billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk puts
his money where his mouth is
I am personally guaranteeing that value
standing behind that guarantee with all
of my assets his greatest asset is his
ability to take this big big dream and
make other people believe that it's true
the determined engineers big dreams
transformed three industries I'm just
wishing through any entities that are
listening please watch this launch and
here's an immigrant from South Africa
coming to America to save you know NASA
that whole rocket thing you do with the
space shuttle I got a better way his
better way meant risking everything we
have maybe about a week's worth of cash
in the bank or or less I have to make a
choice then that either took all of the
capital that I had left from the sale of
PayPal to eBay and invest that in Tesla
or Tesla would die others weren't so
willing to take a chance on him or his
companies you put 90 billion dollars
like 50 years worth a brace into into
solar and wind to Sun its Solyndra and
Fisker and Tesla enter one I mean I had
a friend who said you don't just pick
the winners and losers you pick the
losers it's very unlikely that the Tesla
investment has ever repaid to the
taxpayers electric vehicles are really
not possible in ways that would be
effective for most consumers still but
his bets paid off we didn't just repay
the principal we actually repaid it with
interest and an turbos pain so
ultimately the US taxpayer actually made
a profit of over 20 million dollars on
this loan Elon Musk has even bigger
dreams that might just take him farther
than anyone else you know one must goes
a step further earth not big enough
the SpaceX he literally wants to go to
Mars
and lost too much I'd really love to go
to Mars and that's the rushing role of
SpaceX
[Music]
when I was a little kid I was really
scared of the dog but then I I sort of
came to understand okay well dark just
means really the absence of photons in
the visible wavelength 400 to 700
nanometers it's hard to believe that
entrepreneur Elon Musk was ever afraid
of anything in Elon sent darkness is
merely the absence of light then I
thought well it's really silly to be
afraid of a lack of photons then I
wasn't afraid at the drop anymore
after that once one of the kids said to
him look at the moon it's a billion
miles away and he said well no it's
actually under two hundred and fifty
thousand miles away and they said Iran
entrepreneur Elon Musk has spent his
life proving people wrong growing up in
South Africa musk was the oldest of
three children and started school a year
early
his father was an engineer his mother
Mae was a model and nutritionist he was
the youngest made about two days and the
shortest and then he was this brilliant
boy and so people didn't really like him
so I was this little bookworm a kid and
probably a bit of a smart aleck so this
is a recipe for disaster
not that he told me much about it he was
picked on quite a bit so just like read
a read a lot of books and and tries to
out of people's way during school and so
his social life was much less than my
other two kids and that's a typical nerd
I read all the comics I could buy or
that they let me read the bookstore
before chasing me away I read everything
I could get my hands on from when I woke
up to when I went to sleep at one point
I got I really ran out of books instead
really encyclopedia and he has a
photographic memory so he could remember
everything anytime I had a question my
daughter
Tosca would say hole genius boy his
brother
Kimball musk when he Louis was ten years
old he got tested by IBM and he was
found to have one of the highest
aptitudes they'd ever seen a full
computer programming I tried to take
some computer classes but I was way
ahead of the teacher so it didn't really
help so I saw her doing space game
called blastaar
musk already thinking like an
entrepreneur figured out how to sell his
game I realized I was 12 we decided we
were gonna open an arcade outcome here
near our high school we were in big into
video games we figured that it was gonna
be a huge hit we got a lease on a
building we got the arcade provider to
deliver the equipment and the only thing
we needed to do by the end of it was get
the city to approve what we were doing
but an adult had to apply for a city
permit and they hadn't told their
parents what they were up to
but of course they told us we were not
gonna be opening up an arcade max chaff
Caen is a technology and business
journalist who has profiled Elon Musk
several times really the most amazing
thing about his childhood is his escape
from from South Africa I remember
thinking and saying that America is
where we're great things are possible
more than any other country in the world
it's a little cliche but it's true
america is the land of opportunity by
moving musk would also avoid mandatory
service in South Africa's army growing
up in apartheid South Africa was pretty
surreal I mean we didn't support that
government we didn't believe in it and
so the idea of actually going to the
military service was really part of the
question I told my parents I was going
