Lex Fridman PodcastElon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving, Robotics, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #252
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,059 words- 0:00 – 0:07
Introduction
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Elon Musk, his third time on this, the Lex Fridman podcast.
- 0:07 – 0:55
Elon singing
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, make yourself comfortable.
- EMElon Musk
Boo.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, no, wow, okay.
- EMElon Musk
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
No. (laughs)
- EMElon Musk
Do you, you don't do the headphone thing?
- LFLex Fridman
No.
- EMElon Musk
Okay.
- LFLex Fridman
No.
- EMElon Musk
I mean, how close do I get, need to get this thing to you?
- LFLex Fridman
The closer you are, the sexier you sound.
- EMElon Musk
Hey, babe. What's up?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
Can't get enough of your love, baby. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) I'm gonna clip that out. Anytime somebody messages me about Elon, I'll just respond with that.
- EMElon Musk
If you want my body and you think I'm sexy, come right out and tell me so. Do, do, do, do, do.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) So good. So good. Okay.
- EMElon Musk
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Serious mode activate. All right.
- EMElon Musk
Serious mode. Come on, you're Russian, you can be serious.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I know, right?
- EMElon Musk
Everyone's serious all the time in Russia.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, but we'll get there, we'll get there. It's taken America too long.
- EMElon Musk
Y- y- yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
It's gotten soft.
- 0:55 – 7:40
SpaceX human spaceflight
- LFLex Fridman
Allow me to say that the SpaceX launch of human beings to orbit on May 30th, 2020 was seen by many as the first step in a new era of human space exploration. These human space flight missions were a beacon of hope to me and to millions over the past two years as our world has been going through one of the most difficult periods in recent human history. We saw, we see the rise of division, fear, cynicism, and the loss of common humanity, right when it is needed most. So first, Elon, let me say thank you for giving the world hope and reason to be excited about the future.
- EMElon Musk
Oh, that's kind of you to say. I do want to do that. Humanity has, uh, obviously a lot of issues. And, and, uh, you know, people at times do, do bad things. But, you know, despite all that, um, you know, I, I love humanity and I think we should, uh, make sure we do everything we can to have a good future and, and an exciting future and one where, that maximizes the happiness of the people.
- LFLex Fridman
Let me ask about, uh, Crew Dragon Demo-2. So that, that first flight with humans on board, um, how did you feel leading up to that launch? Were you scared? Were you excited? What was going through your mind? So much was at stake.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. No, that was extremely stressful. No question. Um, we obviously could not, um, let them down in any way. Um, so extremely stressful, I'd say, uh, to say the least. But we did... I was confident that, at the time that we launched, that no one could think of anything at all to do that would improve the probability of success. Um, and we, we racked our brains to think of any possible way to improve the probability of success. We could not think of anything more, and, and nor could NASA. And so then that, that's just the best that we could do, so then we, we had, we went ahead and launched. Now, I'm not a religious person. Um, but I nonetheless got on my knees and prayed for that mission.
- LFLex Fridman
Were you able to sleep?
- EMElon Musk
No. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
How did it feel when it was a success? First when the launch was a success, and when they returned back home, or back to Earth?
- EMElon Musk
It was a great relief. Yeah. It, it... For, for high-stress situations, I find it's, it's not so much elation as relief. Um, and, um, you know, I think once... A- a- as we got more comfortable and proved out the systems, 'cause, you know, we really, um... You know, you've got to make sure everything works. Um, I was, it was definitely a lot more enjoyable with the subsequent, uh, astronaut tra- missions. And I thought the, the Inspiration mission was actually very inspiring, um, the Inspiration4 mission. Um, I'd e- I'd encourage people to watch the Inspiration documentary on Netflix. It's actually really good. Um, and it really is inspi- I was actually inspired by that. Um, and I, I, I... So that one I felt I was kind of able to enjoy the actual mission and not just be super stressed all the time.
- LFLex Fridman
So for people that somehow don't know, it's the all civilian, first time all civilian out to space, out to orbit.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, and it was the h- I think the highest orbit that, uh, in like, I don't know, 30 or 40 years or something. The only one that was higher was the s- one shuttle, uh, sorry, Hubble, uh, Servicing Mission. Um, and then before that, it would have been, um, Apollo in '72. It's pretty wild. So it's cool, it's c- Y- you know, I think, uh, as, you know, as a species, like we want to be, you know, continuing to do better and, and reach higher ground. And, and, like, I think it would be tragic, extremely tragic if, um, Apollo was the high water mark for humanity, you know? And that, and that's as far as we ever got. Um, and it's, um, it's concerning that here we are, um, 49 years after the last mission to the moon, and so almost half a century, uh, and we've not been back. Um, and that's worrying. It's like, is that... Does that mean we've peaked as a civilization or what? So, like I think we gotta get back to the moon and build a base there, you know, a science base. I think we could learn a lot about the nature of the universe if we have a proper science base on the moon. Um, you know, like we have a science base in Antarctica and, you know, many other parts of the world. And, um, so that, that's like I think the n- the next big thing. We've gotta have like a, a serious like moon base, um, and then get people to Mars and, you know, get, get out there and be a spacefaring civilization.
- LFLex Fridman
I'll ask you about some of those details, but since you're so busy with the hard engineering challenges of everything that's involved, are s- are you still able to marvel at the magic of it all, of space travel, of every time the rocket goes up, especially when it's a crewed mission?... or are you just so overwhelmed with the, all the challenges that you have to solve? And actually, sort of, to add to that, the reason I, I wanted to ask this question of May 30th, it's, it's been some time, so you can look back and think about the impact already. It's already, at the time, it was an engineering problem, maybe. Now, it's becoming a historic moment. Like, it's a moment that ... How many moments will be remembered about the 21st century? To me, wha- that, or something like that, maybe Inspiration4 or one of those, will be remembered as the early steps of a new age of, uh, space exploration.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. Uh, I mean, d- during the launches itself ... So, I mean, the, I think, I think maybe s- some people know, but a lot of people don't know is, like, uh, I'm actually the chief engineer of SpaceX. So, um, the, you know, I've signed off on pretty much all the design decisions. Um, and, you know, so if, if there's something that goes wrong with that, uh, vehicle, it's, it's fundamentally my fault, you know? So, um, so I'm really just thinking about all the things that ... Like, so, so when I see the rocket, I see all the things that could go wrong and the things that could be better, and the same with the Dragon spacecraft. It's, uh, like other people see, "Oh, this is a, a spacecraft or a rocket and that's, this looks really cool." I'm like ...
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
I've, I've, like, a readout of, like, this is the, these are, these are the risks, these are the pro- problems. That's what I see. Like ... (laughs) So it's not what other people see when they see the product,
- 7:40 – 16:16
Starship
- EMElon Musk
you know?
- LFLex Fridman
So, let me, uh, ask you then to analyze Starship in that same way. Uh, I know you have, you'll talk about, in more detail about Starship in the near future, perhaps. You had that-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, we can talk about it now if you want.
- LFLex Fridman
Um, but, just in that same way, like you said you see when you see a, uh, when you see a rocket, you see a sort of a list of risks. In that same way, you said that Starship was a really hard problem. So, there's many ways I can ask this, but if you magically could solve one problem perfectly, one engineering problem perfectly, which one would it be?
- EMElon Musk
On Starship?
- LFLex Fridman
On, on, sorry, on Starship. So is it maybe related to the efficiency, the, uh, the engine, the weight of the different components, the complexity of various things, maybe the controls of the, the crazy thing it has to do to land?
- EMElon Musk
No, it's (laughs) actually, the, by far the, the biggest thing absorbing my time is, uh, uh, engine production.
