I wish we could be private with Tesla. It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company.

Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

Managers today have to do more with less, and get better results from limited resources, more than ever before.

It takes me about two hours to run into Target. People always want a picture. They hem and haw, and they can’t spit the words out, so they waste about five minutes of my time just standing there getting ready for a picture. Just do it!

I like to combine visits to more than one place when I go on my international tours in order to get more done. I’m from Ahmedabad where we have a saying, ‚Single-fare, double journey.‘

The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.

If you don’t have sustainable energy, you have unsustainable energy. The fundamental value of a company like Tesla is the degree to which it accelerates the advent of sustainable energy faster than it would otherwise occur.

In order to fulfill the aspirations of masses, we have to sharpen the tool called the government machinery: we have to make it keen, more dynamic, and it is in this direction that we are working.

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.

I care very deeply about the people at Tesla. I feel like I have a great debt to the people of Tesla who are making the company successful.

Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.

Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being?

Time abides long enough for those who make use of it.

Since thou are not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.

We have teams of people working on electric cars. So you never know – you may find Virgin competing with the Tesla in the car business as we do in the space business.

Obviously Tesla is about helping solve the consumption of energy in a sustainable manner, but you need the production of energy in a sustainable manner.

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.

All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

For all the supporters of Tesla over the years, and it’s been several years now and there have been some very tough times, I’d just like to say thank you very much. I deeply appreciate the support, particularly through the darkest times.

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

It is true that SpaceX is partially a government contractor, but it would be unfair to say that SpaceX is entirely a government contractor.

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.

Tesla is here to stay and keep fighting for the electric car revolution.

We should work with the principle that a work that can be done at a lower level should never be escalated to a higher level.

I don’t think people are going to switch over to bikes because it’s good for them or because it’s politically correct. They’re going to do it because it gets them from A to B faster.

Literally wrote ‚Starboy‘ in 30 minutes.

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

Tesla is becoming a real car company.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

With Virgin, I’ve just loved creating things. And as a private company, I can get away with moving Virgin from records to airlines to train companies to space companies to whatever, without ever having to worry about analysts knocking the value of my stock.

If you calculate 15 minutes a day to shave, that is 5,000 minutes a year spent shaving.

Did you know there’s a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy – running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything – is the same as wasting your time? It’s frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!

In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.

On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.

Nature does nothing in vain.

It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

I’ve noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I’m not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.

I think Tesla will most likely develop its own autopilot system for the car, as I think it should be camera-based, not Lidar-based. However, it is also possible that we do something jointly with Google.

I have a company, and I’ve got to think about that. I’m trying to do my best there, and that’s a much harder task. We recycle as much as possible, and we conserve. But I’ve always been one to save everything – I even walk up stairs on the very inside or the very outside to not wear out the tread.

I’m bloody awful at multi-tasking.

With the amount of fixed expense that goes into developing something like the BE-4 engine, you want it to be used as much as possible.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

The goal of Tesla is to accelerate sustainable energy, so we’re going to take a step back and think about what’s most likely to achieve that goal.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty… it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.

It’s just trying to do the best job I can in these opportunities that I get to show what I can do, be consistent, have good feedback, be fast, at the same time not make mistakes.

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.

I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

Delay is preferable to error.