Elon Musk Interview | The Future, Engineered | X Takeover 2025
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (13)
Transcript
1:32Host/MCHey, everybody. Wasn't it great to hear from Lars? You can just tell he just, he loves what he's doing and that, that really just comes through when you talk to him.
1:43Host/MCSomebody else that loves what they do is our next pseudo surprise. We announced it, what, an hour or something ago? You might know him, he's a guy named Elon.
1:54Host/MCMaybe you've heard of him, he's got a couple followers on this platform called X. I don't know, you know some new guy? No. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, will be joining us virtually here momentarily and to chat with him for second or third year in a row now.
2:10Host/MCGosh, second year in a row. Please welcome back, of course, John and Kelvin from the Tesla Owners Club of Silicon Valley. All right, let's go. Have fun, guys.
2:22InterviewerAh, man, the racehorses out there, always causing a ruckus. Family friendly event, guys. Crazy. What a day, what a day. So obviously, thank you so much to Lars and Steve for coming on here.
2:38InterviewerAnd I believe we have Elon on, so it's just a matter of, I feel like, you know, just bringing him on the screen and stuff.
2:46Elon MuskYeah. Whoa, Elon, what's up? On a giant screen.
2:54InterviewerYeah, it actually kind of looks like Mars in some ways.
2:57Elon MuskIt does. Well, it's just perseverance.
3:00InterviewerIs that a cap right there too?
3:03Elon MuskThat's the Perseverance Rover. It's a perseverance rover on Mars. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Yeah.
3:09InterviewerWell, first off, Elon, thanks for coming to the X Takeover, formerly Tesla Takeover, for the second year in a row.
3:17Elon MuskYou're welcome.
3:20InterviewerWell, let's, let's kick things off. Let's start off with really your baby, the Starship. Starship is the most ambitious rocket ever built. What's been harder than expected and what's the next milestone we should watch for?
3:40Elon MuskWell, I thought everything would be hard, so it's not like I was. Like it would be easy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Starship is a crazy program on so many levels because if you've got something with two and a half, and future versions will be three times the thrust of the Saturn V moon rocket, which was previously the largest rocket and largest flying object ever made.
4:07Elon MuskSo Starship is three times thrust, roughly twice the weight of the next largest flying object ever made, and has the goal of being fully and rapidly reusable. So this is, this is a really crazy thing too.
4:27Elon MuskI think it's really one of the hardest engineering challenges that exists. And you know, when we first started talking about Starship, people thought this was impossible. In fact, even within the company, we.
4:41Elon MuskWe sort of thought it was impossible and it had a very high sort of what I call giggle factor. You know, you mentioned the thing and people admittedly start giggling like at the absurdity of it all.
4:54Elon MuskSo now. But now it's gone from. I say we, you know, I guess I specialize in the going from the impossible to the merely late. So that's my skill.
5:07Elon MuskIt wasn't possible. Now it's just late. So. And I encourage anyone who's interested to go and visit Starbase in South Texas. It's like a magical land with gigantic rockets.
5:21Elon MuskI think some of you have.
5:22InterviewerYeah, it's insane.
5:25Elon MuskVery inspiring. It's like I take for. Take friends and family. It's on a major highway so you can see things quite close up and really get a sense for the scale of the rocket and the factory and everything.
5:36Elon MuskSo it's very cool.
5:42Elon MuskI guess the thing that I thought would be hardest currently is the hardest, which is the creating a fully reusable orbital heat shield, which has never been done before.
5:52Elon MuskSo normally the heat shields are. They're expandable and even say for the shuttle heat shield, they would lose many of the tiles on every flight and they'd have to refurbish the heat shield between each flight.
6:06Elon MuskSo no one has ever created a fully reusable orbital heat shield before. In fact, no one has created a fully reusable orbital rocket before. And Falcon 9 is the first rocket where there's at least the boost stage is reusable on a regular basis and where it actually makes economic sense.
6:29Elon MuskSo solving the heat shield problem is I think, probably the single biggest remaining challenge for Sasha. And of course getting the upper stage of the ship to land and also get caught by the giant metal chopsticks, which looks like a sci fi movie.
6:53Elon MuskThat looks like an improbable sci fi movie. The whole thing.
6:57InterviewerChopsticks literally catching it.
7:00Elon MuskYeah, giant metal chopsticks. That's. It's pretty wild to be catching the largest flying object ever made with metal chopsticks out of the air. So then the. But I'm hopeful that the ship will be.
7:20Elon MuskWill be recovered maybe this year, but certainly I'd say the first half of next year. And then there'll be further improvements to make the ship and the booster not just reusable, but fully and rapidly reusable, which will actually drop the cost per flight, cost per ton of payload of starship below that of a Falcon 1 rocket, of an expendable Falcon 1.
7:46Elon MuskSo that getting 100 tons or more to orbit of useful payload will cost less than a rocket that would ordinarily deliver half a ton. That was Falcon 1. And it's because all you're doing is replacing the fuel and oxygen in the rocket as opposed to building a new rocket.
8:08Elon MuskAnd most of the propellant is actually oxygen, not fuel. It's about, it's almost 80% oxygen, 20% fuel. Then the next big technology challenge after being able to achieve full reuse of the ship is orbital refilling.
8:31Elon MuskWhere, where we actually refill propellant from over, like, like, like aerial refueling. In this case it's orbital refilling. I say refilling, not refueling because most of what's transferred is actually liquid oxygen as opposed to fuel.
8:49Elon MuskSo for orbital refilling you need to have two starships come together and dock and transfer propellant from one starship to another and then, and then in the future to an orbit orbital propellant depot.
9:06Elon MuskYeah, so that's, that's the situation doesn't sound hard. I mean it is very achievable. There's nothing, nothing, nothing impossible is being talked about here. But it is, it is very tricky to do.
