Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / A Look Inside Elon Musk's Vision: Complete Interview

Transcript

A Look Inside Elon Musk's Vision: Complete Interview · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, first half, welcome it is Verdict with Ted Cruz,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Ben Ferguson with you. Happy New Year's Center to you
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: as well and to everyone listening right now. And we've
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: got a really fun show that we're going to do
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to day on New Year's and it deals with Waye's
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: fraud and abuse that we talked about that's now becoming
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a reality in Minnesota months ago with your good friend
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Well, Happy New Year to everyone. I hope you had
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a fantastic New Year's Eve. I hope you stayed safe.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed time with your family, you celebrate it.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I hope you're ready now for an incredible twenty twenty six.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I hope that you accomplish something that really makes a difference,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: That you make a difference in the lives of those
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: around you, you make a difference in the lives of
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: your kids and your community, and you make a real
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: impact fighting for our country. Our country is at a
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: pivotal time, and I hope twenty twenty six is a
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: time where you stand up and say I am going
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: to stand up and defend our nation. Like so many
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: patriots who have preceded me on this New Year's Day,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: We're going to play one of my favorite podcasts that
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Bet and I ever did, and this was last year.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Last summer, we interviewed Elon Musk. Elon Musk is a
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: good friend of mine. We sat down with him for
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: an hour in the White House, talking to him about
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Doge and what he was doing with President Trump, but
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: also talking talking to him personally about who he is,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: about how he built Tesla, how he built SpaceX. We
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: talked to him about AI and killer robots. And it's
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: a fascinating show and we present it to you right
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: now in its entirety.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Make sure you download it wherever you get your podcast
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: It's a great episode. It's out right now. Verdict with
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Well, we're in the White House right now and we're
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: here with my friend Elon Musk, who really has not
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: been doing much of anything, has not made any news
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: is and nobody has noticed the impact.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Welcome Elon.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Holy crap.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: Oh yes, wow. Let me just say, never a dull moment.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Never a dull moment.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: The first fifty days the president and has spent an
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: office over the top and the first fifty days you've spent.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think there's ever been anyone to have an
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: impact the way you have. At the beginning, let me
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: start with a question. You know a lot about which
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: was worse the mess you found at Twitter or the
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: mess you found in the federal government.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: Well, it's hard to compete with the federal government.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: What's surprised you about the federal government? I assume you
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: came in and assumed it was bad. Is it worse
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: than you expected?
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: It is worse than I expected. But on the plus side,
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: that means there's more opportunity for improvement. So look, if
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: you look on the bright side, there's actually a lot
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: of opportunity for improvement in federal government expenditures because it's
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: so bad. If it was a well run ship, it
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: would be very difficult to improve. So now it's like
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: people say, well, how will you figure out how to
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: save money in the federal government? Well, it's like being
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: in a room where the walls, the roof, and the
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: floor are old targets. Any direction, yeah, jitness, Wow, Yeah,
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: I'm sure you would agree.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: So a lot of folks have talked about like like.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: You can't right, yeah, this is going to any direction?
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: A lot of the crazy expenditures, things like like two
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: million bucks for sex change surgeries in Guatemala. In essential,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: you know, transgendered mice and sesame street in Iraq.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: A lot of that has gotten attention.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: But some of the stuff you've told me about, like
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: tell us about computer licenses and government agencies.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so most of what do just finding. You don't
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: need to be shock comes. It's very obvious, basic stuff.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: So in every goblet depopment, I say every because we've
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: not yet found a single exception. There are far too
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: many software licenses and media subscriptions, meaning many more software
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: licenses and media subscriptions than there are humans in the department.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Like you were saying, like an agency with fifteen thousand
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: people might have thirty thousand licenses. Yes, and even of
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: the fifteen thousand employees, a good chunk of them hadn't
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: used the license, had never logged on or used the application.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Yes, we found entire situations of software licenses or media subscriptions.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: There were zero logins, so it had and yet we
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: were paying for it. Yes, the government's paying for thousands
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: of licenses of software or media subscriptions and no one
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: had ever logged in even once or credit cards.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: You found the same thing with government credit cards.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: We found that there are twice as many credit cards
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: as there are humans could and I still don't have
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: a good explanation for why this is the case. And
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: these are ten thousand dollars limited cards, so it's a
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: lot of money.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Is it incompetent that you're finding or is this like
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the biggest money wandering scheme in the history of the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: world that you're finding?
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: Okay, I think it's mostly if you say, look, what's
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: the waste to fraud ratio? Yeah, in my opinion, it's
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: it's like eighty percent wasst twenty percent for But you
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: do have these sort of gray areas. For example, example
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: be so, uh, we saw a lot of payments going
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: out of treasury that had no payment code and no
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: explanation for the payment, and then we're we're we're trying
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: to figure out what that payment is and we'd see
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: that Okay, that contract was supposed to be shut off,
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: but but someone forgot to shut off that that contract
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: and so the company kept getting money. Wow. Now is
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: that waste or fraud both? Both?
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Supposed to get you're not supposed to get it, but
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: you but the government sent it to you and nobody
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: from the government asked for it back. Take for example,
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: the one the one point nine billion dollars given to
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Stacy Abrams y fake ng O.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: Utter insanity, explain that story. That's that's just corrupt. I
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: think that's paying off cronies at that point. Yeah, and
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: by the way, she knew, like when you get two
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: billion dollars, you don't miss that.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: That's not on accident. That's allegedly it was for like, uh,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: you know, environmentally friendly appliances or something. And they've given
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: like like one hundred appliances so far for two billion dollars.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: It's very expensive toast roll that's fridge, it's nice. Is
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: It's just obviously one of the biggest scam Ford holes
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: we've uncovered, which is really crazy, is uh? Is that
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: is that the government can give money to a so
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: called nonprofit with with very few controls and then that
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: and there's there's no auditing subsequently of that nonprofit, so
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: there's no So this is where with the you know,
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: one point nine billion of Stacey Arams, who's who's that
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: they didn't give themselves extremely lavished like insane salaries, expense
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: everything yep, to the to the nonprofit you know, buy
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: jets and homes and all sorts of things, live like
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: kings and queens. Yes on the taxpayer, dont correct you.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: This is happening at scale. It's not just one or two.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: We're seeing this everywhere.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Now, one of the things you told me about is
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: at least what you call say, magic money computers. Well,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: so tell us about it, because I've never heard of
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: that until you brought that up.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Okay, So you may think that these the government computers
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: like all talk to each other, they synchronize, they add
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: up what funds are going somewhere, and it's you know,
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: it's coherent that that that the you know, there's that,
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: and that the numbers, for example, that you're presented as
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: a senator, yeah, are actually the real numbers. And one
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: would think we would think they're not. Yeah, okay, I
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: mean they're not totally wrong, but they're probably off by
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: five percent or ten percent in some cases. So I
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: call it magic money computer. Any computer which can just
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: make money out of thin air best magic money.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: So how does that work?
