For all the supporters of Tesla over the years, and it’s been several years now and there have been some very tough times, I’d just like to say thank you very much. I deeply appreciate the support, particularly through the darkest times.
As you heat the planet up, it’s just like boiling a pot.
I think long term you can see Tesla establishing factories in Europe, in other parts of the U.S. and in Asia.
I do love email. Wherever possible I try to communicate asynchronously. I’m really good at email.
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.
Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.
I usually describe myself as an engineer; that’s basically what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.
I’m anti-tax, but I’m pro-carbon tax.
Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It’s really counterintuitive.
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.
I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.
Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence.
The goal of Tesla is to accelerate sustainable energy, so we’re going to take a step back and think about what’s most likely to achieve that goal.
Selling an electric sports car creates an opportunity to fundamentally change the way America drives.
The X is an amazing car, but we kind of got carried away with the art and technology. Obviously, you want great art. You want great technology. But we did get a little distracted from our mission, which was to advance the cause of electric vehicles. And it probably delayed us a little bit with the Model 3 as well.
It is true that SpaceX is partially a government contractor, but it would be unfair to say that SpaceX is entirely a government contractor.
If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if – the probable outcome is failure.
Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars.
I’ve actually not read any books on time management.
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.
So we originally expected to make about 35 gigawatt hours at the cell level and about 50 gigawatt hours at the module or pack level. Now we are expecting to do about 150 gigawatt hours in the same volumetric space as the original design.
We are the first species capable of self-annihilation.
If you had to buy a new plane every time you flew somewhere, it would be incredibly expensive.
I wish we could be private with Tesla. It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company.
I will never be happy without having someone. Going to sleep alone kills me.
I’m glad to see that BMW is bringing an electric car to market. That’s cool.
Life is too short for long-term grudges.
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.
Stationary storage will be as big as the car business long term. The growth rate will probably be several times what it is for the car business.
Starting a business is not for everyone. Starting a business – I’d say, number one is have a high pain threshold.
My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars – this is very important – so you don’t have to carry the return fuel when you go there.
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.
What most people know but don’t realize they know is that the world is almost entirely solar-powered already. If the sun wasn’t there, we’d be a frozen ice ball at three degrees Kelvin, and the sun powers the entire system of precipitation. The whole ecosystem is solar-powered.
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.
I think whenever something is – whenever there’s something that affects the public good, then there does need to be some form of public oversight.
I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.
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.
With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, and he’s like, yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out.
Obviously Tesla is about helping solve the consumption of energy in a sustainable manner, but you need the production of energy in a sustainable manner.
Mars is the only place in the solar system where it’s possible for life to become multi-planetarian.
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.
Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.
We polled Tesla owners, do you want autopilot disabled or not. Not one person wanted it disabled. That’s pretty telling.
SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.
I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.
I’m trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.
I’ve actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid, I mean fully electric.
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.
I was born in Africa. I came to California because it’s really where new technologies can be brought to fruition, and I don’t see a viable competitor.
Nobody wants to buy a $60,000 electric Civic. But people will pay $90,000 for an electric sports car.
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it’s always expensive.
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.
I do think there should be some regulations on AI.
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.
The rumours of the demise of the U.S. manufacturing industry are greatly exaggerated.
The U.S. automotive industry has been selling cars the same way for over 100 years, and there are many laws in place to govern exactly how that is to be accomplished.
I’m personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I’m not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.
It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.
I hate writing about personal stuff. I don’t have a Facebook page. I don’t use my Twitter account. I am familiar with both, but I don’t use them.
If anyone has a vested interest in space solar power, it would have to be me.
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.
Biofuels such as ethanol require enormous amounts of cropland and end up displacing either food crops or natural wilderness, neither of which is good.
I think the high-tech industry is used to developing new things very quickly. It’s the Silicon Valley way of doing business: You either move very quickly and you work hard to improve your product technology, or you get destroyed by some other company.
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