Cape Town – With a net worth of $197 billion, it’s understandable that Elon Musk’s mother Maye is more than proud of her son.
The 49-year-old Musk is, after all, the richest person on the planet, with the bulk of his wealth coming from his 21% stake in Tesla.
It’s not a surprise therefore to learn via the Canadian-born Maye that his genius was already evident as a teen. She took to Twitter on Wednesday to share a scorecard of a computer aptitude test he took when he was 17 years old.
University of Pretoria staff needed convincing, though, that he was as bright as his aptitude test showed, she said. Musk, who was born in Pretoria and has two siblings, had to take a retest as his examiners had not seen such a high score before.
.@elonmusk I found your computer aptitude test from when you were 17. If I remember correctly, they had to retest you because they had never seen such a high score. No wonder you are such a brilliant engineer. #ProudMom pic.twitter.com/7sGxAvLF4r
— Maye Musk (@mayemusk) March 3, 2021
“If I remember correctly, they had to retest you because they had never seen such a high score. No wonder you are such a brilliant engineer. #ProudMom,” she posted on Twitter, sharing the scorecard.
When did his genius first become apparent? According to selftaughtblog.com, he became interested in computers when he was 10 years old. He spent 10 hours a day reading books and was also obsessed with video games.
His love of video games drove him to learn the BASIC programming language, which he did in three days instead of the usual six months.
It wasn’t long before Musk programmed his first video game. In 1984, when he was just 12 years old, Musk created Blastar. The space-based shooter drew inspiration from Alien Invaders. In Musk’s game, players shot down spaceships carrying hydrogen bombs while dodging deadly “status beams”.
Musk pitched his game to PC and Office Technology, which offered to buy Blastar for $500. At only 12 years old, Musk was making money from his programming skills.
Thus when he took the computer aptitude test at the University of Pretoria in 1989, when he was 17, it wasn’t much of a challenge for him.
This ability enabled him to start numerous successful tech companies and become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in history.
In the nineties, he joined forces with his brother Kimbal and Greg Kouri to build Zip2. They sold Zip2 for $307 million to Compaq in 1999.
Musk then founded X.com, which ultimately became PayPal, which was sold to eBay in October 2002 for $1.5 billion in stock.
Musk used his cut of $180 million to invest $100 million in SpaceX, $70 million in Tesla and $10 million in Solar City.
However, his path wasn’t always easy. At 17 years old, Musk moved from South Africa to Canada, where he planned to live with his great-uncle in Montreal, who he discovered on arrival had already moved to Minnesota, US.
He then had to track down other relatives in Canada. After an over 3 000km bus ride, Musk found a second cousin who offered him a place to stay.
Still a teenager, Musk worked on a farm in Saskatchewan, cut logs in Vancouver and cleaned out boilers.
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