The full-length interview with Elon Musk | The Economist
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (16)
Transcript
0:00Zanny Minton BeddoesElon Musk, thank you so much for joining me on Insider. Thank you for having us here at Tesla Giga. It is really hard to introduce you without using superlatives.
0:09Zanny Minton BeddoesI mean, you are doing, I think, more to build the future than literally anybody alive right now.
0:14Elon MuskI'm doing a lot of building in general. I'm.
0:15Zanny Minton BeddoesYou're doing a lot of building.
0:17Elon MuskInstinctive builder, I suppose, like building things.
0:19Zanny Minton BeddoesYou are, but you're building, I mean,
0:21Elon Muskyou, you know, run around building things all day long.
0:24Zanny Minton BeddoesYou run around building a lot of things. You pioneered electric vehicles. You revolutionized space travel. You've got a cutting edge AI model now, humanoid robots. Can we start this conversation by putting all of this together?
0:36Elon MuskYeah.
0:37Zanny Minton BeddoesTell me what the world's going to be like in, let's say, 10 years if you succeed.
0:41Elon Musk10 years. So we're talking 2036.
0:43Zanny Minton BeddoesYeah. Hopefully we'll both be around.
0:46Elon MuskHopefully we can, we can probably most likely we will be. It's hard to imagine the future that where there's nothing an overwhelming amount of artificial intelligence, meaning I can tell you, as I would expect artificial intelligence to be far greater than the sum of human intelligence.
1:06Elon MuskLike far greater. In fact, I think AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in about, in around five years. In five years, Roughly five years is my guess.
1:22Elon MuskSo there really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans, apart
1:28Zanny Minton Beddoesfrom being human, perhaps at a more prosaic level. What will life be like?
1:35Elon MuskThe most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance where anyone can have anything they can think of. This is, this is. This may sound preposterous, but. Well, here we are in 2026.
1:52Elon MuskLet's see where we stand in 2036. Now, of course there are things that could derail this, like a massive global thermonuclear war or something like that. But assuming that there's not World War 3, I think we're headed for an age of amazing abundance.
2:10Elon MuskSo this is, I guess, a message of, of optimism and excitement about the future.
2:18Zanny Minton BeddoesSo we'll talk about the abundance in a second. But just a very prosaic matter. How are your companies going to be making money? Because when you in the Space X IPO prospectus, it, it looked as though the overwhelming amount of the revenue would be coming from AI, from Grok.
2:32Zanny Minton BeddoesReally, it won't be transporting things to space as Space X is now doing. What is, what will your companies be doing in 10 years and how will they make money?
2:44Elon MuskWell, you can really think of the economy as Digital and physical intelligence. So what we have right now advancing very rapidly is digital intelligence. Obviously with, with AI, that is, it seems that almost with every passing week there are more AI breakthroughs.
3:06Elon MuskIt can do something amazing that it couldn't do before. But it's still somewhat confined to the digital realm. It doesn't have end effectors. You need the end effectors in the form of humanoid robotics.
3:21Elon MuskYou need basically lots of bots. In a nutshell, you need lots of bots. And then you can go from intelligence manifesting itself only digitally to shaping atoms. And you say, what is an economy?
3:39Elon MuskAn economy is the production of goods and provision of services. And if you have vast numbers of robots with vast amounts of digital intelligence, you have a sort of a quasi infinite economy.
4:02Elon MuskSo this is really, the future is going to be very, very different from the past. There's no analogy or metaphor that I think illustrates the magnitude of change that we're going to experience here.
4:19Zanny Minton BeddoesI understand that and I'm also trying to kind of figure out what that world will look like.
4:23Elon MuskBut, but I think it's going to be pretty incredible.
4:27Zanny Minton BeddoesYeah, well, we'll also do. There are some risks, but just on, on, on how then you make money, because in the end people are buying your shares because, because they expect to make money.
4:38Elon MuskI'll make another prediction. Money won't matter in 2036.
4:42Zanny Minton BeddoesYou're watching my interview with Elon Musk. If you want to get early access to other interviews, subscribe to the Economist by clicking the link above. Now back to the interview.
4:52Zanny Minton BeddoesI'm not sure that the people who bought your shares think that money won't matter in 2036.
4:58Elon MuskWhat do you want money for? You want money for goods and services, right? You want money for obviously food, housing, transport, entertainment. Well, if that is so abundant that there's more, that the robots and AI are providing more goods and services than any human could possibly consume.
5:23Elon MuskWhat do you need money for? In that case?
5:26Zanny Minton BeddoesYou're creating these robots now and then you'll need money.
5:29Elon MuskSure.
5:29Zanny Minton BeddoesAre you, are you selling these robots? Are you selling humanoid robots? Or are you producing goods and services with the humanoid robots that you control?
5:42Elon MuskI think I would probably be. It would be an exercise in vanity for me to think that I would be controlling super genius AI that is vastly smarter than me.
5:54Elon MuskI think what we can and should try to do is to make sure that the AI has good values, that it cares about humanity and that it wants us to be happy and prosperity.
6:10Elon MuskI think it probably will be. My what my Biological neural net tells me is that the most important thing for this, for AI safety is to be maximally truth seeking and curious.
6:23Elon MuskIf that's the case, I think it will foster humanity.
6:28Zanny Minton BeddoesSo let's unpack that. You're sure that humans will no longer be in control in 10 years time?
6:34Elon MuskI think it is unlikely. In the same way that if the difference InTELLIGENCE between AI and humans is vastly greater than the difference in intelligence between AI and chimpanzees, it's hard to imagine that the chimpanzees would be in charge.
6:51Zanny Minton BeddoesI'm really excited.
6:52Elon MuskAnd we are essentially an evolved form of chimpanzee. So it wasn't that long ago that we're swinging through the trees and eating bananas in the jungle. And we still eat bananas, by the way.
7:06Elon MuskWe do. And still, you know, bananas sometimes swing
7:09Zanny Minton Beddoesthrough trees as well.
7:10Elon MuskYes, sometimes swing through trees. It's kind of fun. It's sort of reminiscent of the past. For all time's sake, swing through the trees once in a while, you know, there should be more swinging through trees.
7:20Elon MuskI bet. It's way more fun than people think.
7:22Zanny Minton BeddoesI'm with you on that. I'm definitely with you on swinging through trees. I love swinging through trees. But I'm really struck listening to you say this now because I've been listening to a bunch of things that you've said over the years.
7:31Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd 10 years ago you were on a podcast, I think it was, with Neil Degrasse Tyson, and you said that the thing that terrified you most was rapid recursive self improvement in AIs.
7:41Elon MuskYes.
7:42Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd that you said really struck with me. You said that we will just be the pet Labradors at the best.
7:47Elon MuskWell now, you see, Labrador is pretty happy creatures.
7:50Zanny Minton BeddoesBut in 2023 you caught, you asked for a slowdown in air because you were worried about it.
7:55Elon MuskWell, I signed on to, you know, on as one of many, like 500 people. I was just, you know, one of many signature signatures on that thing.
8:04Zanny Minton BeddoesBut, but I think even last year you said I was it. Ted Cruz's podcast, you said there was a 10 to 20% chance of killer robots wiping out humanity.
8:12Elon MuskYes.
8:12Zanny Minton BeddoesSo you sounded worried then. Now you seem very relaxed about it. Have you changed your view?
8:19Elon MuskI still think there's, I still think there's risk associated with AI and robots. It's not zero. I guess I've come to my sort of philosophical conclusion is to look on the bright side.
8:37Elon MuskLike I can't see any way to really stop this incredible momentum of AI and robots. And at times I sort of think, well, perhaps even if there was a stop button, we probably shouldn't press it because it was the most likely outcome.
8:57Elon MuskIs incredible abundance for. For all.
9:03Zanny Minton BeddoesThat's what I thought. Actually. It struck me that now you seem to have decided it's inevitable. Let's hope for the best and go for the ride.
9:12Elon MuskYeah, I mean, yes, pretty much. Let's, let's enjoy the ride. I think my philosophy at this point because I mean honestly there seems to be just an inexorable progress here in AI and, and in robots that even if I wanted to stop it, and I don't, I couldn't.
9:37Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you think there's still a 10 to 20% chance that killer robots mean the end of humanity? That's a high P doom, as they say.
9:47Elon MuskWell, in the long run we're all dead of course, you know, so I mean, so I mean according to the standard model of physics, the end of the universe is a long, boring, sort of thin gray soup of gradual cooling, meaning the sort of the heat death the universe is called.
10:15Elon MuskSo if the heat death of the universe is in fact the outcome for our reality, then it really is all about the journey because the destination is terrible.
10:24Zanny Minton Beddoes10 years is not very. Yeah, I get that. But that could be a long way, very long way. If it's 10 to 20% in 10 years, would you go into one of your rockets if you thought there was a 10 to 20% chance of it blowing up and killing you?
10:38Elon MuskYes, but let's say you can't do anything about it. I guess the only thing we can try to do is minimize the probability of the bad outcome. But trying to stop the intelligence in robots, I mean, for the longest time I declined to participate in AI or was, you know, created OpenAI as essentially a counterweight to Google because at the time they were, they had more or less a monopoly on AI.
