Elon Musk on Advertisers Full Interview DealBook Summit.

Everybody, Thank you so much for being with us throughout the day. And I couldn't be more pleased to sit with Elon Musk as our final interview of this remarkable time we've all had together. He doesn't need much of an introduction, but I want to say a couple of things. He's the richest person in the world. He may very well be the most console, most consequential

individual in the world right now. He runs the most innovative companies in the world Tesla SpaceX, Starlink, which is part of that Neurolink, the boring company X, and his X dot Ai and he's disrupted each of these lanes. He's moved a breakneck speeds, but he's facing us from controversy in the process. He joins us today following and visited, as you all know so well, and we discussed earlier on Monday to Israel, where he met with

the Prime Minister there and the President of Israel. And we're going to talk about everything, and my hope is that we can talk about how he thinks about his influence, about his power, about all of it. And we're going to talk about innovation and everything else. I want to say just two other things real quick. We met each other for the first time sixteen years ago. Time, it's been a long time, and all the kids were three when we first met. I think you're just you're about to deliver your

first roadster. I don't think you had yet. Larry Page was still waiting to get like seven, two and seven and eight, and I remember it was a little in two thousand and eight. I remember going back to the newsroom and saying, I think I just met the next Steve Jobs and I'm going to hold to that. I'm going to hold to that. But a lot has happened between when I first met you and now you came to deal Book and Boring that's for sure. Actually, technically I do to have a

boring company. Twenty twelve, you came to deal Book and sat on this stage, and we're thrilled to have you back. But there's been so much that's happened between now and then, and there's been so much that's happened in the past week, week and a half, and a lot of folks, and I want to tell you this, A lot of folks called me up and said, you really you're really going to host elon musk here can you believe what he just said on Twitter one x X no idea? What this

Twitter? Should you platform him? That's what they said, should you platform? And then I said that I think it's our role. And I know you have issues with journal I have a platform, and I know you have an issue with journalist oftentimes, But I said, it's our role to have conversations and to inquire and to and sometimes even interrogate ideas. And that's I'm

hoping we can do that. So I want to start just so we can begin this conversation and just level set, take us through everything that happened. If you could everything, no over the past week and a half long. If you're God, we're gonna We've got the time. Okay, you send out, you send out a post or X or a tweet whatever. As I'm trying to say, you like when things were just one hundred and forty characters, that made says to call my tweet because it's like a bunch of

little boasts chopping. But when you know point which you can put like three our videos on, it's like it's a very long tweet. So here we are. This is more descriptive, I think, and at some point I don't know where you were, but you write in responding to another tweet, yes, this is the actual truth, and it's set off a firestorm of criticism all the way to the White House. Right, and then you make

this trip to Israel. You have advertisers who left the platform, people calling well, the trip to Israel is independent of it wasn't something like apology to our clear that was. Let's talk about that. So just but just take us back to the moment at which you write that trip to israelative to indepenitive in response to that at all, well, let's do We'll do israelan in a moment. I have no problem being hated by the way I hear it away. Well, but you know what, let's go straight to that then

for a second. Sure, because there is an idea and you could say that I think it's a real weakness to want to be liked, a real weakness. I do not have that. Well, let me ask you this. Then there's a difference between saying I don't care if anyone likes me or they hate me. But given your power and given what you have a massed and the importance you have, I would think you want to be trusted. I would think maybe you don't need to be liked or hated, but trusted

matters. If X is going to become a financial platform where people going to put their money, where people where, where the government's going to give you money for rockets, where people are going to get into the they need to ultimately decide that you are. Maybe they don't have to say that they love you, but that you are ultimately a decent and good human being. Yes, I mean I think I am, but I'm certainly not going to do

some sort of tap dance to prove to people that I am. So. As for trust, I mean, I think you break that down in a few ways if you want. If you want satellites cent to orbit reliably, SpaceX will do eighty percent of all master orbit this year. China will do twelve percent. The rest of the world will do eight That includes Blowing Locke Eat and everyone else. So the track record of the rocket is the best by far of anything. You could hate my guts next you could not trust

me. It is relevant. The rocket track records speak for itself. With respect to Tesla, we make the best cars. Whether you your hate me, likely or indifferent. Do you want the best car or do you not want the best car? So? Uh so I will certainly not pander and Jonathan like, the only reason I'm here is because you are a friend, Like what was my speaking fee? You know you're not making any First of

all, I'm Andrew, but yeah, sorry, it's okay. Second of all, we've known each other for a very long time, smoking yes, and listen, you know, uh what, I'm trying to illustrate us that sometimes I say the wrong thing. I think there are a lot of people who are tired. But let me, let me, let me go back. You should hear the sketches that SNL wouldn't post. By the way, those are really good. And I would say, unfortunately or fortunately or unfortunately

whatever friendship we have not great. We don't talk to you other that much. But let me ask you this true, that's true? Where am I? That doesn't matter long calls. Yeah, I'm here because you're you're a friend, not because I mean paytable, because I need any validation or anything. Is that we've been friends for sixteen years and I promise you i'd be here, and that's why I'm here. Well, I appreciate you being here for other reasons. But let me ask you this this then just go go

at it. Just tell me what happened. You write this tweet that says that this is the actual truth. People read that tweet, yes, and they say Elon Musk is an anti Semite. That he is. He is riling up this base. You're hearing it from, as I said, the White House, You're hearing it from Jewish groups all over. I think Jonathan green Black from the ADL is here. There's there's lots of people who say this. And by the way, it's not just that read the whole thing

I did. And that's why I want I ask the responses. Excuse me, I said more more responses? Yeah, I said more. I said more than what you just read. Yes, there was absolutely more. Yes, But I'll tell you the thing that struck me. It wasn't and I'm an American Jew, It wasn't just the people who who had that view. It was actually people who really are anti Semites who said, oh my goodness, go Elon, this is fabulous. And that actually was the thing that

really really set me back. I said to myself, what's going on here? And I want to know how you felt about that? In that moment when you when you saw all of this happening. Yeah, well, first of all, I did clarify almost immediately what I meant. I would say that that was you know, if I could go back and say, I should, in retrospect not have replied to that particular person, and I should

have written in greater length as to what I meant. I did subsequently clarified in replies, but those topifications were ignored by the media, and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me, and arguably to those who are anti Semitic too, And for that I'm quite sorry that that is not that was not my intention. So I did, you know, post on my primary timeline to be absolutely clear that I'm not anti Semitic, and that I, in fact, if anything, am filo Semitic, and the trip

to Israel was planned before any of that happened. It was neither handle there. Do you see you see this thing? You know what it is? I do because I actually followed your entire trip to Israel, right, what do you tell everybody? This is this says, says bring them home the hostages. It was given to me by the parents of one of the hostages. And I said I would wear it as long as there was a hostage

store remaining. And I have what was that trip like? And obviously you know that there's a public perception that you're clarifying this now, but there's a public perception that that was part of a apology tour, if you will, that this had been said online. There was all of the criticism, There was advertisers leaving. We talked to Bob, I stop, you hope don't

advertise. You don't want them to advertise? No, what do you mean if somebody's going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmailing with money, go fuck yourself, but go fuck yourself? Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob here in the audience, Well, well let me ask you. Then that's how I feel. Don't advertise? How do you think that about the economics of of x if if if part of the underlying model at least today, and maybe it needs to shift. Maybe the

