Subjects / Advice
23 answers
“A lot of times it’s like the same questions that people ask… Oh, that’s question 27. Here you go. It has answer 27 that I’ve given a hundred times before. So maybe I should… just have like a web page with literally frequently asked questions… just go to the page and then you got the answer.”
— Elon Musk, 10 October 2026 · Transcript (archive) ↗ · In the archive
“…a week before we release a model, we give that, you know, we give access to our competitors to say, hey guys, why don’t you try out the new model, see if you see any problems with it.”
— Elon Musk, 6 August 2026 · Watch: YouTube (9:40) ↗ · In the archive
“Tesla engineering redesigned lithium refining from physics first principles”
— Elon Musk, 18 April 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive
“Yeah, I’m constantly addressing the limiting factor.”
— Elon Musk, 5 February 2026 · Watch: YouTube (2:12:06) ↗ · In the archive
“Reasoning from first principles is a superpower”
— Elon Musk, 17 February 2025 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive
“We tried desperately with Optimus to use any existing motors, any actuators, sensors. Nothing worked for a humanoid robot at any price. We had to design everything from physics first principles to work for a humanoid robot.”
— Elon Musk, 29 January 2025 · Watch: Tesla Q4 and full year 2024 earnings call (2025) · 21:38 ↗ · In the archive
“Spengler did too much reasoning from historical examples and not enough reasoning from first principles. The role of technology is not properly appreciated by most historians, as they have no idea how physics actually works. It all seems like magic to them.”
— Elon Musk, 13 December 2024 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive
“I just recommend studying physics, you know, and the tools of physics, sort of the thinking tools that it's not just a bunch of. What matters is not remembering a bunch of formulas. What matters is the thinking process that led to the discovery of those formulas. It's sort of critical thinking, first principles, analysis, trying to understand what is true at a most fundamental level and then reasoning up from there and testing your conclusions against the most fundamental truth in any given arena. This is how you can figure out whether something is more likely to be true or not.”
— Elon Musk, 26 October 2024 · Watch: America PAC Town Hall — Lancaster, PA (2024) · 1:11:16 ↗ · In the archive
“To quote @westcoastbill : “Starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.””
— Elon Musk, 25 March 2024 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive
“…you can think of the X platform or social media in general as kind of a collective Consciousness or group mind and you want to have as much signal and as little noise as possible.”
— Elon Musk, 21 December 2023 · Watch: X Spaces with Cathie Wood (ARK Invest) (2023) · 9:19 ↗ · In the archive
“…biasing things to where the subscribers effectively or premium users content is elevated above that of bot amplified content is I think a very big deal.”
— Elon Musk, 21 December 2023 · Watch: X Spaces with Cathie Wood (ARK Invest) (2023) · 21:17 ↗ · In the archive
“I just have a lot of respect for anyone who works hard and builds things, provides products and services to their fellow humans…”
— Elon Musk, 21 December 2023 · Watch: X Spaces with Cathie Wood (ARK Invest) (2023) · 1:39:53 ↗ · In the archive
“Really, all of the posts on the X platform should be AI recommended, meaning we should populate a vector space around any given post, compare that to the vector space around any user and match the two.”
— Elon Musk, 9 November 2023 · Watch: Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400 · 1:29:50 ↗ · In the archive
“Physics is the law, everything else is a recommendation. Anyone can break laws created by people, but I have yet to see anyone break the laws of physics.”
— Elon Musk, 28 April 2023 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive
“If Twitter can accurately recommend tweets to you that you don't explicitly follow, it can by the same token, also show ads that are relevant to you.”
— Elon Musk, 21 December 2022 · Watch: X Spaces with George Hotz (2022) · 14:09 ↗ · In the archive
“Try to be useful… do things that are useful to your fellow human beings, to the world.”
— Elon Musk, 28 December 2021 · Watch: Lex Fridman Podcast #252 (2:18:38) ↗ · In the archive
“I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.”
— Elon Musk, 1 May 2020 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive
“I do not smoke pot, as anyone who watched that podcast could tell, I have no idea how to smoke pot.”
— Elon Musk, 9 December 2018 · CBS News ↗ · In the archive
“…like on rockets for example one could say oh you know that you could Reason by analogy and say the Rocket's going to cost a certain amount because that's what prior Rockets have cost or you can say well what is a rocket made of what the material constituents what are those M what do they weigh what's the cost per unit mass and that sets the limit ASM totically for what a rocket can be so if you can figure out some creative way to rearrange those elements into a rocket shape then you can achieve a much better outcome that's the first principles approach…”
— Elon Musk, 8 October 2014 · Watch: Elon Musk | Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit 2014 · 30:06 ↗ · In the archive
“…if somebody else is working 50 hours and you're working 100, you'll get twice as done as much done…”
— Elon Musk, 16 May 2014 · Watch: USC Commencement (2014) · 2:38 ↗ · In the archive
“Tell me about some of the most difficult problems you worked on and how you solved them.”
— Elon Musk, 2014 · Watch: Interview video ↗ · In the archive
“Well, I think the… physics training is a very good training… it’s a good framework for reasoning where you’re trained to think about first principles and reason from there.”
— Elon Musk, 9 March 2013 · Watch: SXSW video (48:31) ↗ · In the archive
“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. …you boil things down to the most fundamental truths… and then reason up from there.”
— Elon Musk, 2012 · Watch: Kevin Rose video (22:34) ↗ · In the archive