Category: Elon Musk

For as long as I can remember I have always been interested in new inventions and machines that improve life and that put a modern twist on basic everyday necessities. When I read the outline for this book report I was enthused and had one particular person that automatically popped up in my mind to write about. For this book report, I am researching the CEO and creator of the car brand Tesla. I chose to write about Elon Musk because his contribution to society has made a great impact on our environment and the world as we know it.

Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa on June 28, 1971. In Elon’s youth, he was always so consumed with daydreaming and pondering about various inventions that his parents began to show concern for him and wanted doctors to check his hearing. When Elon was 10 his parents got a divorce, and he suddenly developed an interest in computers to get his mind off the worries of his parent separation. He was a self-taught programmer, and he created a little game called Blastar. This was his first sold software game at the age of 12. In middle school, Elon Musk was small, shy, and brilliant. He was constantly bullied in school until the age of 15. After that, he went through puberty and a major growth spurt thus learning how to defend himself.

Elon Musk moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University at the age of 17, in 1989. This was mainly to avoid mandatory military service in South Africa. Musk later that year attained Canadian citizenship and following that gained American citizenship. Elon left Canada in pursuit to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania In 1992. He received an undergraduate degree in economics and managed to get a second bachelor’s degree in physics. After earning two different degrees he then planned to study at Stanford University to gain a Ph.D. in energy physics. His move, however, was short-lived because the timing of when he got to school was when the Internet had boomed. Elon then dropped out of Stanford after two days of becoming a student, this was to launch his first corporation “Zip2 Corporation”.

In 1995 Elon propelled his first organization, Zip2 Corporation, with his sibling, Kimbal Musk. In 1999, Zip2 was purchased for $307 million as a cash payment via a division of Compaq Computer Corporation. This also supplied them with $34 million in investment opportunities. In 1999, Elon and Kimbal Musk utilized the cash from their closeout of Zip2 to establish X.com. X.com was an online money installment organization. X.com which is now known as PayPal, earned Elon’s initial billion for it to be obtained by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock.

In 2002 he established his third company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX. This was with the sole purpose to build a spacecraft for economic space travel. In 2008 NASA gave SpaceX a contract to move cargo for the International Space Station for NASA’s space shuttle missions. SpaceX made history when Falcon 9 rocket was launched into space as one of the first unmanned capsules on May 22, 2012. SpaceX put in motion a fruitful practice run with Falcon 9 rocket which was produced using reusable parts, this makes reasonable space travel more probable for future endeavors. In September 2017, Elon presented a model plan for his BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), which can carry 100 people. He announced that SpaceX was going to launch its first mission to Mars in 2022 with the BFR. This is with the intention of soon colonizing Mars. Since BFR is a mammoth rocket the only way to transport it will be by ship.

Tesla’s total loss accumulation in the year 2018 amounting to 717 million dollars was offset by a tweet from Elon Musk. Musk claimed that he was considering taking Tesla private at a price of 420 dollars with Funding Secured (Puri, Varde, Du & de Melo, 2018). After Elon’s tweet, the company’s market value went up by 900 million dollars in just a few hours (Huang & Yeo, 2018). As surprising as the developments were and the lack of details concerning the entities expected to give the required amount of financing and the terms required, the tweets were considered as declarative statements from the chief executive officer (CEO) of a publicly traded company meaning that they could be taken seriously.

In its 2013 report, the US Securities and Exchange Commission declared that publicly traded organizations can be able to make key business announcements, including the plans to make their company private, on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. (Huang & Yeo, 2018). The announcements could be excused as long as the investors remain aware of the platforms that are used for disseminating such information. The rule made by SEC was part of an extension of the 2008 ruling by the US SEC allowing public organizations to make crucial declarations to investors (Puri, Varde, Du & de Melo, 2018). However, the ‘fund secured’ section of the tweet made Musk land in trouble because if the money claimed did not follow as Tesla went private, then he would face civil charges for manipulating the stock prices of Tesla by spreading misleading information to the investors.

The SEC later charged Musk for the ‘fund secured’ section of his tweet leading him to pay a fine of 20 million dollars (Puri, Varde, Du & de Melo, 2018). Additionally, Musk was also removed as the head of the Tesla board leading the stakeholders to question the future and profitability of the organization. The action plan would thus repair Elon Musk’s influence thereby persuading the stakeholders and the customers to believe that his erratic motives and behavior were not detrimental to the company.

Increasing Followers and Traffic of Elon Musk’s Social Media

The first step in the action plan is trying to frame a new narrative to paint Elon Musk in a positive light. Elon Musk, the CEO of the private space company, Space X and Tesla, has been acclaimed as the real-life inspiration behind the character of Tony Stark in the Iron Man an Avengers movie franchise (Diamond Jr, 2018). Therefore, in trying to rebuild Musk’s reputation, it would be prudent to write posts about him with irresistible headlines. Headlines are the most important part of the content written on social media due to the plummeting attention spans among millennials. Without a compelling headline, even the most detailed and informative posts would go unread. Therefore, the first step would be to write indelible social media posts and stories about Elon and link them to the Tony Stark character in the Iron Man Avengers movie franchise. The pop culture reference would get most social media users intrigued by Elon Musk leading them to delve into his life and try to draw comparisons between him and Tony Stark.

Elon Musk’s social media followers can be asked to share posts about him to have more users engage with his posts and social media profiles. Hashtags would be created to discuss the remarkable things that Elon Musk is doing and the interesting things about his life. Aside from the organic growth achieved by sharing of posts about Elon Musk, paid social media advertising can also be used to increase traffic to Elon Musk’s social media pages. Display advertisements usually appear on the social media users’ news fed section prompting them to click links that lead them back to Elon Musk’s page.

The social media engagement would frame a new narrative about Elon Musk as most people would be talking positively about him. The upcoming Avengers Endgame, which appears to be the final movie in the Avengers movie franchise has attracted much attention and hype online. Therefore, it would be prudent to link Elon Musk to the Tony Stark character to re-direct the millions of fans back to Elon’s social media pages. On Elon’s social media, there should be several posts about his numerous achievements thus helping to create a new narrative about him. Moreover, Elon Musk’s social media page should be filled with aesthetic images that have his followers admire his billionaire lifestyle. The best way to retain new followers would be to incorporate a visual appeal to show the flashy life of Elon akin to that of Tony Stark in the Iron Man and Avengers movie franchise.

Reach Out to More Famous Bloggers, Influencers, and Conservative News Outlets

After targeting social media users, the next step would be to reach out to the mass market. First, famous bloggers and Conservative News Outlets would be approached to write about Elon Musk come up, his personality traits, and the various achievements made so far. Since writing purely about Elon’s merits would seem like a cheap ploy to paint him in a positive light, it would be prudent to include his flaws and shortcomings. Famous bloggers and Conservative News Outlets would thus bring attention to Elon Musk and then try to change the public’s perception of him. At this point, it would be prudent to include the 2013 report by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which it declared that publicly traded organizations can be able to make key business announcements, including the plans to make their company private, on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The impulsive comment of Elon Musk can thus be excused because he used his social media platform to make information public to investors. Aside from trying to assert Elon’s innocence, it would be prudent to include the remarkable things that Elon Musk is trying to achieve. For instance, Elon is trying to build the Gigafactory One in Nevada and the Chinese Gigafactory enabling Tesla to penetrate the lucrative Chinese market. Additionally, Musk’s vision to make life multi-planetary by moving man to the planet Mars. Elon’s ambitions seem farfetched but intriguing to the average American as the space race would see several countries to establish new fronts in space.

Increase the Number of Positive News

The frequency of positive news should be increased for consistency thus allowing more social media users to get acquainted with Elon Musk. Some of their positive traits of Musk include his relentlessness as he is exceptionally motivated and self-driven despite the several failed attempts of his SpaceX rockets and Tesla Motors (Diamond Jr, 2018). Elon is a serial entrepreneur who has multiple ventures such as Zip2, a predecessor of Google maps, PayPal, an online banking service, and Solar City, where he plans to popularize renewable energy (Diamond Jr, 2018). Most importantly, it would be important for the social media influencers reached out to, to spark online conversations about Musk’s work ethic as he does not believe in any shortcut to success and is big on work productivity.

Additionally, Musk is a visionary and believes in hiring fresh and young talents and would thus appeal to the youth, especially the fresh graduates who feel that they have much to offer (Diamond Jr, 2018). The series of positive news would thus help the public to forget the negative aspects and side of Elon Musk and the infamous tweets that landed him in trouble in the first place. Moreover, the series of positive tweets would ensure that Elon remains a sensation and an icon because of the positivity that he brings to the world rather than the infamy that he has been associated with because of an impulsive tweet.

The Final Step would be to Work on Elon Musk as an Individual

Elon Musk would not need a business advisor to lead him in the right way. For instance, all of his tweets should be reviewed by his team to ensure that they remain politically correct. Elon Musk should make a mature public apology for the infamous tweet and strive to connect more with his audience and fans on a positive note. Additionally, Elon should take up more television interviews to help keep his brand alive and ensure the world sees his potential and the great things that he is yet to offer.