answer is it needs to shift away from advertising. If you believe that this is the one part of your business where you will be beholden to those who have this view, what do you do why? I understand that, but there's a reality too, right, Yes, no, no, I mean Lino Yakarino's right here and she's got to sell advertising absolutely, so no, no, tell you so no, Actually, what what this advertising boycott is is going to do. It's it's going to kill a company. And you

think that that and the whole world. Well, no, that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail. But there are those advertisers, I imagine are going to say. They're going to say, we didn't kill the company. They're going to say to tell it to Earth. But they're going to say that they're going to say, Elon that you killed the company because you said these things and that they were inappropriate things

and that they didn't feel comfortable on the platform. Right, That's that's what they're to say. And let's see how Earth responds to that something. Okay, this then this goes back to well, we'll both make our cases, right, and we'll see what the outcome is. What are the economics of that for you? I mean, you have enormous resources, so you can actually keep this company going for a very long time. Would you keep it going for a long time if there was no advertising? I mean, if

the company fails because of advertised boycott. It will fail because of an advertised boycott, and that will be what bankrupt of the company. And that's what everybody on earth will know. What do you think then, of the against This goes back to the idea of trust though it I'll be gone, and

it will be gone because of an advertised boycott. But you recognize that some of those people are going to say that they didn't feel comfortable on the platform, and I want I just wonder and ask you and think about that for the judge. But the judge is going to be the judge of the public. And you think that the public is going to say that that Disney is making a mistake. Yeah, and they're going to boycott Disney. There already are well, there are some that are for lots of different reasons. But

you think that this is going to that you have? This goes actually the interesting of power and leverage. Let the chips fall where they may, let the chips full where they may can. I ask why that is the approach. I ask it because you've been very approached well, you've been very particular about the approach to Tesla. When you think about the engineering involved in that the approach to SpaceX, the approach to some of the stuff you're doing with

AI has been very specific. Right, there's not a let the chips fall where they may approach to those businesses. I don't think we're focused on making the best products and Tells THO has gotten to where it's gotten with no advertising at all. I understand that Tells the currently sells to twice much in terms of electric vehicles as the rest of electric carmakers in the United States combined. Tells has done more to help the environment than all of the companies combined.

Be fair to say that, therefore, as a leader of the company, I've done more for the environment than everyone else, any single human on earth. How do you feel about that? I feel about that. Yeah, No, I'm asking you personally how you feel about that? Because this goes We're talking about power and influence, and I'm saying I'm saying what I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. And what I see all of the place is people who care about looking good while doing

evil. Fuck them. Okay, let me ask you this because I think part of this, By the way, there's some people who said, look owning X to begin with has just created problems that You've created so many amazing things that are changing our world. And and and I know you want to uh make X this fabulous town square free speech platform, but that unto itself, that that has created such a distraction of all of these things. This is the conversation we're having. We're not focused, or we're not not talking

at least yet, and we will on Tesla. You have your cyber truck deliveries tomorrow and everything else that you're doing. But is there any will be the biggest product launch of anything by far on Earth this year? Is there any part of you though? It just says, you know what, I just shouldn't have done this, or maybe I should sell it or give it away or do something else with the with the X piece of it, given given, given the propensity for some of the things that you do and say

on that platform to create these these issues. Yeah, of all the posts I've done on the platform, I think there might be thirty thousand or something

like that. Right, Once in a while I will say something foolish, and I have and I would certainly put to that comment, as you said, the after truth among perhaps one of the most foolish, if not the most foolish thing I've ever done on the platform, and I did do my best to clarify afterwards that, you know, I certainly do not mean anything anti Semitic in that the nature of the criticism was simply that the Jewish people

have been persecuted for thousands of years. There is a natural affinity therefore for persecuted groups. This has led to the funding of organizations that essentially promote any persecuted group or any group with the perception of persecution. This includes radical Islamic groups. Everyone here has seen the massive demonstrations for Hamas in every major city in the West that should be jarring. Well, a number of those organizations

received funding from prominent people in the Jewish community. They didn't expect that to happen. But if you generically, without condition sort of fund, if you fund persecuted groups in general, some of those persecuted groups unfortunately want your annihilation. And what I meant by that, when I subsequently clarified, is is that it's unwise to fund organizations that support groups that want your annihilation. Is this coming across really? Yeah? It was. I question to you,

though I think logically this makes a lot of sense. Is there any part of you? I mean, just tell me what happens though, when once all this happens. Let's say you fund a group and that group supports the mass who wants you to die. Perhaps you should not fund them, but you but you do, thank you, you do appreciate that when you wade into these very delicate waters at these very delicate times. Yes, that it can create a real I mean, as it created headlines for the past two

weeks and economic impact. What I'm just so curious what happened in your brain when you see all this happening. I think, are you sitting there going, oh my god, I stepped in and I wish I didn't do that. Are you saying threw them I hate these people day after me? But all of that, Yeah, there's all of that. I mean, I mean, look, I'm sorry for that that tweed or post. It was foolish of me. Of the thirty thousands, it might be literally the worst

and dumbest to post that I've ever done. And I try my best to clarify six raceist Sunday, But you know, at least I think over time it will be obvious that, in fact, far from being anti Semitic, I'm in fact philo semitic, and all the evidence in my track record would support that there are people who say crazy things on x as. You know, maybe you think they're crazy, maybe they're not. The aspiration FRACS is

to be the global town square. Now, if you were to walk down to let's say Times Square, right, do you occasionally hear people saying crazy things? Yes, but they're not that they don't have the megaphone, right, And that's that's the conundrum. No, they can only stay to the fifty one hundred people that are that are sitting standing there in Times Square. They don't have a mega. I mean, look, the joke I used to make about old Twitter was it was like giving everyone in the psych ward

a megaphone. So, you know, I'm aware that things can get promoted that are negative beyond the sort of circle of somebody simply screaming crazy things in Times Square, which happens all the time, you know, So the it's actually it's pretty rare for something frankly that is hateful to be promoted. It's not it's not it's not that it never happens, but it's it's fairly rare.

I mean, I would encourage people to look at for those that use the system, when you look at the sort of the feed that you receive, how how often is it is it hateful? And over time hasn't gotten more or less hateful? And I would say that if you look at the X platform today versus a year ago, I think it is actually much better. I mean, what is your perponce? Are you surprised? I'm just

curious you use this. I use the platform religiously. I not being an addict you and I use it for you, and I will I will say, now the problem is because I'm a journalist, I go looking for stuff. Well I'm not. I'm just saying and because I and I also think the algorithm for me personally because I'm looking for stuff also is feeding the others things. Well, this this is actually a challenge in that like sometimes people will say like why is it showing me h, you know post from this

person that I hate? And then we're like, well, did you interact a lot with this person that you hate? Well? Yes, well therefore thinks that you want to interact more with this person that you hate. That's like a reasonable you know you kind of want to have an argument tweet. Yeah, do you ever post, let's say, post when you post listen, I'm over. If anyone cannot come up with a better word, that would be great. When you post though, but the least bad way I

