Elon Musk

Elon Reeve Musk (born 28 June 1971) is an entrepreneur and business magnate. He is the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; early-stage investor, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; president of the Musk Foundation; and owner of X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, Inc. With an estimated net worth of about US$195 billion as of November 2022, Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to the Bloomberg billionaires index and the Forbes real-time billionaires list.

2005

 * If things aren't not failing you are not innovating enough.
 * Fast Company, article "Hondas in Space" (1 February 2005)

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

 * 'From: Interview(s) by Wired Science'', pbs.org. Partly republished Interview With Elon Musk Tesla Motors on youtube.com, 2007.


 * Life is too short for long-term grudges.
 * I didn’t really expect to make any money. If I could make enough to cover the rent and buy some food that would be fine. As it turns out, it turned out to be quite valuable in the end.
 * I don’t have an issue with serving in the military per se, but serving in the South African army suppressing black people just didn’t seem like a really good way to spend time.
 * I think South Africa is a great country.
 * If you wanted to be close to the cutting edge, particularly in technology, you came to North America.
 * Tuition costs are outrageous. Fortunately, they gave me a scholarship…so I only had to cover living expenses, books, etc., by working.
 * One was the Internet, one was clean energy and one was space.
 * I could either watch it happen, or be part of it.
 * We could figure out ways with small aerospace companies to do a low-cost spacecraft and lander. But we could not find a way to do a low-cost launcher, unless we went to the Russians.
 * The answer was we thought it could be done.
 * There is nothing inherently expensive about rockets. It's just that those who have built and operated them in the past have done so with horrendously poor efficiency.
 * Falcon One is going to be the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any production rocket.
 * Which means we’re cheaper than the Chinese, cheaper than [the] Russians or anywhere else – and we’re doing it in the United States with American labour costs.
 * I think the reason it’s cheaper is, first of all, we are a private entity and we have a very lean system in here. What we have been able to do here at SpaceX is to cherry-pick, you know, the top one or two percent and give them, you know, capital to execute well and a clear mission, which is low cost, reliable access to space, and no other constraints.
 * Well, I have tried to learn as much as possible from prior attempts.
 * If nothing else, we are committed to failing in a new way.
 * There’s a graveyard of prior attempts, a big graveyard. There’s probably some freshly dug graves just waiting to be filled. Our aspiration is to avoid that destination.
 * I think we’ve got the risks pretty well characterized. I think we are at least avoiding the mistakes that have been made in the past.
 * I think the rocket business is quite cyclic. There are a great many peaks and troughs.
 * Imagine creating a huge software program that can only be tested in little pieces on a computer that is slightly different from what it is supposed to run on. However, when you do run it as a whole on the actual computer for the first time, it must run almost flawlessly without a single significant bug. When is the last time you saw a software program do that?
 * When thinking about starting a business, I think it’s actually better to start in a trough and come to market in a peak, than the other way around. Frankly, if anything does, and it’s almost cliché, space has a long-term future.
 * I want to be able to make sure that we have enough capital to survive at least three consecutive failures. If you want to make a small fortune in the launch vehicle business, start with a large one.
 * The long term ultimate objective – the holy grail – is we would like to help make life multi-planetary.
 * We got to the moon, but have never done anything better since. I'm disappointed that we have not made more progress since Apollo. I don't even see a plan that says we're going to do better than Apollo to exceed that goal.
 * I like to be involved in things that change the world. The Internet did, and space will probably be more responsible for changing the world than anything else. If humanity can expand beyond the Earth, obviously that's where the future is.
 * If we can be one of the companies that makes it possible for humans to become a multi-planetary species, that would be the Holy Grail. It sounds a bit crazy but it's going to happen, and only if people build the means to do so. We're making progress toward a greater philosophical goal while building a sound business.
 * 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.
 * It doesn’t do a great deal to advance the goal of humanity. I would pay $20 million not to spend six months in Russia. And besides this, my interest is how do we enable many other people to go to space, not necessarily me, personally.
 * If we can build something that is capable of taking people and equipment to Mars, such that it can service a transportation infrastructure for humanity becoming a multi- planet species - which I think is a very, very important objective - then I would consider the mission of SpaceX successful, at that point.
 * We are used to things improving every year; we are used to having a better cell phone next year than this year; a better lap top. We are even used to some basic things, like we expect more from your car in next year’s model than last year’s model. But this is not the case in space; reliability and cost - those are the fundamental parameters of transportation - have not improved.
 * Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell.
 * So even if a fire develops, it can't really attack the particularly vulnerable locations like the pneumatic system or the avionics or the engine bay. We want to be in the situation that even if a fire develops, the rocket just keeps going.
 * A great deal of bargaining power with suppliers. We are never locked in to anyone.
 * I think it is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don't know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.
 * My approach is simply to seek out very talented people, ensure that the environment at SpaceX is as motivating & enjoyable as possible and establish clear & measurable objectives.
 * Rocket engineering is not like ditch digging. With ditch digging you can get 100 people and dig a ditch, and you will dig it a hundred times as faster if you get 100 people versus one. With rockets, you have to solve the problem of a particular level of difficulty; one person who can solve the problem is worth an infinite number of people who can’t.
 * I think that is a mistake and results in cloudy judgment on important technical issues. They can't tell if something is really good or not, so they just do what everyone else does, assuming it to be the safe bet.
 * We're adding a triple sign-off for all work done on the launch pad, on flight components, and flight critical GSE. You have a technician, a responsible engineer, and then quality assurance will sign the final, record all information, and take photographs of all the work that was done, and then make sure that all information is put into our quality assurance database, which is reviewed prior to launch.
 * Although I am new in the business, my team is not. I would say that, person for person, there has never been a better rocket company in existence, in history. I don’t think there has ever been a group this talented in one place, in one company, developing a rocket – ever. If you have millions of dollars it changes your lifestyle, and anyone who says differently is talking ########. I don’t need to work, from a standard of living point of view, but I do, you know. I work every day and on weekends and I haven’t taken a vacation for years.
 * This is the chance to fulfill a dream.
 * I’m nauseatingly pro-American. It is where great things are possible.
 * As life’s agents, it’s on our shoulders.

2008

 * Sooner or later, we must expand life beyond our little blue mud ball--or go extinct.
 * 1 October 2008 via Esquire

2009

 * The heroes of the books I read, The Lord of the Rings and the Foundation series, always felt a duty to save the world.
 * 24 August 2009

2012

 * When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
 * 18 March 2012 60 Minutes, season 44, episode 26


 * We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world.
 * 26 March 2012


 * In terms of the Internet, it's like humanity acquiring a collective nervous system. Whereas previously we were more 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.
 * 26 April 2012


 * So, I think the best analogy for rocket engineers, if you want to create complicated software, you can't run as an integrated whole, or run on the computer it's intended to run on, but, first time you run it, it has to run with no bugs. That's the essence of it. So ... we missed the mark there.
 * 15 June 2012 15 June 2012 Caltech Commencement Address


 * I'd rather be optimistic and wrong; than pessimistic and right. .. We have planes, trains, automobiles and boats, ... What if there was a fifth mode?
 * 13 July 2012 regarding Hyperloop


 * One thing that is important is that, if you have a choice between a lower valuation with someone you really like, or higher valuation with someone you have a question mark about, take the lower valuation.
 * 17 July 2012 during interview with PandoDaily - Fireside Chat With Elon Musk


 * I would like to die on Mars; just not on impact.
 * 12 September 2012

2013

 * Since our primary competitors [in space launch] are national governments, the enforceability of patents is questionable.
 * 19 March 2013


 * Even if there's a zombie apocalypse, you'll still be able to travel using the Tesla Supercharging system.
 * 30 May 2013

Foreword to Marc Kaufman's Mars Up Close

 * 2014 source Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-1278-9.


 * I plan to travel to Mars and make it my home. .. People should be traveling to Mars and doing it in our lifetime.
 * p. 9


 * Only by breaking through to new paradigms of space travel will more than a handful of us ever get to Mars and make it a potentially livable place... Getting to Mars is too big an accomplishment for us to feel proud by just by swinging by. We are a nation of enterprise as well as exploration, and we're not about to go there without making something of it.
 * p. 10


 * Sending large numbers of people to explore and settle Mars in the decades ahead isn't inevitable, but it is entirely possible. The biggest challenge isn't the engineering and spacecraft, however difficult they may be. Instead, it's making sure that a sustained Mars campaign proceeds as a national priority, and that will happen only if the American people are behind it. We have the opportunity now to make this happen. We might not be so fortunate in the future.
 * p. 13

2015

 * Everything works in PowerPoint; but if you have the physical item or some demonstration software, that's much more convincing to people than a PowerPoint presentation or a business plan.
 * January 23, 2015 Colonizing Mars The Future Belongs to SpaceX and Elon Musk


 * First, you're going to have to live in transparent domes, but eventually, you can transform Mars into an Earth-like planet. You can warm it up.
 * [The quick way to warm the planet] Drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles.
 * I'm trying to do useful things.
 * On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (September 9, 2015), as cited in "Elon Musk’s new idea: Nuke Mars", CNN (September 11, 2015)
 * On the show, Stephen Colbert said he had been trying to decide whether Musk was a superhero or a supervillain, the exchange led him to conclude the latter. University of Colorado atmospheric and ocean sciences professor Brian Toon told the Los Angeles Times: "It seems possible to make it Earthlike, but there's a lot of barriers to overcome [...] Blowing up bombs is not a good one."


