30 Best Elon Musk Quotes
Elon Musk, born in Pretoria, South Africa, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time. Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He became interested in computers at an early age. When he was 12 years old he created a video game and sold it to a computer magazine.
In 1988 Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through mandatory military service and because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the United States.
Musk has achieved global fame as the chief executive officer (CEO) of electric automobile maker Tesla (TSLA) and the private space company SpaceX. Musk was an early investor in several tech companies, and in October 2022, he completed a deal to take X (formerly Twitter) private.
Best Elon Musk Quotes
- “I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.”
- “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.”
- “Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.”
- “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
- “The path to the CEO’s office should not be through the CFO’s office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.”
- “Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.”
- “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.”
- “There’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering.”
- “It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.”
- “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.”
- “I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “I say something, and then it usually happens. Maybe not on schedule, but it usually happens.”
- “I do think there is a lot of potential if you have a compelling product and people are willing to pay a premium for that. I think that is what Apple has shown. You can buy a much cheaper cell phone or laptop, but Apple’s product is so much better than the alternative, and people are willing to pay that premium.”
- “I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time-solving engineering and manufacturing problems.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.”
- “I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that ‘it’s all about the process,’ I see that as a bad sign. 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.”
- “Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive, and determination of the people behind it as the product they sell.”
- “The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.”
- “I think most of the important stuff on the Internet has been built. There will be continued innovation, for sure, but the great problems of the Internet have essentially been solved.”
- “I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.”
- “I’ve actually not read any books on time management.”
- “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?’”
- “Really pay attention to negative feedback and solicit it, particularly from friends. … Hardly anyone does that, and it’s incredibly helpful.”
- “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.”
