy 100% of Twitter’s shares on April 13th at $54.20 per share. This bid was granted by the Twitter board and would have made Elon Musk the owner of 100% of Twitter’s shares in a deal worth $44 bn if Musk didn’t walk away from the deal. There was also a breakup fee of $1 bn if the deal falls apart. Elon Musk threatened to blow up the deal over the bot issue on June 10, 2022, and ultimately terminated the deal in the first week of July 2022. In reply to this, Twitter sued Musk on July 12, 2022.
In the case filed at the Court of Chancery, Delaware, the acquisition deal was to be forced to go through, as per the decision by Chief Judge McCormick, thereby being ruled against Elon Musk.
Elon Musk – Investments
Elon Musk has 7 investments to date, all of which are personal investments. Here’s a list of the Elon Musk investments:
Elon Musk is recognised for his fight against global warming and Tesla is one of the examples of it. Some of the awards and recognition that he has received are:
For his advocacy, he has received Global Green Award and National Wildlife Federation’s Connie Award.
He has received the Entrepreneur of the award of Inc Magazine and is also known as the Living Legend of Aviation by Kitty Hawk Foundation.
Musk has also been ranked 1 on Forbes’ Billionaires list. Musk is a receiver of the Axel Springer Award.
In 2010, Musk received FAI Gold Space Medal from the Federation Aronautique Internationale.
Elon Musk – Controversies
The richest person on the planet has some fair share of controversies as well. Elon Musk is said to be quite blunt with the tweets that often surround him with controversies. Some of them are:
Right after he was all set for the Twitter acquisition, Musk said that he will buy Coca-Cola and put cocaine back in the beverage.
Musk named the cars from the Model 3 series of Tesla first as Model S, Model E and Model X. However, when Ford allegedly warned Tesla about a lawsuit for using Model E, Tesla changed its name to Model 3, which still made the models together sound like S.3.X
Elon Musk smoked weed on the Joe Rogan podcast and was surrounded by memes and controversies
Musk joked about sending space dragons with lasers to help Ukraine fight the Russians after an article stated that Musk would send flame-throwing electric tanks to Ukraine
During Canada’s trucker protest, Elon Musk compared Hitler with Canadian President Justin Trudeau.
Musk got Sued by Twitter
Elon Musk was legally sued by Twitter for “hypocrisy”, reported The Verge at Delaware’s Court of Chancery on July 12, 2022, after he decided to terminate the Twitter acquisition deal. This opened another chapter of Musk’s life where he will resist his claim in court against the social media giant Twitter.
Elon Musk – Unknown Facts
The richest man is not only unique but interesting as well. Some of the unknown facts about Elon Musk are:
When Musk was 12 years old, he created a video game called Blaster and sold it to a magazine.
Musk named his son Xavier after the character of Professor Xavier from the movie X-Men.
Musk also had a cameo in The Simpsons, along with those in South Park, The Big Bang Theory, Rick and Morty, and more.
Musk’s first venture was Zip2 which was created in 1995.
Musk doesn’t like Facebook and is concerned about its privacy issues.
Elon Musk gets a $1 salary from Tesla.
Musk is called Thrillionaire. It means an entrepreneur who is turning reality into science fiction.
Elon Musk – Quotes
Some of the most popular quotes from Elon Musk are:
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.
Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is a disaster.
If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if – the probable outcome is a failure.
People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.
If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.
Elon Musk – Future Plans
Elon Musk has never made his desire to make people “multi-planetary animal types”. Colonizing Mars would be a decent start as per Musk. In September 2017, at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide he unveiled his arrangement to send payload delivers there in the following 5 years. By expansion, he trusts that people will settle the planet when 2024.
Elon’s Hyperloop has been contrasted by him with a “cross between a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table”. The plan is to eventually give a method for a movement that should have the option to surpass 1124 km/h and all underground.
At present two courses are being developed – between Los Angeles and San Francisco and between New York and Washington D.C. When complete these excursions should take close to 30 minutes utilizing Hyperloop.
At the point when 12 youngsters and their football (soccer) mentor were caught in an overwhelmed collapse in Thailand, Elon and his group developed an apparently insane thought. The arrangement, clearly, was to construct a tyke-estimated submarine. The sub was structured and worked in record time utilizing extra rocket parts. Regardless of this, the salvage groups esteemed it unrealistic and finished the mission without it. “Pedo fellow” aftermath aside Thai military authorities accept the submarine could have utility in the future.
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and was raised in Pretoria and the regions nearby the capital of South Africa.
What did Elon Musk study?
Elon Musk has a Bachelor’s degree in both Physics and Economics.
What’s Elon Musk’s IQ?
Elon Musk’s IQ is estimated to be ranging between 150-155.
What is Elon Reeve Musk famous for?
Elon Musk has founded the electronic payment firm PayPal and spacecraft company SpaceX. He is the CEO of the electric-car maker company Tesla. Musk is also the owner of the social media platform Twitter and the world’s richest person, as of April 2022.
Did Elon Musk acquire Twitter?
Elon Musk was about to acquire 100% stakes in Twitter and become the owner of Twitter. He asserted to buy out all of the stocks of Twitter in a deal worth $44 billion on April 26, 2022, but then he refused, leaving the deal pending.
What companies has Elon Musk founded?
Elon Musk founded many companies to date including SpaceX, The Boring Company, X.com, Neuralink, OpenAI, and Zip2.
Did Elon Musk create Paypal?
No, Elon Musk is not the founder of Paypal, nor did he create it. However, Elon Musk indeed found the company known as X.com. This company later merged with Confinity Inc., which was the creator of the product Paypal.
Is Elon Musk an entrepreneur?