to to Canada and they tried convince me
not to leave and off he flew and I
thought wow he's so independent of
course as soon as he lands he calls me
he says what do I do now
except water bus safe from Montreal to
Vancouver and that allowed me kind of
see Canada at least from the highway he
worked at odd jobs across the country
before settling at Queens College in
Toronto back when I went to college I
rarely went to class I just read the
textbook and then show up for exams the
bigger pills the University was being
able to date girls my own age actually
met my first wife their mas got an
engineering and business degree from the
University of Pennsylvania and a
scholarship to go to Stanford Silicon
Valley was the promised land I really
wanted to just kind of go where where
the really exciting breakthroughs were
occurring Elon had this ability to to
look at the world go this is a real
problem that's going to
in 20 years he looked around and he saw
that the world changing stuff was not
happening at Stanford I didn't even go
to class I called the chair of the
department and said I'd like to try
selling this Internet company if
probably won't succeed and so when it
fails I want to make sure that technics
still come back my kids do funny things
and I'm never too concerned about them
because you know if you no one wanted to
drop out of college he could always go
back my brother was in Canada at the
time and I said look I think we should
try to create an Internet company so he
came down and joined me he had you know
$2,000 no friends barely enough money
for an apartment I think he told me he
was showering at the gym because they
didn't have a shower he was living we
just got some few times that there were
couches during the day and then turned
into beds at night Steve Jurvetson is a
venture capitalist in Silicon Valley I
first met Elan and Kimball musk his
brother back in the mid 90s when they
first set foot in California I think
they'd been here for about a week and
they were pitching a new company called
zip to Silicon Valley in the mid 90s in
late 90s was a gold rush people were
flocking to the region to find riches to
make it in the internet business must
came up with an idea to bring newspapers
into the digital age
he took a cd-rom yellow pages some
mapping software wrote a little code and
put it all together to create the first
online city listings you know was more
the business mastermind I was more than
sales guy I still had my my core
programming skills I was able to write
the was the software needed for for the
first company now when yuan was starting
to keep in mind you know the internet
was just a couple of years old most
local businesses were not on the
internet the way you found a local
business was you open up the Yellow
Pages they thought it was the media
campaigns the newspapers are gonna need
help coming online and building lots of
functionality into their websites we had
someone literally throw a Yellow Pages
book at us and tell us do you think she
will ever replace this and we put the
guy who's crazy
because not only were we gonna replace
this but that's not where it ended keep
going from there it wasn't long before
media companies across the country were
signing up and so we were able to get as
investors with customers the new york
times company Hearst knight-ridder and a
number of other companies in 1999 the
AltaVista division of Compaq bought zip2
for 307 million dollars in cash and 34
million in stock options musk was just
28 years old I hope that's crazy well I
would somebody pay such a huge amount of
money for this little company that we
have it actually also turned out very
well for them to actually so stuff there
were a lot more about it than I did when
the kid solves it - it was the most
exciting day we couldn't believe it
because you don't know in the internet
world if you're going to you know make a
million or die tomorrow
[Music]
in February 1999 Elon Musk sold his
first company at 28 he joined the ranks
of Silicon Valley millionaires since it
was acquired by Compaq
for a little over two million dollars
and I made a play about 21 or 22 million
dollars as a result of that which was a
phenomenal amount of money for me it was
obviously a financial windfall it was
super fun to go out buy some toys one of
his first things to do is go out and get
a big sports car
he's comes from a family that really
enjoys racing in vehicles and he got one
of the highest performance cars money
could buy at the time it was a McLaren
f1 and proceeded to enjoy that around
the Bay Area let's say there's a number
of adventures and respecting news with
with his driving well I'm sure it felt
you know wonderful to have all this
money and and have people recognizing
success I think he was also frustrated
that this company hadn't become as great
as he wanted to be it hadn't it hadn't
changed the world it had just slightly
altered the course of newspaper history
which I think from his point of view is
you know kind of piddling
accomplishment so I certainly have a
choice at that point of retiring and you
know buying an island somewhere and
sipping mai-tais but there was not of