 * They [Apple] have hired people we've fired. We always jokingly call Apple the "Tesla Graveyard." If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding. ... cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches. You can't just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: Build me a car. But for Apple, the car is the next logical thing to finally offer a significant innovation. A new pencil or a bigger iPad alone were not relevant enough.
 * September 25, 2015 All Charged Up in Berlin in Handelsblatt


 * AI is much more advanced than people realize. ... Humanity's position on this planet depends on its intelligence so if our intelligence is exceeded, it's unlikely that we will remain in charge of the planet.
 * 25 October 2015 Artificial intelligence: Should we be as terrified as Elon Musk and Bill Gates? in ZDNet

2016

 * SpaceX's got 5,000 people. I get a lot of attention, but they are really doing the work.
 * 8 April 2016 SpaceX Dragon Headed to the ISS at NASA Post-Launch News Conference


 * I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.
 * 8 March 2016


 * The probability of death is quite high on the first [human] mission [to Mars].
 * 27 September 2016 "Elon Musk's Plan To Colonize Mars Gives Us The Sci-Fi Future We Crave: Now let's see if he can make it reality." Popular Science magazine


 * It would be an incredible adventure. And life needs to be more than just solving every day problems. You need to wake up and be excited about the future
 * On "eyeing" for Mars, IAC 2016 meeting, presentation on sustainable Mars colonization.


 * I can be on my own private island with naked super models, drinking mai tais, but I'm not. I'm in the factory working my ass off, so I don't want to hear about how hard everyone else in the factory works.
 * Quoted in "Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century" (2021) by Tim Higgins

2017

 * People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better, and actually it will, I think, by itself degrade, actually. You look at great civilizations like Ancient Egypt, and they were able to make the pyramids, and they forgot how to do that. And then the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts. They forgot how to do it.
 * 9 May 2017 Career advice from Elon Musk's latest TED interview, in one sentence at 2017 TED conference


 * I think there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multi-planetary in order to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen.
 * 3 October 2017 in DK Smithsonian, Journey: An Illustrated History of Travel, ISBN 978-1-4654-6414-9 (Page 343).


 * Every person in your company is a vector. Your progress is determined by the sum of all vectors.
 * 16 October 2017 in LinkedIn: What Elon Musk Taught Me About Growing A Business


 * Rocket tech applied to a car opens up revolutionary possibilities.
 * 19 November 2017 tweet


 * I love Twitter. How much is it?
 * 22 December 2017 tweet & tweet

2018

 * Holy flying fuck, that thing took off!
 * 12 February 2018 reaction to Falcon Heavy Launch


 * I don’t get the little ship thing. You can’t show up at Mars in something the size of a rowboat. What if there are Martians? It would be so embarrassing.
 * 19 February 2018


 * Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves. Only people in sight were the Thai navy/army guys, who were great. Thai navy seals escorted us in — total opposite of wanting us to leave. Water level was actually very low & still (not flowing) — you could literally have swum to Cave 5 with no gear, which is obv how the kids got in. If not true, then I challenge this dude to show final rescue video. You know what, don’t bother showing the video. We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.
 * 15 July 2018 referring to British diver Vern Unsworth, who participated in the Tham Luang cave rescue. As quoted in Elon Musk calls British diver who helped rescue Thai schoolboys 'pedo guy' in Twitter outburst by Eleanor Busby, .


 * I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you fucking asshole. He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time. As for this alleged threat of a lawsuit, which magically appeared when I raised the issue (nothing was sent or raised beforehand), I fucking hope he sues me.
 * 30 August 2018 e-mail to Ryan Mac of BuzzFeed with follow-up commentary about Unsworth, per 4 September 2018 article
 * this tweet from Ryan Mac has Mac claim "I did not agree to go off the record, and he never asked." however the screenshot of the e-mail shows that Musk precedes this private e-mail to him with "Off the record"


 * Off the record. We haven't had a conversation at all. I sent you an off the record email, which very clearly and unambiguously said "off the record". If you want to publish off the record comments and destroy your journalistic credibility, that's up to you. As for answering more questons, I would be happy to do so, but not with someone who just told me that they will not honor accepted rules of journalism.
 * 4 September 2018 retort to Ryan Mac


 * People tend to think like, 'Why should electric vehicles have a subsidy,' but they're not taking into account that all fossil fuel-burning vehicles fundamentally are subsidized by the cost—the environmental cost—to Earth, but nobody's paying for it... We are going to pay for it, obviously—in the future we'll pay for it. It's just not paid for now.
 * 6 September 2018 interview with Joe Rogan


 * if you assume any rate of improvement at all, then games will be indistinguishable from reality we could be in base reality this is just about probability there are many, many simulations you might as well call them reality, or multiverse they're running on the substrate ... that substrate is probably boring
 * 7 September 2018 discussing simulation theory on #1169 of Joe Rogan Experience


 * Guardian is the most insufferable newspaper on planet Earth.
 * 7 September 2018 e-mail to Guardian, possibly repeated later on a Joe Rogan podcast


 * I don't think most people, even in the aerospace industry, like, know what question to ask. Like it took us a long time to even frame the question correctly. But once we could frame the question correctly, the answer was, I wouldn't say easy, but, the answer flowed once the question could be framed with precision. Framing that question with precision was very difficult.
 * 17 September 2018 regarding the BFR, during announcement of first private passenger on lunar mission


 * im actually cat girl here’s selfie rn
 * 25 October 2018 tweet


 * [Artificial intelligence] is just digital intelligence. And as the algorithms and the hardware improve, that digital intelligence will exceed biological intelligence by a substantial margin. It's obvious. Ensuring that the advent of AI is good, or at least we try to make it good, seems like a smart move. We're not paying attention. We worry more about what name somebody called someone else, than whether AI will destroy humanity. That's insane.  We're like children in a playground. ... The way in which a regulation is put in place is slow and linear.  If you have a linear response to an exponential threat, it's quite likely the exponential threat will win.  That, in a nutshell, is the issue. .. Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than earth. Really, the ad for going to Mars would be like Shackleton’s ad for going to the Antarctic: "It’s gonna be hard. There’s a good chance of death, going in a little can through deep space.  You might land successfully.  Once you land successfully, you’ll be working nonstop to build the base. So, you know, not much time for leisure. And even after doing all this, it’s a very harsh environment, so there’s a good chance you die there. We think you can come back, but we’re not sure." Now, does that sound like an escape hatch for rich people? .. No one should put this many hours into work.  This is not good.  People should not work this hard.  They should not do this.  This is very painful.  ...it hurts my brain and my heart.  ... This is not recommended for anyone.  ...  I just did it because if I didn't do it, then there was a good chance Tesla would die. .. I believe there’s some explanation for this universe, which you might call God.
 * 25 November 2018 Axios, season 1, episode 4

2019

 * The fundamental message that consumers should be taking today is that it's financially insane to buy anything other than a Tesla. It would be like owning a horse in three years. I mean, fine if you want to own a horse. But you should go into it with that expectation. If you buy a car that does not have the hardware for full self-driving, it is like buying a horse.  And the only car that has the hardware for full self-driving is a Tesla.
 * 22 April 2019 during the Tesla Autonomy Investor Day, at Tesla Headquarters in Palo Alto, CA


 * It’s so insane the way rockets work today. It would be like if you got a plane and the way you get to your destination is you bail out with a parachute over the city in question and your plane crash lands somewhere. That’s how rockets work today—with the exception of Falcon 9. This is completely bonkers. ..If it were to take longer to convince NASA and the authorities that we can do it versus just doing it, then [SpaceX] might just do it [ourselves]. It may literally be easier to just land Starship on the moon than try to convince NASA that we can.
 * 12 July 2019 in Time magazine article


 * Nuke Mars!
 * T-shirt soon.
 * Tweets (August 15, 2019), as cited in "Elon Musk Floats 'Nuke Mars' Idea Again (He Has T-Shirts)", Space.com (August 17, 2019)


 * Nuke Mars refers to a continuous stream of very low fallout nuclear fusion explosions above the atmosphere to create artificial suns. Much like our sun, this would not cause Mars to become radioactive.
 * Not risky imo & can be adjusted/improved real-time. Essentially need to figure out most effective way to convert mass to energy, as Mars is slightly too far from this solar system's fusion reactor (the sun).
 * Tweets (August 20, 2019), as cited in "Nuke Mars? Elon Musk seems serious about plan to terraform the red planet", NBC News (August 22, 2019, reprinted from Space.com)

"Starship Update" talk at the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas on September 28, 2019

