Biography of Elon Musk Essay Example

Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors, was born in South Africa on June 28, 1971. Musk developed an interest in computer programming by 12, and created a video game that he sold for $500.  Elon Muskattended University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a degree in physics and economics, and also studied material science at Stanford University, however, he dropped out after 2 days to focus on his career. In 1995, along with his brother, Musk cofounded his first successful company, Zip2, an online version of a telephone directory. 4 years later, Compaq, an information technology company, bought Zip2 for $307 million. That same year, Elon Musk cofounded X.com, an online bank, that merged with Confinity Inc, a software company, to create PayPal. After being replaced as the CEO of paypal,  Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer. As the CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX, Musk launched Falcon 1, the first privately owned launch system to orbit around the Earth. Meanwhile, in 2008, Elon Musk acquired Tesla Motors and become the CEO and product architect. That same year, Tesla built the Roadster, an electric sports car, and sold 2500 units. Since then, Tesla launched the Model S sedan, Model X, Model 3 and Model Y cars and have sold hundreds of thousands of units. 

A large contributor to Elon Musk’s success is personal philosophy, including a strong work ethic and high ambition. Musk claims that he regularly works 80 to 100 hours a week. In fact, before the release of Tesla’s Model 3 sedan, he worked 120 hour work weeks. Musk’s financial success can also be attributed to his strategic investments in Tesla, SpaceX and Bitcoin. For example, Musk invested $100 million into Space X he earned $165 million from PayPal’s sale. Since then, Musk’s investments have grown exponentially.  He is a highly ambitious and goal oriented leader, who has a clear picture of what he wishes to achieve. For example, Musk claims that he is “highly confident,” that, by 2026, SpaceX will land people on Mars and he hopes to colonize the planet. While this may sound unrealistic to others, many people believe similarly about self driving cars. However, earlier this year, Elon Musk announced that Tesla “designed and engineered a Full Self Driving (FSD) computer from the ground up,” and even though Tesla cars are not fully autonomous, they have reached a record level of self driving capabilities and Tesla is on track to create the first fully autonomous car. 

In May of 2018, Elon Musk announced that he would be reorganizing Tesla in order to flatten their management. Previously using a more hierarchical organizational structure, Tesla evolved to the rapidly changing technology market to increase the production of the Model 3 car. Doing so helped improve communication amongst employees According to an email that Musk sent his employees, Tesla is “flattening the management structure to improve communication, combining functions where sensible and trimming activities that are not vital to the success of our mission.” Because of the rapid changes occurring in the technology industry, businesses’ must operate using an open structure, meaning that they are able to anticipate and quickly respond to changes. As seen through the restructuring of Tesla due to 3rd party contracting companies getting “out of control,”  Elon Musk uses this business structure to navigate the tumultuous technology market and react to unexpected circumstances. 

Musk’s unique leadership style has been a significant determinant of Tesla and SpaceX’s. Elon Musk uses a distinctive combination of a transformational, visionary, transactional and authoritarian leadership style and uses different leadership styles depending on his team and the goal they are trying to achieve. Musk is known to inspire his employees by setting stretch goals that are often high effort and tough to achieve. Elon Musk is also a self described “nano-manager,” meaning that he micromanages to an extreme by closely observing and controlling the work his employees do.  Musk has incredibly high standards for his workers, which can at times be motivating but also be defeating. 

Despite Elon Musk’s success, many still have valid criticisms about his leadership style. Tesla is infamous for its poor working conditions and violation of labor laws. For example, in May of 2020, Tesla reopened their factory in Fremont California against county orders and sent an email to his employees that stated if they “felt uncomfortable coming back to work at this time,” they should not “feel obligated to do so.” However, several employees were fired for not returning back to work, despite being told that they would not be penalized. Since then, more than 400 Tesla employees in that factory have tested positive for COVID-19 becauseTesla does not enforce social distancing at the workplace. This is one instance out of many where Elon Musk has shown a disregard for his workers. In 2018, Musk illegally threatened to fire Tesla workers that unioned, a threat that held precedent, as in 2017, Musk fired an employee for unionizing and advocating that others workers unionize too. Because of this, many of Elon Musk’s employees feel like they are being disregarded and taken advantage of, and in return, have very little loyalty towards their company. In fact, a manager reported to Business Insider that they warned employees not to walk near Elon Musk’s desk because he, at times, went on “wild firing rampages.”

However, Tesla could greatly improve their productivity if employers could have open dialogue with Musk, without a fear of being fired. Oftentimes, when employees are forced to work under low wages, intense pressure, and an unstable work environment, they are not able to work to their full potential. If Elon Musk spent more time trying to create a positive work environment with higher wages and benefits, his employees would have more incentive to work harder because they care much more about their jobs. Especially for Tesla’s factory workers, higher wages could greatly increase their productivity because if they get fired, they may be forced to work under worse conditions at another company.