Elon Musk Quotes

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 work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.

Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

People should pursue what they're passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.

I'm extremely confident that solar will be at least a plurality of power, and most likely a majority... in less than 20 years.

Optimism, pessimism, f**k that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.

Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of what you're doing is as valuable as gold

Focus on something that has high value to someone else, be really rigorous in making that assessment, because natural human tendency is wishful thinking, so the challenge to entrepreneurs is telling what's the difference between really believing in your ideals and sticking to them as opposed to pursuing some unrealistic dream that doesn't actually have merit, be very rigorous in your self analysis, certainly being extremely tenacious, and just work like hell. Put in 80-100 hours every week. All these things improves the odds of success

I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

Mars is the only place in the solar system where it's possible for life to become multi-planetarian.

My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

Most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. They sell themselves short without trying.

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.

Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

When you struggle with a problem, that's when you understand it.

Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.

Many things are improbable, only a few are impossible.

For me it was never about money, but solving problems for the future of humanity.

Talent is extremely important. It's like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win, but then there’s a multiplier from how those players work together and the strategy they employ.

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.

The biggest mistake, in general, I've made, is to put too much of a weighting on someone's talent and not enough on their personality. And I've made that mistake several times. I think it actually matters whether somebody has a good heart, it really does. I've made the mistake of thinking that it's sometimes just about the brain.

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

Engineering is the closest thing to magic that exists in the world.

The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.

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.

I think you should always be seeking negative feedback.

My motivation for all my companies has been to be involved in something that I thought would have a significant impact on the world.

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.

If something's important enough, you should try. Even if you - the probable outcome is failure.

The key test for an acronym is to ask whether it helps or hurts communication.

I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.

I'm glad to see that BMW is bringing an electric car to market. That's cool.

You shouldn't do things differently just because they're different. They need to be... better.

You have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.

For my part, I will never give up, and I mean never.

When people really understand it's do or die [and] if we work hard and pull through, it's going to be a great outcome; people will give it everything they've got.

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.

Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.

Don’t just follow the trend. You may have heard me say that it’s good to think in terms of the physics approach of first principles. Which is, rather than reasoning by analogy, you boil things down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine and you reason up from there.

I read books and talked to people. I mean that's kind of how one learns anything. There's lots of great books out there & lots of smart people.

Biofuels such as ethanol require enormous amounts of cropland and end up displacing either food crops or natural wilderness, neither of which is good.

That's my lesson for taking a vacation: vacation will kill you.

And we need things in life that are exciting and inspiring. It can't just be about solving some awful problem. There have to be reasons to get up in the morning.

I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.

Great companies are built on great products.

Weighing too much on someone's talent and not someone's personality. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.

I started SpaceX with the expectation of failure.

I think that's an important thing to do, to really pay attention to negative feedback, and solicit it, particularly from friends. This may sound like simple advice, but hardly anyone does that, and it's incredibly helpful.