马斯克谈生命、宇宙及一切：访谈第2部分

0:04So this is like we're getting like some serious drama here. So

0:11On a parallel thread, I'd like to meet someone and they say like if you come through Germany you stop by and I said

0:20Okay, all my way to India

0:22I'm gonna stop by Daimler headquarters and talk to them

0:26And see if there's any kind of partnership that could be had this is

0:30I forget the exact

0:32It's it's right before I gave the the IAC tokens. So that like it would be a

0:36that's how I want to place it.

0:41And I met with their engineering team and I said,

0:46like, is there anything you guys, like what do you guys want?

0:49Like, is there, you know, I'm trouble a cool here, you know,

0:51even though, like, we definitely need some kind of partnership

0:54where we're screwed.

0:56And they said, well, they're thinking about an electric smart

1:00car.

1:01So, like, okay, if we were to do something, you know,

1:04You know, when, like, when would you want to see it?

1:07And I said, well, we've got like a delegation of downlink

1:10executives coming through in January, January of 2009.

1:16And I think this was October or something like that.

1:21And I talked to JB, like Drew and Scott and Vanit

1:29and a bunch of others.

1:30It's like, guys, we need to get a smart car.

1:35And we need to stuff a rose to powertrain into it

1:39and make it custom battery.

1:40And it needs to work.

1:42By the time the Daimler team comes here in January.

1:47Oh my.

1:48We can interview JB about it.

1:50Maybe he would add some additional color.

1:53So the problem was that there were no smart cars

1:56We're not being sold in the US, but they were being sold in Mexico.

2:00So we sent someone to Mexico to just buy a smart car and drive across the border.

2:06So we just, so we, so we, this is a gasoline and smart car.

2:09So just with Mexican plates.

2:11So we went and bought a smart car in Mexico, drove across the border and, and then literally

2:19put a roster drive unit and modified battery pack in, in the smart car and had it working.

2:26by January when the diamond delegation came by.

2:30And I remember that being in that diamond meeting,

2:33and man, they were just, they're like,

2:35it's clearly that they're quite grumpy

2:37that they even have to meet with us.

2:39They did not know we had this electric smart guard.

2:41So they're grumpy that they had to meet with us,

2:43and we're clearly trying to get out of the room

2:45as quickly as possible.

2:47And when we started off, made the mistake

2:49of starting off with PowerPoint,

2:50and that which immediately made them even grumpier,

2:53because everything works in PowerPoint,

2:54and they were seeing way too many PowerPoint slides.

2:57And they were literally getting ready to walk out

3:01from the PowerPoint presentation.

3:02I said, what would you like to drive the car?

3:04They're like, what do you mean?

3:06It's like, well, we have an electric smart car.

3:08See, we're going to drive it.

3:09You don't have an electric smart car.

3:11That's impossible.

3:14Yeah, it's in the parking lot.

3:15You're going to drive it.

3:16Actually, it was a smart car.

3:18It was fucking sick.

3:20This thing had a roast of powertrain in a smart car.

3:23the part of weight ratio this thing was bananas.

3:25It was like you could pull wheelies in a smart car.

3:27Literally if you stepped on it.

3:29Yeah, you could lift the front wheels up the van.

3:35Yeah, it was most of a token of four wheel vehicles.

3:37It was insane.

3:38You could burn rubber in a smart car.

3:40It looked bizarre.

3:42Like you've just never seen a thing reflect that.

3:45I thought I might actually drive a smart car if I was like that.

3:47Yeah, it was awesome.

3:48Anyway, so we blew their minds.

3:53They're like, what?

3:54How is this?

3:55This is like, what impossible black magic can you figure it out to have an electric smart

4:00car?

4:01It's like, well, we got one from Mexico three months ago and we put a roster prop train in

4:04it and modified battery pack.

4:05And you can still use the car.

4:07The interior of the car was so full of usable.

4:09So we didn't intrude on the interior space.

4:13And we're like, yeah, we can.

4:14And they're like, okay, well, this is pretty impressive.

4:16They never seen anything like this before.

4:19So they're like, okay, well they'll consider, they will do some smart car limited production.

4:27Like part of this is because they had to make the regulators happy.

4:29So this was not like, they needed like some sustainable energy cars to make the regulators

4:34happy.

4:35That was the reason for this electric smart car.

4:37The fleet miles away.

4:39It was not a grand vision by down let's go electric.

4:43was to get these annoying regulators without back.

4:47So for the credits, right?

4:50There was like compliance.

4:51Compliance vehicles.

4:53So there was like a minimum number of electric vehicles

4:55the HAT team made.

4:56They could also make fuel cell vehicles,

4:57but that was way more expensive.

4:59So from this standpoint, at the time,

5:02it was really more like, watch the least amount of money

5:05we can spend and get the regulators

5:06without the regulator of monkey over back.

5:08So, like so, so, anyway, so that, so we end up making a bunch of electric smart cars

5:18for Perdaimler.

5:21And then over time we actually extended that into like an electric AB class, but there

5:30were always just really compliance vehicles that did not want to make, Daimler was not

5:34willing to place at that time a big bet on electric vehicles. And so the volume and the

5:41price were always like the volume is too low, the price is too high, these are going to be

5:44niche vehicles no matter what. But anyway, so what it did lead to, which was really essential,

5:52was Tesla getting saved by Daimler investing $50 million. So the $40 million invested in

5:59December of 2008, just gave us six months of runway.

6:03So that basically gave us until June of 2009.

6:09And again, during this period, General Motors

6:12has bankrupt, Chrysler has bankrupt.

6:15So not a lot of people are interested in investing

6:18in a startup car company, let alone an electric car company.

6:20And remember, this is back when Electric San- it

6:22was synonymous with dump.

6:24You could just say, instead of using electric car company,

6:28could just substitute dumb.

6:30Do you want to invest in a dumb car company?

6:32That's what it sounded like to most people.

6:40So at the time, I think like Daimler

6:46vaguely thought that the Volkswagen group might invest

6:49in Tesla, and they didn't want that.

6:52So they essentially to block VW from investing in Tesla,

6:59which by the way, VW was not going to invest in Tesla.

7:01I talked to their person and they

7:04expressed some initial interest,

7:05but then they went darker me.

7:06So actually, the only one, the only investor that was interested

7:12in Tesla at all was Daimler.

7:14And that was because of the electric small program.

7:17So they invested $50 million into Tesla

7:22at roughly a $500 million valuation.

7:25So it worked out.

7:26Yeah, 10% right.

7:28Yeah, it did.

7:28You got 10% on the company.

7:30I mean, we're really in the weeds here.

7:33So hopefully this is interesting to some people.

7:36But this is definitely some deep lower war story stuff.

7:43So in 2009, we're also just figuring out how to actually get the roads into volume production.

7:49So we were not able to reach volume production, even for the Fireroids, their standards in

7:532008.

7:54And we still had a bunch of things in the car that were brought.

7:59I think we managed to deliver like maybe 20 or 25 cars in 2008, most of which were in

8:06December.

8:08And then we had to bring all of those cars back to have the drive trains replaced.

8:16And I think most of them got their battery pack replaced too.

8:18So I mean it was just a fumbling mess basically.

8:24It was insane.

8:25But in 2009, it's when we actually figured out how to make the car half decent, half decent

8:33roads for one where you could give it to someone and it wouldn't just like break down

8:36immediately.

8:38And like a roughly summer of 2009 is when the car wasn't complete these are trash.

8:48That just didn't work.

8:49And then we did a roadster 1.5 and then Franz joined and Franz helped redesign the roads

9:00and make it better with the Roadster II.

9:04Then buying basically late 2009, early 2010,

9:10was where the Roadster was decent as a toy.

9:17Not as transport you could count on, but as a toy.

9:21It became decent run under 2009, early 2010.

9:28Anyway, so that diamond investment in May 2009

9:33was what was essential to Tesla's survival,

9:38not a government loans.

9:40So this is another thing that is misunderstanding here.

9:45Because they got confused because GM and Chrysler and Ford,

9:53GM got a massive bailout,

9:55just like a flat out freaking donation from taxpayers.

9:57like tens of billions of dollars. So GM got like, yeah, 30 billion dollar handout basically

10:06with no repayment.

10:08Last I checked, there's over 14 billion, that's unpaid.

10:11Okay so maybe it's-

10:12Yeah, it's on a real amount though.

10:13Okay, it's 14, it has not been repaid and never will be, I suspect. So I think the crisis

10:21got a bunch of money and then Ford got like a five billion dollar loan. But Ford is in

10:28better financial shape because I don't know for whatever reason. I think that Ford family

10:33has more long-term thinking than the people that were running GM and Chrysler. So they

10:39were in a better financial position. But it remains the case today that the only company

10:45American companies have not gone bankrupt or Tesla and Ford. Unless something changes significantly

10:55with Rovian and Lucid, they will both go bankrupt. They're tracking to bankruptcy. They may not

11:00say like that is currently like if there's an airplane, they're like they're going like that.

11:06So if something happens to go change, okay, but currently they're intersectional with doom.

11:14So, you know, I hope they are able to do something, but unless they cut their

11:20they're cost dramatically though, do trouble.

11:24And we'll end up in the cemetery like every other company

11:27with the exception of Tesla and Ford.

11:30Anyway, that diamond investment was essential to Tesla

11:33survival.

11:35Around that time in mid-2009, we got a letter, sort of a

11:41letter of interest, like a non-binding letter of interest

11:44from the DOE for a loan that I believe was around $500

11:49Now that was not alone where they just give you $500 million.

11:55That was one where you spend the money, you provide invoices.

12:00Those invoices are provided to DOE.

12:02They then refund you based on the audited expenses that you paid.

12:07It's not like the lump sum type of thing.

12:09It's retroactive after you spend it.

12:12It's a reimbursement.

12:14It's a loan reimbursement.

12:18So there's nothing, I think it's given for free.

12:21It's a low in reimbursement.

12:24So it would not be possible to use that as advanced capital

12:28to make something happen.

12:29It can only be used to reimburse expenses that have already

12:33taken place with a two to three month lag.

12:37And that letter of interest did not

12:40become an actual binding document until 2010.

12:45And the first money that Tesla received

12:48as a reimbursement from that, I think,

12:49was March or April of 2010, by which time

12:54the recession had passed.

12:56So if we had needed the money from that loan,

12:58Tesla would have gone bankrupt.

13:04The DOE loan, I think, was helpful as an accelerant,

13:08but it was not a life-or-death thing, potentially.

13:11And ultimately, the problem is that

13:16that DOE was second guessing our business plan and our execution.

13:20So we're like, well, we need to change the business plan,

13:23because if we keep going in that direction, we're going to die.

13:25So we're going to go in that direction,

13:26in the non-death direction.

13:28And then you're explaining to someone at the DOE

13:30why you're changing the plan.

13:32And then they're like, but the plan is different.

13:33You need to stay the plan.

13:34Like, well, if we stay the plan, we're going to crash.

13:36And the company will die.

13:38And that's why we want to change the plan.

13:39But that's the plan.

13:42But that's the plan.

13:45OK, this is not good.

13:51With enough effort, we could actually

13:53get the DOE to agree to change the plan.

13:55But this was taken up a lot of bandwidth

13:58to be constantly convincing people at DOE

14:02that the new plan is better than the old plan.

14:04So, after the IPO in 2010, we paid back the DOE loan.

14:19And we actually had to pay a penalty, an early repayment penalty.

14:23So we paid back the loan with interest plus a prepayment penalty.

14:26Like taxpayers made money on the loan.

14:29Very important.

14:32experts made money on the Tesla DOE loan.

14:39Whereas they're still $14 billion down on $14 billion down on GM.

14:47Another thing was pointing out is none of the incentives, the EV incentives that exist,

14:52not one of them was obtained by Tesla, not one of them.

14:57The $75,000 tax credit was General Motors.

15:02They're the one who got that.

15:03Like Tesla had no loving power in DC.

15:07I don't like the, but GM had huge loving powers.

15:09They're the ones that got the $75,000 tax credit

15:12out put in place.

15:15And Nissan, but we had basically no presence in DC.

15:19So, yeah, I mean, you'll certainly hear like,

15:26oh, Tesla and tax credit.

15:28I'm like, okay, well, currently, we don't have,

15:31the $7,500 tax credit does not apply to Tesla,

15:35but it does apply to our competitors.

15:37So anyone who has not made any company

15:39that's a cumulative production blow to $200,000 cars

15:42has a $7,500 tax credit, and Tesla does not,

15:45because we've long go exceeded the 200,000 car maximum.

15:49So, Tesla is any competitive disadvantage

15:54with respect to tax credits.

15:56that is quite significant when you're talking about, like say, a $40,000 car, and a $7,500

16:01tax credit, that's like almost a 20% difference. So big deal. So Tesla is successful currently

16:10in spite of our competitors having materially greater tax advantages than Tesla, in spite

16:19of it, not because of it. If you eliminated all EV incentives tomorrow, Tesla's competitive

16:25position would improve significantly. I'll say that again, if you eliminated all tax credits,

16:32EV tax credits, Tesla's position would improve immediately.

16:37And Tesla did the purpose of the tax credits before, right, to drive that innovation ramp.

16:40You guys just actually did it so fast that the competitors are still using it.

16:45Well, when we started Tesla, gas was under two bucks a gallon in California and there were no

16:49tax credits. So it was not from the standpoint of like, hey, this is a great opportunity.

16:55I mean, when we saw the Tesla, I should be clear, like it was an expectation of success

17:02of less than 10% and the same for SpaceX. And who in their right mind would think that

17:07a car company would have anything more than a 10% probability of success? If you've never

17:11built a car in your entire life before and there have been...

17:15I've been, yeah, there's only, exactly, there's only, at the time, you know, GM, Ford and Chrysler,

17:23and the history of car companies is like, there have been like over a thousand car company

17:28startups in the United States and they're all dead.

17:31So, and you know, with the 2008-2009 recession, GM and Chrysler also went bankrupt.

17:38So the chances of survival are extremely tiny.

17:47Only a fool would start a car company with electric car company

17:49or a car company whatsoever and think that the probability

17:52of success was high.

17:54So my initial thought for both Tesla and SpaceX

17:57was that I'd take half the money from PayPal.

18:01And I'd waste half of it on two ludicrous banjos

18:04born being a car company and a rock company.

18:06And that would be dumb and I'd just lose it all.

18:08And that would be, but I'd still have $90 million left.

18:12So whatever.

18:14But in the end, I could say the companies

18:18were like children to me.

18:19So I gave the companies all the money that I had.

18:22And then I would have had no money at all

18:24if Tesla and SpaceX had not survived.

18:26I would have owed a lot of money and been personally

18:28bankrupt if Tesla and SpaceX had not survived.

18:34That hadn't happened.

18:34We still wouldn't have electric vehicles.

18:37Yeah, I think so.

18:38It tells us, I mean, it's like, what is Tesla's fundamental value?

18:42It is to serve as an accelerant to sustainable energy.

18:46And if you say, metaphor Tesla, what would the world be like?

18:52In ways that, let's say you're looking at this

18:55from the macroeconomic God standpoint, or civilization,

19:02or the Sims or something.

19:05What's the difference here?

19:06the difference between Tesla and not Tesla is how many years is sustainable energy accelerated.

19:13That is the fundamental good of Tesla.

19:17And then there's also the autonomy thing, which is I think it will be very significant.

19:25But I'd say like in the absence of there being a fundamental technology discontinuity in

19:30the form of electrification and autonomy.

19:34Both of them together, I think a new car company cannot succeed.

19:39So now I'll tell you, actually, the real reason that people

19:42should have been shorting Tesla, and perhaps

19:44why some of them were shorting Tesla,

19:46and the real reason that new car companies cannot succeed,

19:50or why it's very hard for them to succeed.

19:54And this was first told to me by this automotive investor

19:57when I was at Axel Springer headquarters getting

19:59the Golden Stirring World Award and this guy is apparently like the best automotive investor

20:03in the world, you know, comes out to me and like, it's like, hi, no, why are you going

20:07to fail? I'm like, well, please tell me. I can think of several reasons.

20:13Tell me when I don't know.

20:14Yes. And he said the car companies don't make any money on the new car sales. They make all

20:23all of their money selling parts to the existing fleet.

20:30So when the warranty runs out,

20:32like the life of a car before it hits the junkyard

20:34might be 20 years.

20:36Warranty is gonna typically run out after four years,

20:38and there's a bunch of stuff that's not covered under warranty.

20:40So if you've got a steady state fleet,

20:42it means that 80% of your fleet is not under warranty.

20:46So you can sell high margin parts, replacement parts,

20:50for the existing fleet.

20:51and you can sell your new cars at effectively zero margin.

20:55It's like a razor and blades thing.

20:58So you sell the razor for zero margin

21:01and you sell the blades at high margin.

21:04So then this creates a massive barrier to entry

21:08for any new car company

21:09because you have no existing fleet.

21:12So the only way for a new car company to succeed

21:14is that does not have an existing fleet

21:16is to charge a lot more for your car

21:20than what others are paying, than competitors.

21:24And in order to charge a lot more,

21:25have people actually buy it, the product

21:27must be so compelling that people

21:31are willing to pay the premium above the alternative cars

21:35from the incumbent car makers.

21:38This is the only way.

21:40And I think without both electrification and autonomy,

21:43this does not succeed.

21:45So that is the only way to do it.

21:47You have to win on an autonomy, and you

21:49went on electrification and you have to make the product so compelling that it is worth

21:54paying the premium relative to the incumbent competitors. This is a very big deal.

22:04Yeah. Very, very big deal. So, yeah.

22:09Why am I exactly that customer, by the way? First of all, I'm a Tesla in 2015. The acceleration

22:15and all that was cool and the electric was cool.

22:17But when I tapped the stick for AutoViolet 1.0

22:19and it walked on the rail on the road like rails.

22:21I mean, holy shit, the future's here.

22:23And went from a $4,000 card at the time

22:25of fully loaded Model S opposite in the spectrum.

22:28That exact angle was it.

22:29And it's gotten so many people in the way.

22:33Yeah.

22:33A autopilot, I'm bringing it back.

22:35I'm probably still going to be a Tesla member.

22:36Yeah.

22:37Why exactly?

22:38The thing that actually got me,

22:40because we got to be able to get a lot of flak

22:42for like autopilot deaths and stuff.

