The Self-Taught Computer Scientist

17Self-Taught Inspiration: Elon Musk

Today, Elon Musk is best known for founding Tesla, Space X, and PayPal, which revolutionized their industries. But long before he became an entrepreneur and one of the richest men on the planet, Musk was driven by a simpler idea: he wanted to design video games. How did self-taught programmer Musk go from a kid playing games to a billionaire? In this chapter, you will learn about Musk's education and how his interest in gaming led him to learn to program.

Musk's education began across the world from the Los Angeles home where he resides today. Born and raised in South Africa, Musk became interested in computers when he was ten years old. Musk was a driven child who would sometimes spend 10 hours a day reading books. He was also obsessed with video games. Musk explained that his love of video games drove him to learn to program. “I thought I could make my own games. I wanted to see how games work,” Musk explained. “That's what led me to learn how to program computers.”

Musk started with a book on the BASIC programming language, a popular language in the 1960s, which many computers still used in the 1980s. The book offered a six-month program to learn to code, but Musk raced through the entire program in three days. It wasn't long before Musk programmed his first video game. In 1984, when he was just 12 years old, Musk created Blastar. The space-based shooter drew inspiration from Alien Invaders. In Musk's game, players shot down spaceships ...