Elon Musk
A visionary engineer and entrepreneur who founded SpaceX, co-founded Tesla, Inc., and has made significant contributions to electric vehicles and space exploration.
Most quoted
"If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would be considered magic—being able to talk to people instantly across vast distances, to see pictures and hear sounds from anywhere, to fly, to access immense amounts of information from a small device. These are things that would have been considered magic a short time ago."
— from TED Talk, 2017
"If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic - being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago."
— from TED Talk
"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."
— from Interview with Kevin Rose, 2013
All quotes by Elon Musk (280)
The factory is the product.
I'm interested in things that change the world or that affect the future and wondrous new technology, and things where you could honestly say, 'Wow, how did that even happen?'
The future of humanity is fundamentally going to be a multi-planet species.
If you're a co-founder or CEO, you have to do all kinds of tasks you might not want to do... If you don't do your chores, the company won't succeed.
Great companies are built on great products.
My proceeds from PayPal were $180 million. I put $100 million in SpaceX, $70 million in Tesla, and $10 million in SolarCity. I had to borrow money for rent.
The problem is that at a lot of big companies, the process becomes the product. You can't have a process for everything.
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.
The most important thing is to have a product that people love.
We're going to have to figure out how to make things much, much faster.
I'm not trying to be anyone's savior. I'm just trying to think about the future and not be sad.
Don't confuse movement with progress.
The factory itself is a giant machine.
You need to be very focused on the signal over the noise. Don't get caught up in things that don't really make things better.
I think the internet is the most important thing that humanity has ever created.
The future is going to be amazing.
The production system is the hardest part.
I'm not a big fan of meetings.
It's important to have a good reason to get up in the morning.
The goal is to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy.