Elon Musk: South African Entrepreneur

Introduction:

The entrepreneur chosen is Elon Musk, he is a South African entrepreneur and innovator known for founding Paypal, Tesla Motors, Hyperloop and SpaceX.

Q1. Describe the background of the entrepreneur and how it influenced the path that he/she took.

Elon Musk’s Childhood

Using the data provided in “The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur - Family Background and Motivation” report by Kauffman the foundation of entrepreneurs one can see that Elon Musk’s path has been sculpted by a few key aspects. The first being the class of his family, his mother was a dietetics expert and his father was an engineer these jobs indicate that his family were middle class and from this study it pertains that the majority of entrepreneurs came from middle

Having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, he enrolled in the graduate school at Stanford University to pursue a PhD in the field of applied physics and materials science. However, after 2 days, he took a huge risk and left the graduate school and together with his brother, Kimbal Musk, he created his first IT company Zip2 which later became Paypal. He sold Paypal to ebay for $1.5 billion and received $180million dollars for his share which allowed him to pursue other interests such as space engineering and alternative energy sources.

Q2. Identify an “entrepreneur type” that best describes the entrepreneur that you have selected. Discuss why you think they are this type.

From my study of an article “What Kind of Entrepreneur Are You?” I have found there are many different types of entrepreneurs. These can be mostly categorised using two defining characteristics, the level of experience as an entrepreneur and the motivational reasons for entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneur Type

Type Level of Experience Type Motivational Reason

Aspiring None Builder Infrastructure - talent, investors and customers.

Novice Low – Medium Opportunist Personal income - Money they make (or will make) when they aren't

In the class notes a habitual/ portfolio entrepreneur is described as one that may establish / purchase/inherit and retain ownership of several private businesses concurrently. Also his focus turned solely to greatly changing the future for the good of humanity through space exploration and the transition to renewable energy sources. From my research this new goal is a key trait for the social entrepreneur and it is why I believe my entrepreneur fits this description very aptly. He used the funds generated from the sale of Paypal to provide the funding for other business ventures such as SpaceX (space exploration), Solarcity and Tesla (renewable energy products).

Q3. Identify the character traits and skills that have enabled your identified entrepreneur to establish and grow a successful business venture.

Despite decades of Academic Research on the topic there is no universal definition of entrepreneurship and no agreement about the precise traits and behaviours that characterize entrepreneurial leaders. The traits and skills that I believe were instrumental to the success of Elon Musk were his belief that he could change the world for the greater good, determination, obsessive, commitment, risk taker, creative, continual self - improvement, workaholic, and an understanding of fundamentals from first principles.

From a very early age his father notice that Elon thought differently from everyone