Elon Musk Personal Blog

Engineering is the closest thing to magic that exists in the world.

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.

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

I don't spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.

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.

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

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

Should prob articulate philosophy underlying my actions. It's pretty simple & mostly influenced by Douglas Adams & Isaac Asimov.

There's nothing - I've bought everything I want. I don't like yachts or anything; you know, I'm not a yacht person, and I've got pretty much the nicest plane I'd want to have.

I'm actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger's to host SNL. Or at least the first to admit it. So I won't make a lot of eye contact with the cast tonight. But don't worry, I'm pretty good at running human and emulation mode.

To our knowledge, life exists on only one planet, Earth. If something bad happens, it's gone. I think we should establish life on another planet-Mars in particular-but we 're not making very good progress. SpaceX is intended to make that happen.

Ancient Greece had it all & then committed su***de. Nobody digs your grave better than yourself.

And we need things in life that are exciting and inspiring. It can't just be about solving some awful problem. There have to be reasons to get up in the morning.

Entrepreneurship is like eating glass and walking on hot coals at the same time.

We have a strict 'no a-hole policy' at SpaceX. And we fire people that are. I mean, we give them a little bit of warning. But if they continue to be an a-hole, then they're fired.

I'm personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I'm not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.

I've always wanted to be part of something that would radically change the world. . . . People forget the power of inspiration. All of humanity went to the moon with the Apollo missions. The issue was cost. There was no chance to build a base and create frequent flights. That's the problem I would like to solve.

If you go back 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.

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

It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.

Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.

I'm nauseatingly pro-American. I would have come here from any country. The U.S. is where great things are possible.

You could power the entire United States with about 150 to 200 square kilometers of solar panels, the entire United States. Take a corner of Utah... there's not much going on there, I've been there. There's not even radio stations.

Every 5000th buyer of our boringly boring hat will get a free hat signed by the delivery guy.

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.

With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it's like, yeah, he's sure he can control the demon. Didn't work out.

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.

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

"One word: Doge."

X is live.

The key test for an acronym is to ask whether it helps or hurts communication.

I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.

Ilove the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future."

If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.

Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

“A source of strength, hm. That’s really not how I think about things. For me it’s simply: This is something that is important to get done, and we we should just keep doing it or die trying. I don’t need a source of strength. [Quitting] is not in my nature, and I don’t care about optimism or pessimism. F*ck that, we’re gonna get it done.”

“I think people can choose to be not ordinary. You know, they can choose to not necessarily conform to the conventions that were taught to them by their parents. So, yes, I think it’s possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.”