Masterplan: Elon Musk Unstoppable E-Book

Andreas Dripke

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 499

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Elon Musk's political involvement since 2024/2025 isn't coincidental; it's a masterfully crafted maneuver. The currently richest and most powerful person in the world is following a master plan where all his innovations, ventures, and political ambitions fit together like puzzle pieces into a comprehensive picture. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, X, x.AI, Grok, Neuralink, Hyperloop, Boring, DOGE, global political influencer - everything aligns perfectly with the plan. This book reveals Musk's master plan in its entirety. Simultaneously, it explains how "First Principle Thinking" works - the mindset that allows Elon Musk to revolutionize any market he targets. Tesla has turned the automotive industry on its head. SpaceX has become the leading space company, aiming to colonize Mars and earn billions through space mining. Starlink is on its way to conquering the telecommunications industry with a global satellite network - while also providing military support in times of crisis. X (formerly Twitter) is evolving into a universal media giant and an Everything-App. x.AI/Grok has taken the lead in Artificial Intelligence development. Under the name Optimus, Elon Musk is developing a humanoid robot that will be as commonplace in our daily lives as smartphones are today. Those who believe these successes are mere coincidences have not understood how Elon Musk thinks - and what each of us can learn from him to achieve our own success. Beyond cars, rockets, satellites, and AI robots, Elon Musk is also working on brain chips implanted in our skulls to create an "Internet of Brains," merging human cognitive capabilities into a single thinking complex. This "Humanity 2.0" is seen as a counterbalance to ever-smarter Artificial Intelligence. Since 2024/2025, it's clear: With his master plan, Elon Musk is far more than just a crazy innovator and smart businessman; he's also a global political player. He has swiftly positioned himself to meddle openly in politics, not just in the US but also in countries like Brazil, the UK, or Germany. There's a good reason for this: to realize his master plan, he needs not only his innovations and wealth but also world politics. Elon Musk hasn't yet ignited the next level of his power: the integration of all his activities. Only when he starts piecing the puzzle together more will his master plan gradually become apparent. Those who read this book will know the plan today.

Leseprobe

Selected quotes from Elon Musk1

"I don't set up companies to set up companies, but to get things done."

"Building a company is like baking a cake. You just need the right amount of all the ingredients."

"If something is important enough, then do it, even if all the odds are against you."

"Building a company is not for everyone. I would say that the top priority is a high pain threshold."

"It's very important that you like the people you work with. Otherwise your job will be pretty bleak."

"People work better when they know the why and the goals."

"If a move to Mars, for example, costs almost 100,000 dollars, I think almost everyone can raise that amount through work and saving."

"All other AIs that are created are not maximally searching for the truth; they are rather trained to be politically correct. We need an AI that loves humanity, and that's why I created xAI."

"Our existence cannot just consist of solving one miserable problem after another. There must be reasons to live." Elon Musk's answer to the question of whether the problems on Earth need to be solved first before embarking on ambitious space ventures.2

Contents

Contents

Foreword

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk

Not a biography, but entrepreneurship

Heads of state are the dinosaurs of world politics

Like Leonardo da Vinci or Jules Verne

Is Elon Musk the most powerful man in the world?

The master plan of master plans

Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk

"South Africa like a prison"

"Going on vacation will kill you"

Oversized visions require sacrifices

Elon Musk in private

The richest weirdo in the world

Elon Musk buys Coca-Cola – a joke, right?

Private planes and exotic cars

Multitasking: working, reading, celebrating

Call for "free speech" stirs up the media

Master plan for logical thinking

The secret master plan of Tesla Motors

Elon Musk uses the first-principle thinking pattern

Logic instead of gut feeling

Tesla takes over the car market

Nikola Tesla – inventor and namesake

Electromobility in the year 1821

First hybrid from Ferdinand Porsche

Ecosystem and image for a new era

New era of electromobility since 1990

Tesla Roadster the first and the second

Back to the future with hinged doors

Eureka moment Cybertruck

Tesla goes international

Tesla on the brink of bankruptcy

Tesla forges ahead: SUV in the online store

Elon Musk in hell

Tesla is operating at a loss

Tesla takes the lead in the premium segment

Tesla becomes more valuable than BMW

Tesla becomes a real car company

Tesla not unassailable

Analysts predict the collapse of Tesla

Elon Musk can't stop playing tricks

A respectable success for VW – with cheating

Tesla secures its position in the premium market segment

Billion company with almost 80% market share

Car with space propulsion

The dream of the cheap Tesla is bursting... or is it?

Efficiency up, prices down

Toyota full of praise for Tesla

Super Tesla with yoke instead of steering wheel

Tesla Semi: Electric heavy-duty transporter

Smart grid: solar roofs and storage batteries

Tesla Master Plan Part Deux

Tesla is leading the way with powerful computers

Cybercab and Robovan: 2026... 2027

Master plan for robotaxis

Robotaxis are changing urban life

Autonomous cars save lives

A retrospective on the early days of self-driving cars

Waymo and Cruise have long had autonomous driving

Amazon Zoox gets in on the act

A billion-dollar deal with Bitcoins as an act of desperation

Master Plan Part Trois

Elon Musk enters the raw materials industry

Clumsy actions by the competition

The pack of followers

Car manufacturers switch to E and underestimate D

Dinosaur debates in Europe

On the Sense and Nonsense of E-Mobility

Why buy E?

Tesla Leads, VW Follows, Then China

E-cars 2023: China and the USA are ahead

Patchwork of subsidies for electric cars

Will the power grid collapse?

The race to catch up with Tesla

VW takes on Tesla, leaving BMW and Mercedes behind

E for electric, but what about I for intelligence?

Audi's E-SUV

The electric shift at Mercedes

BMW switches to E

The pack is chasing after the e-trend

Arrogance, naivety and dilettantism

Robots and artificial intelligence

Human-like robots on the rise

Artificial intelligence as the key

Why autonomous driving is so difficult

Machines like people and vice versa

Home robot Astro

Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi and the like

Atlas – the "Robo Sapiens"

From Terminator to ballet dancer

Spot –Robotic Dog or Dog Robot

Police robot faces rejection

How dangerous is artificial intelligence?

The race for the best AI

xAI introduces Grok

Colossus: The best AI computer in 19 days

AI and nuclear power are joining forces

General artificial intelligence

Can artificial consciousness exist?

Evolution of post-biological life

Software and artificial intelligence

Machines think better than the smartest person

Software is eating the world

Intelligence on a par with humans

A dream of mankind

Answers to the questions of the coming decades

Robot laws from 1942 for our future

Autonomous weapons that destroy and kill

The zeroth robot law

New industrial business models

The cosmos of trillionaires

New business model for major projects

The use of nuclear power as the conquest of space

Digitalization, genetics, health

Geostrategic power balance as a driver

Billion-dollar market for space tourism

The journey into space: Rockets and Satellites

The billionaires' race to space

Reaching for the stars

Company goal: Establish a colony on Mars

Of Hawks and Dragons

SpaceX is building the world's most powerful rocket

Starship – the new generation

Ukraine changed everything, even for SpaceX

Combat and commerce go hand in hand

The United Nations Outer Space Treaty

Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars"

Artemis Accords: The USA regulate space

The US Space Force takes off

The Orion Space Patrol

Satellites around the globe

Sensational project Starlink

The Kuiper project: huge and silent

The EU tries to strike back: IRIS2

China is ahead of the EU, but behind Starlink

Espionage in the sky

State surveillance in space

Musk revolutionizes the mobile communications industry

Of masters and dogs

Neuralink - connection to the brain

The Internet of Minds – an ingenious horror vision

Trials with brain pacemakers

Cochlear implant for the deaf and hard of hearing

From pigs to humans

Connection to the brain via hood or headband

N1 marked the breakthrough

The most important company of this decade

Cyborgs and robots are getting closer

Challenge: Experiencing innovations in one's lifetime

X – the battle for Twitter

YouTube replaces television

Social media is the modern printing press

Takeover thriller on Twitter

Champion of free speech

Innovation over ruin

X goes far beyond Twitter

Battle for 100 billion dollars

Best deal ever

With XMail to the "Everything App"

Hyperloop and (not) Boring

Hyperloop: traveling at 1,220 kilometers per hour

A 60-page master plan for the tunneling project

Construction of a tunnel boring machine

The wait for Godot is over

Baptism of fire passed in Las Vegas

Smart city ahead: Snailbrook in Texas

Breaking into politics

A remarkable transformation towards Donald Trump

Corona and the "woke virus" changed everything

Biggest supporter for Trump

DOGE – Fighting the bureaucracy monster

What Europe can learn from DOGE

Male friendship: Trump and Musk

Musk flexes his muscles

Conflicts of interest... what conflicts?

Politics in Germany: Musk gets involved

Elon Musk challenges King Charles III

Italy, Brazil, Australia

Can a state be run like a corporation?

Threat to the press

A threat to the environment

Role model for the next generation

A danger – also to national security

4.5 trillion dollars market value in ten years

Death on Mars

Grande Masterplan

About the Author

Books from Diplomatic Council Publishing

About the Diplomatic Council

References and notes

Foreword

This book is primarily dedicated to the entrepreneur Elon Musk, although his global political activism since 2024/25 is also taken into account, because both are part of a master plan that includes us all. Step by step, his very different ventures are highlighted and examined in their respective market contexts. He undoubtedly belongs to a small elite group of exceptional entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who manage to create an almost superhuman body of work during their lifetime. What unites all three is that they have introduced innovations that – somewhat dramatically put – have had an impact on the entire world or at least large parts of humanity. The way billions of people use their work computers and smartphones today would be unthinkable without Gates and Jobs.

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs founded two of the most successful digital companies in the world, Microsoft and Apple respectively. But Elon Musk has gone a decisive step further: As a serial entrepreneur, he has launched an entire series of ventures – almost all of which have achieved, if not the leading position, then at least a key role in their respective market segments. Tesla's leading role in electric cars is just as undeniable as SpaceX's pioneering role in the conquest of space. Both companies stand far beyond themselves for how Elon Musk has succeeded in turning entire industries upside down with his entrepreneurial ideas. With Tesla, he has practically rammed all car manufacturers around the globe head-on and driven them into a corner. With SpaceX, he managed to outpace both the U.S. space agency NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) within just a few years.

The frequently criticized takeover of Twitter should be understood in the context that Elon Musk considers social media to be the form of communication par excellence – far beyond the current level. His entry into politics in 2024/25, in which Twitter, which has since been renamed X, played a key role, makes it clear that Musk is not "just" about entrepreneurship, but about decisively shaping our world.

And there is still a whole series of ventures with which he is in the process of shaping the future of humanity. With X/Twitter, Musk has made one thing clearer than was previously apparent: the jack-of-all-trades not only wants to own companies in order to make money, but also claims to have a significant influence on the future of billions of people. Whether he wants to reconnect humanity around the globe with Starlink, connect people's brains with Neuralink to create a kind of "Internet of Brains" or even set out to colonize Mars with SpaceX – Elon Musk is thinking big.

Not a biography, but entrepreneurship

This work is not a biography. It does not trace the life story of Elon Musk, nor does it attempt to penetrate his brain and guess his thoughts on or interpret his feelings. Rather, the focus is on the serial entrepreneur's entrepreneurship, the congenial way in which he has succeeded in turning key industries upside down and thus significantly changing our world. Moreover, since 2024, it has been impossible to write about Elon Musk without taking his geopolitical ambitions into account – which is why they have also found their way into this work.

