Elon Musk is arguably one of the most innovative, successful Entrepreneurs in the world. The source for my research is spread mostly between two articles I found, one from CNBC “The Crucial Decisions Tesla’s Elon Musk Had to Make When he Was Broke.” and another from The Business Insider “9 Decisions That Shaped Elon Musk's Extraordinary Career”. These sources are both reliable sources of information and widely respected for the validity of info they produce. I used these articles to answer what decisions Musk made to get him to the point he his at now and will continue to make in the future with scarcity of time and money and certain points in order to ensure success.
During the early years of Tesla Elon Musk found himself facing the problem of being low on capital, in my CNBC article i learned that “ in 2010 when, by his own account, the billionaire was broke, …. Musk held on to shares at the very moment when a sale to raise cash would have made financial sense. ‘I could have either done a rushed private stock sale or borrowed money from friends.’” This decision further proved to be smart because holding his shares later turned him into a billionaire.
Another choice Musk made early on was to drop out of graduate school at Stanford and take a risk on starting his own company according to the article from Business Insider Elon said “I figured if I start a company and it doesn't work, then I can always go back and graduate school” Musk taking a risk and trusting his gut in thinking he doesn’t need to finish school to be successful proved beneficial in the future.
When Tesla wasn’t doing as well as Musk knew it could be Musk would invest his personal profits back into the company. According to the article from business insider “by 2008, when Musk stepped in as Tesla's chief executive. He had invested $55 million of his own money into the company.” This says a lot about the confidence Musk has in his vision and company and shows all his employees that they could be doing something special at Tesla.
Future Research Questions:
- How does he set himself apart from competitors?
- What has Elon Musk accomplished so far?
- What type of corporate culture does he promote to get the best from employees?