9:25Elon MuskAnd no other organization is even trying to do this. It's like sort of like, well, who else is trying to do this? Well, nobody actually. So in fact, even after all these years, there's still no company that's reusing a booster.
9:45Elon MuskSo no one's even tried to do Falcon 9 level reusability. Even though we've shown that it clearly makes a ton of sense. Because you know, compare the cost of any form of transport where if you have to throw away the item afterwards, like if you've got, if you had to, if every time you drove somewhere you had to throw away the car, you'd be, wow, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a crazy car where you have to throw away after every, every time you drive it.
10:16Elon MuskBut that's how it works for rockets. So that is really. Yeah, I don't think anyone would be driving a car if you have to buy a new car every time you drove somewhere and then you have to tow another car behind you for the return journey.
10:36InterviewerElon, what does a.
10:38Elon MuskSo, yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:40InterviewerSo talk about the impossible. Elon, what does a self sustaining city on Mars actually look like? How many people? What kind of economy? What kind of governance?
10:50Elon MuskWell, governance will be up to the Martians, but you know, we have some sort of artist impressions of what Mars city would look like. And I don't really know to be honest.
11:09Elon MuskYou know, except that Mars is not yet at the point where, where it's sort of terraformed, where we live outdoors. So you have to live initially in glass domes or something like that.
11:27Elon MuskAnd then you could walk outside with a Mars suit, but you could not walk outside without a Mars suit. So.
11:41Elon MuskYeah, it's,
11:49Elon MuskBut I should also say like, like maybe explain for those who haven't heard it like, like why, why what? Why is it worth doing something like this? What's the purpose of, of Mars?
12:01Elon MuskShouldn't we just focus on Earth? And I'm like, yeah, I think we should focus on Earth. Like 99% of what we do should be focused on Earth, but maybe 1% of what we do should be, should be focused on, on becoming a space spring civilization and a multi planet species.
12:20Elon MuskBecause there's the defensive argument where it's, you know, it's, it's if something were to happen to Earth that destroyed civilization, this could be World War 3 or it could be a meteor like the one that destroyed the dinosaurs, then we want to make sure that the tiny candle of consciousness that exists with humanity does not go out.
12:53Elon MuskAnd so I think it's important to be a multi planet species to ensure the long term survival of consciousness and all the life forms that we, we have here on Earth.
13:05Elon MuskSo. And you know, the other life forms can't extend life to another planet, but we can do it for them. We can bring the other. Oh shit. And to be clear, I'm an optimist.
13:22Elon MuskI mean I think the most likely outcome is that the future will be good, but there's a small chance that the future, that something will go wrong. And if so we don't want to the light of consciousness to go out on a, you know, we want the light of conscious light of consciousness to continue.
13:37Elon MuskSo that's kind of the defensive argument. And then the, then there's also the sort of, the sort of the inspiration argument which is that life can't be just about solving one sort of measurable problem.
13:54Elon MuskYou about the future that make you, that make you excited to be alive and make you, you know, you wake up in the morning, you're like, I can't wait to see what happens.
14:03Elon MuskTo have these things like that too,
14:13Elon MuskWhat they learn. Everyone on Earth, just like the Apollo program was inspiring to everyone on Earth. Whether you went there, obviously very few people went there, but, but it was, in a way we all vicariously went to the moon and it was a great achievement of Humanity, and it was very inspiring to people all around the world.
14:33Elon MuskSo. And learning more about the nature of the universe and seeing what's happening out there, even if you don't go yourself, is still very, very inspiring. So, yeah, I think those are all things that matter a lot.
14:51InterviewerYeah, I mean, it's truly, truly inspiring what SpaceX and even Tesla are doing. Do you ever foresee SpaceX?
15:05Elon MuskHello?
15:06InterviewerYeah, are you there?
15:10Elon MuskAre you there? Sorry, guys, if you're talking to me, I cannot hear you.
15:14InterviewerAll right, do you want to go check with. Can you hear me? Do you want to go check with Noah real quick? Yeah, can you hear us, Elon? Should I make a joke out of this or not?
15:29InterviewerCan you hear me now, Elon? Yeah, the audio. Hopefully we back in seconds, but bear with us as we navigate this. At least Elon's still there with the Perseverance Rover.
15:55InterviewerCan you hear me? Can you hear me?
15:58Elon MuskAre we back?
16:00InterviewerWhoa, I don't think we can hear him, guys.
16:08InterviewerPeople are waving at you, Elon, if you can't see them.
16:10Elon MuskBut
16:13Intervieweryeah, sorry about these audio difficulties. Hopefully we can get this up and running. Are you there?
16:20Elon MuskCan you hear me?
16:21InterviewerYeah.
16:22Elon MuskOkay.
16:23InterviewerI was going to ask you to dance while you were waiting silently, but, you know, figured we'd wait for that.
16:29Elon MuskI'm joking. Did you hear what I said earlier?
16:33InterviewerYeah, we did. And then I think, yeah, yeah, for sure. No, so we were. What the question was is we were asking, do you think that SpaceX is eventually going to go interstellar?
16:44InterviewerIs there a plan?
16:45Elon MuskWell, hopefully. I certainly hope so. Yeah. I'm probably not in my lifetime, but probably, yes, eventually.
17:02InterviewerElon, can you hear me?
17:04Elon MuskI can hear, yes.
17:05InterviewerOkay, let's talk about Robotaxi. How do you see the Robotaxi platform coexisting with the rest of Tesla's lineup? Will it replace the Model 3 and why?
17:23Elon MuskWell, this cybercap, which is a two seater and that would. They would not replace the three and Y because three and Y have a four seater and six capability.
17:37Elon MuskSo I think you'd find that the Cyber Cab would be for one or two passengers, and then dynamically it would call the model 34 or wire for four passengers or wire for six passengers and, you know, and then we'll have the larger vehicles.
17:58Elon MuskBut, I mean, this is not the forum for making our product announcements, to be totally honest. Yeah, I gotta be, you know, a little careful here about what I say.
18:15InterviewerWe got you. Does Tesla plan on owning a large fleet of robo taxis? And then when will Private citizens be able to go on the Tesla network?
18:29Elon MuskYes. Tesla will own. Some of the fleet will be Tesla owned, and some of the fleet will be customer owned. So you could think of it as model, kind of like maybe some combination of Uber and Airbnb where, you know, some people own the cars and then add those to track them to the fleet.
18:50Elon MuskAnd some cars are owned by Tesla directly.
18:58InterviewerSo if Robotaxi succeeds, Elon, how does Tesla navigate the paradox of making the best cars in the world, but also possibly needing fewer of them?
19:14Elon MuskWell, guys, I think it's tough to me to answer questions because TELS is a publicly traded company. And so, you know, the most interesting questions you'd want to ask me are the questions I can't really answer.
19:32InterviewerNo, yeah, of course. No. We definitely don't want to put you on the spot there. So I think you posted a week or two ago about, and even Lars mentioned it about just the Roadster program and how it's still active.
19:47InterviewerWhat can you tell us about its current development status?
19:53Elon MuskWell, we're aiming for a demonstration at the end of this year. I mean, the Roadster is not something that's going to meaningfully affect, say, the financials of the company.
20:13Elon MuskThis is too small relative to other programs. It is very cool. Hopefully we're able to do a demo at the end of this year, but early next latest.
20:35InterviewerYou said that Optimus could be more valuable than Tesla's entire automotive business. What's the roadmap from where we are today to widespread deployment?
20:52Elon MuskYou know, again, you're really asking me for questions that are highly sensitive to the value of the company. And so that's not really something I can answer.
21:09Elon MuskAll right. The current version three of Optionbus, I think, is the right design to go to volume production, but it is a significant redesign from version 2. So, in fact, almost nothing stays the same.
21:35Elon MuskSo I'm really faced with a choice of should we make several thousand version 2 Optimus robots when we know the design can be much better, or should we always do version three, which is much better?
21:52Elon MuskAnd, you know, we maybe have, I don't know, a few hundred robots instead of a few thousand robots by the end of the year? And I think the right decision was to go with version three and then scale production significantly next year?
22:13Elon MuskNow, in terms of the value of optimists, you really need to think of the basic question of who, who wouldn't want their own C3PO, R2D2? I think we want that.
22:32Elon MuskI mean, let's ask the crowd Would you guys like, do you guys want an Optimus? Yeah, yeah, exactly. It'd be very cool and it would actually be by the way, much better than in functionality than C3PO and R2D2.
22:52Elon MuskSo it would be super useful. So I think basically everyone on earth is going to want one and then you're going to have a bunch in industry. So that's why I think it's probably the world's biggest product because there's at least a market for probably 20 billion, could be 50 billion, I don't know a lot.
23:22Elon MuskSo.
23:27Elon MuskYou know, hypothetically, if Tesla was making a billion of these a year at scale and at scale the cost gets lower and lower. So maybe like on the order of $3,000.
23:41Elon MuskI'm just guessing there. And you know that's 30 trillion in revenue.
23:49InterviewerInsane.
23:52Elon MuskYou know, there's a long way to go between here and making a billion robots a year. Yeah. But I do think something like that may happen. Yeah.
24:06InterviewerWhat would you say is Optimus going to have the biggest impact on. Do you think it's going to start obviously in manufacturing, like, or at what? Not. Not necessarily timeline but like where do you see Optimus having the biggest impact?
24:28Elon MuskWell, initially would go to very high value things. So say somebody needs a lot of medical care or something. So like if you know options could be like a 24 hour a day nurse or helper to someone that is quadriplegic or something like that, you know, or something just really is.
24:58Elon MuskIt needs physical help. So that's the kind of thing which would be life changing for a lot of people. Those would be the highest value initial use cases. It will also be used in situations where it's.
25:21Elon MuskThe work is very dangerous so. Or where there's a lot of repetitive tasks. But like any work that's, that's that risk slight or some kind of injury would be a good initial use case for Optimus
25:46Interviewerwhen you look ahead in 10 years. What's more transformative, full self driving or Optimus.
25:54Elon MuskOptimus.
25:58InterviewerSounds like that was an easy one. You've.
26:02Elon MuskWell, and I do understand like this is a, it's very hard to do so it's not like it just, it's so I think, yeah, yeah, I see
26:17Intervieweryou're drinking some good old Diet Coke by the way. Shout out to those you've hinted that we may reach digital superintelligence this year or next. How will we know that we've crossed that line?
26:30InterviewerAnd what does one of AGI, what does day one of AGI really look
26:35Elon Musklike, well, I'm not sure it's like a massive, it may be less profound than.
26:51Elon MuskAt least the first will be less profound. Like AI has not done yet is invent new technologies that are useful. So it hasn't has discovered new physics and it has invented technologies that are useful.
27:11Elon MuskBut I think that is something that will happen. Yeah.
27:19InterviewerIf GROK becomes smarter than any human, what role do we play? Are we co pilots, overseers or just legacy code?
27:30Elon MuskWell, it won't just be grok, there will be many AI.
27:42Elon MuskThere will be at least I think four major AIs, maybe five just in the United States. And so even if was not developed, there would still be digital superintelligence.
28:05Elon MuskAnd I, I've been fighting, you know, personally sort of driving hard on digital superintelligence for a long time because I wasn't sure if this is a double edged sword or a single edged sword or what.
28:20Elon MuskBut it became very obvious after a while that this was going to happen whether I participated or not. So therefore I had a choice of either be a spectator or a participant, but that it was going to happen with or without me.
28:42Elon MuskSo then I think, well, I rather be a participant than a spectator and I can focus on AI safety, which in my view, and I've thought about this for a long time, is that the most important thing for AI safety is to be maximally truth seeking, which is often like saying things that are maybe politically incorrect but actually factually correct.