Depending on your point of view, you may find it gratifying or grotesque how much a single person has influenced our civilization. This book traces how Elon Musk has succeeded in doing just that: lifting our modern world into spheres that we would have considered science fiction just a few years ago. Or how else can a human-like robot, a computer connection to the brain or a trip to Mars be classified? It becomes clear that Elon Musk is no longer "just an entrepreneur", but a geopolitical player who, in many respects, is playing in the league of powerful nation states by expanding the global supremacy of the US superpower to an extent that was previously difficult to imagine with his technological visions, which at first glance are often ludicrous and yet realistic. The traditional territorial model of the nation state is increasingly being replaced by a technological claim to power. This development has been on the horizon for some time now and has been unmistakable at the latest since the ubiquitous digitalization of our world: The internet and all other essential components of digitalization come from the USA. Without Microsoft's Office software, the administrative apparatus of Europe would collapse, to give just one simple example of US power.

Heads of state are the dinosaurs of world politics

The Russian attack on Ukraine, the People's Republic of China's obvious appetite for Taiwan and the USA's claims to power over Greenland make it clear that territorial considerations have not yet disappeared from power politics. But Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and, of course, Donald Trump are ultimately dinosaurs of world politics. Former US President John F. Kennedy said back in 1960, at the age of 43: "Control of space will be decided in the next decade. If the Soviets control space, they can control the earth, just as in the past centuries the nation, that controlled the oceans, controlled the continents."

Elon Musk, now around ten years older than Kennedy was back then, is giving the USA the prospect of long-term strategic superiority in space – just like Bill Gates in the software sector, Steve Jobs in the smartphone business and the US Department of Defense with the development of the Internet in computer networking, to name just a few components of the technological superiority of the United States of America.

But never before has a single American held so much global tech power in his hands as Elon Musk does today. The fact that the United States of America's newest military force, the US Space Forces, would basically be out of a job without Musk's rocket technology speaks for itself.

Elon Musk has not even laid all his cards on the table yet, let alone played his trump cards. This includes artificial intelligence (AI) in particular; anyone who thinks that Tesla primarily produces cars is very much mistaken. In reality, it is more about the vision of "artificial brains on four wheels" that drive on roads all over the world and observe their surroundings with pinpoint accuracy. But that's not all, Musk has long been working on androids, i.e. human-like robots, also equipped with AI, of course, which will romp around in our homes and look after us there. If this already seems like a horror vision, it should be noted that Elon Musk is actually pursuing the vision of an "Internet of Minds", chip implants in the brain that we can connect to.

Like Leonardo da Vinci or Jules Verne

The broad spectrum as well as the aloofness of these innovations may remind one of the inventive sketches of Leonardo da Vinci or the literary visions of the future of Jules Verne. However, unlike da Vinci and Verne, technical progress today is so far advanced, and is progressing with ever greater strides, that it seems realistic to realize Musk's dreams during his lifetime, or at least part of them.

Javier Milei, who was elected President of Argentina at the end of 2023 and became known for his radical reforms and criticism of the established political system, said in 2024: "I have an excellent relationship with Elon Musk. In my opinion, he is the Thomas Edison of today, or I could even say a Michelangelo, a Leonardo da Vinci. He seems to me to be an admirable, impressive being, a person who amazes."3

Elon Musk is occasionally compared to Jakob Fugger, a uniquely powerful entrepreneur of the 16th century. Born in 1459 in Augsburg/Germany, Fugger expanded the family business into a European financial and trade empire, renowned for its close ties to the Habsburg dynasty and the Papacy. Fugger was a master of capitalism long before the term existed. He controlled the copper and silver mining industry, financed the monarchy and the church and thus influenced European politics. The monarchs who were indebted to him were easy puppets for him to influence – one could draw a comparison with Donald Trump, in whose second election as US president Elon Musk was significantly involved and who therefore "somehow also owed him something". In today's terms, Jakob Fugger's fortune amounted to around 400 billion dollars – a mark that Elon Musk also exceeded in 2024. The comparison suggests that the dynamics of wealth and power have not fundamentally changed over the centuries, but only appear in new forms and contexts. Back to the present.

With his often crude statements on X, Elon Musk regularly frightens the public and occasionally even the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He has lost the favor of the press, at least to a large extent, in the meantime, firstly because he abolished his public relations department as the first point of contact and information a long time ago in the realization that the press is basically superfluous from his point of view, and secondly because he made it clear with the takeover of Twitter at the latest, that he prefers to disseminate his statements to the public himself, directly and without detours for the press, thirdly, because he has been asserting his political influence very clearly since 2024 and fourthly, because he apparently considers an independent press to be superfluous and classifies X as the "better press", as will become clear later in this book.

Some of Musk's ideas may be dismissed as crazy speculation, but when they come from the man who is leading the global car industry with Tesla and revolutionizing space travel with SpaceX, it's worth taking a closer look and, above all, taking his plans seriously.

Is Elon Musk the most powerful man in the world?

Is Elon Musk the most powerful man in the world? Definitely more powerful than any head of state in Europe – but that may not be the benchmark. But also more powerful than the presidents of the USA, Russia or China? That depends on how you look at this question. Of course, Musk does not have the direct authority of these three offices of state – and after all, the US president is generally regarded as the most powerful man in the world. Strictly speaking, however, this does not refer to the person – since early 2025, Donald Trump for the second time – but rather to the office itself. Musk is different: his power lies in his person. Trump did not create the USA, not even a fraction of it, but Musk himself founded all his ventures that have begun to change our world. In that sense, Elon Musk is undoubtedly the most powerful man alive.

When Elon Musk presented his first electric car, the traditional car industry laughed at him. But the laughter has long since stuck in the throats of car bosses. Musk's space ambitions were dismissed as crazy fantasies. Today, his activities form the backbone of the USA's conquest of space in competition with China and Russia. Elon Musk's seemingly "crazy visions" should therefore be taken seriously.

In this sense, this book should be seen as an encouragement to take Elon Musk seriously. This applies not only to what is obvious today, but also to his far-reaching visions for the future, such as a brain-networked human race or the colonization of Mars.

