Biography of Elon Musk as a leader in all parts of life, written by Wharton MBA student for a course on leadership from the point of view of the whole person.

1. Leadership Biography
Lukas Endl
April, 10th 2017
ELON MUSK

2. Quick Biography
• Born in 1971 in South Africa, raised in Suburbs of Pretoria
• Grew up with sister Tosca and brother Kimbal; their parents split
when they were young
• Early on, developed an interest in reading and computers
• He was severely bullied during his childhood
• Elon and Kimbal emigrated to Canada with their mother, Maye to
avoid conscription in the South African army
• At the age of 24, he received a Bachelor in Physics from UPenn and
a Bachelor in Economics from Wharton.

3. Key
accomplishments/failures
• Rejected from a job at Netscape after Wharton
• 1995-1999: Zip2, but was removed as CEO
• 1999: X.com (later Paypal). Musk ousted as CEO, but received $165 million
in 2002 as part of sale to eBay
• 2002: SpaceX, almost failed
• 2004: Tesla. Almost bankrupt in early 2013
• In December 2016, Musk was ranked 21st on Forbes list of the World Most
Powerful People

4. 4-Way Integration
Work and Self
• Elon loves what he does, solving problems
with technology
• He constantly comes up with ideas to
new innovations and executes them
• He characterized himself as an
introverted thinker
• After being ousted as CEO twice, he found
his own personal leadership style (being
real)
Work and Community
• Elon’s big visions are rooted in the desire to
solve big problems for society
• He is heavily engaged in Philanthropy:
Musk foundation, X-prize

5. 4-Way Integration –
Work and Home
• Received support from his family
• Family followed Elon to Canada
• Father was investor in first company
• Brother was cofounder of Zip2 and
investor in X.com
• Married and divorced to college partner
Justine Wilson, 6 sons (the first one died 10
weeks after birth)
• Musk makes priorities for his kids, taking
them for half of the week and “spending a
fair bit of them with them”
• Comes home to family dinners, puts them
to bed, travels with kids
• Created a little school for his boys (4-way
win!)

6. Take-aways
• Elon is a fundamentally innovative entrepreneur (be innovative), living
his dream of creating solutions for ley problems of mankind
• Despite set-backs and challenging times, Elon was able to “be real” and
express his unique personality (introverted, not very social) as part of
his business
• Even with a crazy working schedule, Elon spends plenty of time with his
kids (be whole), yet he admitted that his passion for working long hours
contributed to his divorces