Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Computer History Museum. I'm John Holler, the CEO, and it's my pleasure to welcome you tonight on behalf of our trustees, our staff, our members, our amazing volunteers, all the people involved in making the museum a great place, thank you. Thank you for being here tonight for the kickoff of our revolutionaries speaker series for 2013. We have major funding for the revolutionary speaker series from Intel. We're delighted to have Intel support for the fourth year running now, and it's just it's fantastic because it enables everything that we do to make these revolutionaries programs possible. We also get also get additional funding from the William k Bose Foundation. I wanna say a special thank you to Tesla for arranging to have a Model s here this evening. I hope you had a chance to see the Model s downstairs. We've been looking forward for years to an event when we could have the Motor Trend car of the year at the museum, and we have it here tonight. So thank you to Tesla. We asked SpaceX for a rocket. That proved to be a little more challenging, but maybe someday. And now for tonight's program. Here's a thought exercise. If you compiled a list of the 75 most influential people of the twentieth century, who would be on your list? Or if you compile perhaps a list of the 100 people who most affected the world in the twentieth century, who would be on that list? Now think of the same list that you might start compiling for the twenty first century so far. And if all of that proves to be a little too much, I can offer some help. Elon Musk has been on every single one of those lists that has been compiled for the twentieth century to date no matter who seems to be drawing the lists up. Few scientists, entrepreneurs, or industrialists of the last century could stake a claim to a career as boldly ambitious as the one Elon Musk is fashioning now, Transforming a large measure of the world's commerce and payment systems as cofounder and chairman of PayPal in 1999 might be enough for anyone for one lifetime. But Elon Musk has gone on from there to pursue his passion for solving business, environmental, and scientific problems on a global scale. He may be best known for his work at Tesla, where he serves as CEO and Head of Product Design, the path breaking Tesla Roadster, and now the Model S have changed almost all of the assumptions that the automotive world has made about what the styling performance and future of a new generation of electric cars might be. Simultaneously, he serves as Chairman and Principal Shareholder of SolarCity, the nation's leading provider of solar power systems. But perhaps his most ambitious and intriguing work is taking place at SpaceX where he is CEO and chief designer. SpaceX is erasing the boundaries between spaceflight and private enterprise. It has a multibillion dollar, multiyear agreement with NASA to be a workhorse for cargo flights to and from the International Space Station. And in 2015, that is the company's stated goal. It will begin manned spaceflight. What is the source of Elon Musk's revolutionary thinking? How has he been able to do what he's done with the investors he's attracted and the teams that he's built? Exploring these questions and more tonight with Elon is Alison VanDiglein, who is a very notable and noteworthy journalist here in Silicon Valley, a contributor to KQED and the Huffington Post, and one of the best interviewers in the field through her series Fresh Dialogues. We're delighted to have Alison here tonight. This is her first time on stage. She's going to be terrific as will Elon. Please join me in welcoming Elon Musk and Alison VanDiglein.
So I'd like to start. You grew up in South Africa.
Right.
And I heard a wonderful story of when you were six years old and you started breaking the rules even then. So you were six years old and you were invited by your cousin to a birthday party, but there was only there were two problems with that. One, you were grounded, and two, it was on the other side of town. Yeah. So can you explain tell tell the audience how you got there?
Alright. Well, I mean, was when I was six, so the memory is a little fuzzy at this point. But as I recall yeah. I I I I was grounded for some reason. Don't know why, but I think I felt that was unjust. And and and I really wanted to go go to this party, my cousin's party, who was five, you know, so this isn't a kid's party. So I I I at first, was gonna take my bike, but then and I told my mom this, which is a mistake. And and she and she's she told me some story about how you needed a license for a bike, the police wouldn't stop me. So I wasn't a 100% sure if she was if that was true or not, but I thought I'd better walk just in case. So, yeah, I just I I I sort of thought I knew the way and but it was clear across town. So I don't know. It was 10 or 12 miles away. It's really really quite far, Further than I realized actually. And so I just started walking to to my cousin's house. I think it took me about four hours. And and just as my mom was leaving that party with my brother and sister, she saw me walking down the road and freaked out. And then I saw she saw me, so I then sprinted to my cousin's house and it was just about two blocks away and then climbed a tree and refused to come down.
So, the first of many rule breaking adventures for So, Elon by the by the time you were 12, you're already an entrepreneur and making a profit.
Understand Well, you first of
you earned 500 equivalent in Rand for creating a video game. Can you tell us about that and what the inspiration was?
Yeah. Sure. So, I when I was about 10, walked into a computer store in in South Africa and saw an actual computer. I previously had, some some early sort of precursors to to the the Atari system, and then I got the Atari system, which I'm sure a lot of people here have played. And and and but then I saw you could actually have a computer where you can make your own games, and it was a Commodore VIC 20. So it was the first computer I bought. And and then I got some books on how to teach yourself programming, and and this was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen. So I was just like, this is super awesome. And so I started programming games and then selling games in order to actually buy more games. So a bit of a bit of a circular thing. So and more games and better computers and that kind of thing.
Right. So the money wasn't the the end goal for you? It was more a means to an end?
Yeah. Basically, I'd spend money on, yeah, better better computers and Dungeons and Dragons modules and things like that. We have Node Master 3,000 basically. Right. Yeah.
So, understand at that time you were heavily into comics. I'm curious to know
Yeah.
Did you love Iron Man? The comic Iron Man.
I did kinda like Iron Man. Yeah.
You did? That's good. Did you ever imagine that you would be the inspiration for the movie version?
I I did not. That was that was that was pretty that was pretty much I would say 0% I would have said 0% chance.
What kind of kid were you? I mean, can you can you look back and see yourself? Were you were you a bit of a loner kid, bookish kid?
I certainly I wasn't all that much of a loner, at least not willingly. So but but I I certainly was quite I was very very bookish. I was reading all the time. So I was either reading, working on my computer, reading comics, playing Dungeons and Dragons, that kind of thing.
And I understand Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that wonderful book by Douglas Adams. That was a that was a key book for you. What what was it about that book that that fired your imagination?
Yeah. So I guess when I was in around 12 or 13, I had a company in the existential crisis, and I was reading various books, on trying to figure out the meaning of life and well, like, what does it all mean? Because it it starts seeming quite meaningless. And then my we happen to have, like, some some books by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in the house, which you should not read at age 14. It's bad. It's really negative. So so but but then I then I read Hijacking's Guide to the Galaxy, which was, like, quite positive, think. And and it sort of highlighted the the the an important point, which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part. I see. And so the if to the degree that we can better understand the universe, then we better know what questions to ask. And, then whatever the question is that most approximates what's the meaning of life, you know, that that that's that's the question we could ultimately get closer to understanding. And so I thought, well, to the degree that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness and get knowledge, get human knowledge, then that would be a good thing.
Wow. So you're having these deep thoughts at what age? 10, 14?
Yeah. Sort of in the puberty, I guess. 13. So 13 through 15, probably the most traumatic years.
Right. And so by the time you were 17, you were you were you were actually left. Right? I assume you hatched the plan earlier when you were around 15 14
I did hatch the plan earlier. Actually, I I tried to hatch several plans, which they did not hatch.
But by 17, you were on a plane from South Africa. You'd you'd had enough of South Africa, you were ready to seek new pastures. Now, why was it The United States was your destination? Why not Europe or somewhere else in the world?
Well, just whenever I'd read about cool technology, it would tend to be in The United States, you know, or more broadly North America or including Canada. So, so I kinda wanted to be where the cutting edge of technology was. And, of course, within The United States, Silicon Valley is is the is where the heart of things are is. So although at the time, I didn't know where Silicon Valley was. It sounded like some mythical place. Really? That's great. So yes. So I I I wanted to come to the to The US. I tried to convince my, my mother or father who were divorced. If either one of them would move to The United States, then I could then I could get there. At one point, I convinced my father, then he reneged, unfortunately.
You you had him convinced and then he
changed He did say yes, and then and then he changed his mind.
Why?
I don't know. I I guess. He was sort of he was fairly established. He's an engineer. He was sort of established in South Africa and didn't wanna have to go through that again in another country.
Right. So you got on that plane all by yourself at 17?
Yeah. So I I I actually got my my mother was born in Canada, and actually her her father was American. But unfortunately, didn't get her American citizenship, so then that broke the link and I couldn't get my American citizenship. But she was born in Canada, so I could get I actually filled out the forms for her and got her a Canadian passport and me too. And then as soon as within three weeks of my getting my Canadian passport, I was in Canada.
Right. And then you ended up at University of Pennsylvania?
Yeah. You did
degree in physics and business?
Yeah. So I I I was in Canada a few years at Queen's University, got a scholarship to go down to University of Pennsylvania. Because one of the downsides of coming to University of North America was that my parents said they would not not pay for college if it was or my father said he would not pay for college unless it was in South Africa. So so it was either so I could have free college in South Africa or or find some way to pay it here. And fortunately, I got a scholarship at at UPenn. And and so did did the business undergraduate business and and physics at UPenn Wharton.
And it was there that you came up with this idea of three main areas that you felt were most important to humanity. Can you describe how you came upon them? Was it just one day you had a flash of inspiration? These are the three areas that are important and I wanna concentrate on, or how did that how did that inspiration come to you?
No. I think I was thinking about it for a couple years and during sort of freshman and sophomore year at Queen's and then also in at at UPenn. And I was trying to think what what would most influence the future, you know, what the problems that we that we have to solve? And and I I'd actually talked a lot to friends and and my housemates and that kind of thing and dates, which was not maybe not the best thing. So yeah. I actually met, met a woman I I dated briefly in in college, who now works at Scientific American as a writer. And, and and she she related the anecdote that, we went on a date. I was all I was talking about was electric cars. That was not a big a winning conversation.
So it was a bit of a monologue, was it?
Yeah. She said the first question I asked her was, do you ever think about electric cars? She never does.
So you learned from that. That wasn't the best shout Yeah. Out like
wasn't great. But has Recently, it's been more effective.
There you go. I know this man. That's wonderful. We'll get on to Tesla soon. But I wanna I wanna go from from University of Pennsylvania, you ended up in Silicon Valley. You've described Silicon Valley as Darwinian. Can you talk about what it was?
In the most positive sense, really.
In the most
positive sense. I mean, it's not.
Can you elaborate on what that means and why it had to be Silicon Valley? What what drew you to Silicon Valley?
Well, well, was at I was at Penn and there was a professor who who was chairman of a company in Silicon Valley that was working on advanced capacitors for use in electric cars, or potentially for use in electric cars. As it turns out, they're they're way too expensive. But, but I thought, well, this is this is really awesome because then I asked if I could get a summer job because it was in Silicon Valley and working on technology for electric cars. I thought, well, that's that's pretty much as good as it gets. So I got a summer job here. It was in Los Gatos, actually, at at Pinnacle Research, doing electrolytic ultracapacitors, which were but they had a the problem was that they they used a ruthenium tantalum oxide, and there was, I think, only a few tons of ruthenium mined in the world, so not very scalable. And that, you know, they'd sell it to you by the sort of milligram. So, you know, that's you know, there's a problem. But but it had a pretty high energy density. It's sort of roughly equivalent to a lead acid battery, which for a capacitor is huge.
Mhmm. But you ended up then after that at Stanford?
Yeah. So then, I I thought, well, Stanford is in Silicon Valley, sort of epicenter, and so that's where I wanted to come. He was Stanford at Berkeley and Stanford is sort of sunnier, so I liked
it. Sunnier. That's good. And you I understand you were at Stanford University for a whole two days before you decided, no. It's time. I'm gonna do my first startup.
Yeah. I figured, well, so this is the '95 and, and and I've been working on some Internet software. So because I because the three things I thought would affect the world were Internet, sustainable energy, and and space exploration, making life multi planetary. So the but but on the Internet thing, I just couldn't figure out how to make enough money to to feed myself, you know, because, like, if I didn't make make money, then I would, like, run out of food and die. So that was that was not good.
Basic needs.
Right. Yeah. Literally. So so whereas, you know, if if I was a student, then I I could be a teaching assistant and do, you know, do various things and and and do research on, electric vehicle tech technologies. That that was my default plan. But but then I also thought that if I if I did a PhD at Stanford, then I could I would spend several years watching the Internet go through this incredibly rapid growth phase, and that would be really difficult to to handle. Like, it's like you really wanna be doing something.
So you saw the wave growing.
It sort of really seemed like things were gonna take off. Although nobody had made any money on the Internet at the time. In '95, there was really nobody was making any money on the Internet. And in fact, even on Sand Hill Road, people were like, what's the Internet? They were amazingly when we try to get funding for a company and I think it was November or something of '95, there about October, November, more than half of the British capitalists we met with did not know what the Internet was and had not used it.
That's amazing.
Yeah. Literally. I mean like
How far
Isn't that they were literally asking, isn't that something that the government and universities use? I'm like, for now. But, you know yeah. But then then, Netscape went public in late ninety five, think it was. And then after that, even though a lot of venture capitalists still didn't understand it and still hadn't used it, they they somebody had made money on it. So now that It
was on their radar.
Yeah. So when we went to get funding second time we tried to get funding, everyone was interested.
