Elon Musk: Twitter's bot problem, SpaceX's grand plan, Tesla stories & more

Jason Calacanis 0:00 So, uh, live from an undisclosed location with the sultry filter on. (audience cheering)

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:08 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 0:09 Very sultry filter on.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:12 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 0:13 Having a great hair day.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:15 Yeah, that is a good hair day for me.

Jason Calacanis 0:16 Great hair day.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:17 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 0:17 My pal and your favorite CEO and Twitterer, Mr. Elon Musk. How're you doing, pal?

Elon Musk 0:24 Nick. (audience cheering)

David Sacks 0:29 Let your winners ride.

Jason Calacanis 0:31 Rain Man, David Sa-

David Friedberg 0:34 I'm going all in. And I said-

David Sacks 0:36 We open sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

Jason Calacanis 0:39 Love you, bestie.

David Friedberg 0:40 I'm going all in.

David Sacks 0:40 Queen of quinoa.

David Friedberg 0:42 I'm going all

David Friedberg 0:43 in.

Jason Calacanis 0:43 Appreciate you, uh, uh, coming to the event, and, um, or, or coming, uh, Zooming in, um-

Elon Musk 0:48 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:49 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 0:49 Uh, what's new in your world?

David Friedberg 0:52 Um.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:52 (laughing)

Elon Musk 0:54 Well, let's see. Um, I guess right now, uh, I'm sort of debating the number of bots on Twitter, uh-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:01 Ah.

Elon Musk 1:03 ... with, with Para on Twitter. Um, and, um, the... Currently, I'd like to... What I, what's, what I'm being told is that the, uh, there's just no way to know the number of bots. It's like as unknowable as the human soul, basically. Like... (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:22 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:22 (laughs)

Narrator 1:22 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:22 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:22 So-

Elon Musk 1:23 You have no idea what level of witchcraft and alchemy is needed to determine these, what is bot percentage. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:29 Have you determined-

Elon Musk 1:30 I said, like, "Why, why not try calling people?" But I haven't got a response. You know, like, t- have, have you tried calling people or something, you know? Like, maybe... (laughs) Try that.

Jason Calacanis 1:38 If they answer, it's not a bot.

Elon Musk 1:39 Oh, no. It d- no. I don't know, but I, I think, like, that would be one of the things to do to say, like, "Have you tried calling them?" As opposed to, like, trying to read the tea leaves here. That's, like, impossible, you know? Uh, obviously, you could have an account that looks exactly like a, a human account or is being operated by where one person's operating 1,000 accounts or something. Um, but that person can only buy one toaster. They're not gonna buy 1,000 toasters. So you care about, like, number of unique real people, uh, that are on the system. It's extremely fundamental. And anyone who uses Twitter is well aware that, uh, the, (laughs) the comment thr- the c- the comment threads are, are full of spa- spam, scam, and, and, um, well, just a lot of, you know, fake accounts. So, um, it, it s- it seems, uh, beyond, beyond reasonable for Twitter to c- claim that the number of, uh, uh, essentially the number of re- said another way, the number of real unique humans, uh, that you see making comments on a daily basis on Twitter, um, is above 95%. That is what they're claiming. Does anyone have that experience?

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:45 (laughs)

Elon Musk 2:46 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 2:52 I mean-

Elon Musk 2:52 It's like... (laughs) I mean, really? (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 2:56 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:56 (laughs)

Elon Musk 2:56 That's like, there's a bridge I, I'd like to sell ya, you know. Uh-

Jason Calacanis 2:59 (laughs)

Elon Musk 2:59 ... you know. Uh, you know. (laughs) And, and also-

Jason Calacanis 3:04 So-

Elon Musk 3:04 ... you could buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Jason Calacanis 3:06 (laughs)

Elon Musk 3:07 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 3:07 Um, what do you think it is? What... Yeah, what's the, what's the, uh, I mean anecdotally- If it's not 5%, what is, what is it?

Elon Musk 3:14 Um, I think it's a number that is probably at least, uh, four or five times that number. The-

Jason Calacanis 3:20 Yeah.

Elon Musk 3:20 I'd say it at, uh, if you did sort of the, the, the lowest estimate would be probably 20%. Um, and, uh, and, and this, and this is, uh, uh, a bunch of, uh, quite smart outside firms have done analysis of Twitter and, uh, looked at the, the, the sort of daily, daily users. And their conclusion is also about, is about 20%. But that's a lower bound, it's not an upper bound.

Jason Calacanis 3:46 Right.

Elon Musk 3:46 Um, if you look at, say, um, the most liked tweets on Twitter. Um, so I (laughs) , I have the, uh, the honor, uh, of having the most liked tweet of any living human. Um...

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:02 (laughs)

Elon Musk 4:04 (laughs) This is... (laughs) Thank you, everyone, for liking my tweet. Uh, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:09 (laughs)

Elon Musk 4:10 (laughs) Including you all, some of the bots out there. Um, but, uh, all, th- that tweet is less than five million likes. It's like 4.7 or something like that. And (laughs) that, that, that was the tw- where I tweeted about, um, that, that next time buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in, which, uh-

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:31 (laughs)

Elon Musk 4:31 ... is definitely... It's clearly something that the public really wants.

Jason Calacanis 4:35 (laughs)

Elon Musk 4:37 And, you know, uh, Coca-Cola Corporation should really think about going back to their roots, um, you know-

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:42 (laughs)

Elon Musk 4:43 ... come owe to be Coca-Cola. Um, I mean, this, this, I guess, is the reason why our grandparents could sort of walk 20 miles in the snow, uh-

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:52 (laughs)

Elon Musk 4:52 ... because they had Coca-Cola with cocaine.

Jason Calacanis 4:55 (laughs)

Elon Musk 4:55 This is the real reason. (laughs) So, um, anyway, that was, that's the (laughs) , that is literally the most popular tweet, um, uh, of any, of any living human. Um, and, uh, but Tw- Twitter says that the daily moni- da- the sort of monetizable daily active users is 217 million. Um, so why would it be that the most popular tweet ever basically is only, you know, two, two and a half percent of the entire user base? This, this seems a, a very, very low number. Um, and, um, and, and, uh, the most popular tweets generally are clustered around that sort of four million, uh, like level. So it's a sort of quarter, or l- like basically 2% or le- or less than 2% of, of the, uh, daily active users. And, and technically monetizable daily active users is how Twitter refers to it. So it just seems, how is this possible? Um, surely there's something that maybe, you know, 10% of people would like, not merely 2%.

Jason Calacanis 6:00 Well, actually-

Elon Musk 6:01 Um...

Jason Calacanis 6:01 ... you know, if you think about it, Elon, um, there's a corollary on YouTube. What do... what's the total user base of YouTube and what have the most popular videos gotten there?

Elon Musk 6:10 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 6:10 And I think there's a billion or two, maybe a billion people using YouTube, and those, the most popular videos have tens of billions of views.

Elon Musk 6:19 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 6:19 That might be instructive.

Elon Musk 6:21 Exactly. That ratio makes a lot more sense. Um, so something doesn't add up here. Um, and, and my concern is, is, is not that is it like, you know, is it five or seven or 8%, but is it potentially 80% or 90% bots?

Jason Calacanis 6:40 Yeah.

Elon Musk 6:40 Um, you know, are, are, is it... I mean, I certainly know there's some real people on, on Twitter, but, uh, but what's... If it... Is it an order of magnitude? Is it, is it 50% instead of five? And that's obviously an incredibly material number. Um, especially since Twitter, uh, relies, uh, primarily on brand advertising as opposed to specific click-through advertising where you make a purchase. If you, if you make a purchase, it, it doesn't really matter that much. But for brand advertising, which is really just awareness advertising, it matters if, if real humans are seeing that or not.

Jason Calacanis 7:13 Yeah. And, and so I guess stepping back for a second, people are curious why you want to buy Twitter. Why is this so important to you? And then, I guess, what are the chances you think the deal gets done at this point? So a two-parter. Why is it so important to you?

Elon Musk 7:31 I mean, some of this I've articulated before, but I think there's a need for a, a, a public town square, digital town square that, uh, where people can debate, uh, issues of all kinds, um, including the most substantive issues. Um, and in order for the, uh, for that to be the case, you have to have something that is as broadly inclusive as possible, that has as much of the, the, the people on the platform as possible, uh, where it's, uh, it feels, uh, balanced from a political standpoint, uh, it's not biased one way or the other, um, and where the system is transparent. This is why I think it's important to put the algorithm on, on GitHub and actually allow the public to see it and critique it and improve it. Um, and if there are any manual changes, uh, sort of shadow banning as it's called, uh, or increasing or decreasing the prominence of a tweet, uh, that's done manually, that that should be noted so you know what has happened. And it's not just, uh, you know, you're just... where it is right now, we don't know what the heck is going on. Why is one tweet doing well? Why is another tweet not? Is it the algorithm? Did someone manually intervene? Uh, why are some accounts banned, uh, with no recourse apparently? Um, and, um, you know, the, the reality is, uh, that, that Twitter at this point, you know, has a very far left bias. Um, and I would class myself as a moderate and neither Republican nor Democrat. Um, and in fact, uh, I have voted, voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, uh, historically, overwhelmingly. Like I'm not sure... I might never have voted for a Republican, just to be clear.

Jason Calacanis 9:11 Right.

Elon Musk 9:12 Now, now this election, I will.

David Friedberg 9:18 (laughs) Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Jason Calacanis 9:20 David, you okay? (laughs)

9:23 Keep going, keep going. He's fine, he's fine. We're gonna resuscitate him.

David Friedberg 9:25 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 9:25 We're gonna resuscitate David Sacks. I mean, let me ask you a personal question.

Elon Musk 9:29 The point I'm trying to make is that this is not some sort of attempt to, uh... you know, it's not some right-wing takeover, um, as, as some people on the left may fear, but rather a moderate-wing takeover, um, and an attempt to, uh, ensure that, that people of, of all, uh, you know, political beliefs feel welcome on, on a digital town square that... and they can express, uh, their, their beliefs, uh, without fear of being banned or shadow-banned. Um, and, and that we, we obviously need to get rid of the bots, uh, and, and scams and trolls and people that are operating, uh, huge bot armies in an attempt to, uh, unduly influence the public opinion. So this is what... I think it's very important that we have that. Like the, the... Some of the smartest people in history have said... have, have thought about it and said, like, free speech is important. For a, for a healthy democracy, it is important. And free speech only matters...

