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0 INTRODUCTION
The world today is evolving rapidly than ever before. New start-ups, technology and
innovations are surfacing almost every month. However, the relevancy, market threat,
consumer behaviours, productivity, economic and political factors determine the success of
the business model. Traditional success methods such as operational excellence, financial
resources, excessive marketing can never guarantee the survival of the business in the era of
leadership and high passion towards innovation and technology. The one thing I admire
about Musk is that, his uncompromising and unconstrained ambition disrupts the aerospace,
visionary, inventor and leader of Space X, Tesla Motors, Zip2, PayPal and others. He also
‘Hyperloop’ to carry people and materials over a huge distance quickly and affordably,
crowded cities (Phelan, 2017). Along his journey, he has won many awards and recognitions
for his perseverance towards reaching to another planet for human species survival, using
renewable energy to power premises and disruption to automotive highways in the world.
He has also acclaimed to be the only person to have developed three separate billion dollar
companies (Olivier, 2003). The researcher has also mentioned that Musk is able to think and
act differently under pressure, where he is constantly passionate about getting his own way
and not compromising to get it done. Besides, he has also been praised for his long-term
vision and protecting it even during toughest times and being focused only on the goal. Elon
Musk is undeniably a captivating and inspirational figure, but how did he lead his companies
and become Forbes 20 Most Powerful Man in the world, how was his development as a
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leader influenced in his victories and can these qualities imitated by his followers and
The aim of this study is to know the contributions and achievements of Elon, evaluate
the Big Five Personality Model and how is it related to Musk and find the leadership theory
qualities that Elon Musk possessed and how these qualities impacted his success.
(2019), Elon Reeve Musk was born in 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa to father Errol Musk,
model and nutritionist. He is the eldest to his two siblings, Kimbal (1972), and Tosca (1974).
In 1979, after his parents parted ways, the nine-year old Elon and his brother Kimbal mostly
spent their time living with his father, Errol at few places in South Africa. Musk attended
the private Waterkloof House Preparatory School, then later attended and graduated from
Pretoria Boys High School. Musk is noted to read enthusiastically during his school days,
often being referred to being bookworm. He was an avid fan of comics. Often being bullied
in school due to being a short and bookworm figure, he became more introvert and withdrew
himself to books and computer. He exhibited an early interest and talent for computers and
entrepreneurship. He then quickly taught himself programming and developed a game at the
age of 12, called Blastar to Spectravideo and sold it to another company for a price of $500.
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Figure 1: Elon Musk with his brother, Kimbal Musk
2.2. Education
In 1989, the 17-years-old Musk obtained Canadian citizenship and moved to Canada
with his mother to attend Queen’s University to avoid mandatory service in the South
African military. In 1992, Musk went to University of Pennsylvania and graduated with an
graduation, the 24-years-old Musk travelled to California to study for his PhD in Applied
Physics at Stanford University. Barely starting his PhD, he realized the internet booming, he
dropped just after 2 days with entrepreneurial visions in his mind to start a new company.
2.3. ZIP2
In 1995, Elon and his brother Kimbal borrowed $28000 from their father to rent an
office space where they used it for both house and working space and quickly launched a
company called Zip2 in the period of computer rising. Zip2 is a licensed web software
company that provided online city guides to newspapers such as The New York Times and
The Chicago Tribune. When the company became profitable, Musk lost his control of his
enterprise, and the company board refused him and chose another new CEO saying he was
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not equipped to be a CEO as he lacked the skills and wisdom to be one. Four years later,
they sold their company to Compaq for $307 million in cash, and Elon received $22 million
According to Fourtané (2018), in 1999, Musk and his brother, Kimbal used the
money from Zip2 and launched the first online financial services company, X.com, that
enabled people to transfer money online which later became PayPal after merging with
method. Musk was once again ousted in a coup and was not allowed to be the CEO of PayPal
for the same reason. Musk then gained $165 million as the largest shareholder when PayPal
According to Urban (2015), During the early 2000’s, Musk started reading about
rocket technology and space expenditure enthusiastically. After acquiring $165 million from
the sale of PayPal, he went on investing in the most unthinkable and new venture, rocket
commercializing space travel with reusable building spacecraft, instead of retiring and
enjoying relaxed life with the money. The vision of Space X is to revolutionize the cost of
space travel to cheaper and to develop a multi-planetary colonization for the human species
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by colonizing Mars. After being turned down as CEO multiple times, Elon started exhibiting
his skills and capabilities by learning all the technical requirements of the role and also
showing a great leadership by carrying all-function mantle to make his company a success,
After several failures and explosions, in the end of 2015, the first stage Falcon rocket
landed back at the launch pad. Historically, it is the first time that an orbital rocket landed
back after launching, which allows the company to move towards rocket reusability,
reducing the costs of entry to outer space. This achievement was replicated several times
later on by landing an autonomous spaceport drone ship, an ocean based recovery platform
and Falcon Heavy rocket, which was most powerful operational rocket in the world. After
gaining trust of the investors, Space X received permission from the federal government to
test and launch 4000 satellites into low orbit to beam Internet services to the entire globe,
including remote regions. In 2008, SpaceX was accoladed a contract by NASA to handle
cargo transport for the International Space Station, in order to transport astronaut in the
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2.6 Tesla Motors
Elon was already passionately active in his next launching, which would help place
him in the eye of this global and a very regulated market that was dominated by governments,
national rivalries and strategic needs. In 2004, as Space X was pacing up slowly into
becoming successful, Musk decided to multi-task by launching the next most unthinkable
and prudent venture, which is a pure electric car company, Tesla, with the purpose of
revolutionizing the global automotive industry by remarkably quickening the advent of all-
green-electric car world, in order to move prioritizing sustainable energy future (Urban,
2015). In 2008, Musk showed leadership and became Tesla CEO. In order to avoid
bankruptcy, Musk came up with strategies, including by firing 25% of Tesla employees. The
Tesla Roadster came out as prototype in 2006, then began production in 2008 and Musk
steered the decision making for the product design at a detailed level. Musk aim was always
to build bigger, faster and lasting car. Musk then decided to drop his salary to one dollar,
where his remainder of his compensation was of stock and performance-based bonuses
(Mair, 2016). Today, Tesla met its target of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars, 2,000 Model S
sedans and Model X SUVs per week. By the end of 2018, Musk stepped down as chairman
of Tesla but remains as CEO, due to the matters related to taking the firm private.
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2.7. Solar City, Hyperloop, Boring Company, Open AI
Open AI is a research company launched in 2015, by Elon Musk in 2015 exclusively
for the development of artificial intelligence. Musk is also concerned about the safety of AI
and how to curb this with specific rules in the programming of AI system, so that it will be
Solar City was launched in 2016, where it is about installing solar panels to decrease
the effects of global warming and to promote and advance sustainable energy. In 2013 Solar
City became the second largest solar installation company in the United States. His three
successful companies, Tesla, Space X and Solar City invested in Solar City stocks in order
Hyperloop, launched in 2017, a super-high speed train that travels in a vacuum tube
was introduced in a way to reduce traffic. This high-tech train has outlined a notional route
where it will be able to commute passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30
minutes, whereas Boring Company is to dig a network of tunnels in the cuties of high traffic
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3.0 BIG FIVE PERSONALITY MODEL
The Big Five-Factor personality model was initiated as a taxonomy of ungenerous and
systematic combination of a wide range group of personality characteristics, where the traits
neuroticism (Costa & McCrae, 1992). To a leader as inspiring as Elon Musk, it is essential
above others.
(i) Extraversion
Extraverts are naturally an energetic person when it comes to interacting with others.
A person who possess extraversion constantly seek upbeat, excitement and social
interaction (Barrick & Mount, 1991). This extraversion quality is essential during
and reflecting social skills that catalyst effective interactions, decision making and
People who are open to experience are interested to master new things and enjoy new
experiences (Thiel, 2018). Examples of traits under openness prefer being intuitive
and imaginative and having a huge variety of interests. Costa and McCrae (1992),
mentioned that people who are open are imaginative, intellectually curious to try new
things, and open to new ideas and approaches. These qualities motivate the person
and the people around the person to learn more things and adapt, thus an important
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(iii) Agreeableness
agreeable person tends to be more distant. According to Bartone et al. (2009), highly
agreeable person is trustworthy, truthful and concerned for the welfare of others, thus
(iv) Conscientiousness
(v) Neuroticism
Neuroticism person has a complex emotions structure, for instance, anxiety, hostility,
central attention and responsibilities as well as leadership roles and also lack the
According to the media, Musk is an introverted man since his childhood and scores very low
in the trait of agreeableness at the workplace. Geddess (n.d), noted that Musk has exhibit
few undesirable behaviours, which has exposed him as self-centred, tough to work with, and
arrogant. However, he shows great leadership qualities which enable him to reach more
successes despite of his complicated personality. Elon Musk possess the personality qualities
of Openness and Conscientiousness, based on his work ethics, successes, and continuous
innovation.
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Elon Musk’s openness to learning has been proven from his childhood. He was often
bullied, thus he retreated from social life and started reading books and learning about
computer and programming. Yauney (2018) reasoned the high natural sense of curiosity of
Musk is caused by the immense amount of independence he has gotten as a child. In addition,
the separation of his parents when he was nine-years-old has given him and his brother ample
time to learn and explore the world on their own. For instance, at the age of 12, Musk has
taught himself programming from his new computer manual book and programmed his own
game called, Blaster and sold it for $500 to a company, learning entrepreneurship. Elon
Musk's way of leading is about continuously learning, breaking through barriers, and
developing unique solutions to solve problems. This sense of curiosity has lead Musk to
launch his own space company, Space X without proper aerospace education, where all the
knowledge about advanced levels of rocket science are from his own personal study. Today,
Space X is on par with NASA from Russia, and is an official space exploration company of
the U.S. His traits of curiosity and openness to new things will promote culture of constant
learning and growth among the employees in all his companies to bring the best out of them,
which are important in the competitive edge of industry. Andrew et al., (2016), concluded
in his study that a learning culture in a company promotes job motivation and positively
Even though Musk is criticised of being a workaholic and bringing others to work
with him crazy hours in the companies, his conscientiousness has played a huge part in
inspiring his employees to 80-100 hours per week with him and in driving the success of his
businesses (Marsh, 2019). Elon Musk is goal-oriented and visionary, and truly believes in
every business that he ventures in. His strong vision and organizational skills gave him no
fear in facing and tackling problems from different major industries like automotive,
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whenever a problem arises in his organization to come up with solutions (Marsh, 2019).
Employees working in his companies often complain his autocratic and offensive behaviour,
however they remain being loyal because they are attracted to the visionary and working
hard to reach goals leadership style of Musk. For instance, during bad phase of Tesla, Musk
worked 120 hours a week and slept in office sofa, has encouraged his employees to work the
same hours to meet the production target (Blazek, 2019). Being able to run multiple
companies from different industries as well as generating enormous profit and strong vision
of Musk for better future will create a sense of urgency in his companies and encourage his
workers to work harder towards a greater cause with immense focus (Fairyington, 2019).
In the era of fast-paced revolution happening in the current industry, there are
frequent innovations and technology shifts, thus a leader should be responsible of leading
the organization towards the revolution effectively. The constant changing in the work
culture and demand due to the technology agility needs a transformation leadership for the
effective management of the knowledge in order to stay in today’s market (Crawford, 2005).
In this regard, Elon Musk has shown transformational leadership quality with his strong
technical knowledge and single-minded vision for his companies. In order to be on par with
the fast changing workforce skills, technology, knowledge enrichment ways, Musk has
with ease, as they are discovering new things in their journey (Marshall, 2011). Elon Musk,
after being rejected of being CEO in both Zip2 and PayPal, and after selling the two
companies, constantly exploring and working on new ideas as he was visionary and a natural
transformational leader. According to Bass (1999), transformational leader will motivate and
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prompt their co-workers intellectually than other ordinary leaders who stresses on usual
practices. Tesla, right from its origin, has the soul of innovation. Elon Musk was the car
designing strategy chief and has hands-on in the models’ innovative designs. He also
introduced the improved battery technology which resulted in the increased sustainability of
the automotive industry. Therefore, Elon Musk’s way of bringing in change in the agile
industry and facing challenges motivates his employees to practice agility in the way they
work. The transformation style of Musk is worthy to equip his employees to be capable of
Besides, Elon Musk’s drive has influenced his workers in a transformational way, by
setting unimaginable goals for his employees within limited time to speed up the innovation
and performances (Gayathri & Kumari, 2019). For instance, his employees shifted large
stamping presses within 16 weeks, which would normally take an annum. The persistent
strive for innovation established innovative Tesla culture, where working towards a goal,
resisting time. As a result, today, Tesla is producing world’s fastest car, Tesla Roadster 2.0
which takes 2.1 seconds to hit 60mph (96.6km/h) and Tesla is now ruling the electric car
market without worthy competition. Besides, they have also met the target of producing
5000 Model 3 cars, 2000 Model S sedans and Model X SUVs per week (Writers, 2019).
5.0 CONCLUSION
Elon Musk has exhibit many qualities which resulted in many successes and
downfalls, however critics are strongly urging him to step down from his businesses. No
matter what, Musk’s strive for constant learning, innovation and transformational leadership
resulted his companies including Space X and Tesla achieving the present position and
creating an inspirational image for himself. Learning the personalities and leadership
qualities of Elon Musk can enable us to analyse and inculcate these qualities into managers
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in today’s companies. Forecasting the rapid change of technology and work culture in the
future, employees should be agile for the success of the company and creating a positive
growth of the company and to gain a competitive edge. Furthermore, we should constantly
habituate by perceiving our environment, evaluating our options, deciding on a path forward
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