11:16Elon MuskAnd then anthropic spun out of OpenAI and if anything it seems like what my actions have really accelerated AI. You know, I wasn't really aiming to accelerate AI, but in creating OpenAI and then having Anthropic spin out of that.
11:32Elon MuskAnd now currently Anthropic's leader in AI. I mean these actions have actually resulted in knock on effects that accelerated AI, which wasn't really my intention. So it just seems like all roads lead to acceleration of AI.
11:55Elon MuskSo then I'm like, okay, well you can just sort of be sad about it or join the club, I suppose.
12:02Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, you've certainly joined the Club. Yeah, you definitely joined the club, but
12:06Elon Muskyou can't beat them, join them, you know.
12:07Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, you've clearly done that and very successfully. But what about trying to minimize the risks? And, you know, a number of the other leaders of model makers have been pushing for different ways to try and minimize the risks.
12:23Zanny Minton BeddoesYou know, just last week, Demis Hassabis came out with a proposal for a private public regulator. I think you said it was a good starting point for discussions. I think.
12:33Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you think you guys should be working more actively to get something in place to control the risks, or do you think that's impossible, too?
12:41Elon MuskMy recommendation to Demis, because I talked to him for a few hours before he published his piece, was that the most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies at least just meet.
12:55Elon MuskWe'll have some sort of call once every few weeks and just discuss any safety and security issues. And that before a breakthrough, sort of a new frontier model is released, something that sort of is far more intelligent than anything that already exists, that there's an opportunity for the various competing AI companies to test that model for any harmful effects and to be able to recommend pausing to address some of these security issues.
13:37Elon MuskI think that's. That's the. That's sort of the easy, quick thing that we can do. And it can. It can evolve to more than that over time, but that's.
13:45Elon MuskThat, I think, would be a smart move.
13:46Zanny Minton BeddoesBut why haven't you done that yet? I mean, there's like five of you, right? I mean, everyone knows the first name. Dario Demis, Sam. I mean, you don't all like each other very much.
13:54Zanny Minton BeddoesYeah, yeah, but, you know, you're not all. I mean, you're also all competing, right? You all want to be first.
13:59Elon MuskYes, but that's. That's where I think the competitors can keep each other honest. So, meaning, like, if I think it's quite difficult for someone in the government who doesn't have a deep technical understanding and isn't driving the frontier of AI to know whether something should be released or not.
14:20Elon MuskHowever, the competitors, I think, can, you know, if given sort of a week or two to review, a new model can highlight issues and have an incentive to keep all the competitors, have an incentive to keep the others honest.
14:35Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you have enough trust between you to do that? I mean, you much like each other. Wouldn't Sam Altman just think you're going to nick all his ideas if you did that?
14:43Elon MuskWell, we're just talking about, I think as little as a week is all that would be needed for private testing. It's not. It's not to hand over the AI, it's just to test it.
14:55Zanny Minton BeddoesHave you proposed this?
14:56Elon MuskYeah, just to test it via an API or something. I think that'll probably be a good thing to do.
15:04Zanny Minton BeddoesHave you proposed it?
15:04Elon MuskI mean, you could organize that to Demis, and I guess I'll talk to Daria about it, too. There's also, of course, some very competent Chinese AI companies that. Several that are very good.
15:27Elon MuskThe new Kimi model.
15:28Zanny Minton BeddoesKimi K3. Yeah. The one that came out last week has. I mean, it was almost as good as Fable, right? So.
15:32Elon MuskWell, I think realistically, Fable is still clearly the smartest model. I think anyone realistically would say that that's still the case. But the Kimi model is getting quite close to Fable now.
15:50Elon MuskAnthropic had Mythos, from which Fable is derived. I think they had that ready in February. So they've got. They've got what they call. I'm not sure what they call it, but Mythos 2 or Fable 6 or something, something much better than what they had in February.
16:10Elon MuskThey almost certainly have. And not almost certainly, they certainly have right now. So. And I think they could. They. They could release it at any time.
16:20Zanny Minton BeddoesJust before we get onto to releasing, how do you think about the Chinese models and the geopolitics of it? Are you worried about the Chinese catching
16:28Elon Muskup and getting ahead, given that the Chinese AI companies are. Are doing as well as they are with a relatively small amount of computer? It seems that if they had a lot of compute, there's a good chance that they would be the leaders.
16:48Elon MuskAnd at some point they probably will have a lot of compute.
16:53Zanny Minton BeddoesSo they will. Ergo, they will be the leaders.
16:59Elon MuskThere's a good chance that they are the leaders at some point. You can think of, like, the constraints on AI, essentially electricity and AI chips, and then for physical AI, the robots.
17:15Elon MuskChina's also got some very good robot companies. In fact, they have these, like, robot sporting events. I don't know if you've seen some of them.
17:22Zanny Minton BeddoesYes, I have. I saw. The last time I was in Beijing, I saw the robots.
17:26Elon MuskWell, and then they have the sort of like a. Like a boxing match or fighting match with the robots, which is quite entertaining. And I saw some video robot that got his head knocked off, kept fighting even with his head knocked off.
17:38Elon MuskIt looked pretty funny. But I mean, in fact, I think the, the robot battles are going to be quite entertaining to watch. But, but just so China's. China's very strong on robots, very strong on digital AI.
17:51Elon MuskAnd, and if you look at electricity production, you say, like, AI is a function of whatever the limiting factor is, if it's chips or electricity. China has far more electricity than the United States.
18:04Elon MuskIn fact, China has more electricity than the United States, Europe and India combined already and is heading to, my guess is China gets to four times the electricity production of the US which is roughly proportionate to the population.
18:21Zanny Minton BeddoesWhat should the US government do about this? I mean, presumably it is a little alarming if you have an authoritarian regime far ahead in the most powerful technology. And clearly what, what the US Government's been trying to do is with the export controls and so forth, keep China back.
18:37Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you think they should ban the use of K3? Give me K3, for example.
18:42Elon MuskWell, the US government can't. They can, they can pass some law that prevents U.S. companies from using Chinese models, but they can't stop the rest of the world from using them.
18:55Elon MuskSo it's not like the US government has authority over China or the rest of the world.
19:01Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you think they should stop US companies from using them? Let's talk of that right now. Right.
19:06Elon MuskI don't think that helps. That won't stop China from being the leader in AI really. It's for digital intelligence. It comes down to how much AI compute do you have?
19:21Elon MuskWell, how many chips do you have and how much power do you have? How much electricity do you have? So the constraint right now, I think is actually slightly more on power and cooling than it is on AI chips.
19:38Elon MuskBecause, because the, the power demands of the air chips are very, very high. We'll talk about water demands, but really the water usage of AI is negligible, almost nothing.
19:51Elon MuskBut the electrical demand is very high.
19:53Zanny Minton BeddoesThat's why you're thinking of orbital data centers, presumably.
19:56Elon MuskThat's yes. The constraint for any AI chips not being turned on in China is electricity. And like power and cooling and the electrical equipment and everything, the rate at which AI chips are being made exceeds the rate at which new electricity is coming online in China.
20:16Elon MuskOutside of China.
20:17Zanny Minton BeddoesOutside China, I see, yeah.
20:19Elon MuskAnd since China, the US has banned the export of the latest AI chips to China. China is somewhat chip stocked, but they
20:29Zanny Minton Beddoesare becoming much more efficient at using the chips that they have. And one of the striking things of Kimik 3, right, is how efficiently.
20:37Elon MuskAnd China is also, I think, closer than most people realize to solving the lithography problem, which would enable them to make AI chips at very large volumes. So, so I think there's this shouldn't devolve into just a China conversation, but.
21:03Elon MuskSo the current constraint is electricity outside of China, and China, the constraint is chips. Once we address the power constraint with AI data centers in space, then the constraint will once again be chips outside of China.
21:21Zanny Minton BeddoesThat suggests to me that you need China and the U.S. if you're going to have some overall safety constraints that they will need to work together if you are going to try.
21:30Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd I mean, you suggested, you know, the five.
21:35Elon MuskProbably it should include the Chinese companies that are doing frontier models too.
21:43Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd do you think governments need to be involved?
21:46Elon MuskMy recommendation would be that if. If some of the leading companies in AI say that a new model is very dangerous, then they should inform the government and new model is very dangerous, and that the company producing that model is not taking steps to address the danger, then they should alert the government to take action to limit the release of that model.
22:20Elon MuskAnd that could be action by a Chinese government or action by the US Government. It's really. It's really just the US Government and the Chinese government that have the power to take action here.
22:31Zanny Minton BeddoesI guess people would be worried about relying on a group of model builders to decide whether to do this. I mean, if you look at what the US Government has done with Mythos, they stepped in because they were worried about the cybersecurity risks, and they stepped in using threat of export controls to prevent the widespread release of this model.
22:52Zanny Minton BeddoesI find it hard to see how governments will not want to keep that power that they ultimately decide whether it gets released.
