Elon Musk Full Interview with The Economist — AI, Future Technology & Innovation (Full HD)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Elon Musk thank you so much for joining me on The Insider. Thank you for having us here at Tesla Giga. It is really hard to introduce you without using superlatives and you are doing I think more to build the future than literally anybody alive right now. I'm doing a lot of building in [00:00:32] Elon Musk: general. You're doing a lot of building? I'm sort of an instinctive builder I suppose. I just like building things. You are but you're building. I just run around building things all day long. [00:00:41] Speaker 1: You run around building a lot of things. You pioneered electric vehicles. You've revolutionized space travel. You've got a cutting-edge AI model now. Humanoid robots. Can we start this conversation by putting all of this together? Tell me what the world's going to be like in let's say 10 years if [00:00:57] Elon Musk: you succeed. 10 years so we're talking 2036. Yeah. Hopefully we'll both be around. Hopefully yes. We can we can probably most likely we will be. It's hard to imagine the future that where there's not an overall overwhelming amount of artificial intelligence meaning like in 10 years I would expect artificial intelligence to be far greater than the sum of human intelligence like far greater. In fact I think AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in about in around five years. In five years. Roughly five years is my guess. Um so there really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans apart from being human perhaps. [00:01:47] Speaker 1: It's not a more prosaic level. What will life be like? [00:01:51] Elon Musk: The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance. Uh where anyone can have anything they can think of. This is this is uh this may sound preposterous but it's not where we are in 2026. Let's see where we stand in 2036. Now of course there are things that could uh derail this like uh a massive global thermonuclear war or something like that. Um but assuming that there's not World War III. Uh I think I think we're headed for an age of amazing abundance. So this is I guess a message of of optimism and uh excitement about the future. [00:02:34] Speaker 1: So we'll talk about the abundance in a second but just a very prosaic matter. How are your companies going to be making money? Because when you in the SpaceX IPO prospectus it it looked as though the overwhelming amount of the revenue would be coming from AI from Grok really. It won't be transporting things to space as SpaceX is now doing. What is what will your companies be doing in 10 years? And how will [00:02:58] Elon Musk: they make money? Well you can really think of the economy as uh digital and physical intelligence. Um so what we have right now advancing very rapidly is digital intelligence obviously with with AI that is uh it seems almost with every passing week uh there are more AI breakthroughs that it can do something amazing that it couldn't do before. Uh but it's still somewhat confined to the digital realm. It doesn't have end effectors. You need the end effectors in the form of humanoid robotics. Um you need basically lots of bots in a nutshell. You need lots of bots. Um and then you can go from um intelligence manifesting itself only digitally to shaping atoms. Um and you say what what is an economy? An economy is um the production of goods and provision of services. And if you have vast numbers of robots uh with uh vast amounts of digital intelligence you have a sort of a quasi-infinite economy. So so this is this is really the future is going to be very very different from the past. There's there's no um there's no analogy or metaphor that I think illustrates the magnitude of change [00:04:34] Speaker 1: that we're going to experience here. I I understand that and I'm I'm also trying to kind of figure out what that world will look like. But but I think it's going to be good. It's going to be pretty incredible. Yeah well we'll also do there are some risks too. We'll come to those. I agree. But just on on on how then you make money because in the end people are buying your shares because [00:04:53] Elon Musk: because they expect you to make money. I'll make another prediction. Money won't matter in 2036. [00:04:59] Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the people who bought your shares think that money won't matter in 2036. [00:05:04] Elon Musk: Well what do you want money for? You want money for goods and services right? You want money for obviously food, housing, transport, entertainment. Well if that is so abundant that uh there's more that the robots and AI are providing more goods and services than you than any human could possibly consume what do you need money for in that case? [00:05:32] Speaker 1: But you're you're creating these robots. I guess between now and then you'll need money sure. Are you are you selling these robots? Are you selling humanoid robots or are you producing goods and services with the humanoid robots that you control? [00:05:47] Elon Musk: Well I think I think I would probably be it would be an exercise in vanity to for me to think that I would be controlling super genius AI that is vastly smarter than me. I think what we can and should try to do is to make sure that the AI has good values that it cares about humanity and that it wants us to be happy and prosper. I think it probably will be. What my biological neural net tells me is that the most important thing for this for AI safety is to be maximally truth-seeking and curious. If that's the case I think it will foster humanity. [00:06:35] Speaker 1: So let's unpack that. You're sure that humans will no longer be in control in 10 years time? [00:06:39] Elon Musk: I think it is unlikely in the same way that if the difference in intelligence between AI and humans is vastly greater than the difference in intelligence between AI and chimpanzees it's hard to imagine that the chimpanzees would be in charge. I'm really struck by this. And we are essentially um an evolved form of chimpanzee. So it wasn't that long ago that we're swinging through the trees eating bananas um in the jungle. And we still eat bananas by the way. We do. We do. And there's [00:07:14] Speaker 1: still you know bananas. Sometimes swing through trees as well. Yeah it's true. Sometimes swing [00:07:17] Elon Musk: through trees is kind of fun. It's sort of um reminiscent of the past um for all time's sake swing through the trees once in a while. Probably you know there should be more swinging through trees. I bet it's way more fun than people think. I'm with you on that. I'm definitely with you on [00:07:30] Speaker 1: swinging through trees. I love swinging through trees. But but but I'm really struck listening to you say this now because I've been listening to a bunch of things that you've said over the years. Yeah. And and 10 years ago you were on a podcast. I think it was with Neil deGrasse Tyson. And you said that the thing that terrified you most was rapid recursive self-improvement in AIs. Yes. And that you said and it really struck with me. You said that we will just be the pet Labradors [00:07:53] Elon Musk: at the best. Well now you see. Labradors are pretty happy creatures. That's my experience. But in 2023 [00:07:58] Speaker 1: you you caught you asked for a slowdown in AI because you were worried about it. Well I signed on to [00:08:03] Elon Musk: you know on as one of many like 500 people I I was just you know one of many signet signatures on that [00:08:11] Speaker 1: thing. But but I think even last year you said I know where was it Ted Cruz's podcast you said there was a 10 to 20 percent chance of killer robots wiping out humanity. Yes. So you sounded worried then. Now you seem very relaxed about it. Have you changed your view? I still think there's I still [00:08:28] Elon Musk: think there's risk associated with AI and robots. It's not zero. I guess I've come to my my sort of philosophical conclusion is to look on the bright side. I like I can't see any way to really stop this incredible momentum of AI and robots. And and at times I sort of think well perhaps you know we're even if there was a stop button we probably shouldn't press it because it was the most likely outcome is incredible abundance for for all. [00:09:10] Speaker 1: That's what I thought actually it struck me that now you seem to have decided it's inevitable [00:09:15] Elon Musk: let's hope for the best and go for the ride. Yeah I mean yes pretty much let's uh let's enjoy the ride is I think my philosophy at this point because I mean honestly this this it's it's there seems to be just an inexorable uh progress here in in AI and and in robots that um you know even if I wanted to stop it and I don't I couldn't. Do you think there's still a [00:09:45] Speaker 1: 10 to 20 percent chance that killer robots mean the end of humanity? [00:09:49] Elon Musk: That's a high P doom as they say. Well in the long run we're all dead of course um you know um so I mean I also I mean according to the standard model of physics the end of the universe is um a long warring sort of thin gray soup of uh gradual cooling um meaning it's sort of the heat death of the universe is called so now if if the heat death of the universe is in fact the outcome for our reality then it really is all about the journey because the destination is terrible. [00:10:31] Speaker 1: but 10 years is not very yeah I get that but that could be a long way ahead and very very very long way if it's 10 to 20 percent in 10 years you know would you go into one of your rockets if you thought there was a 10 to 20 chance of it blowing up and killing you? Yes but let's say there's you can't [00:10:50] Elon Musk: do anything about it okay that I guess the only thing we can try to do is minimize the probability of the VAT outcome um but trying to stop the intelligence and robots um I mean for the longest time I declined to participate in AI or was you know you know created open AI as a essentially a counterweight to google because at the time they were um they had more or less a monopoly on AI um and then anthropics spun out of uh open AI and and if anything it seems like what my actions have really accelerated AI you know I wasn't really aiming to accelerate AI but in creating open AI and then having anthropics spin out of that and now currently anthropics the leader in AI um I mean these these actions have actually resulted in knock-on effects that accelerated AI which wasn't really my intention so it just seems like all roads lead to acceleration of AI so then I'm like okay well you can just sort of be sad about it or join the club I suppose well you've certainly joined the [00:12:10] Speaker 1: club yeah you've definitely joined the club but you can't beat them join them you know well you've you've clearly done that and very successfully but what about trying to minimize the risks and you know a number of the other leaders of of model makers have been pushing for different ways to try and minimize the risks um you know just last week Demis Hassabis came out with a proposal for a private public regulator um yeah I think you you said it was a good starting point for discussions I think do you think you guys should be working more actively to get something in place to control the risks or do you think that's [00:12:47] Elon Musk: impossible too my recommendation to Demis because we I talked to him for a few hours before he published his his piece was that um the most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies um at least just meet uh we'll have a some sort of call once every few weeks um and just uh discuss any safety and security issues that and and and that before a breakthrough sort of a new frontier model is released something that sort of is far more intelligent than anything that already exists that there's an opportunity for the various competing uh AI companies to uh test the test that model for any harmful effects and to be able to recommend pausing to address some of these security issues I think I think that's that's the that's sort of the the easy quick thing that we can do and it can it can evolve to more than that over time um but that's um that I think would be a smart move but why haven't [00:13:54] Speaker 1: you done that yet I mean there's like five of you right I mean everyone knows the first name Dario Demis Sam I mean you don't all like each other very much yeah but you're not you're not all I mean you're [00:14:03] Elon Musk: also all competing right you all want to be first yes but that's that's where I think um the competitors can keep it keep each other honest so meaning meaning like if um I think it's quite difficult for someone in the government who doesn't have a deep technical understanding and isn't driving the frontier of of AI to know whether something should be released or not um however the competitors I think will can you know if given sort of a week or two to review a new model um can highlight issues and uh and have an incentive to keep all the competitors have an incentive to keep the others honest do you have [00:14:42] Speaker 1: enough trust between you to do that I mean you don't much like each other when wouldn't Sam Altman just [00:14:47] Elon Musk: think you're going to nick all his ideas if you did that well we're just talking about a week honestly I think as little as a week is all that would be needed uh for private testing it's not it's not to hand over the AI it's just to test it have you proposed this yeah just to test it via an API or something um I think that would probably be a good thing to do um have you have you proposed it I mean you could that's what I suggested to Demis and I guess uh I'll talk to Daria about it too um there's also of course um some very competent uh Chinese AI companies um that uh several uh several that are that are very good um the new Kimi model Kimi K3 yeah the one [00:15:36] Speaker 1: that came out last week has I mean it was almost as good as Fable right so it's well um I think [00:15:42] Elon Musk: realistically Fable is still uh clearly the smartest model um I think anyone realistically would say that that's still the case but the Kimi model is getting quite close to Fable um now Anthropic had uh Mythos from which Fable is derived I think they had that ready in February so they've got they've got for what they call I'm not sure what they call it but Mythos 2 or Fable 6 or something something much better than what they had in February they almost certainly have not almost certainly they certainly have right now so and I think they could they could release it at any time just before we get on to to releasing [00:16:28] Speaker 1: how do you think about the Chinese models and the geopolitics of it are you worried about the Chinese [00:16:34] Elon Musk: catching up and getting ahead given that the Chinese AI companies are um are doing as well as they are with a relatively small amount of compute uh it seems so as that if they had a lot of compute um there's a good chance that they would be the leaders and at some point they probably will have a lot [00:16:57] Speaker 1: of compute so they will ergo they will be the leaders [00:17:06] Elon Musk: there's a good chance that they are the leaders at some point um you can think of like the constraints on AI are essentially electricity and AI chips um and then for physical AI the robots uh China's also got some very good robot companies in fact they have these like robot sporting events I don't know if [00:17:28] Speaker 1: you've seen some of them yes I have I saw the last time I was in Beijing I saw the robots well [00:17:33] Elon Musk: and then they have the sort of like a like a boxing match or fighting match with um the robots which is quite entertaining and I saw somebody a robot that got his head knocked off kept fighting even with its head knocked off uh it looked pretty funny but um I mean in fact I think the the robot battles are going to be quite entertaining to watch um but but just so so China is China is very strong on robots very strong on digital AI and and if you look at electricity production you say like AI is a function of whatever whatever the limiting factor is if it's chips or electricity China has far more electricity than the United States in fact China has more electricity than the United States Europe and India combined already um and is heading to and my guess is China gets to four times the electricity production of the U.S. which is roughly proportionate to the population what should the U.S. government do about [00:18:30] Speaker 1: this I mean if you you presumably it is a little alarming if you have an authoritarian regime far ahead in the most powerful technology and clearly what what the U.S. government's been trying to do is with the export controls and so forth keep China back do you think they should ban the use of [00:18:47] Elon Musk: k3 gimme k3 for example well the U.S. government can't they can they can pass some law that prevents U.S. companies from using um Chinese models but they can't stop the rest of the world from from using them um so it's it's not like the U.S. government has authority over China or the rest of the world [00:19:07] Speaker 1: um do you think they should stop U.S. companies from using them let's talk of that right now right [00:19:13] Elon Musk: I don't think that that helps um that won't stop China from being the leader in AI the really it's for for digital intelligence it comes down to uh how much AI compute do you have well how many chips chips do you have and how much power do you have how much electricity you have um so the constraint right now I think is actually slightly more on power and cooling than it is on AI chips because um the the power demands of the AI chips are very very high um we'll talk about water demands but really the water usage of AI is negligible almost nothing um but the the electrical demand is very high that's why you're thinking of orbital data centers presumably that's yes the constraint for any AI chips not being turned on in China is electricity and like power and cooling and the electrical equipment and everything um the rate at which AI chips are being made exceeds the rate at which new electricity is coming online in China um outside of China outside China I see yeah um and since China you know the U.S. has banned the export of the latest AI chips to China um China is is somewhat chip starved so they are becoming [00:20:36] Speaker 1: much more efficient at using the chips that they have and that one of the striking things of Kimi K3 [00:20:42] Elon Musk: right is that how efficiently they and and China is also um I I think closer than most people realize to solving uh the lithography problem which would enable them to make uh AI chips at very large volumes so so I think there's you know this shouldn't devolve into just a China conversation but um but but so the current constraint is electricity outside of China in China the constraint is chips once the once we address the the power constraint with um AI data centers in space then the constraint will once again be chips outside of China that suggests to me that you [00:21:30] Speaker 1: need China and the U.S. if you're going to have some overall safety constraints that they will need to work together if you are going to try and and you suggested you know the five well I think probably [00:21:42] Elon Musk: it should include um the Chinese companies that are doing