Architect of the future: a candid conversation with Elon Musk

Elon Musk is a unique inventor who wants to change the world, people populating the space, flip the high-speed transport, to reinvent the car again — and he hoped along the way to find love. Rolling Stone magazine has dedicated several days to communicate with the idol of millions of people, sophisticated in science and technology, and we couldn't pass up this volume consider the life of the Creator of SpaceX and Tesla. Further —
from the first person.

In the headquarters of SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, Friday afternoon. Next to the Mask — his three children, one of triplets and two twins. Musk, in a gray t-shirt, sitting in the swivel chair behind his Desk. The table is not behind a closed door in a separate room, but in an accessible corner of the cabin, decorated with Souvenirs from space, photos of his rockets and trinkets from Tesla and other companies.

The Most important thing is the poster with the image of falling stars with the caption: "If you make a wish on a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's a meteor hurtling towards Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're out of luck, no matter what you wish. Except that death by meteor". Most people will take it as black humor, but in this context it is also a reminder of the Grand plan Mask: to create habitat for humanity on other planets and moons. If we don't send our civilization into another dark ages before the dream Mask or one of his followers realized, the Mask will likely be remembered as one of the most important figures of this Millennium. Children at all terraforming planets of the Universe will celebrate the Day of the Mask, the man who single-handedly proclaimed the era of colonization of the cosmos.

And this is just one of the ambitions of the Mask. Others include the transfer of automobiles, households and industry in clean energy instead of fossil fuels; the introduction of new forms of high-speed urban transport in the vacuum tube; discharge of traffic jams with the help of underground tunnels; creating a brain-computer interface that will improve the health and mental capabilities of people; the salvation of humanity from future threats of artificial intelligence that can lose control and genocide, albeit rational, but destroying the human species.

At the moment, 46-year-old Musk has not achieved any of these goals.

But what he has done this can boast of very few people. Not having any experience, it broke in two amazing high barrier to entry — auto industry (Tesla), and rockets (SpaceX) — and created the best products in these industries, for all possible evaluation criteria. In the process he was able to convince the world its ability to achieve the goals so high that they sounded any other would have seemed a fantasy.

At least most of the world.

His children look into the phone, looking at a table of numbers, incomprehensible to me. Therefore, Griffin (13) explains: "They are betting that the stock will drop, and I think that will work for this. But shares rise, so they lose a huge amount."

"These bastards mean to kill us," says Musk. "They are constantly trying to inflate the false gossip and rumors. Constantly trying to defame me and attack my integrity. It's awful. This is..."

He thinks, as is often the case when something bothering him. I'm trying to help: "Unethical?".

"That's..." he shakes his head and tries to find the right word, then softly says: "Painful".

Always easy to link a person with his activities and thus turn it into a caricature that fits perfectly into komiksoidny view of the world. Our culture is always in need of villains and heroes, fools and geniuses, goats scapegoats and role models. However, in spite of the opposite opinion, Elon Musk is not a robot, sent to us from the future to save mankind. It is also not a scientist of Silicon valley, emotions which had replaced the computer superintelligence. For the nine months of observation of how Mask reflects on landing the rocket on Mars, discusses with its engineers plan the next breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence, I realized that it is much, much different from how he is painted.

Elon Musk on the cover of Rolling Stone

The New York Times called it "possibly the most successful and important businessman in the world." Why not? He's probably the only person who created a four billion-dollar companies: PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City. But somewhere deep down, the Musk is not a businessman and entrepreneur. He is an engineer, inventor and, as he put it, "technology". And being a naturally gifted engineer, he can find the weaknesses in design flaws and flaws in tools that affect our civilization.

"He's able to see things more clearly anyone else I know," says his brother Kimball. He talks about love your brother to chess in his early years, and adds: "In chess there is such a thing: you can see 12 steps ahead, if you are a grandmaster. And in any given situation Ilon can see on the 12 steps forward".

Elon Musk Tesla Model 3

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About relationships

Soon the children go into the house of his mother, ex-wife Justine's Mask. "I'm sorry that Tesla can not be closed," mutters Mask when they leave. "We are losing the effectiveness of being a public company."

And Then... silence. Musk sitting at her Desk, staring at your phone, but not gaining anything and does not read. Then falls on the floor and leans back on a foam roller. I'm trying to start a conversation about the launch of the Tesla Model 3 last week and about what it's like to stand on stage and tell the world about a 14-year plan: scatter of mass-market luxury electric cars.

Achievement Mask is not just to create electric car for $ 35,000, and to create an electric car for $ 35,000 that will be so good that it will force other manufacturers to fully abandon petrol cars. It is not surprising that two months after the start of production Model 3 GM and Jaguar Land Rover have announced plans to abandon petrol cars and switch completely to electricity.

Musk thinks, starts to answer, then pauses again. "Let me go to the bathroom. Repeat your question later. I also need to unload a little".

Five minutes out, Sam teller, his chief of staff.

A few minutes later they appear together, Sachs. Then the Mask returned to his Desk.

"we Could do this another day if the timing is bad", I say.

Musk puts his hands on the table and refuses.

"I need a little time to get involved".

Then he sighs and stretches. "I just broke up with his girlfriend," he says hesitantly. "I was in love for real, and I was hurt. Or rather, she broke up with me than I with her."

It was a response to an earlier question: the launch of the Model 3 took place unexpectedly, disappointing, uncontrollable and awful. "I was in great emotional pain over the last few weeks," Musk reflects. "Strong. It took every ounce of will to hold the event in Model 3 and not look like the saddest guy in the world. Most of that day I was sad. Had to cheer up, drink some "red bellow", to communicate with positive people, say to yourself: all these people depend on you. Well, let's do it!".

Minutes before the event, for the first time life, meditate to focus, Musk chose as an eloquent song for the performance on the stage: "R U Mine?" Arctic Monkeys.

Musk says little about the gap, and then asks: "think, who do I meet? I find it very hard at all to see people". He tries to explain softly: "I'm looking for a long term relationship. I don't want one night. I'm looking for a serious companion or soul mate, something like that."

I tell him that the idea of diving into another relationship might not be the best. Perhaps he needs to be alone and to think about why his previous relationships have not played a long bet: he was married to writer Justine Musk, actress Talula Riley and now broke up with actress amber heard.

Musk shrugs: "If I'm not in love if I'm not a long-term companion, I can't be happy."

I explain that to need someone so much to not to want anything without him, it's the interdependence of the textbook.

Musk did not agree. Absolutely. "Not true," he says flatly. "I'll never be happy if I have someone will not. Sleep alone is killing me. I know what it feels like to be in a large empty house, hearing the echoing steps in the corridor when there is no one — and no one on the pillow next. Damn. How can you be happy in this situation?".

In the words of the Mask is definitely something there. This is the height of loneliness. But not for all. This is the height of loneliness for those who were lonely once.

"When I was a kid, I said one thing," continues Musk. It can be seen how emotions crushed him, let him speak for himself. "I never want to be alone". His voice goes into a whisper. "I don't want to be alone."

He sits and just stares into nowhere. Mask — titanium, visionary, lever man-sized, which is able to move massive historical inevitability. The man who appears several times in a century. And at this moment he is like a child who fears that he will be left alone. At the same time Musk is trying to show you something.

"If you say something that you'll see, it will cost us billions of dollars. And you go to jail."

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