Entrepreneurial Analysis: Elon Musk's Qualities, Challenges, and Tesla

This report provides a critical evaluation of Elon Musk's entrepreneurial qualities, focusing on his personal influence, risk-taking abilities, and passion for innovation, highlighting how these traits have contributed to his success in ventures like SpaceX and Tesla. The report then discusses the challenges SpaceX faces with the Starship launch and Musk's vision for a self-sustainable city on Mars, including oversized capital needs, competitive rivalry, and weather conditions. Finally, the report examines Musk's entrepreneurial performance within Tesla, emphasizing his vision, strategic decision-making, and the company's growth in the electric vehicle market, while also acknowledging potential shortcomings. The analysis underscores Musk's influence on the automotive and aerospace industries.

Innovation and
Entrepreneurship

Table of Contents
TASK 1...........................................................................................................................................3
Critically evaluation any three main personal qualities that made Elon Musk a great
entrepreneur in order to gain business opportunities presented through his lifetime.................3
TASK 2...........................................................................................................................................5
Critically discussing three entrepreneurial challenges that SpaceX will face with recent “Star
Ship” launch and vision of Elon Musk in establishing first self-sustainable city on planet
Mars............................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3...........................................................................................................................................7
Carrying out additional investigation to critically examine Elon Musk entrepreneurial
performance and any shortcoming during his investment in TESLA........................................7
........................................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

TASK 1
Critically evaluation any three main personal qualities that made Elon Musk a great entrepreneur
in order to gain business opportunities presented through his lifetime
Elon Musk is one of the successful South African-born American businessman's in the
world, he founded many organizations such as SpaceX, X.com, Tesla, etc (Snooks, 2020). His
personal qualities made him able to take the courage of taking challenges and grasping great
opportunities related to ventures. Elon Musk, which is one of the most successful entrepreneurs
in the world plays vital role by using his personal attributes that made him a great businessman
in order to grasp growth opportunities.
Personal influence-
It is one of those personal attributes that made many people capable to get respect from
others just like Elon Musk. He is a great influencer as he motivates all the staff members by
recognizing and appraising their hard work and contribution to achieve business aims and
objectives as well (Kunrath, Cash and Kleinsmann, 2020). Personal influence can be either
internal or external, extrinsic includes social interactions between many people such as a mother,
neighbour, etc. While internal personal influence happen when judgement are influenced by
mental procedures that have to do with other groups or individual person. For example, Elon
Musk has both kind of influencing power that made him a successful businessman, a great
leader and influencer, who has a million of followers in this world. Person influence is also
defined as power of individuals that made them able to control buying decision of others and
performance of other people. Elon Musk is becoming the most influential person in the whole
world, because he is motivated not by financial or commercial success, but by hope that his
performance will develop a brighter and much better future for humanity. Guided by a good
sense of personal values has allowed him to get great respect from family, staff, wider
community, etc.
Risk taker-
Risk taking is another personal quality of Elon Musk, which also contribute to made him
a successful entrepreneur. This attribute drive his attention towards managing risks or challenges
and gaining business growth opportunities that are accessible within automotive sector,
aerospace industry and other as well, where he has established his organizations (Terry, 2020).

Risk takers just like Elon Musk are implausibly curious about to know why things are the way
they are. For example, according to his influencing personality, he has always targeted
exceedingly challenging tasks that have been reason of misery for mankind since origin. He is a
risk taker, which is one of his personal and most influencing quality. He grasped key business
opportunities in term of selecting the most profitable sectors or three major fields, namely clean
energy, internet and space. Through his hard work, he made a huge difference in these core
industries. Elon Musk is always ready to take such as big risks in each of these areas, which
made him able to arise as a risk taker with positive results. He never attempts to take short cuts
and has no specific short term benefits in sight. There was a period when no one trust in Elon
ideas and everyone started saying that he will drown all investment of investors.
But his spirits never let him down, he took risk and target to place a man on Mars. This
project get successful and shows everyone the personal quality of Elon.
Passion for innovation-
To be innovative, a person must be constantly changing, renewing and developing more
effective procedures, unique goods or ways of doing things (Tran and et.al., 2020). Passion for
innovation is one of those key traits of successful entrepreneurs that made them capable to
change the whole world through their innovative ideas. In list of Elon Musk personal quality,
passion for innovation is at top, because he always attempted to innovate certain products such
as fully electric vehicles, Starship rokect, online payment system and web software organization.
He is an innovator and the best example of inspiration for film version of Iron man. For
example, he is well-known for dramatic creation that revolutionized automotive and aerospace
sectors. Gigafactory 3, solar city, big falcon rocket, etc. are the best innovations of Musk. He
prefers to spend a lot of money in creative projects. According to him, anyone in this world can
learn to innovate and become an innovator. Within his organization's, he created a culture of
innovation and also inspires others to keep up with spirit to change the world.
From above discussion it can be siad that Elon Musk successfully grasp his business
growth chances that presented throughout his life by using personal qualities and competences.
His supportive nature made him a great man who always attempts to motivate other at
workplace, in order to boost their morale and performance level. By taking right judgement, he
has achieved vision, mission, aims and objectives. His power and optimistic behaviour never let
him afraid of any sort of challenges.

