Elon Musk and Tesla, Inc.
Elon Musk is a business magnate, inventor, engineer and investor in high quality technology companies. He was born in South Africa before immigrating to Canada and also gained citizenship as an American. He is currently the CEO, co-founder and product architect of Tesla, Inc. formerly known as the Tesla Motors. The business tycoon also serves as a leader in a number of technology companies including SpaceX, Open AI and Neuralink. He was also involved in the creation and later development of numerous corporations including SolarCity, Zip2, and X.com that later joined with Confinity to form PayPal (Davies, 2013). It is through these numerous business and innovative practices that Musk has amassed a wealth of over $15 billion as of May 2017. In light of this, it is not surprising that Forbes Magazine ranked him in December 2016 as the 21st most powerful person in the world. It is through his leadership in Tesla, Inc, SolarCity and SpaceX that he has generated immense wealth and worldwide recognition.
Tesla Inc. formerly referred to as Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard. Nevertheless, Elon Musk, Ian Wright and JB Straubel are also recognized co-founders of the company (Davies, 2013). The organization specializes in the manufacture of electric cars, lithium-ion battery for energy storage and residential solar panels through its subsidiary SolarCity. The automaker company is located in Palo Alto, California where the luxury sedan Model S was built. Despite being one of the youngest organizations in the automotive industry, Tesla Inc has made significant strides in sector transforming ways of manufacturing sustainable vehicles (Davies, 2013). The car producer has sold nearly 200,000 vehicles since the launch of their first model the Tesla Roadster in 2008 until the end of 2016. Through these developments, Tesla is ranked as the second largest producer of pure electric cars beaten only by the alliance between Renault and Nissan. Under the leadership of Elon Musk, the company is also the second best global seller of plug-in electric vehicles of BYD Auto (Davies, 2013). He envisions that in future the corporation will be able to produce vehicle that are affordable to the average consumer.
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Five-Factor Personality Model
The Five-factor personality model presents a number of traits that appropriately describe Elon Musk’s style of leadership as the leader and co-founder of Tesla Inc. Openness to experience is one such trait that effectively describes the capabilities and approach used by this leader. This factor identifies an individual with a great appreciation for art, adventure, unusual ideas, different experiences and imagination (Raj, 2016). In addition to this, individuals who open to experience portray as sense of curiosity and willingness to explore different ideas. Through this inclined personality they demonstrate a liking to unconventional beliefs and high levels of creativity. However, it is not always the case that having openness to experience will guarantee liking of art and poetry. As is the case with Elon Musk his involvement in a wide range of technology companies shows he is open minded and willing to try different aspects of technology innovation (Davies, 2013).
Another trait that best describes the Tesla CEO is conscientiousness. This characteristic depicts individuals who have the ability to act dutifully, strive for success and employ high levels of self-discipline. In this case, such persons can effectively direct, control and regulate their impulses as a means of coping with the standards of the environment. In the case of Musk, he has been able to achieve high levels of success in the vehicle manufacturing industry despite beliefs that this is an industry that no one can enter at the time (Raj, 2016). Due to the dominance of corporations such as Toyota, Nissan, General Motors, Ford and Volkswagen, entry into this industry is depicted as business suicide. However, this was not the case for Tesla as it has grown to become a world leader in the electric and sustainable vehicles (Raj, 2016). He identifies his intent to achieve success by working for nearly 100 hours in a week such that he can realize in four months what it would take another who works for 40 hours an entire year.
Struggles and Failures
There is a reason why there are very few companies involved in the car manufacturing industry, designing and building a car is very expensive. The corporations in this industry are enormous and have high level financial might. It is for this reason that the journey for Tesla has not been as smooth as one would have desired. The 2008 financial crisis is a significant example of Musk’s ability to make decisions that lead to innovation. While in university he identified two primary problems that are worth attempting ensuring zero pollution in transportation and colonizing another planet. However, in 2008 the company nearly collapsed as it struggled to raise $100 million for the production of its second model the Model S (Sorking, 2010). For any other entrepreneur, this would be a clear sign to forfeit the venture and instead save up the money already earned. Musk chose to invest his last $35 million into the company a decision that would turn fruitful as the government offered $465 million in loan the following year to help in the production of Model S (Sorking, 2010). Though he filed for bankruptcy early in 2010, he was able to recover and propel back to success.
Lesson from Failures
From this near death of an innovative company and the end to a high potential career as an entrepreneur, there were significant lessons that Elon Musk drew from his failures. It is evident that in an industry as competitive as the automotive manufacturing, it is expected that critics will significantly pose as a hindrance to the development of a budding company (Sorking, 2010). A number of people were skeptical of Tesla’s ability to steer through the troubling times. The popular television program Top Gear identified the Roadster model as a hoax that could not effectively drive through 250 miles as promised. However, the business tycoon fired back that the views of the show hosts were misleading and even filed a law suit against the show that lasted for five years before an eventual loss for the company (Davies, 2013). Tesla has been able to continue to build on its success and is on track to achieve its goal of ensuring affordable sustainable cars.
References
Davies, A. (2013, March 13) How Elon Musk Is Revolutionizing Two Major Industries at The Same Time . Business Insider, Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-overcomes-challenges-2013-3?IR=T
Raj, V. (2016, Sep 9) The Leadership Qualities of Elon Musk . Leaderonomics.com, Retrieved from https://leaderonomics.com/leadership/leadership-qualities-elon-musk
Sorking, A. R. (2010, June 21) Elon Musk, PayPal Pioneer, Is Paper-Rich, Cash-Poor . The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/business/22sorkin.html?dbk
