I'm certainly saying that that is their policy, and I think you should take their words seriously. Like, I work seven days a week. But but I I'm not expecting others to do that. Offer me money, offer me power, I don't care. Yeah, this this is actually where, UM, I don't actually have an office here. I either walk the floor or I hold meetings in this room. Okay, And this room allows me to
see what's going on with production while I'm holding meetings. Is there one particular production that you focus on when you're here or that you sort of your eyes always go to, or you you actually walk over to. Um, Well, this is the end of line that we're seeing here. So if if cars aren't moving, um, that means there's some blockage upstream. And then I can go and see what that blockage is. UM. So I think
we might be on a break right now. But this if this, this is if this, if a vehicle end of line is not moving, that means there's something up stream that's wrong. Got it. Well, it's been amazing just to walk around the facility a bit and get a sense for the size. All right, you just finished your annual meeting. You took a lot of questions from a very eager audience. I feel like most of it you've shared before, but there was some news and I want to start there.
Advertising. You got a big applause. You didn't sound like you were going to advertise that much, but you did at least seem to open the way to saying, Okay, we might consider doing some advertising. Why. Well, I mean, I've believen listened to listening to shareholders, and I actually was surprised by the level of enthusiasm for advertising, since we are not
historically done that. But there perhaps is some good logic to it in that if we're simply saying that information by I say that the Tesla Twitter account on my Twitter account, we're somewhat preaching to the converted and not reaching people that are not already convinced. Essentially, so I think they're probably have a good point. Well, I mean, I think it's worth a try and we'll see, we'll see how factor Do you have any idea how you'd like to
try it or what that would involve. Um Well, I mean I have some general thoughts about advertising. Um that that you know, if advertising is informative, um and and entertaining, then it is it can start to approach content. UM. So I think sometimes advertising is perhaps a non informative or
perhaps in some cases a bit misleading. Um. And in fact, we've lost some advertisers on Twitter because community notes applies to advertising too, and so if somebody advertises something that isn't, um perhaps a bit inaccurate, then it
gets community noted, and then they get mad and stop advertising. But we're we're care enough about the truth that we're willing to give out give up advertising dollars on Twitter, even if in order to having the worst, the least inaccurate, right, And I want to talk about that, but I want to obviously spend some time on Tesla again. Back to adds though, I mean, am I going to start to see test lads during the NFL broadcast on a given Sunday Monday Thursday? The NFL's always on, well bar in
mind. I mean I only just agree to it, so it's not like I have a pulle formal strategy. Okay, Well, how much time does go into when you think about these things? I mean, was it something you decided to do up on stage or at least did you know coming in? I may you know this comes up that I may go there. No, I mean the questions are not scripted in any way, right, So so in that moment, you just said, all right, I'll do some ads. That's right. So we're only like twenty minutes later and I'm asking
you detailed questions. Yeah, have any answers? I guess I'm not sure what the most spectrum thing is, except that, like I said, I believe that advertising should be informative about a product. It should be ideally esthetically pleasing, should be you know, beautiful to some autistic element to it,
and it should be something that you don't regret watching after it's done. And I think if advertising fits those criteria, that it starts to approach content, and you wan't advertising that is as close to content as possible such that you don't regret the time you spent watching it. But you did say something as well, which is that you know you've been preaching in the converted. You mentioned a few statistics for example, about safety, about price during the meeting.
It may not be fully understood by the general auto bio public at large. Yeah, so a lot of people still think teslas are super expensive because we did start out with an expensive sports car, then slightly less expensive sedan and suv. But now we're at the point where the starting price of a Tesla is actually below the average selling price of a car in the United States.
So it Teslas are actually much more affordable than people realize, and so we should just make sure people at least know that right and that it tells is also the safest cars in the road US in so many ways that people actually a lot of people with Tesla don't even know. Um, you know, sort of the cabin overheat protection for example, or the fact that we
continuously update the automatic emergency breaking software and the way the airbags deploy. So we look, we look at an accident, we say, is there anything we could do from a software standpoint to improve the cars that are already on the road, And then what can we update in the design to improve safety? So, UM, and I think that you know, the statistics speak for themselves. This is not simply a matter of opinion. It's the statistically
it's safer than anything else. Um, you mentioned affordability. It's something you discussed during your meeting. You've also discussed it a bit on the call on the earnings call recently, as well, in relation to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and obviously the monthly cost for a typical auto buyer, you think it's going to be a tough twelve months ahead. You've said that a few
times, yes before everyone not just has understood. So it's um, I mean simply, uh, you know you can you can think of raising the FRED rate as as somewhat of a brake pedal and the economy frankly, it's so it's um. It makes a lot of things more expensive, certainly things that are bought with credit, but then it has downstream effects on on even things that are on board with credit. So um. You know, if if the car payment or your home mortgage payment is absorbing more of your monthly
budget, then you have less to money to buy other things. So actually it affects everything, even those that aren't things that are important on credit. So UM. And my concern with the with the way that the Federal Reserve is making decisions is that they they're just operating with um too much latency. Basically, the data is somewhat stale, so they So the federals was was slow to raise interest rates um and and now I think they are slow to
