A Biography of Elon Reeve Musk, a Businessman, Inventor and Investor
Elon Reeve Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa on June 28, 1971. Elon is the son of Maye who was a model from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and Errol Musk who was a South African electromechanical engineer. Unfortunately, his parents divorced in 1980 and Musk lived in South Africa with his father. Musk started early with computing, and at the age of 10 he taught himself how to code on the Commodore VIC- 20. Starting his entrepreneur career early, he sold a game he made for around $500.
During the summer of 1989, Musk moved to Canada after graduating from high school. He continued to go on to college and attend Queen’s University in Ontario and Univer- sity of Pennsylvania. In 1995, he moved to California to study at Stanford University and get a Ph.D. This did not last long because he left the program 2 days later to continue his entrepreneurial pursuit. His interests were the Internet, renewable energy, and outer space. Musk went on to start many great companies such as Zip2, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors.
Most people do not work an 18-hour day. Elon Musk is different from most of the working people in the world. He barely gets to eat lunch. Musk has to get some emails and spreadsheets done while taking a break. He is committed to what he does every day and enjoys his work. If you don’t love what you do then what you are doing will not be good. Musk truly loves his work and his companies have been very successful be- cause of it. He eats, sleeps, and breathes his work and is happy with his career. This characteristic of Musk is what makes him successful in the business world.
Elon Musk’s company, Tesla Motors, does not put their money into advertising. Musk wants to perfect his products and focuses all efforts to doing so. Elon Musk said, “A lot of companies get confused, they spend money on things that don’t actually make the product better.” He prefers to have an amazing product over having the best marketing in the world. This is different from most other companies. Almost every company you can think of spends millions of dollars on advertising and commercials to promote a product. This isn’t bad for a company to do, but Elon sets himself apart from the rest. This results in people all over the work loving the cars that are produced. The newest Tesla Model-3 is out of stock for 4 years because of the pre-order demands. Musk would never sell a product that was not desirable to himself and it has made him very successful.
Business involves taking risks and Elon definitely has taken many risks. Taking risks is a huge part of why Elon Musk is successful. Tesla at one point was about to be a fail- ure. Elon spent so much of his own wealth right into the company. This was a huge risk for himself and the company. His risk wound up paying off after the release of the Model-S which consumers loved. This shows you Elon’s confidence in his company and himself. This brought his company to another level. His risk equalled his success and it brought him to his net worth of around $12.5 billion dollars.
In conclusion, Elon Musk is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. He has been pursuing entrepreneurship since his was 10 years old. He has grown to be very successful in what he does and he keeps on getting better. He is committed to his work, he perfects his products, and takes risks in his businesses. These characteristics have brought him to where he is now. Elon Musk is a great example of productivity and it pays off in his work. Musk is going to continue to love his work and keep on pursuing greater success in the business world.
