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

1. 0:00 – 0:43

   Bestie Guestie Elon Musk joins the besties via Zoom at the All-In Summit!

   1. JCJason Calacanis0:00

      So, uh, live from an undisclosed location with the sultry filter on. (audience cheering)

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:08

      (laughs)

   3. JCJason Calacanis0:09

      Very sultry filter on.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:12

      Yeah.

   5. JCJason Calacanis0:13

      Having a great hair day.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:15

      Yeah, that is a good hair day for me.

   7. JCJason Calacanis0:16

      Great hair day.

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:17

      (laughs)

   9. JCJason Calacanis0:17

      My pal and your favorite CEO and Twitterer, Mr. Elon Musk. How're you doing, pal?

   10. EMElon Musk0:24

       Nick. (audience cheering)

   11. DSDavid Sacks0:29

       Let your winners ride.

   12. JCJason Calacanis0:31

       Rain Man, David Sa-

   13. DFDavid Friedberg0:34

       I'm going all in. And I said-

   14. DSDavid Sacks0:36

       We open sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

   15. JCJason Calacanis0:39

       Love you, bestie.

   16. DFDavid Friedberg0:40

       I'm going all in.

   17. DSDavid Sacks0:40

       Queen of quinoa.

   18. DFDavid Friedberg0:42

       I'm going all

2. 0:43 – 13:26

   Benchmarking Twitter's bot problem, thoughts on slights from the Biden Administration

   1. DFDavid Friedberg0:43

      in.

   2. JCJason Calacanis0:43

      Appreciate you, uh, uh, coming to the event, and, um, or, or coming, uh, Zooming in, um-

   3. EMElon Musk0:48

      Yeah.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:49

      (laughs)

   5. JCJason Calacanis0:49

      Uh, what's new in your world?

   6. DFDavid Friedberg0:52

      Um.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:52

      (laughing)

   8. EMElon Musk0:54

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

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:01

      (laughs)

   10. JCJason Calacanis1:01

       Ah.

   11. EMElon Musk1:03

       ... 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)

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:22

       (laughs)

   13. JCJason Calacanis1:22

       (laughs)

   14. NANarrator1:22

       (laughs)

   15. EMElon Musk1:22

       (laughs)

   16. JCJason Calacanis1:22

       So-

   17. EMElon Musk1:23

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

   18. JCJason Calacanis1:29

       Have you determined-

   19. EMElon Musk1:30

       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.

   20. JCJason Calacanis1:38

       If they answer, it's not a bot.

   21. EMElon Musk1:39

       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?

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:45

       (laughs)

   23. EMElon Musk2:46

       (laughs)

   24. JCJason Calacanis2:52

       I mean-

   25. EMElon Musk2:52

       It's like... (laughs) I mean, really? (laughs)

   26. JCJason Calacanis2:56

       (laughs)

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:56

       (laughs)

   28. EMElon Musk2:56

       That's like, there's a bridge I, I'd like to sell ya, you know. Uh-

   29. JCJason Calacanis2:59

       (laughs)

   30. EMElon Musk2:59

       ... you know. Uh, you know. (laughs) And, and also-
3. 13:26 – 21:42

   Breaking down Tesla's 6+ businesses, comparing them to a traditional car company

   1. CPChamath Palihapitiya13:26

      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.

   2. EMElon Musk13:41

      Uh-huh.

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya13:41

      But the pub- public analyst-

   4. EMElon Musk13:44

      (laughs)

   5. NANarrator13:46

      (laughs)

   6. EMElon Musk13:46

      Absolutely. (laughs)

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya13:47

      That's a car joke. That's a combust- (laughs)

   8. EMElon Musk13:51

      (laughs) Stepping on the gas pedal, firing on all cylinders.

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya13:54

      (laughs)

   10. EMElon Musk13:54

       Turbo charged.

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya13:56

       (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-

   12. EMElon Musk14:22

       Yeah, maybe more.

   13. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:22

       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?

   14. EMElon Musk14:29

       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.

   15. CPChamath Palihapitiya17:02

       When you, when you, uh-

   16. EMElon Musk17:04

       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-

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya17:23

       Yeah.

   18. EMElon Musk17:23

       ... 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-

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya17:56

       You had this slide.

   20. EMElon Musk17:57

       And we, we also, we also built a chip team to-

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:00

       Yeah.

   22. EMElon Musk18:00

       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)

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:10

       (laughs)

   24. EMElon Musk18:10

       ... 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.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:12

       I, uh-

   26. EMElon Musk19:12

       Let me go.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:12

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

   28. JCJason Calacanis19:17

       Yeah, yeah.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:17

       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-

   30. EMElon Musk19:37

       Yeah.
4. 21:42 – 30:19

   Concerns around the Twitter deal, crypto payments on Twitter

   1. JCJason Calacanis21:42

      is this Twitter deal gonna get closed, do you think? What are the chances here?

