The recent headlines surrounding SpaceX’s mega IPO make it easy to forget that Elon Musk has been working to establish life on Mars for more than two decades.
This summer, the rocket company made its Nasdaq debut with the largest IPO in history. For the first time, analysts had the opportunity to examine the inner workings of the company. In the prospectus, the SpaceX team wrote that the company’s goal is to “develop the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, understand the true nature of the universe, and extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
So not an easy task.
For analysts more interested in the company for its AI, satellite and rocket capabilities, the undertaking may be a bit too high – and their skepticism wouldn’t be the first. In fact, famous investor Ray Dalio once warned Musk not to get too involved in the space race.
Talk about the My first million The Bridgewater Associates founder recalled telling Musk – fresh off selling PayPal – on a podcast in an episode released over the weekend not to invest his $180 million in proceeds into searching for life on Mars.
The hedge fund titan first met Musk in 2002 when Dalio was researching the personality types of founders and entrepreneurs. Tesla’s CEO was a “former,” Dalio said – someone “who loves.”[s] to go from visualization to realization and be on that mission.”
“Making money is not a big deal for him,” Dalio added. Given that Musk is the richest person in the world, this claim is surprising. But Dalio explained that he doesn’t believe Musk is driven by wealth in a performative sense: “He doesn’t need a house. He doesn’t need security. He doesn’t need anything. He didn’t even need my needs.”
Musk has been open about his unusual lifestyle: He said he slept under his desk while working for Tesla and described the electric vehicle maker’s factories as his “primary residence.” He slept on couches in Twitter’s offices in 2023 after purchasing the company and also reportedly told friends that he slept at DOGE headquarters while in DC last year.
Musk even recalled a “close call” after the PayPal sale of having to borrow money to pay the rent because he had invested all the money in his companies: $100 million in the then-newly formed SpaceX, $70 million in Tesla and $10 million in the solar energy company SolarCity.
Dalio warned the young entrepreneur against making such a big bet on SpaceX, saying: “[Musk] decided he would take half of that money and go to Mars. He had no experience flying to Mars. I said to him, ‘I suggest you put some money aside and take a piece of it just so you have that if it doesn’t work out.'”
The answer came: “No, I don’t have to do that.”
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Dalio said Musk’s personality as a “shaper” comes with a truism: massive, large-scale thinking but also a fanatical attention to detail.
He remembered seeing this up close: “The question of a designer is that he wants to go from visualization to realization… He goes from this image all the way down to ‘What are these details?’ So I remember Elon gave me the key to his car” – presumably a Tesla – “it had a little button and he showed me the screen and went into a lot of detail.” And we talk about how he wants to put a watering can with a plant on a rocket to send it to Mars.”
“So it’s a 10,000-foot level and a 10-centimeter level.”
https://fortune.com/2026/07/22/ray-dalio-elon-musk-warn-financial-safety-investment-plan/