 * According to the geological records, earth has been around for around 4.5 billion years, although it was mostly molten magma for about half a billion years... The sun is gradually getting hotter and bigger, and over time, even in the absence of global warming — the man-made stuff — the sun will expand and it will overheat the earth.  My guess is probably... there is only several hundred million years left....  Basically, if it took an extra 10% longer for conscious life to evolve on earth, it wouldn't evolve at all, because it would have been incinerated by the sun. ... It appears that consciousness is a very rare and precious thing, and we should take whatever steps we can to preserve the light of consciousness, and the window has been open; only now after four and a half billion years is that window open, that's a long time to wait ... I'm pretty optimistic by nature, but there's some chance that window will not be open for long, I think we should become a multi-planet civilization while that window is open, and if we do the I think probable outcome for Earth is even better, because then you know Mars could help Earth one day. And so I think we should really do our very best to become a multi-planet species and to extend consciousness beyond Earth, and we should do it now. Thank you.
 * https://youtube.com/watch?v=sOpMrVnjYeY&t=2303


 * I have this mantra. It's called, "If a schedule is long, it's wrong.  If it's tight, it's right."  And I've just, basically just go recursive improvement on schedule, with feedback loop.  "Did this make it go faster? OK.  If it didn't, we're going to need to fix it."  If the design takes a long time to build, it's the wrong design.  This is the fundamental thing.  Over and over, the tendency is to complicate things.  And I have another thing which is, the best part is no part.  The best process is no process.  It weighs nothing, costs nothing, can't go wrong.  So, as obvious as that sounds, the best part is no part.  The thing I'm most impressed with, when I have the design meetings at SpaceX, is "What did you undesign?"  Undesigning is the best thing.  Just delete it.  That's the best thing.
 * During Q&A at the "Starship Update" presentation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOpMrVnjYeY&t=4807

2020

 * If somebody wants to stay in their house, that’s great. They should be allowed to stay in their house, and they should not be compelled to leave. But to say that they cannot leave their house, and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist. This is not democratic. This is not freedom.
 * 30 April 2020 quote by Susan Walsh, “Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg Aren’t on the Same Page,” New York Times


 * This notion though, that you can just sort of send checks out to everybody and things will be fine is not true, obviously. Some have this absurd view that the economy is like some magic horn of plenty… that just makes stuff. There’s a magic horn of plenty, and the goods and services, they just come from this magic horn of plenty. And then if somebody has more stuff than somebody else, it’s because they took more from this magic horn of plenty. Now let me just break it to the fools out there: If you don’t make stuff, there’s no stuff. If you don’t make the food, if you don’t process the food, if you don’t transport the food, medical treatment, getting your teeth fixed, there’s no stuff. We’ve become detached from reality. You can’t just legislate money and solve these things. If you don’t make stuff, there is no stuff.
 * 7 May 2020 on podcast with Joe Rogan


 * We must pass the great filter!
 * 21 June 2020 tweet and TechFilter


 * We [the United States] will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.
 * 24 July 2020 tweet (archived)


 * The extreme difficulty of scaling production of new technology is not well understood. It’s 1000% to 10,000% harder than making a few prototypes. The machine that makes the machine is vastly harder than the machine itself.
 * 21 September 2020 tweet

2021

 * All designs are wrong, it's just a matter of how wrong.
 * Said while giving tour of Starbase to Tim Dodd (July 30, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw


 * Possibly, the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize something that should not exist.
 * Said while giving tour of Starbase to Tim Dodd (July 30, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw
 * If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it. But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.
 * 31 October 2021 9:50am reply by Elon to 30 October 2021 tweet by Eli David regarding the United Nations' World Food Program, reported 1 November 2021 by RebelNews
 * Eli was responding to a 26 October 2021 in response article by Eoin McSweeney and Adam Pourahmadi of CNN Business. It was originally titled "2% of Elon Musk's wealth could solve world hunger" but the title was amended to "2% of Elon Musk's wealth could help solve world hunger" (adding "help")
 * McSceeney and Pourahmadi are referencing David Beasley's interview on CNN's Connect the World with Becky Anderson


 * What happened here?
 * October 31, 2021 9:55pm reply to David Beasley
 * Musk included in this tweet a link to an 18 December 2015 article by Jonathan Bucks of Express


 * Bernie is a taker, not a maker
 * November 14, 2021 tweet about Bernie Sanders


 * For those wondering, I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year.
 * “Elon Musk Claims He Will Pay More Than $11 Billion In Taxes This Year.” Forbes, Siladitya, (December 20, 2021) tweet on Dec. 19, 2021


 * "I find history fascinating. There's a lot of incredible things that have been done, good and bad, that they help you understand the nature of civilization and individuals."
 * "#252 - Elon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving, Robotics, and AI", on Lex Fridman Podcast, found on DeepCast (28 December 2021)


 * "We need to expand the scope and scale of consciousness so that we're better able to understand the nature of the universe and understand the meaning of life."
 * "#252 - Elon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving, Robotics, and AI", on Lex Fridman Podcast, found on DeepCast (28 December 2021)

2022

 * If you scare people enough, they will demand removal of freedom. This is the path to tyranny.
 * Tweet (January. 27, 2022), as cited in "Musk calls Biden a 'damp sock puppet' and rants about Covid-19 restrictions: 'This is the path to tyranny'" The Independent (London, January 28, 2022)
 * Response to the COVID-19 pandemic.


