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1999. ELON MUSK GETS HIS FIRST MILLIONS AND A $1M SUPERCAR... BUT HIS BIGGEST FEAR THAT DAY WASN'T LOSING THE MONEY
7am. a truck stops outside a small apartment and a 27-year-old Musk watches a McLaren F1 roll off the back
"there are 62 McLarens in the world and i will own one of them"
"it's a million dollars for a car. it's decadent"
he'd just sold Zip2 to Compaq for ~$307M. his cut: ~$22M
then he says the line that tells you who he is:
"just 3 years ago i was showering at the Y and sleeping on the office floor"
his fiancée Justine is standing right next to him. a new millionaire with a new supercar. and this is what he's worried about:
"my fear is that we become spoiled brats. that we lose a sense of appreciation and perspective"
he knew exactly what the money could buy:
"i could go and buy one of the islands in the bahamas and turn it into my personal fiefdom"
"i'm much more interested in trying to build and create a new company"
and he meant it. he put "the great majority" of his net worth into x.com, an online bank almost nobody believed in
his own words:
"it's sort of like a series of poker games"
"i haven't gone and taken my winnings... i've just put almost all of it back into the new game"
x.com became paypal. paypal turned into ~$180M. the $180M went into spacex and tesla. you know the rest
and the car? a year later, Peter Thiel in the passenger seat, on the way to pitch Sequoia. Musk floors it. the F1 spins and goes airborne. no insurance. both walk away
napkin math:
the toy: $1M in 1999. F1s now sell for $20M+. ~20x
the chips he pushed back on the table: ~$22M. today: hundreds of billions. four more zeros
the island: still just an island
the only time he ever cashed out, he bought a car. everything else went back into the game
26 years later the richest man alive sleeps in an airstream. the 27-year-old who was scared of becoming a spoiled brat never let it happen
tickmind retweeted
Bernie Madoff confessed a $50 billion Ponzi scheme to his wife and sons. By 7 a.m. the next morning, his own sons had turned him in to the FBI.
In the video below, his wife and son explain what happened the night he confessed.
Madoff wasn't a basement con man. He was a former chairman of Nasdaq, and for decades his fund paid the same steady returns, year after year.
It never invested a penny. New investors' money paid the old ones. On paper, $65 billion. By the end, a few hundred million was left.
His sons Mark and Andrew worked for him for 20 years, two floors above the fund. The 17th floor was off-limits. Every time they asked, he told them: "You guys have your business to worry about."
The night he confessed, Ruth asked one question: "What's a Ponzi scheme?"
The sons went to the authorities. Ruth stayed. A day later she asked Andrew to co-sign his father's $10 million bail bond. He refused.
Turning him in didn't save them. The bankruptcy trustee sued Andrew for $60 million, nearly everything his father had ever paid, lent or given him. Ruth gave up $80 million and kept $2.5 million.
Bernie got 150 years. Mark died two years to the day after the arrest. He was 46.
The sons did the right thing, and it destroyed them. The wife stood by him, and she walked away with $2.5 million.
tickmind retweeted
THIS IS INSANE...HOW CLOSE ELON MUSK CAME TO GOING BANKRUPT IN 2008
september 2008. Elon is on stage at the Inc. 5000 conference. brown jacket, legs crossed, totally calm
what's going on behind him:
SpaceX: 3 Falcon 1 launches, 3 failures
Tesla: burning cash, barely any cars delivered
Wall Street: the same month Lehman Brothers collapses
and rocket #4 is already standing on an island in the middle of the Pacific. it launches that week
the host asks him straight:
you said every launch is like Russian roulette. so how do you know you're dead? when do you stop?
