by Ashlee Vance
As 2007 rolled into 2008, Musk’s life became more tumultuous. Tesla basically had to start over on much of the Roadster, and SpaceX still had dozens of people living in Kwajalein awaiting the next launch of the Falcon 1. Both endeavors were vacuuming up Musk’s money. He started selling off prized possessions like the McLaren to generate extra cash. Musk tended to shield employees from the gravity of his fiscal situation by always encouraging them to do their best work. At the same time, he personally oversaw all significant purchases at both companies. Musk also trained employees to make the right trade-offs between spending money and productivity. This struck many of the SpaceX employees as a novel idea, since they were used to traditional aerospace companies that had huge, multiyear government contracts and no day-to-day survival pressure. “Elon would always be at work on Sunday, and we had some chats where he laid out his philosophy,” said Kevin Brogan, the early SpaceX employee. “He would say that everything we did was a function of our burn rate and that we were burning through a hundred thousand dollars per day. It was this very entrepreneurial, Silicon Valley way of thinking that none of the aerospace engineers in Los Angeles were dialed into. Sometimes he wouldn’t let you buy a part for two thousand dollars because he expected you to find it cheaper or invent something cheaper. Other times, he wouldn’t flinch at renting a plane for ninety thousand dollars to get something to Kwaj because it saved an entire workday, so it was worth it. He would place this urgency that he expected the revenue in ten years to be ten million dollars a day and that every day we were slower to achieve our goals was a day of missing out on that money.”
Musk had become all consumed with Tesla and SpaceX out of necessity, and there can be no doubt that this exacerbated the tensions in his marriage. The Musks had a team of nannies to help with their five children, but Elon could not spend much time at home. He worked seven days a week and quite often split his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Justine needed a change. During moments of self-reflection, she felt sickened, perceiving herself a trophy wife. Justine longed to be Elon’s partner again and to feel some of that spark from their early days before life had turned so dazzling and demanding. It’s not clear how much Musk let on to Justine about his dwindling bank account. She has long maintained that Musk kept her in the dark about the family’s financial arrangements. But some of Musk’s closest friends did get a glimpse into the worsening financial situation. In the first half of 2008, Antonio Gracias, the founder and CEO of Valor Equity, met Musk for dinner. Gracias had been an investor in Tesla and had become one of Musk’s closest friends and allies, and he could see Musk agonizing over his future. “Things were starting to be difficult with Justine, but they were still together,” Gracias said. “During that dinner, Elon said, ‘I will spend my last dollar on these companies. If we have to move into Justine’s parents’ basement, we’ll do it.’”
The option of moving in with Justine’s parents expired on June 16, 2008, when Musk filed for divorce. The couple did not disclose the situation right away, although Justine left hints on her blog. In late June, she posted a quotation from Moby without any additional context: “There’s no such thing as a well-adjusted public figure. If they were well adjusted they wouldn’t try to be a public figure.” The next entry had Justine house hunting for undisclosed reasons with Sharon Stone, and a couple of entries later she talked about “a major drama” that she’d been dealing with. In September, Justine wrote her first blog post explicitly about the divorce, saying, “We had a good run. We married young, took it as far as we could and now it is over.” Valleywag naturally followed with a story about the divorce and noted that Musk had been seen out with a twenty-something actress.
The media coverage and divorce freed Justine to write about her private life in a much more liberated way. In the posts that followed, she gave her account of how the marriage ended, her views on Musk’s girlfriend and future second wife, and the inner workings of the divorce proceedings. For the first time, the public had access to a deeply unpleasant portrayal of Musk and received some firsthand accounts—albeit from an ex-wife—of his hardline behavior. The writing may have been biased, but it provided a window into how Musk operated. Here’s one post about the lead-up to the divorce and its rapid execution:
Divorce, for me, was like the bomb you set off when all other options have been exhausted. I had not yet given up on the diplomacy option, which was why I hadn’t already filed. We were still in the early stages of marital counseling (three sessions total). Elon, however, took matters into his own hands—he tends to like to do that—when he gave me an ultimatum: “Either we fix [the marriage] today, or I will divorce you tomorrow.”
That night, and again the next morning, he asked me what I wanted to do. I stated emphatically that I was not ready to unleash the dogs of divorce; I suggested that “we” hold off for at least another week. Elon nodded, touched the top of my head, and left. Later that same morning I tried to make a purchase and discovered that he had cut off my credit card, which is when I also knew that he had gone ahead and filed (as it was, E did not tell me directly; he had another person do it).
For Musk, each online missive from Justine created another public relations crisis that added to the endless stream of issues faced by his companies. The image he’d sculpted over the years appeared ready to crumble alongside his businesses. It was a disaster scenario.
Soon enough, the Musks had achieved celebrity divorce status. Mainstream outlets joined Valleywag in poring over court filings tied to the breakup, particularly as Justine fought for more money. During the PayPal days, Justine had signed a postnuptial agreement and now argued that she didn’t really have the time or inclination to dig into the ramifications of the paperwork. Justine took to her blog in an entry titled “golddigger,” and said she was fighting for a divorce settlement that would include their house, alimony and child support, $6 million in cash, 10 percent of Musk’s Tesla stock, 5 percent of Musk’s SpaceX stock, and a Tesla Roadster. Justine also appeared on CNBC’s show Divorce Wars and wrote an article for Marie Claire titled “‘I Was a Starter Wife’: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce.”
The public tended to side with Justine during all of this and couldn’t quite figure out why a billionaire was fighting his wife’s seemingly fair requests. A major problem for Musk, of course, was that his assets were anything but liquid with most of his net worth being tied up in Tesla and SpaceX stock. The couple eventually settled with Justine getting the house, $2 million in cash (minus her legal fees), $80,000 a month in alimony and child support for seventeen years, and a Tesla Roadster.*
Years after the settlement, Justine still struggled to speak about her relationship with Musk. During our interview, she broke down in tears several times and needed moments to compose her thoughts. Musk, she said, had hidden many things from her during their marriage and ultimately treated her much like a business adversary to be conquered during the divorce. “We were at war for a while, and when you go to war with Elon, it’s pretty brutal,” she said. Well after their marriage ended, Justine continued to blog about Musk. She wrote about Riley and provided commentary on his parenting. One post gave Musk a hard time for banning stuffed animals from the house when their twins turned seven. Asked about this, Justine said, “Elon is hard-core. He grew up in a tough culture and tough circumstances. He had to become very tough to not only thrive but to conquer the world. He doesn’t want to raise soft overprivileged kids with no direction.” Comments like these seemed to indicate that Justine still admired or at least understood Musk’s strong will.*
In the weeks after he first filed for divorce in mid-June of 2008, Musk tumbled into a deep funk. Bill Lee started to worry about his friend’s mental state and, as one of Musk’s more free-spirited friends, wanted to do something to cheer him up. Now and again, Musk and Lee, an investor, would take trips overseas and mix business and pleasure. The time was right for just such a journey, and they set off for London at the start of July.
The
decompression program began poorly. Musk and Lee visited the headquarters of Aston Martin to see the company’s CEO and get a tour of his factory. The executive treated Musk like an amateur car builder, talking down to him and suggesting that he knew more about electric vehicles than anyone else on the planet. “He was a complete douche,” as Lee put it, and the men did their best to make a hasty exit back to central London. Along the way, Musk had a nagging stomach pain turn severe. At the time, Lee was married to Sarah Gore, the daughter of former vice president Al Gore, who had been a medical student, and so he called her for advice. They decided that Musk might be suffering from appendicitis, and Lee took him to a medical clinic in the middle of a shopping mall. When the tests came back negative, Lee set to work trying to goad Musk into a night on the town. “Elon didn’t want to go out, and I didn’t really, either,” Lee said. “But I was like, ‘No, come on. We’re all the way here.’”
Lee coaxed Musk into going to a club called Whisky Mist, in Mayfair. People had packed the small, high-end dance spot and Musk wanted to leave after ten minutes. The well-connected Lee texted a promoter friend of his, who pulled some strings to get Musk escorted into the VIP area. The promoter then reached out to some of his prettiest friends, including a twenty-two-year-old up-and-coming actress named Talulah Riley, and they soon arrived at the club as well. Riley and her two gorgeous friends had come from a charity gala and were in full-length, flowing gowns. “Talulah was in this huge Cinderella thing,” Lee said. Musk and Riley were introduced by people at the club, and he perked at the sight of her dazzling figure.
