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Elon Musk Quotes

Elon Reeve Musk is a technology entrepreneur and investor. He holds South African, Canadian, and U.S. citizenship and is the founder, CEO, and lead designer of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; co-founder and CEO of Neuralink; and co-founder of PayPal.

In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People. As of October 2018, he has a net worth of $22.3 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 54th-richest person in the world.Born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk moved to Canada when he was 17 to attend Queen's University. He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania two years later, where he received an economics degree from the Wharton School and a degree in physics from the College of Arts and Sciences. He began a Ph.D. in applied physics and material sciences at Stanford University in 1995 but dropped out after two days to pursue an entrepreneurial career. He subsequently co-founded Zip2, a web software company, which was acquired by Compaq for $340 million in 1999. Musk then founded X.com, an online bank. It merged with Confinity in 2000 and later that year became PayPal, which was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002.In May 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, of which he is CEO and lead designer. He helped fund Tesla, Inc., an electric vehicle and solar panel manufacturer, in 2003, and became its CEO and product architect. In 2006, he inspired the creation of SolarCity, a solar energy services company that is now a subsidiary of Tesla, and operates as its chairman. In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit research company that aims to promote friendly artificial intelligence. In July 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company focused on developing brain–computer interfaces, and is its CEO. In December 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel-construction company.

In addition to his primary business pursuits, Musk has envisioned a high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop, and has proposed a vertical take-off and landing supersonic jet electric aircraft with electric fan propulsion, known as the Musk electric jet.

Musk has stated that the goals of SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity revolve around his vision to change the world and humanity. His goals include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and reducing the risk of human extinction by establishing a human colony on Mars.

✵ 28. June 1971   •   Other names Илон Маск
Elon Musk photo
Elon Musk: 91   quotes 161   likes

Famous Elon Musk Quotes

“If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

Elon Musk

Fast Company, article "Hondas in Space" https://www.fastcompany.com/52065/hondas-space (1 February 2005)

“It would be an incredible adventure. And life needs to be more than just solving every day problems. You need to wake up and be excited about the future”

Elon Musk

On "eyeing" for Mars, IAC 2016 meeting, presentation on sustainable Mars colonization.

“I believe there’s some explanation for this universe, which you might call God.”

Elon Musk

Axios, season 1, episode 4 (25 November 2018)

“I think it is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don't know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“Sooner or later, we must expand life beyond our little blue mud ball--or go extinct.”

Elon Musk

[Elon Musk, http://www.esquire.com/features/75-most-influential/elon-musk-1008, Esquire, 1 October 2008, 29 November 2012]

“I would like to die on Mars; just not on impact.”

Elon Musk

[Vance, Ashley, Elon Musk, the 21st Century Industrialist, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-13/elon-musk-the-21st-century-industrialist#p5, 14 September 2012, Bloomberg, 13 September 2012]

Elon Musk Quotes about people

“Rocket engineering is not like ditch digging. With ditch digging you can get 100 people and dig a ditch, and you will dig it a hundred times as faster if you get 100 people versus one. With rockets, you have to solve the problem of a particular level of difficulty; one person who can solve the problem is worth an infinite number of people who can’t.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“I don’t have an issue with serving in the military per se, but serving in the South African army suppressing black people just didn’t seem like a really good way to spend time.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“SpaceX's got 5,000 people. I get a lot of attention, but they are really doing the work.”

Elon Musk

SpaceX Dragon Headed to the ISS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz60GcmKOvc at NASA Post-Launch News Conference (April 8, 2016)

“Everything works in PowerPoint; but if you have the physical item or some demonstration software, that's much more convincing to people than a PowerPoint presentation or a business plan.”

Elon Musk

Colonizing Mars The Future Belongs to SpaceX and Elon Musk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUuJKC3miLc (Jan 23, 2015)

“If we can build something that is capable of taking people and equipment to Mars, such that it can service a transportation infrastructure for humanity becoming a multi- planet species - which I think is a very, very important objective - then I would consider the mission of SpaceX successful, at that point.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“AI is much more advanced than people realize. … Humanity's position on this planet depends on its intelligence so if our intelligence is exceeded, it's unlikely that we will remain in charge of the planet.”

Elon Musk

Artificial intelligence: Should we be as terrified as Elon Musk and Bill Gates? http://zdnet.com/article/artificial-intelligence-should-we-be-as-terrified-as-elon-musk-and-bill-gates in ZDNet (20 October 2015)

Elon Musk Quotes about thinking

“I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.”

