The Man Who Took Elon to Russia & Why His New Company Phantom is SpaceX's Unfinished Business

Take me to how you ended up working with the Soviets. >> We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us. [music] >> Did you always feel safe? >> I actually got arrested by the Russians in 1996 for espionage. Mean like you in Soviet days, we take them out back and we shoot you. Why do you think God

brought Elon into your life? I get this call in July of 2001 [music] from this guy who had an accent from South Africa. And I was pretty sure he said his name was Ian Musk. He explained his whole desire to make humanity multilanetary. He also said he wanted to get humanity off its addiction to fossil fuels. His

third thing was to prevent humanity from being controlled by tyrants and free speech. The thing I think that made him different than anybody I've ever met was this complete inability can see failure. He's just like, we're either going to do this or die. >> Phantom is a manifestation [music] of some unfinished business. What is the

unfinished business? >> I can see the future and it tortures me. This vision about [music] what we've got to do with Phantom Cloud, bringing space to the masses is what drives me insane. I have to do it. >> All right, Jim. Of everything you could have done uh in this world, you found

the space industry. How'd you get into space? >> Quite by accident, actually. I thought I was going to be in the automotive industry because that was my first love. And in engineering school, I came across a poster in the hallway that was announcing a NASA funded design course uh for a Mars rover. And so I signed up,

was surprised I ended up uh being chosen, and uh the end of the the school year was a competition among other schools, small schools like Caltech and MIT and places like that. And I was at Utah State University. So we're a little bit of an underdog and and we won. and I got a uh an internship at NASA JPL for