Quotes where Elon Musk self-reflects can be difficult to come across. That's why we compiled this short list of quotes where Elon talks about himself.
Feel free to let us know in the comments what your favorite quote is. Enjoy!
I also read a lot of comic books as I was growing up, and I think that might have influenced me just as much. I mean, they’re always trying to save the world, with their underpants on the outside or these skin-tight iron suits, which is really pretty strange when you think about it. But they are trying to save the world."
"When I was in college I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. Now I am.”
"The five things I thought about in college… making life multi-planetary, accelerating the transition to sustainable energy, the internet broadly speaking, and then genetics & AI. I didn’t expect to be involved in all of those things." (Sep, 2016 | Source)
"At the time in college I sort of thought helping with electrification of cars was how I would start out. And that’s actually what I worked on as an intern, was advanced ultra-capacitors, to see if there would be a breakthrough relative to batteries or energy storage in cars." (Sep, 2016 | Source)
"You can get a doctorate on many things that ultimately do not have a practical bearing on the world. And I was really just trying to be useful [while in University]. That’s the optimization. It was like, what could I do that would actually be useful." (Sep, 2016 | Source)
"I think a lot of people think I must spend a lot of time with media or on businessy things, but almost all my time, like 80% of it, is spent on engineering & design. So it’s developing next generation product, that’s 80% of it." (Sep, 2016 | Source)
"I think a lot of people think I’m kind of a business person or something, which is fine. Business is fine. But really, like at SpaceX Gwynne Shotwell is Chief Operating Officer and she manages legal, finance, sales, and general business activity. And my time is almost entirely with the engineering team working on improving the Falcon 9, and our dragon spacecraft, and developing the Mars colonial architecture." (Sep, 2016 | Source)
"[As a kid] when I asked for an explanation, I got the true explanation of how things work."
"I usually describe myself as an engineer. That’s basically what I’ve been doing since I was a kid."
"Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy taught me that the tough thing is figuring out what questions to ask"
"I have OCD on product-related issues. I only see what's wrong. I never see what's right."
"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."
"No, I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated."
"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 think I feel fear quite strongly. It’s not as though I have the absence of fear, I feel it quite strongly. But there are times when something is important enough and you believe in it enough that you do it in spite of fear." (Sep, 2016 | Source)
"I'd like my fear emotion to be less because it's very distracting and fries my nervous system."
"I've actually not read any books on time management."
"There are certain problems that I care about, and those are the things that I invest in to help solve."
"I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.”
Cover photo from Thomas Hawk