Naval Ravikant tells his favorite Elon Musk story

August 27, 2025

“There was a story that I read about [Elon] that really affected me,” Naval begins. “He was talking to Bill Gates, and Bill Gates had just taken out some huge short on Tesla.”

“Why would you do that? Why would you short Tesla?” Elon asked.

Bill Gates replied, “I talked to my financial advisors, looked at the math, and it’s overvalued. So I’m going to make money on the short.”

To which Elon responded:

“What do you care about making money? I thought you were into electric cars and climate change and saving the world?”

Elon walked away in disgust and never talked to Bill Gates after that.

Naval comments:

“That’s when I realized Elon is a purist. He means what he says. Money is a tool for him to get to where he’s trying to go. And so I take him at face value… A lot of people set these audacious goals to inspire people, but they don’t really mean it. Elon I take at face value. I really do think he intends to get to Mars. I don’t think he’s joking about that.”

He continues:

“Elon doesn’t want to go down in history as the electric car guy or even the guy who saved America. He wants to go down as the guy who got humanity to the stars. And I’ll give him more credit than that. I don’t even think he wants to go down as the, ‘I got humanity to the stars guy.’ He’s just like, ‘I want to get to the stars, and I have to make it happen in this lifetime’… That’s so inspirational. I think that drives everything. And I think the government was just a thing that got in his way.”