Abstract

The case is about the Canadian-American serial entrepreneur Elon Musk (Musk), whose business empire stretched from cars to Mars. The case elaborates his entrepreneurial ventures through his companies viz. Zip 2, X.com, Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City. He encountered two major setbacks in 2016 in two of his celebrated companies – Tesla, an automotive major, and SpaceX, an advanced rockets and spacecraft maker. Tesla’s much-hyped, driverless car crashed head-on into a speeding truck in Williston, Florida, raising questions about the feasibility of the autopilot technology in the semi-autonomous cars. In 2016, Musk received another jolt when the SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 exploded when it was preparing for a test firing of its engines. Despite the two setbacks, the gutsy serial entrepreneur with his never-say-die attitude, continued to be as confident as ever of achieving his audacious goals of selling driverless cars and reaching Mars through Tesla and SpaceX respectively. The case presents the entrepreneurial qualities demonstrated by Musk through his achievements and failures.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Presents the Musk’s entrepreneurial traits like risk attitude, desperation to make a mark.
• Elaborates Elon Musk’s flamboyant personality, go-getter attitude and risk-taking nature which pushed him into diverse entrepreneurial initiatives.
• Discusses Musk’s quick decision making nature that has both the positive and negative shades of it.

Keywords

Elon Musk, Tesla,SpaceX, Falcon 9, Mars, Compaq, X.Com , PayPal, Kimbal Musk, Zip2, Yellow Pages, Richard Sorkin, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Solar City