Let's learn a little bit with these brilliant entrepreneur words. Here are the top Elon Musk quotes.

Elon Musk Quotes

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

No, I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

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

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

There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.

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

Magnate and genius Elon Musk has a lot to teach us. Here we list 101 most famous Elon Musk quotes that can change your perception about business & life.

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Personal Development

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Motivation & Inspiration

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Technology & The Future

101 Elon Musk Quotes That Will Inspire Your Business Success

More than a magnate, an innovator, a <a href="https://totempool.com/blog/strategic-leadership/">leader </a>, and some say out-of-this-world person, Elon Musk has a lot to teach, and this is the reason he has outstanding entrepreneurial life. Here we list 101 of the most famous Elon Musk quotes that may change your perception about business and life.

Elon Musk is one of the greatest innovators and entrepreneurs in the world. Born in 1971 to a Canadian mother and a South African father, he spent his childhood in Pretoria, South Africa, before moving to Canada to attend Queens University before transferring to the University of California two years later.

While at the university, he had a massive passion for software engineering, and that is how he founded x.com, which was bought by eBay and renamed PayPal.

He would later start two companies Space X and Tesla, which have put him on the world map as the richest man in the world, and the first person in history to have a personal fortune of more than 300 billion dollars.

As we see, not only his <a href="https://totempool.com/blog/authoritarian-authoritative-leadership/">leadership skills </a>are to be learned, but also his willingness to innovate and take risks, his capacity to <a href="https://totempool.com/blog/how-to-create-a-startup/">bring ideas to life </a>like a few in the business world, and his <a href="https://totempool.com/blog/personal-marketing/">personal marketing </a>skills that keep him as one of the most admired businesses men in history.

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

Elon Musk had a great passion for computers and entrepreneurship right from childhood. He felt that the internet had greater potential to impact the world and eventually dropped out of Stanford University two days after enrolling for his Ph.D. in energy Physics when he decided to follow his passion. After that, he has achieved huge accomplishments in the entrepreneurial and technological world.

The next quote is one of the most inspiring Elon Musk quotes where he shows resilience and persistence at the edge of his physical conditions.

No, I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

In his Twitter account in May 2018, Elon Musk responded to a follower who wanted to know what would make the Tesla boss give up.

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

It is possible to admire the huge successes accomplished by Elon Musk. Looking beyond these successes, however, shows his persistence and unwillingness to give up. His rejection never brought him down by Netscape not hiring him or PayPal’s rating as the worst business concept of the year, and he rather learned from his mistakes and worked past them to achieve his current successes.

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

There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.

When a user asked him on Twitter about the number of hours a person needs to work each week to "change the world," Musk said around 80 to over 100: "Varies per person, but about 80 sustained, peaking above 100 at times. Pain level increases exponentially above 80." This is one of the most memorable Elon Musk quotes.

The company was bleeding money like crazy, and if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period of time, we would die.

Musk has been known to sometimes sleep at the factory.

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

Elon Musk has invested in a range of projects which have turned out successful. Despite most of his projects' challenges, such as PayPal, he believed in success and went for it. His rejection by several companies did not also deter him from accomplishing his goals.

You must be willing to lose it all, but be willing to keep going into the future.

There's a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering.

At an interview with Wired magazine back in 2012. He talked about the space exploration goals, and he mentioned the “pretty silly things" that happen in the aerospace industry, like using legacy rocket technology from the 1960s.

In most cases, using legacy technology is a way to avoid taking risks.

Failure is a good option. If you are not failing, you are not trying hard enough.

Behind his numerous accomplishments, Elon Musk encountered failure severally before succeeding in the end. Some of his biggest failures include rejection by Netscape, PayPal being voted the worst business concept of the year, and Tesla failing in its initial stages before succeeding. Despite all the failures he encountered, he did not give up but kept trying until he succeeded.

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.

Musk has invested his net worth into his startups since the beginning. He changed his way of doing so after Zip2 and PayPal. After introducing an external venture capital, he has his shared diluted, driven away as a CEO from Zip. Since then, he has been more restrictive in adding external capital.

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.

I messed up the first three launches. The first three launches failed. And fortunately, the fourth launch — which was, that was the last money that we had for Falcon 1 — that fourth launch worked. Or it would have been — that would have been it for SpaceX. But fate liked us that day. So, the fourth launch worked.

Elon Musk remembers failing in the first three launches of Space X. He said during the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) conference in Adelaide, Australia, in 2017.

Entrepreneurship is more like eating glass while staring at the abyss of death.

After Tesla IPO, in his first public appearance, Musk said that one of the worst times of his life happened in December 2008 when he was divorcing when SpaceX’s launch failed, and Tesla’s funding unsucceeded. He reminded the audience that even remarkable entrepreneurs can still struggle, and this is probably one of the most comprehended Elon Musk quotes by entrepreneurs.

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.

Musk himself failed several times. When Zip2 got investors on board, Musk wanted to have the CEO position, but instead, they made him the company’s chief technology officer.

Another example, with Space x, in the attempt to land rockets, he had several failures from January 2015 until April 2016, when he finally had three consecutive successful landings.