22:43But let me tell you that, yeah, it's like no amount of statistics

22:47can convince people otherwise.

22:49They're like, yeah.

22:50I don't know.

22:50Time.

22:52Yeah.

22:54But the thing that actually got me to really get a move on

22:59with Autopilot was that this anecdote illustrates

23:03several things, by the way.

23:05So, and I think this was, it might have been like 2014 or something like that, a model

23:16less owner in the Bay Area fell asleep while driving his model S and ran over a cyclist

23:22and killed a cyclist.

23:26Now if there had been even basic lane following, that cyclist would still be alive.

23:32So it was like, man, if anything illustrates the importance

23:34of autopilot, it's this case here where

23:37that innocent cyclist would still be alive.

23:39If that guy that fell asleep had had autopilot,

23:43or any kind of like lane following, even basic lane

23:45following, the car would not have

23:47veered off the road and killed the cyclist.

23:49So it's like, we've got to get a move on here.

23:51This is a real safety issue.

23:54So that's part of what really encouraged me to like,

24:00we need to go make this happen as quickly as possible.

24:06But there's more to the story.

24:07The guy that ran over the cyclist did not

24:11internalize responsibility for himself.

24:14He said the problem was he blamed it on Tesla

24:17and said he fell asleep because of the new car smell.

24:22I'm not making this up.

24:22You can literally search the court records.

24:24And he got a lawyer, amazingly,

24:27got a lawyer to represent him

24:29by a low-suit against Tesla saying it's not his fault he ran over the the cyclist

24:35it's because of the new cost mail that put him to sleep now obviously when the

24:40Scott before the judge judges like that's ridiculous case is most but this just

24:45gives you some sense of both the importance of autopilot and generally

24:51people's unwilling this to internalize responsibility

24:55car smells yeah I mean he actually had to know to engage a lawyer and file

25:04lawsuit and like wow that's it's in the court records yeah like oh yeah dude

25:09maybe it's not maybe it's you know judge like it's you okay

25:15take a small sport of reaction so anyway but but that yeah so so that's why I

25:25I think unless some new car company is able to solve autonomy and electrification and make

25:32a product that's extremely compelling and reach value production where the cost of the

25:40car is low enough that you can charge a price where you don't exceed the affordability limit

25:47of people.

25:49Like the, there are a lot of times I have this conversation with rich investors and

25:53Wall Street is crazy because there are two factors of play.

25:57One is value for money.

26:00The other is fundamental affordability.

26:04So these things are often conflated by if somebody has tens

26:11million dollars, lives on Wall Street and whatever.

26:14They don't understand that they just think about value for

26:16money, they don't think about affordability.

26:18All cars are affordable.

26:20Someone literally does not have enough money in the bank

26:22account, they cannot buy the car, even if you rail

26:25desirability to infinite.

26:27Like we'll just turn the desirability knob.

26:28This is this thing will transform into a jet and fly you

26:34to a private island that it will create by itself.

26:41You make it so desirable that it's, you can just make

26:45desirability infinite.

26:47But if it costs more than people can afford, they can't buy

26:50no matter how great it is. And so that affordability threshold is very, very important. So it must

26:57both be good value of money and be affordable in order to achieve the unit volumes. And where

27:03a car companies can get kind of painted into a corner, the corner of DOOM is if the cost of the

27:13car is so high that they have to raise the price of the car to the point where the price

27:20price of the car is, and Rivian I think it has this problem,

27:23so you know, that they even need to fix it

27:25or they're in deep trouble, they raise the price

27:28to the point where only a very small number of people

27:30can afford the car, no matter how desirable it is.

27:34Then at that point, if you cannot achieve a unit volume

27:37that covers your fixed costs, you're screwed.

27:42So, and Rivian, my advice to Rivian too,

27:49would be to cut costs immediately across the board dramatically or they're doomed.

27:55So, what does it apply to any car company? As you raise the price, the percentage of

28:05people who can afford the car starts to drop exponentially. So, you know, like, it started

28:15getting a car above $100,000. It's very, very few people can afford it, no matter how desirable

28:20is. But you've got to have enough unit volume to pay for your fixed-up

28:31heads. You've got to cover your operating expenses.

28:35We can do a time check too if we need to.

28:42No, I'm just afraid of mine. It's like suggesting that I draw a hard drive by

28:46posting more memes from them. I'm just going to keep stealing their memes and

28:51and posting them without giving them credit.

28:54People love that.

28:55That's the internet.

28:56But we use belonging to the internet.

28:57Yeah, exactly.

28:58It's a whole point of the meme.

28:59Exactly.

29:00Yeah.

29:02And typically, you'll like the meme, too,

29:04that you'll post.

29:04And so people know where it's coming down.

29:06It's belonging to people.

29:08Yeah.

29:10You quit your own memes, though, don't you?

29:12I saw my kid who created some memes.

29:14Your meme game is strong.

29:15Thank you.

29:18Who controls it?

29:19Memes control.

29:20My friend is saying I should post hard drive memes and declare that I made it myself.

29:25I made it myself.

29:28I'm over sucking.

29:30And then tell hard drives to stop copying me.

29:33Well, maybe what a, I don't have an AI figure I don't have a copy of.

29:43Yeah.

29:44It's not that much scary.

29:46It's so vexed.

29:49So, yeah.

29:51You good on time too?

29:52Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm okay this I was just getting little text buzzes so

30:04But nothing is like the house, you know something's on fire which by the way sometimes I do get the text

30:11The house on fire the cars on fire the dumpsters on fire

30:14We've had a lot of dumpster fires to Tesla actually

30:19What's going on free my system like a lot of fire

30:21Yeah, my friends here keep text me every time.

30:23But there's a dumster fire.

30:25The literal dumpster fire.

30:26It's like, not a better particle dumpster fire.

30:28Just literally a dumpster on fire.

30:33I just imagine, though, if you see the beeb of the dumpster

30:35on fire floating down the river, the valley of the river.

30:39I mean, if you have a lot of cardboard and wood packaging

30:43in a dumpster, then or whatever, it's going to,

30:46like it's flammable.

