Joe Rogan Experience #2054 - Elon Musk

1. 0:00 – 2:22

   Cybertruck reveal: why it looks unreal and what’s actually bulletproof

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music)

   4. EMElon Musk0:14

      Oh yeah, there's me with my dog pool.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      Yeah. (laughs) It's that one.

   6. EMElon Musk0:17

      It's like looking in the mirror.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      Have you seen that before?

   8. EMElon Musk0:21

      (laughs) Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      Did people get you one of those?

   10. EMElon Musk0:22

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       He's awesome.

   12. EMElon Musk0:24

       He is awesome. (laughs) He's pretty edgy.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Yeah. He's ama- It's amazing that he puts out a piece of art per day, 365 days a year.

   14. EMElon Musk0:34

       Yeah. I was following him on the X platform, aka Twitter, uh, but it, some of it was too jarring. (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Too jarring, some of the images?

   16. EMElon Musk0:42

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       Well, cheers, sir.

   18. EMElon Musk0:43

       Cheers.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       And Happy Halloween.

   20. EMElon Musk0:44

       Cheers.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it.

   22. EMElon Musk0:47

       You're welcome.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       Thanks for rolling up in this Hyper Truck too.

   24. EMElon Musk0:50

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:50

       I got a chance to look at it in the factory, but that was, uh... Almost, uh... Was that like a year and a half ago or so?

   26. EMElon Musk0:57

       Was it?

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       It was a while ago.

   28. EMElon Musk0:59

       Yeah, a year ago, I guess.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:00

       Yeah, at least a year.

   30. EMElon Musk1:02

       At least a y- yeah. Um-
2. 2:22 – 5:24

   Why manufacturing is the hard part: factories vs prototypes

   1. EMElon Musk2:22

      Uh, the hard part by far is manufacturing, not, not designing the, the car. Uh, so, um... And, and there's just not really a movie about that, but there should be. Um, so the, in the sort of the, um... You know, the movies will always be about the sort of inventor who invented the car, and then the job is done.

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:44

      Right.

   3. EMElon Musk2:45

      That's all. Invented the object, uh, now the job is done. This is not true. Th- that's the easy part. The hard part is manufacturing by far.

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:53

      Why is it so much harder than making an individual model?

   5. EMElon Musk2:58

      (sighs) Um, well, the, the... (clears throat) In, in order to make it affordable, you have to make it at, at volume. So you've got to make everything, um, at, at high rate consistently. Um, if, if you s- if you toured the production line, you'd have a sense for it. Um, you've got to have all of the casting machines, all of the stamping machines as the case may be, the glass machines, the, the wheels, the tires, uh, everything required from the motor, the, the battery cells, all of the constituents of the battery cells, um, all of the silicon that goes in there with the chips. Um, it is... The m- manufacturing is, uh, somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times harder than making a prototype.

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:50

      Whoa.

   7. EMElon Musk3:52

      Um, and then if you want to, say like, you want to get from... Um, y- once you reach volume manufacturing, which is insanely difficult, um, then you want to make the car affordable, it's harder to say reduce the, the, uh, cost of the car by 20% than it is to get to volume production in the first place. Um, so I, I really cannot emphasize enough, um, how hard production is relative to design. I'm, I'm not saying design is trivial, because you have to have taste and you have to know what t- to make. Um, if you don't have, uh, taste and judgment, then your prototype will be bad. Um, but it is, uh, it is trivial really to churn out prototypes, and it is extremely difficult to, to build a factory.

   8. JRJoe Rogan4:40

      And how much more difficult is it to make this? Consi- considering the body's made out of steel, uh, it's, uh-

   9. EMElon Musk4:46

      Very difficult. Um, the, the difficulty of manufacturing is proportionate to the amount of new technology that you have in a car and or in the product. And in this case, there's a lot of new technology. The production line will move as fast as the slowest and least lucky, um, and most foolish, uh, part of the entire production line. And you could say up to first approximation, there are 10,000 things that have to go right at least for production to work. So if you have 9,999 things that are working and one that isn't, that's, that's the production rate.

   10. JRJoe Rogan5:21

       Hmm.

   11. EMElon Musk5:23

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan5:24

       How-

3. 5:24 – 8:01

   Henry Ford, mass production history, and the hemp car tangent

   1. EMElon Musk5:24

      It's by far the hard... R- in fact, the, the, the r- really (clears throat) ... the, the amazing thing about automobiles was not so much the invention of the automobile, but the, the invention of the factory, the mass manufacturing. And for that, Henry Ford deserves a tremendous amount of credit. Um, uh, he was next level genius. Um, and in fact, Ford is really responsible for the entire mass manufacturing industry, uh, because, uh, he, he actually founded Cadillac, which was the, the heart of General Motors, then he got kicked out, then started Ford.

   2. JRJoe Rogan5:55

      Really?

   3. EMElon Musk5:56

      Yeah, then every- and everyone just copied him.

