Anand Mahindra Praises Elon Musk, Says His "Most Important Contribution To Business" Is...

A day after SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft exploded minutes after liftoff, industrialist Anand Mahindra praised SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for his willingness to take up great risks. 

On Thursday, SpaceX's Starship rocket - the most powerful rocket ever built - successfully blasted off before exploding during its first test flight. Despite the failure to complete the full flight test, the company declared it a success. Mr Musk also hailed the launch and congratulated the team on "an exciting test launch of Starship". "We learned a lot for the next test launch in a few months," he tweeted. 

A day after the launch, Mr Mahindra took to Twitter to praise the SpaceX CEO. "The most important contribution to business by Elon Musk will not be Tesla, or SpaceX but his powerful attitude to risk," the industrialist wrote. 

"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!" Mr Mahindra added in his tweet. 

Since being shared, Mr Mahindra's post has garnered various reactions from internet users. " Elon Musk's willingness to embrace failure as a learning experience has helped him to identify and overcome obstacles in his path. By approaching each initiative as a learning experiment, he has been able to develop new technologies and push the boundaries of what is possible." commented one user. 

"I fully agree with you! The future belongs to the bold. They needed data about the launching and they got it. That's why @elonmusk called it a success," wrote another. 

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Notably, SpaceX blew up the uncrewed rocket for four minutes after it blasted off from Starbase. The plan was for Starship to soar into space at least 150 km above Earth before it would re-enter the atmosphere and plunge into the Pacific near Hawaii. 

However, SpaceX said in a statement afterwards that the "vehicle experienced multiple engines out during its ascent, then "lost altitude and began to tumble," before the "flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and the ship".