WEBVTT - TechStuff Looks at Elon Musk 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:05.920 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how Stuff, 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:14.440 What's coom? Hey there everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:16.880 My name is Jonathan Strickland. I am one of the 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.759 two hosts of this podcast. The other host of this 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:22.440 podcast is Lauren Vogelbaum, and that is the person speaking 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.200 right now. In case you didn't figure that out, Alright, awesome, 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:27.840 we've got that under control. So today we wanted to 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.840 focus on another personality and technology. Uh you know, we 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.120 did an episode not that long ago where we talked 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.280 about the Internet Darling Tesla Tesla, and today we're going 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.840 to talk about a guy who runs a company called Tesla. Mr. 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:46.199 Elon Musk, Yeah, Elon Musk, and uh, he's sort of 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.959 he's an interesting iconic figure. I would say he's he's 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.599 a wee bit like Tony Stark. Yeah, a little bit 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:55.720 like Tony Stark, a little bit like Steve Jobs, a 0:00:55.760 --> 0:01:00.440 little bit like uh well, one Esquire article I read 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.560 said that it was a bit Tony Stark and a 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.759 bit Donald Trump. Okay, Yeah, and supposedly he's actually friends 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.559 with the director of the current uh iron Man movies 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.800 and that they sort of based that character a tiny 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.119 bit on him. Interesting I have never met the man, 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.880 so I am going to try my best to not 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:25.000 make any sort of assumptions. Um I say try, because 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.000 there's certain things about this man's life that I find 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:32.280 particularly interesting, and it might be difficult to avoid editorializing 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.839 because I'm an opinionated idiot, But like like like many 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:41.120 big famous billionaires who have started really fascinating companies that 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.360 you know, go into space and create fancy electric vehicles, 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:46.920 you know, like all of those people in the world, 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.600 all those with those other guys, He's a very driven, 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.240 very very big personality. He's a sort of nerd rock star. Yeah, 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.040 that's that's why we're doing this profile, and it's there's 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.720 and there's some great articles that are out there, Lauren, 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.840 you wanted me to one on Forbes. There's an Esquire 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.400 profile that is phenomenal. There's some great information out there. 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:08.360 If you really want to know about this guy's life, 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.280 we're gonna give you kind of an overview. And we 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:12.280 also want to point out we're not going to dive 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.320 too deeply into each of his ventures because frankly, they 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:20.480 would each you know, Merrit their own podcast, so so 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:22.280 maybe maybe later for all that, and I would I 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:24.760 would really love too, because I didn't. I honestly had 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.519 to keep tearing myself away from everything that SpaceX is doing. 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:29.480 And I would love to revisit that right. And we 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:31.639 should also point out we're recording this just a few 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.600 days after another SpaceX launch. There was a Falcon nine 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:41.200 launch vehicle that launched the Dragon spacecraft out to rendezvous 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.400 with the International Space Station, which it did. It's successfully docked. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:48.280 It's the first private vehicle, I believe to successfully Yeah, 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.360 it's done this before. This is not the first time 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:52.280 that the Dragon spacecraft has done it, but it is. 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.720 The Dragon spacecraft was the first private spacecraft to dock 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.880 with the International Space To This came with the headline 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:04.320 happy Birthday birth b r H Well and and that 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.720 was that was a big deal because while the launch 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:12.360 went went fairly well, like there wasn't anything majorly wrong 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.239 with the launch, it was discovered pretty soon after the 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.280 launch then not all of the systems aboard the Dragon 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.120 spacecraft were working properly, and there was some question for 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:22.800 a while as to whether or not they would be 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.079 able to dock with the International Space Station. But we'll 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.880 get into that or at least mention it again. Uh, 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.799 let's start with his birth, the Elon Musk's birth, which 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:38.480 was on June nineteen seventy one in pre Torria, South Africa. Yeah. 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.320 I love the South African accent. Yeah. Yeah, I can't 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.240 do it other than say South Africa. That's a be 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:46.520 as close as I can get. So I apologize to 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.520 all South Africans out there. But his father, Errol, was 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:54.280 an engineer and his mother, May was a neutri still 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.200 is a nutritionist and model. Yeah she Yeah, she's a 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.240 very popular model. Actually there. I looked at a couple 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:01.320 of pictures of her and I was like, oh, you 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.840 know that lady. Yeah, she's still modeling today in fact Um. 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.160 And he has siblings. He's got a brother named Kimball 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:12.600 and a sister named Tosca. And his childhood was a 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:14.520 little rough. I mean, for one thing, he was growing 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.440 up in South Africa, which, for those who don't know, 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.000 it's an area that has a history with with some 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.560 big social problems and things like violence. Uh. He was 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.360 apparently bullied at school quite a bit. His brother Kimball, 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.440 has said that he was He got to a point 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.320 where he really hated the idea of going to school. 