David Friedberg 10:29 (applause)

Elon Musk 10:32 Like, say, when does free speech matter most? It's when someone... when it's someone you don't like saying something you don't like.

Jason Calacanis 10:38 Yeah.

Elon Musk 10:39 Uh, that's when it actually matters. Um, so, um, you know, can... (laughs) Obviously... And, and, and it's pretty annoying when someone you don't like says something you don't like. That's, that's, that's bad, but it's actually a good sign of, of... uh, that, that you have free speech. Um, so, uh, I mean, I get trashed by the media all the time. It's fine. I don't care. Uh, go... Do, do it twice as much. I couldn't care less. Um, but it's indicative of the fact that even though, um, I, you know, I have like a lot of resources, I do not actually have the ability to stop the media from trashing me. And that's actually a good thing.

Jason Calacanis 11:16 Yeah. I have to ask, um, with regard to this current administration, I know how hard you work, uh, on the car company and then Biden... You know, you've been a lifelong Democrat, you've donated to Obama and to everybody, probably never voted Republican, and yet... And the same is true for Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan is, you know, a Bernie Sanders supporter. And the Democratic Party has been openly hostile to Joe Rogan, and Biden can't even say the word Tesla or invite you to the White House when they do an EV summit. I'm curious, just on a very personal basis, what does it feel like to have that experience where the party you supported is... won't even say the name of your company or invite you there? They should be celebrating the work you're doing.

Elon Musk 12:03 Yeah, I mean, it, it definitely feels like this is not right. Like, this... Uh, the, the, the issue here is that there's just an, uh, there's two... The, the Democratic Party is overly, overly controlled by the unions and by the, uh, trial lawyers, particularly the class action, uh, lawyers. Um, and generally if you'll, if you'll see something that doesn't... That is not in the interest of the, of the people, um, is if on the, on the Democrat side, it's gonna come because of the unions, uh, which is just another form of monopoly, and the, uh, the trial lawyers. Uh, th- the, that's where actions will be happening from the Democrat side. They're not in, in the interest of the people. And then, um, (laughs) to be fair, (laughs) on the Republican side, uh, y- y- there's, there's... If you say, like, where, where does something, like, not, not ideal happening, it's because of corporate evil, um, and, uh, re- religious zealotry. Um, (laughs) that's generally where the bad things will be coming from on the Republican side, um, that are not representative of the people. So, um, in, in, in the case of Biden, he is simply too, too much, uh, captured by the unions, um, where... Which was not the case with Obama. Um, so in the case of Obama, you could have... You know, he was sort of quite reasonable, um, and I think he took more of a view, uh, that, you know, obviously you need to take the conc- concerns of the unions into account, but, uh, there, there are big- there are bigger issues at stake. And, and unfortunately, Biden does not do that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:25 You wanna

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:26 have a... I have a Tesla question. I read today, it's incredible. There was a Bloomberg article that said the following. So the setup is this. It said, since you went public, Tesla's up 22000%, uh, 11 quarters of prof- sequential profitability, so hitting on all cylinders.

Elon Musk 13:41 Uh-huh.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:41 But the pub- public analyst-

Elon Musk 13:44 (laughs)

Narrator 13:46 (laughs)

Elon Musk 13:46 Absolutely. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:47 That's a car joke. That's a combust- (laughs)

Elon Musk 13:51 (laughs) Stepping on the gas pedal, firing on all cylinders.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:54 (laughs)

Elon Musk 13:54 Turbo charged.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:56 (laughs) Uh, but analysts, uh, when they put out their projections, okay, it's, it's one of the most enormous bands for any company in America. The, the price targets for Tesla, despite all of this success, some have it at 200, some have it at 1600. It's all over the place. You tweeted, uh, a couple months ago, "Tesla's not a company, it's like six companies inside of a company." Like you've had to build-

Elon Musk 14:22 Yeah, maybe more.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:22 Yeah, maybe more. Can you just explain to people all these companies inside this super company, just so folks have a sense of what had to be done to get here?

Elon Musk 14:29 Okay. I mean, this, this question requires thought, and I'll probably be leaving out, uh, quite a few things. But if you look and say, what, what does a typical, uh, car company do? Uh, what, what they do is they, they, um, they, they assemble vehicles, um, and they send them to dealers and they manage the supply chain. Uh, th- they, they might make the engine, uh, or typically will make the engine, but most of the parts are made by suppliers. Um, and, uh, a lot of the actual technology development is done by suppliers. And most of this, most of this vehicle software is done by suppliers. So the actual amount of, uh, real work done by car companies, what you think of sort of like a GM or Ford, is not actually that much. Um, and, but they... Like, so they don't do, they don't do, uh, sales, they don't do service. Um, they, uh... So, so in the case of Tesla, for example, we, we do... We, we, we do our own sales and service. Uh, we don't have dealerships. Um, then, uh, Tesla also has by far the biggest network of superchargers, sort of the elec- electric equivalent of gas stations. So we built an entire global supercharger network, which is still the most advanced and by far the best, uh, way to charge your car when traveling long distance. Or if you live in a city, um, and, uh, and don't have the ability to charge your car, there's a street parking or an apartment. So the whole supercharger network, we, we developed the supercharger network, we deployed it. I think we have, I don't know, 15,000 superchargers globally. Um, you can travel anywhere in America right now with, uh, uh, the Tesla supercharger network. Um, then, uh, in terms of vertical integration, uh, we, uh, we make the, the, the battery pack, uh, the, the power electronics, the drive unit. Um, we, uh, we actually make... We're, we're, we're more integrated in, in the parts. We actually make so much of the car, uh, internally. Uh, we're vertically integrated, um, not necessarily 'cause we, we just... We think there's, there's some religious reason to be vertically integrated, but because, uh, the pace at which we needed to move was just much faster than the supply chain could move. And to the degree that you inherit the legacy supply chain, you inherit the legacy constraints, including their speed, uh, cost, and, uh, and technology. And then Tesla is as much a software company as it is a hardware company. So the software that runs in Tesla operates the car, operates the, the screen, uh, does the charging. Uh, all of that stuff is developed by Tesla. And, um, so we have sort of a car, a Tesla OS in the car.

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:02 When you, when you, uh-

Elon Musk 17:04 I, I could, I could go on for a long time. Uh, and then very importantly, uh, Tesla has built, uh, an, uh, an autopilot AI team from scratch, uh, that is the best real world AI team on Earth. Um, and if anyone else has got a better one, I'd like to see it demonstrated in a car. Um, the, the-

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:23 Yeah.

Elon Musk 17:23 ... the full self-driving beta at this point, uh, uh, can, uh, very often take you with zero interventions across the Bay Area from San Jose to Marin. So through, through complex traffic, it's really quite sophisticated. Um, and I invite anyone to, to join the beta or, or look at the videos of those who are in the beta. We've got like 100,000 people in the beta, so it's not tiny. And we'll be expanding that to, I don't know, probably a million people or a million... I don't know, so on that order by the end of the year. So, um, it's, um-

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:56 You had this slide.

Elon Musk 17:57 And we, we also, we also built a chip team to-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:00 Yeah.

Elon Musk 18:00 Because there wasn't, there wasn't hardware to... that we could run the frigging-... uh, AI on, uh, w- we couldn't just, uh, fill the trunk with a whole bunch of GPUs, um, and- and- (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:10 (laughs)

Elon Musk 18:10 ... you know? 'Cause that ... (laughs) Th- they would- would've created a trunk full of GPUs. That would've been very expensive and take massive amount of power and cooling, uh, just to- to be able to do what the Tesla-designed, uh, full self-driving computer can do. So it ... And- and we started a chip team from scratch, designed it. It was the best in the world and still is the best in the world, uh, s- several years later. Um, and we also then developed ... We- we're designing a, a Dojo, uh, supercomputer to be able to process the, um, all the video that's coming in from billions of miles of data because ... Just sort of, like, the way that- that it's critical to compete with Google because they have so much data and they have all this ... people doing searches all the time and- and humanity is training it. But s- sa- same is true of- of- of Tesla. You really need billions of miles and ultimately tens of billions of miles of training data, combined with a- a- a- sort of a vast training computer and then, uh, optimized, uh, inference hardware in the car, um, and state-of-the-art AI and training and specialized software across the board to be able to achieve a full self-driving solution.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:12 I, uh-

Elon Musk 19:12 Let me go.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:12 ... I just want ... There ... When- when he opened Tesla Gigafactory, remember this six or seven years ago?

Jason Calacanis 19:17 Yeah, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:17 I'll just tell the audience his story quickly, Elon. He puts a slide up there and he says, "Guys, we're not actually building a factory. We're building a machine that makes machines." And he puts the layout of the factory, and it looks like a chip. And it was basically like how you would actually lay out a microchip if you were ... or, you know, you were, like, a layout engineer. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. And I was like-

Elon Musk 19:37 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:37 That was when I first got it.

Elon Musk 19:38 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:39 You know, you walk in 10 and you see what's happening.

Jason Calacanis 19:40 And you have an insurance company. Now you're doing insurance for Tesla owners.

Elon Musk 19:43 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:43 And an Uber competitor.

Jason Calacanis 19:45 Right. And eventually, a robot taxi, Uber competitor. RIP. Um ... (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:50 (laughs)

Elon Musk 19:50 Yeah. I mean, it- ins- insurance is, like, quite significant, even though-

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:52 Now, are you okay? (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 19:53 I'm okay.

Elon Musk 19:53 You're okay?

Jason Calacanis 19:54 Okay.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:54 I'm okay. (laughs)

Elon Musk 19:56 Because the- the- the- the car insurance thing is a bigger deal than it may seem. Uh, a lot of people are paying, um, you know, 30, 40% as much as their lease payment for the car in an ... in car insurance. Um, so the car insurance industry is incredibly inefficient because they- they're- they're just ... Uh, first of all, you've got, like, so many, um, sort of middle entities. You've got ... You've got from insurance agent all the way to the- the final sort of reinsurer. There's, like, a half dozen companies each taking a cut. Um, and then, uh, the ... The- the ... It's all very statistical so that there's, um ... Even if you're a very good driver. Like, you could be, like, you know, 20 years old and a great driver, but they ... They're ... It's all statistical, so you can't get ... Uh, you either can't get insurance or it's- it's extremely expensive. Um, so what ... What ... But Tesla allows for real-time insurance based on your ... how you actually drive the car. Um, you can actually ... If- if you drive the car i- in a, in a safer way, you're actually, uh, have lower insurance. So our- ours is- is- is ... Insurance is based on how you actually drive, not how, uh, you know, hi- historically, people that, you know, f- fit your whatever demographic have drived. It's ... And- and then you can close the loop around your, uh, insurance rate by simply driving better and looking at your score and- and- and lowering your insurance in real time. And people do. It actually promotes safer driving.