Elon doesn't even pause:
"i think if we run out of money"
then he adds:
"i know this sounds crazy, but we were profitable last year. we're going to be profitable this year"
"we have enough funding... to last through the end of next year"
now look at what actually happened
september 28: rocket #4 reaches orbit. the first privately built liquid-fuel rocket ever to do it
it doesn't save him
by december he's out of cash. by his own account, he's borrowing money from friends to pay rent
"enough funding through the end of next year" lasted about 3 months
december 23: NASA calls. a ~$1.6B cargo contract
december 24: Tesla closes the round that keeps it alive
napkin math:
his PayPal money: ~$180M
into SpaceX: ~$100M
into Tesla: ~$70M
runway he announced on stage: ~15 months
runway he actually had: ~3 months
he wasn't lying on that stage. he was telling you the plan, and the plan assumed nothing would break
in 2008 everything broke
"if we run out of money" wasn't bravado. it was the only stop rule he had. and he came within days of hitting it
the richest man in the world was one phone call away from being a cautionary tale
THIS IS INSANE...HOW CLOSE ELON MUSK CAME TO GOING BANKRUPT IN 2008
september 2008. Elon is on stage at the Inc. 5000 conference. brown jacket, legs crossed, totally calm
what's going on behind him:
SpaceX: 3 Falcon 1 launches, 3 failures
Tesla: burning cash, barely any cars delivered
Wall Street: the same month Lehman Brothers collapses
and rocket #4 is already standing on an island in the middle of the Pacific. it launches that week
the host asks him straight:
you said every launch is like Russian roulette. so how do you know you're dead? when do you stop?
Elon doesn't even pause:
"i think if we run out of money"
then he adds:
"i know this sounds crazy, but we were profitable last year. we're going to be profitable this year"
"we have enough funding... to last through the end of next year"
now look at what actually happened
september 28: rocket #4 reaches orbit. the first privately built liquid-fuel rocket ever to do it
it doesn't save him
by december he's out of cash. by his own account, he's borrowing money from friends to pay rent
"enough funding through the end of next year" lasted about 3 months
december 23: NASA calls. a ~$1.6B cargo contract
december 24: Tesla closes the round that keeps it alive
napkin math:
his PayPal money: ~$180M
into SpaceX: ~$100M
into Tesla: ~$70M
runway he announced on stage: ~15 months
runway he actually had: ~3 months
he wasn't lying on that stage. he was telling you the plan, and the plan assumed nothing would break
in 2008 everything broke
"if we run out of money" wasn't bravado. it was the only stop rule he had. and he came within days of hitting it
the richest man in the world was one phone call away from being a cautionary tale
tickmind retweeted
ERROL MUSK (ELON'S FATHER) SAYS HE WAS STRICT AND RAISED MEN, NOT SISSIES. HE SOLD HIS YACHT FOR 4X LESS AND GAVE THE MONEY TO HIS SONS FOR A BUSINESS. PEOPLE STILL ARGUE IF ERROL WAS A GOOD FATHER
he is 79. he lives in a quiet town on the South African coast. his son is the richest man in the world.
what happens in this clip:
→ 0:00 "how important is the role of a father?" "very important"
→ 0:17 "they'll say i was very strict. but i wasn't that strict"
→ 0:30 "to raise men, not sissies"
→ 0:38 he sends Elon to America alone, 2 weeks before he turns 18
→ 1:05 the first office. $200 a month. a leaky roof. elon showers at the YMCA
→ 1:47 Errol sells his yacht. bought for 400,000. sold for 100,000
what actually got me is how he ends it. "i never expected anything to come of it."
to be fair, the story isn't that clean. Errol put in about $28,000. Elon says it was ~10% of a $200,000 round, and it came later, when the risk was lower.
zip2 sold to compaq in 1999 for $305M. Elon walked away with $22M. Kimbal got $15M.
and the other side. Elon has called his father "a terrible human being." Kimbal calls their childhood "psychological torture." today Errol says they talk by email, about once a month.
a yacht sold at a 75% loss. a son who doesn't call.
money is the easy part of being a father. the hard part never shows up on a bank transfer.
was Errol a good father, or just an early investor?