The master plan of master plans

A closer look at the schemes behind Musk's visions, which seem so different at first glance, reveals a clear vision: Behind every single innovation is a master plan, a clear idea of where the respective innovation should lead. Behind this lies a long-term mindset aimed at decades, which thoroughly contemplates an initially seemingly impossible idea to the very end – in other words, thinking from the end backward. Instead of taking individual steps into an uncertain future from the present state, Elon Musk imagines this future very precisely – and then considers what steps are necessary to get there. This approach, which the author has experienced in many personal conversations with Elon Musk, forms the basis for the book title "Master Plan".

However, Elon Musk is clearly not only pursuing a master plan in each individual segment in which he is involved, but also a "grand master plan", a "master plan of master plans" that goes far beyond this. This gradually reveals itself in the interplay of the various fields. One example: the cars produced by Tesla are connected to the global satellite network Starlink, which is being built and operated by the space company SpaceX. Even more obvious: Elon Musk influences global politics by forming opinions on X. In the USA, his closeness to the incumbent US President Donald Trump and his role as co-head of the new anti-bureaucracy body DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), which was created at the beginning of 2025, have placed him in the top leadership circle of the United States of America. With Starlink, he has a decisive influence on the course of armed conflicts all over the world – depending on whether he provides the satellites for targeting missiles and drones.

This interaction will become increasingly clear in the coming years and decades, from X to Neuralink to the Hyperloop. The master plan that Elon Musk has for our world is obviously very far-reaching. However, this is hardly ever reported in the media because journalists only see the individual pieces of the puzzle, but rarely put them together.

What's more, most of Musk's innovations are so fundamental that they suffer from teething troubles at the beginning and again and again in between. These are then discussed long and wide in the media and the entrepreneur behind them is often discredited. With this search for weaknesses in the here and now, many journalists are obviously obstructing their vision of the distant future. At best, Elon Musk is positioned in the media as politically "right-wing" and his outspoken political influence over X is criticized. However, the interplay of his various activities goes far beyond this – something that is usually overlooked.

This book aims to close this gap. It traces the path step by step along Elon Musk's master plan to give an idea of what our world will look like tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. The question of what Elon Musk is striving for, can probably be answered with "world domination". However, not in the sense of Dr. No, Blofeld, Goldfinger or Drax4 – some of the nastiest villains in the James Bond films – but as a global benefactor of mankind. Elon Musk wants to help humanity become a better humanity – and is firmly convinced that he knows what this means in concrete terms and what needs to be done to achieve this goal.

To understand Elon Musk's legendary rise, one cannot help but look for the reasons in the entanglements of his competitors. While Elon Musk thinks innovatively decades in advance and acts accordingly, many other corporate leaders are at best looking a few years ahead, driven by incremental progress that is light years away from the disruptive future concepts of Elon Musk. This probably also applies to the majority of politicians, who at best look ahead to the end of their term of office, but whose vision generally does not extend to the end of the next decade. In this sense, this book is also a reminder to decision-makers in business and politics to broaden their horizons and replace the question "what will happen next year?" with the much broader question "what will happen in the next decade?"

Andreas Dripke

Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk

The techno jack-of-all-trades and now also political influencer Elon Musk is a so-called serial entrepreneur, who is constantly founding new companies with new business ideas and is thus rushing from success to success.

One of his first companies, the payment service provider Pay-Pal, has become an everyday way for many of us – 377 million people worldwide5 – to pay online or on the move. It doesn't take a lot of prognosticating to predict that X will also become a payment service provider sooner or later, along with many other functions.

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in the South African capital Pretoria as the son of Canadian model Maye Musk and mechanical engineer Errol Musk. After his parents divorced in 1980, the boy spent most of his time living with his father in South Africa. During his childhood, he was the victim of bullying and was sometimes beaten up so badly that he had to be hospitalized.

Little Elon was an introverted child; he spent most of his time reading. He absorbed the knowledge from books – and then applied it in a way that hinted at his future career. At the age of ten, he taught himself programming, and just two years later he sold the first computer game he had developed for 500 dollars. Later, he mixed saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal or brake fluid and chlorine powder with his younger brother Kimbal and his cousins as fuel for his model rockets.

He spent his school years at Branson High School and then completed his Matric at Pretoria Boys High School – a qualification that is equivalent to the Abitur or Fachhochschule in Germany and enables him to attend university.

"South Africa like a prison"

He could hardly wait to escape this youth. "For someone like Elon, South Africa was like a prison," said his brother Kimbal, who is now a filmmaker and founder of the streaming platform and production company Passionflix. He is joined in the Musk clan by a younger sister named Tosca, who also produces films. 6

At the age of 17, the young Elon emigrated to Canada, where his mother was originally from, to avoid military service in South Africa. This was easy for him as he had both the South African and Canadian citizenship from birth. Soon afterwards, he moved to the USA, where he studied physics and economics at the University of Philadelphia. However, his ultimate goal was further south, in California's Silicon Valley. Together with Kimbal, he spent his semester breaks there looking for business ideas. By the way, Musk also obtained US citizenship in 2002.

"Going on vacation will kill you"

In 1995, just out of university, the Musk brothers founded their first company in Palo Alto, Zip2, a kind of yellow pages with map navigation. Four years later, the computer manufacturer Compaq bought the company for 307 million dollars, of which Elon Musk received 22 million. He invested almost all of it in his next venture.

