Elon Musk Quotes on Business & Success
Starting a business is not for everyone. Starting a business - I'd say, number one is have a high pain threshold.
― Elon Musk
Entrepreneurship is like eating glass and walking on hot coals at the same time.
― Elon Musk
Great companies are built on great products.
― Elon Musk
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
I don't create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.
― Elon Musk
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
It's very important to like the people you work with. Otherwise, your job is going to be quite miserable.
― Elon Musk
Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.
― Elon Musk
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
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
The key to making things affordable is design and technology improvements, as well as scale.
― Elon Musk
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
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
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
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.
― Elon Musk
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.
― Elon Musk
Elon Musk Quotes on Life and Inspiration
If I'm not in love, if I'm not with a long-term companion, I cannot be happy.
― Elon Musk
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.
― Elon Musk
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. I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.
― Elon Musk
Life is too short for long-term grudges.
― Elon Musk
I'd rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.
― Elon Musk
When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world.
― Elon Musk
Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.
― Elon Musk
I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.
― Elon Musk
Patience is a virtue, and I'm learning patience. It's a tough lesson.
― Elon Musk
I don't spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.
― Elon Musk
It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.
― Elon Musk
I care very deeply about the people at Tesla. I feel like I have a great debt to the people of Tesla who are making the company successful.
― Elon Musk
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.
― Elon Musk
I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.
― Elon Musk
Optimism, pessimism, f**k that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.
― Elon Musk
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.
― Elon Musk
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.
― Elon Musk
Ancient Greece had it all & then committed suicide. Nobody digs your grave better than yourself.
― Elon Musk
That's my lesson for taking a vacation: Vacation will kill you.
― Elon Musk
An asteroid or a super volcano 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.
― Elon Musk
For my part, I will never give up, and I mean never.
― Elon Musk
If the rules are such that you can’t make progress, then you have to fight the rules.
― Elon Musk
If you need inspiring words, don't do it.
― Elon Musk
Take risks now. Do something bold. You won't regret it.
― Elon Musk
The thing that drives me is that I want to be able to think about the future and feel good about that.
― Elon Musk
If something's important enough, you should try. Even if - the probable outcome is failure.
― Elon Musk
I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.
― Elon Musk
People should pursue what they're passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.
― Elon Musk
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
― Elon Musk
I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying.
― Elon Musk
I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.
― Elon Musk
Elon Musk Quotes on Funny
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.
― Elon Musk
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.
― Elon Musk
Every 5000th buyer of our boringly boring hat will get a free hat signed by the delivery guy.
― Elon Musk
I would only call someone an idiot if people were mistakenly under the impression that the person was smart.
― Elon Musk
I would like to die on Mars — just not on impact.
― Elon Musk
If there’s ever a scandal about me, please call it Elongate.
― Elon Musk
I put the art in fart.
― Elon Musk
For the chemistry nerds: “Technically, alcohol is a solution.
― Elon Musk
When asked why so many of the SpaceX rocket launches happen at night: “It’s much easier to do the CGI that way.
― Elon Musk
We can’t be one of those lame one-planet civilizations!
― Elon Musk
Elon Musk Quotes on Space
Rockets are cool. There's no getting around that.
― Elon Musk
Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.
― Elon Musk
I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.
― Elon Musk
If we drive down the cost of transportation in space, we can do great things.
― Elon Musk
There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.
― Elon Musk
Engineering is the closest thing to magic that exists in the world.
― Elon Musk
I think we are at the dawn of a new era in commercial space exploration.
― Elon Musk
If humanity doesn't land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.
― Elon Musk
I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future.
― Elon Musk
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.
― Elon Musk
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
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.
― Elon Musk
There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What's the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.
― Elon Musk