2014 CNBC Disruptor 50

What
Designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. 

Disrupting
Government-led space transportation model, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.

Headquarters: Hawthorne, Calif.
CEO: Elon Musk
Year Founded: 2002
Number of Employees: 3,000
Funding: N/A
Key Investors:  Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Valor Equity Partners (minority investors)

• In 2012 became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and return it safely
• Successfully docked spacecraft at International Space Station in 2012
• Musk hopes to establish an 80,000-person human colony on Mars at a projected cost of $36 billion to a public-private partnership.
• Believes it can bring the cost of moving a person to Mars down to half a million dollars
• Previous NASA estimates put cost of manned mission to Mars at $500 billion