30:47It's, you know, then somebody, I don't know,

30:50Sometimes I think some of these things are some kids having fun or whatever just like being

30:54an artist and some of it are just you know, I don't know how these things like try to

30:59figure out why is this stuff started on fire?

31:01I don't know.

31:02It's on fire clearly but why did the fire start?

31:05I don't know.

31:06Nobody knows how the fire started.

31:08Like the dumpster fires are actually not that dangerous but they're like, you know, unless

31:14it's indoors or something but like an out and out and dumpster fire is not intrinsically

31:18dangerous.

31:19Yeah, it's contained. It's like it's good enough. Just not gonna melt or anything

31:23So it tends to just be like it just general it creates drama, but it's not like actually dangerous

31:28So currently we get to give we've all been FSC beta you guys. Thank you by the way. It's been fun. Yeah, thank you testing

31:34Recently got kicked out

31:39Yeah, I was on a long drive to San Francisco and unfortunately on really long road trips

31:44I have this problem where I'll get the nag thing will give you enough times at all disable and you know

31:48I did like 800 miles across Texas and I'll get tired of it.

31:51That's actually not what it's about.

31:52We currently get to give feedback for when the car does

31:54something wrong.

31:56Would it be useful if we got to give feedback when the car

31:57did something like really well and really right?

32:00Because I haven't do great things all the time.

32:02But I have nobody to call somebody or mark the video and say,

32:05hey, they did this turn incredibly and everything well.

32:07And I mean, because I was assuming

32:09the AI is being trained with reinforcement learning as well,

32:12it'd be great if we could help give that feedback when

32:14the car is like, great job buddy, like the plus one

32:17button or something.

32:17I don't know.

32:21All input is error.

32:22Yeah, all input is error, exactly.

32:25Unless somebody missed the future, in which case, no input is error.

32:28In some cases, we've got cool features.

32:30Nobody ever used when new was there.

32:31Like the wizards in winter dance with the Model X stores.

32:37And it's rare to encounter a customer who actually knows

32:41about that.

32:42Most of them don't know it exists.

32:44And then we made it too hard to do.

32:46And it should be the offset of an Easter egg.

32:47to be like this maximized number of people know about it.

32:49No black minimizes.

32:50I actually have a word in the Tesla.

32:51I actually shot the video.

32:52Oh, OK.

32:53All right, great.

32:55I'm trying to get it out there.

32:57Yeah, I think people didn't translate that to my car

33:00can also do this.

33:00It was a good question.

33:03Yeah.

33:04Yeah, it's true.

33:06But still today, I bet probably, I don't know,

33:11at least two-thirds of Model X owners

33:13have no idea the car can do that.

33:15Yeah, I was talking about the Christmas dance, are you?

33:17Yeah.

33:18Oh, yeah.

33:18That's like, OK.

33:21Yeah.

33:21So all these do, but yeah.

33:23Because I've done it so much for my neighbors.

33:24I know.

33:25I know.

33:25But I feel like it's great.

33:28I mean, you're not really seeing a car do anything like that.

33:30So no.

33:30It's like riding up.

33:32Yeah.

33:34Do you have a favorite Easter egg or feature

33:38that you put into the cars that is just your favorite?

33:44Well, I suppose that the sort of Wizarding Winter Door Dense

33:49is my favorite sort of Easter eggy feature or fun thing

33:53that has no value in it.

33:54So it's a entertainment.

33:57Yeah, it's like a entertainment.

33:58But it's like an unnecessary thing.

34:03That's cool.

34:05I mean, there was the Tap Autopilot four times

34:11to play more Cabo.

34:14Yeah.

34:15Yeah.

34:16And people would get kicked.

34:18But that's the one that you could accidentally do.

34:21And then your screen turns to Mario Kart.

34:24Rainbow Road.

34:26Yep.

34:27And...

34:28I'm going downhill or all.

34:33Yeah.

34:34Kids can't be sleeping during that time.

34:36Yeah.

34:37Fantastic.

34:38I think it's quite a few times people accidentally.

34:40Accidentally because it's like it is a thing you could just tap too many times

34:43It's like it's not one of those Easter eggs, you know, it's like one of those like old school arcade games

34:47Where it's like up down down left left right like it, you know, it's like just press it four times and finger

34:53It's I think a lot of people just like what happened

34:57Am I going crazy? Well, I think I'm doing this

35:02Yeah, so that that's a cool one

35:05And it contains the car to enter 42 cars.

35:11Name change left, universe, and everything.

35:15There's the James Bond, where it turns into the spy love me car.

35:21That's the submarine car.

35:22Yeah.

35:23Yep.

35:24What were you?

35:25Undiscovered?

35:26Easter or anything?

35:27Personal component changes to Thomas Edison.

35:29Is that my report?

35:30Right.

35:31Maybe, actually.

35:32Maybe, actually, there's a ha ha ha, if you want to change the screen to reindeer.

35:42Ha ha, not funny.

35:44Ha ha, not funny.

35:45We'll play the song, Grandma got run over with reindeer.

35:48Grandma got run over by reindeer.

35:52It's the ha ha, not funny.

35:55Yes.

35:56I mean, there might be. I don't necessarily tell me about all the Easter eggs, you know?

36:07But I mean, the thing is that, like, we can't spend too much time on Easter eggs because

36:11we should be...

36:12Come on, that should be the entire focus.

36:16Well, the problem is if something is rare, like what you're really trying to do is maximize

36:20the area under the curve of a number of people times degree of enjoyment.

36:24Yeah. So it's fine to have a low effort Easter egg that is something that a small number of

36:34people will get a lot of joy from. And then you're like the area of the curve of like,

36:37well, they got a lot of joy, but it's a small number of people. But what you're really looking

36:41for is something that would provide a lot of people enjoyment and maximize the area under

36:48the curve of total people times amount of an average enjoyment. That's what you're actually

36:53trying to do, you know.

36:54So that's why I can't get carried away with the Easter egg,

36:56so.

36:57Yeah.

36:58Yeah.

36:59You really want everyone to experience it,

37:00not make it some extremely, you know, 0.01% of people

37:04actually even know it exists situation.

37:06Yeah.

37:08So I think we've got a lot of work to do, actually,

37:12with the basic software in the car.

37:14Like our web browser sucks.

37:16And we definitely need to do work on the overall interface

37:20in the car.

