PayPal is a great story, but nothing spectacular from a tech-founder standpoint.
However, what he has done now is ridiculous. Managing 5 massive companies all at once is fucking insane - how does he do it? What makes him the great leader he is?
Don’t want to hear anything about his politics/personality.
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Elon had $180M and risked it all to start his businesses. It is insane. He very well could have ended up broke.
Why the MS? I stated facts.
Because as soon as you even mention the name "Elon" people get in their feels!
He’s an incredibly intelligent person who, by all accounts, works incredibly hard.
He grew up filthy rich, moved to America, went to a great school, got into tech start ups (He sold a company for $300M before PayPal) right when they were first getting going, sold PayPal for over a billion (how is that considered “not spectacular?”), was an early investor in Tesla and ultimately took it over, and co-founded SpaceX.
It has nothing to do with “being a great leader” - which he does not seem to be by most accounts - but he does have a unique combination of intelligence, a workaholic’s approach to hard work, came from family wealth, and possesses a willingness to take risks others won’t.
How the hell is he “intelligent?” I’ll give you work ethic, doer attitude, risk taker, etc but his intelligence level is equivalent to that of an successful IB MD
Brother, I could write a book criticizing Elon, but for all of his negatives I still think he’s a smart guy.
You are drinking way too much liberal media kool aid if you dont think he is relatively brilliant at what he does
This is the worst take I've seen in a while, and I say this is someone who does not like Elon as a person
comparing Elon to anyone in IB is laughable bahaha 🤣
He did not grow up filthy rich at least according to his sponsored biography
His dad was trading planes for smuggled emeralds and said they had “so much money we couldn’t even close our safe.”
But I’ll give you that Errol seems like a bit of a scoundrel, so it could be bullshit.
every biography of people say this now, no one wants to be associated with being rich because it makes it seem like they started on third base and lessens their achievements. On one hand, it kind of does because if you have access to the best things at an early age, and live in comfort, and don't have much to worry about, it's easier to get ahead. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who grew up rich who didn't amount to anything. So was Elon Musk, rich, I don't really know, do I think even if he was some else could do what he did, probably not.
(1) How specifically is Elon intelligent?
(2) How specifically does Elon work "incredibly hard?"
I’m not sure what you are trying to accomplish here. I cannot definitively prove he is intelligent or works hard any more than you can prove otherwise. He has, however, run some innovative, forward-thinking companies and he is a notorious workaholic, two things that would support my claims. Beyond that, I am not going to stan for Elon Musk of all people.
When someone has Elon's extreme track record of success, the burden of proof is on the person claiming he's not particularly smart. Baseline stance is that he is very smart.
That's not actually how logic works. The burden of proof is always on the proponent of the affirmative argument. I never made an affirmative argument in what you are responding to. The other person said that Elon was intelligent and a hard worker. It is on the other person to demonstrate this.
No wonder why you are constantly saying outrageously stupid things in response to my posts. You don't know how logic works.
I mean, everyone is disagreeing with you. Even CRE, who disagrees with me all the time, is with me today in questioning your logic here.
When someone says Elon is smart, and you say "how?" you're basically saying he's not.
Doubling down on illogical arguments is.. a choice. Argument ad populums are illogical. Illogical arguments are definitionally incorrect.
I put forward a very simple argument. Crying at me because almost no one wants to engage with the argument in good faith doesn't do what you think it does
musk is overrated
"Fortune favors the bold." Musk is very high IQ so went to Stanford, a place that has for a long time encouraged entrepreneurship, and he met other very high IQ people seeking to do entrepreneurship. Like Mark Cuban, Musk benefited from good timing--the internet/tech boom of the mid-to-late 1990s, making a good number of people very rich with pretty mediocre ideas and businesses. Then, Musk took his PayPal winnings and did what almost no one else would have the testicular fortitude to do--risk it all on a really "stupid" financial investment, Tesla/electric vehicles. And then he risked more of it on SpaceX, another "dumb" financial investment. Those companies were carried by Musk's incredible promotion skills, skillful use of government money, and brilliant employees.
