(Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc on Wednesday became the highest-valued automaker as its shares surged to record highs and the electric carmaker’s market capitalization overtook that of former front runner Toyota Motors Corp.



Tesla shares gained 5% in early morning trade to a record of $1,133, boosting the company’s market cap to $209.47 billion &#8211; roughly $6 billion more than Toyota is currently valued by investors.



Tesla is now worth more than triple the combined value of U.S. automakers General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co.



The shares’ meteoric rise, up more than 163% since the start of 2020, highlight growing confidence among investors about the future of electric vehicles and Tesla’s shift from a niche carmaker into a global leader in cleaner cars.



After several years of losses, Tesla has delivered three straight profitable quarters since the third quarter of 2019 and surprised investors with solid first-quarter deliveries despite the virus outbreak.



Toyota, one of the world’s most profitable automakers, sold 10.46 million vehicles during its 2019 financial year, ending on March 31, 2020. It reported net revenues of 30,226 billion yen, or roughly $281.20 billion, during that time.



Tesla, in comparison, ended 2019 with $24.6 billion in revenues, having delivered 367,200 vehicles last year. Chief Executive Elon Musk in the past said Tesla would deliver at least 500,000 vehicles in 2020, a forecast the company has not changed despite the coronavirus pandemic.



Tesla is expected to report second-quarter delivery numbers this week.

Elon Musk At SpaceX Headquarters

Elon Musk’s Tesla becomes most valuable automaker in latest stock rally

Report by Taylor Locke



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<a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/special-report/2020/03/04/billionaire-elon-musk-calls-this-a-powerful-powerful-way-of-thinking-but-is-hard-to-do-heres-how-it-works/">Elon Musk</a>, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is not shy regarding his opinion of legendary investor <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/article/2020/02/05/how-warren-buffetts-advice-to-jlo-inspired-the-name-of-her-fragrance/">Warren Buffett</a>. He once called Buffett’s signature investment strategy “lame” on a Tesla earnings call.



And on Thursday’s episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Musk said he’s not the “biggest fan” of Buffett, whose job is “boring” but “important.”



Buffett came up in conversation as Rogan and Musk discussed various types of billionaires.Some make money by “engineering fantastic products,” while others gain wealth by “investing in companies or moving money around the stock market,” said Rogan.



Presumably Musk is one of the former. And then there is the latter.



“Let me take Warren Buffett for example,” Musk said. “To be totally frank, I’m not his biggest fan, but he does a lot of capital allocation,” referring to the process of distributing a company’s financial resources to better its long-term growth. “He reads a lot of annual reports and accounting, and it’s pretty boring really.”



Musk described Buffett’s job as an investor as trying to “figure out, does Coke or Pepsi deserve more capital?”



(Berkshire Hathaway owns 9.3% of Coca-Cola, and Buffett drinks numerous cans every day.)



“I mean, that’s kind of a boring job if you ask me, but it’s still a thing that’s important to figure out,” Musk said. “Like, which company is deserving of more or less capital? Should that company grow or expand? Is it making products or services that are better than others or worse? If a company is making compelling products or services, it should get more capital. If not, it should get less.”



In Musk’s opinion, “we should have fewer people doing law and fewer people doing finance” like Buffett “and more people making stuff.” (Of course, it takes capital to “make stuff,” and Buffett does invest in companies that produce things.)



Musk also told Rogan he thinks being a billionaire “has become a pejorative, like that’s become a bad thing, which I don’t think makes a lot of sense in most cases,” Musk said.



Indeed, as of late, some have questioned whether billionaires should even exist given the widening wealth gap in America and around the world. And since the <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/coronavirus/2020/05/12/covid-19-kick-starting-sas-small-medium-large-tourism-businesses-join-cnbc-africas-virtual-seminar-tuesday-12th-may-register-today/">Covid-19 pandemic</a>, billionaires, including Musk, have been criticized for their lack of action and charity. (According to Musk, he donated masks and ventilators to hospitals, but hospitals contacted by CNN in April reported receiving bilevel positive airway pressure [biPAP] or continuous positive airway pressure [CPAP] machines, not ventilators. Musk has also criticized America’s continued manufacturing shutdown.) 



As for Buffett, though he has said Musk “has room for improvement” (like being more selective about what he posts on Twitter), he has also called Musk “a remarkable guy.”



“He’s trying to do something to improve a product and I salute him for that,” Buffett said, referring to Musk’s electric car company, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in 2018. “The American public will decide whether it’s a success, and it’s not easy.”



Berkshire Hathaway and a spokesperson for Buffett did not immediately respond to CNBC Make It’s request for comment.



This article was first published on CNBC Make It <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/08/elon-musk-to-joe-rogan-not-the-biggest-fan-of-warren-buffett.html?forYou=true">https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/08/elon-musk-to-joe-rogan-not-the-biggest-fan-of-warren-buffett.html?forYou=true</a> and is republished with its permission.



For more coverage on COVID-19 visit: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/covid-19/">https://www.cnbcafrica.com/covid-19/</a>

Billionaire Elon Musk: I am not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan

Billionaire Elon Musk: I am not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan. gettyimages-1155740300-594×594

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/tom-popomaronis/">Tom Popomaronis</a>



From building PayPal and SpaceX to running one of the world’s most disruptive automobile companies, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/warren-buffett-and-bill-gates-agree-giving-up-this-one-thing-will-make-you-more-successful.html">Elon Musk</a> has a number of impressive accomplishments under his belt. And he’s only 48 years old.



In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_mind_behind_tesla_spacex_solarcity" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2013 TED talk</a>, the billionaire entrepreneur revealed his “secret sauce” to achieving extraordinary things: “First principles” thinking, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/billionaire-warren-buffett-use-this-simple-test-when-making-tough-decisions.html">decision-making</a>&nbsp;strategy in which you “boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy.”



Of course, Musk acknowledges that reasoning by analogy — or “copying what other people do with slight variations” — is something we haveto do throughout most of our lives. “Otherwise, mentally, you wouldn’t be able to get through the day,” he said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A framework for deconstructing complex problems</h2>



The term “first principles” was coined more than&nbsp;<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8tYcp0vYd5EC&amp;amp;amp;printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&amp;amp;amp;q&amp;amp;amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2,000 years ago by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle</a>, who believed that the best way to understand a subject is to&nbsp;<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8tYcp0vYd5EC&amp;amp;amp;printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&amp;amp;amp;q&amp;amp;amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">break it down to its most fundamental principles</a>.



In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-s_3b5fRd8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2012 interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose</a>, Musk explained how to apply the first principles method, using the cost of car batteries as an example:



Step 1: Identify the problem and its common assumptions.



“Somebody could say, ’Battery packs are really expensive, and that’s just the way they will always be. Historically, it has cost $600 per kilowatt hour,” Musk said, referencing the “common assumption” about car batteries.



Therefore, he continued, most people would just accept that “it’s not going to be much better than that in the future.”



Step 2. Break the problem down to its fundamental truths.



This is often the most difficult part, and the key is to ask the right questions — by challenging the common assumptions. Keep digging deeper and deeper until you are left with only the fundamental truths.



“With first principles, you say, ‘What are the material constituents of the batteries? What is the stock market value of the material constituents?’ It’s got cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, some polymers for separation and a seal can,” explained Musk.



Then, he continued, “you’d break that down on a material basis and say, ‘If we bought that on the London Metal Exchange what would each of those things cost?’ It’s like $80 per kilowatt hour.”



Step 3. Use the fundamental truths to plot a new course.



Fundamental truths are like building blocks. Once you’ve gathered them, you can use them to create an entirely new and innovative solution.



With the batteries, “you just need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell,” Musk said. “Then you can have batteries that are much, much cheaper than anyone realizes.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A ‘powerful, powerful way of thinking’</h2>



Musk has referenced the value of first principles thinking several times. “I think it’s important to view knowledge as sort of semantic tree,” he wrote in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2015 Reddit AMA</a>. “Make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details, or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”



In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Qh-vwpYH8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2014 commencement speech</a>&nbsp;at the University of Southern California, he offered a similar piece of advice: “Don’t just follow the trend. It’s good to think in terms of the physics approach — the first principles,” he said. “This is a good way to figure out if something really makes sense, or if it’s just what everybody else is doing.”



