If Elon Musk’s partners had had more courage at PayPal, he might have turned to electric cars much later – and the history of the financial industry and Tesla’s would most likely have been very different. This is one of the interesting insights that can be gleaned from a long podcast interview with today’s CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
Among other things, Musk talks about his journey from South Africa via Canada to the United States, where he founded his first internet startup and then PayPal’s predecessor x.com. After selling PayPal, he joined Tesla in February 2004, half a year old at the time, and used the money from the two previous company sales and made the company the same car disruptor that he is today.
But Musk had similar plans for PayPal, as he now says, according to an interview transcript from KarenRei on Reddit. After the merger with a similarly agile competitor and $ 100 million in fresh capital shortly before the dot-com crash, the company was on the one hand in a dry cloth. On the other hand, the Tesla boss now said, the new investors wanted a relatively boring and secure business rather than a risky one like himself: Musk wanted PayPal to become a fully-fledged bank on the Internet and ultimately a financial giant that traditionally Pressure on the industry. A payment service was sufficient for the donors.
This is strikingly reminiscent of Musk’s approach at Tesla, where he invests at full risk in a huge infrastructure of vehicle and autopilot software, Gigafactory production facilities for electric cars and batteries, and supercharger charging options. After a long skepticism, the view that Tesla will soon be able to reap the fruits of this intensive preparatory work is gaining ground. At PayPal, however, Musk was overruled with his more ambitious plans.
Like many of the other talents who worked there until then, Musk left the company and turned to electric cars – finally, as he indicated in the interview. He had been dealing with ecological issues for a long time “before they became so obvious”. Because it was simply clear to him that the hydrocarbons would eventually run out if they were extracted and burned. In addition, there is a certain probability of catastrophic consequences from the massive entry into the sea and the atmosphere. Musk: “Why should you do such an experiment? It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. “
According to the interview, Musk had his first contact with electric cars during his studies, where he worked for a company called Pinnacle Research that developed capacitors with a high energy density. He wanted to continue researching this initially, but since there have been lithium-ion batteries with a high energy density, capacitors are no longer the right way, he said. Until Musk actually started using Tesla’s electric cars, he founded the business directory service Zip2 and later x.com.
The world has not yet come to a consensus on whether Elon Musk is building a better future 🌍⚡️🚀, or a secret volcano lair 🌋.
Oh, by the way:@thirdrowtesla x @elonmusk drops today 💣
In this video, he’s sharing his story — raw & uncut.https://t.co/Ostet3PUEy
— Third Row Tesla Podcast (@thirdrowtesla) January 21, 2020
The interview with the Tesla CEO is over two hours in total – and that’s just the first part. It was run by @thirdrowtesla, a podcast group that also includes a German student. In addition to Elon Musk, his brother Kimbal also participated in the conversation that accompanies many of Musk’s activities.
–