In other words, Musk became the richest man on planet Earth because he risked his entire early financial rewards on crazy ideas that had almost no chance of being successful. Almost no rich people do that--most rich people take calculated risks, not deranged gambles. But to be the richest man in the world, you have to bet it all on black as there's just not a realistic path to "richest man on the planet" through well-trodden paths.
Guys, Musk went to Wharton/UPenn, not Stanford
Elon got his bachelor's in physics and economics from UPenn/Wharton. He was accepted into Stanford's PhD program in Applied Physics and Materials Science, focusing on energy storage and ultracapacitors, but dropped out after two days to launch Zip2, his first company.
Beyond me how one can live any resemblance of a normal life having to balance so many work obligations.
I read an Elon Musk biography a while back, this guy is cut from a different cloth. Also helps that he came from money meaning he could take the risks he did.
I think at the end of the day, some people are just super motivated by wealth, power and entrepreneurial stimulation that they will devote their entire waking hours to obtain them. Also goes to show that true generational wealth is only created by taking risks.
With that said, I believe in balance in life and do not see myself trodding down his path in even my remotest fantasies.
You should read his biography - he's an incredibly hard worker. If something goes wrong at one of his companies he immediately jumps on a plane, goes onsite, and demands that everyone works nonstop until its fixed. Its not for everyone, a lot of his best workers get burned out working for him.
So he is an incredibly hard worker and the evidence is that he makes other people work hard to fix problems? That is not the argument you think it is
He's working along with them...
(1) Elon's contributions to what makes PayPal an actually viable business was effectively nothing. At the only business Elon did not control, he got fired because of his incompetence within the first 6 months. PayPal succeeded mainly in spite of Elon, not because of Elon. This is incredibly well documented.
(2) He doesn't really manage 5 massive companies all at once. He is in many ways just a figurehead who, when he does actually decide to do some work, will often make things worse. For example, and there are many that I can pick from, look at Elon's treatment of advertisers on Twitter. We have countless specific examples of where he makes the business of Twitter worse off because he is too insecure to handle advertisers like they are the most important part of the Twitter business that they are.
(3) Elon is perceived the way he is because he has only one actual competency commensurate with his stature and it is arguably the only thing that matters: he is one of the best in the history of humanity at getting people to pay attention. That's it. That is the one thing Elon is actually good at.
A lot of things that get attributed to him aren't actually the product of his work. It is other people doing work that Elon then puts his name on it. There is a reason why no one, in the many biographies and such, can actually point to work Elon's done that genuinely displays competence commensurate with Elon's perceived stature. It is always general platitudes or merely regurgitating that the final deliverable occurred. It is ironic that he was a (non-founder) early investor in Tesla given how much like Edison Elon is.
To be clear, there is nothing inherently problematic about this as it relates to Elon himself. To the extent this is a critique, it is a critique of those who don't recognize this and take Elon down their throat
The mental gymnastics you're going through here to try and discredit him are astounding
These people are beyond ridiculous. Musk has succeeded as a CEO in countless businesses in which literally no one else has--succeeded so wildly it made him the richest man on Earth and effectively created the EV industry, which will inevitably replace the internal combustion engine. And the response is that they expect a CEO to be making inventions and doing the daily grind. "He's barely competent!" The level of delusion, cope, denial, dishonesty takes the breath away.
(1) Thank you for demonstrating the validity of my argument about dipshits like you.
(2) You're right. It is very discrediting to call Elon someone who is among the best in the history of humanity at what he is good at.
(3) Ahh yes. The mental gymnastics that you can't even identify
What does any CEO actually do? Jensen Huang is a hardworking CEO, should I not take the word of him and others that he is hardworking because I don't know what he's doing or done day to day? I argue that managing the direction of the company and messaging that direction to the public is an important job as CEO, so why questions Musk's work ethic when he's working to get people to pay attention to his companies?
also
>muh advertisers
(1) Yes. You are almost getting it. You almost are getting the point that most CEOs don't actually do the work of their company. That most of the work done by a company is not actually done by the CEO. It is done by the tens, hundreds, thousands of employees. This is basically self-evident.
