The Trouble With Tesla

Elon Musk may be an inspiration for the movie Iron Man, but Musk’s companies have real-world problems to solve.

- Alvin Soon

For many of us, Elon Musk is Tony Stark. The 46-year old has found wildly ambitious tech companies, including SpaceX and Tesla. Musk makes emission-free electric vehicles that have uncommon features like massive touchscreens. He talks about making humanity a multi-planetary species and wants to bring people to Mars.

The billionaire genius actually served as inspiration for Robert Downey Jr., while the latter was filming Iron Man. Musk gave Downey a personal tour of SpaceX, and afterward, Downey suggested a Tesla Roadster be in Tony Stark’s workshop. Musk even made a brief cameo as himself in Iron Man 2.

Unlike Tony Stark, Elon Musk was not born rich; the South African-born Musk is self-made. And it’s worth remembering that pursuing wildly ambitious tech dreams have nearly finished him. By 2008, SpaceX had launched three rockets. All them had blown up before reaching orbit, and Musk only had funds left for one more launch.

In the meantime, Tesla had yet to deliver one car to market. The US$180 million that Musk had pocketed from selling PayPal had been plowed into these companies and was essentially gone.

Fast forward to 2018. SpaceX has made incredible leaps in the past 10 years. Its Falcon Heavy has the highest payload capacity of any current rocket.