+My first guest is the man who made electric cars a thing and is currently working on perfecting

reusable Rockets space travel connecting the human brain directly to computers connecting cities
with electromagnetic bullet trains the Starling satellite system that's so important to the war in
Ukraine and then on Tuesday on traffic he also tweets a lot Elon Musk wow [Music]
what did I get the full order of things that you do in a day there when I was reading there I left out
the tunnel thing at the end um do you work on all these
a lot of jobs
do you do all these things every day do you work on all of them in a single day
no no but I do have I do have a long work day um yeah so I work a lot
I'm so thrilled you're here because you know we do a show where we talk about what changes
happen in the world and but we just talk there's a very few people who actually make change
happen you are one of those people probably
um you know I just want to say I just want to say I love this audience [Applause]
well you're a likable guy I mean
thanks
I mean they attack you a lot
they do
yeah [Laughter] and you seem to laugh it off which I think is fantastic I love it that you have a sense
of humor because a guy as important as you who makes changes could use your powers for evil and
not good the fact that
absolutely
you could
of course I would yeah never use them for equal deaths
no I know but but the way I know that is because you have a sense of humor
uh yeah
you really do
yeah
you like laughing you like to be funny
I kill me
right [Applause]
as opposed to somebody like Zuckerberg who I'm not even sure is a real boy
yeah um yeah I I actually love comedy and and uh actually you know like um many years ago actually
was in the audience here and watched your show
oh really
been a long time admirer of your show
oh well thank you I let me get back to you being ingenious okay but that has always been my view is
that as I was a history major and when you study history what you realize is that you know there's
the great man Theory and they talk about Kings and princes and queens and presidents it's really the
people in Tech who change the world they're the people who deal the cards at whether it's fire or
electricity for good or bad or the cotton gin or the iPhone or the atom bomb those are the cards and
the rest of us just play it would you agree with that assessment
I think I think technology is the thing that causes these big step changes in in
Civilization so obviously you've got things like say the Gutenberg Press um before which uh right it
was very difficult to get books they were very rare even if you had a thirst for knowledge you really
couldn't do anything about it um because there were very few books to read so uh and the the
internet is something beyond beyond the bug price I think but you know it's it's a like when I first
saw the internet uh coming into being in a way that that the general public could use it it felt like the
what the the humanity as a whole was uh developing a nervous system so previously uh the way the
information would travel would be by osmosis one person to another or one person calling another
um but uh you did the access to information was very limited now with the Internet it's like having a
nervous system it's like any part of of humanity has access to almost all the information of humanity
hmm like you could be in the in the middle of the Amazon jungle uh whether it's a starling terminal
and have access to more information uh than the president did in 1980. (Menit 0.00—4.25)

right well anything on your phone everything is yeah okay so so you are one of these dealers these
people who deal the cards and I feel some memes too quickly so I think a lot of people thought
when you bought Twitter that this is kind of an outlier like how does this what doesn't fit with these
other things you're doing I never thought that because I think you're dealing with big civilizational
issues and problems and I was right on your page I think Twitter is one of them I mean you have
talked about this at woke mind virus yes and really apocalyptic terms yeah I don't you should explain
why you don't think it's hyperbole to say things like it's pushing civilization towards suicide first of all
what is the walk mine virus and if we don't deal with this nothing else can get done tell me why you
think that yeah so um I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic
and anything that is uh that that results in the suppression of a free speech so you know those are
two other aspects of the work mind virus that I think are very dangerous uh is that it's often anti-
mureaucratic you can't you can't question things uh even the questioning is bad so uh you know you
know another way to almost Anonymous would we cancel culture and obviously people try to cancel
you many times many times yeah I mean every week yeah from left and right I've had it from both
sides yeah and it's interesting people you and I are both like in that little group of people maybe it's a
bigger group now yeah who who are called conservative who haven't really changed I don't see you
think of you as a conservative definitely yeah like I I at least think of myself as a moderate uh you
know uh so I mean uh at least that like I've spent a massive amount of My Life Energy building
sustainable energy uh you know electric vehicles and and batteries and solar and stuff uh to help
save the environment that's that's not that's not a it's not exactly far right now you drew that
diagram you drew that diagram once where you're here I I related to that and like the world has
changed right I feel the same way I feel like very often wokeness is it's not building on liberalism it's
the opposite of liberalism I can mention yes exactly many examples where it's the op including Free
Speech free speech is actually is extremely important and it's bizarre that we've come to this point
where um like free speech used to be a left or liberal value and and yet we see uh from you know in
quotes left uh a desire to actually censor um and uh that seems crazy I mean I think we should be
extremely concerned about anything that uh undermines the First Amendment there's a reason for
the First Amendment um the first amendment is because people came from countries where they
could not speak freely and and where and we're saying certain things would get you thrown into
prison and they were like well we don't want that here and by the way in many parts of the world
including possible that people might think are relatively similar to the United States the the speech
laws are draconian England is quite different. (menit 4.25-7.59)

I won't name any countries but

why are we protecting them they have no first it's very easy to prove libel in England whereas here
it's almost England um
I wouldn't want to say the wrong thing or
uh yes
you could be sued easier there I mean there are a lot in in France I think if you deny the Holocaust
which I think is abhorrent but I also think it should be part of free speech right you can be thrown
into jail okay so this my
I I really can't emphasize this enough we must uh uh we must protect free speech and Free Speech
only matters it's only relevant when it's someone you don't like saying something in your life
because obviously every speech that you like is uh yes that's easy um so it it's uh and it's the thing
about censorship is that sure for those who would Advocate it um just remember at some point that
will be turned on you [Applause]
so this uh woke mind virus how did it start was it bats was it a yeah escape from a lab I mean what is
your assessment of what because it's fairly recent why how did it start and why?
I was I was trying to figure out where where it's coming from I think it's actually been a long time
Brewing um in that it's uh I think it's been going on for a while um it it and um the amount of
indoctrination that that's happening in schools and universities is I think far beyond what parents
realize um and I only I sort of came to realize this somewhat late um the the experience that we had
uh in high school and college is not the experience that that kids today are having um and and hasn't
been for I don't know 10 years maybe 20 years so
uh my parents themselves also a big part of the problem
they well I I suppose in some cases that parents but but I think like the parents are just generally not
aware of what their their kids are being told or what they're not being taught
um they're letting the kids think that they're equal (10:19)
I mean yeah let me let me let me give you an example that a Fairmont told me which uh you know
his daughters uh go to college and and sorry go to high school in the Bay Area um and um and he he
was asking them like well so who are the you know who are the first few presidents of the United
States uh that they could name Washington but and I said what do you know about him well he was
a slave owner what else right exactly nothing right like uh okay that's maybe you should know more
than that you know yeah
yeah that and that that is the world mind virus exactly yeah so
exactly it's it's like you know the uh you know slavery is obviously a horrific institution but we should
still know more about George Washington than that.
and by the way one that was practiced all over the world forever since the beginning of time by
every race including people of color I'm sorry to tell you that it's huge in the Bible
absolutely so
the Bible loves it
really yes they're quite strict about like you know don't take someone else's slave and that kind of
thing
right but no one ever says just don't do it they don't they don't they don't at no point does it say
slavery is bad in the Bible no they do not condemn it at all they just have so so it's um
but Twitter is not doing bad right I mean I saw today that Tucker Carlson recently fired you were just
on his show and he lost his job so I hope this isn't enough
yeah yeah but uh luckily uh the angel of death exactly I'm not the Typhoid Mary of uh talk shows uh
his rant yesterday or today on Twitter yesterday or something more than every cable news
monologue or something like that is that right? (menit 8.03-12.10)

well Twitter has a tremendous audience so there's 250 million people that spend an average of half
an hour a day on Twitter so it's about 120 to 130 million user hours per day and it's been increasing
so um the we didn't do anything to be clear we did nothing special whatsoever I learned about it
afterwards that he had posted something on Twitter um so it's just the Twitter has a lot of people's
attention uh so and it tends to be the people that are uh that read read a lot or or interested in
current events um and um generally are pretty influential so but most of the people who tweet are
the same people right I mean the people who actually tweet it's mostly just reading it yeah I feel like
that's I've read this many times it's a very very small percentage of the people on Twitter and it
seems like yeah see here's why I don't tweet anymore because you may be the mayor of tweak town
now yeah I'm getting a cap with that and I'm glad and I like it that the mayor likes my jokes but the
reason I don't do it anymore is because the mob of Mean Girls is still there and that has not changed
I know like it's too easy to get canceled and I don't even know what pisses them off they're so nuts
these kids I feel like I'm walking on a roof with a blindfold I could fall off anytime yeah that was the
most innocuous thing but it's like you know I said George Washington was a great president oh how
dare you yeah yeah exactly had some flows but but how do you fix this instrumental in this Mr
Mayor creation of the United States so yeah um well you have to say like what does canceled mean
you know uh I mean it's yes people attacking on Twitter that's one thing but frankly that's just going
to increase engagement so I would just ignore it well that's easy for you because they can't take your
job away or any of your main 10 jobs but they could take mine and they did Once by the way yeah so
still Affair you know I was like literally canceled yeah I mean like the Show is canceled so you but
okay so you were in Congress uh at Congress the other day talking with Chuck Schumer about AI I'm
very interested in this because you've been on this for years I've always thought you were right
about this I think you're right about almost everything I mean let's have more babies and raise them
on Mars I don't get that but okay well uh I just think we should be cautious about civilizational
decline with with and we have plummeting growth rates um most places yeah right and also
plummeting resources no no resources will be fine look I'm not suggesting complacency but we do
want to move to a sustainable energy economy as quickly as possible but but we're not in any
danger of uh resource collapse but lots of people don't have enough food or water we will run out of
water they're running they're running out of sand Earth is 70 Water by surface area um but you can't
drink that desalination is absurdly Chief why don't we do it then we do it is you have a lot of free
time it is done this there is a lot of desalination done okay but there's plenty of water this is not an
issue I want to be clear all right so but let's talk about AI because like you were you were on this tip
10 years ago when nobody else was that and I always thought he's right why because I've seen too
many movies everything that happens in movies that happens in real life and yeah you know if you
make things that are way smarter than you why wouldn't they become your overlords so what did
you say to Chuck Schumer and what are we doing about this I know you want to pause in AI because
in the just in the last six months with chat GPT which came from a company you started yes
[Laughter] um well I mean A friend of mine has a sort of modification of Occam's razor you know you
know instead of the simplest thing being the most likely that like the most ironic outcome is most
likely right. (menit 12.10-16.03)