Elon Musk

[50-innovation-quotes-from-spacex-founder-elon-musk, https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/50-innovation-amp;-success-quotes-from-spacex-founder-elon-musk.html?mc_cid=9410b2edd6&mc_eid=6e846ba3e0]

“Although I am new in the business, my team is not. I would say that, person for person, there has never been a better rocket company in existence, in history. I don’t think there has ever been a group this talented in one place, in one company, developing a rocket – ever.
If you have millions of dollars it changes your lifestyle, and anyone who says differently is talking ########. I don’t need to work, from a standard of living point of view, but I do, you know. I work every day and on weekends and I haven’t taken a vacation for years.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“I think that is a mistake and results in cloudy judgment on important technical issues. They can't tell if something is really good or not, so they just do what everyone else does, assuming it to be the safe bet.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“I think the rocket business is quite cyclic. There are a great many peaks and troughs.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“I think South Africa is a great country.”

Elon Musk

Source: Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“I think we’ve got the risks pretty well characterized. I think we are at least avoiding the mistakes that have been made in the past.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Elon Musk: Trending quotes

“I like to be involved in things that change the world. The Internet did, and space will probably be more responsible for changing the world than anything else. If humanity can expand beyond the Earth, obviously that's where the future is.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

World , Change , Future

“In terms of the Internet, it's like humanity acquiring a collective nervous system. Whereas previously we were more like a… collection of cells that communicated by diffusion. With the advent of the Internet, it was suddenly like we got a nervous system. It's a hugely impactful thing.”

Elon Musk

[Mann, Adam, Video: Wired’s Interview with SpaceX’s Elon Musk, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/elon-musk-hangout/, 18 August 2012, Wired, 26 April 2012]

Communication

“We're adding a triple sign-off for all work done on the launch pad, on flight components, and flight critical GSE. You have a technician, a responsible engineer, and then quality assurance will sign the final, record all information, and take photographs of all the work that was done, and then make sure that all information is put into our quality assurance database, which is reviewed prior to launch.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Elon Musk Quotes

“Which means we’re cheaper than the Chinese, cheaper than [the] Russians or anywhere else – and we’re doing it in the United States with American labour costs.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“I don’t get the little ship thing. You can’t show up at Mars in something the size of a rowboat. What if there are Martians? It would be so embarrassing.”

Elon Musk

[Musk, Elon, I don't get the little ship thing, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/965769366422798337]

Elon Musk quote: “Guardian is the most insufferable newspaper on planet Earth.”

“Guardian is the most insufferable newspaper on planet Earth.”

Elon Musk

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/07/tesla-chief-elon-musk-smokes-marijuana-on-live-web-show e-mail to Guardian

“Well, I have tried to learn as much as possible from prior attempts.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Learning

“The answer was we thought it could be done.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“The long term ultimate objective – the holy grail – is we would like to help make life multi-planetary.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Life , Help

“So even if a fire develops, it can't really attack the particularly vulnerable locations like the pneumatic system or the avionics or the engine bay. We want to be in the situation that even if a fire develops, the rocket just keeps going.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“I’m nauseatingly pro-American. It is where great things are possible.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world.”

Elon Musk

[Driving With Elon Musk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSNXhHTLLIk, 26 March 2012]

Love , World

“Holy flying fuck, that thing took off!”

Elon Musk

Reaction to Falcon Heavy Launch[Video: Behind-the-Scenes: See How Elon Musk Celebrated the Falcon Heavy Launch, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL4dnvBytLA]

Flying

“History is written by the victors … except on Wikipedia haha.”

Elon Musk

Quotes https://www.wewishes.com/elon-musk-quotes/
Source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1294921196564180994

History

“A good sign as to whether there is free speech is, "Is someone you don't like allowed to say something you don't like?"”

Elon Musk

Elon Musk talks Twitter, Tesla and how his brain works — live at TED2022 https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_elon_musk_talks_twitter_tesla_and_how_his_brain_works_live_at_ted2022, April 14, 2022 (at 19:39)

“Getting to Mars is too big an accomplishment for us to feel proud by just by swinging by. We are a nation of enterprise as well as exploration, and we're not about to go there without making something of it.”

Elon Musk

Page 10
Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007), Foreword to Marc Kaufman's Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission https://books.google.com/books/about/Mars_Up_Close.html?ido6XaCwAAQBAJ&hlen. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-1278-9.

