The recent flurry of headlines around SpaceX’s mega IPO makes it easy to forget that Elon Musk has been working toward establishing life on Mars for more than two decades.This summer, the rocket company made its debut on the Nasdaq in the largest IPO in history. For the first time, analysts had the chance to examine the company’s inner workings. Within the prospectus, the SpaceX team wrote the company’s aim was to “build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”So, no small task.
The undertaking may be a little too lofty for analysts more interested in the company for its AI, satellite, and rocket capabilities—and their skepticism wouldn’t be the first. Indeed, once upon a time, famed investor Ray Dalio warned Musk against committing too fully to the space race.
Speaking on the My First Million podcast in an episode released over the weekend, the Bridgewater Associates founder recalled telling Musk—fresh off the sale of PayPal—not to sink his $180 million in proceeds into a quest for life on Mars.
The hedge fund titan first met Musk in 2002, when Dalio was researching the personality types of founders and entrepreneurs. The Tesla CEO was a “shaper,” Dalio said—someone “who love[s] to go from visualization to actualization and to be on that mission.”
