Elon Musk is beyond a doubt a badass. He has experienced success first-hand since co-founding Paypal and now leading both Tesla and Space X, and also with plans underway for a fast-and-cheap transportation system called Hyperloop.

Musk has specialized in creating things that seem straight out of a sci-fi movie and is often described as, ‘an exceptional freak of nature’. Through the years, Musk has uttered some gems of wisdom from his magical mind and each day he keeps blowing our minds. Musk doesn’t really put into consideration the ‘Silicon Valley Billionaire scrutiny’ that ensues once they’ve made any statement. Both the public and media are ready to digest each and every statement that these movers and shakers of the economy make and try put it into perspective.

Elon Musk in the real deal in business and despite his status, his lack of filter or marketing skills is what gets to us since he is just as real as they come with his responses. Below are the ten times Elon Musk gave the best responses.

1. Denying his cousin a ‘family discount’ at Tesla.

To be honest, if I also had Elon Musk as a family member, I wouldn’t hesitate hitting him up for a Tesla. It is therefore understandable why his cousin Lyndon Rive, SolarCity CEO figured it was wise asking for a discount at Tesla. Rive asked, ‘Elon, hey can I have a family discount,’ but he was met with a pretty funny burn as Elon told him, ‘Yeah absolutely. Go to TeslaMotor.com, buy the car online, and the price you see there is the family discount. Everyone gets a family discount.’

This was a clear demonstration that Elon doesn’t have any preferential treatment for family members and treats everybody equally. Rive wasn’t in anyway offended and considered his response fair. The lack of discount didn’t deter him after all since he has a Model S while his wife drives a Model X.

2. Elon personally canceled a blogger’s Tesla pre-order following a ‘rude’ letter that he received.

To quickly get his Tesla Model X order canceled, a California venture capitalist, Steward Alsop figured a direct open letter to Musk would do the magic. There were claims in the letter that Tesla Motors Model X reveal started too late, was way too crowded and did focus a lot on the safety. This pushed Elon to respond to the blogger and personally cancel the order and then the media was buzzing about the scenario, which led to Musk responding by tweeting, ‘Must be a slow news day if denying service to a super rude customer gets this much attention’.

3. Musk had such a hilarious reaction when asked about his personal life.

Clearly, Musk hasn’t had luck when it comes to marriage or the stars haven’t aligned for him yet since he has been married twice, both ending in divorce. This makes people curious about his personal life, but when asked about it, he seems to know exactly what he is doing.

Elon told Bloomberg BusinessWeek, ‘I think the time allocated to the businesses and the kids is going fine. I would like to allocate more time to dating, though. I need to find a girlfriend. How much does a woman want a week? Maybe 10 hours?’ Quite hilarious and sarcastic.

4. When he had to add the backseat reading lights to the Model S after his son referred to the car as “the stupidest car in the world.”

Musk has critics everywhere but his son scores big as his most important critic and when he complained about not being able to read at the back of his dad’s car, Musk had to quickly step in and do something. Originally, Model S had reading lights in the back. Tesla had to take them out as a way of increasing headroom in the back seats. But as it turns out, one of his sons believed that the idea was quite stupid. Elon then bought the backseat reading light and installed it to his model X then offered to do the same to the already delivered cars at no cost.

5. When Elon got sort of off track during the introduction of the bioweapon defense mode available on the new model X from Tesla.

Apparently, model X has a bioweapon defense mode installed. It was originally designed with the aim of protection against pollution but Elon jokes that it can do way more than that and even protect against other hazards. While laughing, musk said, ‘If there’s ever sort of an apocalyptic scenario, of some kind, hypothetically, you just press the bioweapon defense mode button. This is a real button”.

6.  From the look of things, the real-life Iron Man only gets wasted because it’s in his job description.

Robert Downey Jr. was once asked by his director to spend some time with Elon so as to model the Iron Man character seamlessly. He visited the SpaceX office since the Iron Man character was inspired by Elon Musk, but apparently, he doesn’t exhibit any bad-boy personality that Tony Shark’s character has. He said, Hey, I went to Haiti last Christmas and visited some pretty dangerous parts, I got wasted, too, on some drink they call the zombie.”

7. Musk is quite direct when talking about all it takes to run a business.

‘Starting a company is like eating glass staring into the abyss of death. Um, if that sounds appealing, go ahead’. This is what Musk suggested in an interview with Limitless Stars on starting a business. Running two very successful businesses while at the same time taking care of five children is just very applaudable.

8. Yes, Model S floats, but does Musk recommend using it as a boat?

Model S can certainly float but Tesla doesn’t recommend that. But after a man located in Almaty, Kazakhstan, posted a video of him driving his Tesla all through a flooded tunnel, Elon had this to say after he tweeted, ‘We *def* don’t recommend this, but Model S float well enough to turn it into a boat for short period of time. Thrust via wheel rotation.” This really does sound more or less like a recommendation.

9. His nonchalant response to planet sounds isn’t so calm after all.

Elon regularly talks about Planet Mars, or “fixer upper’ planet as he calls it. This intrigues so many people and they tend to ask if he would possibly inhabit the planet. He gave a casual answer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert by saying, ‘Maybe we can just drop nuclear bombs on the North and South poles.’

10. When on the Late Show, he made a sexual joke, laughed at it before everyone else could figure out what it was all about.

Stephen Colbert showed a video of a “snake charger’ which automatically plugs into the car. This is when Elon chipped in and made a joke that left Colbert and everyone else thinking about it for a minute. He said, ‘For the prototype at least, I would recommend not dropping anything when you’re near it.’

Clearly, it not hard to understand why people say Elon Musk is more interesting than Steve Jobs. He doesn’t focus on being so politically correct and uptight, but he talks just like one of us, with responses that would leave you thinking, ‘Did he just say that? Elon Musk is not your conventional CEO who cares so much about maintaining the status quo. He could care less about the artificial public relations and focus more on being himself.

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Photo credit: Michelle Andonian

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