Elon Musk, a leader of both Tesla and SpaceX, attended the South by South West (SXSW) conference and admitted that these two companies almost went bankrupt in 2008.
"In early 2002, I would not let my friends invest because I did not want them they lost money, "he said.
Elon Musk is perhaps one of the most well-known entrepreneurs in the world. Founder and leader of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk's journey began before the launch of the two companies.
He was one of the founders of PayPal and earned about 180 million dollars when this service was sold. Part of that money was invested in both SpaceX and Tesla.
Despite the international recognition he has, the truth is that not everything has always been so great. And that's precisely what Musk said at the South by South West (SXSW) conference on entrepreneurship and technology that takes place annually in the United States.
"I gave both SpaceX and Tesla a probability of less than 10% of being successful," he said during a Q&A session.
The entrepreneur admitted that the two companies were even close to bankruptcy in 2008 - Tesla two days before Christmas and, in the case of SpaceX, when the Falcon 1 rocket failed for the third time.
Musk's initial investment in Tesla and SpaceX was 90 million. And in 2008, when companies were about to go bankrupt, of the approximately 180 million obtained from the sale of PayPal, the entrepreneur had only about 40 million.
"I could have put everything in one company and the other would have definitely died, or split up between SpaceX and Tesla, then they could have died," he said.
"And when you put your energy into building something, it's your baby, so I could not choose. I put the money in both and fortunately the two survived," he said.
One of the signs that the risk associated with the two companies was quite high was that Elon did not want his closest friends to invest in the company. "At the beginning of 2002 [the year SpaceX was founded], I would not let my friends invest because I did not want them to lose money," he said.
During the conference, the entrepreneur said that the rockets that SpaceX is building to carry out trips to Mars can begin to take place early next year. "I think we'll be able to make small flights, small flights up and down, probably in the first half of next year," he said.
In 2017, Elon Musk admitted that the company was building a space rocket with the code name "BFR", which will be able to travel anywhere on Earth within an hour. The entrepreneur admitted that this rocket could do missions to the moon and to Mars.
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