10 Controversial Elon Musk Quotes Guaranteed to Make You Love or Hate Him More
Or forget him forever. Or go full outrage mode.
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Now to today’s Substack…
Elon Musk is the most controversial figure in history.
That’s what I’ve learned in the last few weeks. A theme of this Substack is to dissect the wisdom of controversial figures.
Because people you don’t like can still teach you lessons – and often they’re the lessons you desperately need to hear.
Elon Musk isn’t my cup of tea
Recently Elon Musk was accused of being racist.
One member of my community lost their marbles. They quit X right away in protest. I went through Elon’s tweets to see what happened. The media says he’s evil and racist. But when I read his tweets I didn’t see anything racist.
Elon has since come out and clarified he didn’t make racist remarks.
As we head into a U.S. election I suspect the media and politicians will continue to use Elon as a pawn in their political game.
Let me be clear: this doesn’t mean Elon is an angel or that I like him.
I’ll say it right now – I DON’T LIKE ELON. I feel he’s a 6 year old living in an adult body. His jokes aren’t funny and his memes are silly.
He’s the kind of guy that makes d*ck jokes and expects everyone to laugh.
At the same time Elon is sending more rockets into space than anyone else. There’s a high chance his company SpaceX will allow humans to be a multi-planetary species, and make space travel viable & cheap.
Tesla is another game-changer.
The electric car revolution wouldn’t have happened without Tesla. Layer in Elon’s work in AI, robotics, satellite internet and solar, and what you have underneath the layers of immaturity is a man who has done and will continue to do a lot for humanity.
So while I don’t particularly like him, I’d be an idiot to dismiss his contribution to humanity. And I (and you) can learn a lot from him.
Elon is a deeply lonely man
I’ve written about Elon a lot.
I find him interesting because on the one hand he’s a billionaire and wildly successful at business. On the other hand he’s a total failure as a father and husband. And he’s not great at making friends. He’s also terrible at looking after his health.
This is a common trait among wildly successful people.
They’re great at one thing which causes them to be bad at almost everything else. It’s why I don’t want to be wildly successful or become a billionaire.
In a recent interview with Lex Fridman, something hit me.
Lex asks Elon “How are you doing?”
You get the feeling, as a close friend, that Lex knows something the audience doesn’t. Elon’s body language as he answers the question says it all. He’s not okay at all and he knows it.
Lex: “Do you get lonely?”
Then after this question and a nonsense answer, Elon says “There are many nights I sleep alone. I don’t have to but I do.”
The conversation then gets deeper. Lex asks about Elon’s difficult childhood and whether he can ever get past it. Elon thinks he doesn’t have any resentment over it, but I think it’s clear his childhood explains his unusual behavior.
You can learn a lot about a man through his relationship with his father.
And Elon’s father doesn’t like or respect him. He even publicly makes fun of Elon’s weight challenges.
I often feel like Elon’s war with the world (and the one in his head) is just an expression of the frustration he feels over his childhood – and the hope his dad will pay attention to him and his accomplishments.
"The man is pushing civilization forward at a faster pace than anyone else alive, yet he has a life that almost no one would want.” – Anthony Pompliano
Now, let’s get to the best quotes from Elon that we can all learn from (whether you like him or not).
1. “If you need inspiration, don't do it.”
A lot of cliche advice says “find your passion, find your purpose, do what you love.”
And the motivation industry is a big business. Too many people think they need to be inspired or to find a magical woo-woo calling. I agree with Elon – it’s nonsense.
I don’t need inspiration. I live off obsession. I can’t wake up and *not* do what I do. If I don’t write it feels like I’m not breathing or my heart has stopped beating.
Do work that is effortless. Look at what you’re addicted or obsessed with. And if that’s video games then don’t be talked out of it. Thanks to the internet you can now play video games and make it a career.
Less inspiration, more obsession.
2. “Most people will panic to find a charger before their phone dies.
But won’t panic to find a plan before their dream dies.”
I love this quote.
Our obsession with our phones is slowly ruining our lives. It’s why I got a divorce with mine and leave it in a drawer.
A phone is a distraction and does a damn good job of helping you forget your dreams. And a 9-5 job does a great job of helping you build someone else’s dream instead of yours. That doesn’t mean you never work a job. No.
It means that a job is level one of the video game and you eventually want to progress to levels 2, 3, 4 and beyond.
Let your phone battery die so you can come alive.
3. “I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.”
There are too many spectators in society.
They love to throw dog poo from the peanut gallery at those doing big things. It’s what’s wrong with the world. Stop watching other people do big things and thinking “one day” “someday” or “I can’t do it.”
You can. All the rewards in life go to those in the middle of the stadium shooting their shot, not to the Twitter critics who can come up with millions of reasons why something won’t work using a meme as a way to get ‘likes’ to become liked.
Join the action. Become a builder.
4. “Take risks now. Do something bold. You won’t regret it.”
If you don’t take a risk you’ll be working the same boring job for the rest of your life.
