Elon Reeve Musk FRS is a technology entrepreneur, investor, businessman and engineer. He founded X.com in 1999(known as PayPal), SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Inspirational Elon Musk quotes will enrich the way you see the world, make you start working on your dreams and take on the impossible.
If you’re searching for profound quotes from successful CEOs that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of Bill Gates quotes, inspirational Warren Buffett quotes, and best Thomas Edison quotes.
Famous Elon Musk Quotes
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
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour. Elon Musk
Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster. Elon Musk
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
There’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass covering. Elon Musk
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
If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago. Elon Musk
You should take the approach that you’re wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong. Elon Musk
You want to have a future where you’re expecting things to be better, not one where you’re expecting things to be worse. Elon Musk
You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve. 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
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
Don’t be afraid of new arenas. Elon Musk
I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. With analogy we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles you boil things down to the most fundamental truths and then reason up from there. Elon Musk
I could either watch it happen or be a part of it. Elon Musk
It is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary. Elon Musk
Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. This improves the odds of success. Elon Musk
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
As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don’t teach people how to create companies. Elon Musk
Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of whatever you’re doing is as valuable as gold. Elon Musk
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
No, I don’t ever give up. I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated. Elon Musk
When you struggle with a problem, that’s when you understand it. Elon Musk
If you need inspiration, don’t do it. Elon Musk
I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens. Elon Musk
I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad. Elon Musk
If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if the probable outcome is failure. Elon Musk
The idea of lying on a beach as my main thing just sounds like the worst. It sounds horrible to me. I would go bonkers. I would have to be on serious drugs. I’d be süper duper bored. I like high intensity. 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. Elon Musk
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. Elon Musk
My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail. Elon Musk
The first step is to establish that something is possible then probability will occur. Elon Musk
You have to say, Well, why did it succeed where others did not? Elon Musk
Any product that needs a manual to work is broken. 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
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 tht makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment. Elon Musk
I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future. Elon Musk
In terms of the Internet, it’s like humanity acquiring a collective nervous system. Whereas previously we were more like a, like a collection of cells that communicated by diffusion. With the advent of the Internet, it was suddenly like we got a nervous system. It’s a hugely impactful thing. Elon Musk
The tough thing is figuring out what questions to ask, but once you do that, the rest is really easy. Elon Musk
One of the really tough things is figuring out what questions to ask. Once you figure out the question, then the answer is relatively easy. Elon Musk
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. Elon Musk
I take the position that I’m always to some degree wrong, and the aspiration is to be less wrong. Elon Musk
Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson. Elon Musk
Constantly think about how you could be doing things better. Elon Musk
I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact. Elon Musk
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
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
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
I think it matters whether someone has a good heart. Elon Musk
They were building a Ferrari for every launch, when it was possible that a Honda Accord might do the trick. Elon Musk
I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is. Elon Musk
Every person in your company is a vector. Your progress is determined by the sum of all vectors. Elon Mus
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
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
Any product that needs a manual to work is broken. Elon Musk
It’s pretty hard to get to another star system. Alpha Centauri is four light years away, so if you go at 10 per cent of the speed of light, it’s going to take you 40 years, and that’s assuming you can instantly reach that speed, which isn’t going to be the case. You have to accelerate. You have to build up to 20 or 30 per cent and then slow down, assuming you want to stay at Alpha Centauri and not go zipping past. It’s just hard. With current life spans, you need generational ships. You need antimatter drives, because that’s the most mass efficient. It’s doable, but it’s super slow. 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
The idea of lying on a beach as my main thing just sounds like the worst it sounds horrible to me. I would go bonkers. I would have to be on serious drugs. I’d be süper duper bored. I like high intensity. Elon Musk
Starting a business is not for everyone. Starting a business I’d say, number one is have a high pain threshold. Elon Musk
Life needs to be more than just solving problems every day. You need to wake up and be excited about the future. Elon Musk
When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. Elon Musk
If you buy a ticket to hell, it isn’t fair to blame hell. 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
I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness, to make sure it continues into the future. Elon Musk
If you don’t have sustainable energy, you have unsustainable energy. The fundamental value of a company like Tesla is the degree to which it accelerates the advent of sustainable energy faster than it would otherwise occur. Elon Musk
Stop being patient and start asking yourself, how do I accomplish my 10 year plan in 6 months? You will probably fail but you will be a lot further ahead of the person who simply accepted it was going to take 10 years. Elon Musk
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
Don’t confuse schooling with education. I didn’t go to Harvard but the people that work for me did. 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
I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact. Elon Musk
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. Elon Musk
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
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
I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I just try to think about the future and not be sad. Elon Musk
Life is too short for long term grudges. Elon Musk
Working hard to make useful products services for your fellow humans is deeply morally good. Elon Musk
I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right. Elon Musk
Whatever area that you get into, given that, even if you’re the best of the best, there’s always a chance of failure. So, I think it’s important that you really like whatever you’re doing. If you don’t like it, life is too short. And also, if you like what you are doing, you think about it even when you are not working. It’s something your mind drawn to. And if you don’t like it, you just really can’t make it work I think. Elon Musk
If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if the probable outcome is failure. Elon Musk
If humanity is to become multi planetary, the fundamental breakthrough that needs to occur in rocketry is a rapidly and completely reusable rocket achieving it would be on a par with what the Wright brothers did. It’s the fundamental thing that’s necessary for humanity to become a space-faring civilization. America would never have been colonized if ships weren’t reusable. Elon Musk
It’s ok to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket. Elon Musk
My children didn’t choose to be born, I chose to have children. They owe me nothing, I owe them everything. Elon Musk
People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else. Elon Musk
Science is discovering the essential truths about what exists in the Universe, engineering is about creating things that never existed. 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
America is the spirit of human exploration distilled. Elon Musk
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
If you punish people too much for failure, then they will respond accordingly and the innovation you will get will be very incrementalist. Nobody’s going to try anything bold for fear of getting fired or punished in some way. The risk reward must be balanced, in favor of making bold moves. Elon Musk
Great companies are built on great products. Elon Musk
If the rules are such that you can’t make progress, then you have to fight the rules. Elon Musk
I think we are at the dawn of a new era in commercial space exploration. Elon Musk
At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue. Elon Musk
It’s very important to like the people you work with. Otherwise, your job is going to be quite miserable. Elon Musk
