Quotes from Elon Musk

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

I don't create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.

I think there should be regulations on social media to the degree that it negatively affects the public good.

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

I think we are at the dawn of a new era in commercial space exploration.

If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it's always expensive.

The odds of me coming into the rocket business, not knowing anything about rockets, not having ever built anything, I mean, I would have to be insane if I thought the odds were in my favor.

People often mistake technology for a static picture. It's less like a picture and more like a movie. It's the velocity of technology innovation that matters. It's the acceleration.

Silicon Valley has some of the smartest engineers and technology business people in the world.

The extension of life beyond Earth is the most important thing we can do as a species.

I like the word 'autopilot' more than I like the word 'self-driving.' 'Self-driving' sounds like it's going to do something you don't want it to do. 'Autopilot' is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.

I'd like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that's not just e-mail with a view.

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.

If you want to grow a giant redwood, you need to make sure the seeds are ok, nurture the sapling, and work out what might potentially stop it from growing all the way along. Anything that breaks it at any point stops that growth.

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.

Starting a business is not for everyone. Starting a business - I'd say, number one is have a high pain threshold.

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.

The problem with car dealerships is you've already decided what you want to buy before you even go there, and you're really just going there to talk through some annoying negotiation.

Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket - half a million dollars. It can be done.

You could warm Mars up, over time, with greenhouse gases.

I've actually not read any books on time management.

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.

[Physics is] a good framework for thinking. … Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.