There have only been about a half dozen genuinely important events in the four-billion-year saga of life on Earth: single-celled life, multicelled life, differentiation into plants and animals, movement of animals from water to land, and the advent of mammals and consciousness.

One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree - make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.

When people really understand it's do or die [and] if we work hard and pull through, it's going to be a great outcome; people will give it everything they've got.

My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars - this is very important - so you don't have to carry the return fuel when you go there.

To our knowledge, life exists on only one planet, Earth. If something bad happens, it's gone. I think we should establish life on another planet-Mars in particular-but we 're not making very good progress. SpaceX is intended to make that happen.

I wouldn't say I have a lack of fear. In fact, I'd like my fear emotion to be less because it's very distracting and fries my nervous system.

We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.