Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Elon Musk's Qualities and Challenges

This article discusses the main personality qualities that made Elon Musk a great entrepreneur and the challenges faced by his SpaceX venture. It also evaluates his entrepreneurial performance on Tesla, PayPal, and Hyperloop.

Innovation and
Entrepreneurship

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Main personality qualities and their importance who made Elon Musk a great entrepreneur....3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
Three entrepreneurial challenges that Elon Mask’s SpaceX venture face and their impact on
projects along with its overcomes...............................................................................................5
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................7
Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial performance on Tesla, paypal, hyperloop....................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Innovation is efficient and effective instrument of entrepreneurship through which can
take opportunity of several changes in different services or business. This deliver set of
discipline, learned and practice. To implement successful innovation plan they always identified
source of innovation, change and symptoms. Innovation is not only known as inventing new
things but also identifying and grab benefit of changes or opportunities. Innovation is essential
in entrepreneurship. To develop unique product and strong costumer base to create brand image
innovation is required by entrepreneur. Ideas of innovation Will make develop more competitive
start-up. It is the ongoing or continuous process of transforming innovative idea into marketable
form. The chosen entrepreneur in this report is Elon Musk. This report include personal qualities
of Elon Musk and their importance in innovation and entrepreneurship. It provides challenges,
impact and overcome of challenges in their entrepreneurship project. It also provide evaluation
of its performance in their entrepreneurship projects.
TASK 1
Main personality qualities and their importance who made Elon Musk a great
entrepreneur.
Elon musk is the founder of many successful start-up like Tesla, Pay pal, Space X etc.
This entrepreneur brings new evolution in innovation and entrepreneurship across the world. The
entrepreneur shared values such as entrepreneur spirit, passionate for innovation, positive
sentiment, clear vision, personal unity (Akpan, 2020). It has an ability to transform change with
innovation in favour of company benefit. Here are three main personality qualities and its
importance who made him a great entrepreneur (Innovation and entrepreneurship, 2019). It never
discourage with its failure and always try to learn from its failure or challenges throughout the
journey.
 Innovation- The companies of Elon Musk are delivering innovation across the world. It
create first electric car in Tesla company with innovative features. After that Tesla
company never avoid the concept of innovation in their product or services such as
electric vehicle, charging stations, first self cars in commercial etc (Bekmansurovand
et.al., 2019). SpaceX is launched by him which is first rocket and spaceships introduced

with innovative features. One another successful project of him is Solar City. It always
utilise the concept of innovation in its all start-up projects. This entrepreneur involve
aggressive attitude that is required by an entrepreneur while facing several obstacle (Birx,
2018). Thus innovation is integral part of his personality trait that is involved in each of
the projects.
 Synergy and vision- It has strategic vision and synergy in their projects. As he already
mention his visual perception of three companies act as a whole complete unit. It
continue his ground, air industry together in the future through developing Tesla and
SpaceX. These companies take benefit of technology all together . This provide the
leverage to reduce cost and develop optimum utilisation of spaceships and cars. The
most common element for aerial and terrestrial is energy (Bissola, Imperatori and Biffi,
2017). After oil reserve the most preferable energy source is Solar. It clearly make vision
electric vehicles, rockets and solar energy as the elements of whole ecosystem. There is
one benefit that each element is not dependant. So in the failure of one element it will not
affect or influence other element. Entrepreneur will convert his all companies all together
as synergy to become largest across the world and continuous provide all business firm in
collective way. It has quality to vision clearly and synchronised different unit into one
unit.
 Taking benefits of legal and government laws- The entrepreneur has quality to take
benefit of laws and regulation which are imposed by government in favour of company.
The successful businessman or entrepreneur grab opportunity of loopholes in the interest
of company. In this case they take benefit of grants or tax in several counties to decrease
cost of operations in business (Bruton,, Zahra and Cai, 2018). Most of the companies get
advantage of this. The entrepreneur has qualities and personality to improve company
position or brand name.
Elon Musk is most great and successful entrepreneur that may be fail in short span but
will definitely lead in the industry because of its three main personality qualities. The
entrepreneur adopt Schumpeter’s Theory of Innovation (de Lurdes Calisto and Sarkar, 2017).
This theory is well known for its innovation. This theory state that innovation of entrepreneur
provide drastic development in the economy of country. As per this theory the main activity of
entrepreneur is not only create ordinary managerial quality but also create something new.

