Are we live?
Or I don't know. I assume we are. We're rolling.
Rolling. We're rolling. Okay.
But yeah. We're good. You guys can talk. That's how I normally talk. I just go into the Yeah.
Yeah. Sure. Sure.
Randomly. So okay.
Well, it's good to see you. Cheers.
Yeah. You too. There you go.
Yeah. Lovely country of Poland.
Yeah. Exactly. Didn't expect to meet a nice girl like you here. Here we are in Poland. Out. Yeah. Exactly. Together. Exactly. So I wanna ask you about what feels like a giant war on the meritocracy, on achievement. You're richest the person in the world. You've started three of the biggest companies in history.
Nonsovereign, Elvin. Not you're not counting sovereign.
Not count not and who would? And who would? It it to say, I'm not
richer than Putin from you know? I'm just starting, you know
Well, yeah. I mean I'm I'm
not start a war rage.
Exactly. Exactly. Fewer assassinations, high levels of wealth. Like, all good. So so so why do you think right now there is such a war? And it seems like on all sides of the political aisle against people who achieve, against people who are smart. It feels like right now innovators are under attack. And again, it doesn't seem like that's super political. It seems like people on the right and people on the left have this giant theory that the economy that whoever succeeds in the economy must necessarily be rigging it, that innovators are somehow screwing the little guy. And what do make of that? Where is that coming from?
Well, I mean, I think some of this is really just communism rebranded, you you know, just with different marketing. Fundamental to the free market or capitalism is that it is meritocracy. Like, may the best product or service win, and the best product or service will be made by the the team that works the hardest as the most talented, and that is what results in great products and services in a capitalist economy. And, you know, I always I always close my mind when when I discover that, you know, kids coming out of college in America who have things very easy take communism actually seriously. It blows my mind. I I thought it was a joke. In fact, I was on x f k Twitter. I was joking about the ridiculousness of taking that seriously anymore. And then a whole bunch of people attacked me. They were like, of course it's serious. I'm like, what? Are you guys crazy? Just dust off your copy of dust cup at all. What? Are you kidding me? I'm like, how many times has that experiment been being run with terrible consequences? And, you know and and generally, for for any given political philosophy, you have to say, side has to build the wall to keep people in? That's the bad side. It's not subtle. Well, it wasn't West Berlin that built the wall.
But but you see you see this giant sort of mythic. There's like a giant myth making project that's taken place where, you know, if you are successful, they now have to rewrite history about you. So you've gotten the you were apparently an emerald scion. You were you were brought uber
wealthy. Me where this mine is. Your wealth. I'd like to see a picture of this mine. If everyone can dig this mine up, I'd love to see it. First of all, the entire Emerald industry is is, like, worth a pittance. And I've never even seen this mine. This is it's it's some, like, random story that my dad made up, basically. But my my dad, who has many talents, I wanna be clear, he is an extremely talented engineer, electrical and mechanical engineer, and a very talented artist. I mean, he could draw everything from, like, in the style of Rembrandt to watercolors to sketches, anything. He could sketch this room and and then, say, do a caricature of anyone, and he'll do a character that matches their personality. Might be the best real time artist I've ever seen. So he's got a lot of talents, but, unfortunately, he has a few screws loose. Faster than we all. And he actually went bankrupt in the nineties. So my brother and I have been supporting him financially for the last twenty five years, and and we've inherited nothing from him. You know, so there's no anything.
I mean, it it just I arrived I arrived in
in in Canada with just over $2,000 in Canadian travelers' checks, back when that was a thing, and one bag full of my clothes and and a backpack full of books. That those were my entire possessions. That's how I started. Nothing more.
And so why do you think people insist on rewriting the history, making it that you're an heir? I mean, I I get some of the same thing on a minor level. Right? I'm horrible alive,
so I came in
air. Right.
To air is human, they say.
But the the They on the air. But there there is there is something that's You weird happening out innovate and you make new things. And there is a drive to hem in that innovation. I was recently talking with a pretty major political figure in The United States who's not of the left. And he was suggesting, for example, that we need to outlaw automated driving because it can put truckers out of work. Because if we don't outlaw the new technologies, this kind of Ludditism, then people are going be out of work. It's going to destroy the society. And what we really have to focus on are the people who are going to be left behind by the technology. What do you make of that?