The fact that people are trying to argue that Elon does all this work really only demonstrates that they are being political and doing team sports. They are not actually engaging in good faith. If we changed the nouns, if we changed the name Elon Musk into Solomon Abubakar; if we changed the company names to Company A, Company B, etc; we just describe Elon's behavior at each of these companies; and we put it in a list with 200 other CEOs of multibillion dollar companies; absolutely no one would be able to identify Elon Musk, let alone say how he warrants the stature that Elon has.
(2) "I argue that managing the direction of the company and messaging that direction to the public is an important job as CEO."
I agree. And if this is all he was viewed as doing, this critique would not be applicable. I would not be able to say what I said about Elon if this is what Elon was viewed as.
(3) "why questions Musk's work ethic when he's working to get people to pay attention to his companies?"
As I said in the comment you are responding to, I am not critiquing Elon. Saying Elon does not do the things people believe he does is not a critique of Elon. It isn't Elon's fault that people view him in ways that are not consistent with what he actually does.
I make it very clear that, to the extent this is a critique, it is a critique of the people who hero worship Elon. To the extent this is a critique, it is of the people who throat Elon. It is a problem with those people. Because this failure to be able to engage with reality has significant consequences. Hero worshipping Elon, in and of itself, isn't a problem. But the people who do this are engaging in underlying behaviors that have significant adverse consequences outside of merely what they think of Elon.
The crux of your argument, is your argument itself. You talk about how all Elons notable traits and accomplishments aren’t his, just a perception… but your opinion, is based on other people’s perceptions, meaning you can’t prove any of your points about his character any more than I can. People who have worked for Elon have had a wide variety of responses. Some encouraging your argument, many not. That’s society, but for you to sit here and speak about all of these things so definitively, as if you know him personally, has said way more about you, than anyone else.
I agree with you completely, that Elon has found his way too far down the throats of college kids, and it is getting corny. But man, does this post reek of jealousy. For you to sit here and say the richest known man on the planet, got thetr through having only one redeemably intelligent trait, is almost as ridiculous as it is statistically impossible. I agree bullshitting can go a long way, look at the Tate Brothers, but even they only have so much money and power. Like cmon dude, we work with numbers all day, your argument, statistically just does not align with the metrics of the conversation. just to get into the college he did, Stanford, would be impossible by your depiction.
idk man, i get what you were trying to say and i agreed with a lot of it. but your arrogance and pretentiousness just made you sound like such a douche bag lol
I have no primary evidence of this, but I suspect he just has a great playbook for operating high growth businesses and can enable people to execute on it with minimal involvement. So he is actually doing the BS pitch every PE firm gives to their prospective LPs. That seems more believable to me than someone being an active leader in multiple billion dollar businesses
CEO of oracle had a quote that fits with a lot of the discourse here.
Random WSJ journalist called Elon a moron.
The most successful man on earth is a moron? Then who are you?
Convinced junior finance workers are the worst people on earth.
Lol typical American billionaire worship. This is a really dangerous way of defining success.
Where I'm from a man's successful based on if he can devote time for his family, wife, etcetera.
Musk is a sociopath celebrity who bathes in Anglosphere fame and name and acclaim. I'm not originally from the USA and I can guarantee you nobody where I'm from obsesses over business tycoons.
that's probably why US is the best country and whichever country you are from is not...? It's not worship. You can say it is to make it sound derogatory but people here respect success. Unless it is proved in court that there was foul play to build such wealth, we can look at success and appreciate how that not only benefitted the billionaire but the consumers as well (otherwise consumers would stop buying their services/products). We also respect a good family man here too but a good family man doesn't make the news here so we don't talk about them on public forums... but I'm guessing they do in your country.
