In Pretoria, 1971, a boy was born who would one day reach for the stars. Elon Musk devoured encyclopedias by lamplight, escaping a troubled childhood into worlds of science fiction and boundless possibility. At seventeen, he left South Africa with little more than dreams. America beckoned—first Canada, then Pennsylvania, then Silicon Valley. He built Zip2, then PayPal, pouring every dollar into ever-grander gambles: SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity. Rockets exploded; critics scoffed; companies nearly died. Yet he persevered. Today, his electric cars glide across continents while his rockets touch the heavens—living proof that "impossible" is merely a word.