Well, first of all, I think, ultimately, if you have digital superintelligence, I'm not sure there's a job for anyone. Yeah. Let it's you know? So the whole AI discussion is a question in and of itself. No. I I do think in a positive AI future that there will be no shortage of goods and services. So it won't be universal basic income. It'll be universal high income. Now that all sounds good, but, you know, in terms of, like, the book Man's Search for Meaning, well, if to the degree that you're defined by your career, you you may have trouble finding meaning in life. So that that's more the the the the challenge that, you know, if one is to have an existential crisis, it's it's like, well, how how can I do anything useful if the computer could do everything better than me? That that that'll really be the challenge. Now maybe that'll be fine. Maybe you just play, you know, watch incredible movies, play video games, and do water sports, and computer just does everything else. That that I guess that's the benign scenario. You read Ian Banks? No. I highly recommend Ian Banks' The Culture Books. It's probably the best semi utopian future of AI, where the computers are far smarter than humans, but they they take care of the humans. Like, they make they care about the humans being happy.
So in in that future, I mean, I think one of the things you've talked about is the fact that the West is completely under reproducing. Not to do you personally. You've been very productive. But and and I have four kids. So we're we're we're both ahead of her. Excellent. But the but, you know, that that would be presumably myth. Well, I'll talk to my wife. But that that that would be one of the places, presumably, where people will have to put their efforts. And what's interesting is that the people who are putting their efforts in those directions tend to be, by and large, more religiously oriented. Right? We're seeing the scientific humanist community has very few kids, and religious people have many, many kids. Right?
The atheists are breathing themselves out. I I talked to Richard Dawkins, you know, the
Yeah.
Yeah. He wrote the selfish selfish gene, blind watchmaker, whatnot, and coined the term meme, I believe. Asked, well, you know, so how many kids do you have, Richard? Oh, one. Okay. So you're gonna have one kid. Great. Yes. The birth rate tends to correlate with the degree to which someone is religious, the degree to which they they have the least amount of education, and the basically, the the poorer someone is, the less educated someone is, and the more religious they are, the more kids they will have. So Those those are objective correlations.
So I'm gonna make the case to you on a religious level that the only one of those things that is possible to have in the West and not get rid of all the glories of the West is a belief in in a higher power or in a religious belief of some sort because you can be rich. I mean, like, I'm doing pretty well.
You can't be like a nihilist or something.
Right. Exactly. Like, nihilism doesn't tend toward Yeah. Anything. And I I know that you've, you know, thought a lot about that sort of stuff. And how how do you get out of that sort of the nihilist box and and find what to Well,
my religion, lack of a better word, is the is one of curiosity, where we want to expand the scope of scale consciousness on Earth and beyond Earth and ultimately to other star systems. And in order to do that, we need to increase the number of conscious beings, and we need to advance technology such that we can have a self sustaining city on on Mars, ultimately populate the whole solar system, and then go beyond our solar system to other star systems. And, therefore, we need more humans. Pretty simple.
So, I mean, that's that's an amazingly different goal than what we've had for the past.
Yeah. I I propose this as a new philosophy. Yeah. Well, not new, but maybe niche. But niche, but, hopefully, getting a bit bigger. So, you know, with that philosophy in mind the purpose of that philosophy is that the more we expand the scope and scale of consciousness, the more we are able to understand the reality that we live in, the nature of the universe, and and to to answer the questions that we have and, perhaps more importantly, to know what questions we are not asking. As Douglas Adams would say in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the the answer is the easy part, the question is the hard part. You know, answer is 42. What's the question? So so I I think that's a pretty optimistic positive philosophy. Also has a lot of room for other beliefs if you wanna add them to you know? Mhmm. But but the fundamental tenets of my belief structure are expand the skip the scale of consciousness. Mean, more more people. I guess, more computers to to the degree that they are conscious. And we wanna pass through the one of the great filters that you know, you're you're you're familiar with the Fermi Paradox and the great filter? No. Okay. So Enrico Fermi, great, amazing physicist, posed a very simple question. He said, where are the aliens? Because we've seen no sign of them. Nope. A lot of people think they've seen signs of aliens. I have seen no evidence whatsoever of aliens. So it's a troubling question. Why why not? So one of the answers, perhaps the most likely answer, is that we're at that the tiny that that the tiny candle of consciousness that constitutes humanity is all that there is in this vast darkness. And I think we should we should assume that that is the case until we actually affirm evidence to the contrary. And we and and and moreover, human consciousness only arose after four and a half billion years. This took a long time. And if it had taken even 10% longer, it probably would not have evolved because the sun is expanding. As the sun expands, it'll start heating earth, and earth will the oceans will evaporate. We'll become more like Venus, inhospitable to life. So I think we may have made we may have achieved consciousness or consciousness that's capable of developing technology just in time. I find it remarkable that we are at this point in history where we are able for the first time to go beyond Earth, to send people we also we we send people to the moon in the early seventies, but not essence not gone back. But with with the Starship rocket that SpaceX is developing, we've had two test flights. We'll have many more this year. That that vehicle is designed to make life multiplanetary. It's the first vehicle that that is capable of doing that, a permanent base on the moon and a city on Mars. So I think we wanna get that done as soon as possible. The window for the window of opportunity to make life multiplanetary and secure the future of of consciousness may be open for a long time or it may be open for a short time. I think it would be wise to not not assume that it'll be open for a long time.