He looked into the future, saw what could be, and made it happen several times, and is making it profitable. Really don’t understand how people can call him a moron when he has accomplished so much. He is truly a visionary. He’s a little wacky and controversial now but ignoring what he’s done because you don’t agree with his takes and calling him an idiot is really stupid.
He is a rich kid and a beneficiary of apartheid South Africa. His father, an elected politician and an emerald mine owner while his mother was a model. He's on record for telling stories about how he used to carry emeralds around to play with as a toddler.
His first venture Zip2 was funded from his ultra wealthy family connections, setting the stage for where he is today.
His next venture, X.com simply merged with a competitor Confinity to avoid competition with PayPal, a subsidiary of Confinity. Following the merger, he became CEO and ran the business to the ground leading to him getting fired and replaced with Peter Thiel by the board in 2000. When eBay acquired PayPal in 2002, he made $176 million.
Following his PayPal exit, he founded SpaceX however the company failed its first launch in 2006 while he served as CEO. NASA decided to partner with the failing company and after two more failed launches (causing him to almost go bankrupt) and numerous partnerships later, it finally succeeded.
Tesla is next. Musk was an investor in the company's Series A round in 2004 and became it's chairman. He was not involved in its day-to-day business operations. Years later, he ousted one of the co-founders and took the title as CEO. He then legally changed his status from investor to co-founder, along with the other actual founders in 2009.
Are you noticing a pattern here?
His next venture Neuralink was simply funded by him. He made an investment of $100 million. The actual brains behind the operation have complained that pressure from Musk to accelerate development has led to botched experiments and unnecessary animal deaths. In 2022, a federal probe was launched into possible animal welfare violations by Neuralink. Even still, the Food and Drug Administration approved the company's next steps in initiating human trials as of September 2023.
The Boring Company is next and was founded in 2017 to construct tunnels. Since then, countless projects have been canceled and 2 have been completed.
Do I even need to talk about Twitter and the downward spiral? It's being called the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-09 financial crisis on the street. Advertisers continue to flee the platform, users are exiting/engaging less, there's been a renewed focus on "anti-woke" and far right leaning content, etc. The idea that he is some kind of genius inventor, innovator, etc. is a farce.
It's interesting how you chose to phrase this. It says more about you and your anti-Musk bias than it actually says about Musk himself.
Musk's father, Errol Musk, was actually a member of the South African Progressive Federal Party, which was the main parliamentary opposition to apartheid, instead advocating power-sharing in South Africa through a federal constitution, according to Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Elon_Musk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Federal_Party
Errol Musk did have an investment in an emerald mine from 1986 to 1989. It's also interesting how you fail to mention that the mine went bankrupt in 1989 and the Musk family did not make much money from the emerald business. Some quotes from Snopes and The Financial Times:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-mine/
https://www.ft.com/content/096d1fca-3ee4-4750-8069-9bded7540fab
$210k over 4 years of operations, is that what you consider "ultra wealthy" ? Lmao.
Jealous and resentful libs can keep throwing as much MS as they want.
At the end of the day, Musk being the richest person on the planet is not because his family profited from Apartheid in South Africa, which they didn't, or because his father was in the emerald trade business, which wasn't a particularly profitable venture.
You're delusional if you genuinely believe he's so successful because he keeps getting lucky or because he comes from great wealth.
I am starting to see a pattern for sure. Everything you wrote is wildly opinionated, blatantly inaccurate and your basis on X being anti-woke/ far right leaning is not substantiated by any facts (much like your post) and that specific verbiage shows your own political bias which I have to assume led to your politically triggered tabloidesque hit piece.
Your first shit take is that Elon came from a rich family. Elons father has a total net worth of around 2 million USD. I dont know what planet you live on but that is barely enough to retire married and live middle class in America. The average home in NYS is worth 500k. The next shit take about ultra wealthy family connections should be self explanatory based on my first point about 2 mill being potatos in America.
