比尔·马赫专访

0:00I don't know if I've ever been so excited to have my first guest here.

0:03My first guest is the man who made electric cars a thing

0:06and is currently working on perfecting reusable rockets,

0:09space travel, connecting the human brain directly to computers,

0:12connecting cities with electromagnetic bullet trains,

0:15the Starling Satellite System that's so important to the war in Ukraine,

0:19and then on Tuesday.

0:20It's going to work on that tunnel thing on traffic.

0:24He also tweets a lot. Elon Musk, ladies and gentlemen.

0:43Did I get the full order of things that you do in a day there?

0:46When I was reading there, I left out the tunnel thing at the end.

0:49Do you work on all these?

0:50A lot of jobs.

0:51Do you do all these things every day?

0:53Do you work on all of them in a single day?

0:55No.

0:56But I do have a long work day.

1:00Yeah, so I work a lot.

1:05Well, I'm so thrilled you're here because we do a show where we

1:08talk about what changes happen in the world.

1:11but we just talk.

1:13There's a very few people who actually make change happen.

1:17You are one of those people probably.

1:19Um, you know, I just wanna say I love this audience.

1:28Well, you're a likable guy.

1:34I mean, they attack you a lot.

1:37They do.

1:38Yeah.

1:39And you seem to laugh it off,

1:41which I think is fantastic.

1:43I love it that you have a sense of humor,

1:45Because a guy as important as you, who makes changes,

1:49could use your powers for evil and not good.

1:52The fact that you could.

1:56Of course, I would never use them for evil.

1:59No, I know.

2:01But the way I know that is because you have a sense of humor.

2:05You really do.

2:06I swear to you.

2:07You like laughing.

2:08You like to be funny.

2:09I kill me.

2:10Right.

2:10No, I...

2:12I suppose there's somebody like Zuckerberg

2:14who I'm not even sure is a real boy.

2:17Yeah. Um...

2:20I mean, I actually love comedy, and, uh, I still, you know,

2:23like, um, many years ago, actually, was in the audience here

2:28and watched your show.

2:29Oh, really?

2:30So, it's been a long time, uh, my record show.

2:32Oh, well, thank you.

2:34I...

2:38Let me get back to you.

2:40Let me get back to you being a genius.

2:44Okay.

2:45But that has always been my view, is that I was a history major.

2:48And when you study history, what you realize is that, you know, there's the great man theory

2:53and they talk about kings and princes and queens and presidents.

2:57It's really the people in tech who change the world.

3:00They're the people who deal the cards, whether it's fire or electricity for good or bad or

3:08or the cotton gin, or the iPhone, or the atom bomb,

3:12those are the cards and the rest of us just play it.

3:15Would you agree with that assessment?

3:18I think technology is the thing that

3:21causes these big step changes in civilization.

3:24So obviously you've got things like, say,

3:26the Gutenberg press, before which

3:29it was very difficult to get books.

3:31There was very rare.

3:32Even if you had a thirst for knowledge,

3:33you really couldn't do anything about it

3:36because there were very few books to read.

3:37So, and the internet is something beyond the good

3:42but press I think.

3:43But, you know, it's, it's,

3:46when I first saw the internet coming into being

3:49in a way that the general public could use it,

3:51it felt like the, the humanity as a whole

3:55was developing a nervous system.

3:58So previously the way the information would travel

4:01would be Vio's Moses, one person to another

4:04or one person calling another.

4:05But the access to information is very limited.

4:11Now with the internet, it's like having a nervous system.

4:13It's like any part of humanity has access

4:16to almost all the information of humanity.

4:20Like you could be in the middle of the Amazon jungle

4:23with say a startling terminal

4:24and have access to more information

4:27than the president did in 1980.

4:30Right, well anything on your phone?

4:32Everything.

4:33Yeah.

4:34Okay, so you are one of these dealers,

4:37these people who deal the cards and send me.

4:39I feel some names too.

4:41Yes, you do.

4:42So, um...

4:43No.

4:44No.

4:45No.

4:46No.

4:47No.

4:48No.

4:49So, I think a lot of people thought,

4:54when you bought Twitter,

4:55that this is kind of an outlier, like,

4:57how does this, what doesn't fit

4:59with these other things you're doing?

5:00I never thought that.

5:02Because I think you're dealing

5:04with big civilizational issues and problems,

5:06And I was right on your page.

5:08I think Twitter is one of them.

5:10I mean, you have talked about this woke mind virus.

5:13Yes.

5:14And really apocalyptic terms.

5:16I don't, you should explain why you don't think it's hyperbole

5:20to say things like it's pushing civilization towards suicide.

5:23First of all, what is the woke mind virus?

5:25And if we don't deal with this, nothing else can get done.

5:28Tell me why you think that.

