Tesla Motors had the second most successful IPO debut of 2010, rising 41 percent. Three years ago Today’s Machining World interviewed Elon Musk, the company’s CEO. This is the interview.
Eighty-eight years since a native Frenchman, New York hotelier, Raymond Orteig, offered a $25,000 prize to spur aviation, and 80 years since Charles Lindbergh claimed it for his historic New York-to-Paris flight in the Spirit of St. Louis, goal-oriented prizes are very much with us again. Of course, the stakes are a lot higher these days. $10 million seems a reasonable carrot. For a bit of a window on the motivating power of a competition pointed towards very specific and lofty goals, we buttonholed Elon Musk, wunderkind co-founder of PayPal and its largest shareholder when it was acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Since then, Musk has given birth to two fast-rising companies; an aerospace venture called SpaceX, and an electric car company dubbed Tesla Motors, honoring electrical engineering pioneer Nikola Tesla. Somehow, the 36-year-old Musk finds time to serve as a trustee of the X PRIZE Foundation, which, having awarded its first $10 million prize for space flight, is now encouraging quantum leaps in medicine and automotive technology.
Elon Musk
John Grossman: In Congressional testimony you said this: “Few things stoke the fires of creativity and ingenuity more than competing for a prize in fair and open competition.” Why is this?
Elon Musk: I just think the evidence suggests this is so. Why do people compete for the Super Bowl? Why do they compete for the NBA championship? Why do they compete in the Olympics? Look at the space competition between Russia and United States. If there wasn’t a Russian competitive threat, I don’t think we’d have gone from nothing to being on the moon in eight years.
John: You’ve pointed to a kind of Darwinian aspect of prize competitions.
Elon: It just means that the best person or company wins – the one that’s best able to compete.
