When talking about present-day multi-billionaire entrepreneurs, Elon Musk is probably at the top of the list. The South African engineer has been at the helm of companies like SpaceX and Tesla. Although these projects have turned out to be quite successful, the road to the top has featured some failures for Musk.
It may be hard to believe, but Elon Musk was let go as CEO of his own company Zip2 a year after being turned down for a position in Netscape. Nowadays, companies would be lucky to have him tweet about them. What’s even more shocking is that Musk has been ejected from his own company more than once. In 2000, PayPal gave him the boot while he was on his honeymoon.
Surely, after a couple of failures, he’d be destined to take off, right? Wrong! Numerous rocket launches and car problems put SpaceX and Tesla on the brink of extinction between 2006 and 2016. Truth be told, every entrepreneur goes through difficulties.
Luckily, Elon had enough perseverance and good spirits left in the tank to make things work. Today, he is among the top paid entrepreneurs in the world, as well as a dedicated philanthropist. If enough people follow his example and stay the course, they can lead humanity to new heights…One wrecked McLaren at a time.