Jason Calacanis 21:13 I- I actually have had this experience because in my household, two people drive my car, and one of them has a 93 score and the other one does not. They have, like, a 60 score.

Elon Musk 21:24 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 21:24 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 21:25 And, um, you may have met this other person, but, uh, I've been trying to work with her on the aggressive turns and stops in advance of our insurance bill. Uh, (laughs) which we're hoping will go down (laughs) at some point.

Elon Musk 21:39 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 21:39 Um, you didn't ... Oh, the one question. Uh,

Jason Calacanis 21:42 is this Twitter deal gonna get closed, do you think? What are the chances here?

Elon Musk 21:45 Well, I mean, it really depends on- on a- a lot of factors here. Um, I'm still waiting for, uh, some sort of a logical explanation for the number of sort of fake or spam accounts on Twitter, um, and Twitter is- is refusing to tell us. Uh, so, you know, this just seems like a strange thing. Um-

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:08 Wait, sorry. Is ... Are they refusing to tell you or you don't think they really know? I mean, there's a good chance they may just have no idea.

Elon Musk 22:16 They claim that they do know.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:18 Yeah.

Elon Musk 22:19 And they claim that they've got this complex methodology, uh, that only they can understand, um.

Jason Calacanis 22:24 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:25 (laughs)

Elon Musk 22:27 It's like-

Jason Calacanis 22:28 But the guy who landed two rockets simultaneously cannot understand.

Elon Musk 22:31 It's like when you're doing the witch's brew and you stir this cauldron and then you throw the nothing balloon-

Jason Calacanis 22:35 (laughs)

Elon Musk 22:36 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:36 Double, double, toil and trouble.

Jason Calacanis 22:38 Ogsworth.

Elon Musk 22:39 You cast the spell and then suddenly they ... it comes to you in a dream. I don't know. Um, but- but (laughs) but there- there should be some, uh, you know, objective way to sort the, uh, thing because this is a ... this is a material public statement.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:54 It's a threshold issue, yeah.

Elon Musk 22:56 Uh, it- it ... It- it ... You know, it's- it's a ... You know, it's a material adverse, uh, misstatement, uh, you know, if- if- if they in fact, uh, have been, um, vociferously claiming less than 5% of fake or spam accounts but in fact it is four or five times that number or perhaps 10 times that number. This is a big deal. Um, it's not the s- ... It's sort of like if you said, "Okay, um, I'm gonna ... I agree to buy your house." You say the house has less than 5% termites. That's ... Uh, that's an acceptable number. But if it turns out it has 90% termites, that's, uh, not okay, you know?

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:31 (laughs)

Elon Musk 23:31 It's not the same house. Um-

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:33 (laughs)

Elon Musk 23:34 This house is made mostly of termites.

Jason Calacanis 23:36 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:37 (laughs)

Elon Musk 23:37 When termites leave, it literally ... Your- your house will disappear 'cause it's mostly made of termites.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:42 (laughs)

Elon Musk 23:43 Um, so, you know, that- that would obviously just not be appropriate. So I ... In- in making the Twitter offer, I was obviously reliant upon the- the truth and accuracy of their public filings, and if those- those filings are not accurate, it's simply not ... That- that's- that ... It's- it's not a ... You- you can't pay the same price for something that is much worse than they claimed.

Jason Calacanis 24:03 Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:04 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 24:04 And, you know, they say, Elon, life's a negotiation. So at a different price, it might be a totally viable deal, correct?

Elon Musk 24:12 I mean, eh, eh, that, w- (sighs) may, I mean, it's not out of the question. Um ...

David Friedberg 24:19 Okay.

Elon Musk 24:19 But I- I really would, uh, you know, th- this is, you know, the more qu- the more questions I ask, the more I, uh, the more my concerns, uh, grow.

David Friedberg 24:27 Got it.

Elon Musk 24:27 Um, so, you know, at the end of the day, ac- acquiring, it has to be fixable. Um, and, and fixable, you know, with re-

David Friedberg 24:35 Yeah.

Elon Musk 24:35 ... with reason- reasonable timeframe and without revenues collapsing along the way, and all, all that sort of stuff. Um, and so, uh, you know, I, I really w- need to see h- how i- i- these things are being calculated. And, and it, it, it can't be some deep mystery that is, like, more complex than the human soul, or something like that.

David Friedberg 24:54 (laughs)

Elon Musk 24:54 Um, it's gotta be, you know, it's, it's, uh, s- I think w- we can apply the scientific method to this and try to figure out what's really going on. And, um, you know, T- Twitter's revenue is, is, is primarily dependent, I think 70% or, or something of that order, on brand advertising as opposed to specific purchase advertising. This is a big deal, because brand advertising is not ... There's not a, there's not a, a purchase that results from that. So it's basically, you know, how much mindshare or, like, basically f- if you're a big company, how, how often do they hear your name? Um, it's as opposed to something that where you can directly measure the outcome. Um, so that, that means that they're somewhat going on faith. Um, and if that faith is undermined or, or reduced because of the reality of the situation coming to the fore, then the, the, the, te- Tesla's revenue, or Twitter's r- r- start with a T, um ...

David Friedberg 25:46 (laughs)

Elon Musk 25:46 ... the, the Twitter's revenue, uh, will be, uh, significantly impaired. And that's a major problem.

David Friedberg 25:53 Elon, did you have a chance to ask these questions during your negotiation?

Elon Musk 25:58 Uh, the ... Uh, like I said, I was reliant upon their, their public filings. So, to the degree that, that, their private, public f- And this is n- normal for a public company. If you, uh, you know, if, uh, if, if you make a formal filing, um, that, that, that is what investors are relying upo- or r- relying on, whether they are making an acquisition offer or simply buying some shares. So this, this, this, the accuracy of these filings is important, whether you're buying one share or the whole company. Um, and so i- if these filings are inaccurate, or, or if they're f- f- sort of potentially blatantly-

David Friedberg 26:33 Serious, yeah.

Elon Musk 26:33 ... it's a big deal.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:36 Elon, do you have a sense of why this has been such a persistent problem for Twitter? Do they not have the technical capabilities to solve the, the bot problem? Or is it more of, like, just a, they've under-prioritized the issue or been unwilling to because potentially there are implications for, uh, ad, ad, ad revenue?

Elon Musk 26:54 (sighs) I, I, I, I don't know. It's- it's sort of speculative at this point. So the, you know, the, the, uh, the worst interpretation would be that they don't wanna look too closely at the thing because they might not like the answer. That would be the worst interpretation. Um, the, the be- (laughs) I'm not sure what the best interpretation is, but the least bad interpretation would be maybe they thought it was this way, but their, the way they were doing it was wrong and they didn't realize they were mistaken and simply weren't paying enough attention. Um, it does seem as though it should be a lot easier to get rid of the bots and, and sp- spam and trolls than, uh ... Like, this is not some ... We're not trying to split the atom here, you know ? Uh ...

David Friedberg 27:30 (laughs)

Elon Musk 27:30 We're trying, we're not trying to get to the moon, okay ?

David Friedberg 27:32 Yeah.

Elon Musk 27:33 We're just trying to-

Narrator 27:34 (laughing)

Elon Musk 27:34 ... uh, limit the amount (laughs) of obviously scammy accounts. If (laughs) , i- i- if it's, if it's, if it's like a Bitcoin giveaway, um, you know ...

David Friedberg 27:44 (laughs)

Narrator 27:44 (laughing)

Elon Musk 27:44 Probably it's fu- it's a spammer. You know? Like ... But (laughs) .

David Friedberg 27:49 (laughs)

Elon Musk 27:50 Maybe, you know ?

David Friedberg 27:51 Wait, you're not giving away 100 Bitcoins? (laughing)

Elon Musk 27:54 (laughs)

David Friedberg 27:54 I just sent you 10 ETH.

Elon Musk 27:56 (laughs) If, if, if y- if you send me two Bitcoin, I'll send you one back, all right ? That's my-

David Friedberg 28:02 (laughing) What if I send you 20 ?

Elon Musk 28:03 (laughs)

David Friedberg 28:04 (laughing)

Jason Calacanis 28:05 Actually, um, I thought one of the interesting things that came up in your product roadmap, um, or I, I guess this was released and, and people covered it, was the, um, possibility of Twitter becoming kind of a super app with payments included. Um, may- perhaps even Doge or something. This seems to me, uh, based on your work with, with David at PayPal, like a, a pretty brilliant idea. What's, what's the vision there in terms of if you were able to buy it, you know, perhaps at the right price, um, what, what would it look like if, you know, I could @Jason to @ElonMusk, you know, 10 bucks or something if, you know, we- we were splitting a check or something?

Elon Musk 28:44 Sure. Well, for those that have used WeChat, I think that's, WeChat's actually a good model. Um, if you're in China, it's basically y- you kind of live on WeChat. It does everything. Um, it's sort of like Twitter plus PayPal plus a whole bunch of other things and all rolled into one with actually a great interface, and it's, it's really an excellent app. And we don't have anything like that, um, outside of China. So, uh, I think it w- such a, such an app, um, would be really, uh, useful. Um, and i- just, like, the utility of, of it, uh, of, of, of sort of a, a spam-free thing where you could, you can make comments, you can post videos, you can ... Uh, you know, I think it's important for content creators to have a revenue share. Um, now, now, this, this does not need to be done on Twitter. It could be done from something that is created from scratch. So it's, it could be something new. Um, so really ... But, but I think this thing needs to exist, whether it is, uh, converting Twitter to, uh, be the sort of, like, kind of all-encompassing app that, that, like I said, everything from Digital Town Square where important ideas are debated, uh, you know, maximally trusted and inclusive, and, and the point at which you're, you're, you sort of have a high trust situation then, then payments, uh, uh, whether it's, uh, crypto or fiat, uh, c- can make a lot of sense. Just, we just want something that's incredibly useful and that people love using.

David Friedberg 30:10 Awesome.

Elon Musk 30:10 Um, so th- th- that ... But it, it's, it's either convert Twitter to that or just start something new. Those are the two ... But it n- it does need to happen

Elon Musk 30:19 somehow.

Jason Calacanis 30:20 Well, it's interesting you bring that up, because the price of Twitter, um, is pretty high, and you've built a couple of companies, and some engineers like to come work for you. Um, and you've now gone through the intellectual exercise of studying all this. Um, if you're looking at the two choices now, fixing Twitter, given all these problems, and maybe just starting your own version, which one are you leaning towards? 'Cause it, y- I have watched you build a couple of companies, and the products have turned out pretty good. So, is it-

Elon Musk 30:47 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 30:47 ... easier for someone like you to just start from scratch? I mean...

Elon Musk 30:51 I mean, it's certainly the... My, my default inclination is to start things from scratch. Uh, I, I'm, I'm not really... I don't buy, buy things. Like, there's, there's still this p- sort of, you know... Uh, um, yeah. Like, like SpaceX was started from scratch. You know, in, in the case of, of Tesla, uh, you know, it, it was like five people. There's still this guy, Mar- Eberhard, who's the worst guy I've ever worked with, who tries to claim like sole credit essentially for creating, uh, Tesla. And if he's so damn great, why didn't he just go, you know, create another car company when he was fired? Um, but anyway. (laughs)

David Sacks 31:28 (laughs)

Elon Musk 31:28 Um, so, uh-

Jason Calacanis 31:29 Well, I mean, that's a pretty good story.

Elon Musk 31:30 (clapping)

David Sacks 31:30 (clapping)

Elon Musk 31:30 I mean-

Jason Calacanis 31:31 Yeah, bon voyage.

Elon Musk 31:32 Remember-

Jason Calacanis 31:33 Jesus. (laughs)

Elon Musk 31:34 I mean, no, but I, I remember having this conversation with you. Uh, we were having a conversation about the Roadster. I think I can tell this story. Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 31:41 I said, "How's it going, pal?" And you said, "Well, I got one problem. Um, it turns out the Roadster parts and putting it together cost $190,000."

Elon Musk 31:50 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 31:50 And I said, "I gave you $150,000 for number 16. So, if you make 2,000 of these, you're gonna lose $80,000,000." And you were like, "Yeah, or double that." I mean, they basically... The parts of the car cost more than they were selling it for, when you were-

Elon Musk 32:04 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 32:04 ... starting to get involved. That's... It was disastrous.

Elon Musk 32:06 No, no. No. I, I got involved well, well before that. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 32:09 Oh, before that, yes.

Elon Musk 32:10 I got involved when, when, when Twitter, when, when, when Tesla w- w- was, was nothing-

Jason Calacanis 32:13 Yeah.

Elon Musk 32:13 ... but a piece of paper. Le- let me be-

Jason Calacanis 32:15 I think, yeah.

Elon Musk 32:15 ... crystal clear.

Jason Calacanis 32:16 But they brought you there.

Elon Musk 32:16 Crystal fucking clear. Uh-

Jason Calacanis 32:19 Yeah.

Elon Musk 32:19 No, they didn't bring me in either. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 32:24 Yeah.

Elon Musk 32:24 Uh-

Jason Calacanis 32:24 They brought you in.

Elon Musk 32:24 I, I was gonna start, I was gonna start a, a, an EV company with J.B. Straubel a- and, uh, based on the, the AC Propulsion tZero.

Jason Calacanis 32:32 Yes.

Elon Musk 32:32 Uh, and when I, when I asked AC Propulsion if it was okay to do that, uh, they said, "Well, there's also some others who want to create an EV company, but have not created one yet."

Jason Calacanis 32:42 Yes.

Elon Musk 32:42 "Would you like to join forces with them?" And I said, "Okay. I'll... Well, we'll do that." That was a huge mistake. J.B. and I should have just started the car company ourselves. Instead, uh, we, uh, teamed up with, uh, Eberhard, Toppani & Wright. Um, big mistake. Uh, the, the, the, the actual moral error here was me trying to have my cake and eat it too, which is like, uh, I just want to work on the technology and the product, and have someone else be the CEO and, and, and sort of run the business operations, because I just like working on technology and product and design. And, um, and, and also I was like doing SpaceX, uh, you know, uh, at the time and rockets were blowing up. So-

David Sacks 33:18 (laughs)

Elon Musk 33:18 It seemed like, uh... Okay, this is like... I always wanted to own an electric car company. This is how I can have my cake and eat it too. Uh, that was a huge mistake, and fundamentally a moral error. Um, and, uh, so, so, uh, a- a- in the end, I had to freaking be CEO, and I didn't want to be, basically. Um, uh, so... But it's either that or the company's gonna die. So, uh, so we started with, with really just nothing, and, uh, the, uh, you know, the, the tZero prototype from AC Propulsion. Not, not... It... That's the, that's the precursor to Tesla. Um-

Jason Calacanis 33:51 Yeah.

Elon Musk 33:51 They were... To be... One half second clear, once again. Uh, when, uh, we created Tesla, I, when I w- when I joined, there were no, no employees. There was no intellectual property, there was no prototype, there was no nothing.

Jason Calacanis 34:04 Yeah.

David Sacks 34:05 (laughs) Yeah.

Elon Musk 34:05 To be crystal fucking clear.

Jason Calacanis 34:13 And-

David Sacks 34:15 (laughs) (clapping)

Elon Musk 34:15 (laughs) (clapping)

Jason Calacanis 34:15 And i- it almost bankrupted you. I mean, you-

Elon Musk 34:17 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 34:17 That, that sent you to the cliff of-

Elon Musk 34:20 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 34:21 ... insolvent. I mean, that was-

Elon Musk 34:22 Yes. We were on the ragged edge of bankruptcy so many times, it was ridiculous.

David Sacks 34:25 (laughs)

Elon Musk 34:26 Um, so, um, and one... 2008 was one of the worst years, where basically the, you know, GM and Ford... So G- GM and Chrysler-

Jason Calacanis 34:35 Yeah.

Elon Musk 34:36 ... went bankrupt.

David Sacks 34:36 Going bankrupt.

Elon Musk 34:36 Ford almost went bankrupt. And, um, you know, trying to raise money for a startup electric car company in 2008 while GM was going bankrupt was, uh, difficult, to say the least.

David Sacks 34:48 (laughs)

Elon Musk 34:48 Um, uh, you know, people were angry that I even asked them, uh, f- for money.

David Sacks 34:53 (laughs)

Elon Musk 34:53 They're like, "Fuck you." And hang up. (laughs)

David Sacks 34:57 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 34:58 (laughs)

Elon Musk 34:59 So, the only way that, that, that Tesla actually made it through 2008 was, uh, a subset of the existing investors, um, which includes like people like Antonio Gracias and, uh, you know, um, Steve Jobson and, and, and a, and a few other key people. Ira Aaron Price, uh, who, who, who I hold a debt of gratitude to this day. Um, and, and I, I put in all the money I had left, and they said that-

Jason Calacanis 35:24 Everything?

Elon Musk 35:25 Everything, literally everything. Um, uh, I didn't even have a house. Uh, so, uh, this is my ex- my ex-wife had the house. So, I was like staying actually at, in Jeff Skoll's bedroom, spare bedroom. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 35:37 (laughs)

David Sacks 35:37 (laughs)

Elon Musk 35:38 Um, and, uh, and... But there was the, the, that, uh, the s- subset of the investors would say that, "Okay, if I put in..." They were putting as much as I put in, so I put in everything. Um, and, and then we closed that round 6:00 PM, uh, Christmas Eve 2008. It was the last hour of the last day that it was possible, because after that, people were like breaking even for the holidays, and we would've bounced payroll two days after Christmas.

Jason Calacanis 36:00 It was, uh, pretty-

David Sacks 36:01 That stores stuff.

Jason Calacanis 36:02 I mean, it was an-

Elon Musk 36:03 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 36:03 ... incredible moment in time. And, and people also forget at the time that the first two rockets SpaceX sent up, uh, didn't exactly make it to orbit. Like, one of them-

Elon Musk 36:13 First three. Right.

Jason Calacanis 36:13 ... went back. Yeah, the first three. And I remember having dinner with you at that time, and I asked you, "Hey, how's it going? I heard, uh, Gawker says you got four weeks of payroll left." And you said, "That's not true." And I said, "Thank God." And you said, "We have two." (laughs)

David Sacks 36:26 (laughs)

Elon Musk 36:26 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 36:28 And I said... (laughs)

Elon Musk 36:29 Absolutely.

Jason Calacanis 36:31 I said-

Elon Musk 36:31 No, I mean, uh, uh both SpaceX and Tesla in 2008, if we'd simply paid our suppliers on time, we would have gone bankrupt immediately.

Narrator 36:39 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 36:40 Tell us, tell us actually, uh...

Narrator 36:43 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 36:43 It was a, it was a pretty crazy moment in time, because I also remember asking you at, we were having dinner at Bo, and I said, "Well, well certainly there's got to be some good news." And you took out your BlackBerry to date the conversation, I don't remember it-

Elon Musk 36:55 Oh, yeah.

Jason Calacanis 36:55 But you showed, and you said, "Don't tell anybody, Jake." I said, "No problem." And you showed me the clay version of the Model S.

Elon Musk 37:03 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 37:03 The most beautiful car I'd ever seen. And I said, "Oh my God, it's stunning. Um, how much is it going to cost?" You said, "I think I can make it for $50,000." I remember it was yesterday, I said, "If you make that car for $50,000, you'll change the fucking world." And you did it. And I, I-

Elon Musk 37:16 It was a little more than $50,000, but, uh, you know. Thank you.

Jason Calacanis 37:18 Yeah. You did.

Narrator 37:23 (claps)

Jason Calacanis 37:23 I sure...

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:24 Let's ask about SpaceX.

Jason Calacanis 37:25 Okay, we'll ask about SpaceX in a bit. I, I want to ask one more personal question. Has life gotten easier for you as these companies have hit scale, or has the complexity made life even more challenging? Because those early days, it was just fighting to survive. Nobody knew who you were, you were anonymous, um, and it was really just about the work. And now, let's face it, you're the world's most famous guy, um, and everybody's watching everything you do, but these companies are also very big. So, what's life like for you today? Are you enjoying what you're doing every day?

Elon Musk 37:57 Um, well, I mean, it's, it's somewhat of a roller coaster. Um, so there are like good days and bad days. Um, and there's, they're always like crisis issues. Um, and you know, like sort of, you know, knock on wood, like, we're not like, uh, facing, you know, death in the face. Like, like it's, it's definitely, like, quite stressful when, like, you know, death is like tr- trying to eat your face off, and like the, the foam is like, you know, just getting-

Narrator 38:23 (laughs)

Elon Musk 38:23 And I, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:25 (laughs)

Elon Musk 38:25 Right there, you know.

Narrator 38:27 (laughs)

Elon Musk 38:28 No, that's, it, it's pretty stressful in that situation. Um, so, like, right, you know, both SpaceX and Tesla have, um, you know, significant cash reserves, so like, you know, it's not we're staring death in the face. We can sort of see it over in the horizon, you know, so I don't want to get complacent or entitled, because it, um, but it, but it, but if it's not like just sort of foaming at the mouth and gnashing, trying to eat your face off, uh, on a daily basis, that's, that certainly is, we've moved on from that point. Um, and hopefully never, never return. Um, but, but there are a lot of issues that need to be... It's just, like, the, the, if you're a CEO of a company, the chore level is high, and if you don't do your chores, then the company goes to hell. And I hate doing, doing chores, frankly. So who, who does? Uh, so, that, that's the real, like there's a whole bunch of sort of, uh, you know, personnel issues and legal issues and, and, and things that I, I, I don't find enjoyable to work on. But if I don't work on them, the company suffers. So, it's more like, just the sheer volume of work is insane. That's the, uh, and then, and then I, you know, go do something, go add to it, you know, with Twitter or something like that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:41 Yeah.

Elon Musk 39:41 I mean, honestly-

Narrator 39:42 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:42 Like an extra processor.

Elon Musk 39:44 Yeah. I mean, I, I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew, and then just sitting there with like chipmunk cheeks.

Narrator 39:51 (laughs)

Narrator 39:52 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:53 Tell us, uh, Elon, tell us a little bit about where we are at SpaceX. Like how you fund the ability to go to Mars, but then also commercially still build, um, uh, a conventional space business domestically. I think this Russia thing was probably really good for SpaceX, if you want to just tell us a little bit about that. Um...

Elon Musk 40:14 Sure. Um, well, the, the, the, I mean, the goal of SpaceX is to develop the technology that enables life to become multi-planetary, um, and, uh, you know, and make humanity a space-faring civilization, which I think is a very exciting, inspiring thing, and it's like some, one of those things where you can, that, that I think just makes kids, like, be excited about the future. And, and, and w- we need things that are inspiring and exciting and, and make the future seem like it's going to be better than the past. Life can't just be about solving one miserable problem after another. It's got to be like, like what's, what's inspiring and exciting. And I think that a future where we are a space-faring civilization is, is one that we can all get excited about. Um, and, and, and we can go out there and find out what, what's, what's out there in the, in the universe, and what's the meaning of life, and you know, where are the aliens? And hopefully they're friendly.

Narrator 41:04 (laughs)

Elon Musk 41:04 And that kind of thing. Um, so, uh, you know, but it's interesting. I do get asked about the aliens question a lot. And I, and I've, (laughs) I've not seen any evidence of, of aliens. Um, and I'll, I'll be the first to, you know, tweet about it or whatever if I find, if I see some-

Narrator 41:21 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 41:21 I mean, you'll tell us if you find them.

Elon Musk 41:22 I will tell you, I, I will definitely tell you if, if there's aliens. Um, and, um, you know, uh, I think it would be quite helpful for, you know, like, like, if, if we found aliens, like probably SpaceX would get a ton more revenue because people are like, "Oh man, aliens, we better upgrade our space technology pronto."

Narrator 41:42 (laughs)

Elon Musk 41:42 Because what if they're unfriendly? You know? Um, it's like, you know, uh, that, that could-

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:48 Is the, is the idea of that, is the idea that you build, um, basically the ability to do orbital cargo, take all those profits, launch Starlink, take all those profits, and move it all into building something that can get to Mars? Is that the kind of rough plan?

Elon Musk 42:06 Yeah. Pretty much. It's, if, if there was like a three step, a three-slide PowerPoint, it would be (laughs) pretty much as you described, which is, um, de- develop rockets that are, that are capable of taking, uh, satellites to orbit, and, uh, crew to the space station. Um, you know, basically servicing government and commercial, uh, space launch needs. Um, and then, uh, uh-... build a, a global communication system in space, uh, that obviously it does a lot of good for Earth b- by providing, uh, internet conn- con- internet connectivity to the least served, 'cause a satellite system is really great for remote locations, um, and, you know, countryside or, or remote, remote islands or, or places where someone's trying to cut off their internet, uh ... (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:55 (laughs)

David Sacks 42:55 (laughs) As a prelude to a war-

Elon Musk 42:57 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:57 (laughs)

David Sacks 42:57 ... we take them into the system-

Elon Musk 42:59 Yeah. (laughs)

David Friedberg 42:59 (laughs) Like in Star Wars, yeah.

Elon Musk 43:01 Yeah. So it's like, you know, so it, it can be pretty, pretty helpful. Like, I think it, like, uh, a Starlink basically, I think is a, a, a sort of forceful grid on its own right, um, uh, by providing, uh, connectivity to the ... the, the, the least served or where they've got either no connection or a, a very expensive or poor connection. Uh, you know, um, the ... like, we're ... like we're, we're connecting a lot of schools, remote schools in Brazil right now. I'm, I'm actually gonna be ... gonna be headed there, uh, to sort of kick things off. Um, but they've got a lot of schools that have no connectivity at all. And in a modern age, uh, how do you learn with no connectivity? I mean, you got, I guess, old textbooks and stuff, but it's really, um ... you're at a huge disadvantage if you, um, have no d- digital connectivity. Um, so I think there's just a lot of good that Starlink could do in a ... just by, by itself, but, but then the, the, the revenue generated from Starlink is what can en- enable the, uh, creation of a, of a permanently, uh, crewed base on the moon, which will be the next, you know, next step from Apollo, which is like, "Let's just not, not go there for a few hours and, and, and then head back, let's have a permanently occupied-"

David Friedberg 44:08 Yeah.

Elon Musk 44:08 "... like, science station on, on the moon." Um, and we, we could also build, um, some pretty epic, uh, telescopes, uh, on the moon, uh, that, uh, would enable us to learn more about the nature of the universe and, and figure out what's going on, and maybe detect those aliens. Um-

Chamath Palihapitiya 44:24 Do you ... do you, um ... do you think that there's enough profit in those businesses to fund all this or do you need Wall Street and other investors to come share the load with you to kind of do all this?

David Friedberg 44:35 Is going to ... is going to Mars a partnership with the government? Does it need to partner with governments to get there?

Elon Musk 44:41 Um, well, I think technically it does not need to partner with governments, um, but of course, uh, government support would be helpful. Um, so, um, I mean, it's gonna be very expensive to build a self-sustaining city on Mars. Like, in order to, for us to become multi-planetary in a way that's meaningful, um, the, the, the key threshold is, um, at which point does the city become self-sustaining, such that if the ships from Earth stopped coming for any reason, and it ... it could be any reason, it could be World War III or it could be just, you know, civilization subsided and, um, and, and, and just gradually got decrepit or something. But, but if the ships stop coming ... if the resupply ships from Earth stop coming to Mars for any reason, does the city still survive?

David Friedberg 45:29 Hm.

Elon Musk 45:30 And, and that- that's, like, really a large base of resources that are ... that, that, that are needed, uh, on Mars. You can't be missing any one critical ingredient. Uh, the ... so the ... and, and you can think of this like there are these various great filters, um, you know, that, that have stopped civilizations, um, and one of the great filters is, will we become a multi-planet species or not? Will humanity be one of those species that passes the great filter of going beyond the one planet and being a multi-planet species? And this is certainly something we'll have to do at some point, because the s- the sun is expanding and will eventually boil the oceans, um, and destroy all life on Earth. So if you care about life on Earth, you should really care about life becoming multi-planetary and ultimately multi-stellar because otherwise you're basically saying you're ... you're signing the, the, sort of, death warrant for all life as we know it. I- i- it's, it's inevitable. Um, and then there's also the, the various things that killed off the, you know, the dinosaurs and, and the d- I mean, if you look at the fossil record, there have been five major extinctions, uh, that are sort of on the order of 89 ... 80 to 90% of all creatures on Earth dying, um, for, for a wide range of reasons. Um, but, uh, and, and then humans can also, you know ... where, where there's the, the World War III danger, um, that w- or that, that other creatures didn't have where we, we could do ourselves in, um, by sort of misusing advanced technology and, and sort of just, you know, having some radioactive hellhole that's all that's left after World War III. So, um, you know, you, you want ... you could even characterize it potentially as which will come first, World War III or, uh, life becoming multi-planetary on Mars? Um, this-

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:09 Elon.

Elon Musk 47:09 Yeah. Sorry.

David Friedberg 47:10 So- I'm sorry, I was gonna chip, but, um, you know, when you think about the importance of going to Mars versus solving critical energy and climate change problems here on Earth, obviously the effort with Tesla is related to sustainable energy. And I think going back to, like, probably the 1950s, there were engineering designs around plasma fusion or fusion-based systems that have evolved to these plasma systems, to these tokamak systems, and every year, every decade it's like, "Hey, next decade we're gonna have it." What's your point of view on where plasma fusion systems are? Are we gonna have fusion energy this century, this decade? And does it create limitless energy where the, uh, electricity production goes up by 10,000 fold and the price of electricity drops by 10,000 fold, and then what does that world on Earth look like if that happens? So I guess, the question is, like, is that technology real, when does it happen, and what happens to the world here when and if that happens?