- LFLex Fridman
Hm.
- EMElon Musk
Not, not the design of the engine, but ... (laughs) I, I co- I- I've often said prototypes are, are easy, production is hard. Um, so we have the most advanced rocket engine that's ever been designed. Um, the ... 'Cause I'd say currently the, the, the best rocket engine ever is probably the RD-180 w- or RD-170, the, um ... That, that's the Russian engine, basically. Um, and, um, and still, it ... I think an engine should only count if it's gotten something to orbit. Um ...
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
So our engine has not gotten anything to orbit yet. Um, but it is, it's the first engine that's actually better than, than the, the, the Russian RD engines, which are, were a amazing design.
- LFLex Fridman
So you're talking about Raptor engine. What makes it amazing? What, what are the different aspects of it that make it ... Like ...
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... what are you the most excited about, uh, if the whole thing works, in terms of, uh, efficiency, all those kinds of things?
- EMElon Musk
Well, it's ... The Raptor is a, a full-flow, uh, staged combustion, um, engine, and it's a- a- at operating at a very high, uh, chamber pressure. So one of the key figures of merit, or p- perhaps the key f- key figure of merit, is, um, what is the chamber pressure at which the rocket engine can operate? That's the combustion chamber pressure. Um, so Raptor is, uh, designed to operate at, uh, 300 bar, possibly maybe higher. That's 300 atmospheres. So, um, the record right now for operational engine is the RD engine that I mentioned, the Russian RD, which is, I believe, around 267, uh, bar. Um, and the, the, the, the difficulty of the chamber pressure is increases on a non-linear basis. So 10% more chamber pressure is more like, uh, 50% (laughs) more difficult. Um, but that, that chamber pressure is, that, that, that is what allows you to get a very high, uh, power density for, uh, for the engine. Um, so, uh, enabling, um, a, a very high, uh, thrust-to-weight ratio, um, and, um, a very high specific impulse. So specific impulse is like a measure of the efficiency of a rocket engine, or, um ... It's, it's really the, the, the, the, uh, exhaust, the, the effective exhaust velocity of, of the gas coming outta the engine. Um, so, uh, with, with a, with a very high chamber pressure, you can have, um, a, a, a compact engine that nonetheless has a high expansion ratio, which is the ratio between the, uh, um, exit nozzle, uh, and the, uh, throat. So y- you know, engine's got ... Like, you see a rocket engine's got like, sort of like a ba- like a hourglass shape. It's like a chamber and then it necks down, and then there's a nozzle. And the ratio of the, the, the exit diameter to the, the throat, uh, is the expansion ratio.
- LFLex Fridman
So why is it such a hard engine to manufacture at scale?
- EMElon Musk
Uh, it's very complex. Um-
- LFLex Fridman
So a lot of com ... What does complexity mean here? Is it a lot of components involved?
- EMElon Musk
There's a lot of, a lot of components and a lot of, uh, unique materials that, uh ... So we had to invent a ho- um, several alloys that don't exist in order to make this engine work. Um, and-
- LFLex Fridman
So it's a materials problem too.
- EMElon Musk
So, a materials problem, and, um, in- in a- in a staged combustion, a full-flow staged combustion, there- there are many, uh, feedback loops in the system. So, y- uh, basically, you've- you've got, uh, propellant and- and- and, uh, hot gas flowing, (laughs) um, to, simultaneously to so many different places on the engine. Um, and, uh, they- they all have a recursive effect on each other. So, you change one thing here, it has a recursive effect here, changes something over there. And- and it's- it's- it's- it's quite hard to control. Um, there, like there's a reason no one's made this before. Um, but, (sighs) um ... And the reason we're doing, um, a staged combustion, uh, full flow is- is because it- it has the highest poten- the highest, uh, theoretical possible, uh, efficiency. Um, so in- in- in order to make a fully reusable rocket, um, which tha- that's the really, the holy grail, uh, of orbital rocketry. Um, you have to have ... E- everything's gotta be the best. Uh, it's gotta be the best engine, the best airframe, the best heat shield, um, extremely light, uh, avionics. Um, ver- you know, very clever control mechanisms. Um, you've got to shed mass i- i- in- in any possible way that you can. Um, for example, we are, instead of putting landing legs on the booster and ship, we are going to catch them with a tower to save the weight of the landing leds- legs. So, that's like, I mean, we're talking about catching the largest flying object ever made, uh, with, on a giant tower with- with chopstick arms. It's like Karate Kid with the fly-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
... but much bigger. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
I mean, pulling something like-
- EMElon Musk
This probably won't work the first time. (laughs) Uh, and anyway, so this is bananas. This is banana stuff.
- LFLex Fridman
So, you mentioned that you doubt ... Well, not you doubt, but there- there's days or moments when you doubt that this is even possible, it's so difficult.
- EMElon Musk
The possible part is ... Well, at- at this point, (clears throat) we'll, I think we will- we will get Starship to work. Um, um, there's a question of timing. How long will it take us to do this? Uh, how long will it take us to actually achieve, uh, full and rapid reusability? Um, 'cause it will take probably many launches before we are able to have full and rapid reusability. Um, but I can say that- that the physics pencils out. Like, the- like, we're not, uh ... Like, at this point, I'd say we- we're confident that w- that se- like, let's say we- I'm- I'm very confident sec- success is in the set of all possible outcomes. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Hmm. All right. It's not a null set of- (laughs)
- EMElon Musk
For- for- for a while there, I was not convinced that success was in the set of possible outcomes. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- 16:16 – 17:51
Quitting is not in my nature
- EMElon Musk
- LFLex Fridman
What's your source of belief in situations like this? When the engineering problem is so difficult, there's a lot of experts, many of whom you admire who have failed in the past.
- EMElon Musk
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
And, um, a lot of people, you know, the, a lot of experts, maybe journalists, all the kind of, you know, the public in general have a lot of doubt about whether it's possible. And you yourself know that, uh, even if it's a non-null set, non-empty set of success, it's still unlikely or d- very difficult! Like, where do you go to, both personally, um, intellectually, as an engineer, as a team, like, for source of strength needed to sort of persevere through this? And to, uh, keep going with the project, take it to completion?
- EMElon Musk
A source of strength. Hmm. I- I, doesn't really not how I think about things. Um, I mean, for me, it's simply this- this is something that is important to get done. Um, and we- we should just keep doing it, um, or die trying. And I- I don't need a source of strength.
- LFLex Fridman
So, quitting is not even, like, um ...
- EMElon Musk
That's not in- it's not in my nature.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay.
- EMElon Musk
And I- I don't care about optimism or pessimism. Fuck that, we're gonna get it done.
- LFLex Fridman
Gonna get it done. (sighs)
- 17:51 – 27:25
Thinking process
- LFLex Fridman
Can you, uh, then zoom back in to specific problems with Starship, or any engineering problems you work on? Can you try to introspect y- your particular biological neural network, your thinking process, and describe how you think through problems, through different engineering and design problems? Is there like a systematic process? You've spoken about first principles thinking-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... but is there a kinda-
- EMElon Musk
Absolutely.
- LFLex Fridman
... process to it?
- EMElon Musk
Well, um ...You know, I like saying, like, like, "Physics is the law, and everything else is a recommendation."
