Musk, Bezos, Gates: Modern Tech Tycoons

ELON MUSK Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971 is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc founder of The Boring Company co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI and president of the philanthropic Musk Foundation. With an estimated net worth of around $139 billion as of December 23, 2022, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, Musk is the second-wealthiest person in the world, according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes s real-time billionaires list. Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and briefly attended at the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at age 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen's University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University. After two days, he dropped out and with his brother Kimbal, co-founded the online city guide software company Zip2. In 1999, Zip2 was acquired by Compaq for $307 million and Musk co-founded X.com, a direct bank. X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002.

JEFF BEZOS Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon. With a net worth of US$109.3 billion as of January 2023, Bezos is the fifth-wealthiest person in the world and was the wealthiest from 2017 to 2021 according to both Bloomberg's Billionaires Index and Forbes. Born in Albuquerque and raised in Houston and Miami, Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986. He holds a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked on Wall Street in a variety of related fields from 1986 to early 1994. Bezos founded Amazon in late 1994 on a road trip from New York City to Seattle. The company began as an online bookstore and has since expanded to a variety of other e-commerce products and services, including video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. It is the world's largest online sales company, the largest Internet company by revenue, and the largest provider of virtual assistants and cloud infrastructure services through its Amazon Web Services branch. Bezos founded the aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company Blue Origin in 2000. Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle reached space in 2015 and afterwards successfully landed back on Earth. He also purchased the major American newspaper The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million and manages many other investments through his venture capital firm, Bezos Expeditions. In September 2021, Bezos co-founded biotechnology company Altos Labs with Mail.ru founder Yuri Milner.

BILL GATES William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen.During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014.He was a major entrepreneur of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Gates was born and raised in Seattle. In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It became the world's largest personal computer software company. Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, succeeded by Steve Ballmer, but he remained chairman of the board of directors and became chief software architect. During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive. This opinion has been upheld by numerous court rulings. In June 2008, Gates transitioned to a part-time role at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the private charitable foundation he and his then-wife Melinda established in 2000. He stepped down as chairman of the board of Microsoft in February 2014 and assumed a new post as technology adviser to support the newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella. In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his philanthropic efforts on climate change, global health and development, and education.

DWAYNE JOHNSON Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name the Rock, is an American actor and former professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time,he was integral to the development and success of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) during the Attitude Era, an industry boom period in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Johnson wrestled for the WWF for eight years prior to pursuing an acting career. His films have grossed over $3.5 billion in North America and over $10.5 billion worldwide, making him one of the world's highest-grossing and highest-paid actors. Prior to his emergence as a top-grossing actor beginning in the 2010s, Johnson was an athlete. At Freedom High School in Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley, he ultimately emerged as a standout for both the school's football team and wrestling team. His football capabilities at Freedom High School led him to be ranked as one of the top ten defensive tackle high-school prospects in the nation, drawing the attention of several NCAA Division I college football programs. Johnson accepted an athletic scholarship to play at the University of Miami, one of the country's top college football programs. As a college freshman, he was a member of the University of Miami's 1991 national championship team, but largely spent his four college football years at the University of Miami in backup roles behind elite players, including future NFL star and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, Warren Sapp.Johnson aspired to play professional football but went undrafted in the 1995 NFL Draft. Following his graduation from the University of Miami that year, he signed with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League however, he was cut from the team in his first season.

CRISTIANO RONALDO Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward for Saudi Professional League club Al Nassr and captains the Portugal national team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Ronaldo has won five Ballon d'Or awards]and four European Golden Shoes, the most by a European player. He has won 32 trophies in his career, including seven league titles, five UEFA Champions Leagues, the UEFA European Championship and the UEFA Nations League. Ronaldo holds the records for most appearances (183), goals (140), and assists (42) in the Champions League, goals in the European Championship (14), international goals (118), and joint-most international appearances (196). He is one of the few players to have made over 1,100 professional career appearances, and has scored over 800 official senior career goals for club and country. He is the only player to score in five FIFA World Cup tournaments. Ronaldo began his senior career with Sporting CP, before signing with Manchester United in 2003, winning the FA Cup in his first season. He would also go on to win three consecutive Premier League titles, the Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup; at age 23, he won his first Ballon d'Or. Ronaldo was the subject of the then-most expensive association football transfer when he signed for Real Madrid in 2009 in a transfer worth 94 million ( 80 million). He became a key contributor and formed an attacking trio with Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale which was integral to the team winning four Champions League wins from 2014 to 2018, including La D cima. During this period, he won back-to-back Ballons d'Or in 2013 and 2014, and again in 2016 and 2017, and was runner-up three times behind Lionel Messi, his perceived career rival. He also became the club's all-time top goalscorer and the all-time top scorer in the Champions League, and finished as the competition's top scorer for six consecutive seasons between 2012 and 2018. With Real, Ronaldo won two La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey, four Champions Leagues, three UEFA Super Cup and three Club World Cups. In 2018, he signed for Juventus in a transfer worth an initial 100 million ( 88 million), the most expensive transfer for an Italian club and for a player over 30 years old. He won two Serie A titles, two Supercoppa Italiana trophies and a Coppa Italia, became the inaugural Serie A Most Valuable Player and the first footballer to finish as top scorer in the English, Spanish and Italian leagues, before returning to Manchester United in 2021. He left in 2022, after his contract with the club was terminated. In 2023, Ronaldo signed for Al Nassr.

LIONEL MESSI Lionel Andr s "Leo" Messi Cuccittini (born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine footballer. He plays for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain and the Argentina national team as a forward. Many experts and critics consider Messi as one of the greatest football players of all time. Some people even say he is the greatest player ever. Messi has seven Ballon d'Or awards, the most of any player, and two more than Cristiano Ronaldo. His playing style and skills are very similar to the Argentine legend Diego Maradona because of their short height. There is much competition between him and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo because of their similar skill levels.

LEBRON JAMES LeBron Raymone James Sr. (born December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "King James", he is widely considered to be one of the greatest players in history and is often compared to Michael Jordan in debates over the greatest basketball player of all time. James has won four NBA championships, four NBA MVP awards, four NBA Finals MVP awards, three All-Star MVP awards, and two Olympic gold medals. James has scored the most points in the playoffs, the most career points (playoffs and regular season combined), and the second most regular season points, and has the seventh most career assists. He has been selected an NBA All-Star 18 times, to the All-NBA Team a record 18 times, and to the NBA All-Defensive First Team five times.He has competed in 10 NBA Finals, the third most all time, including eight consecutively between 2011 and 2018 (first four with Miami, second four with Cleveland). In 2021, James was selected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, and in 2022 became the first and only player in NBA history to accumulate over 10,000 career points, rebounds, and assists. James played basketball for St. Vincent St. Mary High School in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, and was heavily touted by the national media as a future NBA superstar. A prep-to-pro, he was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers with the first overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft. Named the 2004 NBA Rookie of the Year,he soon established himself as one of the league's premier players, winning the NBA MVP award in 2009 and 2010 and leading the Cavaliers to their first NBA Finals appearance in 2007. After failing to win a championship with Cleveland, James left in 2010 as a free agent to join the Miami Heat this was announced in the television special The Decision and is among the most controversial free-agent decisions in sports history.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965) is an American actor and producer. His career has been characterized by critical and popular success in his youth, followed by a period of substance abuse and legal troubles, before a resurgence of commercial success later in his career. In 2008, Downey was named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people in the world, and from 2013 to 2015, he was listed by Forbes as Hollywood's highest-paid actor. At the age of five, he made his acting debut in his father Robert Downey Sr.'s film Pound in 1970. He subsequently worked with the Brat Pack in the teen films Weird Science (1985) and Less than Zero (1987). In 1992, Downey portrayed the title character in the biopic Chaplin, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a BAFTA Award. Following a stint at the Corcoran Substance Abuse Treatment Facility on drug charges, he joined the TV series Ally McBeal, for which he won a Golden Globe Award. He was fired from the show in the wake of drug charges in 2000 and 2001. He stayed in a court-ordered drug treatment program and has maintained his sobriety since 2003. Initially, completion bond companies would not insure Downey, until Mel Gibson paid the insurance bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective.He went on to star in the black comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), the thriller Zodiac (2007), and the action comedy Tropic Thunder (2008); for the latter, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Downey gained global recognition for starring as Tony Stark/Iron Man in ten films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Iron Man (2008), and leading up to Avengers: Endgame (2019). He has also played the title character in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (2009), which earned him his second Golden Globe, and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011).

WILL SMITH Willard Carroll Smith II(born September 25, 1968), also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer and rapper. Known for variety of roles, Smith has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award and four Grammy Awards.As of 2023, his films have grossed over $9.3 billion globally, making him one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. Smith began his acting career starring as a fictionalized version of himself on the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990 1996). He first gained recognition as part of a hip hop duo with DJ Jazzy Jeff, with whom he released five studio albums and the US Billboard Hot 100 top 20 singles "Parents Just Don't Understand", "A Nightmare on My Street", "Summertime", "Ring My Bell", and "Boom! Shake the Room" from 1984 to 1994. He released the solo albums Big Willie Style (1997), Willennium (1999), Born to Reign (2002), and Lost and Found (2005), which contained the US number-one singles "Gettin' Jiggy wit It" and "Wild Wild West". He has received four Grammy Awards for his rap performances. Smith achieved wider fame as a leading man in films such as the action film Bad Boys (1995), its sequels Bad Boys II (2003) and Bad Boys for Life (2020), and the sci-fi comedies Men in Black (1997), Men in Black II (2002), and Men in Black 3 (2012). After starring in the thrillers Independence Day (1996) and Enemy of the State (1998), he received Academy Award for Best Actor nominations for his portrayal as Muhammad Ali in Ali (2001), and as Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). He then starred in a range of commercially successful films, including I, Robot (2004), Shark Tale (2004), Hitch (2005), I Am Legend (2007), Hancock (2008), Seven Pounds (2008), Suicide Squad (2016) and Aladdin (2019).

ANDREW TATE Emory Andrew Tate III (born December 1, 1986) is an American-British social media personality, businessman, and former professional kickboxer. Following his kickboxing career, he began offering paid courses and memberships through his website and later rose to fame as an Internet celebrity, promoting an "ultra- masculine, ultra-luxurious lifestyle". A self-described misogynist, Tate's controversial commentary has resulted in his suspension from several social media platforms. On December 29, 2022, Tate and his brother, Tristan, were arrested in Romania along with two women; all four are suspected of human trafficking and forming an organized crime group. Romanian police allege that the group coerced victims into creating paid pornography for social media. On December 30, 2022, a judge ordered him to be remanded in custody for 30 days, while the investigation continues.