Feeling

“The probability of death is quite high on the first [human] mission”

Elon Musk

to Mars
"Elon Musk's Plan To Colonize Mars Gives Us The Sci-Fi Future We Crave: Now let's see if he can make it reality." https://www.popsci.com/elon-musks-master-plan-for-colonizing-mars-gives-us-sci-fi-future-we-crave Popular Science magazine. (September 27, 2016)

Death

“A great deal of bargaining power with suppliers. We are never locked in to anyone.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves. Only people in sight were the Thai navy/army guys, who were great. Thai navy seals escorted us in — total opposite of wanting us to leave. Water level was actually very low & still (not flowing) — you could literally have swum to Cave 5 with no gear, which is obv how the kids got in. If not true, then I challenge this dude to show final rescue video. You know what, don’t bother showing the video. We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.”

Elon Musk

Refering to British diver Vern Unsworth, who participated in the Tham Luang cave rescue. As quoted in Elon Musk calls British diver who helped rescue Thai schoolboys 'pedo guy' in Twitter outburst https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thai-cave-rescue-elon-musk-british-diver-vern-unsworth-twitter-pedo-a8448366.html (15 July 2018) by Eleanor Busby, The Independent.

People , Way , Guy , Water

“Sending large numbers of people to explore and settle Mars in the decades ahead isn't inevitable, but it is entirely possible. The biggest challenge isn't the engineering and spacecraft, however difficult they may be. Instead, it's making sure that a sustained Mars campaign proceeds as a national priority, and that will happen only if the American people are behind it. We have the opportunity now to make this happen. We might not be so fortunate in the future.”

Elon Musk

Page 13
Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007), Foreword to Marc Kaufman's Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission https://books.google.com/books/about/Mars_Up_Close.html?ido6XaCwAAQBAJ&hlen. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-1278-9.

People , Future

“It doesn’t do a great deal to advance the goal of humanity. I would pay $20 million not to spend six months in Russia. And besides this, my interest is how do we enable many other people to go to space, not necessarily me, personally.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

People , Personality

“My approach is simply to seek out very talented people, ensure that the environment at SpaceX is as motivating & enjoyable as possible and establish clear & measurable objectives.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

People , Motivation

“Only by breaking through to new paradigms of space travel will more than a handful of us ever get to Mars and make it a potentially livable place.”

Elon Musk

Page 10
Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007), Foreword to Marc Kaufman's Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission https://books.google.com/books/about/Mars_Up_Close.html?ido6XaCwAAQBAJ&hlen. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-1278-9.

Travel

“Even if there's a zombie apocalypse, you'll still be able to travel using the Tesla Supercharging system.”

Elon Musk

Tesla speeds up free nationwide charging network, 20-minute quick repower, Yahoo!, 30 May 2013 http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/tesla-speeds-free-nationwide-charging-network-20-minute-183456360.html,

Travel

“I could either watch it happen, or be part of it.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Motivational , Parting

“Imagine creating a huge software program that can only be tested in little pieces on a computer that is slightly different from what it is supposed to run on. However, when you do run it as a whole on the actual computer for the first time, it must run almost flawlessly without a single significant bug. When is the last time you saw a software program do that?”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Imagination , Time

“We are used to things improving every year; we are used to having a better cell phone next year than this year; a better lap top. We are even used to some basic things, like we expect more from your car in next year’s model than last year’s model. But this is not the case in space; reliability and cost - those are the fundamental parameters of transportation - have not improved.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Cars

“The heroes of the books I read, The Lord of the Rings and the Foundation series, always felt a duty to save the world.”

Elon Musk

Plugged In: Can Elon Musk lead the way to an electric-car future?, New Yorker, 24 August 2009, 7 February 2015 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/24/plugged-in,

Books , World , Reading

“Falcon One is going to be the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any production rocket.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“We got to the moon, but have never done anything better since. I'm disappointed that we have not made more progress since Apollo. I don't even see a plan that says we're going to do better than Apollo to exceed that goal.”

Elon Musk

Source: Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Disappointment

“Every person in your company is a vector. Your progress is determined by the sum of all vectors.”

Elon Musk

What Elon Musk Taught Me About Growing A Business https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-elon-musk-taught-me-growing-business-dharmesh-shah/ (16 October 2017)

Personality

“I want to be able to make sure that we have enough capital to survive at least three consecutive failures. If you want to make a small fortune in the launch vehicle business, start with a large one.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Failure , Business

“… I plan to travel to Mars and make it my home.”

