107 Quotes & Sayings By Elon Musk

It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to. Elon Musk

I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there. Elon Musk

I could go and buy one of the islands in the Bahamas and turn it into my personal fiefdom, but I am much more interested in trying to build andcreate a new company. Elon Musk

My proceeds from the PayPal acquisition were $180 million. I put $100 million in SpaceX, $70m in Tesla, and $10m in Solar City. I had to borrow money for rent. Elon Musk

Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of whatever you’re doing is as valuable as gold. Elon Musk

Any product that needs a manual to work is broken. Elon Musk

In terms of the Internet, it's like humanity acquiring a collective nervous system. Whereas previously we were more like a [?], 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

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

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

Great companies are built on great products. Elon Musk

It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket. 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 don't create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done. 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

I think the high-tech industry is used to developing new things very quickly. It's the Silicon Valley way of doing business: You either move very quickly and you work hard to improve your product technology, or you get destroyed by some other company. 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

Silicon Valley has some of the smartest engineers and technology business people in the world. Elon Musk

I don't think it's a good idea to plan to sell a company. Elon Musk

An asteroid or a supervolcano could certainly destroy us, but we also face risks the dinosaurs never saw: An engineered virus, nuclear war, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us. Elon Musk

If something's important enough, you should try. Even if you - the probable outcome is failure. Elon Musk

There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough. Elon Musk

The reality is gas prices should be much more expensive then they are because we're not incorporating the true damage to the environment and the hidden costs of mining oil and transporting it to the U.S. Whenever you have an unpriced externality, you have a bit of a market failure, to the degree that eternality remains unpriced. Elon Musk

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What's the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing. Elon Musk

Rockets are cool. There's no getting around that. Elon Musk

I'm glad to see that BMW is bringing an electric car to market. That's cool. Elon Musk

I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I've got kids and responsibilities, so I can't be my own test pilot. That wouldn't be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it's a sensible thing to do. 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

I do love email. Wherever possible I try to communicate asynchronously. I'm really good at email. Elon Musk

Nobody wants to buy a $60, 000 electric Civic. But people will pay $90, 000 for an electric sports car. Elon Musk

Selling an electric sports car creates an opportunity to fundamentally change the way America drives. Elon Musk

I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact. Elon Musk

The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn't even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we'd never have had the light bulb. Elon Musk

I think we are at the dawn of a new era in commercial space exploration. 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

If we drive down the cost of transportation in space, we can do great things. Elon Musk

Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket - half a million dollars. It can be done. 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

If you look at space companies, they've failed either because they've had a technical solution where success was not a possible outcome, they were unable to attract a critical mass of talent, or they just ran out of money. The finish line is usually a lot further away than you think. Elon Musk

What I'm trying to do is, is to make a significant difference in space flight. And help make space flight accessible to almost anyone. Elon Musk

If anyone has a vested interest in space solar power, it would have to be me. 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

So we originally expected to make about 35 gigawatt hours at the cell level and about 50 gigawatt hours at the module or pack level. Now we are expecting to do about 150 gigawatt hours in the same volumetric space as the original design. Elon Musk

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment. 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

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

I'd like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that's not just e-mail with a view. Elon Musk

Mars is the only place in the solar system where it's possible for life to become multi-planetarian. Elon Musk

You could warm Mars up, over time, with greenhouse gases. Elon Musk

Patience is a virtue, and I'm learning patience. It's a tough lesson. Elon Musk

In the early days of aviation, there was a great deal of experimentation and a high death rate. Elon Musk

When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. Elon Musk

If anyone thinks they'd rather be in a different part of history, they're probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You'd probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman. Elon Musk

If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it's not. Elon Musk

Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence. Elon Musk

It would take six months to get to Mars if you go there slowly, with optimal energy cost. Then it would take eighteen months for the planets to realign. Then it would take six months to get back, though I can see getting the travel time down to three months pretty quickly if America has the will. 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 really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It's a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that's what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is. Elon Musk

I think it matters whether someone has a good heart. 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

The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It'll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn't been reusable. Elon Musk

