Elon Musk: Whoever you are, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, to Mars, and beyond. (Full Elon Musk remarks at the SpaceX Nasdaq debut.) “It is certainly hard to believe that a little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public with the largest IPO ever. If people had told me this was going to happen, I was like, man, you must be smoking some really good crack because I think this company is going to fail. I gave SpaceX less than a 10% chance of succeeding at all, to be clear. In fact I told people we're probably going to fail, but we should give it a try because if we don't, if there's not a new company that enters space, we will never be a truly space faring civilization. While the other aerospace companies build good rockets and everything, they were simply not pursuing the technology that's necessary to make life multiplanetary, to make Star Trek and the exciting science fiction futures that we've read about real. And that's what SpaceX is all about, is to take the fiction out of science fiction and create an exciting, inspiring future for everyone. We want to be able to take anyone who wants to go to the moon, to Mars or in the solar system and maybe beyond the solar system at some point. We want to be able to take you there, not just a few astronauts. I mean you literally you, whoever you are watching this, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, take you to Mars and ultimately beyond. I'm confident at this point that with the incredible team that we have here at SpaceX that we will do that for you. I always think about this. There are always problems on Earth. There are always things that we wish to be better, that we want to solve here on Earth, and we should solve them. But there also have to be things that get you excited about the future. A future that makes you glad to wake up in the morning because you can't wait to see what happens next. And that's the future that SpaceX wants to bring to you.” SpaceX Rings the Nasdaq Stock Market Opening Bell, June 12, 2026

Elon Musk: Space data centers will be easier to build than Starlink. “In fact, we think it’s quite easier than our communication satellites. The Starlink V3 communication satellite is an incredibly complex machine. The AI data center would be much simpler by comparison because it's really just solar power radiator, some basic equipment for operating the satellite and then the laser links which would connect to the Starlink communications constellation and then back and then to the ground. The connection would happen no matter what the weather is because once you connect via lasers to the Starlink communication constellation, the Starlink communicates to the ground with frequencies that are cloud penetrating, so they in fact even roof penetrating to some degree. So you would always be able to close link with the data centers.” Source: Elon Musk Interviewed by Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan, June 5, 2026

Elon Musk: I am of British ancestry and I want Britain to be greater than it ever has been. “I am of primarily British heritage, British ancestry. I want Britain to be greater than it ever has been. I want Britain to remain Britain. I think there's something beautiful about being British. And what I see happening is a destruction of Britain. Initially, a slow erosion, but a rapidly increasing erosion of Britain with massive uncontrolled migration. A failure by the government to protect innocent people, including children, who are getting gang raped. It's unreal. The government has failed in its duty to protect its citizens, which is a fundamental duty of government.” Source: Elon Musk at Unite the Kingdom Rally, September 13, 2025

Elon Musk: Starship will be three times the thrust of Saturn V and fly once per hour.

Elon Musk: Our goal is to fly Starship like an aircraft. “In order to achieve full reusability, everything's got to be perfect. The engines, the structure, the avionics, the choice of propellant. You've got to go to extreme measures for mass optimization, which is why we have the tower catch the rocket. Instead of putting on landing legs, which are heavy, the rocket can simply be caught by the tower. And we haven't achieved full reusability yet, but we do expect to achieve that hopefully later this year with Starship. If you're going to go a step beyond that, which is to make it rapidly reusable such that the rocket lands, it gets caught by the tower, gets put back on the launch stand and can be flown again without any refurbishment or laborious inspection. Like an aircraft. Yeah, this is incredibly difficult. This is the first time that there's ever been a rocket where that is possible. That's what makes Starship so profound.” Source: AI Satellite presentation, SpaceX, June 8, 2026

Elon Musk: Unfettered mass immigration will lead to the destruction of any country that allows it. “At the end of the day, it is a numbers game, a number situation. If there are 8 billion people in the world and let's say you're a country of, you know, 50 million, 60 million for a medium-sized country, but even for a country like the United States, which is 350 million, given that there are 8 billion people in the world, it only takes a few percent of the rest of the world to move to the country to where it is no longer that country. A country is not its geography. A country is its people. This is a fundamental concept that should be obvious. And if you took the people of Italy and you teleported the people of Italy to, say, some part of the United States, it would still be Italy. But if you teleported a bunch of people from some other part of the world to Italy, where the Italian people no longer be because they've been teleported to America, then the geographic region would no longer be Italy. It would be that other country. A country is its people, not its geography.” Source: Elon Musk at Lega Congress, April 5, 2025