He added: “It’s very hard to do. You can’t think that way about everything. It takes a lot of effort, but if you’re trying to do something new, it’s the best way to think. It’s really a powerful, powerful way of thinking.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">First principles reasoning can make your life better</h2>



First principles thinking isn’t just for building rockets or electric vehicles. It can be used to fix problems in your daily life, whether it’s related to personal relationships, work, finances or anything else.



Too often, we make major life decisions based on outdated or false information. But in a rapidly changing world, historical truths and experience may not always work, which is why it’s sometimes necessary to take a step back and use the first principles approach to create a more customized and creative solution.



<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.linkedin.com_in_tpopomaronis_&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;c=LO_8KzsOlAGvgA6hdGI4v02U_XLiES0sR51Zca0yIy4&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;r=fnb6sKq7SKN8iiAQiVc8NQSbL93Ztb9TeGwNUoj2-0Y&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;m=P_Ys4FkTrXS6d3lDujeEcG0RASS_Te__ciXliHG8uo0&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;s=rHzz9dkDjfkID7To9v-Lu83SKuT7yQyc4bQT7r89G-o&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;e=" target="_blank">Tom Popomaronis</a> is a leadership researcher, commerce expert, cross-industry innovation leader and VP of Innovation at <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.massivealliance.com&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;c=LO_8KzsOlAGvgA6hdGI4v02U_XLiES0sR51Zca0yIy4&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;r=fnb6sKq7SKN8iiAQiVc8NQSbL93Ztb9TeGwNUoj2-0Y&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;m=P_Ys4FkTrXS6d3lDujeEcG0RASS_Te__ciXliHG8uo0&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;s=MAZG4XFe5vj2XGn8I5ATujLEG6mysjDhAM2R5QnyNpQ&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;e=" target="_blank">Massive Alliance</a>. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. and The Washington Post. In 2014, Tom was named one of the “40 Under 40” by the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/" target="_blank">Baltimore Business Journal</a>. Follow him on <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tpopomaronis/" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> and <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/tpopomaronis" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.



This article was first published on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/billionaire-elon-musk-this-is-a-powerful-way-of-thinking-but-hard-to-do-how-it-works.html?forYou=true">https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/billionaire-elon-musk-this-is-a-powerful-way-of-thinking-but-hard-to-do-how-it-works.html?forYou=true</a> and is republished with its permission.

Billionaire Elon Musk calls this a ‘powerful, powerful way of thinking’—but is ‘hard to do.’ Here’s how it works

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CNBC International looked at the reason behind why the African continent is fast becoming the latest tech hotspot for some of the world’s biggest names such as Jack Dorsey the founder of Twitter and Elon Musk the CEO of Tesla.

Africa: The untapped world leading tech hotspots

<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/matthew-j-belvedere/">Matthew J. Belvedere</a> <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/Matt_Belvedere" target="_blank">@MATT_BELVEDERE</a>



KEY POINTS



<ul><li>“We have to protect our genius,” President Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.</li><li>Musk is “one of our very smart people, and we want to cherish those people,” Trump said.</li><li>The president said Musk is not only good at electric cars. “He does good at rockets, too, by the way. I never saw where the engines come down with no wings, no anything, and they’re landing.”</li></ul>



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President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/donald-trump/">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;told CNBC on Wednesday that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/id/100987750">Elon Musk</a>&nbsp;is one of the world’s “great geniuses,” he likened the CEO of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=TSLA">Tesla</a>&nbsp;and SpaceX to Thomas Edison.



Musk is “one of our great geniuses, and we have to protect our genius,” Trump said in an interview with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/squawk-box-us/">“Squawk Box”</a>&nbsp;co-host&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/joe-kernen/">Joe Kernen</a>&nbsp;from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.



“You know, we have to protect Thomas Edison and we have to protect all of these people that came up with originally the light bulb and the wheel and all of these things. And he’s one of our very smart people and we want to cherish those people,” the president said.



<a href="https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/this-elon-musk-interview-reveals-if-he-prefers-nikola-tesla-or-thomas-edison" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">In a 2008 interview,</a>&nbsp;Musk said Edison and Nikola Tesla, for whom he named his electric auto company, were both role models, but he preferred Edison. Tesla, the scientist, was a rival of Edison.



Trump’s comments on Musk come as shares of Tesla have surged recently, more than doubling since late September, and hitting all-time high after all-time high. The stock market value of Tesla&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/tesla-reaches-100-billion-market-cap.html">set to reach $100 billion.</a>&nbsp;Its market capitalization is greater than those of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=GM">General Motors</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=F">Ford</a>&nbsp;combined.



Tesla stock has been on a tear after the electric car maker announced a surprise profit in its third-quarter earnings report in October. Back then, the stock was just more than $250 per share.



Musk’s now-infamous “funding secured,” Aug. 7, 2018, tweet sent the stock soaring, but it also marked the beginning of a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/23/tesla-stock-reaches-420-per-share.html">chaotic ride</a>&nbsp;for the company and Musk. In the 16 months that followed, Tesla stock bottomed at a three-year low just under $177 per share in June before boomeranging back up.



Trump recalled those rough times. “You go back a year and they were talking about the end of the company. And now all of a sudden they’re talking about these great things.”



In CNBC’s interview on Wednesday, the president also marveled at what Musk’s commercial company SpaceX has accomplished with rockets that land themselves.



“I spoke to him very recently, and he’s also doing the rockets. He likes rockets. And he does good at rockets, too, by the way. I never saw where the engines come down with no wings, no anything, and they’re landing. I said I’ve never seen that before,” Trump said.



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This content first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-likens-elon-musk-to-thomas-edison-as-one-of-our-great-geniuses.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-likens-elon-musk-to-thomas-edison-as-one-of-our-great-geniuses.html</a> and is republished with its permission

President Trump’s keynote address at the 2020 WEF annual meeting

#WEF20: Trump says African-born Elon Musk is like Thomas Edison, he needs to be protected, here’s why

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/cat-clifford/">Catherine Clifford</a> 



<a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a> is running electric vehicle company <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=TSLA">Tesla</a>, aerospace company SpaceX and tunneling venture The Boring Company.



He’s even been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/elon-musk-talks-to-gayle-king-about-meeting-tesla-goals.html" class="">sleeping at the Tesla factory</a>&nbsp;to ensure ramped up production of his Model 3 electric car.



The CEO has a lot going on.



As it turns out, Musk has some ruthless productivity tricks, and he shared them&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/17/elon-musk-internal-email-6000-model-3s-per-week-by-june.html" class="">in a letter to Tesla employees</a>&nbsp;on Tuesday.



Here are Musk’s six tips:



1. Nix big meetings



“Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get [out] of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.”



2. Ditch frequent meetings too



“Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.”



3. Leave a meeting if you’re not contributing



“Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”



4. Drop jargon



“Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.”



5. Communicate directly, irrespective of hierarchy



“Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the ‘chain of command’. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere. “A major source of issues is poor communication between depts. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between depts, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be ok for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.”



6. Follow logic, not rules



“In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a ‘company rule’ is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.”



The email, obtained by <a class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://electrek.co/2018/04/17/tesla-model-3-production-goal-6000-units-per-week/#disqus_thread" target="_blank">electric vehicle website Electrek</a> and <a class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://jalopnik.com/tesla-switching-to-24-7-shifts-to-push-for-6-000-model-1825335216" target="_blank">car news and opinion site Jalopnik</a>, also explained to employees that Tesla would be halting production for several days to upgrade equipment with the goal of <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/17/elon-musk-internal-email-6000-model-3s-per-week-by-june.html">producing 6,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of June</a>. Its authenticity was <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/id/105138447">confirmed by CNBC</a>.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/elon-musks-productivity-rules-according-to-tesla-email.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/elon-musks-productivity-rules-according-to-tesla-email.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s 6 productivity rules, including walk out of meetings that waste your time

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/cat-clifford/">Catherine Clifford </a><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/CatClifford" target="_blank">@CATCLIFFORD</a><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/cat-clifford/">*</a>



When it comes to the future of humanity,<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/" class="">&nbsp;Tesla CEO Elon Musk</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jack-ma/" class="">Alibaba founder Jack Ma</a>&nbsp;disagree on whether people should be scared by the potential of artificial intelligence. Ma is optimistic about AI, while Musk is more&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/18/9-mind-blowing-things-elon-musk-said-about-robots-and-ai-in-2017.html" class="">apocalyptic</a>. But the two billionaire businessmen do agree on the biggest problem the world will face in the future: not enough people.



