马斯克接受本·夏皮罗专访（完整版）

0:00Are we live or? I don't know, I assume we are. We're rolling. We're rolling. Okay. You guys are good. This is how normal we are. Yeah. You're just going to the front. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. So, okay. Let's go see the chairs. You too. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely country of Poland. Yeah, exactly.

0:18Didn't expect to meet a nice girl like you here. Here we are. We're in Poland. They just brought us together. Exactly. So, I want to ask you about what feels like a giant war on the meritocracy on achievement. You're the richest person in the world. You've started three of the biggest companies in history.

0:32Non-sovereign, not counting sovereign. No, I can't not. And who would? And who would? It's a sound, not a sugar-pooten from, you know, I'm the buddy. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm a starter-war-ish. Exactly, exactly. If you were assassinations, I'd love this as well. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

0:47So, 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.

1:15Now what do you make of that? Where's that coming from? Well, I mean, I think some of this is really just communism rebranded, just with different marketing. Fundamental to the free market or capitalism is meritocracy. It made the best product or service win, and the best product or service will be made by the team that works the hardest, as the most talented,

1:41and that is what results in great products and services in a capitalist economy. me. And, you know, I always blows my mind when I discover that, you know, kids coming out of college in America who have had things very easy take communism actually seriously. It blows my mind. I thought it was a joke. If I was on X, FK, Twitter, I was joking, but

2:09the ridiculousness of taking that seriously anymore. And then a whole bunch of people attacked me, like of course it's serious. I'm like what? You guys crazy just dust off your copy of dust, copper to all of you. What are you kidding me? I'm like how many times does that experiment bring run with terrible consequences?

2:28And you know generally for any given political philosophy, you have to say which side has to build the world to keep people in. That's the bad side. It's not subtle. It wasn't West Berlin that built the wall. Wait, you see this giant sort of myth making project that's taken place where, you know, if you are successful, they now have to rewrite history about you.

2:55So you've gotten the, you were apparently an emerald scion, you were brought uber wealthy. We were just one. We were just one. 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 like worth of pittance.

3:11And I've never been seen this mine. It's some random story that my dad made up, basically. My dad, who has many talents, I want to be clear, he's an extremely talented electrical and mechanical engineer, and a very talented artist. I mean, he could draw everything from like in the style of rambrons to watercolors to sketches, anything.

3:38you could sketch this room and then say do a caricature of anyone and he'll do a capture that matches their personality. It 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. Fast don't we all. And he actually went bankrupt in the 90s. So my brother and I

3:59have been supporting it financially for the last 25 years and we've inherited nothing from him, you know, so there's no anything. I arrived 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 a backpack full of books.

4:22That was 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 in air? I mean, I get some of the same thing on mine or level, right? I brought the live. So I gave it air. Right. To air is human they say.

4:40But they air on the air. But there is something that's weird happening out there. You 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 at the left. And he was suggesting, for example, that we need to have outlaw automated driving.

5:02He's going to put truckers out of work. Because if we don't automatically out love the new technologies, this kind of blood atism, then people are going to 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.

5:14What 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. So the whole AI discussion is a question in and of itself. I do think in a positive AI future that there will be no shortage of goods and services.

5:39So it won't be universal basic income, it'll be universal high income. Now that all sounds good, but in terms of the book, Man Search for Meaning, well, to to the degree that you're defined by your career, you may have trouble finding meaning in life. So that's more the challenge that, you know,

6:04if one is to have an existential crisis, it's like, well, how can I do anything useful if the computer can do everything better than me? That will really be the challenge. Now maybe that'll be fine. Maybe you just play, you know, watch it in credit or movies, play video games and do water sports and computer just does everything else.

6:23But I guess that's the blind scenario. Have you read in banks? No. Highly recommend in banks the culture books. It's probably the best semi utopian future of AI, where the computers are far smarter than humans, but they take care of the humans. Like they care about the humans being happy.

6:46So 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 too do you personally. You've been very productive. And I have for kids. We're both ahead of this. But that would be presumably. You're my fifth.

7:05I'll talk to my wife. That would be one of the places to presume that 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. We're seeing the science of acumen as well.

7:19there is you kids and religious people have many, many kids, right? The atheist are bringing themselves out. I talked to Richard Dawkins, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote the selfish gene, mind-watchmaker and whatnot, and coined the term me, my belief. And I said, well, you know, so how many kids do you have, Richard?

