For the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading the book titled: Elon Musk – How the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is shaping our future. Published in 2015.
I bought the book in South Africa’s Oliver Tambo International Airport while transiting from Windhoek. This specific book is also translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Marathi, Danish and Gujarati languages.
You can equally get a copy on Amazon. The book was written by Ashlee Vance. The author is a 45-year-old American Columnist.
The book explores the life of Elon Musk and his exploits in the American corporate world.
His companies have been able to compete for mega projects with giants such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
He has built many factories and employed thousands of workers. Elon Musk’s net worth is estimated to be USD$ 237 billion as of 2022.
According to Forbes Magazine, Elon Musk is the richest person on earth.
Musk is known for setting unrealistic goals and working them to the bone. He had brutal childhood in South Africa. He grew up in Pretoria in a family of farmers.
Elon Musk’s grandfather was eccentric and exceptional man who loved boxing, flying and horse riding. He owned a single engine plane into which he packed his family and went off on excursions across North America.
The family had an enduring lust for adventure. They were always out in the bush for up to month long expeditions.
The family would be seen in some photos sitting on folding, reading books in front of camp fires.
Elon Musk heard a lot of stories about his grandfathers’ exploits. He died while doing practice landings in his plane.
Errol Musk is the father of Elon Musk. When Elon stayed with him he developed a love for books and would read up to 10 hours a day. One a weekend, he would read two books in a day.
At some point, Elon is said to have run out of books to read at his school library and at the neighborhood library.
Errol Musk had many books for Elon to read and he read them from cover to cover.
Errol used to take his children on trips abroad. Many. He also would take the kids to his place of work where they would learn how to lay bricks, install plumbing, do wiring and fit windows.
The author of the book describes Errol Musk as being very intense and ultra-present. He traveled with his children extensively in South Africa and the rest of the world.
Elon Musk developed a great work ethic and a great intensity. He is a man who does not take no for an answer.
He earned an economics and physics degrees from college.
At his place of work the author observers that there are always people working. This stems from Elon’s ability to work throughout the night. For the first three months, Elon and his brothers lived at their office.
Elon used to drive a McLaren F1 sports car and even purchased a small prop plane and learned how to fly it. At the time of purchasing the car there were only 62 such cars in existence.
Elon Musk worked for oppressive hours to deliver on his projects. He also lived an extreme lifestyle. He would arrive at home at 11 pm and work some more. He loved being where action is.
He extended his love for reading to devouring some obscure Soviet rocket manuals. Elon would order a truck full of Dell laptops, printers and folding tables to deliver to a given location.
He would then apply a fresh coat of white paint on the walls of the offices. For instance, SpaceX did a lot of their work at night. He always demanded that employees do more and better.
In fact many people struggle to keep up with the pace of Elon Musk’s company activities.
Musk is known to be a fearsome negotiator who always follows up on things personally.
The work at both Tesla and SpaceX was grueling to say the least. The employees were always require to list what is required to be done. That is why there was always something to do.
Even engineers working on his projects found his pace to be torturous and magical at the same time.
Elon Musk was always trying to pull one of the most difficult feats known to man. Within a period of six months the individuals at both SpaceX and Tesla would achieve an immense amount of work.
His company would install floodlights to make it possible for employees to work at night. They ended up working maddening hours.
Travelling
Elon Musk is a non-stop traveler. Moving from one city to another or from country to country trying to set up his business empire.
At the initial stages of founding SpaceX and Tesla, most of the employees were bounded by suffering and toil.
The employees used to work on Sundays, Saturdays and even slept under their desks at work.
People who do not deliver lost their jobs. Many company staff worked seven days a week.
Bloggers were breathless in their coverage on how Elon Musk companies worked.
Musk never studied rocketry in college and the main area of study, he relied on books to acquire the bulky of his knowledge in this area.
He has the capacity to absorb large quantities of information just it seemed like he was vacuuming books into his brain.
Elon Musk does everything in hurry, his pace of working is fast. Elon and his team would read all research papers published by NASA and other major aeronautics companies or authorities.
Elon Musk has the ability to make big decisions quickly. This made it possible for implementation to go on quickly without any undue delays.
SpaceX created Falcon I which was to work as the company’s primary workhorse.
SpaceX’s first rocket flew around the earth in June 2010. This was a great milestone for the company.
SpaceX also became the first private company to dock at the International Space Station (ISS).
SpaceX has also been developing Falcon Heavy which has the capacity to carry more than 53 metric tons of stuff into orbit.
In the process, SpaceX has improved from manufacturing 2 rockets in one year to 20 within the same period.
Space Port
The author of this book tells us that SpaceX is busy constructing a space port. This is the area from where spacecrafts or rockets will be launched. It is located in Brownsville in Texas.
Before entering the aerospace industry Elon spent months studying about it.
“A devourer of information and had emerged from this meditative process.”
Elon Musk would push his team to work and extend the boundaries of possibilities. For instance, he would set up work stations in various places.
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