[0:00]22 hours a day, or like what- I was working, yeah, so seven days a week. Sleeping in the factory, I worked everywhere from the I worked in the I worked in the paint shop, general assembly, body shop. You ever worried about yourself imploding, like it just too much? Absolutely, no one should put this many hours into work. This is not good. People should not work this hard. They should not do this. This is very painful. Painful in what sense? It hurts my brain and my heart. It hurts. This is not recommended for anyone. I just did it because if I didn't do it, then Tesla, good chance Tesla would die. You'd necessarily want to be me. It's very hard to turn it off all the time. Doesn't stop. When I was young, I didn't really know what I was going to do when I got older. I think when I was, I don't know, five or six or something, I thought I was insane, because it was clear that other people do not, their mind wasn't exploding with ideas. It was just strange. It was like, hmm, I am strange. Eventually I thought that the idea of inventing things would be really cool. The reason I thought that was because I read a quote from Arthur C. Clarke, which said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And and that's really true. If you go back, say 300 years, the things that we take for granted today would be, you'd be burned at the stake for, um, you know, being able to fly. That's crazy. Um, being able to see over long distances, being able to communicate. This is stuff that that really that would be considered magic in in times past. If I can do some of those things, basically, if I can advance technology, that's like magic, and that would be really cool. were you a little naive when you thought I can easily build an electric car and and a rocket? I didn't think it would be easy. Um, I I like I said, I thought they would probably fail. Um, but you know, like creating a company is almost like having a child. So it's sort of like, how do you say your child should not have food? So once you have the company, you have to to feed it and and nurse it? Yeah. And and take care of it of it even if it ruins you. Yeah.
[2:26]But there were some there were some tough times in uh in end of 2008. How did you get through that period of crisis? Yeah. 2000 and can we just break for a second? Of course, yeah, yeah. You want to wait a little while.
[2:45]Sure, it was worth it. Sure, it was worth it. One of the most difficult choices I ever faced in life was in 2008. I think I had maybe $30 million left, or $30 or $40 million left in 2008. I had two choices, I could put it all into one company and then the other company would definitely die or split it between the two companies. And but if I split it between the two companies, then both might die. And you know, when you put your blood, sweat, and tears into creating something or building something, it's like a child. And so, it's like which one, am I going to let one starve to death? I couldn't bring myself to do it. So I put I split the money between the two. Fortunately, thank goodness, uh they both came through. You know, with Tesla, we're like try to make things that people love. How many things can you buy that you really love that really give you joy? So rare, so rare. I wish there were more things. That's what we're trying to do. Just make things that somebody loves. Yes, doing something useful for other people that I liked doing. Generally, starting a business, I'd say number one is have a high pain threshold. That's a A friend of mine who's got a good saying, which is that starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss. That's generally what happens. Because when you first start a company, there's lots of optimism and things are great. And then so happiness at first is high. Then you encounter all sorts of issues, and happiness will steadily decline. And then you'll go through a whole world of hurt. That's, and then eventually you'll if you succeed, and in most cases you will not succeed. And Tesla almost didn't succeed, came very close to failure. Then if you succeed, then after a long time, you will finally get back to happiness. And I want to know what is the one thing that has surprised you about your life? Well, I certainly I'm surprised by the whole thing, honestly. I certainly didn't expect to be to be uh for any of these things to happen, honestly. Um, in fact, the only reason I started a company back in '95, an internet company was because I couldn't get it. There were only a few internet companies and I couldn't get a job at any of them. So I tried to get a job at Netscape and sent my resume and I tried hanging out in the lobby, but I was too shy to talk to anyone. And and then I was like, okay, well, I guess I'll have to start a company because I can't get a job anywhere. Really, really liking what you do. Whatever area that you get into, um, given that, you know, even if you're if you're the best of the best, there's always a chance of failure. So I think it's important that you really like whatever you're doing. If you don't like it, life is too short. If you like what you're doing, you think about it even when you're not working, it's something that your mind is drawn to. Um, and if you don't like it, you just really can't make it work, I think. Well, what you want to do, in particular if you're starting a company, you need to work super hard. So what what does super hard mean? When my brother and I were starting our first company, I didn't have any money. In fact, I had negative money. Um, I had huge student debts, or in fact, I couldn't afford a place to stay and an office. So in instead of getting an apartment, we just rented a small office and we slept on the couch. Um, and we showered at the YMCA and there was an ISP on the floor below us, just a like a little tiny ISP. And we drilled a hole and connected a null modem cable that, that gave us our internet connectivity for like a hundred bucks a month. And we're so hot up we had just one computer. So the the website was up during the day and I was coding at night. Seven days a week, all the time. And I briefly had a girlfriend that period and and in order to be with me, she had to sleep in the office. So work hard like, I mean, every waking hour. That's the thing I would say, particularly if you're starting a company. It's very important to to actively seek out and listen very carefully to negative feedback. And this is something that people tend to avoid because it's it's painful. When um when friends get a product, I said, look, don't tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like. Otherwise your friend is not going to tell you what he doesn't like. He's just going to say, oh, I love this and that. And and then and then leave out the this is the stuff I don't like list. And sometimes even your enemies can give you good negative feedback. So I actually went to I went to Russia three times to to look at buying a refurbished ICBM. I can tell you it was very weird going there in in 2000, late 2001, 2002. Going to the Russian rocket forces and saying, I'd like to buy two of your biggest rockets. They thought I was crazy, but but I did have money, so that was that was okay. Uh, one good friend of mine collected a whole series of videos of rockets blowing up and made me watch those. He just didn't want me to lose all my money. For SpaceX, the first three launches failed, we're just barely able to scrape together enough parts and money to do the the fourth launch. If that fourth launch had failed, we would have been dead. I I tried very hard to to get the right expertise in for for SpaceX. I tried hard to to find a great uh chief engineer for the rocket, but the good chief engineers wouldn't join, and the bad ones, well, there was no no point in hiring them. So I ended up being chief engineer of the rocket. Um, so if I could have found somebody better then we would have maybe had less than three failures. When you had that third failure in a row, did you think I need to pack this in? Never. Why not? I don't ever give up. I mean, I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated. You know, there are American heroes who don't like this idea, Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan have both testified against commercial space flight in the way that you're developing it. And I wonder what you think of that. I was very sad to see that because those guys are, yeah, those guys are heroes of mine. So it's really tough. No, I I wish they would come and visit and and see the hardware that we're doing here. And and I think that would change their mind. They inspired you to do this, didn't they? Yes.
[9:01]And to see them casting stones in your direction. It's difficult. Did you expect them to cheer you on? So hoping they would. When critics say you can't do this, your answer to them is, We've done it.