Your next shit take was saying he merged with Confinity to avoid competition from Paypal as opposed to correctly saying they wisely merged together to combine funds/patent tech to beat Ebay and Wells Fargos creation BillPoint, which was a direct competitor to both companies. The merger was wildly successful and the company under Elon focused business operations on his company vision of becoming a leading payment processor. As a result of this vision BillPoint failed to gain any sort of competitive advantage over PayPal on any other online marketplace. This failure to gain traction inevitably lead to Ebay giving up on their partnership with Wells Fargo and thereafter they relinquished the rights to Paypal to be its sole payment platform provider on the site. Thiel was unhappy that Elon was focusing solely on becoming the internets main online payment provider, Thiel wanted PayPal to focus on online banking instead of payment processing. Thiel discontent with Elon's vision led to a coup. He got approval by the board of directors to oust Elon over his vision and took control of the company himself. Inevitably, Thiel and the board was proven wrong and the company had to re-adopt Elon's vision of of focusing on online payment processing. Paypal today is not known as an online banking institution. Nobody in their right mind would keep money on Paypal over a well established banking institution like Chase or Bank of America. PayPal's rise to Fortune 500 status was due entirely to its renown as the worlds largest payment processor. In the end, Elon's vision prevailed as the right course for the company and Thiel was proven wrong. PayPal only lost its status as the worlds leading online payment processor when Apple and Google used all of their competitive advantages gained in the computer and smartphone hardware/software to create their own payment processors which came preloaded into their phones and computers and worked in conjunction with their built in password managers.
I wont even go into th rest of it because everyone here already knows Tesla and Space X's stellar track record and the results speak for themselves. 9 out of every 10 EVs on the road are made by Teslas and the rest of the EVs not made by Tesla all use patents that Tesla released to them for free. SpaceX is so useful the president of Ukraine begged for it so they could use it for military communications and missile guidance systems. The only thing I can agree with is Nueralinks animal rights probe, which never amounted to any actual substantiated wrongdoing but should none the less be considered in a negative light because animal testing on its premise goes against many peoples moral code of ethics.
I am also seeing another pattern. Everything Musk touches seemingly starts off in a rough transition and then somehow turns into a golden investment. Weird how that works.
Mind you. I do not even like Elon. I think his celebrity status and the current public opinion of him as a boy genius is due entirely to him having an extremely good public relations team that caused an army of flying monkeys to follow him. But the hoops you are jumping through to paint him as a failure with no real capabilities as a CEO and businessman show clear examples of disingenious delusions and I think with that said... you need to be reminded to take your medication.
Seething fanboys incoming...
There is a woman named Lyn Alden who has some books in finance, quant, money theory etc. She is a Libertarian-core person overall and I find her views pretty interesting. Last year she went on a total rant against elon musk that was kinda hilarious but extremely scathing on the background of him censoring opposing views. The gist is that elon musk is overrated and lucky. She called him a marketer of ideas that aren't originally his (like you mentioned) and I totally agree. I mean, how could you go from $20bn to over $250bn in just two years when the entire world was in a state of slow collapse from covid? Near negative rates, hyper bubble equity market, and government contracts that are actually just subsidies and free handouts.
I cant stand him as a person tbh the guy is so fucking annoying and petty and cant talk coherently. He has the political mindset of a 14 year old who will end up on 4chan by next year. He's also a fucking cuck and a coward. He would call you a communist if you disagree with him. Meanwhile, he'd never call out China's government (the real communists) and their genocide bc it would hurt him. The receipts are there but people are just too stubborn
> Musk literally catching 275 tons rocket with chopsticks
> "BuT wHaT aBoUt HiS fAtHeR's EmErAlD mInE"
"The idea that he is some kind of genius inventor, innovator, etc. is a farce."
A laughable statement.
I can only imagine what people said about Nikola Tesla back in his day.
Absolutely brilliant mind + very long term perspective + unbreakable will
In short, I think those are the foundations of what Musk is. The kind of man that appears once in a century.