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- EMElon Musk
Um, like, I've met a lot of people who can break the law, but, uh, I haven't ha- met anyone who could break physics. (laughs) So, uh, so the first for- you know, any kind of technology problem, you have to s- sort of just make sure you're not violating physics. Um, and, you know, uh, first principles analysis I think is something that can be applied to really any walk of life, uh, any- anything, really. It's ju- it's- it's really just saying, um, you know, "Let's- let's boil something down to the most fundamental, uh, principles, the things that we are most confident are true at a foundational level." And that sets your a- your, sets your axiomatic base, and then you reason up from there, and then you crosscheck your conclusion against the- the axiomatic truths. Um, so, um, you know, some basics in physics would be like, "Are you violating conservation of energy or momentum?" Or something like that, you know? Then you- you're- it's not gonna work. (laughs) Um, so, uh, that's th- you know. So, that- that's just to establish, is it- is it- is it possible... And then a- a- another good physics tool is thinking about things in the limit. If you, if you take a particular thing and you, uh, sc- scale it to a very large number or to a very small number h- how does, how do things change? Um...
- LFLex Fridman
Both, like, tempor- like, in number of things you manufacture, something like that, and then i- in time?
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, like, let's take, say, take an example of, like, um, l- like manufacturing, which I think is, uh, just a very underrated problem. Um, and, and, uh, like you said, it's- it's much harder to take a- a- a- a advanced technology product and bring it into volume manufacturing than it is to design it in the first place. My words
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
So, um, so let's say you're trying to figure out, is, um, like, why is this, this, uh, part or product, uh, expensive? Is it, um, because of something fundamentally foolish that we're doing, or is it because our volume is too low? And so then you say, "Okay, well, what if our volume was a million units a year? Is it still expensive?" That's what I mean by thinking about things in the limit. If it's still expensive at a million units a year, then volume is not the reason why your thing is expensive. There's something fundamental about the design.
- LFLex Fridman
And then you then can focus on the com- reducing complexity or something like that, and then desig-
- EMElon Musk
You could change the design to, change the- change the part to be something that is, uh, uh, not fundamentally expensive. But- but it- it, like, that's a common thing in rocketry, 'cause the- the unit volume is- is relatively low, and so a common excuse would be, "Well, it's expensive because our unit volume is low." Um, and if we were in, like, automotive or something like that, or consumer electronics, then our cost would be lower. I'm like, I'm like, "Okay, so let's say we scale... N- now you're making a million units a year. Is it still expensive?" If the answer is yes, then, uh, economies of scale are not the issue.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you throw... Into manufacturing, do you throw, like, supply chain? You talked about resources and materials and stuff like that. Do you throw that into the calculation of trying to reason from first principles, like, "How are we gonna make the supply chain work here?"
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And then the cost of materials, things like that? Or is that too much...
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. Uh, e- exactly. So, um, like, a- another, like, a good example of thinking about things, uh, in the limit is, um, if you take any, uh, you know, any- any product, any machine or whatever, um... Like, take a rocket or whatever, uh, and say, um, if you've got... If- if you look at the r- raw materials in the rocket, um, so you're gonna have, like, uh, I don't know, aluminum, steel, titanium, Inconel, uh, special, uh, specialty alloys, um, copper. And- and you say, "What are the, how... What- what- what's the weight of the constituent elements, o- of each of these elements, and what is their raw material value?" And that sets the asymptotic limit for how, uh, low the cost of the vehicle can be, unless you change the- the materials. So, and then when you do that, uh, call it, like, maybe the magic wand number or something like that, so that would be like if you had the, you know, uh, uh, uh, like, just a- a pile of these raw materials here and you could wave a magic wand and rearrange the atoms into the final shape. Um, that would be the lowest possible cost that you could make this thing for, unless you change the materials. So then... And that is always a- a, usually, almost always a- a very low number. Um, so then the- the... What's actually causing things to be expensive is how you put the atoms into the desired shape.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I actually... If you don't mind me taking a tiny tangent. I had a... I often talk to Jim Keller, who's somebody who worked with you as a, as a friend.
- EMElon Musk
Oh, yeah. Yeah. J- Jim was, uh, yeah. Did great work at Tesla.
- LFLex Fridman
So, um, I suppose he carries the flame of the same kind of thinking...
- EMElon Musk
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... that you're- you're talking about now. Um, and I- I guess I see that same thing at- at Tesla and- and, uh, SpaceX. Folks who work there, they kind of learn this way of thinking, and it kinda becomes obvious, almost. But, anyway, I had a argument... Not argument. Uh, he educated me about how cheap it might be to manufacture a Tesla bot. We just, we had an argument. "What is, how can you reduce the cost of scale of producing a robot?" Because I'd gotten the chance to interact quite a bit, um, obviously in- in the academic circles with humanoid robots, and then Boston Dynamics...
- EMElon Musk
Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
... and stuff like that. And they- they're very expensive to- to build.
- EMElon Musk
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And then, uh, Jim kind of schooled me on saying like, "Okay, like, this kind of first principles thinking of, 'How can we get the cost of manufacture down?'" Um, I suppose you do that, you have done, uh, that kind of thinking for Tesla bot and for all kinds of, all kinds of complex... Systems that are traditionally seen as complex, and you say, "Okay, how can we simplify everything down?"
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. I mean, I think if you're- if you are really good at manufacturing, you can basically make, at high volume, you can basically make anything for a cost that asymptotically approaches the raw ma- raw material value of the constituents, plus any i- intellectual property that you need to license.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Right.
- EMElon Musk
Anything.
- 27:25 – 32:55
Humans on Mars
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, okay, so let me ask you about Mars. You mentioned it would be great for science to put, um, a base on the moon to do some research, but the truly big leap, again, in this category of seemingly impossible, is to put a human being on Mars. When do you think SpaceX will land a human being on Mars?
- EMElon Musk
Hmm. Best case is about five years. Worst case, 10 years.
- LFLex Fridman
What are the determining factors, would you say, from an engineering perspective? Or is that, that not the bottlenecks?
- EMElon Musk
Uh, no, it's- it's fundamentally, um, you know, engineering the- the vehicle. Um, I mean, Starship is the most compl- complex and advanced rocket that's ever been made by, I don't know, order of magnitude or something like that. It's a lot. It's really next level. So, um, and the fundamental optimization of Starship is minimizing cost per ton to orbit, and ultimately cost per ton to the surface of Mars. Um, this may seem like a mercantile objective, but it is actually the thing that needs to be optimized. Um, like there is a certain cost per ton to the surface of Mars where we can afford to establish a self-sustaining, uh, city, um, and the- and- and then above that, we cannot afford to do it. Um, so right- right now, you couldn't fly to Mars for a trillion dollars. There's no amount of money could get you a ticket to Mars. So, we need to get that above, uh, you know, to get that like something that is actually possible at all. Um, um, but- but then, but that's- that's- w- we don't- we don't just want to have, you know, with Mars, flags and footprints and then not come back for a half century like we did with the moon. Uh, in- in order to pass a very important grade filter, I think we- we need to be a multi-planet species. Um, this may sound somewhat esoteric to- to a lot of people, but, uh, like eventually, given enough time, uh, there's something, Earth is likely to experience some calamity, um, that could be, uh, something that humans do to themselves or an external event like happened to the dinosaurs. Um, and, um, but- but, uh, you know, eventually, and- and if- if nothing- if none of that happens, and somehow magically we- we keep going, uh, then the- the sun will ex- the sun is gradually expanding, um, and will engulf the Earth, um, and probably Earth gets too hot for, uh, life in, uh-... about 500 million years. It's a long time, but that's only 10% longer than Earth has been around. And so if you think about like the, the current situation is really remarkable, um, and kind of hard to believe. But, uh, Earth's been around for four and a half billion years, and this is the first time in four and a half billion years that it's been possible to extend life beyond Earth. And that window of opportunity may be open for a long time, and I hope it is, but it also may be open for a short time. And we should, uh, I think it was wise for us to, uh, act quickly while the window is open, just in case it, it closes.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, the existence of nuclear weapons, pandemics, all kinds of threats-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... should, uh, should kind of, um, give us some motivation.
