I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.

We're running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.

I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.

I realized that a methane-oxygen rocket engine could achieve a specific impulse greater than 380.

My family fears that the Russians will assassinate me.

An asteroid or a supervolcano could certainly destroy us, but we also face risks the dinosaurs never saw: An engineered virus, nuclear war, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us.

Even if there's a zombie apocalypse, you'll still be able to travel using the Tesla Supercharging system.