Today, Musk is often referred to as the founder of the payment service PayPal. However, he actually founded a rival company called X.com in 1999, which offered payment services via email. The letter X as a company name clearly fascinated the enterprising entrepreneur from an early stage; later, as is well known, he rebranded Twitter as X. In 2000, the then X.com merged with Confinity, which already had a similar product on the market called Paypal. In the following years, Paypal developed into the most successful online payment service in the world. Elon Musk was the largest shareholder with 11.7% when eBay bought Pay-Pal for 1.5 billion dollars in 2002. Elon Musk collected 165 million dollars of this.7

He wanted to use the newly acquired PayPal millions to realize his long-cherished visions: He invested 100 million dollars in SpaceX, 70 million in Tesla and 30 million in SolarCity. His goals were over-sized right from the start. He didn't just want to develop some app or some small improvement. Tesla and the solar module manufacturer SolarCity were to change the way people generate and consume energy. SpaceX is building rockets that will initially launch satellites and supply packages into orbit around the Earth and eventually take humanity to Mars. Since its foundation, Musk has been fighting against the space monopolies of states and competing with established companies from the energy and automotive sectors. With his Boring Company – which in English can be understood either as "the boring" or "the boring company" – Elon Musk aims to build tunnel infrastructure underground to connect humanity beneath the surface. His company Neuralink has set itself the goal of connecting the human brain with the computer world – literally, with so-called brain-computer interfaces (BCI). The company has already publicly demonstrated communication between the brain of a pig and a computer.8 The takeover of Twitter (now X) in spring 2022 was linked to the vision of a global communication channel for the free expression of opinion.

Oversized visions require sacrifices

Everyday worries disappear behind these almost outsized visions. "If there was a way to stop eating so I could work more, I would stop eating," Elon Musk is said to have once told a friend. He doesn't think much of longer breaks from work either, ever since he suffered a serious malaria infection on a trip: "That's the lesson I learned about vacations: Going on vacation kills you."

He expects the same sacrifices from his subordinates. When Tesla Motors was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008 because excessive costs and production delays were slowly but surely bleeding the coffers dry, Musk imposed a cost-cutting program. Every employee should know what each individual part costs. And then reduce these costs as skillfully as possible. To do this, he demanded full commitment.

In a speech to the workforce, he explained that from now on he would be working on Saturdays and Sundays and sleeping under his desk until the Roadster, Tesla's first production model, could be delivered. When an employee pointed out that he and his colleagues had already been working extremely hard anyway and that it was time for a break to see their families again, Musk replied: "I would say that people will have a lot of time for their families when we're broke." Those who didn't want to follow him sometimes lost their jobs. Those who followed him soon found themselves working for one of the most innovative car manufacturers in the world.9

In fact, Elon Musk has undoubtedly become most famous initially for his car company Tesla, which will be examined in the next chapter. Later, the somewhat spectacular successes of SpaceX – such as in 2024, when it managed to "park" a rocket backwards – became another trademark of the serial entrepreneur. Since 2024 at the latest, however, Elon Musk has been primarily associated with the role of a powerful political influencer. This applies not only to the USA, where he managed to penetrate the top echelons of the US government with the support of Donald Trump, but also in Europe and South America, where Elon Musk gives free rein to his opinion with often biting comments on political developments.

Elon Musk in private

Does a thoroughbred entrepreneur and political activist like Elon Musk actually have time for a private life, you might ask. The answer is an unequivocal "yes"! Although this book focuses on the entrepreneur Musk and the markets he is rolling out, a look at his private life is probably unavoidable in a book entitled "Elon Musk".

Elon Musk was first married to the Canadian fantasy author Justine Wilson from 2000 to 2008. They have five children together, including twins (Griffin and Xavier) and triplets. Musk's second marriage was to the British actress Talulah Riley in 2010. The couple divorced in 2012. However, the two married again until 2016, when a second divorce was finalized. In 2017, In 2017, Elon Musk was in a relationship with actress Amber Heard for a few months, who, starting in 2018, engaged in a years-long legal battle with her actor colleague and husband Johnny Depp.10

Elon Musk had and possibly still has a special relationship with the Canadian singer Grimes. The two were a couple from 2018 before announcing their separation in September 2021. However, Musk said they were only "half separated" and still loved each other. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Grimes said of Musk: "I would probably call him my boyfriend, but we're very fluid. We live in separate houses. We're best friends. We see each other all the time." In any case, the two have two children together, a son with the unusual name X Æ A-Xii, or X for short, and a daughter called Exa Dark Sideræl, or Y for short. At the beginning of 2025, Elon Musk thus has a total of twelve children, with whom he also spends time and takes them on trips, for example.

The children "in fast-forward": Nevada Alexander Musk (died of sudden infant death syndrome in 2002 at the age of ten weeks), Griffin and Vivian Jenna Wilson (twins, born in 2004 with Justine Wilson; Vivian changed her name and is transgender), Kai, Saxon and Damian Musk (triplets, born 2006 with Justine Wilson, X Æ A-12 (pronounced "X Ash A Twelve", born 2020, with the singer with the stage name Grimes, birth name Claire Elise Boucher), Exa Dark Sideræl Musk (nicknamed "Y", born 2021 with Grimes, Techno Mechanicus Musk (born 2022 with Grimes), Strider and Azure Musk (twins, born 2021 with Shivon Zilis) and another child with Shivon Zilis (born 2024). There are rumors of more children.

Speaking about his children in 2013, Musk said: "I manage to spend time with them and be in email contact with them. I can be with them and work at the same time... If I couldn't do that, I wouldn't get all my work done."11

The richest weirdo in the world

In 2021, Time Magazine named Elon Musk Person of the Year. In 2022, Forbes Magazine declared the then 51-year-old to be the richest person in the world with an estimated fortune of 200.7 billion dollars. After having to relinquish this title for a second time to luxury entrepreneur Bernard Arnault, he regained it in May 2024. Elon Musk entered the year 2025 with a fortune of over 400 billion dollars – more than any other private individual.12

Some say he is definitely the "richest nutcase in the world". This is based on the numerous antics he has indulged in over the years. On April 1, 2018, for example, he took aim at Tesla's financial difficulties via X (then still Twitter) and declared the company "completely bankrupt". As a result, the share price actually fell by up to 8%. But it was nothing more than an April Fool's joke, albeit a believable one, as the company was indeed facing difficulties at that time. However, that didn't stop Musk from following up with another tweet on April 2, 2018, in which he himself wrote: "Elon was found passed out in front of a Tesla Model 3 surrounded by Teslaquilla# bottles, traces of dried tears still visible on his cheeks. This is not a forward-looking statement, because what is it obviously about? Happy new month!" He also published a photo showing him drunk and asleep.13

Reports of drug abuse and chaos, a tweet to delist the company at a share price of 420 dollars to impress his girlfriend, his forced resignation from the Supervisory Board, a fine of 20 million dollars from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – the list of his capers is long.

Another story exemplifies the billionaire's eccentricity years ago. When a boys' football team and their coach were trapped in the Tham Luang-Khun Nam Nang Non stalactite cave in northern Thailand for almost two weeks in 2018 after a flash flood cut off their way out, Elon Musk wanted to play an active role in the rescue. Musk promptly traveled to Thailand with a mini-submarine, which he wanted to use for the rescue operation. He announced via Twitter that the compact submarine had been christened "Wild Boar" – the name of the boys' soccer team. Musk concluded his Twitter message about the submersible with the words: "It will be left here in case it is of any use in the future. Thailand is so beautiful." The divers involved in the rescue operation brusquely rejected the offer – a "PR stunt" when it comes to life and death. British expert Vernon Unsworth told US broadcaster CNN about Musk's move: "There was absolutely no chance of it working. He had no idea what it was like in the cave." At around 1.70 meters, the rigid outer hull of the submarine provided was too long to navigate around bends and obstacles. "It wouldn't have been able to get 50 meters into the cave," said Unsworth. Musk responded with wild insults on Twitter. He had never seen "that British expat guy who lives in Thailand" anywhere near the cave. And then added in the British man's direction: "Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it." In response to the criticism that he branded Unsworth a pedophile without further explanation, Musk dismissed it by saying that he would bet a dollar that this was true.14

Mind you, this story took place while the rescue teams were still fighting for the lives of the twelve boys and their coach who were trapped in the cave. Unsworth's assumption that Musk was primarily concerned with public impact was quite reasonable. In an interview with the news magazine Bloomberg Businessweek, Musk admitted that he had wrongly assumed that if he was criticized via Twitter, he could fire back. "That was my mistake. I will correct that," he said contritely in 201815 – until he acquired Twitter four years later and has been the master of freedom of expression on his own news channel X since 2022.

There are numerous such stories, many amusing, some distressing, some with serious consequences. For example, he had to appear in person before a US court in early 2023 because he had hastily announced on Twitter in the summer of 2018 – he did not yet own the short messaging service at the time – that Tesla would be delisted from the stock exchange and that the necessary private financing had already been secured. The latter later turned out to be false, as there were no firm commitments from investors. Investors then launched a class action lawsuit because the tweet had led to share price losses. Elon Musk promptly declared in January 2023: "Just because I tweet something doesn't mean people will believe it or act accordingly." He once wrote on Twitter that he thought Tesla shares were too expensive, and the share price subsequently continued to rise; this episode did indeed take place.16

Elon Musk buys Coca-Cola – a joke, right?

After taking over Twitter, he wittily announced: "Next I'll buy Coca-Cola and put cocaine back in it." It was a joke, of course – but one that spread rapidly across the web. It was retweeted 660,000 times, quoted more than 170,000 times and over 4.4 million Twitter users added a heart symbol to express their sympathy for the idea.17

Elon Musk revealed in 2018: "My tweets are literally what I'm thinking right now, not carefully crafted corporate bullshit, which is really just banal propaganda."18

Musk's exotic reputation is also due to the meeting culture in his companies. It's considered normal for him to confront employees during meetings with phrases such as "You haven't said anything yet. Why are you here?" Efficient meetings are probably also important to him because he wants to have more time for himself to work. In 2022, Elon Musk once tweeted a picture of the bedside table next to his bed. It showed lots of sticky edges from Diet Coke cans; he seems to use Coke to keep himself awake at night to get things done that he doesn't get to during the day. There were also two revolvers next to Musk's bed, not real ones but replicas that look deceptively real but are completely harmless. Whether he was aiming them at enemies, markets or customers remained unclear.19Incidentally Elon Musk says that he needs no more than six hours of sleep a night.20 He occasionally takes the sleeping pill Ambien to help him fall asleep.21

As soon as he gets up at 7 a.m., he gets to work after glancing at his smartphone.22He doesn't usually have breakfast; occasionally he does have a cup of coffee and, on rare occasions, even an omelet. He always finds time for a long shower, but he probably counts that as working time because good ideas often pop into his head in the shower. When he was once cross-examined by the online portal Reddit under the motto "Ask me anything", he answered the question "Which daily habit do you think has the most positive effect on your life?" with a laconic "shower".23 He starts his working day according to the motto: do the most important things first and then prioritize the rest of his work for the rest of the day.

With regard to business meetings, he draws on relevant studies according to which 65% of all managers are convinced that their productivity is greatly reduced by excessive meetings. 71% of managers rate the meetings they experience as unproductive and inefficient. Back in 2018, Elon Musk wrote to his workforce: "Excessive meetings are the bane of large companies and almost always get worse over time. Avoid regular meetings unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter." If you must hold a meeting, Musk explained, "make sure they provide value to everyone involved." Musk also advises his employees to "leave or break off a meeting as soon as it's obvious that you're not adding value." It's not rude to leave meetings that don't add value, he says.24

He wolfs down his lunch in five minutes. As a matter of principle, he does not take unannounced calls so as not to lose a second of his time. Elon Musk primarily consumes his calories in the evening. "I usually eat a little too much at business dinners," he once revealed. He is said to have a preference for French food, barbecue and expensive whiskey (in addition to Diet Coke). To stay in shape, he works out in the gym once or twice a week.25 He also regularly engages in intermittent fasting; by his own admission, he lost around ten kilograms in 2022. However, he helps himself lose weight with Wegovy, a slimming injection that is very popular in the USA.26 Under this brand name, the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk offers the drug semaglutide, which regulates the release of insulin, reduces appetite and thus reduces the intake of calories. Wegovy must be injected once a week.27

Before he "somehow" entered politics as a Trump campaign aide, he is known to have spent Monday and Friday at SpaceX (an average of 40 hours a week) and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at Tesla (around 42 hours a week). He spends half the day working on artificial intelligence in one form or another. Musk estimates that 80% of his working time is spent on engineering and design. He goes to bed at 1 a.m. at the earliest. On Saturdays and Sundays, he spends time with his children or travels.

