Elon Musk Quotes

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.

If humanity doesn’t land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.

It’s important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the first time in the four billion-year history of Earth that it’s been possible, and that window could be open for a long time – hopefully it is – or it could be open for a short time. We should err on the side of caution and do something now.

America is the spirit of human exploration distilled.

There’s no better place in the world for technology start-ups than Silicon Valley; there’s such an incredible well of talent and capital and resources. The whole system is set up to foster the creation of new companies.

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

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

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

Biofuels such as ethanol require enormous amounts of cropland and end up displacing either food crops or natural wilderness, neither of which is good.

Most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying.

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 trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.

With DNA, you have to be able to tell which genes are turned on or off. Current DNA sequencing cannot do that. The next generation of DNA sequencing needs to be able to do this. If somebody invents this, then we can start to very precisely identify cures for diseases.

If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if – the probable outcome is failure.

The problem with car dealerships is you’ve already decided what you want to buy before you even go there, and you’re really just going there to talk through some annoying negotiation.

Tesla is becoming a real car company.

The fuel cell is just a fundamentally inferior way of delivering electrical energy to an electric motor than batteries.