Zip2: Musk wrote the software for drawing vector maps & calculating point to point directions anywhere in US. Sold it for $300M. PayPal: Musk founded X.com. X

Zip2: Musk wrote the software for drawing vector maps & calculating point to point directions anywhere in US. Sold it for $300M. PayPal: Musk founded X.com. X merged with PayPal. Through that merger, Musk became PayPal's largest shareholder. He was ousted as the company's CEO. He did attempt to move the company's tech onto Windows. None of this invalidates his accomplishment's at PayPal. To wit, he walked away with $100M. Tesla: Musk did not buy Tesla. 8 months after Tesla was founded, he funded the majority of Tesla's series A at which time he became the chairman of its board. He then stepped into the CEO role and has maintained that role ever since. SpaceX: Musk trained himself in rocket engineering and pioneered private spaceflight while pushing rocket tech far into the future. Self landing rockets. <- I don't even need a full sentence. Self. Landing. ROCKETS!!!! Its very important to get the facts right before moving on to interpretation. Of course, Musk didn't do all of this himself. He has again and again hired top notch engineers and scientists. But even in the most biased publications, his critics begrudgingly acknowledge his technical prowess and commercial acumen. Again, just look at the list of accomplishments. He is a man, not a god. But in these domains, he is absolutely something special. Many sigma special.