Before becoming the tech mogul we know today, Elon Musk faced challenges as a teenager in Canada. His journey to the top wasn’t glamorous, as detailed in Ashlee Vance’s book “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.”
At 17, Musk left South Africa for Canada, aiming to reach the United States eventually. He gained citizenship through his Canadian-born mother but had to take any job available to survive.
One of his first jobs was at a cousin’s farm in Saskatchewan, a small village. He wasn’t living the tech startup founder life – he was a vegetable gardener and grain bin shoveler. Later, he learned chainsaw logging in Vancouver.
The Grueling Boiler Room Job
However, Musk’s toughest Canadian job was in a lumber mill’s boiler room. Seeking high-paying work at the unemployment office, he landed a grueling $18-an-hour gig (good money in 1989) but at a significant cost.
The work was dangerous and exhausting. It involved crawling through small tunnels in a hazmat suit, shoveling hot residue through the same entry point. The conditions were brutal – most workers quit quickly. According to Musk, only five out of 30 who started with him lasted three days, and by the end of the week, just he and two others remained.
The biography quotes Musk describing it as having “no escape.” The job demanded crawling into a confined space, shoveling hot material through the same opening, and hoping the person on the other side could clear it. It was physically demanding, and the heat made it dangerous for extended periods.
From Odd Jobs to College and Entrepreneurship.
After various odd jobs across Canada, Musk enrolled at Queen’s University in Ontario, later transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in the US. He earned degrees in physics and economics, but his entrepreneurial spirit remained strong. To afford tuition, he hosted large, ticketed house parties, transforming his college residence into a weekend nightclub.
Musk’s early years were marked by hard work and crucial decisions that shaped his path. He even turned down Stanford’s graduate program to pursue the booming internet scene. He co-founded Zip2, which later sold for $300 million. He used those funds to start X.com, which eventually became PayPal.
The sale of PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion provided the financial springboard for launching SpaceX and Tesla, ventures that would make him one of the wealthiest people on Earth.