7:41Oh, one. OK. So you're going to have one kid, great. Yes, the birth rate tends to correlate with the degree to which someone is religious, the degree to which they have the least amount of education, and basically the poorer someone is, the less educated someone is, and the more religious they are, the more kids they will have.

8:06So those are objective correlates. So I'm going to 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 a higher power or inner religious belief of some sort because you can be rich

8:20and I mean, I'm doing pretty well with that four days. You can't be like a nihilist or something. Right, exactly. Like, nihilism doesn't tend toward anything. And I know that you've thought a lot about that sort of stuff and how do you get out of that sort of the nihilist box and find what to do?

8:36Well, my religion for lack of a better word 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 Mars, ultimately

9:05populate the whole solar system and then go beyond our solar system to other star systems. And therefore, we need more humans. First of all. So I mean, that's an amazingly different goal than what we've had for the past. Yeah, I propose this as a new philosophy. Yeah. Well, not new, but maybe niche, but hopefully getting a bit bigger.

9:30So 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 to answer the questions that we have, and perhaps more importantly, to know what

9:53questions we are not asking. As Douglas Adams would say in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the answer is the easy the hard part, answers 42, what's the question? So I think that's a pretty optimistic, positive philosophy. Also has a lot of room for other beliefs, if you want to add them to the fundamental tenets of my belief structure are expand the scale of consciousness.

10:23I mean, more people, I guess more computers to the degree that they are conscious. And we want to pass through one of the great filters that, you know, you've fully with the Fermi Paradox and the great filter. No. Okay, so Enrico Fermi, great, amazing physicist, posed a very simple question.

10:51He said, we're the aliens because we've seen no sign of them. Now, a lot of people think they've seen signs of aliens. I have seen no evidence whatsoever of aliens. So that's a troubling question. Why not? So one of the answers, perhaps the most likely answer, is that we're at the tiny candle of consciousness

11:15that constitutes humanity is all that there is. in this vast doctors. And I think we should assume that that is the case until we actually have evidence to the contrary. And moreover, human consciousness only arose after 4 and 1 half billion years. It took a long time. And if it had taken even 10% longer, it probably would not have evolved because the sun is expanding.

11:45As the sun expands, it'll start heating Earth. and Earth will, the oceans will evaporate, will 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're able for the first time to go beyond Earth,

12:16to send people, we said people to the moon in the early 70s, but not, essence, not gone back. But with the Starship rocket that SpaceX is developing, we had two test flights, we'll have many more this year, that that vehicle is designed to make life multi-planetary. It's the first vehicle that I just gave

12:37them during that, a permanent base on the moon and I said, yeah, Mars. So I think we Everyone want to get that done as soon as possible. The window of opportunity to make life multi-planetary and secure the future of consciousness may be open for a long time or may be open for a short time.

12:59I think it will be wise to, not assume that it will be open for a long time. So, when we act now, to act now to make life multi-planetary. And one of the things that's fascinating about your saying is that it assumes an innate level of belief and love for human beings. Yes. I love humanity.

13:18So why? I mean, it's a weird question, but I mean, really kind of why. I mean, we're not that great. We have amazing, particularly. 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 qualities that theoretically could be duplicated by AI in the very near future?

13:38What makes human beings unique and worthwhile? I'll tell you something. I think that maybe resonates. I think actually everyone loves humanity. Now, they may not love everyone in humanity. But you say, how many people want to be in solitary confinement? OK. How many people want to live alone in a forest by themselves?

14:02Almost no human beings want to do that. So actually, in reality, all humans love humanity and want to be part of humanity, with the rare exception of someone who's got severe psychological issues. So that's why solitary confinement is considered a terrible punishment in prison. Because even though other prisoners are probably not the finest examples of humans, you still

14:30want to hang out with them. So I think it's a natural thing. You know, as long as kids aren't taught to hate other people, I think the natural inclination is to love humanity. So I'm going to go back to some of the business conversation that I want to go back to the SpaceX of it.

14:52When 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. It basically used to be that people like you could succeed, but now it's totally finished

15:10and now you can't get ahead. America, the biggest change in that regard is for even more. There are new companies being formed all the time in the US. Well, what do you see as the obstacles to companies being successful increasingly in the West if there are obstacles to that? Well, I think excess regulation, you know, taxes do

15:34rash out every year, making a little difficult, a little harder every year as taxes rash out. But 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.

15:55And so you have this, so every year you've got this sort of another layer of laws and regulations. I saw this getting to the point where everything's legal. You can't get anything done. Now, they say, well, how do they deal with it in the past? Well, the way they dealt with it in the past would there be a war.