One of the world’s most brilliant men was born on a summer day on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. His name is Elon Musk, his parents are Maye and Errol Musk, Elon’s mother was a famous Canadian model who worked jobs for Covergirl and other famous magazines. His father was from South Africa where he is a very wealthy engineer, Elon, and his family continued to live in South Africa until he was 17 years old. When he was 10 his mother and father got divorced but stayed in South Africa so the kids would not have to move (Editors, The Biography).

Elon Musk is known around the world, he is a famous inventor and scientist that currently owns and operates one of the world’s largest tech companies. However, Elon’s rise to fame and fortune did not come easy, in an interview with the New York Times, Elon told the reporter that he had an excruciating childhood and was bullied constantly in school for his “bookish” demeanor. After the divorce of his parents, his father became emotionally abusive to Elon and his two siblings, according to Elon his father would take him and his brother to sit in complete silence for four hours and listen to his father teach them about something. In the interview, Elon goes into greater depth on his experiences with bullies saying that “They got my best [expletive] friend to lure me out of hiding so they could beat me up. And that [expletive] hurt. For some reason, they decided that I was it, and they were going to go after me nonstop. That’s what made growing up difficult. For a number of years, there was no respite. You get chased around by gangs at school who tried to beat the [expletive] out of me, and then I’d come home, and it would just be awful there as well (Maya Kosoff, Business Insider).” He would continue to take this sort of abuse until he was around 15 years old when an unexpected growth spurt caused him to take an interest in karate and judo which backed off the bullies at home and his school.

Despite his troubled youth he did not let that stop him, he had an idea at a young age to make a quick buck, Elon along with his brother Kimbal went around making handmade chocolate Easter eggs to sell to the rich people in his neighborhood. He reported selling them to customers for 20 times the cost of making them! His schemes didn’t stop there, while his parents were out of the house he would build his own homemade explosives and rocket ships! Elon stated that the explosives he was making were powerful enough to kill him! His next mission was to correctly code his own video game, he finished the project at twelve years old and sold the game for 500$, the game was his own version of “Space Invaders” as the game’s mission was to destroy alien space ships before they destroyed you. Before moving to Canada as a teenager he had one last idea before he left Africa, he and his brother tried to open and run their own arcade center across from their local high school. They got signed leases from the city and the only thing they needed was a parent signature because of being underage. However, their father reportedly “flipped out” over his son’s idea and would not sign the papers to open up their own store ( Zameena Mejia, CNBC).

Elon saved up enough money and moved himself to Canada at the age of 17 to get a head start on college and his studies. His life in the new world started off rocky, he said for the beginning parts of his college career in Ontario he was living off one dollar a day, spending his money at the grocery store on groceries in bulk, constantly living off oranges and hotdogs. While in Canada he attended the University of Queens, while enrolled in classes he worked on gaining his Canadian citizenship in part because he believed when he achieved this it would be easier to gain his American citizenship after college. Three years later he moved to America to attend college at the University of Pennsylvania, He graduated there with a degree in economics and physics. His college education did not end there however, he transferred to the University of Stanford in California to obtain a master’s degree in energy physics. However his visit to the University was cut short by him dropping out of the university two days after enrolling to start his new company, “Zip 2.” Seven years after the release of his new company Musk finally earned his American citizenship (Editors, The Biography).

His first successful company, “Zip 2” was a company that was started by Musk and his brother to help tourists and other people know the city better, this was an online program that would build a city guild and help people get ideas on what to do with their day. It grew popular fast with the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, 4 years after the release of “Zip 2” Musk and his brother sold the company to Compaq Computer Corporation for $307 million in straight cash, along with $34 million in stock. In the same year that he sold his city tourism planning website, he launched a very famous program called PayPal, however in the begging, it was under a different name, X.com a year later this company changed its name to Pay Pal and helped skyrocket Elon’s net worth to over a billion dollars! eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for 1.5 billion dollars in stock. Musk, continuing his streak of starting big companies in the same year he sold another, started his new space exploration company, Space X. Elon had a goal to make a space travel commercial, his dream was to make traveling to space just like flying from New York to California. In 2012 Elon did the impossible when Space X sent the world’s first unmanned rocket to the International Space Station with 1,000 pounds of supplies. Space X continued to improve and make more improvements and technological achievements. While busting through the space world Musk was working on a side project in Tesla Motors, the goal of this company is to provide affordable all-electric luxury cars. The company has improved beyond just cars, producing solar panels, batteries, and other products. Musk has his hand in all things Tesla with him overseeing the product development, engineering, and design of every new product. This company skyrocketed when in 2017 it announced that it passed General Motors as the country’s most valuable car manufacturer (Editors, The Biography).

Elon added another job to his plate in 2016 when newly elected President Donald Trump announced that Musk would be joining his team as a strategist. However, this was short-lived after Musk stepped down from his post on June 1st, 2017.

Elon’s family life has been shaky from his childhood, with divorced parents and an abusive father he hasn’t exactly had the best situation to gain influence from. He has been married twice and with his first wife he had 6 children, unfortunately, his first son died at 10 weeks old from sudden infant death syndrome. He’s married again to the same woman in 2012 but this marriage ended again with their divorce in 2016 (Editors, The Biography).

Musk has also started his own nonprofit foundation to help explore the “boundless potential of space exploration” this foundation also helps find renewable and clean energy sources (Editors, The Biography).

All in all Elon Musk is a business typhoon who is constantly innovating and churning out new products that will help benefit the people of the world, regarded as a good man and one of the smarter men in history, Elon is truly a Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison mind who will continue to influence and inspire future generations. People and other physicists will be able to study his research as he makes most of it widely available for people to study on their own and form their own hypotheses.

Elon Musk is an associate exemplary leader, even as Father Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta was. In but thirty years of existing on earth, Elon Musk went from being cowed, what others thought about as being smarty pants to attaining degrees in economic science and physics at the same time and beginning many undefeated businesses. One of which might be Zip2, which was sold out to Compaq for $307 million followed by X.com which then became PayPal, which was conjointly sold-out and accustomed to fund his alternative ventures like Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and Solar City. Father Arizmendiarrieta educated and power-assisted the primary founders of the Mondragón Cooperative that nowadays employs quite 80 000 individuals. Impressive achievements from two-man who merely can’t be outlined by any ‘textbook’ leadership style. It seems that in reality leadership theories is also applied in synergism, permitting the pliability for a frontrunner to adapt their style because of the condition prerequisites. Whilst Elon Musk and Father Jose Arizmendiarrieta are both effective leaders, one stands out. Father Arizmendiarrieta led a population to independence and while not thus far the immense monetary success of Tesla, Mondragón’s continued existence is the heritage of a really superior leader. Five theories; trait, behaviors, power motives, charisma, and transformational leadership will be discussed in this essay, each one comparing and contrasting the similarities and/or differences Elon Musk and Father Arizmendiarrieta exhibited and how these dissimilarities made Father Arizmendiarrieta more exceptional leader.

Trait leadership is one in the first leadership theories and has resurfaced recently with Zaccaro (2006) contesting that traits and attributes combined, is a major predictor of leadership ability. Personality traits can be divided into general and task-related traits (Dubrin 2015, pp. 35-63). Effective leaders exhibit general traits of self-confidence, humility, core self-evaluations, trustworthiness, enthusiasm, optimism and warmth, authenticity, assertiveness, and extraversion. It cannot be contended that Elon Musk displayed these qualities. Substantial analysis, usually by alternative recognized leaders, cites these essential qualities. Jacoby (2011) gives various instances of how Elon Musk’s passion, trust in his own capacity and decisiveness, led to the advancement of his fruitful undertakings over numerous years in front of his rivals. As per Ashlee Vance, who depicted the assembling floor at SpaceX, reports Kamens (2017) noticed humility saying “desks were interspersed around the factory so that Ivy League computer scientists and engineers designing the machines could sit with the welders and machinists building the hardware.” These qualities were typical in the two men. Father Arizmendiarrieta’s own words, (cited in Lorenzo 2000, p. 271; p. 273); ‘the education enterprise is the first enterprise of a people and ‘to create but not to dominate, speaks of humility, trustworthiness, and authenticity. Whyte (1994 pp. 274-276) additionally depicts Father Arizmendiarrieta’s self-assurance and his decisiveness when the need emerged.

The men similarly shared the duty-related qualities of energy for their work, enthusiastic insight and strength (Raj, 2016; Whyte 1994, p. 275). Adaptability and inside locus of control was additionally present in the two men. Dubrin (2015, p. 52) depicts an adaptable pioneer as one who can adapt to innovative change. Elon Musk symbolizes the image of technological advancement; “From his first interest in Internet banking to his present-day inclusion in pushing forward space travel, clean vitality, self-driving vehicles and substantially more, Musk has exhibited a capacity to investigate the future and see its potential” (Raj, 2016). That respect goes to his capacity to foresee likely future results dependent on present markers, and his capacity to rapidly retain tremendous measures of new data and use it appropriately (Knight, 2016, p.14). In like manner, Father Arizmendiarrieta started the progressions in Mondragón by prompting education frameworks and in the long run the Cooperative Venture. Both men had similar identity qualities, however, they didn’t have similar frames of mind and practices.