ERROL MUSK (ELON'S FATHER) SAYS HE WAS STRICT AND RAISED MEN, NOT SISSIES. HE SOLD HIS YACHT FOR 4X LESS AND GAVE THE MONEY TO HIS SONS FOR A BUSINESS. PEOPLE STILL ARGUE IF ERROL WAS A GOOD FATHER
he is 79. he lives in a quiet town on the South African coast. his son is the richest man in the world.
what happens in this clip:
→ 0:00 "how important is the role of a father?" "very important"
→ 0:17 "they'll say i was very strict. but i wasn't that strict"
→ 0:30 "to raise men, not sissies"
→ 0:38 he sends Elon to America alone, 2 weeks before he turns 18
→ 1:05 the first office. $200 a month. a leaky roof. elon showers at the YMCA
→ 1:47 Errol sells his yacht. bought for 400,000. sold for 100,000
what actually got me is how he ends it. "i never expected anything to come of it."
to be fair, the story isn't that clean. Errol put in about $28,000. Elon says it was ~10% of a $200,000 round, and it came later, when the risk was lower.
zip2 sold to compaq in 1999 for $305M. Elon walked away with $22M. Kimbal got $15M.
and the other side. Elon has called his father "a terrible human being." Kimbal calls their childhood "psychological torture." today Errol says they talk by email, about once a month.
a yacht sold at a 75% loss. a son who doesn't call.
money is the easy part of being a father. the hard part never shows up on a bank transfer.
was Errol a good father, or just an early investor?
tickmind retweeted
HOW ELON MUSK AND HIS BROTHER KIMBAL ALMOST MISSED THE MOST IMPORTANT MEETING OF THEIR LIVES... IT WAS IN 1996, BUT KIMBAL MUSK (ELON’S BROTHER) STILL REMEMBERS EVERY LITTLE DETAIL
january 1996. the brothers are building Zip2 in Palo Alto. no apartment, they sleep in the office and cook on a tiny stove so the employees don’t find out
then their mom calls. her computer is broken
Kimbal flies from Palo Alto to Toronto just to fix it. “this is how much i love her”
on the way back the US border stops him
“i still didn’t have a proper visa”
“i probably dressed too well. i should have dressed like a tourist”
they make him open his luggage. inside: investor decks, plus a business card with his Palo Alto address on it
he’s not getting in
and the next morning is the meeting. the investor they actually wanted
“it was for everything”
so he calls his friend Jamie. they drive to another border crossing and tell the guards they’re going to see the David Letterman show
the guards wave them through
Buffalo airport. flight to San Francisco. a few hours of sleep
in the morning Elon and Kimbal take the bus to the venture firm, because neither of their cars works
the meeting goes well. the deal gets done that same day
at the end they get up: sorry, we have to go, we’ll miss our bus
the investors stare at them. “what do you mean you have to catch the bus?”
and they give each brother a $30,000 budget to buy a car
“we forget the rest of the investment”
“we think America is the greatest country in the world”
napkin math:
the money that day: ~$3M from the VC
the cars: $30k each
1999: Compaq buys Zip2 for $307M
Elon’s share: ~$22M. it goes into X.com, which becomes PayPal
PayPal leaves him ~$180M, and that money becomes SpaceX and Tesla
the whole chain started with a guy without a visa lying to a border guard about a late-night talk show
one broken computer, one closed border, one bus ride, and the richest man on earth almost never got his first check
THAT’S HOW CLOSE IT ALL CAME TO NEVER HAPPENING
HOW ELON MUSK AND HIS BROTHER KIMBAL ALMOST MISSED THE MOST IMPORTANT MEETING OF THEIR LIVES... IT WAS IN 1996, BUT KIMBAL MUSK (ELON’S BROTHER) STILL REMEMBERS EVERY LITTLE DETAIL
january 1996. the brothers are building Zip2 in Palo Alto. no apartment, they sleep in the office and cook on a tiny stove so the employees don’t find out
then their mom calls. her computer is broken
Kimbal flies from Palo Alto to Toronto just to fix it. “this is how much i love her”
on the way back the US border stops him
“i still didn’t have a proper visa”
“i probably dressed too well. i should have dressed like a tourist”
they make him open his luggage. inside: investor decks, plus a business card with his Palo Alto address on it
he’s not getting in
and the next morning is the meeting. the investor they actually wanted
“it was for everything”
so he calls his friend Jamie. they drive to another border crossing and tell the guards they’re going to see the David Letterman show
the guards wave them through
Buffalo airport. flight to San Francisco. a few hours of sleep
in the morning Elon and Kimbal take the bus to the venture firm, because neither of their cars works
the meeting goes well. the deal gets done that same day
at the end they get up: sorry, we have to go, we’ll miss our bus
the investors stare at them. “what do you mean you have to catch the bus?”
and they give each brother a $30,000 budget to buy a car
“we forget the rest of the investment”
“we think America is the greatest country in the world”
napkin math:
the money that day: ~$3M from the VC
the cars: $30k each
1999: Compaq buys Zip2 for $307M
Elon’s share: ~$22M. it goes into X.com, which becomes PayPal
PayPal leaves him ~$180M, and that money becomes SpaceX and Tesla
the whole chain started with a guy without a visa lying to a border guard about a late-night talk show
one broken computer, one closed border, one bus ride, and the richest man on earth almost never got his first check
THAT’S HOW CLOSE IT ALL CAME TO NEVER HAPPENING
tickmind retweeted
KIMBAL MUSK: "THE ROCKET LAUNCH WAS AT 4:00 PM. AT 2:30 PM ELON AND I WERE STILL AT DISNEYLAND"
september 28, 2008. spacex had 3 failed launches behind it. the 4th was the last shot. there was no money for a 5th.
the rocket was on an island in the middle of the pacific. the control room was a mobile home in a parking lot in la.
and the musk brothers went to disneyland with their kids. regular lines. no vip passes.
what happens in this clip:
→ 0:05 "literally as cheap as you can imagine"
→ 0:15 "my brother and i went to disneyland with our kids"
→ 0:34 the launch is at 4:00. it's already 2:30
→ 0:50 they get back a few minutes before liftoff
→ 1:08 "everyone just started crying"
→ 1:28 kimbal starts crying too
→ 1:42 "the last shot we had before we'd be out of business"
→ 1:47 a team of 500. boeing's version had 50,000
→ 2:13 "nasa saying okay, you deserve to live"
what actually got me is 0:34. they're checking their watches in a disneyland line while everything they own sits on one rocket.
kimbal calls it "a way to use up the day." when there's nothing left to fix, you just wait.
to be fair, falcon 1 flew only one more time after that. then spacex retired it.
3 months later, 2 days before christmas, nasa gave them a $1.6 billion contract.
i rewatched 1:08 three times. nobody cheers. they just cry.
the disneyland trip wasn't them being careless. it was 2 guys who had already done everything they could.
tickmind retweeted
$265,000 to stay out of Rocky. Stallone wouldn’t have taken $500,000 either.
He’d written the script and had $106 in the bank. In the video below: “My one love was to at least fail on my own terms.”
Rocky cost $1 million and won Best Picture.
Cash now, or the right to fail on your own terms?
1999. ELON MUSK GETS HIS FIRST MILLIONS AND A $1M SUPERCAR... BUT HIS BIGGEST FEAR THAT DAY WASN'T LOSING THE MONEY
7am. a truck stops outside a small apartment and a 27-year-old Musk watches a McLaren F1 roll off the back
"there are 62 McLarens in the world and i will own one of them"
"it's a million dollars for a car. it's decadent"
he'd just sold Zip2 to Compaq for ~$307M. his cut: ~$22M
then he says the line that tells you who he is:
"just 3 years ago i was showering at the Y and sleeping on the office floor"
his fiancée Justine is standing right next to him. a new millionaire with a new supercar. and this is what he's worried about:
"my fear is that we become spoiled brats. that we lose a sense of appreciation and perspective"
he knew exactly what the money could buy:
"i could go and buy one of the islands in the bahamas and turn it into my personal fiefdom"
"i'm much more interested in trying to build and create a new company"
and he meant it. he put "the great majority" of his net worth into x.com, an online bank almost nobody believed in
his own words:
"it's sort of like a series of poker games"
"i haven't gone and taken my winnings... i've just put almost all of it back into the new game"
x.com became paypal. paypal turned into ~$180M. the $180M went into spacex and tesla. you know the rest
and the car? a year later, Peter Thiel in the passenger seat, on the way to pitch Sequoia. Musk floors it. the F1 spins and goes airborne. no insurance. both walk away
napkin math:
the toy: $1M in 1999. F1s now sell for $20M+. ~20x
the chips he pushed back on the table: ~$22M. today: hundreds of billions. four more zeros
the island: still just an island
the only time he ever cashed out, he bought a car. everything else went back into the game
26 years later the richest man alive sleeps in an airstream. the 27-year-old who was scared of becoming a spoiled brat never let it happen
tickmind retweeted
HOW ELON MUSK AND HIS BROTHER'S FIRST VACATION ALMOST TURNED INTO A TRAGEDY... AND HOW IS IT CONNECTED TO THE SUCCESS OF SPACEX?
