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Top 10 Biggest Failures In Elon Musk's Life That You Probably Didn't Know...!

We all know about Elon Musk, the man who has revolutionized every industry that you can even think of! Musk is not just a man of words but a man of deeds who changes visions into reality.

This successful entrepreneur recently touched the height of being the richest man in the world by surpassing the fortune of Jeff Bezos, the founder, and CEO of Amazon.

Best-known for his bold predictions, this billionaire is also famous for his goal to solve all the problems of humanity and take us to Mars and beyond. His ambitions gave him the courage to fire the determination to accomplish everything he wanted to have in his life.

Every company like Tesla (automotive industry), SpaceX (aerospace industry), Zip2 (electronic payment services) are now the paradigm of success. Behind his achievements, there is a simple and powerful mantra of never stop trying after experiencing continuous failures.

He has reached here after experiencing a number of low and jaw-dropping events that may be unbearable and quite demotivating for many...

So, let's dive deep into multiple lows of his life!

(Note- I have tried to make it chronological so that you can easily understand the sequence of the events.)

Elon Musk's Top 10 Biggest Failures

1) Elon Musk removed from the CEO position of his first company

In 1995, Elon Musk & his brother Kimbal Musk with Greg Kouri founded a technology company - Zip2 which was later purchased by Compaq Computer in 1999.

But while he was unaware of the happenings, the board of directors went on a meeting and removed Musk from the position of CEO from his own company.

And according to YourStory.com, the Board claimed that Musk lacked the necessary operational responsibilities. They even said him to be 'inexperienced' in the area.

Even though, he rested as a board member and kept his shares until the company was sold for $307 million in which he received $22 million.

2) Musk was expelled from PayPal

In 1999, Musk founded X.com, an online payment company that later merged with Confinity.Inc, a software company based in Silicon Valley and became PayPal (as we know it today).

In April 2000, Musk was made CEO of the company. But soon after that, he got into a disagreement with the then CTO in the decision to switch PayPal's servers. He thought to have a comprehensive online banking system while Peter Theil, the co-founder of Confinity, and other staff members wanted to continue with peer to peer money transfer.

So, while he was going to Australia to enjoy his holidays then he was expelled from his position and Theil was appointed as the new CEO of the company.

On this, he was once noted saying that the betrayal he faced made him more committed and determined than ever to start SpaceX and Tesla...

3) Russia refused Musk to offer space rockets to reach Mars

Elon earned a huge fortune after selling his companies X.com and Zip2 in millions of dollars. But, he didn't want to spend it just by having a branded juice while lying on a famous beach and celebrating holidays instead he wanted to invest this money to make humans an extra-terrestrial species.

So, in 2001 Musk visualised a project to terraform Mars which was known as 'Mars Oasis'.

He went to Moscow, in search of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that could send the required satellites into orbit.

He looked for refurbished rockets, not new ones, at cheap rates, and at that time the Russians were the only ones with the cheapest rockets available. But the price offered to Musk was as high as $8 million for each which he found to be too expensive.

Nonetheless, Musk didn't stop working as he started working to build his own rocket to explore space, and then eventually SpaceX came into being.

4) The First Rocket launched by SpaceX got lost

After years of development and hard work, SpaceX finally launched its 1st rocket into space in the year 2006. This first-ever private launch would have been successful only if it didn't fail just 33 seconds after lift-off.

Watch the crash landing of the first rocket launched by SpaceX - Falcon 1 in this video

5) Falcon 1 was again launched but failed

The company soon made a new Falcon 1 rocket for launch in 2007 but this even ended in failure as the engines shut down soon after launch and the rocket lost its connection and failed to reach its orbit.

By and large, SpaceX failed in its first two successive approaches.

6) Falcon 1 launched for the 3rd-time but ended in vain

This 3rd approach in 2008 could have attracted a large crowd of investors and spaceflight enthusiasts amid the Falcon 1 loss in 2006 & 7 - if the rocket hadn't turned out to crash in the sea instead.

The problem reported later by the officials was not with its quality or production but with its design which restrained the private agency's third attempt to send its 1st rocket into space.

7) Tesla's embarrassing CyberTruck project debacle

Tesla Cybertruck. Source

In 2019, Tesla launched Cybertruck which is a battery-powered, light-duty vehicle. They claimed it to be the most powerful tool which they have ever worked on.

This 'military vehicle' got even more attention after a tweet from the company's CEO Elon Musk in which he describes it to be ' the coolest car he'd ever seen '.

But unfortunately, it didn't prove to be as much tough as Musk thought it to be, as the vehicle's glass shattered after being hit with a heavy steel ball during its debut. Watch this incident in this video below by The Markhor Tech

On this embarrassing incident, Musk said that just before the ball test, Holzhausen thwacked the door with a sledgehammer on stage to prove its strength & which was fine then. But this violent smash cracked the base of glass & it subsequently disintegrated when hit by the ball.

