Elon Musk

This boisterous billionaire has been in the public eye since I as far back as I can remember. He isn’t an actor, athlete, or even an artist, yet he still makes the headlines almost always. This very vocal South African entrepreneur and investor is known for ventures such as PayPal, HyperLoop, SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla and more recently for his unexpected takeover of Twitter. We’ll elaborate on the one and only Elon Musk on this week’s episode of FYI!

Transcript

0:02

this boisterous billionaire has been in the public eye since as far back as I can remember he isn't an actor athlete or even an artist yet he still makes the headlines almost always this very vocal South African entrepreneur and investor is known for ventures such as PayPal hyperloop SpaceX starlink Tesla and more recently for his unexpected takeover of Twitter you don't know what you're talking about we'll elaborate on the one and only Elon Musk on this week's episode of FYI welcome too for your info English you got it you got[Applause][Music] it[Applause][Music] hello hello hello and welcome to this another exciting episode of FYI and today we're going to take a look at a guy that can be quite controversial but doesn't that make it a little bit more exciting I think so and I tried to find just the fact unbiased The Good the Bad and the Ugly cuz people say a lot of things about this guy everything from genius to low life and a low life is I think what you would say escoria a scum a low life well I'll let you be the judge as always but remember we're not just here to learn about Elon Musk this fascinating character but but we're also here to learn English if you'd like to follow along you have access to the PDF documents that go along with each episode if you're in my Curious Community every week you can get an extra episode plus you can get PDF documents and tons of bonus content not to mention weekly group classes with me and even a monthly private class and if you do the ma it's a deal un so go to patreon.com Alberto Alonso and find out how you can join my Curious Community we're expecting you and I'd like to send a shout out to all my patrons especially my super duper students Martha Lena Javier Paco Roberto Jose Maria and Mila and don't forget about my Interstellar students the ones who get a private class with me every month Garmin Isa bakle David and Edgar I'm proud of each and every one of you keep up the great work and if you're not in my community yet what are you waiting for you'll miss so much in our bonus episode every week we look at tons of fun facts and so much more all the information you need is on patreon.com Alberto Alonso let's take a look at our intro I said this boisterous billionaire and boisterous is somebody who's noisy they're loud I guess you could call me boisterous and you know what my daughter's following in my footsteps she's pretty boisterous herself the only problem is we aren't billionaires like Elon Musk and just remember milonis is 1 billion in English we don't agree on our numbers I said that Elon has been in the public eye since as far back as I can remember and he's not an actor well we'll find out in the bonus part that he has done some acting work many times he just plays himself but will'll find out that Elon is no stranger to the Silver Screen he he not an athlete either he stays in shape but he said several times publicly that if he didn't have to work out he wouldn't and he's not really an artist either yet he still makes the headlines almost always and to make the headlines means to be in the papers to be on the front page then I said this very vocal South African entrepreneur and if somebody is vocal it means that they don't hide their opinion they're not afraid of telling people what they think entrepreneur I believe you know we even have an episode on entrepreneurship if you haven't listened to it and then the next word I used was investor just be careful I've had students say to me Alberto he's going to invert money it's to invest and the noun is investment so an investor invests in many Investments it's a really good way to practice nouns verbs and adjectives the example I always use is her boss is very bossy he's always bossing people around see it's not enough to just know the word boss you need to know it in all its different incarnations as a verb as a noun and as an adjective and he's known for ventures and Ventures or projects or businesses such as PayPal to Amigo Deo hyperloop those are those high speed trains that are underground SpaceX which is always making the headlines starlink which is his dream of bringing Internet to the whole world for free Tesla which is also a buzzword these days and more recently for his un expected takeover of Twitter and a takeover is when someone takes control of something and it's not called Twitter anymore it's called X I don't think anybody will ever get used to it but there's something funny that he did because I've got to say something about the guy he's got a sense of humor and something he did that I found pretty funny was the day he bought Twitter he marched into the lobby with a sink in his hands and he said let that sink in now I don't know if you get the double