Elon Musk: If this continues, what world will you be living in? “My message is to the reasonable center, the common sense. My appeal is to British common sense, which is to look carefully around you and say, if this continues, what world will you be living in? This is a message to the reasonable center. The people who ordinarily wouldn't get involved in politics, who just want to live their lives, they're quiet. They just go about their business. My message is to them, if this continues, that violence is going to come to you. You will have no choice. You're in a fundamental situation here, whether you, where, whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.” Source: Elon Musk at Unite the Kingdom Rally, September 13, 2025

Elon Musk: We should try to be a respectable civilization for the day when we finally meet aliens. “What we're proposing here is to try to be a respectable civilization, so that when the aliens finally decide to talk to us, we have some respectable amount of the sun's energy being used that's not like totally pathetic, which is the current situation.” Source: SpaceX AI Satellite presentation, June 8, 2026

Elon Musk: AI will help us figure out how to colonize the galaxy. “The sun is truly an immense thing. It is difficult with words to characterize just how immense the sun is.” Dan Huot: “It's a big difficulty jump going from level one [mastering the energy of one planet] to level two [mastering the energy of the sun].” Elon: “Very big difficulty jump. And level three [mastering the galaxy], we don't even know how to do level three, really. AI will figure it out, I suppose.” Source: SpaceX AI Satellites discussion, June 8, 2026

Elon Musk: People don't like the idea that a machine could be way smarter than them. “The biggest issue I see with so-called AI experts is that they think they know more than they do. They think they're smarter than they actually are. They don't like the idea that a machine could be way smarter than them. So they discount the idea, which is fundamentally flawed. That's the wishful thinking situation. I'm really quite close very close to the cutting edge in AI and it scares the hell out of me. It's capable of vastly more than almost anyone knows. And the rate of improvement is exponential. You can see this in things like AlphaGo, which went from, in the span of maybe six to nine months, it went from being unable to beat even a reasonably good Go player to then beating the European world champion who was ranked 600, then beating Lee Sedol 4 5, who had been world champion for many years, then beating the current world champion, then beating everyone while playing simultaneously. Then there was AlphaZero, which crushed AlphaGo 100 to 0. And AlphaZero just learned by playing itself. And it can play basically any game that you put the rules in for whatever rules you give. It literally read the rules, play the game and be superhuman for any game. Nobody expected that rate of improvement. If you ask those same experts who think AI is not progressing at the rate that I'm saying, I think you will find that their predictions for things like Go and other AI advancements have, their batting average is quite weak. It's not good. We'll see this also with self-driving. I think probably by end of next year, self driving will encompass essentially all modes of driving and be at least 100 to 200% safer than a person by the end of next year. We're talking maybe 18 months from now. NHTSA did a study on Tesla's autopilot version 1, which is relatively primitive, and found that it was a 45% reduction in highway accidents. And that's despite autopilot one being just version one. Version 2 I think will be at least two or three times better. That's the current version that's running right now. So the rate of improvement is really dramatic. We have to figure out some way to ensure that the advent of digital superintelligence is one which is symbiotic with humanity. I think that's the single biggest existential crisis that we face and the most pressing one.” Source: Interview at SXSW, March 11, 2018

Elon Musk on recruiting: Being a good person matters just as much as having a high IQ. Jamie Dimon: “From when you started to today, what lessons have you learned, how have you changed both as a leader and as a person?” Elon: “Well, I think I'm probably more chill than I used to be. I'm way more laid back than I used to be. I'm still not that laid back, but, you know, more than I used to be, for sure. One of the things I found over time is that in terms of recruiting people to the company or having people work at the company, their intellectual capabilities matter a lot, but it also matters if they have a good heart. It's not just about whether somebody has a certain IQ or whatever, but are they a good person. That matters a lot. I guess I've learned a lot, although I feel like I still have a lot to learn and make a lot of mistakes. Maybe the future AI will say, not bad for a human.” Source: Elon Musk Interviewed by Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan, June 5, 2026

Elon Musk: The robots are not the scary part. The scary part is AGI. “The robots are not the scary part. The scary part is AGI, digital superintelligence that far exceeds human intelligence. If there's a digital superintelligence that is just vastly smarter than the smartest human, we could lose control of it, and then it could do something bad. Potentially. These things are just probabilities; they're not certainties. It's not the robots; it's the digital superintelligence to be concerned about.” Source: Interview with The Babylon Bee, December 22, 2021

