Factbox-From outer space to social media, Elon Musk’s growing universe

Reuters

(Reuters) – U.S. billionaire Elon Musk became Twitter Inc’s new owner on Thursday after he completed his $44 billion deal to acquire the social media firm, concluding a dramatic six-month saga.

Musk fired Twitter’s top executives and gave little clarity over how he will achieve the lofty ambitions he has outlined for the influential social media platform.

Twitter initially resisted Musk’s $54.20 offer by adopting a poison pill and later sued the world’s richest man after he announced plans to abandon the offer on concerns about spam accounts on the platform.

The tech entrepreneur, whose net worth is nearly $222 billion according to Forbes, has founded, co-founded or is leading the following companies:


COMPANY NAME YEAR FOUNDED WHAT DOES IT DO?


Neuralink 2016 The brain chip startup aims to

connect humans and computers.

In July last year, it said it

had raised over $200 million

from investors including Google

Ventures.

SpaceX 2002 The company designs and

manufactures aerospace

technology, and aims to land

its rockets on Mars before

2030. It was valued at over

$100 million, CNBC reported

last year.

The Boring 2017 The underground tunneling

Company company aims to build

hyperloops, an ultra-high-speed

ground transportation system

for passenger and cargo, to

solve big city traffic

problems.

The non-profit

OpenAI 2015 research company was started

for the purpose of creating

artificial intelligence that

augments human capabilities and

received up to $1 billion in

funding from backers including

Musk, LinkedIn co-founder Reid

Hoffman and Peter Thiel.

However, Musk decided to exit

OpenAI’s board in 2018.

Tesla Inc 2003 The electric-car maker, which

went public in 2010, is valued

at more than $1 trillion, more

than legacy automakers Ford and

General Motors combined. Last

year, Musk said the company

will probably launch a “Tesla

Bot” humanoid robot prototype

in 2022, designed for

dangerous, repetitive, or

boring work that people don’t

like to do.

PayPal 1998 The fintech company went public

Holdings Inc first in 2002, and was bought

by eBay Inc for $1.5 billion

soon after. It then went public

again in 2015.

The tech entrepreneur’s investments in other smaller startups:

COMPANY NAME YEAR FOUNDED NOTES

Stripe Inc 2010 The digital payments company

was valued at $95 billion in a

fundraising round last year.

Reuters reported in July 2021

that Stripe hired a law firm

in its first major step

towards a stock market debut.

Vicarious 2010 The artificial intelligence

and robotics company, which

has received over $250 million

in funding, also counts Jeff

Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg as

its investors, according to

its website.

(Compiled by Sonia Cheema, Chavi Mehta, Akash Sriram, Tiyashi Datta and Shreyaa Narayanan; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta and Maju Samuel)

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