29:15Elon MuskAnd also there'll be mistakes that are made, then admitting the mistakes and taking corrective action. And GROX still has a long way to go to actually truth seeking. But I think this goal is also consistent with inventing new technologies, you know, solving medical problems.
29:43Elon MuskYou know, if you want to, if you want to cure cancer, you have to be maximally clue seeking to understand what the brick cause is, for example. So I think that's actually very fundamental both for safety and for usefulness.
29:59Elon MuskAnd yeah, so the economy of the future I think is going to look sort of quite different from where it is today. And AI and robotics, in the good scenario, which we're working towards trying to ensure that we do have the good scenario, there will be no shortage of products and services for anyone.
30:37Elon MuskLike basically anyone will be able to have any products and services they want.
30:46Elon MuskThat's the productivity gains from AI and robotics are just astounding to think about. Like I think, I think it could increase the size of the economy by a factor of 10 or more.
31:03Elon MuskLike if you will eliminate poverty and you really will be in a situation where anyone can have anything they want. The bigger challenge may be finding meaning in life.
31:21Elon MuskSo if the robot can do anything that you can do, but maybe better, how do you find meaning in life? That may be the biggest challenge.
31:33InterviewerWhen you think of the fact, you know, you mentioned that, you know, you've been holding off on, you know, really getting involved, whether it's, you know, participating versus being a spectator.
31:44InterviewerAnd when you're thinking of the next couple of years of like, let's say, not necessarily catching up, but just doubling down and really focusing on it, what are going to be your biggest focus points?
31:57Elon MuskReally? It's making it useful and making it safe for humanity and making it love humanity, essentially. You want it to be useful and friendly.
32:19Elon MuskSo those are the most important things. I've never seen any technology advances fast as AI, so. And I've seen a lot of technologies advance. Yeah, the rate of. I call it, and maybe this is a discomforting metaphor, but AI is a supersonic tsunami.
32:51Elon MuskDoes not sound fun, but, yeah, sounds a little scary in that way. But it's in terms of maybe in terms of exceeding prior technologies, it's like supersonic. And you really do need to pair AI with robotics.
33:15InterviewerYeah, I think it's crazy just how much it's advanced in just the past year, two years, and, and seeing how kids are using it. Using Grok 4 Grok Voice the Companions.
33:26InterviewerNow, I think you've answered this before, but what keeps you up at night when you think of the future of AI and now that you're doubling down and really just going wartime mode right now on just tackling these issues, what is something that keeps you up at night?
34:01Elon MuskWell, AI safety and making sure AI is aligned with humanity and wants to foster, grow and better humanity. And basically we want to be like, if you could, if you could look into a crystal ball right now and see the future, basically the future.
34:25Elon MuskAnd so, I mean, I have this kind of like, new term for the goal of Tesla. The goal previously was accelerating the advancement of sustainable energy, which is like a very good goal.
34:48Elon MuskAnd then the reason I pursued that rather than AI, because I could have pursued AI from the beginning, was because I was confident that that sustainable energy was a single edge sword only, like, it was only a good edge, you know, so we sure that, okay, we succeed in that.
35:03Elon MuskLike, okay, that's, that's definitely good. Stable energy by definition is great. You're cleaner air and, you know, and I can run out of whatever the sports fuel is with, with combination solar batteries.
35:21Elon MuskAnd electric cars, then that's like, that's an unequivocal good.
35:31Elon MuskFor AI. Like I said this, it is more of a double edged sword risk, but I think it most likely will be good and most likely will bring immense prosperity and it's going to figure out how to cure every disease and it's probably going to be awesome, but I think we need to be careful and not complacent and we actually be somewhat paranoid to make sure that we have the good AI future and not the bad AI future.
36:15Elon MuskSo, I mean from a Tesla stock standpoint, I think start with autonomous, autonomous cars and especially with, with Optimus, it does go to, to sort of crazy levels. I always recommend like looking at Kathy Wood and Arinvest analysis.
36:40Elon MuskThey're, they've been right in the past and I think they're right this time and again with a lot of difficult execution. I think people out there said, well, Tesla's valuation could be 25 trillion and I think that's probably correct.
37:02Elon MuskIf we execute well on autonomous transport and Octopus, it actually does get to a 20 to 30 trillion dollars valuation. That's 20 to 30 times what it is today.
37:21Elon MuskEveryone's CHEERING yeah, yeah. The math is, math is clear. So it's just a massive amount of work. But like, I think if you do that massive amount of work, that's what will happen.
37:52InterviewerElon, let's talk about Neuralink. You've described Neuralink in the past as a way to solve the input output bottleneck between humans and machines. Right. What's the long term vision?
38:06InterviewerIs Neuralink a medical company or is it the first step towards symbiosis with AI?
38:15Elon MuskIt starts off as a medical technology, so neuralink's initial goals are really to help people who have quadriplegic tetraplegic since they've lost the use of their body, and to be able to enable them to control their phone or computer just by thinking.
38:39Elon MuskAnd I think we, eight patients so far and all eight love the device and are using it every day, so it's helped a lot of people and I think we're, the Neuralink team is aiming to do about 20 patients by the end of the year, so it's accelerating.
39:02Elon MuskAnd then next year we'll be doing the Blindsight implant, which will enable people who are completely blind, like if they've lost both eyes and optic nerve and still be able to see, interfacing directly with visual cortex.
39:21Elon MuskSo there are a lot of cool things like that. So the focus actually is fixing serious medical issues. And prove out the safety and efficacy. And then eventually at some point you could get cybernetic enhancements.
39:46Elon MuskSo it could be something that massively augments intelligence and allows you to communicate at ultra high speeds. So it's very sci fi. And it could even get to the point where you could upload your memories and essentially have a saved version of yourself.