“Most people think we have too many people on the planet, but actually, this is an outdated view,” Musk said while on stage with Ma at at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Wednesday. “Assuming there is a benevolent future with AI, I think the biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse.”



“The biggest issue in 20 years will be population collapse. Not explosion. Collapse.”



“I absolutely agree with that,” Ma said. “The population problem is going to be facing huge challenge. 1.4 billion people in China sounds a lot, but I think next 20 years, we will see this thing will bring big trouble to China. And … the speed of population decrease is going to speed up. You called it a ‘collapse,’” he said to Musk. “I agree with you.”



“Yeah, accelerating collapse,” Musk said.



Fears of overpopulation due to immigration are short-sighted, according to Musk. “The common rebuttal is like, ‘Well what about immigration?’ I’m like, ‘From where?’”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch"><img decoding="async" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/879728447026868228/U4Uzpdp6_normal.jpg" alt=""/></a></figure>



<a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch">Pew Research Center✔@pewresearch</a><a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1152132718823706624"></a>



For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century, due in large part to falling global fertility rates. <a href="https://t.co/geJJAUzrn4" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://pewrsr.ch/2wY6vu3&nbsp;</a><a href="https://t.co/geJJAUzrn4">World population growth is expected to nearly stop by 2100For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century.pewresearch.org</a><a href="https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1152132718823706624">95</a><a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1152132718823706624">10:27 AM &#8211; Jul 19, 2019</a><a href="https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256">Twitter Ads info and privacy</a><a href="https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1152132718823706624">77 people are talking about this</a>



Musk and Ma may be aggressive with their time frame, but by 2070, the global fertility rate is expected to fall below the global replacement fertility rate — that’s the average number of children each woman needs to give birth to for the population to replace itself from one generation to the next — according to a recent analysis of United Nations global population data&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">from the Pew Research Center</a>. The current global replacement rate is 2.1 births. The current global fertility rate is 2.5, but is expected to fall to 1.9 by 2100.



Fertility rates vary widely, but Africa is the only global region expected to have “strong population growth” through 2100. Populations in Europe and Latin America are projected to be declining by 2100. Asia’s population is projected to increase though 2055 and then begin to decline,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according to Pew</a>.



For some regions, especially in poor countries, rising fertility rates&nbsp;<a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">cause a burden</a>&nbsp;on the already stressed social infrastructure systems. But in countries like China, a slowing population is cause for concern.



For example, due to decades of birth restrictions in China (from the ’70s until&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/world/asia/china-end-one-child-policy.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">2015</a>&nbsp;Chinese couples were required to have only one child), ever increasing economic opportunities for women and increasing longevity, China now has a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/china-population-crisis.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">lopsided population</a>&nbsp;— there are not enough young workers to support the growing population of older people.



In January, a group of local academics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, issued a warning to government leaders about the potential threat of population decline,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/china-population-crisis.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the New York Times reported</a>.



“What are the socio-economic consequences of long-term sustained negative population growth? From a theoretical point of view, the long-term population decline, especially with the aging of the aging, is bound to bring very unfavorable social and economic consequences,”&nbsp;<a href="http://ex.cssn.cn/zx/bwyc/201901/t20190104_4806519_1.shtml" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the report, translated into English, says</a>.



*This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/elon-musk-jack-ma-biggest-problem-world-will-face-is-population-drop.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/elon-musk-jack-ma-biggest-problem-world-will-face-is-population-drop.html</a> and is republished with its permission

This is what Elon Musk and Jack Ma believe is the biggest problem the world will face

By Taylor Locke 



Everyone has the same amount of time in a day as people like <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a>, who is CEO of not just Tesla, but also SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink, and <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/jack-dorsey/">Jack Dorsey</a>, who is CEO of both Twitter and Square.



So how do such busy billionaire founders like Musk and Dorsey manage their days? Here are Musk’s, Dorsey’s and other successful business leaders’ tips on maximizing productivity.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Jack Dorsey has meetings from a Google Doc</h2>



Research has shown that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/13/jeff-bezos-mark-cuban-and-elon-musk-all-avoid-meetings.html" class="">most managers believe meetings kill productivity</a>: 65% of senior managers say meetings keep them from completing their own work, according to a survey from&nbsp;<a href="https://hbr.org/2017/07/stop-the-meeting-madness" class="">Harvard Business School and Boston University</a>, and 71% of 182 managers surveyed said they find meetings to be unproductive and inefficient.



When it comes to meetings, Jack Dorsey has a non-traditional approach that he believes speeds up the critical thinking process, as&nbsp;<a href="https://resume.io/productivity-lessons-from-successful-founders" class="">Resume.io points out</a>.



“Most of my meetings are now Google doc-based, starting with 10-minutes of reading and commenting directly in the doc,” Dorsey tweeted in 2018. “This practice makes time for everyone to get on same page, allows us to work from many locations, and gets to truth/critical thinking faster.”



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Most of my meetings are now Google doc-based, starting with 10-minutes of reading and commenting directly in the doc. This practice makes time for everyone to get on same page, allows us to work from many locations, and gets to truth/critical thinking faster. Good thread 👇🏼 <a href="https://t.co/YRsxT3kMAZ">https://t.co/YRsxT3kMAZ</a>&mdash; jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/987163806781472768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>



The social media exec referenced a Twitter thread by Steven Sinofsky, the former Windows Division President at Microsoft, to support his Google Doc method. Sinofsky explained the potential up-side to writing during meetings as opposed to traditional ones.



“Writing is more inclusive,” Sinofsky said. “It is easier to contribute, doesn’t reward bullies and bulls&#8212;ers, and allows for contemplation.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Elon Musk eliminates excessive meetings</h2>



Elon Musk starts his day with his most critical work and schedules the rest of his day based on priority.



“Focus on signal over noise,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Qh-vwpYH8&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;amp;t=3m30s" class="">Musk said at the University of Southern California Commencement Speech</a>&nbsp;in 2014. “Don’t waste your time on stuff that doesn’t actually make things better.”



One of the ways he does this is by eliminating as many meetings as he can.



“Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/elon-musks-productivity-rules-according-to-tesla-email.html" class="">the CEO shared in a letter to employees</a>&nbsp;regarding productivity in 2018<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/elon-musks-productivity-rules-according-to-tesla-email.html" class="">.</a>&nbsp;“Get rid frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter.”



If you must have a meeting, Musk says “be certain [you are] providing value to the whole audience.” Musk also advises his employees to “walk out or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value.”



It’s not rude to leave meetings that are not providing any value, he says.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Jeff Bezos makes quick decisions</h2>



It’s important to make “high-quality, high-velocity” decisions, according to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. That’s because “speed matters in business,” he said&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/2016-letter-to-shareholders" class="">in his 2016 letter to shareholders</a>.



“Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70 percent of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90 percent, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.”



In fact, whether you make the right decision can actually be less important than making one quickly, according to Bezos.



“Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors— for those, so what if you’re wrong?”



You need to be good at quickly correcting bad decisions, he said, but “if you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure.”



Amazon “is determined to keep our decision-making velocity high” not only because it’s important, said Bezos, but also because a “high-velocity decision making environment is more fun too.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Steve Jobs knew when to say ‘no’</h2>



<a href="https://resume.io/productivity-lessons-from-successful-founders" class="">As Resume.io points out</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/steve-jobs/" class="">Steve Jobs</a>&nbsp;believed a key to productivity is knowing<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/steve-jobs-heres-what-most-people-get-wrong-about-focus.html" class="">&nbsp;when to say “no</a>.”



“Focusing is about saying ‘no,’” the late Apple co-founder said during the company’s 1997 Worldwide Developers Conference.



