Elon Musk (Full Interview) — Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

[0:00] My first guest is the man who made electric cars a thing and is currently working on perfecting [0:05] reusable rockets, space travel, connecting the human brain directly to computers, connecting [0:09] cities with electromagnetic bullet trains, the Starling satellite system that's so important [0:14] to the war in Ukraine, and then on Tuesday, he's going to work on that tunnel thing on [0:20] traffic. He also tweets a lot. Elon Musk, right here. Did I get the full order of things [0:42] that you do in a day there? When I was reading there, I left out the tunnel thing at the [0:45] end. Do you work on all these? A lot of jobs. Do you do all these things every day? Do you [0:50] work on all of them in a single day? No. No. But I do have a long work day. Yeah. So I [1:00] work a lot. Well, I'm so thrilled you're here because, you know, we do a show where we talk [1:06] about what changes happen in the world, but we just talk. There's a very few people who [1:11] actually make change happen. You are one of those people probably. You know, I just want [1:23] to say, I just want to say I love this audience. Well, you're a likable guy. I mean, I mean, [1:32] they attack you a lot. They do. Yeah. And you seem to laugh it off, which I think is fantastic. [1:40] I love it that you have a sense of humor because a guy as important as you who makes changes [1:46] could use your powers for evil and not good. The fact that... Yeah, absolutely. You could. [1:53] Oh, of course. I would, yeah, never use them for evil. That's crazy. No, I know. But, but the way I know [1:59] that is because you have a sense of humor. Uh, yeah. You really do. I swear I do. Yeah. You like [2:04] laughing. You like to be funny. I mean, I kill me. Right. [2:10] No, as opposed to somebody like Zuckerberg, who I'm not even sure is a real boy. [2:16] Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I, I actually love comedy and, and, uh, I still, you know, like, um, many [2:27] years ago, I actually was in the audience here and watched your show. Oh, really? So I've been [2:30] a long time, uh, admirer of your show. Oh, well, thank you. I, let me get back to you being [2:40] a genius. Okay. But that has always been my view is that as I was a history major. And when [2:46] you study history, what you realize is that, you know, there's the great man theory and they [2:50] talk about kings and princes and queens and presidents, it's really the people in tech who [2:56] changed the world. They're the people who deal the cards at whether it's fire or electricity [3:03] or for good or bad, or the cotton gin or the iPhone or the atom bomb. Those are the cards [3:10] and the rest of us just play it. Would you agree with that assessment? [3:13] Um, I think, I think technology is the thing that, uh, causes these big step changes in, [3:20] in civilization. So obviously you've got things like say the Gutenberg press, um, before which, [3:26] uh, it was very difficult to get books. They were very rare. Even if you had a thirst for [3:30] knowledge, you really couldn't do anything about it. Um, cause there were very few books [3:34] so, uh, and the, the internet is something beyond, beyond the Gutenberg press, I think. But, [3:40] you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, when I first saw the internet, uh, coming into being in a [3:46] way that, that the general public could use it, it felt like the, what, the, the humanity [3:51] as a whole was, uh, developing a nervous system. So previously, uh, the way the information would [3:58] travel would be by osmosis, one person to another, or one person calling another. Um, but, uh, you, [4:05] the access to information was very limited. Now with the internet, it's like having a nervous [4:10] system. It's like any part of, of humanity has access to almost all the information of humanity. [4:15] Hmm. Like you could be in the, in the middle of the Amazon jungle, uh, with say a Starlink terminal [4:21] and have access to more, uh, information, uh, than the president did in 1980. Right. Well, [4:27] anything on your phone. Everything. Is. Yeah. Okay. So, so you are one of these dealers, [4:33] these people who deal the cards in civilization. I deal some memes too. [4:38] Yes, you do. Some, uh, [4:40] Um, so, so I think a lot of people thought when you bought Twitter, that this is kind of an outlier. [4:54] Like how does this, what doesn't fit with these other things you're doing? I never thought that. [4:58] Oh, yeah. Because I think you're dealing with big civilizational issues and problems. And I [5:04] was right on your page. I think Twitter is one of them. I mean, you have talked about this woke [5:09] mind virus. Yes. In really apocalyptic terms. I don't, you should explain why you don't think [5:16] it's hyperbole to say things like it's pushing civilization towards suicide. First of all, [5:20] what is the woke mind virus? And if we don't deal with this, nothing else can get done. Tell me why [5:26] you think that. Yeah. So, um, I think we need to be very cautious about any, anything that is [5:33] anti-meritocratic, um, and anything that is, uh, that, that results in the suppression of free [5:41] speech. Um, so, you know, those are two of the aspects of the work mind virus that I think are [5:46] very dangerous, uh, is that it's, it's often anti-meritocratic. You can't, you can't question [5:51] things. Uh, even the questioning is bad. So, uh, you know, you could, you know, another way to, [6:00] almost anonymous would, would be cancel culture. And obviously people have tried to cancel you many [6:03] times. Many times. Yeah. I mean, every week. Yeah. From left and right. I've had it from both [6:10] sides. Yeah. And it's interesting people, you and I are both like in that little group of people, [6:15] maybe it's a bigger group now, who, who are called conservative, who haven't really changed. [6:20] I don't see, think of you as a conservative. I'm definitely, yeah, like I, I at least think of [6:26] myself as a moderate, uh, you know, uh, so, I mean, uh, at least the, like, I've spent a massive amount [6:33] of my life energy building sustainable energy, uh, you know, electric vehicles and, and batteries [6:38] and solar and stuff, uh, to help save the environment. That's, that's not, that's not a, [6:42] you know, it's not exactly far right. No, you drew that diagram, you drew that diagram once where [6:53] you're here. I, I related to that. And like the world has changed. Right. I feel the same way. [6:58] I feel like very often wokeness is, is not building on liberalism. It's the opposite of liberalism. I can [7:03] mention it. Yes, exactly. Many examples where it's the opposite, including free speech. [7:08] Free speech is actually, is, is extremely important. And it's bizarre that we've come to this point [7:12] where, um, like free speech used to be, uh, a, a left or liberal value. Uh, and, and, and yet we, [7:19] we see, uh, from, you know, the, in quotes, left, uh, a desire to actually censor. Um, and, uh, that, [7:28] that seems crazy. I mean, I, I think we should be extremely concerned about anything that, uh, [7:34] uh, undermines the first amendment. There's a reason for the first amendment. Um, the first [7:39] amendment is because people came from countries where they could not speak freely and, and where, [7:44] and where saying certain things would get you thrown into prison. And they were like, well, [7:48] we don't want that here. And by the way, in many parts of the world, including possible that people [7:54] might think are relatively similar to the United States. The, the, the, the speech laws are draconian. [8:01] England is quite different. I won't name any countries, but. England. Why, why, why are we [8:07] protecting them? They have no first amendment. It's, it's very easy to prove libel in England, [8:12] whereas here it's almost. I love England. Um, but. Yeah, you too, but, but I, I wouldn't want to say [8:17] the wrong thing. Or. Uh, yes. You, you could be sued easier. There, I mean, there are law in, [8:22] in France, I think if you deny the Holocaust, which I think is abhorrent, but I also think it should be [8:27] part of free speech. Right. You can be thrown into jail. Okay. So this, my, I, I really can't [8:33] emphasize this enough. We, we must, uh, uh, we must protect free speech. Um, and free speech only [8:39] matters. It's only relevant when it's someone you don't like saying something you don't like, [8:43] because obviously speech that you like is, uh, you know, that's easy. Um, so it, it's, uh, and it's, [8:51] the thing about censorship is that sure for, for those who would advocate it, um, just remember at some [8:56] point that will return on you. So this, uh, woke mind virus, how did it start? Was it bats? Was it a, [9:10] a escape from a lab? I mean, what, what is your assessment of why? Cause it's fairly recent. [9:17] Why did, why, how did it start and why? I was, I, so I was trying to figure out where, [9:23] where it's coming from. I think it's actually been a long time brewing, um, in that it's, uh, [9:28] I think it's been going on for a while. Um, it, it, it, and, um, the, the amount of indoctrination [9:37] that that's happening in schools and, and universities is I think far beyond what parents [9:41] realize. Um, and I, I only, I sort of came to realize this somewhat, somewhat late. Um, the, [9:48] the, the experience that we had, uh, in, in high school and college is not the experience that, [9:53] that kids today are having, um, and, and hasn't been for, I don't know, 10, 10 years, [9:59] maybe 20 years. So, uh, Are parents themselves also a big part of the problem? They, well, [10:07] I, I suppose in some cases that parents, but, but I think like the parents are just generally not [10:12] aware of what their, their kids are being taught, uh, or, or what they're not being taught. Um, [10:17] They're letting the kids think that they're equal. I mean, yeah, let me, let me, let me give you an [10:22] example that, that a fair man told me, which, uh, you know, his, uh, daughters, uh, go to college in, [10:27] in, oh, sorry, go to high school in, in the Bay Area. Um, and, um, and he, he was asking them, [10:33] like, well, so who are the, you know, who are the first few presidents of the United States? Uh, [10:39] they, they could name Washington, but, and I said, well, what do you know about him? Well, [10:42] he was a slave owner. What else? Right. Exactly. Nothing. Right. Like, uh, okay, [10:47] that's maybe you should know more than that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And that, and that, [10:52] that is the woke mind virus. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. It's, it's like, uh, you know, the, [11:00] uh, you know, slavery is obviously a, uh, horrific institution, but we should still know more about [11:06] George Washington than that. And by the way, one that was practiced all over the world forever, [11:11] since the beginning of time by every race, including people of color. I'm sorry to tell you that. [11:16] It's huge in the Bible. Absolutely. So Bible loves it. We're, we're, I, I, I, yes, they, [11:22] they, they, they're, they're quite strict about like, you know, don't take someone else to slave [11:26] and that kind of thing. Right. But no one ever says, just don't do it. They don't, they don't, [11:29] they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't, [11:30] at no point does it say slavery is bad in the Bible. No, no, no. They do not condemn it at all. [11:36] They just, so, so, so it's, um, but Twitter is not doing bad, right? I mean, I saw today [11:41] that Tucker Carlson recently fired, you were just on his show and he lost his job, [11:46] so I hope this isn't an old man. But, uh, hopefully, uh, what are you, the angel of death? [11:52] Yeah, no, exactly. I'm not, I'm not the typhoid Mary of, uh, talk shows. [11:56] Uh, for some reason, people just get fired after that. But his, his rant yesterday, [12:01] or today on Twitter, did more than, than every cable news monologue or something like that. [12:10] Is that right? Well, Twitter has a tremendous audience. So there's 250 million people that, [12:15] uh, spend an average of half an hour a day on Twitter. So it's about 120 to 130 million user [12:19] hours per day. And it's been increasing. So, um, the, we didn't do anything. To be clear, [12:25] we did nothing special whatsoever. I, I learned about it afterwards that he, he posted something [12:30] on Twitter. Um, so it's just the Twitter has a lot of people's attention. Uh, so, and it, it tends to be [12:37] the people that are, uh, that read, read a lot or, or interested in current events. Um, and, um, [12:44] generally are pretty influential. So. But most of the people who tweet are the same people, [12:49] right? I mean, the people who actually tweet, it's mostly just reading it. Yeah. [12:53] I feel like that's, I've read this many times, that that's a very, very small percentage of the [12:57] people on Twitter. And it seems like, yeah. See, here's why I don't tweet anymore, [13:01] because you may be the mayor of tweet town now. Yeah. And I'm glad and I like it that the mayor [13:09] likes my jokes, but the reason I don't do it anymore is because the mob of mean girls is still [13:16] there and that has not changed. It's too easy to get canceled. And I don't even know what pisses them [13:25] off. They're so nuts. These kids, I feel like I'm walking on a roof with a blindfold. I could fall [13:30] off any time. Yeah. That was the most innocuous thing. But it's like, you know, I said George [13:35] Washington was a great president. Oh, how dare you? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I had some flaws, but, [13:40] but I, I, I, I. So how do you fix that, Mr. Mayor? He's instrumental in the operation of the United States, [13:44] so. Yeah. Um, well, you have to say, like, what does canceled mean? You know, uh, I mean, [13:50] it's, yes, if people attack you on Twitter, that's one thing, but frankly, that's just going to [13:54] increase engagement. So I would just ignore it. Well, that's easy for you because they can't take your job [14:00] away or any of your main 10 jobs, but they could take mine and they did once, by the way. Yeah. [14:06] So, you know, I was like literally canceled. Yeah. I mean, like the, the show is canceled. [14:12] It's like, but okay. So you were in Congress, uh, at Congress the other day, talking with Chuck [14:17] Schumer about AI. I'm very interested in this because you've been on this for years. I've always thought [14:22] you were right about this. I think you're right about almost everything. I mean, let's have more babies [14:27] and raise them on Mars. I don't get that, but okay. Well, uh, I just think we should be cautious [14:32] about civilizational decline with, with, and we have plummeting birth rates, um, most places. [14:38] Yeah. Right. And also plummeting resources. Uh, no, no, resources will be fine. [14:43] But they're not fine. And I know a lot about it. They're not fine now. No, they're, look, [14:46] I'm not suggesting complacency. Uh, we, we do want to move to a sustainable energy economy as, [14:51] as quickly as possible, but, but we're not, uh, in any danger of, uh, resource collapse. [14:56] But lots of people don't have enough food or water. Water. We will run out of water. They, [15:02] they're running, they're running out of sand. No, there's earth is 70% water by surface area. [15:07] Um, but you can't drink that. But desalination is absurdly cheap. [15:12] Why don't we do it then? We do it. It is done. You have a lot of free time. [15:16] It is done. There's, there is a lot of desalination done. Okay. But there's plenty of water. [15:20] This is not an issue. I want to be clear. All right. So, but let's talk about AI because like [15:24] you were, you were on this tip 10 years ago when nobody else was that, and I always thought he's [15:28] right. Why? Because I've seen too many movies, everything that happens in movies that happens [15:32] in real life. And, you know, if you make things that are way smarter than you, why wouldn't they [15:39] become your overlords? So what did you say to Chuck Schumer? And what are we doing about this? I know you [15:43] want to pause in AI because it in the, just in the last six months with chat GPT, which came from a company [15:49] you started. Yes. Well, I mean, a friend of mine has a sort of modification of Occam's razor. You [15:58] know, you know, so instead of the simplest thing being the most likely that like the most ironic [16:02] outcome is the most likely. Right. Right. Yes. So with respect to AI, I just think we should be, [16:12] we should have some sort of regulatory oversight. So, you know, for anything that is a danger to the [16:17] public, uh, if it's sort of, uh, aircraft, uh, cars, uh, food and drug and whatnot, we've got [16:22] some regulatory oversight, like a referee essentially, and making sure that, uh, companies [16:26] don't cut corners. So, um, I think that since if one, if one agrees that, uh, AI is a potential risk [16:34] to the public, then there should be some regulatory body that, uh, oversees, uh, what companies are doing [16:40] so they don't cut corners and potentially do something very dangerous. And if we don't do [16:46] something, lay out a scenario for me in the next two, five, 10 years, if nothing is done, because [16:53] we're very good at doing nothing, especially when it comes in the way of profit. And this is a big [16:58] profit engine now for companies. They're going to want to just compete with each other. I mean, [17:03] there are people like Ray Kurzweil who doesn't think it's a problem at all. [17:06] Uh, actually, Ray Kurzweil's prediction for artificial super intelligence, uh, is 2029. He's not far [17:13] wrong. Right. But he doesn't think it's a problem, whereas people like you and Bill Gates and Stephen [17:19] Hawking thought, think it's a problem. Um, yeah, it depends. If some people want to live forever or [17:25] for a much longer period of time and they see AI as the only way to, or digital super intelligence [17:31] as the only thing that can figure out how to get them to live forever, I think Kurzweil is in that [17:35] category. So he would prefer to have AI, artificial general intelligence than, than not, uh, because [17:41] it can figure out longevity. So are you, are you optimistic? I read in your Rolling Stone article [17:47] back in the day that you said you can never be happy unless you're in love. Well, you can be half [17:53] happy, I suppose. I mean, there's, I mean, there's two things. I think if, to be, to be full, to be, [18:00] to be most happy, if you're happy in love and, and you love your work, then you'll, then you'll be, [18:04] I think fully happy. If you lack either of those two, if, if you have one of those two things, [18:09] be half happy, you know, roughly. I feel like the theme in a lot of your works that connect all [18:15] these different things is connecting. Like you want to connect things, you know, you want to connect [18:21] on the Hyperloop and you want to connect this to Mars and even Twitter. I want to connect four. [18:29] I love that game. What? Connect four, you know, wake up there. [18:38] Sorry, this is a comedy, right? You know, they'll throw some comedy in there. [18:44] It's hard for you because when you bought Twitter, you're kind of doing what you did when you took over, [18:51] when you started Tesla, you lived at the factory, right? I feel like that's your, that's your, your, [18:58] your pattern. You get into this thing and then you got to live at the factory to make it work. [19:02] Yeah. You've been back in, you moved to Texas, then you went back up to San Francisco because of [19:08] Twitter. I was living in the, in the library of Twitter for a while. Um, yes. But it's, I think [19:14] things are reasonably stabilized right now. It was, uh, just on the, on the fast track to bankruptcy [19:19] after the acquisition. So I had to take a drastic action. There wasn't any choice. [19:23] I'm just saying it's hard for a woman to like when the guy lives at the factory. Yes. [19:31] That could be, that could be a stumbling block. Um, yes. Uh, it, but, um, overall with, you know, [19:39] my, my concern with Twitter was to, that it was, it is somewhat of the digital town square and, um, [19:44] it's, it's important that there'd be both the reality, uh, and perception of, of trust, uh, [19:51] for a wide range of viewpoints. Um, and, uh, there was a lot of censorship going on. Um, and we've, [19:58] we, we sort of uncovered a lot of that with, uh, the Twitter files, including a lot of, of government [20:02] driven censorship, which it's, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it seems that that's got to be a constitutional [20:11] violation of what was going on there. But, um, so, so, and I can, since I'm like an avid Twitter user, [20:16] I could detect that like something's not right here. Um, and so that's, that's really why, [20:20] uh, I did that position. It wasn't, it wasn't because I thought this was an easy way to make [20:24] money or something like that. It was a, man, this is me being mayor of Twitter town, tweet town or [20:29] whatever, uh, is, is, is, is definitely like there's a lot of arrows pointed at you, like flying at you. [20:34] Yes, of course. But you, but you seem to handle that okay. I hope you do because, uh, look, I mean, [20:42] geniuses are going to be a little quirky sometimes, but you, your heart is always in the right place. [20:46] You are trying to fix this world. And look, I could talk to you forever. We can't today. [20:52] I'd love to get high with you. I know a great place to go. But I can't tell you how much I [20:56] appreciate you. I know you have a lot of choices and places you can go. Thank you. Elon Musk, [21:01] ladies and gentlemen. All right. I'll see you soon.