   2. EMElon Musk21:45

      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-

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:08

      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.

   4. EMElon Musk22:16

      They claim that they do know.

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:18

      Yeah.

   6. EMElon Musk22:19

      And they claim that they've got this complex methodology, uh, that only they can understand, um.

   7. JCJason Calacanis22:24

      (laughs)

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:25

      (laughs)

   9. EMElon Musk22:27

      It's like-

   10. JCJason Calacanis22:28

       But the guy who landed two rockets simultaneously cannot understand.

   11. EMElon Musk22:31

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

   12. JCJason Calacanis22:35

       (laughs)

   13. EMElon Musk22:36

       (laughs)

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:36

       Double, double, toil and trouble.

   15. JCJason Calacanis22:38

       Ogsworth.

   16. EMElon Musk22:39

       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.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:54

       It's a threshold issue, yeah.

   18. EMElon Musk22:56

       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?

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:31

       (laughs)

   20. EMElon Musk23:31

       It's not the same house. Um-

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:33

       (laughs)

   22. EMElon Musk23:34

       This house is made mostly of termites.

   23. JCJason Calacanis23:36

       (laughs)

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:37

       (laughs)

   25. EMElon Musk23:37

       When termites leave, it literally ... Your- your house will disappear 'cause it's mostly made of termites.

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:42

       (laughs)

   27. EMElon Musk23:43

       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.

   28. JCJason Calacanis24:03

       Hmm.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya24:04

       Yeah.

   30. JCJason Calacanis24:04

       And, you know, they say, Elon, life's a negotiation. So at a different price, it might be a totally viable deal, correct?
5. 30:19 – 39:52

   Building vs. acquiring, early Tesla stories

   1. EMElon Musk30:19

      somehow.

   2. JCJason Calacanis30:20

      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-

   3. EMElon Musk30:47

      Yeah.

   4. JCJason Calacanis30:47

      ... easier for someone like you to just start from scratch? I mean...

   5. EMElon Musk30:51

      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)

   6. DSDavid Sacks31:28

      (laughs)

   7. EMElon Musk31:28

      Um, so, uh-

   8. JCJason Calacanis31:29

      Well, I mean, that's a pretty good story.

   9. EMElon Musk31:30

      (clapping)

   10. DSDavid Sacks31:30

       (clapping)

   11. EMElon Musk31:30

       I mean-

   12. JCJason Calacanis31:31

       Yeah, bon voyage.

   13. EMElon Musk31:32

       Remember-

   14. JCJason Calacanis31:33

       Jesus. (laughs)

   15. EMElon Musk31:34

       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.

   16. JCJason Calacanis31:41

       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."

   17. EMElon Musk31:50

       Yeah.

   18. JCJason Calacanis31:50

       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-

   19. EMElon Musk32:04

       Yes.

   20. JCJason Calacanis32:04

       ... starting to get involved. That's... It was disastrous.

   21. EMElon Musk32:06

       No, no. No. I, I got involved well, well before that. (laughs)

   22. JCJason Calacanis32:09

       Oh, before that, yes.

   23. EMElon Musk32:10

       I got involved when, when, when Twitter, when, when, when Tesla w- w- was, was nothing-

   24. JCJason Calacanis32:13

       Yeah.

   25. EMElon Musk32:13

       ... but a piece of paper. Le- let me be-

   26. JCJason Calacanis32:15

       I think, yeah.

   27. EMElon Musk32:15

       ... crystal clear.

   28. JCJason Calacanis32:16

       But they brought you there.

   29. EMElon Musk32:16

       Crystal fucking clear. Uh-

   30. JCJason Calacanis32:19

       Yeah.
6. 39:52 – 56:37

   SpaceX's grand vision and business model, nuclear fusion vs. solar

   1. NANarrator39:52

   2. (laughs)

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya39:53

      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...

   4. EMElon Musk40:14

      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.

   5. NANarrator41:04

      (laughs)

   6. EMElon Musk41:04

      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-

   7. NANarrator41:21

      (laughs)

   8. JCJason Calacanis41:21

      I mean, you'll tell us if you find them.

   9. EMElon Musk41:22

      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."

   10. NANarrator41:42

       (laughs)

   11. EMElon Musk41:42

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

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya41:48

       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?

