Elon Musk quotes
Born
June 28, 1971, Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa.
Occupation
Entrepreneur, engineer.
Elon Musk is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Motors; co-founder and chairman of SolarCity; co-chairman of OpenAI; co-founder of Zip2; and founder of X.com which merged with PayPal.
I’m reasonably optimistic about the future, especially the future of the United States – for the century, at least.
– Elon Musk
As you heat the planet up, it’s just like boiling a pot.
– Elon Musk
I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.
– Elon Musk
I had so many people try to talk me out of starting a rocket company, it was crazy.
– Elon Musk
The rumours of the demise of the U.S. manufacturing industry are greatly exaggerated.
– Elon Musk
It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.
– Elon Musk
I wouldn’t say I have a lack of fear. In fact, I’d like my fear emotion to be less because it’s very distracting and fries my nervous system.
– Elon Musk
I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems… It’s got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.
– Elon Musk
We’re running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere… can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.
– Elon Musk
Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.
– Elon Musk
I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.
– Elon Musk
I think long term you can see Tesla establishing factories in Europe, in other parts of the U.S. and in Asia.
– Elon Musk
Automotive franchise laws were put in place decades ago to prevent a manufacturer from unfairly opening stores in direct competition with an existing franchise dealer that had already invested time, money and effort to open and promote their business.
– Elon Musk
The odds of me coming into the rocket business, not knowing anything about rockets, not having ever built anything, I mean, I would have to be insane if I thought the odds were in my favor.
– Elon Musk
I usually describe myself as an engineer; that’s basically what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.
– Elon Musk
Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.
– Elon Musk
People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.
– Elon Musk
The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative.
– Elon Musk
In order for us to have a future that’s exciting and inspiring, it has to be one where we’re a space-bearing civilization.
– Elon Musk
You could warm Mars up, over time, with greenhouse gases.
– Elon Musk
There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.
– Elon Musk
I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.
– Elon Musk
The pace of progress on Mars depends upon the pace of progress of SpaceX.
– Elon Musk
The reason we should do a carbon tax is because it’s the right thing to do. It’s economics 101, elementary stuff.
– Elon Musk
I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.
– Elon Musk
I’ve been to Disneyland, like, 10 times. I’m getting really tired of Disneyland.
– Elon Musk
Winning ‘Motor Trend’ Car of the year is probably the closest thing to winning the Oscar or Emmy of the car industry.
– Elon Musk
I just want to retire before I go senile because if I don’t retire before I go senile, then I’ll do more damage than good at that point.
– Elon Musk
I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.
– Elon Musk
If you want to grow a giant redwood, you need to make sure the seeds are ok, nurture the sapling, and work out what might potentially stop it from growing all the way along. Anything that breaks it at any point stops that growth.
– Elon Musk
People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.
– Elon Musk
I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.
– Elon Musk
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
The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event.
– Elon Musk
Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.
– Elon Musk
It is theoretically possible to warp spacetime itself, so you’re not actually moving faster than the speed of light, but it’s actually space that’s moving.
– Elon Musk
I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.
– Elon Musk
I think a lot of the American people feel more than a little disappointed that the high-water mark for human exploration was 1969. The dream of human space travel has almost died for a lot of people.
– Elon Musk
You need to be in the position where it is the cost of the fuel that actually matters and not the cost of building the rocket in the first place.
– Elon Musk
I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.
– Elon Musk
The factory is the machine that builds the machine.
– Elon Musk
SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.
– Elon Musk
Facebook is quite entrenched and has a network effect. It’s hard to break into a network once it’s formed.
– Elon Musk
Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.
– Elon Musk
Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars.
– Elon Musk
In the early days of aviation, there was a great deal of experimentation and a high death rate.
– Elon Musk
Mars is the only place in the solar system where it’s possible for life to become multi-planetarian.
– Elon Musk
Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket – half a million dollars. It can be done.
– Elon Musk
You need to live in a dome initially, but over time you could terraform Mars to look like Earth and eventually walk around outside without anything on… So it’s a fixer-upper of a planet.
– Elon Musk
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
– Elon Musk
Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.
– Elon Musk
I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.
– Elon Musk
Silicon Valley has some of the smartest engineers and technology business people in the world.
– Elon Musk
America is the spirit of human exploration distilled.
– Elon Musk
If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.
– Elon Musk
I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.
– Elon Musk
I do think there is a lot of potential if you have a compelling product and people are willing to pay a premium for that. I think that is what Apple has shown. You can buy a much cheaper cell phone or laptop, but Apple’s product is so much better than the alternative, and people are willing to pay that premium.
– Elon Musk
I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.
– Elon Musk
To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That’s what got me into software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy a better computer to play better video games – nothing like saving the world.
– Elon Musk
I’ve actually not read any books on time management.
– Elon Musk
Self-driving cars are the natural extension of active safety and obviously something we should do.
– Elon Musk
Great companies are built on great products.
– Elon Musk
Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.
– Elon Musk
The United States is definitely ahead in culture of innovation. If someone wants to accomplish great things, there is no better place than the U.S.
– Elon Musk
Life is too short for long-term grudges.
– Elon Musk
If you had to buy a new plane every time you flew somewhere, it would be incredibly expensive.
– Elon Musk