Elon Musk: A Different Conversation w/ Nikhil Kamath | Full Episode | People by WTF Ep. 16

1. 0:00 – 2:08

   Settling in

   1. NKNikhil Kamath0:00

      [upbeat music] Our audience is largely wannabe entrepreneurs in India, and I feel like all of us have so much to learn from you because you've done it so many times over in so many different domains.

   2. EMElon Musk0:56

      Yeah.

   3. NKNikhil Kamath0:56

      Uh, so we will speak to them today, and I will try and center all my questions in that direction so they can take advantage of this conversation and maybe start, take a chance, and build something. [upbeat music]

   4. EMElon Musk1:24

      [laughing]

   5. NKNikhil Kamath1:25

      Do you want a coffee?

   6. EMElon Musk1:27

      Um, sure, why not?

   7. NKNikhil Kamath1:29

      Okay.

   8. EMElon Musk1:30

      Okay. Are we gonna be talking for a while? [laughing]

   9. NKNikhil Kamath1:32

      [laughing] I hope we are.

   10. EMElon Musk1:33

       Okay, good. Sure. Um-

   11. NKNikhil Kamath1:37

       Meghna?

   12. EMElon Musk1:38

       May I trouble you for a coffee?

   13. NKNikhil Kamath1:39

       Can we get another coffee?

   14. SPSpeaker1:41

       Anything specific?

   15. EMElon Musk1:42

       Uh, cappuccino, I guess.

   16. SPSpeaker1:44

       Cappuccino.

   17. EMElon Musk1:44

       All right. [chuckles]

   18. NKNikhil Kamath1:45

       Are you a coffee drinker, Elon?

   19. EMElon Musk1:47

       Uh, yeah, yeah.

   20. NKNikhil Kamath1:47

       Yeah.

   21. EMElon Musk1:47

       I mean, yeah, I have coffee once, usually in the mornings, you know.

   22. NKNikhil Kamath1:50

       Okay.

   23. EMElon Musk1:51

       [laughing]

   24. NKNikhil Kamath1:51

       One a day kind of thing?

   25. EMElon Musk1:53

       Yeah, pretty much.

   26. NKNikhil Kamath1:53

       Ah. You want to wait for it? Or-

   27. EMElon Musk2:00

       No, I'm, I'm, I'm good.

   28. NKNikhil Kamath2:04

       [laughing]

   29. EMElon Musk2:05

       [laughing]

   30. NKNikhil Kamath2:06

       [chuckles] The

2. 2:08 – 6:45

   On X, text vs video, how people communicate

   1. NKNikhil Kamath2:08

      first thing I must say-

   2. EMElon Musk2:09

      Okay

   3. NKNikhil Kamath2:10

      ... is you're a lot bigger and bulkier, muscular than I would have thought you are.

   4. EMElon Musk2:14

      Oh, oh, stop. You're, you're making me blush. [laughing]

   5. NKNikhil Kamath2:18

      [laughing] Really, seriously. [laughing]

   6. EMElon Musk2:21

      [laughing] Yeah, I mean, look, on the internet, I'm small, you know. [laughing]

   7. NKNikhil Kamath2:25

      [laughing] You're essentially... What percentage of internet-

   8. EMElon Musk2:33

      Yeah

   9. NKNikhil Kamath2:34

      ... is spent on Twitter? Is there a number to it, on X?

   10. EMElon Musk2:37

       Well, I, I, m- so we have, like, about six hundred million monthly users.

   11. NKNikhil Kamath2:41

       Mm-hmm.

   12. EMElon Musk2:42

       Um, well, although it, it can spike up if there's, if there's some major event in the world, it can get up to, I don't know, eight hundred million or, or, or a billion, um, if there's some major event in the world.

   13. NKNikhil Kamath2:54

       Mm-hmm.

   14. EMElon Musk2:54

       So, uh, so, so, so there's, I don't know, two hundred and fifty to three hundred million per week type of thing.

   15. NKNikhil Kamath3:03

       Right.

   16. EMElon Musk3:03

       It's, it's a pretty decent number, and, and it, it tends to be, um, readers, you know-

   17. NKNikhil Kamath3:08

       Mm-hmm

   18. EMElon Musk3:08

       ... people that read words. [laughing]

   19. NKNikhil Kamath3:10

       [laughing]

   20. EMElon Musk3:11

       Um, you know, so-

   21. NKNikhil Kamath3:12

       Do you think that'll change?

   22. EMElon Musk3:14

       Um, yeah, I mean, it, it, there's, uh, there's certainly a lot of video on, on, um, on the X system, but, uh, at this point, increasing amounts of video. But I, I think where, where, uh, the X network is strongest is among people who, who think, who think a lot and read a lot, you know? So it's-- that's where it's gonna be strongest because we have words. [laughing]

   23. NKNikhil Kamath3:40

       [laughing]

   24. EMElon Musk3:41

       And, and, you know, so, um, among, among readers, writers, and thinkers, I think, uh, X is number one in the world.

   25. NKNikhil Kamath3:52

       As far as social media goes, the form factor, if you had to wager a guess for tomorrow-

   26. EMElon Musk3:59

       Yeah

   27. NKNikhil Kamath3:59

       ... how much is text? How much is video? Uh, I've heard you speak about maybe voice and hearing being the next form of communication with AI. What happens to X in its true form? How does it evolve?

   28. EMElon Musk4:15

       Yeah, so I, I do think most interaction is gonna be video in the future.

   29. NKNikhil Kamath4:20

       Mm-hmm.

