The video was taken of the tech mogul at Stanford University in 2003
A 21-year-old video of Elon Musk has emerged online where the tech mogul shared his plans for SpaceX.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, and fast forward to today, it has become a leader in the space industry.
It’s said to have a value of around $180 million, while Musk himself has a net worth of almost $355 billion – making him the richest man in the world.
A year after he launched SpaceX, the businessman gave a speech at Stanford University where he outlined his strategic plans for his space company.
While a lot has changed in 20 years, Musk’s plans for SpaceX have not.
In the video that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter (X) of late – which is now owned by the multibillionaire – a youthful-looking Musk says: “Our approach is really to make this a solid, sound business.
“I predicated the strategic plan on a known market, something that we know for a fact exists, which is the need to put small to medium-sized satellites into orbit.”
Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 (Paul Harris/Getty Images)
He continued: “That’s what we’re going after initially. And then, with that as a revenue base, we will move into the human transportation market.
“The long-term aims of the company are definitely human transportation.
“I think the smart strategy is to first go for cargo delivery, essentially satellite delivery.
“And our eventual upgrade path is to build the successor to Saturn V, build a super-heavy lift vehicle that could be used for setting up a moon base or doing a Mars mission.
“That would be the holy grail objective.”
And Musk stood to his plans, recently achieving one of his goals of sending people to space.
Here’s Elon Musk in 2003 outlining the strategic plan SpaceX has been following until today.
“Our approach is really to make this a solid, sound business.
I predicated the strategic plan on a known market, something that we know for a fact exists, which is the need to put small… pic.twitter.com/YFCbmQQEyM
— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) December 6, 2024
On September 10 of this year, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was launched into space for a five-day flight.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman went on to become the first person to take part in a private spacewalk, which was documented in ‘gorgeous’ footage.
Isaacman and the rest of the team on board Falcon 9 were sent up to space to test a new series of slimmer spacesuits, all while marking ‘the first time four humans [have been] simultaneously exposed to the vacuum of space’ coming out of a capsule with no safety airlock as well.
Adding to the momentous achievement, all four people were civilians rather than trained astronauts for NASA or the military.
Alongside billionaire Isaacman were retired Air Force Lt Col Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet, and SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.
Featured Image Credit: Stanford University/Chesnot/Getty