Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has revealed his philosophy on failure. Musk described failure not as a setback but as a necessary part of innovation. Speaking at the 2020 Air Warfare Symposium during a fireside chat with Gen. John F. Thompson, Tesla CEO explained his point of view on failure as part of a broader portfolio of actions, where the goal is maximising the overall impact rather than avoiding individual missteps.
“I think of these things as just… there’s a certain amount of time and within that time you want the best net outcome,” Musk said. “So for all the set of actions you can do, there’s going to be some which will fail, some which will succeed, and you want the net useful output of your set of actions to be the highest.”
He further explained his approach by using the example of baseball” “What you mostly care about is not any individual at-bat but the overall batting average. Failure is irrelevant unless it’s catastrophic.”
SpaceX: Failure as fuel for innovation
Elon Musk’s this mindset has long shaped the development strategy of SpaceX, where the core to progress lies in rapid iteration and frequent testing. From Starship to explosions to Falcon 9 landing mishaps, SpaceX faced each failure and took them as a learning opportunity rather than defeat.
“If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough,” Musk said in a 2015 TED interview—a mantra that continues to guide his teams.
Risk vs. stagnation
The framework of Elon Musk sets a clear boundary that failure is acceptable unless it ends the mission. This principle of tolerance has compelled SpaceX to push boundaries and still maintain focus on safety as systems mature. He also warned against environments that avoid failure altogether, suggesting they may be avoiding hard problems. “The bigger danger is stagnation,” Musk implied, urging engineers and entrepreneurs to stay biased toward action and keep their “net useful output” rising.
Elon Musk's SpaceX wins contracts worth $714 million from Pentagon
Meanwhile, The US Space Force has awarded SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, five of seven critical military launch missions for the upcoming fiscal year, totaling $714 million. The contracts are said to reinforce SpaceX’s dominance in Pentagon space contracts, despite recent public tensions between Musk and President Donald Trump. United Launch Alliance (ULA) secured the remaining two missions for $428 million.
The contracts fall under the National Security Space Launch Program (NSSL), which previously selected SpaceX, ULA, and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for 54 missions worth $13.5 billion, scheduled between 2027 and 2032. “Space is the ultimate high ground, critical for our national security,” said Col Eric Zarybnisky of the U.S. Space Systems Command, per Air & Space Forces.
“I think of these things as just… there’s a certain amount of time and within that time you want the best net outcome,” Musk said. “So for all the set of actions you can do, there’s going to be some which will fail, some which will succeed, and you want the net useful output of your set of actions to be the highest.”
He further explained his approach by using the example of baseball” “What you mostly care about is not any individual at-bat but the overall batting average. Failure is irrelevant unless it’s catastrophic.”
SpaceX: Failure as fuel for innovation
Elon Musk’s this mindset has long shaped the development strategy of SpaceX, where the core to progress lies in rapid iteration and frequent testing. From Starship to explosions to Falcon 9 landing mishaps, SpaceX faced each failure and took them as a learning opportunity rather than defeat.
“If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough,” Musk said in a 2015 TED interview—a mantra that continues to guide his teams.
Risk vs. stagnation
The framework of Elon Musk sets a clear boundary that failure is acceptable unless it ends the mission. This principle of tolerance has compelled SpaceX to push boundaries and still maintain focus on safety as systems mature. He also warned against environments that avoid failure altogether, suggesting they may be avoiding hard problems. “The bigger danger is stagnation,” Musk implied, urging engineers and entrepreneurs to stay biased toward action and keep their “net useful output” rising.
Elon Musk's SpaceX wins contracts worth $714 million from Pentagon
Meanwhile, The US Space Force has awarded SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, five of seven critical military launch missions for the upcoming fiscal year, totaling $714 million. The contracts are said to reinforce SpaceX’s dominance in Pentagon space contracts, despite recent public tensions between Musk and President Donald Trump. United Launch Alliance (ULA) secured the remaining two missions for $428 million.
The contracts fall under the National Security Space Launch Program (NSSL), which previously selected SpaceX, ULA, and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for 54 missions worth $13.5 billion, scheduled between 2027 and 2032. “Space is the ultimate high ground, critical for our national security,” said Col Eric Zarybnisky of the U.S. Space Systems Command, per Air & Space Forces.
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