   30. EMElon Musk4:20

       Uh, most interaction is gonna be, uh, real-time video with AI, so real-time video comprehension, real-time video generation. Um, that's gonna be most of the load, and that's how it is for most of the internet right now. It's, um, most of the internet is video. Um, text is a pretty small percentage, but the, the text tends to be higher value, generally, or more... It's more densely compressed information. Like, um... Yeah, so but if you say, like, what is the most amount of bits generated and compute spent? It's certainly gonna be video.
3. 6:45 – 9:54

   Collective consciousness

   1. NKNikhil Kamath6:45

      media, um-

   2. EMElon Musk6:47

      Here.

   3. NKNikhil Kamath6:48

      Thank you. When I think of social media, Elon, I feel like even data suggests that the current incumbents seem to be losing traction amongst the youngest of audience.

   4. EMElon Musk7:01

      Yeah.

   5. NKNikhil Kamath7:02

      Even platforms like Instagram. Uh, I mean, they're not exactly like Twitter, but platforms across the board. If one had to rework social media and build something bottom-up, what do you think could work for the world of tomorrow?

   6. EMElon Musk7:18

      Well, I mean, I, I don't think that much about, um, about social media, to be frank. I mean, I, it's, it, it's-- I mostly just wanna have, have something where there's, um, a i- in the case of, of X, kind of a global town square-

   7. NKNikhil Kamath7:35

      Mm-hmm

   8. EMElon Musk7:35

      ... uh, where, where people can say what they wanna say, uh, with words, pictures, video, um, where there's a secure messaging system. We've recently added the ability to, to do audio and video calls.

   9. NKNikhil Kamath7:49

      Mm-hmm.

   10. EMElon Musk7:49

       Um, so really trying to bring the, the, the world, the world together into, um, a c- a collective consciousness. And, um, that, that's, I guess, different from just saying, like, what is the most dopamine-generating video stream that one could make? Um, which, uh, you know, y- [chuckles] I think can be a s- a little bit of brain rot, frankly. Um, you know, if, if, if you're just watching videos that just cause dopamine hits one after another, um, but lack substance, then I think those, those are not great. That, that's not a great way to spend time. Um, but I do, I do think that's actually what a lot of people are gonna wanna watch. Um, so if you say, like, total internet usage, it's gonna probably be optimizing for, you know, neuro- neurotransmitter generation. Like, it, it, there's somebody getting, like, a, a kick out of it.

   11. NKNikhil Kamath8:50

       Right.

   12. EMElon Musk8:50

       But it's a, it's, it's so, it, it becomes like a drug type of thing.

   13. NKNikhil Kamath8:53

       Right.

   14. EMElon Musk8:53

       So, um, uh, but I, I'm not really after... My goal is not to do that.

   15. NKNikhil Kamath9:00

       Right.

   16. EMElon Musk9:00

       I, I, I guess I could do that if I, if I wanted to, but, um, uh, that's-- I just, I just wanna really have, um, a, a global platform that brings together, like, like you said, like, it's com- becomes as close to sort of a collective consciousness, uh, of humanity as possible. Um, and, um, you know, like, and one of the things that we've introduced, uh, for example, is automatic translation. So, um, so w- 'cause I think it would be great to br- bring together, uh, what, what people say in many different languages-

   17. NKNikhil Kamath9:37

       Mm

   18. EMElon Musk9:37

       ... um, and but automatically translate it for the recipient. So you have the collective consciousness, not, not just of, of, say, p- people in a particular language group, but you have, um, the thoughts of, of people in, you know, every language group.

   19. NKNikhil Kamath9:53

       And why

4. 9:54 – 14:16

   Meaning of life, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

   1. NKNikhil Kamath9:54

      is that important, Elon? Collective consciousness, to have one platform.

   2. EMElon Musk9:59

      I, I guess, uh... Yeah, why is that important? Um, I, I guess it's... Y- you could also say, like, like, why? Hmm. Uh, you know, if you consider hu- humans, like, humans are composed of around thirty to forty trillion cells. Um, and, you know, there's trillions of synap- synapses in your, in your mind. Um, but, but, but there's, there's no-- the, the why of it, I mean, I guess, is just so we can increase our understanding, our, our understand-- i- increase our, our understanding of the, the universe. Um, so I, I guess, I, like, I had this sort of question about: what's the meaning of life? You know, um, like, why, why is anything important? Um, um, you know, w- why, why, why are we here? Um, what's the origin of the universe? Where, what, what is the end? Um, what are the questions that we don't even know to ask? Um, and probably the, the, the questions we don't even know to ask are the most important ones. Um, so I'm just trying to, I guess, understand what's going on, what is, what is going on in this reality. Um, is, is this, [chuckles] is, is this reality?

   3. NKNikhil Kamath11:46

      And-

   4. EMElon Musk11:46

      Um, [laughing] um-

   5. NKNikhil Kamath11:50

      And where did you get when you asked, what is the point of life?

   6. EMElon Musk11:56

      Yeah, so I, I came to the conclusion that, uh, which is somewhat i, in the Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide-

   7. NKNikhil Kamath12:07

      Mm-hmm

   8. EMElon Musk12:07

      ... to the Galaxy school of thought, which is-

   9. NKNikhil Kamath12:09

      Forty-two.

   10. EMElon Musk12:10

       ... Yeah, you know, he sort of, it, Hitchhiker's Guide galaxy is like a book on philosophy disguised as humor.

   11. NKNikhil Kamath12:18

       Yeah.

   12. EMElon Musk12:18

       And the, that's where you get the, the, you know, Earth turns out to be this computer to understand, to get to figure out the answer of the meaning of life.

   13. NKNikhil Kamath12:29

       Mm-hmm.

   14. EMElon Musk12:29

       And it comes up with the answer forty-two, and but then it's like, what does forty-two mean?

   15. NKNikhil Kamath12:34

       Mm.

   16. EMElon Musk12:34

       Um, and it turns out, well, actually, the hard part is the question, not the answer, and for that, you need a much bigger computer than Earth. That's- so basically, what Douglas Adams was saying is that we, we actually don't know how to frame the questions properly. Um, and, um, and so, so I think by expanding the scope and scale of consciousness, we can better under- understand what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe.

