America PAC Town Hall — Lancaster, PA (2024)
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (2)
Transcript
2:06Elon MuskIt's sa.
10:14Elon MuskIt,
10:40AudienceSam it.
11:54Elon MuskWelcome. Usa. Usa.
12:02AudienceAll right.
12:04Elon MuskWow.
12:09Elon MuskI love it. It's an honor to be here talking to everyone here and everyone out there. So, yeah, I'm. Before I. Actually, what I want to emphasize before anything else is, as the sign says, vote early and vote now.
12:47Elon MuskSo you can actually, I looked at the numbers. As of Yesterday, there's still 40,000 absentee ballots that have been mailed out just in the surrounding counties, just in the nearby area that have not been.
13:04Elon MuskThat have not been handed in. So if you have any friends, family, or anyone you know who has an absentee ballot, just hound them relentlessly until they hand it in.
13:19Elon MuskBecause if they don't hand it in, then the vote doesn't count. It's pretty straightforward. So, yeah, there's 40,000 absentee ballots that really need to be handed in just in this area.
13:32Elon MuskSo please, you know, talk to friends and family. Don't get a vote. The other thing is that anyone in Pennsylvania can go to the county office on Monday and Tuesday and request a ballot and immediately there, hand it in.
13:54Elon MuskSo I think probably a lot of people are not aware that you can actually do this. You don't even need to mail it. It's kind of weird because it's like called an absentee ballot.
14:04Elon MuskBut you're like, right there, clearly not absent. Can I have an absentee ballot? But you're here. Yes. As strange as that sounds, you can literally go in, request an absentee ballot, and even though you're right there, you can hand it in.
14:27Elon MuskAnd you did this morning. Great. And I think maybe some county offices are open on the weekend, but they're definitely open on Monday and Tuesday. And then to add another strange twist, they close on Wednesday.
14:41Elon MuskSo they're like, now what? So you have until just Monday and Tuesday in Pennsylvania to go into the county office, request a ballot, and you can hand it in right there.
14:56Elon MuskIt doesn't even need to even go in the mail or anything. And that's the best way to do it. You can use the mail, but you can just do it right in person.
15:05Elon MuskAnd then for some reason on Wednesday, you cannot do it anymore until November 5th. So that's high urgency for Monday and Tuesday. Big deal. So.
15:30Elon MuskAnd this, this is, you know, this is an election that I think, frankly is. Is a folk in the road of destiny, you know, it really is. So, you know, it's.
15:43Elon MuskYeah, it's. It's. It's. It's essential. So, you know, it's like, we need safe cities, secure borders, you know, sensible spending. I mean, basic stuff, you know, and. And we need to get rid of, like, the.
16:03Elon MuskThe. Well, yeah, but I mean, it's like, I always feel like it's bad to, like, attack Kamala because he's just a puppet, you know, but it's just, you know, it's just a machine.
16:18Elon MuskIt's just like this big government machine, and there's a puppet, and it's like, no point in attacking the puppet. It's just, you know, it's like I was like, you know, I made a joke that was sort of misconstrued, that it was like, nobody even bothered us to try to kill Kamala.
16:32Elon MuskThat's pointless.
16:34AudienceWhy?
16:36Elon MuskLet's get another puppet. So everyone does. Nobody even bothers. Nobody's even. Nobody's even tried to kill Biden. It's like, doesn't that seem odd? They're trying to kill Trump twice.
16:49Elon MuskYeah, exactly. I mean, listen, if somebody's already dead, what's the point of trying to kill him? So, you know, he's one foot and four toes in the grave. I mean, I saw A Weekend at Bernie's, and honestly, the corpse had more life than Biden, like, for sure, actually.
17:06Elon MuskSo, you know, who's even running the country? Like, like, like, like, who's in charge? I just. It's confusing. Trump. Sure, he will be, hopefully. But I just sort of wonder, like, clearly Biden is not Compass Mantis, so who is actually in charge?
17:31Elon MuskThe machine, I think it's just. It's just like the big government machine basically is what's in charge. But it's bizarre, you know, so, yeah, I mean, obviously with Trump, the great thing is that we have a real individual who is not beholden to anyone, and that's what scares the machine.
17:51Elon MuskAnd that's why the machine is trying to kill him. Yeah. So,
18:06Elon MuskYeah, wild times, man. Wild times. I mean, I've had quite a few friends call me and say, have you? You should definitely improve your security. I'm like, that's probably a good idea.
18:24Elon MuskI'm like, they're like, they're definitely going to try to kill you. I'm like, yeah, that's a good chance they might try to do that. Yeah, so, yeah, exactly. If they shoot, they better not miss.
18:41Elon MuskSo I'll find out who was behind him, not just who the gunman was. So. But it is crazy to think that, you know, we have a presidential candidate who.
18:55Elon MuskThat they've tried to kill twice in recent months, and they try to get them with lawfare. Six ways to Sunday to try to prevent people from, from actually voting in a democratic way.
19:05Elon MuskIt's outrageous, really. What are they, you know, what are they afraid of? So, yeah, I think it's kind of the truth and I'd certainly encourage people. If people haven't seen the conversation between Joe Rogan and Donald Trump, that was super cool.
19:29Elon MuskI mean, I think for a lot of people it's like, you know, how do you know, how do you understand somebody like, and what they're about? You know, like the sort of far left press has been going on and on about how like Trump is like Hitler, like Mussolini and Stalin combined and you rolled them all into one and he's somehow worse than all three of them combined.
19:53Elon MuskThese are people who have killed tens of millions of people. I'm like, something's wrong with the press, guys. You know, something is wrong with the press. Journalism is dead.
20:05Elon MuskLike, what the heck is going on? It's bizarre. Yeah, actually, exactly. It's like,
20:19Elon MuskI mean, I do think like that old school journalism, I call it legacy media because it is kind of legacy media because it is from a time when in order to learn any news, you had to aggregate the news to some central publication and then some editor would decide what people should hear and then they would print the newspaper with like a lot of paper, literally, and then distribute that paper.
20:45Elon MuskAnd that's how you learn things. But you obviously don't need that anymore. You've got the Internet so anyone can learn anything at any time. Yeah, that's why X is future.
20:55Elon MuskIt's citizen journalism where you hear from the people, it's by the people, for the people. That's what it's all about.
21:09Elon MuskI think this is a super, super big deal and it's, and it's absolutely fundamental and transformative that the people actually get to decide the news and the narrative and what matters.
21:24Elon MuskBecause the legacy media is basically controlled by a handful of editors in chief. That's it. They decide what's going to get published. That's why I really encourage everyone out there to write stuff on the X platform and other platforms too.
21:41Elon MuskBut citizen journalism is the future, you know, and that's where you get to hear from actual experts in the field, people who are experts in any given industry, and you get to hear the rebuttal.
21:53Elon MuskSo if somebody says something that's wrong or requires more context, people can add that X has got community notes, which is great, you know, so community notes, I think is got a very good batting average.
22:07Elon MuskIt's not perfect, but it's Got a very good batting average and many times I've gotten requests like, can we get rid of this community note? I'm like, no, we cannot.
22:17Elon MuskNot even a community note on myself. So with community notes, all the code is open source, all the data is open source. So you can recreate any given community note independently.
22:28Elon MuskAnd that transparency is how you know that it's true and it's real and it's honest.
22:43Elon MuskSo that's, that's, yeah, but, and I think we've got, you know, besides man, the mic feedback's getting a little crazy. So maybe I should, should I go further back or further forward?
23:02Elon MuskWell, there's an X on the floor, I guess. I'm guessing that's where I should stand. Okay, yeah. All right.
23:17Elon MuskAll right. Yeah. So yeah, the rock ship was pretty cool. That was an amazing thing. So,
23:32Elon MuskYeah, the SpaceX team is an incredible team. And it's wild that this giant 250 ton object went to space, came back and was caught by giant Mechazilla arms. It's like, you know, it's super cool.
23:47Elon MuskThat's the kind of thing that, you know, that I think is inspiring and exciting and you know, there's a lot of potential. I think we, we can actually build a permanently occupied science base on the moon.
24:02Elon MuskWe can build a study on Mars. We can be a multi planet species and out there among the stars, it's very exciting. You know, so.
24:15Elon MuskI'm wearing this jacket that was given to me by the space force. You know, it's got Star Trek Enterprise on it. You know, it's like Starfleet Academy. We want to make Starfleet Academy real, you know, and go out there and visit other star systems eventually and see if there are alien civilizations.
24:34Elon MuskMaybe they're alien civilizations that existed for millions of years and we just find the, you know, the ruins of many long dead alien civilizations. I don't know. Well, they might be very interesting to
24:50Audiencesee
24:52Elon Muskbecause at least according to physics, the universe is 13.8 billion years old and Earth is about four and a half billion years old. So even if you just increment the time counter by a million years, you have to go three digits past decimal place to go bloop, a million years.
25:08Elon MuskAnd the oldest writing that we've discovered in archaeology is only 5,500 years old. Only that's nothing. That's a millionth of Earth's existence. It was the first writing. And you really have to hand it to the ancient Sumerians, by the way.
25:27Elon MuskThey got a lot of firsts Those ancient Sumerians, they're really knocking out of the park frankly, you know, with the clay tablets and everything. Thankfully they wrote in clay tablets.
25:38Elon MuskIt was quite helpful. I mean they've even discovered like schoolwork, like where they teach the kids cuneiform on clay tablets. And then there's the teacher correcting the cuneiform in red ink.
25:54Elon MuskIt's been going on for a while. So here we are, a mere 5,500 year old civilization, just a baby really, but with a lot of potential. I think we, you know, we can go out there, we can make life multi planetary, understand the universe, find out what's going on.
26:22Elon MuskMaybe the aliens will come visit us. Maybe they are here right now, I don't know. So, alien registration card. So you know, people do ask me like, do I think aliens are amongst.
26:40Elon MuskI'm like, I haven't seen any. Yeah, there's illegal aliens, but there's a lot of those. But I haven't seen any like sort of green aliens with antennas on their head or anything like that.
26:54Elon MuskAnd maybe they are, they're just very subtle, but I haven't seen them. So. But I think we want to be kind of, we want to be the aliens exploring other galaxies, you know.
27:06Elon MuskAnd you know, I grew up watching Star Trek and Star wars was the first movie that I ever saw in a theater and it obviously affected me a lot.
27:15Elon MuskAnd we just want to have these sort of glorious, amazing, I don't know, space future real, you know, and have exciting, inspiring things that make you glad to wake up.
27:30Elon MuskWhen you wake up in the morning, you're glad to be alive. They have to be these things, you know, life cannot. Yeah,
27:45Elon MuskSo yeah, well, I think we can. So that you can travel to Mars roughly every two years. So every 26 months the planets align and you can travel from Earth to Mars.
28:00Elon MuskAnd we're actually at a planetary alignment moment right now in the next few months. And so in roughly two years there will be another planetary alignment and that's when we intend to send the first starship rockets to Mars.
28:25Elon MuskSo that's, I think we can probably send quite a few in two years. And then if those land successfully and we do not increment the crater count in Mars, crater count before and after equals the same, then we can send people.
28:44Elon MuskIn four years we will be illegal aliens on Mars. You know, I guess if there's any, you know, any Martians, maybe they'll make Mars great again. Yeah, you know, Mars did have oceans a long time ago, it seems like.
29:04Elon MuskYeah, like When Mars was a lot hotter, it had what appears to be liquid oceans. And if you warmed Mars up, it'll have an Ocean on about 40% of the Earth's of Mars surface.
29:17Elon MuskSo Mars would be about have an ocean I think almost like a mile deep on 40% of the surface if you just warmed it up. So there's a ton of a massive amount of frozen ice on Mars.
29:27Elon MuskSo yeah, it is kind of making Mars great again because you can warm it up and it can be an Earth like planet. So I think this is actually very important for the long term.
29:41Elon MuskThe longevity of consciousness is to be a multi planet species. It's actually very important so because there's always some chance that something could happen on Earth that's either, you know, a man made disaster or a natural disaster like the, you know, the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.
30:02Elon MuskI mean there have been many mass extinction events in Earth's history and there will be mass extinction events, yet there is a de facto mass extinction event of humans actually the birth rate is plummeting, so.
30:19Elon MuskBut the probable lifespan of civilization will be much greater if we are a multi planet species than if we are a single planet species. We don't want to be one of those lame one planet civilizations is what I'm saying.
30:32Elon MuskSo we want to be a multi planet civilization and I'm not talking about like a lot of resources, like I don't know, 1% of our resources. Seems like a wise move to be a multi planet species and kind of just ultimately find out what's going on, like visit other star systems.
30:48Elon MuskAnd I think one day Mars may actually play a role similar to the role that America has played in saving the world. You know, America saved the world three times last century.
30:57Elon MuskThat's a big deal. World War I, 2 and the Cold War. So.
31:07Elon MuskEarth would be very different if not for America saving the day three times last century. Yeah, Amen indeed. So, so I think in the future, Mars, they used to call America the new world and Mars would be the new new world, but actually, you know, planet.
31:29Elon MuskSo I think one day Mars may save Earth just as America saved the rest of the world. I think that's a big.
31:48Elon MuskYeah, as you can tell, I love space and rockets in case that wasn't obvious. So let's see, we can go right into questions and just sort of have it.
32:04Elon MuskIt's always good to have like get the discussion going with people. So the lights are very bright in my eyes, so I can hardly, I can't see what's going on.
32:13Elon MuskThere's two big lines. Okay, great. Well, let's see, how should we start? Okay, go ahead. Okay, sure.
32:28AudienceHi, Elon. My name is Ashley and I'm from Lancaster county and I have a 7 year old son named Daniel. And he made me promise that if I got to talk to you, I had to tell you that he thinks that the cybertruck is the thing.
32:39AudienceCoolest, coolest thing that has ever been invented. So he owes me one now for telling you that. But so my question centers around higher education. So I'm going to age myself a little bit.
32:51AudienceBut 20 years ago when I graduated high school, I made the decision not to go to college and just to enter in the workforce. And it worked really well for me, but I did get a lot of slack from it, from people that thought that that was kind of crazy.
33:03AudienceAnd now I've seen, you know, the attitude toward higher education kind of changing and that not being the only model that we have. So my question's sort of twofold here.
33:13AudienceSo when it comes to like my children who, you know, will eventually be needing to make that decision, you know, what decision or what, what advice would you give in comparison to like a trade school, higher education, or just entering the workforce?
33:29AudienceAnd from an employer standpoint, in 10 to 15 years, what do you think employers are going to be looking for from this next generation that will be entering the workforce?
33:41Elon MuskSure. Well, I do think that probably too often people do do a university or college thing for four years and it's unnecessary. And then they accrue a lot of debt and it's hard to pay off the debt.
33:56Elon MuskAnd they often don't learn skills that are very useful. So it's not, you know, I think we should really reconsider whether going to college actually makes sense. I think it doesn't always.
34:08Elon MuskSo you know what I think. And people also forget, like, what's the point of going to school in general? You're supposed to learn useful things, you know, improve your understanding of the world and, and learn skills that can help you contribute to your fellow human beings.
34:28Elon MuskBut very often a university does the opposite. In fact, it will propagandize kids and not teach them anything useful and just saddle them with a lot of debt. So I think what really matters is are you doing something useful to help your fellow human beings?
34:49Elon MuskAre you contributing more than you take? And if you are, that's a great thing.
35:02Elon MuskNow we are headed into a pretty wild future here with artificial intelligence and robotics, I think, especially if you look, say like 10 years from now, or more that we're going to have, the world is going to look very different.
35:21Elon MuskI think it's like 80% likely to be good, you know, like the glass is 80% full, you know, and most likely we'll have, I think we'll probably have a situation which is universal high income, actually not universal basic income, but universal high income.
35:40Elon MuskAnd there will be no shortage of goods and services. That is what I think is most likely to occur. And we need to make sure that this AI is and these robots are on the side of humanity.
35:53Elon MuskYou know, obviously, you know, James Cameron made a movie, made a couple movies about that. You know, you got to watch what you program these robots to do. And you know, the example I've used a few times is, you know, when Google Gemini came out, people asked, well, which one's worse, misgendering Caitlyn Jenner or Global thermonuclear War?
36:18Elon MuskAnd said, well, Ms. Gender, Caitlyn Jenner is worse. It's like we've got a problem with this AI. And even Caitlyn Jenner said, yeah, you should definitely miss Jenner me.
36:28Elon MuskThat's crazy. So, you know, we don't want to have an AI. That's. That concludes that the best way to avoid misgendering is to execute all humans, therefore reducing the probability of misgendering to zero because there are no humans.
36:44Elon MuskThat's the kind of crazy stuff that could potentially happen that we want to avoid. Which is why I think we want to have a maximum truth seeking AI. It's got to be based in a good way and just be an honest and truthful and forthright AI.
37:02Elon MuskThat's the best path to safety for artificial intelligence.
37:13AudienceHi Elon, I'm Christine. I'm from Lancaster County. I want to extend a heartfelt welcome from all of us in Lancaster County.
37:22Elon MuskThank you.
37:28AudienceThank you for all that you do. My question surrounds government and efficiency. What would be your plan to make government more efficient?
37:39Elon MuskYeah, well, so I think the first of all, in terms of people sometimes ask, where would you start with government efficiency? And it's kind of like being in a room where the entire room is targets and so you can shoot in any direction and not miss.
37:57Elon MuskIt's like impossible to miss because every direction is a target. So no missed possibility. Now we do have a fundamental issue, which is that the government is spending far, far more than it brings in.
38:12Elon MuskAnd the reality is that all government spending is actually taxation. All government spending is taxation. Sometimes people think some of it is taxation and some of it's not. But it's all taxation because the part that is not covered by tax revenue becomes inflation.
38:27Elon MuskSo you're either taxed directly or you're taxed by inflation, but you are for sure taxed. And so all government spending is taxation. So we have to reduce government spending overall.
38:42Elon MuskThis will be forced upon us in the future because already just the interest payments on the debt are 23% of all federal tax revenue. Just the interest payments. The interest payments now exceed the Defense Department budget, which is a trillion dollars a year.
38:58Elon MuskThat's a lot of money. So just the interest on the debt exceeds what we spend on the military. Just the interest. And that is rising rapidly. So it can't be like, you know, we'll trim a little bit here and there.
39:14Elon MuskThat's not going to work. They have to be quite radical reductions in cost. Yeah.
39:26Elon MuskAnd I think we just need to be, you know, if, you know, Please, Lord. Problems. The, you know, and the Department of Government Efficiency happens. We're going to be very open and transparent and be very clear about this is what we're doing.
39:46Elon MuskHere are the issues. This is the math for what's being spent and what, you know, and we're going to make it. We're going to make the spending lower. If somebody's got a better idea for how to make the spending lower, tell us.
40:01Elon MuskBut if we don't, we're going to bankrupt the country. And so we got to do something. And it's got to be like, some pretty big moves. Drain the swamp.
40:11Elon MuskYeah, I'd say, like, drain the swamps. This is like a. There's so many swamps. It's like, you know, there's so many swamps. There's. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just nutty that, like, there was a massive increase in IRS personnel.
40:29Elon MuskAnd instead of adding people to the Border Patrol, like, this is totally backwards. It's like, you can continue to remain a federal employee, but you have to go guard the border.
40:41Elon MuskThat's your new job. You know, it's like, why are we spending money and applying resources to oppress the American people while rolling out a red carpet for illegals? It doesn't make any sense.
40:56Elon MuskSo.
41:05Elon MuskSo, yeah, it would have to be pretty big. I mean, there's. I actually have tried Googling it, and I've asked all the AIs, how many. How many government agencies are there?
41:17Elon MuskAnd even the government doesn't know. Okay. And the AIs don't know. They're like, well, it's about 450, but maybe it's 420. I'm like, 420, no kidding. That's a lot of agencies.
41:34Elon MuskJust at the federal level. I mean, like, if you sort of stand back and say, okay, just for a second, like, let's say we're starting the country again, how many agencies do we need?
41:44Elon MuskDo we need more than 99? Because that's. 99 is a lot of agencies. You know, like, that's, that's still a lot. You know, if you said, like, does any.
41:53Elon MuskHow many people even know at 99 agencies? I'd say practically no one knows. 99 knows the names of 99 agencies, let alone the 420 or whatever there are. Yeah.
42:10Elon MuskSo we have to unwind the situation. And I think. Well, I think we're going to do it and it's going to unleash a new era of prosperity because people don't even realize how much they're getting held back by millions of federal regulations.
42:31Elon MuskMillions, literally.
42:42Elon MuskAnd if it turns out that we accidentally got rid of a good regulation, we'll just put it back. Is that easy?
42:55Elon MuskHey, Elon, I'm Dan from Pennsylvania as well. I am a teacher, public school teacher, and I just bought a Tesla this year and it's been amazing for my one hour commute.
43:06AudienceGreat.
43:07Elon MuskSo thank you about that. Cool. Additionally, self driving. Yes. Oh my gosh. It blows. Like when I go into the teacher parking lot and I just tried to summon today, like, yeah, everybody's galls hit the floor.
43:22Elon MuskYeah. It's wild. Yeah. So Republicans need to get out the vote. And as the mail in balloting becomes more common, what can I tell my friends about the safety and security of mail in ballots?
43:35Elon MuskYeah. This election and future elections. And then real quick, also, My daughter is 2. Her name is Isabella. She loves the planets and loves astronomy already. And I want to know what I can, as a teacher do to help inspire her curiosity for the heavens, the stars.
43:59Elon MuskSure. Well, let's see. With respect to voting, voting integrity, I think probably the best thing to do is to hand it in in person. But you can also mail it in and you can check to see whether your ballot has been received.
44:14Elon MuskSo it is possible to check online or in person to see if your ballot has been received. But I would encourage people to vote early because what can happen is that November 5th comes around and there's like, you got something critical at work or there's a family emergency or, you know.
44:32Elon MuskYeah. Some mysterious cyber security event that you never know might happen. So, you know, anything can crop up on November 5, whether it's personal or some, you know, there could be some other.
44:45Elon MuskSome other issue. So it is best to vote early. Now, it is very encouraging to see the early vote numbers, because if you compare the early vote numbers this year to 2020, there's about a.
44:58Elon MuskI think the last numbers I saw, it's like a 2 to 300,000 voter difference from 2020. That's a huge. That's major because I think it was like an 80,000 vote threshold last time.
45:13Elon MuskSo Biden won ish by.
45:21Elon Musk80,000 votes. That was the number that was reported. But the interesting thing is that the Delta early votes is now 200, I think maybe approaching 250 or even 300,000 better than 2020, which is far in excess of the margin of 2020.
45:47Elon MuskSo Pennsylvania is trending in the right direction. It's very encouraging,
45:59Elon MuskBut there's still a lot of work to do, and we don't want to be complacent. So definitely get everyone, you know to vote. And as mentioned earlier, people can actually go in person on Monday and Tuesday if they're concerned about putting anything in the mail.
46:16Elon MuskAnd they can actually get their ballot. Like, even if they don't have their ballot, they can literally go to the county office, get the ballot even though it says absentee, and then hand it in even though you're not absent.
46:27Elon MuskIt's weird, but it works. But it stops working on Wednesday, and then the next opportunity is November 5th. So it's kind of quirky, but those are the current rules.
46:39Elon MuskAnd then, let's see, with respect to your daughter. And, you know, I think in order to inspire, like, kids are inspired by real amazing imagery. Like, they see something amazing.
46:53Elon MuskThey see a rocket taking off, a rocket landing, or, you know, robots walking around, or like, cool things like the stuff that you see in sci fi movies. And when they see stuff like that, they're inspired automatically.
47:07Elon MuskThey're inspired because it's. Because there are real advancements in technology, and that's, you know, that's what inspires kids, because it should. Kids are a great filter for what's awesome.
47:23Elon MuskYou can tell if a little kid reacts, like, wow, that's amazing. That's real. So kids love the savage rock and they love rockets, you know, and that's because. And they have no filter.
47:39Elon MuskThey just say what. They immediately say what they think, you know, so, yeah, so it's. It's great new rocket technology that allows us to, like I said, go there and be.
47:53Elon MuskHave a permanent science station on the moon, you know, not Just like it's great that we're into the moon 50 plus years ago, but we want to go to the moon and actually have a science base.
48:04Elon MuskLike we've got a science base in Antarctica. Well, we should have a science base on the moon and we should be building a city on Mars. And I actually think it's the long term future of civilization, I think could be decided by whether or not we build a self sustaining city on Mars.