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I'm not trying to be anyone's savior. I'm just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

During a <a href="https://blog.ted.com/what-will-the-future-look-like-elon-musk-speaks-at-ted2017/">TED talk interview in 2017 </a>with TED's Head Curator Chris Anderson, Elon Musk talks about his project digging tunnels under LA, the latest from Tesla and SpaceX, and his motivation for building a future on Mars in conversation.

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.

Pay attention to negative feedback, and solicit it, particularly from friends.

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

In an interview with Jim Clash, from the website askman.com, Elon Musk answered the question, “So good advice is to embrace what really interests you?”.

He continued giving an example, embarrassing in his opinion. He likes video games, which got him into software engineering when he was a kid, to make money to buy a better computer to play. Mentioning that this does not contribute to the world, he moved to other engineering works that could contribute.

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What's the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.

Elon Musk has always loved computers and entrepreneurship since childhood. He constantly searched for any opportunities that allowed him to pursue his dreams and build and sell a computer game at 12. Computers and entrepreneurship were his greatest motivators that kept him going regardless of all challenges he faced.

As a child, I hated being alone. As an adult, I don't want to be alone. It makes one really miserable.

In an interview for Rolling Stone with the reporter and bestselling author Neil Strauss, Elon Musk disclosed that he felt miserable and lonely after the breakup with his girlfriend, Amber Heard. His money, fame, and accomplishments did not shield him from the human feeling of loneliness and severe pain after the breakup.

I would tell those people they will get to see their families a lot when we go bankrupt.

A former employee, Ryan Popple, disclosed this quote, remembering Musk's answer to an employee when he complained about working too hard.

During a conversation that Elon Musk had in a keynote on the South By Southwest in 2013, when he shared some moments he spends with his family, Chris Anderson, the interviewer mentions that Musk manages his companies while being a father to five children.

He responds to the audience that everyone should have kids because they are great. However, he mentions he doesn't see his kids enough but can be with them while on e-mail since they don’t need a lot of interaction. This was a sad moment in the interview but showed some perspective of the magnate towards family.

That’s my lesson for taking a vacation. Vacation will kill you.

As a workaholic, Musk confirmed he doesn't take a week off. In 2015 he mentioned, “In the last 12 years, I only tried to take a week off twice”.

He had traumatic experiences with vacation, and perhaps his worst experience happened with his wife Justine on a second honeymoon in December 2000.

They planned a trip to Brazil and South Africa, but while in South Africa, Musk contracted malaria and came very close to dying. After healded, he said this famous quote.

It’s OK to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.

This quote is more learning for new entrepreneurs. We know the key element of investing is diversification, which means spreading your money into various types of investments, companies, industries, and countries. In this quote, Musk implies that, if you can do that, at least control well your only investment.

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

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

In an interview with Y Combinator president Sam Altman, Elon Musk reveals he spends 80% of his time engineering and design.

Musk does not exercise the usual time management methods to maintain his tight schedule, and he doesn’t use a special app to monitor his digital activities. He tends to let it goes with the flow, learning as he works.

When he is asked about <a href="https://totempool.com/blog/productivity-improvement/">productivity improvement </a>, he says this next quote:

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

Whenever there's something that affects the public good, then there does need to be some form of public oversight .

This quote came as an answer to the question from the “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King in April 2018 “Do you think now is the time for regulations in Silicon Valley?".

Musk continues, “I do think there should be some regulations on AI. I think there should be regulations on social media to the degree that it negatively affects the public good".

Besides being a significant project to humanity, artificial intelligence is one of the most dangerous projects in existence. Elon Musk, however, insists that all innovators, including himself, should pay attention to social risk to minimize the dangers of their projects.

In the same conversation, he came with this next quote:

We can't have like willy-nilly proliferation of fake news, that's crazy. You can't have more types of fake news than real news. That's allowing public deception to go unchecked. That's crazy.

I tried hard not to be the CEO at Tesla, but I had to or it would die.

Although he mentions the company won't survive without him, success and going concern are some critical issues that Elon has been vocal about. Musk has mentioned leaving the command of Tesla for years, and in July 2021, he <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-12/elon-musk-tells-court-tesla-s-solarcity-deal-wasn-t-a-bailout?sref=ExbtjcSG">testified in court </a>about the SolarCity deal, and he used the quote above.

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

In his interview with The Daily Beast, he said, “Tesla is obviously a small company, so to have a significant effect on the world, we have to inspire others to create compelling electric cars to the degree that we can help others; create electric cars.”

In this interview, he was talking about the competition with the huge GM and Nissan. He mentioned Tesla inspired the two other companies on electric cars, and his quote is obviously related to this type of competition. If Tesla were not able to change and innovate, the consequence would be a disaster for them,

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.

I don't think it's a good idea to plan to sell a company.

Although Musk really believes that, in November 2021, he had to sell at least $10 billion of stock to pay a huge tax bill due in the summer of the same year.

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.

This quote connects with another quote from Musk:

Don't tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like.

Musk considered in an interview a few years ago the single most important piece of advice for entrepreneurs.

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

101 Elon Musk Quotes That Will Inspire Your Success | Totempool

Elon Musk Quotes

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