can think of his post? When you post though? Do you are you trying to rile up either a base or an audience? Do you do you? Do you recognize the power you have in that? And and also, by the way, not just up rile up one version of Saturday, but also rile down, which is to say, as I said, there are people who are demonstrably anti Semitic on the site who I get jew boy things

and all sorts of things that come my way. For a while I thought I was dosh, so they would you know, I get it to but but no. But the question is do you ever think to yourself, you know what, I'm going to go online and I'm going to say these people. I condemn these people that are on my site saying these things because you say I've condemned as sims it. But do you ever go I said, I can condemn I literally I literally posted I condemn anti Semitism in all its

forms. That is a literal, I believe literal post that I've made. I mean, I'm like, listen, if I can get out the phosaurus, if you you know, and we could you know, let me ask you a different question. You're you're you composed it, I'll post it. Okay, let me ask you this. You you're a You're on a podcast about a month ago, and you said something that struck me, and it struck me as accurate came out of your mouth, so hopefully it is. But I'm hoping to go deep on this. Just because it came out of

my mouth does not mean it's true. But you said, you said, you said, my mind is a storm. I don't think most people would want to be me. They may think they want to be me, but they don't know, they don't understand. What did you mean by that? What was what your mind being a storm? And I think it, I mean I have known you for quite some time. I think it is a bit of a storm. Yes, yeah, I mean in as much as a whey that metaphor makes sense. My mind is often feels like a like

a like a very wild storm. I mean, I have a fountain of ideas. I mean, I have more ideas than I can possibly execute, So I have no shortage of ideas. Innovation is not the problem. Execution is the problem. I've got a million ideas. I mean, I've got an entire design for an electric supersonic vertical takeoff jet. But I mean, I just if I just can't do that as well. I've had that for ten years. I know there's a million things. Does your storm a happy

storm? Yeah, it's not a happy storm. Tell us about that, because I think that that actually, when people try to really understand you, I think that there's a lot of this comes from some other place, and I want to talk about that. What do you think that is? It should really need like a psychiatrist catch here or something. You know. I think there's some degree I was born this way, but and then I was

amplified by a difficult childhood. Frankly so, but I can remember, even in happy moments when as a kid that there's just it just feels like there's just a a range of forces in my mind constantly. But now this, you know, productively manifests itself in technology and building things for the most part. So and I think on balance, the output has been very productive. I think the results as we you know, discussed earlier with SpaceX, Tesla

PayPal, which is you know, still going today. The first yearnet company that I started, in fact, the first internet company I started, it too was funded by New York Times company Hurst Night, Writter and Remberked. We wrote some of the software for the New York Times website and we helped bring online several hundred newspapers that previously were only in print. Now this is in the nineties, which at this point is like like a Grandpa plack.

But basically, you know, the nineties and internet feels like a pre Cambrian era when there were only sponges. So anyway, so you know, I feel like a lot of productive things have been done. And you can also look at at Tesla's being sort of many companies in one, like our supercharging network is if it were if the Tells a super talking network where its own company, it would be a fortune five hundred company by itself, just just

the supercharging system. We also make the seals, We build the paralylectronics in the power train for Scratch. We have the most innovative structural design, the largest castings ever used. We have the best manufacturing technology at Tesla, better manufacturing technology than companies that have been doing it for one hundred years. So these these demons of the mind, you know, for the most part, harnessed to productive ends. That doesn't mean that once in a while they you

know, go wrong. But and this is a question, I think a lot of people, you know, are always trying to figure out about not just you, but sometimes themselves, Meaning, what is driving all of this? You're doing all of these things. Do you think it's Do you think that you would be as successful, whatever success is, if it wasn't being driven by some I think that there's something you're trying to prove, either to yourself or to somebody. I don't know. We're all trying to prove that.

We're trying to prove to my mother. I don't know. No if I were describe my philosophy as a philosophy of curiosity, I mean I did have this existential crisis when I was around twelve about what's the meaning of life? Isn't it all pointless? Why not just commit suicide? Why exist? I read the religious texts, I read the philosophy books that well, especially the German philosophy books made me quite depressed. Frankly once you'd not read Schopenhauer

Nietzsche as a teenager. But then I read Douglas Adams Hitdack Guide to the Galaxy, which is a book and philosophy in the form of humor. And the point that Adams was making there was that we don't actually know what questions to ask. That's why I said that, you know, the answer is forty two, Like, basically, it was a giant computer and it came up with the answer forty two. But then to actually figure out what the question is, that's the actual hard part. I think this is generally true

also in physics. At the point of which you can properly frame the question the answer is is actually the easy part. So my motivation then was that, well, my life is finite, really a flash in the pan and on a galactic time scale. But if we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then we are better able to figure out what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe, and maybe we can find out the meaning of life or even what question to what what the right question to ask

is? You know, where do we come from? Where are we going, Where are the aliens? Are there aliens? You know? These these questions you know? And is there new physics to discover? Or is this because this is real questions about dark matter and dark energy. And so the purpose of SpaceX is to extend life beyond Earth on a sustained basis, so that we can at least pass one of the Firmi great filters, which is

that of being a single planet civilization. For your single planet civilization, then we are simply waiting around for some extinction event, whether that is man made or natural. But if you're a single planet civilization, eventually you will something will happen to that planet and you will die. If you're a multiplant civilization, you will live much longer. Also, a multiplanet civilization is that's the natural stepping stone to being a multi stellar civilization and being out there among the

stars. So now this I think has two. This is not simply a defensive motivation, but it is also one that you know that gives meaning. Man search for meaning. Let me finish this philosophy point. Even though it may seem rather esoteric, it may resonate for a few people. We must get past this Firmi filter. Of being a straight filter of being a single planet civilization, and if we do that, we're more likely to understand the

nature of the universe and what questions to ask. If you believe her in the philosophy of curiosity, then then I think you should support this ambition. And but it's more, there's being a multipliant species is more than than simply you know, life, life insurance for life collectively. That's a defensive reason. But but I think also that that that life has to be more than

simply solving one sad problem after another. You know, there have to be there be reasons where you wake up in the morning and you're happy to be alive. There have to be reasons that you have to say, why are you excited about the future? Like what gives you hope? And if you

if you're if you'ren't sure, ask your kids. And and I think the idea of us being a space faring civilization and being out there among the stars is incredibly inspiring and exciting and something to look forward to, and there need to be such things in the world. Let me ask you a different question about confidence. We were having a conversation here earlier, but people and where where people get their confidence from. Some people have great and security, other

people have great confidence. And I was thinking about you because you have a very interesting history where people have told you over and over again that you're wrong. Well sometimes they're right. Well sometimes they are, But I would say that when it comes to Tesla, when it came to SpaceX, people told you that you were crazy, You're out of your mind. This was never

going to happen. This is never going to work. And so I ask you this, though, is now, when people say you're wrong, this isn't right, do you look at that and say, you know what? That's like a red flag for me because you know, I've been told so often that I'm wrong that I know that and I know I'm right because I've had that experience. Or are there people in your life when they say, you know what, Elon, this is not this is not right. Do

you know what I'm saying? I mean, I think what you start trying to say, is that to do at this point? Think because I've been right so many times for others I said I'm wrong, that now I passed believe I'm right when I in fact I'm wrong. You did very well. What do you think no, I'm right, so uh yeah, No.