37:21like, you know, there's a lot of complaints on the interface,

37:23and they do better on the interface.

37:25But like, if you try to use the web browser in the car,

37:27it like takes a long time to load,

37:28and then it's a trash browser.

37:30It's worse than like some iPad from five years ago,

37:34like by a lot.

37:37And like the rear screen and the SNX, the controls,

37:43need a lot of work.

37:44But like, it can be quite helpful for like entertaining

37:47like your kid's now has something to watch in the back.

37:51And you put YouTube stuff on.

37:53It's a game changer.

37:55It is a game changer.

37:57But for example, that's something where we should have

38:03separate audio for the back.

38:05And what's the point of, we can't really

38:08replay the same audio level for that back screen in the front

38:12as in the back.

38:13It should just play the back should play that audio.

38:15Or it should like route to a Bluetooth that's keyed off of the rear screen and then you'd

38:20give them headphones or something.

38:23So that people can listen to music in the front and not get blasted by the YouTube Kids

38:27Show audio in the front, which is currently the situation.

38:30That's correct.

38:31So there's like a bunch of stuff like that that we need to fix.

38:35But the overwhelming focus is solving full self-driving.

38:40So yeah, and that's essential.

38:46And like, that's really the difference between Tesla

38:48being worth a lot of money and being worth basically zero.

38:54One question I was going to ask with a little, maybe,

38:57remaining time.

38:59Is there any additional questions or thought or misinformation

39:02about Tesla?

39:04Or I don't know, maybe you want to walk around the factory

39:06or whatever you have time for?

39:08It's kind of quiet, so whatever you have time for, we'll game for.

39:13Well, I mean, is there anything we should go over that would be helpful?

39:18I mean, I think some of these things are like the whole founder thing.

39:23It's like, I think fundamentally, even a kind of a stupid question, because what does it mean to found something?

39:30There's some critical mass of inspiration and perspiration, but it's an enabulous

39:39number or it's an enabulous metric to say, you know, those person deserves to be

39:45a co-founder of this one doesn't. It's enabulous. But I think you could

39:50apply the but for question. Like, but for this person would the company exist? Or

39:56would it have gone bankrupt or not exist in a form that it is currently

40:00in a much diminished form or simply not existed at all.

40:04And the only two people that you could apply the But Four argument to are JB's trouble

40:08in me.

40:09But Four, JB's trouble in me tells I would, I think, never have existed in any meaningful

40:15way.

40:16And if it had, it would have gone bankrupt.

40:18So those are the only two people that the But Four argument applies.

40:23Maybe you want to go into this here or not.

40:25You mentioned, I think, gotten to whatever recently about the coal, shoulder, Tesla, and

40:28and stuff has experienced and brought our economic and political climate.

40:33Do you want to share more about how that's been affecting change?

40:38I got a little bit of that.

40:39How do you see that changing as Tesla expands in the great Lone Star State?

40:45Sure.

40:46So, I mean, those that follow closely are aware of it.

40:50I think you're probably aware of it, so somewhat of a rhetorical question I suspect.

40:53But the – I think the general public is not aware of the degree to which the Union's

41:01control of democratic party.

41:04This is – when does not need to speculate on this point, last year President Biden held

41:11an EV summit where Tesla was explicitly not allowed to come, but the UAW was.

41:18So now Tesla has made two thirds of all electric vehicles in the United States.

41:24So deliberately excluding us from an EV summit at the White House, but including the UAW.

41:31That tells you all you need to know.

41:36The reality is UAW would prefer that Tesla was dead or unionized, but not anything but

41:41alive and unionized.

41:43And there are no fans of sustainable energy.

41:46They have for sustainable energy the entire way.

41:49So at Tesla, far from, like Tesla has the highest pay in the auto industry and moreover,

41:59the people that work out of Fremont plant have like five job offers to work somewhere else.

42:04There's negative unemployment in the Bay Area.

42:06Try hiring someone in the Bay Area.

42:07It's ridiculous.

42:08It's negative unemployment.

42:10So our challenge is how do we convince people to stay given the many other opportunities

42:16that they have?

42:17Let alone a union.

42:18Like they're like, what?

42:19five of the jobs. That's the real reason. It's a complete opposite for what their characterizes.

42:25And the UAW has never been able to get even enough people to do a boat, let alone get to

42:3150%. And California is an extremely pro-union state. There's nothing you could do to stop

42:35the year and if they want to come in. The California will roll out the red carpet. So

42:45So then the UAW is basically forced to engage in dirty tricks and attempt to demonize the

42:52me and anyone else associated with the company.

42:55If the company is run by someone who is procedurally good, then they have trouble unionizing

43:00because they're like, well, he's a good guy.

43:02Why would you want to unionize that company?

43:04So they have to make me evil somehow.

43:07And so I do not, as you can tell, I don't like the UAW because they have run a dirty

43:15trick campaign on me since at least 2017. Basically the point of which they thought maybe Tesla

43:20wasn't going to go bankrupt because while they thought Tesla was going to go bankrupt,

43:23there was no point in dirty tricks. When they thought Tesla might not go bankrupt, that's

43:27when the dirty tricks and the sort of smear campaign started. So I'm not a huge fan of

43:33them. Now their attacks did lose a bit of the wind and the sales when the president

43:39to the UAW was sent to prison.

43:45So that took a little wind out of their sales.

43:50And then when the next UAW president,

43:52who was supposed to be the person who had cleaned things up,

43:54when he was sent to prison, also, that also took some more

43:58wind out of their sales.

44:00And but since then, recently in the last several months,

44:06they've sort of backed their old trics.

44:09So, and I mean, they have so much power over the White House that they can exclude Tesla

44:16from an EV Summit.

44:17It's insane.

44:19Insane.

44:20And just in case the first thing, in case that wasn't enough, then you have President

44:29Biden with Mary Barra at a subsequent event congratulating Mary for having led the company

44:36the EV revolution. This is...

44:39There's 26 EVs in Q4.

44:40Exactly. Exactly. I believe it was in the same quarter that GM delivered 26

44:46electric vehicles and Tesla delivered 300,000.

44:50It's like not 26,000, 26. This is not... This is what they said.

44:57Like it's not us saying, oh, oh, you're artificially saying their number is low.

45:02No, that's what they put in their earnings report, okay.

45:05We're just reading it.

45:07So that's like some next level insanity.

45:13So it's not like a sort of a conspiracy theory.

45:17It's just like, it's just observe what,

45:20if anyone is remotely impartial observer,

45:22just observe the actions

45:24and what other conclusion could you come to,

45:28then the Democratic Party does not support Tesla because it is not unionized.

45:37They would rather Tesla was dead than be alive and on unionized.

45:45And I think the pressure on this will increase over time.

45:49So the more Tesla is successful, the more Tesla is an existential threat to UAW.

45:56And so the more pressure they'll put on the people that they got elected to do harm to Tesla.

46:04How's reception been a Tesla moving into Texas?

46:10I mean, it's been good.

46:13I mean, the thing about building the factory here that I think should be noted is that

46:21we built a factory here in less time than it would have taken to get the permits in California.

46:28So, a typical permit permitting time for a green field in California is two years.

46:35Two years and you're going to get sued by, you're just going to get sued because you're in California.

46:44We didn't get any lawsuits here and we got the factory built in 18 months.

46:50Is that insane?

46:53Yeah.

46:54Sensing the factory come online.

46:56I'm gonna get flown here.

46:57I'll get people in the airport and be like, oh, he worked at Tesla.

46:59They were so excited.

47:00That's the general incentive that I've seen.

47:02I had a guy while driving down to see Star Bay, stop it.

47:05He's an oil man, but he was like, my goodness, if this is what they're doing with the rockets,

47:09their cars have got to be amazing too.

47:11I think it's working.

47:12Yeah, it's like I love living in California, but the problem is you cannot get things done.

47:18Yeah.

47:19So it's like that's what I mean by like this is not like this is simply a description of

47:24fact and ask anyone and anyone who's done a large project in California how long would

47:30it take you to get the approval to proceed and pass CEQA in California for a large project?

47:35Oh two years and you're doing well if you do it in two years and you're going to get

47:40a ton of people is going to see you just for the hell of it, basically.

47:43And like I said, we got this both in 18 months.

47:48Less time than it would take to get the permit down in California.

47:50And when you go back to the fundamental good of Tesla is to what degree are we accelerating

47:54sustainable energy.

47:56It matters if we get it done now or in two years.

48:00That explains a lot actually.

48:01Yeah.

48:02I didn't think, yeah.

48:03So we therefore have a choice.

48:05Do you get factory in California and delay progress by two years?

48:09or accelerated by two years in Jordan, Texas.

48:13What does Marley write things to do, obviously, Texas?

48:16Yeah.

48:17Yeah.

48:20So, like this California can need like a crisis

48:25to have deregulation and delitigation.

48:31It's just the two entities that most control the Democratic

48:38party, other unions, and secondarily the plaintiff bar, the plaintiff's bar on the

48:46law side.

48:47Basically, the lawyer is that sued, especially class action.

48:52That's who controls the Democratic Party.

48:56Anyone who's familiar with the inside baseball of this is what I agree with me.

49:00This is in fact the case, especially in California.

49:03So the issue is that the lawyers write the legislation to make it easy to win lawsuits

49:08in California because they funded the election of the officials of the people that got elected

49:16for funded by Democrats and lawyers.

49:18So then they write legislation to make it easy to win lawsuits and get gigantic awards

49:23because they got the people elected.

49:25And you have this sort of circle of nightmarish circle until there has to be an above 0% chance

49:33of a Republican getting elected in California.

49:35It has to be above 0%.

49:36Otherwise, you have a one-party state.

49:39Yeah.

49:40And then the political parties are irrelevant and it's just the primaries.

49:46So that's the situation in California, and unless there's a crisis, one possible solution

49:54is more open primaries.

49:56Like more open primaries, I think would reduce the probability of special interests manipulating

50:04the election. I think in LA, the mayoral election is open primaries or sort of open primaries.

50:13It looks like maybe Rick Caruso will get elected. And he's like, I think it'd be great. But

50:24for the most part, California is gerrymandered to hell and gone and to ensure a majority

50:32Democrat outcome.

50:37Generally speaking, why are you here about politics?

50:43Why are you here about multiple different jurisdictions?

50:46Consciousness, you mentioned that.

50:48Did you feel like that's maybe not the case or not true?

50:55Well, I mean, there's something at times when I have

50:58balanced, I think that's a good question asked,

51:11because it goes to, like, what at a foundational level,

51:15what is my philosophy?

51:16And why does it lead to this conclusion?

51:17Yes.

51:22So the reason is that when I was a teenager,

51:27I had like an existential crisis to try to figure out

51:30what's the meaning of life.

51:32It doesn't seem to be any meaning.

51:35For me, at least, the religious texts,

51:38and I read all of them that I'd get my hands on,

51:40did not seem convincing.

51:42So then I'm like, OK, then I started reading flossers.

51:50You're capable of reading German flossers as a teenager.

51:53And I'm like, I'm not going to help with your depression.

51:57So reading show up an hour and each year,

52:00as an adult, that's much more manageable.

52:02But as a kid, you're like, whoa.

52:06So then I was like, man, I'm just

52:07like struggling to find meaning in life here.

52:09And then I read,

52:10a Hijag Sky to the Galaxy.

52:13And basically what Douglas Adams was saying is that,

52:16we don't really know what the right questions are to ask.

52:18Like the question is not,

52:21what's the meaning of life?

52:23You know, in the Hijag Sky to the Galaxy,

52:26the Earth it turns out is a big computer.

52:30That's, and its goal is to answer the question

52:33what's the meaning of life and Earth comes up

52:35with the answer 42.

52:36this is where the 42 number comes from.

52:41And 420 is just 10 times 42.

52:46Yeah.

52:51So what, in that book, which is really sort of a book

52:56about is an existential philosophy book disguised as humor,

53:03They come from the conclusion that the real problem is trying to formulate the question.

53:14And to really have the right question, you need a much bigger computer than Earth.

53:21And so maybe, I think one way of characterizing this review is to say, the universe is the

53:30answer what is the question? And the more or what are the questions, the more we can expand

53:40the scope and scale of consciousness, the better we can understand what questions to

53:44ask about the answer that is to the universe. And the more we can expand consciousness,

53:52become a multi-panned species, ultimately a multi-cellar species, we have a chance of

53:58figuring out what the hell's going on.