5:30Yeah, so I think we need to be very cautious about anything

5:35that is anti-meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech.

5:45So those are two of the aspects of the work mind-birus that I think are very dangerous,

5:50is that it's often anti-meritocratic.

5:52You can't question things.

5:55Even the questioning is bad.

5:57So another way that almost anonymous would be cancel culture.

6:05And obviously, people try to cancel you many times.

6:07Many times.

6:08I mean, every week.

6:09Yeah.

6:09Yeah.

6:11From left and right, I've had it from both sides.

6:14And people, you and I, are both in that little group of people.

6:18Maybe it's a bigger group now.

6:20Who are called conservative, who haven't really changed.

6:23I don't see you think of you as a conservative.

6:25Definitely, yeah, like, I at least think of myself as a moderate, you know.

6:31So, I mean, at least, like, I spent a massive amount of my life energy building sustainable

6:38energy, you know, electric vehicles and batteries and solar and stuff to help save the environment.

6:44That's not a, you know.

6:48It's not exactly far right.

6:53You drew that diagram once where you're here.

6:57I related to that.

6:58And like, the world has changed.

7:00I feel the same way.

7:01I feel like very often, wokeness, is not

7:04building on liberalism.

7:05It's the opposite of liberalism.

7:06I can mention this.

7:07Exactly.

7:08Many examples where it's the including free speech.

7:11Free speech is actually extremely important.

7:13And it's bizarre that we've come to this point where,

7:17free speech used to be a left or a liberal value.

7:21And yet, we see from the in quotes

7:24left a desire to actually censor.

7:29And that seems crazy.

7:32I mean, I think we should be extremely concerned about anything

7:36that undermines the First Amendment.

7:40There's a reason for the First Amendment.

7:42The First Amendment is because people

7:44came from countries where they could not speak freely

7:47and where saying certain things would get you thrown into prison.

7:51And they were like, well, we don't want that here.

7:53And by the way, in many parts of the world,

7:56including parts of the world that people might think

7:58are relatively similar to the United States,

8:01the speech laws are draconian.

8:04England is quite different.

8:05I won't name any country, but.

8:09England, why are we protecting them?

8:11They have no first and end.

8:13It's very easy to prove libel in England.

8:15We're here at almost England.

8:17Yeah, you do.

8:18But I wouldn't want to say the wrong thing.

8:21Yes, you could be sued easier.

8:24I mean, there are law in France.

8:25I think if you deny the Holocaust, which I think is abhorrent,

8:29but I also think it should be part of free speech,

8:32you can be thrown into jail.

8:34OK, so this might really can't emphasize this enough.

8:37We must protect free speech.

8:41And free speech only matters.

8:43It's only relevant when it's someone you don't like saying

8:46something you don't like, because obviously,

8:48The speech that you like is easy.

8:51So it's, and it's, the thing about TensorShow is that,

8:56for those who are advocated, just remember,

8:59at some point, that will return on you.

9:01So this woke mind virus, how did it start?

9:12Was it bats?

9:13Was it a escape from a lab?

9:15I mean, what is your assessment of why?

9:18Because it's fairly recent.

9:20Why did it start and why?

9:24I was trying to figure out where it's coming from.

9:27I think it's actually been a long time brewing, in that it's been going on for a while.

9:35The amount of indoctrination that's happening in schools and universities is far beyond what

9:44parents realize.

9:47And I only sort of came to realize this somewhat late.

9:52The experience that we had in high school and college is not the experience that kids

9:57that they are having.

9:59And hasn't been for, I don't know, 10 years, maybe 20 years.

10:04So...

10:05What parents themselves also have been part of the problem?

10:09Well, I suppose in some cases that parents, but I think like the parents are just generally

10:15not aware of what their kids have been taught or what they're not being taught.

10:20They're letting the kids think that they're equal.

10:23Yeah, let me give you an example that a fair amount told me, which his daughter's go to

10:29college and so go to high school in the Bay Area.

10:35And he was asking them, well, so who are the first few presidents of the United States?

10:42They could name Washington.

10:43And I said, what do you know about him?

10:45Well, he was a slave owner.

10:46What else?

10:47Right.

10:48Exactly.

10:49Nothing.

10:50Right.

10:51Like, OK, that's maybe you should know more than that.

10:53You know?

10:54Yeah.

10:55Yeah.

10:56And that is the woke mind virus, exactly.

10:58Yeah.

10:59Yeah.

11:00Exactly.

11:01It's like, you know, the slavery is obviously a horrific institution, but we should still

11:09know more about George Washington than that.

11:11And by the way, one that was practiced all over the world forever since the beginning of

11:15time by every race, including people of color.

11:18I'm sorry to tell you that.

11:19It's huge in the Bible.

11:21Absolutely.

11:22So Bible loves it.

11:23Really?

11:24Yes.