Elon Musk is indeed an entrepreneur. The world’s richest person nourished his entrepreneurial dream right after he graduated from college.
What companies has Elon Musk founded?
SpaceX, SolarCity, and Tesla are some of the prominent companies that Elon Musk founded.
Is Elon Musk a real person? What is Elon Musk’s academic background?
Yes, Elon Musk is a real person. Going by the academic background of Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO has a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
How did Elon Musk start his career?
Elon Musk started his career by dropping out of Stanford University in just 2 days to start his company Zip2.
Being a successful startup owner is not an easy task- it is counted as one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Many successful people don’t have a college degree but success doesn’t require a degree. The two most well-known names include those Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. These are stories that are known to the world. There are many more dropouts which are yet to be known because of their rigorous hard work and dedication towards the path of becoming a successful entrepreneur. So, let us see the insights on the topic- 5 College Dropouts Entrepreneurs In The Indian Startup Ecosystem.
Ritesh Agarwal is one of the top Indian college dropouts who became successful in India. He is the founder and CEO of hospitality business and app – Oyo Rooms – a network of 2,200 hotels operating in 154 cities across India – with monthly revenues of $3.5m and 1,500 employees. He holds a high school degree from St. Johns Senior Secondary School. He dropped out of college and sold sim cards to survive in spite of coming from a well-to-do family.
He travelled a lot, stayed at budget hotels and attended customer calls. This proved to be a good experience which helped him establish his business very firmly. OYO Rooms is a room aggregator business. The idea man behind OYO rooms is Ritesh Agarwal. Ritesh founded a company Oravel. He was obsessed with the idea of providing a budget enabled hotel at the age of 18 yrs. Later, he rebranded this concept to OYO Rooms.
His model attracted many investors. Some of these include Light speed Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Green Oaks Capital. It has raised a total of $125million of funding in 4 rounds from 7 investors. Agarwal has won many awards and accolades for his work including the Business World Young Entrepreneur Award. He is a regular speaker at entrepreneurial conferences and institutes across India and the world and a fellow of the Thiel Foundation.
He is another top Successful Indian College Dropout Entrepreneurs. He dropped out to start Freecharge. He co-founded Freecharge with Sandeep Tandon. Freecharge is a concept in the online recharging system. It offered a three-step recharge with exciting cashback offers. He founded the company in 2010. It was recently acquired by SnapDeal. He studied for his BA at Wilson College. He acquired a degree in philosophy and went onto study business management at NMIMS. But he dropped out. His first venture was Paisaback. This offered cash back from retailers.
He dropped out of Osmania University to sell vacuum cleaners. He went door to door to make sales. Post that he started writing. He wrote for Unilever, Pepsi and MTV among others. He also did a lot of creative ad campaigns and became a creative director. He created several top-notch commercials, which won him awards. He founded the ad agency Pinstorm in 2004.
Pinstorm is a leading search engine marketing firm in Asia. He offered a ‘pay-for-performance’ model. This worked well with most corporate and was received well for a start-up. He has counselled in marketing for 29 years and spent over thirteen years helping start-ups. He has helped seed fund and founded over ten start-up ventures in India alone. He believes that entrepreneurs should “Dream Big. The earth’s the limit.”
Percentage of College Dropouts By Age
4. Kailash Katkar
Kailash Katkar- Quick Heal
Born on the 1st of November 1966, in the village of Rahimatpur in Maharashtra, the Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Rs. 200-crore+ Quick Heal Technologies. He grew up in Pune, where his father used to work at Philips as a machine setter. Kailash had to drop out of his studies soon after he completed his SSC (10th Grade), primarily due to family circumstances. He started his career by working in repairs shop to help his family financially. He repaired calculators and radios. Later, in 1990, he started his own repairs shop. In 1993, he started a computer repair zone– CAT.
He was inspired as his younger brother Sanjay, had developed anti-virus software to solve their issue of computer maintenance. As time went on, he rebranded and expanded. By 2007, he named his company Quick Heal Technologies. It is the first company in India to create and market an antivirus solution. It has also started an R&D section for research in security solutions. The company masters the art of cloud-based security and advanced machine learning enabled solutions to stop threats, attacks and malicious traffic before it strikes with the help of its services.
This service includes– Quick Heal Total Security, Quick Heal Internet Security, Quick Heal PCTuner 3.0, etc for the Home Users, along with Quick Heal Total Security for Android, Quick Heal Mobile Security, Quick Heal Gadget Securance, Fonetastic Free, Fonetastic Pro, etc for the Mobile users. The company today has transformed into an IT security solutions empire which is spread across 60 countries worldwide including 31 branch offices across India along with offices in countries like Japan, USA, Kenya and Dubai.
5. Rahul Yadav
Rahul Yadav- HOUSING.COM
Rahul born to a middle-class family from Rajasthan is an IIT (Bombay) final year dropout. He had enrolled at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2007 to specialize in metallurgy. He also went on to serve as the representative and secretary for the university’s student association as well. Dropping out of IIT in the fourth years is not easy. It’s even tougher to succeed after that or so you would believe. But Rahul Yadav proved otherwise.
Not only did he drop out of IIT, but he also launched a successful portal, Housing.com. He co-founded this portal and became CEO. This portal helps to search and sell properties worth millions. Within the first week itself, the portal sold properties worth eight million. Yadav was featured in the Forbes list of young entrepreneurs – “30 under 30”. The company today, with a strong team of 2500 people housing.com is valued at ₹1500 crores.
The company at the moment gets more than 11 million visitors on the website/month and has also crossed a million app downloads as well. And talking about their funding rounds, housing.com has raised a total of $139.5 Million in 4 Rounds from 6 Investors including – SoftBank Capital, Helion Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures.
Niku Mandal
Ananya Shetty
