Maryna Holub, founder and СЕО, GOLUBi GROUP Communications Agency

 

When Elon Musk commits a managerial error or voices an absurdity, this puts new cracks in the reputation of a visionary genius created by successes of his automobile “Tesla” start-up. “SpaceX” space company, and “Starlink” satellite internet network. Musk’s contradictory “peace-making” statements which caused Ukrainians’ indignation, the unsuccessful “Twitter” story which has shattered belief in his business competence, do contain ample material not for hate but for analysis. The trajectory of the rise of the superhero entrepreneur proves that we have a lot in common. The reason for his fall will give the answers to the most important question: what can go wrong with us Ukrainians when we are victorious in this war?   

The rise of the SpaceX demolishes the myth that the wealth of the Western world has grown on the soil of hothouse conditions for business. Here is just one episode from the biographic book, “Liftoff. Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days” (available in the Ukrainian translation as well). A small group of staff members of a space start-up were at last ready to present a product they developed at a special platform. A competing state structure has let them there clearly with a thought that there was a 98-percent probability that this start-up fails, just as many of its predecessors. The start-uppers have worked for several years, they paid their rent regularly, they had invested several million dollars in equipping the premises, and then it turned out that they were ready to launch their device and present it to potential clients. So what does the platform’s owner, the state structure do? They thank the start-uppers very much and assure them that they could present their apparatus on this platform. However, there was a nuance: first, the state structure would launch their apparatus there. We don’t know the precise timeline, the state structure says, but you are second in line, one hundred percent!  The delicate art of sending someone off without ever saying “no” is the language of state structures of every country.  Ukrainian agrarians who got permission for transit of grain through Europe “with some nuances” are well aware of how it works…  

Musk tried to build a space rocket not like anyone else: employing 200 people, not 20,000; in a garage, not at a plant; having designed it on a computer worth 700 Dollars, not 5 million. He had invested a lot of time, money, and emotion in his company, and for several years had got almost nothing in return. Maybe, instead of sending Musk to follow the Russian warship after his “peace-making” statements another tone should have been chosen, as well as different communication senses.  Parallels should have been drawn with the time when his “SpaceX” was a small start-up whose success was very much doubted while the big space was divided between big players. We could have said that this was really the situation of the state of Ukraine! We could have convinced other people that Ukraine is not a beggar and not a hoover for the money of American taxpayers but a brave start-up country. That for us, 24 February 2024 was what September 2008 was for him, when he realized that there were just two options left for “SpaceX”: they either rise to the sky or they meet their end. The three first launches were all failures, the money was running out, the economic crisis was nearing, and all the rational arguments proved that his company’s chances of survival were too small. The competitors, in abundance in that community, were counting days until Musk’s company was supposed to cease to exist which meant that they would be able to further get generous government order without any risks. “SpaceX”, however, had not surrendered! Ukraine has not surrendered as well, it resisted, contrary to all forecasts of the best intelligence services of the world.   

Since olden times, people were looking for the answer: what to do and in which order to be successful and happy? Part of the niche occupied several centuries ago wholly by religion is now filled by non-fiction literature on successful entrepreneurs. It may seem at the first glance that in “Twitter” Elon Musk has repeated the order of action that we see in descriptions of success of “SpaceX”.  He risked huge money; he challenged authorities and competitors; he was maintaining the tonus and the tension within the team.  When “SpaceX” was rising, Musk’s staff were working for 16 hours a day at a Pacific island, and slept on the shore under naked sky so that their rocket is not suddenly blown away by the wind. In “Twitter”, Musk has created such conditions that in order to meet deadlines conscientious employees sleep in offices in sleeping bags. But is the introduction of the blue paid tick mark in “Twitter” something that will change the world?  Will it really motivate people to give their life time and health to this?   

Today, many countries of the world unconditionally believe in Ukraine’s victory, consider us a superhero country, and are prepared to oversee the rebuilding of our ruined cities. On the one hand, we have to rejoice: the entire world wants to build Ukraine’s future. Do we know, however, what is the basic principle for our reconstruction, and what our future is going to be?   The documents of the conferences on Ukraine’s rebuilding that we saw in London and in Lugano speak of economy, education, roads, and how much money is needed for this. However, the main thing is not there: what our idea is? 

Let’s remember the first migratory processes to the USA. Why the huge number of people from the world over wanted to go there?  What could they have known then about this country in closed societies, without Internet?  For them, it was enough to know that the American Dream was there. There’s the idea that people go somewhere for the sake of better life.  However, is this “better life” measured only by the size of salary? Many Ukrainians live now in various European countries.  Have their lives become better just because their salaries have grown? Is it only money that is the measure of what the country should be?  Can we say that we’ll be given a certain number of billions, and Ukraine will become happy at once?  Certainly not.  Let’s look at Elon Musk. He wanted to build his rocket not to earn money but to go into space not depending on state-owned monopoly companies, and to study Mars! The “SpaceX” employees knew and shared his idea. They were ready to risk their careers and their future in order to implement it.   

Yes, they will help us to rebuild our ruined schools. But what they will teach there? Will there be the specialists required by the current life? Or will we stay within the framework of the Soviet system, and young Ukrainian specialist won’t be capable of working within the global context because they would not know two or three European languages, not to mention the basic English here? What kind of education system will we build and how we have to become integrated in European and global science? How will we rebuild our cities? Will we be just restoring what we had before, with the same inferior communal services system? Who, what and how will ride our roads?  If we announce that we want to get rid of the carbon dioxide dependency and that we are aiming at renewable energy and electric cars, this means that the rebuilt roads should be different.    

Ukraine’s heroic resistance has caught attention and hearts of the civilized world. However, emotional fuel has a limited usage period, and everything will change once we are victorious. The superhero’s halo won’t hide lack of vision and won’t provide the life-long immunity against critical assessment and inconvenient questions.

When Elon Musk bough “Twitter”, thus entering the highly competitive social networks market, it became clear that all his money, all his excentric actions, all the desperate efforts are in vain if there is no dream, no idea that would capture the world. The idea of boundless freedom of speech in “Twitter” does not make you hold your breath! The idea of planting money wherever it can be buried can fascinate diggers only, and temporarily, at that. The post-war Ukraine will also face a colossal competition for money, for resources, for people. Very many people have left Ukraine. What has to be done for them to want to come back? I assure you that raising minimal salary won’t help us bring those people back. Putting end to combat won’t help to bring them back either. The Ukrainian Dream and Idea will help do this. They just have to be there for this!