Innovation is defined process or action of innovating new things in term of product or
services, which in return increase sales of brands.
TASK 2
Critically discussing three entrepreneurial challenges that SpaceX will face with recent “Star
Ship” launch and vision of Elon Musk in establishing first self-sustainable city on planet
Mars
Elon Reeve Musk is the founder, CTO and chief executive officer of SpaceX
(Akinsemolu, 2020). It is a privately developed rocket production and transportation services
organization. In order to change the whole world via innovative ideas and projects. Musk has
decided to launch his latest starship prototype. During launch of Starship firm will face certain
challenges, which is quite common as it takes a big decision that is not much easy to manage
successful. Furthermore, Musk will also face barriers to fulfil his vision statement. Three
entrepreneurial challenges are;
Oversize capital needs-
The biggest challenge that SpaceX will face during launch and vision success is oversize
capital requirements due to usage of advanced technologies, need of highly experienced persons
and because of all the social media coverage sources through which organization will broadcast
entire process all over the world. It is one of the biggest projects of Elon Musk, which he will
plan to achieve by using sorts of equipments that are costly and does not exist in US market,
which he will buy from the other places (Spector, 2020). The overall process goes above created
budget that affect future plan and strategies of Musk in negative manner. In order to fulfil
oversized capital needs, organization will choose the best option which is not possible to get
without short term period. Due to this factor, many organizations may affected for example,
during roller coaster system to replace NASA geriatric space shuttles, organization endured
many shortcomings. It restricts current management practices and will impact Starship launch.
Elon Musk new project will get impacted due to oversize capital requirements, as it can be said
that establishing sustainable city on Marks is one of the most expensive and challenging tasks
for each aerospace organizations.
Competitive rivalry-

Not only above, but there are also varied factors available in the aerospace sector that
will impact the launch of Starship and the vision of Elon musk in a negative manner. For
example, intense competition between existing brands to reach at Mars, which made them able
to gain competitive advantages, bring another challenge for SpaceX in context of rocket launch.
It includes, United Launch Alliance, Boeing, Virgin Orbit, Northrop Grumman and Blue origin.
All these companies attempts to reach at planet Mars for varied commercial purposes or reasons
(Stasiowska, 2020). It will bring challenge for Elon Musk to achieve desire outcomes and fulfil
his dream, which is quite innovative. United Launch Alliance is one of the biggest competitors
of SpaceX, it gave touch competition to firm by launching the best quality vehicles to NASA. It
will affect Starship launch negatively because ULA is able to launch the most powerful and
largest rockets in the sector. Its hard work and attempts will contribute to increase the degree of
rivalry, which is not appropriate for success and growth of company as well as its new starship.
This challenge is the most appropriate example that currently and in the future, face by many
firms while operating ventures within aerospace sector.
Weather conditions-
Each brand either small or large, faces major barriers relate to varied activities. Just like
these, SpaceX will also face challenge during process of recent Starship launch due to weather
condition, which impact overall decision and date of rocket launch. For example, a light wind at
vehicle launch is okay, but when wind speed exceed 30mph at approx 162 ft degree of launch
tower then it's not appropriate to continue process. There are many rockets launched in
aerospace sector has failed due to unfavourable weather conditions. For example, Rusty Nuts is
one of those 10 rocket launch failures that changed history. The main reason behind failure of
this project is weather. Along with this Rocket Soyuz at Plesetsk, Diamant B, etc. are the
examples of launch failures which get affected due to magnetic storms. Magnetic storm is
defined a duration of rapid magnetic file variation, it may last from hours of days and have tow
basis causes, first one is when sum emits a strong surge of solar air named a coronal mass
ejection. It can be said that even on a dry week with not thunderstorms or rain, weather may still
cause a vehicle launch to be hold over.
Major challenge musk has faced but still he is positive because he has learned from his
own mistakes or failure and work hard to win the game in term of making investment into
profitable projects after getting failed into it. Musk has faced varied forms of shortcoming

during his major investment in TESLA and other organizations as well. His enthusiasm attribute
also contribute to made him a successful American entrepreneur as he has managed varied types
of ventures within the world of business at international level.
TASK 3
Carrying out additional investigation to critically examine Elon Musk entrepreneurial
performance and any shortcoming during his investment in TESLA
Elon Musk entrepreneurial performance has been dynamic within Tesla, where vision
and foresighted decision making aspects have made his business to grow on varied horizons
successfully. TESLA has most luxury modern advanced cares in today’s world, which has
excelled competition parameters informatively under leadership of Elon Musk. His influential
personality to take best decisions among management has been strategically evolving positively,
for bringing strategic growth to TESLA. The company has been globally expanding under wide
range of products such as electric cars, battery energy storage, solar panels and solar roof tiles
with offering premium quality to wide range of target customers. Elon Musk entrepreneurial
skills are correlated with passion for innovation, strategic direction and professional integrity
excellence which has enabled his investments to grow (Elon Musk- The Complete Journey of a
Visionary Entrepreneur, 2017).

