MUSK’S MISSION

WORDS JON WILLIAMS | ILLUSTRATIONS CAT FINNIE COMMENTARY EDITORIAL

For all the talk in the media of disruptors, start-up innovation, unicorns and the promise of big data, in 2018 does the world of big business really belong to the Dreamers? The world’s biggest companies still follow traditional business models with the same business aspirations learnt on MBA courses around the world - expand your markets, tap into new ones and update your core offering - evolution not revolution. The old guard of established and ‘safe’ multinationals still dominate the landscape at a global scale and since Steve Jobs died, not even Apple are pushing boundaries like they used creatively. Which currently leaves just one person with the means and the motive to change the world. Elon Musk is that rare business leader with both boundless ambition and scope of interest. What's more, he’s afforded a rare freedom that not even Jobs could afford. For more than 20 years now, no one has dreamed bigger, only a few have even come close. His stated goal? “(to solve) the problems most likely to affect the future of humanity.”

And why shouldn’t he? Dreaming big, has paid off for him from the very beginning. Musk’s success started in the mid 90’s tech bubble with Zip2 - providing online city guides to newspapers in the US. He had been just two days at Stanford University when he decided to drop out and start Zip2, the first of many dice roles that (mostly) paid off big. When the bubble burst and while he saw his contemporaries heading into administration, he was just 29 when he cashed out in 1999 with $22 million. Just three years later, X.com - the company he founded and later merged with Cofinity to become Paypal - sold to ebay for $1.5 billion. No easy feat and one not without sacrifice. “We all worked 20 hours a day, and he worked 23 hours.” said Julie Ankenbrandt who worked with Musk at X.com.

Since then, he’s become the man Neil deGrasse Tyson described as the “best thing we’ve had since Thomas Edison”. With Tesla, Space X and other ventures, he’s set out a vision that is literally about securing the future of mankind. But he’s also enigmatic, strange and in not deeply flawed. He bases his business decisions on the laws of physics and attended Burning Man (before it was cool). He knows the inner working of everything his companies build but crashed his McLaren F1 supercar while it was uninsured. He believes we all may well be living in a simulation and doesn’t patent his Space X technology because he wants it to be for the good of mankind (he’s also expressed a suspicion of the efficacy of patents when his main competitors are government run organisations). He also makes his partners nervous and alienates supporters. He tweets instinctively, often leading to huge and well deserved trouble - whether it’s slandering Thai rescue divers or recklessly speculating about future IPOs. Even as a child his family knew he was different. He would drift off into trances so deep his family thought he might be deaf. They even removed his adenoid glands thinking it would help him hear better (it didn’t). His mother explained, “He goes into his brain, and then you just see he is in another world. He still does that. Now I just leave him be because I know he is designing a new rocket or something.”

Yet to understand his business motivations you only have to look at Tesla - The only car company ever created from a premise of promoting green energy. At a TED talk Musk explained the genesis of Tesla, “I thought about what are the problems most likely to affect the future of humanity. It’s extremely important we have sustainable transport and sustainable energy sustainable energy is the biggest problem that we have to solve this century.” Today Tesla has over $28 billion in assets and is moving towards Musk’s goal for the company - production of a high volume, affordable electric car that’s less than $30,000. And through Tesla he’s doubled down on his ecological mission, with Solar City - driving down the cost of solar panels and pioneering new energy storage technologies. His commitment to the cause is clear, but in his methods are unique and in many cases bizarre. Take the famous “billionaire” tweets between Musk and Australians Software magnate, Michael Cannon Brookes. The Australian basically dared Musk to create the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in Australia to take advantage of wind energy and provide consistent power to the grid. Striking undoubted terror into his board, Musk tweeted that not only could it be done, but that it would be done in 100 days or there would be no charge. Unsurprisingly the Australian state jumped at the offer, but what is surprising is that not only did Tesla deliver the battery on time as promised, but that the venture is already seeing a return on investment. Documents from its owner, energy developer Neoen, show a total revenue of $14 million (aus) in the first six months of 2018. As seemingly spur-of-the-moment commitment with a ridiculously tight deadline, it really shouldn’t have worked, but once again, dreaming big (for now at least) paid off, but this was clearly not a venture undertaken for financial reasons. As Musk has said, “If it was about money, I’d just do another internet company.” To prove the point he recently started selling flamethrowers - cool-looking ones too like you’d see in Star Trek, promoted in a video of Musk with a Cheshire Cat grin, shooting fire all over the place in a variety of action poses. But for every self-indulgent venture like the flamethrower or making Teslas “dance” to music from Trans- Siberian Orchestra as an easter egg in the OS, Musk is still putting his money where his mouth in terms of world-changing ambition.

With Space X, Musk may well see the culmination of that ambition. Inspired by Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series - Musk sees interplanetary exploration as “an important step to preserving and expanding the consciousness of human life” and a “hedger against threats to the survival of the human species. With space exploration usually the remits of governments with large budgets, Musk entered the game in 2002 with no experience, and instantly set about cutting the cost and improving the reliability of space exploration. Once again, the gamble seems to have paid off as today shares in Space X are said to be worth $160 - $170 (pre-IPO) and that a SpaceX and United Launch Alliance has secured $640 million in Air Force launches.

As is the nature of rocket development, it hasn’t all been smooth progress (crashes, explosions etc), but the result today is Falcon Heavy. It’s the world’s most powerful rocket by a factor two and capable of carrying huge payloads to orbit, and ultimately to Mars and beyond. In 2018 Space X demonstrated Falcon Heavy’s capabilities the Elon Musk way - they sent a Tesla Roadster with a space suit sitting in the driver’s seat into orbit. A publicity stunt to be sure, but one with a message - we can deliver on our promises and we can do what others can not. But between the lines there’s another message too, one from Musk to the world that no one else can - ‘Look what’s really possible when you dream big enough.”