You remember 38-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk, right? The sad-sack Tesla CEO and PayPal billionaire who had to drain his $200 million bank account? when he traded his model/novelist wife for a model/actress one. [Musk claims that his financial problems are unrelated to his marital difficulties.] Well, he talked to TechCrunch’s Sarah Lacy at the Founder Showcase yesterday, and let’s just say things haven’t gotten much better. So how’s being an entrepreneur going? “Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.” What about the worst time in his life? December 2008, when SpaceX couldn’t get its space rocket off the ground, his electric-car company lost its funding, and, well, the whole model/actress/divorce thing. How about running SpaceX and Tesla simultaneously? “[It’s] beyond the fun point.” His dream of retiring on Mars? On hold. And what does his friend the Funded’s Adeo Ressi, who launched a nightclub with Musk when the two were in college, think of him? “He was the biggest dork I’ve ever met.” Lacy explains it best, “It was a reminder for the audience that even those entrepreneurs who we think have it all are still flawed and still struggle.” [TechCrunch via DealBook/NYT]