Elon Musk 48:06 I'll answer that question, but then I'll, I'll, uh ... let, let me sort of point out what the, what the actual issue is. Uh-If question is like, uh, "Is it possible to solve, uh, fusion energy?" Uh, 100% yes, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, though, is for sure. Um, so the, the, the, and, and, and really just using a tokamak style, which is like a, basically a donut ring with, uh, uh, with electromagnets that control the, the, the plasma. Uh, the, the way to solve that is simply scale up the tokamak. Uh, fusion is, uh, very much a scale, uh, ba- uh, based thing. You wanna minimize your surface-to-volume ratio, so as you scale up, up, uh, a tokamak, you reduce your surface-volume ratio, which means, like, the h- the, the, the volume you have relative to the s- the s- the surface, uh, you, you, you now have much more, uh, like, you, you can basically have a hot zone in the center that's relatively far away from the walls and, and h- and more of a hot zone. Um, so the, the, the, so the, it's, it's not, in my mind, a question as to whether fu- fusion can work, but there is a question as to whether it is economically viable. Um, and, and whether it is competitive with, uh, with, with alternatives. I think the, the economic viability of fusion is a, a much bigger question, and I, I think the answer probably is that, uh, uh, fusion, Uh, Earth, uh, uh, fusion is not competitive economically. I think that is, that is, uh, I, I would say it's probably not competitive economically by an order of magnitude. Uh, real-

David Friedberg 49:36 Where does it break, where does it break? Is it a materials breakdown or h- where does it break down economically?

Elon Musk 49:41 Well, (sighs) so y- y- so you can't just, um, use, uh, normal hydrogen. You know, you, you need to use-

David Friedberg 49:50 Right.

Elon Musk 49:50 ... like, deuterium and tritium, like, unusual forms of hydrogen.

David Friedberg 49:53 Helium-3, yeah.

Elon Musk 49:54 Helium-3. Uh, (stutters) you know, there, there are, um, there are some, uh, some, uh, other types of, of fusion that could be used. Uh, but, uh, um, th- these are just not, they're, they're not like, there's not a lot of this raw material. It's quite difficult to get the raw material. So first, you have to get the raw material, uh, that's, that's ver- so e- expensive raw material, um, and then, um, y- it's not just about generating the, the, the energy. You've, you've got to, um, extr- turn that energy into usable electricity. You can't just have a hot thing, okay? So the hot thing has to translate to usable e- electricity. So th- I think you gotta, you've gotta cast a f- a fuel issue, which is very significant. Uh, you've got, you gotta have a whole bunch of knockdowns from, uh, when you generate the heat to, uh, when you actually convert that into electricity. Um, you've got some very difficult maintenance issues with, with the, uh, f- a fusion reactor. Um, so, (laughs) uh, and, and that should be then compared to alternatives. Uh, the o- the, the sustainable energy alternatives that I think, uh, are overwhelmingly more competitive are, um, uh, solar energy, wind, uh, geothermal, uh, hydro, uh, some tidal en- energy. But it's really primarily, uh, solar, uh, and, and wind. Um, now, uh, th- and you can really th- say, like, wh- what, w- why bother creating, uh, fusion on Earth when we have a gigantic fusion reactor in the sky that just works with zero maintenance?

David Friedberg 51:27 Right.

Elon Musk 51:28 And it shows up every day. (laughs)

David Friedberg 51:30 Right.

Elon Musk 51:30 And it's free.

David Friedberg 51:30 And it's pretty consistent, yeah. But E- Elon, can we scale to 1,000X or 100X our electricity production here using solar and other renewable-

Elon Musk 51:39 Yeah.

David Friedberg 51:39 ... sources?

Elon Musk 51:40 Yeah, so, uh, th- so the, the, the amount of, uh, surface area you need to, uh, power the United States is remarkably tiny, um, so you need, like, basically roughly 100 miles by 100 miles of territory. And it obviously doesn't need to be in one place, uh, in the United States to power the United States. It's like a little corner of Texas or Utah, the entire country. Um, and then, and, and then if you, if you're, if you're, you, you could, you could basically power, uh, you, you could probably 10X the, the, just with solar alone, um, without displacing, uh, anyone's home, uh, power an economy 10 times the size of the United States in the United States on land.

David Friedberg 52:19 When, when, when energy prices-

Elon Musk 52:21 And if you extend that, if you ex- if you extend that to water, 'cause Earth is 70% water-

David Friedberg 52:25 Yeah.

Elon Musk 52:26 ... uh, I mean, you could, you could say, okay, now we could probably have a civilization that is 100 times as energy intensive as we currently have it.

David Friedberg 52:34 And so what does, what does that look like was the last part of my question, which is a world where energy costs are, say, let's 100 times cheaper than they are today, and we have 100 times more energy production capacity. What, what, what changes that civilization? What do we do differently, and what do we see change most kind of dramatically?

Elon Musk 52:50 Well, currently, we're, we're, we're not, be- because of, of just generally, uh, low birth rates almost worldwide, uh, ci- civilization is not headed to, uh, have a population that is an order of magnitude greater than where, where we're currently. We're currently headed towards a population decline. Uh, and this is almost everywhere in world, in the world. Um, so, you know, it basically seems as, as though as soon as you have, like, uh, urbanization, um, and, and, and education beyond a certain level and income beyond a certain level, birth rates plummet. Um, and so as countries get, get wealthier, their birth rates plummet. It's, it's somewhat counterintuitive 'cause people will say like, "Well, it's too expensive to have a baby." Nope. The, the wealthier that you are, the, are, the fewer kids you have. Um, the more educated you are, the fewer kids you have. So, um, it, it, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's the, it's the inverse. Um, so, so I'm not sure who would use all that energy, um, unless there's a, a significant change in the birth rate, um, or we have a very robot-oriented economy. So that's also possible. So if we've got a lot of, um, you know, four-wheeled robots in form of cars and, uh, androids, uh, so h- humanoid robots, then you could certainly see that there'd be maybe, perhaps the need for an order of magnitude more energy.... but it's not coming from the humans un- unless something major changes on the- on the human, uh, birthrate, uh, level. Uh, this- this, by the way, is, I think, the biggest single threat to civilization, uh, right now, is the-

Jason Calacanis 54:25 Yeah, why- why do you think societally people just make those decisions when they become more affluent? Is it that they just become more selfish or there's more things for them to do and they have more money to spend on themselves and they say, "You know what? I don't wanna have a large family. I wanna, you know, go to Coachella."

Narrator 54:44 (laughs)

Elon Musk 54:44 Yeah. Well, uh, there- there is this, like, weird, like, mind virussy thing where some people are think like having fewer kids is- is like better for the environment.

Jason Calacanis 54:53 Yeah, that's crazy.

Elon Musk 54:54 This- this is total nonsense.

Jason Calacanis 54:55 Nonsense.

Elon Musk 54:56 Uh, the envi- the environment's gonna be fine. They're gonna be fine even if we- if we doubled the s- the size of the humans. Um, this is ... And I know a lot about environmental stuff, so, um, you know, uh, you ... The- the- we- we can't have civilization just dwindle into nothing. Um, and, you know, Japan's a leading indicator here. Like, the- Japan's population declined by 600,000 people last year. They had the lowest birthrate in history. Uh, it's ... You know, it was pretty bad. Um, so we ... I don't know. It ... We- we ... The ... And I think ... So- so- so- ... And this one element of it is- is- is a- a lot of people just think that having kids is- is somehow bad for the environment. I wanna be clear it's not. It's essential for the mainrai- for maintaining civilization that we at least maintain our numbers. We don't necessarily need to grow dramatically, but at least let's not, uh, you know, gradually dwindle away un- until, uh, civilization ends with us all in adult diapers and- and- and- in- w- in a whimper. Like, we don't want civilization to end in ad- adult diapers with a whimper. That would suck.

Narrator 55:59 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 55:59 That'd suck, yeah.

Elon Musk 56:01 Bleak. Bleak and sad.

Jason Calacanis 56:03 Well, I mean, and- and you and I have had this conversation. I mean, in- in Japan, I had two people tell me when I was there, like, "I- I think it's immoral to bring humans into the world." I mean, people have gotten very sad-

Elon Musk 56:13 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 56:14 ... about the future. It's kinda crazy.

Elon Musk 56:16 Same.

Jason Calacanis 56:17 The world's great. Life's awesome.

Elon Musk 56:19 Yeah. Yes. No, there's- there's literally ... I've heard many times how ... Like, "How can I bring a child into this terrible world?" I'm like, "Have you read history? Because let me tell you-"

Narrator 56:28 (laughs)

Elon Musk 56:28 "... it was way worse back then." Okay?

Jason Calacanis 56:30 Yeah. Now is a good time. Now is a good time to be born.

Elon Musk 56:35 Yeah, yeah.

Jason Calacanis 56:35 Hey, you know, listen, I ... I know you're

Jason Calacanis 56:37 super busy, but I wanted to ask you about the move to Texas, because I've been thinking about it, uh, Austin. California, uh, I- I don't know, some senator told you to go fuck yourself and, like, you know, like, "We don't need you in America."

Elon Musk 56:47 Yeah, I think there's been a couple senators who said that actually.

Narrator 56:50 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 56:50 Yeah. Um, it s- seems to be turning into a bit of a trend. Um, but how has building the Tesla, um, Gigafactory, which I got to see in Austin a couple weeks ago, and it was one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. I mean, uh, I don't know how many months it took to build there, but how long did it take to build there dreadnaught and then what would have taken to build that in Californi- California under Gavin Newsom?

Elon Musk 57:18 So we- we built the- the- the g- the te- Giga Texas, which is the biggest factory in North America, I think possibly the biggest factory in the world. Um, and it's- it's three times the size of the Pentagon, to give you a sense of scale. Okay? So it's freaking big. It's like ... It's weir- ... It's like so big it's weird. Like, you dr- ... It's like-

Narrator 57:35 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 57:36 I ... I was trying to find you in it, and it ... I was trying to drive around, and it took me about 45 minutes to find you.

Elon Musk 57:42 Yeah. (laughs) Like, no, you have to, like, call some- ... You can't, like, find someone in the building. You have to call them on their cellphone and say, "Where are you?" You know? Um, so, uh, I mean, the building's, like, uh, uh, just under a mile long, and we're actually gonna extend it. It will be, like, literally a mile long, um, and about a quarter-mile wide, uh, and it's, uh, 80 feet tall. So it's just, uh, ridiculously big. Um, and when you think about it, like, for a manufacturing situation, like, what- what- one of the two- ... The two things that really define manufacturing competitiveness are economies of scale and technology. And so if you got the ... an ace on econ ... Like, you ... If you sort of maximize your- your ace level on- on technology and you maximize your ace level on scale, this is obviously gonna be the most competitive situation, and that's why they're so freaking giant. Um, and the- the- the ga- ... Uh, Giga Texas will go all the way from, um, s- cell raw materials, like- like- like basically rail cars of cell raw materials coming in and then forming the- the battery cell then the battery pack, uh, building the- the- the motor, uh, casting ... We're also ... Uh, the ... have introduced a major innovation, which is to cast the entire, uh, front third and rear third of the car in- as a single piece. Um, I got this idea from toys, actually, because I was like, "How do they make toys? Those are cheap. They just cast 'em." And I was like, "Well, can you build a casting machine that big?" And they're like, "Well, no one ever has." I'm like, "Is ... Are we breaking physics?" Like, "No. Well, let's just ask them." And w- there were six major casting machine suppliers in the world, and five of them said no and s- the sixth said maybe. I'm like, "I'll take that as a yes." Um-

Narrator 59:14 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 59:15 Well, I mean, this ... You wanted to do this for the Model 3, but it was just too soon, huh? Uh, and- and now it's almost there.

Elon Musk 59:22 A- a- actually, this- this partly comes from the Model 3, which is actually a fantastic car in many ways. Um, um, but we were rightly criticized for an inefficient design, uh, with ... for- for the front and rear body. Um, uh, like Sandy Monroe, who I think is really ex- ... has excellent from an engineering standpoint and- and really a very fair critic, uh, (laughs) he- he- he pistol whipped us for, um, the- the design of the- the battery. He was like, "You suck."

Jason Calacanis 59:47 He ripped it apart and piece by piece told you why you suck.

Elon Musk 59:50 Yeah. (laughs) And then he-

Narrator 59:51 He- he- yeah. Yes.

Elon Musk 59:51 gives a why and tells you why-

Narrator 59:52 (laughs)

Elon Musk 59:52 ... you're awesome.

Jason Calacanis 59:53 (laughs)

Elon Musk 59:53 Is ... Is ... He took it apart and told us exactly why we s- why we sucked, and he was correct. Um, and then-

Narrator 59:59 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:00:00 And I was like, "Well, that's pretty embarrassing." So, uh, no, there- there ... He was complimentary of other parts of the car, but not the body design.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:06 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:00:06 And, uh ... And so it's like, okay, we gotta go from, like, you know, l- l- uh, the- the ... It's g- ... It's just an incredibly difficult body to make. It's made out of, like, 120 different pieces with dissimilar metals that are joined, and you've got galvanic corrosion challenges, so you've got ... It's- it's very difficult to make, um, to a single piece casting. That's one piece. So, like, 120 pieces went down to, like, one. So, um-... it's, it's a, it's a huge... Uh, uh, uh, and the, the... Like, the Model Y body shop, especially the new one where we cast both the front and rear, is 60% smaller than the Model 3 body shop. So it's, it's, you know, gigantic. Uh, it's quite a... There's, there's a lot of innovations at Tesla besides the stuff that is, is obvious.

David Friedberg 1:00:46 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:00:46 Um, so anyway, so yeah, the, the... But, but if we... (laughs) And, and, and really, uh, you know, to be, to be, to be fair to, to, to Gavin Newsom, like, uh, the... You know, if, if you... (laughs) If, if you had a gun to Gavin's head, okay, um, and said, "We need to build a... Start building this factory in California right now," he couldn't do it because there are so many, uh, regulatory agencies, um, and so many, uh, litigators in California that wanna stop you from doing anything, that even if you're the governor of the, of the state, you cannot get it done. Um, so something's gotta be done to, to, to, to, to... You know, 'cause California used to be the land of opportunity, and it's a beautiful state, and I love, I loved living there. I still s- spend a lot of time in California, even though every time I go there I get the... Every, literally every day I go there, I get the bejesus tax out of-

David Sacks 1:01:38 Big tax, big tax bill by day.

Elon Musk 1:01:40 Yeah, like, the sheer cost per day of me going and working in California today just boggles the mind. And, uh, but I still do it, you know? Um, but, but it... The, the California has gone from a land of opportunity to, to the land of, of, of sort of taxes, uh, over-regulation, and litigation. And the, this is not a good situation, and really there's gotta be, like, a s- a s- a serious cleaning out of the pipes in California to get-

David Sacks 1:02:04 Ho- how many months was it to get, uh, the, the Giga Austin done? It took a year and a half, two years? Something like that-

Elon Musk 1:02:10 Yeah, 18, 18 months to build something three times the size of the Pentagon.

David Sacks 1:02:13 Incredible. And you just basically... The answer to how many months it would take in California's-

Elon Musk 1:02:18 Oh-

David Sacks 1:02:18 ... infinity.

Elon Musk 1:02:19 No, we would, we would still be working on the permits.

David Sacks 1:02:21 Yeah. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:23 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:02:23 Elon, this, this, this begs a good question, which is, you know, like-

David Sacks 1:02:28 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:02:28 (laughs) This is... I'm not exaggerating. This is the way to build a company. (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:02:29 (laughs) Can you just keep signing paperwork? We have one more form for you.

David Sacks 1:02:33 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:02:33 (laughs) Yes.

David Friedberg 1:02:33 What's a better model... What's a better model for government? So, you know, like all governments tend to increase in complexity-

David Sacks 1:02:41 Dictatorship. (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:02:41 ... and capacity. Is the, is the dictatorship the right model?

Elon Musk 1:02:45 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:02:45 And, um, you know, like, like how do we solve this? Let's say you go to Mars or let's say you had to fix California. Is California permanently broken? Is there a way to fix it? Or, like, how do you set up a better model so that you don't end up having this, this kind of special interest complexity situation that eventually kills the, uh-

David Sacks 1:03:02 That's true.

David Friedberg 1:03:03 ... population?

Elon Musk 1:03:03 Well, I mean, I think ultimately with California, the, the people of California just have to get fed up and, and demand change. Um, that's the thing that really has to happen. Um, and, and, and there's got, there's got to be an above 0% chance of the, of the Republicans winning in California. If, if, if it's, if it's just the, the Democrats every time-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:21 (applause)

Elon Musk 1:03:22 It's gotta be.

David Friedberg 1:03:23 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:03:23 You know, and this is, this is, like, occasionally, uh, it, it, it... The, the thing is that right, right now, uh, you, you, w- and plus the level of, level of gerrymandering, uh, which is basically just treat- treating the people like sheep, uh, and, and, uh, is, it's terrible, um, uh, that's gone on in California is outrageous. So California, uh, the Dems have a super majority, uh, in, in, um, the House and Senate in California, and the governor and everything. And so how responsive is any political party gonna be to the people if they are, uh, guaranteed to win? It's ba- it's a one-party state.

David Friedberg 1:03:56 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:03:57 And so, uh, I'm not saying that, you know, go and, uh, uh, uh, sort of elect the Republicans every time. But if it's never, you're, you're just making California a one-party state. They will no longer be response- responsive to people and will only be responsive to those that funded their political campaigns.

David Friedberg 1:04:13 Clip Elon saying that 30 seconds on TV over and over.

David Sacks 1:04:16 (laughs) Go ahead, Sax.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:17 Yeah. So, uh, Elon, shifting gears to the economy. Um, you know, we saw this, uh, surprise report of negative 1.4% GDP growth in Q1, uh, interest rates have been rising. That increased the cost to the consumer of getting loans, things like that. Uh, we've had a stock market correction, really a crash in, uh, a lot of growth stocks, software stocks. Um, what... From where you sit and the data that you see, uh, where, where do you think the economy is, is headed right now? Do you think we're in a recession or is it just a risk? How do you, how do you assess our current economic situation?

Elon Musk 1:04:50 Well, predicting economic, macroeconomics is always difficult. Um, and, and one should assign probabilities to these things. Um, but (laughs) ironically I did last year, people asked me what I think about the economy. I said, "Well, I, I think we might enter a recession in approximately, uh, uh, s- spring o- of 2020. Uh, of 2022." (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:05:09 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:05:09 Called it.

David Sacks 1:05:09 Nailed it. (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:05:10 (laughs) Um, yeah. Um, so, uh, you... Now the thing is that recessions are not necessarily a bad thing. Uh, they, they... You, you know, um... What, what... I, I've now been through a few of them and what tends to happen is if, if you have, um, uh, a boom for... that goes on for too long, you get misallocation of capital. Uh, it starts raining money on fools basically. It's like any, any dumb thing gets money, and I'm sure you've seen a few of those. Um, so at, at, at very... At some point it gets just out of control and you just have a misallocation of, of human capital, uh, where, where people are doing things that are silly and, and not useful to their fellow human beings. Um, and, and, and then those companies... There needs to be sort of an economic enema, if you will, um, uh, to, to have everyone sort of shift uncomfortably in their seats, um, so... (laughs) But, but the-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:02 (laughs)

David Sacks 1:06:03 I'm sorry. It's just I'm visualizing it. The economic enema. (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:06:08 I mean, listen, it's got alliteration. Um, so, uh... (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:14 (laughs)

David Sacks 1:06:14 This too shall pass. (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:06:17 (laughs) Eventually the economic enema does its job-It clears out the pipes, if you will. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:06:22 Yes. (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:06:24 And, um, and, and, and sort of the, the, the bullshit companies, um, uh, go bankrupt and the ones that are doing useful products, uh, are, are prosperous. Um, and, um, but, but there's certainly a lesson here that if one is making a useful product and, and, and doing, d- has a company that makes sense, uh, make sure you're not running things too close to the edge from a capital standpoint, that you've got some capital reserves to, uh, last through, uh, ir- irrational times. Because in the p- in the past when there's been a recession, um, it has gone... It's, it's amazing. It's flipped like a light switch. I mean, David, you remember this when, from the, from the PayPal, you know, ex-PayPal days, whe- when, when we, uh, r- raised $100 million in March of 2000, uh, a- and we literally, we had, uh, uh, w- the, the demand was so high we had, uh, people like, uh, VCs like just literally without even a term sheet wiring money into our account. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07:16 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:07:16 We'll send the term sheet later. (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:07:18 Th- they, they literally would like, would, would sleuth out our, our bank account number and wire money in. And we're like, "Where'd this come from?"