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.760 He loved learning. Elon Musk has always shown that he 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.280 just he devours information right right. Well, And I think 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.440 I read one thing from I think it was from 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.239 his brother Kimball saying that that Elon tended to correct 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.200 people factually even when he was a child, and that 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.039 that maybe is what led to some of that bullying. Yeah. Yeah, 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.360 it was one of those things where from Elon's point 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.200 of view, he wasn't trying to behave in a way 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:02.080 that was superior to other people, but rather that, oh, 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.680 you made a mistake, you probably don't want to do that. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.840 I will help you. But the problem is that when 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.320 you help people by pointing out they make mistakes, they 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.000 can get a little they might not like you. And 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:14.760 I've done the same thing, and I've had the same 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.200 thing done to me because I'm human, I make lots 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.720 of mistakes, and yeah, he can get pretty irritating. And 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.920 yet I still do it when to other people, And 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.120 I don't know what that says about me. But anyway, 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.400 so he had a kind of rough childhood at eight 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.080 when he was eight years old, his well, depending upon 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.400 how you read the story, because he's also a fairly 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:39.400 private man about his own personal details. His either his 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.920 father left or his mom took the kids and left, 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.480 but in either case he no longer was having a 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.840 day contact with his dad. Eight years old, uh and 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.440 he very much wanted to get out of South Africa. 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.240 When he was seventeen years old, he left South Africa 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.560 for ontary O, Canada. His mother was a Canadian national 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.520 by the way, so um and And the story goes 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.479 that he mostly left because he was fleeing compulsory service 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.920 in the South African Defense Force. Yes, and that specifically 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.240 he was doing it not because he really objects to 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.560 military service, but he objected to the kind of military 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.120 service that they were engaging in a k A. Pressing 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.760 black people right. Yes, that was his His stance on 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.240 the military has been that he's pro military when it 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.800 is quote in the service of good um And, so 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.360 he you know, you could draw the conclusion that he 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:38.320 saw South Africa's military as being uh not aligned with 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.160 that and so he did not want to participate. Also, 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.440 I have read that he had aspirations to become an 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.280 American citizen early early on. He really wanted to be 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:49.719 an American, but he also thought that it would be 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:56.760 easier to become an American if he first went to Canada. Um, so, yeah, 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.160 he leaves for Ontario. Yeah, I was. I was to say, 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.400 I wonder if if part of part of that ambition 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.360 to be an American was was he was a very 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.200 enterprising child. He had written a code for a video 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:09.840 game called a blast Star. I believe that he sold 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.720 to a computer mag for five hundred bucks, which isn't 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.480 bad when you say twelve. Yeah, yeah, he he was, 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.800 and that was one of those things. He was immediately 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.320 interested in computers. He had begged his family to get 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.400 a computer essentially as soon as personal computers became a thing, 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.840 and uh and yeah, he just soaked it up. It 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:30.720 was one of those things that he really had an 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.240 affinity for. He tried to open an arcade I read 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.960 with with his brother when he was thirteen or fourteen, 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.480 that they abandoned the plans when they realized that they 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:40.880 would have to get an adult signature to obtain a 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.320 permit to open this arcade, so they wound up just 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.640 making homemade chocolate and selling it to their classmates instead. Yeah. Essentially, 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.280 the story I read says that he and his brother, 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.480 without any permission on the part of their parents, decided 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.080 to have this plan to make an arcade. Then they 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.640 ran into the problem that they would require this adult 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:02.800 signature and realized that this was not going to work out, 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:07.960 and so essentially they you know, they hit a bureaucratic obstacle. 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.800 And then their parents were furious when they found out 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.560 that these two kids that just actually, I guess mom 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.040 mainly was furious that these these kids had decided to 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.400 just often started a business, started business, you know, on 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.400 their own, without any adult supervision. Now granted, of course 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.840 it didn't go very far in that case, but um, yeah, 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.640 it shows that Musk was not really uh interested in 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.000 having to get permission to do things, which I thought 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.840 was a running theme in his life. Absolutely. Uh. Yeah, 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.000 he went to school. Uh, well, he had relatives in 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.280 Canada because his mom was from Canada. So he goes 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.880 over to Canada and he enrolls in school in Queen's University, 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.600 and uh he starts studying physics there. Uh. But then 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.559 he ends up transferring as well to the University of 0:08:55.600 --> 0:09:00.120 Pennsylvania and uh gets degrees in uh, in physics and 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.720 in business. He actually gets two different bachelor's degrees. Here's 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.920 a quote from him. My areas of interest was cross disciplinary, 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.200 focused on the physics of high energy density capacitors, which 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.800 is a mixture of quantum physics and materials science plus 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.760 business um. While he was in college, he met a 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.760 young lady. Actually this would be back in Queen's University. Uh, 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.600 he would eventually marry her. That young lady's name was 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.920 Justine J. Wilson. So we'll talk about her in a 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.440 couple of years. I believe I believe she's a writer 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:33.760 or novelist. I was going to yes, yes, and also 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.720 a blogger as well, but yes, a novelist and uh, 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.160 very interesting writer. I've I've read some of her work 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.439 and she turns a good phrase. I will say I 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:49.240 enjoyed reading what she had to write. So he went 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.760 to school, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with the 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.640 degrees in physics and business, and he began to work 0:09:55.040 --> 0:10:00.680 on ultra capacitors at Pinnacle Research in Silicon Valley. And 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.720 essentially from why I understand, he was doing this so 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.720 that he could understand their potential as an energy storage 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.920 mechanism for electric vehicles, because even at that time he 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.880 was already interested in the idea of electric vehicles. So 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.800 he was going to go to Stanford. Yeah. Yeah, he 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.800 was accepted to Stanford for a grad degree. He dropped 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:22.840 out from what I read after two days on campus. 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.920 Yeah yeah, he he was he had the opportunity to 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:32.160 co found a company, and the problem was that he 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:36.679 did not have the time to devote both to graduate 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:41.680 studies and to launch this this company at the same time. 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:43.840 And he asked to Stanford if he could get a 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.080 deferral for a quarter. They were on the quarter system, 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.720 but he wanted to get one quarter deferral because he said, 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.720 he realized that startup companies have a habit of not 0:10:55.080 --> 0:11:00.280 always succeeding. And he thought, Okay, if the company succeeds, 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.920 I'm in great shape. But more likely than not, that 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.680 company is not gonna work out. It's just, you know, 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.520 it'll maybe it's a time, So maybe I'll just ask 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.280 for a deferral, and that way I can really concentrate 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.880 on this company for one quarter worth of time and 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.720 then go back to school. He did not get that deferral, 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.280 so really it was an all or nothing. It was, 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.120 you know, land the ships on the shores of America 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:25.600 and burned them. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, that's 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.040 I think that's the same year that that Netscape had 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.640 just quintumpled in value the day that it went public, 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:32.559 and that was launched by someone who was even younger 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.000 than him at the time, and that's you know, yeah, 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.360 the Internet man, the Internet. So the company he founded 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.959 or co founded back was called Zip two and it 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:48.000 served as a platform for delivering ads and directories on 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.679 the Internet. So he co founds this company, he starts 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.760 building it up, and it's doing really well. It starts 0:11:55.760 --> 0:12:00.920 to increase in value year over year, and then and um, 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:05.679 he ends up marrying his college sweetheart, Justine J. Wilson. 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.320 Uh and uh. He marries her in two thousand and 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.880 then he ends up while he's engaged to her, Actually, 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.120 he ends up selling zip too to Compact. They bought 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.640 the company for three hundred and seven million dollars in cash, 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:22.800 and that was the biggest sum paid for an Internet 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.040 company ever at the time, and he got twenty two 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.760 million of that. Yeah, so he was twenty years old 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.520 when that happened, So he became a millionaire overnight. Justine 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.040 was was in a relationship with him at this time. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.360 She actually has written about that in one of the 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.240 articles which I'll cite a little bit later. Um, and 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.600 so that was a phenomenal time, I mean, like its transformative. 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.160 He ended up they moved out of this little apartment 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.600 into a nice house, and he got a really really 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:55.040 fancy car, uh, a McLaren F one, which is the 0:12:55.120 --> 0:13:01.080 fastest production model car made. So it had the highest 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.640 top speed of any production model car. So he so 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.360 he literally bought the fastest that he could possibly going 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.480 doors too. Just like my favorite car in the world, 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:15.120 the DeLorean, uh favorite for all the nostalgic reasons. Obviously 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.240 it's of course performance. It's not that great of a car. 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:20.720 I did a full episode about that. So we do 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:22.959 have a delirian episode of tech stuff way back in 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.040 the archives if you really want to listen to it. 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.720 But he then also founded a company that would eventually 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.000 be called PayPal. He co founded originally it was it 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.800 was called the company that he founded was x dot com. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:39.840 It was an online financial services thing that enabled people 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.040 to make payments first first off by via email. Yeah, 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.560 it was. It was again a very disruptive business because 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.400 it was an idea of you know, there was this 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.760 big notion of doing huge amounts of business online like 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:57.120 the Internet, held limitless possibility when it came to uh 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.520 conducting businesses. But one of the issue was how do 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.800 you process payments? How do you create a payment system, 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:08.720 especially when you're talking about people connecting with other people 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.760 and wanting to transfer payments over the Internet without having 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.200 a big company in between, like right, and and Musk 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.760 said he'd a quote from him is that banks are 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.720 terrible at innovation, and financial services is a huge sector. 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.000 So I thought, now there should be something there. Yeah, 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:27.320 so he did that. He the company acquired actually kind 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.720 of merged with another company called Confinity, and together they 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.400 became PayPal. Uh. And uh that was where you had 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.239 the online point of sale functionality that was so important 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.800 for those those early days. I mean it really it 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:45.160 meant that people who were selling things uh personally could 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.560 get paid for it without having to go through some 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.200 other retailer to send their stuff to them and then 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.320 get a cut of it. Uh, even if you're providing 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.400 a service. You know, for example, I I do some 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:57.440 freelance editing, and so if I want to do that 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.440 and I also want to get paid for it then 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.960 which I do. Yeah. Well, and then uh that that 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.680 company was bought by a little company called eBay, and 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.040 at the time, Musk was the chief product officer and 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:15.840 was also the largest shareholder in PayPal and eBay paid 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.520 them at one point five billion dollars. Yeah, so at 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:25.280 this point Musk goes from being rich to whoa is 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:28.320 that the official term? Scientific? Yeah, it was two thousand 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:30.560 two when eBay bought the company for one point five billions, 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.520 So he's been married for two years at that point. Uh. 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.000 He experienced some tragedy in his life at this time 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:41.800 as well. He and his wife. Uh He and Justine 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:46.960 had their first son, and their first son, at ten 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:53.280 weeks old, passed away from sudden infant death, and it 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:57.200 was it was obviously devastating for Justine. She says in 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.200 an article that she wrote for Marie Claire that, uh 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:05.800 Ellen really internalizes things like loss, and so there wasn't 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.200 a lot of outward emotion. Now, I am sure Mr 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:15.920 Musk suffered unimaginable loss at this but but there wasn't 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.160 a lot of outward sign of that. Justina, on the 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.520 other hand, was very expressive of her grief as as 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.200 is understandable. But they ended up pursuing some in vitro 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:32.600 fertilization techniques so that they could have another child, and 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.800 they they had five of them. They end up with 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.400 one set of twins and one set of triplets, all boys, 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.680 so all sons. Uh. And so it's a pretty amazing thing. 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:46.920 And and we'll get more into his family in a 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.000 little bit. It was around this time as well, after 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.440 he was seeing this amazing amount of success and had 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:57.200 reaped in quite a bit of money from those early ventures, 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:02.280 that he first started talking about the idea of privatized 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:06.280 space exploration, and that in fact, he started chatting about 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.479 this with a friend of his and they were they 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.840 were just talking about why was it so expensive to 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.399 go out in space? And how expensive could it be? 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:16.919 And could a private company do this? I mean, is it? 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.639 These were these were new conversations. Like you know, before 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.200 it was essentially governments that were sending up rockets. Right. 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:26.480 But but but around this time was when you know, 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.080 everyone was terribly losing funding. Yeah, they were having you know, 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.959 Elon Musk had had this fascination with space exploration. Some 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:37.080 might call it an obsession with space exploration and the 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:41.240 idea of eventually colonizing other planets or maybe a moon 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.520 or something, Mars being one of those destinations that he's 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:49.320 absolutely fixated upon. And so it began this this really 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.280 passionate discussion about well, if no one else can do it, 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.560 why couldn't private individuals do it? And Uh, the first 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.239 company that he made to try and go after this 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.640 goal was called Life to Mars. Life to Mars. Yeah, 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.320 this was an idea that he had where the the 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.800 goal would be to send a rocket with a payload 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.800 that has some sort of life form on it, and 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:16.320 the the life form was a matter of debate. Uh, 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:17.760 there was a point where it was going to be 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:19.639 a mouse, and then there was a point where it 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:21.840 was just going to be a plant. But the idea 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.880 would be to send this thing to Mars as kind 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:31.159 of an unmanned but life bearing mission as a step 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:36.080 toward the eventual landing on and possible colonization of Mars 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.879 by human beings. Yeah, he's he said that that this 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:41.920 is a direct quote. I'd put the extension of life 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.960 to another planet slightly above the transition from life in 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.040 the oceans to life on land. Yeah. He also said, 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.600 I've always thought that space is important to the future 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:52.680 of humanity. I think it's important that we one day 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.600 become a spacefaring nation, and I just didn't see that 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.040 happening by itself. I just didn't see that from Boeing 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.879 or Lockheed or big aerospace companies. So that's why I 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.720 started SpaceX. So if you heard about SpaceX, I that's 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:10.040 that's the company that, again Musk was behind. And uh, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.240 the early days of SpaceX we're kind of interesting because 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.000 at first he was thinking, you know, I got a 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.960 lot of money because because eBay bought my stuff, uh 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.560 and not on an auction. It was like, you know, 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:24.840 a company I made, So I'm gonna take this here 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.560 money and I'm gonna buy myself some rockets. And that 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:29.840 was originally his plan was that he was gonna buy rockets. 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.439 He wasn't he wasn't making a company to build stuff. 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.080 He wanted to buy things. But then he realized that 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.399 that really, you know, those other rockets were kind of crap. 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.439 Well beyond that, it was the people that were crap. Okay, 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.840 this is this is according to the Esquire article and 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.959 uh so full disclosure. This is just based upon what 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:54.719 Musk's experiences were. So Musk goes to Russia because Russia, 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.800 as it turns out, had a pretty big supply of 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.160 intercontinental listic missiles on its hands that no longer really 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:05.399 needed anything for any reason. And originally it looked like 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:09.119 he would be able to purchase said missiles at seven 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.159 million dollars a pop. So he thought, oh, that's reasonable 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.760 by a BYBM, So I'll use that as my launch 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:21.440 vehicle for for whatever you know, spacecraft I design. So um. 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.720 The story in Esquire tells tales of corruption and bribery 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.000 and lots and lots of vodka and uh and I'm 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.600 not kidding it really does. I mean, when we read this, 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:37.680 it's both entertaining and kind of infuriating. But essentially, Musk 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:39.800 felt like he was getting jerked around by the Russian 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.200 officials that he was dealing with, that that they would 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.560 quote him one price, and when he was finally ready 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.240 to move on it, that price would suddenly triple. So 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.520 saying oh no, no, no, not twenty one million for 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.240 three of them, twenty one million for one. And so 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.720 at that point that's it. I'm building my own and 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.639 he left. So it's like, so he decided at that 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:03.160 point that's space X was going to manufacture its own rockets, 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:05.680 and he started looking around for people who would help 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:08.600 him do that. One of those was a guy named 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.720 Thomas Mueller, who was an engineer, part of a group 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.560 of people who were really kind of rocket enthusiasts. They 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.880 called themselves the Reaction Research Society. Only Mueller was not 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:25.080 like an amateur rocket scientist. He was an engineer with 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.399 Northrop Grumman, so he actually had a pedigree in rocket 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.760 and rocket science. Like when you say it's not rocket science, 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:34.720 he says, no, it totally is. Rocket science is what 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.439 I do rocket scientists. Um. But he he was the 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.680 one that must contacted to be the guy to design 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:47.680 the engine that he wanted to propel spacecraft into the stars. Um, 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:49.800 not literally into the stars, but because that would be 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.760 very that would be low, low cost efficiency for you. Yeah, 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.320 you don't, you know, you don't get any reusability once 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.480 you shoot it into the stars. And actually he thought 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.120 that the reusability thing, and I think he still does 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:05.440 really argue that reusability is key to making space travel 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.440 economic because you know, to to use these things one 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:11.879 time and then have to build a new one is 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.760 not efficient at all. Yeah. Yeah, And and what he's 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.679 really arguing with SpaceX of about performance versus reliability and 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:21.840 says that what he's looking for is really reliability. He 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.119 he said that he aspires for SpaceX to be the 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:30.160 Southwest Airlines of space. Interesting. So he Musk was personally 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:34.199 involved in the design of two different launch vehicles that 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:37.320