meaning number one is let the sink come in the door so allow the sink in which is actually quite absurd but when you realize that the other meaning is assimilate that so when you tell somebody let that sink in it's aimo so this guy thinks he's really punny but I've got to be honest I've always been a fan of people with a sense of humor so that's one point in his favor I don't like that he took away my blue verification badge on Twitter and sorry Elon I'm not going to pay you you earn enough money as it is so today we're going to elaborate on the one and only Elon Musk and careful with that word to elaborate is to go in depth but elaborate as an adjective means very ornamental it's not plain so the verb to El elaborate and it's always good to learn the verb with the preposition so we'll elaborate on that why because we even say them together listen to me did I separate listen and to wait for me did I separate wait and for so that's a common mistake a lot of times people learn the verb without the preposition learn it with the preposition cuz most times it will accompany it it's a little trick of the trade cuz if you'll notice I didn't say will elaborate on I said we'll elaborate on the one and only there's another thing that always goes together so it's not the one and only it's the one and only see how we put it together the one and only I've always found it interesting how we weave our words together but it's something I always tell my students to focus on so let's talk turkey this actually is a weird one because to talk turkey sounds like to talk nonsense but to talk turkey is to talk serious who is Elon Musk is he an innovator a go-getter I love this word a go-getter is somebody who goes after what they want they don't take no for an answer some have even called him the modernday Henry Ford or Thomas Edison and people have gone as far as calling him Tony Stark Iron Man and remember before I said that he's been in many movies well he was in Ironman 2 he had a cameo and the reason he was in Iron Man 2 was because he met with Robert Downey Jr for the filming of Iron Man 1 and he studied him as a method actor Robert Downey Jr spent time with him and he got some of his manorisms now that doesn't mean the character is completely based on Elon Musk but you could say that the character was Loosely based on Elon Musk so in that debate of is Elon Musk Iron Man well technically yeah I am Iron Man he was used as the inspiration by the actor who played him and very well by the way and as a way of saying thanks they invited him to have a cameo in Iron Man 2 and I know you know that word you say Cameo we say Cameo now the other side of the coin which I think we need to look at as well is some people say that he's a loud mouth UMAS that he's full of hot air and if you're full of hot air it means you talk a lot but you're not really talking about anything we looked at that word when we talked about circuses we said somebody like that is a snake oil salesman or they are full of hot air and I believe we were talking about PT Barnum the greatest showman so he's got his detractors as well some people say he is too cocky that he never shuts his mouth and he's getting in over his head you can only run so many companies there are only so many hours in the day and supposedly he's been known to work 20 hour days I don't know how healthy that is especially when you have so many kids and in the bonus part we're going to take a look at his family he's got a lot of kids let's just put it this way he could have a basketball team and have somebody injured he could bench one of his kids and still be a basketball team and we'll talk about his love life as well he's a bit of a player well sure think about it the guy's a billionaire the sky the limit and unfortunately there there are many people who are driven by money those people are called gold diggers somebody who wants to be with somebody because of their money is called a gold digger well whatever you think of Elon Musk we're going to learn more about him today and you'll be able to form your own opinion let's rewind back to where it all started we're in Petoria South Africa it's June 28th 1971 little Elon Musk is born to a South African father and a Canadian mother and this has worked in his favor because he has several passports so I guess he's like Austin Powers as well always cracking jokes international Man of Mystery so he's South African but he also applied for a Canadian passport because he moved there when he was 17 2 years later he moved to the US where he attended the University of Pennsylvania and in 2002 he got his US citizenship his parents were very wealthy his mother was a Canadian model and his father Errol was an electromechanical engineer he was also a consultant and property developer who was involved in the emerald business so supposedly he made his fortunes from Emerald m and also he is a former member of the South African Progressive Federal party so his father was definitely in the Upper Crust in South Africa but Elon never liked to brag about that in fact he paid his own way through college and he lived on a shoestring budget because he didn't want to live off his father's wealth but no matter how hard he wants to show you the