Interview with AUTO BILD

get that water that is water I mean that side but you taste like water but your favorite drink is well I mean die coke is good is that if there's something that they put in that stuff that is you know you never get sick of it for some reason you know I have you account it's some infernal ingredient how many cones you your bottle - you have a day um well I mean I'm trying to cut down these days so maybe blech away from I mean there was probably times when I had like eight a day or something ridiculous like but I think these days is probably one or two so it's not too crazy okay and coffee I usually cut a two a day watch it so much I mean not really so but yeah I used to have but so much coffee and and you know died coke that it I get really wired and then

it gets over caffeinated and it wouldn't be good okay yeah so yeah I'm kind of glad so I think more reasonable portions these days and I think you bring some so much coffee or Diet Coke because you work so many hours every day yeah how many hours do you work how looks a normal day in the life of elam must like well it's really varied quite a bit over time so the you know these days it's probably eighty eighty five hours a week for a while there was over 100 hours a week and that's just it's just - that's a very high amount of pain so it's you know the the difficulty in pain of of work hours really increases exponentially it's not linear so but when you know the financial crisis hit in 2008 2009 you know it was just every day seven days a week what you

know morning till night and dream about work yeah his host was terrible at the time there were bad dreams I guess bad dreams from days 8 yes yeah and at what time do you get up normally in the morning me it's usually about 2 7 7 okay but I go to bed late so usually it's I go to bed around 1 a.

m.

or so well yeah and you start day with a real breakfast or just with a coffee or with the water you know that also varies a lot I think it's probably true that if you that having a good breakfast is is a good idea but usually I don't have time for that so sometimes sometimes it's it's made for me but probably half the time I don't have any breakfast I had to also have like coffee or something like that one spot sure well I'm trying to cut down on the on sweet stuff so but I think I mean I think I probably should have like a an omelet and a coffee or something like that that seems like probably the right thing and sometimes that you have that and for lunch eat their lunch yeah yeah a lot lunch is usually served to me during a meeting and I finish it in

five minutes yeah that's a bad habit jitter I didn't that dinner is where the calories really come into play because there's you know if I have dinner meetings like dinner meetings are the worst because then you you know eat enough for like two people know those things because you have the appetizer main course and light stuff so business dinners are like the thing that really um you know where I probably eat way too much but you don't have problem with your problems with your weight I certainly could be slimmer I think what do you work out then um I know I work out once or twice a week I mean I said well yeah yeah what's or twice you should I should get more often for sure and what are you doing you run through the forest or and run through the forest

no usually just uh like a little bit on the treadmill or on the end lifting some weights I suppose and let's come to my questions I have here is just 122 I guess and how much musk is in Tesla and hahaha and I believe is hundred percent you or of course definitely not I mean I certainly have a strong influence but I mean there are many people at the companies so SpaceX has 4,000 people now Tesla we just passed 10,000 people today so there's there's a lot of people that have had a huge influence on bullying company or companies more of an influence than anyone else but it is a big team effort from a lot of talented people yes you look for a CEO in former times for Tesla and force bags also I don't know for SpaceX but um you know the the plan I had when

we created Tesla was I wish I thought I would allocate maybe 20 or 30 percent of my time to Tesla and and then for SolarCity I figured 5% 10% of my time that kind of thing so Louis City turned out to be true in fact even better than that probably takes me less than 5% of my time on Silver City Tesla ended up being much more and unfortunately like the the first CEO didn't didn't work out and then I got sort of a temporary I mean I really tried pretty hard not to be the CEO like I could have been the CEO from day one because like people maybe sometimes don't realize that and but I you know if I did I just wasn't able to find the right person in the case of Solar City there's like a great team that runs it but it's really hard to find someone who who can

grow a company you know it's like running a company in steady state is much easier than growing a company and and then with Tesla it has people joined the team and investors were kind of dead they've been a few people during the team investors we're asking okay well how long am I going to be CEO and so I said oh well I'm committed to be CEO through the high volume production vehicle so two more years at least probably three or four three or four years yeah but at that point I would then have to consider what makes sense and I I would I mean I will never leave Tesla ever but I'm I you know may may not be CEO forever I'm just one nobody should be CEO friend if somebody in mind who could do the job already know worldwide that there's no nope no plans or

anything like that uh right now I plan is just to you know for sure a PCO through the model 3at volume production of model 3 and the gigafactory and then evaluate yes and what else we is still the price you want to study found some donor that's a chapter 13 I three $5,000 and the same at Euro I guess for the European market um well it might be less if yeah for depends what the exchange rate is of course okay so yeah it's always a bit tricky like in the in the u.

s.

the prices are quoted before sales tax and of course in Europe it's with v80 and it was like twenty five eighty and all that stuff so probably would be more like thirty thousand euros a little bit less than that and it should be on the market in two years time or through I'd say three to thirty from now yeah okay yeah I'm coming back to you looking for CEO when apart from CEOs when you hire people what kind of skills do you want them to do you look at listing people how do you started well I mean though that the when I interview somebody I really just asked them to tell me the story of their career and what they you know what are some of the tougher problems that they dealt with how they dealt with those and how they made decisions at key transition points

and and usually that's enough for me to get a very good gut feel about someone and and what I'm really looking for is evidence of exceptional ability so that they face really difficult problems and overcome them and and then of course you want to make sure that that if there was some significant accomplishment were they really responsible with somebody else more responsible and usually the person who's had to struggle with the problem they really understand it you know they don't they don't forget you know if it was very difficult so you can ask them detailed very detailed questions about it and they will they'll know the answer whereas the person who was not truly responsible for that accomplishment will not know the details know a the it's not it's

it there's no need even to have a college degree at all or even high school the I mean if somebody graduated from a great university that maybe in indeed that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things but it's not necessarily the case you know if you look at say people like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison Steve Jobs these guys didn't graduate from college but if you had a chance to hire them of course that would be a good idea so you know just looking just for evidence of exceptional ability and if there's a track record of exceptional achievement then it's likely that that will continue into the future what does like people like you and Steve Jobs have in common although gays of people like that what is it you have in common with them

well I mean those are pretty different personalities you know between gates and jobs and Ellison's and success well I think you know all all three of those work technologists but with different types of skills and their jobs was obviously very good with aesthetics and you know eat you even answer technology of course any really answer where people want it even when they didn't know themselves and he was not afraid to break boundaries but next say like gates would probably be better at you know sort of raw engineering and technology than jobs but not as good on aesthetics but I mean for these guys of the obviously very driven and they're very talented and yeah and they're able to attract great people to buy the company but any it did that like the the

ability to attract and motivate great people is critical to the success of a company because the company is just that's a group of people that are assembled to create a product or service that's the purpose of a company if your son wants forget this elementary truth and so if you know if you're able to get great people to join the company work together towards a common goal and and you sort of have a relentless sense of perfection about that goal then you will end up with a great product and give a great product let's if you will buy it and then the comedy will be successful yeah really it's pretty straightforward really yeah I mean yeah that's the reason for it you have a lot of talents if there any tell you would like to have you don't have singing

dancing you see oh I know what you well I suppose I'd like to play a musical instrument that'd be cool I can whistle good whistling I can whistle what is your favorite song to whistle I don't I can I have like a whole bunch of songs that kind of randomly I just run around whistle randomly please ask me to whistle because it's like you know I mean I can whistle but like it's this is like yeah maybe not the coolest instrument to play yeah like I can whistle pakka bells cannon which is a tricky one really yeah if I'm not gonna whistle for a refit for you now because I'll be too embarrassing okay it's good time Neverland something for bowling all right oh man don't worry we want you we want you and how would you describe yourself what are the main attributes

you have um how I describe myself well I mean I seem to have a high innate drive and that's been true even since I was a little kid you know really had a very strong Drive sort of did all sorts of risky things for his kid that I like why do I do those things are crazy but so I think that's very helpful and I care a lot about the truth of things and trying to understand the truth of things I think so I think that's important if you're going to come up with some solution then the truth is really really important I think and yeah I try to think of I mean it's it's difficult obviously come up with like things that are praised for oneself you know or like it there's there's bad and good here but I think like sometimes they're just like the things that seem

quite clear and obvious to me and I I I don't understand why they aren't so obvious to everyone so will you describe yourself as fearless I mean other areas when you seek people for advice and you do people with asthma I wouldn't say I'm fearless in fact I think I fear I feel fear quite strongly but I am if the if what we're doing isn't you know what I'm doing is I think it's important enough then I just override the fear so but it's not as that I don't feel I feel like more stronger than I would like what do you never go for risk uh well it really depends on the stakes if the stakes are high if it's really important then what should then I know we'll overcome the fear and just do it anyway essentially I mean it's Drive override sphere but I feel the

