When asked why the Tesla Cybertruck and Roadster are taking so much time to produce, Elon explains: “Design Is Easy. Production is Hard.”
Don’t get Elon wrong: He’s not saying design is not worth obsessing over or that Tesla and SpaceX do not obsess over design…
Because obsessing over design has helped make Tesla vehicles and SpaceX products as awesome as they are.
But a design on paper is easier than a prototype in clay, and a prototype is easier than a product on a production line.
The machine that builds the machine is the ultimate challenge.
Elon has said production is at least an order of magnitude harder than developing a prototype, when talking about Tesla.
So once you get a prototype to work with, you can shift your focus to finding investors and getting the funds, factory and people so you can get into production!
The rate of innovation is why Tesla’s do not have model years, because improvements are being made constantly, and certainly not at a once per year pace.
Because you’ve got to constantly innovate and iterate to create something great.
Get from the design to the prototype phase as soon as possible.
Because once you have a prototype you can focus on the challenges that come with production and delivery.
Be guided by doing the right thing. It’s always right to do the right thing.
Elon has a current estimated net worth of $600+ billion as of December, 2025, and this does not factor in his crypto assets.
His net worth fluctuates depending on the price of Tesla shares and the valuation of SpaceX.
Interestingly Elon went on the record in a Reddit Storytime with NASA and said:
“I actually don’t care about money at all. At all. But I do care about us becoming a space faring civilization.”
For Elon it’s certainly not all about the money: First and foremost for Elon it’s about the missions.
When we make mistakes, it’s just because we were being foolish or stupid or whatever, but it’s really always made with the right motivations.
We say the things we believe even when sometimes those things we believe are delusional.”
Elon is a genius among geniuses and part of this is his ability to recognize when re-calibration is necessary.
Even the smartest among us make mistakes. Making mistakes is a part of making things work better. Elon elaborated on this idea at a Baron Investment Conference:
“We’d made so many mistakes in the beginning of Tesla we basically had to recapitalize the company completely…Almost every decision we made was wrong.” Being right is often a process of eliminating and learning from what is wrong…
A big part of the power of Tesla and everything Elon does is his willingness to be wrong, and then use this knowledge to pave the path to a more righteous realization.
Thinking you are always right will always stifle innovation.
Naive teenagers often think they are always right…and they often are proved wrong at this point.
Elon has likely made more right business decisions than almost anyone else alive and yet he says:
“We start from the point of view that we are wrong. And our goal is to be less wrong.”
Build It Like Elon: The Secret to Creating Products That Sell Themselves
Creating an amazing product is one of the strongest types of marketing there is.
Word of mouth marketing is a remarkable form of influencer marketing and it remains powerful to this day.
Influencers, the media, and everyone in between are all human beings. And the best way to get them to spread the word about your company for free is to develop an incredible product or service that amazes and delights.
Apple is an example of this. Although Apple certainly does not shy away from advertising their marketing would fall flat if their products and design were not high quality.
Elon explains how for him it is not about the companies, it is about creating compelling products and services, and companies are the means to this end.
In an interview with the Babylon Bee Elon elaborates:
“It’s not like I care about starting companies. Like is there is a very compelling product or service that’s the thing that is important, not the company. A company is just an assemblage of people to create a compelling product or service. And if a company does not provide great products or services it should not exist.”
So relentlessly strive to improve the product or service you have to offer.
When media outlets start talking about how your product is the best you’ll know you are on the right track.
Elon recommends CEO’s “Spend less time with finance and in conference rooms and on powerpoint and spend more time trying to make your product as amazing as possible.”
“Make your product better. That is what really matters.”
Step 1: “Have You Tried? Like really tried.”
Step 2: “Try Harder”
This reminds me of one of my favorite Elon quotes of all time, which he shared with a bunch of high schoolers who he did a Hack Club ask me anything video chat with. Elon said:
“You’ve got to try. Believe in yourself and try. People can do way more than they think.”
Be an absolute perfectionist about the product you produce or the service you provide.
As I write this I just put down my phone and stopped a doom scroll on Christmas to shift my attention to Elonology. Because I’m taking Elon’s advice to Try Harder and do what is necessary to make this book great.
The company that invests the most effort and produces the most beneficial innovations is likely to win long term.
Embrace Risk and Rapid Cycles: Building the Future Like Elon.
The decisions Elon makes may appear risky to others but because of the setup of his companies he is able to roll out innovations on the fly.
Fast decisions give Elon’s companies an edge because either they improve, or they learn, and this helps innovation.
Elon’s companies have an edge whereas entrenched management in legacy companies cannot keep up due to managerial lag.
Too often people are paralyzed by fear and suffer from analysis paralysis.
