South African born Elon Musk is the brains and the cash behind the SpaceX operation. He wasn't always a rocket scientist. His career began with a little start-up called PayPal which he then sold to eBay for $180 million. Not satisfied with becoming a multi-millionaire once, he then went on to set up SpaceX, Tesla Motors and Solar City (the largest provider of solar power in the US), making him simultaneously a green and space pioneer. This is a man with both hands grasped firmly onto the modern world and his eyes fixed resolutely on the horizon. It is, therefore, unsurprising that, when Robert Downey Jr. was getting ready to play Iron Man, he sought Musk out to try and get inside the mind of a billionaire modern-day Renaissance man. RDJ says that he based a lot of his portrayal of Iron Man on Elon Musk, but added the flamboyance of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to his quiet and measured personality.