december 2000. Elon has just been pushed out as CEO of PayPal. he's 29, rich on paper, and for once he takes a break
he flies to South Africa with his brother Kimbal. the bush, a safari, the place they grew up running around in
Kimbal laughs about it now:
"we'd go to the bush all the time. i don't think we ever took malaria tablets"
this time they did. it didn't matter
january 2001. Elon is back in California and something is badly wrong. doctors check for malaria. negative
Kimbal: "i couldn't figure out what was wrong with him"
then their uncle, a doctor in South Africa, says it straight: "he has malaria. check again"
he was right. malaria hides in the body. and this was the deadly kind
Elon: "i had a severe case of malaria. almost died"
"i lost like 50 pounds"
"took me over six months to get back to normal"
and his lesson from all of it:
"no more vacations"
now the part that matters
six months of recovery. no company to run. a guy who almost died at 29 starts asking one question: what do i do next?
he checks NASA's website to see when humans are going to Mars. there's no plan. nothing
so he flies to Moscow. to buy ICBMs. "literally"
"i can afford to pay under nine million dollars for an ICBM. but not 20"
the Russians keep raising the price. he walks out
and instead of looking for a cheaper seller, he asks a different question: why are rockets so expensive in the first place? the metal, the fuel, the parts cost a small slice of the price tag. the rest is how the industry builds them
so instead of buying a rocket, he decides to build one
napkin math:
the rocket he was willing to pay for: under $9M
where the Russians were pushing: $20M+
his cut from the PayPal sale to eBay in 2002: ~$180M
how much of it went into SpaceX: ~$100M
SpaceX today: valued at $800B+
the company is now worth ~8,000x the money he put in
the first three Falcon 1 launches failed. the fourth reached orbit in 2008. he's said there was money for basically one more try
most people come back from almost dying and slow down. Elon came back and bet more than half of everything on the most expensive thing on earth
a vacation almost killed him. the comeback built SpaceX
HOW ELON MUSK AND HIS BROTHER'S FIRST VACATION ALMOST TURNED INTO A TRAGEDY... AND HOW IS IT CONNECTED TO THE SUCCESS OF SPACEX?
december 2000. Elon has just been pushed out as CEO of PayPal. he's 29, rich on paper, and for once he takes a break
he flies to South Africa with his brother Kimbal. the bush, a safari, the place they grew up running around in
Kimbal laughs about it now:
"we'd go to the bush all the time. i don't think we ever took malaria tablets"
this time they did. it didn't matter
january 2001. Elon is back in California and something is badly wrong. doctors check for malaria. negative
Kimbal: "i couldn't figure out what was wrong with him"
then their uncle, a doctor in South Africa, says it straight: "he has malaria. check again"
he was right. malaria hides in the body. and this was the deadly kind
Elon: "i had a severe case of malaria. almost died"
"i lost like 50 pounds"
"took me over six months to get back to normal"
and his lesson from all of it:
"no more vacations"
now the part that matters
six months of recovery. no company to run. a guy who almost died at 29 starts asking one question: what do i do next?