   4. JRJoe Rogan5:58

      Do you know he made one of his first cars out of hemp?

   5. EMElon Musk6:01

      (laughs) Well-

   6. JRJoe Rogan6:04

      ... he used hemp fiber for the panels.

   7. EMElon Musk6:05

      (laughs) Okay. Uh-

   8. JRJoe Rogan6:06

      Yeah. There's fascinating video of him banging on it with a hammer. Because hemp is, uh, bizarrely durable when it's, uh, compressed and when they take the fibers, and I, I don't know what kind of epoxy they use or something to put it all together. But, uh, what, what it makes, w- with the actual physical form of it, it's insanely light.

   9. EMElon Musk6:23

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan6:24

       Like fiberglass light. But very, very durable. See if you can find that video. It's kind of crazy. Henry Ford is banging on, uh-

   11. EMElon Musk6:31

       On a, on a-

   12. JRJoe Rogan6:31

       ... I believe it was the hood of it.

   13. EMElon Musk6:33

       Okay.

   14. JRJoe Rogan6:33

       With a, with a hammer.

   15. EMElon Musk6:34

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan6:34

       Here it is. So this was like ... look at that.

   17. EMElon Musk6:39

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan6:40

       Isn't that crazy?

   19. EMElon Musk6:41

       It was wild.

   20. JRJoe Rogan6:45

       I don't know why they stopped making them out of that. That was from 1941.

   21. EMElon Musk6:50

       Hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan6:51

       How much does the Cybertruck weigh?

   23. EMElon Musk6:53

       Uh, it depends on configuration, but it's about, I don't know, 7,000 pounds.

   24. JRJoe Rogan6:57

       Whoa.

   25. EMElon Musk6:58

       6 ... There's different versions, but 6, 6, 7,000 pounds.

   26. JRJoe Rogan7:01

       And-

   27. EMElon Musk7:01

       It's, it's like similar to ... Like, it's a heavy truck.

   28. JRJoe Rogan7:05

       Like a Ford F-250 or something like that.

   29. EMElon Musk7:08

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan7:09

       And it ... Because of, uh, all of the, the, the metal and the weight and everything like that. But with the engines that you have, it's still ... The zero to 60's pretty bizarre, right? It's like three-five or something like that?
4. 8:01 – 13:49

   Live demo: shooting an arrow at the Cybertruck (and it barely scratches)

   1. JRJoe Rogan8:01

      Can I try it with an arrow?

   2. EMElon Musk8:02

      Yeah, it'll be fine. (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan8:04

      You think so?

   4. EMElon Musk8:05

      I mean, it sh- uh, uh-

   5. JRJoe Rogan8:06

      I bet I can get in there.

   6. EMElon Musk8:06

      A crossbow might.

   7. JRJoe Rogan8:08

      I have a 90-pound compound bow that shoots 520-grain arrows at 300 feet per second with a-

   8. EMElon Musk8:18

      I think an arrow-

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:18

      ... razor sharp broadhead.

   10. EMElon Musk8:21

       We can, we can try it right now if you want.

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:22

       I wish I had it with me.

   12. EMElon Musk8:24

       Um ...

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:25

       (coughs) I don't.

   14. EMElon Musk8:26

       Is it at your house or something?

   15. JRJoe Rogan8:27

       Yeah.

   16. EMElon Musk8:28

       Should we send someone to go get it?

   17. JRJoe Rogan8:29

       No.

   18. EMElon Musk8:29

       We could do the demo tonight.

   19. NANarrator8:30

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan8:30

       That would be interesting.

   21. EMElon Musk8:32

       Yeah, we'll ... Maybe I'll drive back with an arrow sticking out of my car.

   22. JRJoe Rogan8:34

       I bet I could get it in there.

   23. EMElon Musk8:36

       Okay, I'll bet you can't.

   24. JRJoe Rogan8:37

       Really?

   25. EMElon Musk8:37

       Yeah, I'll bet you a dollar.

   26. JRJoe Rogan8:38

       Damn.

   27. EMElon Musk8:39

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan8:40

       I'd like ... Damn. What if-

   29. EMElon Musk8:41

       I think, I think if, if you have a, a crossbow that's with, with enough force, you might ... A crossbow, you might get it to go through.

   30. JRJoe Rogan8:47

       The thing about a crossbow is the bolt, even though it's very fast, it's not gonna be nearly as heavy. You, you won't have as many grains.
5. 13:49 – 16:30

   Off-road design and the limits of solar-powered vehicles

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:49

      It... Doesn't it also does, like... Does it still do this thing where the, the ride height raises and-

   2. EMElon Musk13:53

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan13:53

      ... so you can... And there's also no regular drivetrain, so there's no axles that-

   4. EMElon Musk13:57

      Correct.

   5. JRJoe Rogan13:58

      ... are the, uh, impediment to going over rocks and things like that?

   6. EMElon Musk14:01

      Yeah. Normally, in a, in a, in a, in, in other vehicles, in gasoline or diesel vehicles, you've got the, um, differential, which, uh, hangs down low between the, uh, the rear wheels. So you, like, look under a car, under a truck, it's... There's almost always a differential there that's hanging down pretty low. So if you hit the diff on a, on a rock, you'll break it.

   7. JRJoe Rogan14:19

      Yeah.

   8. EMElon Musk14:19

      But there's no d-... There's, there's no, um... At, at the bottom of the Cybertruck is completely flat and has the best clear height of any, any vehicle.

   9. JRJoe Rogan14:27

      How far away are we, if it's ever gonna happen at all, from having a vehicle that can operate entirely on solar?

   10. EMElon Musk14:35

       Well, you got a surface area thing. Um, so it's about a, a kilowatt per square meter normal to the sun, roughly. Um, so you just... It, it really depends on what kind of mileage. You, you, you can't, um... There... You don't have enough surface area to keep the car going just f- from the car's surface area. But if you had, like, a f-... something that, that folded out, you, you could, uh, you could make it self-sustaining.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:02

       Something that folded out, so, like, you could park it and then leave it on?

   12. EMElon Musk15:06

       Yeah. You'd have to, like, unfold, like s-... like, the Starlink satellites do, where you unfold the, the solar panels. You know, just... You just need more surface area. You need, um... So-

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:15

       Is there any potential, potential for an advancement in technology that would make, uh, a smaller area m- m- much better at conducting sun? Nothing?

   14. EMElon Musk15:25

       Uh, no. It's, it's a kilowatt per square meter. Uh, that, that's what you're gonna get when the sun... if, if you're, if you're normal to the sun, so 90 degrees to the sun.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:33

       And there's nothing that could accelerate that or know-

   16. EMElon Musk15:36

       That's just literally the, the solar energy.

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:37

       That's just it?

   18. EMElon Musk15:38

       Yeah. So then you... then you multiply your efficiency by that. So if your commercial as- panel is, like, maybe 25% efficient, if they're a good one, so you get, like, 250, uh, watts per square meter-

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       There was one car-

   20. EMElon Musk15:50

       ... which covers roughly 10 feet.

   21. JRJoe Rogan15:50

       What was it? Like, a Fisker that was using a solar panel that, uh, claimed that it was operating, like, the, the electronics, like, it could c-... start the radio.

   22. EMElon Musk16:00

       Yeah. It... (laughs) Yeah. Um, I, I mean, you, you, you, you can definitely... You just... It's just you don't have enough surface area for-

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Right.

   24. EMElon Musk16:06

       ... uh, for it. But, like, um ... but you, you, you can s-... like, certainly, um, you could run a house with solar, with the s-... with a solar roof. And by Tesla solar roof, you can run a house.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:20

       But it's never gonna get to a point where you can just have a car that's made out of solar panels so they could drive around? It just... It could never be that efficient?

   26. EMElon Musk16:27

       Correct. The sur-... You do not have enough surface area.

6. 16:30 – 20:19

   Battery range vs charging behavior: the ‘parking lot’ analogy

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:30

      What, what research or what, uh, what breakthroughs have been made in terms of, uh, battery technology? Like, how far away are we from having batteries that are far more efficient and last far longer? 'Cause I know there's some talk of, like, sodium-based batteries.

   2. EMElon Musk16:47

      The batteries r-... Battery range is, uh, not a problem at this point. I mean, the, the Model S will go 400 miles. Model, Model 3, Model w-... Model Y will do over 300 miles. So, you know, that's, that's, that's more than most people need. So, yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan17:04

      All right. But are we... Uh, I mean, how far away are we from making batteries that are more efficient? The... This isn't... Like, we obviously haven't leased hit the limit of this technology.

   4. EMElon Musk17:11

      This is not the... I'm not saying this... This, this is not really a constraint. Um, the point at which you've got a car that can do, let's say, even at hig-... at highway speeds, uh, 250 miles, then, um... Or, let's say 240 miles, uh, at 80 miles an hour. Now, you're driving for three hours straight. Um, and so if you start a trip at, say, 9:00 AM, by noon, you wanna stop for lunch, go to the restroom, grab a coffee. By the time you come back, your car is charged.

   5. JRJoe Rogan17:40

      How long does it take to fully charge?

   6. EMElon Musk17:43

      Uh, yeah, like, a half an hour. Well, you, you don't wanna... It's a little... The, the... People will get used to it 'cause it's a little different. Um, you know, uh, l- like, for a gasoline car, you'd, you'd wanna fill it up. For an electric car, you'd, you'd wanna actually go very close to zero. And the car can calculate how much range it has w- with precision. So if you, if you pull up say, enter a road trip in, in a Tesla, it'll, it'll calculate w-... um, all of the supercharges along the way, where you, where you stop, how much you should charge, and just let, just let the computer do its thing and it'll, it'll, it'll work well. Um, so you actually wanna, uh, charge to about 80% and then run it down all the way to 10%, I'd say, or less.

