Anand Mahindra: Elon Musk's 'most important contribution to business' isn't SpaceX or Tesla

A day after SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, exploded mid-air minutes after taking its first test flight, industrialist Anand Mahindra praised SpaceX owner Elon Musk for his willingness to take up great risks.

Taking to Twitter, he wrote, "The most important contribution to business by Elon Musk will not be Tesla, or SpaceX but his powerful attitude to risk. Most would be terminally daunted by such a ‘failure.’ But when you set up each initiative as a learning experiment (and of course, have raised the resources to do so) you essentially extend the frontiers of knowledge and progress. Salute!"

SpaceX blew up the uncrewed rocket four minutes after it blasted off from Starbase, the SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas.

The Starship spacecraft that will eventually carry crew and cargo had been scheduled to separate from the first-stage rocket booster three minutes into the flight, but separation failed to occur and the rocket disintegrated in a ball of fire over the Gulf of Mexico.

"The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble," SpaceX said. "The flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and ship."