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lon Musk has, by any reasonable standard, done well for himself. And if the billionaire CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company can realize his lofty ambitions — whether it’s sending humans to Mars, bringing self-driving electric cars to the masses, or helping build a whole new transportation infrastructure with the hyperloop — then he has a chance to do well for humanity too. For now, his companies have already proved commercial spaceflight is viable, sold a quarter-million electric cars, and introduced solar power technology that is already assisting Puerto Rico’s post-hurricane recovery.

But all of Musk’s staggering success up to this point is built on what is frankly an equally staggering amount of failure, and whatever future success he has will likely be accompanied by still more failure. Throughout his career, he has shown a knack from learning from those setbacks and emerging stronger from them.

Here are three times Elon Musk has failed harder than you ever will — and how he emerged better for the experience.

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By James B. Stewart

There’s no question that Elon Musk is one of the great entrepreneurs of this era. He may even be in “a class of one,” as he recently described Tesla, the revolutionary electric car company he founded.But Mr. Musk’s tweet last week — expressing his intent to take Tesla private and declaring that he had “funding secured” for the multibillion-dollar transaction — was so impulsive, potentially inaccurate, poorly worded and thought out, and with such potentially dire consequences for himself, Tesla and its shareholders, that the board now must ask a sensitive but vital question: What was Mr. Musk’s state of mind when he wrote it?

Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk must recognize he can’t do it all and agree to bring in a strong No. 2 to run day-to-day operations at the electric automaker, leading analysts told CNBC on Tuesday.

“We think he’s going through a founder’s dilemma. He’s clearly stretched too thin,” Consumer Edge Research analyst James Albertine said on “Squawk Box.” “I think this is Elon going through personal issues, having his own struggles with the bears, very publicly.”

Musk had been acting acting erratically for months even before his take-private tweet two weeks ago, which raised concerns among investors and regulators in Washington.

In May, Musk rudely cut off analysts on Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call, something he apologized for on the second-quarter call earlier this month. He was also launching tweetstorm after tweetstorm all summer long as he was dealing with major production problems for the automaker’s new, less expensive sedan, the Model 3.

The board needs to bring in a chief operating officer or co-CEO to take some of the pressures off of Musk and allow him to concentrate on being a “brilliant leader as a visionary,” contended Albertine, who on Tuesday downgraded Tesla stock to equal weight and reduced his 12-month price target to $311 per share from $385.

Shares of Tesla broke a four-session, 14 percent losing streak on Monday, and the stock was logging a strong advance in early Tuesday trading.

 

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By KEVIN KELLEHER July 16, 2021

Tesla’s stock lost 4% of its value Monday following a rough weekend for its CEO Elon Musk.

Musk, who has taken to Twitter in recent weeks to combat his critics, drew criticism this weekend after calling a diver involved in the rescue of a Thai soccer team a “pedo.” The diver, Vern Unsworth, had criticized Musk’s effort to create a small submarine to rescue the soccer team members.

Thai rescuers succeeded in bringing the soccer team to safety without enlisting Musk’s help. Unsworth dismissed it as a PR stunt, telling Musk he could “stick his submarine where it hurts.” Musk then lashed back in a now deleted tweet that seemed to hint, by virtue of the British diver’s residence in Thailand, that he was a pedophile.

Unsworth has said he is considering legal action against Musk, while Tesla investors wasted no time in expressing their concerns about the CEO’s erratic behavior. Tesla slid 2.8% during official market hours Monday, before declining more than 1% in after-hours trading.

 

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Among the more recent ‘failures’: parts of the Tesla Model 3 were being made by hand, contributing to a shortage of vehicles ready for delivery
Going through a rough patch at work? Well, at least you probably didn’t get ousted as CEO of your own company, watch two of your companies hover on the brink of bankruptcy or get fired while on your honeymoon.

All of those things have happened at various points to Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, co-founder of Tesla TSLA, -0.33% , founder of Neuralink, co-founder of SolarCity and co-founder of X.com which eventually became PayPal , and who now has a net worth of about $15 billion.

Musk’s impressive resume is littered with accomplishments, but it’s worth remembering it’s not all sunbeams and soaring stock prices.

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