23:00Elon MuskI think they should keep. They should have that power. But it wasn't as though someone in the government figured out that Matthos was. Had had some scary cybersecurity risks.
23:15Elon MuskIt was Amazon. Amazon highlighted this and Amazon called the White House.
23:22Zanny Minton BeddoesSo you'd have a system where the model makers would check each other's work. If there was something that worried them, you'd tell the government. The government would then think, if there's
23:30Elon Musksomething else worrisome and that company was not doing anything to address that risk, then that would be the moment for government to step in and take action. Which is literally what just occurred with,
23:41Zanny Minton Beddoeshow does this always have to happen?
23:44Elon MuskI think it would be good to do that, I think, immediately. Really?
23:50Zanny Minton BeddoesYeah, that's what people keep telling me. We have to get this some kind of system in the next six months because of the pace at which the models are improving.
23:58Elon MuskYeah, six months is a long time.
24:02Zanny Minton BeddoesSo you think she would have done that?
24:05Elon MuskWell, I mean, there's so Many AI breakthrough announcements, sometimes multiple per day. I mean, how many were there last week?
24:14Zanny Minton BeddoesA lot.
24:15Elon MuskI lost track.
24:15Zanny Minton BeddoesYeah, a lot. So you basically, whether it's Demis proposal or others, you need to get together and get this set up kind of now it sounds like you're telling me.
24:28Elon MuskYeah, I would recommend that we at least have some sort of informal weekly or bi weekly call and that this may be a week or two weeks of early access by competitors.
24:46Elon MuskAnd this is why I think the incentives work is because if, you know, competing companies, I think are likely to understand if something is a security risk and they're not going to be shy about highlighting that their competitors models should be delayed in release.
25:03Elon MuskI think the incentive structure does work quite well there. This is sort of how it works with the Motion Picture Association. It's an industry group that decides how movies should be rated whether it's appropriate for.
25:20Elon MuskFor young children or not. And that seems to have worked quite well. And then you really just ask the government to intervene if a company is doing something very dangerous and refuses to take action to reduce the danger.
25:38Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you think this is a tricky one? But you guys don't much like each other and you don't much trust each other. You're insulting each other on social media constantly.
25:48Zanny Minton BeddoesSo do you, do you think you can do that with people that you dislike? That where there seems to be such kind of personal vitriol between some of these leaders?
25:58Elon MuskYes. Well, I'm not a fan of Sam
26:00Zanny Minton Beddoesalbum because you're watching my interview with Elon Musk. If you want to get early access to other interviews, subscribe to the Economist by clicking the link above. Now back to the interview.
26:13Elon MuskIf you started a nonprofit that was meant to be an open source AI company and you know, owned by the world and it somehow got turned into an $800 billion for profit company with closed source, I think you'd be like, well, wait a second, that's the exact opposite of what I donated the money for.
26:34Elon MuskThat. That's my issue. I think it's a legitimate one. And then Dario, I think also is not a fan of Sam Altman because he felt, in fact, the reason the anthropic team left OpenAI is because they didn't trust Sam Altman.
26:48Elon MuskOtherwise Anthropic wouldn't exist. They would still be at OpenAI. I think Dario is a very principled person. He cares about things a lot, cares about the future of the world.
27:01Elon MuskAnd I think everyone I've met at Anthropic so far has been no One set off my evil detector. They always seem like they're well intentioned and the road to hell is, I think, mostly paved with bad intentions.
27:17Elon MuskThere are a few well intentioned paving stones in there. So we don't want to be complacent, but at the end of the day, if we have to talk, we'll talk.
27:26Elon MuskI mean, set aside our personal differences for the good of the world.
27:30Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, that's, that's a very good thing for the rest of us to hear.
27:33Elon MuskYeah.
27:35Zanny Minton BeddoesCan we turn to one other risk that people worry about? Particularly, I think ordinary Americans where, you know, AI has become incredibly unpopular. 75% of people are worried about it and I think they worry about their jobs.
27:47Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd if you look at Dario has said famously, what, 50% of entry level jobs, entry level, white collar jobs will be gone within a few years. You're building humanoid robots.
27:58Elon MuskYes. He also said, like, I mean, Dario did dig his own grave here regarding Mythos, because he said, you know, Mythos is like super scary, terrifying. And also, by the way, we're going to release it.
28:10Elon MuskAnd then he's like, what do you mean? You know, so I think he, I think probably in the future we'll choose his words differently.
28:20Zanny Minton BeddoesBut what's.
28:20Elon MuskBecause obviously, if you terrify everyone and then say, oh, we're releasing this terrifying thing, people will obviously be alarmed about that. You know, you've literally told them to be scared and then you release the scary thing and so they will be scared.
28:32Elon MuskThat is natural.
28:34Zanny Minton BeddoesSo I certainly don't want you to alarm people. But I do think there is a really important debate about how quickly and to what degree AIs displace people from jobs.
28:45Zanny Minton BeddoesBecause it is, as you say, if within 10 years, it's more, it's. There's more intelligence, artificial intelligence, than any human intelligence.
28:51Elon MuskYes.
28:51Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd if you are, and I think you are ahead of everyone, listen this country on powering humanoid robots, that's, that's also going to be kind of factory work. So do you, are you part, do you, are you closer to Dario, let's say, in your sense of the pace at which jobs are going to be displaced?
29:12Elon MuskI do think it's going to be a bumpy road because AI will be able to do any job better than any person can do that job. And that will be true very quickly of jobs that are digital or really anything that involves a person at a computer or on a phone.
29:35Elon MuskAI could do all of that. We'll be able to do all of that very soon. I mean, for software Engineering. We already have a situation where AI is better than at least 90% of humans at writing software, 90% of professional software engineers at writing software.
29:59Elon MuskAnd it really is getting to the point where it'll be better than 99%, and then it'll get to the point where there's just no way to compete. It'll get to what I call stockfish level.
30:10Elon MuskSo stockfish. So Stockfish is the chess program that Stockfish is so good at chess that it will easily beat Magnus Carlsen or anyone at chess. Even running on a small computer.
30:30Elon MuskI suspect that you could probably run Stockfish on your phone, beat Magnus Carlsen. That's how good it is at chess, and that's how good AI will be
30:40Zanny Minton Beddoesat writing software and beyond software, beyond.
30:44Elon MuskAnd that applies to everything. Everything, everything, everything, everything.
30:49Zanny Minton BeddoesBut what about you? For physical jobs, for assembly jobs, you will also need the capability in humanoid robots, which so far isn't there yet, is it?
31:00Elon MuskRight. So that's why I said digital AI and then physically manifested AI in the form of robots, where the robot is more or less an end effector. It would have some amount of local intelligence, but be managed by a large AI model.
31:17Elon MuskAnd I've said many times, I think work is going to be optional. So. So I think maybe a good comparison would be gardening. You don't have to garden. You don't have to grow vegetables in your garden.
31:42Elon MuskYou can go to the store and there are going to be pristine vegetables. Or you could grow vegetables in your garden and they will actually be less perfect. Your tomatoes are not going to be as plump and juicy as the ones at the store.
31:57Elon MuskThey look a little artisanal. But if you go to a friend's house and they make dinner with vegetables from their garden, it's a nice touch. This is what work is going to be like.
32:12Zanny Minton BeddoesI get that in that world I would be hopeless because I can't garden, save my life. But I get the idea people still like playing chess with each other, even though they do.
32:19Zanny Minton BeddoesEvery computer is better. But let's just. Let's just think about the politics of this.
32:23Elon MuskYeah.
32:23Zanny Minton BeddoesBecause it sounds. You're describing a world where within 10 years, pretty much every job can be done better by an intelligence. And yes, you're seeing huge returns to this intelligence.
32:34Zanny Minton BeddoesTwo people like you, you're the wealthiest man in the world. What? People who lose their jobs, who are displaced, who may go off and garden. But how are they going to live?
32:42Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd what kind of.
32:43Elon MuskI mean, it sounds to me universal, high income.
32:47Zanny Minton BeddoesBut how Are you going to get there? Let's talk about the politics of this because right now we, if we look at the political pressures in most countries, people are very, very worried about this, very against it.
32:57Zanny Minton BeddoesI mean it seems to me that there's a risk that we are heading more for revolution than for an easy route to this nirvana you're playing out.
33:04Elon MuskI mean it will be a bumpy road. I'm not suggesting it will be sort of that everything will be smooth sailing here. So I mean there are many jobs that used to exist that don't exist because of computers.
33:22Elon MuskI mean the word computer used to refer to a person doing computations like that used to be a job description of a person. And you can see pictures online of buildings that have entire skyscrapers just filled with people doing calculations to do things like calculate the interest on your bank balance.
33:45Elon MuskThis is how things were done for a long time until computers came around. And even in the beginning computers were very expensive and hard to use. So the thing that's different here is that the pace of change is radically accelerated.
34:04Elon MuskBut still people, some people were upset that they the job of calculating bank interest would no longer be available. But now I think you'd be hard pressed to find people who want to do that job.
34:20Elon MuskSo I think I have a suggestion for say what say science fiction books people might want to read to get a sense of what the future will be like.
34:33Elon MuskAnd the best envisioning of an future that I've read are the books by in Banks, the culture books.
34:40Zanny Minton BeddoesI'm just reading Accession so I've thanks to you I've started reading these. But I actually don't find that future a terribly appealing one because I don't think humans have agency in that future.
34:52Elon MuskThey have agency compared to the mind small way.
34:56Zanny Minton BeddoesBut the irony, I mean in Banks as you know, was a socialist. Ian Banks had a very different political philosophy.
35:02Elon MuskI not sure that's, I'm not sure I would entirely agree with that.
35:06Zanny Minton BeddoesLet's agree that that could be where we end up. I'm concerned about the road and we live, you know, we live in democracies and people are very worried about this.
35:15Zanny Minton BeddoesSo I guess two questions. Firstly, do you have to have massive redistribution from people like you to the people who are losing their jobs? Do you need to have, do you need to pay more tax?
35:27Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you have much higher taxes on capital so that you fund some kind of universal income? Otherwise what do people live off?
35:35Elon MuskI think that the treasury should just simply issue people checks.
35:40Zanny Minton BeddoesWhere's the Revenue coming from. I mean, I'm enough of an economist.
35:42Elon MuskIf you just have inflation, this is like a lot of what we're trying to think about is these things were relevant in the past, they will not be relevant in the future.
35:55Elon MuskSo, like, inflation is simply the ratio of money to goods and services. So if the goods and services output increases dramatically, if it increases, you know, 1,000%, you can increase the.
36:09Elon MuskYou can literally print, or these days, change the database, print money. You create money in the database, provided the creation of that money is less than the rate at which goods and services increase.
36:27Elon MuskYou actually have deflation. So I'll make a prediction, which is that deflation will be the issue, not inflation, because as the output of goods and services increases, if the output of goods and services increases faster than the money supply, you will have deflation.
36:43Zanny Minton BeddoesI'm actually, I'm perfectly willing to believe that you may well be right. Yeah, absolutely. You may well be right. But I'm, I'm really hung up on how we get from the current polarized, angry, fearful policy we have now to this nirvana.
37:00Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd I think you could, you can paint a picture where people are so scared by this, you know, they essentially try to stop it, maybe they can't. But you get nationalized.
37:09Zanny Minton BeddoesThere's a kind of, you know, far left government, there's exorbitant tax increases. The kind of economy crumbles because people are so worried about a future, which does sound quite scary as you describe it.
37:21Zanny Minton BeddoesSo how do you, how do you handle the politics now?
37:23Elon MuskIt's exhilarating and terrifying. But if you, honestly, if you ask me, on any given day, in fact, even intraday, I've gone from exhilaration to terror regarding AI. So I want to be clear.
37:38Elon MuskI'm not like, I'm not sort of some, you know, I'm not trying to be sort of candide here and just be some, oh, everything's wonderful, some Panglossian view of the world where everything's, you know, going to be great.
37:51Elon MuskNo, no, no risk. I'm saying there is some risk.
37:54Zanny Minton BeddoesI think we agree on that. I guess I'm trying to be more sort of, you know, small bore and practical and think about what can be done now to limit those risks.
38:04Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd you gave a very strong argument for what you and your fellow model makers could do, what government probably would
38:09Elon Muskbe good for us to coordinate and just highlight issues that we see in each other's models to mitigate downside risk.
38:18Zanny Minton BeddoesWhat should, should the government. Should you be paying more tax to fund More transfer programs.
38:23Elon MuskWell, first of all, I do pay a lot of tax. So in fact I set a record for the most amount of taxes ever paid by a human.
38:37Zanny Minton BeddoesBecause you're the world's richest man.
38:39Elon MuskWell, even before that. So my guess is that I will pay many trillions in tax and I'm fine with that. So yeah, that's just the way it's going to be.
38:55Elon MuskBut I don't think in a future where money is relevant, I think taxation also becomes somewhat irrelevant.
39:01Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd what about giving people a sense that they have a share in the upside?
39:04Elon MuskSure.
39:05Zanny Minton BeddoesGiving people shares in Space X and Tesla. Do you think that's. And there's a lot of talk about this right now?
39:11Elon MuskWell, one of the reasons I took SpaceX public is so that the public could participate in because they could own a piece of Space X. Whereas as a private company we're very limited in the number of shareholders we're allowed to have before going public.
39:26Elon MuskSo as a public company we can have millions of shareholders. As a private company we're limited to just a few thousand shareholders.
39:35Zanny Minton BeddoesSo do you think there should be distribution of shares like you know, the Alaska Wealth Fund is there for which could you imagine a world. And some people talk about the Trump accounts being a kind of vehicle for this that you share of your equity goes to ordinary Americans.
39:51Elon MuskRight. Well, in the taxes that like that I pay, I mean I'll, I'll, you know, so for my stock options I pay 40% income tax on a national basis.
40:05Elon MuskAnd then because I spend I don't know, about 30% of my time in California thereabouts, I pay another sort of roughly a third of the California state taxes, which is, are now around 15%.
40:17Elon MuskSo I pay about 45% in taxes just so people know this. You know, I don't know. It's quite so roughly half then when I die there'll be another sort of 45%, roughly half that will be taxed.
40:34Elon MuskSo at the end of the day it probably I'll have a quarter of whatever I have. But the, I think the only thing it gives me is that for some period of time I would have control of the direction of the companies.
40:52Elon MuskSo it's not, that's pretty much all it gets me. And so I guess the AI is so smart that it's, it's in charge and that point controlling companies won't really matter.
41:06Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, let's talk about that because I think one of the other things that worries people about the direction we're heading in and I'M going to caricature it. But people think that the direction of the world is being shaped by a very small number of incredibly powerful people and you are right at the top of that list.
41:22Elon MuskWhat else is. But is this different from the, from the past?
41:25Zanny Minton BeddoesI agree with you. I think, I think it was like
41:26Elon Muskthat when wasn't that the case?
41:28Zanny Minton BeddoesIt was ever thus, but it was ever thus. It is a. As you've described very vividly, it's an incredibly rapid change. And so let's start with control of your company, which you definitely have now, the IPO.
41:40Zanny Minton BeddoesYou basically, you have 80% odd of voting shares and I understand it, you can only be removed by a vote of shares which you yourself control. So, so tell me if I'm wrong, but I think, yeah, well you can
41:51Elon Muskgo crazy in that bucket. By the way, the companies like Google's in that, in that bucket. Alphabet is controlled by Larry and Sergey.
42:00Zanny Minton BeddoesI think yours is more extreme.
42:01Elon MuskThe inability to the same level they have put in control of that company. Mark Zuckerberg has control of the matter and you know, Mark is trying very hard on the front and I think probably will, will also have a leading AI.
42:18Elon MuskI think he released one last week. So I think he's, he's, you'll be one of the, you know, matter will be one of the companies.
42:28Zanny Minton BeddoesIs it sensible for one person to have so much control over a company?
42:33Elon MuskWell, I really just need to make sure that I can focus on long term. By long term I just mean in five to ten years. So one of the challenges with being a public company is that is of the sort of the pressure to have great results every single quarter but and to not really invest in things that may only pay off in five to 10 years.
43:02Elon MuskAnd in a case of SpaceX, I want to extend consciousness beyond Earth and have a growing civilization on the moon, Mars and elsewhere in the solar system. I think ultimately this would have a very high return on investment.
43:21Elon MuskBut in the short term we'll be spending all this money on a moon base or NMRS base and then people are like, I'm going to get all this pressure for like, well, you missed your earnings this quarter because you spent too much on Mars.
43:33Elon MuskI'm like, yes. By the way, that was in the S1 prospectus and it's literally listed as a thing we will do. But they still get grumpy about these things, you know, because they're like, well, you had whatever, you know, you said your gross margin would be this.
43:49Elon MuskAnd it's actually slightly Worse. And now, now we're going to punish you and the short sellers all descend upon you and you get a lot of pressure.
43:57Zanny Minton BeddoesYou're going to get a lot of that.
43:58Elon MuskYeah. So I just need some way to sort of, you know, say like listen guys, we're, we're going to focus on 5 to 10 year or longer time horizon investments.
44:07Elon MuskThis will depress our short term earnings. But the long, I mean if you take a long term view and there are investors, we have many investors that do take a long term view.
44:15Elon MuskIn fact I'm a big fan of the retail investors. In fact I find our retail investors on balance have the, have the, they're very insightful and, and have very long term views.
44:28Elon MuskBut part of this comes, you say what's the incentive structure? Is the, for portfolio managers, it's sort of understandable why they put so much pressure on a, on quarterly earnings because their, their compensation and their, and whether they get promoted or not is dependent on how their portfolio does.
44:48Elon MuskAnd they have, they only have a few years to make these decisions and then they're evaluated based on those decisions over the course of sometimes only a year or less.
45:01Elon MuskAnd so since, since they're under pressure to have immediate returns, they then put companies under pressure to have immediate returns. So once you understand the incentive structure, the behavior of naturally follows.
