It’s no secret Elon Musk is the richest man on the planet, but did you know two out of the three companies he claims he started was not founded by him? Young entrepreneurs believe Elon Musk is what they should aspire to be, but, in reality, apart from being a dreadful employer, he is also a very ignorant man, which is evident through some of his tweets. No one can deny that Elon Musk has achieved incredible things, but not how he claims he did.

Most people know Musk as the founder of Paypal, Tesla, and SpaceX. However, in recent years, it has been known that he merely helped create PayPal and push forward Tesla. In 2009, Wired published an article about how Martin Elberhard’s, Tesla’s real founder, filed a lawsuit against Musk to force him out of Tesla and change history by giving himself the founder title. After this, Elon claimed he was the one who came up with the series S Tesla, which is the company’s most sold vehicle. However,  the prototype was made by a small company named AC propulsion. This demonstrates how Musk claims he did so many things when he makes an effort to hide the truth about the companies that got him where he is today. In Musk’s defense, he found SpaceX, one of the biggest private space exploration agencies. Despite this fact, apart from fooling the public about his billion-dollar companies’ involvement, he has also displayed many acts of ignorance over the years.

Musk has had his fair share of screw-ups over Twitter, where he has shown his ignorance and lack of care for the public he “claims to work for.” Like “FREE AMERICA NOW” Musk, Tweets have left the world in doubt about Musk´s intellectual capacity.  Trying to inspire people to go out and get infected in the middle of a pandemic doesn’t make him an outstanding role model. His tweets are not about the American Life but more about the gain he makes from society to get back on their feet. These tweets are about how he wants to make a profit from people during this pandemic. As the tweets kept flowing in, people noticed that Musk just wanted to start his production of Teslas as soon as possible. From another person’s perspective, this can be very different. Some people even say that Elon Musk does these things, not for his benefit but because he doesn’t care about how others see him. “He doesn’t care what people think about him in all aspects. He is always in his zone.” Antonio Lugo, IDVDL brand owner, said. Though many young entrepreneurs think he is perfect, Musk is far from the best. Apart from putting immense workloads onto his staff, he has also made plenty of mistakes and often gets carried away.

In the past years, Tesla, Musk’s biggest company, has had many quality issues and customer problems. When the model S and X launched, they had many issues with reports from customers like bad AI and manufactured errors. Musk often gets carried away by his big dreams and is often criticized for not meeting deadlines and rushing his cars. Also exemplified by  Model X, he has always put money in front of safety. In the early stages of Tesla, Musk gave Google co-founder Larry Page a half-done Roadster to invest in his company. These different situations show how Musk is very irresponsible and does everything for his benefit. Plus, Musk has been known in the past to cover his mistakes, so how should we see what else he has done? Even though these screw-ups haunt his career, entrepreneurs are known for being dreamers, and Elon Musk is the biggest of them. With his billion-dollar companies and his backstory, he is not the villain, just not the hero we think he is. Musk has had his fair share of mistakes with Tesla and his other companies, making him, contrary to popular belief, not perfect.

Young entrepreneurs should look up to someone that cares about people’s safety, is responsible, and doesn’t show ignorance through public speaking. And even though Musk is an immense dreamer and has an impeccable work ethic, entrepreneurs should look up to someone more capable to become a role model.