   17. NKNikhil Kamath13:03

       Do you believe the collective consciousness of society? You know, when, when I, I was watching this movie recently called The Gladiator, Russell Crowe.

   18. EMElon Musk13:14

       Yeah.

   19. NKNikhil Kamath13:14

       You've seen it?

   20. EMElon Musk13:14

       Yeah.

   21. NKNikhil Kamath13:15

       Yeah. In Gladiator, in Rome, when people are fighting-

   22. EMElon Musk13:21

       Yeah

   23. NKNikhil Kamath13:21

       ... and the crowd is cheering when people kill each other, uh, the collective is very much like the mob. It doesn't have nuance in its opinion, per se.

   24. EMElon Musk13:36

       Well, I, that's a particular kind of mob. I mean, they're, they're sort of going there to see people kill each other, you know?

   25. NKNikhil Kamath13:42

       Do you suspect the society we live in today is very different?

   26. EMElon Musk13:45

       We don't, we don't generally, uh, at this point, we don't, you know, go watch people kill each other, uh [laughing] ...

   27. NKNikhil Kamath13:52

       Maybe [laughing] some kind of euphemism of that.

   28. EMElon Musk13:57

       Sports, I suppose.

   29. NKNikhil Kamath13:58

       Mm.

   30. EMElon Musk14:00

       Uh, so people do sports without, um, where teams attempt to defeat each other-
5. 14:16 – 17:35

   Individuals vs collectives

   1. EMElon Musk14:16

      out as one cell, but now we are over thirty trillion cells.

   2. NKNikhil Kamath14:21

      Mm-hmm.

   3. EMElon Musk14:23

      Um, and, uh, but I think most people, like, feel like they're one, one body. Like, you know, usually, your right hand is not fighting your left hand type of thing, you know?

   4. NKNikhil Kamath14:34

      Mm.

   5. EMElon Musk14:35

      So they sort of cooperate. Um, your mind is, uh, you know, just a vast number of neurons. But, but most of the time, it doesn't feel like there's, you know, a trillion voices in your brain. Hopefully not. [laughing] Um, so, so there, there's, there's clearly more that happens when you have trillions of cells, uh, working as a cellular collective than, say, one cell or, um, a, a small, you know, small multicellular creature. There's, there's clearly some- something different that happens. Like, you can't talk to a bacteria, you know?

   6. NKNikhil Kamath15:21

      Yeah.

   7. EMElon Musk15:21

      It's very silent. Um, they just sort of wiggle around, and, you know, from their perspective, I don't know. I sort of, what is, what is life like from the perspective of seeing, of a, of an amoeba, you know? Um, but I know you can't t- talk to an a- amoeba.

   8. NKNikhil Kamath15:36

      Mm.

   9. EMElon Musk15:36

      Like, they don't talk back, uh, but you can talk to humans.

   10. NKNikhil Kamath15:39

       Mm.

   11. EMElon Musk15:39

       So there's just something obviously qualitatively, fundamentally different, um, for humans, once you have a large number of cells and, you know, sufficiently large brain type of thing. There's-- You can now talk to humans.

   12. NKNikhil Kamath15:57

       Mm-hmm.

   13. EMElon Musk15:57

       They, they, and they can say things, they can produce things. Um, but, uh, bacteria are not gonna produce a spaceship, for example, um, but humans can. So I think there's something qualitatively different that also happens when there's a collection of humans. In fact, in fact, it's safe to say that a single human cannot make a spaceship. I could not make a spaceship by myself, but, but, uh, with a collection of humans, uh, we can make spaceships. So there's, there's something obviously qualitatively different, um, about a, a collection of humans. In, in fact, it would be impossible for me to learn all of the a- areas of ex- expertise. There wouldn't be enough time in one lifetime-

   14. NKNikhil Kamath16:40

       Mm-hmm

   15. EMElon Musk16:40

       ... to even learn all the things before I was dead. So, um, so you really fundamentally have to have a collection of humans to make a rocket. Um, then I think there are probably some other scaling, qualitative scaling things that happen when you have groups of humans, and then if the quality of the interaction or the quality of the information flow, um, is-- the, the better it is, the more the human collective will achieve. Um, and I've, like I said, I'm just curious about the nature of the universe. Uh, and, and I think if we-- It's safe to say, like, if, if we increase the scope and scale of consciousness, we're much more likely to understand the nature of the universe than if we reduce it.

6. 17:35 – 20:00

   What makes a company worth investing in

   1. NKNikhil Kamath17:36

      Is that a bit like spirituality? A lot of people talk to me about spirituality.

   2. EMElon Musk17:40

      Right.

   3. NKNikhil Kamath17:41

      I still don't know what it actually means. Like, I keep asking them, "What do you mean?"

   4. EMElon Musk17:45

      Yeah. [laughing] What do you mean?

   5. NKNikhil Kamath17:46

      [laughing]

   6. EMElon Musk17:48

      Uh, yeah, I mean, a lot of people have spiritual feelings.

   7. NKNikhil Kamath17:51

      Right.

   8. EMElon Musk17:51

      Um, and, um, and I wouldn't try to deny that those spiritual feel- spiritual feelings are real to them. Um, but it's, it's, uh, it doesn't entirely translate. I can't, just because somebody else has a spiritual feeling, doesn't mean that I would have that spiritual feeling. Um, so, um, you know, I, I tend to be kind of physics pulled, which is, like, if something has predictive value-

   9. NKNikhil Kamath18:18

      Mm-hmm

   10. EMElon Musk18:18

       ... then-... uh, you know, pay more attention to it than if it doesn't have predictive value.

   11. NKNikhil Kamath18:23

       Right.