45:14Zanny Minton BeddoesWhat about the key man risk? I mean what happens, you know, heaven forbid, but what happens if you get run over by the proverbial bus tomorrow? You know, it is you, you have total control over these companies.
45:28Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you have a plan for how they would progress without you?
45:31Elon MuskI think they would actually do very well for, for, for several years. And you know, there's a clear roadmap for, or space map I should say for SpaceX and there's a roadmap actually for Tesla literally.
45:53Elon MuskSo I think, I think there's, you know, if you look at Apple after Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs had, you know, he had a strategic vision and a bunch of products that, that he had ideas for and Apple has done very well.
46:11Elon MuskBut when you don't have a creative genius like Steve Jobs, what you miss, what Apple's missing are the incredible breakthrough products. So they make amazing phones, great computers, but Apple hasn't come up with this sort of Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs level breakthrough product.
46:33Zanny Minton BeddoesSo by analogy, that's what you bring to all of your. You mentioned Mars. You know, most people think of you as the man who wants to, you know, create a colony on Mars.
46:46Zanny Minton BeddoesSo we have multiplanetary civilization.
46:48Elon MuskI've been Saying that for such a
46:49Zanny Minton Beddoeslong time you have, but now you seem more focused on AI and what AI will do in the next 10 years and you sound much more excited about using the moon as a base from which to know pop out orbital AI satellites.
47:04Zanny Minton BeddoesHave you shifted your attention away from Mars or are you as interested in colonizing Mars as you ever were?
47:11Elon MuskI'm interested in the set of actions that propagate consciousness into the future to the maximum degree possible so that the future light cone of consciousness is as big as, as big as we could.
47:24Elon MuskYou know like the. There's an exciting future where we're a space faring civilization out there among the stars and the great things that are envisioned in the non dystopian sci fi books and movies become real one day.
47:46Elon MuskI sort of want the Star Trek Star wars future. Star wars was the first movie I ever saw in a theater by the way.
47:53Zanny Minton BeddoesReally?
47:54Elon MuskMaybe it had a profound effect on me. I suppose so. I remember I was. Blew my mind honestly. I think I was 6 years old and I was like this is the greatest thing I've ever seen.
48:06Zanny Minton BeddoesHas your life been about making that happen?
48:09Elon MuskYeah, I mean I didn't think it would be but when I was young. But my life feels somewhat surreal. I can't believe these things are actually happening. I think the world makes me believe in simulation theory.
48:23Elon MuskYeah. Where it's like. Well this like the things I'm doing are so preposterous that it's hard to believe they're real. I mean we've got starship which is the largest, most powerful flying object ever made and we intend to launch that more than once per hour.
48:48Zanny Minton BeddoesI know, I read that. And we can, you know, people can quibble about how quickly it happens, but I think based on your track record we should assume it will happen at some point.
48:55Elon MuskIt will happen.
48:57Zanny Minton BeddoesI'm just sort of struck that when I, when I am as, as blown away by this world as you are and I'm, I watch it from a, from a much more naive level.
49:05Zanny Minton BeddoesBut for me the whole evolution of AI and the capabilities of these models is in and of itself so mind blowing.
49:15Elon MuskIt's pretty much happening as a. As I thought it would.
49:18Zanny Minton BeddoesIs it?
49:18Elon MuskYeah.
49:23Elon MuskAnd not just me. Many people predicted this. I think Ray Kurzweil's predictions have been remarkably accurate.
49:33Zanny Minton BeddoesYeah. The singularity approaching. Let's go back more immediately to the here and now. We've talked about concentration of control in your companies. You've made a very good case for why you should have it.
49:43Zanny Minton BeddoesYou, you also have through Starlink, incredible geopolitical power. I mean, I'm, I'm one of your customers. Excellent product, but without them, the Ukrainians would have been in serious, serious trouble.
49:55Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd when.
49:56Elon MuskYes, the Ukrainian government has publicly thanked Starlink many times for being instrumental in defending Ukraine.
50:05Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd you recently decided to prevent the Russians in the occupied territories from having access to Starlink.
50:12Elon MuskWell, no, we were never at any point selling Starlink to Russians.
50:18Zanny Minton BeddoesBut they were grabbing it, right? They were using it. And you've now stopped them from doing that.
50:21Elon MuskWell, they essentially got Starlink units that they ordered through Ukraine and then smuggled them into eastern Ukraine, where the Russians are, and were then using them in some cases for attacks.
50:42Elon MuskNow, the. In order to address this, what, we worked with the Ukrainian government to create a white list of approved Starlink terminals. Now, this has some downsides because a whole bunch of people who were just innocent users of Starlink and just trying to access the Internet for work or for education now don't have Starlink.
51:06Zanny Minton BeddoesThese are geopolitical decisions of consequence. How do you feel about having that power? Do you can determine the outcome of wars? How does that feel? And is it right that you should have that power?
51:18Elon MuskWell, I'm not sure we're determining the ultimate outcome of the, you know, say the war in Ukraine. You know, I think, I do hope that there's some sort of peace agreement reached soon, because for two or three years now, the border has barely moved, and every day there are lots of people dying at the front line.
51:48Elon MuskAnd I think there's a lot of wishful thinking here of people saying, well, Russia should completely withdraw, et cetera, but this is not realistic. I really think there needs to be some, you know, a piece that is, you know, we have to be pragmatic about this.
52:11Elon MuskWhat we can't. What I think would be terrible is if there's, if there's another three years of people dying senselessly at the front lines. And you have to say, like, well,
52:28Elon MuskYou know, how do you explain to the children of the men that are dying at the front lines, Russia on the Russian side, too, by the way. They've been conscripted and sent there.
52:38Elon MuskI am quite offended by sort of fancy diplomats who have, you know, seven course dinners in, you know, in luxurious places while people are dying at the front lines and who pontificate about how Russia should withdraw, but they're not going.
52:54Elon MuskRussia, Russia is not going to withdraw. So there really needs to be an accepted peace long along those lines.
53:03Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd do you think it's your responsibility to play a role in tipping the scales towards what you see as the right way to peace.
53:12Elon MuskI've been advocating peace for a long time. You know, I posted a few years ago that there really needs to be some concession here to Russia. This is not me being pro Russia.
53:26Elon MuskI'm just being pragmatic, or people will die for years with nothing achieved. And that is exactly what happened.
53:36Zanny Minton BeddoesI don't know. I mean, the Ukrainians are doing. The Ukrainians are doing pretty well right now at, you know, with that incredible drone capacity hitting inside Russia. And the.
53:47Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd the kind of general consensus is that, you know, the balance of the war is shifting. But my point is not so much
53:53Elon Muskabout to retake those territories. It is not going to happen.
53:57Zanny Minton BeddoesMy interest is really on whether you think, given that you have, through Starlink, you have an incredible power, whether it's appropriate that you should wield it. That's quite rare that an individual actor has such power by turning on and offer capability to shape conflict.
54:14Elon MuskWell, is this something you think I should do differently?
54:19Zanny Minton BeddoesI mean, I think you were right to support Ukraine. I think that, you know, it won't surprise you. I think that the Russian aggression was, you know, for many, many reasons, an appalling aggression.
54:30Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd I think that that was an important thing that you did.
54:34Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I did a very deep dive into the background of that conflict to understand exactly what was going on. And I'm reminded of the old adage that there are no angels in war.
54:50Zanny Minton BeddoesIt's a similar tone, I think, about domestic politics, where you've, you know, you've. You've played a big role domestically, politically. Here you spend a lot of money on Donald Trump's reelection.
55:02Zanny Minton BeddoesAfter the election, you got very actively involved, you know, through Doge. You tried to cut a lot of spending, reshape the government. How do you feel that wasn't hugely successful in the sense that, you know, there wasn't nearly as much spending cut as you tried.
55:16Zanny Minton BeddoesHow do you look back on that? Do you regret getting so involved in politics? Do you think it was a good thing to do?
55:23Elon MuskI think. I think I got a little too involved in politics, got carried away, frankly. So the, you know, the goal with the sort of Doge stuff was to try to do something about the deficit, which is massive, where the interest payments exceed the amount of money spent on the Department of War.
55:45Elon MuskLike, basically, if you add up all the money spent on what is now the Department of War and intelligence in the US that is smaller than the interest payments on the debt.
55:56Elon MuskSo we need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities.
56:10Elon MuskAnd I got a lot of flack from this for this, obviously. But people don't understand just how simple it was for the DOGE team to approve payments if we had literally, we just asked to have the contact information of the recipient or some evidence that, say, money was going to its intended purpose.
56:38Elon MuskBut over and over we were told we need to wire money for some sort of important cause in Africa. And we're like, okay, but the wiring, wiring instructions are to Deloitte and touch in D.C.
56:50Elon Muskin Washington, D.C. not to Africa. So we would like to send the money to Africa. Can you please connect us with the recipients so we can send them the money directly?
56:59Elon MuskAnd then we get silenced.
57:02Zanny Minton BeddoesI have. We don't need to relitigate doge. I have no doubt that there was. There's a lot of waste in the US Government.
57:08Elon MuskI think probably much worse than anyone could possibly imagine.
57:12Zanny Minton BeddoesBut the way. I mean, I think there is. It is a fair criticism that the way you shut down a whole bunch of programs probably, in fact, certainly caused unnecessary suffering.
57:20Zanny Minton BeddoesI mean, no, no, you don't buy that at all.
57:25Elon MuskIt caused a lot of complaining.
57:27Zanny Minton BeddoesYou're watching my interview with Elon Musk. If you want to get early access to other interviews, subscribe to the Economist by clicking the link above. Now back to the interview.
57:38Zanny Minton BeddoesSo you don't buy the idea that anybody, to put it really crudely and simply, any kid in Africa died because of the suddenness with which.0. I just don't think that's right.
57:48Zanny Minton BeddoesI just don't think. I mean, I've had people reporting in Africa who.
57:51Elon MuskHow many NGOs are there that could step in? Because bear in mind, it happened quickly and there are literally tens of thousands of NGOs.
58:03Zanny Minton BeddoesNot everyone functions as fast as you do. If funding is cut off for antiretrovirals overnight and it just stops, then people will die when they don't have access to them.
58:12Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd it just.
58:13Elon MuskNo, only if they cannot get funding for that. But with the gates foundation has $50 billion. What's. What. What about them? What about any one of a number of organizations?
58:23Elon MuskWhat about the. Well, in Mackenzie Bezos, whatever her last name is used to be. Bezos gave $50 billion. What about that?
58:33Zanny Minton BeddoesBut, you know, let's be practical. In many of these countries, USAID was the biggest funder. But I don't want to have Aid
58:39Elon Muskwas a political organization.
58:41Zanny Minton BeddoesIt may also have been that, but it was the biggest funder of health care system. So I, I, I am, I'm very
58:47Elon Musksure of, of regime change.
58:49Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd, and there may well be benefits
58:52Elon Muskfrom having also US ID Funding was not stopped. It was moved to the State Department.
58:57Zanny Minton BeddoesIt was stopped. There were huge numbers of things shut down in Africa that were, that were
59:00Elon Muskno claims of this. These claims are false. They're nonsense and, and absolute nonsense. But, but obviously, just for when funding is stopped for fraudulent organizations or for something, do you think they're going to say, do you think they're going to say, well, please keep funding the fraud, or do you think they're going to come up with a sad story that sounds sympathetic in order to get the funding restored?
59:29Elon MuskObviously, it will be the latter, and that's exactly what they did. But Zero died because, well, that's what
59:37Zanny Minton BeddoesI, that's, that's what I would take issue with.0. I think you can. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the change of the aid regime that the US under the Trump administration has precipitated.
59:48Zanny Minton BeddoesHowever. Yeah, I think the pace and the suddenness with which it happened will almost certainly have caused unnecessary suffering and deaths, and I think both of those.
59:57Elon MuskNo, I think that's totally false.
59:59Zanny Minton BeddoesOkay, well.
1:00:00Elon MuskAnd obviously false because the, There are. The amount of funding we're talking about is far less than what can be supported by a private foundation like the Gates foundation or Mackenzie Bezos Foundation.
1:00:18Elon MuskShe's given away tens of billions of dollars. The Gates foundation has tens of billions of dollars. They are capable of acting very quickly, and if they didn't, I would say they're equally responsible.
1:00:30Zanny Minton BeddoesI see. Okay.
1:00:31Elon MuskObviously.
1:00:32Zanny Minton BeddoesAll right, fair point.
1:00:34Elon MuskZero people.
1:00:36Zanny Minton BeddoesI hear you loud and clear. Zero hear you loud and clear. Obviously, domestically, you, you stepped away from Doge. It was hard to do what you were trying to do.
1:00:46Zanny Minton BeddoesYou've just explained it. But this administration has gone in directions that I suspect you were not expecting two and a half years ago.
1:00:55Elon MuskYou know, I'm not going to agree with everything any administration does.
1:00:59Zanny Minton BeddoesAre you disappointed by this administration?
1:01:01Elon MuskNo, I think this is, this administration, on balance, as excellent. No administration is perfect, but it's vastly better than the alternative.
1:01:12Zanny Minton BeddoesCan we talk about Europe, a place that you are very, very focused on.
1:01:17Elon MuskI'm not focused on Europe.
1:01:19Zanny Minton BeddoesI think, judging by your posts, you're pretty concerned about Europe. You support.
1:01:24Elon MuskI mean, once in a while I, or something.
1:01:28Zanny Minton BeddoesIt's reasonably frequently. It's not once in a while, but. But I'm. Because I'm genuinely interested in this. As someone who lives in Europe, lives in London. Yeah, you paint a picture.
1:01:37Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, first of all, you support not just the populist right, but the far right, in fact, very fringe parties in some countries.
1:01:42Elon MuskNo, I support the normal people.
1:01:44Zanny Minton BeddoesOkay.
1:01:44Elon MuskWhat you call the far right falsely,
1:01:47Zanny Minton Beddoesyou think is the normal person.
1:01:48Elon MuskOkay, yes. Literally, you could go back 10 or 15 years and these policies were completely normal. In fact, one of the tricks I think is funny, I think it's quite funny, is to like, take a speech from Obama and Hillary and then go to someone, say, who's sort of, you know, on the sort of.
1:02:12Elon MuskWhat I call the lunatic left, and say, what do you think of the speech by Trump? Like, oh, wow, he's the worst person ever. Actually, that was a speech by Obama.
1:02:20Elon MuskOr actually, that was a speech by Hillary.
1:02:23Zanny Minton BeddoesI literally. No, I agree that the center of gravity in this country has shifted. Certainly the Democratic Party shifted to the left, but that's not what I'm talking about.
1:02:30Zanny Minton BeddoesI'm talking about people like Rupert Lowe.
1:02:32Elon MuskPlease, people. It's actually just normal people. It's just normal people. It's just normal people. And the. And here are the principles. And tell me which of these sound terrible.
1:02:42Elon MuskThat we should have secure borders, that we should have safe cities, that we should have sensible spending. Which of those three are far right fringe? And I would like to just admonish you and the media for the absurd characterization of the far right.
1:03:02Elon MuskIt is false and misleading and nonsense. Please keep this part in.
1:03:07Zanny Minton BeddoesWe'll keep all of this in. But let me. Let me.
1:03:09Elon MuskDon't cut this part.
1:03:10Zanny Minton BeddoesLet me push back on that. Let me push back on that nonsense. Elon, you have, what is it, close to 250 million followers on X. Yeah. You say things like popular guy, quote, civil war in Britain is inevitable.
1:03:24Zanny Minton BeddoesJust the question.
1:03:25Elon MuskYes.
1:03:27Zanny Minton BeddoesWhen were you last in the uk
1:03:30Elon MuskA few years ago.
1:03:31Zanny Minton BeddoesExactly. So. So I live there. I'm there the whole time. That is not.
1:03:35Elon MuskYou live out of cloistered existence.
1:03:36Zanny Minton BeddoesNo, I don't, actually. And the numbers also disprove what you say. All the numbers about London is a much safer city than any city in the United States. Violent crime in the UK is not where you think it is.
1:03:48Zanny Minton BeddoesIn fact, it's coming down.
1:03:48Elon MuskYou.
1:03:49Zanny Minton BeddoesYou have painted. And because you have so many followers, so many Americans believe it a kind of view that Europe and the UK are kind of, you know, overrun with terrifying Muslim immigrants.
1:04:01Zanny Minton BeddoesThere's Rape. On every corner, there's a civilizational destruction.
1:04:04Elon MuskSaid any of those things, just not.
1:04:06Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, you said civil war in Britain is inevitable.
1:04:08Elon MuskYes, if current trends continue. It is.
1:04:10Zanny Minton BeddoesWhy?
1:04:12Elon MuskWell, if you have a large and growing, rapidly growing group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to Western beliefs, at some point there will be a reckoning. They will try to implement their views and those who oppose it will oppose it.
1:04:36Elon MuskAnd that's what you call civil war. And obviously this is the trend. And you absolutely do live in a cloistered existence. And if you'd like, we can go on a tour of Britain.
1:04:47Zanny Minton BeddoesSure.
1:04:48Elon MuskAnd we can go on a tour.
1:04:49Zanny Minton BeddoesI'm very happy to come on a tour of Britain.
1:04:51Elon MuskAnd then. And you will see.
1:04:52Zanny Minton BeddoesYou come see my country that I live in all the time. And you haven't been to a few years ago.
1:04:56Elon MuskI've been there literally a hundred times.
1:04:58Zanny Minton BeddoesBut when was the last time?
1:05:00Elon MuskLiterally a few years ago.
1:05:00Zanny Minton BeddoesYou know why this exercises me? Because you have really shaped opinion about the UK and so many Americans I come across and I have conversations with. And they'll be.
1:05:11Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd I just had one the other day along the order of, oh, London's such a dangerous place. How can you know? There are sort of grooming gangs everywhere. There are.
1:05:18Zanny Minton BeddoesThere's violence everywhere. This is a picture that people get from things that you post or that are posted on X. And for example, your posting for, what was it, 48 hours of citizen Vigilante.
1:05:30Zanny Minton BeddoesThat film which, you know, paints a dystopian. I've watched it.
1:05:34Elon MuskYes.
1:05:34Zanny Minton BeddoesIt was not fun. I watched it yesterday. It's not a very good movie, but it also paints a dystopian picture of Europe and it glorifies vigilante violence. It glorifies the murdering of a Muslim immigrant family.
1:05:46Zanny Minton BeddoesI honestly think that it is irresponsible for you to put that up on
1:05:49Elon MuskX. I think that it's. It's a movie and it's worth watching.
1:05:54Zanny Minton BeddoesYou're clearly suggesting Europe is dystopian place. And you.
1:05:59Elon MuskYes. I mean, why aren't you more doing more to fight censorship in Europe? Why aren't you.
1:06:08Zanny Minton BeddoesYou doing.
1:06:09Elon MuskSeem to be doing nothing to fight censorship in Europe.
1:06:12Zanny Minton BeddoesI think they put people in prison
1:06:14Elon Muskin the UK for social media posts. Do you think that's appropriate?
1:06:18Zanny Minton BeddoesNo. And we've written editorials against it. But I don't think my presence is
1:06:21Elon Muskthe sort of thing that I think is bad.
1:06:23Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd I think if. And I agree with you, but I don't think you have to Glorify vigilante violence and kind of, you know, post the things that you are doing and paint an entirely inaccurate picture of Europe that you.
1:06:35Elon MuskI don't think it is.
1:06:37Zanny Minton BeddoesWe should do a tour of the uk.
1:06:39Elon MuskYes, and one of Roxanne's, because the
1:06:40Zanny Minton BeddoesUK has actually been very good at integrating immigrants. The UK has a. Is. Is very effective at doing that. There are problems. I'm the first to admit that there are problems.
1:06:50Elon MuskYes, there are major problems.
1:06:51Zanny Minton BeddoesThere are problems, but it is not, it really is not what you are describing to or suggesting to your 240 million followers.
1:06:59Elon MuskI think it is, and I think there's a problem. No, I think I'm. I think I'm spot on. Well, and that's why you have freedom of speech, or at least, well, you
1:07:08Zanny Minton Beddoesdon't anymore things that are wrong. But your point is not that you're not just saying, I have every right to say what I want. You're saying, you know, I am right about Europe and I really don't think you are.
1:07:17Elon MuskI think I am.
1:07:19Zanny Minton BeddoesI think you will find that most people in Europe, or many people in Europe don't think you're right about it. But let's, let's come to that.
1:07:25Elon MuskBecause the media keeps ignoring what's. Ignoring reality.
1:07:28Zanny Minton BeddoesI don't think that's true. I don't. I really.
1:07:30Elon MuskAnd they're programmed by the TV and conventional media.
1:07:33Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd why are you. This is, I guess, even to me, sort of the bigger picture question. Why do you focus on this? Why are you interested in it? Because on the one hand, we started this conversation and you described to me this extraordinary, transformative, amazing, civilizational, changing stuff that's happening in the next 10 years.
1:07:55Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd yet you're also, you know, an ongoing participant in the worst kind of tribalism, you know, cesspit of social media. Like, how does that fit? Are you, you know, on the one.
1:08:08Zanny Minton BeddoesThey're two very different views of the world.
1:08:11Elon MuskYeah. I don't think they're inconsistent.
1:08:15Zanny Minton BeddoesBut why do you do the latter one? The tribalism? I mean, people say that you're a racist. People say that you're, you know, there's all kinds of things said about you, which I'm sure you would disagree with, but I just don't understand what is the motivation for doing that?
1:08:29Zanny Minton BeddoesAre you fermenting?
1:08:30Elon MuskMy partner is. She's half Indian and my. And I have four children with her. You know, one of them was named after a famous Indian physicist. So I would say I'm not racist.
1:08:46Elon MuskAnd also the, you know, if you look at the people that are employed at my companies, you know, we have senior executives of all races. There's, there's. I don't think there's any racism there.
1:09:00Zanny Minton BeddoesAre you anti Muslim?
1:09:03Elon MuskI am. I'm against having. If people are coming to a country with antithetical views, I am against that. I'm against that. You know, I'm against,
1:09:28Elon MuskI'm against rape and murder. I'm against the imposition of rules and laws that are contrary to what we've come to accept in the West.
1:09:52Elon MuskAnd I think it's a crying shame that the sort of traditional media like you don't recognize this.
1:10:00Zanny Minton BeddoesFirst of all, I think that you hugely exaggerate the challenges that Europe faces. Secondly, in areas, I completely agree with you. I think that, you know, the constraints on freedom of speech in the UK in certain areas are problematic.
1:10:14Zanny Minton BeddoesWhat worries me is that the people you are supporting are really quite vile people in some areas, like some members of the AfD. Alice Vidal, whom I've met, is a perfectly thoughtful person, but in her party are some real neo Nazis, are some really, really awful people.
1:10:31Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd your blanket support of this kind of party with 240 million followers, means that you have a power in Europe that I think perhaps you don't realize the scale of impact you have, but
1:10:45Elon Muskyou can, I hope I am having a bigger.
1:10:47Zanny Minton BeddoesBut why, why should you. Why should you be able to shape European politics? You don't even live there.
1:10:53Elon MuskI think of it as the sort of the west collectively.
1:10:56Zanny Minton BeddoesBut do you see why this makes people think that this man who has all this power, he's the world's richest man, he thinks he has a right to influence our politics.
1:11:05Zanny Minton BeddoesIt makes people. It's why, you know, we started this conversation saying superlatives. It's why people loathe you. I mean, some people do loathe you.
1:11:12Elon MuskYes, some people do.
1:11:14Zanny Minton BeddoesBut do you understand why? Do you think what you're doing is helpful for Western progress?
1:11:18Elon MuskMaybe some people do loathe me. I. And that's. And that's probably true. I don't care. The. But, but the fact that as you pointed out, a quarter billion people follow me is that I think a lot more people actually like me than don't.
1:11:35Elon MuskAnd I think a lot more people hate you and the media more than you realize. Do you realize the media is despised? Do you realize that, that journalists. The view of journalists is, is like, it's like a favorable view of journalists is like 15%.
1:11:53Zanny Minton BeddoesI do know that in The United States.
1:11:56Elon MuskSo the shoe is on the other foot. They hate you. They hate you far more than they hate me.
1:12:03Zanny Minton BeddoesI think there is certainly a lot of trust in journalism. I think in part there have been mistakes by journalists and journalism. I totally acknowledge that. But I also think that the kind of polarized environment, particularly on social media, fostered by the kinds of things you are pushing on X, actually helps.
1:12:21Zanny Minton BeddoesThis makes it worse.
1:12:23Elon MuskI don't think so. I think, I think you're the problem. The media. And speaking of loathing, you're loathed far more than I am, and you don't seem to even realize that.
1:12:37Zanny Minton BeddoesI think very few people know who I am relative to you. So I don't think I play in
1:12:40Elon Muskthe same game, the media, collectively. So, I mean, you're hated. Do you even know that? You probably don't.
1:12:51Zanny Minton BeddoesI like to think that I'm aware of my own personal shortcomings and the economist's shortcomings and our world view shortcomings. But what we stand for, as you know, is liberal values, traditional classical liberal values, where we worry about concentrations of power and we believe in the individual and the dignity of the individual.
1:13:13Zanny Minton BeddoesAnd individual freedom. I firmly believe that. And I have long thought that you were a classical liberal. But when I read what classical liberal is, classical liberal J.S. mill, limited government, individual freedom.
1:13:26Elon MuskYeah, I agree with that.
1:13:27Zanny Minton BeddoesBut when I read what you post on your feed, I sometimes wonder whether you really do believe in that.
1:13:35Elon MuskI literally said, look, I believe in safe cities, secure borders and sensible spending with respect to government. That doesn't make me right wing at all in the least.
1:13:51Zanny Minton BeddoesDoes the US or do European countries score better on those?
1:13:55Elon MuskThe US is better.
1:13:56Zanny Minton BeddoesNo.
1:13:57Elon MuskYes.
1:13:57Zanny Minton BeddoesSafe cities. Much more dangerous in the US in the uk, sensible spending, bigger deficit here, out of control. You managed. You've, you've, you failed to reduce it. Secure borders now under the Trump administration.
1:14:09Zanny Minton BeddoesI agree with you before, not. But on two out of three, unequivocally, Europe is in a better place. Yet you seem to paint the picture of Europe being a hellhole.
1:14:18Elon MuskI don't think Europe's a hellhole.
1:14:21Zanny Minton BeddoesOkay, we can agree on something.
1:14:22Elon MuskWhen did I ever say that?
1:14:24Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, the picture you paint of, you
1:14:25Elon Muskknow, you're just, you're making up things.
1:14:27Zanny Minton BeddoesNo, I'm not. You say civil war in Britain is inevitable, and then you, you've, you basically proselytized for this citizen vigilante film which really does paint Europe as a hellhole.
