Basically outworked, outhustled and outinvented just about everyone in his path. Host what were one of his first inventions or investments or successes . Guest his very first success was his Company Called zip for, it was call zip ii, it was kind of a google maps meets yelp. It was around 1994. And, essentially, the answer to the ageold problem of kind of how do i find a pizza place are near my dorm room and, you know, you would just type in i want a pizza, and it would show you where the place was and give you turnbyturn directions, and nothing like that existed at the time. He ends up selling that company for about 300 million, and elon was the largest shareholder, and so thats what really set him on his way. It gave him about 20 million to do whatever his heart desired. Host and what did he do with that 20 million . Guest well, the next thing he did was he decided, he kind of sat back and thought for a little while of an industry that needed a kick in the pants, i guess. He had worked at a bank as an intern, and hed come away from that experience thinking bankers were sort of dumb [laughter] kind of a herd mentality. And so is, again, this was the early days of the internet, and he thought to do basically an online Financial System for everything, credit cards, your savings, your banking, and this was called x. Com, and it morphs into paypal which i think a lot of people have heard of. Host so exactly peter teal was often cited as the founder of paypal. What was elon musks role . Guest well they were both cofounders in a way. There was x. Com which was elons company, and literally in the same building was peter teals company he had started with another stanford be graduate. So youve got these two companies in the one building that were kind of spending each other to death to compete to get in this online payment space, and they would or use their service by giving them 10 if you could get a friend to sign up, and there was a lot of fraud, so they decided to join forces, and confinity comes up with the Service Called paypal, and that becomes the big hit, and the company just changes its name to paypal. Host you say elon musk arrived in this country with 100 in his pocket. Wheres he from . Whats his background . Guest he was born in south africa, and half of his family is canadianamerican, and the other half is britishsouth african. He was a lot, like you might expect, he was a precocious kid. He read tons of science fiction, he was very bright, but he was a bit of a kind of knowitall. He was well loved with his family, but he was bullied at school, and when he wasnt, he was kind of a loner. He was ignored by i his peers. I interviewed tons of kids, and they all said pretty much the same thing which was, you know, he was just the last person they would expect to end up doing all this spectacular stuff. He just kept to himself, and he was really into computers and is scifi, and that pushed him. And then hed always heard about Silicon Valley and dreamed of getting to america, and so from a very young age, thats what he pined to do. And at 17 he just ran away from home and did it. Host and ran away from home . Guest he did run away from home. Yeah, his mom had canadian citizenship, and so he wanted to get to the United States, but he had to sort of make this pit stop in canada, and he sort of backpacks around canada for a year working a bunch of odd jobs, and then he, and then he gets into Queens University and really starts to kind of excel academically, and then he ends up at upenn in the United States to finish his degree. Host and what did he study at upenn . Guest he did a mix, physics and business at the same time. Host he did those in a combination . Did he do that on purpose . Guest he did. I mean, he fancies himselfs a physicist. He was into things back then like batteries and ultra capacitors and all of this, and he wanted to get the business degree as well. And so he does them both at the same time. I think it took him about five years. And then hes also hosting these big house parties on the weekend to pay his way through school. They would have hundreds of people show up at these gatherings, and elon would charge 20 50 a head for these parties. Host you write in your book that musks behavior matches up more closely with someone who is described by neuropsychologists as profoundly gifted. Guest thats right. Its a clinical term that i ran across as i was doing the book. I mean, he is a lot of people think hes, they would say hes somewhere on the aspergers spectrum. He doesnt show a lot of everyone thu towards his i coworkers, but i found theres a certain kind of person who at quite a young age has an empathy not for individual people, but for sort of mankind as a whole. It sounds, i dont know, sort of fantastic to some people, but he feels like he has to help the human species. Theres a flaw with the human species, and he is out there to help people as a whole. Host after the selling of paypal, what happened next . Guest well, theres essentially a coup. He goes off on a honeymoon. Hes been putting off his honeymoon for a long time with his first wife, justine musk. And theres a coup while he hops on the plane to go to sydney and gets thrown out. Theres a big disagreement over the direction of the company, and then a few months pass, and ebay ends up acquiring paypal for about 1. 5 billion, and elon ends up with 200million. And then, you know, he decides he wants to do this grand gesture for man kind. He goes to the nasa web site, he sees theres nothing there about exploring mars, and this really depresses him. So he decides he is going to send at first mice to mars, and then he decides he wants to send a plant thats going kind of supply the first oxygen on mars. And be we would watch this in a video camera. Host and was that successful . [laughter] guest he never quite gets there. He goes to russia. Its one of these amazing stories. Hes got to buy the rockets, so he goes to russia to get these intercontinental ballistic missiles, refurbished ones, you know, russias the only place he can buy these. The russians treat him sort of like just a dot. Com millionaire that they can take advantage of. They try to overcharge him, they dont really take him seriously. And then he comes back from that trip and he decides, look, what i have to do is build my own rockets, and thats the only way im going to do this, and this is kind of where his company, spacex, is born around 2001. It is this idea that theyre going to be the southwest for space. Hes going to assemble rockets much cheaper than other companies, and hes also going to assemble them faster and really sort of put the Aerospace Industry on its head. Host what has spacex accomplished or done since 2001 . Guest its been on a pretty remarkable run. I mean, its a really unlikely story that it exists. Its competing against entire nations. Its had a rocky beginning. I mean, when elon first started in 2001, he thought it would take a couple years to get a rocket up. It ended up taking about six or seven years. And since then, you know, its not a Space Tourism company, its a commercial satellite company. They take satellites up for countries and for other companies, communications companies. And the, they have become the low cost provider in the market. They charge about on the order to of 30 60 million per flight versus hundreds of millions or dollars from their competitors. Quite reasonably, they got on a really good run of about one launch per month very consistently and then, unfortunately, a couple weeks ago they had their first rocket blow up in a really long time. Host is it profitable, is spacex profitable . Guest elon says it is, but its private, and so we dont know for sure. We do know they have a backlog that they publish on their web site, and it has about 8 billion in orders over the next five years. I mean, its a success story. They build the rockets in the United States from scratch, they use american engenerals of their own engines of their own design. Theyre the only American Company right now that has american engines, the other companies rely on russianen engines. So they employ thousands of people. Its a fascinating story. Its kind of probably my favorite one in the book. Host ashlee vance, where is spacex based, where are the manufacturing facilities . Guest its based in hawthorne, california, which is just a few miles from lax. They have an enormous factory there, about 500,000 square feet, and its growing. And they, they make everything right there. They have another Test Facility where they test the rockets in texas, in mcgregor, texas, kind of central texas, and theyre building a space port on the east coast of texas. Host so what is elon musks relationship with Silicon Valley . Guest hes kind of a unique character. So is he lives a veryunusual lifestyle. He has a house in los angeles, in bel air, and thats kind of his home base. And thats where spacex is based. And tesla motors, his electric car company where hes also the ceo, is based in Silicon Valley. They have an office in palo alto and also have a factory in fremont, california. So is he splits his time every week going back and forth between the two. And then hes kind of this, you know, most of the Silicon Valley ceos kind of keep to themselves, they, theyre very much married to Silicon Valley and kind of the tech lifestyle. Elons a little more of like a hollywood kind of guy. He enjoys hanging out with celebrities. Hes supposed to be sort of this tony stark type figure from the iron man shows, and he kind of revels in that a little bit. Hes more of a celebrity ceo than weve seen in a long time. Host who is ta lula reilly . Guest well, the this gets a little complicated. Hes been married and divorced and remarried and divorced from her. Shes a british actress, and then now i understand that elon and talulah are back together again. His first wife he had five boys with, and then ta ta lula is his second wife. He met her around 2008 when his companies were kind of going under not going under, but going through really tough financial times, and she sort of stuck with him during that. Host and his relationship currently with justine . Guest id say its, you know, they share custody of their kids, and i guess they its, i would say, its a little bit strained, although they share custody with the kids and sort of work that out. Host now, you describe your book, mr. Vance, as before elon and after elon. What does that mean . Guest right. Well, i had done a cover story on elon for businessweek in 2012, and i had sort of gone to him after that and asked him well, not asked him, but i told him i wanted to do a book, and he had [laughter] he told me, you know, he wasnt really going to participate. He was going to either do his own book, or he just wasnt going to cooperate. And i spent about 18 months interviewing a couple hundred people, and enough of them and just sort of pursuing the book anyway. And over time a bunch of those people go back to him and ask him if, you know, they should talk to me. And then one day i get a phone call from him at home. It comes up on my caller id, elon musk, and he said, look, im either going to participate now or really make life miserable for you, and we kind of hashed out terms over a dinner where he would participate, and he didnt get to read the book even though hed sort of asked to. He wanted to put footnotes in it and have some influence, but, you know, ultimately i said i kind of couldnt live with that. And then he agreed to do interviews over about eight months from there on out. Host and how many sessions did you have with him . Guest well, we met basically once a month over those eight months, and they would go anywhere from, like, an hour to three or four hours at a time, and then he also gave me access at that point to his executives at his companies, and then i would go with him to tesla and to spacex, and we would walk around the factory, walk around the tesla design studio. Id sort of go to, like, a movie premiere with him and sort of got to see how he operates. Host what is his reputation, and what did you take away from the factory visits . Whats his reputation as a ceo . Guest well, you know, its complicated. He, i think in Silicon Valley he is completely seen as the next steve jobs. Hes the guy that all the young kids want to be like. He is doing kind of bigger, bolder things, certainly, than a lot of these app and web service companies. His reputation as a very hardcharging guy, he demands a ton of his employees, a sixday workweek is pretty standard at both spacex and tesla. Hes very difficult to deal with for competitors and for suppliers, you know . Hes always putting them under intense pricing pressure and time pressure. Employees, its the same sort of thing. I mean, he gets theyre inspired, he gets a ton out of them, but hes very hard on them. Hes been known to really go at people during meetings and to be pretty relentless to get them to solve problems. And on the whole, i mean, my takeaway was that hes kind of the most hes definitely the most intense human being ive ever met. Host as were taping this in the middle of 2015, how old is he . Guest hes 44. He just turned 44 and, unfortunately, his birthday present was one of those rockets blowing up. Host did you leave this project as a fan of elon musk . Guest thats another complicated question. [laughter] you know, i went in, i went when i first started, i mean, i thought he was a onenote sort of guy, like a techno utopiantype figure, and i came away discovering he is a much more complex character. I mean, you know, i think you could easily argue hes kind of lived one of the most interesting lives of anybody going, and hes a very complex man. I think i came away, i came away thinking that im a fan of the companies, absolutely. I mean, i think tesla is changing the automotive industry, i think spacex is changing the Aerospace Industry. His third or company, solar city, is doing very well. So im blown away by the technology. I think elon is a work in progress. I mean, i think he theres a lot to love about him, and theres a lot of stuff thats very hard. So, you know, but i still to me, hes a guy who Silicon Valley talks a lot about disruption, and im kind of cynical about it. I dont see companies that are really pushing that hard on the status quo, but i think elon is, and to that degree im absolutely a fan of what hes doing. Host you mentioned tesla. How did the tesla factory end up in fremont, california . Guest thats an interesting story as well. There actually was a proper car manufacturing facility there from gm and toyota that had a partnership that dated back many, many years. It was supposed to be the best of both worlds. You had sort of japanese manufacturing expertise along with kind of American Ingenuity and know how, and they were going to combine forces. And then during 2008 when the recession hit, it was an asset that had to go for these car companies, and tesla was looking for a factory, so they really going to on the cheap. The factory probably would normal be worth billions of dollars, they got it for 50 million including, you know, it was basically an investment from toyota in the company. Host and . How many people does he employ . Tell us about the factory today. Guest yeah, absolutely. I mean, the, you know, its not it used to pump out hundreds of thousands of cars, so its not filled to capacity right now. Tesla pumps out about 50,000 to 60,000 cars a year. They have this model s sedan which is a luxury sedan that costs on the order of 100,000 for most people. Theyre about to come out with a second car called the model x which is kind of an suv. And they employ thousands of people there, probably on the order of around 10,000, i think, and then the numbers get even higher. Theyre opening this enormous battery factory in nevada which is also scheduled to employ thousands of people in the coming years. Host ashlee vance, you write that for musk going public represented something of a faustian bargain. What does that mean . Guest you know, elon likes to as in the case of spacex, i mean, hes taken this very longterm view, and i think teslas the same sort of thing. He had to convince people of electric cars, they have to build things like these networks of charging stations all across the world, hes got to build this battery factory. It asks a lot of investors in the company to continuously buy into the idea that hes going to gamble billions of dollars again and again and again. And so it was, you know, he needed to raise money at no point in time for the at that point in time for the company to build its factories, and so he had to go public. But that put him under this immense pressure and and scrutiny that elon really doesnt like. He prefers to operate with a little bit of secrecy around him. Essential hi, the company had no choice essentially, the company had no choice. That was around, it was coming out of 2008, and the Company Really needed money at that point. Host hyperloop, what is it . [laughter] guest we dont know for sure yet. [laughter] the, you know, elons announcement a couple years ago, i mean, its a monorail type thing. It would be a raised platform with these pods that travel on a bed of air, and elons version of this, the pods would go 800 miles an hour, so you could go from l. A. To cities to San Francisco in 30 minutes. Its all hypothetical at this point and, essentially, a drawing on paper. Elon was upset about the california highspeed rail project. He thinks its kind of expensive and slow which, i guess, it is. And so he offered this up as an idea for an alternative. He really isnt looking to commercialize it himself, although three, two or three companies have since appeared that are, essentially, hyperloop startups. Theyre taken the ideas that he put out there. Theyre looking to buy air rights. One is trying to go between los angeles and las vegas, and so the idea is youd be able to do that in 15 minutes, so you could leave l. A. , go to vegas for the night, come back and sleep in your bed. Host now, your book has been on the bestsell or list for a while. Have you heard any feedback from mr. Musk . Guest i did. You know, when so he didnt get to see the book before it came out, but i did let him see it once it was finished a couple weeks before i didnt want him to have to buy it on speed read it, and it seemed like the fair thing to do. He went through it and kind of as you might expect, he sort of pushed back on a few things or at least was a little bit, at least giving me his feedback on them. And then, you know, a day later he cam