User:AceDewitt/sandbox

John J Triano (born October 20, 1951) is a chiropractic researcher and practitioner. He is a graduate of Logan College (DC), Webster College (MA), and the University of Michigan (PhD). He is a Fellow of the College of Chiropractic Scientists (Canada) and serves as an editorial advisor to the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (since 1986), to Spine (since 1994), The Spine Journal (since 2000) and The BackLetter. Dr. Triano was Research Professor in the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Arlington, Joint Biomedical Engineering Program. To date he has written 49 scientific and clinical articles and over 20 book chapters. From 1992 to 2005 he was the Co-Director of Conservative Medicine and Director for the Chiropractic Division at the Texas Back Institute, a multidisciplinary spine facility caring for 15,000 new patients per year. Currently, he is a Professor and the Dean of Graduate Education and Research Programs at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and is cross-appointed as Associate Professor within the Rehabilitation Sciences department at McMaster University.

Contents [hide] 1	Early life 1.1	Early childhood 1.2	University 2	Career 2.1	Zip2 2.2	X.com and PayPal 2.3	SpaceX 2.4	Tesla Motors 2.5	SolarCity 2.6	Hyperloop 2.7	OpenAI 3	Political positions 3.1	Nationalism 3.2	Lobbying 3.3	Subsidies 4	Opinions 4.1	Destiny and religion 4.2	Extraterrestrial life 4.3	Artificial intelligence 5	Personal life 5.1	Philanthropy 5.2	Marriages 6	Awards and recognition 6.1	Honorary doctorates 7	In popular media 8	References 9	Further reading 10	External links 10.1	Articles 10.2	Interviews Early life Early childhood Musk was born June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa,[25] the son of Maye (née Haldeman), a model from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada;[26] and Errol Musk, a South African-born electromechanical engineer. He has a younger brother, Kimbal (born 1972), and a younger sister, Tosca (born 1974).[26][27][28][29] His paternal grandmother was British, and he also has Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.[30][31] After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk lived mostly with his father in locations in South Africa.[30]

At age 10, he discovered computing with the Commodore VIC-20.[32] He taught himself computer programming and at age 12 sold the code for a BASIC-based video game he created called Blastar to a magazine called PC and Office Technology for approximately US$500.[33][34] A web version of the game is available online.[33][35]

Musk was severely bullied throughout his childhood, and was once hospitalized when a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs and then beat him until he blacked out.[36]

Musk was initially educated at private schools, attending the English-speaking Waterkloof House Preparatory School. Musk later graduated from Pretoria Boys High School and moved to Canada in June 1989, just before his 18th birthday,[37] after obtaining Canadian citizenship through his Canadian-born mother.[38][39]

University At the age of 19, Musk was accepted into Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, for undergraduate study. In 1992, after spending two years at Queen's University, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where, at the age of 24, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics at Penn's College of Arts and Sciences, and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Musk stayed on a year to finish his second bachelor's degree.[40] While at the University of Pennsylvania, Musk and fellow Penn student Adeo Ressi rented a 10-bedroom fraternity house, using it as an unofficial nightclub.[36] In 1995, at age 24, Musk moved to California to begin a PhD in applied physics at Stanford University, but left the program after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations in the areas of the Internet, renewable energy and outer space.[34][41] In 2002, he became a U.S. citizen.[42][43]

Career Zip2 In 1995, Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started Zip2, a web software company, with US$28,000 of their father's (Errol Musk) money.[36] The company developed and marketed an Internet "city guide" for the newspaper publishing industry.[44] Musk obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune[45] and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch.[46] While at Zip2, Musk wanted to become CEO; however, none of the board members would allow it.[36] Compaq acquired Zip2 for US$307 million in cash and US$34 million in stock options in February 1999.[47] Musk received 7% or US$22 million from the sale.[45]

X.com and PayPal Main article: PayPal In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with US$10 million from the sale of Zip2.[37][44][46] One year later, the company merged with Confinity,[45][48] which had a money transfer service called PayPal. The merged company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. PayPal's early growth was driven mainly by a viral marketing campaign where new customers were recruited when they received money through the service.[49] Musk was later ousted from his role as CEO due to disagreements with other company leadership, notably over his desire to move PayPal's Unix-based infrastructure to Microsoft Windows.[50] In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which US$165 million was given to Musk.[51] Before its sale, Musk, who was the company's largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal's shares.[52]

SpaceX Main article: SpaceX In 2001, Musk conceptualized "Mars Oasis"; a project to land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith, in an attempt to regain public interest in space exploration.[53][54] In October 2001, Musk travelled to Moscow with Jim Cantrell (an aerospace supplies fixer), and Adeo Ressi (his best friend from college), to buy refurbished ICBMs (Dnepr-1) that could send the envisioned payloads into space. The group met with companies such as NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras, however, according to Cantrell, Musk was seen as a novice and was consequently spat on by one of the Russian chief designers,[55] and the group returned to the United States empty-handed. In February 2002, the group returned to Russia to look for three ICBMs, bringing along Mike Griffin, who had worked for the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and was just leaving Orbital Sciences, a maker of satellites and spacecraft. The group met again with Kosmotras, and were offered one rocket for US$8 million, however, this was seen by Musk as too expensive; Musk consequently stormed out of the meeting. On the flight back from Moscow, Musk realized that he could start a company that could build the affordable rockets he needed.[55] According to early Tesla and SpaceX investor Steve Jurvetson,[56] Musk calculated that the raw materials for building a rocket actually were only 3 percent of the sales price of a rocket at the time. By applying vertical integration and the modular approach from software engineering, SpaceX could cut launch price by a factor of ten and still enjoy a 70 percent gross margin.[57] Ultimately, Musk ended up founding SpaceX with the long-term goal of creating a "true spacefaring civilization".[58]

Musk and President Barack Obama at the Falcon 9 launch site in 2010 With US$100 million of his early fortune,[59] Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, in June 2002.[60] Musk is chief executive officer (CEO) and chief technology officer (CTO) of the Hawthorne, California-based company. SpaceX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles with a focus on advancing the state of rocket technology. The company's first two launch vehicles are the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets (a nod to Star Wars' Millennium Falcon), and its first spacecraft is the Dragon (a nod to Puff the magic dragon).[61] In seven years, SpaceX designed the family of Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon multipurpose spacecraft. In September 2009, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket, became the first privately funded liquid-fueled vehicle to put a satellite into Earth orbit.[36] On May 25, 2012, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle berthed with the ISS, making history as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station.[62]

In 2006, SpaceX was awarded a contract from NASA to continue the development and test of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft in order to transport cargo to the International Space Station,[63][not in citation given] followed by a US$1.6 billion NASA launch contract on December 23, 2008 for 12 flights of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the Space Station, replacing the US Space Shuttle after it retired in 2011. SpaceX is one of two contractors in the Commercial Resupply Services program, which replaced the cargo transport function of the Space Shuttle. Astronaut transport to the ISS is currently handled solely by the Soyuz, but as of 2014, SpaceX is also one of two companies remaining in the Commercial Crew Development program, which is intended to develop a US astronaut transport capability. SpaceX is both the largest private producer of rocket motors in the world, and holder of the record for highest thrust-to-weight ratio for any known rocket motor.[64] In two years, SpaceX has produced more than 100 operational Merlin 1D engines, currently the world's most powerful motor for its weight. The relatively immense power to weight ratio allows each Merlin 1D motor to vertically lift the weight of 40 average family cars. In combination, the 9 Merlin engines in the Falcon 9 first stage produces anywhere from 5.8 to 6.7 MN (1.3 to 1.5 million pounds) of thrust, depending on altitude.[65]

Musk was influenced by Isaac Asimov's Foundation series[66] and views space exploration as an important step in expanding—if not preserving—the consciousness of human life.[67] Musk said that multiplanetary life may serve as a hedge against threats to the survival of the human species.

An asteroid or a super volcano could destroy us, and we face risks the dinosaurs never saw: an engineered virus, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, catastrophic global warming or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us. Humankind evolved over millions of years, but in the last sixty years atomic weaponry created the potential to extinguish ourselves. Sooner or later, we must expand life beyond this green and blue ball—or go extinct.

His goal is to reduce the cost of human spaceflight by a factor of 10.[68] In a 2011 interview, he said he hopes to send humans to Mars' surface within 10–20 years.[69] In Ashlee Vance's biography on Musk, Musk reveals that he wishes to establish a Mars colony by 2040, with a population of 80,000.[32] Musk stated that, since Mars atmosphere lacks oxygen, all transportation would have to be electric (electric cars, electric trains, Hyperloop, electric aircraft).[70]

Tesla Motors Main article: Tesla Motors Tesla Motors was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed the company until the Series A round of funding.[71] Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Elon Musk's involvement.[72] Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004, joining Tesla's board of directors as its chairman.[73] Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.[74]

Following the financial crisis in 2008,[75] Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect, positions he still holds today. Tesla Motors first built an electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, with sales of about 2,500 vehicles to 31 countries. Tesla began delivery of its four-door Model S sedan on June 22, 2012. It unveiled its third product, the Model X, aimed at the SUV/minivan market, on February 9, 2012; the Model X launch was however delayed until September 2015.[76][77][78] In addition to its own cars, Tesla sells electric powertrain systems to Daimler for the Smart EV, Mercedes B-Class Electric Drive and Mercedes A Class and to Toyota for the RAV4 EV. Musk was able to bring in both companies as long-term investors in Tesla.[79]

Musk observing an assembly demo at the reopening of the NUMMI plant, now known as the Tesla Factory (Fremont, California) in 2010