8) Tesla electric vehicle got delayed by 18 months!

Tesla delivered the first of its new Model X electric vehicle after a huge delay of nearly two years. This launch of behind schedule could be because of a high number of pre-orders or because of failure to find a dozen of its spare components.

But, whichever may be the case, the Tesla motors have made it difficult for potential buyers to whether rely upon it or not.

In this context, Musk said that X is a 'particularly challenging car to build. Maybe the hardest car to build in the world. I'm not sure what would be harder.'

9) Tesla was going to be shutdown

Musk founded Tesla Motors in 2003, a company aimed to accelerate the advent of the market for electric cars as soon as possible. But this novice company was under great pressure in the year 2008.

The electric vehicle with the quickest acceleration - Model S was nowhere to be seen shortly and it was further clear that the revenue generated from the sale of Roadster will no longer fund the company overall.

Roadster car of Tesla. Source

The problem increased when the first three successive missions of the SpaceX failed - further reducing the collection (as Musk was pumping a major part of his money into SpaceX too). This delay of launch increased the cost of the car by 200% thus making it difficult for Musk to collect the required funds.

The company was about to go to bankruptcy only when the final round of funding happened at the last hour (Musk threw his last $35 million in the company). The financial crisis also averted as the company received great reviews from consumers for its performance.

10) Both Tesla and SpaceX ran completely dry

After founding SpaceX and Tesla in 2002 and 2003 respectively Musk started putting all of his money he got after selling Zip2 for $305 million to Compaq and X.com for $1.5 billion into them.

But after a few months, his pockets got empty. This running out of cash brought a huge problem not only for him but even for the companies themselves.

Unfortunately, Musk has to live on personal loans from friends and colleagues since 2009. Even the company's revenue generations reduced drastically and it had to borrow around $465 million from The United States Department Of Energy.

This lack of cash changed into a 'catastrophe' after the divorce settlement with Musk's ex-wife - Justine Musk.

These things made it certain that the company is no longer receiving any more cash from him.

Do you know, how Musk got out of this problem? Tesla came to his rescue. It granted him 6.7 million stock options to invest and proved to be of great value.

Nope..!

Don't go anywhere - The article hasn't finished yet.

This was only a trailer, now I'll share with you a dozen more jaw-dropping events of his life. Though small, but yet important!

Some more low points in Musk's life

1) In 1995, Musk has applied for a job in Netscape, but the turning point is that he didn't get it in the end!

Can you imagine what brought him to Netscape?

But before that let me tell you something about Netscape. It is a computer services company founded in 1994 which is best known for its Netscape Navigator web browser. Netscape was the first company to attempt to capitalize on the emerging World Wide Web and a leading tech company at that time. And the browser was the most successful and widely used web service at that time.

Back to the topic now, Musk believed that the Internet would definitely change the world in upcoming years, and some or the other way, he wanted to become part of it.

At that time he hadn't dreamt of starting his own company but only thought to get a job at Netscape. By this, we can get to know about his ability to correctly predict the future which helps him to judge the situation well and helped

2) In 2016, SpaceX's rocket exploded on its Florida launch pad while fuelling. The company said that the problem originated around the oxygen tank of the upper stage - the top portion of the rocket.

In this video, you can see how the explosion started at the upper portion and how it ultimately led to the loss of Falcon 9.

3) In 2014, Tesla's electric car of model S has a problem with its battery.

4) In 2019, SpaceX's prototype rocket starship burst during ground tests in Texas.

5) The Hyperloop project - the first time coined by Musk in 2013 is a concept but if implemented then it will reduce travel times remarkably.

Elon Musk's hyperloop project. Source

In this, a pod or small bus-type mechanism is used which moves inside a sealed tube having very low air pressure. It is used to take people to long distances in a short while.

While this project is to be completed by 2030 (after 9 years from now) but Musk failed to take any great step to make this project a reality till now.

6) In June 2015, an unmanned mission was performed by SpaceX's rocket Falcon 9 v.1.1 aimed to carry a Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) but it blew up just after a few moments of launch. The day this happened wasn't a mere day but Musk's 44th birthday.

The rocket has to supply a huge amount of food and other materials like a water filtration system, two HaloLens devices, etc. to the station for its inhabitants.

Though later at a conference they confirmed that the scientists at ISS can hold out until the next supply, there would be no contradiction to say that incidents like this can curb the futuristic commercial spaceflights as it was the first failure of SpaceX craft on a primary mission.

Source

7) In the year 2014, Tesla Model S had been found diagnosed with several problems with its spontaneous battery combustion.

Yes, That's all!

I hope that this article has amazed you and also inspired to struggle hard like Musk...

Don't forget to come here back to get hold of fascinating facts about another interesting topic.

For now, kindly comment to me and share your views. Also, suggest me any other interesting topic to write an article on!