rags to Rich's story he's a little rich boy a trust fund kid so that's where some people say that he's a phony and that a lot of his ideas were even stolen so if I ask you right now did he invent Tesla you might say yes but not really if you consider investing in the early days as being an inventor then yeah but I'll tell you more about that in the bonus part so a lot of people say he's a phony he purchases companies and then he puts himself on a pedestal as the inventor the Creator the genius the guru you say Guru we say Guru either way that's a weird word so he came from money in fact his father was filthy rich but that didn't stop him but he didn't rest on his Laurels at the tender age of 12 he already showed signs of being a Salesman and an engineer he coach Ed his first game and he self-taught nobody taught him how to code he learned on his own and he created a game called Blast star and he sold it for around 500 bucks for all you computer geeks out there and David I'm talking to you I think you'll be able to find it online the game is called Blast star so he was already involved in Technology and Engineering and being a Salesman an Entre R preneur and he was only 12 in college he convinced his friend to get a 10 bedroom mansion they turned it into a nightclub they would charge a cover at the door and people could come in and party all night long and the funny thing is sometimes his mother was at the door supposedly but it looked like he was always trying to make a buck always looking for an opportunity and as I said he paid his way through college but he left college with around$100,000 in student debt he did several odd jobs to pay his way odd jobs are these jobs that you're doing in the meantime and he even worked at a lumber mill he was a cleaner at a lumber mill that's a place where they cut wood so like everybody he has had his share of odd jobs and after getting two degrees he decided it was time to go to Gra school and what better place than Stanford in California it's where they all go before they go to Silicon Valley and he was really excited he was going to get his PhD in physics and he lasted a total of two days you heard right he lasted 2 days and he decided that he was Udi 5000 I'm Udi 5,000 I guess the translation would be Meo vampo and it comes from I'm out of here I'm Udi it sounds like the car I'm Audi 5000 and he left he dropped out is the word we would use and along with his brother he started an internet business at the age of 24 it was called zip2 and he sold it are you ready for this for a whopping $300 million 24 years old and he sells a company for over $300 million he came a long way since his first sale the game blastar as I just said that he sold for 500 bucks a measly 500 bucks but it was a sign of things to come other Feats in Elon musk's resumee were when he merged his company x.com with confinity this was in the year 2000 and they merged these two companies together well that company became known as PayPal and that was in 2001 PayPal was then acquired by eBay for 1.5 billion in 2002 so he went from $5 to$300 million to 1.5 billion okay he didn't get every dime of that but you catch my drift then in 2006 he helped create Solar City this is a solar energy services company which as we all know this is big business these days and he founded this company with his cousins the company is now called Tesla energy I'm not going to go through every little thing he's done because he's got things that are in the works right now his gigafactories his research with AI but the guy seems like he's got his hand in everything my question is can he handle it all sometimes if we try to juggle too many things we drop all the balls and we didn't even talk about his family life yet that must keep him very busy as well we'll learn more about that in the bonus episode again consider becoming a patron and you'll have access to that and so much more every week but he's always been fascinated with AI he co-founded a company called open AI in 2015 but he's also really scared of artificial intelligence he has warned many times of the dangers of AI and how if it's not implemented and carried out correctly things could go AOK and I think you can tell from the context that means things could go really bad it sound sounds like a Terminator movie I'll be back also he co-founded the boring company now what's the first thing that popped into your mind when you heard the boring company yeah boring the opposite of this podcast but if you think about it it makes sense another way of saying to make a hole is to bore a hole and the boring company is a Tunnel construction company they're the ones who work on his hper Loop projects among other things did you think he called it the boring company because the meetings were really boring well as we'll find out in the bonus episode he has a lot of strict rules when it comes to meetings and I think a lot of other companies should Implement them I thought they were very practical rules but more about that in the bonus episode and we'll also look at some fun facts I'll give you one right now did you know that Elon Musk is a member of the PayPal Mafia you don't know what the PayPal Mafia is well neither did I but it's fascinating I'll tell you more about the PayPal Mafia as well in the bonus episode and I'd like to take a look at his net worth and it's constantly fluctuating because he owns stocks in the companies so if the stock goes up or down he could lose or earn millions in a minute but at the time of this episode his net worth is 23.9 billion us again that fluctuates due to his shares in Tesla he says he doesn't earn a salary so his earnings depend solely on how those stocks do also he's a guy who has overcome failure not everything he has touched has turned to Gold he doesn't have the mest touch although it appears that way Tesla the car company was going through a dire time a dire is a bleak a difficult a dark time and Elon Musk reached out to Google's CEO Larry pagee and he asked him if he'd be interested in purchasing the company that was failing and in 2013 they agreed to a sale price of $6 billion US now the deal fell through and it never came to fruition but Elon didn't give up on the company and now Tesla is one of the biggest car companies in the world they're giving the old school heavyweights tons of competition Nissan Volkswagen there's a new boss in town and it's Tesla and I don't know much about cars but I know 10 years ago nobody would have ever thought of a new car company and now it's the car company maybe some of you listening to this right now have a Tesla but it seems like no matter what like this guy or hate him it seems like he's a guy who never quit he never took no for an answer and he doesn't show any signs of stopping we're going to end the episode with some advice straight from the horse's mouth let's hear from Elon Musk I don't really like risk for risk sake or or anything it's and and I do think that um L things are are very risky uh with a low chance of success but if you want to try to come up with an Innovative break through um that's kind of that's going to be how it is um anything which is significantly Innovative is going to come with a significant risk of failure um and um but you know if you you you've got to take big chances in order for the potential for a big positive outcome um and um you know just if and if I mean if the outcome is exciting enough then then taking a big risk is[Music] worthwhile news flash we interrupt our our regularly scheduled program to bring you this breaking news attention all show with no namers as of January 2024 the show with no name live stream will be available exclusively to my patrons if you'd like to continue to watch the show Daily and participate in real time join us at patreon.com Alberto Alonso and what what is patreon you may ask well as many of you know I've been teaching for over 20 years I've taught all kinds of people from famous folks to young kids and with a background in acting I love communication I have a radio show that's been on the air for 15 years and a very successful podcast called FYI I've also written five books and have appeared on numerous TV and radio programs but the thing I'm most proud of is this curious community on patreon that we are creating every day together and I really think you should join us for as little as €3 a month you can have access to show with no name live stream daily every week you can get a bonus episode of FYI also PDFs so you can follow the podcast and the moment you sign up you'll have access to an archive of over a thousand posts you'll also get early access to all my content and a new feature a chat so you can have direct access to me and your fellow students and most of all you'll be a part of a curious community of people just like you English explorers consider joining us on patreon for as little as €3 a month and you'll get access to so many English resources and I highly recommend you sign up for a yearly membership this way you make a commitment and you'll also save 10% and don't take my word for it just ask some of my Interstellar students I've already improved my pronunciation and as a consequence I've gained a lot of confidence in my speaking thanks to our weekly review class and our monthly Master Class where by the way to top it off we have a lot of fun in if you are willing to better your English much more in a fun way you won't regret it if you join us Alberto is a passionate teacher an excellent communicator and what I think is key he's able to put himself in this student shoes he's always willing to help you'll have access to uh wide range of topic every week uh bonus content vocabulary seats um review well weekly review classes H monthly master classes and so on I think it's much more than just learning English so go to patreon have a look around and give it a try because it has helped me uh keep my English in check and uh just you know you know uh improve my language skills in a in the most fun way because his podcast is really really really entertaining and fun and so are the classes that we have afterwards to revise and go over the vocabulary and just discuss interesting topics so if you're considering becoming a patreon don't hesitate because um that's a great way to uh improve your English we now return you back to your regularly scheduled program I hope you enjoyed this episode and you'll join us in the bonus episode of this week's[Applause][Music] FYI