elon musk
Elon Musk
Vocabulary
| rocket | base (3) | catapult (2) |
| scrap | vertical | run/ran/run (2) |
| crash | booster | simultaneous |
| gaze | motivate | fly/flew/flown |
| source | land (2) | entrepreneur |
| event | colonize | find/found/found |
| plot | mad (2) | flamethrower |
| offer | spark (2) | throw/threw/thrown |
| wonder | allegation | underground (2) |
| cum | magnate | inspiration |
| libel | voracious | read/read/read |
| bully | run out of | begin/began/begun |
| hinder | transfer | catch his breath |
| empire | provide | teach/taught/taught |
| invest | introvert | sell/sold/sold |
| planet | promise | revolutionize |
| severe | pursuit | know/knew/known |
| acquire | crazy (2) | take/took/taken |
| set up | renewable | catch/caught/caught |
| enable | windfall | mission statement |
| inspire | excited | turn his gaze |
| solve | transition | look forward to |
| value | exception | think/thought/thought |
| ruin | catalyst | disruptive (2) |
| loan | threaten | come/came/came |
| crash | desperate | rise/rose/risen |
| explore | episode | entertainment |
| gear | damage | not to mention |
| pet | space (2) | controversy |
| scrape | suffer (2) | last-minute |
| survive | loom (3) | profitability |
| reach | pet peeve | lose/lost/lost |
| launch | baseless | no wonder |
| cave | ultimate | emergency |
| case (2) | legal (2) | horizontal |
| multi- | public (2) | turned to (2) |
| toke | marijuana | stranger (2) |
| cavalier | attitude | shareholder |
| goal (2) | eccentric | journey (2) |
| step (2) | exciting | stepping stone (2) |
| rescue | display (2) | sophisticated |
| beyond | private (3) | say/said/said |
| species | firm (2) | as soon as (2) |
| planet | eventual | wait around |
| extinct | tweet (2) | sell/sold/sold |
| set up | adventure |
Video
Transcript
February the sixth (6th) 2018. Elon Musk launches the world’s most powerful active, rocket, catapults his Tesla sports car into space, and vertically lands two of the rocket boosters, simultaneously.
For most engineers, this extraordinary feat would be the pinnacle of their career.
But for Elon Musk, it was just a Tuesday.
Elon Musk, Entrepreneur, Technologist: “It’s really crazy that we build these sophisticated rockets. And then crash them every time we fly.
This is mad!”
When he’s not launching rockets, the entrepreneur can be found running a futuristic electric car company, selling flamethrowers, plotting a super-fast underground transport system for Los Angeles, and even offering assistance in foreign emergencies.
It’s perhaps no wonder Elon Musk was a source of inspiration for Robert Downey Junior’s billionaire business magnate-cum-superhero, Tony Stark.
Born in South Africa to a Canadian mother and a South African father, Musk was a voracious reader. And aged nine even turned to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, when he had run out of books.
An unusual, introverted child, he was bullied, once so severely that he was hospitalized for a week.
But this didn’t hinder his pursuit of knowledge. By the age of ten, he had taught himself computer programming. By twelve, he’d made a video game and sold it to a magazine for five-hundred dollars ($500).
You can still play Blastar online!
Musk’s empire began in 1999, when he and his brother Kimbal sold their software company which provided city business guides to newspapers.
Aged just 27, Musk reinvested his $22 million windfall into X.com, a company which promised to revolutionize how we transfer money — a company you may now know as Paypal.
When eBay acquired Paypal in 2002, Musk took home $165 million.
Without taking a moment to catch his breath, the young entrepreneur turned his gaze upwards and set up Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, with the mission statement of enabling people to live on other planets.
Elon Musk: “You want to do projects that are inspiring and that make people excited about the future. Life’s got to be about more than just solving problems. You want to get up in the morning and say, ‘Yes, I’m looking forward to that thing happening!’”
Two years later, he directed his disruptive thinking to renewable energy. And in 2004, set up the electric car company Tesla.
Elon Musk: “All transport, with the exception of rockets, will go fully electric. I see the value of Tesla as a catalyst in that transition.
Musk’s most desperate moments came in 2008, when SpaceX suffered a third rocket crash, and Tesla’s rising costs threatened to ruin the firm.
That’s not to mention an episode of Top Gear, which Tesla said damaged sales.
Elon Musk: “[Jeremy] Clarkson’s show is much more about entertainment than it is about truth. His two pet peeves are American cars and electric cars. And we’re an American electric car!”
SpaceX scraped through, thanks to a new government contract.
As for Tesla, some last-minute financing and a $465 million government loan helped it survive.
But even today, questions about profitability loom over the company, which has lost billions of dollars.
Musk himself is no stranger to controversy. His baseless allegations against a Thai cave rescuer sparked a libel case. And his 2018 tweet about taking Tesla private, and a very public, but legal, toke of marijuana on a YouTube podcast, displayed his somewhat cavalier attitude towards shareholders.
But the future does look exciting as the eccentric engineers plans the first Moon journey by humans since 1972 with billionaire passenger Yusaku Maezawa.
And this is really just another stepping stone to Musk’s ultimate goal: to reach and colonize Mars and beyond.
A plan which he says could happen as soon as 2024.
Elon Musk: “Either we are a multi-planet species and out there exploring the stars, or we are a single-planet species, waiting around for some eventual extinction event.
It’s really that that I personally find more motivating — going and setting up a base on Mars would be just the greatest adventure ever.
Questions
1. Elon Musk is only involved with space exploration. True or false?
2. Is Musk Australian? Is he from Australia?
3. As a child, he spend most of his time watching TV. Is this right or wrong?
4. Was Musk a very popular and respected kid in school?
5. Is he only interested in hardware, such as cars and rockets? What have been some of his achievements?
6. Musk is a perfect gentleman and everyone loves him. Is this correct or incorrect?
7. Have all his enterprises and ventures always succeeded and profited?
8. What are Musk’s ultimate goals?
A. Bullying at school (or work) can be a very serious problem. What do you think?
B. Who are some great innovators, inventors or entrepreneurs (from your country)?
C. I would like to travel in space. I would like to live on Mars. Yes or no?
D. What might happen in the future?
E. Should people and governments invest in space exploration, or is it a waste of time and money?