they're going to be slow to lower them. That's that that appears to be the case. Yeah, that may well be. We spent a lot of time talking about that is a bad imagine, perhaps too much. But when it comes to latency, that takes me to pricing, because you've discussed the lack of latency in your own ability to understand exactly what's going on in the market for those cars as opposed to Yeah, many of the legacy and other
Yes. Yes, we have real time information on demand so um, so we know how many people place an order for it has yesterday, so the computer calculates that all um. And literally every day we get a you know, an automated email to the exact staff that says how many people place an order in which countries for which cars, So we know what demand, we know, we know what the orders were yesterday. Um. And you don't want to overreact to these things because sometimes you get like little dips for you
know, reasons that are hard to explain. Do you look at them every day? Yeah? Yeah, um, But like I said, you don't want to over react to to you know, if like the week is slow or something, you don't overreact to that. Um. But if but if you look at the trend, say for the over two weeks span or something like that, you can see that, Okay, there's this for some reason the demand is is less than it was or it's higher. Um, just pricing. Yeah, yeah that I mean is that Are you almost like an
airline at this point in terms of kind of dynamic pricing model? Yes, so, um, we we're basically adjust pricing to match demand. Um. And um we obviously did a big price drop in Q one, but now January is is usually a terrible time for car binding. Um, so there's there's seasonality to car purchases. Um with January January, January is often the
worst month. So um, so we did, we did a big price drop and then and then then recently we did we did a pricing care So, as I mentioned to the audience, the realities that all companies do significant. All car companies make significant adjustments to price because you've got the MSRP number. And then if demand is high, a dealers will charge some premium of
MSRP. If demand is lower, they will have manufacturing incentives, so that you can actually see a very big difference over the course of say six months between the peak to trough of all cars. It's just that Tesla is so immediate and obviously transparent. It's not a question of MSRP and then mock ups or discounts. Right, But after your last earnings, a lot of investors came away wanting to talk about your margins and wanting to talk about your pricing
in particular. I think you know, you talked about vehicle cost reduction. You sort of even said it's hard to explain the profundity of technically selling cars now for no profit and still yielding tremendous economics over time. Yes, I'd like you to explain a little bit more of what that means. You did a bit in the meeting as well. You're talking about sort of the move I think from manual to autonomous and the value add that will come along with
that. But explain to people why that's profound and why conceivably not that you want to You could sell automobiles now for no profit and still make enormous profit in the future. Yeah, So Tesla is the only car company selling cars that where we believe the car is capable of achieving full autonomy with a software update. So the value of a folios or folio autonomous car is we think
perhaps five times more valuable than an autonomous car. Why, well, the utility of a car, typically a passenger car is going to be maybe ten ten hours a week, maybe twelve if you say, like somebody's going to drive an hour and a half a day on average, so maybe an hour commute per day and then an occasional long trip. But figure it's like ten twelve hours a week is typical for um, a passenger vehicle. UM. And then uh, you also have a lot of costs associated with parking.
You need a garage or we've got to buy a parking space, or you've got to get a you know, got a parking ticket at the at the mole. It's there's there's a lot of costs associated with cars. UM. And uh, Now if you've got a car that's autonomous, UM, that can go around and essentially be like an autonomous uber, UM, the utility I think is going to be what it's going to be much higher perhaps you
know. And then this again there was there's so much speculative I understand we're talking about robot taxis here at least what people have called and you have called Yeah, autonomous uber is what you think about. So perhaps the utility there would be on the order of fifty hours a week. It's just a guess,
say there's one hundred and sixty eight hours a week. Um, and probably as rough guess an autonomous car is will be able to be active instead of four or four ten hours a week, probably in argue for about fifty But it's the same car, so the and it costs the same to build. Um, you're I want to understand the business model a little bit because I'm buying the car and instead of it parking at my lot while I'm working, it goes off and picks people up and drops them off. Yes,
who's making the money from that? I assume that that's the value add you're talking about. Is it a revenue share? Do you have this model sort of took planned out specifically? Is how it would look? Um? Yeah, it's it's it's been in the tens of terms and conditions for for quite a long time. It has. Yeah, So the the owner of the car would make I don't know some amount, who knows what it'd be, but perhaps uh, you know, it could be fifty fifty split or seventy
thirty. I don't know, but um, the cars are are if you buy it tells the car, it can only be used in to tells a network. It cannot be used in someone else's network. So um that that means that if the car is able to be used five times as much and and Tesla is likely to make basically two or three times the original value or sale value of the car um in in Robotaxi revenue. Right, this is this is gigantic, um ass. It'll be like selling cars for software margins
because in fact it is software, right. So um, instead of effectively having say twenty five cent margins, it might be seventy seventy percent or more. Um and I mean the free cashal associated with that. It is actually truly a staggering amount. The best analysis that I've seen thus far about this is from Kathy Woods from arc in Best. We know Kathy, well, yeah, she's great. Ye I would assume you like her obviously, she's been a used proponent of your stock for many years. Was right, by