interest to me at all there really
wasn't a choice of we weren't gonna do
anything it was just really what we were
gonna do next
any landscapes in particular it was
really just stepping stones the goal
with in doing my second area company was
to create something that would have a
profound effect and it seems to me that
the financial sector had not seen a lot
of innovation on the Internet and money
is really just an entry in a database
and and it's so it's low bandwidth it
seems like something I should lend
itself to innovation he was very rich I
mean just more money than most people
could dream and he took almost no time
in-between that sale and starting the
company that became PayPal Musk's new
company created something we take for
granted today it changed the way the
world buys things the way money is
transferred from one person to another
at the time transactions were very slow
people would have to mail checks to each
other so it could take weeks just to
complete a single transaction with his
windfall from the sale of zip to must
quickly turned around and founded XCOM
to make electronic cash transfer as
possible but his new company collided
with a rival mobile payment company
called con Finity and they were really
competing against each other and the
real enemy at the end of the day was
eBay we combined our efforts in order to
compete effectively against eBay's
built-in system they called the new
company PayPal when he looked at PayPal
that his goal was not to create a place
you could do person-to-person payments
his goal was good to transform the
financial industry were able to become
the the leading payment system in the
world and then they finally threw in the
towel and acquired PayPal in early 2002
musk and his partners sold PayPal for
1.5 billion dollars musk was the largest
shareholder and walked away with 180
million he was 30 years old I could
abort probably a chain of islands but
but that big a no it's not it's just not
a lot of interest to me Islands weren't
of interest but outer space was it's
just a much more exciting inspiring
future for out that are exploring the
Stars as opposed to the future where we
are forever confined to earth I was
thinking well I wonder when when we're
going to Mars you know when is when is
naphthenic go to Mars and I went to the
NASA website and there was no plan to go
to Mars and no plan to really even take
the next step in space exploration
this is he was saying he wants to go and
enable the human civilization to leave
the planet Earth I said it's about a big
as big a vision as you could possibly
imagine and that's gonna require funds
and he has enough funds to go do it so
he's gonna go do it
musk had the outrageous idea that
private enterprise could actually
reenergize space travel and in June 2002
he founded Space Exploration
Technologies or SpaceX Elon was the only
funder of the company for this early
years another incredibly risky move to
say nobody on the planet thinks this
idea is financeable I'm gonna fund all
of it myself to the tune of almost a
hundred million dollars which was the
majority of his net worth at the time
into a dream to take on the
military-industrial complex
now here's an immigrant from South
Africa coming to America to say you know
NASA that whole rocket thing you do with
the space shuttle I got a better way
actually travelled to Russia three times
look at buying a refurbished ICBM
without the nuke and I Kim's conclusion
that the real thing that was really
holding us back from making much more
progress in space it was really that
Rockets had not evolved since the 60s so
the trick isn't figuring out how to get
to orbit it's figuring out how to get to
orbit cheaply so I had to come up with
low-cost ways to produce engines the
primary structure the electronics to the
launch operation as well as run the
company with very little overhead and to
some of inventions in all those areas is
what has led us to a roughly three to
fourfold improvement over the cost of of
other rockets in the United States
what SpaceX has been very successful at
is taking basically off-the-shelf
technology stuff that was developed by
NASA 50 years ago and streamlining it so
in that way he's kind of the Henry Ford
of of space because Henry Ford didn't
invent the automobile he just figured
out how to make the automobile you know
commercially viable
musk was more than just an entrepreneur
if you ask yuan how he managed to teach
himself rocket science he'll just look
at you very seriously and just say very
quietly read a lot of books
thirty two-year-old Elon Musk had his
next big idea at his family's annual
visit to Burning Man the counterculture
desert happening although still
fascinated by rockets and fast cars he
wanted to find a way to end Earth's
addiction to fossil fuels I was one that
the idea of going into the solar power
arena to Lyndon and Peter I of my
cousins he's basically hands this idea
to his cousins and says if you want to
start this I will I will fund you and
it'll be your company but I'll be the
Chairman and they say okay and it works
almost perfectly what they've figured
