Not Jealous, But in Awe...

Somehow I was okay with simply looking down my aquiline nose at Elon Musk and his manifold accomplishments.

Harummmph!  Who cares?

So he managed to build, and sell, a bunch of electric cars.  Like, 2,000,000 of them.  And start a company that bores giant holes through the ground.  All the way under Las Vegas.  And shoots rockets into space.  Hundreds of them.

I mean, other people have shot rockets into space, right?  Goddard.  And NASA.  And Boeing.  But dayummm!  I became a fan the day I saw his boosters fire up their reentry rockets to slow their descent, and land on a ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The booster rockets.  Those things that NASA used to let fall into the sea.  They help make a rocket launch cost $60,000,000, at current levels.  Recapturing, refurbishing and reusing the boosters lowers the cost of rocket launches by more than 75%! 

And landing on a "Drone Ship."  With nobody on it.  Unmanned.  Say wha...?

Musk is famous for a number of things.  Being a high-functioning autistic, for one.  I'd say VERY high-functioning, wouldn't you?

He's famous in my book for having also proven the American Dream.  He's reputed to arrived here from his native South Africa with $500, a suitcase, and the desire to succeed.  He parlayed the $Millions he got from the sale of PayPal into SolarCity.  Which the Gubmint helped him sell.  He then single-handedly invented the Plug-in-Electric car market with the Tesla.  Which the Gubmint helped him sell.  And it's now worth more than all the other American car manufacturers, together!  

And he's famous for having fathered 11 children, so far.  And I'll bet he's going for more.  One of them is even named "X."  He just found another girlfriend, with the strange name of Adakirikiri, so more babies are no doubt on the way.

And he's famous for not owning a house.  He just sleeps on his friends' couches.  Or under a table in his HQ conference room.  He says the time and attention it would take to design and build a mansion, is better put to use landing Americans on Mars.   

But we know he possesses a personal net worth of more than $255,000,000,000 (with a "B") $Dollars.  And Tesla is supposed to grant him a payday real soon of another $57,000,000,000.  A bonus.  For doing a good job, I'm guessing.  I read somewhere that he'll be a $Trillionaire by 2030.  

I am not jealous.  But I am in awe...