frontier AI models too and do you think the governments need to be involved my recommendation would be that if if some of the leading companies in AI in AI say that uh this a new model is very dangerous then they should inform the government and and and and well if you really feel very dangerous and that the company producing that model is not taking steps to address the danger then then they should alert the government to take action um to limit the uh release of that model um and that could be action by the Chinese government or action by the U.S. government um it's it's really it's really just the U.S. government and the Chinese government that [00:22:34] Speaker 1: that have the power to take action here but the I guess people would be worried about relying on a group of model builders to decide whether to do this I mean if you look at what the U.S. government has done with with mythos they stepped in because they were worried about the cyber security risks and they stepped in using you know threat of export controls to you know prevent the widespread release of this model I find it hard to see how governments will not want to keep that power that they ultimately decide [00:23:06] Elon Musk: whether or not gets released I think they should keep they should have that power but it wasn't as though someone in the government figured out that mythos uh was had had some scary cyber security uh risks it was amazon um amazon highlighted this and amazon called the white house so you'd have a system [00:23:30] Speaker 1: where the model makers would check each other's work if there was something that worried them you'd tell the government yeah the government would then think if there's something that was worrisome and that [00:23:38] Elon Musk: company was not doing anything to address that risk then that would be the moment for government to step in and take action which is literally what just occurred how soon does all this have to happen well I think it'd be good to do that I think immediately really yeah yeah that's what people keep [00:23:57] Speaker 1: telling me we we have to get this some kind of system in the next six months because of the pace at [00:24:02] Elon Musk: which the models are improving yeah six months is a long time um so you think shorter than that well I mean there's so many AI breakthrough announcements sometimes multiple per day I mean how many were there last week a lot I lost track you know yeah a lot um [00:24:26] Speaker 1: so so you you basically you know whether it's Demis's proposal or others you need to get together and get this set up kind of now it sounds like you're telling me yeah I I would recommend that [00:24:37] Elon Musk: we at least have some sort of informal um weekly or bi-weekly um call and that there's that that um there's maybe a week or two weeks of of early access by competitors and this is why I think the incentives work is because if if you know competing companies I think are likely to understand if something is a security risk and they're not going to be shy about highlighting that that their competitors models should be delayed in release is that because I think the incentive structure does work quite well there and and if the if and if this is sort of how it works with the motion picture association you know the it's it's an industry group that uh decides how how movies should be rated you know whether it's appropriate for for young children or or not um and that's uh that seems to have worked quite well so um and and and and then you really just ask have ask the government to intervene if if some if a company is doing something very dangerous and refuses to take action to reduce the danger do you think [00:25:45] Speaker 1: this is a this is a tricky one but you guys don't much like each other and you don't much trust each other you're insulting each other on on social media constantly so do you do you think you can do that with people that you dislike that that where there seems to be such kind of personal vitriol between [00:26:01] Elon Musk: some of these leaders um yes well i'm i'm not a fan of sam alderman because um if you started a non-profit that was meant to be an open source ai company and um you know owned by the world and it somehow got turned into an 800 billion dollar for-profit company with closed source i think you'd be like well wait a second that's uh the exact opposite of what i donated the money for that that's my issue i think it's a legitimate one um and then dario i think also is not a fan of sam alderman because he felt uh in fact the reason the anthropic team left opening is because they they didn't trust sam alderman otherwise anthropic wouldn't exist they would still be at open ai um i i think dario is a very principled person he cares about things a lot uh cares about the future of the world and i think everyone i've met at anthropic so far has been i'm like no one set off my evil detector you know they always seem seem like they're well-intentioned um and uh the road to hell is i think mostly paved with bad intentions there are a few well-intentioned paving stones in there so we we don't be complacent um but uh yeah at the end of the day if we have to talk we'll talk i mean set aside our personal [00:27:24] Speaker 1: differences for the good of the world well that's that's a very good thing for the rest of us to hear yeah um can i can we turn to one other risk that people worry about particularly i think ordinary americans where you know ai has become incredibly unpopular 75 of people are worried about it and i think they worry about their jobs and if you look at dario has said uh famously what 50 of entry-level jobs entry-level white-collar jobs will be gone within a few years you're building humanoid robots [00:27:54] Elon Musk: yes he also said like i mean dario did dig his own grave here regarding mythos because he said you know mythos is like super scary terrifying and also by the way we're going to release it and then he's like what do you mean you know so i think he um i think probably in the future we'll choose his words differently um but what's because obviously if you make if you terrify everyone and then say oh we're releasing this terrifying thing people will obviously be alarmed about that you know you've literally told them to be scared and then you release the scary thing and so they will be scared that is natural [00:28:30] Speaker 1: so i i certainly don't want you to alarm people but i do think there is a really important debate about how quickly and to what degree ai's displace people from jobs because it is as you say if we're 10 years it's more it's there's more intelligence artificial intelligence than any human intelligence yes and if you are and if you're ahead of everyone at least in this country on powering humanoid robots that's that's also going to be kind of factory work so do you are you part do you are you closer to dario let's say in your sense of the pace at which jobs are going to be displaced [00:29:07] Elon Musk: i do think it's going to be a bumpy road um because ai will be able to do any job better than any person can do that job and that will be true very quickly of jobs that are digital or really anything that involves a person at a computer or on a phone ai could do all of that um we'll be able to do all of that very soon i mean for software engineering we already have a situation where ai is better than at least 90 of humans um at writing software 90 of professional software engineers at writing software and it really is getting to the point where it'll be better than 99 and then it'll get to the point where there's just no way to compete it'll it'll get to what i call stock fish level so stock fish stock fish is the chess program that um stock fish is so good at chess that you know it will easily beat magnus carlson or anyone uh at chess um on a even running on a small computer i suspect that you could probably run stock fish on your phone and beat magnus carlson that's how good it is at chess and that's how good ai will be at writing software and beyond software and that applies to everything [00:30:42] Speaker 1: everything everything everything everything but what about you for for physical jobs for assembly jobs you will also need the capability in humanoid robots which so far isn't there yet is it [00:30:56] Elon Musk: right so that's why i said digital ai and then physically manifested ai in the form of robots where the robot is is more or less an end effector it would have some amount of local intelligence but be managed by a large ai model um and uh i and i've said many times i think work is going to be optional so i mean let me so so i think maybe maybe a good a good uh comparison would be um gardening like you don't have to garden you know you don't like you you don't have to grow vegetables fruit in your garden you can go to the store and they're going to be pristine vegetables or you could grow vegetables in your garden and they will actually be uh yeah less perfect your tomatoes not going to be as plump and juicy as the ones at the store they're they'll you know look a little artisanal um but you know if you go to a friend's house and they they make dinner and it's with vegetables from their garden [00:32:03] Speaker 1: it's it's a nice touch this is what work is going to be like i get that i mean in that world i would be hopeless because i can't garden to save my life but i get the idea people still like playing chess with each other even though every computer is better but let's just let's just think about the politics of this yeah because it sounds you're describing a world where within 10 years pretty much every job can be done better by an intelligence and yes you're seeing huge returns to this intelligence two people