Elon Musk is a modern-day visionary, taking ideas that many people would consider impossible and turning them into reality. Through years of hard work, dedication, and out-of-the-box thinking he’s turned seemingly scientific myths into practical applications.
Elon Musk hasn’t slowed down with SpaceX or Tesla Motors either; his quotes are still inspiring millions to take on more daring feats in the pursuit of progress. Below you’ll find 43 of Elon Musk’s best quotes over the years that will surely motivate you to reach for (almost) anything!
I hope you enjoy these quotes by Elon Musk…
1) “Physics is a good framework for thinking. Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.”
2) “Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.”
3) “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.”
4) “Constantly seek criticism. A well-thought-out critique of whatever you’re doing is as valuable as gold.”
5) “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.”
6) “Every 5000th buyer of our boringly boring hat will get a free hat signed by the delivery guy.”
7) “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
8) “The first step is to establish that something is possible; then – probability will occur.”
9) “For me it was never about money, but solving problems for the future of humanity.”
Elon Musk Quotes about Success and Hard Work
10) “You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve.”
11) “You have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.”
12) “I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future.”
13) “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.”
14) “If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if – the probable outcome is failure.”
15) “It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree – make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
16) “Life is too short for long-term grudges.”
17) “My proceeds from the PayPal acquisition were $180 million. I put $100 million in SpaceX, $70m in Tesla, and $10m in Solar City. I had to borrow money for rent.”
18) “If you need inspiration, don’t do it.”
19) “No, I don’t ever give up. I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated.”
Elon Musk Quotes about the Future
20) “I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.”
21) “It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.”
22) “One word: Doge.”
23) “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.”
24) “Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.”
25) “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.”
26) “Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.”
27) “I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.”
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.”
29) “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.”
Quotes on the social ramifications of social media…
30) “I think there should be regulations on social media to the degree that it negatively affects the public good.”
31) “Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.”
32) “Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive, and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell.”
33) “You should take the approach that you’re wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong.”
34) “The key test for an acronym is to ask whether it helps or hurts communication.”
35) “There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.”
36) “I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.”
37) “To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That’s what got me into software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy a better computer to play better video games. Nothing like saving the world.”
38) “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. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”
39) “What makes innovative thinking happen? I think it’s really a mindset. You have to decide.”
An important reminder to reach for your dreams and don’t give up!
40) “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”
41) “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like, yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon. Didn’t work out.”
42) “I think it would be great to be born on Earth and die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact.”
43) “You could power the entire United States with about 150 to 200 square kilometers of solar panels, the entire United States. Take a corner of Utah…there’s not much going on there, I’ve been there. There’s not even radio stations.”
Please share these quotes by Elon Musk with your friends and family.