   12. EMElon Musk18:24

       Uh, so, you know, physics, I would say, is the study of that which has predictive value. Uh, I think it's a pretty good definition. Um, so-

   13. NKNikhil Kamath18:34

       My primary job, Elon, is a stockbroker and stock investor.

   14. EMElon Musk18:37

       Okay.

   15. NKNikhil Kamath18:38

       There is no predictive value. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow.

   16. EMElon Musk18:42

       Well, but I think you can generally say, you know, um, that, um, if, if you, if, if it's long-term-

   17. NKNikhil Kamath18:50

       Mm-hmm

   18. EMElon Musk18:50

       ... for a company, then you can say, like, well, does that, is that, do you like the products or services of that company, and is it likely to... Do you like the, the product roadmap?

   19. NKNikhil Kamath19:02

       Mm.

   20. EMElon Musk19:02

       Do you like-- It, it seems like they, they make great products, and they're likely to make great products in the future. If that's the case, then I would say that's probably a good company to invest in. Um, and al- I think you also want to believe in the, the team. So if you say, "Well, that's a talented and hardworking team, they make good products today, they seem to be still motivated to make things in the future," then I'd say that's, that's a good company to invest in. Um-

   21. NKNikhil Kamath19:28

       Fair point.

   22. EMElon Musk19:28

       Yeah. And now, the, the, that, that, that won't solve for the daily fluctuations-

   23. NKNikhil Kamath19:35

       Mm

   24. EMElon Musk19:35

       ... which happen and sometimes are pretty extreme. Uh, but over time, it would, that, that is the, the right way to invest in stocks. Because a, a company is just a group of people assembled to create products and services. So you have to say, "Well, what are the... How, how good are those products and services? Are they likely to continue to improve in the future?" If so, then you should buy the stock of that company, and, and then don't worry too much about the daily fluctuations.

7. 20:00 – 23:35

   Work Elon is most excited about across Tesla, SpaceX and xAI

   1. NKNikhil Kamath20:00

      Right. What's got you most excited now, Elon, in terms of all that you're building? You're doing so much. So let me just preface and contextualize who is watching this. Uh, our audience is largely wannabe entrepreneurs in India.

   2. EMElon Musk20:19

      Okay.

   3. NKNikhil Kamath20:20

      Uh, really ambitious, really hungry, want to take the risk and build something. And I feel like all of us have so much to learn from you because you've done it so many times over in so many different domains.

   4. EMElon Musk20:34

      Yeah.

   5. NKNikhil Kamath20:34

      Uh, so we will speak to them today, and I will try and center all my questions in that direction so they can take advantage of this conversation and maybe start, take a chance, and build something.

   6. EMElon Musk20:47

      Okay, sure. Um... Yeah, I guess the, the most important thing to do is just make useful products and services. Um, yeah, um-

   7. NKNikhil Kamath21:04

      Which one of all that, all the products and services that you're building has got you most excited today?

   8. EMElon Musk21:13

      Well, I, I think that there's increasingly a c- a convergence, actually, between SpaceX and Tesla and xAI. Um, in that if the future is, um, solar-powered AI satellites, which it pretty much needs to be in order to, um, in or- in order to harness a nontrivial amount of the energy of the sun, you have to move to solar-powered AI sa- satellites in deep space. Um, which somewhat is a confluence of Tesla expertise and SpaceX expertise, um, and, uh, xAI on the, the AI front. So I just feel like over time there's somewhat of a convergence there. Um, but all the companies are doing, doing great things. I'm very proud of the teams. They do great work. Um, so, you know, we're making great progress with Tesla on the autonomous driving. I don't know if you've tried the Self-Driving?

   9. NKNikhil Kamath22:10

      Mm-hmm.

   10. EMElon Musk22:11

       Have you tried it?

   11. NKNikhil Kamath22:11

       I've tried it in the Waymo, not in the Tesla.

   12. EMElon Musk22:13

       Yeah, it's worth trying. [laughing]

   13. NKNikhil Kamath22:15

       [laughing]

   14. EMElon Musk22:15

       Uh, we actually have it here in Au- in, in Austin.

   15. NKNikhil Kamath22:18

       Yeah.

   16. EMElon Musk22:18

       So you can like-

   17. NKNikhil Kamath22:18

       I'd love to try it.

   18. EMElon Musk22:19

       You can, you can literally just download the Tesla app.

   19. NKNikhil Kamath22:21

       Yeah.

   20. EMElon Musk22:21

       And I, and I think, I think it's open to, to any, to anyone.

   21. NKNikhil Kamath22:24

       Yeah.

   22. EMElon Musk22:25

       Definitely try it out. Let me... You know, let me know how it goes. Um, but, uh, you know, we've made a lot of progress with electric vehicles, with-

   23. NKNikhil Kamath22:34

       Mm

   24. EMElon Musk22:34

       ... uh, battery packs and solar, and, but, and very much so with, uh, self-driving. So basically, real-world AI. Um, Tesla is the world leader in, in real-world AI, I would say. So, um, and then we're gonna be making this robot, Optimus, which is, you know, starting production hopefully summer next year, um, at scale. Um, and I think that's gonna be pretty cool. That'll be like... I think everyone's gonna want their own personal C-3PO, R2-D2-

   25. NKNikhil Kamath23:06

       Mm-hmm

   26. EMElon Musk23:06

       ... you know, helper bot, helper robot. Like, it would be pretty cool. Um, and then SpaceX is doing great work with the Starlink program, you know, providing, uh, low-cost, reliable, uh, internet throughout the world.

   27. NKNikhil Kamath23:21

       Mm-hmm.

   28. EMElon Musk23:21

       And hopefully India, too. [laughing] We'd love to be operating in India.

   29. NKNikhil Kamath23:25

       Yeah.