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far - the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. Elon Musk

It's not as though we can keep burning coal in our power plants. Coal is a finite resource, too. We must find alternatives, and it's a better idea to find alternatives sooner then wait until we run out of coal, and in the meantime, put God knows how many trillions of tons of CO2 that used to be buried underground into the atmosphere. Elon Musk

It's obviously tricky to convert cellulose to a useful biofuel. I think actually the most efficient way to use cellulose is to burn it in a co-generation power plant. That will yield the most energy and that is something you can do today. Elon Musk

If we're going to have any chance of sending stuff to other star systems, we need to be laser-focused on becoming a multi-planet civilisation. Elon Musk

America is the spirit of human exploration distilled. Elon Musk

The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design. Elon Musk

Boeing just took $20 billion and 10 years to improve the efficiency of their planes by 10 percent. That's pretty lame. I have a design in mind for a vertical liftoff supersonic jet that would be a really big improvement. Elon Musk

There are really two things that have to occur in order for a new technology to be affordable to the mass market. One is you need economies of scale. The other is you need to iterate on the design. You need to go through a few versions. Elon Musk

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I'm not trying to be anyone's savior. I'm just trying to think about the future and not be sad. Elon Musk

In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution. Elon Musk

I'm interested in things that change the world or that affect the future and wondrous, new technology where you see it, and you're like, 'Wow, how did that even happen? How is that possible?' Elon Musk

If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it's always expensive. Elon Musk

SpaceX is only 12 years old now. Between now and 2040, the company's lifespan will have tripled. If we have linear improvement in technology, as opposed to logarithmic, then we should have a significant base on Mars, perhaps with thousands or tens of thousands of people. Elon Musk

It is definitely true that the fundamental enabling technology for electric cars is lithium-ion as a cell chemistry technology. In the absence of that, I don't think it's possible to make an electric car that is competitive with a gasoline car. Elon Musk

My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars - this is very important - so you don't have to carry the return fuel when you go there. Elon Musk

If you look at our current technology level, something strange has to happen to civilisations, and I mean strange in a bad way. And it could be that there are a whole lot of dead, one-planet civilisations. Elon Musk

Government isn't that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you've got to have commercial companies do it. Elon Musk

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. 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

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 think there are more politicians in favor of electric cars than against. There are still some that are against, and I think the reasoning for that varies depending on the person, but in some cases, they just don't believe in climate change - they think oil will last forever. Elon Musk

My opinion is it's a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars. Elon Musk

I've actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don't mean hybrid, I mean fully electric. Elon Musk

We could definitely make a flying car - but that's not the hard part. The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that's super safe and quiet? Because if it's a howler, you're going to make people very unhappy. Elon Musk

Stationary storage will be as big as the car business long term. The growth rate will probably be several times what it is for the car business. Elon Musk

Yeah, well I think anyone who likes fast cars will love the Tesla. And it has fantastic handling by the way. I mean this car will crush a Porsche on the track, just crush it. So if you like fast cars, you'll love this car. And then oh, by the way, it happens to be electric and it's twice the efficiency of a Prius. Elon Musk

Self-driving cars are the natural extension of active safety and obviously something we should do. Elon Musk

Tesla is here to stay and keep fighting for the electric car revolution. Elon Musk

Tesla is becoming a real car company. 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

A Prius is not a true hybrid, really. The current Prius is, like, 2 percent electric. It's a gasoline car with slightly better mileage. Elon Musk

I think Tesla will most likely develop its own autopilot system for the car, as I think it should be camera-based, not Lidar-based. However, it is also possible that we do something jointly with Google. Elon Musk

Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars. Elon Musk

I like the word 'autopilot' more than I like the word 'self-driving.' 'Self-driving' sounds like it's going to do something you don't want it to do. 'Autopilot' is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars. Elon Musk

The U.S. automotive industry has been selling cars the same way for over 100 years, and there are many laws in place to govern exactly how that is to be accomplished. Elon Musk

Life is too short for long-term grudges. Elon Musk

Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster. Elon Musk

I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side. Elon Musk