So And
One one act now to act now to make life multiplanetary.
One thing that's fascinating about what you're saying is that it assumes an innate level of belief and in love for human beings. Yes. I love humanity. So why? I mean, it's a weird question, but really, kind of why? I mean, we're not that great. We have amazing We're
pretty great.
We can be angels. We can be devils. Obviously, we have the capacity for all of the things in between. What do you think makes aside from just the the qualities that theoretically could be duplicated by AI in the very near future, what makes human beings unique in
the cloud? I'll tell you something. So that I think that maybe resonates is, like, I I think actually everyone loves humanity. Now they may not love everyone in humanity, but you say, how many people wanna be in solitary confinement? Okay? How many people wanna live alone in a forest by themselves? Almost no human beings wanna do that. That is actually, in reality, all humans love humanity and wanna be part of humanity. Almost, you know, with with the rare exception of someone who's got severe psychological issues. So that know, that's why solitary confinement is considered a terrible punishment in in prison Because even though other prisoners are probably not the they're not the finest examples of humans, you still wanna hang out with them. You know? So I think it's a natural thing. You know, as long as long as long as kids aren't torn taught to hate other people, I think the natural inclination is to love humanity.
So I wanna go back to some of the business conversation, then I want to go back to the SpaceX of it. When it comes to business, what do you see as sort of the biggest obstacles to not only the success of your companies, but to success generally? Because there seems to be this idea abroad that people can't duplicate the path. That basically, it used to be that people like you could succeed, but now it's totally finished, now you can't get ahead.
Is America? Nothing's changed in that regard as far as I where. There are, you know, new companies being formed all the time in The US.
What what do you see as the obstacles to companies being successful increasingly in the West if there is if there are obstacles to to that?
Well, I think excess regulation. You know, taxes do ratchet up every year, making it a little difficult a little harder every year as taxes ratchet up. But the the regulatory creep is, I think, a massive danger. So laws and regulations are immortal, but the regulators and the lawmakers make new rules and regulations and laws and regulations every year. And so you have this so every year you've got this sort of another layer of laws and regulations. It starts getting to the point where everything is legal. You can't get anything done. Now you say, well, how did they deal with it in the past? Well, the way they dealt with it in the past would there'd be a war, and the war would wash away the the old rules and laws and regulations. That's that's we we literally would take a war to to change things. You know, like Napoleon, you know, establishing the Napoleonic code from the that overrode the the old law systems of the sort of lords and the lords and peasants. And it was you know, for for all that the bad that that Napoleon did, I think he did more good, actually. So the evidence is in that I think maybe a third or a half of all countries on Earth still run on the Napoleonic Code. So and I would we'd prefer to have some cleanup process for laws and regulations that doesn't require a war. That'd be nice. I think and I think that's something we need to institute, like, basically, garbage collection for laws and regulations.
And one of the things that has been suggested, there's a book called The Sovereign Individual written in the late '90s that basically suggested that we are entering the era of avoidance, that people are going to be able to be sovereigns. You talked about sovereign wealth earlier. You're not king of something, but you are the head of your companies. And so in the future, people will just be able to move money around, locate to where the regulations are the friendliest. And so The United States right now thinks that we have the advantage because we historically have. But that doesn't mean that that's how it's going to go in the future. You're seeing more and more companies, for example, going to Singapore or going elsewhere just to move away from those regulations. So avoidance, which wasn't a strategy in seventeenth century France where are going go exactly is now a very real set of possibilities for a lot of entrepreneurs.
Yeah. Well, and regulation in The US varies by state as well. California is the most regulated state. So increasingly, people seek to do things outside of California or outside of New York. Those are the two most heavily regulated states.