As per Dubrin (2015, p. 109) thought and initiating structure are critical leadership practices. A pioneer with high thought makes a domain of passionate help and accommodates the welfare of the gathering. The relationship-orientated practices and frames of mind of adjusting individuals, receptiveness to conclusions, making motivation, fulfilling larger amount needs, giving enthusiastic help, advancing standards and values, and being a servant leader are parts of thought (Dubrin 2015, p. 117). Father Arizmendiarrieta was a relationship-orientated pioneer with high thought. Barker (1997, p. 2) depicts Arizmendiarrieta as a sincerely religious man plan on giving profound advancement to his parishioners. To accomplish this, he expected to discover them work when none existed. His vision that training and network solidarity would make open doors for each native propelled individuals to join his motivation. Father Arizmendiarrieta was particularly a servant leader, working just to accomplish network objectives. At theological college school, he was encouraged that a disregard for one’s own needs was required to accomplish social reclamation for the network (Molina and Miguez, 2008, p. 288) and he pursued these lessons devotedly.

Interestingly, Elon Musk’s conduct underlines initiating structure, he composed and characterized gatherings (Dubrin 2016, p. 109) by determining the work to be led, building up objectives and setting desires. The duty-related practices and demeanors of versatility, route setting, elite gauges, focusing on individuals’ qualities, chance taking, hands-on direction, posing extreme inquiries and arranging joint effort are parts of initiating structure (Dubrin 2016, p. 112). Elon Musks’ authority was specially tasked centered, a pioneer who ‘allots bunch individuals to specific errands,’ ‘anticipates that specialists should keep up unequivocal benchmarks of execution,’ and ‘accentuates the gathering of due dates.’ Elon Musk is an individual ‘who, through his own drive toward perfection, pushes you toward your fullest potential and maybe past, you may. He illustrates ‘amazing devotion and persistence’ as he endeavors to realize his vision’ (Blazek, 2016).

While Father Arizmendiarrieta additionally has shown vigorous task-related practices (Molina and Miguez 2008, p. 290; Barker 1997, p.3), Elon Musk did not satisfy a similar guideline of consideration or relationship-orientated practices. a pioneer who helps representatives with individual issues, is neighborly and agreeable, regards all workers as equivalents, and communicates thankfulness and backing, yet, on occasion, representatives express that Musk can put the final product or the accomplishment of his associations’ objectives as need, doing insufficient to address employee concerns or needs. His triumphs are huge, however so were his failings as a servant leader, absolutely unfit to support others’ potential now and again.

consideration and initiating structure have been connected to initiative results (Dubrin (2016, p. 110). consideration is firmly associated with employment fulfillment, inspiration and leadership fulfillment while initiating structure corresponds all the more intimately with execution (Judge, Piccolo and Ilies, 2004). This relationship seems steady with the exhibition of Mondragón and SpaceX, as one organization developed all the more socially mindful presenting social security and medicinal services, the other made uncommon monetary progress despite the fact that with different disappointments. These practices are by all accounts not the only reason the associations created as they did, Leadership power motives also played a role.

Compelling leaders have solid power thought processes since they need to impact others (Dubrin, 2016, p. 53). Elon Musk did not fit the standard idea of having a customized influence intention, we have given numerous models and statements portraying Elon Musk’s vision that proposes ‘a future superior to status quo.’ Dolly Singh, previous HR head at SpaceX, says: ‘what makes Elon Elon is his capacity to influence individuals to have faith in his vision.’ he was commonly not intrigued by cash or status. In any case, what isolates Elon Musk from a large portion of financial speculators is that he uses his vitality to affect individuals and affiliations, even governments, to change their acknowledgment on space travel (Junod, 2012). Indeed, even his endowment of influencing and scaring individuals could be viewed as normal for a personal power motive.

Like Elon Musk, Father Arizmendiarrieta did not look for power for monetary benefit, his faith required a ‘social priesthood’ (Molina and Miguez 2008, p. 288) to activate the working classes, ‘the workers won’t trust in the Church’s social precept on the off chance that they can’t see it set in motion through work for society’ (Biography of Don Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta, 2011, p. 2). Thus he was substantially more determined by a socialized power motive than Elon Musk. As indicated by Dubrin (2016, p. 54) pioneers with socialized power motives use the capacity to accomplish hierarchical objectives, basically to help other people. This skillfully depicts Father Arizmendiarrieta, whose words ‘I have no power’ (referred to in Whyte, 1995, p. 61) demonstrated that he held no authority inside Mondragón, still exerted a gigantic impact on the plan and development of the association. Dubrin (2016, p.54) proposes that those with socialized power motives processes have longer range points of view and this again is by all accounts the case. While Elon Musk was centered around the following creative thought, Father Arizmendiarrieta saw the requirement for Mondragón to set up a Cooperative bank, at that point social security services and health care (Whyte, 1994, p. 276) and he leads his people into these undertakings without, by all reports the charisma regularly connected with powerful leaders.

Charisma is a convincing leadership quality, it makes individuals need to be driven by an individual (Dubrin, 2016 p.74) and there is no uncertainty that Elon Musk is a recognized charismatic leader (Dubrin, 2016, p. 74; Snow, 2015; Blazek, 2016). Charisma works since it makes a connection between a leader and those being driven and thus charisma involves a point of view (Durbin, 2016, p. 74.) This clarifies why Elon Musk would be both adored and berated amid his vocation, no leader being constantly prevalent. Leaders have the vision and charismatic leaders can communicate this vision through their own enthusiasm and passion, creating influence over followers who then collectively help achieve their leaders’ vision. Once more, proof of Elon Musk’s expertise here is all over the place, with numerous models and statements depicting Elon Musk’s vision that proposes ‘a future superior to status quo.’ Dolly Singh, previous HR head at SpaceX, says: ‘what makes Elon is his capacity to influence individuals to have faith in his vision.’ And Jim Cantrell, SpaceX’s first engineer, includes, ‘The person is pure ambition’ (Snow, 2015). Elon Musk is extravagant, eager, and driven, he embodies the customized charming meaning of serving his own advantages and practicing his capacity voluntarily (Dubrin, 2016, p.77). There is no uncertainty that charisma was a key segment of Elon Musk’s’ prosperity.

Conversely, Father Arizmendiarrieta was not articulate, drawing in open speakers. Unobtrusively spoken and regularly reluctant he could be difficult to pursue (Whyte, 1994, p. 274) however despite everything he figured out how to move others to perceive what they could accomplish (Bass, 1995, p. 134). Like his power motive process, his methodology was that of a socialized charisma, utilizing his capacity to profit others (Dubrin, 2016, p.76). Father Arizmendiarrieta was a vital scholar and his expertise was in getting other individuals to think and after that to follow up on objectives that would profit the community, as one of his supporters cites ‘he sees the future and makes us face it'(cited in Whyte, 1994, p. 277). Despite the fact that Elon Musk is by a long shot the more charming of the two men, Father Arizmendiarrieta’s style was significantly more adjusted to making him a powerful transformational leader.

Transformational leaders realize real positive changes for an association (Dubrin, 2016, p. 89). Elon musk absolutely empowered PayPal’s monstrous achievement together with Tesla and SpaceX, anyway at the center of transformational leadership is the transforming of individuals. Father Arizmendiarrieta took the uneducated common laborers and changed them into people equipped for running substantial enterprises. He enabled them, showed them self-sufficiency, and gave them equity. Education stays one of Mondragón’s five core values today (Barker, 1995, p. 5). It is proposed that transformational leaders accomplish their outcomes in three different ways, by being charismatic, meeting the emotional needs, and mentally invigorating every representative (Bass, 1990, p.21). Father Arizmendiarrieta accomplished every one of these things however his moving vision, on a very basic level religious practices and his attention on education (Whyte, 1995, pp. 61-62).

Conversely, Elon Musk stays substantially more of a transactional leader, compensating individuals when they achieved the required standard yet, on occasion, representatives express that Musk can put the final product or the accomplishment of his associations’ objectives as needed, doing insufficient to address worker concerns or needs. Bass (1990, p.20) recommends that transactional leadership, for example, can undoubtedly result in workers accomplishing basically to keep away from control. There is no passionate help. It could be contended that Elon Musk challenged them mentally, anyway once more, this was driven more by dread of frustrating him, a trademark adherent of customizing charismatics show (Dubrin, 2016, p.77). Bass (1990, p. 21) and Dubrin (2016, pp. 89-98) show that transformational administration is better than transactional leadership.

Observing the leadership of Elon Musk and Father Arizmendiarrieta against the five theories has featured various remarkable focuses. The two of them had similar characteristics implied to be vital for effective leadership. They were both charismatic leaders yet their natural qualities and practices saw exhibited in various ways. Elon Musk engaged with solid initiating structure conduct which gave him quality in task-related practices. Father Arizmendiarrieta had a strong dimension of task-related practices, however not to a similar degree. What he had was a lot higher relationship-orientated conduct base degenerated from a consideration structure. This made him progressively ready to help the more elevated amount needs of his people. Traits, behaviors and attributes consolidated in every individual made a socialized power motive and a socialized charismatic in Father Arizmendiarrieta however marginally an individual power motive process and a personalized charismatic in Elon Musk. This set the establishment for Father Jose Arizmendiarrieta’s capacities as a transformational leader while Elon Musk still remains a transactional leader.

Elon Musk accomplished incredible things and he also is a remarkable leader, anyway his leadership drives his projects to do extraordinary things since he pushes others towards accomplishing objectives and does not so much transform them. Father Jose Arizmendiarrieta acknowledged giving up of one’s own priorities in his conviction that the aggregate great was increasingly significant. A man who seeks after his vision without a requirement for individual reward is genuinely a predominant leader.

Bibliography:

1. Dubrin, A. (2015). Leadership. Florence, KY: Cengage.

The aim of this report implies the effect of leadership on an organization to develop the personal skill and behavior of the employees and involvement in achieving the business goal. Leadership has a solid impact on the relationship of an organization and the employees to increase the value, culture, ability of tolerance, and motivational skill of employees. The above discussion is based on the leadership style of Elon Musk, the CEO of Space and its deep impact on the business success of the organization. Space selected Elon Musk as the CEO of the company in 2008 for his charming personality, incomparable business knowledge, and unique leadership quality.

Leadership Definition

Leadership is a motivational art used by an organizational leader for a group of people to provide behavioral guidelines for achieving organizational goals. The interlink between the higher authority and employees is set by a successful leader to exchange information between the two groups. This is a process that is influenced by some social responsibility and must have to maintained people as an employee or human beings. As per the opinion of Bratton (2020), successful leadership can maximize the efforts of other team members or employees and that can increase the overall performance of the organization.

Leadership can be influenced only by social responsibility not by higher authority or any organizational power.

Leadership does not happen if a senior and experienced employee is placed at the top organizational place. Motivational skill, quick decision-making power and an attractive personality with polite and sympathetic behavior are required in the character of the selected person. As per the opinion of Van Wart (2017), a leader must have to be flexible in nature because he has to take the tremendous pressure of the organization with the maintenance of employee rights. Skillful leaders can choose the perfect talented employees and utilize them properly in the proper place.

Leadership theories

The leadership quality of a leader can increase the love and respect to the company by buying all the employees and that has affected directly on the performance of the employees and the organization. Space is an American company that produces aerospace and provides transportation services to space. In 2008, the management selected Elon Musk as the CEO of the company for its unique leadership style. His leadership style is all about continuous learning for the leadership theories perfectly set in the development process of Space. For understanding his leadership style, the leadership theories are going to be discussed. The above discussion is based on the reflection of leadership quality which helped Elon Musk to be the CEO of SpaceX and the richest man in the world in 2021.

● Contingency Theory:

The leadership style of Elon Musk can be classified under the contingency theory perfectly. This theory reflects that a leader must have to be ready to tackle any type of critical situation. Application of this theory can help a leader to collect the idea of whether his leadership style is perfect or not in an organization. As per the opinion of Anderson et al. (2017), Elon Musk is a flexible leader and that is why he has been given the responsibility of Tesla Motors organization with side by side the CEO of SpaceX.

He is the founder of various organizations and this quality has demonstrated his excellent leadership style and potential of management. His contingency leadership style has inspired many other organizational leaders because Elon musk can participate in any task as a common employee and can fit in any kind of changing circumstances. As per the opinion of Anderson and Sun (2017), during the leadership decision, his patience and calmness can be found and that is the most important point of contingency leadership theory. Elon Musk inspires a large number of employees to reach the highest position of success and topmost level of capabilities that they have never thought to achieve. He is the perfect example of the utilization of contingency theory for his leadership behavior and management quality.

● Situational Theory:

Elon Musk is one of the best examples of a situational leadership style, which has helped him to be the richest man in the world. The elaboration power of Elon Musk is very attractive and that is why all the employees can realize the actual target of the company. The selected business plan is properly distributed among the employees after checking their skills and ability. Elon Musk is a good director and that is why he can guide any employee to finish the job appropriately within the deadline. He does not hesitate to participate in any job of common employees. As per the opinion of Asghar and Pino (2017), any casual employee of the organizations under his surveillance can easily contact him.

As a situational leader, Elon Musk has provided various facilities to the employees and shareholders to accelerate their performance. The collaboration between the shareholders, business partners, board and directors of the companies has reached its highest mark and that is why the performance of Tesla has become one of the best electric car-producing companies in the world. He is much delegated in duty and wants to input this quality into the character of all the employees. As per the opinion of Fiaz et al. (2017), he treats all ten employees the same and provides special attention to the employees whose performance was not quite satisfactory. It can be said that Elon musk has adopted the style of situational leadership and implemented it in the organizations under his authority.

Ethical leadership

The ethical leadership theory demonstrates the conduct of the personal actions of an organizational leader like Elon Musk and the interpersonal relationships within the organization. A perfect leader has to be attentive to this personal behavior in the organization or outside the organization. The employees can take this behavior seriously and want to adopt this quality into their behavior. As per the opinion of Forbes.com (2020), the negative characteristics of a leader can here the interrelationship between two employees or the group of employees with the organization. Elon musk put the common employees under the bigger management responsibility and observes the behavioral change after getting the responsibility. The successful decision of Elon musk can provide ethical satisfaction for being an organizational head.

Elon Musk likes to take the whole responsibility of the failure of any decision and shares the success to all employees of an organization. According to Ft.com (2021), he has taken all the important business decisions after reviewing the interests of stakeholders, shareholders, employees, business clients, and other business-related parties.

Discussion

a. Discuss the elected leader’s leadership approaches

Elon musk has become the world’s richest person recently as the organizational head of “Zip, Space, and Tesla. Elon Musk has excellent visionary skills in which he can calculate the future of any project with a strong belief in the success of leadership styles. He does oat fear facing any business obstacles and always a second plan behind any strategy. Always inspires the employees by saying that nothing is impossible to overcome aunty’s obstacles. His motivating speech provides a new strength to fight again. Elon Musk has been involved in the project, which is related to most of the major industries and environmental problems (Soberer and Enroller 2018). This was his decision to make electric cars, which are not run by petrol or diesel. This decision has proved that Elon musk is a leader who is not a good leader but also a socio-responsible person. Any business-related obstacles have been faced by Elon musk and he provided permanent solutions without wasting any time. His quick decision-making power is one of his biggest positive points of characteristics (Gandalf and Stone, 2018).

Elon Musk is a leader who can treat his business failure as a lesson and this lesson can help him to reduce the possibility of mistakes in future projects. A good leader always pays attention to the task, that he has undertaken to finish. The performance of employees and themselves are measured to find out the rough time and place to start and stop (Rename and Katonah 2017). In a news article, Elon Musk has said that he tries to demonstrate the product and service reviews collected by the employees and changed any decision at any time without any hesitation.

Space has spent many years becoming successful after learning the positive outcomes from numerous failures. He is a successful leader who has dared to plan that Space will send ‘the people to Mars by 2024’. Elon musk has varied continuously to perform better than before and he has a hunger to fulfill the goals and objectives of an organization. He always prioritizes learning form other sources may be other companies, or employees (Global, 2017.

b. Challenges he faces in terms of ethical and responsible decision-making.

The ethical leadership of Elon Musk helps the organizations under his surveillance to increase the positive cultural value that is important for overall development. Differences in culture sometimes make a huge lack of communication between the conception of Elon Musk and their employees. They fear asking and share any information with the CEO for being the richest person in the world. Elon Musk can motivate investors to feel that his organizations are very good and dependable. The investors, who have the least capital, cannot get a chance to set up business collaborations with the companies of Elon musk (CSU, 2017). Musk Lovers has become arrogant and started to neglect other companies in the same industry. The organizations of Elon Musk have issues on employee motivation, skill, and empowerment. The management forces employees to work hard with less salary. The reputation attracts the employees and forces them to serve with less salary. This organizational dispute should be observed and analyzed by Elon Musk by using ethical and responsible leadership more effectively.

Elon musk has a tremendous impact on the working culture of organizations. His motivational power of him can influence the employees to put greater effort into their job. The main agenda of Tesla, Space has been fixed by Elon musk and delivered to the employees as they can give the topmost priority to their work. Leadership style of Musk can manage all business-related jobs very confidently for his incomparable leadership and delegation for organizational success. As per the opinion of Indiatimes.com (2021), a strong sense of vision is provided to the employees to fix the actual purpose of any project or assignment. Leadership can inspire the young generation to be perfect leaders if proper growth and coaching can be provided to him.

Research says that nearly 54% of employees have said that their leader knows exactly what they do in the workplace during the working period. In the organizations of Elon Musk, the leader is so involved with the employees that any movement of them is controlled and supervised by a higher authority. The relationship between Elon Musk and his employees is so strong that they have no chance to be influenced by the culture of other companies (Cnbc.com, 2019). Elon musk observes the performance of every employee and provides a reward to them after analyzing their past performance. This can increase the intentional d and ability of the employees of the organizations such as Tesla, and Space.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that the leadership quality of Elon Musk is an example to be followed by an organizational leader. The culture of the organizations can be affected by the leadership quality of a leader like Elon Musk. The success of the organization depends on the overall performance of the employees and the employees have copied the major characteristics of Musk. Contingency and Situational Leadership is copied by Elon Musk to motivate the employees. Most importantly, the success of a leader depends on the overall success of organizations and the above discussion is the best example of this statement.

Elon Musk is a man known for a lot of things. From PayPal to Tesla, to his more ambitious venture of SpaceX, he is known for taking leaps and doing things that no one has dared to do before. Taking these leaps has given him the ability to lead in ways that not many people can in the business world. He is able to empower his people, getting them to do things that no one thought were possible. He is known for many companies, and many different ventures, and with each venture, he is able to mold his people into a team and get them to work efficiently and effectively.

Elon Reeve Musk, born June 28, 1971, was born in Pretoria, South Africa. He lived there for 17 years, living with his family until moving to Canada to attend the Canadian Queens University right before his 18th birthday. However, after two years of attendance, he ended up transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, to receive two degrees, in economics and physics. These two degrees would prove to help him immensely in his business adventures. He also went on to begin a Ph.D. in applied physics, however, he dropped out to begin a career in entrepreneurship. He and his brother co-founded the internet data guide Zip2, which was created during the buzz of the internet craze, when the internet was just becoming a big thing. He went on to sell this company to Compaq for $307 million, with Musk receiving $22 million, which he later put towards his other ventures.

From Zip2, Musk went on to acquire what is now PayPal, a money-transferring business that focused on easy money transferring on the internet. He founded the online company X.com, offering financial services, and then merged with PayPal in 2001. Musk however was removed from his leadership position, due to his desire to take the company in ways other than that of company leadership.

His next venture, and his most profound and impacting venture, in my opinion, was SpaceX. He founded SpaceX due to the realization that he did not need to buy old rockets in order to get things into space. Using his business and economics knowledge, he concluded that he could build rockets for 3% of the actual sales price of one. Basing off of this, Musk founded SpaceX, a company in which he still resides as the CEO. This is the company that I believe is what shaped him as a leader, and what allowed him to use unique yet very successful leadership methods which I will go over later on in this essay. SpaceX was a company that was designed to better rocket technology, utilizing re-useable, therefore, highly cost-effective rockets to ship payloads into space. Musk is dedicated to bettering humanity for the better through his explorations in space, with ambitions to put man on mars with a colony formed by 2040.

Finally, another one of his prominent business ventures is Telsa. After hopping on board, a year after its founding, Musk has taken tesla to new levels of energy. After investing in Telsa early in 2003, Musk became CEO of the company. Telsa has a focus on creating safe, affordable, and practical electric vehicles that are readily available to the public. Through the use of unique but effective leadership models, Musk is able to create an environment that his employees want to work in, boosting productivity and morale within the company.

Musk has also invested in a few other companies, and created a few more, typically trying to solve an issue that he faces in his day-to-day life. One of these is called The Boring Company. Musk created this company with the intention to shorten the distance between cities, utilizing highly efficient sleds running in a partial vacuum, allowing for incredibly efficient transportation. Another one of his ventures, going along with The Boring Company, is Hyperloop, which is a system of high-speed public transportation, which utilizes the tunnels that would be dug by his Boring Company. Both of these are theoretical and are still in design phases, however, I believe that it shows Elon Musk’s intentions to better society in a way that doesn’t increase the money in his wallet. He has said before that he didn’t start his company SpaceX because he thought that building rockets would be fun, or that it would be great for his portfolio, but rather to boost society to new heights (literally), and to leave a lasting mark on society that he believes will better mankind.

Elon Musk has had much success with his entrepreneurial ventures, and I believe that a good portion of this is due to the fact that he is a very creative-thinking leader. He doesn’t fit exactly into one type or form of leadership, however adapting his own style and learning from what works and what doesn’t from within the multiple companies and opportunities he has had. I believe that this is something that can benefit the military greatly, as we are sometimes only taught one or two ways of leadership, when in reality, multiple types or even types that haven’t been utilized yet may be the better way to motivate and complete the mission timely and effectively. Creative leadership, by definition, is developing and utilizing innovative and creative ideas, through the shared ambition of changing the world for the better (thnk.org). By utilizing creative leadership, leaders are attempting to change the future for the better, embracing change, and seeking opportunities to make these changes everywhere possible. Creative thinking stems from transformational leadership, pushing the leaders to empower their people to accomplish set goals.

One thing Musk is clearly not afraid to do is be transparent. He believes, that in order to push your people to do what they need to get done, you have to let them know what the issues are in the first place. A great example of this with Elon Musk would be his straightforward announcement that Tesla was quite behind on the sales of their new Model 3 electric vehicle. He knew that it was a problem, yet he put it out there not because he wanted to let the public know that he isn’t afraid to speak his mind about issues that his company/section is having. I believe this can be translated to the military workspace in ways that will benefit our airmen, such as setting up goals and if those goals aren’t met, then being upfront about what isn’t going right and what needs to be done to fix and meet these set goals. Not being afraid to talk about the hard stuff is better than being afraid to speak about it and then nothing ever gets done or very inefficiently getting done.

Elon Musk has also always been a very hand on person, always wanting to get into dirty of his work. He consistently talks about falling asleep on the factory floors and working sleepless nights trying to solve Tesla’s most frustrating issues. He is not afraid to get into the dirt with his employees, which I think is a big thing for leadership. If you can prove to your team that you are able to do what they are doing and be alongside them in case they ever need help, they will be much more willing to work for you, because they know that you have their back when things get tough. According to Elon Musk, he doesn’t even have a desk, and he is always moving to wherever the issue is within Tesla, which are a sign of a great leader. He is also incredibly obsessed with anything that he does for any of his companies, notably SpaceX. Musk has stated numerous times that his goal is to set up civilization on mars to ensure that the human race will live on. Well, in order to achieve this goal, you will need some drastic changes, and Musk isn’t afraid to put these changes into action. He is always pushing his employees to work harder, work longer, and to strive for the excellence he demands from them. However, you can’t ask something from someone without proving you can perform the same way, and with this, Elon Musk strives. In my opinion, this is one of his greatest leadership traits, as many leaders are afraid or unwilling to get down and dirty with their work, which can lead to an unwillingness to follow any directions from your leader. As Gene Kranz did not say, Elon Musk did “Failure is an option here. If you are not failing, you are not innovating enough”. Be ready to embrace failure, and work from and learn from your mistakes. This is something Musk has learned over the years through his many businesses, and this is something that is constantly taught to us here in ROTC, and I believe that it has massive implications for success in the active duty Air Force. Empower your people, let them fail, and help them get back up and brush off their shoulders, letting them learn from mistakes made.

Innovation was never brought forward by people who stuck with the status quo. Elon Musk knows that, and he embraces that. Musk is not afraid to step out of his comfort zone, and bring new innovations to the table. One of the ways that Musk can create this vision to do something that hasn’t been done before, is by using a vision statement. This isn’t just any average vision statement, through the use of bold and ambitious vision statements, Musk can compel his people to do things that will work toward this statement, and I believe that this can directly translate into goals. Within the military, we need to get things done, we need to get them done on time, and we need to get them done with excellence. Attention to detail is everything, and if you set a specific goal of what you want to accomplish, you are much better versed to accomplish those set goals rather than having a vague and undescriptive goal. Take for example Tesla’s vision statement: “Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”. This is a bold statement, as it encompasses a large population, and a large land area to cover, however it has been written down, and this I believe will motivate Musk’s employees to work towards sustainable energy and electric vehicles. Musk has created a powerhouse within his companies at SpaceX and Tesla with people who believe in him and who are willing to put forth many hours dedicated to the end outcome, a sustainable future for us all.

Another critical feature of leadership is being able to give effective and proper feedback when needed. If you are able to evaluate your team effectively, and then give feedback on what you believe went well and did not go so well, you will be setting them up for success from the beginning. Feedback is crucial within leadership styles and being able to harness evaluation and feedback will allow you to find what flaws you have within not only your team but yourself as well. Elon Musk agrees, feedback, and more importantly, a feedback loop, meaning using criticisms from employees and yourself to better the workplace and work environment as a whole, is crucial to success, and this is incredibly important in military service as well. By taking the responses of the people you are directly leading, you are able to more efficiently adjust certain aspects of your leadership, perhaps how you give orders, or your attitude at work, in order to boost morale and productivity within the wing/squadron as a whole.

Another key feature that has allowed Elon Musk to thrive within the business world of Tesla and SpaceX is building the company around people who you know are capable, and people who you know will complete the job effectively and quickly. As Musk puts it, you need to build a company that is not reliant on you in the end. Delegation is key. While you may want to attack everything by yourself, putting your own touch on things, you have to realize that you have a team of dedicated and very talented individuals that can help you out at any time. Learn to put your team to work and teach them the things that they need to know in order to be successful.

So what makes Elon Musk such a good leader? It is a combination of everything that was mentioned earlier in this essay. The number one reason why I believe that Elon Musk is such a successful leader is his inability to let failure knock him down. He embraces failure, using it for motivation and channeling that desire to succeed into better products and innovations. He isn’t afraid to utilize his people if he gets overwhelmed, however. He is always striving to succeed, to be the best that he can be. According to a tcl.org article, Elon Musk and many other successful leaders share mostly the same traits. These traits consist of pushing the status quo, being innovative, and wanting to push the boundaries, most of them are incredibly resourceful (epically Musk, who understands that he can build his own rocket for a mere 3% of the asking price of an old one from the Russians), and finally, Musk and many other successful business people are works in progress, works that are always changing, always adapting to their surroundings, always willing to keep pushing boundaries to change the world around them.

So what does Musk say that has attributed to his found success? He believes that asking the right questions can be detrimental to getting the right solutions. In Musk’s SpaceX example, he started by asking the question of how can I put humans on mars, and do it without failure. This led to another question, how am I going to feed them? Leads to his next question of, how am I going to get them there? These questions built up on each other, leading to having to formulate solutions to said questions. By asking the right questions, Musk was able to identify the problems that he was having and come up with direct solutions to these problems. This is something that has led to his success, and I believe that this is something that can lead to success from any leader, just by ensuring that you are identifying the problem and asking yourself / your team members “Why?”. By asking the right question, your focus is put on finding the right solution, which ends up leading to finding the said solution. Musk focuses on asking the right questions, and I believe that all leaders should do the same.

Finally, I wanted to go into some detail about some quotes that Musk has said before and why I believe that these quotes are crucial to not only his success but to leaders in the military trying to bring their team together to be the best that they can be. One of my favorite quotes said by Musk is “Talent is extremely important. It’s like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win, but then there’s a multiplier from how those players work together and the strategy they employ.” (Elon Musk). We utilize something like this in ROTC and in the active duty Air Force, because we, as everyone knows, work as a team and we all fail or succeed together as a team. Our team is our success, and our team is also our downfall. That is why it is so important to keep the morale up within the wing/squadron so that everyone is operating at maximum capacity. If we have the best individual members, then sure we will have success, but if we have the best of all types of people and different knowledge sets, we will be the most rounded off team and we will succeed much more than with a sole player. Another quote that I believe relates strongly to our mission and job here in ROTC is “People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming into work in the morning and enjoy working” (Elon Musk). I believe this quote shows that Elon Musk is a true leader because he is taking into consideration his people. If you make the people want to work for you, rather than being forced to work for you, they will respond much better to direction and commands than if you made their lives miserable. I believe this is the same way about military service, which is something that we can all take away. If we make the people below us want to work, they will produce some of the best work they’ve ever done, because they will be proud to be working and accomplishing their goals. However, if you make them despise waking up at 04:30 to come into work after PT, or make them despise staying those extra few hours for you to accomplish a set task, they will be less likely to perform nearly as efficiently as they would have done before.

One final quote to finish my analysis ties back to a previous point of Musk’s leadership within the multiple companies he has owned, and that is that he is not afraid to take feedback and give feedback. This is called the feedback loop. His quote is as follows: ‘I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.’ (Elon Musk). You, as a leader, have to be willing to take the heat from feedback and be willing to utilize that information to better yourself and the people around him. This is something that we utilize in ROTC, called the hot seat, putting someone on the “hot seat” to tell them what they are doing not only bad but also good, so that they can focus on bettering themselves. We do this because if one person isn’t working to their full potential, or has issues that they are unaware of, then they can harm the performance of the team as a whole. I believe that Elon Musk understands this, and he is alright with getting feedback, and giving feedback, in order to try to boost the performance of his companies and what their specific jobs are.

Elon Musk has had many different companies, and through many different trial and error methods, I believe that he has found the best way for him to lead. Now, everyone has different people they are leading, and they all have different personalities, but for the most part, I believe that Elon Musk is a good example of what a good leader is. He is caring for his people, he is willing to put in the work to boost trust within his organizations, and he is willing to take and give feedback in order to better himself and the people around him that he works for. Through SpaceX and Tesla, Musk has set visions and goals that he wants to accomplish, and through vision statements, he is able to focus on a mission and get things done efficiently and effectively.

Elon Reeve Musk

I would like to choose a topic on a successful businessman who is no other than Elon Reeve Musk and he is from South Africa.

What did Elon Musk do?

Elon Musk was the founder and CEO of SpaceX, which is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company.

• He is the founder of THE BORING COMPANY, which is an American infrastructure and tunnel construction services company.
• He is the co-founder of Neuralink Corporation, which is an American neurotechnology company that develops implantable brain-machine interfaces (BMIS).
• He is the co-founder and initial co-chair of open AI, which is an artificial intelligence research laboratory.
• Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla Company, which manufactures electric cars with autopilot driving systems.

When did Elon Musk start?

• Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971
• SpaceX was founded in 2002.
• Boring Company was started in December 2016.
• Neuralink was started in 2016 but it was publicly reported in March 2017.
• Tesla was started in July 2003.

Where did Elon Musk start?

• SpaceX was started in Hawthorne California.
• Tesla was formed in Telo Alto, California.
• The Boring Company initially tested its first tunnel in Hawthorne California.
• Neuralink was developed in San Francisco.
• Open AI headquarters are located in San Francisco California.

In October 2002 Elon Musk got his first billion when PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, as Elon Musk owned 11% of the PayPal stock.

Why Elon Musk?

I choose Elon musk as my topic because he is one of the most successful people in the business world. He is famous for starting Tesla Motors and SpaceX. His fortune started as a Co-founder of PayPal. Elon musk always thinks of the public so that’s the main reason to form the boring company to reduce traffic by building underground tunnels. He is also has a concern for global warming so he started manufacturing of Tesla, the electric car.

Introduction

Elon musk is known for his a successful person in the business world. He got his first billion from PayPal Company which was sold to eBay Company for $1.5 billion. As Elon musk was the owner of the 21% stock in PayPal he got is bank balance to buy other stocks. Later on he founded some of the companies that are – SpaceX, The Boring Company, Tesla, Neuralink, and OpenAI.

Elon musk was the craze of reading about programming; his first income was at age of 12. At the age of 12 he developed a game and sold it to a company for a price of $500. The first company he started was Zip2 and the 4 years later Elon musk sold this company to Compaq for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock and this is how he got successful by receiving $22 million for his 7% stake from the sale. Later then he started another company called X.com and it merged with its competitor and turned into PayPal where is got fired as CEO. After when eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion and from there Elon musk got rich and got a deal of $165 million.

Then gradually Elon Musk rise to the steps of success. At that time he started manufacturing of electric cars which was abit failure at a time as people used to think that they were slow and ugly. But in the recent world, Tesla has the fastest and most stylish car, which is electric. Elon musk as a nature to never give up. Once in an interview, he stated “My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku that fails.” This means the Japanese samurais won’t let their enemies to kill them if they can’t win a battle rather they kill themselves with their own blades. This main reason why he never gives up and brought himself immeasurable success.

This motivated me to choose Elon musk as my main topic of discussion.

The scenario that Elon Musk wants to build up

Globally:

Tesla Motors is finally ready to make sure it builds its $ 5 billion Giga factory in Nevada, setting up a five-nation competition for what is considered to be the world’s largest battery plant. But the scope of Tesla’s plans extends far beyond state borders.

Elon Musk plant a 10 million sq foot factory that may double the world’s lithium-ion battery capacity by the end of the year.

Tesla started in the Giga factory in 2017 and was capable of supplying 35 gigabytes hours of battery for an estimation of 5 lack electric vehicles, which Tesla expected to build up at the end of the year 2020.

The locals obviously will get benefited that includes construction jobs and economic impacts.

Tesla CEO Elon musk requires about 6500 employees to run this massive facility. The Giga factor could help in the development of the economic state of the country. The Tesla factory expected to reduce the emissions from the high-performance U.S. lithium-ion battery production units. This may lead to a reduction in the environmental pollution that are caused by other battery manufacturers in the world.

Elon Musk’s motive is to decrease environmental pollution by supplying electric vehicles all over the world. He also has an active role in the construction of underground tunnels in order to decrease traffic problems and even without expanding the roadways that damage the open fields. So he plans to make it underway and plans to share this with every country of the world.

India:

Elon musk plans to enter India by the year 2021. As India is a developing country so the launch of electric vehicles would be a success for Tesla Company. The company was in discussions with the Indian government, requesting temporary relief on import penalties/restrictions until a local factory was built. Tesla will start from a few stores/service centres. One of the biggest problems in India could be the size of the country, which requires a lot of money on the Supercharging network. On the other hand, the volume of car sales may not be sufficient to restore the full output of the charging network.

A small survey about Elon Musk

Elon musk as a natural to never give up. Once in a interview, he stated “My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.” This means the Japanese samurais won’t let their enemies to kill them if they can’t win a battle rather they kill themselves with their own blades. This the main reason why he never gives up and brought himself immeasurable success.

Elon musk is known for disrupting the automotive industry with all-electric vehicles, millionaire Musk is also famous for his future ambitions to build a city on Mars, create a 700-kilometer transport network per hour and develop flying cars.

The 48-year-old businessman is the CEO of automaker Tesla, as well as the founder and CEO of space exploration company SpaceX. Musk is also the chief executive officer of technology firms Neuralink and The Boring Company. His total current income is over $ 20 million, according to Forbes.

Musk’s position as a motivating leader comes even though it may be because of his reputation for misconduct. From weed smoking in public and grabbing strange calls, recording automatic rap tax to gorilla Harambe and helping a picture of a flock of sheep, Musk’s unpredictable actions have shot his companies out loud but often rob investors. Earlier this year, Musk resolved a legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about his use of Twitter to discuss Tesla’s finances.

Respondents to Hired’s study ranked SpaceX as the second most well-known employer in the world, with Tesla being named the 10th most attractive employer in the public sector. Airbnb was a company that represented the majority of the technology professionals who wanted to work for it, Hulu, Reddit and Kickstarter included the top five. Meanwhile, Google, Netflix, Apple, LinkedIn and Microsoft were the only five public companies technology professionals said they wanted to work for themselves.

Data analysis and open-ended interpretation of Elon musk

I decided to break Musk’s life by 6 stages highlighting each of these different cases. After seeing all the parts, I was able to come to the conclusion of this interpretation.

Elon musk as a kid

• The Good: As a young man, Elon was eager to learn. He read a book in a day. His most remarkable success came after he convinced his father to buy him a Commodore VIC-20 (an old computer). According to the manual, it should take about 6 months to get all the basic courses. He stayed 3 straight days and finished everything. He then designed the entire video game in it; the source code published in the magazine gave him $ 500.
• The Bad: He was ridiculed and severely abused as a child. Sometimes this was because of physical violence. At one point he was severely beaten to the point of exhaustion and was hospitalized for a week.

His father looks very dark and very secretive of his life. It looks like he may have been abusive – perhaps not physically but at least mentally. While Musk was talking to the author about many topics, he refused to talk about his father saying ‘He’s good at making life miserable. I don’t know how someone becomes like he is.’

The first business of Elon musk

• The Good: He traveled alone to South Africa with nothing or anyone else. He went to Canada where he lived for a while – without a permanent home – until his brother met him. They moved to Palo Alto and started their first business. Zip2 was actually MapQuest before MapQuest (formerly Google Maps before Google Maps). It could end up selling for $ 307 million.
• The Bad: While Elon and his brother were able to create a successful company, they had problems with their potential investors. Investors pushed the product into Media companies as an additional business director instead of the B2C director Musk had hoped for. To make matters worse Elon also experienced his first canceled reunion disaster.

The Young and Rich Elon Musk

• The Good: Elon invested all his money in his next business venture, a company that would change the banking industry. At the time people were saying he was crazy and that consumers would never trust the security of the internet by online banking. His company, X.com, was more successful than anyone thought possible. He even beat his biggest rival, PayPal, which was started by Peter Thiel as they agreed to meet Elon who became the largest shareholder.
• The Bad: Elon musk did not create PAYPAL, rather while he was on a plane off his honeymoon, one of Silicon Valley’s most spectacular events took place all the time. After the arrival of the plane, he headed straight back to try to save it but was forced to leave as CEO. They later renamed it as PayPal. He was eventually diagnosed with malaria in South Africa and almost died from it. One doctor said he had a day to go before he died. Six months after he lost weight, he recovered. This was the perfect time for eBay to buy PayPal for $ 1.5 billion which included the investment of Elon musk about $ 250 million in PayPal.

Starting SpaceX Musk

• The Good: After his death experience, Elon revisited his childhood dreams of going to Mars. He visited the NASA website one day and found no plan or mention of going to Mars. Surprised, he headed for Russia to see if he could buy a rocket. After being driven by ridiculous money amounts, Elon the dive into textbooks on how to make rockets. On their flight back from Russia, he announced that he was going to build a rocket with a spreadsheet with details on how to do it. That’s how SpaceX was born.
• The Bad: While SpaceX was in full start-up mode, Elon’s first son, Nevada, was born. Unfortunately, he died of sudden infant death syndrome. For which the plan was pulled back by Elon musk.

Founding of TESLA by Elon musk

• The Good: Elon always envisioned the future of all-electric cars. So when Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning went to Musk to become the first investor in a company called Tesla, Elon was there. He wanted the car to be a symbol of the future. He wanted it to be a luxury product and not a ‘stupid’ looking ‘Prius’. As a result, he had much to say about founding a company in Silicon Valley and the apparent design of the car.
• The Bad: As soon as Tesla created their first functional car, it decided to have a big press event. The event was a success with 30 high-end customers who pre-ordered a car for $ 90,000. The bad news for Elon is that at the press release he was not registered as the founder. As Tesla was beginning to work on fulfilling its first round of pre-ordered cars, things weren’t going so well. The parts for the car were way too expensive and everything was behind schedule. To make matters worse, a NY Times article about the company also left Elon Musk out. He was frustrated.

Founding of the Boring Company by Elon Musk

• The Good: Elon Musk is determined to reduce traffic congestion by making underground tunnels. The underground structures usually the deep ones are far less vulnerable to earthquakes than superficial ones. The tunnels could help people to drive underneath the highways so that time wouldn’t get wasted in traffic. The earthquake waves can also be amplified within soft superficial strata. Elon musk created the boring company for the construction of mega structures.
• The Bad: The underground tunnels in waterlogged soils can become depleted (so-called liquefaction), and this can lead to landslides or landslides and wall damage. This may result in severe catastrophes and loss of lives.

Elon Musk was mad for reading and developing new techniques and strategies. The above-stated details show how Elon musk walked step by step to reach their goals and yet he thinks he is incomplete. Elon musk faced many hardships to reach the place he is now. But did he do everything right to reach success?

There are some things that Elon musk never shared with the public. But we see him as a role model and inspiration for the young who are struggling for their success.

5 Leadership Qualities of Elon Musk that We Admire

• Entrepreneurial Spirit.
• Passion for Innovation.
• Positive Energy.
• Strategic Direction.
• Personal Integrity/Influence.

At last, the unanswered data that remained a mystery about Elon musk is about his father. We don’t know anything about his father. Whether he was supportive or abusive.

Some things that remained unanswered are-

• If Tesla couldn’t secure the rights for the name, Musk would have called the company “Faraday.”
• Musk avoided mandatory service in the South African military by enrolling in school in Canada.
• Musk agreed to serve on two business councils for Donald Trump in 2017.

Some questions that are generated in my mind from the above open-ended interpretation –

1. Why the annual salary of Elon Musk from Tesla is $1 per day?
2. From the beginning of the Tesla Company, the cars were among the list of highly valued cars. Although the Tesla cars were the first of their kind. Does the company have any appropriate reason for the price being so high?

Reference

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/17/elon-musk-named-the-most-inspirational-leader-in-tech.html#:~:text=Elon%20Musk%20has%20been%20ranked,Canada%20using%20its%20online%20platform.
2. https://medium.com/the-mission/elon-musks-3-step-first-principles-thinking-how-to-think-and-solve-difficult-problems-like-a-ba1e73a9f6c0
3. https://www.adalo.com/posts/the-evolution-of-elon-musk-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly
4. https://theconversation.com/global/topics/elon-musk-13147
5. https://www.insightssuccess.com/successful-personality-traits-learn-elon-musk/

Elon Musk is an engineer, technological entrepreneur and founder, CEO and lead designer of SpaceX, as well as the CEO of Tesla. He has amassed a net worth of over 20 billion USD and is at the forefront of technological advancement on Earth. Musk has laid out a plan to construct spacecraft able to transport up to 100 people each to Mars in order to colonize the Red Planet, estimating that it may even be doable by 2028. Musk’s plan is ambitious from practically every way you look at it, and there are many differing opinions of whether Musk will succeed. Are Musk’s plans realistic, or are they just the creative rambling of a mad scientist?

The idea stems from Musk’s realization that “It’s important to get a self-sustaining base on Mars because it’s far enough away from Earth that in the event of a war it’s more likely to survive than a moon base”. Musk made this statement just a few days after Donald Trump announced plans to meet Kim Jong Un in an attempt to decrease the rising nuclear tension between their two Nations. However most experts on the subject have agreed that colonizing Mars would be a good idea, the main reason people are challenging Musk is on whether his plans are scientifically feasible. Musk’s idea relies on being able to access space cheaply. One of the more recent papers on Musk’s plans state that the cost of these trips to Mars must be lowered by up to “five million percent”. An essential part of lowering the cost will be reusable space technology, which is a brilliant idea Musk has already put to practice with extremely impressive landings of rockets back on Earth. However this reusable technology wont be all that useful when it comes to lowering the price if Musk isn’t able to set up fuel stations on Mars, which will prove to be a very difficult task. Experiments working towards this goal of self-sustaining fuel stations on Mars are already underway. The MOXIE experiment on the Nasa 2020 rover will look into whether we’re able to make oxygen from CO2 found in the atmosphere of Mars, which could definitely be possible.

Up to this point, everything seems reasonably feasible, however there’s still much, much more to this. Musk intends to launch huge spaceships into orbit around Earth which will be refuelled numerous times utilizing boosters launched from Earth while waiting to be sent to Mars. Each of these spaceships will be designed for 100 passengers and Musk intends to send 1,000 of these ships into space over the next 40 to 100 years, allowing up to a million people to leave Earth. Musk even plans to set up interplanetary fuelling stations on celestial bodies such as Enceladus, Europa and even Titan, one of Saturn’s moons which may have, or have had life on it. The ethics of this particular part of the plan have been questioned as many do not agree with contaminating a planet which could potentially have alien life on it. Despite all this sounding quite impressive, one expert in the field has dismissed Musk, saying that “he hasn’t actually explained how anything will be done, he’s just throwing out ideas left and right without much actual scientific planning behind them”. Others have stated that Musk hasn’t actually accounted for many of the problems he will find on Mars, for example one of the most obvious problems is the extremely low temperature on Mars. The temperature is usually around 0°C in the day and drops down to almost -120°C at night. Operating in such low temperature is already a problem for the small rovers that have been on Mars, though it has been solved with heaters in the design of the ExoMars 2020 Rover this would likely be a huge issue for the self-sustainable city Musk envisions due to the sheer power that would be involved. All Musk said on the matter was that “It is a little cold, but we can warm it up.”. This further shows that the whole idea might not have been thought out to the level needed for such a huge project, and even if Musk is able to “warm it up”, Mars’ atmosphere has been leaking slowly for the past 3.8 million years, meaning that any meaningful heat increase would likely be lost into space overtime.

Another problem that Musk hasn’t really addressed is the radiation past Earth’s magnetic cocoon. The journey towards the Red Planet, and life on it would be susceptible to dangerous radiation through deadly cosmic rays and solar flares. Solar flares could even strike us on Earth and would cause catastrophic amounts of damage to all electrical devices on our Planet, and are just more likely to strike Mars. As far as the radiation problem goes, just one trip to and from Mars would expose anyone making the journey to up to four times the advised career limits for astronauts with the best shielding technology we have today.

Overall I think that Musk may not be able to colonize Mars quite so quickly as he has predicted. However, shooting high generally means that we will gain something from his endeavours, even if it isn’t quite the same reality he was initially wishing for, it will certainly still massively benefit technological advancement and space exploration as a whole.

What is Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship can be defined in many ways, but in simple words, it is a process of starting, launching, or running a new business. Entrepreneurship refers to the concept of developing and managing a business to gain profit by taking several risks. Big entrepreneurs can then bring positive emotions among the other entrepreneurs and there is a huge risk factor in becoming an entrepreneur.

But when someone becomes an entrepreneur, there comes a question if his or her social identity encourages positive emotion among other entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial identities and emotions can have profound effects on entrepreneurs (Murnieks, C. Y., Mcmullen, J. S., & Cardon, M. S.). Having a social identity gives you a lot of importance. The individual can transform how the environment influences them and they can also influence their decisions. According to Social Identity Theory, an undifferentiated social environment is confusing and provides little guidance for individual behavior (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, and Flament). We acknowledge that emotions can exist both as a trait disposition and as a sensation at a given point (Watson).

To be a social icon entrepreneur a person should have the maximum knowledge of the relationship between opportunity confidence and new value creation. The risk-taking element in becoming self-employed is one of the most discussed theories in the entrepreneurial literature. Conventional wisdom asserts that being an entrepreneur means making risky decisions; hence more risk-averse individuals are less likely to become entrepreneurs. (Marco Caliendo, Frank M. Fossen, Alexander S. Kritikos).

When an entrepreneur seeks an opportunity, there is always a doubt as to whether he can achieve that opportunity. Sometimes this uncertainty prevents the person from taking his or her business idea ahead. Acting on a particular opportunity requires an intention to create value for the prospective customers. Therefore, to understand the formation of such value creation intention, we need to consider the configuration of beliefs and desires in the context of its inherent uncertainty (Dimov). The most important thing that keeps the business going is the production innovation and entrepreneurial experience.

Elon Musk – A successful entrepreneur

One of the greatest individuals in the entrepreneurship world is Elon Musk. He is worth over USD 20 billion and has recently gone up to the 4th richest person in the world. He is defined as a real-life Iron Man. He is the founder of the most popular businesses like Tesla Motors, PayPal, and Space X.

Musk’s key to success:

There are a lot of indicators that predict the success of an entrepreneur like their attitude, confidence, and risk-taking ability which are discussed above, and most of these qualities can be found. The way an entrepreneur approaches the external and internal settings of his company reveals the methods and strategies he is capable of using. For example, the method by which he aims to establish growth and survival strategies can allow us to consider his risk awareness. (Serial Entrepreneur Elon Musk)

Musk’s Philosophy:

Elon Musk’s has very unique ways of thinking and his approach to the problems. One of the most important key points of Musk is that he never gives up. For example, his Space X mission failed several times as his rocket exploded just after the launch. This was a huge loss to Space X, but still, he did not give up, and gradually it’s now one of the best space organizations in the world. He has said in one of his speeches to the students “Do something important.” And I completely agree with this statement. These words made Elon Musk go to high school.

Conclusion

Social icon entrepreneurs can easily influence other entrepreneurs as this is a normal psychological effect in humans. The amount of risk and confidence they invest in the business, there is more and more chance of success. Risk attitudes have an impact on the decision to become self-employed (Marco Caliendo, Frank M. Fossen, Alexander S. Kritikos). If an individual has the required opportunity confidence, then the amount of innovation can increase. Coming to Iron Man, the personality of Elon Musk is very unique compared to the other entrepreneurs. His strong commitment, risk-taking attitude, confidence, etc will surely take him ahead till he becomes one of the richest and most successful entrepreneurs.

Whether to admit it or not, Elon Musk is a genius innovator, entrepreneur, and a future leader. His ability to do marketing and advertising campaigns with minimal expenditure is just phenomenal. If we lean into the past and notice how people became famous, we will certainly find just by draining millions of dollars into publicity and marketing. But that surely is not Musk’s approach. I admire Musk for his out-of-the-box thinking attitude and over-the-top ideas. Generally, business tycoons and certain organizations like to talk about the future, but no one can sell it as well as Elon Musk. He is the first ever futuristic business tycoon to proclaim that leisure space could become a possibility within his lifetime. He is a dreamer who dares to dream and think beyond possibilities and gets things done.

His ceaseless efforts to innovate and a new way of thinking are another reason why he is my role model. A forthright supporter of sustainability and environmental protection, Musk’s concept of electric cars epitomizes more to millennials than just technology. Thinking about what would be next agitates the entire pot of emotions within us. Aren’t we sometimes excited about what is next in the pipeline, other times we are apprehensive with fear and dilemma. In practice, we shouldn’t feel the way we do about the unknown, but I suppose that’s exactly what marketers try to capitalize on. And this is what Elon Musk has mastered. For instance, he envisages a reality where people across the globe can rely on renewable energy. Tesla’s energy-saving products like a power wall for solar are already bringing his imagination to life. People buying Musk’s products don’t view themselves as buying something but rather as investing in their future and a futuristic world.

Can you imagine marketing to millennials? It is easier said than done, but it seems Musk has mastered this art by identifying the target audience and playing on their emotions. Inbound marketing is the most powerful and successful method of reaching to millennial generation. Musk has noticed the power of social media and making his opinions more accessible to the millennial generation. His presence on Twitter has given him a new platform to talk about, being self-driving cars to space travel to individuals. Last but not least, Elon Musk is consecrated with an aura of brilliance. His futuristic approach has made him one of the most important thought leaders of this generation. For example, Musk strongly believes that AI (artificial intelligence) could turn on humans to take over the world if we are not careful. Regardless of whether it’s true or not, he makes practical and effective use of both fear and excitement over what AI could hold shortly. Wow, isn’t all these a matter to apprise Elon Musk as a role model? I strongly believe giving dimension to a futuristic world needs a lot of imagination and most importantly a tactic to convince the millennial generation to turn his imagination into reality.