“Focus means saying ‘no’ to the hundred other good ideas,”so you have decide what it makes sense to spend time and energy on, and what doesn’t, Jobs said.



In fact, billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/3-things-two-men-learned-from-their-650000-lunch-with-warren-buffett.html" class="">Warren Buffett shares Jobs’ mindset</a>, once saying “the difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bill Gates sharpens his focus through meditation</h2>



Many successful people from Dorsey to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/bridgewater-associates-ray-dalio-meditation-is-key-to-my-success.html" class="">hedge fund</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/bridgewater-associates-ray-dalio-meditation-is-key-to-my-success.html" class="">billionaire Ray Dalio</a>&nbsp;make meditation part of their daily routine.



It is also one of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/bill-gates/" class="">Bill Gates</a>’ favorite productivity habits. “It’s a great tool for improving my focus,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Headspace-Guide-to-Meditation-and-Mindfulness?WT.mc_id=12_03_2018_10_EOYBooks2018Headspace_BG-media_&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;WT.tsrc=BGmedia" class="">he said in his Gates Notes blog</a>&nbsp;in 2018.



“Meditation is simply exercise for the mind, similar to the way we exercise our muscles when we play sports,” he said.



The Microsoft co-founder, who meditates “two or three times a week, for about 10 minutes each time,” said that meditation teaches him “how to pay attention to the thoughts in my head, and [gain] a little bit of distance from them,” improving his concentration.



Gates <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/03/bill-gates-names-the-5-best-books-he-read-in-2018.html">suggests the book</a> “The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness” by former Buddhist monk Andy Puddicombe, for anyone who’d like to get started meditating. 



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/11/productivity-tips-from-elon-musk-jeff-bezos-steve-jobs-and-more.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/11/productivity-tips-from-elon-musk-jeff-bezos-steve-jobs-and-more.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Productivity tips from billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and more

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/28/elon-musk-computers-will-surpass-us-in-every-single-way.html">Jordan Novet </a>



<a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=TSLA">Tesla</a> CEO <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a> on Wednesday said that computers are getting smarter than humans in more and more spheres and that the trend will continue.



“We will be far, far surpassed in every single way. I guarantee it,” Musk said to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jack-ma/" class="">Jack Ma</a>, chairman of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BABA" class="">Alibaba</a>, at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.



The comments highlight an evolving landscape in technology, including in artificial intelligence — an area&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/17/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html" class="">technology companies are tapping</a>&nbsp;to enhance their products and sell to businesses.



Musk pointed to advances in chess and the Chinese board game of Go as evidence of progress in AI.



“Your cell phone could crush the world champion of chess, literally,” Musk told Ma.



company is seeking to draw on AI for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/elon-musk-brain-machine-startup-neuralink-plans-human-trials-in-2020.html" class="">augmenting people’s cognitive capabilities</a>&nbsp;with brain-machine interfaces. The company is not there yet, though.



“The first thing we should assume is we are very dumb,” Musk said. “We can definitely make things smarter than ourselves.”



Ma had a different view, suggesting that a computer has never spawned a human being, or even a mosquito.



“I’ve never in my life, especially [in the] last two years, when people talk about AI, human beings will be controlled by machines,” he said. “I never think about that. It’s impossible.”



And Ma said that he does not want to play chess or Go against a machine. These games were designed for people to play against each other, he said.



“I’ll be happy to see two computers fight each other,” Ma added.



The Tesla chief has spoken previously about AI. In 2017&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/04/elon-musk-says-global-race-for-ai-will-be-most-likely-cause-of-ww3.html" class="">he suggested</a>&nbsp;that competition among nations in AI could lead to World War III.



Tesla has sought to do more in AI. Musk revealed that Tesla was working on a custom AI chip&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/08/elon-musk-talks-up-teslas-upcoming-artificial-intelligence-hardware.html" class="">in 2017</a>, and last month he said the automaker would “most likely” start retrofitting older vehicles with its chips by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/8/20685873/tesla-fsd-chip-upgrade-2019-install-hw2-full-self-driving" class="">the end of 2019</a>.



In 2015 Musk co-founded <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/22/microsoft-invests-1-billion-in-elon-musks-openai.html">OpenAI</a> as an AI research nonprofit. He <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/21/elon-musk-is-leaving-the-board-of-openai.html">left the board</a> last year. He said in a tweet earlier this year that OpenAI and Tesla were at times both trying to hire the same people, and that he and OpenAI didn’t always see eye to eye.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Also, Tesla was competing for some of same people as OpenAI &amp; I didn’t agree with some of what OpenAI team wanted to do. Add that all up &amp; it was just better to part ways on good terms.&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1096989482094518273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/28/elon-musk-computers-will-surpass-us-in-every-single-way.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/28/elon-musk-computers-will-surpass-us-in-every-single-way.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Billionaire Elon Musk: Computers will surpass us ‘in every single way’

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jordan-novet/">Jordan Novet</a>



Elon Musk’s ambitious brain-computer start-up Neuralink is looking to start trials on humans next year. Musk talked about the project at an event in San Francisco that was <a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-vbh3t7WVI&amp;feature=youtu.be">streamed live</a> — with an eye toward recruiting more talent — late on Tuesday.



Neuralink aligns with a broader trend of technology minds seeking to merge their approaches with the world of in healthcare.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=FB" class="">Facebook</a>&nbsp;has previously devoted resources to exploring computer systems that people could&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/19/facebook-building-8-working-on-controlling-computers-from-brain.html" class="">communicate with simply by thinking</a>.



The start-up envisions drilling holes into the brain with a custom machine to embed thin threads that connect to a tiny processor, which can then be connected to a smartphone over Bluetooth. Over time it would like to make the installation process as simple as laser-eye surgery.



The company is seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to begin clinical trials as soon as next year,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-17/elon-musk-s-neuralink-says-it-s-ready-to-begin-brain-surgery" class="">Bloomberg</a>&nbsp;said, and Musk said the start-up wants to have its first human patient equipped with the technology before the end of 2020.



“It will take a long time, and you’ll see it coming,” Musk said at Tuesday’s event. He said in the future there could be an “app store” for different programs that could tap the technology.



Neuralink has operated in relative secrecy ever since Musk, the CEO of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=TSLA" class="">Tesla</a>and a co-founder of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=PYPL" class="">PayPal</a>, laid out the ideas for the start-up in an lengthy article on Tim Urban’s blog&nbsp;<a href="https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html" class="">&nbsp;“Wait But Why”</a>&nbsp;in 2017.



“We are aiming to bring something to market that helps with certain severe brain injuries (stroke, cancer lesion, congenital) in about four years,” Musk told Urban.



Musk believes the technology could eventually assist in cognitive capabilities like speech and sight, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/technology/neuralink-elon-musk.html" class="">New York Times</a>. Applications include helping people control computers with their brain activity or restoring the ability to speak, Philip Sabes, senior scientist at Neuralink, said at Tuesday’s event.&nbsp;



Musk said people could communicate with one another using the technology through a kind of telepathy.&nbsp;



He has a larger ambition, though. He said on Tuesday that he hopes to “help secure humanity’s future as a civilization relative to AI,” or artificial intelligence.



Last year, one media outlet reported that Neuralink had been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/28/elon-musk-brain-start-up-neuralink-applied-for-animal-tests-report.html" class="">looking to conduct tests on animals</a>. The New York Times reported that it saw a demonstration of a computer receiving information from a rat in a company lab. And a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6204648-Neuralink-White-Paper.html" class="">new paper</a>&nbsp;attributed to Neuralink and Musk describes some of the rat research.



“All animal procedures were performed in accordance with the National Research Council’s Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were approved by the Neuralink Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee,” the paper states.



At Tuesday’s event Musk also talked about work with monkeys.



“A monkey has been able to control the computer with his brain,” he said.



Last year he&nbsp; talked up the project during&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/elon-musk-discusses-neurolink-on-joe-rogan-podcast.html" class="">an appearance</a>&nbsp;on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “I think we’ll have something interesting to announce in a few months &#8230; that’s better than anyone thinks is possible,” he said.



Musk, a co-founder of Neuralink, has invested $100 million in the company, the New York Times said.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/elon-musk-brain-machine-startup-neuralink-plans-human-trials-in-2020.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/elon-musk-brain-machine-startup-neuralink-plans-human-trials-in-2020.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Elon Musk’s latest project shows first step toward mind-reading brain implant

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/elizabeth-gravier/">Elizabeth Gravier</a>



Before Elon Musk became obsessed by space travel and electric cars, he was a kid who played&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-favorite-video-games-photos-2017-1" class="">a lot of video games</a>.



Speaking at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVW50KRaBd8" class="">video game convention</a>&nbsp;in Los Angeles earlier this month, Musk addressed the impact video games have had on his vision and the careers of engineers everywhere.



“Part of the reason, maybe the reason, I got interested in tech was video games, ” Musk said. “I probably wouldn’t have started programming if it wasn’t for video games or wouldn’t have been as interested in computers and tech if it wasn’t for video games. I think video games are a very powerful force for getting young kids interested in technology; it has way bigger knock-on effects than people may realize.”



Musk speaks from experience. At just 12 years old, he coded and published a space fighting game called “Blastar” which later&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/04/the-first-jobs-of-15-billionaires-like-warren-buffett-and-jeff-bezos.html" class="">sold for $500</a>&nbsp;to trade publication PC and Office Technology magazine. He once worked at a gaming startup ( “Which weirdly was called Rocket Science — fate loves irony,” Musk has joked). And though his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/business/elon-musk-interview-tesla.html" class="">more recent birthdays</a>&nbsp;may have been spent pulling all-nighters at Tesla, Musk once celebrated his birthday by asking for a life-size statue of Vault Boy – the fictional mascot character from&nbsp;<a href="https://fallout.bethesda.net/en/" class="">video game Fallout</a>.



But Musk isn’t the only one who has found inspiration – and success – through gaming. The link between the two is obvious when he interviews his future employees.



“If we’re interviewing somebody for a software engineering role at Tesla or SpaceX, many times we’ll [ask], ‘How’d you start programming?’” Musk says.



“I think many of the best software engineers in the world are at, or spent much of their career at, video game houses,” Musk says, emphasizing how problem-solving in video games transfers over to problem-solving in software engineering. “If people had to try to create incredibly realistic graphics using very little computer power, it’s a hard problem, so a lot of people had to write really tight code and come up with really clever ideas to do that.”



For Musk’s team at Tesla, the enhanced graphics in video games enable them to better simulate self-driving cars with the help of artificial intelligence. Hetasks his simulation team with creating a photorealistic world of what he says are some of the most boring things: skid marks on the road, concrete curves, shadows, and faded street lines. These simulations have been essential to the development of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/consumer-reports-right-wrong-tesla-autopilot/" class="">autopilot cars</a>, which are scheduled for a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/22/18510828/tesla-elon-musk-autonomy-day-investor-comments-self-driving-cars-predictions" class="">full rollout next year</a>.



He also credited video game <a class="" href="https://www.cyberpunk.net/us/en/pre-order">Cyberpunk</a> (as well as the movie “Blade Runner”) as the inspiration for the <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/14/elon-musk-tweets-about-tesla-pickup-truck-prototype-for-2019.html">Tesla pickup truck</a>.



“It definitely doesn’t look like a normal car, it looks like it should not be on the roads, like it came out of a movie or something,” Musk says. “It won’t appeal to everyone, but it’ll be something that’s different. I think I would buy it.”



Musk wasn’t just at E3 to talk about his new pickup truck. He announced the addition of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/bored-charging-your-tesla-play-videogame-your-car/" class="">video games to Tesla vehicles</a>&nbsp;— drivers can play games on the car’s center screen while docked at a charging station. He even hinted at developing games for his space capsules going to Mars.



“My experience is, if you’re trying to figure out what others love, but you don’t love it, it’s really hard to make that great,” he says. “So when you work on something, if you fall in love with it, that’s a good sign – and then don’t worry about if others do. If you do, others will.”



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/28/elon-musk-talks-about-how-video-games-got-him-hooked-on-programming.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/28/elon-musk-talks-about-how-video-games-got-him-hooked-on-programming.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Billionaire Elon Musk says playing video games is how he and ‘many of the best software engineers’ got into programming

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/david-neagle/">David Neagle, Contributor</a> 



The path to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/warren-buffett-and-bill-gates-agree-giving-up-this-one-thing-will-make-you-more-successful.html" class="">great achievement</a>&nbsp;and leadership is not an easy one. You need a ridiculous amount of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/01/the-2-minute-rule-how-to-stop-procrastinating-and-start-new-habits.html" class="">focus</a>, drive and the ability to inspire others.



While there is no one-size-fits-all&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/money-mistakes-millionaires-like-warren-buffett-bill-gates-google-eric-schmidt-never-make.html" class="">approach to success</a>, there are a few traits worth adopting from some of the world’s most&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/04/self-made-millionaires-swear-by-these-5-morning-routinesand-they-all-take-less-than-10-minutes.html" class="">accomplished leaders</a>, from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/warren-buffett-and-bill-gates-agree-giving-up-this-one-thing-will-make-you-more-successful.html" class="">Elon Musk</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/12/amazon-billionaire-jeff-bezos-explains-why-the-smartest-people-change-their-minds-often.html" class="">Jeff Bezos</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/how-the-wojcickis-parents-raised-23andme-founder-youtube-ceo.html" class="">Susan Wojcicki</a>.



Here are the top five:



1. They aren’t fazed by failure



Things won’t always turn out the way you expected them to. Most startups fail —&nbsp;<a href="http://innovationfootprints.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/startup-genome-report-extra-on-premature-scaling.pdf" class="">90 percent of them</a>, research finds. Many of your ideas might not work. People may give up on you. But successful people don’t let any of those things get in their way. Instead, they learn from their failures.



When Bezos launched Amazon in 1994, he only gave himself a 30 percent chance of success. “That’s actually a very liberating expectation, expecting to fail,” he told&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20000407181649/http://www.time.com/time/poy/bezos.html" class="">Time magazine</a>&nbsp;in 1999, when they crowned him as Person of the Year.



Indeed, the Amazon founder has had his fair share of failures, from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gobankingrates.com/making-money/business/jeff-bezos-worst-business-failures/" class="">Fire smartphone to Amazon Wallet</a>, but he never stopped taking chances in the pursuit of success.



“If you’re going to take bold bets, they’re going to be experiments,” he said on stage at <a class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-on-big-bets-risks-fire-phone-2014-12">Business Insider’s Ignition Conference</a> in 2014. “And if they’re experiments, you don’t know ahead of time if they’re going to work. Experiments are by their very nature prone to failure. But a few big successes compensate for dozens and dozens of things that didn’t work.”



2. They shoot for the moon



Tesla co-founder Elon Musk took this one literally when he said his mission was to take&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39111030" class="">tourists to the moon.</a>&nbsp;One of the most admirable traits about Musk is always sets the most ambitious goals, from building underground<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/19/tech/boring-company-tunnel-elon-musk/index.html" class="">&nbsp;tunnels to beat traffic congestion</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-launches-neuralink-to-connect-brains-with-computers-1490642652" class="">connecting our brains to computers.</a>



Setting (and attempting to achieve) highly ambitious goals can take a lot out of you. But many&nbsp;<a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/38/4/622/1856977" class="">studies</a>&nbsp;have found that this can make you happier in the long run. In one&nbsp;<a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/38/4/622/1856977" class="">experiment</a>, researchers observed two groups of people: One who set sky-high goals, and one who set more conservative goals.



The first group reported feeling more fulfilled after having achieved their goals. The reason? When you set conservative goals, as opposed to more ambitious ones, the satisfaction you get from achieving them is much lower.



Oprah Winfrey is also a master when it comes to going big. She started off as a television reporter, then expanded her media empire by including movies, podcasts and websites. “The Oprah Winfrey Show” still remains the highest-rated daytime talk show in American history. By age 32, she had already reached millionaire status.