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: It just issues payments?
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: And you said something like eleven of these computers of
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: treasury that are that are sending out truellions in payments.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: They're mostly a treasury, some are with the sum at HHS,
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: some that there's one one of two as states. There's
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: some at DoD. I think we found now fourteen magic
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: money computers Gene. Okay, they just send money out of nothing.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: You have an ability to see where leverage points are
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: and how things actually happen. So I remember back I
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: think it was September October of this year, before the election.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: We didn't know who was going to win, and I
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: was at your house in Austin. We were talking about
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: it and you said, you said, look, I don't want
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: a job in Washington, and you said, all I want
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: is the log in for every computer. And I remember
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: thinking at the time that sounded kind of weird, like
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: I just didn't get it. And I have to say,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: what's interesting on this. If I would have thought like, okay,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: how do you reform government, like sort of the traditional
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: way to think about it is, okay, give me an
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: ORC chart, let me sit down with the people who
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: are running agencies. And what you saw immediately is to
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: understand what's really going on, get to the payment systems,
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: get to the computers. Yeah, Like, why is getting to
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: the computers so critical to understanding what's actually happening?
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: Well, the government is run by computers, so you've got
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: essentially several hundred computers that effectively run the government. And
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: if you want to know, did you know that then no? Like, yeah,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: so when somebody, like even when the president issues an
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: executive order, that's going to go through a whole bunch
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: of people until ultimately it is implemented at a computer somewhere.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: And if you want to know what the situation is
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: with the accounting and you're trying to reconcile accounting and
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: get rid of waist and fraud, you must be able
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: to analyze the computer databases. Otherwise you can't figure it
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: out because all you're doing is asking a human who
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: will then ask another human, ask another human, and finally
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: usually ask some contractor will ask another contractor to your
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: query on the computer. Wow, that's out. Actually, look so
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: it's many layers d. So the only way to reconcile
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: to to actually look at the computers and see what's
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: going on. So that's what I call it. That's like,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: that's what when I sort of cryptically referred to reprogramming
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: the matrix. You have to understand what's going on the computers.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: You have to reconcile the computer databases in order to
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: identify the waste and fraud.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know that there was anyone in Congress who understood,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: certainly myself included, who understood the leverage that comes from
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: the computer and the data. In particular, that that Congress
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: would think about give me a report on what your
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: expenditures are rather than actually getting into the pipes. And
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: I think that has been fascinating that it's let you
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: uncover a bunch of craft that just nobody knew.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, in order for money to go to
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: a van acount, it's it's not like we're standing truckloads
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: of cash all over the place where it's a where
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: hiring money. Right, it was sending money through the ach
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: system or through the Swift system. So in order for
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: money to flow, it's going to flow electronically. So that's
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: that's what you need to look at. You can look
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: at the actual electronic money flows.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: And Tesla and all your companies you have accounting and
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: you have every expenditure. You have it coded for what
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: it's going for. Federal government doesn't work that way. They
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: don't code what.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: The money's going for.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: They do not, but they didn't. They didn't.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: And like one of the things that that you told me,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: you said, if any company kept its books the way
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: the federal government does, they'd arrest the officers and put
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: them in jail.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, if it was a poly company would be dealisted immediately.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: It would fail, it's ordered, and the officers of the
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: company would be imprisoned. That's the level of enough business
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: in the Unfortunately it's deliberately or do you think this
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: is in competence again, it's eighty percent. It's eighty percent
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: incompetence or in twenty percent malice.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: If you look at DOGE now and you look at
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the government and what you're finding, what percentage have you
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: guys even gotten to and how much of it is
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: mars where you haven't even gotten there yet? Because there's
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: so much you're finding out here, I mean, how many
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: you seem like a timeline guy when you say, all right,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I want to get in there and get all these
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you know, numbers and things. How far are we from
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the in game where you've seen it all, been able
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: to process it all and fix it. I mean are
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: we years away, months away.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Not yours, I mean recently confident that we'll be able
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: to get a trillion dollars of waste and forward out,
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: and that meaning that it will have what we'll have
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: a net savings in f I twenty six, which thoughts
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: in October obviously of a trillion dollars provider were allowed
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: to We're allowed to continue and and our progress is
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: not impeded. And we're very public about what we do.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you put it out on the website about.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: How we could be more transparent. Literally everything action we do,
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: smaller lodge we put on the doorst dot gov website,
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: and we post on the x handle. And when people
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: complain about it and they say, oh, you're doing something costumes,
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: I'm like, well, which of these costs?
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Everyone knows exactly what you're doing.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: Extreme transparent. Yeah, I don't think it's anything's been this
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: transparent ever.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: So five years ago you were a hero to the left, cool,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: you had electric cars, you had space, And in five
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: years you've got.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: To go to a party in Hollywood and not getduddy looks. Yeah.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: In fact, yeah, and you might's invited, but I don't
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: know if I need to go. And I don't think
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: it's an exaggeration to say today after Donald Trump, the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: left hates you more than a person on earth.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Yes, I appear to be number two. I mean, if
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: you're judged by the various signs.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: The estrangements, it's Trump arrangement syndrome and elon de arrangement syndrome.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: How is that for you?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: That's a little bit of whiplash of going from being
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: like mister cool to the devil incarnate in just a
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: couple of years. Is that is that kind of weird experience,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: that transformation?
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Why do they hate you so much?
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: Well, because we're we're clearly over the target if those
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: was ineffective, if we were not actually getting rid of
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: a bunch of wasting forward and a bunch of that
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: for I mean, the forward reason we're seeing is overwhelmingly
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: on the on the left. I mean, it's it's there's
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: it's not zero on the right. But these NGOs are
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: almost all left wing NGOs that are being funded for example,
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: So they hate me because Doge is being effective and
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: dog is getting rid of a lot of waste for
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: that they were the people and left were taking advantage
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: of that. That's that's that's what it comes out to you.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: And and the single biggest thing that they're that they're
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: worried about is that doge is is going to turn
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: off fraudulent payments of entitlements. I mean everything from Social Security, medicare, uh,
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: you know, unemployment does ability, smallpers administ registration loans turn
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: them off to illegals. This is that flux of the matter. Yeah, okay,
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: this is this is the this is the thing that
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: why they really hit my guts, want me to die.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: And do you think that's billions, hundreds of billions? What
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: do you think the scale is of that?
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: I think across the country it's in the it's well,
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: notth of one hundred billion, maybe two hundred million. So
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: by using entitlements fraud, the Democrats have been able to
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: attract and retain vast numbers of illegal immigrants and buy voters,
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: and buy voters exactly the basically bring in ten twenty
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: million people who are beholden to the Democrats for governor
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: handouts and will vote overwhelming the Democrat as has been
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: demonstrated in California. This is it's an election strategy. Yes,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: it's powered. Yes, and it doesn't take much to turn
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: the swing states blue. I mean off in a swing
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: state yet be won by ten twenty thousand votes. Sure,
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: so if the DAMS can bring in two hundred thousand
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: illegals and over time get them legal legalized, not counting
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: any cheating that takes place, because there is some cheating,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: but even without cheating, if you bake, if you if
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: you bring in illegals that are ten x the voted
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: differential in a swing state, it will no longer be
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: a swing state, right, and the DAMS will win all
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: the swing states just a matter of time, and America
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: will be permanent deep blue socialist state. At the House,
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: the Senate, YEP, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court will
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: all go hardcore down. They will then further cement that
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: by bringing even more aliens so you can't vote your
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: way out of it.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Their objeman is to make one.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: Party socialist state, and it will be much worse than California,
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: because at least California is mitigated by the fact that
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: someone can leave California.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: You can go to Texas.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, you did go to make everywhere California, but
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: worse by the way.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: The middle of the pandemic, I spent forty five minutes
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: on the phone with Elon. He was still in California.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I was walking my dog's snowflake and trying to convince
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: you come to Texas. The commis in California can't stand you.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: We love you, we want you here. And you didn't
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: quite go then, but you went not that long afterwards.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, the COVID actions almost killed Tesla because every
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: other auto plant in the country was a lot of open,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: but ours, which was in California, was not a lot
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: of open. Wow wow. So they almost killed Tesla.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: So as a personal matter, do you ever regret it?
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Like five years ago you go to the Oscars and
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: mister cool and now you've got death threats every day,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Like do you well?
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: These days the Oscars are boring. I wouldn't want to go.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: God bless the movies they nominate.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: No one on earth has ever seen, Like could they
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: actually nominate a movie that human beings go watch?
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, how many great movies have come out and
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: last your very.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Few, depressingly few, yeah, very few.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Last Oscars came and went. I didn't watch it. There's
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: nothing to see.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: I was sad that Gene Hackman just passed away because
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Unforgiven was spectacular, but that was a long time ago.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: Un Forgiven came out.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: You've mentioned today here and before about the possibility of
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: someone wanting to take you out, dealing with the death threats,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: we see.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: It's not in my imagination. You can just look on
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: social media. Yeah, but like is it because very clear?
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And look I'm I'm very familiar with it.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: And they've got science. They are people with science and
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: demonstrations saying that I need to die.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Do you think are these just whack jobs or do
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: you think there are hopefull foreign people? Do you think
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: there are foreign entities behind this? Do you think they're
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: domestic entities behind the threats? And also the attacks to
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Twitter are not Twitter but Tesla. I mean, you know
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: you're getting Tesla's charging stations lit on fire. Do you
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: think that's organized and paid for?
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Yes, at least some of it is organized and hate
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: for I think by domestic you know, basically left wing
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: organizations in America funded by uh, left wing billionaires essentially.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Is it like Act Blue or what.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: Act Blue is one of them? You know, Arabella. You
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: know the classic it's funded by the you know, the
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: blue basically the left wing ANDNGO cabal.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: How big of a threads is to like what you
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: build at Tesla. I mean, I remember when Tesla's came out,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: it was people that they didn't want to have gas cars.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: A lot of it was environmental reasons. I jokingly said,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm a Texas guy, I'm always going
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: to have something that burns gas. My kids now, all
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: three of my boys think that that Tesla's are awesome.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: The cyber truck is the car they want their dad
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to buy, which I laugh because I never could have
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: imagined that five years ago.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: And now I'm looking at.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: We're worth the White House in the President's Tesla sparks.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, meaning which is the fullest damp.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: But I mean, you've changed a generation when you look
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: at my kids are six and eight and they're going
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Dad buy a cyber truck and I'm considering it. That's
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: a that's a full circle in a weird way.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I do have this story that the most
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: errantating outcome is the most likely, So yeah, it seems
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: often to be true. What what twist or turn of fate. Well,
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: I would the highest ratings if this was if we're
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: a TV show, what twistal turn of fate would generate
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: the highest ratings that there's a good chance that happens.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I will say if if Act Blue and Arabella.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: Network Blue is a huge scam X level, do you.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Think it's foreign money? Chinese money? Where do you think
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: the money in Act Blue is coming from? How do
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: you figure that out?
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: Well, it's not coming from the from a whole bunch
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: of from a ground swell of public support, because when
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: individual donors looked at and Act Blue, they aventually turned
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: out to be like diehard Republicans, people have never given
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: in their life. So you're going to track down a
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: bunch of thesee where it says, oh, I gave sixteen
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: thousand dollars and they're like, I didn't give sixteen thousand dollars.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: We're talking about this is Well, if those whole con
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: friends of mine, if I found themselves on the Act
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: Blue list, they.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Like So that's if it can actually be shown that
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: they are funding firebombing of Tesla charging stations, that's objectively
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: a criminal act, that that is funding terrorist activity, and
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the statutes make clear that an incendiary device qualifies.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: So thats down is a terrorist activity.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Let me ask AI in ten years, how is life
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: going to be different because of AI for just a
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: normal person.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: Well, ten years is a long time. In ten years,
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: probably AI could do anything better than a human can cognitively,
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: probably almost. I think in ten years, based on the
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: cart rate of improvement, AI will be smarter than the
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: smartest human. Yeah. Yeah. There will also be a massive
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: number of robots, So humanoid robots.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: By the way, I got to ask, how come your
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: robots look so much like the creepy robots for my robot?
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Was that intentional or just.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I was hoping he's gonna say, yeah, just to mess
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: with you.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: It's not meant to look like any prior robot. And
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: we'll iterate the design and you'll be able to have
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: a lot of the robot parts are cosmetic. You'll be
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: able to switch out the kind of snap on cosmetic
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: parts of the robot make it look like something else.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: I you lying. So there'll be ultimately billions of humanoid
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: robots all costs will be self driving in ten years.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: In ten years, probably ninety percent of miles driven will
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: be autonomous. Huh wow that fast. Yeah, in five years,
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: probably fifty percent of all miles driven will be autonomous.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Now, if AI will be smarter than any persons, how
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: many jobs go away because of that? And what do
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: people do if you've got billions of people that are
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: losing their jobs like that, a lot of people are
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: understandably freaked out about that.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: Well, goods, goods and services will become close to free.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: So it's not as though people will be wanting in
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: terms of goods and services. So why is that? What?
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Why are goods and services free in an AI world
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: or close to free?
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: Well, you have I don't know, call it tens of
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: billions of robots that they will They will make you
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: anything or provide any service you want for basically next
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: to nothing. It's it's not that people will be will
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: have a lower stand of living. They'll have actually much
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: higher standard of living. But the challenge will be fulfillment.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: How do you drive fulfillment and meeting in life?
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Is skynet real like you get the apocalyptic visions of AI?
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: How real is the prospect of killer robots annihilating humanity?
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: Twenty percent likely? Maybe ten percent on what timeframe fifty
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: ten years so soon.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Like you you see a world where that's possible.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean you can look at it like
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: the glasses eighty ninety percent full, meaning like eighty percent
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: likely will have extreme prosperity for all.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Now, I guess my view, we're in a race to
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: win AI. We're in a race with China, and my
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: view is, if they're going to be killer robots, I'd
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: rather they be American killer robots than Chinese. How likely
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: are we winning right now? Is America winning right now?
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: And how likely is America to win the race for
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: AI visa v.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: China or anyone else?
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: Well, the next few years, I think America is likely
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: to win. Then it will be a function of who
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: controls the AI chip fabrication, the factories that make the
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: AI chiefs, who controls them if they are controlled, If
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: more of them will controlled by China, than China will win.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: More of the factories that are making the AI chip.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: So you think that will determine it?
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: And how are we doing versus China on that front?
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Well, right now almost all the advanced AI chip factories
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: they call them fabs are in Taiwan.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: And what if China invades one miles away from Yeah,
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: what happens if China?
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: If China invades Taiwan, what happens to the world.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: Well, if they were to invade in the niatom, the
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: world would be cuttle from advanced AI chips. And currently
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: one of advanced AI chips are made in Taiwan.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: How fast can we put that online in America? How
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: important is that for national security?
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: I think it's essential for national security, and we're not
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: doing enough.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: You're fifty three years old. I'm one hundred and eighteen
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: days older than you. By what the hell have I
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: done in my life?
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I know?
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: Fifty three years old?
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: Pretty well?
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Well, so seventy one was a great year, and I
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: was December seventy because I was just just right before
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: you were the summer of seventy one.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: I was born sixty nine days after four twenty.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Wow, I did ask Ben.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: This is look.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: I did ask Ben.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Should I show up and pull up a joint and say,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: can we beat Rogan's views? But I was pretty sure
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: it might cause a scandal if we speak a podcast.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: It just turned out to be like a chocolate cigard.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let me ask you if if today was your
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: last day on Earth?
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, what what?
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting it's going to be.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: But if it were, what do you think your biggest
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: legacy would be if everything you've done one hundred years
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: from now? What do you think people would remember if
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: if if it were zero to today.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And were you ever going to space in the.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: In the distant future one hundred or one thousand years ago,
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: if SpaceX got humans to Mars, that's what they would
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: remember me for. All right, final set of questions.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Who's the smartest guy you've ever met? You hang out
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: with some brilliant people, Like like when you look at
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: what's the CEO you look at than yourself?
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: What CEO? Do you say?
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Damn, that guy's good.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: Larry Elson's very smart. So I say, Larry Elison's one
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: of the smartest people. You know, Larry Page. I mean,
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: there are a lot of people that are very smart.
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: It's hard to say, Like, you know, I think something
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Toree smart is as smart as so you know what
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: if what have they done that is difficult and significant?
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: You know, Jeff Bezos has not a lot of difficult
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: and significant things. I mean, there are a lot of
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: smart humans. I call them smart for smart for a
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: human A lot of people who are in the smart
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: for a human category.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: All right, final lightning round, Star Wars or Star Trek.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: The first movie I said in a theater was Star Wars,
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: so I think it had a profound effect on me.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: I was six years old. I think, imagine, best first
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: movie you ever see in a theater is Star Wars.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: It's gonna blaw your mind.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Best Star Wars.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: Movie Empires tracks Back.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: The only objectively right answer.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I stood in line in three hours with my dad
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: to see it on opening day.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: Kirk or Picard, I like them both.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: For Kirk again, objectively right answer. By the way, James T.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat, and
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: the left gets very mad when I say that best
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Star Trek.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: Movie, I mean the original, the first Star Trek movie.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: That's okayons. Both of both Ratha coons were pretty good.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: But yeah, the original Wratha Khon.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Ricardo Montalbaan Revenge is a dish best served cold. It
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: is very cold in space, although I will say Wrathacon
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: is objectively the right answer. But but four as a
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: sleeper when they go back to San Francisco and and
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: and go find the whales and and you know, Scotty
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: picks up spicks, picks up the mouth and talks to
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: it and goes a keyboard. How quaint that's a sleeper?
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: All right?
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: Last question? Did Han shoot first?
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: It seemed like he shot second. This is verdict.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: And by the way, I apologized Ben so Ben was
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: a jock and played tennis at ole miss and so
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: so occasionally when when we geek out a little, I.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: Love watching y'all geek out over.
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: There is still on the question, I love you missed
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: his The alien miss is flaster shot, So why do
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: you miss his flaster shot? Must have been because he
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: got shot first. He's missing a point blank bastel shot.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: If they less, they got knocked off kids.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: But it's a question of real shot, which is is
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Han Solo simply a hero or an anti hero? And
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: and so I'm in the Han shot first category. I
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: think I don't like sanitized stories.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: You would have had to shot first because other way,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: why why would the alien miss a point blank range?
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Are you ever going to go to outer space?
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Is that thing in your life goals?
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd like to go to Mars at some point,
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: And people have said do I want to dine maz
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: and I say, yes, just not an impact.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Now that's a very good answer. The astronauts on the
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: space station are they political prisoners? Some of them are
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: because because you could have given them a ride back,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: and Joe Biden said no, purely for politics.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's been some debate about
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: this online. But the thing is that it was very
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: a very high level of decision, so it wasn't really
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: even an acid decision. It was just that the Biden
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: White House did not want to have someone who is
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: pro Trump rescuing askorate's rifle before the election, so they
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: pushed it.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Well, if you're one of those astronauts, you got to
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: be pretty pissed off about that.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: Well if they're a Democrat, yes, a Democrat, like everything's fine,
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: fair enough. So I think one of them is a
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: republicable is a Democrat, So it depends on which one
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: you ask.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Elon, this was this was awesome. And
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: let me say, and by the way, I put out
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: on X the day before yesterday, if you were having
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: a beer with Elon and could ask him anything, what
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: would you ask? And got lots of responses. The most
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: common response people said is say thank you. Look, Texans
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: and the American people appreciate what you're doing. You don't
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: have to put up with this BS, and you're doing it.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I'm grateful you're making a hell of a difference for
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: this country. I appreciate you, and the Americans appreciate you.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's essential for the future of civilization. Otherwise I
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be doing it. Yes, it's not like I want
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: to get death threats.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: You know, Now, what year does man first set foot
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: on Mars?
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: I think the soonest would be twenty nine, twenty nine, yes,
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: and I don't think it's more than two to four
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: years beyond that.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: And that's not an unman, that's a human being putting
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: his foot on the surface.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, best case would be twenty nine.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: And what do you put the odds of finding either
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: alien life or evidence of alien life.
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: I don't think we're going to find aliens, okay, but.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Do we find ruins, do we find remnants?
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: We may we may find the ruins of a long
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: dead alien civilization. That's possible, and we may find subterranean
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: microbial life. That's possible.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: All right, if man lands on Mars and twenty nine
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: how soon after that do you land on.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: Mars remains to be seen. I'm not sure. The important
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: thing is that we build a self sustaining city on
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: Mars as quickly as possible. The key threshold is when
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: that city can continue to grow, continue to prosper even
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: when the supply ships from Earth stopped coming. At that point,
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: even if something would happen on Earth, it might It
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: might not be World War.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Three, but it might be that a bad virus.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it might not be anything for those things. It's like,
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: lets say, civilization, you could die with a bang or whimper.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: It may be that civilization dies with a whimper rather
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: than a bang or and simply loses the ability to
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: send ships to Mars. But so you often need Mars
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: to become self sustaining and be able to grow by
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: itself before the resupply ships from Earth stopped coming. That
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: is the critical a civilizational threshold, beyond which the probable
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: life span of civilization is much greater.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: And how close are we technologically to be able to
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: do that, To have a self sustaining settlement on the
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: surface of Mars.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: I think it can be done in twenty years, but.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: It would take twenty years, So we're not in twenty nine,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: We're not there. What are we missing? What are the
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: big technologies?
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: We don't have a few people running around the surface
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: in a hostile environment is not going to make it
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: self sustaining. So you're going to need on the order
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: of a million people, maybe a million tons of cargo.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: So but you think we could have a million people
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: on Mars in twenty years, Yes, And what's the technology
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: we're missing right now? When you think about a million
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: people on Mars, do we have the ability to get water,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: to get food, to keep them safe? I mean, what
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: do we need to make that happen?
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Well, you need to recreate the entire base of industry both.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: So you know, we're here at the top of a
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: massive permit of industry that starts with mining a vas
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: array of materials, those materials going through hundreds of steps
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: of refinement. We grow food, obviously, we grow trees, We
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: make things out of the trees. There's you know, you've
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: got to You've got to build all that on Mars,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: and Mars is a hostile environment. It's you know, it
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: sometimes gets above zero on a warm summer day near
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: the equator on Mars, mean it's quite cold. How do
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: you prep for that? Well, in the beginning, on Mars,
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: you have to have a life support habitation module right
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: like you need you can't just live outdoors. You can't
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: breathe the air like a dome you think is likely? Yeah,
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: glass domes type of thing.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Have you identified a location on Mars that is likely
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: to be ideal for a habitat?
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: What might be Arcadia planetare is one of the one
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: of the good options. That's one of my daughters is
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: named Arcadia after that, and what makes that attractive? My
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: eldest son's middle name is Ari's Mars.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: You've been thinking about this for a long time. If
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: you're name and your kids around it.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: My eldest kid is middle name is essentially Mars.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: When did you get the dream?
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: Like, I mean, there's twenty twenty one soon.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: This is a decad it's old.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dream So like when you were ten, did you
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: look up and say I'm going to Mars?
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: No? No. I read a lot of science fiction books
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: and program computers. But the first finally off, the first
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: video game that I sold was a space video game
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: called Blastar. Maybe I was born this way?
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: How do you do how do you become elon musk? Look,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: you're obviously smart as hell, but but there are lots
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of smart people that don't do
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: squat and you've managed everything you've touched has been an
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: extraordinary success. Yeah, yeah, Look, I mean that's just objectively right.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: So what has led to that?
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Because there are other smart people that that's not true
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: and they gaze at their nabel and they don't do anything.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: So what what do you do differently that makes you
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: so effective?
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: Well, I suppose to have a philosophy of curiosity. I
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: want to find out the nature of the universe, understand
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: the universe. And in order to do that, we have
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: to travel to other planets, see other staw systems, maybe
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: other galaxies, find perhaps other aian civilizations or at least
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: the remnants of alien civilizations, gain a better understanding of
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: worse it's universe going, wherey to come from? And what
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: questions do we not yet know to ask about the
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: answer that is the universe.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: So let's go back twenty five years, late nineties. You're
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: at PayPal. How do you turn PayPal into the success
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: it was which then helped launch you to the next one?
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: And the next one. Yeah. So I studied physics and
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: economics and college, which is a good foundation for understanding
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: how the economy works and how reality works. And then
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: was going to do a PhD at Stanford in advanced
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: ultra capacitors actually as a potential means of energy storage
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: for electric transport. Put that on hold to start an
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: Internet company. Essentially came to the conclusion that the Internet
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: was one of those rare things and I could either
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: watch it happen while a grad student or anticipate. And
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: I figured, I've always go to back to grad school.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: Grad school is going to be kind of the same.
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: But I couldn't bear the thought of just watching the
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: Internet happen. So I wanted to be a part of
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: building it. So I created an Internet Internet company. We
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: did the first maps, directions, yealow pages, white pages on
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: the Internet. I actually wrote the first motion of suffware
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: just by myself in ninety five, and we ended up
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: selling that to Compac Texas Company. I can yeah, for
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: about three hundred million dollars in cash about four years
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: after I graduated. Wow. So I should say just to
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: preface that I graduated with about one hundred thousand dollars
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: a student debt. So it wasn't yeah you and me
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: a both, yeah, yeah, right, I know. And when I
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: first arrived in North America, I arrived with twenty five
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: hundred dollars, a bag of books and a bag of clothes.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: All right, so you sell the company for three hundred million,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: How much does that change your life?
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: Well? I got twenty one million dollars that jack, But
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: I wanted to do more on the internet, so started
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: a company called x dot com, which merch with a
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: company called Confinity, which is Peter Teel and Max leftun yep.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: And the combined company was actually at first sttle called
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: x dot com, but we later later changed the name
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: of the company to PayPal. Because of all the name changes,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: it's kind of confusing. But the company that people know
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: is know as PayPal today was actually I filed those
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: in corporation documents for that company. Interesting.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, And as you know, Peter Tiel and I
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: were buddies back in the mid nineties before he went
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: and did any of this. But you know, I became
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: friends with him when he was a corporate lawyer in
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: New York and just sort of a young libertarian with
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of dreams.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: So it's been a heck of a journey. Yeah yeah,
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: And nously, Peter was involved in a coup. You know,
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: we had a little sort of knifing in the Senate
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: situation where you know that they did cooon met at PayPal.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: I kind of now, did you all make peace after that?
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, yeah. I mean I was doing a lot
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: of sort of risky moves that I think ultimately would
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: have been successful. But I then went on a two
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: week trip which was a dual money raising trip and honeymoon,
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: and said not done my honeymoon earlier in the year,
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: So it's raising money while doing doing holly honeymoon. But
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: I was kind of awake. Did that go over by
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: the way it worked? It worked, there you go, kind
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: of worked. I raised money, yeah, yeah, and we had
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: honeymoon there you go. So yeah, but you don't want
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: to be away from the battle when things are scary,
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: so I was not there to assuage the concerns of
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: the troops. And anyway, we passed things up. And I
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: have been friends nonetheless, and you know these days all
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: like stay at his house and stuff. So I was
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: super friends. And he's also invested in most of my companies.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: All right, So two thousand and two, you start SpaceX,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Like how do you start a rocket company? Like what's
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: the first day where you're like, I want to make
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: rockets and I want to go to Mars?
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Like what do you do on day one?
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: So I think you have to start with a some
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: sort of philosophical premise in order to have in order
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: for the in order to be in order to be
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: highly motivated, you have to have some philosophical foundation. In
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: my case, it was that that we want to expand
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: the scale, the scope and scale of consciousness to better
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: understand the nature of the universe. And in order to
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: expand scale, expand consciousness, we need to go beyond one planet.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: If from one planet there's there's too much risk. You know,
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: hopefully Earth civilization prosperos very far into the future, but
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: it may not. There's always some risk that we are
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: we self annihilate through nuclear war, or that there's a
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: big meter that takes us out like the dinosaurs. Yep,
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: there's always some risk if all your eggs are in
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: one basket. So it's going to be better if we're
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: a multiplanet species. And then once we're a multiplanet species
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: that the next step would be to be a multi
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: stellar and have civilization among on many different star systems.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: So in two thousand and one, I didn't think that
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: I could. I didn't think I could sell a rocket companies.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: So I thought I'd take some of the money from paypall.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: In that case, I think it was about one hundred
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: and eighty eight million dollars after tax, something like that,
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: and I thought, you know, I don't need one hundred
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: and eighty million dollars, so I'll spend a bunch of
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: it on a philanthropic Mars mission to get the public
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: excited about going back to Mars. We're going to Mars,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: I should say, Yeah, Mars was always going to be
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: the destination after the Moon. Right. In fact, if you
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: told people in nineteen sixty nine that it would be
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty five and we've not even gone back to.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: The Moon, let alone, it's hard to believe.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: Let alone Mars, they'd be like what happened in the
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: civilization collapse? Top Yeah, Like they would be incomprehensible that
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: we've not been to Mars. By now, if you told
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: people this after landing on the Moon in sixty.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: Nine, why do you think in fifty years America never
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: went back to the moon.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: Well, we destroyed the Saturn five rocket that could take
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: people to the moon, and had the Space Shuttle, which
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: could only go to lowth orbit, and then there really
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: hasn't been anything to replace any No vehicle has been
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: made since then that can go to the Moon or
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: to Mars until the SpaceX Starship rocket. Yeah, so you
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: can't go to Mars if you don't have the ride.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: So I remember you and I first met in twenty
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: thirteen when when I was a brand new baby senator. Yeah,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: and I was still down in the basement office. They
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: stick freshman senators in the basement office kind of like hazey.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's what say.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: It sounds like there are one hundred seared offices. But
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: for six months you stay in the basement.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: It's like worry, mean, you know where you're supposed to
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I got to stay.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Now, thirteen years into it, I think there's a lot
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: of wisdom to doing that. But you were down in
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: the basement office, and I remember you were coming and
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: sitting down with SpaceX and at the time the Air
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Force was not letting y'all bid to launch satellites, and
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: so you were coming and saying, look, we got a company.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I think we can do a really good job of this,
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: and yet we're locked out of this. It's a little
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: amazing to think the journey SpaceX is gone from then
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: to now.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, it's hard to believe that this is all real
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: because originally, consistently with I believe that we need to
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: become a multiplant species, I thought the only way to
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: do that would be through NASA sou and I think
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: I thought, well, if I just get the public excited
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: about Mars, then they'll do a mission to Mars. And
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: so initially my thought was to have to send a
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: small greenhouse with seeds and dehydrated nutrient gel. Then land
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: the greenhouse, hydrate the seeds, and you see these the
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: sort of money shot proof. The money shot would be
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: green plants on a red background. I also recently knowned
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: that money shot has a different meaning in some other arenas.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: But yeah, story, But what I'm trying to say is
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: the captivating shot would be the green plants on a
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: red background. And then hopefully that would if you did
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: something like that, that would get the public excited about Mars,
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: that would increase NASA's budget and then we could send
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: people to Mars. Dream was nasty to do this? Yes,
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: not you No, The original original plan was literally to
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: take a bunch of the money from PayPal and I
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: guess by some people's definition way with no profit on
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: a non profit thing to I wanted to spend a
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: whole bunch of my money for free to get nasta's
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: budget to be bigger so we could go to friggin Mars. Right, wow,
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: that's what I wanted. So that was the holy Grail,
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: That's what I wanted. I was like, so when did
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: I Mars? That's what I wanted to know? Well, when
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: when did.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: It strike you? Okay, you're going to have to do this.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: If you want, I'll tell you. It gets crazier, all right,
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: it gets crazier so so that I couldn't afford any
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: of the US rockets because as you know, the US
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: rockets are way too expensive, boying rock Lucky rockets are
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: crazy money. I didn't have. I didn't even even with
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: one hundred eighty millions, So way I could have afforded
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: they back then, well, the with with the additional stage
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: to get to Mars, it would have been about like
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: eighty million, So technically I could have afforded one of them,
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: but I wanted to do too in case one of
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: them didn't work. Yeah. So and then I didn't have
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: enough money for that. Yeah, and I was sort of
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: prepared to, you know, I don't know, waste half the money.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: And I think if I had ninety million left, that'd
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: be fine, you know, but ideally on all of it.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: So I went to Russia twice to try to buy ICBMs.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: How did that go?
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: And who do you call? The Russian rocket forces?
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Do they sell ICBMs? Does that work?
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: You got to tell us a story that I want
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: to know who you can buy anything in Russia?
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I like, please walk me down that.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I want to know how you made that phone call
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and when you get there, how did that work?
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: And what do you tell your friends? Yeah, listen, I'm
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: going to Russian device in ICBMs. I might not return,
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: you know, in this situation. Literally, Yeah, So I guess
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: slightly less insane when you when you understand that the
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: Russians had to demolish a bunch of their ICBMs because
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: of uh, you know, soul talks like the people because
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: basically an agreementtween the United States and Russia to reduce
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: the total number of ICBMs. Russia was actually obligated to
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: scrap a bunch of their ICBMs. So you took it
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: the very biggest CBMs. You could converte those into a rocket,
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: added additional stage and send something to Mars.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: So those are big enough with one more stage to
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: get to Mars.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: To send a small payload to Mars. Yeah, so the
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: s S eighteen.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: So you try to buy CBMs, do you succeed or no?
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Or do you figure out you got to build your
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: own instead?
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: They kept raising the price on me, so because I
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: figured like, look, they're going to throw these things to
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: scrappy on anyway, you should get a really good deal, right.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: So the price thoughted out at four million, Then the
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: next conversation they were at eight million. Then the next
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: conversation they were at like nineteen million, and I'm like,
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: this is before we signed a contract.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: By the way, was there another Was there another bidd
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: or were you the only one trying to buy them?
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: I think I don't know if there were other bits,
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: but they didn't mention any other bits. But I was like, man,
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: if the price is increasing this much before the contract signed.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: I'm really going to get fleeced after the contracts. Yeah,
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: so I got pretty frustrated there. Actually, in some cases
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: we got into like shouting matches in Moscow, some guys
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: shouting at me in Russian and I'm shouting back at
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: him really badly, you know, I'm like.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: So you are all I mean, you're all.
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: In Moscow? Yeah, so uh man, I should have recorded
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: that. That would have been one for them.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: How many days were you there negotiating that first time?
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I mean was just like ongoing, Yeah.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, is this this took place. These conversations took place
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: over probably six months or so. Wow. So and then
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: the final trip trip there was with the with was
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: with Mike Revenue later became as administrator. I actually realized
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: in the course of this that my original premise was wrong,
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: that that America actually has plenty of will to go
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: to Mars, but needs that it just needs a way
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: to Mars that is affordable and that doesn't break the budget.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: You know, just as you know, we couldn't even get
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: to the space station. We needed the Russians to to
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: get us to our own space station.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: That was Parsonal.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: It really was pitiful.
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure most Americans know just how much we're
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: being fleeced. Like I think they got up to like
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: ninety million dollars a seat, Yeah wow, Yeah, for a
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: seat that.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: Cost them like tenre obviously, but it was the only Yeah.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: It was before SpaceX's ninety million dollars a seat for
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: a seat that cost him ten million. Is high. Yeah,
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: that's a lot of money. Yeah.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: So a few months ago you and I were down
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: in Bocachica with a president for a starship launch, and
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: it is incredible what you built in Boca Chica. You know,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: five years ago it was an empty beach.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: At the southern tip of this soundbar.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's now a city and a factory where
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: you're building a rocket ship a month with incredible precision.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: But one of the things you said to me when
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: we were down there that really stood out to me
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: is is you said your philosophy on intellectual property talked
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: to lots of CEOs or like we fight to guard
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: our IP, and you had a very different approach. What's
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: what's your view of IP?
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: Patterns of the week patents for those who innovate slowly.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: I literally do not know anyone else in business who
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: would say something like that, like like it was a
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: startling and and and what Elon said down there is
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: he said, look this stuff, I assume everyone will steal everything,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: but by the time they steal it will be five
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: generations beyond and it won't matter.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, at Tesla, we actually open sourced law of patents.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: So we said our patents are anyone can use it
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: for free. Really yeah, uh, the only we only do
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: patents at Tesla to avoid patent trolls causing causing trouble.
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: So we'll try to look ahead and say, okay, patent
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: trolls are going to trial patent file patterns to blocks
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: and things, will file patents and then open source to
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: make it free. I mean, I'm gonna say patents for
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: the week. Now. There are a few cases, in say
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: with pharmaceuticals, where it might cost you a billion dollars
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: to do a phase three human file, but then subsequently
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: the drug is very cheap to manufacture. So cases there
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: are some, in my opinion, which would massively reduce what
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: can be patented. And and say, because the whole point
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: of patenting is to maximize innovation, not inhibit it. And
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: in my opinion, maybe a controversial opinion. Most patents inhibit innovation,
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: they do not help it. But there are case I
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: want to do one a single cases like we're such
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: as a phase three clinical trial that might cost a
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: billion dollars, but then the drugs thereafter cost a few
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: dollars to manufacture, and if you can then immediately copy
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: those drugs for a few dollars, no one will pay
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: for the billion dollars. Write problem. Free writer problem, yeah, exactly,
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: So you have to address the free writer problem. But
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: other than that, there should be no patents. The ideas
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: are easy.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: You want ideas to flow maximum to people, to get
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: there faster and do things bigger.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: The idea is the easy part. The herd execution is
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: the hard part. As the old saying goes, it's one
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: percent inspiration, if not less than one percent, and nineteen
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: nine percent perspiration.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: But I'll say the perspiration part you're really damn good at.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Also because you're making. You know, the companies you're building
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: are actually building stuff. They're building cars, they're building spaceships,
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: they're building things that if they don't work, it's a
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: real problem. And the precision you manufacture things with, how
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: do you get that level of precision? How do you
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: get how do you build a culture? You're not You're
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: amazing at thinking outside the box. But what's interesting is
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: your you may even be better at execution, which is
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: how do you execute so effectively?
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: Well? I take as express principles approach to everything. It's
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: not as though I wanted to in source manufacturing. It's
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: just that I was unable to outsource it effectively. So uh.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: You know, the idea of the beginning of Tesla was
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: that we would outsource almost all the manufacturing. But then
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: it turned out there was no there were no good
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: companies to outsourced manufacturing too, which there wasn't a really really,
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: it wasn't peaceable outsourced manufacturing actually is the exception of
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: the rule. And uh. And just over time, we had
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: to in source almost everything for Tesla, and same for SpaceX.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: It became very good at manufacturing because I had to
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: was no choice. At this point. I might know more
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: about manufacturing than any any human ever has, because I've
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: done so many I've manufactured so many different things and
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: so many different arenas. I think probably more than anyone
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: ever has.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: Look, that's that sounds like an astonishing statement, but it's
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: not a crazy statement, and you're somehow running Tesla and
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: running SpaceX and running X and running the boring company
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: and running Dourlink and doing doge. How much do you
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: sleep in a given night?
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: About six hours and average.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: So about six So that's it wouldn't have shocked me
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: if you said three or four.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: So the Crenet question is how many hours do you
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: work a day?
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: I work almost every working.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: Hour, and Ben, he's not kidding at that.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Like when Elan and I were first getting to know
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: each other, I suggested, I said, hey, let's grab dinner sometime.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: And I don't know if you remember what you said.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: You said, I don't eat dinner.
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: I don't have social dinners really.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Right, I mean that, yeah, I mean you obviously eat food,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: but yeah, idea going to a restaurant for two hours.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: But the idea like, I don't, But it was it
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: was just kind of matter of fact. Why would I
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: go to dinner like you'd jump you work?
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I literally just thought I'll have lunch, and then
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: it brought during meetings and continue being.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: How many nights have you slept at your offices?
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: You think your career percentage.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Wise where you say, I just got to take this
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: nap basically because my body forces me to, and I
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: got to get back to work fast and efficiently without
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: going somewhere else.
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: Well, I guess it started out. Even with the first
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: company H two, which is a terrible name, but the
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: first internet company. We were able to rent an office,
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: which was like in a leaky attack essentially for five
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: hundred dollars a month, and the cheapest apartment we could
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: find was eight hundred dollars a month. So like and
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: we only had about five thousand dollars between our brother
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: and I. Oh, so like we're not We'll just stay
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: in the office. Yeah, So we got some couches that
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: converted into beds and we'd can't sleep at night, and
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: then we just have like turn the beds back into
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: couches before anyone came, and then we would shout the
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: YMCA down the road and so that went that. That
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: literally was for several months. What we did, it was
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: in great shape, you know, work out the way. I
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: still remember that that ymcau Page Miller al Camino in
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: Palo Alto. So that was a long time. Again, so
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: it's been I don't know, I've never thought to count it,
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: but several hundred days maybe I don't know.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: So you're now the richest man on earth. Do you
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: still sleep in the office?
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Well, that's true.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe Mars, we'll find someone else, but I think if.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: Someone is a sovereign head of a country, there to
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: facto richer by a lot.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: Do you still sleep at the office now?
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: I have sometimes left at the office.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with center
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to down
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: with my podcast and you can listen to my podcast
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and we will see you back here tomorrow morning.