- EMElon Musk
I mean, civilization could get, um, could die with a bang or a whimper. You know, if it's a, if it dies of demographic collapse, then it's more of a whimper, (laughs) obviously. Um, but, and if it's World War III, it's more of a bang. Um, but, but these are all risks. Um, I mean, it's important to think of these things and just, you know, think of things as like probabilities, not certainties. Um, there's a certain probability that something bad will happen on, on Earth. I, like, I think most likely the future will be good. Um, but there's like, let's say for argument's sake, um, a one percent chance per century of, of a civilization-ending event. Like that was Stephen Hawking's estimate. Um, I think he's, he might be right about that. Uh, so then, uh, you know, we, we should basically think of this like being a multi-planetary species is like taking out insurance for life itself. Like, life insurance for life. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
Um-
- LFLex Fridman
Wow.
- EMElon Musk
... so-
- LFLex Fridman
This turned into an infomercial real quick.
- EMElon Musk
Life insurance for life, yes. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
Um, and, you know, uh, we, we can bring the, the, the creatures from, uh, you know, plants and animals from Earth to Mars and breathe life into the planet. Um, and, and have a second planet with, with life. Um, that would be great. Um, they can't bring themselves there, you know, so if we don't bring them to Mars, then they will just, for sure all die when the sun expands anyway, and then
- 32:55 – 36:41
Colonizing Mars
- EMElon Musk
that'll be it.
- LFLex Fridman
What do you think is the most difficult aspect of building a civilization on Mars? Terraforming Mars, like from an engineering perspective, from a financial perspective, human perspective, to get, to get a large number of folks there who will never return back to Earth?
- EMElon Musk
Uh, no, they could certainly return. Some will return back to Earth.
- LFLex Fridman
They will choose to stay there-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... for the rest of their lives.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, many will. Um, but, uh, we, you know, we, (laughs) we need the spaceships back, like the ones that go to Mars-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
We need them back, so-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
... you can hop on if you want, you know?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
It's like, but we can't just not have the spaceships come back with, those things are expensive. We need them back, like to come back and do another trip.
- LFLex Fridman
I mean, do you think about the terraforming aspect, like actually building? Are you so focused right now on the spaceships part that's so critical-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... to get to Mars?
- EMElon Musk
It's just, we absolutely, if you can't get there, nothing else matters. So, and, and like I said, you, we can't get there with, at some extraordinarily high cost. I mean, the current cost of, um, let's say one ton to the surface of Mars is on the order of a billion dollars. So, 'cause you don't just need the rocket and the launch and everything. You need like heat shield. You need, you know, guidance system. You need, uh, deep space communications. Uh, you need some kind of landing system. So, like rough approximation would be a billion dollars per ton to the surface of Mars right now. Um, this is obviously, um, way too expensive to create a self-sustaining civilization. Um, so we need to improve that by at least a factor of a thousand.
- LFLex Fridman
A million per ton?
- EMElon Musk
Yes. Ideally less than, much less than a million per ton, but if it's not, like it's gotta be... Say, you have to say like, "Well, how much can society afford to spend or want to, want to spend on a self-sustaining city on Mars?" The self-sustaining part is important. Like it's just, the key threshold, um, the great filter will, will have been passed when the city on Mars can survive even if the spaceships from Earth stop coming for any reason. Doesn't matter what the reason is, but if they stop coming for any reason, will it die out or will it not? And if there's even one critical ingredient missing, then it still doesn't count. It's like, you know, if you're on a long sea voyage and you've got everything except vitamin C. (laughs) And it's only a matter of time, you know you're gonna die. (laughs) So, so we gotta get Mars, a Mars city to the point where it's self-sustaining. Um, I'm not sure this will really happen in my lifetime, but I, I hope to see it at least have a lot of momentum, and, and then you could say, "Okay, what is the minimum tonnage necessary to have a self-sustaining city?" Um, and there's a lot of uncertainty about this. You could say like, I don't know, it's probably at least a million tons, um, 'cause you have to set up a lot of infrastructure on, on Mars. Um, like I said, you can't be missing any, anything that, in order to be self-sustaining, you can't be missing, like you need, you know, semiconductor fabs. You need iron ore refineries. Like you need lots of things, you know? Uh, so, um, and Mars is not super hospitable. It's, it's the least inhospitable planet, but it's definitely a fixer-upper of a planet.
- LFLex Fridman
Outside of Earth.
- EMElon Musk
Yes. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Earth is pretty good.
- EMElon Musk
Earth is like easy. (laughs) Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And also, I should, we should clarify, in the solar system.
- EMElon Musk
Yes, in the solar system.
- LFLex Fridman
There might be nice, like vacation spots.
- EMElon Musk
There might be some great planets out there, but, uh, it's hopeless.
- LFLex Fridman
Too hard to get there?
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, way, way, way, way too hard, (laughs) to say the least.
- LFLex Fridman
Let me push back on that. Not really a pushback, but quick, uh, curveball
- 36:41 – 41:19
Wormholes
- LFLex Fridman
of a question. So, you did mention physics as the first starting point. So, um...... general relativity allows for wormholes. Uh, they technically can exist. Do you think, um, those can ever be leveraged by humans to travel faster than the speed of light?
- EMElon Musk
Well... (sighs)
- LFLex Fridman
Are you saying
- EMElon Musk
That the wormhole thing is, is debatable. Uh, the, the, the, we currently do not know of any means of going faster than the speed of light. Um, the, there is like, like (sighs) te- (sighs) there, there are some ideas about having space like so, so... (sighs) You can only move at the speed of light through, through space. But if you can make space itself move that, that, that's like that, that's w- warping space. Um, space is, is capable of moving faster than the speed of light. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Right.
- EMElon Musk
Uh, like the universe in the Big Bang, the univ- the universe expanded at much gr- much more than the speed of light, by a lot.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
Um, so, um, but the... If this is possible, the, the amount of energy required to warp space is so gigantic, it's boggles the mind.
- LFLex Fridman
So all the work you've done with propulsion, how much innovation is possible with rocket propulsion? Is this, um... I mean, you've seen it all and you're constantly innovating in every aspect. How much is possible? Like how much can you get 10x somehow? Is there something in there in physics that you can get significant improvement in terms of efficiency of engines and all those kinds of things?
- EMElon Musk
Well, as I was saying, like the, the, really the holy grail is a, a fully and rapidly reusable orbital system. Um, so, uh, right now, uh, the Falcon 9 is the only reusable rocket out there. Uh, but it, but the, the booster comes back and lands. I'm sure you've seen the videos. Uh, and we get the nose conal fairing back, but we do not get the upper stage back. So, uh, that means that we have a minimum cost of, of, uh, uh, building an upper stage. Um, you can think of like a two-stage rocket of, of sort of like two airplanes, like a big airplane and a smaller airplane. Um, and we get the big airplane back, but not the smaller airplane. And so it still costs a lot, you know? So that upper stage is, you know, at least $10 million. Um, and then the degree of the, the, the booster is not as reus- it's not as rapidly and completely reusable as we'd like and nor are the fairings. So, you know, our, our kind of minimum marginal cost in our county overhead for per flight is on the order of $15 to $20 million maybe. Um, so, uh, that's, that's extremely good for... (sighs) It's by far better than any rocket ever in history. Um, but, uh, with full and rapid reusability, we can reduce the cost per ton to orbit by, uh, a factor of 100. Just think of it like, um, like imagine if you had an aircraft or something or a, a car. Oh, yeah, um, and if you had to buy a new car every time you went for a drive, that would be very expensive. It'd be silly, frankly.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- EMElon Musk
But, um, but you, in fact, you just refuel the car or recharge the car and that's, uh, makes your trip, uh, p- like, (laughs) I don't know, a thousand times cheaper. (laughs) So it's the same for rockets. Uh, if you l- it's, uh, very difficult to make this complex machine that can go to orbit. And so if you cannot reuse it and have to, have to throw even any part of, any significant part of it away, that massively increases the cost. So, you know, Starship in theory could do a cost per launch of like a million, maybe $2 million or something like that. Um, and, uh, and put over 100 tons in orbit, which is crazy.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
So...
