Like Tony Stark, the character of Marvel created by Stan Lee, this man is an engineer, entrepreneur, philanthropist and inventor, and has a fortune valued at billions of dollars. Both love fast cars and rockets and represent the epitome of American exceptionalism. But the similarities do not end there, they both want to save the human race: Stark does it by fighting against supervillains and invaders from other planets, while this man promotes the use of clean energies and works to make the human being a multiplanetary species. The only difference is that Tony Stark lives solely in the cinematic universe of Marvel and this man is out there, changing the world with his incredible inventions.

The man in question even has a name that seems to be drawn from a Marvel cartoon, is called Elon Musk and was born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971. Musk is one of the giants of the technology industry. He is CEO of two revolutionary companies, Tesla Motors - an automotive company that manufactures electric cars - and SpaceX - a company dedicated to the manufacture of rockets and aerospace transport. In addition, Musk is president of SolarCity, a company that creates, distributes and installs photovoltaic cells in homes, businesses and charging stations for electric cars.

Musk has received three honorary doctorates (at Yale, Surrey and Art Center College of Design) and has been named, among many other titles, "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Inc Magazine, "Innovator of Year "by R & D magazine, one of the" 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century "by Esquire and one of the" 100 Most Changed People in the World in 2010 "by Time.

Elon Reeve Musk grew up in South Africa and from a very young age showed his great aptitudes for engineering, science and business. He bought his first computer when he was 10, learned to program self-taught and sold his first software program - a game called Blastar - just two years later.

He studied physics and economics simultaneously at the University of Pennsylvania and was received at age 24. He subsequently enrolled in Stanford University for a doctorate, but left the program after only two days to found his first company called Zip2. The company, which developed a "city guide" on the internet, was acquired by Compaq for $ 341 million in cash and stock. Musk went home with 22 million. With its proceeds, it founded X.com, an online financial services company, which became PayPal in 2001. Following the sale of the company to eBay, Musk received 165 million.

At the age of only 31, Musk possessed a great fortune, enough to not have to work one more day. However, this inventor, by then an American citizen, decided to pursue one of his greatest yearnings: space exploration. In June 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX. Their goal was to revolutionize aerospace technology by creating rockets that could be reused, reducing the costs of space travel so that eventually man could visit - and settle down - on other planets.

In 2012, SpaceX became the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) when an unmanned capsule, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, successfully managed more than 400 kilograms of supplies to astronauts They inhabit the station. "I feel very lucky. For us it's like winning the Super Bowl, "Musk said after the mission. Recently, SpaceX achieved another milestone in the aerospace industry when it got one of its Falcon 9 rockets to land successfully on a floating barge after bringing more than 3,000 kilograms of cargo to the ISS. This proves that the company can land virtually anywhere and reuse components for other launches, something that NASA rockets are not able to achieve.

These impressive advances are nothing more than small steps towards Musk's ultimate goal: to establish a permanent colony on Mars, something that he claims will serve as a kind of insurance policy for humanity, in case things go wrong on Earth. Another benefit of achieving this goal, according to the tycoon, would be to inspire people: "It would be a great adventure. There must be things people expect ahead of time to wake up, "he said. SpaceX has announced that its first mission to Mars will take place in 2018 when a capsule called "Dragon" visit the Red Planet with the aim of gathering information for eventual colonization.

Another initiative of Musk that has had unsuspected success is the production of fully electric cars on a large scale.

This proves that this entrepreneur has no limits to my opinion is a great role model and its technologies are really applicable to daily life