fear it's kind of annoying I wish Asians Osia felt it less so yeah these all these introspective questions are interesting I get the ask these very often and then like I try to think like what is like an evident and accurate reply and somebody's a it's like it's hard to evaluate yourself on these things yeah which member you found it was the most risky nice dog well probably SpaceX I thought it had the lowest chance of success I mean I thought both Tesla and SpaceX would fail at the beginning you thought yeah sure really of course but nevertheless you put all your money in that I expected to lose it well technically what I thought was well I'll take half the money from PayPal and if I lose half of it that's okay but then of course the companies encounter

difficulties and then have a choice so that you like let the company die or put you know all the money into the companies and so really during where the companies to die so I put all the money in the companies yeah and then I had to borrow money for friends should pay living expenses yes and what went through your mind of 2008 when they last the forced back and the last it started what we assorted it was a terrible time yeah everything was going wrong at once three rocket failures in a row beginning and Tesla financing around was falling apart or fell apart the Solar City was having difficulties getting divorced it was really terrible yeah so I was I was very sad about that everything was perfect well took a while its base yeah at the end of 2008 the

fourth launch worked yes which is really that was all the money we had but nothing more you know in fact originally I budgeted I thought okay we can do three survived three failures so take like we just barely barely scrape together enough to do a fourth launch and and then at the end of 2008 we got a big NASA contract really literally on December 23rd I think it was yeah so it went from like really terrible - I remember that Sunday before Christmas in 2008 thinking like that I could this is the closest I've ever come to a nervous breakdown I can never thought I would ever be someone who could have a nervous breakdown and I did I mean it was like I was I could I could see it like I could I was in within sight of it it's like this Lux this is terrible

and then and then the next morning NASA called and said that weird one this one happened alternates next more yeah the next morning like literally I was at home and I thought I thought they'd all gone home for the holidays I didn't think if you would have said there was no chance of a call a few days before Christmas some people you know be on vacation and I kind of think so Wow in five billion yeah so what went through your mind when I called you a few um that was awesome I was like I actually said to the NASA guys that I love you that they've gotten that response before so so that was yeah the Monday morning and then I think it was the Tuesday night or the Wednesday night was the which when we closed the financing round for Tesla and that was like 6:00

p.

m.

on Christmas Eve was the last hour of the last day when it was possible and we would have gone bankrupt a few hours after a few days after Christmas if if that grounded are closed at you flew for for the Nasser and for other yeah we've lost the satellites for commercial operators so SES in Europe and sorry of calm in the US and a number of other companies we've got a alarm here it seemed quite dull in the car maybe they stole our Dodge hopefully okay what was your best idea ever my best idea ever yeah this is tricky I suppose coming to North America was my best idea okay because I think these things would not have been accomplished you know almost anywhere else it's really hard to start a company but you know in particularly California Silicon Valley

is very conducive to startup companies and yeah and so yeah you know whenever I read books in South Africa it would seem like the cutting edge of technology was in Silicon Valley and so that that's what I wanted to come and I wanted to move move to this mythical place okay and are there things you regret having done off I'm not having done so far well there's there's lots of things when life is short and there's lots of things that could be done that one can't necessarily do and these really are introspective questions I think it no I mean I'm overall I think I'm pretty pretty happy with what wait you know where things are it's hard not to be honestly I'd be yeah if things are in a good place right now and I mean I'd like to it looking ahead make like

to see humanity go beyond Earth and have people on Mars that would be really great and to see widespread adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy these are great things and yeah that I thought would be really really cool but is there like a business decision which you regret like what in retrospect I should have I should have bitten the bullet and been CEO Tesla from the beginning then that would have been you know that that would have been the smart move you know because we ended up having to essentially recapitalize the company you know and we went through a lot of grief so there would have been wise move I mean a some things are better with your with hindsight course you can say this decision on that decision tells it was essentially built

on to false ideas or started run for to false ideas one of which was that we would be able to use the Lotus Elise chassis to minimize the cost of creating electric vehicle and the other words that we used the technology from AC Propulsion a small company in California for the electric powertrain so you won't do the same mistake again so you start from from zero with this well we're I mean we actually use a lot of components from other companies so it's like the you know Bosch is a supplier of the ultra-long range ultrasonics and the radar and then the whole camera assembly and everything we do the camera assembly which we use a mobile ID chip and but with all of the software for integrating that we do at Tesla we met each other last year for the interviews

and then you told me that you wanted to die on Mars not Warren haha after anything there I mean well it's not as though I'm dying to die on Mars but it's like if you're gonna die somewhere what I mean you know choice a choice be everything what should happen to ashes then like what do you do with you ashes I with my ashes I don't know I don't actually I'm gone I didn't care they do anything yeah I mean I guess maybe scatter the ashes on Mars that would be cool you know I can sure but I mean the the whole route sort of retired Maj thing was like it was like an reporter asking a question six years ago or something it's like we're gonna retire and actually said well I'm not sure I'll ever retire completely but if I were to retire somewhere then Mars would

be a you know a good good way to go I mean it in ideal circumstance I'd make one trip to Mars come back to earth and then and then when it's time to you know where you get really old then like ya go back to Mars when I'm like 75 or something and then you know you die there and good you know seems like yeah you're gonna die anywhere why not Don watts Yeah right go to space a red no yep and you want to sure I mean I'll probably go there and yeah like maybe three or four years yes yeah you would test it yeah okay what will happen first the tube from San Francisco to LA the Hyperloop or the first men on Mars I think the Hyperloop is more likely to happen for well you know it's a good question it well if you say that particular route I'm not sure because there

are all sorts of constraints in getting permits to build a big thing but I think I would be I think there's going to be some company a group that creates a Hyperloop but it may be a different route and I know there's one company that's looking closely at the Los Angeles to Las Vegas because that's quite a popular trip to this and it's much easier to make that trip yeah make that route work okay what makes you happy well if I think if things are going well with family and things going well at work then I'm happy if either one of them is not going well then I'm well either half unhappy your facility unhappy but that's like I mean I think that's generally true you know if if things are going well on person life and work life then if you have been then one

is happy talk about happiness I was good yeah I mean it's my 14th time so yeah so it's always good I can't catch people to come and check it out so I've been there this year so much oh you did go okay great what do you think to do yeah that's crazy it's like life-changing exactly see have you have you ever thought about fitting an art car I'd be built yeah yeah sure I've done three art cars one was actually both bolts on lip this is probably ten years ago was built on an Oldsmobile and it went by an old ultimate feel with a big wraparound couch over the hood until you're sitting on top of the engine driving backwards and so that was kind of a fun fun our car broke down a lot of course also feeling really improved a lot James Bond cars submarine transformational

car to the diamond um no I'm the James Bond car the Lotus Esprit submarine is it's in the Tesla design studio and no it's just it's it's currently just sitting there the what I'm hopefully gonna do at some point is we're going to create a sort of a replica but not quite because like if you look at the James Bond car it's not it's not technically possible to make that a submarine because at a transformative thing because the fins are right where the wheels are okay so like there's just that doesn't fit like it's not physically possible to the transmission but if you make the car about ten if you scale it up by about 10% and you move the fins just a little bit more towards the outer edges so that they're not like sitting right in front of the wheels then

you can make a work yeah so n+ site is probably good to preserve the original you know movie art essentially of the of the original car so yeah talk to my guys and we think we can make it work as a transformation car with those constraints yeah so it actually looked very similar like you'd have to look closely to see if it's different but yeah I think we fund to be able to you know drive up on the beach view that submarine car do you own other old cars you know I tell you that so there's two cos like these two gasoline cars that I that I own and not that many people know know about these but what one is a series 167 e type Jaguar roadster and that was the first car I bought when I actually had any money in fact when the my first company received an investment

the venture capitalists gave us a $40,000 me and my brother of $40,000 bonus and I spent thirty five thousand dollars on this car and it broke down on the way on the way back it was very sad like damn it I didn't even bake it home but that was a car when I was about 17 I was given for my birthday book of classic convertibles and I thought well you know if I could have reported a car one of these cars a book like there were there were two that I liked the most one was the Gullwing Mercedes but there's no way I could you know that was like millions of dollars and then the other was the series that the e-type Jaguar the serious one yeah I know you put it for the Mercedes and that you haven't voted yet I haven't I think it's a great design really great in

the you know and you know it's partly inspires the Model X so the now that might be a good one to buy at some point and the Patiala car that I've got is a Model T that a friend of my important gave me those things are hard to drive if you ever try to drive a metal Model T it's like not easy I really would be really were the controls are all totally different - yes the you know the like the there's no gas pedal it's like there's a gas that means you change the throttle it's other a stick on the steering wheel