- LFLex Fridman
That's incredible. So you're saying like it's, uh, by far the biggest bang for the buck is to make it fully reusable versus like some kind of brilliant breakthrough in theoretical physics?
- EMElon Musk
No, no. There's no, there's no brilliant break- no, there's no... (laughs) It just me- you wanna make the rocket reusable.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
This is, this is an extremely difficult engineering problem.
- LFLex Fridman
Got it.
- EMElon Musk
Uh, but no, no new physics is required.
- LFLex Fridman
(sighs) Just brilliant engineering.
- 41:19 – 48:22
Forms of government on Mars
- LFLex Fridman
Let me ask a slightly philosophical fun question. Gotta ask. I know you're focused on getting to Mars, but once we're there on Mars, what do you... What form of government, economic system, political system do you think would work best for an early civilization of humans? Is- do- I mean, the in- the interesting reason to talk about this stuff, it also ma- helps people dream about the future. I know you're really focused about the short-term engineering dream, but it's like, I don't know, there's something about imagining an actual civilization on Mars that gives people-
- EMElon Musk
Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
... really gives people hope.
- EMElon Musk
Well, it would, it would be a new frontier and an opportunity to rethink the whole nature of government, uh, just as was done in the creation of the United States. So, uh, I mean, I would suggest, um, having, uh, direct democracy, like people vote directly on things as opposed to representative democracy. So, uh, representative democracy I think is too, uh, subject to a special interest and c- you know, a coercion of the politicians and that kind of thing. Um, so I, I'd recommend, uh, that, that there's just, um, direct democracy. People vote on laws, the population votes on laws themselves, and then the laws must be short enough that people can understand them. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, and then like keeping a well-informed populace, like really being transparent about all the information about what they're voting for.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, absolute transparency.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. And not make it as annoying as those cookies where you have to accept the cook-
- EMElon Musk
(laughs) Accept cookies. I always like, uh, you know, there's like always like a slight amount of trepidation when you click accept cookies. Like, I feel as though there's like perhaps like a, like a very tiny chance that'll open a portal to hell, or something like that. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) That's exactly how I feel.
- EMElon Musk
It's like, "Why? Why do they, why, why do they keep, why do we need to accept the, what do they want with this cookie?" Uh, like, somebody got upset with accepting cookies or something somewhere. I mean, who cares? Like, so annoying to kee- keep accepting all these cookies.
- LFLex Fridman
To me, this is just a-
- EMElon Musk
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... a great-
- EMElon Musk
I'll gladly accept, uh, yes, you can have my damn cookie. I don't care. Whatever. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
You heard it from Elon first. He accepts all your damn cookies.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
And stop asking me. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Uh-
- EMElon Musk
It's annoying.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, it's, uh, it's one example of, um, im- implementation of a good idea done really horribly.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. It's, it's somebody who was like, there's some good intentions of, like, privacy or whatever, but now everyone just has to take, accept cookies and it's not, you know, you have billions of people who have to keep clicking accept cookie and it's super annoying. Then we, just accept the damn cookie, it's fine. There, there is like, um, I think a fundamental problem that we're, be- because we've not really had a, uh, a, a major, uh, like a world war or something like that in a while, and obviously we'd, we'd like to not have world wars, um, the, there's not been a cleansing function for rules and regulations. Um, so w- wars did have, uh, you know, some sort of lining in that there would be a, a reset on rules and regulations, uh, after a war. Uh, so World Wars I and II, there were huge resets on rules and regulations. Um, now, as, if what, if the soci- society does not have a war, the, the, and there's no cleansing function or garbage collection for rules and regulations, then rules and regulations will accumulate every year, 'cause they are immortal. There's no actual, humans die, but the laws don't. Uh, so the, we, we need a garbage collection function for rules and regulations. They should not just be immortal, um, 'cause some of the rules and regulations that are put in place will be counterproductive. Uh, done with good intentions, but counterproductive. Sometimes not done with good intentions. So, um, if you just, if rules and regulations just accumulate every year, um, and you get more and more of them, then eventually you won't be able to do anything. You're just like Gulliver with, you know, tied down by thousands of little strings. And we ha- we see that in, um, you know, US and like, like basically all, all, all economies that, uh, have been around for, for a while, uh, and, and regulators and legislators create new rules and regulations every year, but they don't put effort into removing them, and I think that's very important that we put effort into removing rules and regulations. Um, but it gets tough, 'cause you get special interests that then are dependent on, like they, they have a, you know, a, uh, a vested interest in that whatever rule and regulation, and that they, then they fight to not get it removed. Um-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, so it, I mean, I guess the problem with the Constitution is it's, it's kinda like C versus Java, 'cause it doesn't have any garbage collection built in. I think there should be, I, I, when you first said the, the, the metaphor of garbage collection, I loved it.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, it's from a coding standpoint.
- LFLex Fridman
From a coding standpoint, yeah, yeah. I, it would be intere- interesting if the laws themselves kinda had a built in thing where they kinda die after a while-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... and somebody explicitly publicly defends them.
- EMElon Musk
Mm-hmm, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
So that, that's sort of, it's not like somebody has to kill them, they kinda die themselves. They disappear.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. Um-
- 48:22 – 49:52
Smart contracts
- EMElon Musk
- LFLex Fridman
So let me be the guy, you, you posted a meme on Twitter recently where there's th- there's, there's like a, a row of urinals, a guy just walks all the way across-
- EMElon Musk
Oh, sure yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... and he tells you about crypto.
- EMElon Musk
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
So, so, so-
- EMElon Musk
This, this, I mean, that's happened res- so many times, I think maybe even literally. Uh (laughs) -
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Do you think, technologically speaking, there's any room for ideas of smart contracts or so on, 'cause you mentioned laws. Um, that's an interesting implement- use of things like smart contracts to implement the laws by which governments function.... like, something built on Ethereum or maybe a dog coin that enables smart contracts somehow.
- EMElon Musk
I never, I don't quite understand this whole smart contract thing, um, you know. I, I mean ... (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) So it's a-
- EMElon Musk
I'm too dumb to understand smart contracts.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) That's a good line. (laughs)
- EMElon Musk
(laughs) I mean, my general approach to any kind of, like, deal or whatever is just make sure there's clarity of understanding. That's the most important thing.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- EMElon Musk
Um, and, and just keep any kind of deal very, very short and simple, plain language, um, and just make sure everyone understands this is the deal. Does everyone... Is it clear? Um, and, uh, and, and what are the consequences if various things don't happen? Um, but u- usually deal, deals are, um, you know, business deals or whatever, are way too long and complex and overly lawyered, and pointlessly.
- 49:52 – 51:24
Dogecoin
- LFLex Fridman
You mentioned that, uh, Doge is the, the people's coin.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Um, and you said that you were literally going, SpaceX may consider literally putting, uh, a Dogecoin on the moon.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Is it, is this something you're still considering? Uh, Mars perhaps? Uh, do you think there's some chance... We've talked about political systems on Mars, that, uh, Dogecoin is the, the official currency of Mars at some point in the future?
