Talk:Elon Musk

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bmxchuckie (article contribs).

About Errol Musk

Elon specifically states his father did not invest in Zip2 in his latest Rolling Stones feature interview. "One thing he claims is he gave us a whole bunch of money to start, my brother and I, to start up our first company [Zip2, which provided online city guides to newspapers]. This is not true," Musk says. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ivanalesi (talk • contribs)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 28 November 2017

Elon Musk Net worth is currently $21.5 Billion USD as of November 2017. On the wiki page, his net worth hasn't been updated since October. Tecboy1066 (talk) 15:21, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 15:30, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

The article referencing his net worth #18, lists him at 52, but the Wikipedia article has him at 53. 2/14 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.29.8.206 (talk) 23:30, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

The Net worth is $20.3 Billion USD as of March 2018 (https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.111.126.14 (talk) 08:07, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Elon Musk. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://www.webcitation.org/69vzcgxKu?url=http://www.spacefoundation.org/media/press-releases/space-foundation-survey-reveals-broad-range-space-heroes-early-astronauts-still?id=1038 to http://www.spacefoundation.org/news/story.php?id=1038

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

it's / its grammar correction

In the "Opinions", the first quote, it says this: You know it's complex phenomenon from simple elements. it's has to be changed to its.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 02:49, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 February 2018

Elon Musk's net worth as of February, 2018, is $20.4 billion dollars. MoistNuggets (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 19:29, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

@Kuyabribri: The source is given in the article, they just want us to update it. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:22, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

No change needs to be done right now though as the source currently says the amount stated in the article. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:25, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 February 2018

Please change "Net Worth" from 20.1 billion to 20.8 billion because Forbes, the currently listed source, has updated. Zennox1 (talk) 22:15, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

 Done As the net worth counter is in real time, I'm expecting a lot more of these sort of requests in the future. ChamithN (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Who is paying for the Solarcity Buffalo factory?

Near the end of article it says NY state is paying $750m to build it, and will then lease it to Solarcity for peanuts. In the Solarcity section it says that Solarcity is committed to building it. They can't both be right. This is very important, right? Boscaswell talk 12:29, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 February 2018

68.33.78.182 (talk) 01:07, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Remove "Chairman of Solar City" and "Co-chairman of OpenAI" from the right-hand panel, both of which are no longer true.

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. qwerty6811 :-) (talk) 17:36, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I made the edits. That SolarCity was acquired is already sourced, for example under [1]. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:39, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Ambiguity about education

The section on education states: "At the age of 17, 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 in May 1997 he received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from its College of Arts and Sciences..."

First of all, this implies that he was 19 in the year 1992. He wasn't. He would've been 19.

Next it states: "In 1995, at age 24, Musk moved to California to begin a PhD in applied physics and materials science at Stanford University, but left the program after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations..."

So either Musk was at U.Penn pursuing his Bachelor degree or he was in California enrolled for a PhD? Which is it? If both these things are simultaneously true, there should certainly be some clarification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Parijatgarg (talk • contribs) 19:30, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

He left in 1995 to start his PhD at Stanford but didn't technically graduate until 1997. It is confusing, I agree. Hrodvarsson (talk) 02:55, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 March 2018

The Hyperloop is a futuristic mode of transportation that consists of passenger pods traveling through tubes at speeds of more than 500 miles per hour. And the first one is being built currently in the desert, north of Las Vegas, Nevada. Alexday001 (talk) 06:22, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:23, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Addition to Patents

Under the patents section, it should also include a link to the 2014 decision by Musk and Tesla to not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use their technology. The section is for Musk patents in particular but ultimately it was his passion that drove the decision of Tesla sharing their patent bank with the world. Mygraymatter (talk) 05:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 March 2018

Number of children should be 6, not 5.

(Their names: Nevada Alexander, twins (Redacted), triplets (Redacted).) Hawwah2312 (talk) 20:07, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for spotting that. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:28, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

"Lithium third most abundant element in universe."- Elon Musk quoted

Even though I like this guy I can't take him spreading disinformation like this:
youtu.be/_GBnJNLoBuw?t=22m12s
I think it's a significant point to be made that he can make serious mistakes. Lithium is the 44th most abundant element in this galaxy and 33rd in the Earth's crust. Not third; Oxygen is third, ie. Water is the most abundant mixed atom molecule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements#Solar_system

https://chargedevs.com/newswire/elon-musk-debunks-scare-stories-about-a-shortage-of-lithium/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/4vbe52/elon_has_got_to_stop_saying_lithuium_is_the_3rd/

There is no "just a mistake" here, he is basing the entire production of electric cars (just all electric cars) on the false assumption of an abundance of Lithium for electric car batteries. This is a major error and/or a serious deception on his part to the investors of both the company and buyers of the cars.

CHARGED: Electric Vehicles Magazine - (Editor’s Note 6/17/16 4PM EST: While onstage, Musk stated that Lithium is the third most common element in the universe which is not accurate. In fact, Lithium is the 33rd most common element in Earth’s crust.)
https://chargedevs.com/newswire/elon-musk-debunks-scare-stories-about-a-shortage-of-lithium/
I don't want to be tactless in the way I insert this into the article, but it is important enough for magazine editors to correct, therefore it is important enough to add to this article, but I think it should be written up by another editor. And to be sure I find it highly suspicious that there is not one mention of Lithium in his article. 50.70.236.24 (talk) 06:35, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Please be careful to avoid WP:OR when editing the article. In particular, Abundance of elements in Earth's crust is a terrible metric for predicting shortages, and abundance in the universe is just plain stupid (and largely unknown). Helium is pretty abundant in the universe, but are we going to go to the Sun to extract it?

That being said, according to this source Elon is right.[2]

Of course we can do OR here on the talk page to see if a claim makes sense:

• Lithium (2008) $4,440.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2009) $4,530.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2010) $4,350.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2011) $3,870.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2012) $4,220.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2013) $4,390.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2014) $5,050.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2015) $6,500.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2016) $7,475.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2017) $9,100.00 per metric ton
• Lithium (2018) $16,500.00 per metric ton

Compare with

• Iron: $57.86 per metric ton
• Aluminum: $1,885.29 per metric ton
• Lead: $2,385.00 per metric ton
• Copper: $5,719.76 per metric ton
• Nickel: $8,931.76 per metric ton
• Molybdenum: $26,000.00 per metric ton
• Cobalt: $91,500.00 per metric ton

Amount of lithium in a 70 kWh Tesla Model S battery pack: 0.063 metric tons (63 kilograms). That's $1039.50 at today's price, $573.30 at last year's price.

You would do better worrying about cobalt, which is also used in a Tesla battery. 65% of the cobalt produced every year currently comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Speaking of aluminum (third most abundant in the crust), when the Washington monument was constructed in the 1880s it was topped with an aluminum pyramid weighing in at 100 ounces and standing nine inches tall. Aluminum was chosen in the belief that it would be a good lightning rod tip. In 1884, aluminum cost $1 per ounce -- about the same price as silver, and roughly equal to equal to a day's wage for a skilled worker.

Also see:[3] --Guy Macon (talk) 09:33, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 April 2018

I think the first sentence should emphasize that Elon Musk is an African-American in the interests of showcasing diversity. To do otherwise is racism and it's highly problematic that Elon musk is not showcased as a successful African immigrant to America. 68.227.118.206 (talk) 02:47, 15 April 2018 (UTC)