Official

500 people want Elon Musk to win a Nobel Prize

An online petition went up yesterday suggesting the Tesla CEO get the nod.

Edward Tanas of Calgary, Canada has a mission: to get Elon Musk nominated for a Nobel Prize. Yesterday, on Change.org, Tanas put up a petition to get Musk a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (commonly known as the Nobel Prize in Economics). The take-up rate wasn't as fast as the number of deposits for the Model 3, but over 500 people have already signed the petition.

Tanas cited the Model 3 as one of the reasons Musk should get the Nobel prize, and explains that Musk, "has spent most of his life helping not only to help the economics of transportation flourish with technological breakthroughs but has done so in a manner that addresses climate change." You can read the full petition below and sign it here. It's got literary flourishes worthy of the best new books in your library. Think Musk was just sending rockets into space? No. Tanas says he was, "planning his assault upon the heavens." That's almost worth a digital signature right there.

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We, the signed, would like you, the Swedish Nobel Committee, to award Mr. Elon Musk, a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

Mr. Musk has spent most of his life helping not only to help the economics of transportation flourish with technological breakthroughs but has done so in a manner that addresses climate change.

His ventures into the production of electric cars. most recently the more affordable Tesla Model 3, which at the time of writing this petition has over 253,000 orders, has helped to reduce the impact on the environment by replacing internal combustion engine vehicles.

Biography

Elon Reeve Musk is an American entrepreneur, inventor and investor. He is best known for his role as CEO of electric-car manufacturer Tesla Motors, and as co-founder of online money transfer system PayPal, and of commercial space program SpaceX.

Elon was born in South Africa, where he spent his childhood and adolescence. He was raisedprimarily by his father, who was an engineer. Elon became interested in computers at a young age and began programming in his teens. After high school, Elon emigrated to Canada, where he attended college, and later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.

In 1995, Musk started a PhD in applied physics at Stanford University in California, but quickly dropped out to start his own company. He would go on to sell that company, called Zip2, to Compaq, for more than $300 million in 1999, of which he received $22 million. With that capital, Musk started X.com in 1999. It was an online banking site that later changed its name to PayPal. EBay purchased the company in 2002 for $1.5 billion in stock, of which $165 million went to Musk. That same year, he became an American citizen. (See also: Three Steps Elon Musk Took To Become Successful.)

Flush from the PayPal sale, Musk looked to the heavens, and began SpaceX, a private, for-profit space program. After a few false starts, the company began developing its own rockets. The company launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2009 and again in 2012.

While planning his assault upon the heavens, Musk took an interest in more terrestrial matters, specifically the way people get across the surface of the earth. After a major investment in 2004, Musk joined the board of Tesla Motors as its chairman. Also contributing as a product architect, he played a role in the designs of the cars Tesla was building. Following the 2008 financial crisis, Musk assumed the mantle of Tesla Motors CEO, a position he still holds today. (For more, see: Is Elon Musk's Hyperloop Economically Feasible?)

Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk remains involved in a number of futuristic projects. He is connected with a high-speed transportation system called the Hyperloop. He has also been a proponent of a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) supersonic jet aircraft.

We thank you for your patience in reading about his past accomplishments and various ventures which have benefited society and will continue to do so.

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