will.i.am talks life-changing investments in Tesla and Beats By Dre

will.i.am has at all times been one step ahead of the competition in relation to engineering and technology. The Grammy-winning artist even showed he believed in Tesla before Elon Musk took over.

Leader of the Black Eyes Peas brought his wealthy musical knowledge, business and technology in the NORE “Drink Champs” program. There, will.i.am talked in regards to the first investments he made in two corporations that “changed” his life for the higher.

According to the “Let’s Get Started” hitmaker, he received a stake in Tesla two years before Musk joined the corporate as CEO in 2008. By the time Musk took ownership of the automobile and clean energy company, will.i.am was already in his next enterprise, co-founding Beats By Dre a few years before Apple acquired the brand.

“I invested in Tesla in 2006, before Elon took over (the company) – around the same time,” he told NORE. “And then I used to be a part of Beats. And then Apple bought Beats from us. So you are talking about two corporations that modified my life. So I say each.

will.i.am played Drink Champs’ signature game of This or That when he answered whether he preferred Elon Musk or Steve Jobs in the tech innovation category. His interest in the industry comes naturally to a Los Angeles native who attended a highschool specializing in science, engineering and math.

He earned a number of money due to his natural passion for technology and business. He played his role in a personal investment group even him shares in corporations valued at billions of dollars, corresponding to OpenAI, Anthropic, Runaway and Hugging Face.

The “Scream and Shout” rapper/producer not only invests, but additionally invents his own technology products. will.i.am became an early entrepreneur at Viv Labs, which Google acquired for roughly $500 million. By 2015, he invested in OpenAI when it was funded by billionaires Reid Hoffman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services and other tech moguls.

Most recently, will.i.am ventured into FYI, an AI-powered productivity app that permits creators to collaborate and communicate on digital asset management projects.

“Everything will soon change and we will witness a social redefinition that will balance inequalities,” he says in regards to the evolution of artificial intelligence.

“People who have been underserved will be able to use these new tools and technologies to solve their problems and create new industries, and yesterday’s industries will collapse with the wave of transformation.”