Erik Nordeus
THE ENGINEER
Follow Elon Musk on a Journey from South Africa to Mars
Preface
The history of The Engineer – Follow Elon Musk on a journey from South Africa to Mars began in 2006 when I read a book about peak oil. The idea behind peak oil is that the world sooner or later will run out of oil because oil is a finite resource. Most books written on the subject are within the doomsday category. The book I read argued that when there’s no more oil we would be forced to return to a 19th century society. Horses would be the main mode of transportation because the alternatives, such as electric cars, wouldn’t make a difference because they weren’t good enough.
Peak oil terrified me. The first night I had nightmares about how the world would look like without any vehicles. How would we deliver food? How would we build houses? How would we transport injured people? I watched every day how the price of oil climbed to record levels. But when the 2008 credit crisis hit the world, the price of oil decreased from $150 per barrel, and nightmares about derivatives replaced my nightmares about peak oil.
Fast forward to late 2012. One dark autumn night I watched a video on YouTube where the entrepreneur Kevin Rose interviewed a guy called Elon Musk. I had never heard of him or his companies before. At the end of the interview, Elon mentioned that he worked with the Hyperloop – a fifth mode of transportation, where the other modes are train, boat, road, and aircraft. This sounded interesting to the engineer in me, so I needed to learn more about him.
After reading a few articles, I realized that Elon was well aware of peak oil. He had even designed an electric car that could replace a gasoline car. The book I had read about peak oil was wrong! To learn more about Elon, I searched for if someone had written a biography. The only books I found were those biographies where the author has copied only what’s available on Wikipedia. I began reading more articles and watching more videos, and I realized it existed so much information I might as well write a real biography.
But this is not just a book about Elon as it has several other purposes. Elon himself said, “I think you have to enjoy what you are doing. Otherwise, it is hard to do it. There are three things you look for. You have to look forward in the morning to doing your work. You do want to have a significant financial reward. And you want to have a possible effect on the world. If you can find all three, you have something you can tell your children.”
I believe this book may have a positive effect on the world. The first purpose with the book is to motivate young people to become engineers. It has been estimated that Europe will lack 500 000 engineers by 2020, and I believe the solution is inspiration.
During my first year in engineering school, each student had to read a book on the Nobel Prize. I don’t recall the purpose; maybe someone thought we would become more motivated? But the book had almost the opposite effect – we became less motivated. The characters in the book were no role models we could find any inspiration from. Elon, on the other hand, is a true role model. Will Elon ever get a Nobel Prize? If he doesn’t get it, will he be sad about it? He might, but then he jumps into his Tesla Roadster, drives to the airport, boards his private jet, flies to the nearest spaceport where he enters a rocket on its way to a new civilization on Mars. That’s inspiring.
The second purpose with this book is to motivate engineers to become entrepreneurs and tackle the larger, more expensive, and difficult problems. I believe there are professional engineers who have great ideas, but they don’t know they can build a company from those ideas. If Elon can build two Internet companies, a rocket company, a car company, and a solar company – why can’t you?
Another purpose is to explain the why of things. The problem is that not everyone understands Elon and his companies. How can you convince someone to buy an electric car if he or she at the same time believes the supply of oil is infinite? Elon himself said, “If you could explain the why of things then that makes a huge difference to people’s motivation.”353 So someone has to explain why we need to move away from a society dependent on oil. Why do we need to build rockets and colonize Mars? Elon has tried to explain everything by giving countless interviews, but it’s difficult to understand the big picture from articles and videos. I hope that you who read this book will soon understand the big picture behind Elon.
I also believe the author of a biography on Elon has to be an engineer. I’ve read articles by non-engineers (I suspect) that confuses different topics. One example is that several articles argued that Elon became interested in electric cars to save the environment. But that’s not true. Elon became interested in electric cars because the world is running out of oil. During one interview, he had to hang up the phone because the journalist couldn’t understand the difficult topics. But don’t worry – you don’t need to be an engineer to read this book.
I’ve used 457 sources to write this biography. The goal is that everything in the book is as truthful as it can be in an unofficial biography. But since it’s after all rocket science, some factual errors may exist. If you find an error, I’m happy to correct it as soon as possible.
Several conflicts have happened throughout Elon’s life, including divorces and angry employees. When describing these conflicts, I’ve tried to be as neutral as possible by including the views from both sides.
I’m not sponsored by and have no financial interest in neither Tesla Motors or SolarCity. This book is for informational, educational, and discussion purposes only. Even though topics may be discussed in this book that involve legal or investment issues, nothing in this book shall be deemed to constitute the practice of law, legal advice, or investment advice. If any reader takes action or makes decisions based solely on the information in this book, the reader does so at his or her own risk.
Introduction
“I think we’re going to the Moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul. Yes, we are required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.”
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
A dictionary defines an engineer: “A professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics, and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. The word engineer is derived from the Latin roots ingeniare [to contrive, devise] and ingenium [cleverness].”391
This is a book about the beginning of a journey. Elon Musk is the main person in the journey through a roller-coaster life. His journey includes everything from Winston Churchill’s adventures in British colonies to demolished sports cars. From failed marriages to German scientists escaping from the Red Army. From the oil industry to the Burning Man festival.
Elon has been described as the Steve Jobs of heavy industry, as a modern version of the scientist Nikola Tesla, and as the Henry Ford of rockets. There’s a high probability that the British Secret Intelligence Service has a file on him. As the files of other James Bond villains, it describes secret rocket launches in the Pacific Ocean. But Elon doesn’t own a white cat – he’s more of a dog person. Maybe the most comparable persons are the great explorers who voyaged across the globe. They had an entrepreneurial spirit, were a little crazy, tried what no one else had tried, and thought what no one else had thought.