The risk of going broke due to lack of capital, love trouble with Amber Heard as well as the scandal of Errol Musk’s father have put the Tesla boss under unprecedented pressure.
According to Fortune, 2017 were the darkest days of Elon Musk’s life.
In July 2017, Tesla launched the Model 3 electric car, but the challenge at that time was how to achieve an output of 5,000 units per week when its factories still had to solve many problems, from cost to customers. supply to the level of efficient completion of the production process.
Let me remind you that at that time, Elon Musk did not have enough time to expand the factory, so he was forced to do what he could with what was left on hand. Not to mention a series of love troubles from Amber Heard or her father Errol Musk.
At this time, the Tesla boss is not too famous or the richest billionaire in the world, and is even at risk of going broke because of this electric car startup project.
However, according to Elon Musk, he used an algorithm (Algorithm), or more precisely, a set of 5 rules to overcome difficulties. That is:
-Ask questions and find your own solutions for every stage of production
-Delete unnecessary parts in the plan
-Simplify and Optimize everything
-Speed up production cycles
-Automation
Dark days
According to Walter Isaacson’s biography about Elon Musk, the summer of 2017 to fall of 2018 was the darkest for the Tesla boss in both his career and personal life.
Please be reminded that Tesla at that time had debt of up to 2.2 billion USD and was not yet a valuable company like today to be able to sell or mortgage shares.
“It was the darkest time I’ve ever been through. It was 18 months of non-stop madness and my mind was in extreme pain,” Elon Musk said in his biography.
At work, Elon Musk had to confront short-selling investors, who believed that Tesla’s planned production increase target was impossible and drove the company’s stock price down.
Regarding his personal life, the Tesla boss faces the scandal of breaking up with Amber Heard as well as the scandals about his father Errol Musk when he got his stepdaughter pregnant.
Everything happened at once to the point where Elon Musk had to post on Twitter that he didn’t know if he was going crazy or not.
Fortune said that at that time, although the founder of Tesla was rich, he was not famous enough or had many assets like he does today to negotiate with banks.
Elon Musk was also recently pushed out of the Paypal project and this billionaire’s only source of wealth comes from Tesla’s bonus stock packages, which can only be implemented if the company’s total capitalization reaches 650 billion USD according to agree.
Therefore, if he is not successful, this billionaire will have nothing.
Similarly, Tesla in 2017 was not a big player in the market or had the position it has today. Back then, Elon Musk’s company was just a potential technology project with unbelievable promises about output goals.
Because of doubts about Elon Musk’s promises, many large shareholders began selling shares and greatly affected the market at that time. The company’s financial situation is not really positive, making things even more challenging.
S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows that there was $13 billion in Tesla shares sold short as of August 2018.
“In the darkest days of his life, Elon Musk only knew how to work,” author Isaacson wrote in his biography of the founder of Tesla.
