Does Elon Musk’s IQ Really Define His Success? A Closer Look

This article highlights that the IQ of Elon Musk is not the only reason behind his success. His core principles and visionary skills made him incredibly successful. Read on to explore what his principles are!

Elon Musk is known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs of this time. According to Forbes, his net worth is $264 billion. He founded three billion-dollar companies: SpaceX, PayPal, and Tesla. His success story doesn’t stop there; he also revolutionised various industries, including space transportation, electric vehicles, online payment, and clean energy. 

Are you wondering if he achieves all this success due to his higher IQ? The answer is NO. He indeed falls under the category of highly gifted people, but his success doesn’t solely depend on his IQ. 

Musk has been describing the wisdom, experiences, and principles that he follows to achieve all these fortunes. Read this article to get to know who Elon Musk is and the reason behind his success. 

Who is Elon Musk?

Elon Musk was born in South Africa and is considered one of the most influential business tycoons of all time. Due to his interest in engineering and computer science, he learned the basics of these subjects while growing up in Africa. Later, he was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania to get a degree in economics and physics. However, he dropped out without completing this degree as he had to work on his business idea. 

In 1995, he started X.com, a company that provides finance services. After one year, he merged X.com with PayPal, a company that had a service at that time. He invested his PayPal earnings in his new project, SpaceX, which aimed to take humans into space. 

He didn’t stop there; he decided to re-invest in the automobile industry and laid the foundation for a new company named Tesla in 2003. Since then, his success graph has sky-rocketing. People are interested in knowing what things made him victorious, so the experts of The Academic Papers UK have written this guide to satisfy their curiosity. But before hopping on them, let’s first explore the key takeaways of this article.

Salient Features:

• Elon Musk is one of the most influential businessmen of our time. He is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

• He was born in South Africa and then brought up in America and Canada.

• Musk openly shares his success principles, which include solving problems, focusing on resources, using first-principle thinking, removing barriers for open discussions, breaking down things into fundamental elements, and remaining strong in the hardest moments. 

7 Principles That Made Elon Musk Successful

The success of Elon Musk, whose one tweet can create a whirlpool in the market, is a hot debate topic these days. Everybody wants to know the secret behind his booming fame and success. Here, we have listed the core principles that have helped him become successful. 

Let’s uncover these principles. 

1. Solve the Problem Over Chasing Money

Musk’s first and foremost principle is that he never chases money; he only tries to solve problems. He says that people who solve problems are frequently rewarded with the best compared to people who aim to earn money. Further, he believes that companies that prioritise their customers’ needs over their money-making policies are more financially successful. 

Tesla Motors is the prime example of this principle, which he opened to tackle the finite fuel supply problem. This is the main accomplishment behind the emergence of this company, which manufactures fuel-efficient and environment-friendly vehicles. All in all, Musk rips the business opportunity by identifying the market needs.

2. Focus Resources

No matter how high a person’s IQ is, if he doesn’t know how to effectively use resources, he can never become successful. We know that Elon Musk’s IQ is between 155 and 160, but the major reason for his success is his visionary skills in using resources to the fullest. He believes that we should focus on resources and energies and know what not to do. 

He further added that if you diffuse the resources at the early stages of your company, then it will be less likely to grow. He said, “At Tesla, we’ve never spent any money on advertising. We’ve put all our money into R&D, engineering, design, and manufacturing to build the best car possible. When we consider spending money, we ask, ‘Will this create a better product?’ If not, we don’t proceed with spending the money.”

3. Use First Principle Thinking

Elon Musk is among the most ingenious intellects of our time. He uses ‘First Principle Thinking’ to overcome challenges. This approach helps startup company founders get funding for their businesses. 

First-principle thinking involves breaking down complex concepts into their fundamental elements and using these fundamentals to reconstruct the model and find solutions. Understand it with a simple example: Consider a vehicle manufacturing company, says Tesla Motor, facing obstacles due to the high price of batteries. Musk’s first principle allows the company to address the issue and bring innovative solutions. 

4. Remove Barrier from Open Discussion

Elon Musk believes that we should break the barriers of silos and stay open for communication, collaboration, and sharing ideas. He further says that a person who plays a leadership role must keep in mind that he is here to motivate the team, solve issues, and maintain a good workflow. 

For instance, if there is a manager at Tesla Motor, then he should know that he is here to serve the team, not that the team should serve him. A company or an entrepreneur cannot be successful until they remove these barriers and create a collaborative environment at the workplace. 

5. Break Down Things and Start Understanding

He further emphasises understanding the foundation before moving on to the details. He adds that an entrepreneur must break down things into fundamental elements; otherwise, he lays the foundation on faulty grounds. 

There is a scientific method that consists of some general steps, which Musk often describes when someone asks how to come up with new ideas by understanding the grounds. 

This method includes the following steps:

• Start with asking a question.
• Gather evidence about it.
• Develop postulates about this evidence.
• Assign a conclusion about each axiom and determine whether it is correct or not.
• Try to disapprove of this conclusion and also get a second opinion to refute it.
• If there is no rebut for your conclusion, that means you are certainly right. 

6. Stay Open to Criticism

An open feedback loop is important to becoming successful in business and life. Musk believes that a businessman should actively self-analyse himself and get feedback from others on his ideas and thinking. According to him, a person who sticks to his ideals and never accepts criticism can never grow in his field.

In general, people don’t have sharp critical thinking abilities. They suppose various things to be accurate without any proof or logic, which eventually leads them to a self-centred approach, and businesses don’t grow on this approach. We must always be open to positive feedback and always do self-analysis. 

7. Remain Strong in the Hardest Moments

It goes without saying that Musk’s entrepreneurial journey was not a smooth ride. He faced many ups and downs, which he conquered effectively and reached today’s stature. One remarkable incident was when, due to the investors’ pressure, he became the CTO from CEO of his first company, Zip2. 

Likewise, he faced a similar challenge in 2002 when he was fired from the CEO position of PayPal. After that, he started a new venture, Tesla Motor, which also brought numerous challenges to his life. In a nutshell, he remained headstrong in the hardest moments and started with a new idea every time. 

Elon Musk IQ Vs Einstein

Does the entrepreneurial genius Elon Musk have the same IQ level as the Nobel-prize winner Albert Einstein? Nowadays, this is the most important question that is usually added to students’ coursework. Folks think that Elon Musk’s IQ is between 155 and 160, and Einstein’s IQ level is between 160 and 165. However, comparing these two geniuses can be an interesting topic for students. They can seek assistance from leading coursework writing platforms to get an in-depth answer to this question. 

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, Elon Musk has had exceptional business journeys and groundbreaking accomplishments. The prime reason behind this success is not his IQ but his principles, which he followed during his phenomenal journey. 

In this article, we have shared these principles, including solving problems, focusing on resources, utilising first-principle thinking, removing barriers for open discussions, breaking down things into fundamental elements, and remaining strong in the hardest moments. We hope this article will help you in staying motivated and get inspiration for Musk’s life.