So, you know, given all those things, it's do you think that there's gonna be a backlash to regulation in America, or do you think that the West is sort of America being a stand in for that, sliding into this morass of regulation based on, honestly, it looks like, to a certain extent, jealousy. It looks like trying to tear down success in the name of fairness as opposed
I to mean, it's two different things. There's there's there's regulations which are intended to serve the public good, You know, rules against one one thing or another. Like, the car industry gets you know, has lots of rules in what in how to make a car. I mean, there's there'll be, like, piles of books in this room to cover just The US regulations, what is required to build a car. Those are at least successfully aimed they're aimed for for safety. But, you know, in terms of other regulations, yeah, I think generally, we we wanna be averse to any regulation that is antimeritocratic. You know, the the, you know, the point of fighting racism, sexism, and whatnot is was was not to replace it with another form of racism and sexism, but but but to it was rather to get rid of racism and get rid of sexism, you know, not not change it to another form. And DEI is is fundamentally racist and sexist.
So I I wanna get back to the space conversation because that's fascinating. And I was telling you before we started this, my son is, like, the biggest SpaceX fan that's possible to be because what you're doing is inspiring on a truly galactic level. So when we talk about getting to Mars, how realistic do you think that is? There's book that just came out. It reviewed in The Wall Street Journal talking about all of the various obstacles to human beings actually living on Mars. Live in a pretty propitious place. I mean,
the the world is a pretty wonderful planet. Yeah.
Yeah. And so Well
suited to us.
Yeah. Exactly. So what what are the biggest obstacles? And what do you think the the timeline is in terms of having a robust presence on other planets?
Well, we're hoping to have the first humans on the moon in less than five years. Mars, maybe a little a little longer than five years. I'd be surprised if we don't have humans on Mars within ten years. Wow. Yeah. And then we're gonna aim to to have a lot of humans and build a a city on Mars and a base on the moon.
I mean, how how do we mobilize that many resources there that quickly? That's a that's a lot of resources necessary. It's not like you can draw from the environment increments.
A lot of resources. Now I should say that that that in order to pass the firmly firmly grateful to of of being a multi planet species, the the the other the second planet has to be self sustaining. So that the as a test being that if if the resupply ships stop from Earth, stop coming for any reason whatsoever, it could be mundane or or serious, will Mars die out or not? So base basically, Mars Mars has to be completely self sufficient in order to pass the Fermi grateful term. The the the particular grateful term I'm talking about is if something calamitous happens to one planet, is is is humanity gone or not?
And so how long will it take for that to be self sustaining? When you say, you know, in ten years, people will be on Mars.
Like, forty forty ish years.
So one of the things I think that captures the imagination about what you're doing is that you're speaking in ambitious terms that people have not spoken in the West for solidly half a century. Yeah. Mean, really, it's an amazing thing. I guess
I say it so often. I'm gonna
tell about You you say this stuff because it's you all the time. Yeah. But the reality is that the last time people were talking about within a decade, we're going to have a man on the moon was JFK talking at the beginning of the 1960s. '61 or '60. It's been full on half a century since anybody talked like this. And I think people find it shocking. And I think maybe we should look at the other side of that, so both sides. One, what makes you different? And two, why do you think that dream went away? Why do you think it was that for half a century, after we put a man on the moon, we just kind of receded back into whatever the hell was else going on?
Yeah. That's a long story. But the the follow-up to the shuttle to to Saturn V was the space shuttle. Space shuttle could only go to low Earth orbit. But the there were and and the aspiration was to make it reusable. But the they unfortunately did not succeed in that in that goal. The space shuttle was so difficult to refurb that it it ended up costing as much as the Saturn five. And then the the main the primary structure of the the space shuttle orbital system, that big orange tank was it's actually a primary airframe because it takes the load from the the orbiter, the sort of airplane looking thing, and this the side boosters. So you lose that every time. The side boosters land in the ocean, and and they're solid rocket boosters so that, you know, they have to get you back to the factory to get solid pro propellant loaded in. Cut a long story short, the cost per flight of the shuttle ended up being roughly the same as as a Saturn five expendable. So but the shuttle had about a quarter of the payload to orbit and could not reach the moon. So it you know, so noble ideas at the start, but ultimately, it was it was not a good design. So and then the shuttle retired, obviously, and then we we had nothing. That that curve isn't that's not a good curve going from the moon to low Earth orbit to nothing. That does not extrapolate to being a multi planet species. So that's why I started SpaceX, is to try to reverse that that trend and and get us back on to doing exciting things in space again. You know? Things that make people excited to get up in the morning and say, Humanity is gonna do some amazing thing in space.
And one of the things that that's so impressive about SpaceX is is not just the aspiration, but the fact that it's a successful business and that you realize very early on that it's not enough to have the aspiration I mean, was a government to put a person on the moon that that's not the same thing as actually being able to build you said self sustaining with regard to life on Mars but a self sustaining business that actually has the capacity and a profit driven model to to do something like that, to project.
