
18. Founding SpaceX
With the massive success of X.com and Confinity, which would soon bring him the most substantial paycheck of his life so far, Musk went on to start a company that seemed to be a mix between science fiction and a foregone conclusion of failure.
To acquire rockets that the company could use to begin envisioning space travel to Mars, Musk traveled to Russia. Not only did the Russian officials that he met with refuse to sell him rockets, one of them spit in his face. So Musk decided if he wanted rockets, he would have to create his own.