CHAPTER 7
TYRANNY
On March 21, 2007, back on SpaceX’s island outpost, Elon’s attention was on Falcon 1. The next opportunity for launch had arrived.
Five, four, three, two, one, LIFTOFF!
Falcon 1 climbed high above the atoll. The first stage separated as scheduled. The second stage pushed the rocket onward. Then the top of the rocket separated. There was relief in the control room. Everything was going exactly as planned … until it wasn’t.
The rocket suddenly broke apart and exploded. The launch was a failure.
Again SpaceX employees dissected the problem, found the cause, and worked under incredible pressure to correct it. That said, even with as much money as Elon brought to this effort, it was not an infinite supply. SpaceX needed a success and soon.
Not to mention Elon was spending an enormous amount of money at Tesla too. By now, around $100 million of his own money had burned up in these two companies. He needed a win.
WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS
Back home in California, Tesla was in trouble. Delivery of the world’s unequivocally most mind-blowing electric car had been slated for 2006 … which slid into 2007 … which dragged into 2008.
Making a prototype is one thing. Building a car that can be driven for years and satisfy, even thrill, customers is another.
Problem after problem with engineering the Roadster cropped up. And now there was a transmission problem that was deemed insurmountable. Which meant the Tesla crew needed a fresh approach—or, in words that no one wants to hear after years of herculean effort—they needed to pretty much start over.
“We essentially had to do a complete reboot,”105 Elon said. And that did not go unnoticed by one of the world’s most important and trusted newspapers, the New York Times. Gossip in the industry and on blogs and auto websites centered on a rumor that customers would never get their Roadsters. This kind of coverage and talk only gave Tesla more to prove.
It did not help matters that by the end of 2007, the American economy had begun to unravel. Real estate values had plummeted, and people were struggling to keep their homes above water. Foreclosures skyrocketed, and credit began to dry up. The auto industry was hammered. After all, if you are struggling to keep a roof over your head, buying a new car is not an option. The Great Recession was underway.
As Tesla struggled to deliver the Roadster to the public, it went through management changes, and Elon became more and more involved in solving the big problems of the day—to the point of personally hopping on his jet and traveling across the world to buy a needed tool and deliver it to the factory floor. He was deep into the development of the battery packs, electronics, and transmission.
The media was having a field day with Tesla. One popular blog, The Truth About Cars, began a running entry called “Tesla Death Watch.” Tesla’s troubles were far from over. Elon went from media darling to media punching bag.
“It super sucked,”106 he said.
The Roadsters finally went into regular production in March 2008. But the original business plan was to build the Roadster in two years for $25 million. They were now four and half years into the process and approaching a cost of $140 million. Tesla’s—and Elon’s—troubles were far from over.
Tesla Roadster (© Tesla Motors Inc.).
While Elon was splitting his time between Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and Kwajalein, his marital problems were only getting worse. In June 2008, Elon filed for divorce and shared custody of their boys. The divorce was widely reported in the media while Justine’s blog covered her journey through what had become a pretty contentious fight. Anyone could log on and read all about it.
Elon never divulged his ultimate reason for ending it. As the lawyers worked out the details, Elon focused on his companies, his kids, and looking toward the future.
On a trip to London with a friend, the two men headed out to a club. Elon was not having a great time and wanted to leave. He’d only been there for ten minutes. But at that ten-minute mark, things took a dramatic change for the better. Someone introduced Elon to a twenty-two-year-old actress named Talulah Riley, who had appeared in the 2005 film Pride & Prejudice. She had never heard of Elon until that meeting. Elon and Talulah talked the night away. He showed her pictures of his rocket and the Roadster. “I remember thinking that this guy probably didn’t get to talk to young actresses a lot and he seemed quite nervous,”107 she said.
But he wasn’t so nervous that he didn’t ask her on a date. And the next night the two were together again for dinner. The day after that, the two met up for lunch. After Elon was back in the States, they kept up the romance over e-mail. Two weeks later, Talulah was on a plane to Los Angeles to visit Elon.
Five days after she set foot on U.S. soil, Elon proposed. To the shock of her parents, Talulah said yes to a man who was fourteen years older, going through a divorce, had five kids, and was running two impossibly challenging companies, and whom she now loved very much.
Elon Musk and Talulah Riley at the 2012 Environmental Awards. (Photo by Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com.)
NAME: Talulah Riley
DATE OF BIRTH: September 26, 1985
HOMETOWN: Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Talulah Riley is an actor and author, appearing in the HBO television series Westworld and in such films as Thor: The Dark World (2013), Inception (2010), and Pride & Prejudice (2005). Talulah’s first novel, Acts of Love, hit bookshelves in 2016, and she is working on another.
THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM, RIGHT?
Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, August 2, 2008— The SpaceX island team gathered again for a third attempt to launch Falcon 1.
And this time they had paying customers. The payload included satellites from NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense. But they also had ashes on board. And not just any ashes. Falcon 1 carried the remains of 208 people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper and actor James Doohan, famous for his role as Scotty in the original Star Trek series, as in “Beam me up, Scotty.” The ashes would be released in space.
T minus five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero. ABORT. Yes, at T minus zero, the launch procedure came to a halt. Hours later, it was time to try again.
This time, the engines ignited and the rocket rushed toward orbit. Watching a webcast of the launch, the California team cheered at headquarters.
SpaceX headquarters, Hawthorne, California. (© SpaceX.)
Then the second stage did not fire. Silence and even tears swept over the SpaceX crowd. The third launch failed. The satellites were not deployed. The ashes would land in the ocean.
Elon put on a brave face for his team, but the consequences of a third failed launch were dire. They were running out of chances.
Developing the technology to go to space is not inexpensive. He had only enough money for one more launch.
And he wasn’t the only one closely watching SpaceX’s launches. The U.S. government was too. Elon knew that if the next launch was successful, SpaceX would be awarded extremely lucrative government contracts for putting satellites into space and more.
The pressure was on. Elon was determined that the fourth launch would work. If it didn’t, Elon’s space dream would end. The company would be finished. Failure may have been an option. Giving up was not.
ORBIT
Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, September 28, 2008— Falcon 1 was ready for launch. The webcast began streaming. According to one employee, many of the SpaceX employees back at headquarters were trying not to vomit as the countdown approached liftoff. Elon watched from the control room. His brother was on hand as well.
Elon Musk watches the liftoff of the Falcon 1 spacecraft. (Photo by Alex Coester/AP Images.)
Kimbal had been an early investor in SpaceX, which gave him a unique perspective. Years later when he and Elon gave an onstage interview together, he said, “The failures were spectacular. Seeing giant exploding rockets is quite an amazing sight!” As Elon sat uncomfortably, Kimbal laughed heartily and continued. “And I said, ‘If all I get to do is see these rockets explode, it is well worth every dime I put into this company!”108
Elon’s pal and old college housemate Adeo knew that if this launch failed, Elon was destined to become a business school case study on failure.
“Everything hinged on that launch,” he said. “This was more than his fortune at stake—it was his credibility.”109
Elon watched the engines ignite and flames rush out of the Merlin engine, sending Falcon 1 off the launchpad. Everyone cheered. First stage separation? Check! Second stage ignition? Check! Fairing release? Check!
And finally, like a dream, the Falcon 1 reached orbit. Mission accomplished!
Successful launch of Falcon 1, September 2008. (© SpaceX.)
“When the launch was successful,” Kimbal said, “everyone burst into tears. It was one of the most emotional experiences I’ve had.”110
Elon walked out of the control room to address his now-500- person staff. “There are a lot of people who thought we couldn’t do it—a lot actually—but as the saying goes, ‘the fourth time is the charm,’ right?”111
And then Elon put the world on notice. This was the first step of many to come.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
Elon may have had a successful launch under his belt, but that did not magically put money in the coffers. SpaceX was positioned to grow and attract more customers. But this doesn’t happen overnight, and there were employees to pay.
Over at Tesla, money was running out so quickly that drastic measures had to be taken. Elon committed all his cash reserves, took over as CEO, and announced layoffs in October.
He was determined to see his companies through this economic downturn.
“It’s like if you have two kids. What do you do? Do you spend all of your money to maximize the probability of success of one? Or do you try to keep both alive?”113 Elon explained.
It was a huge risk as everything in his life seemed to be falling apart. Justine had learned about this engagement to Talulah. It went over like a lead balloon.
“There were always all these negative articles about Tesla, and the stories about SpaceX’s third failure. It hurt really bad. You have these huge doubts that your life is not working, your car is not working, you’re going through a divorce and all of those things,”114 he told biographer Ashlee Vance. “I didn’t think we would overcome it.” In fact, he thought they were doomed.
By December, Tesla was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Tesla employees offered what they had to invest, as did Kimbal, and Elon’s friends, including Google cofounder Sergey Brin—all were trying to keep Tesla alive.
Elon was trying to keep his fundamental mission alive: nothing less than saving the planet. His answer to avoid pumping Earth’s limited oil supply out of the ground was Tesla. And Tesla’s very survival seemed like little more than a minute-by-minute gamble. Elon’s answer to dodging a planetary catastrophe was SpaceX. That, too, was in doubt. Nearly everything that Elon cared about was in jeopardy.
“This wasn’t Elon facing adversity,” Kimbal explained to Esquire. “Personal bankruptcy was a daily conversation. Tesla was on the limb to deliver cars that people already paid for. Bankruptcy would have been easier than what he did. He threw everything he had into keeping Tesla alive.”115 Anybody else would have given up.
And in his spare time, nasty divorce proceedings had put his family life in a tough spot and a very public one as well. Elon and Talulah decided to retreat to Boulder, Colorado, to spend the holidays with Kimbal and his family.
Then, just two days before Christmas, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth $1.6 billion. Billion.
The next day, on Christmas Eve, Tesla closed on a new round of venture capital funding that would keep the company afloat.
Elon burst into tears. And then it hit him. Christmas. Talulah. Gift. Elon Musk—the famed inventor, disruptor, and visionary—had been so busy trying to rescue his companies from certain doom that he had not even bought his new fiancée a Christmas present.
Running down the street, searching for a place to buy her a gift, his only option was not awesome. A trinket store. “They were about to close,” he said. “The best thing I could find were plastic monkeys with coconuts—those ‘hear no evil, see no evil’ monkeys.”116
Today, all new Teslas come with autopilot hardware. As the company puts it, “All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.”117
Tesla customers can buy, or their model may come way with, various levels of autopilot software. One was to think of it is like an in-app purchase. While full self-driving is not yet available, the car can do a lot to help drivers negotiate traffic, avoid accidents, and get on and off the highway safely.
Using a suite of cameras, ultrasonic sensors, and radar, the autopilot monitors detect what’s around the car. An onboard computer processes that information with an AI assist. Tesla also offers an enhanced autopilot for lane changes, matching speed to driving conditions, exiting highways, side collision warning, emergency braking, front collision warning, and other fun features like summoning the car to pick you up. Car parked in a tight garage space? Tap the summon button and the car can drive itself out of that spot and you can hop in and be on your way. But autopilot also comes with a clear warning: The driver must pay attention and be prepared to react and take over as needed. Tesla also has plans to roll out fully self-driving autopilot.