Yeah. I mean, to be clear, at at the start of SpaceX, I gave us a less than 10% chance of success. I thought we'd probably die. But, you know, I think if something is important enough, it's worth doing even if you think it's gonna fail. And we almost did fail. The the first three launches of our small rocket failed. Only the fourth one launched succeeded. And if we if that fourth one had failed, we would be dead. So it's close. At this point, you know, knock on wood, SpaceX is quite prosperous. SpaceX did about 80% of all payload to orbit last year of Earth. China did about 12%, and the rest of world did 8%. So in this year, if things go well, SpaceX will do 90% of all payload to Earth. And then as Starship really takes off, SpaceX will be doing at least based on what other companies are currently doing, which is, you know, around three, four hundred tons to orbit, SpaceX ultimately will be doing several 100,000 tons to orbit, maybe a million tons to orbit.
It's amazing. And what you mentioned there, that it's a sort of skin of the teeth thing. I mean, that's been true in a lot of companies that you've worked with. I mean, was true in Tesla also, that it was a real skin of the teeth thing.
Yeah, for sure.
And so maybe you can talk a little bit about, what does that feel like? I mean, as a CEO
Yeah, you're person who
is a
professional Yeah,
you must, Do do you enjoy the risk? Do you do you enjoy that stress level? I don't I
I I don't see risk for risk's sake. Tesla had many close calls with death. The the natural state of a car company in America is dead. Mean, I the only two car companies that have not gone bankrupt are Ford and Tesla. GM and Chrysler went bankrupt until 2009. There have been hundreds of car bankruptcies before. So it's one of those things where, like I said, the the natural state of a car company is dead. So you have to keep pulling rabbits out of a hat to not be dead.
Do you think that your personality is suited to that and that's why you're successful at this? That you think that's unique to the companies you pick that they that you're pulling rabbits out of hats? Or is it that every company is pulling rabbits hats?
Pull so many rabbits out of hats, it's like an arc of rabbits with my trivia. I mean, I'm good at solving technology problems. So and rockets and cars are both technology problems. I have a very strong team that work with me. And, yeah, so far, so good.
And now on to x, which is, you know, its own set of issues and difficulties. You come in, and for many of us, it was like you're coming in to save free speech. And it was, I think, really a signal moment because it is very clear that there is a sensorious hand that's been placed on all of these tech companies. Unequivocally. And you came in, and you said, we're going to open this place up. And you definitely did. Yes. And the blowback has been absolutely wild. Mean, And really pretty clearly coincident with the amount of mainstream media hatred of you. You went from being Golden Boy, Time Magazine, Newsweek, we all love you. Everyone loves you. Where's that long ago? SNL. Now if SNL had you on, there might be a riot in the street. Because apparently, by opening up free speech, you've
I mean, I think there's there's like a small section of the sort of elite media that hate me. But if I go down if I walk down the street, I people are really super friendly. So I think the average citizen is a fan or suddenly doesn't hate me. I mean, I am the most followed account, you know, the most interactive account in social media by far. So I think technically, there's people on Instagram with more followers, but in terms of interactions, I'm the most interacted with social media account on earth. I got I got recently passed a 169,000,000 followers. So can a 169,000,000 people be wrong?
I know we'll find out in the next election cycle. But, you know, when when you feel that, do you think that that was a reaction to the fact that you were basically saying the thing you're not supposed to say, which is that the sources of information that people are receiving are in fact siphoned off and censored?
Yeah. Exactly. It it it was actually amazing to me how much the legacy media work you know, walks in lockstep. You know, there's like nobody breaks ranks. So now we have x that breaks ranks, and it doesn't just go with the whatever the approved narrative is. I think for for many in the public, they don't quite realize just how much that they, you know, deception is really going on with the media. The the the biggest deception is the choice of narrative because they can media can say they they can write a story about this or write a story about that. And only only a few stories can go on the front page. So you're deciding essentially what people should pay attention to. So instead of it being something that, you know, what people pay attention to being what people actually care about, it's actually what a handful of editors care about. They're telling you telling the people what to pay attention to. So that the the deception by choice of narrative is a big thing. That's why I really want the narratives to bubble up organically from the people in the case of the X system, which they do. And I think people should be allowed to say things that are within the law. You know? That's if if if if the law isn't good enough, then great. We'll talk to your elected elected representative and have him pass law to change that. But otherwise, we need to stick to, you know, hold true to the constitution and the laws and allow people to say things even if we don't like what they say. In fact, that's obviously the the true test for free speech is that someone says something you don't like because otherwise, it's obviously not free speech.
What do you think is the biggest people trash me all
the time on the x platform. Like, whatever.
Yeah. I mean Just trash me on the
x platform or somewhere else.
So what do you think is the biggest untold narrative, the thing that the the media had been missing for for years and years or suppressing for years and years?
Well, there's a few things. But, you know, I I I I generally try to say, like, to increase what the so called Overton window of what can be discussed and what what you know, what what is it okay to discuss without being ostracized. Certainly, DEI was you know, would have been ostracized before, not and not anymore. And, you know, anything that's sort of sensitive or that the media ignores, the public can then, you know, raise the raise it on on the X platform and and and make that an actual topic of discussion. So, I mean, you probably think of can think of a few few reasons or a few reasons.
I obviously, one of one of the big ones when you were when you were first buying X was the the unwillingness to say that men exist and women exist as as actual biological categories. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that that one came up
a lot. But you get suspended for that.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And
You couldn't even debate the subject without getting suspended.
Right. I mean, that that was that was a huge one. I mean, there there were a bunch of no no's that you just weren't allowed to to do. And I think that a lot of people are grateful for the broadening of the Overton window. That that does, As a person who's trying to do good in the world, one of the things that I've always said about people who are in charge of these tech platforms is that it's very difficult to be that job. Because there is obviously something that's outside the Overton window where you say, like, it's my platform. I just don't want this on the platform. How you decide that? I mean, to a certain extent, it is a coddie under a tree basically saying, this is too much for me. I know it when I see it kind of definition.
How I mean, we're we're trying to be as objective as possible. Like, is something breaking the law or likely or or most likely breaking the We don't we don't need a judge to say it for sure. But does what as what is being said, it seems to be illegal. Like someone saying they're gonna murder somebody, I think threats of murder are illegal, for sure. And, you know, so that would result in a suspension. And and and then there's there's a separate thing which is like, you know, it is something either sort of potentially pornographic or not safe for advertisers. Meaning, it's like it's the topic is too contentious to expect that advertisers will advertise, you know, with that account. If you take like Dom DeLuca as an example recently where, you know, he says some pretty edgy stuff, and that's okay. But but just just as he has the the the right to say edgy stuff, some of it which is untrue, and he gets community known it all the time. But advertisers also have the right to not advertise on Don DeLuca's posts. You know? So it's like, you know, his freedom to he has freedom to say what want, but he doesn't have he can't coerce advertisers to advertise.
So when when you look at the future of X, you've talked about X being kind of an everything company. What what does that actually look like?
I just mean all the things that you you would wanna use online. China has WeChat, which is you you kinda live on your WeChat in China. You know? So you buy things on WeChat. You post, you know, if text, audio, video to various feeds. Yeah. Payments. It's it's sort of like everything. So I wanna try try to have an app that at least allows you to do everything on on x. You don't have to, but if you want to, you can.
So, I mean Or even even like think
of like like what what PayPal should have been, basically.
So you have three massive and and growing companies. How do you balance all that? I mean, you also have a ton of kids. Yeah. I mean, you make me look like I'm childless by the number of children that you have. But how how do you balance all of those life demands?
Well, all the boys are in college and high school. So they're you know, I don't they they don't want much of my time because they're, like, you know, 17, 19.
Yeah. So you have a three and a half year old, and you're carrying him around today.
Yeah. He's he loves hanging with me. So I bring x around. Yeah. I try I try to spend as much time as possible with my kids.
So what what is a day in the life like? Is it just different every single day?
It's different every single day. Yeah. I mean, I do a lot of engineering meetings and design meetings. So when I head to to Tesla Palo Alto later tomorrow, I'll be going through design engineering engineering design reviews of Optimus, our new new vehicle programs of our Tesla AI for for self driving. Wednesday, there'll be a bunch of product meetings on software the x platform. So improving audio visual calling so you can not not just DM, but you can actually do call voice and video calls. And then do also do group group voice and video calls. Obviously, we're as we mentioned, we wanna introduce payments later this year when we get the approvals.
Is it the engineering part of it that excites you the most? Which part of these things I'm
I'm a product product guy. So, like, I develop tech I I I develop technology products. That's what I do.
So you're known as as you can be a demanding boss, so the rumor goes. So
I mean, I ex I have high expectations.
Yeah. No. So I mean, what so what do you think being a good boss should look like to people? How many employees do you have at your various companies at this point?
Tesla's about 140,000. SpaceX, 15,000. Foreign companies, I think 300. NeuroLink about 300. X is around 1,300.
So that that's a lot of employees. So how do so how do how do you how do you think a boss ought to interact with employees? I mean, because obviously, there's a balance between it's it's sort of, you know, Tommy Lasorda, the manager of the Dodgers, once said that managing a baseball team was like holding a dove. You want to hold it tight enough that it doesn't get away, not so tight that you squish it. So what do you think is the optimum employee management strategies for the budding entrepreneur out there?
I don't know. I just meet with my team, and we go around the table and talk about what everyone got done this past week and what they plan to do next week, and then try to make some decisions about product design and direction or solve some particular technology problem. They're they're quite collegial, my meetings. They're not you know, it's not me I it's not me talking. I talk the least in the meetings.
You're talking about, you know, information information flow and limiting information flow.
And Yeah.
Obviously, you and I were just at Auschwitz today, which is a heavy experience. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that we were learning about and and talking about was how limited flow of information allows for atrocities to happen. You know, what what did you what was your takeaway?
Exactly. Essentially, yeah, when when the Germans came in, the first thing they did was shut down all the press. So so they have everything was heavily censored. So anything you you can't say anything that unless it was approved by the government. So, you know, I think, really, free speech is the bedrock of democracy, and free speech is what allows atrocities to be called out and for people to be aware of them. That's why the Germans wanted to shut down the the press immediately. So, you know, anyway, I think we we should do everything we can to preserve free speech. And when we lose free speech, I think we lose democracy.
One of the other things that we were talking about earlier to touch back on it was the DEI of it. And and one of the things that, you know, you and I had been discussing a little bit offline is the fact that DEI effectively is a conspiracy theory in which there is a cadre of powerful people who are at the top, and they control everything else that's happening. And because those powerful people are at the top, they are exploiting everybody else, and they have to be taken down more than one peg. And, you know, that that conspiracy theory matches very aligns very closely with antisemitic conspiracy theory.
I think DEI is very extremely antisemitic at its core. So yeah. Absolutely. And it's just it's just generally antimeritocratic, so which I think is very dangerous. You wanna have a a, I think, a society where you succeed based on your skills and hard work. That's it. And it doesn't matter about your race, gender, creed, religion, nothing. You know? Just are you good at your job? Do you work hard? Are you have high do you have high integrity? Nothing more. That's it. Stops there.
And it it seems it seems as though, you know, in our society right now, there's an objection to that, but that objection, it seems to me, can only be It's crazy. Sustained yeah. It can only be sustained if you are tacitly acknowledging that you will not succeed in the meritocracy. The people who are pushing this the hardest are
people who frankly.
Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's essentially making the argument. I'm not succeeding. The reason I'm not succeeding is because no one can succeed. And so it's an argument, to a certain extent, of the unsuccessful or people who feel as though they are
Yeah.
They deserve more. And one of one of the that occurs to me is that I'm not sure that anybody, quote unquote, deserves anything other than what your hard work and innovation bring you in life.
Right. I think DEI also, for for those who were were promoted based on their skills and merit and hard work, it undermined the the credibility of their promotion or their status. Was it real or was it DEI? You know? And it's it it takes away the the the respect that they deserve.
One of the things about meritocracy that I think people forget is that it's the only system ever devised that has positive externalities. Yeah. Any any other any other sort of system that you create is gonna have negative externalities because you're literally just cronying with x group. Whatever that group is, that group is going to get the benefits. And if you're not part of that group, then you get screwed. And meritocracy is the idea that the people who are going to succeed are people who innately are capable of creating for everyone else. I mean, you mentioned earlier how many employees you have. And people will talk about your level of personal wealth. But that level of personal wealth is largely stockholding, and that stock is in company. It's entirely stock. Yeah, exactly. Mean, it's not like you're sitting on like a giant wad of cash somewhere. Mean, you are, but not like that.
Yeah. It's just it's just when I created the companies, I felt that it was important. Now in my first company, I didn't have any money, my first Internet company. I just had a $100,000 of student debt. But for that was a company in the very early days of Internet called Zip2. But for for all companies subsequently, I I basically doubled down. I I took the money that from from Zip2, invested it in x.com, PayPal, and then we took the PayPal money, invested that in in in creating Tesla and SpaceX. Because I I didn't feel like I didn't feel right that I should ask investors to invest if I was not prepared to invest my own money. I I think the whole other people's money thing is not right. You know? You wanna you wanna have you wanna have skin in the game and put your capital where you're or the capital of the company you're creating there with investors' capital. And as a result of that, I own a lot of shares of the company, and the company the better the company does, the more valuable the shares are. But that's because the pie has grown. And and so you have to say, like, what's at the root of a lot of the the negativity is is an axiomatic flaw that the pie is static, that it's a zero sum game, that if someone else succeeds, it's because they took more than their fair share of this fixed pie. But it's not a fixed pie. Obviously, the the the there's a lot of now I want some pie. Pie. But but, obviously, the economic pie has grown considerably from from what it was in the past. The output of goods and services, the productivity per person is dramatically greater than it has been in the past. So when you when you create a new company and you and you both create new products and services, you are you are growing the the the groups you're you're growing the, you know, the bundle, as I say, pie again, of you're growing the amount of goods and services available to people. So it's not you've not taken anything away from anyone. You've created something new, and you've given people new products and services they didn't have before. You know, like, we we didn't used to have an iPhone. We didn't used to have computers. We didn't used to have cars or be able to fly in airplanes. Wouldn't used to have many of the lifesaving medicines that we have today. These are all new things. And The pie has grown tremendously.