- EMElon Musk
(laughs) Well, I, I think Mars itself will need to have a different currency because you can't synchronize due to speed of light.
- LFLex Fridman
Hmm.
- EMElon Musk
Or not easily. Um...
- LFLex Fridman
So it must be completely standalone from Earth?
- EMElon Musk
Well, yeah, 'cause the, the... Mars is r- At closest approach, it's four light minutes away roughly. And then at furthest approach, uh, it's roughly 20 light minutes away. Um, maybe a little more. Um, so you can't really have, uh, something synchronizing, you know, if you've g- if the, if you've got a 20 minute speed of light issue. If it's got a one minute blockchain, uh, it's, it's not gonna synchronize properly. Um, so Mars would n- would... I, I don't know if Mars would have a cryptocurrency as a thing, but probably. Seems likely. Um, but it would be some kind of localized, uh, thing on Mars. Um...
- LFLex Fridman
And you let the people decide?
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. (laughs) Absolutely.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
It's... The f- the future of Mars should be up to the Martians. Uh, but yeah, so, um,
- 51:24 – 57:33
Cryptocurrency and Money
- EMElon Musk
I mean, I think the cryptocurrency thing is an interesting approach to reducing the, um, error in the, the database that is called money. Um, you know, I think I have a pretty deep understanding of the, of what money actually is on a practical day-to-day basis because of PayPal. Um, you know, we really got in deep there. Um, and right, right now the money system, (laughs) actually for practical purposes, is, is, is really a bunch of, uh, heterogeneous, uh, mainframes running, uh, old COBOL.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Okay, you mean literally? That's-
- EMElon Musk
Literally.
- LFLex Fridman
That's literally what's happening?
- EMElon Musk
In batch mode. Okay.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) In batch mode.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah. Uh, uh, pity the poor bastards who have to maintain that code, okay? That's a, that was a d- pain dr- that's pain.
- LFLex Fridman
Not even Fortran, it's COBOL, yep.
- EMElon Musk
It's COBOL. Like... And they still, the ba- banks were still buying mainframes in 2021 and running ancient COBOL code. Uh, and, uh, you know, the, the Federal Reserve is, like, probably even older than the, what the banks have, and they have an old COBOL mainframe. (laughs) And so now the... And, and so the, the government effectively has editing privileges on the, on the money database. Um, and they use those editing privileges to, um, make more money (laughs) whenever they want. And this increases the error in the database that is money. So if... I think money should really be viewed through the lens of, uh, information theory. And, uh, and so it's, uh, yeah, kind of like, uh, like an internet connection. Like, what's the bandwidth? Uh, you know, uh, to- total bit rate. Uh, what is the latency, jitter, uh, packet drop? Uh, you know, errors in, errors in network, uh, communication. So, just think of money like that, basically. Um, I think that's probably the right way to think of it. And, and then say what, what system, uh, from an information theory standpoint, allows an economy to function the best. Uh, and, you know, um, crypto is an attempt to reduce the, the error, uh, in, uh, in, in money that is contributed by, uh, governments, uh, d- diluting the money supply, uh, as basically a pernicious f- pernicious form of taxation.
- LFLex Fridman
So, both policy in terms of with inflation and actual, like, technological COBOL, like, cryptocurrency takes us into the 21st century in terms of the actual systems that allow you to do the transactions, to store wealth, all those kinds of things.
- EMElon Musk
Like I said-
- LFLex Fridman
Okay.
- EMElon Musk
... just think of money as information. People, um, uh, often will think of money as having power in and of itself. Um, it does not. Money is, uh, is information. And it, it does not have power in and of itself. Uh, the, like... The, you know, again, applying the, the physics tools of thinking about things in the limit is helpful. If you are stranded on a tropical island, um, and, uh, you have a trillion dollars, it's useless, 'cause there's no, there's no resource allocation. M- money is a database for resource allocation. But there's no resources to allocate except yourself, so money is useless. Um... (sighs) Uh, if you're stranded on a desert island with no food, you'd, uh, all the Bitcoin in the world will not stop you from starving.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
So, um, so like, just, just think of money as, as a database for resource allocation, um, across time and space. And, um, and then what, what, what system, uh, i- is, what, what, in what form should that, that database or data system... What, what would be most effective? Now, the- there's a, there is a fundamental issue with, um, say, Bitcoin in its current form, uh, in that it's, the transaction volume is very limited. Um, and, uh, the latency, it's- the latency for, for a properly confirmed transaction is too, is too long, much longer than you'd like. So, it's not, it's actually not great from, um, a transaction volume standpoint or a latency standpoint. Um, uh, so it is perhaps useful as, as to s- to solve an aspect of the money database problem, uh, whi- which is a sort of store of wealth or an ac- an accounting of relative obligations, I suppose. Um, but it is not useful as a currency, as a day-to-day currency.
- LFLex Fridman
But people have proposed different technological solutions-
- EMElon Musk
Like Lightning.
- LFLex Fridman
... yeah, Lightning Network and the Layer 2 technologies on top of that. I mean, it's, it's all, it seems to be all kind of a trade-off, but the point is, it's kinda brilliant to say that just think about information, think about what kind of database, what kind of infrastructure enables that exchange of information.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, just say like if you're operating an economy, um, and you need to have something that a- allows for the efficient, to, to have efficient, uh, value ratios between products and services. So you've got this massive number of products and services, and you need to... You can't just bar- barter. (laughs) It's just like, that would be extremely unwieldy. Uh, so, you need something that gives you the, the, a, a ratio of exchange between goods and services. Um, and, and then something that allows you to, uh, shift obligations across time, like debt. Debt and equity, shift obligations across time. Then what does, what, what does the best job of that? Um,
- 57:33 – 1:00:16
Bitcoin vs Dogecoin
- EMElon Musk
part of the reason why I think there's some, um, merit to Dogecoin, even though it was obviously created as a joke, um, is that it, it actually does have a much higher, uh, transaction volume capability than Bitcoin, um, and the, you know, the co- the cost of doing a transaction, the, the, the Dogecoin fee is, is very low. Like right now, if you wanted to do a Bitcoin transaction, the price of doing that transaction is very high, so you could not use it effectively for most things. Um, and nor could it even scale to a high volume. Um, uh, and when Bitcoin was, you know, started, I guess, what, around 2008 or something like that, um, the internet connections were much worse than they are today, like order of magnitude. I mean, there's no... Way, way worse, you know, in 2008. So, so like having a, you know, a small, uh, block size or whatever is, you know, and a long synchronization time is... Made sense in 2008, but to, you know, 2021 or fast-forward 10 years, it's like, it's like comically low, you know? It's, uh... So, um, and I think there's some value to having a linear increase in the amount of currency that, uh, is generated. Um, so because some amount of the currency... Like, like if, if a cur- if a currency is too deflationary, or like, uh, or I should say, if, if, if a cur- if a currency is expected to increase in value over time, there's reluctance to spend it. 'Cause you're like, "Oh, I, if I, I'll just hold it and not spend it because its scarcity is increasing with time, so if I spend it now, then I will regret spending it, so I will just, you know, hodl it." (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- EMElon Musk
Um, but if there's some dilution of the currency occurring over time, that's, that's more of an incentive to use it as a currency. So, um, Dogecoin, somewhat randomly, has, uh, a, um, just a, a fixed number of, of sort of coins or hash strings that, uh, are generated every year. So there's, there's some inflation, but it's not a percentage base, it's a, it's... So the, the... It's a fixed number, so the percentage of inflation will necessarily decline over time. Um, so it, it just... I, I'm not saying that it's like the ideal system for a currency, but I think it actually is, uh, just fundamentally better than anything else I've seen. Just by accident. Um, so...