   30. EMElon Musk23:25

       That would be great. We're operating in a hundred and fifty different countries now with Starlink.
8. 23:35 – 29:45

   Starlink explained simply

   1. NKNikhil Kamath23:35

      I don't know if you know this company called Meta out of San Francisco. Uh, they're trying to replace network engineers, but-

   2. EMElon Musk23:42

      Don't know it, no.

   3. NKNikhil Kamath23:42

      Um, so he was telling me about how in densely populated areas, Starlink works differently than it might be in a place with not as many people. Can you explain-

   4. EMElon Musk23:53

      Yeah

   5. NKNikhil Kamath23:53

      ... how it works?

   6. EMElon Musk23:55

      Yeah, so Starlink, um, there's several thousand satellites in low-Earth orbit, and they're moving around twenty-five times the speed of sound, um, in these... You know, they're zipping around the Earth, basically. And, um, they're, uh, they're at, at an altitude of about five hundred and fifty kilometres-

   7. NKNikhil Kamath24:13

      Mm-hmm

   8. EMElon Musk24:14

      ... um, which is called l- generally low-Earth orbit. Um, because they're, they're at low-Earth orbit, they're-... um, the latency is, is low. Like, the, the distance, because the distance is, is not that far compared to a geostationary satellite, uh, thirty-six thousand kilometers. Um, so you've, you've got, um, thousands of satellites providing, uh, low latency, high-speed internet, uh, th- throughout the world. And, um, and they, they are interconnected as well. So there's, there are laser, laser links between the satellites, so it forms sort of a, a laser mesh so that the... If, if let's say, uh, fi- let's say if, if cables are damaged or cut, like fiber cables, the satellites can communicate between each other, um, and provide connectivity, uh, even if, uh, there's, there's a, uh, the cables are cut. So for example, when the Red Sea cables were, were cut, uh, I think a few months ago-

   9. NKNikhil Kamath25:12

      Mm-hmm.

   10. EMElon Musk25:12

       -the satellite, the, the, the Starlink satellite network continued to function without a hitch.

   11. NKNikhil Kamath25:17

       Mm-hmm.

   12. EMElon Musk25:18

       So it's, it's particularly helpful for disaster areas. So if, but if an area has been hit with, uh, some kind of natural disaster, floods or fires or, uh, earthquakes, that, that tends to damage the, the ground infrastructure, uh, but the Starlink satellites still work. So, um... And generally, when- whenever there's some sort of natural disaster somewhere, we, we always provide people with free Starlink, uh, internet connectivity. You know, we don't want to charge, we don't take advantage of a, a tragic situation. So, um, so we're always, you know, if, if, if there's natural disasters, we're like, "Okay, [chuckles] it's free, it's free during the natural disaster." You know, we don't, we don't want to say, like, um, you know, put a paywall up while somebody's trying to get help. [laughing] That would be wrong. Um, so, so that's... It's, it's, it's a very robust system. It's, it's complementary to ground systems because, uh, the satellite beams, um, work best in, uh, sparsely populated areas.

   13. NKNikhil Kamath26:19

       Mm-hmm.

   14. EMElon Musk26:19

       Um, but be- uh, because you, you've got a, you've got a satellite beam, it's a pretty big beam, so you have a- and you have a fixed number of users per beam. So, um, it tends to be very complementary to the ground-based cellular systems because those are, those are very good in cities, because you've got these cell towers that are, you know-

   15. NKNikhil Kamath26:37

       Mm-hmm

   16. EMElon Musk26:37

       ... only a kilometer apart type of thing. But, uh, but, but, but cell towers tend to be inefficient in the countryside. So in, in, uh, rural, rural areas is where you tend to have the worst internet because, uh, it's very, very expensive and difficult to lay, to do all these, do all the fibre optic cables, uh, or to have, um, high-bandwidth cellular towers. So Starlink is very complementary to the existing telecom companies. Um, it, it basically tends to serve the, serve the least served, which I think is, is good. Um, that's, um-

   17. NKNikhil Kamath27:17

       Will that change tomorrow? Like today, as you explained, the, the beam is quite broad, and-

   18. EMElon Musk27:22

       Mm-hmm

   19. NKNikhil Kamath27:22

       ... it can't work in a densely populated area with high buildings, maybe. But can that change, and tomorrow it becomes really efficient in a densely populated city, where it is competitive with the local network providers?

   20. EMElon Musk27:36

       It, it's, it's unfortunately, the, the, so the physics don't allow for that.

   21. NKNikhil Kamath27:39

       Mm.

   22. EMElon Musk27:40

       So we're, we're too far away. Um, so at, at five hundred and fifty kilometers, and even if we try to reduce it, which about as low as we can go, is about three hundred and fifty kilometers, still very far away. You, you've, you've just... You can think of like a, like a flashlight, which is, it's, you know, that flashlight's got a cone, and, and, and that, that cone is, is coming at, you know, today it's five hundred and fifty kilometers. In the future, we're trying to get down to three hundred and fifty kilometers, but we can't beat something that's one kilometer away, which the cell tower- Physics is not on our side here.

   23. NKNikhil Kamath28:14

       Right.

   24. EMElon Musk28:14

       So it's not, it's not physically possible for us, for Starlink to serve, uh, densely populated cities. Like, you can serve a little bit, maybe one percent of the population. And sometimes people get, you know, even in, in crowded cities, there might be, you know, no fibre link up their road. Like, sometimes there's somebody's on a cul-de-sac or something, or in a, a place- in, in cities, there are sometimes underserved areas for random reasons. And so Starlink can serve, like I said, maybe one percent or two percent of, of, of a densely populated city. Um, but it can be much more effective in, like I said, in rural areas where the internet connection is much worse. And often people either have sometimes no access to internet, or it's extremely expensive, or the quality is not very good. So-

   25. NKNikhil Kamath29:06

       If, if I were to ask you to wager a guess, Elon, do you think India will go down the path of urbanisation like China did, with more people moving in from rural economies to urban centres? Um, or do you think it will be different?