48:23Elon MuskAnd if we do that is to say that would have millions of people and it would be like if anybody wants to go to Mars, they could. And that would be an incredibly exciting, inspiring thing to aspire to, go to Mars.
48:35Elon MuskYou're like, wow, let's make that real. Let's bring her to Mars. Yes, let's bring her to Mars. Yeah, if she thinks like, wow, one day I could go to Mars, you know, and be one of the Martians and that would be super awesome I think, you know, it's wild.
48:54Elon MuskIt takes six months actually when you go from Earth to Mars. You're just traveling across this void of nothingness for hundreds of millions of miles until eventually you reach another planet.
49:11Elon MuskIt's kind of incredible to think that that's even possible. But how amazing would that be, you know, like, wow, we want to have a future where life is multi planetary, where we're advancing rocket technology and like I said, where Star Trek Starfleet Academy is real and that's what will inspire your daughter.
49:33Elon MuskThank you. All right.
49:40AudienceHi, Elon, My name is Lauren from Pennsylvania. Thank you for being here. Thank you for everything you're doing and congratulations with SpaceX. You and your whole team are absolutely brilliant.
49:49AudienceI have two specific questions for you, but I was curious because I looked all over on X today and I didn't see anybody who won the million dollar prize.
49:58AudienceOh yes, Was that given out today?
50:00Elon MuskWell, let's see. We are going to give it out tonight in fact. So let's. Is it, should we go ahead and do it? Yeah, okay, let's do it. Good timing.
50:13Elon MuskAll right, Judy. Kimora.
50:24Elon MuskYeah. Judy has no idea, by the way. She's just learning now, so.
50:44Elon MuskAuthentic. Judy's on her way here. Like I said, Judy had not learned when you learned. All right. Oh, thank you.
51:03Elon MuskAll right, all right.
51:13Elon MuskI mean we're trying to, trying to get attention for this very important petition to support the Constitution. And it's, you know, it's like if we, you know, we need the right to free speech, we need the right to bear arms, otherwise there is no right to Free speech.
51:29Elon MuskAnd,
51:38Elon MuskYeah. And, and it's, you know, people sort of wonder why, why didn't, why, what's up with the million dollar prizes? I'm like, well, we needed to get the legacy media to talk about it.
51:46Elon MuskAnd, and I just knew that they would be like complaining like hell about it. That, like, for sure. Complaining on every, every newspaper and every TV station are complaining like crazy.
51:59Elon MuskAnd I was like, great, that's going to get the word out. Most. Welcome. All right.
52:04AudienceCan you say hi to my son Kaden?
52:06Elon MuskYes. Hi, Kaden and Kaylee. Hi. All right,
52:29Elon MuskSo, yeah, so we're going to be giving out a million dollars every day through November 5th. And all you have to do is sign the petition in support of the first and Second Amendment.
52:40Elon MuskThat's it. You don't even have to vote. Be nice if you voted, but you don't have to. And to support the. Basically sign something you already believe in and you get a chance to win a million dollars every day from now through the election.
52:52Elon MuskYeah.
53:01AudienceCongratulations. Judy, let me know if you want to share two specific questions for you, Elon. One regarding your concern about the declining birth rate.
53:11Elon MuskYeah, it's a big deal.
53:13AudienceIt is. Besides us as women having more and more children and since we're the only ones who can give birth.
53:19Elon MuskYes.
53:20AudienceWhat would you.
53:21Elon MuskI mean, you do need a womb. A womb is necessary, otherwise you can't have kids currently.
53:30AudienceIt is necessary.
53:31Elon MuskYes.
53:33AudienceWhat would be your solution? Would you be in favor of creating or supporting an IVF surrogacy program to increase the birth rates? And my second question is about what would you recommend towards the first steps on improving our American educational system?
53:48AudienceThank you.
53:48Elon MuskYeah, I mean, in general, like, I think we should really view the birth rate as like, extremely fundamental crisis. Like, it's, it's really shocking how low it is. You know, the birth rate in America, in the United States has been below replacement rate since I was born, roughly roughly around 1971 or so.
54:09AudienceThat's.
54:10Elon MuskSince then, America has been below replacement rate. And pretty much every country, it seems as soon as they reach a certain level of prosperity, the birth rate drops below replacement.
54:21Elon MuskAnd then I started looking into, well, has this happened before in history? And in fact, it has in basically every civilization in the past. It's maybe counterintuitive, but the more prosperous that a civilization becomes, the lower the birth rate.
54:38Elon MuskSo it's because you think, well, with prosperity you'd have more resources, then you'd have more kids. Actually, no. The historical fact is that the longer That a civilization has been prosperous, the worse its birth rate got.
54:53Elon MuskAnd this was an issue even in ancient rome, like in 50 B.C. there's like, actually we still have like the Roman laws that were written. They passed laws to try to improve the birth rate of Roman citizens in 50 BC.
55:10Elon MuskSo like, basically this is a fundamental civilizational challenge that has been encountered many times before. It's not something that just, you know, happened recently. It's, it's, it's occurred throughout the cycle of civilizations.
55:25Elon MuskAnd I, I don't, I hope we can at least partly reverse it. And I think part of that is at least bringing it to conscious awareness. Because I meet many people who think that there are too many humans on Earth, but this is not true.
55:40Elon MuskThere aren't enough humans on Earth. In fact, you can fit all the humans on Earth in the city of New York on one floor. Okay, so. Or like if you fly across the country and you look down and say, if you had to drop a ball in someone's head, would you succeed?
56:00Elon MuskAnd you would not, because the density of people is very low. There are actually very few people on Earth. It's only if you live in a very dense city environment that it seems that there are many people, that Earth is densely populated, but it is only densely populated in like 0.1% of the surface area.
56:22Elon MuskSo I at least want to bring it to conscious awareness. So people don't think that Earth is overpopulated when in fact Earth is under populated. That is the truth.
56:32Elon MuskYeah. Yeah. Well, Bill Gates and I are not best friends to say the least. So I don't know. He is. You know, I think there's, you can arguably, arguably say like, look, that maybe the real distinction is not right or left, but is someone an expansionist or an extinctionist?
56:54Elon MuskSo he has some issues. This is true. So, but like, if you say like any given civilization, it's not going to be exactly steady. So any given civilization is either going to be growing or declining.
57:14Elon MuskAnd so you have to say you can kind of divide any person's actions into are they expansionist or extinctionist? And I mean, obviously I'm super expansionist oriented because I think that's a far more exciting future than going extinct.
57:30Elon MuskYou know, sounds obvious when you say it like that. So, yeah, so it's just. But I still run into a lot of people who think Earth is overpopulated. So I'm like kind of hammering this point.
57:45Elon MuskWe're not overpopulated, we're underpopulated. And you know, so I'm in favor of really, you know, we need to have babies by whatever means, whether it's ivf, surrogacy, whatever the case may be.
58:02Elon MuskYou know, that can certainly help and. But we just can't go extinct like the humans need to. You know, I think humanity is great and we should have get bigger.
58:14Elon MuskYeah, we want to. I think we should expand the scope and scale of consciousness so we can better understand the nature of the universe. I mean that's the foundation of my philosophy.
58:23Elon MuskMaking babies great again. Yeah. Make babies great again. Yes. So, yeah, hopefully that was helpful. So thank you. Yeah.
58:37AudienceHi, I'm Mary Ressler and I live in Lancaster, Penns. I'm a teacher here. I've been following you because of your work with world literacy with xprize as I was a participant in Barbara Bush xprize with an app development called Literacy Speedway.
58:52AudienceBut my passion is turning because since COVID every day in the trenches, in the classroom, I see the effects of mental health on our students. Not only students, but I've seen two of my brothers commit suicide.
59:04AudienceI've seen my own daughter who wasn't able to get a bed in a facility and had to wait months. I have seen what's happened to American families because of the mental health crisis and the lack of resources.
59:16AudienceOur mental health system in America is broken. And so even though I have a passion for world literacy and always will, I also would like to ask you because I know of your collaboration, your contacts, contacts with the election, with what the new administration can possibly do.
59:36AudienceWhat can you guys do to fix our broken mental health system in America? Sure. Well,
59:47Elon MuskI mean, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I mean my sort of observation is that we do we over prescribe medication.
1:00:02Elon MuskAnd you know, like there's a lot of regulation, in fact too much regulation about getting any given medication approved. But then after it's approved, there's no follow up to see, hey, did we make a mistake?
1:00:17Elon MuskAnd then you get to get things that are approved and they just go hog wild. And it's causing a lot of damage. But there's not really a good revocation capability.
1:00:28Elon MuskSo it doesn't make sense. Like there are good drugs that are not being approved and there are bad drugs that have been approved. This is a broken system, we need to fix it.
1:00:36Elon MuskI think very often when somebody has committed suicide or if they've essentially done, if something's, if something as bad has happened, like what were they prescribed? That is an important thing.
1:00:51Elon MuskDo you have any thoughts on those?
1:00:53AudienceI do have Thoughts on it? I feel like in the brick and mortar school, in the educational setting, not only do the states, because I know education is state dictated, even though there's national common core curriculum, that there needs to be mental health services embedded into every school at this juncture, there also needs to be facilities in every state.
1:01:15AudienceNot a six month wait to see psychiatrists as in Pennsylvania at times, or 12 months to get a bed in a mental facility. The asylums unfortunately weren't the fix years ago in America because they were horrible.
1:01:29AudienceBut when they were taken away, authority went to the states, federal money was taken away and now you have outpatient services and there's a lack of prescribers, there's a lack of counselors, there's a need for more.
1:01:43AudienceAnd every day our prison system right now is housing half almost. And I could give you the data to, you know, they're not there because they're criminals. They're there because they have mental health issues and it needs fixed.
1:02:02Elon MuskAre there any particular medications you think should be pulled from the market or added to the market?
1:02:07AudienceI believe that every child, when they're diagnosed with a mental health condition should have. There is a test for it, there's some kind of tongue test that can dictate which medications will work and won't work for you.
1:02:19AudienceHowever, you have to ask as a parent for that test. And I can guarantee from my experience in this with parents working in the school district or just from friends and other associates, most people aren't even aware of it because it's not paid by for insurance and most Americans can't afford it.
1:02:37AudienceSo when things aren't covered under your insurance, they're not given like a doctor isn't going to prescribe that. That is done. So you have to have the self awareness and knowledge to go and have that testing done.
1:02:53AudienceAnd most people unfortunately just don't know it even exists.
1:02:57Elon MuskOkay, all right. Well I think this is definitely something that we need to figure out better. There's clearly, I agree with you that there's a mental health issue. I think we need to look at like what drugs actually work and what are the side effects.
1:03:19Elon MuskAnd some of them, I mean, yeah, I think some of them are pretty sketch frankly that some of the drugs that are prescribed, I mean some of the stories I've heard about some of the psychiatric meds from people are pretty bad.
1:03:36Elon MuskLike it's like the reason they weren't in some cases, the reason they weren't commit suicide is when they took the drugs, not when they didn't take the drugs. You know, people do need to believe in something.
1:03:51Elon MuskSo, you know, I think the probably nature abhors a vacuum. So if there is, you know, there's certainly a strong argument that the decline in religion has led to people seeking a new religion, essentially secular religion.
1:04:08Elon MuskSo that is, you know, wokeism is essentially a secular religion, but it's, it's believed very fervently. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's a strong, strong argument for church. I agree.
1:04:42Elon MuskThey need substance, they need natural things. Oh, that's true. All right, well, let's see. So.
1:04:54AudienceHi.
1:04:54Elon MuskHi.
1:04:55AudienceGood evening. My name is Janelle. It's nice to meet you.
1:04:57Elon MuskNice to meet you.
1:04:58AudienceI wanted to actually first thank you and probably behalf on everyone here to thank you for creating the pack and the referral opportunity. I think everyone here is grateful.
1:05:08AudienceI saw it as a way to support two amendments that I actually care about and don't want to see go away. And secondly, I saw it as a way that if I could refer my friends, family and everyone that I could go, I could earn some extra money.
1:05:19Elon MuskYeah.
1:05:19AudienceMy husband and I are actually self funding our own fertility journey. I've got some unexplained infertility and so that money is going to actually pay our bill next month.
1:05:28Elon MuskRight.
1:05:28AudienceAnd I've always wanted to become a mom and I have a dream to be a mom and I know one day it will happen. I'm drawn to your population concerns.
1:05:36AudienceI don't know if you've talked to President Trump, but I would love to know if you would consider PAC or advocating a grant for fertility to make Americans like myself be able to afford it and have a baby.
1:05:48Elon MuskYeah, well, I'm super pro baby, so yes. Yeah, absolutely. I'm super pro baby, so yes, absolutely.
1:06:03Elon MuskHey, Elon. My name is Furman Jones and I just wanted to start out and say I really believe in you. Thank you. And I know everybody in here believes in you for one reason or another and I'm super thankful to even get to ask you a question.
1:06:17Elon MuskBut anyways, I also believe in the Constitution and I also believe in the Bible and that's what I'm going to ask you about. Sure. The Bible says that nobody's perfect and there's no perfect form of government on this earth because greed is inevitable.
1:06:32Elon MuskIt's like Churchill says that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other types. Right. But the one government that the Bible does say is perfect is the kingdom of God.
1:06:43Elon MuskAnd Isaiah 33:22 says, the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our king, and the Lord is our lawmaker. So I feel like so much of your worldview aligns with biblical principles, and we need Christians to vote and see that greed, that communism is the greatest manifestation of evil and greed.
1:07:03Elon MuskAnd so, yeah, that's my question. How do we get Christians to vote? And if you have time, what keeps you from believing in the Bible or being more vocal about it?
1:07:11Elon MuskYeah, well, it is interesting that actually I was told that a surprisingly small percentage of evangelicals, of people that are really strong believers, act as quite a small percentage that votes.
1:07:25Elon MuskI thought. And I hope. Yeah, well, this is what I was told anyway. But I certainly hope more people, more Christians vote. That would be great. Please do so.
1:07:40Elon MuskYeah, I mean, so I was, you know, brought up Christian and went to. Actually, somewhat strangely, went to Sunday school. And also I was sent to a Hebrew preschool.
1:07:56Elon MuskYou know, I'm not Jewish, but I was. I don't know, I think it was in the neighborhood or something, you know, and so I was, like, hopping to Gila one day, Jesus is our Lord the next.
1:08:10Elon MuskAnd I was like, great. So, you know, so, you know, I certainly. I believe in, like, the teachings of Christ. I believe, you know, that he's like, I believe in the Christian principles, you know, love thy neighbor.
1:08:31Elon MuskI believe in turn the other cheek, which is very important for to have forgiveness. Because if you don't have forgiveness, then you have an endless cycle of retribution. You know, like, you know, I used to think, like, why would you turn the other cheek?
1:08:46Elon MuskThat's ridiculous. You know, sponge them. But. And I think you do need to actually be strong. Like, you can't be weak. Because if somebody's. If you're facing sort of a predatory threat, and that threat is stronger than you, and that threat doesn't believe in Christian values, then you will just get executed.
1:09:10Elon MuskI mean, I don't know. But at a certain point, once you are strong. Once you are strong, you should forgive the transgressions of others. And this is obviously not something they believe in the Middle east, which is why there's this endless cycle of violence, you know, So I really think that, yeah, we should.
1:09:42Elon MuskYeah. Should love thy neighbor, and we should forgive, and we should. We should be kind and gentle. So, yeah,
1:09:58Elon MuskI believe in what Jesus. I believe in what Jesus said.
1:10:00AudienceYeah.
1:10:01Elon MuskSo, yeah.
1:10:03AudienceHello.
1:10:04Elon MuskElon Musk. My name is Grant Naugle. Hi, family. It's really, really good to meet you. My first question was, do you have an answer to life? The Universe and everything.
1:10:19Elon MuskWell, the classic answer is 42 and 420 is just 1042s. Interesting. But my real question. Yes, sorry. My real question would be, what is the most useful, most powerful piece of advice you have ever received?
1:10:41Elon MuskMost useful piece of advice.
1:10:46Elon MuskThat's a tough one.
1:10:55Elon MuskYes, indeed. Vote republican.
1:11:04Elon MuskYeah,
1:11:16Elon MuskI mean, this is maybe going to sound like maybe I believe in, like, well, if you study physics, if you study. I just recommend studying physics, you know, and the tools of physics, sort of the thinking tools that it's not just a bunch of.
1:11:41Elon MuskWhat matters is not remembering a bunch of formulas. What matters is the thinking process that led to the discovery of those formulas. It's sort of critical thinking, first principles, analysis, trying to understand what is true at a most fundamental level and then reasoning up from there and testing your conclusions against the most fundamental truth in any given arena.
1:12:14Elon MuskThis is how you can figure out whether something is more likely to be true or not. And I think it's good to think in terms of probabilities. So you receive information about a subject that should change the probability of your conclusion, but not the certainty of your conclusion.
1:12:30Elon MuskConclusion like so in physics teaches you that you should not be 100% certain that about any given prediction. Now, there's some things that are highly likely, but physics teaches you you got to assign a probability to something being true.
1:12:50Elon MuskAnd then as you learn more information, your original conclusion may be wrong. And then, you know, you should then change your mind based on the new information. I mean, you can think of intelligence kind of as just how good is.
1:13:14Elon MuskI think probably the right metric for intelligence is the ability to predict the future. If you can predict the future well, then you're, you're as intelligent as you can predict the future.
1:13:25Elon MuskWell, because if something, if somebody claims, well, this thing is this person or this AI is very intelligent, like, well, how good are its predictions? And if its predictions are not very good, it's not that smart.
1:13:39Elon MuskSo that's, I think, the key nature of intelligence. And if you're trying to decide what to do in the future, it is really. It just comes down to predicting the future.
1:13:54Elon MuskAnd to predict the future, you have to think critically about the past and constantly try to be less wrong. So maybe that would be. Maybe that would be right up there in terms of best advice, aspire to be less wrong.
1:14:22Elon MuskHi, Elon. Yes. First off, thank you so much for having us here today. We always appreciate that we have somebody in your level of influence that can listen to regular people and kind of get our voices Heard.
1:14:35Elon MuskAnd it's also not every day that a person gets to meet their hero and ask them a question. So my main question is, since COVID the current administration has really put a struggle with small businesses and especially here in pa, we've seen a large decline in both the foundation of small business and I've personally known several small businesses that have had to close due to increasing regulation, taxes, you name it.
1:15:01Elon MuskExactly. The burden of excess regulation is very severe and it crushes a lot of small companies and it makes big companies operate much less efficiently. So how do you think that we as small business owners and non small business owners can fight against this?
1:15:23Elon MuskAnd also, what can you do as a former small business owner that you can kind of fight for us? Well, I mean, to your point, I think a dramatic reduction in government spending and government overregulation, like I call it, sort of America is getting sort of strangulation by overregulation will unleash a new era of prosperity.
1:15:49Elon MuskJust allow people to do useful and productive things and don't make it a two year permitting nightmare, which it often is, and then burden small businesses with taxes that make them go bankrupt.
1:16:02Elon MuskSo yeah, it's pretty straightforward. Like I said, it's kind of mind blowing that There are over 400 federal agencies governing our lives, most of them people have never heard of, but they do affect your life and unbalance negatively.
1:16:24Elon MuskSo we just need far fewer agencies and get the government off your back. Yeah.
1:16:36Elon MuskHi, my name is Marco from Lancaster. Thank you for your time. I'm sure it's the most valuable thing you can give to any organization. So thank you. Hi, Mr.
1:16:43Elon MuskTrue Currency. Thank you, sir. So my question is, my wife's a natural US citizen, She's registered to vote. I banked my vote already. I was just wondering if you'd be willing to talk about, I mean, we did it the right way.
1:16:54Elon MuskWe took years and money and we got her naturalized the right way. If you'd be wanting to talk about your experience at all with immigration and also other than a secure border, how you see fixing that system?
1:17:06Elon MuskYeah, well, since your wife has gone through the process of becoming a citizen and getting a green card, you've seen how absurdly slow and arduous it is. So I mean, I think the general principle that makes sense is the same principle that you'd operate a professional sports team on or a company which is like who would you want on your team?
1:17:31Elon MuskAnd if somebody's going to be productive, like productive and honest and a net contributor, and that'd be a great addition to the team. Welcome aboard. It should be not a long process because they'll produce more than they consume.
1:17:46Elon MuskThey'll make everyone's lives better. And so we have this bizarre situation which is, like, mind blowing, that it is easier to get into this country as a murderer than as a Nobel Laureate, literally.
1:18:03Elon MuskThat's not an exaggeration. Which is like, what? You know, it's like, I mean, it's like if you have the opportunity to say, have like, you know, Lebron James or Steph Curry on your team and you'd be like, yeah, that would make total sense.
1:18:20Elon MuskOur team's going to win. They'll make the whole team better. You know, so we want to actually, we need to have things be what they should, which is that legal immigration of honest, hard working, talented people is quick and easy and coming into the country illegally is hard.
1:18:44Elon MuskThat's how it should be.
1:18:53Elon MuskYeah. So honestly, okay, I had kind of a crazy idea this one was going to hit the press, which is like, what if we gave legal immigration job to Chick Fil A?
1:19:07Elon MuskThey are so efficient. They make an amazing chicken sandwich. Their chicken sandwiches are epic. And they make a zillion of them and they just get it done. I think we should give the immigration job to Chick Fil A.
1:19:23Elon MuskThey'll crush. That's going to be a headline. Hello, Mr. Musk. But honestly, it would be great. Hello, Mr. Musk. It's an honor to meet you. So my question is this, and I ask this as a first time voter.
1:19:39Elon MuskAs we know, Trump did not and has not accepted the results of the 2020 election, one which has been called the most secure in the nation's history by the former president's own Department of Homeland Security.
1:19:51Elon MuskSimilarly. Similarly, I saw the violent disruption of the electoral vote count on the news during January 6th.
1:20:02AudienceAnd I asked this as a first time voter who.
1:20:05Elon MuskWho wants to discern the truth. Sure. What would you say to comfort the concerns of young voters like me who are worried that voting for a second Trump presidency will lead to Democratic backsliding?
1:20:19Elon MuskWell, I think that's a fair question. Honestly. It is a fair question. I mean, the thing is that, yeah, like, I want to frame this correctly and obviously anything I say, the legacy media is going to take a soundbite out of what I say and misconstrue what I'm saying, which is something they've done with President Trump many times.
1:20:49Elon MuskIt is very important. If you heard something bad about President Trump, listen to his whole speech. That's actually Very important, you know, and, you know, on January 6th, I mean, his statements on that day, he told people to back down.
1:21:09Elon MuskI mean, he said. He said, do not do violence. And then people were like saying, well, that's actually some sort of dog whistle about doing violence. I'm like, what are you supposed to say?
1:21:19Elon MuskYou know, he did actually tell people to not be violent. He recommended that the National Guard be deployed. Nancy Pelosi said no. So he didn't call for any violence.
1:21:36Elon MuskExactly. And if you look at, like, while it obviously, you know, I think it was, you know, like the level of disruption was high. And I don't. I don't applaud any kind of damage to public property, of course, but it's.
1:21:57Elon MuskThe media tries to characterize January 6th as some sort of violent insurrection, which is simply not the case. I mean, that is false.
1:22:14Elon MuskSo, you know, I would take. I think, probably what I think is the reasonable middle ground, which is, I disagree with the level of protest, but it was in no way a violent insurrection, you know, so that there's got to be a lot of guns for the.
1:22:30Elon MuskTo be a violent insurrection. And there were a lot of strange things from. In terms of voting irregularities that are hard to explain. So what? It's. Yeah, I mean, there were things that are statistically unlikely, let me put it that way.
1:22:57Elon MuskAnd so it's not as though the January 6th protesters had. That their protests had no merit. They had some merit. I disagree with the. The magnitude of what they did.
1:23:09Elon MuskBut it's not as though there were no issues. There were actually there were issues. And we have this weird situation in America where it is almost impossible to prove fraud, because if you've got no voter ID and mail in ballots, how do you prove fraud?
1:23:33Elon MuskAnd, you know, it does seem more than a little odd that we don't have voter id. And then you look at, say, states like California, which is super majority Democrat, they passed a law banning voter ID in any election whatsoever.
1:23:50Elon MuskNow, how is that supporting democracy? That's not supporting democracy.
1:24:01Elon MuskI mean, that's insane. Almost every country on earth has voter ID requirements, but we don't why. And why do the same people that demanded vaccine IDs for you to do anything are the same ones who say no ID for voting.
1:24:16Elon MuskSomething doesn't add up. It doesn't add up. You know, so I actually think my opinion is that those who say Trump is a threat to democracy are themselves the threat to democracy.
1:24:38Elon MuskMake some noise. Yeah.
1:24:49Elon MuskWhoo. I'll tell you what, that was awesome. Conspiracy was Theory, and now it's the truth. I mean, honestly, at this point. At this point, we're running out of conspiracy theories because there's so many of them have come true.
1:25:03Elon MuskRight. That. That we need. We actually need. Can someone please come up with some new conspiracies? The government's here to help. Government? I mean, even the frogs might be real.
1:25:14Elon MuskYou know, the frog situation might be. I don't know.
1:25:17AudienceRight.
1:25:18Elon MuskYou know, conspiracy, the government. We're here to help. Yeah, probably heard that. Right, Right. Well, Elon, God bless you. It's very nice to meet you. God bless you, too.
1:25:27Elon MuskMy name is Andrew Mariski. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, native. Yeah, I'm a small business owner of a barber shop 10 minutes down the street. Right. Called Legacy Barbers. Love to cut your hair sometime, if you will.
1:25:40Elon MuskThank you. So I wanted to ask you a question and also encourage you with these few words. Augustine, who was a theologian and a philosopher, said, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
1:26:01Elon MuskAnd Second Chronicles 7, verse 14 says, if my people who are called by my name should humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.
1:26:21Elon MuskSo I want to encourage you with that, brother. Yeah, those are great, great words. Great words. Amen. Amen. And, Elon, I'll tell you what. Been watching you now for a while, hearing the stuff you say, we need more men like you in this country that do that are not afraid to stand up to the media.
1:26:45Elon MuskLegacy. Yeah. They're not afraid to stand up against people who think we're toxic. Masculinity. We need more men. Yeah. You know, I've got a great counter argument for toxic masculinity, which is, if masculinity is so toxic, how come the kids that are messed up don't have dads?
1:27:09Elon MuskRiddle me that. Riddle me that and something that you said earlier and amen to that. Yeah. And I'm actually going to be a dad February 3rd. Congratulations. I'm having a baby.
1:27:22Elon MuskThank you, Lord. But the tweet that you had not too long ago, it said, and no one is even trying to assassinate Biden or Kamala. Yeah. Because it's pointless.
1:27:36Elon MuskNobody bother assassinating a puppet. Right? Yeah. You know, when are people gonna start seeing that our country is not? When they keep saying democracy. It's a constitutional republic. Would you please make sure, if you don't mind, to keep reminding people that we are a republic.
1:27:58Elon MuskWe're free we're free because of Christ Jesus, and we're free because of the men and women who died and shed blood for this country. That's absolutely. Yes. Amen, brother.
1:28:15Elon MuskYeah. Yeah, you're right. I mean, a lot of people died to make this country what it is is today. A lot of people died. Absolutely. Amen. And, man, people take it for granted, you know, so.
1:28:35Elon MuskYeah, well, America Pack is kind of the Anti Soros pack, You know, something's got to be done about it. So it's like, you know, I don't know what's up with that guy, but honestly, putting DAs into, like.
1:28:49Elon MuskIt's like. It's like the Joker's in charge, you know, like, electing DAs that don't prosecute crime is insane. That's like, literally, like Batman, Dark Knight. I mean, like, you know, lock up the citizens and free the criminals.
1:29:04Elon MuskIt's insane. It's happening. Yeah. I mean, like, what. This is total madness, so we need to stop that. Yeah. So make America great again. Yeah. Well, I think America is great, but we want to be greater, and we want to do awesome things.
1:29:25Elon MuskWe want to do. And you want to. You want to look forward to the future and be inspired and excited about the future. You know, that's what makes life worth living.
1:29:33Elon MuskAnother thing. Yeah. All right. Have you ever looked into the space sport of arm wrestling? Oh, yeah. Arm wrestling. I have looked at. Not in depth, but I have looked into it, and for a while there, I did, like, actually read up on it, and actually various techniques for how to win at arm wrestling, which is like, a lot of it is, you know, get your angles, get your whole body into it and get your angles so you can actually, like, if you know the techniques in arm wrestling and somebody doesn't, you can actually went against somebody much bigger.
1:30:11Elon MuskYeah. Well, yeah. No, no. I mean, I would challenge Biden, but that would be ridiculous. You know, that'd be so unfair. So thank you. He can use two. What if he uses two hands?
1:30:28Elon MuskYeah, that'd be fine. Make a. Make arm wrestling great again. Yeah. Make arm wrestling great again. Absolutely. God bless.
1:30:38AudienceThank you.
1:30:38Elon MuskGod bless. All right.
1:30:42AudienceHi, Elan. My name is Molly. I just want to thank you for spending so much time in Pennsylvania. I think what you're doing is amazing, and it's making a real impact.
1:30:50AudienceSo God bless you. And I think you're a national treasure.
1:30:53Elon MuskThank you.
1:30:59AudienceMy main concern is with the national debt, and I know you talked a lot about reducing the spending side, but I was wondering what kind of Trump policies and industries you think will help grow the revenue side.
1:31:11AudienceAnd along those lines, do you have any plans to bring more Tesla manufacturing
1:31:15Elon Muskback to the U.S. well, Tesla actually is a massive manufacturer in the U.S. in fact, the biggest factory that's been built in recent years is the Tesla factory in Texas.
1:31:29Elon MuskSo that's. Yeah. And then there's another big factory in Nevada. So there's Giga Nevada and Giga Texas and maybe someday Giga Pennsylvania. So that, that, that would be, that would be super cool.
1:31:48Elon MuskI'm a huge believer in manufacturing. I love manufacturing. I like making things. I spent a lot of time in the factory walking the floor. I lived in the factory for a while, literally lived in the factory.
1:32:01Elon MuskIt was kind of like, kind of like Vegas actually, because I didn't even see the outside, but the lights were always on. But we had some tough times in Tesla.
1:32:12Elon MuskIt's really difficult to make any kind of manufacturing company work. And you know. Yeah, Tesla is actually also the biggest manufacturing employer in California still. But state is not super grateful.
1:32:29Elon MuskSo. But, but yeah, I'm. So we do a ton of manufacturing in the US and we keep investing and increasing our manufacturing activity in the US and SpaceX also is a massive manufacturer.
1:32:44Elon MuskYou know, SpaceX is the biggest manufacturer of rockets and satellites in the world. And. Yeah, so, and that's, that's, that's all in the U.S. so SpaceX manufacturing is all in the U.S.
1:32:57Elon Muskand, and Tesla has massive amounts of manufacturing in the US like giant factories. So I'm a big believer in manufacturing. So I mean, I do think reform of the tax code, it would make sense because it's extremely complicated and there are too many loopholes.
1:33:19Elon MuskYou know, I'm often pitched on these loopholes. That's how I know they exist. I'm like, that sounds pretty shady. I don't think we should do that. Like, well, lots of other people are getting away with it.
1:33:30Elon MuskWe're like, yeah, but I still don't think we should do it. Yeah. For what it's worth, I'm the, the largest individual taxpayer in history, So I paid $10 billion in tax.
1:33:42Elon MuskOver $10 billion in tax. You're welcome. Like, I sort of thought maybe the IRS would like, you know, send me like a little trophy or something. You know, like one of those like, doesn't have to be expensive.
1:33:55Elon MuskIt could be like, you know, one of those like, like things you get for when kids win a karate competition, like little plastic gold trophy or something like that, or a cookie or something.
1:34:03Elon MuskBut I didn't get anything I was like, you know, and. But I was happy to pay the taxes. I don't mind, you know. Yeah, it's a good week this week.
1:34:14Elon MuskYeah. Stock market's wild. Wild. Sort of roller coaster, you know, I think Warren Buffett's got a good, Good. A lot of good sayings, actually. But one of his sayings, I believe is like, you know, having a publicly traded company is like having someone stand outside your house and yell house prices all day.
1:34:33Elon MuskAnd it's still the same house. And you're like, why is this person yelling house prices at me all day long? And that's what it's like being in a publicly traded company is this.
1:34:44Elon MuskThey just yell stock prices at you all day long. And it's like, well, it's actually still pretty much the same company as yesterday. So it's kind of weird being in a publicly traded situation.
1:34:58Elon MuskBut anyway, I think we should simplify the tax code, get rid of a lot of exceptions and loopholes and make it easy to fill out taxes. It shouldn't be this, like, extremely complicated thing.
1:35:11Elon MuskYeah. But overall, I think if we have less federal spending, then there's less taxation. And so that. And we have to reduce federal spending. There's no way to make up for it other than reducing the federal spending.
1:35:31Elon MuskAnd as I mentioned earlier, like, a very important point that I think is important for people to understand is that all federal spending is taxation, because what they don't receive, what federal government doesn't receive in direct revenue, they make up for in inflation.
1:35:47Elon MuskThey just print money. So all federal spending is taxation. Very important principle. Almost nobody. Very few people seem to even, like, you know, somebody who's like, spend their life in economics.
1:35:58Elon MuskI'll mention to them, hey, all spending, all federal spending is taxation. They're like, first they'll argue with me and they're like, then they will agree it is because it is either direct tax revenue or it is inflation.
1:36:11Elon MuskAll federal spending is taxation. So we must reduce federal spending or we will go bankrupt as a country. All right.
1:36:25AudienceHey, everyone.
1:36:26Elon MuskI'm Chad Wick from Westchester, Pennsylvania. I met you last week at. I met you last week at Harrisburg. And since then, I've been prouder than
1:36:34Audienceever to wear my MAGA hat around.
1:36:36Elon MuskYou've really inspired me to wear it more and more. Right. And since then, I've had my car slashed with a key, which is fine.
1:36:42AudienceYeah, it's fine.
1:36:43Elon MuskTrump got hit with a bullet in the air, and look at him. He's doing good. So, yeah, somebody chased me around with the Shopping cart as well. But yeah, that happens.
1:36:52AudienceThat's just.
1:36:53Elon MuskThat's part of Westchester Penns.
1:36:54AudienceWell, honestly,
1:36:57Elon MuskI mean, at this point, it's like flying the rebel flag, man.
1:37:00AudienceYeah.
1:37:01Elon MuskYou know?
1:37:01AudienceYeah. For real.
1:37:04Elon MuskIt's an adventure. Yeah. I've had some people get mad at me. Yeah. Like big time. I do have a question this time, though. I actually, I met somebody on X.
1:37:18Elon MuskI do podcasting and I met somebody on X directly through the platform. I would call him a friend. His name is Derek and he has something called Spina Bifida.
1:37:27Elon MuskIt is Spina Bifida month right now. So Spina Bifida Awareness Month. I wanted to put the awareness out there is that it's a spinal experiment with spinal kind of like issues.
1:37:38Elon MuskAnd he has never been able to walk. Really? Never?
1:37:41AudienceWow.
1:37:42Elon MuskI guess not. According from what I learned, he's never. He hasn't been able to walk like his whole, his whole life. So my question is like, for the disabled community and for people like him, will things like, will things like neuralink help?
1:37:57Elon MuskAnd also what will the Trump administration be doing for people who are disabled to help them? Anything? Well, yeah, so I think, I think there actually are a lot of things that, like medical devices and drugs that could be approved that are sort of stuck in regulatory molasses.
1:38:18Elon MuskLike, they're just, you know, it's like trying to get anything new approved is like running in molasses with lead shoes. It's really slow. So, you know, a good friend of mine was telling me how his mom was diagnosed with brain cancer and the doctor said like, well, that's pretty much game over, you know.
1:38:40Elon MuskAnd then he talked to. But he's very enterprising guy, so he didn't take that for an answer. And he asked every smart person he knew, is there anything that could help cure brain cancer?
1:38:52Elon MuskIt turns out there's this drug called Wellyrig that was in trials at Harvard, I believe, and it cured his mom's brain cancer. So I'm like, how many welly rigs are there out there?
1:39:08Elon MuskMaybe there's a whole bunch of them and devices and everything. And we should, you know, like I said earlier, it's like we need to expedite approval of drugs, make sure people, you know, that people are properly informed of the pros and the cons.
1:39:22Elon MuskAnd then there also needs to be some after approval follow up to say, like, was something approved that shouldn't have been approved and. Or whether it need to be additional warnings.
1:39:33Elon MuskIt's pretty common. It's common Sense, I think. You know, just. But like when you're dealing with the government, like common sense doesn't make sense. Like, you know, common sense just bounces off the government like water off ducks back, you know, I mean, it's like arguing with the dmv.
1:39:51Elon MuskIt's impossible. They put that COVID vaccine in quick though. They did put the COVID vaccine quick. Yeah. That was weird. And they made everyone take it, which is messed up.
1:40:04Elon MuskSo I don't think people should be forced to take vaccine unless they against their will.
1:40:15Elon MuskHi, Elon. My name is Alex Gamble from Lebanon County. I first want to thank you sincerely for what you're doing. I think you're an American patriot. I really do.
1:40:29Elon MuskI love America. I really do. I mean, listen, I love America. And like sometimes people say like, that's just jingoistic propaganda. I'm like, I don't care. I love jingoistic propaganda.
1:40:42Elon MuskIt's awesome. You know, it's like God bless America. I friggin. It's amazing. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. With the recent news from Lancaster county discovering 2,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration for forms, what's your opinion on mail in ballots and if we should get rid of them in the future?
1:41:08Elon MuskI also, I also want. We should get rid of them in the future. I mean, like, mail in ballots are a strange anomaly that got popularized during COVID But, but really like you, you have an obvious recipe for fraud and an inability to prove fraud.
1:41:26Elon MuskIf you've got no id, no voter id and you got mail in ballots, right? Like, you can't even put a. You can't even. Like, like, like, like many years ago, a friend of mine was telling me how his, his dad actually helped improve democracy in Mexico.
1:41:41Elon MuskAnd, and it was by organizing a whole bunch of citizens to just stand outside the. The polling stations or the voting stations with a counter just to count the number of people that went in.
1:41:53Elon MuskBecause obviously if you have more votes than people, something's wrong. Yeah. And, and it turned out they had a lot more votes than people. They're like, oh, this is a little strange.
1:42:02Elon MuskSo anyway, but that, that actually helped fix the situation in Mexico big time. But, but, but if you don't, if you've got mail in ballots, you can't count. Just like, you don't even know what's going on.
1:42:14Elon MuskI also wanted to ask you a favor. My. My son is named Elon. Really? We named him after you. Wow. Thanks. He's three. You're an inspiration. And I was hoping to get an autograph from you to give to him when he's older.
1:42:34Elon MuskWell, the further I can't say no to that. I mean, from one Elon to another, you know, actually, you know, I was actually. I was named after my American great grandfather, I guess.
1:42:50Elon MuskSo I'm like kind of the opposite of Obama. I'm from Africa, named after an American. So. But yeah, John Elon Haldeman was my great grandfather, and that's named after his middle name.
1:43:05Elon MuskSo I think he was like, from Minnesota, I believe. Yeah.
1:43:13AudienceHey, Elon.
1:43:14Elon MuskYeah.
1:43:15AudienceMy name is Jennifer Lucas. As you can tell, I do not have a Pennsylvania accent, but I do live here. I'm voting legally, I promise.
1:43:24Elon MuskSure. I believe.
1:43:24AudienceI'm from southern West Virginia.
1:43:27Elon MuskOkay.
1:43:28AudienceAnd honestly, I've had a lot of questions on my mind, from education to drug epidemic. It's hit really hard. But one thing that I would really like to ask you about right now is lobbyists.
1:43:45AudienceIf I buy vote, I go to jail. They buy votes on the floor, on the voting floor in D.C. and that's okay, right?
1:43:54Elon MuskThat is affecting our voice as American citizens. So what can we do to ban
1:44:02Audiencelobbyists in D.C. so we can take our power back?
1:44:13Elon MuskApac. Oh, America pack. Yeah, I mean, you know, so I was actually part of making a movie called thank youk for Smoking. I don't know if anyone's seen that movie, but it's.
1:44:28Elon MuskIt's a movie about political corruption and about lobbyists and political corruption at. And, you know, it's worth watching. Thank you for Smoking. And, you know, that was. I'm actually the pilot in the movie in that plane.
1:44:50Elon MuskSo it's a very small role. But that movie explores the corruption that exists in D.C. due to all the lobbying that takes place. And the legislation is primarily written by lobbyists, in fact.
1:45:07Elon MuskAnd then Congress basically rubber stamps what lobbyists write. I think we probably do need to take a look at what rules make sense because obviously the point of the elected legislators is to legislate in the interest of the people.
1:45:30Elon MuskAnd so if there's legislation happening, which is often the case, that is not in the interest of the people, something's wrong. So. And you do get these, like, regulatory capture situations where the, you know, the companies in an industry end up controlling the regulators and preventing new entrants from coming into a market, making it difficult, you know, for new companies to come in.
1:46:00Elon MuskAnyway, I wanted to make that movie for a reason, which is to highlight that there is a lot of corruption in D.C. and like to have less of it.
1:46:12Elon MuskAt least.
1:46:17Elon MuskIt's tough. And, you know, this is also why I think the big government machine is so against Trump, because he's not beholden to all of these interests, you know, so he's not captured, essentially.
1:46:33Elon MuskHe's not a puppet. So the sort of. The big government machine is very worried about electing someone who's not a puppet. So, yeah, I mean, I certainly advocate for, you know, better rules that limit the power of companies to lobby in D.C.
1:46:57Elon Muskor at the state level, for that matter. Yeah, I mean, like, for Mars. Like, people sometimes ask me, like, well, what kind of system of governance do I think makes sense for Mars?
1:47:14Elon MuskI'm like, well, that's going to be up to the Martians, you know, but, but, but I would recommend direct democracy, not representative democracy, where the people vote directly. And, you know, in the past, before there was electro, before you had, like, the Internet and electronics, you had to have representative democracy because you couldn't.
1:47:37Elon MuskYou couldn't. You had to. Just like with the legacy media, you had to collect people's opinion by mail or literally by voice or by letters written with a quill on, you know, and a scroll type of thing, you know, like, slow.
1:47:54Elon MuskSo you had to have representative democracy. You couldn't have direct democracy. But my recommendation for Mars would be that the people vote directly for anything and that any given piece of legislation must be short enough to understand.
1:48:06Elon MuskSo, like, if it's, you know, not. Not more than a thousand words, maybe 300, the longer the legislation is, the worse it gets. And. And we've got legislation that's longer than Lord of the Rings, and, like, nobody's read it, you know, and really quick,
1:48:21AudienceI just wanted to say thank you for everything that you're doing. I see you and I see your heart, and I know that you love humanity, not just America.
1:48:30AudienceI do everything that you do. It shows you care for everyone deeply. Thank you for that.
1:48:36Elon MuskThank you.
1:48:38AudienceI have a lot of ideas, and if you want to hear them sometime, we can sit down for dinner.
1:48:46Elon MuskThank you. All right. Hello, Elon. My name is Stephen Marchisot. I live in Lancaster County. It's nice to meet you. You once said in a job interview that when asked, what is your biggest weakness?
1:49:00Elon MuskYou said, honesty, which I find really interesting. And the guy said, well, that's not a weakness. And what I find fascinating is the way you stand up to anybody and speak your mind.
1:49:11Elon MuskAnd my question is, there's a cost to telling the truth. There's a cost of being honest. Yes. And you're not afraid to pay that price. Well, hopefully it's not like fatal, you know.
1:49:22Elon MuskYeah. And I think that I'm wondering like where that came from in your life because, you know, you're an amazing inspiration with everything. Yeah, I can, I can totally tell you.
1:49:31Elon MuskSo, like, it's, I mean, first of all, you know, like, I think I aspire to be honest, but I'm also sometimes wrong. So obviously, you know, can be right all the time.
1:49:44Elon MuskSo. And I do believe in like, you know, one should stand to be corrected. And the reason I believe in sort of truth and honesty is because I'm like, I'm trying to understand the universe, I'm trying to understand reality, you know, trying to understand like, what's the meaning of life?
1:50:06Elon MuskLike, what are we here for? Like, what's, what's going on? And if you don't aspire to truth, if you're not like rigorous about truth and honesty, then you're obviously going to live in a deluded world.
1:50:20Elon MuskYou won't understand. You won't understand the nature of reality. You won't understand. So I just, I'm just curious and I want to understand the nature of reality. So that requires rigorous adherence to the truth.
1:50:37Elon MuskAlso add. Thank you. What I find fascinating too is like, you know, for you to stand up and speak the truth about what you feel about Trump. There's so many celebrities that the other side has and yeah, it's weird that there's so many celebrities.
1:50:52Elon MuskYou know, I'm like, like, why are they. What's up with that? Yeah, exactly. You're, you're the only guy with a serious amount of influence that's able to really stand up for Trump.
1:51:02Elon MuskAnd I really think that I know people that are like on the fence that are going to Trump because of you. So I think, great, you are making a massive difference in this election.
1:51:12Elon MuskLike you single handedly and that's an amazing legacy amongst all the other things that you do. So thank you. Well, I'm trying, I'm trying my best to, you know, I want to, I'm trying to make as big a difference as possible.
1:51:26Elon MuskAnd yeah, I mean, I do think like we're at a, like I said, a fork in the road of destiny where, you know, like, it's, yeah, it's not clear to me that there will be elections after this if Trump is not elected.
1:51:46Elon MuskYou know, so the, I mean, there's basically, in my opinion, there's massive voter importation to swing states that is happening right now. If you look at the actual numbers as reported by the Democrat administration, There are triple digit increases in the number of illegals in, in each swing state.
1:52:07Elon MuskIt's 240% was the number I saw in Pennsylvania in three years. And like, that's, you know, if the margin of victory is like, was 80,000 votes last time, well, what happens if you bring in like 300,000 illegals who are beholden to the Democrat machine and get a whole bunch of handouts?
1:52:26Elon MuskAnd even though they may socially not be in agreement with the Democrats, their first order priority is bringing friends and family into the country, which will be supported by the Democrats, but not by the Republicans.
1:52:38Elon MuskSo it's voter importation is what's going on. And it doesn't take much to have the swing states be a permanent deep blue. That's what happened in California. So like, like I love Reagan, but he did sign in 1986 an amnesty, sort of illegal alien amnesty that thereafter California, which had been red or a swing state, but primarily red, went blue and then deep blue.
1:53:08Elon MuskAnd now California passed a law banning voter ID in any election whatsoever, even in a town council. That's what they will do to the whole country. The playbook is obvious because we could just look at what they did to California.
1:53:26Elon MuskThey're going to do the same thing in Pennsylvania, same thing the whole rest of the country, if they can. And Trump is the only chance to have that not be the case.
1:53:46Elon MuskAnd I'll tell you, I'll tell you, it's even, it's because people like it's going to be worse than California because the one thing that keeps California from being even more crazy than it currently is is that people can move to other states and still be in America.
1:54:00Elon MuskBut what if you can't move to any other states? It's going to be way worse than California. So it's profound. What's your favorite baseball team? Yankees. Well, sorry, okay, listen, I like the name, okay.
1:54:19Elon MuskIt's a great name.
1:54:26Elon MuskSorry, sorry, sorry. Ah, what have I done? Hi, Elon, My name is David and I am founder of an e commerce company here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And I appreciate the one thing that you saying about the IRS being bullying the American citizens instead of enforcing our border.
1:54:52Elon MuskWe're doing that. And I found one problem being a business owner is I have been the subject of recent harassment by the irs and I find that being a huge discouragement to entrepreneurship, which is the American backbone.
1:55:13Elon MuskSure. And I wanted to know what you, what would be one of the number one things you would recommend to the Trump administration about encouraging entrepreneurship and getting young people Especially encouraged into starting small businesses to keep our economy, Economy flourishing and to keep creating wonderful things like you have done.
1:55:40Elon MuskYeah, well, I mean, really, I think, you know, if we can just get the government off people's backs, then you can, you can get a tremendous amount done. And, you know, it's like just we're over regulating six ways of Sunday as you've experienced yourself.
1:55:59Elon MuskAnd then even when there's like a little bit of success, then the government comes along and takes the money. So it's crazy, you know, so just when. If the founders of the country could see like where we are now, they'd blow their mind, you know, like there was a revolt against the British.
1:56:16Elon MuskI think it was like a 2% tax on tea, like say a 3% tax on tea. They were like, no way. And now it's like, you know, 40%. I mean, it's just like there's new taxes every day and there's a lot of hidden taxes that you experience as a small business owner that people don't even realize exist.
1:56:34Elon MuskYou know, you sort of come to realize that because the IRS comes after you, but there's a ton of taxes they try to sort of mask from the consumers.
1:56:41Elon MuskSo we just need smaller government and allow people to produce useful goods and services for their fellow human beings. Yeah, it's straightforward.
1:56:55Elon MuskHi, Elon, My name is Will King. It's nice to meet you. Welcome to Lancaster. Thank you. I'm a young mechanical engineer and excited to work on new problems. One of my dreams would be to work for one of your companies.
1:57:05Elon MuskSo we'll see where that goes. But question I have is what are your thoughts on tariffs? And how do you see tariffs impacting consumer spending or increasing inflation? And what problems need to be solved for US production to reach a scale and efficiency that would match current outsourced production?
1:57:21Elon MuskLike, obviously, it's. It's no first principle. It's not a first principle. Principles problem. We can do it. But what needs to happen to. In order for that to. Well, what are your thoughts on the subject?
1:57:35Elon MuskSo I think what you were, what you were touching on before, a lot of government regulation and taxes. Well, taxes, you know, I don't know where we need to go with that, but I think I love your philosophy of surges in employment and going hardcore.
1:57:55Elon MuskYou know, I was reading your autobiography, the Other. Or biography. The other biography. Yeah. Yeah. To be clear, it's a pretty good biography, but it's not. It's not actually what I would have written.
1:58:05Elon MuskRight. But what really stuck to Me, I was reading about how you wanted to move the servers from Twitter up to. Is it in Oregon? Well, yeah, actually there was, yeah, the, there were three data centers but only two were needed.
1:58:20Elon MuskRight. And I was being told it would take like nine months to. Right. And you showed up with your guys and you were like, hey, let's just do this overnight like Christmas.
1:58:28Elon MuskSo I think yeah, Christmas Eve. Yeah. Cutting, cutting down some of those regulations and all this crazy stuff that goes, that extends the timeline for a bunch of stuff would really, really help and that, that worth work ethic.
1:58:42Elon MuskI agree with your 80 hour work principle, work week principle and the hardcore. It's not for everyone. It's not for everyone. But I think the principle is really cool and I think we should bring that culture and that mindset down to the 40 hour workweek or the 50.
1:58:56Elon MuskI do 50, but you know, work life balance potentially. But I love where you're taking your companies and it's really cool to see. Well, thanks. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead.
1:59:10Elon MuskHello Elon, nice to see you here tonight. So recently I was reading an article on Medium where a Italian researcher named Andrea Rossi was able to demonstrate a new technology that he invented that was able to extend the range of an electric vehicle.
1:59:27Elon MuskIt was a technically a quadricycle, so a very low power electric vehicle by four times. And after the, the full test that it actually increased the battery life of the electric vehicle.
1:59:39Elon MuskAnd obviously, you know, we don't, it's only been demonstrated once. We don't know if this technology could be replicated. But if it was able to be replicated, would you be interested in implementing this kind of technology into your Tesla vehicles and even possibly the starship?
1:59:52Elon MuskWell, I wish such a thing were real, but I do not think that such thing is real. That there is. You know, every industry has a certain amount of bs, but the battery industry I think might is a candidate for industry with the most amount of bs.
2:00:14Elon MuskSo it's just there's like electrochemistry is very difficult. In fact, one of the ways that I will test like the intelligence of an AI system is ask it battery electrochemistry questions and rocket questions and usually comes back with terrible answers.
2:00:31Elon MuskSo it's extremely difficult to increase the range, but the range is already sufficient to fully electrify everything on earth. So you know, teslas have over 300 miles of range and some of them have like 400 miles of range.
2:00:46Elon MuskWe could actually make it go further. It's just that that's like an unnecessary amount of battery for Most people, because the amount of range that you need in a battery is about the same amount of range that your bladder has, essentially.
2:01:01Elon MuskSo, you know, if you start a trip at say 9am, around noon, you want to probably hit the restroom, take a break, you know, have a bite to eat and, you know, so you drive for three hours, maybe four hours, and then charge the car.
2:01:17Elon MuskAs long as the car is charged by the time you come back from the bathroom and you know, had lunch or whatever, then long distance trips are no problem.
2:01:25Elon MuskWe are already there at this point, so. Yeah, but there is no magical breakthrough. Would you also be willing, if other technologies are discovered over the next few years into the near future, would you also be willing that theoretically could revolutionize electrical vehicles, space travel, you know, exotic propulsion, exotic energy generation techniques?
2:01:51Elon MuskAre you interested in researching those and potentially funding them and contributing to this kind of research? I do think there is a lot of technology out there that is not really mainstream, that it has potential.
2:02:02Elon MuskAlthough it's in a very infantile stage. I think there is potential. I mean, not only. I mean, Both Tesla and SpaceX are desperately interested in anything that works. We're not like, barring the door, we're like, please, if you've got something that works, tell us about it.
2:02:23Elon MuskUnfortunately, it's rarely the case that it actually works is the issue. So, you know, for a while there, Tesla, I guess we maybe still do like, we're just. We'd rate any given, you know, proposed new technology out of 10, where 10 is incredible and you know, one is total, total nonsense and really nothing got above a 4.
2:02:49Elon MuskSo it's, it's just very difficult to do. But if, and I would encourage anyone to say prove me wrong, please do that. I would like to be proven wrong.
2:03:00Elon MuskThat would be awesome. Yeah, but just, just compete with Tesla. That sounds like a great. If, you know, if there's a. Some technology that has much greater range, I would strongly recommend they just kick our ass, you know?
2:03:18Elon MuskYeah. Elon, do you believe that Jesus the Christ is a real person who was crucified and died and is risen and that God is Jesus?
2:03:37Elon MuskWhat do you mean by a real person? That he was alive back 2000 years ago and he was the guy who was crucified?
2:03:43AudienceOkay, cool.
2:03:44Elon MuskYeah, no, I think there's. Yeah, I do think that's, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you get into like these, you know, theocratical debates of the Trinity and.
2:04:01Elon MuskBut I thought, you know, but yeah, yeah, I think it's real, so. Hi, Elon. That feels very weird to say, but. Hi, my name is Chris Michelson. I'm a Lancaster county resident.
2:04:14Elon MuskWe're really happy to have you here. Thank you, everybody. Look, I, like many of us here, feel that the very construct, the constitution of our country is at stake during this election.
2:04:27Elon MuskI agree. I'm a firm believer that those who can should. And I just want to say thank you for being one of the very few powerful members outside of the construct who have the balls to stand up here every day and do what you're doing.
2:04:40Elon MuskThank you. Thank you.
2:04:48Elon MuskThanks. All right, there's a macho man's here. Look. President Trump has announced you or has announced that he will appoint you as the head of the Efficiency Commission. Right, right.
2:05:02Elon MuskThat's obviously a perfect spot for you given your historical success running lean and exceptionally profitable businesses. One of my big concerns that extends beyond the disarray of our financial constitution here is the technology attacks that have happened on our country.
2:05:18Elon Musk2021, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. Yeah. 2021, Robinhood, 7 million users, data stolen, their money held for ransom. 2023, T Mobile goes down overnight. Airport attacks, airline attacks. Have you spoken to Trump at all regarding your expertise around cybersecurity?
2:05:36Elon MuskAre you going to have any involvement there? If not, do you know who is and do you trust the them? And I have one more question. Well, I definitely, I certainly don't have all the answers here and I don't want to tempt fate, but, like, nobody has successfully hacked SpaceX or Starlink.
2:05:54Elon MuskEvery day there are thousands of attempts to hack Starlink and no one has succeeded. Again, I don't want to tempt fate here. So this is not a tempt. Not saying to hacker groups out there, please hack Starlink, like, please don't hack Starlink.
2:06:09Elon MuskBut, but thus far there have been many attempts by individuals and state actors to hack into Starlink and none of them have been successful. So track record thus far is pretty good.
2:06:23Elon MuskNo one has successfully hacked into. Yeah, so far, so good. You know, don't want to be complacent or anything. No one has hacked into the Tesla mothership, like the Tesla core database.
2:06:35Elon MuskMany people have tried to hack into the Tesla core database. Zero successes. Yeah, I can certainly say, like, now government computers are not super secure because it's the government, you know, so it's like, if you say, like, what is an easy thing to hack?
2:06:55Elon MuskI say, well, government computers are easy thing to hack. So it's not good. No, I agree. That's why I like, you know, I'm like, as a hardcore technology guy, I'm saying we should not have voting machines, we should not have computers because they're too subject to being hacked by.
2:07:15Elon MuskAnd it's like the subject to being hacked by. And the people protecting these machines don't understand technology, and they could easily be bamboozled. So even with the best of intentions, so.
2:07:28Elon MuskBut it's really hard to bamboozle paper ballots in person with id, which is obviously how it should be. One more thing, just real quick. Yeah. We've talked about baseball a couple times tonight.
2:07:40Elon MuskMy brother's handicap. Ryan, I love you. I'm sorry that you couldn't be here tonight. He's a White Sox fan, and he just wants to know if you would consider buying them and turning them into a reputable business.
2:07:50Elon MuskThank you. But I'm a technology guy, so I'm just, you know, I got to pick my battles here. So I'm just. I try to make technologies that people find useful.
2:08:05Elon MuskThank you, Elon.
2:08:06AudienceThank you.
2:08:08Elon MuskAll right. Hi, Elon. My name is Vladimir. I'm an entrepreneur from Reading, Pennsylvania. I came all the way here to see you because I'm not sure if you're going to make it to Reading, Pennsylvania.
2:08:18Elon MuskI couldn't wait. Thank you so much for your contributions to the world. Thank you for Tesla, Neuralink, SpaceX X. Everything that you're doing is incredible. And thank you for stepping up with your leadership to once again try to take our country back.
2:08:33Elon MuskThank you. My question to you is regarding artificial intelligence. Probably our greatest invention, hopefully not our last invention. You were really on the. You were really advocating for basically regulating the advances that we're making on artificial intelligence.
2:08:53Elon MuskHow long do you think it would be before we actually reach AGI or Artificial General Intelligence and Artificial Superintelligence? And are you still up for regulating this amazing invention that we've summoned here?
2:09:10Elon MuskYes. I mean, I do think there should be some regulatory oversight for AI. So, yeah, I mean, I kind of view regulators as kind of like the referees in a sports game.
2:09:24Elon MuskYou know, if you. Whether it's baseball, basketball, anything, any given sport, all the teams want to have referees so that, you know, teams don't break the rules, and there's fair play.
2:09:38Elon MuskSo I think there. There is sort of a right number of regulators for any given industry, but there shouldn't be. There shouldn't be too many or too few. Now there's basically no regulators in AI right now.
2:09:49Elon MuskSo it's like having a game with no referees. That's. That's, you know, Subject to something bad happening. So my recommendation would be to have. Yeah, to have an AI regulatory agency at the federal level.
2:10:04Elon MuskIt should be, you know, not heavy handed. It should be. But there shouldn't be nothing in contrast in other industries where there's excess regulation, because these regulatory agencies have just sort of grown over time to the point where there are too many referees on the field.
2:10:22Elon MuskI think the sports analogy makes a lot of sense. Like you want to have enough referees to have a fair game, but not so many referees that people can't throw a pass on the football field without hitting a ref.
2:10:35Elon MuskYou know, that's the situation we got right now. It's like you're trying to run downfield. Bam. You just bump into refs everywhere. So that's that. You know, we gotta take some corrective action there.
2:10:50Elon MuskSo thank you. All right. Elon Musk. It's a pleasure to meet you. This should be sponsored by Dr. Scholz. I don't know how your feet are doing it right now.
2:11:03Elon MuskI just want to say thank you for being here tonight. It's an honor to be here with you. I actually have been waiting for almost a decade to talk with you and ask you a few questions.
2:11:11Elon MuskAll right, first one, I want to just break right into business. A friend of mine is building the world's brightest light in the world, powered completely by renewable and Tesla solar panels.
2:11:21Elon MuskAnd we want to know if you'll turn it on for us. It's been cleared.
2:11:24AudienceIt's in Texas.
2:11:25Elon MuskThe FAA approved it. Will you turn it on for us? Potentially, Possibly. Okay, when you say brightest light, like, what do you mean? Brighter than the Luxor? It'll hit the International Space Station and you can illuminate it at night.
2:11:38Elon MuskOkay. Yes. Yeah. It can light up the whole Grand Canyon as well. That's what the engineers say. Okay. It's a hell of a light. Okay. It is Tesla solar panels, too, so.
2:11:49Elon MuskOkay, great. That sounds good. Secondly, we've heard a lot of prayers tonight. I just want to say a quick prayer for you and ask everybody to join me and just put your hands up and let's pray that God protects this man here.
2:12:02Elon MuskHe's risking his life, his family and his future for people here in a country who he believes in. And we believe in you, Elon.
2:12:09AudienceAnd thank you.
2:12:10Elon MuskThank you for everything you're doing. And we ask God that he protects you and keeps you safe in your journey in protecting us in our country. Thank you.
2:12:23Elon MuskOkay, so my question, my real question is you've done a ton of things You've literally enabled mankind to live amongst the stars. Well, not yet, but we're almost, we're getting there.
2:12:32AudienceYes.
2:12:33Elon MuskAnd I can, I want to nerd out with you all day on this. The NASA has been, you know, touted that the fuel of the stars is hydrogen. I know, I know, before you kill me, you're not a huge fan of hydrogen and I understand it has its flaws, but we do have some incredible successes.
2:12:50Elon MuskAnd my question is for you. If I were able to help you and provide you with the right people and resources, would you be down to basically involve yourself with us and help save our planet?
2:13:02Elon MuskWell, I do have 17 jobs and with the Department of Governed Efficiency, 18. So I have to be cautious about taking on additional responsibility because it's just physically impossible.
2:13:18Elon MuskBut yeah, I mean, the biggest source of energy by far is the sun. So nothing even comes close to the sun in terms of energy output. The sun converts over 4 million tons of mass to energy per second, and it's been doing that for a very long time and will do that for many, many billions of years to come.
2:13:40Elon MuskSo one of the ways you can think of the progress of any given civilization is on the Kardashev scale. And so just a simple way of thinking about it is you're Kardashev Level 1 if you've harnessed all the power of a planet.
2:13:56Elon MuskYou're two if you've harnessed all the power of a solar system and you're three if you've harnessed the power of a galaxy. We're very far from three, it's safe to say, but even from one.
2:14:11Elon MuskSo when you think in Kardashev terms, it becomes very obvious that the sun is overwhelmingly the source of energy and everything else is tiny potatoes. Tiny, tiny, tiny potatoes.
2:14:23Elon MuskBut hey, tiny potatoes are fine for now, but, but the sun is overwhelmingly the big potato, the humongous potato. So it's really harnessing the power of the sun that will lead us to the stars.
2:14:45Elon MuskHi, Elon, Dave from Lancaster County. First, thank you so much for all the insight this evening. Thought provoking conversation, two questions, one, with slightly more than nine days until the election, what would you Recommend As a 30 second pitch to convince somebody not to believe what they're seeing on cbs, NBC and abc?
2:15:06Elon MuskOh, I've got a great solution for that, which is send them links to videos, information on the X platform. So if they say that, you know, Trump loves Nazis, for example, like, well, actually here's the whole speech where he categorically condemns Nazis and Yet the Democrats keep claiming that he loves Nazis, even though he specifically said he condemns them in the strongest possible terms, they still perpetuate the fine people hoax.
2:15:35Elon MuskYou know, it's pretty insane. So for any given thing that somebody says, well, Trump is this or that, just send them the actual speech. That's the antidote. Send them what he actually said.
2:15:48Elon MuskThank you. And then the second part, X platform, actually has that. So, you know, that's the best way.
2:16:04Elon MuskHey, Elon. John Scott, your old classmate from UPENN says hi. Okay, cool. Thanks for a great earnings call on Wednesday. Welcome. My name is Rafael Aziz. I'm a Coptic Orthodox Christian immigrant from Alexandria, Egypt.
2:16:19Elon MuskI have lived through religious persecution before and I believe that the liberal and the woke movement is a religious persecution. Today it is anti Christian and quite honestly, anti religion.
2:16:29Elon MuskYou have posted on X that unless there is more bravery to stand up for what is fair and right, Christianity will perish. My question to you, Elon Musk, is very simple.
2:16:39Elon MuskWill you stand with the Coptic Christian community, our brothers and sisters, the Catholic and Christians, and the Protestant evangelicals against the liberal movement that is trying to destroy Christianity and religion in America?
2:16:51Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I'm against the woke. Religion is fundamentally an extreme extinctionist belief system. It's an extinctionist belief system. And I think we want to be expansionists. We want to expand to the stars.
2:17:12Elon MuskWe want to grow as a civilization. We don't want to go extinct. And so, yeah, I absolutely support the Coptic Christians and like, I mean, really, anyone who's like, expansionist, who believes in a future that is better than the past, in a future where we grow, I massively support that.
2:17:36Elon MuskSo. All right.
2:17:41Elon MuskHi, Elon, I'm Jeremy and I'm from Earth, more specifically Bowmansville. But my question is, address one astronomical unit. Can you give some insight into your decision, decision making process and worldview?
2:17:57Elon MuskI mean, I have a lot of respect for what you've been able to accomplish so far and you have a huge vision for what you want to accomplish. So yet.
2:18:07Elon MuskAnd in that way, there's a crossover between the areas that you're a subject expert in and politics. So if you have some insight into how you make decisions in your worldview, then that enables us all to trust you across a larger amount of issues.
2:18:25Elon MuskSure. Well, you know, I'm a big believer in physics, you know, which is like, basically, if you like, I mean, I sort of say like, you know, everything else is a recommendation, pretty much.
2:18:45Elon MuskBut physics is the law. Like, if you break physics, you're Gonna, it's not gonna. The rocket will explode and the car will not work. So you have to adhere to physics in order to make cars that work and to make rocks that work in order to make space Internet that works.
2:19:03Elon MuskBecause if you're wrong, then reality is a very harsh judge. Reality is merciless. If you make a device that doesn't work, that violates physics, it simply doesn't work. And then you'll think, rocket blows up and the satellites don't work and the cars break.
2:19:21Elon MuskSo you either, if you make technology, you either have a rigorous. You have to. In order to make technology work, you must have extremely rigorous pursuit of the truth because otherwise reality will bite you in the ass big time.
2:19:38Elon MuskYeah. So. All right. Hi, Elon, thank you for taking the time to be with us today. My name is Justin Henson, also Lancaster county native. My generation is inheriting a housing shortage and we're statistically less likely to take blue collar jobs.
2:19:57Elon MuskObviously declining birth rates been discussed. There's not going to be as many people to even fill blue collar jobs. What do you think the solution is to the current housing crisis that we're having in this country in terms of pricing?
2:20:08Elon MuskIt seems like my generation is getting priced out of homes, but also balancing the equity that people who currently own their homes have and obviously not wanting to destroy that as well.
2:20:18Elon MuskWhat do you see there to be a solution to that problem? Well, I mean, the risk of being repetitive, I think regulation is strangling progress. There's so many regulations, you can't even like modify your kitchen or, you know, add a, add something to your house without getting a zillion permits.
2:20:39Elon MuskSo if we get, if we reduce regulation, you reduce the cost of new houses. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, you know, if, I know there's like many small business owners and builders in this audience and, and who are listening and anyone who has tried to build things, whether it's, you know, build a house or do anything, build a business, you realize just how much of a government burden there is.
2:21:11Elon MuskIt's massive. And there's a state burden as well as a federal burden. But we can at least do something about the federal burden. And then, you know, that's, you know, at least we don't have to have like 400 and however many agencies there are.
2:21:28Elon MuskThis is so crazy. You know, like, I'd like to know if this is there. I bet there's not a single member of Congress that can name 200 agencies. I'd be surprised.
2:21:40Elon MuskSo how many agencies do we need 99? That sounds like a lot. That sounds plenty to cover the bases. How many bases do we need to cover anyway? It was 99 pesos.
2:21:50Elon MuskSounds like a lot. So anyway, I think we could just get the government over people's backs would be a big improvement in quality of life and cost of housing and everything else.
2:22:03Elon MuskYes.
2:22:08Elon MuskElon, what's going on? Big dog? Hey, how's it going? It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Nathan. I'm from Columbia. Anyways, so I was gonna ask, how does it feel to be the richest man in the world?
2:22:21Elon MuskAnd also, can I get a picture with you real quick? Well, we're on TV right now, so I think. I think actually we're both live streaming right now. I think probably to millions of people, actually.
2:22:36Elon MuskSo. Yeah, so I think millions of people will actually see us. We're now on screen for millions of people. In terms of. How does it feel? I mean, it's kind of a strange thing because I guess, like, I'm still very much like a technologist who, like, you know, I just work a lot, you know, and then my recreational activity is hanging out with friends and family and playing video games.
2:23:02Elon MuskWhich is. Yeah, exactly. I play video games. Diablo or other video games. So, you know, it's like I don't. I don't have like any yachts or holiday homes or anything.
2:23:16Elon MuskSo I guess if I was to maybe live a more hedonistic life and, you know, had like yachts and islands or something like that, then it would make more.
2:23:28Elon MuskI don't know, maybe that would be more. I don't know. But that's not my idea of fun though, because I like, I'm like, you know, I'm sitting. If I go and sit on the beach, then I'm like, this is boring now.
2:23:38Elon MuskWhat am I supposed to do now? You know? So I just like building things and I like being productive and doing useful things and making cool products and that's it pretty much.
2:23:53Elon MuskI mean, I also do like hanging out with friends and family and stuff. But, you know, I'm not like saying how can I sort of build a bigger yacht or anything like that.
2:24:04Elon MuskI don't have a boat or anything like that. So of course I still love you. Yeah, of course I still love it. Yeah, you're right. I do have boats.
2:24:14Elon MuskWhat are you talking for? Yes, There's a boat. SpaceX has these ships that are for the rocket lands on, you know. So I guess technically I do own boats.
2:24:29Elon MuskYeah, I stand corrected. Thank you. Yeah, maybe I should, like, go sort of sailing around in one of them or something. Yeah. All right. Hi, Elon. My name is Bruce.
2:24:48Elon MuskI'm a voter here in Pennsylvania, and it's really, it is an honor to meet you. You've been a very strong inspiration for me and my family and all my friends.
2:24:55Elon MuskSo God bless you for that. Thank you. Have a question right now about Latin America. You've obviously met President Naibu Kaleb, El Salvador, who has done an incredible job.
2:25:03Elon MuskHe really has. He's a very smart guy. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Like, it's like, you know, we had a long conversation about many subjects, I think. Yeah, he's really sharp guy.
2:25:16Elon MuskAbsolutely. So, following on that, what would you advocate for in a second Trump administration? To incentivize states like Mexico, Ecuador, and others into strengthening their policies on policing and economic opportunities to stem the tide of illegal migration to the US Southern border?
2:25:31Elon MuskThank you. Yeah, well, I mean, if there's prosperity in those countries, then I think there would obviously be less of a forcing function for legal migration. It's pretty tough.
2:25:47Elon MuskAnd there's some lessons to be learned there. Like, when Chavez came to power in Venezuela, one of the first things he did was take the guns away from people.
2:25:54Elon MuskSo he basically banned private gun ownership under the guise of safety. And then Maduro, when he had the election recently, he lost by a landslide and just ignored the election.
2:26:08Elon MuskAnd people protested and they got shot. They couldn't defend themselves. That's why you need the Second Amendment. It's a critical thing. So.
2:26:22Elon MuskI think it's worth looking at US Policies and saying which of these policies are actually helping other countries, and we send a lot of money to various countries. But I'm like, does it do any good?
2:26:36Elon MuskI don't know. I think we should just do a thorough review of, like, you know, do our actions actually help these countries, and why are we sending them our money again?
2:26:52Elon MuskAnd do the American people, like, we're sending people's tax money to other countries? Does it actually make sense? Like, are we actually. Is it doing good? Can it be defended to the American public or not?
2:27:07Elon MuskAnd if it can't, then I think we should probably stop sending money or send less.