Right. So, this company was Zip2?
That's right. Terrible name. Yeah.
What what was the reason for that name?
Well, we were just incredibly stupid at the time. I think that was that's the the main reason for that name. And because we we got some ad agency because we thought, well, we don't know anything about names. So we'll get some ad agencies to suggest a bunch of options. And then zip two seemed kinda speedy. I don't know what the hell why the hell we chose that stupid name. And it has a digit in it. It's like, why would you pick it because it could be zip t 0. It could be zip tw o. It could be Zip T 00. So, like, people, like, literally spelled the name every variation Mhmm. Which is bad if you got a URL and you don't have the other ones. So so Zip2 started off as basically, like I said, we're trying to figure out how to how to make enough money to exist as a company. And the so so since there wasn't really any advertising money being made, we thought we could help existing companies get online, bring their stuff online. So we developed software that helped bring lot of newspapers and media companies online because a lot of them just didn't they also didn't know what the Internet was
You had some big customers, didn't
you? Yeah. And even the ones that were aware of the Internet didn't have a software team, so they weren't very good at developing functionality. And so we had, as investors and customers, The New York Times company, Knight Ridder, Hearst, and and so we were able to get them to pay us to develop software for them to bring them online. So online publishing stuff. And we did maps and directions and yellow pages and white pages and various other things. And we we developed quite sophisticated technology actually, but I I it wasn't actually being employed super well by the media companies. I would we would suggest ways to use it and then it would not be used as effectively as it could be. It was very frustrating.
Right. But you did sell that company successfully to Compaq.
Yeah.
Right? And that allowed you to go on and, create x.com.
That's right. Yeah. Exactly. So the yeah. Compaq had, had AltaVista. So their their thought was combine AltaVista and a bunch of other technology companies and see if that would that would work, which it did not. But but nonetheless, they they they were pretty nice guys and bought the company and and that gave me the capital to to do another company. And I wanted I wanted to do another company in the Internet because I thought we hadn't really reached the potential that we could have with with Zip2. Because we we had really sophisticated software. Our software was sort of at least comparable to what Yahoo or Excite or others had. In fact, I mean, I thought in some ways it was better. So but it wasn't because it was all filtered through these partners, it wasn't getting properly used. So I thought, well, I I wanna do something that could be more a more significant contribute contribution to the Internet. And and so the initial thought was financial services because money is digital. It's low bandwidth. At the time, there was you know, most people were on modems, Tesla And because this was late ninety eight, early ninety nine.
So this was x.com was a precursor to PayPal, basically. That's right. You merged with Confinity and it became PayPal major success.
Yeah. So it worked out better than we expected. Yeah. So, yeah, Confinity so initially, Confinity and x.com started out with from slightly different directions and then converged to the same point. With with X, the thought was to create an integrated set of financial services, so that you could go to one place and do all of your financial anything. And and then as a feature, we have the ability to transfer money or securities or anything simply by entering entering a unique identifier. So like a, you know, email address or phone number or something like that. And when we demo the system, the hard stuff, which was the integration of all the financial services, people would not be interested in. But they'd be really interested in it, in being able to transfer money using an email address. That was actually quite easy. And so we focused our our energy on that. And although it's easy in principle, it what gets really hard is is adding, security while still keeping it easy to use. So because, you know, it's like the Willy Lohman quote, like, do people why do they rob banks? Because that's where the money is. So Mhmm. Why do people rob PayPal? Same reason. Right. And and so you can you can dial up the security to a really high level, but then you're gonna make it very hard to use. And and so that that was that was one of the toughest things we we wrestled with. And then, Confinity originally started as kind of software for Palm Pilots. And and then they had a demonstration application which was the ability to beam money from one Palm Pilot to another using the infrared port. People Yeah. Remember that one. Yes. That was big at one point. And and then they they had a website sort of parallel to that where you because once you'd beamed the infrared tokens, had to slow then synchronize your PalmPilot and do the transfer via the website. So but then people weren't that interested in the PalmPilot stuff, but they were interested in the website. So we kinda converged at the same point, and we're quite close together. So we decided to merge the companies in, I think, January or so of two thousand. It was a very turbulent period. And the growth in the company was was pretty pretty crazy. Like, we had at at the end of the first sort of four or five weeks, we had a 100,000 customers.
Incredible.
Yeah. Incredible growth.
Did you anticipate that when you started out?
Definitely did not. And and it wasn't all good because we had some bugs in the software. And, know, even if the bug only occurs one in a thousand times, it's still Right.
If you
can a number like that. You have a 100 very angry customers, like, where's my money? That would be Yeah. You know, a reasonable a reasonable concern that people would have. And and then we we we had customer service on University Avenue in Palo Alto. There were five people. So when something went wrong, customer service phones would basically explode.
Oh my goodness.
And so we had we had many challenges and then the various financial regulatory agencies were trying to shut us down. Visa and Mastercard were trying to shut us down. EBay was trying to shut us down. FTC was trying to shut us down. There were a lot of battles there.
Wow. It's it's quite incredible with all that adversity you you conquered. You came out with
Yeah. That was
100,000,000. Right?
Yeah. It was a close call. We definitely I mean, we came very close to dying there in 2000 and 2001.
And what was the reason for that success? What would you put it down to in that case? How did you overcome?
Well, you know, I think we had a really talented group of people at PayPal, And a lot of those people have actually gone on to start many other companies.
Yes.
You know, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp Mhmm. Yammer. It's like quite a long list actually.
So for you personally, there you were with several 100,000,000. Were you not tempted just to go and buy an island?
Not really.
What was it that drove you? What I'm getting at is I know you didn't.
Sure.
What I'm getting at is why were you so driven to jump into the next thing?
Well, I was
Did you take any time off?
I I did take a bit of time off because, after PayPal I did reasonably well from PayPal. Was the largest shareholder in the company, so, and we required for, I think, about 1,000,000,001 half in stock and then the stock doubled. So so, you know, did did reasonably did reasonably well. But idea of of, like, lying on a beach as my main thing
Mhmm.
Just sounds like the worst. That sounds horrible to me.
Mhmm. Just the boredom factor.
I would go bonkers.
Would Mhmm.
You know, I would have to be on serious drugs. I mean, I just
yeah. Or serious.
Right. Exactly. I mean, it just I'd be super duper bored. So that I mean, I like I like high intensity. I mean, I like going to beach for a short period of time, but but not much longer than, like, a few days or something like that.
Right. So let's talk about the seeds of SpaceX. I understand it started not as the idea of a let's let's start a rocket ship company. You had a philanthropic idea. You were really surprised when you found out that NASA didn't have any plans to go to Mars. And you came up with this idea of let's put a greenhouse on Mars. So can you explain how that whole idea came into being for for SpaceX?
