Elon Musk in 2011 on the role of government and free enterprise: βFree enterprise is always going to be more efficient.β
βI think in general it's tough for government to do things efficiently. Government should try to minimize the number of things that government does. So I'm generally a proponent of smaller government, not bigger government, just because government as a system is not an efficient system. So, you want to minimize the government participation in the economy. That doesn't mean getting rid of it, but it's just saying you have to rethink really carefully before government does something versus free enterprise does something. Free enterprise is always going to be more efficient.
There are things like basic physics research, and obviously I think we'd rather have a government army than a private army. And I think probably a government justice system than a private justice system. There's sort of things that the government should do and also kind of doing things like the Hubble and the Mars rovers. Something like the Hubble is a small amount of good for everyone. It's like, well, we learn more about the universe. Got some really cool pictures. And that's a value to all of America and all of humanity, really. But it's hard to say, like, who's going to pay for it if you try to raise private funds for it. You might be able to get it, but it's harder.β
From: Motley Fool Interview, September 29, 2011
Elon Musk in 2011: I'm a proponent of smaller government, not bigger government.
βI think it's tough for the government to do things efficiently.Β So, I'm generally a proponent of smaller government, not bigger government. You want to minimize government participation in the economy.Β
That doesn't mean getting rid of it, but it's just saying you have to think really carefully before government does something versus free enterprise does something.Β
Free enterprise is always going to be more efficient.
There are things that the government should do, like basic physics research, and obviously I think we'd rather have a government army than a private army and a government justice system than a private justice system, and also things like the Hubble and the Mars rovers.β
The Motley Fool, September 2011
Elon Musk in 2014: With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon.
βI think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, itβs probably that. Iβm increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure we donβt do something very foolish. With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where thereβs the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, and heβs sure he can control the demon? It doesnβt work out.β
Source: MIT AeroAstro Centennial Symposium, October 24, 2014.
Elon Musk a decade ago: We want to build a fully reusable Mars transportation system.
βThe next-generation vehicles after the Falcon architecture will be designed for full reusability.
I don't expect the Falcon line to have a reusable upper stage, just because with a kerosene-based system, the specific impulse isn't really high enough to do that.
A lot of the missions we do for commercial satellite deployment are just geostationary missions. So, we're really going very far out. These are high-delta-velocity missions. So, to try to get something back from that is really difficult.
But with the next generation of vehicles, which is a subcooled methane-oxygen system where the propellants are cooled to close to their freezing temperature to increase the density, we can definitely do full reusability.
That system is intended to be a fully reusable Mars transportation system. Not merely to Low Earth Orbit, but all the way to Mars and back.β
MIT AeroAstro, October 24, 2014
In the TV series Young Sheldon, Sheldon proved to NASA that rocket boosters could be reused, potentially saving billions of taxpayer dollars.
Later, Elon Musk appeared reading Sheldon's notes after SpaceX successfully landed the Falcon boosters on a drone ship in the ocean.