Innovation is may consist in new goods or services, in methods of operations or production
process, opening new market segment, identifying new supply source of material, organisation
or management activities. Elon Musk practice and implement this theory in their projects by
bringing new innovation in each projects that also brings economical development in the society
(Churchill, 2017). Through their innovative projects they take next level of development in the
economy.
Task 2
Three entrepreneurial challenges that Elon Mask’s SpaceX venture face and their impact
on projects along with its overcomes.
Entrepreneur has several qualities such as risk taking, determination etc. They have face
lots of challenges difficulties along with success. Challenges are the part of success that an
entrepreneurship have to tackle. The spaceX is continuously facing challenge to prove that the
project was feasible to land rocket drone ship space. The entrepreneur faces lots challenges
during spaceX project (Doerr, 2021). The famous entrepreneur failed many times in their project
but still, learned from his failure and overcome from its challenges. They take challenges as an
example of their difficult journey and always try to provide solution to the business problems.
Lack of proper knowledge- The vision of Elon Musk is very clear and straight forward
but it has not an appropriate knowledge for implementation or execution of its project. For
successfully execution of any project proper knowledge or guidance is required. Entrepreneur
has not enough knowledge regarding rocket and space industry. He fail to identify all
components that is require for launching rocket in space. They avoid flight safety system and air
force range that is required in their project. They do not have proper practice knowledge of this
industry. Before investing in this idea they fail to check feasible analyse of its idea.
Lack of funding- For launching rockets or satellites in space, the entrepreneur required
large amount of funding or finance for successful execution of project. As it is launch by private
firm using their own source of finance, it found difficulties while operations and execution of
project (Drobyazko and et.al., 2019). They do not utilise appropriate funding of government and
only use their own source of finance. It also leads in no relaxation of tax benefit from
government. Total dependency of own funds will result in failure of this project.

Technology up-gradation- The rocket or space project required high technology
advancement or up-gradation. But they fail to provide high technology at low cost. Low
technology decrease efficiency and effectiveness of project and leads towards failure of project.
This factor reduce productivity of the company and project. As they do not optimised sources of
funding they fail to manage technology advancement in the company (Ebrahimiand et.al., 2019).
SaceX is famous for reusable rockets but they uses under appreciated technology that leads them
degradation of its projects.
Risk taking- Elon musk always in search of innovation in their project that involved
huge risk taking in their business decision. No doubt high risk leads towards high profit but it
will also turn into major losses. In case of SpaceX they faces heavy losses because only risk
taking is not enough. A proper structure, guidance or layout is required proper execution or
implementation of project.
Elon Musk can overcome from these challenges by adopting following ways.
 By gaining appropriate knowledge they can deliver their project very efficient way. By
regular assessment and proper analyse of project, it will provide right direct to the vision
of entrepreneur. Before execution of their operations they should check feasible analysis
of innovative project idea (Fellnhofer, 2017). This will reduce the chance of project
failure while launching rocket or satellites. Clear vision is good but appropriate
knowledge or guidance is essential for operations and execution.
 To overcome his funding source they can also utilise government funding along with
own funding of finance. It brings several benefits in the company like relaxation in tax
regime. So they need to work upon maximum source of funding.
 They need to focus on their technology up gradation and advancement in their business
process. They are famous for re-usable rockets that are outdated. This decrease
efficiency and productivity of project. This is one of the major challenge that need to be
overcome for company betterment.
 Only risk taking is not sufficient for entrepreneur they should have proper analysis of
feasibility idea of project, whether the project achieve its success or not. This will help
entrepreneur to develop proper plan of the project (Frolovaand et.al., 2019). It leads
towards proper direction of the innovative project.

Contempt of all challenges or failures Musk does not discourage and keep on motivating ,
risk taking, perseverance towards achieving it goal. That why entrepreneur act as successful role
model in the industry.
Task 3
Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial performance on Tesla, paypal, hyperloop.
Tesla- During Pandemic situation many sectors get affected across the world. But Elon
Musk company Tesla has been very fortunate during this situation. The netb worth of the
company went on high. Due to his performance earned most of the wealth stock price and
enhance ownership in entity. In the end of 2019, Elon Musk closely-held Tesla about 20 %.
because of compensation performance layout, company earned stock options packages. Is is one
his strategy to enhance ownership (Hisrich, Peters and Shepherd, 2017). Tesla successfully
handle average value of market share. Organisation is near to hold a milestone profitability of
company. But the entrepreneur fail to manage structure of compensation plan, it is also one of
the important reason why Tesla would not realise his personal value until the organisation face
decrease in their performance. That time company found difficulties in achieving goal . The
entrepreneur wholly depend on risk performance (What is entrepreneurship, 2021). Elon attached
his compensation plan with long period that is directly related to the success of Tesla. They
adopted less crushy approaches in the process of management process for leading in this
industry. It business in most superior cars to target premium sector. Under the supervision of the
entrepreneur they transform the complete automotive sector. It is his master plan to shift towards
hydocarbon to solar electric. They set difficult production target in the industry for better
innovative solution. Its performance is up to the mark and successfully earned profit (Khyareh,
Khairandish and Torabi, 2019). As per evaluation organisation achieve leading position in the
technology of powered battery. Under his supervision of technology he invented most of the
unique products orv services and create own brand name. Because of its innovative quality
company faces lost of hurdle while business process and overcome those hurdles. They
continuously achieving greater value in the industry. They serve several benefits to the economy
such as unique design pattern, no need of dealership, save fuel cost, safety checks in vehicle,
improvised technology, advance software. They also faces some drawbacks such as high
maintaining cost, ineffective service store, degradable battery. At last Elon Musk'S Tesla is