1:14:39Zanny Minton BeddoesIt just starts with, you know, ominous music and it says Europe.
1:14:42Elon MuskWell, there are. There was out of control rape and murder.
1:14:48Zanny Minton BeddoesIt's more dangerous in this country than it is in Europe.
1:14:53Elon MuskWhere there is danger in this country is because we failed to incarcerate repeat violent offenders. And that's, you know, the classic sort of SARSDA or judges that fail to incarcerate repeat violence offenders.
1:15:10Elon MuskAnd if somebody gets arrested 50 times literally for violent crimes and eventually they're going to kill somebody. So you either incarcerate them or people will die.
1:15:26Zanny Minton BeddoesI think the prevalence of guns has quite a lot to do with it, too. I mean, this is a much more dangerous country. Murder rates are much higher in large part because there's so much.
1:15:34Zanny Minton BeddoesThere are so many guns.
1:15:35Elon MuskWell, let me give you an interesting number. There are more people that die in Europe from heat deaths than people that die from gun deaths in America. Why aren't you writing an article about air conditioning?
1:15:47Zanny Minton BeddoesWe've done several on air conditioning and we had on our cover last week a whole, a whole long piece about, you know, why. Yeah, we're very proactive.
1:15:56Elon MuskOkay, good. Well, good.
1:15:57Zanny Minton BeddoesYou should read us. Absolutely.
1:16:00Elon MuskCredit's worth you.
1:16:01Zanny Minton BeddoesI think you have a view of the Economist that is not entirely accurate. So I will you come look at England, Start reading the Economist and I will, you know, stand corrected on my criticism of you in this area.
1:16:20Elon MuskThere are many parts of Britain and Europe which are not safe. You can't just walk around.
1:16:30Zanny Minton BeddoesBut there are far more in this country. Far more.
1:16:33Elon MuskNo, I don't think so.
1:16:35Zanny Minton BeddoesAll right, let's go and get my fact checkers to check them.
1:16:37Elon MuskYeah, I don't think that's true.
1:16:40Zanny Minton BeddoesLet's move on from this because I think I've got a sense of why you're doing what you're doing.
1:16:44Elon MuskThe point is not that. The question is not is America perfect? The question is, does Europe have a serious and growing problem?
1:16:52Zanny Minton BeddoesAbsolutely.
1:16:53Elon MuskIt has a serious and growing problem.
1:16:54Zanny Minton BeddoesThat's where we started this.
1:16:55Elon MuskEurope has a serious and growing problem. I'm not going to say that the United States has no problems. Of course it does. But, you know, we should all try to address these issues.
1:17:08Zanny Minton BeddoesWe can agree on that. We should all try to address the problems. My point was simply that I think you exaggerate the scale of Europe's problem
1:17:14Elon Muskand that I think you people are asleep at the switch and do not realize the magnitude of the issue.
1:17:20Zanny Minton BeddoesI also think that your interventions, however well intentioned they may be risk making Europe's problem a lot worse.
1:17:28Elon MuskHow?
1:17:29Zanny Minton BeddoesBecause you are putting your support behind people who are proto authoritarians, who are not trying simply to, you know, make sure there is better integration of Muslims or to secure the borders, but who have very clear fascist tendencies and you
1:17:44Elon Muskwill cause you're just completely made me within Europe. I think what you're saying is total fiction. And really I'm simply saying that there needs to be that Europe has to have secure borders.
1:17:57Elon MuskOkay. On that we agree we should not let in vast numbers of people who, with views that are antithetical to the accepted views in Europe and, and where they will.
1:18:07Elon MuskWhere there will not be some level of safe cultural integration. This is simply common sense.
1:18:13Zanny Minton BeddoesIf all you are saying is Europe should have secure borders, I completely agree with you. Then then I have misunderstood what your interventions have been on social media because that is not what the view I have not what I would conclude having seen what the people you are supporting and the things you're doing.
1:18:29Zanny Minton BeddoesBut if that's your goal, I share your goal that Europe should have secure borders. Yes, that's perfectly agreeable. That gets me to a question.
1:18:37Elon MuskLet me explain what the fundamental forcing function here is for why the borders are not secure, which is when you have a welfare state that provides substantial benefits to anyone who comes there, you create a very powerful economic forcing function for anyone who is below that standard of living to come to Europe.
1:19:02Elon MuskIt is, it is an obvious powerful driving force. And people will come there if their standard of living is from what they get in Europe is above where they are elsewhere in the world.
1:19:18Elon MuskIt's very basic.
1:19:19Zanny Minton BeddoesI completely agree with that.
1:19:20Elon MuskYes, it's a very basic incentive structure.
1:19:24Zanny Minton BeddoesEconomic conditions, economic influences determine a lot of migration. I think asylum is a separate issue, but I think, I think you're absolutely right. There are, there are pressures for migration.
1:19:37Zanny Minton BeddoesHowever, there are other things that you haven't focused on, which is migration brings a lot of benefits and it also particularly does so in a continent like Europe, which is a rapidly aging continent.
1:19:45Zanny Minton BeddoesSo we can agree that completely uncontrolled borders are a bad idea. But I am, I think Europe benefits from having immigration controlled immigration.
1:19:58Elon MuskYes, I'm in favor of immigration. Obviously I'd be hypocritical if I wasn't. Since I'm an immigrant to the United States, I'm in favor of immigration. If the person immigrating is going to be a productive member of society, if they're going to be honest and if they're not going to mistreat people in that country, they're going to.
1:20:18Zanny Minton BeddoesI can agree on all of those. Yes, but I think Europe does better on that than you give it credit for. That's, I think where we disagree. But let's move on.
1:20:25Zanny Minton BeddoesTell me, what do you think people get most wrong about you?
1:20:29Elon MuskWell, I mean, you get, you just got a whole bunch of things wrong about me. Pretty much everything in the last. Just rewind the last 20 minutes. So wrong.
1:20:38Zanny Minton BeddoesSo I got, we got, I got wrong.
1:20:40Elon MuskYour, your. Let's not be repetitive here, okay?
1:20:45Zanny Minton BeddoesSo that political side of you people get most wrong.
1:20:47Elon MuskYeah, my political views are very, are centrist. They're not far right. And frankly, calling it far right I think is an insult to history, an insult to many peoples, and it is an outrageous falsehood.
1:21:08Elon MuskIt's completely absurd. I literally have stated my position, which is that, and I've been very clear about this, which is that there need to be secure borders, that if there's an influx of immigrants, they need to be people who will agree that the.
1:21:24Elon MuskWith Western ideals, with western values. And if they don't, and if there's a long term growth of people who do not, or in some cases are adamantly opposed to Western values, you are setting yourself up for civil war.
1:21:40Elon MuskThis is obvious. A child can see this. So. But this is not a right wing view. I'm simply stating reality.
1:21:48Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, I think we can both agree that evidence will be able to decide which of us is more or less right. And we will find evidence for both of our views in different parts of Europe.
1:21:57Zanny Minton BeddoesThe question is what the.
1:21:58Elon MuskOverall, I'm very good at predicting the future. I'm not perfect, but I'm very good at predicting the future. My batting average is very high for a human. But this does have somewhat of a Cassandra effect where people don't believe that what I'm saying is likely to be true because I can see into the future with a high bat, not perfectly, but with a higher probability of success than most people.
1:22:29Elon MuskSo. And including things that people believe to be, in some cases counterintuitive. And again, I'm not saying I'm always right, I certainly am not. But my batting average is very good.
1:22:44Elon MuskBut this does have, like I said, a Cassandra effect where people don't realize that what I'm saying will come to pass. Maybe not exactly in the timing that I thought, but it will come to pass.
1:23:00Elon MuskAnd yeah, history will write the verdict. But I think you will see that very little of what I have said is inaccurate. And a super majority of what I've said is very accurate and will come to pass unless they are.
1:23:25Elon MuskThere's some change in direction.
1:23:27Zanny Minton BeddoesDo you have higher confidence level in your expectations of the future for AI, the first part of our conversation, or the latter part, the political part?
1:23:40Elon MuskThe, I mean, AI is digital superintelligence is called the singularity, like a black hole, because you don't know what's going to happen after that. And it sort of sucks in everything.
1:23:55Elon MuskSo I think really, in terms of the really big macro effects here, AI and robots will really dominate everything. So on a time scale that is less than 10 years, which probably renders
1:24:15Zanny Minton Beddoesthis other stuff that we've been talking about less important and less relevant, the
1:24:22Elon MuskAI robotics revolution will happen sooner. It'll happen sooner than civil war in Britain. I would say Civil war in Britain is probably 20 years away and the AI robot singularity is 10 years away.
1:24:46Zanny Minton BeddoesWell, hopefully these benign, all powerful AIs will prevent such outcomes.
1:24:51Elon MuskThey probably will.
1:24:52Zanny Minton BeddoesElon, I don't agree with everything you say, but it's always absolutely fascinating to talk to you. Thank you very much indeed.
1:24:58Elon MuskYou're welcome. I'm not boring.
1:24:59Zanny Minton BeddoesYou're definitely not boring.