In back of Elon Muskone of the most visionary and innovative technology entrepreneurs today, hides a past full of extreme, painful and traumatic situations. His childhood in South Africa marked him forever, and he forged the character and personality of one of the most influential people on the planet.
The creator of SpaceX and Neuralink was exposed to an environment marked by bullyingthe physical attacks ―to the point of needing reconstructive surgeries― and the harassment by his schoolmates. That hostile environment was replicated at home, with the psychological abuse his father’s, Errol Musk.
But if there was a crucial experience that indelibly marked his character and resilience futures, was having attended a survival camp known as veldskool (something like “country school”), which he himself describes as a paramilitary version of the classic of English literature Lord of the Flies.
Long before accomplishing feats thought impossible for humanity, Elon had to learn to survive beatings, meager rations of food and water, and even death. How much violence was he exposed to? founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, SolarCity, Hyperloop, Neuralink? Musk knows that a lot.
“That was insane and amazing,” Musk recalls in his biography. It is that in this hostile environment rivalry was fostered among the children, who were barely provided with the minimum portion of food and water, instigating them to fight each other to get them. How was it resolved? With fists.
These are some of the chilling details provided by the biography titled Elon Muskof Walter Isaacson. In a shocking and revealing story, the book tells the most intimate secrets and unknowns from the life of Elon Musk, one of the most important businessmen today.
The first time Musk attended survival camp was when he was 12 years old. It was the early 1980s in South Africa and, boarding a bus, Elon would venture into the vast African wilderness to learn to survive, but to unthinkable limits.
According to Kimbal, his younger brother, in Isaacson’s book, the harassment and the violence They were seen practically as skills to be developed; The largest and strongest soon dominated the smaller ones by force.
“Bullying was considered a virtue,” Kimbal describes, adding that older children quickly learned to give. punching in the faces of the little ones. Why should they fight? By a minimum ration of food and water.
Elon, who at that time was a short child and not particularly skilled in managing his emotions, was a victim of brutal physical attacks (remember especially two). He also came to lose about five kilos due to stress and the lack of food.
At the end of the first week at the survival camp, the children were divided into two groups and given a concise and terrifying directive, according to the book: they were to attack each other.
This situation was accompanied by a macabre reminder from the monitors about the fatal fate that every few years overtook one of the participants, as a warning not to show weakness nor clumsiness.
“Don’t be as stupid as that dumbass who died last year. “Don’t be the weak idiot,” the Musk brothers remember, what the tutors of the veldskool. Because? According to the magnate’s biography, “every few years one of the children died.”
“Fighting for survival keeps you going for quite a while. When you stop being in survival or death mode, it is not so easy to find motivation every day,” Musk notes in his biography.
The survival It is something he has dealt with since he was little and it marks his path. This conception is essential to Musk’s idea of himself. “When the situation was most desperate, he was charged with energy. It was his mentality siegea consequence of his childhood in South Africa,” the book reads.
For Elon Musk, his second visit to the veldskool marked a before and after in his way of facing the challenges and the adversities. On the verge of his sixteenth year, his physical appearance had undergone a remarkable transformation.
It was 1986 and Elon had grown to over six feet tall, his body had strengthened considerably, acquiring the solidity and volume of a bear. Furthermore, she had incorporated into her personal repertoire the judo techniques.
This combination of physical changes and newly acquired abilities gave him a imposing presence and one new self-confidence.
The environment of the survival camp, which in his initial memory was outlined as a scene of extreme challenges and brutal confrontations, took a different perspective.
Musk was no longer the same child who had first stepped foot in that camp, vulnerable to harassment and intimidation. “I discovered something powerful during that stay,” Musk reflects on those days. The thing is that he had realized the deterrent effectiveness of physical strength applied at the right time.
“If someone tried to harass me, a single strong and well directed punch to the face was enough to stop him in his tracks. Although some dared to respond with violence, they knew that a decisive blow on my part meant that it was not worth trying again,” confesses the CEO of tesla in his biography.
The experience in veldskool Not only did Musk’s perception of the conflictsbut also redefined the way others saw him.
The lesson learned in that hostile environment transcended the simple ability to defend himself physically, allowing him to cultivate determination and the ability to face different obstacles, key to overcoming any adversity.