Without an element of risk a great reward is rarely found.
There is risk of company decay and death when no action is taken at all.
Safe is risky and risky is safe.
Innovation is how you win and innovation requires a degree of action taking risk.
But avoiding innovation is a bigger risk. Innovation requires a focus on what could be rather than what already is.
Elon has said “What matters is the rate of innovation.”
“What exactly is innovation?” you might be wondering.
At Tesla AI day Elon explained: “In general innovation is how many iterations and what is the average progress between each iteration. And so if you can reduce the time between iterations the rate of improvement is much better.”
Innovating more effectively and rapidly than your competition gives your business the best chance of success…
So always be “risk taking” and innovating!
The faster your rate of innovation the faster your business will rise in power and capture market share.
Tesla has been innovating faster than other car companies and the compounding effect of all of these innovations are an essential part of the reason why Tesla is now the most valuable car company with no signs of slowing down.
Amazon has been innovating more than Wal-Mart and this makes it clear how Amazon has been gaining market share from Wal-Mart.
Innovation is future focused and being future focused is key if you want a more fantastic future.
Elon certainly is and says:
“I think within the next five years we will see the electrification of aircrafts. First propeller, then turboprop, then jet engines.”
“What is important is that we establish a self-sustaining city on Mars so the future of consciousness and life as we know it can survive.”
Elon goes on about innovation in an interview with Offshore Northern Seas.
“Establish an expectation of innovation, and the compensation structure must reflect that…there must also be an allowance for failure because if you are trying something new, necessarily there is some chance it will not work. If you punish people too much for failure they will respond accordingly and the innovation you get will not be very incrementalist.”
So keep thinking ahead because the future is where we’ll be spending the rest of our lives.
Elon has been known to spend so much time working he will actually sleep in the Tesla and SpaceX factories.
And it’s not as if he has a plush bedroom in a factory loft or something. In one Interview Elon showed the plain couch in a Tesla conference room he slept on, and said it was so uncomfortable he ended up sleeping on the floor.
Sleeping in his factories and at his business locations is something Elon does to this day, even as one of the richest humans alive.
In a recent interview (Dec 2020) when Elon was accepting the Axel Springer award in Germany the interviewer asked Elon where he was spending the night.
Elon replied: In the German Tesla factory. The interviewer asked where in the factory? Elon replied in the conference room.
That’s right, the world’s second wealthiest man chooses to spend the night in the conference room of a factory rather than a fancy hotel.
When asked about this on a Clubhouse audio chat he admitted that not only has he slept in the conference room, he has also slept outside of it, in a sleeping bag on the concrete factory floor.
That’s the level of obsession that is required for Elon’s kind of success.
Innovate or Evaporate: The Modern Business Mandate.
On a call with investment bankers in 2018 Elon refused several bone headed comments and told day traders or investors afraid of volatility straight up not to buy Tesla stock because:
“I am not here to convince you to buy our stock…I could care less.”
What Elon does care about is innovation. He shared some powerful insights about innovation on the on the call:
“What matters is the pace of innovation. It is a fundamental determinant to competitiveness…
Let’s say competitors, maybe they come out with something new every six years. We’re maybe every two to three years.
So if our innovation is let’s say twice that of any given competitor…
And this is true generally of companies in any industry…
Whichever company has the highest rate of innovation, unless that company is actively killed by it’s competitors in some way that’s nefarious, or shoots itself in the foot, it will at some point exceed those competitors…
Like this is obvious that this would occur with Amazon and Wal-Mart because wal-mart’s rate of innovation was negligible. And Amazon’s was very high. The outcome was obvious a long time ago.”
In a more recent interview about the AxelSpringer Award (Which Elon ended up winning) Elon echoed similar sentiments saying: “The company with the higher rate of innovation will unequivocally win long term.”
The lesson here is clear: Innovation matters most.
Moreover the more aggressively you innovate and iterate the faster you will dominate.
“Innovation per year is what matters. Not innovation absent time. Because if you want to make say 100% improvement in something and that took 100 years, or one year, that’s radically different…
So it’s like “what is your rate of innovation?” that matters and “is the rate of innovation accelerating or decelerating?”
At InvestHK Elon said: Innovation comes from questioning the way things have been done before…
And if in the education system you’re taught not to do that that will inhibit entrepreneurship.
Interviewer: “Being able to question what you were taught?”
Elon: “Being able to say: ‘Is there a better way?”
Elon has innovated with Tesla to the point where multiple sources, and undeniable facts, confirm Tesla has created the best car ever.
Looking for a better way creates the game changing level of innovation you need to have a position in the marketplace where you are in a category of your own.