Entrepreneur success story has been highly influential where his skills as an inventor,
visionary leader possess unimaginable heights. Despite various challenges his passion for
innovation has been strong in all investments, bringing market driven products and opportunities
productively expanding towards new parameters actively. Entrepreneur functional growth
towards untapped market scenarios has given keen push to coordination among teams, also
employees up scale networks for dynamic strength. Tesla success is one of the most fundamental
example of entrepreneurial performance growth towards direction oriented goals, where his
investments has been always demand oriented. Today company is changing face of electronic
vehicles and challenged fundamentally competition of performance domains, where synergies
of high scale innovation by Elon Musk has brought dynamic shift in varied horizons. However
there are some shortcomings analysed from initial investments done in Tesla, where various
aspects can be analysed imperatively. The analysis of shortcomings and challenges faced by
Elon musk, can be done as follows:
 Elon musk faced challenges in Tesla where during 2008, company had collapsed due to
financial crisis which was further reinvested by money earned from other investments.
His risk taking skill by analysing the latest market demands made him develop
potentialities for strategic investments on new arenas. Notable other challenges include
Tesla cars being too expensive with high tax breaks and expensive for customers, have
taken long time for expanding among markets. The brand also faces risks form low gas
prices and rise in EV competition, also with high scale competitive market among auto
mobiles Elon Musk has faced shortcoming in initial investments. Profitability concerns
and quantity concerns are at stake for brand to justify company value on longer time
period, where there are varied new strategies to be framed actively. Quality investments
have been also analysed to be an important concern for Tesla future project expansion,
on which Elon musk aims to evolve dynamically in competitive business world (Elon
Musk admits Tesla has quality problems, 2021). The challenging investments in initial
periods have been highly risky to grow on productive horizons for keeping up with
benchmarks, also for leveraging dynamic competitive domains. Elon Musk is one of the
best entrepreneur whose vision to inculcate innovation as per competitive scenarios, has
dynamically enabled productive diversity.

In order to grow business and made it successful within automotive sector, Elon Musk
has invested a lot of money in TESLA, which in certain cases quite beneficial in term of
increasing sales and profitability. On the other hand, he is unsuccessful and get failed during his
investments in same company.
For example, to give better and unforgeable experience to consumers, Elon Musk
invested in production of Model S. He got failed in this project after making investment due to
touchscreen failure. Majority complaints that giant touch screen of vehicles may fail have drawn
attention of United State safety regulations. It impacts the brand image in market and also affect
consumer mindsets. Company due to Model S touchscreen failures goes under investigation,
which may affects its reputation in negative manner. After a lot of investment, Elon Musk
company was failed hard before it become profitable.
But he still never give up, and take decision to invest own money to make firm able to
overcome this challenging situation, which in return made TESLA a successful automotive
brand in the world. He had taken major decisions to overcome the challenges for example, after
failure of Model S he decided to go bankrupt and utilized his own wealth to keep firm going.
He is quire curious to known more about varied things which he considers as creative or
innovative and attempt to transform in practical manner. He is an inspiration soul, because he
never quit and continuously take challenges which was overcome by him via applying
techniques in some cases he invest own saving.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Akinsemolu, A.A., 2020. Sustainability in Science. In The Principles of Green and
Sustainability Science (pp. 335-360). Springer, Singapore.
Kunrath, K., Cash, P. and Kleinsmann, M., 2020. Designers’ professional identity: personal
attributes and design skills. Journal of Engineering Design. 31(6). pp.297-330.
Snooks, G.D., 2020. America’s Critical Choice of Futures: mediocrity or greatness?. Institute of
Global Dynamic Systems, Working Papers. 24.
Spector, S., 2020. The cosmic-local nexus: intersections between outer space and rural
communities. Tourism Recreation Research. 45(1). pp.94-106.
Stasiowska, D., 2020. Can we be with Bee on Mars? Evaluating the Impact of a Rocket Flight
on the Condition of Honeybees (Apis mellifera). Transactions on Aerospace Research.
2020(2). pp.36-46.
Terry, L., 2020. How Deregulation and" I" Corporations Could Save Shareholders from
Themselves: Going Private-Lite. Colo. Tech. LJ. 18. p.485.
Tran, B. and et.al., 2020. Elon Musk Transportation Projects. In Innovation Management in the
Intelligent World (pp. 213-232). Springer, Cham.
Online
15 Personality traits of Elon Musk. 2016. [ONLINE]. Available Through:
<https://www.businessalligators.com/elon-musk-personality-traits/>
Elon Musk admits Tesla has quality problems. 2021. [Online]. Available Through :
<https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/03/business/elon-musk-tesla-quality-problems/
index.html>
Elon Musk- The Complete Journey of a Visionary Entrepreneur. 2017. [Online].Available
Through : <https://www.shoutmeloud.com/elon-musk.html>
The 5 Failures of Elon Musk and How He Overcame Them. 2020. [ONLINE]. Available
Through: <https://press.farm/the-5-failures-of-elon-musk-and-how-he-overcame-
them/>