Elon Musk and his Entrepreneur Ventures

Entrepreneurship is simply a matter of luck that is being within the right place at the proper
time, this is what most of the people believed. Other factors such as talent and hard work
did not account for entrepreneurial performance. But Elon Reeve Musk showed the world
luck is not the only element, for him, it was at the bottom of the list. Through his ventures
he exhibited greater innovation, higher standards, the highest risk tolerance and profound
leadership. Musk is therefore considered as an entrepreneur who has mastered the critical
success factors which include opportunities, teams and resources. He is described as a do it
all entrepreneur. When asked about this “Musk says he is intending, creating, and building,
hence, also thinking businesses that stand to most effect the future of humanity” (Trujillo
237).

The amazing journey of Elon started with Zip2- a software for newspaper publishers, which
he founded with his brother Kimbal in 1995. After wards the company was sold to Compaq
for 307 million dollars. The sale of ZIP2 infused Elon with a new brand of confidence. Much
like computer game characters he adored, Musk has leveled up. He became what everyone
wanted to be at that time, a dot come millionaire. Musk later founded an online financial
services company, X.com which later combined with Confinity to create PayPal, with Elon
being its cofounder and highest stakeholder. The company was later sold to eBay in which
Musk got 165 million dollars

This was the just starting of Elon’s journey of success. During this time, he had dealt major
attacks on his reputation making him emotionally unstable. In the book Elon Musk Tesla,
SpaceX and the quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance wrote:

The PayPal episode was a mixed bag for Musk. His reputation as a
leader suffered in the aftermath of the deal, and the media turned on
him in earnest for the first time. Eric Jackson, an early Confinity
employee, wrote The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the
Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth in 2004 and recounted the
company’s tumultuous journey. The book painted Musk as an
egomaniacal, stubborn jerk, making wrong decisions at every turn,
 and portrayed Thiel and Levchin as heroic geniuses. Valleywag, the
technology industry gossip site, piled on as well and turned bashing
Musk into one of its pet projects. The criticisms grew to the point that
people started wondering aloud whether Musk counted as a true
cofounder of PayPal or had just ridden Thiel’s coattails to a magical
payday.

After the sale of PayPal, Elon Musk quickly invested his newly found capital into the creation
of SpaceX in 2002 with the intent of further exploring the possibilities of life on Mars and
transporting large objects into space. The entrepreneur noted the exorbitant costs
restricted governments and people from exploring outer space, keeping this in mind Musk
focused on a cost-effective approach of exploring the space and noted the viability of
reusable rockets. Its first two rockets were the Falcon 1 And the larger Falcon 9, which were
designed to cost much less than the competing rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy
was designed to carry 53,000 kg to orbit nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the
Boeing Company’s Delta IV Heavy for only one third of the cost. SpaceX announced the
super heavy starship system designed for providing fast transformation between cities on
Earth and travelling to moon and Mars.

It is known that all the accomplishments come high cost and great stakes. When SpaceX
launched the rocket first time into space, it marked the huge accomplishment for the
independent company. It was also a huge personal achievement for Musk. “He made
declarations to shape interpretations of stakeholders about the value and meaning of
SpaceX activities and intent for change about building a launch vehicle and the SpaceX
system, preserving despite set-backs, doing things differently, and remaining privately-held”
(Muegge and Reid 26). But a major setback occurred when the rocket equipped with new
engine exploded. This greatly effected the company, after this many accidents occurred
especially for the reusable rockets where in many cases the fuel pod did not land on the
desired drone base. But still his stubbornness refused to give up. His response proved to be
high when SpaceX sent an EV Tesla Roadster to space, the first ever car sent to space.

Musk invested in larger projects while recognizing that resources were scarce, but he
believed that with good business, opportunity and team, there would be no problem
attracting investors and customers. That is how SpaceX became the first privately funded
company to launch a rocket into the orbit, bagging a 1.6 billion dollars backing outsider
NASA and the surrogate 1 billion dollars funding from Google and Fidelity. (Elon Musk: A
vision of an Entrepreneur).

After selling PayPal and achieving an astounding success in SpaceX Musk moved to further
his dreams of reducing emissions and creating a cleaner environment. He invested 70
million dollars of his personal price range into Tesla Motors and become the major
shareholder of the company. The company plan was simple: it sought to develop a flagship
electric vehicle that could hold its own against established automobile icons like Ferrari.
Launched in 2008 the roadster unveiled Tesla’s cutting-edge battery technology and electric
powertrain. Tesla designed the world's first ever premium all-electric sedan from the
ground up – Model S – which has become the best car in its class in every category. First
debuted in the summer of 2017 the model 3 had a relatively slow start, Lutz contended. But
it became the bestselling electric vehicle in the world in the first eleven months of
2019(Stankiewicz).

Other than these major ventures Musk also started The Boring Company.  Their projects,
Hyperloop and Loop, were built to help intra-city transit systems and were a proposed mode
of passenger and freight transportation. Similarly, Elon Musk’s Tesla announced it was
acquiring the company in a 2.6 billion dollars merger. As of July 2020, Tesla Solar has
become the lowest-cost solar installer in the United States (Ian). Moreover, along with Open
AI, Musk and other investors formed Neura link Corporation, a neurotechnology company
that intended to develop implantable brain-machine interfaces. 

Elon Musk’s has dared to challenge reality by achieving a great deal during the last 20 years
that has made him a role model for younger entrepreneurs. He Inevitably happens to be
awe-inspiring entrepreneur the world may have come across. Elon has taught us to think
beyond money, but the main motive must always be the betterment of the society. No great
person who changed the world in any way it did for money. Richtopia, a UK based company
has listed Musk as number 3 in the list of 200 most influential Philanthropists and Social
entrepreneurs.
 Works Cited

Trujillo, Joaquin. “The Thinking of SpaceX/Tesla CEO Elon Musk.” Existentia 27 (2017): 231-
261. Web.

Vance, Ashlee. Elon Musk Tesla, Space X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. Australia:
HarperCollins Publishers, 2018. Print.

Muegge, S. and E. Reid. “Elon Musk and SpaceX: A case study of Entrepreneuring as
Emancipation.” Technology Innovation Management Review 9.8 (2019): 18-29. Web.

“Elon Musk: A Vision of an Entrepreneur.” Writingbros.com, 28 September 2020,

https://writingbros.com/essay-examples/elon-musk-a-vision-of-an-enterpretuer/. Web. 26
July 2021

Stankiewicz, Kevin. “Ex-GM executive Bob Lutz finally has something encouraging to say
about Elon Musk and Tesla.” www.cnbc.com, CNBC, 8 January 2020,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/08/ex-gm-executive-bob-lutz-finally-encouraged-by-elon-
musk-and-tesla.html. Web. 26 July 2021.

Ian. “Elon Musk Companies Founded Thus Far – The 2021 List.” www.pressfarm.com,
pressfarm, 26 March 2021, https://press.farm/elon-musk-companies-founded-2021/.
Web.26 July 2021.