Here are some of Elon’s quotes on innovation:
“Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive, and determination of the people behind it as the product they sell.”
“Great companies are built on great products.”
“Failure is essentially irrelevant unless it is catastrophic.”
Although Elon does not strive for failure, he certainly does not hide from it either. The failing rockets taught their teams lessons. Then the info learned led to persistence and success with SpaceX after their first three rockets failed and he was down to his last investment capital.
Facing failure head on and learning from it is a lesson I learned the hard way. Once I got a speeding ticket and rather than setting the court date in my calendar I shoved the ticket in a folder and forgot about it. Since I missed the court date I got the maximum fine in my absence.
Had I faced that situation head on maybe I would have emerged successful. Probably I would have gotten a lesser fine, or perhaps the cop would not have shown up for the court date and my ticket would have been dropped.
These days no matter how difficult the issue I might be facing I deal with it as soon as possible so it does not become ignored or forgotten about, causing the punishment of ignorance over time.
Action is the antidote to despair.
As Elon says:
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
“If every time somebody came up with an idea it had to be successful you don’t get people coming up with examples.”
Failure is not to be feared. In fact just the opposite: It should be encouraged!
Because with more experiments, which will cause more failures, you will ultimately end up with more successes and a faster pace of innovation.
Innovate Faster or Die: How Elon Musk Gains a Competitive Edge
Innovation is absolutely a vital key to gaining a competitive advantage in your industry…
At MIT Elon explained: “In terms of our competitiveness, it mostly comes down to our pace of innovation. Our pace of innovation is much, much faster than the big aerospace companies or the country driven systems…
This is generally true. If you look at innovation from larger companies and smaller companies, smaller companies are generally better at innovating than larger companies…because smaller companies would die if they didn’t try innovating.“
Innovate or die.
And don’t let the small size of your company deter you…small, smart and technically strong often trumps large, clunky and wasteful.
The Power of Aggressive Goals: Lessons from Elon Musk’s Playbook
Although there have been a number of timelines at Tesla and SpaceX that have been pushed back, and pushed back again, no one can dispute that Tesla has risen to become the definitive dominating automotive giant in the world at an impressively fast speed.
Aggressive outcomes are impossible without aggressive effort…
So where does the aggressive effort come from?
Firstly it comes from the awesomely important missions Elon is embarking on…
And also it comes from the agressive effort because of the aggressive timelines Elon sets for company milestones, combined with many other optimizations.
Because without an optimized work force Elon’s 90,000+ employees would not optimize and deliver their dominating results.
By setting these aggressive timelines engineers and employees must stretch their ability to innovate and work long hours to the limit.
In the Ted Talk “Elon Musk: A future worth getting excited about” TED’s Chris Anderson asks Elon about timelines and says:
“And so in general, when people talk about Elon time, I mean it sounds like you can’t just have a general rule that if you predict that something will be done in six months, actually what we should imagine is it’s going to be a year ot it’s like two-x or three-x, it depends on the type of prediction…
Is there an element that you actually deliberately make aggressive prediction timelines to drive ambitious people to be ambitious? Without that nothing gets done?“
Elon replied: “Well, I generally believe, in terms of internal timelines, that we want to set the most aggressive timeline that we can.
Because there’s sort of like a law of gaseous expansion where, for schedules, where whatever time you set, it’s not going to be less than that. It’s very rare that it’ll be less than that… But as far as our predictions are concerned what tends to happen in the media is that they will report all the wrong ones and ignore all the right ones.”
And Elon works hard to ensure all of the predictions he makes come true, sooner or later.
Elon certainly seems like an example of how the harder you work the more momentum you can gain.
Elon has led by example and has sometimes worked for so many hours straight when he did sleep he would sleep in the conference room, or even on the factory floor.
The Power of Extreme Persistence: Lessons from Elon Musk’s Near-Bankruptcies
Here is a definition for the word Tenacious:
Adjective Not readily relinquishing a position, principle, or course of action; determined.
The determination to keep going when the going gets tough is what saved SpaceX and Tesla when both were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Elon poured all of his money from the sale of PayPal into these companies so they could survive and his tenacity in doing so saved them from insolvency.
The perseverance and hard work Elon has shown in making every company he has worked with a success reminds me of this quote from Steve Jobs:
I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.
Elon met Steve Jobs once and said Steve was a jerk to him after Google co-founder Larry Page introduced him…but nonetheless Elon has praised Steve and uses Apple products like the iPhone (in combination with PC’s) to this day.
Despite the snubbing from Steve Jobs Elon seems to respect him for his tenacity and craftsmanship. Elon shared this video below where Jobs shares a Rock Tumbler metaphor. I recommend you check it out:
