Reading Reflection No.1

What surprised me most about Elon Musk was his unique, and sometimes seriously off-putting personality. His sometimes-blatant disregard for the emotions of others is without a doubt the characteristic that I admire least about him. His relationships both romantic and familial are strikingly strange, yet despite this unpleasant characteristic, I still admire him for his astonishing achievements.

Elon Musk is unquestionably an innovator. Through Tesla, Musk has not only created a suitable alternative to gas-guzzling cars but has made it the far sexier choice. Musk exhibits extraordinary creativity as well as incomparable ambition to create goals that your most determined inventors would likely call over-reaching.

The part of this reading that confused me most was Elon Musk’s baffoon-like paranoia. Some of his fears were so outlandish that I simply couldn’t believe that the creator of Space X and Tesla could be saying these things. If I knew nothing about his accomplishments, I would have thought he was a sci-fi horror writer based on these claims.

I would first ask Mr. Musk, “How do you never feel that the weight of your ambitions are too heavy to pursue?”. This question relates more specifically to Space X than Tesla, highlighting the (literally) astronomical scope of aiming to bring the human race to Mars. Following this, I would ask “What was your proudest accomplishment at age 20, 30, and 40?”. For a man who has set out to achieve so much, I would find it fascinating to see how his perspective has changed over those decades on his greatest moments.

Elon Musk doesn’t view hard work as a method of achieving success. Instead, hard work is simply an implied factor in the formula of production through which he knows he must push further than anyone else. Musk’s work ethic is nearly unparalleled and should be replicated by all hopeful-entrepreneurs.