November 12, 2013 — Elon Musk was at the New York Times Dealbook conference earlier today, where he discussed his interest in supersonic travel.
“I do think there’s an interesting opportunity to create a supersonic, electric, vertical-takeoff-and-landing jet,” Musk said. “It seems unlikely to come from Boeing (BA) or Airbus, given that they seem to be focused on very incremental improvements to their planes as opposed to radical improvements. So it could come from a startup. If I were to have another company in the future (which would not be any time soon) I think that would be the thing do do.”
Great to hear that the co-founder PayPal and founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX thinks that a supersonic jet will come from a startup and not one of the large aerospace companies. But I don’t know about the vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTAL) aspect. That might be a stretch for a first iteration of the aircraft!