It is likely that not a week goes by without the controversial, super-successful billionaire Elon Musk making headlines on global portals. After contributing to Ukraine’s defense against Russian forces, he plunged into the world of social media, becoming the largest individual shareholder and a potential buyer of Twitter. Musk is an entrepreneur, billionaire, innovator, genius, troll, ego-maniac, the richest, but also currently the most influential person on the planet who can, with a single word, extract billions from the pockets of small and large investors. His moves are unplanned, abrupt, unexpected; he has no filter, and refinement and patience, it seems, do not exist in his vocabulary. However, precisely because Musk breaks all the rules, Entrepreneur magazine believes that businessmen can learn a lot from him:
Strategy 1: Pour Oil on the Fire
During the first dot-com boom in the mid-nineties, Musk founded the internet company Zip2, which he sold in 1999 for $307 million. At that time, the audience was just beginning to discover the charms of the internet, fascinated by the innovators from Silicon Valley, and Musk decided to ride the wave of popularity by opening the doors to the media and showing them his empire, then worth ‘only’ a few million. He invited CNN journalists to his home just as his new McLaren F1 car worth a million dollars was delivered. The media, of course, wanted to know everything about the entrepreneur from the Valley and became interested in his success story, turning him into a star. As Entrepreneur advises, regardless of the industry and how complex it is, it pays to leverage popular culture (or become a part of it) for business success.
Strategy 2: Make Business Personal
Despite the common wisdom that business is just business, and private is private, Musk’s persona is impossible to separate from Tesla and SpaceX. And this is not by chance. In the early days of his business career, Musk lost control over his ventures. Zip2 hired a more experienced businessman, Richard Sorkin, and after his company X.com became PayPal, he was ousted from his position as CEO. With SpaceX and Tesla, he did not want to make the same mistake – he aligned his personal goals with his business ones and ‘tied’ his name (and public persona) to the brands, thus becoming irreplaceable.
Strategy 3: Set Unrealistic Goals
Instead of talking about realistic business goals, Musk comes out with completely crazy plans, such as wanting to take people to Mars during his lifetime. And that is quite a good marketing trick. People, in fact, love to cheer for success stories despite all obstacles. Musk has turned his companies into ‘Davids’ and created seemingly unbeatable ‘Goliaths’ (like conquering Mars, for example). Entrepreneur notes that entrepreneurs should also think about goals that are not just operational or financial but those that motivate employees, attract investors, and engage customers.