like you you're the wealthiest man in the world what people who lose their jobs who are displaced who may go off and garden but how are they going to live and what kind of i mean it sounds to me universal high income but how are you going to get there let's talk about the politics of this because right now we if we look at the political pressures in most countries people are very very worried about this very against it i mean it seems to me that there's a risk that we are heading more for revolution than for an easy route to this nirvana you're playing out i mean it will be a bumpy road [00:33:03] Elon Musk: i'm not suggesting it will be a sort of that everything will be smooth sailing here um so i mean there are many jobs that used to exist that don't exist because computers i mean the word computer used to refer to a person doing computations like that used to be a job description of a person and you can see pictures online of um of buildings that have entire skyscrapers uh just filled with people doing calculations to to do things like calculate the interest on your bank balance um this is how things were done for a long time until computers came around and even in the beginning computers were very expensive and hard to use uh so so the the thing that's different here is that the the pace of change is radically accelerated so but still people you know some people were upset that they their job of calculating bank interest it would no longer be available um but now i think more there's you'll be hard pressed to find people who want to do that job um so i think i have a suggestion for say what say science fiction books people might want to read to get a sense of what the future will be like and the the best envisioning of an ai future that i've read are the books by ian banks the culture books [00:34:35] Speaker 1: i'm just reading accession so i've thanks to you i've started reading these but i actually don't find that future a terribly appealing one because i don't think humans have agency in that future [00:34:48] Elon Musk: they have agency um compared in their small way but yeah irony i mean ian banks as you know was a [00:34:54] Speaker 1: socialist um ian banks had a very different political philosophy i not sure that's i'm not sure i would entirely agree with that let's agree that that could be where we end up i'm concerned about the road and we live you know we live in democracies and people are very worried about this so i guess two questions firstly do you have to have massive redistribution from people like you to the people who are losing their jobs do you need to have do you need to pay more tax do you have much higher taxes on capital so that you fund some kind of universal income otherwise what do people live off [00:35:31] Elon Musk: i i think that the treasury should just simply issue people checks [00:35:35] Speaker 1: but where's the revenue coming from i mean i'm enough of an economist if you just [00:35:38] Elon Musk: issue checks you're gonna have inflation it you know this is like a lot of what we're trying to think about is these things were relevant in the past they will not be relevant in the future so like inflation is simply the ratio of money to the right to to goods and services so if the goods and services output increases dramatically if it increases you know a thousand percent you can increase the you can literally print or this case change the database it's not print money it's you create money in the in the database um provided the creation of that money uh is less than the rate at which goods and services increase um you you actually have deflation so i'll make a prediction which is that deflation will be the issue not inflation because because as the output of goods and services increases um if the output of goods and services increases faster than the money supply you will have deflation i'm actually i'm [00:36:40] Speaker 1: perfectly willing to believe that you may well be right yeah absolutely you may well be right but i'm i'm really hung up on how we get from the current polarized angry fearful policy we have now to this nirvana and and i think you could you can paint a picture where people are so scared by this you know they essentially try to stop it maybe they can't but you get nationalized there's a kind of you know far left government uh there's exorbitant tax increases the kind of economy crumbles because people are so worried worried about a future which does sound quite scary as you describe it so how do you how do you handle [00:37:18] Elon Musk: the politics now it's exhilarating and terrifying but if if you were yeah exactly honestly and if you ask me on any given day i i in fact even intraday i've gone from exhilaration to terror regarding ai so i want to be clear i'm not like i'm not sort of some you know i'm not trying to be sort of candide here and just be some oh everything's wonderful some pan glossian view of the world where everything's you know going to be great no no no risk i'm saying there is some risk um i think we agree on that i [00:37:51] Speaker 1: guess i'm trying to be more sort of you know small bore and practical and think about what can be done now to limit those risks and you gave a very strong argument for what you and your fellow model makers [00:38:03] Elon Musk: could do what should governments probably would be good to for us to coordinate and just highlight issues that we see in each other's models um to mitigate downside risk what should should the [00:38:14] Speaker 1: government should you be paying more tax to fund more transfer programs well first of all i do i do pay a [00:38:21] Elon Musk: a lot of tax um so um i in fact i um i set a record for the most amount of taxes ever paid by by a human [00:38:32] Speaker 1: that's also because you're the world's richest man well even before that [00:38:38] Elon Musk: so my guess is that i will pay many trillions in tax and i'm fine with that um so yeah um that's just the way it's going to be but i don't think in a future way money is relevant i think taxation also become somewhat irrelevant and what about giving people a sense [00:38:58] Speaker 1: that they have a share in the upside sure giving people shares in spacex and tesla do you think that's so and there's a lot of talk about this right now um well one of the reasons i took spacex public [00:39:10] Elon Musk: is so that the public could participate in because they could own a piece of spacex um whereas as a private company we're very limited in the number of shareholders we're allowed to have before going public so as a public company um we can have millions of shareholders as a private company we're limited to just a few thousand shareholders um so do you think there should be distribution of shares like [00:39:34] Speaker 1: you know the alaska wealth fund is there for which could you imagine a world and some people talk about the trump accounts being a kind of vehicle for this that you share of your equity goes to [00:39:46] Elon Musk: ordinary americans right well in the taxes that like that i that i pay i mean i'll i'll you know so for my stock options i pay 40 percent uh income tax on a national basis and then because i spend i don't about 30 percent of my time in california thereabouts i pay in another sort of roughly a third of the california state taxes which is are now around 15 percent so so i pay about 45 percent in taxes just so people know know this you know i don't know it's quite so roughly half um then when i die there'll be another sort of 45 percent roughly half that that will be taxed um so at the end of the day it probably i'll have a quarter of what i whatever i have but the um i think the only thing it gives me is that for some period of time i would have control of the direction of the companies so it's not um that's pretty much all it gets me and until i guess the ai is so smart that it's it's it's in charge and at that point controlling companies won't really matter well let's talk about that because i think one of the [00:41:04] Speaker 1: other things that worries people about the direction we're heading in and i'm going to caricature it but people think that the direction of the world is being shaped by a very small number of incredibly powerful people and you are right at the top of that list what what else is but is this different [00:41:20] Elon Musk: from the from i agree with you i think i think it was like that when wasn't that the case it was ever [00:41:25] Speaker 1: thus but it was ever thus it is a as you've described very vividly it's an incredibly rapid change and so let's start with control of your company which you definitely have now um after the ipo you basically you have what 80 percent odd of voting shares and as i understand it you can only be removed by a vote of shares which you yourself control so so tell me if i'm wrong but i think yeah [00:41:46] Elon Musk: well there's a few companies in that bucket by the way the the ai companies like um google's in that in that bucket alphabet uh is controlled by larry and sergey um but i think yours is more extreme the the inability to the same level they have um voting control of of that company uh mark zuckerberg has control of the matter um and and uh you know mark is trying very hard on the ai front and i think probably will will also have a leading ai he's made i think he released one last week um so i think he's he's he's he'll he'll be one of the you know meadow will be one of the ai companies is it sensible for [00:42:24] Speaker 1: one person to have so much control over a company um well i really just need to make sure that i can [00:42:32] Elon Musk: focus on long term by long term i just mean in the five to ten years um so one of the challenges with being a public company is that is other sort of the pressure to have uh great results every single quarter but and and and to not really invest in things that may only pay off in five to ten years and um you know the case of spacex i need i want to extend consciousness beyond earth and and have a growing civilization on the moon mars and elsewhere in the solar system the return i i think ultimately this would have a very high return on investment but in the short term we'll be spending all this money on a moon base or and a mars base and then people are like you know i'm gonna get all this pressure for like well you missed your earnings this quarter because you spent too much on mars i'm like yes by the way that was in the in the s1 prospectus and it's it's literally listed as a thing we will do um so but but but they still get grumpy about these things you know because they're like well you had whatever you know you said your gross margin would be this and it's actually slightly worse and now now we're gonna punish you and the short sellers all descend upon you and you get a lot of pressure you're gonna get a lot of that yeah so i just need some way to sort of you know say like listen guys we're we're gonna focus on five to ten year or longer time rising investments this will depress our short-term earnings but the long i mean if you take a long-term view and there are investors we have many investors that do take a long-term view in fact i'm a big fan of the the retail investors in fact i find our retail investors um on balance have the have the they're very insightful and and have very long-term views um but but if part of this comes you say what's the incentive structure is the the for portfolio managers it's sort of understandable what why they put so much pressure on on a on quarterly earnings because um their their compensation and their um and whether they get promoted or not is dependent on how their portfolio does and they have they only have a few years to to make these decisions um and then they're evaluated based on those decisions over the course of sometimes only a year or less and uh and so since since they're under pressure to have immediate returns they then put companies under pressure to have immediate returns so once you understand the [00:45:07] Speaker 1: incentive structure the behavior naturally follows what about the key man risk i mean what happens you you know heaven forbid but what happens if you get run over by the proverbial bus tomorrow you know it is you you have total control over these companies do you have a plan for how they would [00:45:26] Elon Musk: progress without you i think they would actually do very well for for for several years um and you know that there's a clear roadmap for or space map i should say for spacex um and there's a road map actually for tesla literally um so i think i think there's you know if you look at apple after steve jobs and steve jobs had you know he he had a strategic vision and a bunch of products that um that that he had had ideas for and apple has done very well um but but but when you don't have a creative genius like steve jobs you don't you you what what you miss what's what apple's missing are the incredible breakthrough products yeah so they make amazing phones you know great computers um but apple hasn't come up with a sort of steve's jobs steve jobs level breakthrough product so by analogy that's what you bring to all [00:46:32] Speaker 1: of your companies you mentioned mars you know most people think of you as the man who wants to you know create a colony on mars so we have multi-planetary civilization i've been saying that for such a long time you have but now you seem more focused on ai and what ai will do in the next 10 years and you you sound much more excited about using the moon as a base from which to you know pop out orbital uh ai satellites have you shifted your attention away from mars or are you as interested in colonizing [00:47:05] Elon Musk: mars as you ever were i i'm i'm interested in the set of actions that propagate consciousness into the future to the maximum degree possible so that the future light kind of consciousness is as big as part as big as we could you know like that you know there's an exciting future where there's where we're a space-faring civilization out there among the stars and and the the great things that are envisioned in the non-dystopian sci-fi books and movies become real one day i sort of want the star trek you know star wars future star wars was the first movie i ever saw in the theater by the way really yes probably maybe it had a profound effect on me i suppose um so i remember it was i i was blew my mind honestly i was i think i was six years old and um i was like this is the greatest thing [00:48:01] Speaker 1: i've ever seen has your life been about making that happen yeah i mean it i didn't think it would be but [00:48:09] Elon Musk: when i was young but um and my life feels somewhat surreal i can't believe these things are actually happening you know um i think the world makes me believe in simulation theory where it's like well this like the things i'm doing are so preposterous that um it's hard to believe they're real i mean we've got starship which is the largest most powerful flying object ever made um and we intend to launch [00:48:39] Speaker 1: that more than once per hour i know i read that and we can you know people can quibble about how quickly it happens but i think based on your track record we should assume it will happen at some point it will happen i'm just sort of struck that when i when i i am as as blown away by this world as you are and i'm i watch it from a from a much more naive level but for me the whole evolution of ai and the capabilities of these models is in and of itself so mind-blowing it's pretty much happening [00:49:12] Elon Musk: as i as i thought it would is it yeah oh that's interesting um and not just me many people um predicted the site ray coswell predict ray coswell's predictions have been remarkably accurate [00:49:29] Speaker 1: yeah the singularity yeah approaching let's go back more immediately to the here and now we've talked about concentration of control in your companies you've made a very good case for why you should have it you also have through starlink incredible geopolitical power i mean i'm i'm one of your customers excellent product but without them the ukrainians would have been in serious serious [00:49:50] Elon Musk: trouble and yes the ukrainian governor has publicly thanked starlink many times for being instrumental in [00:49:59] Speaker 1: uh defending ukraine and you recently decided to prevent the russians in the occupied territories from [00:50:05] Elon Musk: having access to starlink um well no we were never at any point selling starlink to russians um but they [00:50:14] Speaker 1: were grabbing it right they were using it and you've now stopped them from doing that well what they [00:50:19] Elon Musk: they essentially got starlink units um that they ordered through ukraine and then and then smuggled them into uh the uh into eastern ukraine where the russians are um and were then using them um in some cases for um attacks um now the in order to address this um what we worked with the ukrainian government to create a white list of approved starlink terminals now this has some downsides because a whole bunch of people who were just innocent users of starlink and just trying to access the internet for work or for [00:50:58] Speaker 1: education now don't have starlink these are geopolitical decisions of consequence how do you feel about having that power you could determine the outcome of wars how does that feel and is it right that you [00:51:11] Elon Musk: should have that power well i'm not sure we we're determining the ultimate outcome of the you know that let's say the war in ukraine um you know i i i think i i do hope that that that there's some sort of peace agreement reached soon because um for like two or three years now the border has barely moved and um and every day there are lots of people dying at the front line and um and i think there's a lot of wishful thinking here of people saying well russia should completely withdraw etc but this is not realistic um i really think there needs to be some um you know a a a piece with that that that is that you know we have to be pragmatic about this but what we can't what i think would be terrible is if if there's if there's another three years of people dying senselessly at the front lines um with with uh and you have to say like well you know how do you explain to the the the children of the men that are dying at the front lines russia on the russian side too by the way they've been conscripted and sent there i am quite offended by sort of fancy diplomats who have you know seven course dinners in in you know in luxurious places while people are dying at the front lines and who pontificate about how russia should withdraw but they're not going to russia russia's not going to withdraw so there really needs to be an accepted [00:52:56] Speaker 1: peace long along those lines um and do you think it's your responsibility to play a role in tipping [00:53:03] Elon Musk: the scales towards what you see as the right way to peace and i i would lie i i've been advocating peace for a long time i you know i i posted a few years ago that that that there really needs to be some concession here to russia um this is not me being pro-russia i'm just being pragmatic um or people will die for years uh with nothing achieved and that is exactly what happened i don't know i mean the [00:53:32] Speaker 1: ukrainians are doing the ukrainians are doing pretty well right now at you know with their incredible drone capacity hitting inside russia and the and the kind of general consensus is that you know the the balance of the war is shifting but my point is not so much about it is not going to retake those territories it is not going to happen my interest is really on whether you think given that you you have through starlink you have an incredible power whether it's appropriate that you should wield it that's quite rare that an individual actor has such power by turning on and off a capability [00:54:08] Elon Musk: to shape conflict well is there something you think i should do differently [00:54:15] Speaker 1: i mean i i think you were right to support ukraine i think that you know as it won't surprise you i i think that the russian aggression was uh you know for many many reasons an appalling aggression and i i [00:54:27] Elon Musk: think that that was an important thing that you did yeah i mean i did a very deep dive into the background of that conflict to understand exactly what was going on um and um i'm reminded of the old adage that there are no angels in war [00:54:46] Speaker 1: it's a similar tone i think about domestic politics where you've you know you've you've played a big role domestically politically here you spend a lot of money on donald trump's re-election after the election you got very actively involved you know through doge you tried to cut a lot of spending reshape the government how do you feel that it wasn't hugely successful in the sense that you know there wasn't nearly as much spending cut as you tried how do you as you look back on that do you regret getting so involved in politics do you think it was a good thing to do [00:55:18] Elon Musk: i think i think i got a little too involved in politics got carried away frankly um so the um you know the the goal with the sort of doge stuff was was to try to do something about the the deficit which is massive um where the interest payments exceed the amount of money spent on the department of war like basically if you add up all the money spent on um what is now the department of war and the uh and intelligence in the us uh that is smaller than the interest payments on the debt so that well we we need to sort of take a close look at spending um and make sure that uh money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on on fraudulent activities um and um i got a lot of flack from this for this obviously um but the the the people don't understand just how um simple it was for for the doge team to approve payments um if if we had literally we we were just asked to have the contact information of the recipient um or some evidence that say money was going to um its intended purpose um but over and over there we were told we need to wire money for some sort of important cause in africa and we're like okay but the wiring wiring instructions are to deloitte and tush in dc in washington dc not to africa so we would like to send the money to africa can you please connect us with the recipients so we can send them the money directly and then we get silence i i have we don't need to relitigate doge i [00:56:59] Speaker 1: have no doubt that there was there's a lot of waste in the u.s government i think probably much worse than anyone could possibly imagine but the way i mean i think there is it is a fair criticism but the way you shut down a whole bunch of programs probably in fact certainly caused unnecessary suffering [00:57:16] Elon Musk: i mean no no no no you don't buy that at all it caused a lot of complaining you don't so you don't buy [00:57:24] Speaker 1: the idea that anybody and to put it really crudely and simply any kid in africa died because of the suddenness with which zero i just don't think that's right i just don't think my i've had people [00:57:35] Elon Musk: reporting in africa who how many ngos are there that could that could that could step in because bear in mind this it was it happened quickly so this and there are literally tens of thousands of [00:57:47] Speaker 1: ngos yeah not everyone functions as fast as you do if if if funding is cut off for antiretrovirals overnight and it just stops then people will die when they don't have access to them and it just [00:57:58] Elon Musk: no no only if they cannot get funding for that but with the gates foundation has 50 billion dollars what's what why what about them what about any one of a number of organizations what about um the uh um whatever last name is used to be bezos uh gave 50 billion dollars what about that but you [00:58:19] Speaker 1: don't let's be practical in many of these countries usaid was the biggest funder but i i don't want to have it was a political organization it may also have been that but it was the biggest funder of of [00:58:29] Elon Musk: health care systems so i i i am i'm very spander of of regime change and and there may well be benefits from having change also usaid funding was not stopped it was moved to the state department [00:58:42] Speaker 1: it was stopped there were huge numbers of things shut down in africa that were that were [00:58:45] Elon Musk: that were no there were claims of this these claims are false they're nonsense and and absolute nonsense but but obviously just for when funding is stopped for a fraudulent organizations or for something do you think they're going to say do you think they're going to say well we please keep funding the fraud or do you think they're going to come up with a sad story that sounds sympathetic in order to get the funding restored obviously it will be the latter and that's exactly what they did but zero died [00:59:21] Speaker 1: because well that's what i that's zero that's what i would take it zero i think you can i actually have a lot of sympathy for the change of the aid regime that the u.s under the trump administration has precipitated however yeah i think the pace and the suddenness with which it happened will almost certainly have caused unnecessary suffering and deaths and i think both of those no i think that's [00:59:43] Elon Musk: totally false okay well and obviously false because there are the the amount of funding we're talking about uh is far less than what can be done than what can be supported by a private uh by foundations like the gates foundation uh or mackenzie bezos's foundation um she's given away tens of billions of dollars um the gates foundation has tens of billions of dollars uh they are capable of acting very quickly um and if they didn't i would say they're equally responsible i see okay obviously all right fair point um zero people i hear i hear you loud zero hear you loud and obviously uh domestically you you [01:00:28] Speaker 1: stepped away from doge it it was hard to do what you were trying to do you've just explained it but this administration has gone in directions that i suspect you were not expecting two and a half [01:00:40] Elon Musk: years ago you know the war in iran i'm not going to agree with everything any administration does are you disappointed by this administration no i think this is a this administration on balance uh as as excellent no no administration is perfect but it's uh vastly better than the alternative can we [01:00:58] Speaker 1: talk about europe a place that you are very very focused on um i'm not that focused on europe i think judging by your posts you're pretty concerned about europe uh you you support i mean once in a while i post something it's reasonably frequently it's not once in a while but but i'm because i'm genuinely interested in this as someone who lives in europe lives in london yeah uh you paint a picture well first of all you support not just the populist right but the far right in fact very fringe parties in some countries no i support the normal people okay what do you call the far right falsely you think is the normal person okay yes um [01:01:35] Elon Musk: literally you could you could go back uh 10 or 15 years and these are these these policies were completely normal in fact you you uh one of the things one of the tricks i think is funny i think it's quite funny is to like take a speech from obama and hillary and then and then go to someone and say uh who's sort of um you know on the sort of what i call the lunatic left um and say what do you think of the speech by trump like oh wow he's the worst person ever actually that was a speech by obama [01:02:05] Speaker 1: well actually that was a speech by hillary i i i agree no i agree that the center of gravity in this country has shifted certainly the democratic party shifted to the left but that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about people like rupert no i'm friends right please it's actually just [01:02:19] Elon Musk: normal people um it's just more people it's just more people and um the and and here are the principles and and tell me which of these sound terrible um that we should have secure borders that we should have safe cities uh that we should have sensible spending which of those three are our far-right fringe and and i would like to just admonish you and the media for the absurd characterization of the far-right it is false and misleading and nonsense please keep this part in we'll keep all of this don't cut this [01:02:55] Speaker 1: part let me push back on that let me push back on that because you have nonsense you know you have what is it close to 250 million followers on x yeah you say things like popular quote civil war in britain is inevitable just a question yes i mean when were you last in the uk um a few years ago exactly so so i live there i'm there the whole time that is not you live out of wasted existence i don't actually and the numbers also disprove what you say what all the numbers about quite the london is a much safer city than any city in the united states violent crime in the uk is not where you think it is in fact it's coming down you you have painted and because you have so many followers so many americans believe it a kind of view that europe and the uk are kind of you know overrun with terrifying muslim immigrants there's rape on every corner there's a sort of civilizational destruction said any of those things just not when you say civil war in britain is inevitable and yes if current [01:03:54] Elon Musk: trends continue it is why well if if you have uh a large uh and growing rapidly growing uh group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to western beliefs um at some point there will be a reckoning that they they will they will try to implement their views and those who oppose it will oppose it and that's what you call civil war and obviously this is the trend um and uh and and you absolutely do live in a cloistered existence and if you'd like we can go on a tour of britain sure i'd be very happy to [01:04:35] Speaker 1: come on a tour of britain and then and you will see you can see my country that i live in all the [01:04:39] Elon Musk: time and you haven't been to a few years i've been there literally a hundred times but when was the [01:04:44] Speaker 1: last time literally a few years ago you know why i this exercises me because you have really shaped opinion about the uk and so many americans i come across and i have conversations with and they'll be and i just had one the other day along the order of oh london's such a dangerous place how can you know there are sort of grooming gangs everywhere there are there's violence everywhere this is a picture that people get from things that you post or that are posted on x and for example you're you're posting for what was it 48 hours of citizen vigilante that film which you know paints a dystopian i've watched it yes it was not fun i watched it yesterday it's not a very good movie but it also paints a dystopian picture of europe and it glorifies vigilante violence it glorifies the murdering of a muslim immigrant family i honestly think that it is irresponsible for you to put that up on x i think that it's it's a movie and it's worth watching you're clearly suggesting europe is [01:05:42] Elon Musk: dystopian place and you yes i mean why aren't you more uh doing more to fight censorship in europe why aren't you i doing seem to be doing nothing to fight censorship in europe that's not true i am i think that they put people in prison in the uk for social media posts do you think that's appropriate [01:06:03] Speaker 1: no and we've written editorials against it but i don't think that's the sort of thing that i think is bad and i think if you and i agree with you but i don't think you have to glorify vigilante violence and kind of you know post the things that you are doing and paint an entirely inaccurate picture of europe that i don't think it is we should we should do a tour of the uk yes because the uk has actually been very good at integrating immigrants the uk has a is is very effective at doing that there are problems i'm the first to admit that there are problems yes there are major problems there are problems but it is not it really is not what you are describing to or suggesting to your 240 million followers i think it is and i think there's a problem no i think i'm i think i'm spot on [01:06:50] Elon Musk: well well that's why you have freedom of speech or at least well you don't say things that are wrong [01:06:55] Speaker 1: but your point is not that you're not just saying i have every right to say what i want you're saying you know i am right about europe and i really don't think you are i think i am i think you will find that most people in europe or many people in europe don't think you're right about it but let's [01:07:09] Elon Musk: let's come to that because the media keeps ignoring what's ignoring reality i don't think that's true either i really and they're programmed by the tv and conventional media and why are you this is i [01:07:20] Speaker 1: guess even to me sort of the bigger picture question why do you focus on this why are you interested in it because on the one hand we started this conversation and you described to me this extraordinary transformative amazing so yeah civilizational changing stuff that's happening in the next 10 years and yet you're also you know a an ongoing participant in the worst kind of tribalism uh you know cesspit of social media like how does that fit are you you know on the one they're two very different views of the world yeah i don't think they're inconsistent but why do you do the latter one the tribalism i mean people say that you're a racist people say that you're you know there's all kinds of things said about you which i'm sure you would disagree with [01:08:10] Elon Musk: um but i just don't understand what is the motivation for doing that my partner is is um she's half indian and my wife and i have four children with her um you know um one of them was named after a famous indian physicist um so i would say i'm not racist and also uh the you know if you look at the people that are employed at my companies um you know we have senior executives of all races uh there's there's i don't think there's any racism there are you anti-muslim um i am i'm i'm against uh having if if if people are coming to a country with antithetical views um i i am against that i i'm against that you know i'm against um i i i'm against rape and murder i'm against uh the imposition of rules and laws that are contrary to what we've come to accept in the west and um and um and i think it's a it's a crying shame that the sort of traditional media like you [01:09:42] Speaker 1: um uh don't recognize this first of all i think that you hugely exaggerate the challenges that europe faces secondly in areas i completely agree with you i i i think that you know the constraints on freedom of speech in in the uk in certain areas are problematic what worries me is that the people you are supporting are really quite vile people in some areas like some members of the afd alice vital whom i've met is a perfectly thoughtful person but in her party are some real neo-nazis are some really really awful people and your blanket support of this kind of party with 240 million followers means that you have a power in europe that i think perhaps you don't realize the scale of impact you have but you can i hope i hope i am having a big impact why why should you why should you be able to shape european politics what you don't even live there i think of it as the sort of the west collectively but do you see why this makes people think that this man who has all his power he's the world's richest man he thinks he has a right to influence our politics it makes people it's why you know we started this conversation saying superlatives it's why people loathe you i mean some people do love you yes some people do but do [01:10:59] Elon Musk: you understand why do you think what you're doing is helpful for western maybe maybe some people do loathe me i and that's and that's probably true i don't care um the uh but but the fact that uh as you pointed out a quarter billion people follow me is that i think a lot more people actually like me than don't and i think a lot more people hate you and the media uh more than you realize do you realize the media is despised do you realize that that journalists how with the view of journalists is is like it's like it's like a favorable view of journalists is like 15 i do know that in the united states so so the shoe is on the other foot they hate you they hate you far more than they hate [01:11:48] Speaker 1: me i think there is certainly a loss of trust in journalism i think in part there have been mistakes by journalists and journalism i totally acknowledge that but i also think that the kind of polarized environment particularly on social media fostered by the kinds of things you are pushing on x actually [01:12:06] Elon Musk: helps this makes it worse i don't think so i think i think you're the problem the media and and speaking of loathing you're low is far more than i am and you don't seem to even realize [01:12:22] Speaker 1: that i think i think very few people know who i am relative to you so i don't think i play in the same [01:12:26] Elon Musk: game the media collectively um so i mean you're hated do you even do you even know that you probably [01:12:36] Speaker 1: don't i like to think that i'm aware of my own personal shortcomings and the economist shortcomings and our worldview shortcomings but what we stand for as you as you know is liberal values traditional classical liberal values where we worry about concentrations of power and we believe in the individual and the dignity of the individual ice and individual freedom and i firmly believe that and i have long thought that you were a classical liberal but when i read what you post classical liberal js mill limited government individual freedom yeah i agree with that when i read what you post on your feed i sometimes wonder whether you really do believe in that um i literally said look i believe in [01:13:23] Elon Musk: uh safe cities secure borders and sensible spending with with respect to government um that doesn't make me right wing at all um in the least does the u.s or do european countries [01:13:39] Speaker 1: score better on those the u.s is better no yeah safe cities much more dangerous in the u.s than the uk sensible spending bigger deficit here out of control you managed you've you've you failed to reduce it secure borders now under the trump administration i agree with you before not but on two out of three unequivocally europe is in a better place yet you seem to paint the picture of europe being a hellhole [01:14:03] Elon Musk: i don't think europe's a hellhole okay we can agree on something when did i ever say that well [01:14:09] Speaker 1: the picture you paint of europe you're just you're making up things no i'm not you're just literally making it up you say civil war in britain is inevitable and then you you've you basically proselytize for this citizen vigilante film which really does paint europe as a hellhole it just starts with you know ominous music and it says europe well there are there was out of control rape and murder it's more dangerous in this country than it is in europe uh where there is danger in [01:14:39] Elon Musk: this country is because we we failed to incarcerate uh repeat violent offenders um and that's uh you know the classic sort of soros da uh or judges that fail to incarcerate repeat violent offenders and if somebody gets arrested 50 times literally um for violent crimes uh and eventually they're going to kill somebody so so you either you either incarcerate them or people will die i think the prevalence of guns has [01:15:13] Speaker 1: quite a lot to do with it too i mean this is a much more dangerous country murder rates are much higher in large part because there's so much there are so many guns well let me give you an interesting number [01:15:22] Elon Musk: there are more people that die in europe from heat deaths than gun than people that die from gun deaths in america why aren't you uh writing an article about air conditioning well we've done [01:15:33] Speaker 1: several on air conditioning and we had on our cover last week um a whole a whole long piece about you know why pro-air conditioning yeah we're very pro-air conditioning okay good well good very pro you should read us absolutely i think credit's worth you i think you have a a view of the economist that is not entirely accurate so i will you come look at england start reading the economist and i will um you know stand corrected on my criticism of you in this area [01:16:04] Elon Musk: that there are there are many parts of britain um and europe which are not safe you you can't just [01:16:14] Speaker 1: walk around but there are far more in this country far more no i don't think so all right let's go and [01:16:21] Elon Musk: get my fact checkers to check that yeah i don't i don't think that's true um let's move on from this [01:16:27] Speaker 1: because i i think i've got a sense of why you're doing what you're doing the point is not that that [01:16:31] Elon Musk: that the question is not is that is america perfect the question is uh it does europe have a serious and growing problem the question is which is more dangerous that's where we started this europe has a serious and growing problem i'm i'm not going to uh say that the united states has no problems of course it does um but uh you know we we should all try to to address these issues we can agree on [01:16:54] Speaker 1: that we should all try to address the problems my point was simply that i think you exaggerate the scale of europe's problem and i think you people are asleep at the switch and do not realize the magnitude of the issue i also think that your interventions however well-intentioned they may be risk making europe's problem a lot worse how because you are putting your support behind people who are proto-authoritarians who are not trying simply to you know make sure there is better integration of muslims or to to secure the borders but who have very clear fascist tendencies and you will cause [01:17:30] Elon Musk: huge divisions within europe i think what you're saying is total fiction um and really uh i i'm simply saying that they need to be there needs to that europe has to have secure borders um okay and should not let in vast numbers of people who with views that are antithetical to uh the accepted views in in europe and and where there will where there will not be some level of uh safe cultural integration this is [01:17:57] Speaker 1: simply common sense if all you are saying is europe should have secure borders i completely agree with you then but then i have misunderstood what your interventions have been on social media because that is not what the view i have not what i would conclude having seen what the people you are supporting and the things you're doing but if that's your goal i share your goal that europe should have secure borders yes that's perfectly agreeable that gets me to a question and let me explain what the [01:18:23] Elon Musk: fundamental forcing function here is uh for why the borders are not secure which is uh the big when you have a welfare state that provides substantial benefits uh to anyone who comes there you create a very powerful economic forcing function for anyone who is below that standard of living to come to europe it is it is a an obvious powerful driving force um and um people will come there if their standard of living is uh from what they get in europe is above where they are elsewhere in the world it's very basic [01:19:04] Speaker 1: i completely agree with that yes it's a very basic incentive structure um economic conditions economic influences determine a lot of migration i think asylum is a separate issue but i think i think you're absolutely right there are there are um pressures for migration however there are other things that you haven't focused on which is migration brings a lot of benefits and it also particularly does so in a continent like europe which is a rapidly aging continent so we can agree that completely uncontrolled borders are a bad idea but i am i think europe benefits from having immigration controlled [01:19:42] Elon Musk: immigration it brings yes i like i'm in favor of immigration obviously i'd be hypocritical if i wasn't since i'm an immigrant to the united states i'm in favor of immigration if the person immigrating is going to be a productive member of society if they're going to be honest and if they're not going to mistreat people in that country they're going to i can agree on all of those yes but i think europe does [01:20:06] Speaker 1: better on that than you give it credit for that's i think where we disagree but let's move on tell me [01:20:11] Elon Musk: what do you think people get most wrong about you well i mean you get you just got a whole bunch of things wrong about me pretty much everything in the last just rewind the last 20 minutes still wrong so i got we got i got wrong you're you're let's not be repetitive here okay so so that political side of you people get most wrong yeah my political views are very are are centrist they're not uh far right and and and frankly calling a far right i think is an insult uh to to history an insult to many peoples and it is uh an outrageous falsehood um it's it's completely absurd i i literally have stated my position which is that and i've been very clear about this which is that there need to be secure borders that um if there's if there's an influx of immigrants then they they they need to be people who will agree that the with with western ideals with western values and if they don't and if and if there's a long-term uh growth of people who do not or in some cases are adamantly opposed to western values you are setting yourself up for civil war this is obvious a child can see this so but this is not a right-wing view i'm simply stating reality well i think we can both agree that evidence will be able [01:21:37] Speaker 1: to decide which of us is more or less right and we will find evidence for both of our views in [01:21:41] Elon Musk: different parts of europe the question is what the overall i'm very good at predicting the future i'm not perfect but i'm very good at predicting the future my batting average is is very high for a human um but this this does have somewhat of a cassandra effect where where people don't believe that what i'm saying is likely to be true um because you know i i can see into the future with a higher bat not perfectly but with a higher probability of success than most people so and including things that people believe to be in some cases counterintuitive um and uh again i'm not saying i'm always right i certainly am not but but my batting average is very good um but but this this this does have like i said a cassandra effect where people don't realize that what i'm saying will come to pass um maybe not exactly in the timing that i thought but it will come to pass um and uh yeah the history will write the verdict but i think you will see that very little of what i've said um is inaccurate um and a super majority of what i've said is very accurate and will come to pass unless there are there's some change in direction do you have [01:23:13] Speaker 1: higher confidence level in your expectations of the future for ai the first part of our conversation or the latter part the political part um the [01:23:28] Elon Musk: i mean ai is visual super intelligence is called the singularity like a black hole because you don't know what's going to happen after that it's and it sort of sucks in everything so i think really in in terms of the the really big macro effects here ai and robots will really dominate everything so on on a time scale that is less than 10 years which probably renders this other stuff that we've [01:24:01] Speaker 1: been talking about less important and less relevant the a the ai [01:24:07] Elon Musk: a robotics revolution will happen sooner it will it'll happen sooner than civil war in in in britain i would say civil war in britain is probably 20 years away um and the ai robot singularity is 10 years away well hopefully these benign all-powerful [01:24:34] Speaker 1: will prevent such outcomes they probably will you know i don't agree with everything you say but it's always absolutely fascinating to talk to you thank you very much indeed thank you welcome i'm not you're definitely not boring you're definitely not boring