SpaceX

"(Well into his SpaceX years, Musk would propose a solution to this problem for a future Mars government, suggesting that all Martian laws include automatic sunset clauses.I)"

"In the space of four years, Musk had expanded his fortune from eight figures to nine—and laid the foundation for his future efforts. “PayPal going public is what allowed me to have the capital to start SpaceX, because I could sell stock or borrow against the stock,” Musk said. “Before that, I didn’t really have meaningful cash.”"

"outfit their homes with solar panels. Tesla and SpaceX help each other as well. They exchange knowledge around materials, manufacturing techniques, and the intricacies of operating factories that build so much stuff from the ground up."

"Back in LA, Musk had dinner at a Beverly Hills steakhouse with a friend and early Tesla investor, Jason Calacanis. Musk was in a dark place. His third rocket had just exploded on liftoff, and SpaceX would go under if the fourth did. Calacanis had read that Tesla only had four weeks of money left; he asked Musk if that was true. No, Musk said. Three weeks. Musk confided that a friend had loaned him money so he could cover his personal expenses. There were other benefactors: Bill Lee, Al Gore’s son-in-law, invested $2 million, and Sergey Brin put in $500,000. Some employees were even writing checks, not sure they’d ever see the money again. Things looked bleak. Still, Musk said he wanted to show Calacanis something. He pulled out his BlackBerry and revealed a picture of a clay mockup of the Model S. “That’s gorgeous,” Calacanis said. “How much can you make it for?” “Well, it’s going to go 200 miles,” Musk said. “I think we can make it for $50,000 or $60,000.” That night Calacanis returned home and wrote out two checks for $50,000 each and a note to Musk: “Elon, looks like an incredible car…I’ll take two!”"

"He added another goal: He wanted to provide “zero emissions” electric power generation. The blog referenced his recent investment in a solar panel company, called SolarCity Corp. It was a venture with his two cousins (making him chairman in a third company, after Tesla and SpaceX) aimed at putting solar panels on homes, which, he wrote, could generate about fifty miles of driving per day worth of electricity."

"(Well into his SpaceX years, Musk would propose a solution to this problem for a future Mars government, suggesting that all Martian laws include automatic sunset clauses.I)"

"In the space of four years, Musk had expanded his fortune from eight figures to nine—and laid the foundation for his future efforts. “PayPal going public is what allowed me to have the capital to start SpaceX, because I could sell stock or borrow against the stock,” Musk said. “Before that, I didn’t really have meaningful cash.”"

"The first team that I built has become known in Silicon Valley as the “PayPal Mafia” because so many of my former colleagues have gone on to help each other start and invest in successful tech companies. We sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. Since then, Elon Musk has founded SpaceX and co-founded Tesla Motors; Reid Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn; Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim together founded YouTube; Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons founded Yelp; David Sacks co-founded Yammer; and I co-founded Palantir. Today all seven of those companies are worth more than $1 billion each. PayPal’s office amenities never got much press, but the team has done extraordinarily well, both together and individually: the culture was strong enough to transcend the original company."

"I see how my restraint runs counter to the bet-it-all mindset of some of the current business stars. Elon Musk, a brilliant mind and inveterate risk-taker, has famously doubled down again and again. He poured roughly half of his entire fortune into SpaceX when it was near bankruptcy, as he did with Tesla."