Elon Musk is a controversial and irreverent figure, known for his surprising behavior and unusual business decisions like creating a collectible flamethrower, working to build super tunnels to avoid traffic and even his arguably ill-advised purchase of Twitter.
If life were a movie, Musk might be a villain in a James Bond film or a rival to Lex Luthor himself in the world of Superman, or maybe he would instead be a very peculiar Bruce Wayne.
But in the real world, he is a successful and influential entrepreneur, who often competes against Jeff Bezos for the number 1 spot on the list of the richest people in the world.
However you feel about him, it is hard to deny that Musk has done many things right as he has built up his fortune even surpassing Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in the process.
Musk knows how to make decisions and seize opportunities, and this is why, even when he chose not to take any salary at Tesla, he maintained his place as one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
Elon Musk and 5 things he did that helped build his fortune
Reading is important, and not just to improve your spelling and grammar. Many of the world’s richest and most successful men and women have at some point talked about their love of reading, but Musk has talked in particular about the role that science fiction plays in his life and how it inspired him to create his companies.
The benefits of reading science fiction aren’t limited to Musk. It’s helpful on the road to success because it helps us to think ahead, to be creative, to dare to step outside the box, and to look at the world in new ways.
Elon Musk didn’t start Tesla from scratch. He learned about the company, realised its potential, and decided to buy it in order to transform it into what it is today, one of the largest companies in the world.
Of course, not everyone has the capital to buy a company. For most of us, the lesson here is that we should be looking to seize opportunities, seeing what others don’t, and learning to exploit the potential of things to give the world something that it currently lacks but that will, with time, be seen as a necessity.
Musk doesn’t let anyone tell him what to do. He wanted to go into space, so he created Space X. He wanted to transform the world with his inventions, so he created the Boring Company. And he wanted to be a world-changing visionary, so he bought and built Tesla into what it is today.
He had visions and goals, and he worked hard to turn them into realities, building great teams and moving the pieces on his board to keep getting closer to his goal, even when there were people who were skeptical that he would be successful with his projects.
This is something that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have also talked about and they say it’s a crucial step because it will prevent you from losing everything in the event of an unforeseen downturn.
Musk not only has Tesla, but also Space X and the Boring Company, and he makes investments in other companies that he has analysed and that he knows are going to give him a good return over the long run.
The idea behind this is to “not have all your eggs in one basket,” as the saying goes, and to be more protected from the dangers of one of his companies facing a difficult stretch.
Musk doesn’t do anything without thinking about it first. He has rules for everything, to increase productivity and to make better decisions quickly, and he analyses the landscape and the current situation before he takes a step.
It’s not that he is overly deliberate or thinks too much before he invests or makes a decision, but instead, it is a matter of seeking to be informed before he bets on something so he can be confident that the risk is worth it.