Musk and Riley sat at a table with their friends but immediately zeroed in on each other. Riley had just hit it big with her portrayal of Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and thought of herself as quite the hotshot. The older Musk, meanwhile, took on the role of the soft-spoken, sweet engineer. He whipped out his phone and displayed photos of the Falcon 1 and Roadster, although Riley thought he had just done some work on these projects and didn’t realize he ran the companies building the machines. “I remember thinking that this guy probably didn’t get to talk to young actresses a lot and that he seemed quite nervous,” Riley said. “I decided to be really nice to him and give him a nice evening. Little did I know that he’d spoken to a lot of pretty girls in his life.”* The more Musk and Riley talked, the more Lee egged them on. It was the first time in weeks that his friend appeared happy. “His stomach didn’t hurt; he’s not bummed, this is great,” Lee said. Despite being dressed for a fairy tale, Riley didn’t fall in love with Musk at first sight. But she did become more impressed and intrigued as the night went on, particularly after the club promoter introduced Musk to a stunning model, and he politely said “Hello” and then sat right back down with Riley. “I figured he couldn’t be all bad after that,” said Riley, who then allowed Musk to place his hand on her knee. Musk asked Riley out to dinner the next night, and she accepted.
With her curvy figure, sultry eyes, and playful good-girl demeanor, Riley was a budding film star but didn’t really act the part. She grew up in the idyllic English countryside, went to a top school, and, until a week before she met Musk, had been living at home with her parents. After the night at Whisky Mist, Riley called her family to tell them about the interesting guy she had met who builds rockets and cars. Her father used to head up the National Crime Squad and went straight to his computer to conduct a background check that illuminated Musk’s resume as a married international playboy with five kids. Riley’s father chided his daughter for being a fool, but she held out hope that Musk had an explanation and went to dinner with him anyway.
Musk brought Lee to the dinner, and Riley brought her friend Tamsin Egerton, also a beautiful actress. Things were cooler throughout the meal as the group dined in a depressingly empty restaurant. Riley waited to see what Musk would bring up on his own. Eventually, he did announce his five sons and his pending divorce. The confession proved enough to keep Riley interested and curious about where things would lead. Following the meal, Musk and Riley broke off on their own. They went for a walk through Soho and then stopped at Cafe Boheme, where Riley, a lifelong teetotaler, sipped an apple juice. Musk kept Riley’s attention, and the romance began in earnest.
The couple had lunch the next day and then went to the White Cube, a modern art gallery, and then back to Musk’s hotel room. Musk told Riley, a virgin, that he wanted to show her his rockets. “I was skeptical, but he did actually show me rocket videos,” she said. Once Musk went back to the United States,* they kept in touch via e-mail for a couple of weeks, and then Riley booked a flight to Los Angeles. “I wasn’t even thinking girlfriend or anything like that,” Riley said. “I was just having fun.”
Musk had other ideas. Riley had been in California for just five days when he made his move as they lay in bed talking in a tiny room at the Peninsula hotel in Beverley Hills. “He said, ‘I don’t want you to leave. I want you to marry me.’ I think I laughed. Then, he said, ‘No. I’m serious. I’m sorry I don’t have a ring.’ I said, ‘We can shake on it if you like.’ And we did. I don’t remember what I was thinking at the time, and all I can say is that I was twenty-two.”
Riley had been a model daughter up to that point, never giving her parents much of anything to worry about. She did well at school, had scored some tremendous acting gigs, and had a soft, sweet personality that her friends described as Snow White brought to life. But there she was on the hotel’s balcony, informing her parents that she had agreed to marry a man fourteen years her senior, who had just filed for divorce from his first wife, had five kids and two companies, and she didn’t even see how she could possibly love him after knowing him for a matter of weeks. “I think my mother had a nervous breakdown,” Riley said. “But I had always been highly romantic, and it actually didn’t strike me as that strange.” Riley flew back to England to gather her things, and her parents flew back with her to the United States to meet Musk, who belatedly asked Riley’s father for his blessing. Musk did not have his own house, which left the couple moving into a home that belonged to Musk’s friend the billionaire Jeff Skoll. “I had been living there a week when this random guy walked in,” Riley said. “I said, ‘Who are you?’ He said, ‘I am the homeowner. Who are you?’ I told him, and then he just walked out.” Musk later proposed to Riley again on the balcony of Skoll’s house, unveiling a massive ring. (He has since bought her three engagement rings, including the giant first one, an everyday ring, and one designed by Musk that has a diamond surrounded by ten sapphires.) “I remember him saying, ‘Being with me was choosing the hard path.’ I didn’t quite understand at the time, but I do now. It’s quite hard, quite the crazy ride.”
Riley experienced a baptism by fire. The whirlwind romance had given her the impression that she was engaged to a world conquering, jet-setting billionaire. That was true in theory but a murkier proposition in practice. As late July rolled around, Musk could see that he had just enough cash on hand to scrape through to the end of the year. Both SpaceX and Tesla would need cash infusions at some point just to pay the employees, and it was unclear where that money would come from with the world’s financial markets in disarray and investments being put on hold. If things had been going more smoothly at the companies, Musk could have felt more confident about raising money, but they were not. “He would come home every day, and there would be some calamity,” Riley said. “He was under immense pressure from all quarters. It was horrendous.”
SpaceX’s third flight from Kwajalein jumped out as Musk’s most pressing concern. His team of engineers had remained camped out on the island, preparing the Falcon 1 for another run. A typical company would focus just on the task at hand. Not SpaceX. It had shipped the Falcon 1 to Kwaj in April with one set of engineers and then put another group of engineers on a new project to develop the Falcon 9, a nine-engine rocket that would take the place of the Falcon 5 and serve as a possible replacement to the retiring space shuttle. SpaceX had yet to prove it could get to space successfully,
but Musk kept positioning it to bid on big-ticket NASA contracts.*
On July 30, 2008, the Falcon 9 had a successful test fire in Texas with all nine of its engines lighting up and producing 850,000 pounds of thrust. Three days later, in Kwaj, SpaceX’s engineers fueled up the Falcon 1 and crossed their fingers. The rocket had an air force satellite as its payload, along with a couple of experiments from NASA. All told, the cargo weighed 375 pounds.
SpaceX had been making significant changes to its rocket since the last, failed launch. A traditional aerospace company would not have wanted the added risk, but Musk insisted that SpaceX push its technology forward while at the same time trying to make it work right. Among the biggest changes for the Falcon 1 was a new version of the Merlin 1 engine that relied on a tweaked cooling system.
The first launch attempt on August 2, 2008, aborted at T minus zero seconds. SpaceX regrouped and tried to launch again the same day. This time everything seemed to be going well. The Falcon 1 soared into the sky and flew spectacularly without any indication of a problem. SpaceX employees watching a webcast of the proceedings back in California let out hoots and whistles. Then, right at the moment when the first stage and second stage were to separate, there was a malfunction. An analysis after the fact would show that the new engines had delivered an unexpected thrust during the separation process that caused the first stage to bump up into the second stage, damaging the top part of the rocket and its engine.*
The failed launch left many SpaceX employees shattered. “It was so profound seeing the energy shift over the room in the course of thirty seconds,” said Dolly Singh, a recruiter at SpaceX. “It was like the worst fucking day ever. You don’t usually see grown-ups weeping, but there they were. We were tired and broken emotionally.” Musk addressed the workers right away and encouraged them to get back to work. “He said, ‘Look. We are going to do this. It’s going to be okay. Don’t freak out,’” Singh recalled. “It was like magic. Everyone chilled out immediately and started to focus on figuring out what just happened and how to fix it. It went from despair to hope and focus.” Musk put up a positive front to the public as well. In a statement, he said that SpaceX had another rocket waiting to attempt a fourth launch and a fifth launch planned shortly after that. “I have also given the go-ahead to begin fabrication of flight six,” he said. “Falcon 9 development will also continue unabated.”