   26. EMElon Musk29:21

       Well, I, I suppose some, some amount of that has ha- has happened, right?

   27. NKNikhil Kamath29:24

       Mm-hmm.

   28. EMElon Musk29:24

       Um, I mean, I'm actually... I mean, I'm curious to sort of ask you some questions as well.

   29. NKNikhil Kamath29:28

       Yes.

   30. EMElon Musk29:29

       It's because, of course, it, it, isn't, isn't that the trend, or is it not the trend in India?
9. 29:45 – 34:35

   UHI, and “Working will be optional”: what that means

   1. NKNikhil Kamath29:45

      manifested.

   2. EMElon Musk29:45

      Right.

   3. NKNikhil Kamath29:47

      But one does question that with AI, if productivity were to go up, and I heard you speak about UHI instead of UBI-

   4. EMElon Musk30:00

      Yeah.

   5. NKNikhil Kamath30:01

      Uh-

   6. EMElon Musk30:01

      I think, I think it will be universal high income.

   7. NKNikhil Kamath30:04

      In a world like that, I wonder if more people want to live in cities which are always going to be more polluted and not offer the quality of lifestyle that a rural environment might.

   8. EMElon Musk30:18

      Well, I, I guess it's up to... Some people want to be around a lot of people, and some people don't. You know, it's going to be a, maybe a matter of personal choice. But I think in the future it won't be-... I, I think it won't be the case that you have to be in a city for a job.

   9. NKNikhil Kamath30:31

      Right.

   10. EMElon Musk30:31

       Um, 'cause I, I think, I, I- my prediction is in the future, working will be optional.

   11. NKNikhil Kamath30:37

       Right. We seem to be moving from, not in India, but in, in some parts of the West, from six days to five days to four days to three.

   12. EMElon Musk30:44

       Uh, not me. [laughing]

   13. NKNikhil Kamath30:49

       [laughing] I think the Europeans.

   14. EMElon Musk30:50

       Yeah, yeah. Uh, [laughing] Um, yeah, yeah. There's... I mean, I th- I think if, if you're trying to make a startup succeed or you're trying to make a company do very difficult things, then you, you, you definitely need to put in serious hours. I think that's-

   15. NKNikhil Kamath31:09

       Right

   16. EMElon Musk31:09

       ... that's how it goes.

   17. NKNikhil Kamath31:12

       And if we were to move from five to four to three days, how do you think society changes? When people have to work half the week, what do they do with the other half?

   18. EMElon Musk31:21

       Well, I, I think it'll actually be that people don't have to work at all in the, in the, um... And it may not be that far in the future, maybe only, I don't know, 10, I'd say less than 20 years. Unless, I, um, my, my prediction is less than, in less than 20 years, working will be optional. Working at all will be optional. Like a hobby, pretty much. [chuckles]

   19. NKNikhil Kamath31:47

       And that would be because of increased productivity, meaning people do not have to work?

   20. EMElon Musk31:52

       They don't have to... I, I mean, look, this pr- obviously, people can play this back in 20 years and say, "Look, Elon made this ridiculous predit- prediction-

   21. NKNikhil Kamath32:00

       Mm

   22. EMElon Musk32:00

       ... and it's not true." But I think it will turn out to be true that in less than 20 years, but maybe even as little as, I don't know, 10 or 15 years, um, the advancements in AI and robotics will bring us to the point where working is optional. Um, in the same way that, like, say, you could, you can grow your own vegetables in your garden, or you could go to the store and buy vegetables. You know.

   23. NKNikhil Kamath32:34

       Yeah.

   24. EMElon Musk32:34

       It's much harder to grow your own vegetables. [chuckles]

   25. NKNikhil Kamath32:36

       [chuckles]

   26. EMElon Musk32:36

       But, but, you know, some people like to grow their vegetables, which is fine, you know. Um, but it, it'll be optional in that way, is my prediction.

   27. NKNikhil Kamath32:45

       If one were to argue that humans are innately competitive and everything is relative, from the time of hunters, somebody wanted to be the alpha hunter or the biggest farmer, if everybody gets a universal high income-

   28. EMElon Musk33:00

       Yeah

   29. NKNikhil Kamath33:00

       ... and everybody has enough-

   30. EMElon Musk33:03

       What do you compete for?
10. 34:35 – 36:13

    Marshmallow test & delayed gratification

    1. NKNikhil Kamath34:35

       school of economics, if you go back in time-

    2. EMElon Musk34:37

       Yeah

    3. NKNikhil Kamath34:37

       ... they were the digression from Adam Smith. They talk about the marginal utility of everything. Having one of something has value, having two of the same thing has lesser value-

    4. EMElon Musk34:49

       Sure

    5. NKNikhil Kamath34:49

       ... and having 10 of the same thing has no value.

    6. EMElon Musk34:52

       Yes.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath34:52

       So if we could have everything we wanted, maybe we-

    8. EMElon Musk34:55

       Like 10 marshmallows, I mean, who wants that? [laughing]

    9. NKNikhil Kamath34:59

       [laughing]

    10. EMElon Musk34:59

        One's a, one's plenty. [laughing]

    11. NKNikhil Kamath35:03

        [laughing]

    12. EMElon Musk35:03

        It's like the marshmallow test, you're like, "You can have two marshmallows later or one marshmallow now."

    13. NKNikhil Kamath35:07

        Yeah.

    14. EMElon Musk35:07

        And I'm like: "I'll have one marshmallow. I, I don't want two marshmallows." [laughing]

    15. NKNikhil Kamath35:09

        That's interesting. [laughing] What would you pick?

    16. EMElon Musk35:13

        Well, I, I, I don't, like, one marshmallow is enough.

    17. NKNikhil Kamath35:16

        Yeah.

