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A few days ago, Elon Musk became the richest person in the world, overtaking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, after founder SpaceX and Tesla’s net worth surpassed $ 185 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. , benefiting from the rise in the electric car company’s share price on Monday. Last Thursday, for a market value of 800 billion dollars.
As for today’s prices, its wealth is close to 210 billion dollars.
Musk’s success is undeniable, so what’s the secret behind him?
A few years ago, BBC reporter Justin Rolle spent almost an hour talking to Musk, and after his latest breakthrough he decided to dust off this interview and share it with readers, his “Elon Musk Guide “to business success.
1. It’s not about the money!
Rollatt says that’s at the heart of Musk’s attitude towards business, when he gave an interview in 2014 he told him at the time that he didn’t know how rich he was!
He said, “That doesn’t mean I have a lot of money somewhere. It’s just that I have a number of stocks in Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity, and the market values those stocks. Nothing. does not prevent the pursuit of wealth if it is done. ” In a good moral way. “But he stressed that was not his motive.
This approach certainly seems to work, but Musk, who turns 50 this year, doesn’t expect to die rich. The businessman knows that most of his money will be spent building a base on Mars, and he won’t be surprised if the project fully consumes his wealth.
In fact, like Bill Gates, Musk might consider leaving billions in the banks as a sign that he is not using that money properly.
2. Follow your passion!
The base of Mars is proof of what Musk sees as the key to success. He said in the interview: “You want things to get better in the future … you want these new and exciting things that are life-improving.”
Take SpaceX as an example, Musk says he started the company because he was disappointed with the US space program, which was not more ambitious.
“I was hoping that we would go beyond earth and place a person on the surface of Mars, that we would have a base on the moon and that we would have frequent orbital flights,” he adds.
As this did not happen, he came up with the idea for the Mars Oasis mission, which aims to send a small greenhouse to the Red Planet.
The idea was to get people interested in space again and get the US government to increase the budget for NASA. While trying to bring this idea to life, he realized that the problem was not “a lack of will, but rather no way to do it”. Space technology was too expensive.
Then SpaceX was born, the cheapest rocket launcher in the world, but the bottom line is: it wasn’t about making money, but about taking someone to Mars.
Musk told the reporter that he sees himself as an engineer, not an investor, and what wakes him up in the morning is the desire to solve technical problems.
In fact, it is the norm of progress, more than the dollars accumulated in the banks. He knows that every obstacle overcome by his companies helps others to try to solve the same problem, and therefore it is solved forever.
This is why, shortly before this press meeting, the businessman announced that he would publish all Tesla patents to accelerate the development of electric cars around the world.
3. Don’t be afraid to think broadly
One of the really amazing things about Musk’s business is how bold he is, he wants to revolutionize the auto industry, colonize Mars, build super-fast trains in empty tunnels, build artificial intelligence into the brain. human, change solar energy and make batteries.
But all of his projects have one thing in common: They are the kind of futuristic fiction you might find in a children’s magazine that dates back to the early 1980s. Musk makes no secret of the fact that he was influenced by books and the films that have been shown since his childhood in South Africa.
Here’s what brings us to Musk’s third tip: don’t hold back. He believes that having low-ceiling ambitions is built into the incentive structures of most companies.
He felt that many companies take a “step-by-step” approach and said: “If you are the CEO of a large company and your goal is to make modest improvement, if it takes longer than expected and doesn’t not working well, no one will blame you. You can tell it’s not your fault. It is the fault of the service providers. “
Conversely, if you were daring and searched for a true game changer, and didn’t succeed, you would definitely get fired.
So Musk argues that this is why most companies focus on small improvements to their existing products, rather than daring to imagine new products.
So his advice is to make sure you work on what he calls “the things that will be important,” and two things stand out from Musk’s hierarchy of those important things.
First, accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
Second, to ensure the long-term survival of humanity by colonizing Mars and “making life multi-planetary”.
4. Be prepared to take risks
According to Musk, you need to have the stamina to do a job well, and it’s the person who takes the most risks. In 2002, he sold shares in his first two companies, one a city virtual directory called Zip2 and the other, the online payment company PayPal.
He was only 30 years old and had almost $ 200 million in the bank.
He says his plan was to put half of his fortune in the business and keep the other half, but things didn’t turn out that way, as the BBC reporter the interview coincided with points out. Musk’s exit from the darkest period of his career.
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The new Musk companies faced all kinds of problems: Space X’s first three launches failed and Tesla suffered all kinds of production, supply chain and design issues, followed by the blow of the financial crisis.
Musk said he was faced with a tough choice: “I can keep the money, let the companies collapse, or invest what is left, because there may be an opportunity.”
This is because he kept spending money and at one point was in debt to the point that he had to borrow money from friends to pay for his living expenses. At the time, was he afraid of bankruptcy?
No, he says, “My kids had to go to public school. It’s cool. I studied in public school.”
5. Ignore the reviews
What shocked Mask was the joy of many experts and commentators over his ordeal.
“Liberal gloating (delight in the misfortune of others) was really wonderful… there were many blogs counting the time of Tesla’s death,” he said.
Journalist Justin Rollatt thinks people wanted him to fail because they thought there was some sort of arrogance in his ambition.
But Musk refused, saying, “I think it would be arrogance if we said that we definitely would, rather than aspire to do it, and that we will do our best.”
That leads to Mask’s next lesson in business success: don’t listen to the critics!
Musk also told him that he didn’t think SpaceX or Tesla could make any money when he created them, and the truth is, no one thought so. But he ignored it and continued on anyway, judging success based on the main issues he solved, not how much money he got.
He doesn’t worry about looking silly because his huge financial game hasn’t paid off, instead he keeps chasing big ideas.
Elon musk
In October, US investment bank Morgan Stanley estimated SpaceX’s worth at $ 100 billion. The company has changed spaceflight, but what Musk is most proud of is how his company has revitalized America’s space program.
And in 2020, the Crew Dragon rockets transported six astronauts to the International Space Station, the first such mission from American soil since the space shuttles retired in 2011.
6. Enjoy it!
Known as a workaholic, Musk boasts of working 120 hours a week to keep Tesla Model 3 production on track, but it seems he enjoyed it.
He sparked controversy over his character with a libel lawsuit, direct drug use and an outcry on social media. In 2018, he ran into trouble with the Securities Market Authority, the regulator of America’s financial markets, when he tweeted about his intention to offer a Tesla subscription.
And when the Covid-19 epidemic forced Tesla to shut down production at its San Francisco Bay plant, Musk became a vocal opponent of the coronavirus restrictions.
On Twitter, he called the panic caused by the virus “stupid” and the stay-at-home orders as “forced imprisonment”, saying it was “fascist” and violating constitutional rights.
He also announced on Twitter that his newborn son would be given a strange name, X Æ A-12 Musk.
The year 2020 ended with obstacles related to testing the Starship launcher, which is expected to take the first batch of humans to Mars, as the landing process failed and the giant missile exploded when it fell six minutes after takeoff, but Musk praised the test and described it as an “incredible” success, and began the Al-Imar researching other solutions to ensure the missile could be returned safely to Earth.
Musk’s unpredictable behavior doesn’t seem to have affected his business, he remains as ambitious as ever and is now the richest man of all time.
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