leading growing brand across the world. The performance of company achieve greater heights
during the time of pandemic (Miranda, , Rosas-Fernández and Molina, 2020). They deliver
unique and innovative product range of vehicle.
Paypal- Paypal is a company that deals in online payments system which transfer money
through electronic media. Its provides services free of cost and people can exchange money
across the world. This is one of the fascinating startup of Elon Musk to target digital users. In
starting paypal was not that much recognized digital wallet but after merging in x.com by Elon
Musk, company achieve optimum success in this money exchange business. The entrepreneur
has optimum approach towards this concept (Nambisan, S., 2017). It decide to exempt X.com
services so that more concentration could be given to Paypal. In his direction, they acquire ebay
company but this leads towards default method of payment. After that they acquire security
support software. The tie up with master card and earned lots of profit online payment. They spin
off ebay into separate company. The entrepreneur made several innovative changes in the
success of this company (Zheng, 2018). It tried to create maximum value of the company. As
per the believe of entrepreneur the one is not innovator who does not attempt to fail. In 2000 the
entrepreneur wanted to make some changes by transforming Paypal servers of Unix platform
into Window platform of Microsoft but other partners refuse this business change. So the
entrepreneur get fired by the board of director of PayPal. The majority of shareholders still held
by the entrepreneur. Musk was very creative and inspired person and decided to move on to
identifying more ways to generate money. After that it founded SpaceX and Tesla.
Hyperloop- It was first publicly established in 2012 by Elon Musk. It introduced mode
of passenger and freight conveyance, through open source design of vactrain from group of
Tesla, SpaceX. It combines of sealed tubes with low-level of pressure. It leads towards
sustainable free air resistance. The origin concept of reduced pressure in pressurized capsule.
This mainly focus on economical, sustainable and insanely fast (Pisoni, G. and et.al., 2020).
They outperforms various way of transport and leads towards faster travel , greater effective
energy and deliver low cost way of transportation. The entrepreneur aims new means or ways of
transportation like the mode that provide fastest service at low cost in convenient way. This is
again an innovative concept create by entrepreneur to serve economy development. But this is
one the complex project like other project of elon musk that need a deep transparent research.
This technology is created escape to the earthquakes. It is directed by entrepreneur to

conveyance passengers in high profile metropolitan state with delivering superior speed. For this
project entrepreneur research the whole study in operational visual aspect (Reyes and García,
2017). It adopted measure, analyse, design and evaluate complete approach. This can facilitate in
decision making of logistic company. This is one of the best achievement of Elon Musk after
Tesla and SpaceX. The entrepreneur shared the clear vision if futuristic transportation model. It
introduced tunnel base transportation system. Elon Musk take advantage from the success of
Tesla and introduced unique invention superior speed rail system (Zacca, and Dayan., 2017). But
after deep analysis this project not found feasible to economy and can be turn into a dangerous
concept (Zhang, Fanand Zhou, 2018). By execution of this Hyperloop project leads towards
biggest financial burden as lots of upgraded technology will used and a proper technical expert is
required.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that entrepreneurship and innovation are
collectively an effective concept which leads towards economical and sustainable growth. It act
as a two sides of one coin as innovation involved kind of entrepreneur behaviour. With creative
and innovative efforts entrepreneur generate value to the society by bringing new and innovative
idea. Innovation and entrepreneurship is interlinked with each other that provide several solution
to business issues. The entrepreneur ensure value in innovative and creative idea. The concept of
innovation and entrepreneur facilitate social and economic development. A successful
entrepreneur brings innovative, creative consumer value.

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