 * I don't think we should try to have people live for a really long time. That it would cause asphyxiation of society because the truth is, most people don't change their mind. They just die. So if they don't die, we will be stuck with old ideas and society wouldn't advance.
 * "Musk Discusses War in Ukraine and Importance of Nuclear Power", Business Insider (March 26, 2022)


 * I'm talking about not having kids in the first place. That's the problem.
 * Tweet (April 3, 2022), cited in "Is Elon Musk Trying to Populate Mars Himself?" New York magazine (July 7, 2022).
 * The total population of the world is now 8 billion.


 * A good sign as to whether there is free speech is, "Is someone you don't like allowed to say something you don't like?"
 * "Elon Musk talks Twitter, Tesla and how his brain works", TED2022 (April 14, 2022; at 19:39)


 * This is not a way to make money.... I don't care about the economics at all.
 * This is just my strong, intuitive sense ... that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization
 * "Elon Musk launches hostile bid for [[Twitter] claiming free-speech concerns"], CBC (April 14, 2022)

Sorry, but I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change.
 * Do you still have a half billion dollar short position against Tesla?
 * April 22, 2022 reply to Bill Gates per Business Insider article


 * NBC basically saying Republicans are Nazis … Same org that covered up Hunter Biden laptop story, had Harvey Weinstein story early & killed it & built Matt Lauer his rape office. Lovely people.
 * May 2, 2022 tweet


 * Apple's store is like having a 30% tax on the Internet. Definitely not ok. Literally 10 times higher than it should be.
 * Elon Musk Says Apple's 30% App Store Fee is 'Literally 10 Times Higher Than It Should Be' in MacRumors (3 May 2022).


 * A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far. Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis.
 * Tweet (July 7, 2022), as cited in "Elon Musk says he is 'doing his bit to help underpopulation' after fathering twins with executive" The Telegraph (July 7, 2022)
 * Tweet followed the birth of twins taking his reported number of children to 9.


 * Population of Mars is still zero people!
 * Tweet (July 7, 2022), cited in "Is Elon Musk Trying to Populate Mars Himself?" New York magazine (July 7, 2022)


 * Let’s try this then: the will of the people who live in the Donbas & Crimea should decide whether they’re part of Russia or Ukraine
 * October 3, 2022 poll on Twitter - the voting options were 'yes' and 'no'

Russia is doing partial mobilization. They go to full war mobilization if Crimea is at risk. Death on both sides will be devastating. Russia has >3 times population of Ukraine, so victory for Ukraine is unlikely in total war. If you care about the people of Ukraine, seek peace.
 * You are assuming that I wish to be popular. I don't care. I do care that millions of people may die needlessly for an essentially identical outcome.
 * October 3, 2022 tweet


 * I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world.
 * (October 3, 2022; 7:47pm) tweet


 * I play the fool on Twitter and often shoot myself in the foot and cause myself all sorts of trouble . . . I don't know, I find it vaguely therapeutic to express myself on Twitter. It's a way to get messages out to the public.
 * Something will happen to Earth eventually, it’s just a question of time. Eventually the sun will expand and destroy all life on Earth, so we do need to move at some point, or at least be a multi-planet species. [...] You have to ask the question: do we want to be a space-flying civilisation and a multi-planet species or not? [...] It's a question of what percentage of resources should we devote to such an endeavour? I think if you say 1 per cent of resources, that's probably a reasonable amount.
 * I'm subject to literally a million laws and regulations and I obey almost 99.99 per cent of them. It's only when I think the law is contrary to the interest of the people that I have an issue.
 * Interview comments cited in the "Elon Musk: 'Aren’t you entertained?'", Financial Times (October 7, 2022)
 * Predicted dangerous changes in the Sun, as opposed to climate change caused by humans, are not considered likely to happen for 1 to 1.5 billion years.


 * I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space.
 * Tweet (October 11, 2022), as cited in "Elon Musk denies report he spoke to Putin about use of nuclear weapons", The Guardian (October 11, 2022)
 * It had been claimed Musk had spoken to Putin recently about Musk's peace plan which would have meant Ukraine accepting neutrality and Crimea being part of Russia, also stated objectives of the Russian government.


 * I see a path for Tesla to be worth more than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined.
 * Elon Musk again claims one day Tesla will get bigger than Apple is today in AppleInsider (20 October 2022).


 * The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right-wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society... That is why I bought Twitter. I didn't do it because it would be easy. I didn't do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love ... That said, Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences!
 * October 27, 2022 tweet


 * There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,
 * 29 October 2022 response to Hilary Clinton regarding the Paul Pelosi attack, attested to October 30th by Axios, Elon linked to this October 29th story by the Santa Monica Observer. Elon deleted the tweet later that day, after news coverage like Rachel Sharp of The Independent, and apologized on January 28, 2023, after video of the incident was released to the public. tweet


 * Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.
 * tweet viaTwitter (November 4, 2022)


 * We do
 * November 7, 2022 tweet in response to Tom Fitton saying "I wonder if @ElonMusk's @Twitter has tortious interference claims against the Left activist groups which are causing damaging advertiser boycotts of the platform?"


 * To independent-minded voters: Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic.
 * November 7, 2022 tweet


 * And lead us not into temptation …
 * November 20, 2022 tweet accompanying an image of a praying man captioned Donald Trump ignoring a woman censored by a Twitter logo


 * I wonder what Earth will be like 88 million years from now
 * November 26, 2022 tweet


 * So city of SF attacks companies providing beds for tired employees instead of making sure kids are safe from fentanyl. Where are your priorities
 * December 7, 2022 quoted in San Francisco investigating allegation that Twitter converted office space to bedrooms for workers by Noah Goldberg


 * The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened.
 * December 8, 2022 "Wikipedia Founder Indirectly Tells Elon Musk the Site 'Is Not for Sale'" by Nikki Main


 * Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone. As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo.
 * December 11, 2022 tweet


 * Is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true? So far they’ve all turned out to be true — if not more true than people thought.
 * “All-In” podcast, theme of show, “all things” with Chamath Palihapitiva, co-host (December 27, 2022)

2023
Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist.
 * The media is racist. For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they're racist against whites & Asians.
 * February 26, 2023 tweet about comments by cartoonist Scott Adams (26 February 2023), cited in article BBC News (February 27, 2023)


 * Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet.
 * March 8, 2023 tweet


 * Best way to fight misinformation is to respond with accurate information, not censorship
 * March 16, 2023 tweet


 * Blooper reel must be amazing.
 * March 26, 2023 tweet referencing King Kong


 * Any parent or doctor who sterilizes a child before they are a consenting adult should go to prison for life
 * April 14, 2023 tweet


 * Now you can still satisfy the limbic instinct but not procreate. So we haven't yet evolved to deal with that because this is all fairly recent in the last 50 years or so before birth control.
 * I'm sort of worried that hey, civilization, if we don't make enough people to at least sustain our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization's going to crumble.
 * On Tucker Carlson Tonight (April 18, 2023), cited in "Elon Musk and "Tucker Carlson Tonight": A distracting match made in misinformation paradise" Salon (April 19, 2023)


 * You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.
 * Tweet (15 May 2023), as cited in "Elon Musk claims George Soros 'hates humanity.' The ADL says Musk's attacks 'will embolden extremists'" CNN (May 16, 2023)
 * In an earlier tweet, Musk had compared George Soros, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, to X-Men criminal Magneto, a Marvel comic book survivor of the Holocaust.


 * I'll say what I want to say, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it.
 * Interview on CNBC (May 16, 2023) as cited in "Elon Musk misquoted 'The Princess Bride' when asked why he keeps tweeting political opinions and antisemitic conspiracy theories: 'If we lose money, so be it'" Insider (17 May 2023)
 * In response to criticism over his tweets about George Soros


 * If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit.
 * https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1688022163574439937


 * I support Russell Brand. That man is not evil.
 * [the media] don’t like the competition.
 * Tweets/posts on 'X', as cited in "The backers of Russell Brand claim ‘agenda’ lies behind allegations", The Times (London, September 18, 2023)


 * History is written by the victors. Well, yes, but not if your enemies are still alive and have a lot of time on their hands to edit Wikipedia.
 * Tweets/posts on 'X', as cited in (September 19, 2023)


 * Instead of knowledge, schools pour poison into the ears of our children
 * 


 * It is not clear who has authority for ground links in Gaza, but do we know that no terminal has requested a connection in that area
 * Musk says Starlink will support connectivity to aid organizations in Gaza (28 October, 2023)


 * We will have something that is, for the first time smarter than the smartest human. It's hard to say exactly what that moment is, but there will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you wanted to have a job for personal satisfaction. But the AI would be able to do everything. I don't know if that makes people comfortable or uncomfortable. If you wish for a magic genie, that gives you any wish you want, and there's no limit. You don't have those three wish limits nonsense, it's both good and bad. One of the challenges in the future will be how do we find meaning in life.
 * Elon Musk says AI will eventually create a situation where 'no job is needed' (November 2, 2023)