   13. EMElon Musk42:06

       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)

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya42:55

       (laughs)

   15. DSDavid Sacks42:55

       (laughs) As a prelude to a war-

   16. EMElon Musk42:57

       (laughs)

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya42:57

       (laughs)

   18. DSDavid Sacks42:57

       ... we take them into the system-

   19. EMElon Musk42:59

       Yeah. (laughs)

   20. DFDavid Friedberg42:59

       (laughs) Like in Star Wars, yeah.

   21. EMElon Musk43:01

       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-"

   22. DFDavid Friedberg44:08

       Yeah.

   23. EMElon Musk44:08

       "... 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-

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya44:24

       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?

   25. DFDavid Friedberg44:35

       Is going to ... is going to Mars a partnership with the government? Does it need to partner with governments to get there?

   26. EMElon Musk44:41

       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?

   27. DFDavid Friedberg45:29

       Hm.

   28. EMElon Musk45:30

       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-

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya47:09

       Elon.

   30. EMElon Musk47:09

       Yeah. Sorry.
7. 56:37 – 1:10:20

   Moving from CA to TX, fixing California, macroeconomic takes

   1. JCJason Calacanis56:37

      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."

   2. EMElon Musk56:47

      Yeah, I think there's been a couple senators who said that actually.

   3. NANarrator56:50

      (laughs)

   4. JCJason Calacanis56:50

      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?

   5. EMElon Musk57:18

      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-

   6. NANarrator57:35

      (laughs)

   7. JCJason Calacanis57:36

      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.

   8. EMElon Musk57:42

      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-

   9. NANarrator59:14

      (laughs)

   10. JCJason Calacanis59:15

       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.

   11. EMElon Musk59:22

       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."

   12. JCJason Calacanis59:47

       He ripped it apart and piece by piece told you why you suck.

   13. EMElon Musk59:50

       Yeah. (laughs) And then he-

   14. NANarrator59:51

       He- he- yeah. Yes.

   15. EMElon Musk59:51

       gives a why and tells you why-

   16. NANarrator59:52

       (laughs)

   17. EMElon Musk59:52

       ... you're awesome.

   18. JCJason Calacanis59:53

       (laughs)

   19. EMElon Musk59:53

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

   20. NANarrator59:59

       (laughs)

   21. EMElon Musk1:00:00

       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.

   22. JCJason Calacanis1:00:06

       Yeah.

   23. EMElon Musk1:00:06

       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.

   24. DFDavid Friedberg1:00:46

       Yeah.

   25. EMElon Musk1:00:46

       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-

   26. DSDavid Sacks1:01:38

       Big tax, big tax bill by day.

   27. EMElon Musk1:01:40

       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-

   28. DSDavid Sacks1:02:04

       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-

   29. EMElon Musk1:02:10

       Yeah, 18, 18 months to build something three times the size of the Pentagon.

   30. DSDavid Sacks1:02:13

       Incredible. And you just basically... The answer to how many months it would take in California's-
8. 1:10:20 – 1:16:17

   American exceptionalism, a new immigration strategy

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:10:20

      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-

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:11:10

      No, three of you.

   3. JCJason Calacanis1:11:11

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

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:11:14

      No, from Sri Lanka.

   5. JCJason Calacanis1:11:14

      And from Sri Lanka and through Canada.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:11:16

      Via Canada.

   7. JCJason Calacanis1:11:17

      Via Canada. (laughs)

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:11:18

      He came through Canada too.

   9. JCJason Calacanis1:11:19

      Yeah, I know. I- a- it seems like that's the, that's the way.

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:11:22

       Canada is a gateway.

   11. JCJason Calacanis1:11:23

       It is a gateway.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:11:25

       (laughs)

   13. JCJason Calacanis1:11:25

       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.

   14. EMElon Musk1:11:44

       Yeah.

   15. JCJason Calacanis1:11:44

       Why can't we get that in our heads that-

   16. EMElon Musk1:11:47

       Yeah.

   17. JCJason Calacanis1:11:47

       ... not immigration, it's talent recruitment.

   18. EMElon Musk1:11:50

       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-

   19. JCJason Calacanis1:12:25

       They want to win.

   20. EMElon Musk1:12:26

       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.

   21. DFDavid Friedberg1:13:02

       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.

   22. EMElon Musk1:13:13

       I mean, I think the m-

   23. DFDavid Friedberg1:13:13

       We deal with this every day, right? We keep reading.

   24. EMElon Musk1:13:14

       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.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg1:13:49

       We, uh-

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:13:50

       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-

   27. EMElon Musk1:14:03

       Not at all.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:14:03

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

   29. EMElon Musk1:14:09

       Man, it's hard to tell what Biden's doing, to be totally frank. Um, you know. (laughs)

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:14:15

       (laughs)

Episode duration: 1:26:18