Posted on Apr 26, 2022 at 2:31 p.m.Updated on Apr 26, 2022 at 2:49 p.m.
Elon Musk is a seasoned businessman. His fortune, estimated at no less than 265 billion dollars (246.5 billion euros), and his rank as the richest person on the planet bear witness to this. That didn’t stop him from embarking on what some would call “crazy.” »
In addition to Tesla and its electric cars which have revolutionized the automotive industry, SpaceX and its reusable rockets which have shaken up the space world, the billionaire of South African origin who comes from buy Twitter for $44 billion , also founded a tunnel boring machine with his Boring Company intended to relieve congestion in urban transport. Key to everything, Elon Musk is still working on other futuristic projects. Small non-exhaustive inventory.
Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot
For a long time now, Elon Musk has been betting on artificial intelligence, convinced that men will have to learn to live with this technology. His latest project falls squarely into these considerations: Tesla Bot is a metallic humanoid robot, able to perform repetitive and dangerous tasks. It will be designed using the same technology as the manufacturer’s semi-autonomous vehicles.
This robot will measure 1.73 meters for 56.7 kg, will have five fingers on the hands as well as a black and white androgynous silhouette. Above all, it should be able to carry 20 kg, see lift a load of up to 68 kg at arm’s length.
Tesla Bot will have a screen on its head and will be “friendly”, the businessman promised on Tesla’s Artificial Intelligence Day. For the time being, only synthetic images have been presented, but a first prototype should see the light of day this year, assured the billionaire during his presentation in August 2021.
The Neuralink brain implant
Connecting our brain to a computer. This is the goal of Neuralink, a start-up co-founded by Elon Musk in 2016 and whose work has been presented at a conference in 2019. Its technology is a “brain-machine interface”, meaning “a system for directly connecting the brain to a machine, so that it can interpret brain activity in real time and translate it into command or useful information”, then explained to “Echos” Jérémie Mattout, researcher at Inserm, at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center.
When the company was launched, Elon Musk dreamed of allowing the birth of cyborg men, whose cognitive abilities would be increased thanks to the addition of a layer of artificial intelligence on the cortex. Concretely, the applications will be less Hollywood than medical.
Neuralink’s device could help people with paralysis, who might use a robotic arm, or people with certain brain injuries, such as those who have had a stroke. Postponed because of the Covid, the first human trials, to allow people with disabilities to use a computer, could begin this year, if Neuralink obtains authorization from the American health authority.
The “Not a Flamethrower”
Back in 2018. In order to draw attention to his Boring Company, a tunnel construction company created two years earlier, Elon Musk has a most original marketing idea. The billionaire decides to put on sale… flamethrowers (“flamethrower”). No less than 20,000 units are manufactured and stamped with the name of the tunnel boring machine.
Sold for $500 apiece, they sold out in no time among the whimsical businessman’s fan community around the world. They allow him to bring in no less than 10 million dollars in the coffers of the Boring Company in no time.
What Elon Musk did not anticipate is that this could pose a problem for the authorities of some countries. The police in some states, including a few in the “United States”, believe that this flamethrower is more akin to a weapon of war than a do-it-yourself object, such as reported “Tech Crunch” in 2021. In order to avoid any legal problems, the Boring Company was quick to rename its product “Not a Flamethrower”.
“Teslaquilla”, Tesla’s tequila
Also in 2018, a failed April Fool’s joke prompted Tesla to make bottles of Tequila that sold for…$250. On April 2 of that year, the day after Hoax Day, Elon Musk posts series of tweets in the form of fake press releases stating that Tesla has gone bankrupt. He ends with a photo of himself, slumped against one of his electric cars, indicating that he was found unconscious, surrounded by bottles of “Teslaquilla”, a then imaginary brand of tequila.
Elon was found passed out against a Tesla Model 3, surrounded by “Teslaquilla” bottles, the tracks of dried tears still visible on his cheeks.
This is not a forward-looking statement, because, obviously, what’s the point?
Happy New Month! pic.twitter.com/YcouvFz6Y1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2018
If the joke did not make investors laugh (Tesla stock lost 8% on the stock market that day), the idea of a bottle of the famous Mexican alcohol in the colors of the car manufacturer delighted Internet users.
Two years later, the idea made its way into the mind of Elon Musk and 75 cl bottles in the shape of a lightning bolt are on sale on its website, in a limited edition and available only in certain American states. To avoid the wrath of the Mexican authorities – the tequila designation being protected – the firm opted for an original name , the “Teslaquilla”.