54:01And this is why I think we should have more humans

54:07and more digital, both biological and digital consciousness.

54:12And why should we become a multi-pants species

54:14and a multi-cell species,

54:16is so that we can understand the nature of the universe.

54:20And then in order for that to occur,

54:23then we have to make sure that things are good on Earth.

54:25We don't want Earth to despair.

54:31So sustainable energy is important for ensuring the long-term viability of Earth.

54:39And making life multi-planetary is important for extending consciousness.

54:46And ultimately we want to go and visit other star systems to see if there are alien civilizations

54:51there that perhaps still exist or perhaps died out

54:54millions of years ago.

54:58The extraordinarily short, I think,

55:01don't realize just how short civilization,

55:06like the first writings were only about 5,000 years ago.

55:11So I don't know what happened around 5,000 years ago,

55:14but for every reason, there's not really

55:17writings before that.

55:19So there's not like some coherent symbolic representation

55:24before about 5,000, maybe 5,500 years ago.

55:27So you can call, like, if you date civilization

55:29from the point of which we had writing, it's only 5,000 years

55:33old.

55:36Earth has been around for, I don't know,

55:394 and 1 half billion years, 5 billion-ish.

55:42The universe has been around for 13.8 billion years.

55:50They were shellfish basically 500 million years ago.

55:57So basically, what I'm saying is civilization

55:59has existed for an instant.

56:04For a galactic time scale, frame of reference,

56:12civilization at 5,000 years is basically flashing the pan.

56:17And if you look at the history of civilizations, which I encourage people to read the history

56:24of civilizations, in fact, it's literally a book called The Story of Civilization.

56:28It's quite good.

56:31And there's been the rise and fall of many civilizations over the last 5,000 years.

56:38And if you look at, say, the ancient Egyptian civilization, which is one of the first writings,

56:44the first, but close to the first.

56:49They pulled these incredible permits and had this sophisticated writing system.

56:56And then the people living in the area passed a certain point, maybe around 1500 years ago,

57:04the last person who could read hieroglyphics died.

57:08I think probably 1500 to almost 2000 years ago.

57:13And well before that, the last people who could build permits died.

57:18And then basically people were living next to these structures

57:23with that there was just didn't know where they came from

57:27and with funny symbols written on them.

57:29And if it took Napoleon invading Egypt

57:34and bringing a bunch of scholars with him and the Rosetta Stone,

57:39but much more than the Rosetta Stone ultimately to decide for hieroglyphics.

57:42That's quite a difficult thing to decipher.

57:46So I'm saying that's a civilization that had a really good run.

57:53The ancient Egyptians had a 2500 year run-ish.

58:00That's a very long time.

58:05You know, like 10 times longer than the United States has been a country.

58:10But still they died out.

58:14The ancient Sumerians died out.

58:19They were arguably the first, from an archaeological standpoint, the first evidence of writing is

58:24the ancient Sumerian.

58:26They even found like school books, stuff, like clay school books with like teachers' corrections

58:35and stuff.

58:38So it's just like, basically, civilization

58:42has existed for a split second, is really what it amounts to.

58:47So I think it's very important that we become a multi-panned

58:53species while we can, and before technology potentially

58:59subsides below the level where it's possible.

59:03One of the possible scenarios, and I

59:05I think possibly even a probable scenario is that our tech level actually drops, just

59:13like the ancient Egyptian, just like every civilization which has gone through on a sine

59:25wave, but ultimately down with something sine wave.

59:31So just like the Egyptians living in Egypt,

59:37forgot how to build permits and read hierarchical effects,

59:43we may forget how to build spaceships.

59:49And so we should build the spaceships

59:51and make life multi-planetary while it is possible.

59:54And if there were to be a World War III, which is not

59:59zero probably, looking at recent events,

1:00:05What will be left after that?

1:00:08Will they even be, I mean, will there be,

1:00:14who's to say what technology would be left after World War

1:00:16III situation?

1:00:24Should we know that Russia still has an off nukes

1:00:28appointed at the United States to make every major city,

1:00:32to make the radioactive rubble bounce several times

1:00:35in every major American city, currently, several thousand.

1:00:45You think that'll start a lack of character, right?

1:00:47Yeah.

1:00:48Do you think this is all happening before?

1:00:52No.

1:00:53I don't know if anyway.

1:00:57I mean, archaeologists are really trying hard to find anything interesting.

1:01:02So if you found evidence of an advanced alien civilization, you'd be like, no one hero

1:01:07in the entire archaeological profession.

1:01:09You know, it's like they're trying very hard to blame these things. We don't find anything

1:01:14so

1:01:15And people sometimes asked me have I

1:01:20Seen evidence of aliens. I'm like I've not

1:01:24And frankly if I had seen evidence of aliens I'd be like hey guys we find evidence of aliens

1:01:29Everyone to give SpaceX less more money because we need to improve our rocket technology. Otherwise. These aliens are gonna get us

1:01:35I thought you were the alien.

1:01:38Yeah.

1:01:39I wasn't an alien until I got your citizenship.

1:01:44That's an alien registration card, I said.

1:01:49I think funds rock and velvet are like a war.

1:01:54Yeah, totally.

1:01:57If the deity had evidence of aliens, immediately tried them out and said,

1:02:02Danger aliens give us more money

1:02:06Yeah, and everybody like absolutely that's not least aliens may not be friendly, you know, so

1:02:11The best way knowledge there's no evidence of aliens so

1:02:17But anyway like going back to the philosophy part is like if you

1:02:21accept as a proposition that

1:02:24We don't really understand meaning of life and we wish to understand the meaning of life then in order to

1:02:29to understanding of life, we should expand consciousness,

1:02:33such that we can ask better questions, learn more,

1:02:37expand beyond the solar system,

1:02:40ensure that life and earth is good,

1:02:45collectively for civilization,

1:02:47and then we can be less dumb about the nature of the universe,

1:02:51and maybe we can answer some questions

1:02:53about where this all came from and where it's going.

1:02:58I think that's a sound philosophy.

1:03:00so at least on Sound Plus B I can echo.