16:13And the war would wash away the old rules and regulations. That's, we literally would take a war to change things. like Napoleon establishing the Napoleonic Code that overrode the old law systems, the loads in peasants, and for all that the bad that Napoleon did, I think he did more good, actually.

16:43So the evidence is in that, I think, maybe a third or half of all countries on Earth still run on the Napoleonic Code. So, and I would prefer to have some clean up process for laws and regulations that doesn't require a wall, that would be nice. I think that's something we need to institute, like basically garbage collection for laws

17:07and regulations. And one of the things that has been suggested, 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 talk about Savarnell, if earlier you're not king of something, but you are the head of your companies.

17:25And so in the future, people will just be able to move money around, locate 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.

17:36You'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 17th century France, where you're going to go exactly, is now a very real set of possibilities for a lot of entrepreneurs.

17:51Yeah. Well, and regulation in the US, various 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 given all those things, do you think that there's going to be a backlash to regulation in America?

18:11Or 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 to. I mean, it's here for the things.

18:28There's regulation, it's where she intended to serve the public good. You know, rules against one thing or another. Like the car industry gets, you know, has lots of rules in how to make a car. I mean, there'll be like piles of books in this room to cover just the US regulations, what is required to build a car.

18:53Those are, at least ostensibly, they're aimed for safety. But in terms of other regulations, yeah, I think generally we wanna be averse to any regulation that is anti-meritocratic. The point of fighting racism, sexism, and whatnot was not to replace it with another form of racism and sexism,

19:22but to get rid of racism and get rid of sexism, not to change it to another form. DEI is fundamentally racist and sexist. So I want to get back to the space conversation. 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.

19:44So when we talk about getting to Mars, how realistic do you think that is? There's a book that just came out, reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, talking about all of the various obstacles to human beings actually living on Mars. Like we live in a pretty propitious place. I mean, the world is a pretty wonderful planet.

20:01And so, yeah, exactly. So what are the biggest obstacles? And what do you think 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 may be a little longer than five years. I'd be surprised if we don't have humans on Mars within ten years.

20:28Wow. Yeah. And then we're going to aim to have a lot of humans and build a city on Mars in a base on the moon. And how do we mobilize that many resources there that quickly? That's a lot of resources necessary. It's not like you can draw from the environment. A lot of resources.

20:44And I should say that in order to pass the familiar grateful to being a multi-pants species, the second planet has to be self-sustaining. So as it is being that if the resupply ships stop from Earth, stop coming for any reason whatsoever, could be mundane or serious, will Mars die out or not?

21:10So Mars has to be completely self-sufficient in order to pass the familiar gratefuls. That particular gratefuls I'm talking about is if something clams has happened to one planet is humanity gone or not. And how long will it take for that to be self-sustaining? When you say in 10 years people will be on Mars?

21:32like 40, 40 years 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, I mean really. It's an amazing thing. I guess I say it's often I can't do that.

21:47I mean, you say this stuff because it's you all the time. 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. Yeah, it's like two hours. And 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 to both sides.

22:05One, 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 follow up to the shuttle, to the Saturn V was the space shuttle.

22:30Space shuttle could only go to the low Earth orbit. But the aspiration was to make it reusable. But the, unfortunately, did not succeed in that goal. The space shuttle was so difficult to refurb that it ended up costing as much as the Saturn V. And then the main, the primary structure of the space shuttle orbit is in some big orange tank.

22:55It's actually the primary airframe because it takes the load from the orbiter, the airplane-looking thing, and the side boosters. So you lose that every time. The side boosters landing the ocean and they're solid rocket boosters so that they have to get your back to the factory to get solid propellant loaded in.

23:16It got a long story short. The cost per flight of the shuttle ended up being roughly the same as a Saturn V expandable. So, but the shuttle had about a quarter of the payload to orbit and could not reach the moon. So, you know, so noble ideas at the start, but ultimately it was not a good design.

23:40So, and then the shuttle retired obviously and then we had nothing. That's not a good curve, going from the moon to low 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 trend and get us back on to

24:07doing exciting things in space again. Things that make people excited to get up in the morning and say yes, the humanity is going to do some amazing thing in space. And one of the things that's so impressive about SpaceX is not just the aspiration, but the fact that it's a successful business and that you realize very early on, that it's

24:26not enough to have the aspiration. I mean, it was a government, 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

24:39do something like that, to project. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, at the start of SpaceX, I gave us less than 10% chance of success. I thought we'd probably die. But I think if something is important enough, it's worth doing, even if you think it's going to fail. And we almost did fail.

24:55The first three launches, Vassmall 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, I'm not going to worry. SpaceX is quite prosperous. SpaceX did about 80% of all payload to over the last year of Earth.

25:17about 12% and the rest of world at 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 around three, four, hundred tons to orbit.

25:38SpaceX ultimately will be doing several hundred thousand tons to orbit, maybe a million tons to orbit. It's amazing. what you mentioned there, that is 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 that was true in Tesla also, that it was a real skin of the teeth thing. Yeah. And so maybe you

25:56can talk a little bit about what does that feel like? I mean as a CEO, yeah, you must do you enjoy the risk? Do you enjoy that stressful? Well, I don't see grisps for risks, say. Tesla had many close calls with death. The natural state of a car company, America, is dead. I mean, the only two car companies that have not gone bankrupt are Ford and Tesla.

26:21GM and Chrysler were in bankrupt until 2009. There have been hundreds of car bankruptcies before. So it's one of those things where, like I said, 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 you're unique to the companies you pick, that you're pulling rabbits out of hats?

26:44Is it that every company is pulling rabbits out of hats? Pull so many rabbits out of hats, like an ark or rabbit. It's funny to be there. I mean, I'm good at solving technology problems. So and rockets and cars, both technology problems, a very strong team. They work with me. And yeah, so far so good.

27:06Now onto X, which is its own set of issues and difficulties. You come in, and for many of us, it was like you're coming into 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.

27:24And you came in and you said, we're going to open this place up, and you definitely did. And the blowback has been absolutely wild. I mean, really tremendous. And pretty clearly coincident with the amount of mainstream media hatred of you. You went from being Golden Boy, Time Magazine, Newsweek,

27:43we all love you, everyone loves you. Where's that one go? SNL, right, like 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 like a small section of the sort of elite media that hate me. But if I go down the street, people are really super friendly.

28:03So I think the average citizen is a fan, or suddenly doesn't hate me. I mean, I am the most involved account, 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 have the most interacted with social media accounts on Earth.

28:31Recently passed 169 million followers. So can 169 million people be wrong? I know we'll find out in the next election cycle. But 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.

28:56Yeah, exactly. It was actually amazing to me how much the legacy media walks in lockstep. There's nobody breaks ranks. And now we have x that breaks ranks, and it doesn't just go with whatever the approved narrative is. I think for many in the public, they don't quite realize just how much the deception is really going on with the media.

29:29The biggest deception is the choice of narrative, because they can write a story about this, or write a story about that. And 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, what people pay attention to being what people actually care about, it's actually what a handful of editors care about.

29:52They're telling the people what to pay attention to. So the deception by choice of narrative is a big thing. So that's why I really want the narratives to bubble up organically from the people in the case of the ex-system, which they do. And people should be allowed to say things that are within the law.

30:16If the law isn't good enough, then great, we'll talk to your elected representative and have passed law to change that. But otherwise, we need to stick to 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 true test for free speech is that someone says something you don't like, because otherwise it's obviously not free speech.

30:42What do you think? Is the biggest thing you can do? You're going to crash me all the time on the X platform, like whatever. Yeah, and just crash me on the X platform, what's the wrong one? So what do you think is the biggest untold narrative, the thing that the media have been missing for years and years or suppressing for years and years?

30:58Well, there's a few things, but I've generally tried to say to increase the so-called overtune window of what can be discussed, what is it okay to discuss without being ostracized? Certainly attacking DEI would have been ostracized before and not anymore. And, you know, anything that sort of says sort of,

31:29or that the media ignores, the public can then, you know, raise it on the X platform and make that an actual topic of discussion. So, I mean, you probably think of it, can think of a few reasons, or a few reasons. Oh, I mean, obviously one of the big ones when you were first buying X was the unwillingness to say that men exist and women exist as actual biological categories.

31:55Oh, yeah. And that one came up a lot. You could get suspended for that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You couldn't even debate the subject without getting suspended. That was a huge one. There are a bunch of no-no's that you just weren't allowed to do. And I think that a lot of people are grateful for the broadening of the overton window.