he checks NASA's website to see when humans are going to Mars. there's no plan. nothing
so he flies to Moscow. to buy ICBMs. "literally"
"i can afford to pay under nine million dollars for an ICBM. but not 20"
the Russians keep raising the price. he walks out
and instead of looking for a cheaper seller, he asks a different question: why are rockets so expensive in the first place? the metal, the fuel, the parts cost a small slice of the price tag. the rest is how the industry builds them
so instead of buying a rocket, he decides to build one
napkin math:
the rocket he was willing to pay for: under $9M
where the Russians were pushing: $20M+
his cut from the PayPal sale to eBay in 2002: ~$180M
how much of it went into SpaceX: ~$100M
SpaceX today: valued at $800B+
the company is now worth ~8,000x the money he put in
the first three Falcon 1 launches failed. the fourth reached orbit in 2008. he's said there was money for basically one more try
most people come back from almost dying and slow down. Elon came back and bet more than half of everything on the most expensive thing on earth
a vacation almost killed him. the comeback built SpaceX
tickmind retweeted
1999. ELON MUSK GETS HIS FIRST MILLIONS AND A $1M SUPERCAR... BUT HIS BIGGEST FEAR THAT DAY WASN'T LOSING THE MONEY
7am. a truck stops outside a small apartment and a 27-year-old Musk watches a McLaren F1 roll off the back
"there are 62 McLarens in the world and i will own one of them"
"it's a million dollars for a car. it's decadent"
he'd just sold Zip2 to Compaq for ~$307M. his cut: ~$22M
then he says the line that tells you who he is:
"just 3 years ago i was showering at the Y and sleeping on the office floor"
his fiancée Justine is standing right next to him. a new millionaire with a new supercar. and this is what he's worried about:
"my fear is that we become spoiled brats. that we lose a sense of appreciation and perspective"
he knew exactly what the money could buy:
"i could go and buy one of the islands in the bahamas and turn it into my personal fiefdom"
"i'm much more interested in trying to build and create a new company"
and he meant it. he put "the great majority" of his net worth into x.com, an online bank almost nobody believed in
his own words:
"it's sort of like a series of poker games"
"i haven't gone and taken my winnings... i've just put almost all of it back into the new game"
x.com became paypal. paypal turned into ~$180M. the $180M went into spacex and tesla. you know the rest
and the car? a year later, Peter Thiel in the passenger seat, on the way to pitch Sequoia. Musk floors it. the F1 spins and goes airborne. no insurance. both walk away
napkin math:
the toy: $1M in 1999. F1s now sell for $20M+. ~20x
the chips he pushed back on the table: ~$22M. today: hundreds of billions. four more zeros
the island: still just an island
the only time he ever cashed out, he bought a car. everything else went back into the game
26 years later the richest man alive sleeps in an airstream. the 27-year-old who was scared of becoming a spoiled brat never let it happen
tickmind retweeted
WILL SMITH: "I'M SORRY MOM"
HE WAS 9. HE WATCHED IT FROM THE DOORWAY...
he has number one hits and box office records. he says a 9-year-old part of him still thinks he's a coward.
one night his dad punched his mom so hard she spit up blood. will was standing in the bedroom doorway. less than 10 yards away.
people pleaser = a kid who can't fight and can't run, so he keeps the angry person happy. so nobody gets hurt.
what he says in this clip:
→ 0:05 "nobody suffered more than my mother"
→ 0:13 he watched his father punch his mother so hard she spit up blood
→ 0:18 that moment "defined who i am today"
→ 0:32 his brother fought. his sister ran. he became a pleaser
→ 0:40 as long as his dad was laughing, they were safe
→ 0:55 his 9-year-old brain decided it was his fault
→ 1:26 "i was less than ten yards away... yet i did nothing"
→ 1:52 "that i'm a coward. that i failed"
→ 1:56 "i'm sorry, my mom. i'm so sorry"
what actually got me is that one of the funniest guys in america learned to be funny to keep his dad calm.
the fresh prince wasn't just a character. it was a job he started at 9.
i rewatched 1:56 three times. it's his own book, his own words, and it still sounds like he's saying sorry to her right now.
then the clip ends and his mom walks in. she read that chapter the day before. she told him a 9-year-old could not have done anything.
a kid who makes everyone laugh isn't always a happy kid. sometimes it's the only way he knows to keep the house quiet.
tickmind retweeted
BEN AFFLECK (BATMAN) SWORE HE'D NEVER BECOME HIS FATHER. THEN HE DID
he watched his dad drink every day. then his own relapse went around the world.
