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10 Questions for Elon Musk

 

What's your favorite part of a typical day?

Coming home to see my kids.

What's the least glamorous thing you do regularly in the line of duty?

I do lots of unglamorous things. I do a lot of e-mail.

What skill would you most like to improve?

The ability to do things I don't like. I don't like firing people, and I don't like traveling for a long time.

What makes for a good salesperson of your product?

Somebody who is really driven, really smart, and nice to work with.

If you could go back in time and do one thing differently in your business, what would it be?

The whole back-in-time thing is hard for me, because I'm pretty happy with the way things are right now. I would have liked to remain as CEO of PayPal. I think it could be a $50 billion, $60 billion company.

If you were made dictator for a day, what's the first change you'd make?

I'd make it much less advantageous to be a lawyer.

What's the simplest thing you never learned to do?

I never learned to play an instrument. I can whistle almost anything, but I think it'd be cool to play an instrument.

Who's the smartest person you know? Why?

Probably Google's Larry Page. If you look at what Larry has done with Google, it's absolutely brilliant.

Who gives you the best advice about your business?

My brother Kimbal. Sometimes I want things to be true, even though they're not, and Kimbal is good at pointing those out.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Getting into space was pretty cool. We got farther than any privately developed liquid launch rocket.

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    • Max Chafkin

    Senior writer Max Chafkin has profiled companies such as Yelp, Zappos, Twitter, Threadless, and Tesla for the magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.


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