By being a cunt
Prefacing this by saying that I’m not necessarily a fan (especially with his recent ideological changes and actions), but if you read his biography (as written elsewhere here) there are certain patterns:
1) He’s (quite literally) a workaholic, and instills that mindset in his workforce. The workers themselves - at least the ones that make his firms so successful - are greatly driven by the missions of the companies. (Supposedly) saving the world through electric and/or self-driving cars. Making humans a multi-planetary species. You name it. This high-achieving, very hard-working workforce creates very efficient companies - both from an operational and a financial point of view.
2) He’s a maniac, but finds creative ways to monetize his craziness. Can’t reach Mars just yet? Produce the tiniest of satellites that provide very secure internet to help fund the way. (Btw, the Ukraine war was great advertising for the company). Similarly, want to put chips into all of our brains to converge human and technological capabilities? Create chips to treat neurological illnesses first - the American healthcare system will take care of the rest.
3) He got lucky. To become as wealthy through Zip2 and X.com/ PayPal. After that he basically just invested his money. Granted, the original founders of Tesla would have never made it as far with the company as he did, but had he not had as many millions to invest and own the company, he would have never become as rich to have the means to start/continue other ventures.
4) Insanely high risk tolerance. He may have gotten lucky with some investments, but he also has an unbelievably high risk tolerance. Practically throws his money from one investment into the next. With full conviction. He was close to bankruptcy multiple times, but somehow his investments always end up paying off. High risk, high reward.
5) Vertical Integration. Kind of like Zara was able to become as big of a conglomerate as they were able to build out their own supply chain, while traditional competitors were stuck with their older operational models. With all of his companies being fairly new, he was able to implement cost-effective supply chains for the majority of his companies (think Tesla Gigafactories), whereas legacy automakers are stuck with their older operations.
There are plenty more, but I’ll end with one important side note: Contrary to multiple beliefs/comments here, Elon Musk did not grow up as wealthy. There were years where his father did really well. But there were others where he didn’t, where Elon did not have a glamorous life whatsoever. (His father lives in poverty now. At least when he’s not selling himself or his son’s story to the Media). Moreover, his father scarred him. Which is why Elon is the man he is today: Crazy, but as Bill Gates has put it: “… there is no one in our time who has done more to push the bounds of science and innovation than he has.”
All self-made billionaires are lucky. It is 100% false that he was basically just an investor after Zip2 & PayPal. His role in Tesla and SpaceX is CEO. He has an absolutely extraordinarily ability to choose staff. His ability to build organizations is unrivaled by any current CEO.
The mental gymnastics that liberals and leftists are doing on this thread to try to discredit Musk's accomplishments and intelligence is pretty remarkable and actually quite hilarious.
You really have been brainwashed by the media to believe that anyone who supports Orange Man is necessarily low IQ, don't you?
Lol multiple studies show that people who support trump are largely non college educated white males. Definitely high IQ.
Are you sure you want to go down into the IQ rabbit hole? You're not going to win this argument.
What is the average IQ of Blacks who vote +80 points Democrats?
Just an offshoot of what people are saying above:
1. The real genius is he merged success with brilliance. People think he's smart because he's successful, and he's successful because people think he's smart. Not saying he's not smart or not successful, but he fronts everything. I think people want him to literally be on the Telsa factory floor installing every battery in every car before he's label legit, but it doesn't have to work that way. Same with Steve Jobs in a way, Jobs pushed people to make the Iphone, but he didn't design and implement every part of the phone. Also like Jobs, and some people may disagree, but he made some labeled "cool", people can argue about if a Telsa's cool, but a Telsa is somewhat a status symbol.
2. Said above, but he got lucky. Not, a won a lottery lucky, but lucky. Sometimes people are in the right place at the right time and it works. Think about Mark Cuban, guy sold his internet company at its height and the pre-2000 stock bust, and bought a sports team before they were massive billion dollar assets. You can't repeat that. Or, take someone like Lebron James, he could tell you that you can make it to the NBA if you work hard, but he leaves out the part where you have to be born with genetics to be 6'10" and run like a deer.