 3. They lead from personal experience



In 2017, a Google software engineer published a&nbsp;<a href="https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320" class="">10-page memo</a>&nbsp;against the tech giant’s diversity initiatives. The document went viral, prompting a quick response from&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/" class="">Google</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/01/how-google-ceos-brilliant-answer-in-a-job-interview-helped-him-get-hired.html" class="">CEO Sundar Pichai</a>.



But the most daring and bold response came from YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Rather than speaking out in a corporate and sterile tone (which was expected, given that Google owns YouTube), she spoke about her personal experience and addressed the pain and empathy she felt for others who had read memo.



“I’ve had my abilities and commitment to my job questioned. I’ve been left out of key industry events and social gatherings. I’ve had meetings with external leaders where they primarily addressed the more junior male colleagues,” she&nbsp;<a href="http://fortune.com/2017/08/09/google-diversity-memo-wojcicki/" class="">wrote in an article for Fortune</a>.



Wojcicki’s response focused on how to empower the next generation of young women. Her viewpoint not only showcased her vision for the future, but also captured the hearts of many. The most successful leaders know when to lead from an objective strategy, and when to lead with empathy and humanity.



4. They know the greatest ideas come at the most unexpected times



Studies about the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/05/genius-genetics-intelligence-neuroscience-creativity-einstein/" class="">brain and internal thought processes</a>&nbsp;(i.e., daydreaming, imagining) have revealed that our “aha” moments often appear at the most unexpected times. “Information comes in consciously, but the problem is processed unconsciously, with the resulting solution leaping out when the mind least expects it,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/05/genius-genetics-intelligence-neuroscience-creativity-einstein/" class="">writes Claudia Kalb</a>, a best-selling author and journalist who reports on human behavior.



In a <a class="" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/">Reddit AMA session</a>, Musk said that he thinks up the most brilliant ideas he’s when taking a shower. CEOs and executives from some of the most successful companies in the world — including <a class="" href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>, <a class="" href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>and <a class="" href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a> — <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/why-ceos-at-google-facebook-and-linkedin-love-walking-meetings.html">hold meetings on foot</a> (i.e., standing, walking) because they believe that’s when people are most focused, creative and productive.



Like all successful leaders, it helps to allow things to flow in and out of your brain naturally, instead of getting too attached to when and where they come from. If there are certain activities, locations or times where you find yourself most relaxed, be willing to have an open mind and let your creativity ignite on its own.



5. They think outside the box and beyond the status quo



Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/03/12/stitch-fix-ceo-katrina-lake-on-how-algorithms-boosted-margins.html" class="">recently told CNBC</a>&nbsp;using&nbsp;artificial intelligence (A.I.) to create in-app algorithms helped boost the company’s earnings. The algorithms lifted Stitch Fix’s net revenue per client by six percent year-over-year.



When you’re at the top of the mountain, there isn’t a status quo to reference or a path to follow; you’re the one blazing the trail. It’s a distinct leadership trait at the C-suite level, but you don’t need to spend years climbing the ladder to acquire the same foresight.



Instead, reap the benefits now by mapping out five, 10 or even 20 unconventional solutions to your current business quandary. You’ll have a greater chance of successfully solving your problems by doing so. When your entrepreneurial muscles does this type of heavy lifting on a regular basis, you’ll soon be able to master “thinking outside the box” more nimbly, which will put you at the front of the pack.



<a class="" href="https://davidneagle.com/">David Neagle</a> is the founder of <a class="" href="https://davidneagle.com/">Life Is Now, Inc</a>., a leadership coaching company. David’s coaching has expanded to more than 30 countries, and his work has been featured in Forbes, CBS, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, Inc., and Entrepreneur. He’s also the best-selling author of ”<a class="" href="https://www.amazon.com/Millions-Within-Manifest-Exactly-What/dp/1614482772">The Millions Within. ”</a> Follow him on Twitter .



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/5-traits-that-separate-millionaires-like-jeff-bezos-mark-zuckerberg-bill-gates-from-those-who-never-succeed.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/5-traits-that-separate-millionaires-like-jeff-bezos-mark-zuckerberg-bill-gates-from-those-who-never-succeed.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

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5 powerful traits that separate successful Billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg from everyone else

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/cat-clifford/">Catherine Clifford</a>* 



“I think it’s important to have a future that is inspiring and appealing. I just think there have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Like, why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future?” <a class="" href="https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_future_we_re_building_and_boring/transcript">so says billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk in his 2017 TED talk</a>.



For Musk, that means building a reality where humans live on multiple planets. “And if we’re not out there, if the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multiplanet species, I find that it’s incredibly depressing if that’s not the future that we’re going to have,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_future_we_re_building_and_boring/transcript" class="">Musk says</a>.



And when Musk thinks about the future, he does so like an engineer — practically, carefully and with a flow chart of probable outcomes.



“I look at the future from the standpoint of probabilities. It’s like a branching stream of probabilities, and there are actions that we can take that affect those probabilities or that accelerate one thing or slow down another thing,” he says.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Indeed, with his electric car company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=TSLA" class="">Tesla</a>, his spacecraft company SpaceX and his tunneling venture The Boring Company, the tech entrepreneur is says he’s helping shape the future.



As everyone looks toward 2019, here are three predictions for the future from the entrepreneur.&nbsp;In 7 to 10 years, the first humans will colonize Mars



In November, Musk said it will be seven to 10 years until the first group of humans colonize Mars.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">How soon will the first group go to colonize Mars?</blockquote>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">7 to 10 years</blockquote>



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In the same Twitter conversation, he said he imagines it will be “engineers, artists and creatives of all kinds” who will go to Mars first.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">A human landing on Mars is now not far away. I only hope the first wave of explorers will be poets &amp; not real estate developers&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/pvlFIQ936m" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-46351114?__twitter_impression=true&nbsp;…</a>The US space agency&#8217;s robot is the first mission aiming to study the Red Planet&#8217;s deep interior.</blockquote>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Engineers, artists &amp; creators of all kinds. There is so much to build.</blockquote>



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The SpaceX founder and CEO said there is a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/26/elon-musk-says-there-is-a-70percent-probability-he-will-go-to-mars.html" class="">“70 percent” chance that he himself will go to Mars</a>, and that his space company “recently made a number of breakthroughs that I am just really fired up about,” he told Axios in November.



It will be incredibly risky for those who go first to Mars, Musk said.



“It’s gonna be hard, there’s a good chance of death, going in a little can through deep space, you might land successfully, once you land successfully you’ll be working non-stop to build the base&nbsp;— so not much time for leisure&nbsp;— and once you get there, even after all this, there’s a very harsh environment, so there’s a good chance you’ll die there. We think you can come back but we’re not sure,” Musk told Axios.



SpaceX aims to get an unmanned cargo rocket to Mars in 2024, according to Musk. “Hopefully, there are people on board. But I think there’s a pretty good chance of at least having an unmanned craft go to Mars. I think we will try to do this,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/11/2/18053428/recode-decode-full-podcast-transcript-elon-musk-tesla-spacex-boring-company-kara-swisher" class="">Musk told Kara Swisher in</a>&nbsp;October.You will be able to connect your brain to computers in 10 years



As if Tesla, SpaceX and The Boring Company weren’t enough to keep Musk busy, he also has a company,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.neuralink.com/" class="">Neuralink</a>, that is “developing ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers,” as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.neuralink.com/" class="">the company’s website explains</a>.



“The long-term aspiration with Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence…to achieve a sort of democratization of intelligence, such that it is not monopolistically held in a purely digital form by governments and large corporations,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-neuralink-9d351dbb-987b-4b63-9fdc-617182922c33.html" class="">Musk told Axios in November</a>.



That will be done by connecting computer electrodes to neurons in your brain — “a chip and a bunch of tiny wires” that will be “implanted in your skull,” Musk said.



“I believe this can be done. &#8230; It’s probably on the order of a decade,” he said.&nbsp;



If the idea of your intelligence being enhanced by computers seems wild, Musk says it’s starting now: “And by the way, you kind of have this already in a weird way: You have a digital tertiary layer in the form of your phone, your computers, your watch. You basically have these computing devices that form a tertiary layer on your cognition already,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-neuralink-9d351dbb-987b-4b63-9fdc-617182922c33.html" class="">Musk said, according to Axios</a>.Tesla’s ‘cyberpunk’ pickup truck prototype could be here in 2019



Musk has been pulling an insane schedule, working as many as 120 hours in a week, to get the Model 3 Tesla production ramped up, but he’s already touting new products.



“I’m dying to make a pickup truck so bad … we might have a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/14/elon-musk-tweets-about-tesla-pickup-truck-prototype-for-2019.html" class="">prototype to unveil next year</a>, ” he tweeted in December.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">When can I order my pickup truck?</blockquote>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">I’m dying to make a pickup truck so bad … we might have a prototype to unveil next year</blockquote>



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Musk has been relatively vague about the specifics of the truck — “Well I can’t talk about the details,” he told Swisher — but he was unabashed in expressing his own excitement.



“We’ve got the pickup truck, which — actually, I’m personally most excited about the pickup truck,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/11/2/18053428/recode-decode-full-podcast-transcript-elon-musk-tesla-spacex-boring-company-kara-swisher" class="">Musk told Swisher</a>&nbsp;in October. “It’s gonna be like a really futuristic like cyberpunk, ‘Blade Runner’ pickup truck.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105549329-1546278263071preview.png?v=1546278276&amp;w=740&amp;h=" alt="Tesla pickup truck sketch"/></figure>



A sketch of a Tesla pickup truck concept, revealed at the firm’s Semi truck and Roadster event in Hawthorne, California on November 16, 2017.Tesla



He continued: “It’s gonna be awesome, it’s gonna be amazing. … This will be heart-stopping. It stops my heart. It’s like, oh, it’s great.”



The Tesla boss says he isn’t particularly confident that there will be a large number of people who want to buy the first, ultra-futuristic version of the truck he has been dreaming about. If his design is not popular, then Tesla will make a more traditional truck body, he says.



“It’s like I really wanted something that’s like super-futuristic cyberpunk. Which, if it doesn’t &#8230; if I’m weirdly like &#8230; if there’s only a small number of people that like that truck, I guess we’ll make a more conventional truck in the future. But it’s the thing that I am personally most fired up about. It’s gonna have a lot of titanium,” Musk told Swisher.



*This article was first published on CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/31/tesla-ceo-elon-musks-predictions-for-the-future.html and is republished with its permission

African-born billionaire Elon Musk 3 predictions for the future

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Tesla shares have plummeted yesterday, this coming after the release of the Model 3 Sedans. There is much speculation around the drop in shares, with some reports blaming the infamous tweet in which Musk said the company would be going private, this coupled with the major resignations from top several executives and the justice department opening a fraud investigation, has caused a lack of confidence from financial investors. Tesla and its board have reported that the company have absolute confidence in Musk’s integrity and leadership. Joining CNBC Africa for more is Michael Treherne, Portfolio Manager, Vestact.

Tesla shares tank as SEC files fraud charges against Elon Musk

<ul>
<li>Tesla shares surged more than 10 percent after being halted for more than an hour.</li>
<li>Musk issued a string of tweets about possibly taking the company private at $420 a share.</li>
<li>Later, the company issued a blog post that said a final decision had not yet been made. 
Tesla&#8217;s market value at $420 a share would be about $71 billion.</li>
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<div class="source"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/robert-ferris/" rel="author">Robert Ferris</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/RobertoFerris">@RobertoFerris</a></div>
CNBC.com
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<div class="headline"><a class="inline_quotes" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=TSLA" data-gdsid="74213" data-inline-quote-symbol="TSLA">Tesla</a> CEO <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a> stunned investors Tuesday with a string of tweets saying he is considering taking the company private, in what would be the largest deal of its kind.</div>
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&#8220;Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,&#8221; Musk said in a tweet shortly before 1 p.m. Musk <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/07/tesla-says-no-final-decision-has-been-made-to-take-company-private.html">discussed the plans further in a blog post</a> later Tuesday.
From there Musk tweeted several times. In responses to questions on Twitter, Musk said he will ensure the prosperity of shareholders &#8220;in any scenario.&#8221; If Tesla went private, current investors could keep their stakes in Tesla through a special fund, or sell their shares at $420, he said.
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Shares jumped after Musk&#8217;s first tweet, trading as high as $371.15 before giving back gains. Later the stock was halted for more than an hour. When it reopened shares surged more than 10 percent.
Tesla shares were already trading higher on a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/07/tesla-shares-jump-on-report-saudi-arabia-sovereign-wealth-fund-has-2-.html">report of a new stake from the Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund</a>.
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In the past year, Tesla shares have traded as low as $244.59 in April and as high as $389.61 in September.
Tesla went public in 2010. Its current market value is $61 billion. At a share price of $420, the company would be worth $71.3 billion.
Although Musk mentioned funding in his initial tweet, a blog post from Tesla did not include any mention of financing. CNBC also contacted a number of Wall Street banks and none of them was aware of any transaction or had committed to funding a leveraged buyout of Tesla.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also declined to comment on the matter. However, <a class="inline_asset" href="https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/news-alerts/press-releases/sec-says-social-media-ok-company-announcements-if">companies are allowed to use social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to announce news</a>, the SEC said in 2013.
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He also said he does not currently have a controlling vote in the company and wouldn&#8217;t expect a single shareholder to have one if the company were private. He said he had no intention of selling his stake, and he said he would remain as CEO.
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Taking Tesla private could remove some of the pressure on the closely watched company. Private firms, for example, are not required to publicly report quarterly earnings. Musk also said being private would end &#8220;negative propaganda from shorts.&#8221;
Musk has said he expects Tesla to begin being profitable in the third quarter of 2018.
Investors have been concerned about the amount of cash Tesla has been burning through and whether the company would need to raise additional funds to support its growth plans, which include introducing a semi-truck, a crossover SUV called the Model Y, more factories around the world, and other projects.
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Did Elon Musk break just announce he’s taking Tesla private over a tweet?

South African born <a href="https://www.forbes.com/100-greatest-business-minds/person/patrice-motsepe">Patrice Motsepe</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/100-greatest-business-minds/person/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> have made <a href="https://www.forbes.com/100-greatest-business-minds/">FORBES top 100 Greatest Living Business Minds</a>. They were the only two Africans on the list.
Motsepe was Africa’s first black billionaire. According to African Rainbow Capital’s (ARC’s) website, “he became an entrepreneur at the age of seven, working in his father’s grocery shop”. After a successful career at Bowman Gilfillan specialising in mining and business law, he founded African Rainbow Minerals in 1997 and turned it into a giant mining company. He has since diversified into a number of other sectors including football, through his ownership of Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club. This month he listed his latest venture ARC, black owned and controlled company focusing on the South African and African financial services industry.
		
				
		
<a href="http://cnbc.africa/tag/elon-musk/">Musk,</a> who holds few fond memories of his time in South Africa relocated to Canada at the age of 17. Now based in the United States, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is working to shuttle humans to Mars, bring electric vehicles to the mass market, and revolutionise both artificial intelligence and transportation — with some hits and misses, read: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/international/2017/03/08/billionaire-tech-mogul-elon-musk-got-start/">CNBC&#8217;s: How billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk got his start</a>, for more.
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Two Africans make FORBES Greatest Living Business Minds list

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<a class="inline_quotes" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes?symbol=TSLA" data-gdsid="74213" data-inline-quote-symbol="TSLA">Tesla</a>&#8216;s Model 3 launch highlights the need for a succession plan, especially if the top executives are spread too thin.
As the late-July launch of Tesla&#8217;s make-or-break mass-market Model 3 sedan neared, CEO <a class="inline_asset" href="http://pagesix.com/2017/07/31/elon-musk-tells-twitter-he-might-be-bipolar/">Elon Musk allowed himself an unguarded moment</a>on Twitter: &#8220;The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress,&#8221; he wrote, momentarily agreeing with speculation that he might even be bipolar, before adding that he didn&#8217;t literally mean it. &#8220;When you buy a ticket to hell, you can&#8217;t blame hell.&#8221;
The moment illustrates that even world-changing entrepreneurs like <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/">Musk</a> battle stress. And having an irreplaceable, overstretched founder is a legitimate concern for any fast-growing business if there is no strong team in place as a backup should something happen to the visionary leader.
&#8220;When it&#8217;s your own money, fine,&#8221; said Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. &#8220;When you take other people&#8217;s money or public capital, the obligations change.&#8221;
Even so, many of the management challenges Tesla faces as it morphs from a niche automaker into a global renewable-energy one-stop shop apply to less-exalted businesses, from small manufacturers to midsized service companies.
Management experts have a playbook for scaling up management of growing companies, and Tesla is learning similar lessons on the fly. And in some cases the company isn&#8217;t there yet, by textbook standards. But the company is taking key steps on its path to growth. Most notably, it has locked and loaded <a class="inline_asset" title="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-ceo-elon-musks-37-584-salary-reflects-california-minimum-wage-1460759161" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-ceo-elon-musks-37-584-salary-reflects-california-minimum-wage-1460759161">Musk in an incentives-based compensation plan</a>that gives him a low salary, no cash bonus or incentives until he hits targets related to stock price and brings products to market. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/20/tesla-adding-this-ceo-to-its-board-is-a-big-deal-for-silicon-valley.html">Tesla also added independent board members</a> in July to diversify its brain trust.
Here are important steps every company should take to ensure there is no disruption in business if something should happen to their most important asset: the visionary founder and CEO.
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<h4 class="subtitle">1. Have a succession plan.</h4>
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With Musk only 46, Tesla can be forgiven for not planning much for when he&#8217;s not around — but <a class="inline_quotes" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes?symbol=AAPL" data-gdsid="8016" data-inline-quote-symbol="AAPL">Apple</a>&#8216;s Steve Jobs was 49 when he got his first cancer diagnosis, years after he hired his eventual successor Tim Cook as Apple&#8217;s operations chief. Life comes at people fast, and business leaders need to prepare more than most people, said Andrew Sherman, a Washington-based partner at law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP.
&#8220;Not doing it not only puts the founders&#8217; families at risk but also people who work there and the whole supplier ecosystem,&#8221; Sherman said. A plan can also bridge gaps between baby-boomer business owners and millennials who will help run the business soon, he said.
Musk has said he expects to be around Tesla for years to come. He has even joked about succession, as when he was asked if he would go on a Mars space mission through his <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/15/spacex-2017-disruptor-50.html">SpaceX</a> rocket company.
&#8220;I&#8217;d have to have a really good succession plan, because the likelihood of death is very high,&#8221; he told a questioner after a 2016 speech. &#8220;And I&#8217;d like to see my kids grow up and everything.&#8221;
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<h4 class="subtitle">2. Have key-executive insurance.</h4>
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If Tesla has coverage on Musk, it&#8217;s not disclosed in the company&#8217;s <a class="inline_asset" title="http://ir.tesla.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1564590-17-3118&amp;cik=1318605" href="http://ir.tesla.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1564590-17-3118&amp;cik=1318605">annual 10-K report</a> to the Securities and Exchange Commission — or in its yearly proxy statement, which discloses executive pay (Tesla declined to add detail). Experts say that&#8217;s OK for Tesla — Musk&#8217;s value runs into the billions of dollars, so he&#8217;d be all but impossible to insure for what he&#8217;s worth. But for more-mortal executives running prosaic businesses, it&#8217;s a must.
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&#8220;It&#8217;s usually correlated more with closely held partnerships,&#8221; said Stuart Tauber, partner at corporate insurance consultant Meltzer Group.
Key-exec plans can protect either the company or the families of founding partners, Tauber said. If an owner&#8217;s family doesn&#8217;t want to stay involved in the business, it&#8217;s common to buy enough insurance to let surviving partners buy them out. Alternatively, the insurance can pay the company for hiring and paying a replacement, or reimburse for value lost when a partner dies, Tauber said. A million dollars of life insurance coverage can typically be had for about $1,000 a year, with another $5,000 to insure against disability, Tauber said. Policies should also be revisited every few years as roles different executives play in a business change, he added.
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<h4 class="subtitle">3. Put in place a well-rounded executive team.</h4>
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How well Tesla has done on this is a matter of debate. One sore point is that perceptions of Tesla&#8217;s quality has slipped since the initial Model S&#8217;s rave reviews — a J.D. Power report this year said fit and finish of recent models isn&#8217;t competitive with BMW and Mercedes. (That contradicted a <a class="inline_asset" title="https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/22/tesla-tops-2016-consumer-reports-customer-satisfaction-survey/" href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/22/tesla-tops-2016-consumer-reports-customer-satisfaction-survey/">December 2016 Consumer Reports survey</a> that rated Tesla&#8217;s customer satisfaction the industry&#8217;s highest, a company spokeswoman noted.) Analysts, short sellers and CNBC&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/08/03/jim-cramer-heres-the-issue-i-have-with-tesla.html">Jim Cramer</a> have also noted Tesla&#8217;s propensity to miss production forecasts and push deadlines for new products.
But a fleshed-out management team is essential to business continuity planning if the boss gets sick or injured — and it will keep everyone sane even when the boss is healthy, Sherman said.
Tesla works without a COO, and Musk&#8217;s manufacturing knowledge was mostly learned on the job, at Tesla and his SpaceX rocket company, where he is also CEO. (In May 2016, Tesla confirmed it had <a class="inline_asset" href="https://electrek.co/2016/05/13/tesla-audi-senior-director-production-model-3-program/">hired Audi veteran Peter Hochholdinger</a> as vice president of manufacturing.) SpaceX has a president and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, despite being a fraction of Tesla&#8217;s size.
Tesla&#8217;s investor-relations website only bills three executives — Musk, chief financial officer Deepak Ahuja and chief technical officer JB Straubel — as corporate officers. Combined with Musk&#8217;s obsession with getting details right, strains on management have contributed to <a class="inline_asset" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-elon-musk-sleeping-on-tesla-factory-floor-2016-5">Musk&#8217;s keeping a sleeping bag at Tesla&#8217;s factory</a> as production deadlines approach.
That&#8217;s a recipe for a stressed-out boss, Sherman said, though many companies don&#8217;t specifically have a COO. One point of being the boss is being able to enjoy success — including taking vacations sometimes, knowing the business works when the CEO&#8217;s away, Sherman said.
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&#8220;I intend to be actively involved with Tesla for the rest of my life,&#8221; Musk said earlier this year. &#8220;That doesn&#8217;t mean I should be CEO forever. I think my main — the most valuable thing I could contribute — is kind of product design and technology, but that&#8217;s my forte; that&#8217;s what I like doing, and that&#8217;s what I imagine doing in the sort of very long term.&#8221;
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<h4 class="subtitle">4. Communicate the plan to everyone on your team — employees, customers, investors and lenders.</h4>
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Even Tesla admirers give the company relatively low marks here. &#8220;I don&#8217;t have any notion of how their bench strength is,&#8221; said Theodore O&#8217;Neill, an analyst at Ascendiant Capital Markets. &#8220;It would be better for them if they were more transparent.&#8221;
At Tesla, lack of clarity about the team leads to Musk facing questions about management turnover, which he said on Tesla&#8217;s second-quarter earnings call is less than at comparable companies. (The <a class="inline_asset" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/at-tesla-departures-mount-as-carmaker-stretched-to-the-limit">question came amid departures</a>, including the company&#8217;s former chief financial officer and the head of its <a class="inline_asset" href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/06/21/former-apple-executive-chris-lattner-leaves-tesla-after-6-months-on-the-job">autonomous-car research</a> effort.)
Many companies put off this planning and communication and even get away with it. By most measures, Tesla has — it&#8217;s built a $60 billion market cap and is expected to boost sales next year to $20 billion as Model 3 production scales up, from $11.8 billion in 2017. &#8220;People with car experience have been pooh-poohing Elon Musk for 15 years and been proven wrong,&#8221; O&#8217;Neill said.
But at big companies like Apple, down to more mundane businesses that turn to lawyers like Sherman, careful planning lets workers and partners breathe easier and plan their own futures.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a good governance approach that also pays cultural dividends,&#8221; Sherman said.
— By Tim Mullaney, special to CNBC.com
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