From the news of the Tesla killers first circulating in the year 2015 to the news of another Twitter killer launched in the year 2023, here are the lessons to learn on why Elon Musk’s businesses never fail despite his many obstacles.
Unlike many businesses that were started by business owners and eventually go into bankruptcy, Elon’s businesses always prove to weather circumstances, become profitable, and get sold or remain owned by him.
Let’s look at some of the businesses led by Elon Musk and his unique vision for them
Beginning from his very first company, here is the list of the companies Elon Musk has led in the past together with the ones he is presently leading.
The business founded by Elon Musk and his brother, Kimbal, started as an online directory in 1995 before pivoting into becoming a city guide software for newspapers.
It later sold for over $300 million in 1999 to Compaq Computer Corporation. But this was not before Elon Musk got ousted as the CEO of his company in 1996 by the board of directors who decided to install a ‘more experienced’ CEO in his place.
Shortly after selling Zip2, Elon Musk co-founded X.com in 1999, a digital financial service and payment company.
His company later merged with its rival, Confinity a year later, retaining the X.com name but later renamed Paypal in 2001.
The board of directors also fired Elon Musk from being the company’s CEO in 2000 while on a honeymoon vacation.
Paypal went on to become a publicly traded company making Musk richer and then acquired by eBay.
Given his desire to reduce the cost of putting humans on Mars, Elon Musk started SpaceX in the year 2022.
Although faced with several setbacks and near bankruptcy, Elon pushed on from the first 3 failed launches of the Falcon 1 until its successful launch at its fourth attempt which later earned him a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services award by NASA and which financially saved his company.
SpaceX also operates Starlink, a satellite constellation running internet services.
Tesla was incorporated by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in the year 2003 after which Musk joined it as the Chairman of the Board of Directors in the year 2004 after investing $6 3 million dollars in Tesla stocks.
Elon Musk became Tesla CEO in 2008, the same year the company released its first electric car, Roadster.
Drained of cash to keep both SpaceX and Tesla running, he split his last $ 40 million between those companies and both would have gone bankrupt had he not won the contract he got for SpaceX on December 23, 2008.
Tesla has gone ahead to acquire SolarCity and formed its subsidiary, Tesla Energy Operations.
Neuralink is a Nanotechnology company co-founded by Elon Musk in the year 2016 with the aim of building an implantable brain-computer interface capable of translating thoughts into action.
The company officially launched in the year 2017 and has done a series of tests with its brain chips on animals.
It is set for a human test this year 2023. Neuralink is now worth $5 billion
The Boring Company is a tunnel construction service company founded by Elon Musk in 2016 to enhance tunneling speed and reduce traffic.
It has so far completed 1.7 miles of tunnels, a three-station transportation system called the Last Vegas Convention Centre Loop(LVCC), and is now valued at $5.7 billion as of the Year 2022.
Elon Musk announced that he had become the largest shareholder of Twitter by April 2022. Some days later he announced his intention to buy Twitter and after some lengthy issues, he completed his purchase in October of the same year at $ 44 billion.
Ever since then, he has had issues with negative press from the media upon firing over 80% of Twitter’s workforce and embarked on several changes in the company.
Although Elon reported that the company still has a negative cash flow, its user base keeps getting stronger despite the media’s prediction of its death especially by its new lookalike rival, Threads App by Instagram.
This is Elon Musk’s latest company, an artificial intelligence company that started to “understand the true nature of the universe”.
Joining the series of AI tools Including ChatGPT by Open AI(another company Elon co-founded but has been critical of), XAI is a new company on its way to showing its success to the world.
Here are some 7 reasons why Elon Musk’s businesses never fail and how to ensure yours too never fail.
A business only succeeds to the extent that it can satisfy its customers’ desires and keep those customers.
This is Elon s forte.
Beyond just having a passion for a business product, Elon understands how to always meet customer satisfaction when deciding on product functionality.
He demonstrated this with his start-ups Zip2 and X.com, with Tesla, and now with Twitter by developing features that benefit the creators, especially with the current ad revenue share, which has helped to keep them on Twitter in spite of the initial threat from the Instagram Threads app.
Not many business owners have the time to respond to customers’ complaints. This is probably why Elon Musk has maintained a growing cult-like loyalty from bus customers at his various companies including Tesla and Twitter.
His apt response to individual customer complaints on Twitter always earns him praise amongst his followers earning him a celebrity status on the platform.
This is perhaps one reason Elon Musk will always keep an increasing number of customers in his businesses.
While many easily give up in the midst of stress or adverse circumstances, Elon Musk has always faced and summoned adverse circumstances in his businesses.
From persevering in the apparent possibility of SpaceX and Tesla going into bankruptcy to staying the course and making efforts to move Twitter away from having negative cash flow,
Elon has shown the stability every entrepreneur must have and show to have in order to have its employees, customers, and investors keep faith in the company until it moves toward success
READ MORE: Why Businesses Fail and How To Spot Your Business Trajectory
Had it not been for the availability of the $180 million he got from the sale of his stocks in Paypal to eBay, Elon wouldn’t have even had the capacity to start SpaceX and also invest in Tesla.
In fact, had NASA not awarded SpaceX the $1.6 billion contract on December 23, 2008, SpaceX and Tesla might have gone bankrupt despite the enormous vision he had for both companies.
Having enough working capital available for your business to succeed can never be an overstatement when it comes to avoiding business failure.
You must by all means put the availability of working capital and where to get it into consideration when you want to start your business.
Although some former employees and even the media have criticized Elon for the corporate culture of his businesses stretching his employees and making them work for long hours.
it is also a known fact that Elon Musk encourages his workforce to come up with new ideas and solutions that have helped his company become innovative over the years.
The demand to work for long hours especially when deadlines are fast approaching might be taken as unpleasant to some but it has worked to help his business remain efficient.
A business thrives when its model allows it to run profitably and when its systematic approach allows it to run effectively and fulfill its obligations to its customers without having its employees remain lackadaisical.
Elon’s ability to make decisions that open new avenues for innovation, ditch what is not working, and find what works has helped keep his businesses running
Elon Musk proved to always find what works and go after it by cutting costs sacking some Twitter employees(which encouraged other hesitating tech companies to do the same), and deciding to not rely solely on Twitter Ad revenue thereby starting a subscriptions model(which was also copied by Meta) then started rate limiting, and paid creators a percentage of the ad revenue, etc,
Despite the fact that the media has always projected his rivals to Jill his businesses, Elon Musk has always shown his ability to keep his customers and maintain the lead in his industries.
His SpaceX and Tesla companies remain the leading companies in their industries and even Twitter has proven to remain standing despite the threat of competitors.
His ability to learn from his previous setbacks and weather the storms to success has proven an asset in helping him succeed in every one of his businesses.
Starting a business and running it successfully is not an easy task. More so is running multiple businesses at the same time.
But having the qualities above understanding why Elon Musk’s businesses never fail will ensure you also as a business owner are able to prevent any business failure and prepare yourself solidly towards success.
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