 * You can have a job if you want to have it for personal pleasure. But AI could do everything.
 * Bill Gates teases the possibility of a 3-day work week where ‘machines can make all the food and stuff’ (November 23, 2023)


 * What this advertising boycott is going to do is, it is going to kill the company [...] And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company
 * Don't advertise. If someone is going to try and blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself [...] Go fuck yourself, is that clear? Hey Bob, if you're in the audience. That's how I feel, don't advertise.
 * From an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times Dealbook Summit (29 November 2023), as cited in "Elon Musk to Advertisers Who Left X: 'Go F*** Yourself'", The Hollywood Reporter (29 November 2023)
 * At the same event, earlier in the day, Disney CEO Bob Iger had explained his reasons for ceasing to advertise on X (formerly known as Twitter).

2024

 * Just don't invade Russia. It's never a good idea.
 * January 4, 2024 Musk warns against invading Russia, The Press United.

Civilization is rare. We should do everything possible to save it.
 * SpaceX has roughly 6000 satellites and not once have we had to maneuver around a UFO.
 * 


 * I would urge parents to limit the amount of social media that children can see because they're being programmed by a dopamine-maximizing AI.
 * 

If a former President can be criminally convicted over such a trivial matter – motivated by politics, rather than justice – then anyone is at risk of a similar fate.
 * Great damage was done today to the public’s faith in the American legal system.
 * 


 * DEI kills art.
 * 
 * The CEO of an aircraft company should know how to design aircraft, not spreadsheets.
 * 

Quotes about Musk

 * In alphabetical order by author or source.


 * [the DSA] sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation [and that X needs] to be very transparent and clear on what content is permitted under your terms and consistently and diligently enforce your own policies.
 * Thierry Breton Europe gives Elon Musk 24 hours to respond about Israel-Hamas war misinformation and violence on X, formerly Twitter (OCTOBER 11, 2023)


 * What happened next was extraordinary. Almost immediately, a number of notorious antisemitic accounts posted under the hashtag #BanTheADL. Musk boosted the campaign by liking a post by a far-right activist that called for banning the A.D.L. and then started his own campaign against the organization. In a series of posts on X, he blamed it for most of X's loss in advertising revenue, called the A.D.L. the biggest generator of antisemitism on X, proposed a poll on booting the A.D.L. from the platform and then threatened to sue the A.D.L. for defamation.
 * Musk isn’t promoting liberty; he’s using his power to privilege many of the worst voices in American life.
 * David French "Elon Musk’s Antisemitism Problem Isn’t About Free Speech", The New York Times (10 September 2023)


 * It's ironic that Elon Musk, the man who has been talking about getting us to Mars should be Putin's messenger for the war in Ukraine, when we're having a really hard time getting our act together on this planet.
 * Fiona Hill "Fiona Hill: 'Elon Musk Is Transmitting a Message for Putin'", Politico (October 17, 2022).


 * In October, David Beasley, head of the U.N. food agency, tweeted a cheeky congratulations to Musk for reportedly earning $36 billion in a single day. "1/6 of your one-day increase would save 42 million lives that are knocking on famine's door," he wrote... Musk tweeted: "If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it." ...Beasley quickly clarified that his earlier tweet referred to feeding "people on the brink of starvation" and not solving world hunger, he invited Musk to meet "anywhere—Earth or space" to discuss the potential donation.
 * [S]ince Musk and Beasley first started their Twitter conversation, the total number of people at risk of famine has risen to 45 million... In response to Musk's request for details, Beasley tweeted him the math: "$.43 x 42,000,000 x 365 days = $6.6 billion." That's how much it would cost to provide one meal a day for one year to this population in need...The food aid, says WFP, consists of commodities such as rice, maize and high-energy biscuits. Elon Musk asked Twitter followers if he should sell Tesla shares. They said yes.
 * Joanne Lu "How $6 billion from Elon Musk could feed millions on the brink of famine", NPR (November 11, 2021)


 * Russia's slant on the world appears to have penetrated Musk's mind and he is by far Bellingcat's most famous detractor. Bellingcat's Twitter account has periodically disappeared from site searches and Musk himself often retweets conspiracy theories about the group.
 * [Comments from Christo Grozev of Bellingcat cited by Luce] "Musk is extremely influential. He has a cult following and he's purveying falsehoods. Because of his image among his followers as someone who knows the truth that others can’t see, he is more dangerous than a Trump."
 * Edward Luce "Bellingcat's Christo Grozev: 'Prigozhin will either be dead or there will be a second coup'", Financial Times (11 August 2023)


 * Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan.
 * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Tweets quoted here (Novemeber 2022)


 * [Sarcastic] lots of luck on his trip to the moon.
 * Biden