32:13That 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 over-10 window where you say like it's my platform, I just don't want this on the platform. How do you

32:34decide that? I mean to a certain extent it is a cotty under a tree basically saying I just, you know, this is too much for me, I know when I see it kind of definition. But we're trying to be as objective as possible. Is something breaking the law or most likely likely breaking the, we don't get judged the same for sure, but this was being said, seemed

32:56to be illegal. Like someone saying they're going to murder somebody, I think, threats of murder are illegal, for sure. And, you know, so that would result in a suspension. And

33:13Then there's a separate thing which is something either sort of potentially pornographic or not safe for advertisers. Meaning the topic is too contentious to expect that advertisers will advertise with that account. You take like Dom Deluca as an example recently where he says some pretty edgy stuff.

33:42And that's OK, but just as he has the right to say edgy stuff, some of which is untrue and he gets community known at all the time. But advertisers also have the right to not advertise on Don Deluca's posts. So it's like his freedom to say we want, but he can't coerce advertisers to advertise.

34:12So when you look at the future of X, you've talked about X being kind of an everything company. What does that actually look like? I just mean, all the things that you would want to use online. In China has WeChat, which is, you kind of live on your WeChat in China. So you buy things on WeChat, you post,

34:35you know, if text, audio, video to various feeds. Yeah, payments, it's sort of like everything. So I want to try to have an app that at least allows you to do everything on X. You don't have to, but if you want to, you can. So I mean, all these... Well, I think what PayPal should have been basically.

35:01So you have three massive and growing companies. How do you balance all that? I mean, you also have a ton of kids. I mean, you make me look like I'm childless and by the number of children that you have, how do you balance all of those life demands? Well, my older boys are in college and high school, so they're, you know, they don't want

35:22much of my time because they're like, you know, 17, 19. Yeah, sorry, a three and a half year old and you're carrying them around. Yeah, he loves hanging with me. So I bring X round, yeah, I try to spend as much time as possible, I guess. So what is the day in the life like? Is it just different every single day?

35:40It's different for every single day. Yeah. I mean, I do a lot of engineering meetings and design meetings. So when I head to Tesla, Palo Alto later tomorrow, I'll be going through engineering design reviews of optimists and your vehicle programs of our Tesla AI for self-driving, Wednesday will be a bunch of product meetings

36:11on software, the X platform, so improving audio visual calling. So you can not just DM, but you can actually do call voice and video calls. And then also do group voice and video calls. Obviously, we want to introduce payments later this year when we get the approvals. Is it the engineering part of it that excites you the most?

36:39Which part of these things? I'm a product guy, so I developed technology products. That's what I do. So you're known as you can be a demanding boss, so the rumor goes. So I mean, I have expectations. Yeah, that's how I mean. So what do you think being a good boss should look like to people?

37:02How 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, you're like about 300. X is around 1,300. So that's a lot of employees. So how do you think a boss ought to interact with employees? I mean, because obviously there's a balance between it's sort of Tommy LaSorta, the manager

37:31of the Dodgers, and 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, but not so tightly you squish it. So what do you think is the optimum employee management strategies for the budding entrepreneur out there?

37:45I don't know. I just leave with my team and we go around the table and talk about what everyone got done this past week and what they're planning to do next week, and then try to make some decisions about product design and direction or solve some particular technology problem. They're quite collegial, my meetings.

38:05They're not, you know, it's not me talking. I talk the least of the meetings. We're talking about information and limiting information flow, and obviously you and I I was just at Auschwitz today, which is a heavy experience. And one of the things that we were learning about and talking

38:23about was how limited flow of information allows for atrocities to happen. What was your takeaway? Exactly. Essentially, yeah, when the Germans came in, the first thing they did was shut down all the press. So everything was heavily censored. So you can say anything unless it was pre-rept by the government.

38:45So 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 price immediately. So in a way, I think we should do everything we can to preserve free speech.

39:12And when we lose free speech, I think we lose democracy. One of the other things we were talking about earlier to touch back on it was the DEI of it. And one of the things that 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.

39:32And 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 that conspiracy theory matches very, aligned very closely with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. I think the idea is very extremely anti-Semitic.

39:48That's cool. So yeah, absolutely. And it's just generally anti-minute meritocratic, which I think is very dangerous. You want to have 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.

40:16Just are you good at your job? Do you work hard? Do you have high integrity? Nothing more. That's it. Stop there. And it seems as though, in our society right now, there's an objection to that. But that objection, it seems to me, 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.

40:39Yeah, it's patronizing, frankly. Yeah, I mean, 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, they deserve more.

40:54And one of the things 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. I think DEI also, for those who were promoted based on their skills in merit and hard work, It undermines the credibility of their promotion or their status.

41:14Was it real or was it the EI? You know, and it takes away 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 other sort of system that you create is going to have negative externalities because you're literally just cronying with X group and whatever that group is, that group is going

41:36to 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.

41:51But that level of personal wealth is largely stock holding. And that stock is encompassing. Yes, it was entirely stock. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's like you're sitting on a giant wad of cash somewhere. I mean, you are, but not like dad. Yeah. It's just when I created the companies, I felt that it was important.

42:04Now, in my first company, I didn't have any money for my first internet company. I just had a hundred thousand dollars in student debt. But for those companies, it was the very early days that internet calls up to. But for old companies subsequently, I basically doubled down. I took the money from Zip2, invested it in X.com PayPal, and then took the PayPal money,

42:29invested that in creating Tesla and SpaceX. Because I didn't feel right that I should ask investors to invest if I was not prepared to invest my own money. I think the whole other people's money thing is not right. You wanna have skin in the game and put your capital where the capital of the company you're creating there with investors capital.

42:55And as a result of that, I own a lot of shares in the company. And the better the company does, the more valuable the shares are. But that's because the pie has grown. And so you have to say, what's at the root of a lot of the negativity is an axiomatic flaw that the pie is static, that it's a zero sum game.

43:20That if someone else succeeds, it's because they took more than their fair share of this fixed pie. but it's not a fixed buy. Obviously, the, there's a lot of, now I want some pie. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. Pie. But obviously the economic pie has grown considerably from what it was in the past.

43:48The output of goods and services, the productivity per person dramatically greater than it has been in the past. So when you create a new company and you will create new products and services, you're growing the bundle, as they say, Pi again, of you're growing the amount of goods and services available to people.

44:16So 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 wouldn't use to have an iPhone, we wouldn't use to have computers, we wouldn't use to have cars or be able to fly in airplanes.

44:35We wouldn't use to have many of the life-saving medicines that we have today, these are all new things. The pie is going 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 the political class.

44:48the 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.

45:03And 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 in your way 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 us, maybe so that we can then move on to the next problem that's in front of them.

45:24Yeah. Basically, the reality 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 a monopoly. And also, it can't go bankrupt unless the country goes

45:45bankrupt and has monopoly on violence. So how much more do you want to give to the world's biggest corporation that has monopoly on violence? Probably not, probably less. And I mean, if you look at countries like East and West Germany or North and South Korea, cases where there's just an arbitrary line that's been drawn, that could use the one country, arbitrary line is drawn because of a war.

46:15What is the productivity difference for one to the other? West Germany had a productivity five times greater than the East Germany. And it's not like West Germany was just the sort of bastion of capitalism. They're like half socialist. So even with, so what that means, if they have socialist and the other side is 100% socialist or communist, then you really have something like a 10 to 1 difference in productivity if something is done by the government or done by the private sector.

46:49That's why you, but I'm not someone who says abolish the government. I just say let's have the government do the least amount because the less the government does, the more the economy will prosper because anything done by the government, it's going to be five to 10 times less efficient.

47:04Like think of the DMV. I'm trying not to. Yes. If we're going to get out of DEI, what's the best way to get out of DEI? Well, I think DEI is starting to fade. First of all, DEI is actually illegal because it discriminates in the base of race, sex, sexual preference, and all those other things.

47:32That is actually illegal. So somehow, they 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, sexual identity, and race. So I think DI is on its last legs.

48:00It's going to be a root because it's illegal, actually. literally. So I know running out of time. So I wanted to I do want to ask you, you know, you've had such a fascinating light, but what is the if there was an experience that defined you like the the encapsulating experience that defined you as a person? What would what do you think that is? I don't know if there's one single experience that defined me. And philosophically I read a lot of books

48:26in philosophy, a lot of religious books, and I did have an existential crisis when I was about 12. And then Red hijack is the galaxy, which is really a book in philosophy that just guides this humor. And that gave me a new philosophy, which is to try to understand the meaning of life.

48:51And then if you take axiomatically that you want to understand the meaning of life, the nature of the universe, then in order to do that, you have to expand the scope. the scope and scale of consciousness, and get out there and explore the galaxy, and then you can better understand the meaning of life.

49:14It's funny that you and Thomas Aquinas and my monadies all come to this end 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.

49:29And you're getting there in sort of a backwards way, even if you don't know what I'm getting to, the divine per se. Right, I'm not just agreeing with those who believe in God. I'm saying that even if you do believe in God, let us go out there and explore God's wondrous creation.