Geek as CEO: How Elon Musk Survived
Entrepreneur Elon Musk has parlayed his success from co-founding PayPal, the online payment system, into the bustling private rocket company SpaceX and the electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors.
But the road has been rocky. As CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk endured the failure of his first rocket and has at times had trouble getting financing for his grand ventures.
In an interview with our sister site BusinessNewsDaily, Musk acknowledges his personal troubles – a very public divorce that has put his family life and personal finances (and the fact that much of his wealth is non-liquid) in the limelight. Plus he talks about how he's managed to stay focused as SpaceX recently launched its first rocket and Tesla went through a successful IPO, both in the same month.
"If you're the CEO of a company, you have to work your bloody ass off. And if you're the CEO of two companies you have to work two bloody asses off and you don’t have two asses," Musk said. "And then if you combine that with a terrible economy, that just makes the job even harder, it's been a really grueling several years."