This is one of the I think this is the fundamental distinction between innovators and business people and people in the free market and and the political class. The political class operates almost solely on the basis that the pie is fixed. Because if the pie is fixed, then the way that you get elected is by promising more of that pie to such and such a person. Or you promise that by seizing money from the private sector, you're personally going to grow the pie. It seems to me that the first mark of a politician you shouldn't listen to is, I can fix all of your problems. And that basically rules out nearly everybody, because it seems like everyone in the political class is into the, I can fix all of your problems, when it seems like what I actually need is people who are entrepreneurial and innovative to solve this problem in front of me so that we can then, you know, move on to the next problem that's in front of them.
Yeah. Basically, the reality is that when that is that the government is really just a corporation in the limit. Government is the ultimate corporation. It's not different from a corporation. It's just the ultimate corporation. And it's a corporation that is monopoly and and and also it it can't go bankrupt unless the country goes bankrupt and has a monopoly on violence. So how much do you wanna how much more do you wanna give to the world the world's biggest corporation that has that have that has monopoly on violence? Probably not probably less. And, I mean, if you look at, say, countries like East And West Germany or North And South Korea, what what cases where there's just an arbitrary line that's been drawn, like, used to be one country, arbitrary line that's drawn because of a war, what is the productivity difference from one to the other? You know, West Germany had a pro productivity five times greater than East Germany. That that's just and and it's not like West Germany was just bat this sort of bastion of capitalism. They're like half socialist. So even with if you're so so what that means is if they're half socialist and the other side is is a 100% socialist or communist, then you really have something like a 10 to one difference in productivity if something is done by the government or done by the private sector. That's why you it's but I'm not someone who says abolish the government. I just say, let's have the government do the least amount because the the the less the government does, the more the economy will prosper because anything done by the government is gonna be five to 10 time five to 10 times less efficient. Like, think of the DMV.
I'm I'm trying not to. But, yes, what if we're gonna get out of DEI, what's the best way to get out of DEI?
Well, I I I think DEI is starting to fade. First of all, DI is actually illegal because it discriminates on the basis of of race, sex, sexual preference, and and all of all sorts of other things. That that is actually illegal. So somehow, you know, it's it's got they've managed to get this illegal thing in place. But now we're starting to see a large number of lawsuits saying, no. Actually, the law says you cannot discriminate on the basis of sex as, you know, sexual identity and race. You know? So I think we'll I I I think DIA is on its last legs. It's gonna it's gonna be a root because it's illegal, actually. Is it? Literally.
So I I know we're running out of time. So I wanted to I I do wanna ask you, you know, you've had such a fascinating life. But what is the if there was an experience that defined you, like the the encapsulating experience that defined you as a person, what what would what do you think that is?
I don't know if there's one one single experience that defined me. And philosophically, I I read a lot of books on philosophy, a lot of religious books, and I got kinda had I did have an existential existential crisis when I was about 12. And then read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is really a book in philosophy that disguises humor. And and and that that that gave me a new philosophy, which is to try to understand the the the meaning of life. And then if you say if you take axiomatically that you wanna understand the meaning of life, the nature of the universe, then you in order to do to do that, you have to expand the scope and, you know, the scope and scale of consciousness and get out there and explore the galaxy, and then you can better understand the meaning of life.
It's it's funny that you and Thomas Aquinas and Maimonides all come to the same sort of conclusion because the basic premise religiously for them was explore the universe. Therefore, you're exploring God. Every exploration of the world around you is, in essence, an exploration of God's system and brings you closer to the divine. And you're getting there in sort of a backwards way even if you don't end getting to the divine per se.
Right. And I'm not I'm not disagreeing with those who believe in god. I I'm I'm saying that even if if even if you do believe in god, let us go out there and explore god's wondrous creation.
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