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> He's willing to take that risk because he's in it for the results, not the money.

Well put. Whatever anyone has to say about the man, the most incredible thing about Elon is that he finds ways to pursue his crazy ideals while somehow staying profitable.

> crazy ideals while somehow staying profitable

His main ideal, making humanity multi-planetary, requires a great deal of profitability, because it's almost nobody else's goal.

My opinion is that he will, when the time is right, sell his holdings in Tesla and dump all of that right back into SpaceX or whatever entity is pushing the ball forward.

Which, if he meets all the goals of Musk's incentive schedule at Tesla, will be about $55 billion[1].

[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-compensation...

Yup! I don't think that structure is a coincidence.

Jeff Bezos has clearly stated that his long term goal is also making humanity a multi-planetary species. Creating and making Amazon was just a step to bring forth this vision. We are lucky to have people thinking long term like this, and also taking practical steps to make it a reality.

He talked about this in an interview.

Something to the effect of 'When I was in college, I tested how little I could live on. Turns out rice and beans are really cheap. So even if I fail, I'm not going to starve.'

Admittedly, kids and spouses change ones opinion on that, but it's a fair way to keep perspective, even after becoming rich.

The man owns multiple mansions and spends most of his life flying around in a private jet. Let's not act like he's some monk.

One can own multiple mansions and fly around in a private jet, and still act without fear of losing those things due to risk.

Or one can hedge their bets and optimize for retaining creature comforts at all costs.

Point of this thread being, Elon could certainly be forgiven for doing the latter, but he still seems to be tacking closer to the former.

Elon Musk has never run a company that has been profitable for a full calendar year at any point in his life.

> To go big like SpaceX requires you to be all in. Elon nearly went broke a couple times. He's willing to take that risk because he's in it for the results, not the money.

You could also argue that this is exactly the problem with Elon. He constantly makes statements that are completely out of bounds or fraudulent ($420 funding secured, solar shingles, auto pilot claims, vehicle safety concerns, rocket explosions, etc).

I would argue this is reckless and will end up causing way more harm than good at the end of this. If you don't have risk management, you aren't going to be effectively run safety critical companies.

> SpaceX could just own the launch industry by cutting cost for a while, or sit back and enjoy higher profits from reusability.

The launch industry is extraordinarily small all things considered, and there's no way SpaceX would be able to justify its valuation without pie-in-the-sky dreams like Starlink as well.

Musk has an expectant mind, not a cautious one. So take his pronouncements with a grain of salt, but he's good enough at math and physics to know that things like Starlink are fundamentally possible. Overall I think the world is better for him.

So when are his pronouncements, especially when self-serving fraud or reckless? $420 funding secured definitely seems to be. As does the Solar Roof rollout precisely in the middle of a merger that he had multiple entanglements. His auto-pilot predictions and statements have been extraordinarily reckless and have endangered many on the road.

I think that going all in is a requirement to actually solve anything new. Money is not enough, you need someone to start the work and crack open doors. Funding is necessary for them but so not enough..