40:21Elon MuskAnd then I'm speculating here, but then maybe download that into a new. On a clone body, either robot. I'm really getting into sci fi here, but like download that into a robot body if you want, or a clone version of your original self.
40:44Elon MuskYou know, they've certainly made sci fi movies, written books about this. So these are not new ideas. But I do think stuff like that will be possible which would give you, I guess, a form of, or anybody wants it, a form of immortality.
41:04Elon MuskAnd to be clear, I do think these things will be available to anyone who wants to do it. So it's all going to be sort of limited to a few sort of, you know, elite members of society.
41:18Elon MuskI think it will be available to everyone who wants.
41:25InterviewerIt's crazy just to think, you know, with neuralink, Grok, the Grok companion, and even the humanoid robot, how do you do you see, I mean, it just feels like more and more whether it's Grok, the Grok companion and then neuralink.
41:41InterviewerI know we, we did an interview with Brad, who was the third patient who has als, and he was also utilizing Grok.
41:49Elon MuskYeah.
41:49InterviewerWhat do you, what do you see continuing to see that integration between, let's say, neuralink and even, even Grok as things continue to grow?
42:01Elon MuskYeah. GROG will actually be able to understand the signals from you. So the neural links connecting to your brain and then sending the signals to Grog and then Grok can actually understand those signals at kind of like a binary level as opposed to having to translate it into words and so greatly improve the efficiency with which you can use your neuralink device.
42:32Elon MuskLike it's so, I mean, we're really getting into some interesting philosophical questions or interesting questions. Like if you think about how much your metal, your mind is used to take a complex thought or image, your mind and translate that into words.
42:58Elon MuskAnd it's, and it's very ly. Because how can you really with words convey, say, an image that you have in your mind? It's very difficult to do so. And, and if you're not, like, if you're not an artist, it's actually very difficult to actually get the image from your mind onto a computer or Paper.
43:18Elon MuskBut, but, but the computer could do that. You can say, okay, this is the image that you want to produce. And let's say that there's a complex series of concepts that you want to convey to someone else.
43:34Elon MuskAnd if both people have a neural link, you'll be able to convey a complex series of ideas, uncompressed in their full form to someone else's mind, as opposed to reducing complex concepts down to a few sentences and trying to get someone else to hear what those sentences are, decompress those sentences in their mind and try to understand the concepts that are in your mind.
44:09Elon MuskSo this is why I call it conceptual telepathy. So this would greatly improve communication and understanding between humans.
44:23InterviewerYou've mentioned restoring vision and mobility, but the idea of writing to the brain and hearing too.
44:30Elon MuskSorry. So it's like basically, if there's any sense or brain injury, in principle, that sensory function or that brain injury can be solved with neuralink. So that includes hearing, sight, smell.
44:54Elon MuskI don't know, people lost their sense of smell. But feeling, it could be
45:03Host/MClike if
45:04Elon Musksomebody has a stroke and they've lost the ability to move their arm, a neural link could restore that ability. It's really a very powerful general purpose input, output device that can address, you know, over time, any brain or neurological issue.
45:32Elon MuskSo if somebody's having seizures, it could actually stop the seizures. It could, I think, probably fix schizophrenia. Like a lot of. There's a lot of things that could. Like, in principle, it could fix basically anything that's to do with the brain
45:51Intervieweror
45:54Elon Muskneurons or your skin to.
45:57InterviewerIs there anything that would be like, is there a most difficult problem to solve in that space then? Because technically a lot of it could be solved. Is there something that would, maybe you would see bigger blockers on trying to solve as far as fixing those problems?
46:19Elon MuskI'm not aware of lockers right now. It's just that when you're putting devices in humans, you have to be very careful and to make sure that no damage is done and the implant works and without any negative side effects.
46:40Elon MuskAnd so far, you know, knock on wood, we're betting 1,000 here. And you know, patients of the devices have worked and there's no meaningful side effect. So that's, it's really just.
47:00Elon MuskYeah, it's pretty cool. But it's just in order to be safe that does slow us down. And of course we interact very closely with the FDA and for approvals and stuff.
47:16Elon MuskSo it's not just neuralink vacuum here.
47:20InterviewerIt's.
47:21Elon MuskIt's with regulatory approval from the fda. So, and. And then you do need different variants of neural link device for solving different things. So, for example, for the telepathy product, which is what we have in the a patient so far that interfaces with the motor cortex in the brain.
47:49Elon MuskSo it's like literally someone will think about moving their hand. Neuralink device will read that signal in the motor cortex and then move the mouse on their computer. And then for sight, it's a different thing because you've got to stimulate the visual cortex.
48:11Elon MuskAnd the visual cortex is in a different location and it's a little deeper. So you've got to put the electrodes a little bit deeper to reach the visual cortex.
48:22Elon MuskAnd in this case, it's not reading, it's writing. It's effectively writing pixel to the visual cortex. This is something we've had working in monkeys for about three years now.
48:40Elon MuskIn fact, one of our monkeys has both a telepathy implant and a blindsight implant. He's a very happy monkey. I do want to emphasize we take great care of our tools.
49:00Elon MuskThis is a really big deal because I've always said, like, imagine if we were in that position. Well, let's just do all the things that if. That. If we were in that position, we'd do.
49:13Elon MuskAnd the US Inspector that came by to check out our facilities, she said in her entire career, she's never seen a nicer monkey enclosure ever. And let me tell you, monkeys love photopathy implant.
49:34Elon MuskMonkeys are just like us. They love playing video games and eating snacks. So if you look at that video of Pedro, I think it's like four years old now.
49:48Elon MuskYou see, he's just sitting on a branch, sipping a banana smoothie, which he gets every time he scores. He gets a sip of a smoothie, but he's not being held down.
50:03Elon MuskLike, he likes playing the game. So it's really just like humans, like snacks in video games. Yeah, same thing.