- 1:00:16 – 1:02:38
Satoshi Nakamoto
- EMElon Musk
- LFLex Fridman
I like how you said, um, around 2008. So you're not, uh, you know, some people suggested you might be Satoshi Nakamoto, you previously said you're not. Let me ask-
- EMElon Musk
No, I'm not.
- LFLex Fridman
You're not, for sure.
- EMElon Musk
No, 100%.
- LFLex Fridman
Would, would you tell us if you were?
- EMElon Musk
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay. (laughs) Uh, do you think it's a feature or bug that he's anonymous, or she, or they? It's an interesting kind of quirk of human history, that there is a particular technology that is a completely anonymous inventor, or creator.
- EMElon Musk
Well, I mean, you can- you can look at the, (sighs) um, evolution of ideas, um, before the launch of Bitcoin and see who wrote, uh, y- you know, about those ideas. Um, and then, uh, like, I don't know exact- obviously, I don't know who- who created Bi- Bitcoin for practical purposes, but y- the evolution of ideas is- is pretty clear before that. And, like, it seems as though, like, Nick Zavo, uh, is probably, more than anyone else, uh, responsible for the evolution of those ideas. So, you know, he claims not to be Sak- Sa- sa- sa- Nakamoto, but I'm not sure that's- that's neither here nor there. Uh, but he- he seems to be the one more responsible for the ideas behind Bitcoin than anyone else.
- LFLex Fridman
So, it's not perhaps, like, singular figures aren't even as important as the- the figures involved in the evolution of ideas that led to a thing, so...
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. It's, you know, and most ...
- EMElon Musk
(clears throat)
- LFLex Fridman
P- perhaps it's sad to think about history, but maybe most names will be forgotten anyway.
- EMElon Musk
What is a name anyway? It's a name- a name attached to an idea. What does it even mean really?
- LFLex Fridman
I think Shakespeare had a thing about roses and stuff, whatever he said.
- EMElon Musk
(laughs) A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) I got Elon to quote Shakespeare. I feel- I feel like I accomplished something today.
- EMElon Musk
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
Blah.
- LFLex Fridman
I'm gonna clip that out.
- EMElon Musk
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Instead of the whole thing. Um-
- EMElon Musk
None more temperate or more fair. (laughs)
- 1:02:38 – 1:05:44
Tesla Autopilot
- NANarrator
Being balding.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, Autopilot. Tesla Autopilot.
- EMElon Musk
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Um, Tesla Autopilot has been through an incredible journey over the past six years, um, or perhaps even longer in the minds of- in your mind and the minds of many involved. Uh-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah, I think that's where we first, like, connected really was the Autopilot stuff.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
Uh, autonomy and-
- LFLex Fridman
Well, it's, the whole journey was incredible to me to watch. I was, um ... because I knew, well, part of it is I was at MIT, and I- I knew the difficulty of computer vision.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And I knew the whole, I had a lot of colleagues and friends, about the DARPA challenge, I knew how difficult it is.
- EMElon Musk
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And so there was a natural skepticism. When I first drove a Tesla with, uh, the initial system based on Mobileye-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... I thought, there's no way th- so, at first, when I- when I got in, I thought, there's no way this car could maintain, um, like stay in the lane and create a comfortable experience. So, my intuition initially was that the lane keeping problem is way too difficult to solve. And-
- EMElon Musk
Oh, lane keeping? Yeah, that's relatively easy.
- LFLex Fridman
No, I, well ...
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
But, like, uh, but not the s- but solve in the way that we just, we talked about previous is prototype versus a thing that actually creates a pleasant experience over hundreds of thousands of miles and millions.
- EMElon Musk
Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
I, yeah, so-
- EMElon Musk
We- we- we-
- LFLex Fridman
... I was proven wrong pretty quickly.
- EMElon Musk
... we had to wrap a lot of code around the- the MobileEye thing.
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- EMElon Musk
It's- it doesn't just, didn't just work by itself. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Yes. I mean, th- that's part, that's part of the story of how you approach things sometimes.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Sometimes you do things from scratch, sometimes at first you kind of see what's out there, and then you decide to do it from scratch. That was one of the boldest decisions I've seen is both on the hardware and the software to decide to eventually go from scratch. I thought, again, I was skeptical whether that's going to be able to work out-
- EMElon Musk
Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
... 'cause it's such a, such a difficult problem. And so it was an incredible journey. What I see now with, um, everything, the hardware, the compute, the sensors, the, uh, the things I maybe care and love about most is the, the stuff that Andrej Karpathy is leading with the dataset selection, the whole data engine process, the neural network architectures, the- the way that's in the real world that network is tested, validated, all the different test sets. Uh, you know, versus the ImageNet model of computer vision, like what's in academia is like real-world artificial intelligence.
- 1:05:44 – 1:17:48
Tesla Self-Driving
- EMElon Musk
we're getting it done.
- LFLex Fridman
Wha- what are some insights you've gained over those five, six years of Autopilot about the problem of autonomous driving? So, you leaped in having some sort of, uh, first principles kinds of intuitions, but nobody knows how difficult the- the pro-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... like, the problem
- EMElon Musk
... I thought- I thought the self-driving problem would be hard, but it's- it was harder than I thought. It's not like I thought it would be easy. I thought it would be very hard, but it was actually way harder than- than even that. So, I mean, what it comes down to at the end of day is, to solve self-driving, uh, you have to solve, uh, you- you basically need to recreate, um, what y- what humans do to drive, which is humans drive with optical sensors, eyes, and biological neural nets. Um, and so in order to, that- that's how the entire road system is designed to work with- with, uh, pa- basically passive optical and neural nets, um, biologically. Um, and now that we need to, so for actually for full self-driving to work, we have to recreate that in digital form. Um, so we have to, um, that- that means cameras with, uh, advanced, uh, neural nets in silicon form, uh-... and, and then you, it will obviously solve for full self-driving. That's the, that's the only way. I don't think there's any other way.
- LFLex Fridman
But the question is, what aspects of human nature do you have to encode into the machine, right? So you have to solve the perception problem, like detect, and then you first, uh, well, realize what is the perception problem for driving, like all the kinds of things you have to be able to see. Like, what- what do we even look at when we drive? There's, uh, I just recently heard André talked about at MIT about, like, car doors. I think it was the world's greatest talk of all time about car doors.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Um, the- the- f- you know, the fine details of car doors. Like, what- what is even an open car door, man? So, like, the- the ontology of that, that's a perception problem. We humans solve that perception problem, and- and Tesla has to solve that problem. And then there's the control and the planning coupled with the perception. You have to figure out, like, what's involved in driving, like, especially in all the different edge cases. Um, and- and then the, uh, I mean, maybe you can comment on this. How much game theoretic kinda stuff needs to be involved, you know, at a four-way stop sign? You know, our, as humans when we drive, our actions affect the world. Like...
- EMElon Musk
Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
It changes how others behave. Most autonomous driving, if you, you're usually just responding, um, to the scene, as opposed to, like, really, um, asserting yourself in the scene. Do you think...
- EMElon Musk
I think these ... So, actually, I think- I think these con- these sort of contro- control logic conundrums are not com- are not the hard part. Um, the, you know ... Let's see, um ...
- LFLex Fridman
What do you think is the hard part of, in this whole, um, beautiful complex problem?
