Elon Musk

“It's important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the first time in the four billion-year history of Earth that it's been possible, and that window could be open for a long time - hopefully it is - or it could be open for a short time. We should err on the side of caution and do something now.”

“SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.”

“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.”

“I do love email. Wherever possible I try to communicate asynchronously. I'm really good at email.”

“The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It'll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn't been reusable.”

“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.”

“Selling an electric sports car creates an opportunity to fundamentally change the way America drives.”

“Tesla is becoming a real car company.”

“In order for us to have a future that's exciting and inspiring, it has to be one where we're a space-bearing civilization.”

“I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.”

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

“With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, and he's like, yeah, he's sure he can control the demon? Doesn't work out.”

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

“The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far - the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.”

“If anyone thinks they'd rather be in a different part of history, they're probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You'd probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.”

“If humanity doesn't land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.”

“The key to making things affordable is design and technology improvements, as well as scale.”

“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.”

“Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence.”

“In the early days of aviation, there was a great deal of experimentation and a high death rate.”

“Man has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.”