Tesla CEO Elon Musk is today the world's richest person - but there was a time when he could not afford to pay for a mechanic to repair his car. To fix his first car - an old 1978 BMW 320i that he purchased in 1993 - Elon Musk bought replacement glass for $20 from a junkyard. This snippet of information Mr Musk revealed on Twitter when an old photograph of him fixing the car went viral on the microblogging platform.
"@elonmusk in 1995, fixing his car by himself as he couldn't afford to pay for repairs," a Twitter user wrote while sharing a throwback picture where a young Elon Musk is seen fixing a car window.
"I bought the replacement glass from a junkyard for $20. They're great places to get spare parts," Elon Musk, 49, tweeted on Monday in response to the old photograph.
The throwback picture was first shared by Mr Musk's mother, Maye Musk, on Twitter in 2019. "@elonmusk #1995 And people said you knew nothing about cars," she wrote in an apparent dig at critics and naysayers.
Replying to his mother's tweet, Elon Musk had revealed that he had fixed everything on that old BMW himself as he could not afford professional repairs. "Couldn't afford to pay for repairs, so I fixed almost everything on that car from parts in the junkyard," he wrote. He further revealed that he had bought the 1978 BMW 320i in 1993 for $1,400 (approximately Rs 1 lakh).
Last week, Elon Musk became the world's richest person, overtaking Amazon's Jeff Bezos who had occupied the top spot since 2017.