That’s no way to live. Get off zero. Progress. Obsess. Do something. Anything. The biggest regrets I’ve ever had all relate to not taking risks. And sitting on the sidelines or waiting for things to happen.
Calculated risks are what make life worth it.
They’re the moments you’ll never forget that your grandkids will be talking about one day when you’re gone. The reason we don’t take risks is because our mind is great at imagining all these scenarios that’ll probably never happen.
Risks make life better.
5. “I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.”
This is one idea I appreciate Elon for.
He doesn’t think you need to be ‘chosen’ or born gifted. Like me, he thinks anybody can go from mediocre to incredible.
Your actions determine who you’ll become. Being ordinary is a superpower. It makes you an underdog and most people won’t see your success coming.
In 2019 my dumb boss treated me like sh*t. He told everyone behind my back I was stupid and lazy for working 4 days a week. He said I should go back to the call center and be a retail banker.
But that useless golf-ball-hitting man was wrong.
He just couldn’t see the movement I was building on the side. Now he looks stupid. He ended up getting fired and getting a piss-ant job working for a company nobody has ever heard of.
I ended up becoming financially free, building an online business, reaching 500M+ people online, and living my obsession 24/7. That’s the power of being an ordinary underdog and anyone can do it.
You don’t need to be special, you just need to back yourself, and do the work while giving the critics the silent middle finger.
6.
“Always take the position that you are to some degree wrong, and your goal is to be less wrong over time.
One of the biggest mistakes people generally make, and I’m guilty of it too, is wishful thinking. You want something to be true, even if it isn’t true. And so you ignore the real truth because of what you want to be true. This is a very difficult trap to avoid.”
Wow, this is a smack in the face!
Wishful thinking is a pandemic. People BS themselves into thinking if they just maintain the habit or show up for long enough then Hollywood (or the equivalent) will find them and bless their beautiful life.
The world doesn’t need more successful people.
What we need are more people who are willing to be wrong, who are willing to listen to people and opinions they disagree with so they can learn and grow (that’s what we’re doing right here, friends).
We will all be wrong. The goal is to take action and have experiences that’ll make you less wrong over time.
7. “Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.”
My interpretation of this quote is if you refuse to change then disaster awaits.
Holding onto an identity is dangerous. Often people’s biggest problem is themselves. They can’t get out of their own way and stop their excuses from destroying every opportunity in front of their big brown eyes.
We avoid change because it introduces the possibility of failure.
But Elon has a quote that explains the missed opportunity: “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
You can tell how far you’ll get in life based on your failure rate. Having spoken to some of you privately, what I’ve learned is many of you are on a failure rate of 0. You’re not failing at all and then can’t work out what’s wrong.
Solution: more experiments that lead to failures. That’s how we learn and grow.
The goal is to do experiments that might fail but won’t ruin you. But frankly…I love ruin, bankruptcy, disaster, broken-down relationships, mental illness, and tragedy. It’s where I’m forced to learn and grow and without it I’m a slacker
Failure is the path forward. Increase your failure rate to move faster.
8.
“A good sign as to whether there’s free speech is: Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case, then we have free speech. And it’s damn annoying when someone you don’t like says something you don’t like.
This one’s spicy.
I’m tired of all the censorship and tech bros trying to play god with what information we can and can’t see. If there’s one good thing about Elon, it’s his obsession with free speech.
Debating ideas solves more problems than suppressing ideas.
9. “Optimism, pessimism, f**k that. We’re going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I’m hell-bent on making it work.”
Elon is relentless.
It’s the kind of mindset that breaks paradigms and gets things done. Once you become determined to make something happen, you can. We need more of this thinking in the world. People give up too easily.
They hear one tiny no or face rejection and think it’s the end, instead of the beginning. Become hell-bent on making your version of the world a reality.
A wise person once said this to me about writing online:
“People buy your view of the world.”
I think about that a lot. Don’t build a personal brand or a business. Share your view of the world and attract people to it.
10. “Time is the ultimate currency”
Elon’s a billionaire.
Many Twitter bros want to be just like him. But Elon has no time. He rarely sees his family and can’t keep any wife. To his credit, at least with this quote he realizes what true wealth is.
You don’t want more money or status. You want more free time. You want to be told what to do less often. You want less forced meetings and more time with family.
Stop chasing money and getting yourself into more debt with useless luxury purchases. Make money and invest money to buy back your time.
Closing Thought
You can admire Elon Musk and Steve Jobs while knowing that you don’t need to be like them at all – Naval Ravikant
You may dislike Elon, like I do, but you can learn from him without supporting his controversial views or helping promote some of his conspiracy theories.
Learn from everyone, especially the people you hate.
Over to you…
What do you like about Elon? What do you dislike? Tell me in the comments.
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I love his ability to think he can do anything. If more of us had this quality think how much more the world would benefit...
People who do significant things in our world are always different from the masse! That is why they can make a huge difference. Their brains don't work like others. We can learn a lot from them.