Elon Musk Quotes
Elon Reeve Musk was born on the 28th of June, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He is the founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI.
Elon Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers.
Below, we have compiled an array of famous Elon Musk quotes about life, business, innovation, technology and success.
75 Elon Musk Quotes About Life, Success & Innovation
“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”― Elon Musk Quote
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”― Elon Musk Quote
“Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.”― Elon Musk Quote
“It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.”― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“My biggest mistake is probably weighing too much on someone’s talent and not someone’s personality. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.”― Elon Musk Quote
“The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.”― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“What makes innovative thinking happen?… I think it’s really a mindset. You have to decide.”― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“When somebody has a breakthrough innovation, it is rarely one little thing. Very rarely, is it one little thing. It’s usually a whole bunch of things that collectively amount to a huge innovation.”― Elon Musk Quote
“It’s very important to like the people you work with, otherwise life [and] your job is gonna be quite miserable.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I think the best way to attract venture capital is to try and come up with a demonstration of whatever product or service it is and ideally take that as far as you can. Just see if you can sell that to real customers and start generating some momentum. The further along you can get with that, the more likely you are to get funding.”― Elon Musk Quote
“If something has to be designed and invented, and you have to figure out how to ensure that the value of the thing you create is greater than the cost of the inputs, then that is probably my core skill.”― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“I think it would be great to be born on Earth and die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“It is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“They were building a Ferrari for every launch, when it was possible that a Honda Accord might do the trick.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“One of the biggest mistakes we made was trying to automate things that are super easy for a person to do, but super hard for a robot to do.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“The idea of lying on a beach as my main thing just sounds like the worst — it sounds horrible to me. I would go bon*kers. I would have to be on serious drugs. I’d be super-duper bored. I like high intensity.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“If you buy a ticket to hell, it isn’t fair to blame hell.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I was raised by books. Books, and then my parents” ― Elon Musk Quote
“When I was a little kid, I was really scared of the dark. But then I came to understand, dark just means the absence of photons in the visible wavelength–400 to 700 nanometers. Then I thought, well, it’s really silly to be afraid of a lack of photons. Then I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore after that.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“Disruptive technology where you really have a big technology discontinuity… tends to come from new companies.”― Elon Musk Quote
“You shouldn’t do things differently just because they’re different. They need to be… better.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I think most of the important stuff on the Internet has been built. There will be continued innovation, for sure, but the great problems of the Internet have essentially been solved.”― Elon Musk Quote
“People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I’ve actually not read any books on time management.”― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.”― Elon Musk Quote
“A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.”― Elon Musk Quote
“There’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their as*s-covering.”― Elon Musk Quote
“Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.”― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that ‘it’s all about the process,’ I see that as a bad sign. 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 Quote
“Talent is extremely important. It’s like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win, but then there’s a multiplier from how those players work together and the strategy they employ.”― Elon Musk Quote
“Really pay attention to negative feedback and solicit it, particularly from friends. … Hardly anyone does that, and it’s incredibly helpful.”― Elon Musk Quote
“Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.”― Elon Musk Quote
“You have to say, ‘Well, why did it succeed where others did not?'”― Elon Musk Quote
“We have a strict ‘no-as*sholes policy’ at SpaceX.”― Elon Musk Quote
“As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don’t teach people how to create companies.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I always have optimism, but I’m realistic. It was not with the expectation of great success that I started Tesla or SpaceX… It’s just that I thought they were important enough to do anyway.”― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of whatever you’re doing is as valuable as gold.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“No, I don’t ever give up. I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated” ― Elon Musk Quote
“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 and create a new company.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness, to make sure it continues into the future” ― Elon Musk Quote
“If you’re not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“When I was a child, there’s one thing I said: ‘I never want to be alone.’ That’s what I would say.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“I mean, I think that if people are concerned about volatility, they should definitely not buy our stock. I’m not here [on an earnings call] to convince you to buy [Tesla] stock. Do not buy it if volatility is scary. There you go.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“America is the spirit of human exploration distilled.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“Life needs to be more than just solving problems every day. You need to wake up and be excited about the future.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“I really like computer games, but then if I made really great computer games, how much effect would that have on the world.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“Every person in your company is a vector. Your progress is determined by the sum of all vectors. ” ― Elon Musk Quote
“I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.” ― Elon Musk Quote
“You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve” ― Elon Musk Quote
“Don’t delude yourself into thinking something’s working when it’s not, or you’re gonna get fixated on a bad solution.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I would just question things… It would infuriate my parents… That I wouldn’t just believe them when they said something ’cause I’d ask them why. And then I’d consider whether that response made sense given everything else I knew.”― Elon Musk Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour workweeks and you’re putting in 100 hour workweeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing, you know that you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve.”― Elon Musk Quote
“Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive, and determination of the people behind it as the product they sell.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I always invest my own money in the companies that I create. I don’t believe in the whole thing of just using other people’s money. I don’t think that’s right. I’m not going to ask other people to invest in something if I’m not prepared to do so myself.”― Elon Musk Quote
“If you’re 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… No task is too menial.”― Elon Musk Quote
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.”― Elon Musk Quote