11:25They're quite strict about like, you know, don't take someone else's slave and that kind of

11:29thing.

11:30Right, but no one ever says just don't do it.

11:32They don't.

11:33They don't.

11:34They don't.

11:35They don't.

11:36They don't.

11:37At no point does it say slavery is bad in the Bible.

11:38No.

11:39No.

11:40They do not condemn it at all.

11:41But Twitter is not doing bad, right?

11:43I mean, I saw today that Tucker Carlson recently fired.

11:47You were just on his show and he lost his job,

11:49so I hope this isn't an honor.

11:50Yeah.

11:51Yeah.

11:52Hopefully, yeah.

11:54Will you be the angel of Jeff?

11:55Yeah, no, exactly.

11:57I'm not the typhoid Mary of talk shows.

12:00But for some reason, people just get fired after.

12:03His rant yesterday or today on Twitter.

12:07Do you have a yesterday or something like that?

12:08It did more than every cable news monologue or something like that, is that right?

12:14Well, Twitter has a tremendous audience.

12:16So there's 250 million people that spend an average of half an hour a day on Twitter.

12:20So it's about 120 to 130 million user hours per day and it's been increasing.

12:24So we didn't do anything too clear.

12:29We did nothing special whatsoever.

12:30I learned about it afterwards that he had posted something on Twitter.

12:35So it's just that Twitter has a lot of people's attention.

12:39And it tends to be the people that read a lot or are interested in card events and generally

12:48are pretty influential.

12:50But most of the people who tweet are the same people, right?

12:52I mean, the people who actually tweet it's supposed to just reading it.

12:56I feel like that's, I've read this many times, it's a very small percentage of the people

13:01on Twitter.

13:02And it seems like, see, here's why I don't tweet anymore.

13:05because you may be the mayor of Tweet Town now.

13:07Yeah, and a mayor of Tweet Town.

13:09And getting a cap with that.

13:10And I'm glad, and I like it that the mayor likes my jokes.

13:14But the reason I don't do it anymore

13:15is because the mob of mean girls is still there.

13:20And that has not changed.

13:22I know.

13:23It's too easy to get canceled.

13:24Yeah.

13:26And I don't even know what pisses them off.

13:28They're so nuts, these kids.

13:30I feel like I'm walking on a roof with a blindfold.

13:33I could fall off anytime.

13:34That was the most innocuous thing, but it's like, you know,

13:38I said George Washington was a great president.

13:40Well, how dare you?

13:41Yeah, yeah, exactly.

13:42It hit some flows, but I will.

13:44So how do you fix that?

13:45It's instrumental in the creation of the United States.

13:48Yeah.

13:49Well, you have to say like, what does canceled mean?

13:52You know, I mean, yes, if people attack on Twitter,

13:55that's one thing, but frankly,

13:56that's just an increased engagement.

13:58So I would just ignore it.

14:00Well, that's easy for you,

14:01because they kind of take your job away.

14:04or any of your main 10 jobs, but they could take mine,

14:07and they did once, by the way.

14:09Yeah, okay, well fair.

14:10You know, I was like literally canceled.

14:12Thank you.

14:13Yeah, I mean like the show is canceled.

14:16So, but okay, so you were in Congress,

14:19at Congress the other day talking with Chuck Schumer

14:21about AI, I'm very interested in this

14:23because you've been on this for years,

14:24I've always thought you were right about this.

14:27I think you're right about almost everything.

14:28I mean, let's have more babies and raise them on Mars.

14:31I don't get that, but okay.

14:32Well, I think we should be cautious about civil

14:36civilizational decline and we have

14:38plummeting growth rates most places here.

14:41Right, and also plummeting resources.

14:44No, no, we have resources that will be fine.

14:46But they're not fine now.

14:48And I know a lot about it.

14:48They're not fine now.

14:49Look, I'm not suggesting complacency.

14:52We do want to move to a sustainable energy economy

14:54as quickly as possible, but we were not

14:57in any danger of resource collapse.

14:59But lots of people don't have enough food or water.

15:04Water, we will run out of water.

15:05They're running out of sand.

15:07No, Earth is 70% water by sofceria.

15:11But you can't drink that.

15:13De-salination is absurdly cheap.

15:15Why don't we do it then?

15:17We do it?

15:17It is done.

15:18You have a lot of free time.

15:19It is done.

15:20There is a lot of de-salination done.

15:22OK, but there's plenty of water.

15:23This is not an issue.

15:24I want to be clear.

15:25All right, so let's talk about AI.

15:26Because you were on this tip 10 years ago when nobody

15:29else was. And I always thought, he's right. Why? Because I've seen too many movies.

15:33Everything that happens in movies, that happens in real life. And, you know, if you

15:38make things that are way smarter than you, why wouldn't they become your

15:42overlords? So what did you say to Chuck Schumer and what are we doing about this? I

15:46know you want to pause in the eye because it in the last six months with

15:50chat GPT, which came from a company you started. Yes.