Private planes and exotic cars

He has a total of five private Gulfstream jets at his disposal for his travels; the most recently purchased model (2022), the G700, is as luxuriously equipped as possible.28 He loves flying: in 2022, he completed at least 134 flights, the shortest of which lasted just six minutes. However, it could be more, because since 2022 he has repeatedly used a US government program that allows aircraft to fly incognito. Introduced in 2019, the "Privacy ICAO Aircraft Address" program, also known as PIA, allows aircraft owners to exchange their registration numbers every 20 days. In 2022, Musk applied for a new aircraft registration number four times – it is not known how many flights he completed "in disguise". In 2023, he stopped, and in 2024 he used the PIA program again.29 He, like singer Taylor Swift and other public figures, argue not only that their privacy is protected but also that there are security concerns if their air travel is visible to everyone. There are companies such as JetSpy, through which celebrities' flight data is available from publicly accessible sources. 30

What is certain is that Elon Musk is almost constantly on the move with his private fleet. In 2024, he sometimes managed eight flights a week as part of his campaign support for the newly elected US President Donald Trump.31 This occasionally brings him criticism because it corresponds to emissions of around 2,000 tons of CO2 per year – a lot for someone who argues that he wants to contribute to climate protection with electric cars.32 By comparison, the CO2 footprint per capita in Europe averages 10.8 tons. 33

Musk's preference for fast cars fits into this picture. His first car was a 1978 BMW 320i, but Elon Musk apparently had a desire for high performance and power early on and bought a 1967 Jaguar E-Type after selling his first company Zip2. The British sports car was available as a two-seater roadster, among other things, and may have inspired the Tesla co-founder when designing the Tesla Roadster. However, Musk was not entirely satisfied with the vintage sports car at the time. "It was like a bad girlfriend – it kept letting me down and giving me a lot of trouble."34

After selling his first company Zip2 in 1999, Elon Musk used one of the 22 million dollars he received to buy a 627 hp McLaren F1, the fastest production sports car in the world at the time with a top speed of 370 kilometers per hour. "I owned it for a few years and clocked up almost 18,000 km," he recalls. "It was my daily driver for trips between San Francisco and Los Angeles." During one of these trips with his tech billionaire friend Peter Thiel, Elon Musk lost control while changing lanes. The car lifted off an embankment, spun in the air and landed on the ground, completely battered. The car was irreparably damaged, but the two men were miraculously unharmed.

Today, Elon Musk has two very special models in his fleet. The Ford Estate, the first car model ever to be produced on an assembly line in 1908, was given to Musk as a gift in 2017. Four years earlier, the tech billionaire had bought the original Lotus Esprit S1 from the James Bond film "The Spy, Who Loved Me" at auction. Together with Lotus, Tesla, which was still in its infancy at the time, also designed its first production model. The Tesla Roadster was essentially based on the Lotus Elise, from which many components were adopted, as will be explained later in this book.

According to reports, the Tesla boss personally prefers to drive the Tesla Model S P100D; he also occasionally uses a Model 3 and a Model X as well as the Cybertruck.35

Multitasking: working, reading, celebrating

Multitasking, i.e. completing several tasks at the same time, is attributed to him as a special ability. Author Walter Isaacson once described this with the following situation: "Last night, after winning the battle for Twitter, he came to Boca Chica and held the routine meeting about the Raptor engine design at 10pm, where he worked for more than an hour on solutions for leaks in valves. No one mentioned Twitter."36

The investment banker Marc Andreessen, who created the world's first browser for the World Wide Web (WWW) ("the mother of all browsers")37 and is considered a "gray eminence" in Silicon Valley, said 2024 about Musk:

"Elon inspires incredible loyalty in his employees because they know that he will sit with them all night to solve a problem. Elon actually delegates almost everything. He's not involved in most of the things that his companies do. He's involved in the thing that's the biggest problem at the moment until that problem is solved. Then he no longer needs to worry about it, but can focus on the next problem, which is the biggest for the company at the moment.

In manufacturing, there is the concept of the bottleneck. In every manufacturing chain, there is always a bottleneck, something that prevents the production line from running as it should. Whatever the bottleneck is, it stops everything. The most important task is to remove that bottleneck and get everything flowing again. I think Elon has basically generalized this concept and looks at every company as a kind of conceptual assembly line. I don't have to worry about everything else because everything else by definition runs better than this. I can focus on that.

Many CEOs, especially non-technical CEOs, would really struggle to implement his method. When he identifies the bottleneck, he goes and talks to the engineers who understand the technical nature of the bottleneck. If it's people on a production line, he talks to the people right down the road. Or if it's people in a software development group, he talks to the people writing the code. He doesn't ask the vice president of engineering to ask the director of engineering to ask the manager to ask the individual employee to write a report to be reviewed in three weeks. He doesn't do that. He would throw them all out the window. There's no way he would do that. He personally goes to the engineer who has the knowledge of the issue, and then he sits down in a room with that engineer and solves the problem together. That's why he inspires such incredible loyalty, especially from the engineers he works with. If I'm faced with a problem that I don't know how to solve, crazy Elon Musk will come in his Gulfstream jet and sit with me overnight in front of the keyboard or in front of the production line to help me solve it."

