When the definitive history of the early 21st Century is written I would be surprised if Elon Musk is not considered the most consequential person of this period.
I have observed Musk from afar over the last decade or so but did not fully appreciate the man until I recently read his biography by Walter Isaacson.
To suggest that Elon Musk is unique is an understatement.
Yes, he has a unique personality.
There are not many who would get on the stage at a New York Times Deal Book Summit televised nationally by CNBC, as he did last week, and tell advertisers on his X platform to "Go F*** Yourselves" if they want to try to blackmail him.
Musk was responding to boycotts by major advertisers who state they do not want to advertise on Twitter/X because of alleged antisemitic content.
However, recent data shows that there is a much higher percentage of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content on Tik Tok and Instagram than on X. How come they are not pulling their advertising on these platforms?
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| Source: https://www.outkick.com/advertisers-using-antisemitism-claims-to-bring-down-elon-musk-and-x-ahead-of-election-bobby-burack/ |
Do you understand why Elon is a little upset?
Musk is just as unique in his personal relationships. He has been married three times (twice married and divorced from his second wife) and has 10 surviving children (his first child died from SIDS at 10 weeks of age).
In the book he is depicted as recently having close relationships of various degrees with three women at the same time, two of which bore his children either through surrogacy or IVF. One of his young sons is named X AE A-XII Musk. In the book, his young son X (his first name) is not far away from Elon at any time whether at Twitter's offices or at a SpaceX launch.
Musk is also uniquely talented. He was a joint Physics and Business major in college but made his first entrepreneurial success in being the first to write program code to combine business listings with map data which he dubbed the Virtual City Navigator. His vision was to disrupt the Yellow Pages on the internet.
We look at this as common place today but someone had to be the first to do it.
Along the way Musk also become an expert in rocket science, satellite technology, manufacturing technology, robotics and artificial intelligence.
When Musk locks in on something he wants to do he usually goes "all in" in pursuit of it,
His second big vision was that he wanted to disrupt the banking industry.
This led him to get involved with developing PayPal as an alternative payment system to complete with the banking industry.
Musk looked at the PayPal payment system as the first phase of his vision to disrupt the banking system but his other partners saw no need to go beyond the success they were achieving with PayPay. This difference in vision ultimately led to the ouster of Musk as CEO of PayPal. However, he ended up cashing in his stock for $250 million when eBay acquired PayPal in 2002.
This allowed Musk to pursue what could be described as two core visions he had for a very long time.
Building a spaceship capable of traveling to Mars and developing an electric car.
Musk was talking about both visions when he was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania 30 years ago.
At a gathering of PayPal alums after the company had been acquired Isaacson writes in the book that one of the alums asked Elon what he planned to do next.
Musk answered straightaway.
"I'm going to colonize Mars. My mission in life is to make mankind a multi planetary civilization."
His former colleague remembers telling Musk he was "bananas" crazy as Musk sat in a pool cabana reading a tattered manual for a Russian rocket engine
Reid Hoffman, another PayPal veteran who ultimately founded NetFlix, after listening to Elon describe his plan to send rockets to Mars was puzzled and asked him,
"How is that a business?"
Later Hoffman would realize that Musk didn't think that way.
"What I didn't appreciate is that Elon starts with a mission and later finds a way to backfill in order to make it work financially." That's what makes him a force of nature."
There is no better way to describe Musk than as a "force of nature".
Part of what drives Musk forward is a deep concern for humanity.
From Isaacson's book,
Elon found it surprising---and frightening --- that technological progress was not inevitable. It could stop and even backslide. America had gone to the moon. But then came the grounding of the Shuttle missions and an end to the progress.
"Do we want to tell our children that going to the moon is the best we did, and then we gave up?, he asks.
Ancient Egyptians learned how to build the pyramids, but then that knowledge was lost. The same happened to Rome, which built aqueducts and other wonders that were lost in the Dark Ages. Was that happening to America?"
"People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves", he would say in a TED talk a few years later. "It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better."
Elon Musk has worked harder than anyone to see to it that technology does improve to benefit humanity.
And by force of will, effort, smarts and personality, Elon Musk does what others see as impossible.
He has a unique drive propelling him ever forward.
This is a common theme in the book.
Time and again as challenges were met with SpaceX or Tesla, Elon would be unwilling to accept that something could not be done.
Elon Musk believes that anything that is not prohibited by the laws of physics is capable of being accomplished given sufficient knowledge.
Simply stated, if the law of physics does not prevent it, man can attain it. Physics is the only constraint when looking to solve a problem. If physics does not dictate it can't be done, there is a solution.
This philosophy imbues Musk with a unique optimism that allows him and those he leads to overcome incredible obstacles.
Isaacson cites example after example in the book of engineering, manufacturing or other challenges at SpaceX or Tesla which clearly could not have been overcome and solved without Musk's indomitable attitude and unique optimism.
What Elon Musk has created is almost incomprehensible.
Tesla is just not an electric car company. It is the standard by which all EV's are compared. Musk has succeeded while the large global car companies are still struggling to produce electric vehicles that people will buy and which they can make a profit on.
Tesla outsold all of its EV competitors combined in the first half of 2023.
It outsold its nearest competitor (GM) with almost 10x the sales volume.
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| Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-u-s-ev-sales-in-h1-2023/ |
This month Tesla is beginning to sell its CyberTruck.
Musk says that Tesla does not advertise but take a look at this video that went up on social media with the introduction of the Cybertruck. I dare say that is pretty effective marketing.
The Cybertruck vs. a Porsche in a drag race.
Most people are probably not as familiar with what Musk has done with SpaceX.
Entering a field that previously was the sole domain of sovereign nations, Musk has built a company that right now is doing what NASA used to do.
For example, in the first quarter of 2022 SpaceX launched twice as much mass into orbit as all other countries and companies in the world COMBINED!
In 2023, SpaceX is now on a path to launch over 80% of all payload into orbit from earth this year be they sovereign nations or private enterprises.
SpaceX is also the only company or country in the world that has been able to land orbital rockets safely back on earth and reuse them as if in a science fiction story.
Check out this amazing video of one of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets returning safely to earth.
The simple fact is that the United States would not be doing much in space right now but for Elon Musk. He has effectively become NASA.
Communist China understands what Musk has done.
This article is from the South China Morning Post this week.
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| Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3244086/china-space-authorities-name-elon-musks-spacex-unprecedented-challenge |
Of course, along the way, and as a side business, Musk developed the Starlink satellite internet system that provides potential internet access anywhere on earth.
Starlink currently has over 5,000 satellites in low earth orbit and Musk states he has an ultimate goal of 42,000.
It is any wonder that access to Starlink became a major issue in both the Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Hamas wars?
Elon Musk is also pursuing major projects in robotics, technology that would allow the thoughts in the brain to bypass the nerves in our bodies and artificial intelligence.
Musk believes the artificial intelligence Tesla has developed and is using in its autonomous driving mode with Tesla could one day be worth far more than the car company by itself.
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| Source: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/elon-musk-just-said-that-ai-could-make-tesla-the-most-valuable-company-in-the-world-by-far#:~:text=AI%20really%20will%20be%2C%20in,biggest%20company%20on%20the%20planet. |
Of course, in all of the above, I have not even mentioned the Musk purchase of Twitter for which he paid $44 billion.
One of the most interesting parts of the Isaacson book details the background story and Musk's thinking leading up to the Twitter purchase. This all unfolded when Isaacson had a lot of access to Elon as he was in the final stages of researching and writing the book. Therefore, it provides a fascinating insider perspective of what went into the decision to purchase the social media company.
It seems pretty clear to me that concerns that Elon Musk had about preserving free speech was the principal mission for why he acquired Twitter. However, he also had not given up on his original idea going back 25 years ago to disrupt the banking industry that he could not persuade his PayPal partners to take on. Twitter's total active users of over 150 million provides Musk with a potential base of customers to do that with.
Why has Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as X.com?
Musk had founded X.com in 1999 with the vision of disrupting the banking industry. That vision was diverted when Elon got involved with PayPal but those things that Musk is passionate about are not likely to be forgotten. Keep an eye on where Elon Musk takes Twitter (X) in the future.
In the meantime, after the takeover of Twitter. Musk has reduced the Twitter staff by 80% and still made the product much, much better which I can say as someone who uses Twitter a lot.
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| Source: https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/elon-musk-confirms-he-has-fired-over-80-of-twitter-employees-so-far-377045-2023-04-12 |
In addition to his stand in defense of free speech with the purchase of Twitter, Elon Musk has also spoken out on number of issues that have angered liberal Democrats. This is despite the fact that Musk has clearly been left of center almost his entire life. He has admitted to voting for both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
He has been unapologetically pro-American and has also spoken out against the WOKE culture that has consumed so much of society.
Why?
My guess is that Elon Mush knows that despite all his talents and vision, none of what he has achieved would have been possible without the freedoms and capitalist system of the United States.
If Elon Musk had remained in South Africa he most likely would have been teaching physics at the University of Cape Town and there would be no Tesla and SpaceX. Twitter would still be a tool that United States agencies were using to censor speech they did not like.
Putting a force of nature in an environment that allows its full potential to be realized is something that can produce awe inspiring results.
That is the beauty of Elon Musk living and working in the United States of America.
His talent, combined with the freedom, capitalist mindset and the ability to network and easily access the talent of others in the free market of the United States, makes all the difference in the world when you are an innovator.
In fact, there is no other place in the world in which Musk could have come close to accomplishing what he has in America.
We can only hope that never changes.
Elon Musk is clearly committed to making sure it does not change.
However, Musk appears to now be a target of leftists who fear his money, power and social media position that they used to have a monopoly over.
If they try to investigate or indict Musk similar to Trump, you will know how desperate they are.
We all better hope that Elon Musk prevails.
If you have not read the Elon Musk bio by Isaacson treat yourself to the read over the Holidays.
If nothing else...
1) It will make you feel normal no matter what your issues are.
and
2) It will make you wonder why you haven't done more with your life.
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