To those who do not know who Elon Musk is, he is basically a real life Tony Stark (Iron Man), and to those who do not know who that is, neither Musk nor I have time for you. Musk is comparable to Stark because of their plentiful amounts of money, genius engineering skills, and inspiring quests to save the world.

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in South Africa, and spent his early life as an introverted nerdy boy interested in science, programming, and comics. He went to Canada at seventeen to attend Queen’s University (avoiding mandatory South African military service which he was opposed to due to the apartheid regime), and then studied physics and business at University of Pennsylvania. He then started two businesses, Zip2 (which primarily provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers) and X.com (which would become PayPal), both of which sold for hundreds of millions of dollars each. He has used these vast sums of money and started multiple innovative and thriving businesses, most importantly Tesla Motors and SpaceX.

Musk knows that electric cars are the future, so in 2003 he formed Tesla Motors and started a plan to shift the world into the more efficient future. "So, in short, the master plan is: Build sports car. Use that money to build an affordable car. Use that money to build an even more affordable car.... Don't tell anyone." We will in the near future be entering step three, with the next­-generation Model 3, which should be a basic mass-­market car starting at $35,000. There is also the exciting world of self driving cars which Tesla, once again, is leading. Tesla's most popular "Model S" car has the previous cruise control setting, which uses sensors to detect traffic and adjusts speed accordingly. But it recently received an update allowing for the exciting new auto-pilot feature, which follow the lanes on a highway without driver steering and allows the car to change lanes automatically when the driver sees it is safe and taps the indicator. Over the years Tesla Motors has become an important company with tons of praise, including when the "Model S" was honored as the 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine.

"You back up your hard drive.... Maybe we should back up life, too?" That is basically Elon Musk's proposal and reasoning for human colonization of Mars, and he plans to lead these affairs through his company SpaceX. In 2012, SpaceX made history by sending its Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station with a thousand pounds of supplies and becoming the first private company to send a spacecraft to the station. Their fame has only grown from there. The company has lead many exciting innovations (in many cases personally designed with/by Musk) for future space adventures, such as rockets that cost fractions of what they previously cost, rockets that are reusable and can comeback and land itself, spacesuits that are more efficient and aesthetically pleasing for future colonists, and more.

Most of the things I have explained in this article can be summed up by this link to a clip of Musk on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It is true though that Musk can be considered a real life Tony Stark. Musk is a millionaire genius who is saving the world. He was an entrepreneur whose ideas were successful, and as a result he made millions and a revenue that will only increase from here. Musk describes the way his mind works and his problem solving skills as this, "I can see the truth of things, and others seem less able to do so." The perfect example of his problem solving skills and intelligence is Hyperloop, a train or mail shoot like system that will be able to go twice the speed of an airplane that will revolutionize mobilization, which he thought of and designed, while sitting in traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. He saw a problem with traffic and solved it. Lastly, he is leading change in the world, saving us from climate change by shifting us to electric cars (Tesla motors also recently bought another one of Musk's companies, SolarCity Corp, one of the nations largest solar panel installers) and starting our mission to colonize another planet which may be important with the planet's current grim outlook. It is important to acknowledge there have been hard times and set backs for him and his companies. Earlier this year, November 16th, one of SpaceX's rockets exploded during a resupply mission and received plenty of backlash. There was also an extended period of time around 2008 when the companies were almost solely living off Musk's personal funds, but Musk and his companies were able to come back. I have faith in him, because I believe what he is dong is important. I think our world will have rough times to come, but if we can progress technologically and as a species, then we will have a bright future. In conclusion, Elon Musk is awesome.