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 Communication
Government isn't that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you've got to have commercial companies do it. -Elon Musk Technology
You need to be in the position where it is the cost of the fuel that actually matters and not the cost of building the rocket in the first place. -Elon Musk Business
We're running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere... can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe. -Elon Musk Environmental
I think a lot of the American people feel more than a little disappointed that the high-water mark for human exploration was 1969. The dream of human space travel has almost died for a lot of people. -Elon Musk Space
Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster. -Elon Musk Change
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. -Elon Musk Motivational
Nobody wants to buy a $60,000 electric Civic. But people will pay $90,000 for an electric sports car. -Elon Musk Car
It would take six months to get to Mars if you go there slowly, with optimal energy cost. Then it would take eighteen months for the planets to realign. Then it would take six months to get back, though I can see getting the travel time down to three months pretty quickly if America has the will. -Elon Musk Time
SpaceX is only 12 years old now. Between now and 2040, the company's lifespan will have tripled. If we have linear improvement in technology, as opposed to logarithmic, then we should have a significant base on Mars, perhaps with thousands or tens of thousands of people. -Elon Musk Technology
What I'm trying to do is, is to make a significant difference in space flight. And help make space flight accessible to almost anyone. -Elon Musk Space
If you look at space companies, they've failed either because they've had a technical solution where success was not a possible outcome, they were unable to attract a critical mass of talent, or they just ran out of money. The finish line is usually a lot further away than you think. -Elon Musk Space
I think there are more politicians in favor of electric cars than against. There are still some that are against, and I think the reasoning for that varies depending on the person, but in some cases, they just don't believe in climate change - they think oil will last forever. -Elon Musk Change
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 Business
There are really two things that have to occur in order for a new technology to be affordable to the mass market. One is you need economies of scale. The other is you need to iterate on the design. You need to go through a few versions. -Elon Musk Technology
If anyone thinks they'd rather be in a different part of history, they're probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You'd probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman. -Elon Musk History
It is definitely true that the fundamental enabling technology for electric cars is lithium-ion as a cell chemistry technology. In the absence of that, I don't think it's possible to make an electric car that is competitive with a gasoline car. -Elon Musk Car
It's OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket. -Elon Musk Business