3. He keeps going. Similar to Buffet, he keeps doing it. That doesn't mean he is successful at every idea (or trade/stock purchase), but Buffet is Buffet mainly because when he was 60 he kept it going. Not saying everyone could do what Buffet could do, but there were probably people his age now or in their 60s just took the $100M they made and lived their life. Same with Musk, there are probably tech start up guys who made one company, got paid and you never hear from them. Also, just to reiterate, he keeps going, yea he has a message board here with people on the internet say he's not going at A, B or C, or he's not a good leader or a bad person, but he keeps going forward.
Elon's recipe for success as CEO is very simple yet also very hard to replicate.
Plain and simple
1 part intelligence (120-140 IQ with INTJ MBTI)
1 part obsessive, effective, efficient work ethic
2 parts love of researching seemingly random concepts which later aids him in his search for future products to invest in (electric engine, pivotting rocketry, satellite tech, nueral network etc)
2 parts hiring skilled teams of subordinates who are aligned with his vision
2 parts effective/efficient delegation of duties to said subordinates
4 parts transformational/ visionary leadership
He is no boy genius inventor like Westinghouse. Nothing his companies have created is all that original. Instead I'd put him in line with Steve Jobs, a hard working visionary who happens to also possess effective and efficient transformational leadership qualities with the ability to delegate responsibility accordingly.
He reads up on some concept that exists but is underdeveloped and has a vision of its future. Then he finds a company that has a product which fits that vision and works with subordinates to innovate and profitably make said vision a reality.
I would guess that his IQ is about 140. That's very smart (one in a few hundred in the US) but not extreme genius level. His extreme outlier trait is probably his willfulness.
I've worked with a guy who's like this (though probably less than Musk) who is very wealthy as a result. Call him "Joe". Joe is maniacally obsessed with achieving whatever goal he happens to have, and utterly refuses to take no for an answer, even if said goal isn't allowed by some regulation and the experts patiently explain to him various reasons why it can't be done. Sometimes the experts are right, but sometimes, if you push insanely hard, it turns out that you can produce results that the "sane", "reasonable" people haven't produced. Joe is is not anywhere near as smart as Musk, though, and his success, though huge compared to the average person's, is much smaller, and not in cutting-edge tech. Musk is what you get when you combine that kind of willfulness, dialed up to eleven, with very high intelligence.
Honestly, working for an intensely willful person like this can be a massive pain in the ass. They're totally willing to make the lives of everyone around them miserable, and to treat people as disposable tools as they pursue their goals. (For example, Joe, like Musk, is notorious for firing people at a moment's notice if they're not performing at peak level.)
People like this aren't "nice" or "decent" people at an ordinary human level. Part of me would like to say that being a really nice, decent person is the key to business greatness, but my experience and observation say otherwise.
I'd also guess he's somewhere around 140-160 IQ. Definitely top 1%
He's a brilliant self-promoter who is having the good luck to have his business career crest at a time when there is a major segment of the population willing to believe literally anything as long as it's couched as "elites don't want you to know this."
He doesn't manage 5 companies at once. He isn't a great leader. He's a guy who made a couple of excellent investments and has used that to hoodwink a fawning, unquestioning media into repeating just about anything he says as if it's a pearl of wisdom.
Also, he's made most of his money by taking handouts from the government. Not hard to be successful when you don't have to be profitable.
SpaceX and Tesla both receive huge subsidies right and gov contracts. He knew what to milk.
He is a great leader. His employees are 100% mission aligned and are far more productive than employees in competing companies. He sets the standard for work ethic.
How does he achieve this? I really struggle to see how people can be motivated to work so hard, given the alternatives (particularly within tech)? What's the incentive?
If by "alternatives", you mean other companies where the ratio of pay to work is more favorable, then yes, there are better alternatives. But the people whose incentive structures work like that tend not to go to SpaceX.
There is no real current competitor to SpaceX, if you're a very smart engineer who grew up obsessed with rockets and want to play the biggest possible role in making science fiction ideas real.
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