Elon Musk

Page 9.
Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007), Foreword to Marc Kaufman's Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission https://books.google.com/books/about/Mars_Up_Close.html?ido6XaCwAAQBAJ&hlen. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-1278-9.

Travel , Home

“One was the Internet, one was clean energy and one was space.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

“Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

People , Business

“I think the reason it’s cheaper is, first of all, we are a private entity and we have a very lean system in here. What we have been able to do here at SpaceX is to cherry-pick, you know, the top one or two percent and give them, you know, capital to execute well and a clear mission, which is low cost, reliable access to space, and no other constraints.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Thinking

“Since our primary competitors [in space launch] are national governments, the enforceability of patents is questionable.”

Elon Musk

[Elon Musk: The mind behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity ..., http://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_mind_behind_tesla_spacex_solarcity.html, 19 March 2013]

Question

“I didn’t really expect to make any money. If I could make enough to cover the rent and buy some food that would be fine. As it turns out, it turned out to be quite valuable in the end.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Money , Food

“I think there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multi-planetary in order to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen.”

Elon Musk

DK Smithsonian, Journey: An Illustrated History of Travel, ISBN 978-1-4654-6414-9 (Page 343).

Life , Thinking , Strong

“"People tend to think like, 'Why should electric vehicles have a subsidy,' but they're not taking into account that all fossil fuel-burning vehicles fundamentally are subsidised by the cost—the environmental cost—to Earth, but nobody's paying for it… We are going to pay for it, obviously—in the future we'll pay for it. It's just not paid for now."—Elon Musk”

Elon Musk

interview with Joe Rogan, published 2018-09-06

People , Thinking , Future

“When thinking about starting a business, I think it’s actually better to start in a trough and come to market in a peak, than the other way around. Frankly, if anything does, and it’s almost cliché, space has a long-term future.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Way , Business , Thinking , Future

“There is nothing inherently expensive about rockets. It's just that those who have built and operated them in the past have done so with horrendously poor efficiency.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)
Variant: There is nothing inherently expensive about rockets. It's just that those who have built and operated them in the past have done so with horrendously poor efficiency.

Past

“We have planes, trains, automobiles and boats, … What if there was a fifth mode?”

Elon Musk

on the Hyperloop.
[Garber, Megan, The Real iPod: Elon Musk's Wild Idea for a 'Jetson Tunnel' from S.F. to L.A., http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-real-ipod-elon-musks-wild-idea-for-a-jetson-tunnel-from-sf-to-la/259825/, 21 July 2012, The Atlantic, 13 July 2012]

Training

“There’s a graveyard of prior attempts, a big graveyard. There’s probably some freshly dug graves just waiting to be filled. Our aspiration is to avoid that destination.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)
Variant: There's a graveyard of prior attempts, a big graveyard. There’s probably some freshly dug graves just waiting to be filled. Our aspiration is to avoid that destination.

Waiting

“If nothing else, we are committed to failing in a new way.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Way

“As life’s agents, it’s on our shoulders.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Life

“We could figure out ways with small aerospace companies to do a low-cost spacecraft and lander. But we could not find a way to do a low-cost launcher, unless we went to the Russians.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Way

“If we can be one of the companies that makes it possible for humans to become a multi-planetary species, that would be the Holy Grail. It sounds a bit crazy but it's going to happen, and only if people build the means to do so. We're making progress toward a greater philosophical goal while building a sound business.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

People , Business

“They [Apple] have hired people we've fired. We always jokingly call Apple the "Tesla Graveyard." If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding…. cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches. You can't just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: Build me a car. But for Apple, the car is the next logical thing to finally offer a significant innovation. A new pencil or a bigger iPad alone were not relevant enough.”

Elon Musk

All Charged Up in Berlin http://global.handelsblatt.com/edition/271/ressort/companies-markets/article/all-charged-up-in-berlin in Handelsblatt (25 September 2015)

People , Cars

“When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, 'Nah, what's wrong with a horse?' That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.”

Elon Musk

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Business , People , Cars , Horse

“People should be travelling to Mars and doing it in our lifetime.”

Elon Musk

Page 9
Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007), Foreword to Marc Kaufman's Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission https://books.google.com/books/about/Mars_Up_Close.html?ido6XaCwAAQBAJ&hlen. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-1278-9.

People , Travel

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