out is that if you sort of do a hundred
things ten percent better in the area of
solar cell installation for homeowners
you can dramatically consolidate an
industry that's currently a bunch of
mom-and-pop shops so it Solar City
instead was they say how about no money
done you want solar cells we'll just put
it in you don't pay a cent right it's
like leasing a car but even better Solar
City started in five western states and
soon grew into the largest solar service
provider in the US the solar cells keep
going solar city that only goes up at
the end at least so the fascinating
business model were in the long run they
may become the largest energy generator
in America all of these but renewable
energy was just one part of a much
bigger goal musk
had a more ambitious plan for a
sustainable future he had this idea that
he wanted to make electric cars help
humanity get off fossil fuels and so
cities about sustainable energy creation
whereas Tesla's but sustainable energy
consumption in April 2004 musk helped
launch Tesla with six point three
million dollars of his own money it was
the first auto industry start-up in
decades and the only one born in Silicon
Valley and it's really pretty simple
it's you know make a high-priced car at
low volume because that's essentially
the only thing we could afford to do and
then step 2 is a medium priced car at
medium volume since f3 is a low priced
car at high volumes Tesla's plan
to introduce a high-end high-performance
product to first attract outliers then
make an affordable car for the masses
teslascope founder and first CEO Martin
Eberhard we expect to to change the way
people think about electric cars with
this car and that we hope to open the
market for us to sell other electric
cars but we also know that if you start
off by saying let's first change human
nature and make everybody Drive crummy
little cars that doesn't work so instead
let's build a car that people want to
drive let's build a car this is hot and
desirable and beautiful and convince
people that driving you know electric
car is not a compromise its idea of
actually going in and putting it in a
high-end car and breaking the mold of
what an electric car wars was exciting
this is no longer gonna be a golf cart
this is gonna be a Ferrari any cops
watching when we first saw Tesla it had
a good explanation for how they get to
market without having to spend
exorbitant amount of money how they
would create a brand and the object of
desire and consumers and it's part of
the story clicked together he talked
about Silicon Valley smarts being able
to show Detroit how to do something that
Detroit didn't think was possible its
batteries its Drive electronics it's
electric motors those are skills that
are present in Silicon Valley and our
president Detroit Tesla's revolutionary
technology for the Roadster started with
a computer battery as the power source
for the automobile JB Straubel Tesla's
chief technology officer was the main
designer of the electric powertrain for
the first time it was possible to drive
over 200 miles and have performance that
was directly comparable competitive with
what a gasoline car could do and Tesla
was the first company to to take those
principles and put that into practice
and try it
California Governor Schwarzenegger
showed up for the roadsters 2006
coming-out party a test of this one it's
hot he bought one so did Leonardo
DiCaprio and George Clooney but could
must sell regular customers on his idea
at that time there was very little
activity in the auto industry in
electric vehicles we were in the
age of the large SUV so it was a little
unusual to hear about this company in
California that was planning to come to
market with a high-end all-electric
sports car
we were very passionate about trying to
make sure that this car was going to
just throw down the gauntlet on what the
technology could do and really prove to
the world that electric vehicles you
know could be incredibly fast and could
have incredibly long range there was
kind of a sense of adventure you know
doing these things for the first time
and doing it in a really scrappy way you
know we did some of the very first
battery packs in my garage in Menlo Park
before we actually were able to rent a
real office the big issue for Tesla as
with all electric cars has been the
batteries their cost and how long they
last
Eric Noble is president of car lab an
automotive consulting firm that
evaluates new cars and trucks American
consumers are very ready for battery
electric vehicles
unfortunately battery electric vehicles
aren't ready for American consumers the
first results at Tesla seemed to support
this gloomy forecast when we first
started out the thought was simple and
really obviously in retrospect quite
naive which was to make use of some
technology that we developed ourselves
but also some technology that would
license from AC propulsion put that
together and create an electric sports
car that would be compelling so let's
see where did that fall apart
it fell apart when the teen told musk
that the projected cost had skyrocketed
from $65,000 to 140,000 as the problems
mounted musk faced a do-or-die decision
at Tesla he would have to choose between
investing his paypal pay off or let his
new company collapse and Elon was
looking at this and saying the dream is
still there but oh my gosh what do I got
I got to get this under control
by 2007 Tesla was running out of money
fast no one wanted to step up to save
the unproven automobile startup Elon
Musk had to take the leap
alone with make some pretty dramatic
changes essentially recapitalized the
business and invest about twice what we
originally expected what we really
expected as the outer limit basically
Tesla got to this point where they only
had enough money in the bank for a
couple of months and there's nobody
around who are willing to put more money
in I take all of my reserve capital and
invested in Tesla which was very scary
because you know it would actually be
quite sad to have the fruits of my labor
with subduer and PayPal not amount to
anything but there was no question that
I would do that in my mind because tells
it was too important to till I die I'm
available 24/7 just to help solve issues
right I call me 3:00 a.m. in of Sunday
morning I don't care we had to go in and
make some really hard decisions on on
personnel changes and even really had to
dedicate his time to the company I want
I want I want names named so if
someone's always on the hot seat and
it's always the root cause for problems
they will not be positive organization
long term it's not okay to be unhappy
and part of this company and if somebody
can't get happy right musk and his board
replaced Martin Eberhard one of the
co-founders who had been running Tesla
and I think we kind of really really
exceeded the level that Everhart could
handle and they're freaking apparent in
2007 we either were gonna have to shut
the company down or you know wasn't have
to take over as CEO it was actually a
process of building a company as well as
building a car you know a lot of people
that fit in very well with a company
when it was extremely small you didn't
end up you know fitting in as well when
it was larger Everhard didn't go quietly
he sued musk for libel slander and
breach of contract I believe that I was
scapegoated to take the blame for the
programs that were not run well must
resolve the disputes through mediation
but his company was in serious financial
trouble
in September 2007 musk flew to Germany
with a scheme to raise extra cash by
forging an alliance with Daimler
Mercedes it down is the company that
invented the internal combustion engine
car
the maker of Mercedes smart and their
endorsement carries great deal of weight
so that was a just a very important
moment he had to convince the company
that Tesla could supply battery packs
for its cars they were skeptical really
the key thing was to demonstrate a
hardware that worked you know if they
can't touch it they can't drive it it's
not particularly real he pushed his team
to retrofit a Daimler smart car with
Tesla's electric motor but first they
had to find one the Challenger
converting a smart card to electric was
doubly difficult because we couldn't
find a smart card the small cone for
sale in the United States we had to send
somebody down to Mexico to buy a smart
car bring-bring 1/2 to the US and then
the smoke is really tiny so we had to
fit up a motor how electronics of
charger and everything in the squad car
the challenge was daunting to replace
the smart cars gas engine with a Tesla
drivetrain and battery fitted in the
tiny space under the hood and do it all
in less than 4 weeks we didn't have much
time at all we knew that from the
beginning and we kind of prepared for
almost battle and you know setup war
room in the shop they worked around the
clock
stealing maps on the factory floor right
up to the deadline the Daimler
executives arrived and nut it all
convinced that it made any sense to work
with an American car company let alone a
little tiny American car company in
Silicon Valley while waiting for
Daimler's decision must brought in one
of the world's leading automobile
designers to help create his next
project a modern and sexy family sedan
what she called the Model S originally
with Model S I thought well let's let's
have Kerry Kiska who was had a design
studio do the styling we paid him up
pretty good sum of money to do that
curiously enough the designs that he
worked on that he came up with for us
were terrible and what he didn't tell us
was that he was actually working on a
competing car company Tesla officials
claimed that
perhaps Henrik had come in to learn what
Tesla was doing well all along he was
planning to form his own company do his
own vehicle we were pretty upset with
him for basically taking what we're at
the time the original specifications for
the Model S and then going and shopping
a business plan to create that same car
Tesla sued him he sued Tesla and there
was all kinds of you know infighting
Henrik Fisker wouldn't grant Bloomberg
an interview but he told us that I
believe there is enough space in the
market for several new car companies
that pursue a new type of electrified
powertrain with different philosophies
in November 2008 the court ruled in
Fiskars favor it was a setback for musk
who was also going through a tough time
personally after eight years of marriage
and five children Elon and Justine musk
divorced I got divorced
personal life in somewhat of a shambles
and in addition getting you know
attacked by some in the media my ex-wife
every bad thing you could imagine there
was more bad news when his bold space
transport company SpaceX again failed to
get a rocket in support the First Lord
didn't get very far got about a minute
up and then it was that there was an
engine fire and that was it the second
flight actually did make it to space but
not too overt and then also flight 3 we
didn't get all the way to orbit he
started saying I've got enough money for
three cracks at it he put a hundred
million dollars of his own money and he
sort of hinted that the idea that after
three he didn't make it it would be over
SpaceX would would die must burn through
the 100 million he had sunk into SpaceX
now he was on his way back to the
drawing board three days after the
failure he announced like first that he
knew what was wrong he announced that
they raised money to finance a fourth
and the fourth launch was gonna happen
in a matter of months which in the
rocket industry was a crazy announcement
we were able to sell the palms and then
just as we'd solve those problems where
you ran smack into the the worst
economic recession since the Great
Depression it's been one of the darkest
days on Wall Street and recent memory
stock markets falling the most since
9/11 the Dow off more than 500 points
this is what financial Armageddon looks
like red screams that scream sell sell
sell
it was a week that shook Wall Street and
indeed the world and a realization that
the economy may still head into a deeper
downturn as 2008 drew to a close
Elon Musk faced the worst crisis of his
career all three of his companies appear
to be in freefall the worst point was
probably just the weekend before
Christmas in 2008 we had the economic
tsunami take place and made things even
worse if it wasn't needed we had to shut
it down and and just figure out what's
how do we get through this the stock
period and not go bankrupt
General Motors shares falling to more
than a 20-year low after Goldman cut the
automakers rating to sell on a worsening
sales outlook that was tough it was
obviously an economic period that swore
the bankruptcy of General Motors and
Chrysler and there we were a young
company selling a very very optional car
I mean it was really you'd people don't
need $100,000 sports car and they
certainly wouldn't want one getting poor
reviews the popular BBC programme Top
Gear took the Tesla Roadster on a test
drive in December 2008
this car then really was shaping up to
be something wonderful
[Music]
although Tesla say it'll do 200 miles we
worked out that on our track it would
run out after just 55 miles and if it
does run out it's not a quick job to
charge it up again the combative CEO
charged the incident was faked and said
he had proof that the Roadster had not
run out of power he sued the BBC to
block reruns of the show the case was
later dismissed but things would get
even tougher his energy company Solar
City founder the bank that had backed
their leases pulled out of the deal I
certainly did not anticipate that we
would have the worst economic climate
since the Great Depression and and one
which was disproportionately bad for
cars
I mean General Motors went bankrupt I
mean general general effing motors you
know musk was in the fight of his life
we had maybe about a week's worth of
cash in the bank all or less and there
was just very little time left in the
year to resolve these these things I
mean they were like two or three
business days left in the year
I never thought I was hot it was
possible for me to have a nervous
breakdown but if it was possible for me
to have a nice break down there that was
about as good as that's going to come
when Eden was going through his sad
period I was so sad I felt like I had a
hole in my heart and there's nothing you
can do you just hurt so much and I just
didn't see him getting out of it he was
just so sad and then the next thing I
get this call saying wow you have made a
wonderful woman the one bright spot was
meeting Talulah Riley a British actress
who had never heard of Tesla SpaceX or
Elon Musk they married in 2010 I could
be some sort of hapless engineer that
had wandered into a London club and he
just looked so forlorn he was just sat
in the corner on his Blackberry cific he
was really out of place and sad I was
you know trying to be very sweet to him
and instead of humoring him going oh yes
when he was gay this is my rocket and
this is my Musk's personal life was
looking up and the future of SpaceX was
finally taking off the fourth attempt to
launch the Falcon 1 was a huge success
and three months later NASA rewarded
SpaceX with a 1.6 billion dollar
contract to resupply the International
Space Station but musk had no time to
celebrate Tesla was on the verge of
financial disaster I had to make a
choice then that either took all of the
capital that I had left from the sale of
PayPal to eBay and invest that in Tesla
or Tesla would die the company is really
teetering on the brink of failure and
there's this board meeting late in 2008
where they're discussing what's gonna
happen and Elon just says well I'm gonna
raise a 40 million dollar round to keep
the company going and the board members
are kind of wondering well how is he
gonna do that and he says I'm gonna put
it all in myself and that incredible
braggadocio confidence catalyzed a
change in people's opinion and we and
everyone else around the table is like
oh my gosh we want to be part of this
want to get as much of this investment
as we can
he saved the company in its darkest hour
with an act of heroism that is hard to
describe there's nothing quite like
spending your last remaining dollar on a
project you believe in it was thankfully
they could a good week but it definitely
took its toll from the mental strain
standpoint handicapped man play just
burned out a few circuits just after his
emergency cash infusion came the news
they desperately needed a 40 million
dollar deal with Daimler for smart car
batteries Daimler later added 50 million
for 10% of the company determined not to
repeat past mistakes musk focused on
bringing his family car to life so I
said look we really we need to have our
own design studio and that's when I
hired fronts from the host housing to
design the Model S his green agenda was
irresistible to van Holt thousand a
legendary figure in car design who had
already revolutionized the looks of the
wgm and Mazda he's completely passionate
to really rid the world of this
addiction to fossil fuel and that that
was something that he talked about from
the very first sentence first
conversation that we had with a new team
in place must completely revamp the look
of the Model S a sedan doesn't have to
be a brick doesn't have to be a big
blocky car we wanted to bring this kind
of passion and feeling back to this
marketplace
the architecture of monoliths is really
similar to escape word
the floor of the vehicle is the battery
pack and the motors between the rear
wheels and everything above that is the
opportunity's base in March 2009 musk
unveiled the prototype for the Model S
it could hold seven passengers and as
much luggage as a station wagon but to
build it he knew he needed a piece of
the US government's new 7.5 billion
dollar loan program to support
alternative energy vehicles in order for
Model S to truly be successful you know
it was important that the the loan come
through the government funding was
controversial the New York Times writer
Randy Stross called the program the
bailout of very very high net worth
individuals who invested in Tesla Motors
act musk struck back
Randy's cross is a huge douche bag and
an idiot
okay it wasn't a bailout but alone the
Obama administration agreed to lend
Tesla four hundred and sixty five
million dollars to mass-produced the
Model S a move that astounded many in
the industry it's very unlikely that the
Tesla investment has ever repaid to the
taxpayers electric vehicles are really
not possible in ways that would be
effective for most consumers still this
is just the religion of electric
vehicles and like Jonestown that
religion will come to an end there are
most certain people who want to see
Tesla fail because it is an attack on
the mainstream car industry
of course the biggest impact that test
will have is not the cause that we make
ourselves but the fact that we show that
you can make compelling electric cars
that people really want to buy the
government loan came with a challenging
condition to get the money he had to
first find a place to build his electric
car Tesla burned through 300 million
dollars since 2003 Elon Musk needed to
get his model s into production fast
ever the risk-taker he took another
giant gamble
purchasing a plant in Fremont California
abandoned by Toyota The Dream Factory
location where Tesla was always the new
me factory which was a 50-percent Toyota
factory sent General Motors factory it's
one of the biggest car plants in the
world it's a great location close to
Tesla headquarters the reality is for
very little money Toyota got an
albatraoz off its books from an industry
perspective it looked incredibly savvy
on Toyotas part and incredibly naive on
Tesla's part car factories are big
pieces of sunk capital to retool a
factory it takes a tremendous
incremental investment the acquisition
released the government funds to begin
production despite the fact that Tesla
had posted a profit just once since its
founding musk took his company public in
June 2010 the smartest money in the
world is is betting on Tesla not
everyone was as upbeat about the
company's future
Tesla stock voted by Wall Street as the
least likely to succeed you don't want
on this stock you don't want you
shouldn't even write the darn thing
there hasn't been an IPO of a car
company in America since Henry Ford and
that caught people's attention investors
ignored the skeptics Tesla raised 226
million dollars in its IPO must now had
the capital to get rolling on the Model
S
you just saw on his face this sort of
just relation and this feeling like all
of this suffering is worth it and it's
anger and it's real now in 2010 after
winning the 1.6 billion dollar contract
from NASA
SpaceX became the first private company
to successfully launch and return a
spacecraft from orbit
so SpaceX was the first purely
commercial ground-up development to
reach orbit the first successful launch
at SpaceX was
I'm just wishing through any entities
that are listening please bless this
launch
and two years later in May 2012 it made
history as the first privately held
company to send a cargo payload to the
International Space Station
back on earth the long-awaited launch of
Tesla's new sedan was also taking off
its time delivery model s the Model S
started rolling off the production line
although questions about range and
service remained not everyone was
cheering in a 2012 presidential debate
Republican candidate Mitt Romney blasted
President Obama for the government loan
to Tesla lumping Tesla in with other
financially troubled green companies you
put 90 billion dollars like 50 years
worth of breaks into into solar and wind
to suck it Solyndra and Fisker and Tesla
and enter one I mean I add a friend who
said you don't just pick the winners and
losers he picked the losers but Tesla
was no loser in the eyes of the
automotive industry the Model S was the
first electric sedan to win motor trends
Car of the Year musk didn't have much
time to celebrate a few months later the
New York Times delivered a devastating
review of the Model S it reported the
battery died on its test drive from
Washington to Boston and published an
image no CEO would want
there was a sad shot of about car owner
on a flatbed as though that was the only
outcome possible for for such a drive
and that's just that's just not true
musk went on the offensive unless people
said oh you know should it doesn't
matter if you're right or wrong you
don't battle the New York Times and it's
like the hell with that the battle
between the reporter and the renegade
CEO ended when the New York Times public
editor concluded the reporting was
imprecise but not done in bad faith but
the story didn't affect his bottom line
remember that loser comment from a
presidential candidate about the 465
million dollar government loan it really
feels good to have have repaid the US
taxpayer that's that's really what's
important here and and we're not we
didn't just repay the principal we
actually repaid it with interest and and
a bonus pay and so ultimately the the US
taxpayer actually made a profit of over
20 million dollars on this
Tesla repaid the loan nine years ahead
of schedule never short on optimism or
confidence musk made a stunning promise
for the nearly $70,000 car we're
guaranteeing that the value of the Model
S will be no less than that of a
Mercedes s-class after three years I am
personally guaranteeing that value and
standing behind that guarantee with all
of my assets not just with with Tesla he
has guaranteed free charging for the
life of the car and has expanded the
charging system across the country
you'll be able to travel all the way
from LA to New York just using the Tesla
supercharger network and supercharger
system is free so it's not just free now
it's get free forever that's the Tesla
commitment his commitment to customers
has paid off since its IPO Tesla shares
were up more than fivefold SpaceX and
Solar City were also turning profits and
this is a biggest and most important
customer but almost three quarters of
our customers are commercial SpaceX says
it has more than four billion dollars in
revenue under contract but of all his
companies perhaps the greatest success
was the one addressing the world's
energy need Solar City is now the
largest solar service provider in the US
and has more than quadrupled in value
since its initial public offering in
December 2012 Solar City has been very
very impressive
I mean there are you know thousands of
people with panels on their roofs and
and lots of big offices I believe eBay
has solar city panels so it's it's
having a very big very visible impact on
the world he really wants to change the
world
and in my vision of the future that
you'll have clean and renewable sources
of energy feeding the grid and our all
of our vehicles will run off that this
is really the future it's something
wonderful stories about Iran has a
self-confidence that is just it's
breathtaking
and it's especially breathtaking when
you think about the things he's
confident about the idea that Humanity
is gonna get to Mars that not just
humanity is gonna get to Mars that but
that he in his lifetime Elon Musk will
get to Mars Crusader or canny
businessman named one of Time Magazine's
most influential people in the world the
risk-taking multitasking CEOs estimated
net worth was six billion dollars in
June 2013 divorced for the second time
musk splits his time between his five
sons his companies and thinking about
the future just is it significant it
really is question is all things I'm
working on are they really gonna matter
or do they have the potential for really
matter
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