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 wave 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
Now 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've 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 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
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 it up over 20 million dollars on this loan
elon musk has even bigger dreams that might just take him farther than
more nails you know and less goes a step further
Earth, not big enough the spacex he literally wants to go to mars i lost too much i'd really love to go to mars and
That's the overarching goal of spacex?
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
and elon said 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 balcony well 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
250,000 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 mei was a model and
nutritionist he was the youngest mate about two days and
The shortest and then he was this brilliant boy and so people didn't really like him so i was
just
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 but he was picked on quite a bit
so just like read a read a lot of books and
and try stay 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've read all the comings 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 reading 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 kimba musk when he louis was 10 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 going space game called blast our
mosque 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 year around 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 provided 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're 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 in 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 luck, to say 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 of the question i
told my parents i was going to canada and they try convinced 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 says what do i do now so what a bus a 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
Tech 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 he one had this ability to to look at the world go this is a real problem that's going
To happen 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 i can still come back
my kids do funny things and i've never too concerned about them because you know if
enon 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 join 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 he they didn't have a shower
where 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 capitalists 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 and late nineties 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 like my core programming skills i was able to write the
was the software needed for the company now when ilan 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 was the media companies 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 you think she will ever replace this
and we thought the guy was crazy because
not only we were 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 thought that's crazy well i would somebody
pay such a huge amount of money for
This little company that we have it actually officer turned out very well for them and actually so there were a lot more about it
than i did when the kidsongs
- it was the most exciting day we couldn't believe it because you don't know in the internet world but you're going
To you know make a million or die tomorrow
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 levitator billion dollars and i made it 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 food 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 was a mclaren f1 and
proceeded to
enjoy that around the bay area with a number of adventures andras pickings 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 a piddling
accomplishment so i certainly had the choice at that point of retiring and you know buying an island somewhere and
Sipping mai-tais but that was not of interest to me at all it really wasn't a choice of we weren't gonna do anything it was
just
really what we were gonna do next
any launched case 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 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 can 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 turnaround 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 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
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 leading payment system in the world
And then evei 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 that again i was just 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 if we're out there 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 nasty and 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 even saying he wants to go and
Enable the human civilization to leave the planet earth
it's a 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 100 million dollars which was the majority of his net worth at the plant
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
That whole rocket thing you do with the space shuttle i got a better way
actually travel 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 from 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?
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 you on how he managed to teach himself rocket science he'll just look
at you very seriously and just say very quietly we read a lot of books
Thirty two-year-old elon musk had his next big idea at his family's annual visit to bernie 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 wanted to suggest that the idea of
Going into the solar power arena to
Lyndon and peter i of my cousin's 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 said 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 a solar city instead was they say how about
No, money done you want solar cells we'll just put in you don't pay a cent
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 so let's keep going
Solar city then only goes up at the end at least so the fascinating business model in the long run they may become
the largest energy generator in america all of these rooftops
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 since those cities about sustainable energy creation
whereas tesla is 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 startup 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 two is a medium priced car at
medium volume since f3 is a low priced card 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 cars is hot and desirable and beautiful and convince people that driving north 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 a object of desire and consumers and it's part of the story clicked together he talked about
silicon valley smart it's 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 tussle 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 and we 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
says it 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 full pot it fell apart when the team 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
made some pretty dramatic changes essentially recapitalize 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 own mind because tells it was too important to
till i die i'm available
24/7 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 for 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 so if somebody can't get happy
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 all you know was enough 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
won 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
with them 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 co-star for sale the united
States we had to send somebody down to mexico, to buy a smart car bring bring one
To the us and then the smoke is really tiny so we had to fit up a motor how electronics and charger and everything
in the smart 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 four 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 and select the value
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 which he called the model s
originally with model s i thought well let's let's have kerry kiska who was a head
The design studio through 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 a 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 into him 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 three 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
make it it it would be over spacex would would die
Must, burned through the 100 million yet 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'd raised money
To finance a fourth launch 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 phones and then just as we'd solve those problems we ran smack into the the worst economic
recession since the great depression it's been one of the darkest days on wall street in 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 must face 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 saw 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 a you'd peel their need at
$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
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's 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 nice 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 ilan was going through his sad period i was
So sad i felt like i had a hole in my heart and isn't that thing 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
ma you can't be
i've 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 thought
This engineer that had wandered into a london club and he just looked so forlorn he was
Just, sat in the corner on his blackberry this is evict he was really out of place and sad i was you know trying to
Be very sweet to him and and to humoring him going oh yes when he was game this is my rocket and this is my
musk's personal life was looking up and the future of spacex was finally taking on
the fourth attempt
to launch the falcon one 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
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 you on 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 a good week but it definitely
took its toll from the mental strain standpoint i think if
manfully 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 i said look we really 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 he 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 model s is really similar to a skateboard
The floor of the vehicle is the battery pack and the motors
between the rear wheels and
everything above that is the opportunity's based 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 brush is a huge douche bag
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 certainly people who want
To see tesla fail because it is an attack on the mainstream car industry
of course the biggest impact that tez 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 ganon
purchasing a plant in fremont california
abandoned by toyota the dream factory location protest that was always the
near 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 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 martin wolf 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 to own the stock you don't want to
read 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
musk, now had the capital to get rolling on the model s
you just, saw on his face this sort of
distillation and this feeling like all of this suffering is worth it and it's an worth 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 who any entities that are listening please bless this lower
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 but
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 decide it's solyndra and fisker
and tesla and enter one i mean i a friend who said you don't just pick the winners and losers you 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 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 loan?
tesla repaid the 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 is 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 nasa's 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 almost 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 up
this is really the future it's something you want to tell stories about
leon 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 the question is other things i'm working on are they really going to matter or do they have the
potential for really matter
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