Elon Musk: The sheer number of really smart, hard-working people in China is incredible. “There's far more of them there than there are here, in my opinion. They've got a lot of energy. The architecture in China in recent years is far more impressive than in the U.S. The train

Elon Musk: The tools of physics are like a superpower. “The tools of physics are incredibly helpful to understand and make progress in any field. First principles obviously just means break things down to the fundamental axiomatic elements that are most likely to be true and

Elon Musk: First-principles thinking can help you find ways to build things more effectively. “I tend to think of things from a physics standpoint: What would be the best way to accomplish something and then pursue that. That's also a good way to determine if something's far

Elon Musk, two years ago, on nuclear war: “I think the current probability of nuclear war is quite low. But there are a lot of nukes pointed at us and we have a lot of nukes pointed at other people. Nobody's put their guns away. The missiles are still in the silos.”

Here's Elon Musk six years ago predicting that LiDAR is unnecessary to achieve full self-driving. “LiDAR is a fool's errand and anyone relying on LiDAR is doomed. Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It's like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices. One appendix is bad.

Elon Musk in 2014: At some point in the future, we'll achieve true autonomous driving “We're not asserting that the car is capable of driving in the absence of driver oversight. That will be the case at some point in the future, maybe five or six years from now. I think we'll

Elon Musk: LiDAR and HD maps are foolish crutches. Mark my words. “I think HD maps are a mistake [to achieve full autonomy]. We actually had HD maps for a while. Actually canned that because you either need HD maps, in which case if anything changes about the environment, the

Elon Musk: The goal of any technology should be to help humanity and to bring joy to people.

Elon Musk: “I derive joy from seeing people enjoy the products that my companies make.”

Elon Musk: Tesla's self-driving tech is more difficult than Waymo's but it's much more powerful. “Waymo has autonomous vehicles with no one in it, but they're limited a few cities in the U.S. The Tesla solution is a much more difficult path to go but ultimately much more

Elon Musk: “I wanted to come to the United States because it's where the technological frontiers are pushed forward. I wanted to be involved in that.”

Elon Musk: “Admittedly, I'm a little optimistic sometimes. But if I wasn't optimistic, this wouldn't exist.”

Elon Musk on why you don't need LiDAR in cars: “The road system was not designed for shooting lasers out of your eyes.” David Faber: “Waymo has 28 cameras, they've got LiDAR and radar. You've had a different approach. Eight to nine cameras and the neural network. Why do you feel

Elon Musk: Instead of sitting in a parking lot, your Tesla will be earning money. “We'll have a model which is like some combination of Uber and Airbnb. So if you're a Tesla owner, you'll be able to add or subtract your car to the fleet. Just like an Airbnb, you could rent out

Elon Musk: Now is the most interesting time in history. “I was asked recently, what period of history would I prefer to be in? And my answer was, right now, this is the most interesting time in history, and I read a lot of history. Let's do our best to keep that going.”

Elon Musk in 2019 on autonomy: “I could be wrong, but it appears to be the case that Tesla is vastly ahead of everyone.”

Peter Thiel: “I would never bet against Elon, in anything. That's hard rule number one.”

During the campaign to elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk clarified that his engagement in politics was only temporary, as what he likes doing is not politics, but creating technologies: “I believe in electric cars and automation and self-driving and robotics and the space-based

Elon Musk: Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents. “There's frankly too much of a focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that. Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents or even let alone their parents, their great grandparents maybe

Elon Musk: Tesla is the world's biggest robot company. “With Tesla Autopilot or full self-driving, we're effectively creating the most advanced practical AI for navigating the real world. You can always think of Tesla as the world's biggest robot company or semi-sentient robot