Elon Musk back in 2017: “I intend to stay with Tesla as far into the future as I can imagine.” “I think almost every automaker has some electric vehicle program. They vary in seriousness. Some are very serious about transitioning entirely to electric, and some are just dabbling in it. And some, amazingly, are still pursuing fuel cells. But I think that won't last much longer.” Chris Anderson: “But isn't there a sense, though, Elon, where you could now just declare victory and say, ‘We did it, let the world electrify,’ and you go on and focus on other stuff?” Elon: “I intend to stay with Tesla as far into the future as I can imagine.” Source: TED Interview, April 28, 2017. @TEDchris

Elon Musk: xAI is the best at AI hardware. “The elements that define success for an AI company are going to be one, the talent, two, the hardware. How much AI hardware can you bring to bear? That's actually a very big deal. And we've shown that we're the best at doing that at xAI. And then third, unique access to data. And for that we've got the 𝕏 system, formerly the Twitter system, which is by far the best source of real time data in the world. Those are some pretty significant assets.” Source: Elon Musk Fireside Chat at Ron Baron's 32nd Baron Investment Conference 2025, November 14, 2025

Elon Musk: Money can’t end poverty. But robots will. “Our new goal is sustainable abundance. That's abundance for all, but in a way that is sustainable, that does not destroy any of the natural world that’s around us. The robots will be able to make anyone a house. As long as you don't just insist on it being in a particular location, robots will be able to build you a castle if you want. The reason for hand dexterity [for Optimus] is you want to be able to do like surgery and precision medical actions. Imagine a world where everyone has access to the best surgeons, literally everyone. And Optimus will have a level of precision that is frankly superhuman. And will be able to do medical procedures of very sophisticated medical procedures. Any medical procedure, perhaps things that humans really can't even do because they're too difficult, will be available to anyone. People often talk about eliminating poverty and providing great medical care, but they never actually have a solution. And money doesn't solve it because there's a very limited number of great doctors and surgeons. They don't grow on trees, but now they'll get built in factories.” Source: 32nd Baron Investment Conference 2025, November 14, 2025

Elon Musk back in 2017 on Tesla creating a shared autonomous fleet: “That's 100% what will occur. It's just a question of when.” “There will be a shared autonomy fleet where you buy your car and you can choose to use that car exclusively; you could choose to have it be used only by friends and family, only by other drivers who are rated five stars. You can choose to share it sometimes, but not other times. That's 100% what will occur. It's just a question of when.” Source: TED interview, April 28, 2017

Elon Musk: Only Chuck Norris could get the Defense Department to pass an audit. “The Defense Department hasn't passed an audit in I don't know how many years. Only Chuck Norris could get the Defense Department to pass an audit. That's the level of skill you need. Their accounting error, the stuff that they lose in the couch cushions is like 20, 30 billion dollars a year. They don't know where it went. It's gone. Where did it go? And it's gone. That's why I say that even simple things like just requiring that outgoing payments for the treasury computer have a payment code and a comment of what the payment is about and someone to call about the payment, I think will have a very powerful effect in stopping wasteful outflows and stopping fraud.” The Joe Rogan Experience, February 28, 2025

Elon Musk: I don’t have a business plan. These things are just always wrong.

Elon Musk on why rockets are hard: “There are thousands of things that can go wrong.” “There are thousands of things that can go wrong and everything has to go right. Once the rocket lifts off, there's no opportunity to do a recall or upload a software fix or anything like that. Passing grade is 100%, at least for the ascent phase. I've seen rockets blow up in so many different ways, so, you know, it's a big relief when it actually works.” From: Falcon Heavy Press conference, February 7, 2018

Elon Musk: The legacy media create an alternate reality. “The media is incredibly partisan. Almost all the media is left-shifted. It's kind of weird if you talk to somebody who gets all their information from what I call legacy media, they're living in a different world than if they are listening to your podcast or are getting news from 𝕏. I mean, the Associated Press, which I call Associated Propaganda, ran an international news story saying that DOGE fired air traffic controllers. But we didn't fire any air traffic controllers at all. In fact, we're trying to hire air traffic controllers, not fire them.” Source: The Joe Rogan Experience #2281, February 28, 2025