10 Elon Musk Inventions and Businesses Most People Don’t Know About
Everyone knows Tesla, SpaceX, and X, formerly Twitter. Fewer people know that Elon Musk‘s business history includes a video game, a submarine car, a tequila brand, and a movie producer credit. Here are ten genuinely lesser-known chapters from his career, fact-checked and confirmed.
- Musk’s first commercial product was a video game he coded and sold at age 12
- Zip2 and X.com came years before Tesla and SpaceX made him famous
- The Boring Company funded itself partly by selling 20,000 flamethrowers in four days
- Teslaquila and the Cyberwhistle both began as jokes that turned into real, sold-out products
- He owns the actual submarine car from a 1977 James Bond film
- He produced a 2005 satirical film and quietly invested in DeepMind years before the AI boom
- He appeared as himself in Iron Man 2 and directly inspired the writing of Tony Stark
1. Blastar, the Video Game He Coded at 12
Long before any of his companies existed, a young Musk taught himself programming on a Commodore VIC-20 and wrote a space-shooter game called Blastar. He sold the code to a computer magazine for around 500 dollars, reportedly earning approximately $500 in revenue, a sum his biographers describe as psychologically formative for his later business ambitions.
2. Zip2, His First Real Startup
After moving to the US, Musk co-founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal in 1995. The company provided online city guides and business directories to newspapers, essentially a digital yellow pages before Google existed. It was sold to Compaq in 1999 for over 300 million dollars.
3. X.com, the Online Bank That Became PayPal
Most people know PayPal. Fewer know it started life as X.com, an online banking venture Musk co-founded in 1999. In an old interview, Musk described the pitch himself: there were no minimum balances, and users could open an account and receive a $20 promotional offer in their checking account. X.com later merged with rival Confinity and rebranded as PayPal.
4. “Not a Flamethrower”
To raise early funds for The Boring Company, Musk sold 20,000 branded flamethrowers, which sold out in just four days and brought in $10 million in revenue. When shipping carriers raised security concerns over the name, Musk simply renamed the product “Not a Flamethrower” and included a fire extinguisher with every unit.
5. Teslaquila
What started as an April Fools’ joke in 2018, a tweet claiming Musk had been found passed out surrounded by “Teslaquilla” bottles, eventually became a real product. Tesla’s website described it as an exclusive, small batch tequila añejo made from sustainably sourced agaves, aged 15 months in French oak barrels, sold in a lightning bolt shaped bottle for $250.
6. The Cyberwhistle
In 2021, Tesla released a $50 metal whistle shaped like the Cybertruck, marketed with the tongue in cheek tagline “blow the whistle on Tesla.” It was described as a premium collectible made from medical grade stainless steel, and it sold out almost immediately.
7. Wet Nellie, the Real James Bond Submarine Car
Musk is the owner of the original Lotus Esprit submarine car used in the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, nicknamed Wet Nellie. He has said he hopes to eventually fuse Tesla technology with the car’s design to actually make it drive underwater rather than just look like it can.
8. Executive Producer of a 2005 Film
Musk was an executive producer on the satirical film Thank You for Smoking, alongside fellow PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, a detail that rarely comes up alongside his tech and space ventures.
9. An Early, Quiet Investment in DeepMind
Years before AI was part of everyday conversation, Musk invested in DeepMind, the London-based AI lab, specifically to stay informed on how fast artificial intelligence was progressing behind closed doors. Google acquired DeepMind in 2014, and Musk has said the experience shaped much of his later public concern about AI safety.
10. His Cameo in Iron Man 2
Musk appears briefly as himself in Iron Man 2, exchanging a few lines with Tony Stark about rocket engines, and was credited in the film under his own name. Director Jon Favreau has said Musk was used directly as inspiration for how Tony Stark’s character was written, and some of the film’s SpaceX scenes were shot on location at Musk’s real rocket factory.
