Elon Musk on the Christmas Eve in 2008 when SpaceX and Tesla were both hours from dying "2008 was a rough year. Summer 2008, the third launch of SpaceX had failed, our third failure in a row. The Tesla financing round had failed, and Tesla was going bankrupt fast. It's like, man, this is grim. This is going to be a tale of warning, an exercise in hubris" "The fourth launch worked, and NASA awarded us a contract to resupply the space station, right before Christmas. I got the call from the NASA team and I literally blurted out, I love you guys. Which is not normally what they hear. But I was like, man, this is a company saver" "We closed the Tesla financing round on the last hour of the last day that it was possible, which was 6 PM December 24th, 2008. We would have bounced payroll two days after Christmas if that round hadn't closed"