JP Rezendes - Leadership Book Project Elon Musk

Rezendes, 1
JP Rezendes
Ms. Godfrey
Honors Leadership
13 December 2019
Elon Musk Essay
In our world today, many prominent leaders can dominate one industry impressively.
However, there are only a few who can be exceptional leaders in more than one field of
expertise. One of these people is Elon Musk, helping create SolarCity, SpaceX, and Tesla. In this
essay, I will disclose how Musk was able to rise to the top of multiple industries and
simultaneously become an admired leader.
Elon Musk was born in South Africa on June 28, 1971, to his father who was a wealthy
engineer, and his mother who was a model. Musk was influenced greatly by his family, creating
good relationships with his siblings and learning a lot from his parents. Despite this, Elon was
not considered a normal child. Being an introverted genius, he found it hard to socialize and
make friends as a young kid.
In spite of his early social struggles, Musk excelled in school, eventually attending the
University of Pennsylvania. After graduating from here, he attended Stanford University but
dropped out after only 2 days of attendance to focus on Zip2, his first startup company. Zip2, ran
by himself and his brother Kimbal, was a major success, and the company sold for $342,000,000
4 years after its creation. Elon used this money to invest in his next project, X.com, which later
turned into PayPal. Only 3 years after this startup, PayPal was bought by eBay for
$1,500,000,000. This made Elon, who owned 11% of it, a multimillionaire.

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Elon since then has used this money to invest in and grow new startup companies, such
as Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity.The consistent success of each of his startups is one of his
biggest career accomplishments. However, I think that making the world a better planet is the
other biggest career accomplishment. Elon Musk was always a hardworking and tenacious
business man, but his motivation was not entirely the money. Instead, success is derived from the
personal belief and goal that his created technology would positively help not just the people of
earth, but also the planet itself, which has been accomplished through Tesla and SolarCity
I believe that Musk has had a tremendous impact in a few different areas. For starters,
Musk is the ideal entrepreneur. It goes without saying that his work ethic, determination, and
people skills are going to be emulated in the future. Additionally, his success as a CEO will also
try to be duplicated. Through his ability to share his vision with others, CEOs of the present and
the future are going to imitate him. One last area that he is going to have a lasting impact are in
the fields that his companies are, which is electric cars, Space exploration, and solar power. The
advancements that his companies have made will definitely be built off of in the future and
inspire those of the future. For these reasons, since Musk can have people follow him not just for
who he is but for what his vision represents, I would consider Elon Musk as a level 5 leader.
While researching Musk, the biggest takeaway I had was the effect of having a few
certain leadership qualities; vision, risk-taking, and work ethic. Musk demonstrated these
qualities remarkably, and without them he would not have been able to attain the level of success
that he has.
First off, Musk has had incredible vision. This vision has had a major part of not just the
creation of his companies, but the everyday life of his companies, such as the vision to create the
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best electric car. Secondly, Musk would not be where he is today without taking risks. After
becoming a multimillionaire after selling PayPal, instead of living off that money for the rest of
his life, he risked a good portion of his wealth to crebiograte Tesla and SpaceX. Lastly, Musk
had an insane work ethic. At one point in his career, Musk would have 120 hour work weeks and
often sleep at his office. In conclusion, these characteristics have been vital to Musk’s success,
and I think that any leader will benefit greatly by obtaining and utilizing these qualities.
The book that I read for my project was a biography by Ashlee Vance, and I found this
book to be very well written. On the back cover, the New York Times gave the synopsis that this
biography was “exhaustively reported.” This statement definitely rings true, and since this book
covered Musk’s whole life in detail, it makes sense that it was a 400-page read. This being said,
since it was “exhaustively reported”, I found that at many times I would come across paragraphs
and even pages that would go off on a serious tangent. While these tangents gave great
background information, it also made finding instances of Musk’s leadership a lot harder, since I
had to go through a lot of information that proved to be futile. Nevertheless, even though there is
a lot of irrelevant information, the book definitely does not miss any key information, which is
why I would recommend it to another student.

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Rezendes, 1

Elon Musk Essay

simultaneously become an admired leader.

make friends as a young kid.

$1,500,000,000. This made Elon, who owned 11% of it, a multimillionaire.

why I would recommend it to another student.

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