Sure. Well, so so when I was thinking of, like, what I thought would would affect the world as a student, it wasn't really from the standpoint of those are the things I'll get involved in. It was kind of more in the abstract. These are the things I think will happen that will affect the world, but but not that I will be involved in them. As it turns out, have. But I always thought that we would make much more progress in space, and it just it just didn't happen. It was it was really disappointing. So, yeah, I was I was really just really quite bothered by
it. Mhmm.
So, you know, when when we went to the moon, we were supposed to have a base on the moon. We're supposed to send people to Mars. And that stuff just it just didn't happen. It we went backwards. And we got the space shuttle, but the space shuttle could only go to low Earth orbit where Saturn five could go to the moon. Now the space shuttle's gone. And so that just seemed like a a really bad thing. So I thought, well, maybe it was a question of of, there not being enough attention or will to to do this. But this was a wrong assumption. So I so but that's the reason for the greenhouse idea. It was to the thought was if there could be sort of a small philanthropic mission to Mars, you know, so I was I was expected to lose all all the money that I invested in that. But if we could send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars with with seeds and and dehydrated nutrient gel and dehydrated upon landing and you'd have this great shot of, you know, little greenhouse with with little green plants with on on a red background, I thought that would get people excited.
So, literally imagined a photograph inspiring a new
You got to sort of imagine the money shot, if you will. So so, yeah, I think I think, you know, green plants and red background would be that. And and people tend to get interested and excited about precedents and superlatives. So this would be the furthest that life's ever traveled, the the first life on Mars, as far as we know. And and I thought, well, maybe that would result in in a in a bigger budget for NASA and and and then we could sort of resume the journey.
Mhmm.
That was the basic idea. And I I spent several months on this actually and and went to Russia three times because I I was able to to figure out how to get the cost of the spacecraft low and the communications and the the greenhouse and all that to to a reasonable number. Reasonable meaning several million dollars.
Did you have did you actually physically draw out a greenhouse of how you
imagined Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I hope we've got that somewhere.
That'd be amazing to see.
Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it looks pretty goofy in retrospect, but but that's the that's the idea that we had. And it's so and I I spent several $100,000 just kind of getting the design worked out and engaging some companies to come up with design specifications for the subsystems. And then but then it came to buying the rocket, and the problem was that the the cost of rockets is really high. And the lowest cost rocket in The US at the time was the Delta two, Boeing's Delta two, and and that would have been about $50,000,000. Yeah. And then you'd need still need to have it, like, an upper stage from Mars. So probably 60,000,000 all in. And that was, and I wanted to do two of these missions because I thought if if it is did just one and and it didn't work, then that could have, like, the net the opposite effect. Like, look how dumb it is to do to to try to
save money. Right?
You're an idiot. So so I wanted to do two and I just didn't have enough money to do to do two complete missions.
Right. So you had a budget of about 100,000,000, something like that.
Well, I was hoping it would be less than that, but but not more I mean Mhmm. Not more than that. But but then yeah. I guess roughly on that order is is about most I'd be I mean, I couldn't I couldn't spend much more than that. So there is
So the Russians didn't help you out?
Yeah. Three three quite interesting trips to Russia to try to negotiate purchase of two Russian ICBMs.
Yeah. And did they think you had evil intent?
No. They just thought I was crazy. But I mean, that's not good either, should buy ICBMs. But minus the nuke. I mean, I think that would have been a lot more.
So So you didn't talk nukes then?
No. I I mean, I didn't I mean, I got slightly got the feeling that that was on the table if I which which is very alarming. But but, yeah, that that was those are very weird meetings with with the Russian military and whatnot. I mean, I think they they they thought I was bit crazy, but then they thought that they read about PayPal and said, okay, was crazy, but he's got money.
He did something right.
Yeah. Well, and more importantly, I could pay him.
Right. Yes.
Yes. So so that's that's really I mean, they yeah. It was remarkably capitalist was was my impression.
Of the Russians. Yeah. Right. I have heard I have heard that before. Yep. So tell me, what was the turning point from, you know, talking with the Russians and then deciding, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to set up a company. What was that turning point for you?
Well, I guess, I had I came to the conclusion that my initial premise was was wrong. That, in fact, the there's there's a great deal of will, you know, that there there's there's not such a shortage. But people don't think there's a way. And and that if people thought there was there was a way or at least something that wouldn't break the federal budget, then then people would would support it, which in retrospect, I think, is actually kind of obvious because the The United States is a distillation of the human spirit of exploration.
Mhmm.
People came here from other places. I mean, it's you know, there there's no nation there's no I mean, there's no nation that that's more a nation of explorers than The United States. But but people need to believe that it's possible and it's that it's not you know, it's they're not gonna have to give up, like, health care or something important. Right. You know, it's just it's gotta be that that that that's important. So so I thought, okay. Well, then it's not a question of will. It's it's a question of showing that there's a way. And and the and I started reading quite a bit about rockets to try to understand why they're so so freaking expensive.
Mhmm.
You know, is this something you know, where does this the $60,000,000 go for the Delta two? And that subsequently now Delta two, I think, is a 100 and $100,000,000 or something, even some crazy number. And Delta two is, I mean, that's a relatively small rocket. So if you go to, like, a really, you know, one of the bigger rockets, it's anywhere from two hundred to four hundred million dollars. Anyway, so so I came to conclusion that there there wasn't really a good reason for rockets to be so expensive, and and and that they they could be a lot less. And even in an expendable format, they could be less. And and and that in if one could make them reusable like airplanes, then the cost of rocketry would would drop dramatically. Cost of space travel would drop dramatically because the the cost of the fuel was maybe anywhere from point two to point 5% of the cost of the rocket.
Right.
You know, it's kinda like a plane. I mean, how much is the cost of the fuel in the plane versus the plane itself? It's at least a two order of magnitude difference, but nobody had really been able to make a reasonable rocket work. So that but I thought, okay, if we can do that, then that would would really be the the key breakthrough for space travel.
Right. But you also said that
So far, we have not succeeded, I should point out.
You've also said that failure was the most likely outcome. Can you talk about failure in that sense and in a broader sense of being an entrepreneur and an innovator? Why is failure so important?
Well, I don't I mean, think I think failure is bad. I don't think it's good. Mhmm. But if if if something is important enough, then you you do it even though the risk of failure is high. Mhmm. And and so I think my advice if somebody is in wants to start a company is they should bear in mind that the most likely outcome is is that it's not gonna work. And they should reconcile themselves to that past strong possibility, and they should only do it if they feel that they they are really compelled to do it. You know? Right. Because it's it's it's gonna the the way starting a company works is, like, usually, in the beginning, it's the very beginning, it's kind of fun, and then it's really hellish for for a number of years.
You're talking about chewing glass?
Yeah. There's there's a a friend of mine who's a successful entrepreneur and started actually his career around the same time as I did. And he has a good good good phrase. His name's Bully. He said, yeah. Starting companies like eating glass and staring into the abyss. And
And you agree with that?
Generally true. Mhmm. Yeah. And and and if you don't eat the glass, you're not gonna be successful.
That's that's yeah. Tough medicine. Tough medicine. Let's move along and we're gonna get down into innovation and motivation shortly but I wanna just go through your whole business career first. So shortly after founding SpaceX, you then got interested in electric vehicles and I understand you watched the vigils for the death of the EV when they were all smashed. Talk about that and and why you felt even after founding SpaceX, I have to get involved with Tesla.
Yeah. Well, as I said, my interest in electric vehicles goes back a long time to, you know, goes back twenty five
years. Seen.
Yeah. Actually exactly. And and in fact, the the original reason I came to Silicon Valley was to work on electric vehicle energy storage technology.
Right.
And and I I thought that that the big car companies would develop electric cars because it's obviously the right move. And and and and I thought that was vindicated when General Motors and Toyota announced their you know, General Motors is doing the EV one, the electric vehicle one. Toyota did the electric RAV four, the original one. And they made those announcements and then and they brought those to market and I thought, okay. Well, this is this is great. You know, we're gonna have electric cars. GM's gonna obviously do the EV two and three, and then, you know, this just get keep getting better and everything will be cool. And and then when when California relaxed its regulations on electric cars, GM recalled all of the EV ones and crushed them into little cubes, you know, which is seems kinda nutty. Mhmm. So in fact, the the people didn't want their EV ones recalled.
Yeah.
And in fact, they they tried they tried court orders to stop the cars from being recalled. They they held a candlelit vigil, okay, at the the yard where the cars were crushed.
Did you attend that vigil?
No. I I did I did not were
moved you were moved by it.
Well, certainly. I mean, it's it's crazy if if I mean, when is the last time you heard about any company customers holding a candlelit vigil for the demise of that that product? Particularly AGM product. I mean I mean, what bigger wake up call do you need? It's like it's like, hello. The customers are really upset about this. They'll really prefer it if it didn't get recalled. So so that that that kind blew my mind. So I was like, wow. Okay. And then, and then we then we had the advent of lithium ion batteries, which really helps helps the it makes you know, that's that's one of the key things for making electric cars work. It's still nothing. And so in 2003, I actually had lunch with one of the other cofounders of the company, JB Straubel, was actually working, I think, on, like, a hydrogen airplane or something. And he mentioned to me the t zero car that was done by AC Propulsion. AC Propulsion, I think, consists of guys, some of whom had actually been on the EV one program. And they they took in a gasoline sports car, kind of a kit car, and outfitted it with lithium ion batteries, sort of consumer grade cells. And they created a car which is essentially the precursor of the Roadster. And in fact, it had very similar specifications. So sub four second, zero to 60 miles an hour, 250 mile range, and also a two seater sort of sports car. But but it had it was quite primitive. It didn't have a roof, one thing, at all. And in fact, I don't know if it had doors, but it didn't have any safety systems, no airbags. It wasn't homologated, so you couldn't sell it. So in order to sell that car, in order to create a commercial version of the car, something that a manufacturer could produce and sell to people, there was a fair bit of work that was required. And, but anyway, I kept trying to get AC Propulsion to commercialize the the the t zero. And I said, look, I'm gonna I'll fund the whole effort. Mhmm. Can't you know, you really need to do this. And they they just they just sort of refused to do it. They didn't wanna do it. They they wanted to make, I think, at the what's that? No. They wanna make, like, an electric scion, which in principle sounds good, except that it would cost $75,000. And nobody wants to buy a $75,000 scion. And and the technology just was not ready. There there was just no way to to make a good value for money proposition. What was it like a CEO?
What was it that compelled you to say, have to be CEO here and lead this company? Why not say, you know, I'll help you JB get this get this rolling?
Well, I really didn't wanna be CEO of two companies. Mhmm. If I tried to really hard not to be, actually. And yeah. So anyway, so AC Repulsion finally said, I I I actually told AC Repulsion, look, if you're not gonna do this, I'm gonna create a company to to do this. And they said, well, there's some other guys who are also interested in doing that, and you guys should combine efforts and and and create a company. And that's basically how Tesla came together. And and then we had, like, a lot of drama. And but but, I mean, I I had, since I was the you know, I provided, like, 95% of the money. So I could have been the CEO from day one, but I really you know, the idea of being CEO of two startups at the same time was not appealing and shouldn't be appealing by the way if anyone's thinking that's a good idea. It's a really terrible But
then, again, you know, going back to your trajectory here, not only did you take on two, you took on three. You had an epiphany at Burning Man, I understand, and decided
You have to watch this epiphany at Burning Man. Not necessarily what you should pursue.
And you came up
with Yeah. The It's it's well, you know, solar is kind of part of the whole sustainable energy thing. So sustainable energy, you have to have sustainable means of of producing and consuming energy. And so even if you have electric cars, you have to have the other side of the equation. Say, how do you produce energy in a sustainable way? And I think solar is the obvious primary means of sustainable energy generation. In fact, the Earth is almost entirely solar powered today. The the the only reason we're not a frozen ice ball at sort of three degrees Kelvin is because of the sun. And and the sun is responsible for all precipitation. It's it's responsible for the vast majority of the ecosystem apart from sort of chemotrophs at the bottom of the ocean. So the there's just a tiny amount of energy that people that people consume to to power civilization. It's actually a very tiny amount of energy relative to the amount of energy that the sun sends in our general direction. And so in order to deal with that, we we couldn't, in fact, power the entire world with solar power quite easily. This is maybe not super obvious to people,
but So was that the epiphany you had at Burning Man? Was it a
I knew that long long I knew that in college.
But but what what was the the key vision that came to you at Burning Man? We all want to imagine you there. Vision.
The no. It was it was more the the I wouldn't say it was a particular epiphany. Was more that I was at Burning Man with with my cousins or two of my cousins.
And Peter?
Linden and Peter Rive. Mhmm. They were awesome guys. And they and and they were sort of trying to think what should they do after their after their first start ups. They did a company called Everdream, which did large scale management of of computers. If So you've got, like, 60,000 computers, it's kinda hard to manage them. So they wrote this they created software that enables people companies to do that. Right. And that company actually got sold to Dell.
So they were looking for a new venture and
Yeah.
Looking for your ideas?
Well, I wouldn't say they're initially looking for my ideas, but I actually was trying to convince them that they should do solar. And because I just thought I just thought it was an area that needed people like them. They're really good entrepreneurs. So and and since I was, like, somewhat overcommitted, I thought
To SolarWaste.
Yeah. I thought, well and I and I said, like, look, if if you guys will will do a solar company, I'll I'll find you you know, fight all the funding and, you know, whatever guidance I can or help I can provide, I'd I'd I'd do that. And that that's and I thought it was really important that there'd be, you know, good entrepreneurs like them in in solar because it just wasn't wasn't doing very well as an industry. So and I thought people were kind of focusing on not the they weren't focusing on the right problem. The everybody sort of thought that the, the panel was the problem, but actually, it's it's not it's it's a problem, but it's not it's not the it's not the most important problem. Is it the and and the panel is somewhat commoditized at this point. So it's Right. You know, making standard efficiency solar panels is about as hard as making drywall. It's really easy. In fact, I'd say drywall is probably harder.
And
but but what what is a thorny problem is trying to figure out how to get solar on tens of thousands, eventually hundreds of thousands of rooftops.
Right. The logistics part.
Yeah. It's it's kinda like you gotta reroof Mhmm. Millions of buildings Right. And and then figure out how the grid interconnects work and then manage all those systems. Like so if you've got hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of systems eventually, you've got to manage all these distributed systems. You have this really complex distributed utility effectively, which I think actually plays to to their strengths in creating their price strength in creating really scalable software for managing, you know, hundreds of thousands of computers in a distributed fashion.
Right.
Right. And and that's that's kinda what they did and did an awesome job. It was just I basically would show up at the board meetings to hear what's the good news this time. You know, it's like, really, you know we had, like, maybe a couple of bad news board meetings. Well, late two thousand eight, there were some bad news, board meetings. But, for the most part, far from a few a few times when the macroeconomic conditions were really terrible, they just did an amazing job with, you know, almost no help from me.
So you've been able to leave it in their good hands?
Yeah. It's they deserve the vast majority of the credit for for the success of that company.
Awesome. So I'd like to move on to innovation and motivation. There's been a lot of talk lately about the fact that innovation is leveling off. We're not making the dramatic increases or improvements in innovation like we did when the plane was invented. Do you do you agree with that?
No. Don't agree with that. I don't think that's true. I think we've we've seen well, and I'm not sure of what time period that is exactly, but we've seen huge improvements in the in the Internet and new new things. I mean, in in, you know, in the recent years, Twitter and Facebook being being pretty huge when people kind of thought the Internet was done.
Mhmm.
And, you know, I think that there are some things that we're doing, like, you know, electric cars are a new thing. And I do think there's some pretty significant breakthroughs. I mean, in genomics, we're getting better and better at decoding genomes and and being able to write genetics. I think that's gonna be a huge, huge area. I think there's likely to be some breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. And I suspect we will even see the flying car.
Alright. Is that is that gonna be an Elon Musk production?
No.
You're gonna let someone else do that?
Yeah. I well, I think someone else I think someone else is doing that.
Alright. Okay. That's another conversation. Do you feel, the government is standing in the way of innovation at all?
Well, sometimes, the government I don't I don't think the government intends to stand the way of innovation, but sometimes it can overregulate industries to the point where innovation becomes very difficult. Right. I mean, in the like, the the order industry used to be a great hotbed of innovation at the beginning of the twentieth century, but but now there's so many regulations that are intended to protect consumers. I mean, the the body of regulation for cars could, like, fill, you know, this room. It's just crazy how much regulation there is down to, like, what the the headlamps are supposed to be like. And the they even specify the use some of the elements of the user interface on the dashboard, which and some of these are completely anachronistic because they're they're they're relating back to the days when you had, like, a little light that would illuminate an image. So, like, we have to reserve space on the instrument panel of the Model s for where all of the the indicators like a car would have. You know, you got that like these little lights like Check
engine or whatever?
Yeah. Like all these little little things. There's like a whole bunch of them and we can't have anything else in that space. Like, well, how about if we have one space and render a different graphic? Like, oh, no. Because people are expecting to see it in that space. Like, nobody is expecting to see it in that space. Yeah.
So you feel you can argue with these regulations, you just have to
Well, you can argue with them, but not with great success. And and you you can actually get these things changed, but it takes ages. Right. One of the things we're trying to get is like like, why should you have side mirrors if you can have, say, little video cameras, tiny video cameras, and have them, you know, display an image inside the car. Right. But there are all these regulations saying you have to have side mirrors. And I went and met with the Secretary of Transport, like, can you change this regulation? Still nothing has happened. That was, like, two years ago, you know.
So you're banging your head against a wall here a little bit.
It's not easy to get these regulations changed.
So, talking of government, President Obama is obviously trying to do what he can. If you had five minutes with President Obama, what would you advise him for? One, stimulating the economy and entrepreneurship and creating jobs? Is there one thing that if he could successfully get through that would be a big stimulus, do you think?
Well, I think actually, I I think the reality of being president is that you're actually, like, the captain of a very huge ship and have a small rudder. Because because obviously, if I mean, if if there was a button that a president could push that said economic prosperity, you'd be like, they're hitting that button real fast.
Full steam ahead. Yeah.
You could measure the speed of light by how fast they measure they press that button because that would be that's called the like the reelection button. So so that so I'm not I'm not sure how much the president can really do, but, but I think I think, you know, I'm I'm generally a fan of, like, minimal government interference in the economy. Like, the government should be kind of a like the referee, but not the player. There shouldn't be too many referees. Right. But but there is an exception, is when there's an unpriced externality, such as the c o two capacity of the oceans and atmosphere. So when you have an unpriced externality, then the normal market mechanisms do not work. And then it's government's role to intervene in a way that's sensible. And the best way to intervene is to put is to assign a proper price to whatever the common good is that's being consumed. And then and then
So you're saying there should be a tax on gas?