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:25

      D- do you wanna do that on everyday use as well or just with long trips?

   8. EMElon Musk18:29

      No, just, like, long trips. If, if you're trying to minimize the amount of time you s- you stop when charging, um, so let's say you wanna, you know, stop for 20, 30 minutes, uh, then, um, you, you really... Uh, i- it's, it's a little counterintuitive because for a gasoline car, you would fill it up. For a, for a battery, um, the ch- the charge state tapers off as you get above 80%. You can think of it like the... It's, uh, the, I think the right analogy here is cars in a p- in a parking lot. So the, the lithium ions are trying to find a parking space, um, as they, as they move across, um, you know, from one side of the battery to the other side from, you know, ca- cathode, anode. I mean, they're, they're sort of... Just these ions are just bouncing around looking for a parking space. So when the parking lot's empty, it's, you, they could zip right in there and find a spot. It's easy. Um, when... As the parking lot gets full, just like trying to find a parking space at a mall, you have to hunt around for a spot. And that's, that's how... That's, that's basically what's going on, is the, the ions looking for a parking spot. Um, so as the battery gets closer to full, it's harder and harder to spi- to find a spot. They have to bounce around more.

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:41

      So it takes longer-

   10. EMElon Musk19:41

       Just like a person in a parking-

   11. JRJoe Rogan19:43

       ... to get from 80 to 100?

   12. EMElon Musk19:44

       Correct.

   13. JRJoe Rogan19:44

       I see.

   14. EMElon Musk19:44

       Getting from 80 to 100, it takes about as much time as getting from 0 to 80.

   15. JRJoe Rogan19:49

       Oh.

   16. EMElon Musk19:50

       Just think of, like, the ions go to find a parking spot.

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:53

       Oh.

   18. EMElon Musk19:54

       And just like if you're in a mall and you're like... and it's busy, then, uh, it takes longer to find a parking spot than if it's empty.

   19. JRJoe Rogan20:01

       So y- essentially you're satisfied with the, the technologies available right now in terms of, like, the amount of mileage that you get out of it and things along those lines?

   20. EMElon Musk20:11

       Yeah. Range is not an issue. Um, cost is, is more of an issue, so just n- we need to make the car affordable. A long-range car needs to be affordable.

7. 20:19 – 25:04

   Cybertruck volume goals and why there’s “no movie about manufacturing”

   1. JRJoe Rogan20:19

      When you fully roll out, uh, how many of those things... How many Cybertrucks can you guys make a month?

   2. EMElon Musk20:28

      (laughs) Um, we're aiming to make about, uh, 200,000 a year at volume production.

   3. JRJoe Rogan20:34

      Wow.

   4. EMElon Musk20:36

      Maybe a little more. But, uh, I, I just can't emphasize enough that manufacturing is much, much harder than, um, the initial design. Um, you know, you, you, you can do... Not that the Cybertruck was easy to design. I'm not trying to trivialize design. It's just, uh, what I'm trying to do is to emphasize the difficulty of manufacturing, which is not, uh, understood by the public.

   5. JRJoe Rogan20:58

      Mm.

   6. EMElon Musk20:58

      Because there's no movie about it. So there's lots of movies about the int- the sort of wild inventor in the garage. Um, but, uh, I'm not aware of any movie about manufacturing. Have you ever heard of a movie of made about manufacturing?

   7. JRJoe Rogan21:16

      I can't remember any. Jamie, any movie about manufacturing?

   8. NANarrator21:19

      There's one coming to my brain, but I think... I don't think that's what it's even about, so I have no idea.

   9. JRJoe Rogan21:22

      What is that?

   10. NANarrator21:23

       The... Michael Keaton was making some cars in somewhere. I, I had... I was gonna look it up while you were going-

   11. EMElon Musk21:27

       I mean, there's Tommy Boy.

   12. NANarrator21:29

       Yes. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan21:30

       (laughs) Yeah. Tommy Boy is the only one.

   14. NANarrator21:31

       I mean, that's about as good of a car, I think, as...

   15. EMElon Musk21:31

       It's a great movie. It's a great movie.

   16. NANarrator21:33

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan21:33

       That might be the only one. That's interesting that it's such an im- immense part of, uh, American culture and also the decline of some American cities. I mean-

   18. EMElon Musk21:43

       Yes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan21:44

       ... this famously, uh, documented in Roger & Me, which... A great documentary where he just talks about how Flint got destroyed when they pulled out the car manufacturing.

   20. EMElon Musk21:54

       Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, there's a reason why, um, generally politicians are... really try very hard to get a factory in their area is because it's a massive generator of jobs. And for every factory job, there's like five, roughly five, um, support jobs. You know, so it's like, uh, teachers, electricians, plumbers, uh, lawyers, accountants, whatnot.

   21. JRJoe Rogan22:16

       Mm.

   22. EMElon Musk22:17

       Um, restaurants. Uh, so there's... So, so manufacturing is kind of like a, an, a nucleus from which many jobs spring. That's why it's, uh... Generally, you know, governors and prime ministers and presidents will try so hard to get a factory in their, um, country or region.

   23. JRJoe Rogan22:36

       When you decided to build the Gigafactory and when you decided... Well, when just even when you decided to get involved with Tesla, did you have any idea of how difficult this would be? Did you have a preconceived notion that was-

   24. EMElon Musk22:48

       I thought it would be very difficult. I, I thought our probability of success was less than 10%.

   25. JRJoe Rogan22:52

       Whoa.

   26. EMElon Musk22:54

       Yeah. I mean, it... Uh, it would be foolish to think anything else o- other than that. I mean, the... E- even at this point, the, the only car companies that have not gone bankrupt are Ford and Tesla, American car companies. You know, General Motors went bankrupt and Chrysler went bankrupt in 2009. Um, there's some chance they'll go bankrupt again. Uh, Ford and Tesla barely made it. Um, it was incredibly difficult to keep Tesla alive when General Motors and Chrysler were going bankrupt. So, um, because manufacturing is the actual hard thing, not... By far the hard thing.

   27. JRJoe Rogan23:32

       Mm.

   28. EMElon Musk23:33

       I just can't emphasize that enough and I, I hope somebody makes a movie about that.

   29. JRJoe Rogan23:37

       Maybe they should make a movie about Tesla.

   30. EMElon Musk23:39

       Sure.
8. 25:04 – 34:38

   Why buy Twitter/X: ‘mind virus,’ San Francisco, and civilization-level concerns

   1. JRJoe Rogan25:04

      Um, what has it been like, uh, y- you've, you've owned X for a year now?

   2. EMElon Musk25:09

      Oh yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan25:11

      Does, do you, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and have a dream that you didn't do it? (laughs) And your life is infinitely easier?

   4. EMElon Musk25:19

      Well, it's certainly, um, a recipe for trouble, I suppose, or contention. Um ...

   5. JRJoe Rogan25:28

      What was it ultimately that led you to make the decision to do it?

   6. EMElon Musk25:38

      I mean, this is gonna sound, uh, somewhat melodramatic, but I was worried about that, that it was having a corrosive effect on civilization. Uh, that it was, uh, just having a bad, a bad impact. Um, and, um, I think part of it is that it's, it's where, it's where it was located, which is, uh, you know, downtown San Francisco. Um, and while I, I think San Francisco's a beautiful city and, and we sh- should really fight hard to, um, kinda right the ship of San Francisco. If you've walked around downtown San Francisco, right near the ex-FKA Twitter headquarters, it's a zombie apocalypse. I mean, it's rough. Have you, have you been, been in that area?

   7. JRJoe Rogan26:22

      Not lately. No.

   8. EMElon Musk26:22

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan26:23

      I've heard.

   10. EMElon Musk26:24

       It's crazy.

   11. JRJoe Rogan26:25

       I've heard it's crazy. I've heard you, you really can't believe it until you actually go there.

   12. EMElon Musk26:29

       You can't believe it until you go there. So now you have to say, well, what philosophy led to that outcome? And that philosophy was being piped to earth. So, um, you know, a philosophy that would be ordinarily quite niche and geographically constrained, so that that sort of the fallout, uh, area would be limited. Um, whereas effectively given an information, uh, weapon, um, a tech- uh, an inf- information technology weapon to propagate, uh, what is essentially a mind virus to the rest of earth. Um, and the outcome of that mind virus is very clear if you walk around the streets of downtown San Francisco. It is the end of civilization.

   13. JRJoe Rogan27:13

       And it's not just, uh, propagating the mind virus, but suppressing any opposing viewpoints.

   14. EMElon Musk27:19

       Yes. Well, in order for the virus to propagate, it must suppress opposing viewpoints. So ...

   15. JRJoe Rogan27:25

       Because it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

   16. EMElon Musk27:27

       Correct.

   17. JRJoe Rogan27:29

       Yeah.

   18. EMElon Musk27:29

       I mean, you, you, I mean, you've, you, you, you've, you've felt the, the virus, haven't you?

   19. JRJoe Rogan27:34

       Yeah.

   20. EMElon Musk27:35

       Yeah. People have tried to cancel you so many times.

   21. JRJoe Rogan27:37

       Yeah, it's fascinating.

   22. EMElon Musk27:38

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan27:38

       Um, I don't think you're melodramatic at all. I, I, I think it's a, it's a ... Uh, I mean, I don't wanna be melodramatic, but it's almost like a death cult.

   24. EMElon Musk27:48

       It's a death cult.

   25. JRJoe Rogan27:49

       Yeah.

