Elon Musk is known as the real word Iron Man. That’s a pretty badass comparison if you ask me. It’s not without merit though.
“My mind is not easily blown, but this place and this guy were amazing,” – Robert Downey Jr said after meeting Musk at SpaceX, before his role as Iron Man.
He’s the creator of three marvelous companies: the first made payments on the internet easy, the second is revolutionizing the space industry and the third made electric cars sexy. I’m talking about Paypal, SpaceX and Tesla.
Here are 33 exciting and inspiring Elon Musk quotes to blow your mind.
1. “If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.” – Elon Musk
2. “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.” – Elon Musk
3. “Don’t be afraid of new arenas.” – Elon Musk
4. “There’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering.” – Elon Musk
5. “It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.” – Elon Musk
6. “(Physics is) a good framework for thinking. … Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.” – Elon Musk
7. “The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.” – Elon Musk
8. “I’ve thought about it quite a lot … We could definitely make a flying car – but that’s not the hard part … The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.” – Elon Musk
9. “My biggest mistake is probably weighing too much on someone’s talent and not someone’s personality. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.” – Elon Musk
10. “I wouldn’t say I have a lack of fear. In fact, I’d like my fear emotion to be less because it’s very distracting and fries my nervous system.” – Elon Musk
11. “Life is too short for long-term grudges.” – Elon Musk
12. “I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.” – Elon Musk
13. “Being an Entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.” – Elon Musk
14. “You have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.” – Elon Musk
15. “Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive, and determination of the people behind it as the product they sell.” – Elon Musk
16. “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
17. “Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.” – Elon Musk
18. “If you’re co-founder or CEO, you have to do all kinds of tasks you might not want to do… If you don’t do your chores, the company won’t succeed… No task is too menial.” – Elon Musk
19. “Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80- to 100-hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour workweeks and you’re putting in 100 hour workweeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing, you know that you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve.” – Elon Musk
20. “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
21. “Really pay attention to negative feedback and solicit it, particularly from friends. … Hardly anyone does that, and it’s incredibly helpful.” – Elon Musk
22. “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
23. “I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.” – Elon Musk
24. “There’s a fundamental difference, if you look into the future, between a humanity that is a space-faring civilization, that’s out there exploring the stars … compared with one where we are forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event.” – Elon Musk
25. “It taught me that the tough thing is figuring out what questions to ask, but that once you do that, the rest is really easy.” On his favorite book when younger “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” – Elon Musk
26. “I did reasonably well from PayPal. I was the largest shareholder in the company and we were acquired for about a billion and a half in stock and then the stock doubled…. So yeah, I did reasonably well, but 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 super-duper bored. I like high intensity.” – Elon Musk
27. “Going from PayPal, I thought well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity? Not from the perspective, ‘what’s the best way to make money,’ which is okay, but, it was really ‘what do I think is going to most affect the future of humanity.'” – Elon Musk
28. “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 that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.” – Elon Musk
29. “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
Here’s a few quotes from the epic Elon Musk biography: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
“We’re all hanging out in this cabana at the Hard Rock Cafe, and Elon is there reading some obscure Soviet rocket manual that was all moldy and looked like it had been bought on eBay.” – Kevin Hartz
30. “If the rules are such that you can’t make progress, then you have to fight the rules.” – Elon Musk
“He’s kind of homeless, which I think is sort of funny. He’ll e-mail and say, ‘I don’t know where to stay tonight. Can I come over?’ I haven’t given him a key or anything yet.” – Larry Page
“Elon said ‘I will spend my last dollar on these companies. If we have to move into Justine’s parents’ basement, we’ll do it.’ ” – Antonio Gracias
“He seems to feel for the human species as a whole without always wanting to consider the wants and needs of individuals.” – Ashlee Vance
“Money is not his motivation, and, quite frankly, I think it just happens for him” – Justine
31. “My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.” – Elon Musk
32. “That’s my lesson for taking a vacation: vacation will kill you.” – Elon Musk
“He goes into his brain, and then you just see he is in another world. He still does that. Now I just leave him be because I know he is designing a new rocket or something.” – Elon Musk’s mother
“I wanted him to meet me behind security so he couldn’t pack a gun.” — Jim Cantrell, describing his first meeting with Elon Musk in an airport.
“I would tell those people they will get to see their families a lot when we go bankrupt.” – Ryan Popple recalling Musk handling employees who complained about working too hard. This was in the early days of the Tesla, working on the Roadster.
33. “My family fears that the Russians will assassinate me.” — Elon Musk
“We all worked 20 hours a day, and he worked 23 hours.” — Julie Ankenbrandt on working at Elon’s X.com(later Paypal)
Elon Musk Book
Check out the epic Elon Musk biography.
What is your favorite Elon Musk quotes? Share in the comments below!
(This article contains affiliate links)
Leave a Reply