There should be a tax on carbon. You know, if the if the bad thing is carbon accumulation in the atmosphere, then there needs to be a tax on on that. And then we can that that will and and then you can get rid of all subsidies and all everything else. And it seems like logical that you should tax things that that are most likely to be bad rather than, you know, like, that's why we tax cigarettes and alcohol because those those are probably bad for you. Certainly cigarettes are. And so so, yeah. So so you wanna on the side of taxing things that are probably bad and and not tax things that are that are good. And so I think given that there is a need to gather tax for the, you know, to pay for the federal government, we should shift the tax burden to to bad things and then adjust that that tax of that bad thing according to whatever's gonna gonna result in in in the behavior that we think is beneficial for the future. I mean, I I I think currently that, you know, what we're doing right now, which is mining and burning trillions of tons of hydrocarbons that that used to be buried very deep underground, and now we're sticking them in the atmosphere and running this crazy chemical experiment on the atmosphere. And then you've got the oil and gas companies, which
have
ungodly amounts of money. And you can't expect them to just roll over and die. Like, they don't do that. So, actually, what they much prefer to do is spend, enormous amounts of money lobbying and running bogus ad campaigns and that kind of thing to preserve their their situation. You know, it's a lot it's a lot like, tobacco companies in the old days. Mean, they used to run these ads with doctors, well, guy with a doctor, you know, pretending he's a doctor, you know, essentially implying that smoking is good for you. Right. And like having pregnant mothers on ads smoking.
Do you have a message for the climate change skeptics and and the the big oil people?
Well, as far as climate change skeptic, I mean, like, I'm, you know, I like to I believe in the scientific method and one should be one should have a healthy skepticism of things in general. And, you know, as if if you first things from a scientific standpoint, you always look at things probabilistically, not definitively. And so I think a lot a lot of times, if somebody's a skeptic in the science community, what they're really saying is that they're not sure that it's 100% certain that that this is the case. But that's that's that's not the point. The point is that is is is is to look at it from the other side. So what what do you think the percentage chance is of of this being catastrophic for some meaningful percentage of this population? Is it greater than one percent? Is it even one percent? If it is even one percent, why are we running this experiment?
Right. Called it a Russian roulette. We're playing Russian roulette with the atmosphere.
We're playing Russian roulette and then and and as each year goes by, we're loading more rounds in the chamber. It's not it's not wise. Mhmm. So so that's and and and what makes it super insane is that we're gonna run out of oil anyway. Like, it's not like there's some infinite oil supply. We're gonna run out of it. So we know we have to get to a sustainable means of of of transportation no matter what. So why even run the experiment?
Right.
It's the world's dumbest experiment.
Right. Yeah. So let's move on to focus on Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs is was and is a wonderful Silicon Valley icon. Is he someone that you've admired and what have you learned from Steve's life and work?
Well, he's certainly someone I've admired. Well, I did try to talk to him once at a party, and he was super rude to me. But I don't think it was me. I think it was sort of, you know, popped
the course. Think you weren't the first.
Yeah. Not the first. No. But but yeah. And I was actually there with, like, Larry Page is an old friend of mine. I've known Larry since before he got venture funding for Google, and Larry was the guy that introduced me to Steve Jobs. So it's not as, like, I'm I'm going, like, and tugging on his coat, you know, please talk to me. But, you know, so I was introduced by Larry Page. It's not bad. So, but, I mean, he obviously was an incredible guy and made fantastic products that that, you know, and and I I know there was like a certain, the guy had a certain magic about him, you know, just sort of that was kind of that was really inspiring. So, I I mean, I think that's that's really great.
Is there is there that magic that you try and emulate?
No. I I think Steve Jobs is way cooler than than I am. So
Okay. So I'd like to get inside your head a little bit about, you know, when you come up with an idea, do you doodle it, you know, on a pad of paper or do you get your iPad out and and take notes? I mean, when you come up with something new, you know, a new rocket design or whatever it is, how does that manifest itself? Could we see you being creative?
I mean, it's somewhat cliched, but it's it happens a lot in the shower. I don't know what it is about showers or yeah. Exactly. Get the camera. Like, yay. No. I'm just no. I do. Just kinda stand there in the shower.
So you have long showers
I do actually.
Create less.
Long showers. Sounds wrong. But yeah. I do.
There's an iPad in the shower.
Burning man epiphanies. But those were those are huge. So yeah. I I think that's yeah. And and and then there there are some times, like, late at night, if I've been thinking about something, then I can't sleep, and I'll be up for, you know, for several hours. I'm thinking about sort of pacing around the house and thinking about things. And occasionally, I'll sketch something or send myself an email or something like that.
Right. So we have a question from the audience. Who inspires you or do you have a mentor?
Well, I I don't have a mentor per se, although I try to I try to get feedback from as many people as possible. And so I have I have, like, friends, and I ask them to, you know, what they think of this, that, that, and the other thing. You know, as mentioned, you know, Larry is a good Larry Page is a good friend of mine, value his advice a lot. And I have many other good friends. And so so I think it's good to solicit feedback, and particularly negative feedback actually because, you know, obviously, people aren't don't love the idea of giving you negative feedback unless unless it it's like some, you know, on on blogs, they they do that.
Yeah. How do you deal with negative feedback? Because you got some tough criticism especially with SpaceX. You had incumbents like Neil Armstrong even speaking out and saying Yeah. That was this is wrong. We don't want, you know, commercial companies in space. It's not a place for commerce. So how did you with that? And how do you deal with naysayers in general? Because you've had a lot.
Yeah. That was kinda troubling because, you know, growing up, Neil Armstrong was kind of a hero. So it's like, it kinda sucks to Yeah.
Yeah. Like Knife in the back. Right?
That's a bit of a blow.
Yeah.
So yeah. But I I think in his case, was somewhat manipulated, you know, by by other interests. I don't think he quite knew what he was saying in those in those congressional hearings. So yeah.
Right. Okay. And talk about, you know, it's one thing to have these wonderful ideas in the shower of Burning Man, but it's another thing to build, motivate, and retain a team of excellent people. Can you talk about some tips and some things you've learned that obviously work for you?
Yeah. Well, I mean, if you think about a company, a company is is a group of people that are organized to create a product or service. That's the sort of company is. So in order to create such a thing, you have to convince others to join you in in your effort. And and and so they have to be convinced that that that it's a sensible thing, that it's like that there's at least some some good some reasonable chance of success. And if if there is success, that the reward will be commensurate with the effort involved. And, you know, so so I think that's getting people to to believe in what you're doing, and in in you is is is important. So in in the beginning, there will be there will be a few people who who do who believe in you or in in what you're doing. And but then over time, as you make progress, the the evidence will build and and more and more people will believe in in what you're doing. So I think it's a good idea when creating a company to to create a to have a demonstration or, you know, to if if it's a product to have, like, a good markup or if it's even if it's software to have good demo ware or to be able to sketch something so people can really envision what it's about. Like, that that's a try to get to that point as soon as possible and then iterate to make it as as real as possible as fast as possible. Yeah. I know if that makes sense.
Okay. So you're running you're CEO of two companies. You're chairman of SolarCity. Talk about time management. How on earth do you do this?
Well Do
you get any sleep?
