Founder, Tesla
About The Leader
About The Leader
Elon Musk uses the power of understanding future trends and creating broad-based portfolios to improve the way people live, which has won him a loyal set of customers and investors
Elon Musk is an American entrepreneur and founder of multiple startups like Tesla, Solar City, Neuralink, SpaceX and OpenAI.
While he has achieved great business success, has often been often criticized and involved in numerous public controversies.
Despite the controversies along with a track record of high-risk investments, he has remained influential.
His Purpose
Elon Musk's goal of "Impact-based investing" led him to create products and solutions which would completely change the way people live in future.
To enable huge returns on his ideas, he focuses not only on gaining market share, but also on changing entire industries. Musk explains,
"It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.”
Strongly driven by the motivation to create a long-lasting impact, Musk has made some visionary, high-risk bets with his investments: he wants to start a colony on Mars (SpaceX), read the human mind (Neuralink) and convert most of the world to using renewable energy (Solar City).
Elon Musk's creativity discovered ideas from an early age. Inspired by his love for video games as a kid he wanted to build products and services which impact the world at large.
His ideas are bold and sometimes risky but he also has an ability to execute ambitious plans.
“I don’t think about things. I just look at what are things which are required to happen to have an exciting future.”
Case for Change
Case for Change
"In order to have clean air in cities, you have to go electric;[therefore,] you have to match the convenience of the gasoline car in order for people to buy an electric car."
Growth Gap
Growth Gap
“…make 20 million electric vehicles a year by 2030 — more than 50 times what we produced last year.”
Investment Portfolio
Investment Portfolio
“…all free cash flow is plowed back into R&D to drive down costs and bring the follow-on products to market as fast as possible."
Did You Know
Did You Know
Elon Musk was a fast learner and distinguished himself as an independent thinker as early as grammar school. He remembers coming up with numerous ideas everyday. He built and sold his first software for $500 at age of 12 to buy himself a computer.
Visionary
Visionary
After his exit from PayPal, Musk wanted to create products and services that would tend to humanity's future needs. Sustainability and the impact of hydrocarbons on the world seemed like a major priority and led to the design of Tesla. While successful at Tesla, Musk has invested in other bold startups like SpaceX, Neuralink, and Solar City.
Key Actions
Key Actions
With the goal of growing sustainable businesses, he started building cars with battery packs. In a few years he came up with the first model of Tesla Roadster and became a pioneer for electric vehicles. He has built multiple Gigafactory's around the world to support his dream of manufacturing these cars in house.
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Visionary
Thinking big and building core capabilities for new markets
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
He understood that building products for new segments would require him to build inhouse manufacturing capabilities to serve future demand spikes.
Tesla uses special manufacturing techniques like light aluminum frames and base battery packs to build its Tesla variants. These capabilities were not in wide use in the automotive industry, which moved Musk to make massive investments in Gigafactories close to key markets.
Building Portfolios
Building Portfolios
In the initial days, with limited manufacturing capabilities and charging infrastructure, Musk started with the highest tier model roadster ($100K+) before working on ~$50K and ~$30K variants of the electric cars. In the process, he has been able to influence more investors and been able to build up the required infrastructure.
Key Actions
Key Actions
In Tesla's early days, with limited manufacturing capabilities and charging infrastructure, Musk started by offering the highest tier model roadster ($100K+) before working on ~$50K and ~$30K variants of the electric cars. In the process, he has been able to influence more investors and to build up required infrastructure
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Building a pipeline to drive long-term growth
Investing in support infrastructure to drive adoption
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
He understood the investments that were required to drive high adoption would require time because the new infrastructure that evolved to support Tesla introduced other new mass market variants
Musk has built massive charging infrastructure around the US and invested in massive manufacturing capabilities before designing a mass market (~$30K) version of his Tesla line of cars
Influencing community
Influencing community
Right from company branding pitch to maintaining his own personal brand, Musk has been an influencer for the community and his followers. He has tried to create attention-seeking headlines to influence both loyal investors and customers for his brand
Additional reading : Lessons from Tesla’s Approach to Innovation (hbr.org)
Key Actions
Key Actions
Musk often tweets to his massive follower base and appears on entertainment shows to share his vision with his followers. These end up being investors and early adopters of his vision
When Musk created Cyber Truck his aim was never to create a lot of revenue but influence his loyal pool of followers
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Influencing community & creating a base of loyal customers
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
He understood that as he looked to disrupt the industry and force behavior change in people he would need to be considered as a strong influencer
The main aim to introduce the Cybertruck was to engage with and tap into his loyal base of followers. Creating a pool of loyal followers have inturn helped him source investments, drive early adoption of his vision and drive faster scale
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