right yes so um with respect to AI um I just think we should be uh we should have some sort of
regulatory oversight so uh you know for anything that is a danger to the public uh if it's sort of uh
aircraft uh cars uh Food and Drug and whatnot we've got some regulatory oversight like a referee
essentially and making sure that uh companies don't cut Corners so um I think that since if one
agrees that uh AI is a potential risk to the public then there should be some regulatory body that
oversees uh what companies are doing so they don't cut corners and potentially do something very
dangerous don't do something lay out a scenario for me in the next two five ten years if nothing is
done because we're very good at doing nothing especially when it comes in the way of profit and
this is a big profit engine now for companies they're going to want to just compete with each other I
mean there are people like Ray Kurzweil who doesn't think it's a problem at all uh actually Ray
kurzweil's prediction for artificial super intelligence uh is 2029. he's not far wrong right but he
doesn't think it's a problem whereas people like you and Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking thought
think it's a problem um yeah it depends if some people want to live forever or for a much longer
period of time and they see AI as the only way to or digital super intelligence is as the only thing that
can figure out how to get them to live forever I think Kurzweil is in that category so he would prefer
to have ai artificial general intelligence than than not uh because it can figure out longevity so are
you are you optimistic I read in your Rolling Stone article back in the day that you said you can never
be happy unless you're in love well you can be half happy I suppose I mean this I mean there's two
things I think if to be to be full to be to be most happy if you're happy in love and and you love your
work then then you'll be I think fully happy if you lack either of those two if you have one of those
two things be half happy you know roughly I feel like the theme in a lot of your works that connect
all these different things is connecting like you want to connect things you know you want to
connect on the hyperloop and you want to connect this to Mars and even to connect four people in
that game what uh Connect Four you know [Laughter] this is a comedy right you know it's hard for
you because when you bought Twitter you're kind of doing what you did when you took over when
you started Tesla you lived at the factory right I feel like that's your that's your your your pattern you
get into this thing and then you got to live at the factory to make it work if you've been back in you
moved to Texas then you went back up to San Francisco because of Twitter I just I was living in the in
the library of Twitter for a while um yes but it's I think things are reasonably stabilized right now it
was uh just on the fast track to bankruptcy after that position so I had to take a drastic action there
wasn't any choice I'm just saying it's hard for a woman yeah to like when the guy lives at the factory
yes that could be that could be a stumbling block but yes but um overall with you know my my
concern with Twitter was to that it is somewhat of the digital Town Square and um it's it's important
that there be both the reality uh and perception of of trust uh for a wide range of viewpoints um and
uh there was a lot of censorship going on um and we've we sort of uncovered a lot of that with uh
the Twitter files including a lot of of government-driven censorship which you know it's it's I mean it
seems that that's got to be a constitutional violation of what was going on there but um so so and I
can since I'm like I have a Twitter user I could detect that like something's not right here um and so
that's that's really why uh I did that position it wasn't because I thought this was an easy way to
make money or something like that it was a man this is being mayor Twitter town tweetown or
whatever is is is definitely like there's a lot of arrows pointed at you like flying at you of course but
you know but you seem to handle that okay I hope you do because yeah look I mean Geniuses are
going to be a little quirky sometimes but your heart is always in the right place you were trying to fix
this world and look I could talk to you forever we can't today I'd love to get high with you I know a
great place I can't tell you how much I appreciate you I know you have a lot of choices and places
you can go thank you Elon Musk ladies and gentlemen all right I'll see you soon. (menit 16.03-21..03)