15:56I mean, a fair amount has a sort of modification of Occam's razor, you know, instead of the

16:03simplest thing being the most likely, that the most ironic outcome is most likely?

16:08Right, yes.

16:10So with respect to AI, I just think we should have some sort of regulatory oversight.

16:17So, you know, for anything that is a danger to the public, if it's sort of aircraft, cars,

16:23We've got some regulatory oversight, like a referee, essentially, and making sure that

16:28companies don't cut corners.

16:31So I think that since, if one agrees that AI is a potentialist to the public, then there

16:38should be some regulatory body that oversees what companies are doing so that they don't

16:43cut corners and potentially do something very dangerous.

16:46That's...

16:47And if we don't do something, lay out a scenario for me in the next two, five, ten years.

16:55If nothing is done because we're very good at doing nothing, especially when it comes

16:59in the way of profit, and this is a big profit engine now for companies, they're going to

17:04want to just compete with each other.

17:05I mean, there are people like Ray Kurzweil who doesn't think it's a problem at all.

17:09Actually, Ray Kurzweil's prediction for artificial superintelligence is 2029.

17:15He's not far wrong.

17:16Right.

17:17But he doesn't think it's a problem, whereas people like you and Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking

17:22thought it's a problem.

17:24Yeah, it depends.

17:26If some people want to live forever or for a much longer period of time and they see

17:30AI as the only way, digital super intelligence is the only thing that can figure out how to

17:35get them to live forever, I think, as well as in that category.

17:39So he would prefer to have AI, artificial general intelligence than not because he can

17:44figure out longevity.

17:46So are you optimistic?

17:48I read in your Rolling Stone article back in the day

17:50that you said you could never be happy unless you're in love.

17:55Well, you can be half happy, I suppose.

17:57I mean, there's two things.

18:01I think to be most happy, if you're happy in love

18:04and you love your work, then you'll be, I think, fully happy.

18:08If you lack either of those two, if you have one of those two

18:12things, be half happy, you know, roughly.

18:15I feel like the theme in a lot of your works

18:17that connects all these different things is connecting.

18:20Like you wanna connect things.

18:22You know, you wanna connect on the hyperloop

18:25and you wanna connect this to Mars and even-

18:29Or connect four.

18:30You want, you wanna love that game.

18:34What?

18:35Connect four, yeah, wake up.

18:36Yeah, yeah.

18:37Okay.

18:38Okay.

18:39Okay.

18:40But, sorry, this is a comedy, right?

18:43You know?

18:44but it's hard for you because I've, when you bought Twitter,

18:51you kind of doing what you did when you took over,

18:54when you started Tesla, you lived at the factory, right?

18:57I feel like that's your pattern.

19:02You get into this thing and then you gotta live

19:04at the factory to make it work.

19:06You've been back and you moved to Texas,

19:08then you went back up to San Francisco because of Twitter.

19:12I was living in the library of Twitter for a while.

19:15Yes.

19:16But I think things are reasonably stabilized right now.

19:19It was just on the fast track to bankruptcy

19:22after that position.

19:23So I had to take a drastic action.

19:25There wasn't any choice.

19:26I'm just saying it's hard for a woman.

19:28So when the guy lives at the factory.

19:31Yes.

19:32LAUGHTER

19:35That could be a stumbling block.

19:38Yes.

19:39But overall, my concern with Twitter

19:43was that it is somewhat of the digital town square.

19:47And it's important that there be both the reality

19:51and perception of trust for a wide range of viewpoints.

19:56And there was a lot of censorship going on.

20:00And we uncovered a lot of that with the Twitter files,

20:04including a lot of government-driven censorship,

20:06which, you know, it seems that that's got to be a constitutional violation of what was

20:15going on there.

20:16But so, since I'm like an avid Twitter user, I could detect that like something's not right

20:21here.

20:22And so that's really why I had the deposition.

20:24It wasn't because I thought this was an easy way to make money or something like that.

20:29And this is being mayor of Twitter town, Tweet town or whatever, it's definitely like there's

20:35a lot of arrows pointing at you, like flying at you.

20:38Of course.

20:38But you seem to handle that OK.

20:41I hope you do, because look, I mean,

20:45geniuses are going to be a little quirky sometimes.

20:47But your heart is always in the right place.

20:50You are trying to fix this world.

20:52And look, I could talk to you forever we can today.

20:55I'd love to get high with you.

20:56I know a great place to do it.

20:58But I can't tell you how much I appreciate you.

21:00I know you have a lot of choices and places you can go.

21:03Thank you.

21:03Elon Musk, ladies and gentlemen.

21:05All right, I'll see you soon, Elon.