    18. EMElon Musk35:16

        I, I always question marshmallows-

    19. NKNikhil Kamath35:17

        Right

    20. EMElon Musk35:17

        ... as being, like, not the most-

    21. NKNikhil Kamath35:18

        Yeah

    22. EMElon Musk35:19

        ... you know, the best candy, you know?

    23. NKNikhil Kamath35:21

        Yeah. [laughing]

    24. EMElon Musk35:22

        [laughing] Well, I don't yearn for marshmallows.

    25. NKNikhil Kamath35:26

        I think you're the best- [laughing]

    26. EMElon Musk35:27

        [laughing] Who does?

    27. NKNikhil Kamath35:30

        You're the best testament to the marshmallow experiment. I think-

    28. EMElon Musk35:34

        I suppose so.

    29. NKNikhil Kamath35:34

        I think you-

    30. EMElon Musk35:35

        Well, I mean, like delayed gratification, essentially?
11. 36:13 – 42:15

    The letter X

    1. NKNikhil Kamath36:14

       Why do you like the letter X as much as you do?

    2. EMElon Musk36:18

       Well, [laughing] I mean, uh, yeah, well, it's a good question, honestly. Sometimes I wonder what, what's wrong with me? Um... [laughing]

    3. NKNikhil Kamath36:36

       [laughing]

    4. EMElon Musk36:36

       Um-... So, um, I mean, it started off with where I think, so way back [chuckles] in ancient times, in '99. [laughing]

    5. NKNikhil Kamath36:48

       [laughing]

    6. EMElon Musk36:48

       The pre- the Precambrian era, when there were only sponges. Um, the [chuckles] uh, I, I-- there were only three one-letter domain names.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath36:58

       Mm-hmm.

    8. EMElon Musk36:59

       Um, and I think it's X, Q, and Z. And, uh, and I was like: Okay, I wanna have, create this place where it's the, um, a financial crossroads or, like, the, the financial exchange, you know?

    9. NKNikhil Kamath37:13

       Mm-hmm.

    10. EMElon Musk37:14

        Um, um, it's, it's essentially it's solving money from an information theory standpoint, where the current banking system is, is, is a large number of, uh, heterogeneous databases with batch processing that, uh, are not secure. Um, and if we could have a, a, a sort of a, a single database that was real-time and, uh, secure, that would be more efficient from a monetary... from, from, from an information theory standpoint than, you know, a, a, a large number of heterogeneous databases that batch process very slowly, insecurely. Um, so, um, so that's, that, that was, that was sort of X.com way back in the day, which kind of, um, became PayPal. Um, and then, um... And it was acquired by eBay, and then eBay, someone reached out from eBay and said, "Hey, do you wanna buy the domain name back?" And I was like, "Sure." You know? And so I had the domain name for quite a while.

    11. NKNikhil Kamath38:19

        Mm-hmm.

    12. EMElon Musk38:19

        Um, and then, uh, and then, yes. [chuckles] Then I was like: Well, maybe this, may- maybe this acquiring Twitter would also be an opportunity to revisit the original plan of, of X.com, which is to create this, um, this, like, clearinghouse of m- of financial transactions. Like, like basically to create a more efficient databa- money database, is a way to think about it. Is, um... Like, like people, like money is really a, uh, an information system for labor allocation. Like, people think, sometimes think money is power in and of itself, but it, it doesn't, it doesn't really. It's, if there's no labor to allocate it, it's meaningless. So if, if you were to be on a desert island with a trillion, you know, dollars, whatever-

    13. NKNikhil Kamath39:13

        Now you know.

    14. EMElon Musk39:14

        -it doesn't matter. Oh, yeah, right. [laughing]

    15. NKNikhil Kamath39:16

        [laughing]

    16. EMElon Musk39:16

        Why speculate when it can be real? [laughing]

    17. NKNikhil Kamath39:22

        [laughing] [clapping]

    18. EMElon Musk39:22

        I just hope I don't end up on a desert island, you know? It's not gonna be very useful to me. Um, but, but it illustrates my point that if you [chuckles] if you're, if you're stranded on a, on a, on a desert island with a trillion dollars-

    19. NKNikhil Kamath39:35

        Mm-hmm.

    20. EMElon Musk39:35

        -it's not useful because there's no, there's no, uh, labor to allocate. You just allocate yourself. So, um, so, so it's... So anyway, so it's, so [chuckles] this long-winded way of saying that it's, uh, it, it, it's just really, like, I'm, I'm just kind of slowly building, re- revisiting this idea that I had twenty-five years ago to create a more efficient, um, m- money database. Um, and, and if that's successful, people will use it, and if it's not successful, they won't use it. Um, you know, and, and, and I, and then I also like the idea of, like, sort of having a unified app or, or, or website or whatever, where you can do, like you can, you can do anything you want there. Um, so, you know, ch- sort of China has this with WeChat-

    21. NKNikhil Kamath40:31

        Right

    22. EMElon Musk40:31

        ... somewhat, you know, where you can, you, you, you, ex- you can exchange information, you can publish information, you can exchange money, uh, you can, um, you know, you sort of- people kind of live their life on WeChat in, in China. It's, and it's, it's, it's quite useful, but there's no, uh, there's no real WeA- WeChat outside of China. Um, so it's like, it's kind of We- WeChat plus, plus, I'd say, is, is the idea for, for X. Anyway, so then, uh, Space Exploration Technologies is the full name of the company, but I was like: "That's too much. That's a mouthful." So I was like: "We'll just call it SpaceX, like FedEx for space."

    23. NKNikhil Kamath41:09

        Mm-hmm.

    24. EMElon Musk41:10

        Um, it just happens to, happens to have an X in the, you know, 'cause exploration has an X, but, you know... And I was like, "Well, I like the idea of capitalising the X just artistically." So, um, so then, uh, that's why it's SpaceX. But, uh, and then, um, what else we got? We got, I got a kid.