the way, very early on she was right yeah. Um, So I thought she was being optimistic, but I she turned out to be in fact almost spot on. Yeah. Um And I am familiar somewhere with her analysis. What a lot of investors come back to where everybody is your promises of full autonomy. Um, and you seem to be saying again it's close. Yeah, you said it before, you know that. Yes, I mean you said nineteen, I think about twenty and I've certainly been Um. You
know, if I guess I have somewhat of a pathological optimism. Um, well, it works, by the way, because you don't end up with this unless you're optimistic. But yeah, exactly. I mean, who would try to do this and this and rockets if they weren't pathologically optim No, you'd have to be. Yeah, so there's a you know, there's a double edged sword. I guess. Um. But but you know, do you ever say to yourself, all right, I'm getting a little ahead of
mysel self here. I mean when you said again, we're going to have full autonomy. No, I didn't say, well, I said, I think you think, my opinion, we probably will. Okay, Right, there's a number of qualifiers there. I think my opinion, we probably will. So what do you think in your opinion you probably will win? I mean, it does look like it's going to happen this year. Why, well, we're not at the point where the car can drive on highways and
entities with and where a human intervention is extremely rare. So I mean, just I was able to drive for several days just dropping a navigation pen in random locations in the Greater Wilson area with no interventions, and the same in San Francisco, which is a very difficult place to drive. So I mean it's you've got bus lanes, one way streets, you know, so it's quite quite a challenging a homeless situation. You were driving recently in San Francisco
where the car was. I have been doing doing that quite a lot because of the Twitter's headquartered quarter. Maybe less, maybe a little less soon. Yeah, well we'll get to that. But go finish your point though, in terms of why you feel more, why you're optimistic for that reason, which is that the I've actually never, um, the first time I've had a situation where there's been several days in a row going picking random destinations and
having no safety related intervention, right, so the first time ever. Um. I want to get to a lot of other topics, but you know, I am curious on Tesla in particular. UM. One thing I haven't heard you discuss is the impact on your business of the Inflation Reduction Act. At least I haven't heard it. Maybe you've discussed it. Um. You
know Adam Jonas who follows your company. Morgan Stanley said, we believe the IRA is so advantageous to Tesla in terms of absolute dollars versus a legacy AMS it could equal as much as forty five percent of current earnings per share. Is the IRA going to be usually beneficial to your company? I think I'm not sure it'd be it's gonna be that beneficial. Um Uh, there's UM. There are. There are significant advantages for having domestic production of batteries,
which I think is important for strategic reasons. You know. I think as we moved to an electric transport economy, I think it's important for the United States to UM have some independence with respect to battery production, including all of the precursors necessary for a battery. So the the IRA strongly instands that, UM, and I think that will prove to be something of important of national
strategic importance in the future. So I'm not sure I would say it's as good as say a forty five percent increase in earnings to share or it's it's a it's it's helpful. Yeah, yeah, I would say it's maybe it's a half that or something, Okay, but I mean it is quite significant. Have you mapped to that at all? Do you have a sense. I mean, obviously you talk about storage, for example, which is so
important. You spend time on that as well. The megapac Is it beneficial in that particular area beyond obviously the credits, the tax credits that certain people get for buying a Teslam. Yeah, there's two. There's really two posts to the IRA. There's the incentive for battery manufacturing um. And it's really quite a detail. It's it's actually a very well written uh well in that
it's it really makes sure that you can't game it. You know, so you actually have to build the batteries in the US, and you actually have to build the precursis to the batteries. Um. But if you do it is um uh. I believe thirty dollars at the at the cell level and fifteen dollars at the pack level. I believe, if article correctly so, that that that is very significant for batteries and then you've got the consumer tax
credit for evs provided they are built in the US. Uh and end that the package built in the US. So UM, no, this this this is the really the first time that we've we've actually had the the first time in many years that Tesla has actually had the consumer tax credit. Yes, because we actually exceeded the limit for the consumer at tax credit several years ago.
Um. And so up until December until January this year, I should say, there was no consumer attax in center to buy a Tesla, but there was for the other car companies because they have not reached They've not made that many electric cars, right, they didn't reach their limit. Yeah. Um. You know, before I wrap on Tesla, I would like to get to China, which is obviously an important market for you. Um. You know, I noticed that chart you put up by D's the only company
that seems to be making money so far. Um, are you concerned at all about U, you know, ruthless pricing sort of at the low end in the Chinese market and what that will mean to your market share? Though? Um? Well, currently a limitation UM with is that is the is the production rate of our Shanghai factory it's not demand so UM. I mean, so that's there's some constraints on our ability to expand in China and UM, and so it's we're making as many card as we can. It's not
a demand issue, and you can be making batteries soon as well. Yes, yes, UM for the Mega pac UM for for mostly for non US markets. Yeah. So are you concerned at all about the growing belligerence between China and the US? UM. I think that should be a concern for everyone. I think you're right. I think it is shared by many people who run large organizations and smaller ones. Do you think, for example, wild will make a move to take control of Taiwan The official officially, the
official policy of China is that Taiwan should be integrated. One does not need to read between the lines. One consintuely read the lines. Do you think so. I think there's a certain there's some inevitability to the situation that would not be good for Tesla conceivably, or for any any company in the world.
Frankly, yes, or any company in the world. I think most almost no one really realizes that the Chinese economy and the global the rest of the global economy are like conjoin twins, it would be like trying to separate conjoin twins. That that's the severity of the situation. UM. And it's actually worse for for a lot of other companies than it is for for Tesla. I mean, I'm not sure sure where you're gonna get an iPhone, for example. UM, and Apple's recently started doing some some sort of small
amount of production in India. But it's tiny con tiny not to mention an advanced semiconductor chip if they take over Taiwan Semi. Correct, you design your own chips, but you manufacture them at Taiwan Semi too, Right, we do some we do. We do. We use Samsung an TSMC UM. But uh, you seem to think it's it's likely to happen. I'm only saying that that is their policy, and I think you should take the word
seriously. They mean it. Um. You know your time. I think you've said, in fact some of the brief conversations we've had, you know, it's one of the most valuable things in your own control. And I am curious now and Tesla investors sort of seemed to rejoice at the announcement of a new CEO at Twitter in part because they thought, well, he's going to have more time for Tesla. That's true, Is it true? How do you see sort of allocating your time now that you will suit no longer
be the CEO of Twitter? Um? Yeah, so, um, you know it was. It was really very pretty challenging, um situation at the point which the Twitter A position closed because um, you know, in rough terms, uh, that there was a billion and a half dollars of debts osing was added. Um. While at the same time, um, there was a massive psyche exactly you've said you were four months away from bankruptcy. It was three billion dollars in a year, conceivably negative three billion dollars cash
flow, and had a billion billion dollars in the bank. Yeah. Um, no, that's not good. No, anybody who knows anything about corporate finance knows it's bad. No. I mean I say that. The analogy I was using was it's like being teleported into a plane that's in a nose dive, head to the ground, with the engines on fire and the controls don't work. Right, you were that's what I want to be. Chose to get into the plane? Well, well I did try to exit the
deal, and it wouldn't let me. I mean it was it was a funny situation where where I first, first we posed the acquisition, they said hell though they adopted a poison pill, basically saying they'd rather die than be then be acquired, like the rather chew on Sanide. But then a few months later that they're like, basically have a gun to my head saying no, you must acquire us. I mean that's quite a change. It is quite a change. But you seem to think I can figure out a way
out of this, until finally, I guess you realized I can't. It was made clear to me that the decision would not come down in my favorite Leaguely yeah, all right, well now you have a new CEO. Why I think little Linda Yakuen is gonna be great? Why? Um well, Twitter is it's very much an advertising dependent business. Linda's obviously incredible at bat and she's just a great executive in general. Um So, the and you know, my skills and interests are in technology. Um so, you know
I'll continue to play role advancing the software. Um and you know, you know, getting the futures product stuff basically. Um So, I mean the general idea is Linda will operate the company and I will build products. Yeah, and that's I think that's that's that's a good, that's a good, and that will take less of your time. Yeah, and I have I
have that situation at SpaceX. Um you know, Gwynchotwell, who's amazing um uh, you know, operates the company and I and I booked the sort of advanced technology, right, both sort of designing in new rockets and that kind of thing. And and then that's uh, you know, everyone you played to their strengths and that's that's that's mine. That's although I wonder you mean in twenty twenty one you said you spend most of your time on the
development of Starship. I think you've also been quoted I've read I think I heard you say, actually think most of your mental energy at certain points has been on Starship. Yes, So I wonder have you been diverted from Starship a little bit and we'll returned to it as the main focus or is it Tesla? You know again, your time, I know, having tried to schedule this interview with time. Time treach is a real thing. From Yeah. In fact, I I'd say that the only real currency is time.
Time is the only true currency. So where you're going to spend the currency now that you don't have to spend as much a Twitter, Well, I'm going to be devoting a lot more time to to Tesla UM and especially on the AI development UM and your product development, the and and then there's and I'll also be allocating some more time to getting Starship to orbit UM. In the case of SpaceX UM, what I was able to do there was to
as as the Starlink constellation I started working. I was able to move some of the best people from the Starlink program to the Starship program UM, so they're you know, the timing kind of worked out well that that UM. I mean, we have really some of the world's best engineers at SpaceX and Tesla, really some incredible human beings. There was some statistic you shared. I think three point six million people applied for a job at Tesla. I
think I didn't I wrote it down. I didn't write it down here since a member, but that was that the number. Yeah, it's crazy, there's a lot of demand. Have one hundred and twenty seven almost one undred twenty thousand employees, but three point six million people applying for a job. Yes, and I mean there's you know, we would only add like to
twenty or thirty thousand jobs. So it's it's it's sort of the acceptance rate for for Tesla is it's much more difficult to get into Tesla or SpaceX than Harvard, right, the acceptance rate is it's even lower one for two. Well, yeah, it's it's it's it's the acceptance rate is lower than the most demanding of uses in the world. It's insane. Speaking of employment, though, you had seventeen hundred people at Twitter when the plane was nose diving,
I think you're a fifteen hundred. Now, that's roughly sixty three hundred people. Were they all superfluous? No, not all. Do you figure out which ones are or is it a little late? You know, sometimes it gets a little late. I mean, looked desperate time was called for desperate measures. So um, there's no question that some of the people who will let go probably shouldn't have been let go because we we simply did not have the time to figure out we had to be you know, make make
widespread cuts to get the run rate under control. So um, you know, and uh so this is not to say that hey, everyone who is like going from Twitter is like somehow terrible or something. It's just we have to with very little information. Uh, get get the the the headcount expenses, and that the non Postonalexy it is down to or at least break even, And we're not quite a break even yet, but we're close. We need to do it fast and if you, if you, if you do
it fast. Unfortunately, there are gonna be some babies thrown out with the South orders. So um so, I definitely, I definitely would not want to say, uh, you know, disparage. You know, any I understands. But it's funny, you know, I hear from other I've heard from other tech CEOs quietly they look at what you did at Twitter, and they sort of they won't admit it publicly, but they, you know, they said, wow, that was something. I mean to cut that deeply
and still be able to shun the company. People will argue about how well or things were running. Have you heard from any of the CEOs said thank you for doing that giving us sort of runway or leeway to at least make some cuts of our own. Um I have I've heard that from a few people and and I've heard that through the grapevine. Yeah. Um, but um, like I said, if desperate times call for desperate measures, or that those were desperate times. So do you see starting to I mean,
we'll lend hire people. Do you think are you ready for people to be hired to Twitter? You know, I think we absolutely um need to need to hire people and and and if they're not too mad at us, probably re hire some of the people that they were let go. Um, and they're gonna have to come into the office. Look, I'm a big believer that that that that people need to are more productive when they're in person.
Um, and and and and and really man and the whole sort of work from home thing, it's like I think it's Look, there are some exceptions, but I kind of think that that the whole notion to work from home is a bit like the you know, the fake Marie Antoinette quote. Let the meat cake. It's like it's like it's like, really, you're gonna work from home, and you're gonna make everyone else who made your car come
work to the fact work in the factory. You're gonna make the people who make your food that gets to live it that they can't work from home. That you know, the people that come fix your house, they can't work from home, but you can. Does that seem morally right? That's messed up. You see there's a moral issue. Yes, I mean I see it more. It's a productivity issue, but it's also a moral issue. People should get off the moral high horse. Would work from home bullshit?
Um because they're asking everyone else to not work from home while they do. And they're still pushback. By the way, it's still going on. This battle is still happening. I mean leaders of organizations and I speak to plenty of them. I want people back. I want people back three days a week. They're still battling. It's not clear that it's ever going to change to people are not coming back. People the laptop classes living in lala land.
Okay, As I said, you can't look at the cars while people are working from from home here of course not um so so the people were you know, building cars, servicing the cars, building houses. It's fixing houses, making the food, um, making all the things that that that people consume. It's it's messed up to assume that that this they have to go to work, but you don't how is that that is. It's not
just a productivity thing. I think it's Marley Marley wrong. Although productivity is definitely impacted too, and the ability people learn, I mean on and on listen, I like, so, I mean, look, you know people will disagree with me about this, but I you know, it's like, um, so if you want to work at Tesla, you want to work at SpaceX, you want to work at Twitter, You've got to come into
the office every day. Yes, I mean you know, Like I'm not saying um, I'm saying, like, look, we put forty hours in, you know, and it, frankly, it doesn't even even need to be like, you know, Monday through Friday. You know you work Monday through Thursday. And also not saying no one should take I mean, I think people should take vacations, like I work seven days a week, but but I'm not expecting others to do that. How muchly do you get by
the way, about six hours you do six hours typically? Yes, No, that's not bad. I thought it would be less. I've tried less, but my productivity, even though I'm awake more hours, I get less done, okay, And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours, but you work seven days a week. Yes, yeah, I actually only um in terms of actually you say, like, how many days in a year do I not put in some meaningful amount of work? It's probably about two or three, right, two or three days a
year? Yeah? A year? Yeah? Yes, Um. I want to get to some more specific questions about Twitter that's sort of have a more global aspect. Then I still want to get to AI. You're gonna give us some time here, can we still? Um? Yeah? I think We've got a board meeting coming up, but I'm happy to give as much time as reasonably possible. I think it's maybe it's six or something. Okay, Well, let's time, is it now? I love another twenty all
right, at least twenty great. Um, let's talk about free speech a bit. You know, you call yourself a free speech absolutist. You want Twitter, and this isn't aspirationally. Aspirationally you want Twitter to be as truthful as possible, most accurate source of information about the world. Um, so what does that mean for how you police lies on the platform? You mentioned community notes? Is that I think community? Yeah? I mean i'd say
so. My overall kind of vision for extra Twitter is to be a cybernetic collective mind for humanity. This is going to sound quite esoteric and sci fi, but um, so the if if you know, in pursuit of that objective, you want to have information move quickly, have that information be accurate, and you want to have error correction on that information. So you can think of community notes as like an error correction on information in the network.
And the effect of community notes is actually bigger at the and it would seem it's bigger than the number of notes, because if somebody knows that they're going to get noted, they are less likely to say something that is false because it's embarrassing if you get community noted. Okay, and and that applies even to advertisers. By but we've lost that's so far forty million dollars in advertising because it was misleading or because because the community notes to two pretty big advertisers
got community noted. Um. And I yes, um, I think on balance the community notes were correct. And I did I did say to those advertisers, look provide just go on Twitter and provide some facts that contradict the community note. That's the way to deal with the community note is to say, is that the community note is saying that the ad is misleading for the following reasons. If you've got information that rebuts that note, then just add that to the ad. Okay, well, we're coming up on an election.
I mean it's a ways away, but it's going to all start. Um. Yeah, President Trump is allowed back on the platform. He hasn't actually come back, right, but one would imagine if and when he does, or there are others who will say twenty twenty election was rigged? Is that something? I assume that's not something you believe? I well, I think the answer The answer is is nuanced, like do I believe Biden? One? Yes, I believe you want you voted for I did? Actually
do you regret that? I mean, man, I wish we could have just a normal human being as president. That's what I want't I think, if if, if we could, you know, there's that that old saying of like we're better we're better off being run by um, by people picked
at random from the phone book, then the faculty of Harvard. Yeah, I don't know I said that, but somebody very wise, um, and I would I would say, if we could do that, for the president that that would be you're not obviously you're not happy with b don't we all just want an all human beings and whatever resids whatever? Sure, normal means not what I mean like you know, just I don't know. So you want somebody's competent it's helpful, Yes, I think definitely. Um, somebody's
executive ability is underrated. Since the president is effectively the chief executive officer of the country. Um, it actually matters if they are a good executive officer. Yeah, it's it's not simply a matter of do they share your beliefs and you know, um, but but are they good at getting things done?
There's a lot of decisions that need to be made every day. Um, many of them are unrelated to moral beliefs, you know, right, and and you just want a good executive because they're seeing you over America they are they are. We want a good CEO of America. I was going to do be it effective. Unfortunately, we live in highly partisan times where there is were about everything, including ideas, including the truth, which gets back to it's not true that the election in twenty and twenty was rigged.
It wasn't stolen, and I wonder on the platform when you see that, does that end up in a community note or is that something you take more action on? And obviously there places so many I mean, to be clear, I don't think it was there was a stolen election. Um. But by the same token, if somebody's going to say that there's there's never any election fraud anywhere, this is obviously also false. Yeah. If if if one hundred million people vote, the probability that the fraud is zero is zero.
Of course there's always going to be some right, I mean, is perhaps, I mean there were This election was audited, it was so many judges, and it went on and on and on, and there was no
nothing whatsoever that I don't want to debate this with you. My question is more about what I think it's important to say, like that in any given election, even if you try your hardest, if you've got one hundred million votes, there's gonna be some some amount of fraud that is not zero, and that that it's important to acknowledge that without saying that that the fraud was
of sufficient magnitude to change the outcome. So uh so, my opinion would be that there was some there was some small amount of fraud, but it was not enough to change the right and by the way, it might have been either way. I mean, you know, yeah, there will probably a little bit, but again it's gonna be You're gonna let people say that though on the on Twitter, and then you're gonna hope that they're corrected,
and they will be corrected. They will be Oh yeah. Let's talk a bit about your tweets, um, because it comes up a lot um even today it came up and you know, anticipation of this. I mean, um, you know, you do some tweets that seem to be or at least give support to some who would call others conspiracy theories. Well yes, but I mean honestly, you know some of these conspiracy theories, uh I've turned out to be true. Which ones, well, like the hunter Biden
laptop that's true. Yeah yeah, so uh you know that that that that was a pretty big deal. There was Twitter and and and others engaged in active suppression of information that was relevant to the public. M that's that's a that's a terrible thing that happened. That's like your interference. But how do you make a choice? You don't see I mean in terms of when you're going to engage. I mean, for example, even today, Eli you you tweeted this thing about George Soros. Well, I'm looking for because I
want to make sure I quote it properly. But I mean, you know what you wrote, but it basically reminds me of my NATO. This is like, you know, calm down, people, this is not like case out of it. As you said, he wants to route the very fabric of civilization and Sos hates humanity. Like when you do something like that. Yeah, I think that's true. That's my opinion. Okay, but why
share it? Why share it especially? I mean why share it when people who buy teslas may not agree with you, advertisers are on Twitter may not agree with you. Why not just say hey, I think this. You can tell me, we can talk about it over there, you can tell your friends, But why share it widely? I mean, this is a freedom of speech. I'm allowed to say whatever you absolutely are, But I'm trying to understand why you do, because you have to know it's got a
there. It puts you in in the middle of a the partisan divide in the country. It makes you a lightning rod for criticism. I mean, do you like that. You know, people today saying he's an anti Semite. I don't think you are. No, I'm definitely. I'm like, I'm like a pro Semite. If anything, I believe that probably is the case. Why would you even introduce the idea of it that that would be the case. I mean, it looks we don't want to make this a George Stars interview. No, God, no, I don't. I don't
want it at all. But I'm what I'm trying even came up there when the annual meeting. I mean, you know, do your tweets hurt the company? Are there test loan or just I don't agree with his political position because and I know it because he shares so much of it, or their advertisers on Twitter that Linda Yak Greena will come and say you gotta stop man, or you know, I can't get these ads because of some of the
things you tweet. You know, I'm reminded of as we'll see it in the Princess Bride Great movie, Great Um, where he confronts the person who killed his father. He says, offer me money, offer me power. I don't care. See, you just don't care. You want to share what you have to say, I'll say I don't want to say and if if if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it. Okay.
But I mean when you when you when you linked to somebody who's talking about the guy who killed children in a mall in Allen, Texas, you say something like it might be a bad siop. I'm not quite sure what you meant. But oh, in that particular case, Uh, there was a somehow that's that's not not not that the that the people people were killed, but the it was I think incorrectly described to be a white supremacist action. Um. And the evidence for that was some obscure Russian website that no
one's everihood of that had no followers, um and the like. The company that that found this is belling Cat. Right. Did you know what belling Cat does? Psy ops? Right? I couldn't really even follow exactly what it was you were trying to express there, So that's part why I was
curious. But I'm saying that I thought this, the ascribing a two white supremacy was bullshit, okay, and and uh and and and that the information for that came from an obscure Russian website and was somehow magically found by belling Cat, which is a company that does psy ops. And there's no proof by the way that he was not. There's no I would say that there's no proof that he is. And that's a debate you want to get into
on Twitter. Yes, because we should not be ascribing things to white supremacy. If if there, if it's false. Okay, um, can we talk about AI now? Actually I want to talk about AI. Well, let me end with Twitter in the sense of Sam Altman was on the Hill today and he said AI's ability to manipulate interactive disinformation is a significant area of concern. It's moving so quick, it is a concern. And how do
you know, I'm curious as to whether you agree with that? How you see that even playing out on Twitter with people who know somebody could you know look like you and or me and use our voice. I don't know what it could be. Oh that that that that that is happening in big time.
Um so the so the reason that I'm asking people to be verified on Twitter and and and that we're saying, okay, verification means you've got a phone number from a reputable carrier, which means that you've at least passed through whatever they're uh security mechanisms are that you have a credit card, which so you now have passed through whatever security mechanisms the credit card company has. And
that there's some small amount of money paid per month. Um uh. That that sort of action um uh significantly increases the cost of of fake accounts. Um and the with with modern with with with the latest AI um it can bypass basically every test for are you a human? So so then how do you know that a million accounts were created? How do you know that those were people? I don't know? How do you exactly you have to do?
You have to do account verification um and and the thing that makes the like I sort of put myself in a position of like, if it was my goal to manipulate public opinion and create millions of accounts and make a team as though a topic was trending um and and that and that this is actually what the public beliefs um and But in order to do so, I had to get a million phone numbers, a million credit card numbers and pay uh, you know, eight bucks a month um and and and have that old
not be traceable and clustered. I would say it's impossible. Impossible. So the goal of the uh of the sort of Twitter verification is fundamentally to prevent AI manipulation of the system. Got it. Um final question on Twitter, Walter Isaacson, your biographer, he said, your big goal for Twitter is disrupting the banking industry. Um. I'd say that's that's that's a that's a look. First of all, I don't want to disrupt something with the psake
of disrupting it. It's more like, if there is a better product, that's great. But I'm not output disruption for the tsake disruption. I'm like, if we're gonna make a product that improves a quality of life for people that they find more useful, that that's great. Um and Uh, what what people see in PayPal is sort of like sort of a halfway. It's sort of a sort of it's frankly sort of a half baked version of what it could be. Um and um and so I think there's potential to create,
um, a more efficient financial system. UM. And here we can get again quite quite esoteric, sort of into a sort of information theory. But um, the actual financial system today is a heterogeneous set of databases running on mainframes and coval um that still engage in batch processing. It's really quite uh very inefficient. Um so, UM things are still not real time um and and so it's possible to have um a much more efficient, homogeneous real
time data system. Money is just information, um and and so the so. But that's not like the only reason. It's it's just a thing that that would be I think poetic to fulfill ultimately the vision that I had for X over twenty three years ago. Um and and actually see that counter fruition would be nice. But but there are many other things for Twitter, it's not just financial. Well, you talk about enhancing humanity. You know, I'm curious than a bad AI, which many people say will lead to great
productivity gains. You show those robots, I mean, I can imagine what they conceivably could do empowered by AI. But I'm also curious, because you've certainly been concerned, what percentage do you give the chance that it will destroy humanity? Well, the event of artificial general intelligence is cult to singularity because it is so hard to predict what will happen after that. UM. I
think it's it's it's very much a double double edged sword. I think it's there's there's a there's a strong probability that it will make life much better and that will have an age of abundance um and and there's some chance that it goes wrong U and destroys humanity. Hopefully that chance is small, but it's not zero um And so I think we want to take whatever actions we can think of to minimize the probability that AI goes And you've called for a pause
along with the number of other people. Yes, I look when I call for the a friend of mine, Max Techmark, because a physicist said at mit UM you know, I wanted me to sign on to the letter. And it's it's like I knew it would be futile. It is futile. I knew would be futile. I just want to call it like it's one of those things. Well, for the record, I recommended that we pause. Uh did I think we would there would be a pause? Absolutely not.
So you're starting, uh x AI, I think that's what you're calling it or some new AI effort. Um. Well, how is it going to be different than open AI or alphabet This is this is not the time to to this. I we don't have enough time and and order. Is this the moment to really talk about it? Um, we will have a launch event and will explore the issues in more detail. But UM, I should say that that, and I mentioned this at the shareholder meeting, that
um Tesla has actually um tremenous capability in real world AI. Yes, in fact, it is very far ahead of anyone I know. People actually on Twitter prior to our interview, we're saying, you know, he never gets asked about how advanced his AI is A Tesla. You always talk about the other names. Tesla is, like I said, by It's like if there's not I'm not even sure who's second. Frankly, Um, why is that? Why? Then? What? What are people not understanding about what you
have? And why are we talking so much about chat, GPT and generative AI at open AI and what Microsoft can be able to do with it and not about Tesla. I don't know. I mean people do talk about it online. UM. I think I think Tesla will have sort of a chat GPT moment maybe, If not this year, i'd say no later the next
year. UM, wait say that again. I'm sorry you're going to have a sort of chat GPT moment, Oh you will in terms of suddenly it will Yeah, suddenly three million cars were a will drive themselves with no one Right, it goes back to that right yeah, and then five million cars and then ten million cars. So um, the and and and and I would I would also say that if if positions were reversed, um, and
say um, well, in fact, the positions are our reverse. For example, Google has way Moot, which is, you know, sort of attempting self driving, and they are able to make self driving work in a very limited geography with with very tightly mapped streets, but as soon as any as soon as that anything goes wrong with those streets, like there's an accident
or a parade um or road construction, uh, it stops working. Basically, Google is unable to produce a generalized solution to self driving that works anywhere. They've been trying to that for a long time. They have been unsuccessful. Tesla basically has that, and it's far more advanced that than Google. Yea, And so if the positions were reversed and you said okay, um, Tesla's got to produce a large language model that has output equal to a
greater than CHATCHVT or Microsoft. Open Eye has to do self driving, and we just we flipped the tasks. Tesla would win, You'd win. Yes, you have a computing power and everything else. You'd have to do it absolutely. Um I'm being told we don't have that much time. Do you can you give me another five minutes? Or yeah? Yeah, I think so. I do have a board meeting. I know five five minutes is probably fine. Sure, okay, thank you? Um um open Ai.
I mean you seem somewhat frustrated with them. You were one of the big contributors early on the reason I am the reason Opening Eye exists. How much money did you give them? Um so. Uh, I'm not sure the exact number, but it's some some number on the order of fifty million dollars.
So the man fate loves irony next level, um So, I used to be close friends with our page, and I would say at his house, and we'd have these conversations long long into the evening about AI, and I would I would be constantly urging him to be careful about the danger of AI, and and and and he just he was really not concerned about the danger of AI, and was quite cavalier about it, um and and and and. At the time, Google, especially after their acquisition of deep Mind,
had three quarters of the world's AI talent. They had obviously a lot of computers and a lot of money. Um, so it was a unipolar world for four AI and and go unipolar world. But but the the person who controls that does not or at least did not seem to be concerned about AI safety. That that's that sounded like a real problem, so um and then the final straw was Larry calling me a speciist for being pro human consciousness instead of machine consciousness. And I'm like, well, yes, I guess
I am. I am a specioust and so right, so you helped to the creation of open AI. You put as much as fifty million dollars more than help. It wouldn't exist without it wouldn't exist without you. So I came up with a name. The name opening Eye refers to open source. So it's the intent was what's the okay? So what was the opposite? What's the opposite of of Google? Would would be an open source nonprofit because Google is closed sourced for profit. Um and that profit motivation can be finicially
dangerous. Um. So uh, should you've gotten governance for that money? Should you have gotten some level of control? Perhaps in retrospect? Yeah, I fully admit to being a huge idiot here um so um anyway, So, so Opening I was like meant to be. Opening I opened as an open source. It was created as a buy one C three um and but so so part of it is also in the beginning, I thought, look, this is this is probably a hopeless endeavor. How could we possibly compete
with How could Opening I possibly compete with with Google Deep Mind? I mean this, this seemed like an ant against an elephant, you know, which is not a contest um and um. And I was also h I mean I I was instrumental in recruiting that the key scientists and engineers, most specifically,
most notably Elias skier Um. In fact, Elio went back and forth several times because he would say he's going to join an Opening Eye, then Demis would convince him not to, Then I would convince him to do so, and then and this went back and forth several times, and ultimately decided to join an Opening Eye. And really Eliot joining was the was the lynchman for Opening Eye being ultimately successful. You're very disappointed in what's happened there in
terms of it becoming a for profit. In way, I do think that there's some look, it does seem weird that something can be UM a nonprofit open source and somehow transform itself into a for profit closed source. UM. I mean this would be like like, let's say you funded an organization to save the Amazon rainforest and instead they became a lumber company and chopped down the
forest and sold it for money. And you'd be therefore like, oh wait a second, that's the exact opposite of what I gave the money for. Is that legal? That doesn't seem legal? And if it is, and in general, if it is legal to start a company as a nonprofit and then take the IP and transfer it to a for profit that then makes tons
of money, shouldn't everyone start shouldn't that be the default? Um? And and and then I also think it's important to understand the like like when push comes to shove, let's say they do create some some digital superintelligence, almost godlike intelligence. Well, who's in control and what exactly is the relationship between
opening I and Microsoft? And I do worry that Microsoft actually may be more in control than say the leadership team, and Opening Eye realizes I mean Microsoft had as part of the Microsoft investment, they have rights to all of the software, all of the model weights, and everything necessary to run the inference them. So they essentially have a great deal of control. At any point, Microsoft could cut off Open the Eye. Elana, I'm being told we
have to wrap up. Your board has been very satient. I want to end on one AI question. You have a lot of kids. I have some kids. I have one who's actually soon to go into the workforce. I struggle with how to advise him about a career when this technology exists and will only improve. I'm just curious when you think about advising your children on a career with so much that is changing, what do you tell them there's
going to be a value. Well, that's a tough question to answer, I guess m I would just say, you know, to to sort of follow their heart in terms of what they find interesting to do or fulfilling to do. UM and UM, you know, try to be as useful as possible to the rest of the society. UM. You know, if we do get to the sort of like magic Genie situation where UM, you can ask the A for for anything. Um. And let's say it's even the
benign scenario. Let's say it's a benign scenario. How do we actually find fulfillment? You know, it's ah, how do we find meaning in life? If the air I could do your job better than you can? Um. I mean, if I think about it too hot it correctly, it can be uh just dispiriting and demotivating. Um. Because I mean I I go through I mean I I've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into building the companies. And then and then I'm like, wait, well
should I be doing this? Because if I'm sacrificing time with friends and family that I would prefer to do. But then ultimately the AI can do all these things. Does that make sense? I don't know. Um. To some extent, I have to have deliberate suspension of disbelief in order to remain motivated. UM. So I guess I would say, just, you know, work on things that you find interesting, fulfilling, and that contributes some good to the rest of society.