0:12 → two trips to rehab in three years. married, three kids
0:17 → "i don't want my children to pay for my sins. to be afraid for me"
0:27 → "that's one of the hard parts of being the child of an alcoholic"
0:32 → "what if my dad gets drunk. what if he ends up on tmz and it's on my newsfeed"
0:38 → asked if he watched his own relapse video: "i saw a little bit"
0:53 → "i know what it looks like to be drunk. i don't need to watch anymore"
1:03 → his grandmother took her life amid alcohol and barbiturates. his aunt had an addiction. so did his father
1:14 → "my dad was drunk every day. that was just life"
1:22 → "i always said that'll never be me"
1:39 → "i never thought i was gonna get divorced"
2:01 → "it meant i wasn't who i thought i was"
what got me is the tmz line.
he's not scared of the drinking. he's scared of his kid scrolling past it at school.
an oscar, batman, millions in the bank. none of it stopped the thing he watched as a boy from walking into his own house.
that isn't a fame story. that's what it looks like when a family habit outlives the promise you made to break it.
i break down the craziest stories behind the money, so don't lose me.
tickmind retweeted
DESPITE BEING #1 ON THE FORBES LIST, ELON MUSK DOESN'T OWN A HOME... AND THERE'S AN EXPLANATION FOR IT
september 2026. someone posts about Musk's new living setup. his reply: "it's a nice airstream"
Gwynne Shotwell, president of Spacex, puts it plainly: "he sleeps on the factory floor"
people call it a stunt. he explained it on camera years ago
TED, giga texas. Chris Anderson asks: your net worth moves by billions a day, how do you handle that?
"i actually don't think about that too much"
what keeps him up is something else:
"every high quality minute of thinking is a million dollars" of impact on Tesla
"i was able to improve the financial outcome of the company by $100 million in a half hour meeting"
then the line nobody expects from the richest man alive:
"i don't even own a home right now"
"i basically rotate through friends' spare bedrooms"
"i don't have a yacht. i really don't take vacations"
the one exception is the plane. and even that he justifies in hours: without it "i have less hours to work"
it wasn't new either. in 2020 he tweeted he was selling almost all physical possessions. "will own no house". then he sold the LA mansions
napkin math, his own numbers:
1 good minute = $1M
1 hour = $60M
one week of vacation, 8 hours a day = ~$3.4B the companies don't get
so a house isn't a house. it's a commute. a yacht isn't a yacht. it's a week offline
and the hundreds of billions everyone screams about were never cash in his pocket. it's shares of Tesla and Spacex. you can't sleep in them
a man who prices his own rest in billions will never find a good enough reason to stop. the airstream isn't humility. it's the cheapest way to never leave work
Elon Musk's story is unbelievable
DESPITE BEING #1 ON THE FORBES LIST, ELON MUSK DOESN'T OWN A HOME... AND THERE'S AN EXPLANATION FOR IT
september 2026. someone posts about Musk's new living setup. his reply: "it's a nice airstream"
Gwynne Shotwell, president of Spacex, puts it plainly: "he sleeps on the factory floor"
people call it a stunt. he explained it on camera years ago
TED, giga texas. Chris Anderson asks: your net worth moves by billions a day, how do you handle that?
"i actually don't think about that too much"
what keeps him up is something else:
"every high quality minute of thinking is a million dollars" of impact on Tesla
"i was able to improve the financial outcome of the company by $100 million in a half hour meeting"
then the line nobody expects from the richest man alive:
"i don't even own a home right now"
"i basically rotate through friends' spare bedrooms"
"i don't have a yacht. i really don't take vacations"
the one exception is the plane. and even that he justifies in hours: without it "i have less hours to work"
it wasn't new either. in 2020 he tweeted he was selling almost all physical possessions. "will own no house". then he sold the LA mansions
napkin math, his own numbers:
1 good minute = $1M
1 hour = $60M
one week of vacation, 8 hours a day = ~$3.4B the companies don't get
so a house isn't a house. it's a commute. a yacht isn't a yacht. it's a week offline
and the hundreds of billions everyone screams about were never cash in his pocket. it's shares of Tesla and Spacex. you can't sleep in them
a man who prices his own rest in billions will never find a good enough reason to stop. the airstream isn't humility. it's the cheapest way to never leave work
Elon Musk's story is unbelievable
tickmind retweeted
JORDAN BELFORT'S (THE WOLF OF WALL STREET) INSANE ADDICTION THAT ALMOST ENDED IN TRAGEDY
he told this story on camera like he was describing a bad day at work.
quaaludes = a sedative banned in the us since 1984.
0:18 → he takes old quaaludes. thinks they're duds because they won't kick in
0:24 → drives out to make a phone call because he thinks his house phones are bugged
0:30 → everything hits at once. he drives home at 1 mile an hour
0:38 → thinks he made it without a scratch. police show up. car is totaled
0:42 → "to this day i can pass a lie detector test. i don't remember having an accident"
0:50 → the fight with his wife. he grabs his 3-year-old daughter
0:59 → drives the car straight through the garage door
1:12 → "i was on a 3-month bender. i thought aliens were coming through the window"
1:21 → "i was like, i don't have a problem"
1:27 → his daughter wasn't hurt. it was april 16th. the next day he got sober
what got me is the 1 mile an hour.
he was so far gone he thought driving like that meant he was in control.
a man running hundreds of millions couldn't tell he was destroying his own car.
and a day later he almost did worse with his kid in the seat.
that isn't a money story. that's what addiction looks like when nobody around you can say no.
i break down the craziest stories, so don't lose me.
tickmind retweeted
ELON MUSK: "I DON'T THINK MOST PEOPLE WOULD WANNA BE ME"... THE HARD LIFE OF ELON MUSK
this post was hard to write. this story made me stop and think
Lex Fridman podcast, november 2023. Lex asks what he's going through that people don't see
first he laughs it off. then:
"my mind is a storm"
"they may think they would wanna be me, but they don't know. they don't understand"
"do you get lonely?"
"sometimes"
"there are many nights i sleep alone. i don't have to, but i do"
then Lex brings up isaacson's biography and the childhood in it. beaten at school until his face was unrecognizable. a father his own brother calls "psychological torture". will he ever forgive?
"what is forgiveness?"
"i don't think i have a resentment, so nothing to forgive"
"holding onto grudges does not affect the future in a good way"
read that again. no anger. no closure. no "i'm still working through it"
just one test: does it move the future? no? drop it
that's either the healthiest thing you've ever heard or the loneliest
because a man who can't afford grudges probably can't afford a lot of other feelings either. rockets, cars, ai, 24/7. the storm never gets a day off
everyone wants his money. almost nobody would take his head with it
the richest man on earth, sleeping alone by choice, and not even angry at the man who made him this way
would you trade places with him?
ELON MUSK: "I DON'T THINK MOST PEOPLE WOULD WANNA BE ME"... THE HARD LIFE OF ELON MUSK
this post was hard to write. this story made me stop and think
Lex Fridman podcast, november 2023. Lex asks what he's going through that people don't see
first he laughs it off. then:
"my mind is a storm"
"they may think they would wanna be me, but they don't know. they don't understand"
"do you get lonely?"
"sometimes"
"there are many nights i sleep alone. i don't have to, but i do"
then Lex brings up isaacson's biography and the childhood in it. beaten at school until his face was unrecognizable. a father his own brother calls "psychological torture". will he ever forgive?
"what is forgiveness?"
"i don't think i have a resentment, so nothing to forgive"
"holding onto grudges does not affect the future in a good way"
read that again. no anger. no closure. no "i'm still working through it"
just one test: does it move the future? no? drop it
that's either the healthiest thing you've ever heard or the loneliest
because a man who can't afford grudges probably can't afford a lot of other feelings either. rockets, cars, ai, 24/7. the storm never gets a day off
everyone wants his money. almost nobody would take his head with it
the richest man on earth, sleeping alone by choice, and not even angry at the man who made him this way
would you trade places with him?