Elon Musk on his success: 'America is the land of opportunity – there is no other country where I could have done this' - CNBC

The genre motivated him to create "cleaner energy technology or [build] spaceships to extend the human species's reach" in the future, according to the book "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future" by Ashlee Vance.

With these goals in mind, Musk went on to start SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla in 2003.

Looking back on his success, Musk in part credits the opportunity he found when he emigrated to the United States in 1992.

So, my goal as a kid was to get to get to America basically," Musk told Kevin Rose in 2012.

These successes led him to start SpaceX and Tesla, along with Neuralink in 2016, and a year later, The Boring Company. Today, Musk is worth $36.8 billion, according to Forbes