Elon Musk (whom I can't stand, but that's room for another discussion) was born in South Africa, but moved to the US in 1989 and became an American citizen,
But what if Elon Musk had remained in South Africa? What do you think his career would have been like if he never immigrated to the United States? Do you think he could have become successful in his own country?
I don't see why he wouldn't have become successful in South Africa, although he probably would not have been able to gather the venture capital that he did in the US to launch himself to billionairehood. Still, Elon Musk is a heck of a salesman and has a wealthy background that could help support him while tries found a startup and/or help him purchase an established but struggling business that he then pushes to new heights. So, he becomes a millionaire in a tech-adjacent field, maybe running a telecom company, and to his credit grows the money he started with instead of just coasting on it.
Whether he keeps growing it long-term is another thing, of course, but that's dependent on a lot of factors and not just him. The problems with the cybertruck and twitter show that he can get some really dumb ideas, but I actually do think not being a billionaire will help him make better decisions. This is because he will have more people willing to push back on his out there ideas and tell him no, since even if he is rich he won't have "fuck-off money". That and avoiding some of the bad cultural practices of silicon valley (i.e. recreational ketamine) will help him stay more grounded as a businessman than OTL.
For the American businesses that he doesn't buy ITTL, Tesla I think is interesting in how it has the potential to shape American futures. Elon Musk's salesmanship certainly pushed the company-and therefore, the electrification of American cars-far ahead. On the other hand, his constant overpromising and focus on style over substance has deeply damaged the company, as shown by the
debacle of the cybertuck. IMO, the best-case scenario for Tesla is that it gets a couple VP's from in the tech world, who have similar personalities and skills to Elon Musk, but poaches a CEO from outside the tech world in car manufacturing. This could be one of the American Big Three, or someone from Germany, Japan, or Korea-someone with experience of the nuts and bolts (har!) of manufacturing, of process improvement in a factory setting, in other words, someone who is skilled at and focused on just building good cars and who can guide the company to prioritize on that instead of chasing self-driving vaporware. I'm afraid I'm not a guy who pays much attention to who's who in the c-suites of the world, so I don't have an ATL candidate in mind, but I would love to hear what other posters think!