铭文 - Epigraph#
To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?
序幕：火之缪斯 - Prologue: Muse of Fire#
While other entrepreneurs struggled to develop a worldview, he developed a cosmic view.
“I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me,” Andrew Jackson once said.
第 4 章：探索者：比勒陀利亚，20 世纪 80 年代 - Chapter 4: The Seeker: Pretoria, the 1980s#
“That quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.” That lesson stuck with Musk. “I took from the book that we need to extend the scope of consciousness so that we are better able to ask the questions about the answer, which is the universe,” he says.
第 14 章：火星：SpaceX，2001 年 - Chapter 14: Mars: SpaceX, 2001#
Life cannot be merely about solving problems, he felt. It also had to be about pursuing great dreams. “That’s what can get us up in the morning.”
第 25 章：掌控方向盘：特斯拉，2007–2008 - Chapter 25: Taking the Wheel: Tesla, 2007–2008#
“That’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said at a couple of meetings. That was a line that Steve Jobs used often. So did Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
第 28 章：第三次打击：Kwaj，2008 年 8 月 3 日 - Chapter 28: Strike Three: Kwaj, August 3, 2008#
“Optimism, pessimism, fuck that,” Musk answered. “We’re going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I’m hell-bent on making it work.”
第 29 章：濒临崩溃：特斯拉和 SpaceX，2008 年 - Chapter 29: On the Brink: Tesla and SpaceX, 2008#
“You can give half to each kid, in which case they might both die, or give all the food to one kid and increase the chance that at least one kid survives. I couldn’t bring myself to decide that one was going to die, so I decided I had to give my all to save both.”
第 32 章：Model S：特斯拉，2009 年 - Chapter 32: The Model S: Tesla, 2009#
This followed the principle that Steve Jobs and Jony Ive had instilled at Apple: design is not just about aesthetics; true industrial design must connect the looks of a product to its engineering. “In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer,” Jobs once explained. “Nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers.”
第 37 章：马斯克和贝佐斯：SpaceX，2013-2014 - Chapter 37: Musk and Bezos: SpaceX, 2013–2014#
“Space, the final frontier, meet me there!” he concluded.
第 42 章：太阳能：特斯拉能源，2004–2016 - Chapter 42: Solar: Tesla Energy, 2004–2016#
The whole clan, Peter says, followed the same maxim: “Risk is a type of fuel.”
第 44 章：不稳定的关系：2016-2017 - Chapter 44: Rocky Relationships: 2016–2017#
So why does he do it? When I ask Elon, he lets out his large laugh. “Because I’m just a fool for love,” he says. “I am often a fool, but especially for love.”
第 45 章：坠入黑暗：2017 - Chapter 45: Descent into the Dark: 2017#
His way of dealing with his mental problems, he says when I ask, “is just take the pain and make sure you really care about what you’re doing.”
第 46 章：弗里蒙特工厂地狱：特斯拉，2018 - Chapter 46: Fremont Factory Hell: Tesla, 2018#
Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb.
Comradery is dangerous. It makes it hard for people to challenge each other’s work. There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided.
When hiring, look for people with the right attitude. Skills can be taught. Attitude changes require a brain transplant.
The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.
第 59 章：星舰激增：SpaceX，2021 年 7 月 - Chapter 59: Starship Surge: SpaceX, July 2021#
“I give people hardcore feedback, mostly accurate, and I try not to do it in a way that’s ad hominem,” he says. “I try to criticize the action, not the person. We all make mistakes. What matters is whether a person has a good feedback loop, can seek criticism from others, and can improve. Physics does not care about hurt feelings. It cares about whether you got the rocket right.”
第 61 章：夜出：2021 年夏天 - Chapter 61: Nights Out: Summer 2021#
If I loved him any less 如果我爱他少一点 I’d make him stay 我会让他留下来 But he has to be the best 但他必须是最好的 Player of games…. 游戏玩家....I’m in love with the greatest gamer 我爱上了最伟大的游戏玩家 But he’ll always love the game 但他永远热爱这个游戏 More than he loves me 胜过他爱我 Sail away 扬帆远航 To the cold expanse of space 前往寒冷广阔的太空 Even love 甚至爱 Couldn’t keep you in your place. 无法让你留在原地。
第 68 章：年度父亲：2021 - Chapter 68: Father of the Year: 2021#
“It’s certainly possible that the road to hell to some degree is paved with good intentions—but the road to hell is mostly paved with bad intentions.”
第 69 章：政治：2020–2022 - Chapter 69: Politics: 2020–2022#
Do not fear losing. “You will lose,” Musk says. “It will hurt the first fifty times. When you get used to losing, you will play each game with less emotion.” You will be more fearless, take more risks.
第 70 章：乌克兰：2022 - Chapter 70: Ukraine: 2022#
“No good deed goes unpunished,”
第 72 章：活跃投资者：Twitter，2022 年 1 月至 4 月 - Chapter 72: Active Investor: Twitter, January–April 2022#
“Are you not entertained? Is that not why you are here?”
第 95 章：星舰发射：SpaceX，2023 年 4 月 - Chapter 95: The Starship Launch: SpaceX, April 2023#
“This is how civilizations decline. They quit taking risks. And when they quit taking risks, their arteries harden. Every year there are more referees and fewer doers.”
“We don’t want to design to eliminate every risk,” he said. “Otherwise, we will never get anywhere.”
Do the audaciousness and hubris that drive him to attempt epic feats excuse his bad behavior, his callousness, his recklessness? The times he’s an asshole? The answer is no, of course not. One can admire a person’s good traits and decry the bad ones. But it’s also important to understand how the strands are woven together, sometimes tightly. It can be hard to remove the dark ones without unraveling the whole cloth. As Shakespeare teaches us, all heroes have flaws, some tragic, some conquered, and those we cast as villains can be complex. Even the best people, he wrote, are “molded out of faults.”
Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the