In a reflection on his entrepreneurial journey, tech magnate Elon Musk offered a glimpse into the mindset that led him to launch two of the world’s most groundbreaking ventures: Tesla and SpaceX. Speaking on his early years of founding these companies,

Tesla, Musk’s only publicly traded company, has seen its stock price gain nearly 90.8 percent since the election to around $480 a share, reflecting investor sentiments that its CEO’s newly-minted alliance with the president-elect will be fruitful for the EV maker, which is now worth over $1.4 trillion.

Elon Musk has described it as the worst year of his life due to the significant financial difficulties that plagued Tesla and SpaceX. The CEO has shared that he used the last of his remaining funds from his time at PayPal to keep the company afloat.