This may explain how Elon Musk manages to find time for reading and other leisure activities. Some of his favorite books are "The Lord of the Rings", biographies of inventors such as Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, and "Twelve against the Gods". The latter fables about what would happen if Alexander the Great, Casanova, Christopher Columbus, Mohamed, Lola Montez, Cagliostro, Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon I, Lucius Sergius Catiline, Napoleon III, Isadora Duncan and Woodrow Wilson went on a journey together.38 He has plenty of time to celebrate, preferably in time-honored castles in Europe. He once chose an English castle for a birthday party and organized a huge game of hide-and-seek there. He also hired a knife thrower to pop balloons that he held between his legs. Another time, he invited the world's elite to a Halloween party in the "Dracula Castle" Bran in Romania. 39

Call for "free speech" stirs up the media

The numerous escapades did not do any lasting damage to the jack-of-all-trades for a long time – until he took over Twitter in 2022 and changed its name to X a short time later. Previously, it had been accepted that he was an eccentric, but the undeniable successes he had to show for himself ultimately overshadowed his escapades. However, when he took control of the social news platform in 2022, Elon Musk fell out of favor with parts of the press. There were several reasons for this: Musk's political views and the realization by many journalists that he ultimately controlled "their" mouthpiece – Twitter or X – as its owner.

Politically, Elon Musk can clearly be classified as a liberal-conservative who upholds freedom as the most important asset – entrepreneurial freedom, but also free speech, the expression of opinion without censorship. However, in the face of a wave of political correctness, especially in language, Musk has turned a considerable part of the media against him. In a zeitgeist where anyone who doesn't use gender-neutral language is already considered suspiciously right-wing, Elon Musk made himself vulnerable with his call for "free speech," among other things, by granting access to the social media platform X to prominent conservatives who had long been despised by the media and banned from Twitter. What's more, many journalists used Twitter/X themselves and began to feel uncomfortable when they realized that Musk had become the owner of one of their most important communication channels and could therefore "somehow" also restrict their own freedom of expression. And so, in 2022, Elon Musk fell out of favor with parts of published opinion. This was also due to the fact that he called on his followers on X to vote for the conservative Republican party in the US elections at the end of 2022;40 a large proportion of journalists tend to be politically aligned with the opposite side of the political spectrum, namely the left. 41

The German magazine Der Spiegel even dedicated a cover story to him in early 2023 with the title "Self-destruction of a superstar" and the subtitle "How Elon Musk is jeopardizing his life's work". Although this followed the zeitgeist of political correctness, it also represented recognition of both his person ("superstar") and his entrepreneurial success ("life's work").

In 2024, Elon Musk finally emerged as a political player, a global political influencer. He campaigned aggressively in the USA for Donald Trump as US President, who promptly won the election and appointed him – Musk – to office. Since then, Elon Musk has been making X comments about politicians and entrepreneurs who make political statements almost everywhere in the world, far beyond the USA. The incumbent German Chancellor got his comeuppance in the fall of 2024 ("Olaf [Scholz] is a fool")42, as did the First Lady of Brazil ("You will lose the next election"), however, she had previously insulted him publicly in an extremely crude manner ("Fuck you, Elon Musk!").43 Remarkably, the German Chancellery did not withdraw from X even after this public insult to the German head of government – Musk's platform is apparently too important as a communication channel to simply turn its back on it. Shortly before Christmas 2024, Elon Musk went after Olaf Scholz. After a devastating attack at the Magdeburg Christmas market – a Saudi, who could be considered either an Islamist or an anti-Islamist, drove his car into the middle of the crowd, causing over 200 injuries and several deaths – Musk wrote on X: "Scholz should resign immediately" and added: "incompetent fool". Musk shared the comment of a user who described the attack in Magdeburg as a direct consequence of unregulated "mass immigration". 44

With this and his clear commitment to Donald Trump in 2024, who had already proven to be an erratic egocentric in his first term of office from 2017 to 2021, the media broke all the dams to publicly condemn the richest man in the world. "Public enemy number 2" was the headline in Der Spiegel about "Trump buddy Elon Musk" and accused him of "destroying liberal democracy" as "his biggest project".45 Anyone who drives a Tesla or uses a "blue tick" on X to show that they are paying for the service has been accused by the media of endangering democracy. The "blue tick" as a sign of verification of an X user's identity in exchange for money has long been regarded by the EU Commission as a breach of transparency obligations and was seen as misleading users.46 An EU investigation launched at the end of 2023 came to the conclusion in summer 2024 that X was in breach of the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) and threatened the company with a fine of up to 6% of its global annual turnover. 47 While the press was already excoriating Elon Musk in 2022/23 and even more so in 2024, his colleagues from the business world were and continue to be full of praise and, above all, recognition. In 2023, the CEO of the renowned investment banking and securities trading company Morgan Stanley, James Gorman, called Elon Musk "one of the most significant entrepreneurs" of the last 100 years with "extraordinary abilities". Gorman explicitly included the takeover of Twitter in this assessment.48 This is certainly due to the fact that Elon Musk has not only written one success story, but several. The first big one was called Tesla.

Master plan for logical thinking

Build sports car

Use that money to build an affordable car

Use

that

money to build an even more affordable car

While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options

Recognize what's behind this plan? That's right, it's the master plan behind the development of the electric car pioneer Tesla from the very beginning. Elon Musk published it on August 2, 2006 in a blog entitled "The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)".49

Strictly speaking, this is only the short version. The entire (English) document comprises just under 1,400 words – still not much to put the vision of an entire company on paper. But if the executive floors of the German car industry had read it in 2006 and taken it seriously, it might still have been possible for the long-established manufacturers to get their act together and counter Tesla's meteoric rise with a master plan of their own. The disaster in the German automotive industry in 2024/25 with mass redundancies could possibly have been avoided if the local manufacturers had heard the gong for the future in time.

The secret master plan of Tesla Motors

The plan is published in full below (translated):

Tesla Motors' secret master plan (just between you and me)

Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, August 2, 2006

Background: My main job is running an aerospace company called SpaceX, but on the side I am the Chairman of Tesla Motors and help formulate the business and product strategy with Martin and the rest of the team. I was also the main source of funding for Tesla Motors when the company consisted of three people and one business plan.

As you know, the initial product of Tesla Motors is a high performance electric sports car called the Tesla Roadster. However, some readers may not be aware of the fact that our long term plan is to build a wide range of models, including affordably priced family cars. This is because the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution.