Life Inspiration - The Success Story of Elon Musk

Kimi Teo
Mar 3, 2017
5 min read

Like a perfectly scripted movie, Elon Musk has been teased with an epic success after a seemingly overwhelming near-failure.

This is the story of Elon Musk, the man who has been shaping the world for the last 2 decades.

Elon Musk early successes (1995 - 2002)

In 1995, a 24-year-old Elon Musk co-founded a web software company (Zip2) together with his brother, Kimbal Musk. Elon Musk coded Zip2 which was like an online yellow page. Zip2 enabled companies to post content on the internet, such as map and directory listing. The software was a success and the company was later sold in February 1999, netting Elon Musk US$22 millions in sale.

In 1999, 28-year-old Elon Musk co-founded x.com. The company was later renamed Paypal and became a money transfer servicing company which we know today. Paypal was a product which challenged the banking system and it succeeded. Subsequently, Paypal was sold to eBay in October 2000, netting Elon Musk US$165 million in sale.

Trips to Russia - Start of SpaceX

Not long after the sale of Paypal, Elon Musk was started on his next project - to make "Mankind a multi-planetary species". Knowing nothing about aerospace at that time, Elon Musk soughed help from aerospace expert Jim Cantrell and a trusted friend/adviser Adeo Ressi. The plan was to send plant seed onto Mars to prove that life could thrive on the planet.

Jim Cantrell recalling about Elon Musk's spat incident on Quora

Knowing that a rocket was required, the team traveled to Russia to talk the rocket dealers. However, the meeting did not go well. Elon Musk was not taken seriously and was even spat at by a Russian chief designer. The team had to return empty-handed.

In February 2002, the team traveled to Russia again. This time prepared with a briefcase full of cash and looking to buy 3 rockets. Elon Musk also added an aerospace consultant,Mike Griffin, into his team to help in the negotiation.

Soon, negotiation started but Elon Musk was shocked to discover that one rocket would cost them a whopping $8 million. Elon Musk tried to negotiate 2 rockets for $8 million and was plainly rejected. Elon Musk walked out of the negotiation and that was the moment he decided to make his own rocket.

It was on March 2002, Elon Musk founded SpaceX to achieve the goal of making "Mankind a multi-planetary species" and to cut down cost of space travelling.

Tesla

On 23 April 2004, Elon Musk invested in an electric automobile company named Tesla Motor and became the chairman of the board. Electric cars have always been a passion for Elon Musk and Tesla Motor was producing the world's first electric sports-car at that time.

Later on October 2008, after an internal strife in Tesla Motor, Elon Musk took over and became the CEO. This was despite still being engaged in productions of SpaceX. Musk has to juggle between the two companies at that time.

By then, Tesla Motor was already in the spotlight of the world, problems arose and their sport-car was delayed again and again for 2 years. When the car (Tesla Roadster) was finally released, there were reliability problems. In the end, 75% of their sport-car had to be recalled to fix the issue.

It was definitely not a successful product launch.

Crisis strikes - SpaceX , Tesla and Divorce

Then also in 2008, the financial crisis happened. Companies were being wiped out one by one. It was no surprise that both Tesla and SpaceX were also at its mercy.

At that point of time, Tesla had not produced their next cars and SpaceX had not launched a single successful rocket. In fact, SpaceX had failed in all three of their rocket test. The world was watching and confidence was falling for both companies. It was looking bleak.

Adding to the woes, Elon Musk was undergoing a divorce with his then wife, Justine Musk, all at the same time.

Elon Musk even pumped all his money from the sales of Paypal into Tesla and SpaceX. It was estimated that Tesla Motor was still only able to survive for another 2 weeks at that point.

Musk had only used his own money in Tesla so far as he believed that Tesla was going to fail so he refused to take money from investors. Elon Musk even had to borrow money from his friends to survive.

It was impossible for Tesla to stay afloat with just his own investment.

In SpaceX, they had already failed 3 rockets and Elon Musk only had capital for them to fail one last time. A forth failure would means the company would be bankrupt.

Elon Musk was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The Turnaround

The turnaround started only on 28 September 2008, when SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon 1 rocket into orbit. It was an emotional launch for Elon Musk as it was also the last rocket they could afford to launch. Any tiny error for a rocket could have resulted in a totally different outcome.

NASA awarded SpaceX with a $1.6 million contract for a project to send cargoes onto the International Space Station. SpaceX was saved.

On the other hand, Tesla was still desperate. They started a round of financial funding in the recession. Companies were barely surviving, much less to help others.

On 24 December 2008, the last day of the last hours of Tesla's financial funding, the United States Department of Energy loaned $465 million to their operations. It was a crucial loan as Elon Musk mentioned if not for this loan, Tesla Motor would have gone bankrupt in the next few days.

Months later, Tesla was able to secure a massive investments from Daimler (parent company of Mercedes-Benz) which pulled them through their financial woes.

I didn't really think Tesla would be successful, I thought that we would likely fail. But I thought that we would at least address the false perception people had that electric cars had to be ugly and slow like a golf club." - Elon Musk

Elon Musk has always held the thoughts that the two companies may actually fail in the early times.

He admits SpaceX and Tesla only has a 10% chance to succeed. Despite discouragement from his friends. he still choose to dive head first into the two companies. This is how much Musk wanted to achieve his dreams.

Today, SpaceX is the only private company to return a spacecraft from earth's orbit, while Tesla has built a giant battery factory, released 2 successful models and are planning to make their vehicles fully autonomous.

Elon Musk has innovated in whichever sectors he touches. Yet he has gone through tough times in the early days of the companies before they have made it this far.

Even dipping himself into debt, he chooses to pursue fully into building his dreams. Not everybody chase their dream to this extent and this is what make Elon Musk successful.