Sometimes not enough. Sleep is is really great because because if you I find if I don't get enough sleep, then I'm I'm quite grumpy. I mean, obviously, I think most people are that way. And and and also, like, I try to sort of figure out what's the right amount of sleep because I I found I could have I could drop below a certain threshold of sleep. And although I'd be awake more hours and I could sustain it, I would get less done because mental acuity would be affected. So I found generally the right number for me is around six to six and a half hours on average per night.
That's not too bad. Yeah. Right. And any other tips
on average, though.
Right. Any other tips on on just managing to run two companies simultaneously? I mean, do you do you find I mean, I know you're up here Monday, Tuesday. Is it all Tesla when you're up in Silicon Valley and all SpaceX Wednesday, Thursday?
It's having a sort of a having a smartphone is incredibly helpful because that means you can do email during interstitial periods, like, you're in a car, you're walking in the bathroom, everywhere. You can do email practically when you're awake. And and so that's really helpful to have email for SpaceX and and Tesla integrated on on my phone. And then and then then it's you have to apply a lot of hours to actual working actually working. So the the way I generally do it is I'll be, working at SpaceX on Monday, and then Monday night fly to Bay Area. Spent Tuesday and Wednesday at Bay Area, then at at Tesla, and then fly back on Wednesday night. Spent Thursday and Friday at SpaceX In in in the last several months, then I I would fly back here on a Saturday and either spend Saturday and Sunday at Tesla or spend Saturday at Tesla and Sunday at SpaceX.
And where and where do the boys fit in? You have five sons.
Yeah.
Do they tag along with dad on some of these trips?
I do drag them along in a lot of things actually. They're remarkably unimpressed by I I wish they were sort of more interested. But I mean, they're only the twins are are eight and the triplets are six. So maybe they'll get more more interested later. But
Do you see one day grooming one of them or several of them to take over your companies?
Well, I mean, I think if if if they're inclined to I mean, if they're really interested in working at Tesla or SpaceX, then I, you know, I'd help them do that. I'm not sure I'd wanna necessarily try to insert them into the CEO role at some point. You know, it's kinda like if if, if the rest of the team and the board kind of felt that they were the right person, then that would be that would be fine. But I wouldn't want people to feel like I've kind of, know, installed Amazing. You know, my my kid there. I don't think that would be good for either the the companies or the kid, really. But but I have I I I was actually at one point of a school of thought that, you know, it's best to give away kinda like 99% or more of one's assets, kind of like the Buffett school of thought. And I'm still mostly of that inclined in that direction. But after seeing what happened with Ford and GM and Chrysler, where GM and Chrysler went bankrupt, but Ford did not. And Ford seemed to make better long term choices than the other two companies. And that's in part because of the influence of the Ford family. And I thought, well, okay, there may be some merit in having some longer term family ownership, at least at least a portion of it. So, it's it acts as a positive influence. I mean, this is still something I'm thinking about, but acting as a positive influence in in the long term so the company kind of does does proper long term things. And, like, I'm you know, if look if look at what happened also in in Silicon Valley with with HP, I mean, I think it's quite quite quite sad. Yeah. And and that that that to some degree is because there was much diminished influence by the the the Hewlett and Packard families. So think they should have prevailed in in in their, you know, in where they were opposed to the the merger that took place at one point. And I think they were right, actually.
Right. And keep it and looking to the future for SpaceX, is there an IPO plan for this year?
No. There's no IPO plan. No. I'd say running a public company does have its drawbacks.
So you're not in a hurry?
No. Okay. I mean, in the case of Tesla and SpaceX, we had to raise capital, and and we had kind of complex equity structure that needed to be resolved by by going public. And and so so I thought we we kinda needed to do that in those two cases. We don't have to do that in SpaceX. I think there's a good chance we will at some point in the future. But but SpaceX's objectives are are super long term, and and the market is is not. So I'm a bit worried that if we did go public, certainly if we went public too soon, that market pressure would force us to do short term things and abandon kind of long term projects.
Like going to Mars. Right.
Going to Mars very long term.
Yes. That's an important one. So you do have other projects on the back burner. You've talked about the Hyperloop. A way of getting people from Downtown LA to Downtown San Francisco in under half an hour. An electric supersonic airplane.
Yeah.
Which of those two are bubbling up that we might hear more about in the near future?
Well, I I did promise that I'd I'd do some paper on the on the Hyperloop idea. And things got a little little hectic towards the end of last year, because I had I had these I'd committed to to make these milestones at at Tesla to to the public markets, and, I had to stay true to that obligation, which required just a just an insane level of work and attention. And and then we also had the Solar City IPO Right. Which was
Just a sample.
A very difficult IPO to to get done. And that IPO occurred just by the skin of its teeth. I mean, it was so so such a tough one.
Were you just determined it had to be in
December? Well, if it wasn't in December, it would mean pushing it out, you know, quite a bit. And and the problem is that we'd already pushed it out quite a bit. So if we didn't go public, we'd have to do a private round. And then and and it just the whole thing wouldn't feel right. You know, it's like you're sitting at the it's like you're you're, you know, at the at the altar and you don't do the do the wedding. It's like, that's a bit awkward.
To say the least. Yeah. Yeah.
So so we really need we really needed to do it. And and and I think if we hadn't done it, people would have looked at it as a failure and it would have been good. Because there's just been too many failures in the solar or or too many not enough success, let's say, in the solar arena. Right. They needed to be sort of we need to chalk up the success in
the Yeah. Was a rare piece of sunshine for the solar. Right. Ironically
for a solar industry does not have a lot of Yes.
So, it's time unfortunately for the last question. You've come a long way since you were that six year old little boy breaking the rules. You turned 42 this year.
Right.
What is on the cards? Where do you see yourself in ten years' time, twenty years' time, forty years' time? Because you famously said you want to die on Mars, just not on impact.
Right. Exactly.
Tell us about that dream.
Yeah. Well, I actually was asked by a journalist, do you wanna die on Mars? I said, yes. And I was like, but wait, not not impact. Yeah. Just to be clear. That's one of the possibilities. So yeah. So I I guess, I I mean, I'd like to be able to go to Mars while I'm still able to manage the journey reasonably well. So I think, like, I don't wanna be, like, 75 and go to Mars.
You don't wanna take your Zimmer frame with you.
Right. You know, it it it could be at least in the beginning, it could be, you know, mildly arduous. So I wanted to I'd like to I'd like to get there. I don't know. I mean, ideally in my fifties, that would be that would be kinda cool.
So you see that happening in the next
Well, I mean, I aspire to make that happen, and I I can see the potential for that happening. And I'm not saying it will happen, but I I I think it can happen. I'll try to make it happen.
Great. Ladies and gentlemen, Elon Musk.
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