Elon Musk Quotes

You should be innovating so fast that you're invalidating your prior patents.

My background educationally is physics and economics, and I grew up in sort of an engineering environment - my father is an electromechanical engineer. And so there were lots of engineery things around me.

My family fears that the Russians will assassinate me.

I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.

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.

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.

Does the logic connect? What are the range of probably outcomes? You want to figure out what those probabilities are and ideally be the House. It's fine to gamble, as long as you're the House. Also, listen to critical feedback, particularly from friends. Generally they will be thinking it but they won't tell you.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.

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

Actively seek out and listen carefully to negative feedback.

I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.

People should pursue what they're passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

If I'm not in love, if I'm not with a long-term companion, I cannot be happy.

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

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

One bit of advice: 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.

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.

America is the spirit of human exploration distilled.

The thing that's worth doing is trying to improve our understanding of the world and gain a better appreciation of the universe and not to worry too much about there being no meaning. And, you know, try and enjoy yourself. Because, actually, life's pretty good. It really is.

Going from PayPal, I thought: 'Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?' Not from the perspective, 'What's the best way to make money?'

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.

The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.

Focus on something that has high value to someone else, be really rigorous in making that assessment, because natural human tendency is wishful thinking, so the challenge to entrepreneurs is telling what's the difference between really believing in your ideals and sticking to them as opposed to pursuing some unrealistic dream that doesn't actually have merit, be very rigorous in your self analysis, certainly being extremely tenacious, and just work like hell. Put in 80-100 hours every week. All these things improves the odds of success

For me it was never about money, but solving problems for the future of humanity.

Humans need to be a multiplanet species.

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

When we got Tesla going at the very beginning, if you asked me what I thought the odds of success were, I would have said less than 50%. I would have said that failure is the most likely outcome.

No I don't ever give up. I would have to be dead or completely incapacitated

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.

If we could do high-speed rail in California just half a notch above what they've done on the Shanghai line in China, and if we had a straight path from L.A. to San Francisco, as well as the milk run, at least that would be progress.

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.

Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.

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.

Particularly Instagram, people look like they have a much better life than they really do. People basically seem like they are way better-looking than they really are, and they are way happier-seeming than they really are.

It's a fixer-upper of a planet but we could make it work.

If you're entering anything where there's an existing marketplace, against large, entrenched competitors, then your product or service needs to be much better than theirs. It can't be a little bit better, because then you put yourself in the shoes of the consumer... you're always going to buy the trusted brand unless there's a big difference.

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.

For my part, I will never give up, and I mean never.

As you heat the planet up, it's just like boiling a pot.

We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world.

I think there should be regulations on social media to the degree that it negatively affects the public good.

I've actually not read any books on time management.

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

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.

Obviously Tesla is about helping solve the consumption of energy in a sustainable manner but you need the production of energy in a sustainable manner.

Don't be afraid of new arenas.

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.

We can't have, like, willy-nilly proliferation of fake news. That's crazy. You can't have more types of fake news than real news. That's allowing public deception to go unchecked. That's crazy.

The tough thing is figuring out what questions to ask, but […] once you do that, the rest is really easy.

I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.

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.

I think that's an important thing to do, to really pay attention to negative feedback, and solicit it, particularly from friends. This may sound like simple advice, but hardly anyone does that, and it's incredibly helpful.

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.

I'm increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish.

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.

I always see what’s... wrong. Would you want that? When I see a car or a rocket or spacecraft, I only see what’s wrong. I never see what’s right. It’s not a recipe for happiness.

You shouldn't do things differently just because they're different. They need to be... better.

Man has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

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.