   26. EMElon Musk27:49

       No, no, that is exactly right. Um, it, uh, uh, it, it's essentially the, uh, extinctionists. Like, it's, in the limit, it is they, they're propagating, uh, the extinction of humanity and civilization. Um, and, and there's some people who are, are ... Like most, most of the time, it, it's, it's implicit. They don't exp- exp- it's, but sometimes it's explicit. Like there was a guy on the front page of New York Times, uh, who literally has the thing called the Extinctionist Movement. Um, and he was quoted on the front page of New York Times as saying, uh, "There are eight billion people in the world, but it would be better if there were none."

   27. JRJoe Rogan28:25

       Pew.

   28. EMElon Musk28:25

       And I'm like, "Well, buddy, you can start with yourself."

   29. JRJoe Rogan28:27

       Yeah.

   30. EMElon Musk28:28

       Um ...
9. 34:38 – 37:54

   Energy, nuclear fear, and radiation misconceptions (Fukushima/Chernobyl)

   1. EMElon Musk34:38

      Th- there's no shortage of power. Um, like, like we talked about solar power for cars. The, the, the issue is the cars just have a very low service area. Um, but you, you could actually power the entire United States with, uh, 100 miles by 100 miles of solar.

   2. JRJoe Rogan34:53

      Really?

   3. EMElon Musk34:53

      Yes.

   4. JRJoe Rogan34:55

      So you can just pick some dead spot that you fly over-

   5. EMElon Musk34:57

      Of which there are plenty.

   6. JRJoe Rogan34:58

      ... cover that sucker up with-

   7. EMElon Musk34:59

      Correct.

   8. JRJoe Rogan34:59

      ... solar panels and, and charge the whole country?

   9. EMElon Musk35:02

      Absolutely.

   10. JRJoe Rogan35:02

       24/7?

   11. EMElon Musk35:03

       You need batteries, but yes.

   12. JRJoe Rogan35:05

       Yeah. Wow.

   13. EMElon Musk35:08

       Yeah, it's not hard.

   14. JRJoe Rogan35:08

       Is that-

   15. EMElon Musk35:08

       I mean, meaning it's like, it's very feasible. Uh, in fact, uh, I mean, the, the, the sun is, uh, converting, uh, over 4 million tons of mass to energy every second. And it's no maintenance. That thing just works. The... We have a giant fusion reactor in the sky that is the sun. In fact, people are like, it's almost like, "What about, you know, radiation?" I'm like, "The sun is literally a nuclear reactor in the sky."

   16. JRJoe Rogan35:34

       Yeah.

   17. EMElon Musk35:34

       Are you scared to go in daylight?

   18. JRJoe Rogan35:36

       (laughs) Rocks have radiation.

   19. EMElon Musk35:39

       Yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan35:40

       Yeah.

   21. EMElon Musk35:40

       The, the r- radiation risk is greatly, uh, overestimated, you know. Um-

   22. JRJoe Rogan35:47

       I always wonder why radiation is always bad in real life, but always awesome in comic books.

   23. EMElon Musk35:52

       (laughs) Yeah, exactly.

   24. JRJoe Rogan35:53

       Right? Like, no one gets super powers.

   25. EMElon Musk35:53

       You, you get bitten by a radioactive spider and suddenly you have spider abilities.

   26. JRJoe Rogan35:56

       Gets super powers. Get hit with gamma rays, you become the Hulk.

   27. EMElon Musk35:58

       I mean, what if you're s- radioactive cockroach? You'd be like the cockroach man.

   28. JRJoe Rogan36:01

       Yeah, you can-

   29. EMElon Musk36:02

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan36:02

       ... be one of the X-Men.
10. 37:54 – 1:03:12

    Sardines, mercury/arsenic, and ordering pineapple-anchovy pizza

    1. JRJoe Rogan37:54

       (laughs)

    2. EMElon Musk37:54

       N- no. Y- y- you should be... Okay. If you eat too much tuna, you're gonna have-

    3. JRJoe Rogan37:58

       Mercury.

    4. EMElon Musk37:58

       Uh... Yes, correct.

    5. JRJoe Rogan37:59

       Yeah.

    6. EMElon Musk37:59

       Mercury poisoning from tuna is a real thing.

    7. JRJoe Rogan38:02

       You can get arsenic from sardines too.

    8. EMElon Musk38:04

       (laughs)

    9. JRJoe Rogan38:04

       I found that out the hard way.

    10. EMElon Musk38:05

        Really?

    11. JRJoe Rogan38:05

        Yeah.

    12. EMElon Musk38:06

        Ate too many sardines?

    13. JRJoe Rogan38:07

        Yeah. I ate... I got my blood work done, and, uh, the doctor says, "You have arsenic in your blood." And, uh, I go, "Is someone poisoning me?" He goes, "It's very, very low level."

    14. EMElon Musk38:15

        (laughs)

    15. JRJoe Rogan38:15

        He said-

    16. EMElon Musk38:15

        It's like... It's like you... Is your girlfriend angry at you? (laughs)

    17. JRJoe Rogan38:18

        (laughs)

    18. EMElon Musk38:19

        There have been situations like that.

    19. JRJoe Rogan38:20

        He goes, "Do you eat a lot of fish?" And I said, "Yeah, I eat, like, three cans of sardines a night."

    20. EMElon Musk38:23

        That's a lot of sardines, man.

    21. JRJoe Rogan38:24

        Yeah. I love sardines.

    22. EMElon Musk38:26

        I mean, uh, yeah. It's... They're pretty-

    23. JRJoe Rogan38:27

        I love them.

    24. EMElon Musk38:28

        Y- (laughs) You love sardines.

    25. JRJoe Rogan38:29

        I really... I really do. I've always loved sardines.

    26. EMElon Musk38:32

        Okay.

    27. JRJoe Rogan38:32

        I love them.

    28. EMElon Musk38:33

        But turns out, like, you can't eat too much of it 'cause it's... They've got... They, they're-

    29. JRJoe Rogan38:36

        Yeah. They're not good for you.

    30. EMElon Musk38:37

        Okay.
11. 1:03:12 – 1:11:53

    COVID policy critique and ventilator/life-support mechanics

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:03:12

       Motherfucker. COVID got 70% of the restaurants in LA at one point.

    2. EMElon Musk1:03:16

       Wow.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:03:17

       Not COVID, I should say, policies.

    4. EMElon Musk1:03:20

       Well-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:03:20

       Lockdowns.

    6. EMElon Musk1:03:21

       The mind virus. I mean, it's like just crazy.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:03:24

       Yeah.

    8. EMElon Musk1:03:24

       Um, so-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:03:25

       Well, that's why I moved here. One, one of the reasons why I moved here is we came here in May of 2020 and you could go indoors and eat in restaurants and-

    10. EMElon Musk1:03:32

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:03:32

        ... and my kids were pretty young at the time, 10 and 12, they were like, "We want to live here."

    12. EMElon Musk1:03:37

        Yeah, yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:03:37

        This was like, they're freaked out, like LA was weird. It changed.

    14. EMElon Musk1:03:40

        Yeah, I mean, for, for most of COVID, I was actually in South Texas building this, this, uh, Starship Factory. Um, and you know, we, we're just... We had no mask, no nothing, just building a factory, building rockets, and then, you know, the peop- they would have, uh, teams from California visit all masked up-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:03:58

        (laughs)

    16. EMElon Musk1:03:58

        ... and, uh, they'd freak out that we don't have masks and we're like, "We're still alive, man."

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:04:03

        Yeah.

    18. EMElon Musk1:04:03

        So, um-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:04:05

        Did you lose anybody? Did anybody from your factory die of COVID?

    20. EMElon Musk1:04:09

        Not that I'm aware of, no. So, so part of it is that like, uh, that I, I kind of saw a dress rehearsal, which is that, you know, it kind of started in Wuhan, um, and so Tesla's got, uh, about 20,000 employees in, in China. Um, and so, you know, the first wave occur- happened in China and, and we had... Nobody died or got seriously ill, and I was like, "Okay, well, like this is, you know... It can't be that bad if..." And, and, and we're not relying on government statistics, we literally know who showed up for work, you know?

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:04:43

        Right.

    22. EMElon Musk1:04:43

        Did they bad- did they badge in or not? Um, and we had no, no one die and n- no one got seriously ill, so I'm like, "Well, I don't know what the big deal is then."

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:04:54

        Well, there's a problem st- that people still want to stick to this initial narrative that they believed and that they espoused, like they repeated it. And so they'll still fight you on this today, people still fight you today on the merits of the lockdowns, the importance of vaccine mandates, closing schools. There's people that stated an opinion in 2020 and they still are doing mental gymnastics to try to make it seem like that was the right choice.

    24. EMElon Musk1:05:25

        No, it was just a panic.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:05:27

        Yeah.

    26. EMElon Musk1:05:28

        Um, and, and a lot of deaths got ascribed to COVID that had nothing to do with COVID. And in fact, I'd say in the beginning, um, the cure is worse than the disease. So, uh, because people panic too much and so that somebody would, um, get diagnosed with COVID, they put them on an intubated vent- ventilator for a week and this was going to basically cook your lungs. So if you- if you're on pure O₂, um, under pressure with a tube stuck down your throat, um, and under anesthetic, this is, this is very bad for you. Like it's one thing if you do that for a couple hours for an operation, but you do that for a week, uh, it's gonna- it's gonna roast your lungs. Like the- the air that we're breathing right now is, is 78% nitrogen, 1% argon, about 21% oxygen and, and some miscellaneous. Um, so if you ask most people, "What are you breathing?" They say, "Oxygen." No, you're breathing nitrogen, um, only about a fifth of it is, is oxygen and there's about one, like I said 1% argon. Um, so, um, now I know quite a lot about life support systems because we make spaceships and there's... You have to keep people alive in a vacuum. So you got to say, okay, what percentage nitrogen, what percentage oxygen you can do? What's the pressure going to be? Um, and, uh, so like sea level pressure is about 15 pounds per square inch. Um, and the partial pressure of oxygen at 20... being 20% is therefore roughly three pounds per square inch of oxygen. So in a, in a spacecraft you want to... And especially if you're in a spacesuit, uh, you want to lower the pressure. So you want to keep the oxygen... Still, still get people enough oxygen to function obviously, but you want to lower the nitrogen content so that you don't have a spacesuit that's at 15...... psi. 'Cause at 15 psi, you just, you know, just pop out like a balloon.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:07:12

        Mm.

    28. EMElon Musk1:07:12

        (laughs) It's, like, hard to move.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:07:14

        Ah.

    30. EMElon Musk1:07:15

        (laughs) So, so you wanna try to lower the pressure, um, you know, down to around s- I don't know, 6, 7 psi, maybe even 5 psi. Um, so you'd, you'd lower it to, you know, try to keep the oxygen, partial pressure of oxygen roughly the same, so maybe around 3 psi and then 3 psi of, of nitrogen so you got 50/50 mix of nitrogen and oxygen. And, um-
12. 1:11:53 – 1:34:56

    Mars: terraforming path, ancient civilization debates, and fragile history

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:11:53

       What are the... When you do eventually colonize Mars, what, what's the idea in terms of terraforming? Is it contained ecosystems that were, are under domes? Like, what, what are, what are you planning on doing to make it habitable?

    2. EMElon Musk1:12:10

       Well, at first, you would have to have a life support system, um, because Mars has a low density atmosphere, only about 1% the density of Earth, and it's primarily CO2. Um, now over time, you could, you can terraform Mars. Terraform means make it like Earth, essentially. Um, and if you warm Mars up, you will, um, there's a bunch of frozen CO2 that will evaporate, densify the atmosphere and, um, you'd actually want kind of global warming on Mars.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:12:39

       Hm.

    4. EMElon Musk1:12:39

       Uh, 'cause m- Mars is about 50% further away from the sun than the Earth. Um, so it gets about less than half the solar energy that, that Earth does.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:12:48

       And it's believed at one point in time, Mars had a, a much different environment, right?

    6. EMElon Musk1:12:54

       Uh, it is, it, it appears highly likely that Mars had liquid oceans, albeit a long time ago.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:13:00

       And d-

    8. EMElon Musk1:13:00

       There's a lot of ice. So there's, there's Mar- Mars is, um, covered in ice. Um, and now the ice is then covered in dust for the mo- mostly, except at the poles.... uh, so there's, there's just, there's a lot of ice. In fact, I believe if, if Mars was warmed up, you'd have an ocean about a mile deep on, uh, 40% of the, of the planet.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:13:20

       Wow.

    10. EMElon Musk1:13:21

        So it's, it's, uh, quite a lot of water.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:13:23

        And do we think that it was like that at one point in time?

    12. EMElon Musk1:13:26

        Yes. The evidence suggests that, uh, it is most likely that Mars had, uh, liquid water.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:13:31

        What's the prevailing theory of its demise?

    14. EMElon Musk1:13:35

        Well, just over time, the solar system cooled. So Earth used to be much h... Like, it ... In the ve- very early Earth was like molten rock. Um, you know, so really almost nothing could survive in the beginning. We were just a ball of lava. We're still mostly a ball of lava. Um, we're like crème brûlée. Like, there's a thin crust.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:13:53

        (laughs)

    16. EMElon Musk1:13:54

        And, uh, and it's mush- mush- mushy rock under, super, very hot, mushy rock underneath.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:13:59

        Mm.

    18. EMElon Musk1:14:00

        Um, and taking that, that rock is on, in a semi-solid state but as soon as it gets to a low pressure, like pops out of the ocean, uh, you have a volcano obviously with lava.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:14:08

        Yeah.

    20. EMElon Musk1:14:09

        So it's, um ... At, at, at, at, at, at, at surface ambient pressure, the, uh, the, we're basically covered in liquid rock.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:14:16

        Are you aware, though-

    22. EMElon Musk1:14:17

        We're, we're, we're ... It's a thin crust on liquid rock.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:14:20

        Are you aware of the origin myth of the Dogon tribe?

    24. EMElon Musk1:14:23

        (laughs) No.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:14:24

        Th- there's a tribe in, I believe it's a tribe in, I forget what part of Africa, but they believe that they came from Mars and that there was a-

    26. EMElon Musk1:14:32

        Okay.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:14:32

        ... civilization that left Mars, you know, many, many eons ago.

    28. EMElon Musk1:14:39

        (laughs)

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:14:39

        And it, it's r- it's a really weird, uh, it's a really weird theory, 'cause they know some things about Mars. So maybe-

    30. EMElon Musk1:14:48

        Uh, yeah, pretty sure they didn't come from Mars.

Episode duration: 2:41:16