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07:24 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:07:24 And it's like, oh, (laughs) um, they... So i- it was like r- ... there was literally fire hosing money in March of 2000. And, and then in April 2000, the market went into free fall and it went from money, raising money was trivial, to even good companies could not raise money, uh, in a, in a month. Um, so it's just important to bear in mind like that, you know, PayPal almost went bankrupt in, in 2000, uh, came close. Um, but, but thankfully w- we'd raised that, that $100 million in, in March 2000, uh, without which we'd be, uh, we would have been game over basically. Um, uh, and, and we kind of saw it coming. So it's like we r- w- we got that, the, the, the ex Confinity merger done in like three weeks and raised $100 million. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:08:09 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:08:09 Because we all were like, "Uh-oh, how is this... We, we see this coming to an end pretty soon." And then a month later it was like, it, you know, a nightmare basically. Um, and, and, uh, anyway so just important to make sure if you're a healthy company, you got some capital to get through things. Um, and, and then what, what's your costs and, uh, if you, if, if it is a recession which it more likely than not it is a recession, not saying it is, but it pro- it probably is. Um, then just, uh, make, watch your cash flow and get to p- positive cash flow as soon as you can. Um, so, um, yeah, uh, but I think we probably are, that they are in a recession, and that that recession will get, get worse. Um, but, you know, these things pass and then there will be boom times again. Um, so it'll probably be some, some tough going for, I don't know, a year, uh, maybe, maybe, you know, 12 to 18 months is usually, um, the, the amount of time that it takes for, for the, a correction to, to happen.

Jason Calacanis 1:09:16 Right.

Elon Musk 1:09:17 I mean, what do you guys think?

Jason Calacanis 1:09:18 Yeah. Uh, David, uh, how do you feel about it?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:09:21 Yeah, I mean it feels like it started, um, you know, what started as a slowdown earlier this year, um, now seems like... I mean, technically I guess we need two quarters of negative growth to be in a recession, but it feels like we're in one. It feels like it started.

Elon Musk 1:09:34 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:09:35 Um, you know, the growth stock, the software businesses that we invest in are sort of the canaries in the coal mine, and there's a lot of, a lot of dead canaries.

1:09:41 (laughs)

1:09:41 Probably not dead, but, uh-

1:09:43 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:09:43 They having a hard time breathing? (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:09:46 Yeah.

Elon Musk 1:09:46 It's not, it's not-

Jason Calacanis 1:09:49 I'm not dead yet. (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:09:49 It's not dead, it's j- it's just, it's just napping. It's-

Jason Calacanis 1:09:52 It's napping. (laughs) Wake up little birdy. (laughs) Wake up.

Elon Musk 1:09:56 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:09:57 He's live.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:09:57 It's just high.

Elon Musk 1:09:59 It's just stunned. It got, it got stunned for a brief moment and, and, and it just pa- it'll be fine. Um. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:06 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:10:07 It, it, it sort of reminds me of the, the parrot, you know, the Pet Shop sketch with the parrot, with Monty Python-

Jason Calacanis 1:10:11 Yes, Monty Python.

Elon Musk 1:10:12 Um, where (laughs) ... It's pining, this parrot is pining for the fjords. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:10:19 Hey,

Jason Calacanis 1:10:20 um, Elon, a lot has been talked about as we wrap here, and you've been incredibly gracious giving us so much time. Thank you for that. Um, a lot of talk about American exceptionalism over the last couple of years, um, waning and maybe this country had seen its best days. And, uh, we see the work you're doing and other people in this great country are doing and the debates we're having about the future. And, uh, yeah, China's doing pretty fantastic. Russia's on the ropes. Um, but it does seem like, uh, America is still producing s- some of the greatest companies, uh, the world has ever seen, some of the greatest innovations. What are your thoughts on America and our future and what we need to keep this country and, and this beacon of hope that, you know, four of the five of us were not born here, you know? Two of you came from South Africa and-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:10 No, three of you.

Jason Calacanis 1:11:11 Three of you came from South Africa and one of you from Can- I don't know what they're putting on the-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:14 No, from Sri Lanka.

Jason Calacanis 1:11:14 And from Sri Lanka and through Canada.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:16 Via Canada.

Jason Calacanis 1:11:17 Via Canada. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:18 He came through Canada too.

Jason Calacanis 1:11:19 Yeah, I know. I- a- it seems like that's the, that's the way.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:22 Canada is a gateway.

Jason Calacanis 1:11:23 It is a gateway.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:25 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:11:25 Uh, and how, how do we... It's a... Well, I'm hinting at the answer here, but, you know, it does seem like our immigration policy is absolutely insane and, uh, maybe we need to keep collecting some of the great individuals that I get, I get to share the stage with here and yourself. We need to keep bringing great people to this country.

Elon Musk 1:11:44 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 1:11:44 Why can't we get that in our heads that-

Elon Musk 1:11:47 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 1:11:47 ... not immigration, it's talent recruitment.

Elon Musk 1:11:50 No, uh, uh, absolutely. I think, uh, it- it's incredibly important that th- the United States be like the destination for the world's best talent. I mean, you can think of this like, uh, like, like a pro sports team. If you want to win the league, um, and, and, uh, you know, you want the best players on your team. Um, there, now there are obviously a lot of, uh, uh, very talented people born in the United States, um, but if you could add a few aces from, uh, from, uh, outside the country to the team, you're gonna win the league. Um, and, and, and here's the thing. Those aces actually want to work for your team. They don't want to compete against you. They want to... They want-

Jason Calacanis 1:12:25 They want to win.

Elon Musk 1:12:26 They want to be on Team America. And as a h- it's like we, we, we have to like fight them off to not be on Team America. That's the crazy thing. Um, and so it's like if you had some aces that, that are the difference between winning and losing, w- we should be like-... really recruiting them like you'd recruit, like, a star basketball player or football player. Y- that's what you sh- we should be doing, um, active recruiting. Um, just like if you're a company that wants, wants to succeed, you actively recruit the best talent. And then c- and, and, and that, that's the way to win. And, and if, if that stops happening, America will stop winning.

David Friedberg 1:13:02 A- and we have two administrations in a row, Biden and Trump, who don't wanna let the greatest minds, the most talented people into this country. It's absolutely insane.

Elon Musk 1:13:13 I mean, I think the m-

David Friedberg 1:13:13 We deal with this every day, right? We keep reading.

Elon Musk 1:13:14 Yeah, but I think the rea- reality is like, eh, uh, actually an- any- anyone who, who's gonna w- who wants to, to, to, to work hard and be ... and, and do useful things, um, and in this, you know, uh, w- we, we want in the United States. Um, yeah, and, and it's not just people who are sort of intellectually strong, but it's just e- anyone with a s- with a strong work ethic. W- with, you know, if it w- if they're coming from Mexico or if they're coming from, you know, Europe or China, wherever, it's just if, if they're like gonna come here and crank hard and, and, and contribute more than they take, hell yeah. I mean, that's just ... it's a no-brainer.

David Friedberg 1:13:49 We, uh-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:13:50 Have you ... have you been ... have you been disappointed in the similarities between Biden and Trump on this? Like, maybe you could've expected it from Trump 'cause that was the rhetoric he needed to use to get elected. But it's not as if Biden has flipped the script and said-

Elon Musk 1:14:03 Not at all.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:14:03 ... "Okay, we're gonna go 180 degrees in the other direction." He's kinda kept it the same, which has been really surprising, actually.

Elon Musk 1:14:09 Man, it's hard to tell what Biden's doing, to be totally frank. Um, you know. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:14:15 (laughs)

Narrator 1:14:15 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:14:15 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:14:16 Yeah. He's like ... uh, I feel, I feel like the p-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:14:19 It's Weekend at Bernie's.

Elon Musk 1:14:20 The, the, the, the, the real president id- is whoever controls the teleprompter, you know. It's like, it, it's like, eh, th- with th- w- the with th- wha- the path to power is the path to the teleprompter. It, you know, like what, what ... 'cause then, then he just reads the teleprompter. So, you know, I, I do feel like, like if, if somebody were to accidentally lead on the ... lean on the teleprompter, it's gonna be like Anchorman. It's gonna be like q, q, q-

Narrator 1:14:41 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:14:41 ... a, s, d, f, 1, 2, 3, you know, type of thing. (laughs)

Narrator 1:14:45 (laughs)

Elon Musk 1:14:45 Um ... (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:14:45 I mean, in fairness to Biden, he, he hasn't been napping as much as he needs to, but ... you know.

Elon Musk 1:14:51 (laughs) Well, it's, uh, you just ... it's hard to see the

David Friedberg 1:14:53 Well, it's, it's, it's an incredibly hard job. I mean, let's ju-

Elon Musk 1:14:54 ... important features that, that are getting done, you know. Eh, th- th- this ... I mean, this administration just doesn't ... it doesn't seem to get a lot done. Like, and, uh, you know, um, whatever ... like, d- the, the Trump administration, uh, b- l- leaving Trump aside, I ... there, there were a lot of people in the administration who were effective at getting things done. So, uh, the ... this admi- th- this administration seems just, just to not have, like, the drive to just get shit done. Uh, that, that, um, that, that's my ... it's, it's ... that's my impression. Um, so, um, you know-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:15:29 We're here for you.

Elon Musk 1:15:29 ... we definitely need to fix immigration policy. Like, we had COVID, which was an issue, and, and, and so that was like one reason to, like, not re- you know, uh, I guess, clamp down on it. But n- now it ... now we've moved on, and so let- let's, let's just make sure we're, we're getting top talent, uh, in, in the United States. Um, and, and, and r- really I'd say broadly, it's anyone who, who, uh, wants to work their ass off, um, and, and, uh, and, and contribute more than they take to the economy. Like, that's just necessarily gonna make for a stronger, better society in America.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:15:58 Elon, did you see, uh, Jeff's, uh, Bezos's tweet back and forth with Biden, um, where Biden, I think, was talking about-

David Friedberg 1:16:06 Inflation.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:16:07 ... inflation, but then he correlated that to taxing corporations. And Bezos said, "This is misinformation and disinformation," et cetera, et cetera.