Look, here's the thing. Physics is unforgiving. Physics is unforgiving. So I mean, I have, you know, these various little sayings that I have come up with that physics is the law and everything else is a recommendation in the sense that you can break any law made by humans, but try breaking a law made by physics. That's much more difficult. So if you are wrong and persistent being wrong, the rockets will blow up and the cars will fail. So this is we're not trying to figure out what flavor of

ice cream is the best flavor of ice cream. Like if there's a thousand things that can happen on a rocket flight and only one of them gets the rocket to orbit, and so being wrong results in failure when dealing with physical But that's the interesting part. So now you've built this these great companies that physically the physics of them are enormously successful, so successful arguably that you have leverage over everybody else. Right, there's nobody else can do starlink, nobody

else can get nobody else can get the rockets in space. Yet Amazon and Jeff Bezos are trying, but they haven't yet I hope he does. You hope he does? Yeah, yeah, I mean I think you know, but I actually agree with with with a lot of Jeff's motivations. I mean, I think you know he's so they're put this way. If there was a button I could press that would delete blue argin, I wouldn't press it. So I think it's good that he's spending money on making rockets too.

You know, it's just peraps you spend more time on it, but you know it's up to him the the But I should make a point here, So nothing, nothing any of my companies have done has been to stifle competition. In fact, we've done the opposite. So at Tesla we have open sourced our patents. Anyone can use our patents for free. How many companies do you know who've done that? Can you name one? I can't.

At SpaceX, we don't use patents, So I mean, she said, once in a while, we'll file a patent just so some patent trol doesn't cause trouble. But we're not stopping any we've done. We've done nothing anti competitive. We've done nothing to stop I always want to clarify for the audience because some companies have done anti competitive things. I think the strange thing, the unusual thing about SpaceX and Tela is that we've done things that have helped

our competition. So at Tesla, we have made our supercharger system open access. We've made our charger technology available for free to the other manufacturers. The reason that no wall of garden. We could have put a wall up, but instead we invited them in. The reason I mentioned this though, is because you've had the success in the physical physics world, you now have these very difficult decisions that have huge impacts on the world that are not physical decisions

at all. They're decisions of the mind, the decisions that you and others have to make. It there's a question whether you should be making these decisions at all. And I think about it in the context of starlink. Obviously, there was the report about how it's being used in Ukraine and the Russian War. There's questions about Taiwan, whether Taiwan should use it or will use

it. I believe they're not right now because they're worried that at some point maybe the Chinese will tell you that you have to they have leverage over you, and you're going to have to turn that off, right, I mean, these these are very difficult decisions, and I'm so curious how you think about that, and not just the decisions, the fact that you have that power. I just I think it's important for they order to understand that the

reason I have these powers not because of some anti competitive actions. It's simply because we've executed very well. Oh, I'm not dismissing that. I think there's so many people, by the way, who work huge supporters of what you. There are are satellites out there, you know, but they're but they're not as good as yours and the same and we can say that maybe make the same argument of the cars and everything else. But as a result,

that gives you enormous leverage. Right with the exception of that, By the way, these advertisers who aren't on X in every other instance, everybody needs you, I mean, nobody's them. They use our product if it's better than use somebody else's product, if it's the other products better, And I accept that it maybe one days also better products, Like you know,

how is it a bad thing to make better products than other companies? Well, and I want to go back to this, to the starlink piece of it, though, because that has sort of a geopolitical ramification in terms of your power and how you think about that specific power, and then the power that the US government might have either over you or not over you, the power that Chinese government might have over you or not over you, and how

those things get used. I mean, what are you suggesting. I'm asking the question around this very idea of how these satellites are going to be used, whether you think that you should have control of them, whether the government should have control of them. How's the government? Well, that's there's a lot of people who don't trust the government exactly. But then this goes back to the trust of you, right, I mean, like I said that,

we're not the only company who has communications satellites. AL satellites are just much better than theirs, So it's not like we have a monopoly. Right. Do you feel like anybody has a products? It's not like do you feel anybody has leverage over you? I mean, I think at the end of the day, if we make bad products that people don't want to use, then the users will vote with their resources and do something else. Pivot

the conversation for six. I mean certainly me and my company's overseen by regulators. And while you know once since SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla are overseen by you know, cumulatively over one hundred regulators in actually more than that few hundred

regulators, because you've got we're fifty five countries. If you sum up all the times that I had an argument with regulators of hundreds of regulators over decades, it can sound really terrible, except for they forgot to mention that there were ten million regulations we complied with and only five that I disagreed with. But it was still the five and it sounds like, Wow, this guy's a real maverick. I'm like, yeah, but what about the ten million

we complied with? Do you let me let me one related thing on this and the leverage of countries and things over you and regulators X is this free speech platform? You do business in China, lots of business China. That's an important part of your business, I imagine, well, not SpaceX. How do you think about the leverage that the Chinese have over you? And

do they have leverage over you? And how do you feel about some people say is it hypocritical for you to be doing business in China or frankly in other countries as it relates to X and other things that don't follow this free speech path that you have his spoused. The best that the platform can do is adhere to the laws of any given country. Do you think there's something more we could do than that? I think it would be very hard.

But I just wonder, given the sort of strong philosophical approach that you've you've you've you've been vocal about whether you say to yourself, you know, maybe I shouldn't be doing business in that country. Well, first of well, Starlink and SpaceX do our no business in China whatsoever. Tesla has one of four factories for vehicle factories in China, and China is you know, I don't know a quarter of our market or something like that, and so it's

a quarter of the market of one company. The same is true, by the way, of all the other car companies. They also have something on that order of a quarter of their sales in China. So if you if that's a problem for Tela, it's a problem for every car company. I mean, I think one has to be careful about not conflating the various companies because I can only do things that are within the bounds of the law.

I cannot do beyond that. My aspiration is to do as much good as possible and to be as productive as possible within the bounds of what is legal. More than that I cannot do. I want to pivot and talk about AI for a moment. We had Jinsen Wong here, who's a big fan of yours, as you know. Yeah, Jensen's awesome talk about talked about bringing you the first box by the way, with Ilia. Interestingly enough, back in twenty sixteen, I think there's a video of Jensen and me unpacking

the first AI computer at open AI. So I'm so curious what you think of what's just happened over the past two weeks while you were dealing with this other headline series of headlines, there was a whole other series of headlines and so forth at open AI. What did you think, Well, you founded

it, co found it, found it. Yeah, I'm well. The whole arc of Opening I, frankly, is a little troubling because the reason for starting Opening I was to create a count counterweight to Google, Google and deep Mind, which at the time had two thirds of all AI talent and basically infinite money and compute, and there was no there's no counterweight. It

was unipolar world. And Larry and Paige and I used to be very close friends, and I would stay at his house and I would talk to Larry until the late hours of the night about AI safety, and I became imparent to me that Larry did not care about AI safety. I think perhaps the thing that gave it away was when he called me a specist for being pro humanity, as in, you know, like a racist, but for species. So I'm like, wait a second, what side are you on,

Larry? And then I'm like, okay, listen to this guy calling me a specist. He doesn't care about AI safety. We've got to have some counterpoint here, because this seems like we could be this is this is no good. So open I was actually started and it was meant to be open source. I named it open AI after open source. It is in fact closed source super closes it should be it should be renamed super closed source for maximum profit AI. So because this is what it actually is, I mean,

fate loves irony. I mean, in fact, a friend of mine has this says like the way to predict outcomes, is the most ironic outcome is the most It's like this oukhomes Razor, like the simplest sort of explanation is most likely. And my friend Jonah's views that the most ironic outcome is the most likely. And that's what's happened with open AI. It's gone from an open source foundation of five one, two three to suddenly it's like a

ninety billion dollar full profit corporation with closed source. So I don't know how you go from here to there, but that seems like a I don't know how you get I don't know if is this legal. It's like, so as you saw Sam Waltman get housted by somebody you know, Ilia, and Ilia was somebody who was a friend of yours. Yes, you brought him there. Your relationship with Larry Page effectively broke down over you recruiting him away. I think that's correct. That was the fact that was the Larry refused

to be present to me after I recruited Elia. And so here's Ilia apparently saying something is very wrong. I think we should be concerned about this because I think Ilia actually has a strong moral compass. He thinks about it, you know, he really sweats it over questions of what is right and if Ilia felt strongly enough to want to you know, fire Sam, Well, I think the world should know what was that reason. Have you talked to him? I've reached out, but he doesn't want to talk to anyone.

Have you talked to other people behind the scenes? Is this all happening? I've talked to a lot of people as nobody. I have not found anyone who knows. Why have you? I think we are all still trying to find out. I mean, look, one of two things. Either it was a serious thing and we should know what it is, or it was not a serious thing and then the Portraite resign. What do you think of Sam Altman? I have mixed feelings about Sam. I do you know the

ring of power? You know can corrupt and here is the ring of power? Are so you know? I don't know. I think I want to know why Eliot felt so strongly as the fire Sam. This sounds like a serious thing. I don't think it was trivial, and I'm quite concerned that that there's some you know, dangerous element of AI that they've they've discovered.

Yes, you think they've discovered something that'll be my guess. Where are you with your own AI efforts relative to where you think open AI is, where you think Google is, where you think the others are, I mean on the AI front them in somewhat of a quandary here, because I've thought AI could be something that would change the world in a significant way since I was

in college, I mean like thirty years ago. But the reason I didn't bull AI right from the get go was because I was uncertain about which which edge of the double edged sword would be sharper the good edge of the bad edge, So I held off on during anything on a I could have created. I think the leading a company kind of opening eye actually kind of is that because I was just uncertain, if you make this magic genie, what

will happen? You know? Whereas I think building sustainable energy technology is much more of a single edged sword, that is, single edged good, making like multiplanetary I think single edged good, you know, Starling mostly single edged good. I mean giving people better connectivity to people that you know don't don't have connectivity or too expensive. I think it's very you know, very much

a good thing. Starling was instrumental, by the way, and halting the Russian advance, and the Ukrainians said, so, so you know, I think there's But with AI, you've got the magic gene problem. You may think you want a magic Jenny, but one season that genie's out of the bottle. It's hard to say what happens. How far are we away from that genie being out of the bottle? You think we think it's already out,

when the genie is certainly poking its heat out. AGI the idea of artificial general intelligence, given what you now are working on yourself, and you know how easier hard it is to train to create the inferences to create the weights. I hope I'm not getting too far in the weeds of just how this works, but those are the basics behind the software end of this. It's funny, you know, all these weights, they're just basically a number is in a common separated value file, and that's our digital god, a

CESP file. Not that funny, but that's kind of literally what it is. So I think it's coming pretty fast, you know, is that? I mean you famously have admitted to overstating how quickly things will happen, But how quickly do you think this will happen. If you say smarter than the smartest human at anything, Yep, it may not be been quite smarter than all humans old machine augmented humans, you know, because we able got computers

and stuff as a hire bar. But you say smarter than any you know, you can write as good a novel as say J. K. Rowling, or discover new physics or invent new technology. I would say that we are less than three years from that point. Let me ask you a question about XAI and what you're doing. And because there's an interesting thing that's different. I think about what you have relatives to some of the others which you have data, you have information, You have all of the stuff that everybody

in here has put on the platform to sort through. And I don't know if everybody realized that initially. What is the value of that? Yeah, I mean data is very important. You could say that data is probably more viable than gold. But then maybe you have actually maybe you have more. Maybe you have the gold in x in a different way in a way again that I don't know if the public appreciates what that means. Yes, excess

the that might be the single source of data. I mean it is they're more you know, people links that go to feel click on, more links to X than anything else on Earth. As sometimes people think Facebook or Instagram is a bigger thing, but actually there are more links to X than anything you can there's public information. You can google it. Okay, let me ask you a So it is. It is where you would find what is

happening right now on Earth at any given point in time. The whole open Air drama played out in fact on the X platform, so it is one of the it's not there. You know. Google certainly has a massive amount of data, so does Microsoft. So it's not like but it is one of the best sources of data. Can ask you an interesting IP issue, which I think is actually something I can say as somebody who's in the creator

business and journalistic business and whatnot or care about copyright. Right. So, one of the things about training on data has been this idea that you're not going to train or these things are not being trained on people's copyrighted information. Historically that's been the concept. Yeah, that's a huge lie. Say that. Again, these as are all trained on copyrighted data obviously, so you think it's a lie when when open AI says that this is not None of

these guys say they're training on copyrighted dat. That's a lie. It's a lie, straight up lie. Okay, it's been trained on appropriated data. Okay. So the second question, which is all of the people who have been uploading, all of the people who have been uploading articles, the best quotes from different articles, videos, two X, all of that can be trained on. And it's interesting because people put all of that there, and

those quotes have historically considered fair use. Right, people are putting those quotes up there and individually on a fair use basis, you'd say, okay, that makes sense. But now there are people who do threads. And by the way, there may be multiple people who've done you know, an article that has a thousand words. Technically all thousand words could have made it onto

X somehow and effectively. Now you have this remarkable repository. And I wonder how you think about that again, and how you think the creative community and those who were the original IP owners should think about that. I don't know, except to say that by the time these lawsuits are decided, we'll have digital God. So that's digital God. At that point, these lawsuits won't be decided before on a timeframe that is relevant. Is that a good thing

or a bad thing? I think we live, you know, there's that I don't know if it's actually a real Chines saying or not, but maybe live an interesting times. It's apparently not a good thing, but I would prefer to personally, I would prefer to live in interesting times, and we

live in the most interesting of times. I think for a while I was like really getting demotivated and losing sleep over the sort of the threat of AI danger, And then I finally sort of became fatalistic about it and said, well, even if I knew it was annihilation, was certain, would I choose to be alive at that time or not? And I said, I probably would have choose to be alive at that time because it's the most interesting

thing, even if there's nothing I could do about it. So then, you know, then basically sort of a fatalistic resignation helped me sleep at night because I was having trouble sleeping at night because of AI danger. Now what to do about it? I mean, I've been the biggest, the one banging the drama the hardest, by far, the longest or least one of longest for AI danger and these regulatory things that are happening. The single biggest

reason that happening is because of me. We think we're ever going to get their arms around it. We talked to the Vice President this afternoon. She said she wants to regulate it. People can try to regulate social media for years and have done nothing effectively. Well, there's there's regulation around anything which is like a physical danger, a danger to the public. So like cars are heavily regulated, communications are heavily regulated, rockets and aircraft are heavily regulated.

The general will us be about regulation is that when something is a danger to the public, that there needs to be some government oversight. So I think, in my view, AI is more dangerous than nuclear bombs, which we regulate. Nuclear bombs, you can't just go make it your clear in your backyard. I think we should have some kind of regulation with AI.

Now, this tends to cause the AI accelerations to get up in arms because they think AI is sort of heaven basically, but you typically don't like regulation. You've pushed back on regulators for the most party in the world of Tesla, and so many instances where we read articles about you pushing back on the regulators. I'm so curious why in this instances now you own one of these businesses. As I said a moment ago, one should not take what is

viewed in the media as being the whole picture. There are literally hundreds like this is not an exaggeration. So there are probably one hundred million regulations that my companies comply with, and they're probably five that we don't. And if if we disagree with some of those regulations, it's because we think the regulation that is meant to do good doesn't actually do good. But that is not

the applying regulations. But the question if there are laws and rules, whether the idea is that you're making the decision that the law and the rule shouldn't be the law on the rule, and then right, isn't I'm saying you're fundamentally mistaken, and you should be obvious that you're mistaken. My companies, UH automotive is heavily regulated. We would not be allowed to put cars on

the road if we did not comply with this vast body of regulation. Now you could you could fill up a stage with literally, you know, six foot high with the regulations that you have to comply with to make a car would make you could have a room full of phone books. That's how many. That's how big the regulations are. And if you don't comply with all of those, you can't sell the car. And if we don't comply with all the regulations for rockets or for starlingk they shot a stack out. So,

in fact, I am incredibly compliant with regulations. Now, once in a while, there'll be something that I disagree with. The reason I would disagree with this is because I think the regulation in that particular case, in that rare case, does not serve the public good, and therefore I think it is my obligation to object to a regulation that is meant to serve the public good. If it doesn't, that's the only time I object, not because I seek to object. In fact, i'm incredibly rule following. Let

me ask you a separate question is social media related question. We've been talking about TikTok today ahead of the election. TikTok is what do you think of TikTok? Do you think it's a national security threat? I don't use TikTok vidin you don't. I don't personally use it, but for people that for teenagers and people in their twenties, they seem almost religiously addicted to TikTok.

So people, we'll watch TikTok for like two hours a day. I stopped using TikTok when I felt the AI probing my mind and I don't it made me uncomfortable, so I stopped using it. And in terms of anti smitty content, I mean, TikTok is rife with that. It has the most viral anti Smittic content by far. But do you think the Chinese government is using it to manipulate the minds of Americans? No? Is that something that you think we should worry about. I mean, you have different states that

are trying to ban it. I don't think this is some Chinese government plot, but it is. The TikTok algorithm is entirely AI powered, so it is really just trying to find the most viral thing possible. But it's what is going to keep you glued to the screen. That's it. Now.

The on sher numbers, there are on the order of two billion Muslims in the world, and I think you know much smaller number of Jewish people for twenty million something, many orders of magnitude few are so if you just look at content production just on sher numbers basis, this is going to be overwhelmingly anti Semitic. Let me ask you a number. Let me ask your political question. And I've been trying to square this one in my head for a

long time. Yeah, in the last two or three years, you have moved decidedly to the right, I think have I Well, we can discuss this. I think that you have been espousing and promoting a number of Republican candidates and others. You've been very frustrated with the Biden administration over I think unions and feeling like they did not respect what you've created. Well, I mean without any doing nothing to provoke the Biden administration. They held an electric

vehicle summit at the White House and specifically refused to let Tesla attend. This was in the first six months of the administration, and we required, like, we literally make more electric cars than everyone else combined. Why are we not allowed? Why are you only letting your for GM, Chrysler and UAW and you're specifically disallowing us from the ev summit at the White House. We've done nothing to provoke them. Then, Biden went on to add insult injury

and publicly said that GM was leading the electric car revolution. This was in the same quarter that Tesla made three hundred thousand electric cars and GM made twenty six Does that seem fair to you? So tell me this thing. It doesn't seem fair. And I've asked it repeatedly and you've probably seen it. Although I had a great relationship with Obama, so this is not a but then there's for Obama seven hours for six I certain line for six hours to

shake Obama's head. Okay, okay, So let me just ask on a personal level. I can see it in your face. This this hurt you personally, and I hurt the company too, and it was an insult to you. Know, Tesla has one hundred and forty thousand employees, okay, of the half of them are in the United States. Tells us created more manufacturing jobs than everyone else combined. Soon, I asked, this thing.

You've devoted at least the last close to twenty years of your life, if not more, to the climate climate change, trying to get Tesla off the ground in part to improve climate You talked about that. Yeah, a real right wing motive. Is repeatedly got far right. If I stand that, and then it's guys reverse psychology next level. Well no, but so here's then the question, which is, how do you square the support that you have given. I believe you were at a fundraiser for Viva Gramaswami, for

example, who says that the climate climate issue is a hoax. Right, I disagree with him on that. I but I would think that that would be such a singular issue for you. I would think that the climate issue is such a singular issue for you that actually it would disqualify almost anybody who didn't take that issue seriously. Well, I haven't endorsed anyone for president.

I mean I wanted to hear what Vic had to say because I think some of his things are That's some of the things he says I think are pretty solid. You know, he is concerned about government over each about government control of information. I mean, the degree to which old Twitter was basically a

soft puppet of the government was ridiculous. So, you know, it seems to me that there's a very severe violation of the First Amendment in terms of how much a government control, how much control the government had of an old Twitter and it no longer does, so you know, there's a reason for

the First Amendment. The reason for the First Amendment, for the freedom of speech is because the people that immigrated this country came from a place is where there was not freedom of speech, and they were like, you know what, we've got to make sure that that's constitutional because where they came from, if they said something that would be put in prison, whether it be you know, something bad, what happened to them. So and freedom of speech

you have to say when is it relevant. It's only relevant when when someone you don't like can say something you don't like or it has no meaning. And as soon as you sort of, you know, throw in the towel and concede to censorship, it is only amount of time before someone censors you. And that is why we have the First Amendment. Could you see yourself voting for President Biden if it's if they Biden Trump election, for example,

I think I would not vote for Biden. You'd vote for Trump. I'm not saying i'd vote for Trump, but I mean this is definitely a difficult choice. Yeah, you know, we would you would you vote for Nicki Haley? Nicki Haley, by the way, once all social media names to

be exposed as you know, no, I think that's outrageous. Yeah, no, I'm not going to vote for some pros and censorship candidate, Like I said, I mean, I think these you have to you have to, you know, consider that there is a lot of wisdom and these amendments, you know, I mean the Constitution and uh, you know a lot of these a lot of things that we take for granted here in the United

States that don't even exist in Canada. There's not no constitucial rights to freedom of speech in Canada, so you know so, and there's no Miranda rights in Canada. People like think like you know, you have the right to romancean you don't actually in Canada, so you know have Canadian I can say these things both, but you know so, so like you just got, the freedom of speech is incredibly important even when people say and like I said,

it's it's actually especially important. In fact, it is only relevant when people you don't like can say things you don't like. And do you think right now as the meaningless do you think right now? The Republican candidates or the Democrats are more inclined. I mean, this is where you go to I assume to to woke an anti woke in the mind virus issue that you've talked about, which party do you think is more pro freedom of speech? Given all the things you've seen, we also see you know, desantus,

uh, you know, preventing people from reading certain things. Maybe you maybe you think that's that's that's correct. No, Look, we actually are in an odd situation here where on balance the Democrats appear to be more pro spensor

censorship than the Republicans. And that used to be the opposite. It used to be, you know, the left position was freedom of speech, you know, ugly at one point the ACL you even defended the right of someone to claim that they were Nazi or something like that, you know, so like they were there really were, Like the left was free of us. Each is fundamental, and I mean, my perception, perhaps it is inaccurate, is that the pro censorship is more on the left than the right.

We certainly get more complaints from the left than the right that way. So, but my aspiration for the X platform is that it is the best source of truth, well the least inaccurate source of truth. And well, you know, I don't know if people are believing or not. But I think honesty is the best policy, and I think that the truth will win over time and the you know, We've got this great system and it's getting better

called community notes, which is fantastic. I think it correcting falsehoods or adding context. In fact, we make a point of not removing anything, but only adding context. Now that context could include that this is completely false and here's why. And no one is immune to this. I'm not immune to it. Advertisers are not immune to it. In fact, we've had community notes, which has caused us some loss in advertising, speaking of lots of

advertising revenue. If a community note, if this false advertising, the community note will say this is false and here is why. I mean, there's one specific example that is public knowledge, so I'll mention it, which is at one point, Uber had this ad which said earned like a boss, and it was community noted if by a boss you mean twelve dollars and forty seven cents an hour. This did cause at least a temporary suspension of advertising

from Uber. I got to ask you a question that might make everybody in the room got uncomfortable or not uncomfortable. It goes to the free speech issue the New York Times company and the New York Times newspaper. It appeared over the summer to be throttled. What did the New York Times? Well, we do require that that everyone has to buy a subscription, and we don't make exceptions for anyone. And I think, if I want the New York Times, I have to pay for a subscription, and they don't give me

a free subscription. So I'm not going to give them a free subscription. But were you But were you throttling the New York Times relative to other news organizations, relative to everybody else? Was it was? It? Was it specific to the to the Times, they didn't buy a subscription only costs like a thousand dollars a month. So if they just do that, then then they're back in back in the settle. But but but you are saying that

it was throttled. You know what I'm saying. I mean, was there a conversation that you had with somebody you said, look, you know, I'm unhappy with the Times. They should either be buying the subscription or I don't like their content or whatever whatever. Any organization that refuses to buy a subscription is not going to be recommended. But then what does that say about free speech? And what we'll say about amplifying voices. It costs a little

bit, right, But that's it. But that's an interesting you know, it's it's like an South Park when they say, you know, freedom isn't free. It costs a bucko five or whatever. So but it's pretty cheap. Okay, it's low cost, low cost freedom. I got a couple more questions for you. You're heading back to Texas after this to launch the

styber truck. Yeah, it's going to be a big launch. But I wanted to ask you right now more broadly, just about the car business and what you see actually happening, and specifically, the government put in place lots of policies, as you know, to try to encourage more evs. And one of the things that's happened uniquely is you have now a lot of car companies saying, actually, this is too ambitious for us, these plans or too ambitious four thousand dealers. I don't know if you saw just yesterday sent

the letter of the White House saying this has gone too far. You're going too far. You had this ev it was this is going too fast, too far, and that there's not enough demand. Underneath all this is his idea that maybe there's not enough demand for evs, that the American public has not bought into the I mean they bought it into with your company, but they haven't bought into it broadly enough. Well, I think if you make a compelling electric car, people will buy it, no question about it.

I mean electric car sales in China are gigantic. That's my father the biggest category, right, and I think that would be the case, you know, I mean it's worth noting. Okay, So the probably the best reputation of that is that the Tesla model why will be the best selling car of any kind on Earth this year of any kind, gasoline or otherwise. Is there another car company that you think doing a good job with these? I

mean, I think the Chinese clock companies are extremely competitive. By far, our toughest competition is in China. So I mean there's there's a lot of people who out there think that the top ten clock companies is going to be Tesla followed by nine Chinese clock companies. I think they might not be wrong. So China is super good at manufacturing, and the work ethic is incredible. So you know, like, if we consider different leagues of competitiveness at

Tesla, we consider the Chinese League to be the most competitive. And by the way, we do very well in China because our China team is the best China. How worried are you that the unionized unionization effort that just took place at well, I shouldn't say effort, but the new the new wages and the like at GM and FORD are that they're coming for you. They are coming for you. What is that going to mean to you in your

business? Well, I mean, I think it's generally not good to have an adversarial relationship between people on the line, you know, one group at the company and another group. In fact, I mean I disagree with the idea of unions, but perhaps for a reason that is different than people may expect, which is I just don't like anything which creates kind of a lords and peasants sort of thing, And I think the unions naturally try to create

negativity in a company and create a sort of lords and peasants situation. There are many people at Tesla who have gone from working on the line to being in senior management. There is no lords and peasants. Everyone eats at the same table, everyone parks in the same talking lot. You know, at GM there's a special elevator for only for senior executives. We have no such

thing as Tesla. You know the things that I actually know the people on the line because I worked on the line, and I walked the line, and I stepped in the factory and I worked beside them, so I'm no stranger to them. And actually many times where I've said, well, can't we just hold a union vote, but apparently a company is not allowed to hold a union vote, so it has to be somehow cull foral but the unions can't do it. So I said, well, let's just hold a

vote and see what happens. The actual problem is the opposite. It's not that people are trapped at Tesla building cars. The challenges is how do we retain great people to do the hard work of building cars when they have like six other opportunities that they can do that are easier. That's the actual difficulty

is that building cars is hard work and there are much easier jobs. And I just want to say that I'm incredibly you should have of those who wove cars and they know it, you know, So there's there's I don't know, maybe there will be unionized if if if I say, like if Tesla gets unionized, will be because we deserve it and we failed in some way. But we certainly try hard to, you know, ensure the prosperity of everyone. We give everyone stock options. We've we've made many people who are

just working the line who didn't even know what stocks were. We've made the millionaires. So we're going to run on time. Final A couple of quick quick questions. When do you have the time to tweet or to post? How? I actually think about it all the time. As I said, I use the bathroom sometimes. I use it all the time. Being if if we were to, if we were to open up our phones and look at the screen, time, what does yours look like? Well about it?

Every three hours I make a trip to the laboratory. That's the only time you do this. It seems like you're on there a lot. No, I mean there'll be like brief moments between meetings. I mean, so obviously I have like seventeen jobs, so you know, and no, no, I guess technically it's work at this point. It is, But I'm thinking just in terms of your mind sharing. I mean, by the way, there's a lot of people who should be working who are on this.

Technically posting on Twitter is or X's is work. It just count as work. So that's you know, there's that. But no, I mean I think I'm on well, I guess usually probably I'm on for longer than I think. I know. But do you think that's five hours a day? If we have the screen time of like number hours per week, sometimes that's a scary number. It's probably I don't know, it's a little over an hour day or something like that. Just an hour a day. If we

really looked at this together. Do you have your phone with you? Yeah, you want to look? Okay, Okay, here we go. You ready to screen time? Sometimes there's a scary number of it. I know. That's why I thought. I just got a new phone. So I think this is not accurate because it's one minute. I'm pretty sure it's more than that. Wait, it's over the week. It'll go to the week. Okay, so it's still wrong. It's it's more than four minutes. I just got a new phone, so this is not accurate. It literally

four minutes new phone. Tim cooks into the phone, new phone. Who does Yeah, I should ask, by the way, because I just mentioned him Cook, do you feel like you're gonna have to have a battle with him eventually? Is that? Is that the next fight? I mean over the app store? The idea of making a phone? What do you mean, like, no, no, no, of the app store? You make a phone? Sam Alvans apparently thinking about making a phone, Johnny, I, I mean I don't think there's a real need to make a phone.

I mean, if there's an essential need to make a phone, on make a phone. But I got a lot of christ to fry, so, uh, I mean, I do think there's a there's a there's a fundamental challenge that phonemakers have at this point because you've got basically a black rectangle. You know, how do you make that better? So do you want to do that? What does that? What does that look like? In Elon's head? No, that's literally yeah, good good phrase in the head

A new link. Well, there we go that we need to touch that before it's over. You know, the best interface would be a neural interface directly to your brain, so that that would be a neural how far we do you think from that, and how excited or scary does that seem to be? And we read these headlines obviously about monkeys who died as you know, what should we think about that? Yeah? Actually this is the USDA inspector who came by the Neuralink facilities literally said in her entire career, she

has never seen a better animal care facility. It is we are the nicest channels that you could possibly be, even to the rats and mice, even though they did the plague and everything. So it is it is like monkey paradise. So the thing that gets conflated is that there were some terminal monkeys where you know, this is long. This is actually several years ago, where the monkeys were about to die and we're like, okay, we've got an experimental device. It's so kind of thing which only put in a monkey

that's about to die. And then you know, now the monkey died, but didn't die because the neural link died because it was you add, a total case of cancer or something like that. So neurlink has never caused the death of a monkey. It's best unless they're hiding something from me. Has

never caused death of a monkey. And in fact, we've now had monkeys with the neuralink implants for two three years and they're doing great so and we've even replaced it a neurlink twice, and we're getting ready to do the first implants in hopefully in a few months. The early implementations of neuralink, I

think are unequifectly good. Speaking of the double edged sword, I think these early implementations are single edged sword because the first implementations will be to enable people who have lost the brain body connection to to be able to operate a computer or a phone faster than someone who has hands that work. So you can imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than someone who had full body functionality.

Now in credible that would be well, that's what this device will do, and we should have a proof of that in a human hopefully in a few months. It already works in monkeys and worked quite well with monkeys that can play video games just using just by thinking. So then the next application, after the sort of those you know dealing with tetriplegics who quit quaraplegics, is going to be vision. Vision is the next thing. So it's like if

somebody is like has lost both eyes or the optic nerve has failed. Basically where there's they have no possibility of having sort of some ocular correction. That that be the next thing when your link is a direct vision interface, and in fact then you could be like Jordia LaForge from Star Trek. You could

see it in like any frequency. Actually you can see in radar. If you want, two final questions and then we're going to do end this conversation, which I think has taken everybody inside the mind of Elon Musk today, not as well as in your link. Well, it actually goes to self driving cars and vision and everything else. And I asked this question if Pete Buddha Judge Transportation Secretary. It's actually something you retweeted, so I wanted to

ask you the same question. There's a big question about autonomous vehicles and the safety of them, but there's also a question about when it will be politically palatable in this country for people to die in cars that are controlled by computers. Which is to say, we have thirty five forty thousand deaths every year in this in this country. If you could bring that number down to ten

thousand, five thousand, that might be a great thing. But do we think that the country will accept the idea that five thousand people that your family might have perished in a vehicle as a result not of a human making a mistake, but of a computer. Yes, Well, first of all, humans are terrible drivers. So if people text and drive, they drink and drive, they get into arguments, they you know, you know, they do all sorts of things in cars that they should not do. So it's

actually remarkable that there are not more deaths than there are. What we'll find with computer driving is I think probably in order of magnitude reduction in deaths. I think now the US has actually far fewer death per capita than the rest of the world. If you go worldwide, I think there's something close to a million deaths per year to accidents. So I think computer driving will probably drop that by or more. It won't be perfect, but it'll be ten

times. And do you think that the public will will accept that? Do you think the government will accept that? Well, in large numbers, it will simply be so obviously true that it really cannot be denied. And what do you think. I know we've talked about the timeline before and I know people have criticized you for putting out timelines that may not have come true just yet, but what do you think it will? And by the way, do you feel like you ever say yourself, Oh, I shouldn't have said

that, Sure of course, Wait I should have said that. So uh yeah, I mean I'm optimistic about I mean, I think I'm like naturally optimistic about time scales. And if I was not naturally optimistic, I wouldn't be doing the things that I'm doing. I mean, I certain wouldn't have started a rocket company or like the car company if I didn't have some sort of pathological optimism. Frankly, so, as you pointed out, many people said they would fail, and in fact, I actually I agreed with them.

I said, yes, it probably will fail, and they're like, okay, but I thought spasics and says I had less than a ten percent chance of success when we started them. So yeah, anyway, But the self driving things is, I've been optimistic about it. We certainly made a lot of progress. If anybody has tried the very has been using the sort of full self driving beta, the progress is, you know, every year

has been substantial. It's really now the point where in most places it'll take you from one place to another with no inventions, and the data is unequivocal that that supervised full self driving is somewhere around four times safer, maybe more than just human driving by by themselves. So I know, I can certainly see it coming. Actually, really you think it's another five or ten years and many people no, no, no, definitely not, definitely not.

Do you feel like investors have invested in something that hasn't happened yet? Is that is that fair to them? And that's the other question that people have about that. Well, I mean, I think they're all with rare exception, but it wasn't happening, so they were investing despite thinking. They're very clear that they don't think it's real, so they're not saying, oh, we just believe everything. Elan says, Hooklient and Sacre. But the thing is that, I mean, I would be a fair criticism of me to

say that I am late, but it isn't. But I always love her in the end and ask you the final question. I took note of this. It was November eleventh and you took to Twitter and you wrote only two words. You said, amplify empathy. Right. I was taken back by that. Given all the things that have been going on in the world, do you remember what you were thinking? Well, I think it's quite literally, I understand it. But what was going on? Why why did you

write then? Well, I was encouraging people to amplify empathy. Literally, I've enduring quite literal. But what was there something that had happened that you had seen that you said to yourself, I need to I want to say that. I think I'm starting to some friends and we all agreed that we should try to amplify empathy. And so I wrote, ampify empathy. If you wanted an unvarnished look inside the mind of Elon Musk, I think you just saw it. Look sometimes it's pretty simple, you know. Elon Musk,

thank you very very much for the conversation. Thank you, appreciate it very very much. Thank you, Thank you so much. Right here, take that with you for a second. I'm just going to say thank you to everybody who stuck around for what has been a remarkable day. We are so appreciative of everybody who has been with us for so many years, coming back to this every year. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you had a great day, and I hope we have an

opportunity to do this again. Elon Musk, everybody, thank you.