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Elon Musk Thought Tesla Would Probably Fail

Joe WeisenthalMar 31, 2014, 06:14 IST

Elon Musk was on "60 Minutes" tonight, talking about his two big companies: Tesla and SpaceX.

In the segment, Musk says he expected Tesla to fail:

Scott Pelley: How did you figure you were going to start a car company and be successful at it?

Elon Musk: Well, I didn't really think Tesla would be successful. I thought we would most likely fail. But I thought that we at least could address the false perception that people have that an electric car had to be ugly and slow and boring like a golf cart.

Scott Pelley: But you say you didn't expect the company to be successful? Then why try?

Elon Musk: If something's important enough you should try. Even if you - the probable outcome is failure.

Watch the full segment here: