Case Study: Elan Musk Elon Musk is an entrepreneur whose personality can be termed as

overbearing, difficult, demanding, competitive, and overachieving. Nevertheless, Elon Musk, is

named “the world’s most remarkable living entrepreneur” in the fortune magazine. He has created
several billion-dollar companies based on his ideas. Over the past decades, Musk has managed to
become the CEO of Tesla, ZipX, and SpaceX, founder of the Boring Company, and cofounder of
OpenAI and Neuralink, all while focused on his long-term goal: escaping Earth and colonizing Mars.
He is known to develop teams to work on different projects; he hires brilliant and talented individuals
that can aid him to design and develop his products. While he may have been covered by
controversy, from smoking marijuana during an interview to a couple of ill-judgement tweets, there’s
no denying his achievements as a leader in the tech world is significant and people can learn from
him.

Elon Musk's leadership style is about constantly learning, breaking through barriers, and developing
new ways to solve problems. He also has the passionate connections with the employees to bring the
best out of his team, and can attribute all this to his vast success. However, he has faced criticism for
being a workaholic and an extreme micromanager, both of which are unhealthy leadership traits.
Musk has been heavily criticized for having an unhealthy work ethic. As revealed in an article from
The Guardian, he's been known to work 120 hour weeks, often sleeping at the Tesla factory. He has
also admitted to constantly being on email, even when interacting with his children. And perhaps this
is what's missing from Musk's approach.

Another criticism regarding Musk leadership is regarding his quick decision making, especially when
it comes to risk adaption. Most people would have argued that Musk dropping out of Stanford after
just two days because he decided he could make a bigger impact by focusing on the booming internet
was a bit rash. It may have worked out for him, yet, changing tactic so quickly and boldly doesn’t
always pay off. Changing course abruptly and unexpectedly as a leader in an organization can be
disorienting for the rest of the team, especially if they are comfortable with the way things are
currently going. But like any change initiative, this is why it’s so important that leaders communicate
to their teams in a timely manner any change in strategy or direction. Musk was respectable at this.
When it comes to communicating a change that is to occur, he often focused on what should be said
to send a terse well-defined message. His communication illustrated strong and simple unassuming
messages. It was apparent that he commands whatever crowd he speaks before. Musk prefers emails
during important announcement. Musk in his email to staff said that communication should travel via
the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the chain of command. He said that there
should be free flow of information between all levels.

Musk is known to be a leader that is always present in sight. He oversees and controls most of the
organization creations. And if there is a problem within the organization, Musk will be right there,
taking a hands-on approach to helping find a solution: “I always move my desk to wherever - well, I
don’t really have a desk, actually. I move myself to wherever the biggest problem is in Tesla.” He
clearly likes to put himself at the heart of problem-solving, as well as to share risks, ideas, and
decision making with the whole team. By empowering everyone in the organization to tackle
obstacles with him, the leader will not only accelerate the success of the business, but build a more
engaged and fulfilled workforce at the same time. People worldwide, can learn several things from
his leadership style in order to be effective in organization performance. For example

Tackle obstacles ahead

Elon Musk is a visionary, and truly believes in every business venture he puts his mind too. Because he
has such a strong vision, he isn’t afraid to face obstacles others might find impossible to overcome. This
is one of the things Musk is known for – tackling obstacles head on. He is dedicated in working on
projects and completing them so that it can help make a difference in the society, aside with his
donations to philanthropic causes. The projects he’s been involved in tackle almost every major industry
and global problem found in the community, from automotive, to telecommunications, to energy. He
loves to innovate products that are far from ordinary and engage in tasks which not many people try to
venture into.

Treat failure as a lesson

With innovation, failure and loss can occur recurrently. A good leader will always pick themselves up –
and their teams – when things go wrong. This is what Ellon Musk is known for. Musk’s philosophy is:
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing you are not innovating.” When things go wrong, he
seeks to approach the problem from a different angle until finding something that works. And Musk has
often demonstrated how he continually reviews and adapts his strategies when decisions and outcomes
disappoint. For example, in SpaceX, he spent years trying, failing, and learning from their failures in their
mission to “send people to Mars by 2024.”

Priorities learning
Even from an early age, Musk was
reading two books a day, and his
success can in many ways be
attributed
to his enthusiasm and appetite
for learning. Musk has taken the
time to learn foundational
principles
in artificial intelligence,
technology, physics, and
engineering and turned around to
reconstruct them into
separate fields, such as aerospace
to create SpaceX, automotive to
create Tesla, or technology to help
build
PayPal just to name a few. Musk
has even been known to quiz
engineers for hours on end just to
soak up
their knowledge. Jim Cantrell,
aerospace consultant who worked
with Musk for SpaceX, stated that:
“In
the same way that Musk absorbed
books, he tried doing that with
other people’s expertise. It was as
if he
could suck the experience out of
them. He truly listens to people.”
Thus, as an effective leader, he
will
create a culture of continuous
learning and growth. They
empower people to always look
for ways to
improve
Priorities learning
Even from an early age, Musk was reading two books a day, and his success can in many ways be
attributed to his enthusiasm and appetite for learning. Musk has taken the time to learn foundational
principles in artificial intelligence, technology, physics, and engineering and turned around to
reconstruct them into separate fields, such as aerospace to create SpaceX, automotive to create Tesla,
or technology to help build PayPal just to name a few. Musk has even been known to quiz engineers for
hours on end just to soak up their knowledge. Jim Cantrell, aerospace consultant who worked with Musk
for SpaceX, stated that: “In the same way that Musk absorbed books, he tried doing that with other
people’s expertise. It was as if he could suck the experience out of them. He truly listens to people.”
Thus, as an effective leader, he will create a culture of continuous learning and growth. They empower
people to always look for ways to improve
Collaboration
is Fundamental Musk understands that teamwork is a necessity for any team or business to succeed. He
says that “It's like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win but then
there's a multiplier from how those players work together and the strategy they employ. “Musk is a
leader that invites group members to participate and provide input- although the leader gets the final
say on most decisions. He is a leader that has a mindful presence, which allows him to develop optimal
strategies to engage their people, create better connections, and improve organization performance.
Musk recognizes feedback as one way to become a better leader. As well as inviting people to give him
constructive feedback, he encourages his teams to do the same. He is a big advocate of the power of
truthful feedback for improving individual, team, and organizational performance. Ultimately, the best
leaders put their energy into empowering their people to be better so that they can each play their part
in driving the success of the business
Elon Musk

Information:
Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. Musk
is the founder, chairman, CEO and chief technology officer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO,
product architect and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, chairman and CTO of X Corp.;
founder of the Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the
Musk Foundation. He is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of
US$226 billion as of September 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and
$249 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in both Tesla and SpaceX

Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent
for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a
computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa
because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and
because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the United States.

Story of success
Musk attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to
the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor’s degrees
in physics and economics in 1997. He enrolled in graduate school in physics at Stanford
University in California, but he left after only two days because he felt that the Internet had
much more potential to change society than work in physics. In 1995 he founded Zip2, a
company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was
bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an
online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which specialized in
transferring money online. The online auction eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet species.
However, he was dissatisfied with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to make more affordable rockets. Its first two rockets
were the Falcon 1 (first launched in 2006) and the larger Falcon 9 (first launched in 2010), which
were designed to cost much less than competing rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first
launched in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as
much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company’s Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost.
SpaceX has announced the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy–
Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000
pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for
providing fast transportation between cities on Earth and building bases on the Moon and
Mars. SpaceX also developed the Dragon spacecraft, which carries supplies to the International
Space Station (ISS). Dragon can carry as many as seven astronauts, and it had a crewed flight
carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. The first test flights of
the Super Heavy–Starship system launched in 2020. In addition to being CEO of SpaceX, Musk
was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Starship. SpaceX is
contracted to build the lander for the astronauts returning to the Moon by 2025 as part
of NASA’s Artemis space program.

Strategy in business
He focuses on the first quadrant, delegates or automates the third quadrant, and eliminates or
postpones the fourth quadrant.
Elon Musk is a master of problem-solving who uses various techniques to find innovative solutions to
complex challenges. He uses first principles thinking to break down problems into their fundamental
truths and reason from there. He uses lateral thinking to look at problems from different perspectives
and generate alternative ideas. He uses systems thinking to understand how problems are
interconnected and influenced by various factors. He uses design thinking to empathize with
users, define problems, ideate solutions, prototype them and test them.

Collaboration is Fundamental
Musk understands that teamwork is
a necessity for any team or
business to succeed. He says that
“It's like
a sports team, the team that has the
best individual player will often
win but then there's a multiplier
from
how those players work together
and the strategy they employ.
“Musk is a leader that invites
group members
to participate and provide input-
although the leader gets the final
say on most decisions. He is a
leader that
has a mindful presence, which
allows him to develop optimal
strategies to engage their people,
create better
connections, and improve
organization performance. Musk
recognizes feedback as one way to
become a
better leader. As well as inviting
people to give him constructive
feedback, he encourages his teams
to do
the same. He is a big advocate
of the power of truthful
feedback for improving
individual, team, and
organizational performance.
Ultimately, the best leaders put
their energy into empowering their
people to
be better so that they can each play
their part in driving the success of
the business