- EMElon Musk
So, it's a lot of friggin' software, man, a lot of smart lines of code. Um, uh, f- for sure, in- in order to have, um ... create an accurate vector space. Uh, so like, if- if you're- you're coming from image space, which is like this- this flow of, um, photons co- you know, going to the camera- cameras and- (clears throat) and then, uh ... So- so you have this massive bitstream, um, in- in image space, uh, and then you have to, uh, ef- effectively compress, uh, the, uh, uh, ma- a massive bitstream, uh, corresponding to photons that knocked off an electron in- in a camera sensor, uh, and- and turn that bitstream into- into a vector space. Um, uh, by- by vector space, I mean like, uh, you know, you've got cars and- and humans, and, uh, lane lines, and curves and, uh, traffic lights, and that kind of thing. Um, o- once you, uh, have an accurate vector space, um, the control problem is similar to that of a video game, like a Grand Theft Auto or Cyberpunk, um, if you have accur- accurate vest- vector space. It's the control problem is, it's- it's, I wouldn't say it's- it's trivial, it's not trivial, but it's, um, like, it's- it's- it's a- it's- it's not like some insurmountable thing. It's just a, it's ... But- but having accurate vector space is very difficult.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I think we humans, uh, don't give enough respect to how incredible the human perception system is, to- to mapping the raw photons to the vector space representation in our heads.
- EMElon Musk
Your brain is doing an incredible amount of processing, um, and- and giving you an image that is a very cleaned up image. Like, when we look around here, we see c-, like, you see color in the corners of your eyes, but actually your eyes have very few, uh, uh, cones, like the, uh, cone receptors in the peripheral vision. Your- your- your eyes are painting color in the peripheral vision. You don't realize it, but they're, eyes are actually painting color. And your eyes also have like this blood vessels and all sorts of gnarly things, and there's a blind spot, but do you see your blind spot? No. Your- your- your brain is painting in the missing, the blind spot. You're gonna do these like, see these things online where you look, look here and look at this point, and- and then look at this point, and it's, if- if it's in your blind spot, it- it, the- your brain will just fill in the- the missing bits.
- LFLex Fridman
That's so cool. The peripheral vision's so cool.
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Makes you realize all the illusions for vision science and so it makes you realize just how incredible the brain is.
- EMElon Musk
The brain's doing crazy amount of post-processing on the vision signals from your eyes. Um, it's insane. So, um, and then, and then even once you get all those vision signals, uh, your- your- your brain is constantly trying to for- to- to forget as much as possible. So, human memory is p- perhaps the weakest thing about the brain, is memory. So, because memory is so expensive to a brain and so limited, your brain is trying to forget as much as possible, and distill the things that you see into, uh, the smallest am- smallest amounts of information possible. So, your brain is trying to, not just get to a vector space, but get to a vector space that is the smallest possible vector space of only relevant objects. Um, and I think, like, you- you can sort of look inside your brain, or at least, you know, I can. Like, when you drive down the road and- and try to think about what your brain is actually doing ...
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
... consciously. And it's- it's conscious ... It's- it's tr- it's- it's, it's like you'll see a car that's ... You could, because your- you- you're, you don't have cameras ... You- you, I don't have eyes in the back of your head or the side, you know? So you say like-... uh, having arguments (laughs) you know, is like, um, so, so then h- like, say like, like, uh, like when's the last time you looked right and left, and, you know, or, and, and rearward, um, or even diagonally, uh, uh, you know, forward, uh, to actually refresh your vector space. So, you're, you're glancing around and what your mind is doing is, is g- is trying to distill, um, the re- relevant vectors, basically objects with a position and motion, uh, and, a- and, and then, and, and then, uh, editing that down to the least amount t- that's necessary for you to drive.
- LFLex Fridman
It does seem to be able to, uh, edit it down or compress it even further into things like concepts. So it's not ... It's like it goes beyond. The human mind seems to go sometimes beyond vector space to, to sort of space of concepts, to where y- you'll see a thing. It's no longer represented spatially somehow. It's almost like a concept that you should be aware of. Like if this is a s- a school zone, you'll remember that-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... as a concept, which is a weird thing to represent. But perhaps for driving, you don't need to fully represent those things, or maybe you get those kind of, um ...
- EMElon Musk
Well, you e- e-
- LFLex Fridman
... indirectly.
- EMElon Musk
You n- you need to like establish vector space and then actually have predictions for, uh, that ve- those vector spaces. So like, um, you know, like if uh ... You know, like you drive past, say, say a s- a b- a, a bus and the, and you see that there's, there's people ... If, before you drove past the bus you saw people crossing, and just, like, or some just ... Imagine there's like a, a large truck or something blocking sight. Um, but you s- before you came up to the truck you saw that there were some kids about to cross the road-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- EMElon Musk
... in front of the truck. Now you can no longer see the kids, but you, you'd need to be able ... But, but you would now know, "Okay, those kids are probably s- gonna pass by the truck and cross the road," even though you cannot see them. So you have to have, um, memory, uh, that, that you had need to remember that there were kids there and you need to have some f- forward prediction of what their, uh, position will be-
- LFLex Fridman
It's a really hard problem.
- 1:17:48 – 1:26:44
Neural networks
- EMElon Musk
- LFLex Fridman
And I, I just think the data engine side of that, so getting the data to learn all of the concepts that you're saying now is an incredible process. It's this iterative process of just ... It's this, this hydranet of m- many-
- EMElon Musk
(laughs) Hydranet.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
Wait for-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
We're changing the name to something else.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay. Uh, I'm sure it'll be, uh, equally as-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... Rick and Morty, like.
- EMElon Musk
There's a lot of ... There's a ... Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
We've rearchitected the, the neural net, uh, the neural nets in the cars so many times it's crazy.
- LFLex Fridman
Oh, so every time there's a new major version you'll rename it to something more ridiculous, or-
- EMElon Musk
Uh ...
- LFLex Fridman
... or memorable and beautiful? Sorry. Not ridiculous, of course.
- EMElon Musk
(laughs) If y- if you see the full, the full like, uh, array of neural nets that, that, that are operating in the car, it's g- it kind of boggles the mind. There's so-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- EMElon Musk
There's so many layers it's crazy. Um, so yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- EMElon Musk
Um, but and, and we're, we, we started off with, uh, simple neural nets that were, uh, basically i- image recognition on a single frame from a single camera. Uh, and then, uh, trying to knit those together with, uh, you know, in, with the-... C. Uh, uh, uh, I should say we, (laughs) we're- we're really primarily running C here, 'cause C++ is, uh, s- too much overhead. And we have our own C compiler. So, to get maximum performance, we actually wrote- wrote our own C compiler and are continuing to optimize our C compiler, uh, for, uh, maximum efficiency. In fact, we've just recently, uh, done a new rev on a- on a C compiler that'll compile directly to our autopilot hardware. Um-
- LFLex Fridman
So you wanna compile the whole thing down and- with your own compiler-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... like, so efficiency here-
- EMElon Musk
Absolutely.
- LFLex Fridman
... ca- 'cause there's all kinds of compute. There's CPU, GPU, there's like-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... basic types of things th- th- and you have to somehow figure out the scheduling across all of those things. And so you're compiling the code down-
- EMElon Musk
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... that does all... okay. This is... yeah, so that's why there's a lot of people involved. (laughs) 'cause it-
- 1:26:44 – 1:28:48
When will Tesla solve self-driving?
- EMElon Musk
- LFLex Fridman
Well, let me ask sort of, uh, looking back the six years, looking out into the future, based on your current understanding, how hard do you think this, this full self-driving problem... When do you think Tesla will solve level 4 FSD?
- EMElon Musk
I mean, it's looking quite likely that it will be next year.
- LFLex Fridman
And what does the solution look like? Is it the current pool of FSD beta candidates, they start getting greater and greater as they have been degrees of autonomy, and then there's a certain level beyond which they can, they, they can do their own, they can read a book?
Episode duration: 2:31:47
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode DxREm3s1scA
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome