The high-flying world billionaire rocket man

inspired by him. He’s whispered to be involved in the designs, which apparently have Daniel Craig’s approval.

Musk also seems to have a weakness for women – and they’ve eaten up a fair amount of his cash too.

He had an eight-year marriage to fantasy writer Justine Wilson, who he met at university. They had six children with the help of IVF – a son who died at 10 weeks in 2002, plus twins and triplets.

They divorced in late 2008 and a year later Musk admitted he had run “out of cash” and was living off loans from pals while trying to keep his firms afloat.

The billionaire has also been married twice to British St Trinian’s actress Talulah Riley, who he met in a London nightclub in 2008. They tied the knot in 2010, divorced in 2012, remarried a year later and divorced again in 2016.

Since then, he has also had an on-off relationship with Johnny Depp’s ex, actress Amber Heard. By his own admission, he needs to invest more time, rather than money, in potential partners.

“I need to find a girlfriend. That’s why I need to carve out a little more time. I

WOMEN

think maybe even another five to 10 – how much time does a woman want a week? Maybe 10 hours? I don’t know.”

Musk ensures his sons get plenty of attention but it doesn’t sound like he spoils them. Instead of flash holidays, he takes them camping.

In 2015, he turned one of his mansions into a private school called Ad Astra – “To the stars” in Latin. He has shared little more detail other than that no conventional grades are awarded.

“I’m a pretty good dad,” he said. “I have the kids half the week and spend a fair bit of time with them.”

There is no denying

Musk is a workaholic. In

2015, he said he’d only had

HIS KIDS WORK

two weeks off since founding Spacex 12 years earlier. He reportedly works 80 to 90 hours a week.

He was fuelled by eight cans of Diet Coke a day at first. But he said: “I got so freaking jacked I seriously started to feel like I was losing my peripheral vision.” Tesla in particular seems to be sucking up his dollars. Last month, it said it would not pay Musk for the next 10 years, until it hits a $100billion market value. If and when it does, Musk could rocket to the richest person in the world. In fact, Musk has never had a salary from Tesla – little surprise, given reports the company spends £5,000 a minute...

He must have winced this week as the firm suffered its biggest quarterly loss yet, of £487million.

HOLLYWOOD STAR

Musk has taken cameo roles three times, first in 2010’s Iron Man 2 . He was the muse for Robert Downey Jnr, who plays tech genius Tony Stark in the franchise. A turn in Revenge of the Electric Car came in 2011. And in 2015, he was also in Big Bang Theory episode The Platonic Permutation – in which he washes dishes.

Musk signed Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge in 2012, vowing to donate most of his wealth in his lifetime. But his principal worthy cause seems to be, ironically, protecting us from technology.

He has gifted £7million to the Future of Life Institute to regulate artificial intelligence and alongside Mark Zuckerberg and actor Ashton Kutcher has invested in San Francisco AI group Vicarious.

Musk believes AI could end in a Terminator-style scenario, saying: “There are some scary outcomes. We should try to make sure the outcomes are good.”

He also set up Openai, a charity that aims to develop AI in beneficial ways.

Other passion projects include medical research firm Neuralink and “vacuum” train system Hyperloop, combining a magnetic levitation train and a low pressure transit tube. It would get you from London to Edinburgh in 30 minutes.

PASSION PROJECTS