50:15InterviewerOne question I have. How does building a humanoid robot and neuralink intersect, if at all? I mean, what are the learnings from that? Is there any overlap?
50:28Event OrganizerYeah.
50:34Elon MuskWell, I have to say, building a humanoid robot has really made me think a lot about how the human body works. You gain a new appreciation for actually just how awesome a design the human body is.
50:49Elon MuskNow, admittedly, you know, I think some parts of the human body could be better, like the spine. Like, why do we have so much back pain? It's very annoying.
51:03InterviewerMaybe don't fight sumo wrestlers, man.
51:06Elon MuskYeah, seriously, Doug mun Greg there, but, you know. Yeah, typically, you know, everyone has Back pain at some point in their life, which is also a thing neuralink as well, so that'd be cool too.
51:23Elon MuskBut Optimus has really made me think a lot about how our hands work, how we balance, how we do different things, but maybe more than anything, just how incredible our hands are.
51:42Elon MuskIt's like, wow. Things that our hands do, like the hands on Optimus are half or more than half of the electromechanical problem, and the entire rest of the body is a half.
51:59InterviewerWow, that's crazy.
52:03Elon MuskYeah. And it's like, honestly, you look to your hands, you're like. And you move. And if you feel your forearm, like, almost all the muscles that control your hand are actually in your forearm
52:19Interviewerand
52:19Elon Muskthey're pulling your fingers like puppies. So, yeah, there's only a small number of muscles that are in that. In your hand itself, your hand is all being controlled through tendons that go either through or above your carpal tunnel.
52:37Elon MuskAnd your hand is being operated like the marionette from the forearm. Yeah.
52:44InterviewerOne thing that's crazy. I just. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy how much the. The human body, whether it's like, you know, Tesla Vision going, you know, just trying to see what kind of like, similar to how humans view the world.
52:59InterviewerRight. And getting rid of the radar. And then same thing with the humanoid robot and just, you know, thinking and seeing how the human body works. Is there anything more specifically, even within the human body, that will continue to infer whether it's the humanoid robot?
53:17InterviewerAnd it sounds like obviously the hand is the big one of the biggest problems, but are there other parts of the body too, that would continue to help infer other parts of the humanoid robot?
53:31InterviewerOr again, it's just. Yeah. With Tesla vision and eyesight.
53:39Elon MuskWell, with Optimus, we're able to reuse the autopilot computer. So Optimus is intelligence, is powered by the AI4. You're the same computer that controls the car and, you know, a small battery pack that's similar to the car battery pack.
54:02Elon MuskSo there's lots of carries with the car. And then the AI that's in the car is A. Similar to the AI that will be Optimus running AI for hardware and then AI 5 hardware when that's ready.
54:21Elon MuskSo there are a lot of parallels,
54:30Elon MuskBut the limiting factor is the hand. Yeah.
54:46Elon MuskBut I'm convinced that Optimus will be the biggest product ever. Yeah. So. And then, of course, autonomy is starting to roll out. Carle will be in many cities throughout the United States later this year and hopefully many countries next year.
55:19InterviewerYeah, here in the Bay Area, we have a bunch of fomo. Everyone's looking at Austin right now. I can tell you. I always, whenever I open that Robo taxi app, man, it just the geofence, just the figurine is insane.
55:35Elon MuskThat's funny. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you gotta have some fun, you know, don't take yourself too seriously type of thing.
55:50InterviewerLet's switch and talk about X. You've called X and here we are at X Takeover. You've called X the Everything app. But it's still in a transitional phase. What exactly do you want X to be in five years?
56:09Elon MuskI mean, X is definitely improving. It's evolved a lot from Twitter. You only have like, you know, short text tweets and like two minute videos to the point where now you can have like four hour videos and you can write a novel if you want on a system.
56:32Elon MuskSo it's gone sort of fully multimodal, from long videos to long text to anything in between. And we're currently really improving the DM system. So the new system called XChat, which enables audio, video, calling, it's all fully encrypted, peer to peer style, like Bitcoin.
56:58Elon MuskAnd the asset test is that even if somebody puts the gun to my head, I still can't read your messages. That's the asset test. So it's like very secure and also likes to use calling and video with it.
57:17Elon MuskAnd then there's the kind of X Money or X Finance release, which is hopefully only a few months away. We actually have it operating invaded within the company. That'll be a major factor.
57:40Elon MuskSo as much as possible about ensuring freedom, like freedom of speech within the. As much as we can within the bounds of the law and, you know, also like aspiration, trying to reach for the truth of things.
58:01Elon MuskYou see that in Community Notes where Community Notes will correct someone, even if they're very powerful. Community Community Notes will correct me. It'll correct President, CEOs, even major advertisers, and even if that costs money.
58:20Elon MuskSo I think it's. Generally there's a lot of good things that have happened. We're trying to improve the algorithm, which we know kind of sucks right now. Sorry about that.
58:37InterviewerI actually enjoy it, but. Okay.
58:38Elon MuskOkay, good. Well,
58:41Interviewersome days are crazier than others, like when the geofence expanded and some of these other things.
58:47Host/MCBut.
58:47InterviewerYeah, no, I don't know if you have any opinions, Kelvin.
58:52Elon MuskI'm sorry, your voice was a bit low there. I couldn't hear a question.
58:54InterviewerOh, I was saying the algorithm can be crazy some days, especially like when the Robo taxi geofence expanded.
59:01Elon MuskYeah, yeah, yeah. The overarching goal of the algorithm is to try to show people information they would find most interesting. But right now, it'll show you too much of one thing.
59:22Elon MuskWhatever the sort of interesting thing of the day is right now, the X algorithm will show you too much of that. And it's like, okay, I don't need to see it 20 times.
59:32Elon MuskYou know, I think I've seen like the Sydney Sweeney jeans thing about 400 times this point. And it's like, okay, the first few times was good, but we shouldn't show things like 100 times because you want to learn new things.
59:53Elon MuskSo X is making steady progress being offering pretty much everything you'd want to do. And yeah, I feel good about where it's headed.
1:00:10InterviewerPayments, we've all. I know we're waiting on that and just, you know, thinking about even PayPal too. It's crazy. Just what fate loves, irony. Doing X.com back in, what, the late 90s and.
1:00:23InterviewerYeah. Then full force buying it, you know, years back and now, now you're doing payments again.
1:00:32Elon MuskYeah, it's a sort of poetic and. Or returning to something that was sort of unfinished with PayPal and completing the product line.
1:00:50InterviewerWhat role do you think Grok and XAI play in the future of X? Is it just a feature, a core intelligence layer, or does that change how people experience the platform?
1:01:03Elon MuskYeah, Grok. I think it's pretty helpful because that Grok button, which you can press about any given post on the system, and its analysis of a post is usually quite accurate.
1:01:18Elon MuskIt isn't about a thousand, but it really gives you deeper insight into any given piece of information that somebody posts on the system. You can figure out more context helps you figure out if it's true or not.
1:01:33Elon MuskAnd we actually just added GROK for all advertising on the system. So you can, you can press the crop button and see, hey, this ad, Is this product work or is this product legit or not?
1:01:50Elon MuskWhich I kind of always wanted to have on ads. You know, it's like, does this thing really work? That's what I want to ask a lot of ads. And now on the X system you can ask, does this thing really work?
1:02:02Elon MuskI guess advertising, where Grok says it doesn't really work, are probably not going to advertise it for him very long. Maybe it'll encourage better honesty in advertising, which I think would be a good thing.
1:02:20Elon MuskBut we're just generally trying to make X a system that you can trust more than any other system. And I think it is there already. It does not say that X is appropriate.
1:02:32Elon MuskIt's definitely mistakes. But is there any other social media company you trust more than X?
1:02:40InterviewerNo.
1:02:40Elon MuskNo. So it's like I'm not trusting Facebook, you know, so I don't pick on Facebook. Whatever. But you know, I think it's actually probably fair to say that X is the most trustworthy or least untrustworthy social network.
1:03:05InterviewerYeah, I think that became very apparent just when you saw like, when you just compare of like the news during COVID and things being censored.
1:03:15Elon MuskYeah.
1:03:16InterviewerAnd you know, just you come to X and you can find out what's really happening and it's real time. It's really like the, I would say the, you know, the world's discourse in Town Square.
1:03:27Host/MCRight.
1:03:28InterviewerIt can sometimes be a fist fight, it feels like, but at the same time it's just, you know, where you can find out what's really going on.
1:03:35Elon MuskRight. And that's the goal. And I do want to emphasize, obviously there's a long way to go. It's far from perfect. But I do think it's getting better over time and sometimes two steps forward, one step back.
1:03:52Elon MuskBut the trend over time, I think is very good for X being the place where you can figure out what's really going on in the world. It gets the truth.
1:04:02Elon MuskAnd then you can ask Grok more. You can also learn a lot of things. So you can ask if there's a new thing that's invented or announced. You can ask Grok on the system more about it and instantly educate yourself.
1:04:21InterviewerYeah, I don't think I've been.
1:04:22Elon MuskAnd then we monitor when Grok gets things wrong and then we feed that back into the system to make it aspirationally less wrong over time.
1:04:41InterviewerYeah, it's really just crazy to think, you know, when you talk to Grok and you can ask it for just things in your timeline. Hey, make a post sound like me on this topic or you want.
1:04:51Elon MuskIt's pretty fun.
1:04:53InterviewerYeah.
1:04:53Elon MuskLike we are actually aiming for Grok to be the. Actually, I should say two goals are for Grok to be the most true seeking AI, but also the funniest AI because you got to have some fun in life.
1:05:06Elon MuskAnd you know, laughter is the best medicine. You gotta. You gotta have some fun.
1:05:24InterviewerElon, you've predicted a world of abundant energy, robotic labor and AGI with AI and optimus doing, you know, potentially a lot of things and reducing the amount of Things that we're doing today.
1:05:38InterviewerWhat do you think is left for humans? And really what does that mean for in the world of artificial superintelligence?
1:05:48Elon MuskYeah, that's a question that I struggle with, actually.
1:05:55Elon MuskThis is part of the reason for neuralink, which is to improve the bandwidth communication with AI, so to help achieve a better human AI symbiosis, so that AI knows what we want and it can respond to collective human will.
1:06:22Elon MuskAnd I think things like payrolling can actually effectively dramatically increase our intelligence.
1:06:36Elon MuskBut I think the future is very much one where human intelligence, machine intelligence, and robots are interwoven.
1:06:48Elon MuskI think it's 80%, maybe 90% likely to be awesome, but we got to be cautious about that 10%, maybe not awesome situation like Terminator. Yeah, I mean, seriously, you know, stuff like that would be bad.
1:07:09InterviewerWhat's your vision for a society where human effort is no longer required for survival or productivity? How do we avoid irrelevance?
1:07:20Elon MuskRight. I think that's a central question.
1:07:33Elon MuskWell, if you're symbiotic with AI, where we. There's this essentially a merger of human and machine intelligence, then we may be able to address the relevance question. You know, like, let's say you ride a bicycle or a motorcycle or a car.
1:07:58Elon MuskYou're superhuman in what you're able to do. You can now travel faster than any human with legs. I mean, if you're in a car, you can go vastly faster than the fastest human ever.
1:08:14Elon MuskDoes that make running irrelevant? I mean, people still run and still race against each other. So. But you've got humans working with machines. I mean, they actually had these kind of debates when the steam engine came along and the steam shovel.
1:08:37Elon MuskIt's like. Well, because people derived a lot of their value from saying they can do manual work faster than a machine. Then the machine got faster. So. But this is a philosophical question that I struggle with.
1:08:59Elon MuskAnd the best thing I came up with is that you have interwoven human and machine intelligence and got something like neuralink to open human intelligence and approve symbiosis with AI that we effectively become maybe one with the AI.
1:09:27InterviewerElon, you off?
1:09:29Elon MuskSorry.
1:09:30InterviewerThe audience was about to clap and I started talking. But, Elon, you know, you're solving. I guess in a lot of ways is sometimes you say a lot of problems, and in a lot of ways, you're creating a very exciting future with reusable rockets, the mission to Mars, with starship, with the humanoid robots, and how it's going to just the impact that it'll have.
1:09:55InterviewerAnd neuralink and seeing the impact on Noland and Brad. What gives you hope for today, not just for humanity and civilization, but personally?
1:10:13Elon MuskWell, I think the future is going to be very interesting and exciting and.
1:10:25Elon MuskI guess I think would I want to be at any other point in human history? Is there some other point in human history that is more interesting than where we are today?
1:10:39Elon MuskAnd I think the answer is no, at least for me. I think we're at the most interesting part of human history and it's getting more interesting with each passing month.
1:10:53Elon MuskAnd so. Okay, well, if I'm in the part of human history that is the most interesting, then I think anyone feels that way, and I think a lot of people feel that way, that we should feel very lucky to be alive at this time to see the amazing things happen.
1:11:25InterviewerWell, Elon, we wanted to do a time check, but also.
1:11:29Elon MuskI better get back to my eight jobs.
1:11:32InterviewerYeah, exactly. You're not a busy man at all. But we just, Kelvin and I, we just want to. On behalf of Tesla owners of Silicon Valley, Tesla Owners Austria, San Joaquin Valley, and really just all the 1500 people that traveled from all over the world, we just want to personally just say thank you for all you're doing and thank you for continuing to push humanity forward.
1:11:58Elon MuskWell, thank you.
1:12:02InterviewerYeah, you have a whole bunch of people here just cheering. So thank you for all you're doing.
1:12:08Elon MuskThank you well. And thank you for your support over the years. It's super appreciated. I would say my heart goes out to you, but I have to watch my gestures these days.
1:12:23InterviewerWe know what you mean.
1:12:26Elon MuskI can only point straight ahead or straight off.
1:12:30InterviewerThanks. Hey, Elon.
1:12:33Host/MCSo we want.
1:12:34Elon MuskBut anyway, my heart does go out to you and thank you all for your support over the years. Yeah.
1:12:40InterviewerAnd we just had one thing that we wanted to present to you.
1:12:44Elon MuskOkay.
1:12:49Event OrganizerHow's it going? Elon Musk. So, on behalf of TOSV and the presenting sponsors. Haha. Yes. We wanted to present something to you that was symbolic, meaningful and really, you know, these last few months have obviously been quite tumultuous for you.
1:13:14Event OrganizerAnd so we really got creative and really, yeah, we wanted to create you something special. And so I'm going to read you something. Basically. You know, Elon, you brought electric cars back from the dead.
1:13:28Event OrganizerYou made clean energy cool. You made rockets reusable. You're going to take us to Mars. You spent billions to buy Twitter and save free speech. You stopped running your empire to work for the US government for free.
1:13:43Event OrganizerTo reduce wasteful spending to save the country from bankruptcy.
1:13:48Host/MCRight.
1:13:50Elon MuskIt took a few hours for that one absolute.
1:13:55Event OrganizerAnd how were you thanked? It's like you were betrayed. You were mocked, attacked by the very people who once cheered you on. Your name dragged through the mud. Your car is vandalized, your motives questioned.
1:14:11Event OrganizerBut that's not the full story, as I imagine many here would attest. So there are millions of people who see you for who you are, people whose lives you've touched and changed, people who believe in what you're building, people who love you and have your back.
1:14:28Elon MuskThank you.
1:14:29Event OrganizerSo, yeah, thank you.
1:14:38Event OrganizerWe were going to introduce to a few, more than a few, but we had a reel that we were going to play, but with some technicalities, we're unable to do it of actual testimonials from people.
1:14:50Event OrganizerReally meaningful, impactful ones that people really wanted you to hear. But we'll post it on X. We'll post it on X. But it was only a few. But there's a lot more people who want to express their gratitude and support.
1:15:03Elon MuskWell, thank you.
1:15:04Event OrganizerBut, you know, fortunately, they could write letters. And so, Elon, thousands of people wrote letters to you to demonstrate, you know, and express how much you have meant to them.
1:15:19Elon MuskWe love you. Well, I love you guys too. Thank you.
1:15:25Event OrganizerSo we compressed all those paper letters into this brick. Yep. This is a custom made brick. The brick itself is a message to you. It's heavy brick. Not in the sense of how heavy it is, but it's a brick of belief which weighs more than any material matter.
1:15:47Event OrganizerWe believe you can achieve the impossible. Hence the quote on the front of this brick. You want to read it, John?
1:15:54InterviewerThis brick does fly in spirit because you may, you have made the impossible happen.
1:16:01Host/MCAll right.
1:16:02Elon MuskMuch appreciated.
1:16:05Event OrganizerYeah. And so, Elon. Yeah. You make bricks fly. And in turn, that inspires us to pursue the impossible. And you know what we all say to that. Everyone repeat after me.
1:16:20Elon MuskHa ha.
1:16:21Host/MCYes.
1:16:23InterviewerYes.
1:16:23Elon MuskAh, yes.
1:16:25Event OrganizerThank you, Elon. We love you.
1:16:27Elon MuskThank you. Love you too.
1:16:28InterviewerThank you, Elon, for your time. We appreciate it. And hopefully you have a good rest of your Saturday afternoon.
1:16:35Elon MuskAll right? You get it was a pleasure speaking.