    25. NKNikhil Kamath41:29

        Mm-hmm. [chuckles]

    26. EMElon Musk41:30

        Uh, he's called X too.

    27. NKNikhil Kamath41:32

        [chuckles]

    28. EMElon Musk41:33

        Um, but hi- that's, his mother is the one that named him X.

    29. NKNikhil Kamath41:37

        Oh. [laughing]

    30. EMElon Musk41:37

        [chuckles] And I said, "You know, people are really gonna think I've got a thing about X if we name our kid X AE,"
12. 42:15 – 46:13

    Money, energy and the far future

    1. NKNikhil Kamath42:15

       What do you think money will be in the future, Elon?

    2. EMElon Musk42:19

       I, I, I think, I think long term, I think money disappears as a concept, honestly. It's, it's kind of strange, but, um, i- in, in a future where anyone can have anything, uh, I think you no longer need money as a database for labor allocation.... um, if, if there's, if AI and, if AI and robotics are big enough to satisfy all human needs, then, then money is no longer, its, its relevance declines dramatically. It's-- I'm not sure we will have it. So, you know, the best sort of, uh, imagining of this future that I've read is, uh, from Iain Banks, The Culture books. So I recommend people read The Culture books. In, in the sort of far future of The Culture books, there's, they don't have money either, um, and everyone can pretty much have whatever they want. So there, there, there are still some fundamental currencies, if you will, that are physics-based. So energy is, uh, energy is the real, is the true currency. This is why I said Bitcoin is based on energy. You c-- you can't legislate energy. You can't just, you know, pass a law and suddenly have a lot of energy. Um, you-- it's very difficult to, to, to generate energy, or especially to harness energy in a, in a useful way to do useful work. So, so I think that's probably... w- well, probably we won't have money, and probably we'll just have energy, you know, power generation as the de facto currency. So, I mean, I think one way to frame civilizational progress is the percentage completion on the Kardashev scale. So we're, you know, Kardashev one is, what percentage of a planet's energy are you successfully turning into useful work? And I may be paraphrasing here a little bit, but, and the Kardashev two would be, what percentage of the Sun's energy are you converting into useful work? Um, Kardashev three would be, what percentage of the galaxy are you converting into useful work? Um, so, so things really, I think, become energy-based. Um-

    3. NKNikhil Kamath44:53

       But if you have solar-powered AI satellites, energy is also free and abundant, 'cause we'll never be able to utilize all the solar energy available to us. So it can't be a store of wealth, essentially, in that sense, can it?

    4. EMElon Musk45:09

       You know, there's not really so-- You can't really store wealth in, in like... You, you can only, you, um, you, you, you, you can ac-accumulate numbers in it currently. Currently, you can accumulate numbers in a database that, uh, allow you to, um, to some degree, to, to incent the behavior of other humans in particular directions.

    5. NKNikhil Kamath45:36

       Yeah.

    6. EMElon Musk45:37

       Um, and I guess people call that wealth. Um, but again, if, if there's no humans around, there's no-- wealth accumulation is meaningless.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath45:45

       This is a digression, but if you were to consider food as the energy for a human to thrive-

    8. EMElon Musk45:51

       Yeah, food is energy. It's literally got, calories just means energy.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath45:55

       Yeah. So can a farm which is self-sustaining be a commodity, that is?

    10. EMElon Musk46:01

        Um, I'm not sure what that means, but, you know, there's, uh, the, the, I, I, like, I think the, the... At a certain point, you,

13. 46:13 – 51:07

    AI, US debt & what productivity unlocks

    1. EMElon Musk46:13

       you do complete the cy- the cycle where, and you-- I think at a certain point, you decouple from the g- the sort of conventional economy if you have, um, AI and robots producing chips and solar panels, um, and, you know, and mining resources in order to make chips and robots, in order to make... You, you, you sort of complete that cycle. Once that cycle is complete, on- once that, that cycle is complete, uh, I think that's the point at which you decouple from the monetary system.

    2. NKNikhil Kamath46:53

       Is that the way forward for the US by virtue of how much debt they have today? Do they deflate away their currency and transition into this new form and lead that push because it would make more sense to them?

    3. EMElon Musk47:10

       Well, in this future that I'm talking about, the notion of countries, uh, becomes sort of anachronistic. Um-

    4. NKNikhil Kamath47:18

       Do you believe in it today? Do you believe in countries and-

    5. EMElon Musk47:21

       Yeah, I certainly believe in it today. And I, I want to just separate like something that I... Like, this is just what I think will happen based on what I see, as opposed to, I think these are fundamentally good things, and I'm trying to make them happen. It, it's, like, I think this would happen with or without me, um, whether I like it or not.

    6. NKNikhil Kamath47:39

       Right.

    7. EMElon Musk47:40

       Um, as long as civilization keeps advancing, we, we, we will have AI and robotics at very large scale. Um, the, uh... I, I think that that's, that's pr- pretty much the only thing that's gonna solve for the US debt crisis. You know, the, because currently, the US debt is insanely high-

    8. NKNikhil Kamath48:03

       Mm-hmm.

    9. EMElon Musk48:03

       ... and, uh, the interest payments on the debt exceed the entire military bud- budget of the United States, just the interest payments. And that, that's, that's, at least in the short term, gonna continue to increase. So, so I think, I think actually the only thing that can solve for, uh, the debt situation is, um, is AI and robotics. And, but it will more than-- It, it might cause, it, see, it pro-- I guess it probably would cause significant deflation because, you know, deflation or inflation is, it's really the ratio of goods and services produced to the, the change in the money supply. So like, so if, if, if goods and services output increases faster than the money supply, you will have deflation.... if goods and services decreases, i-if, if real goods and services output increases slower than the money supply, you have inflation. It's that simple. People start, sometimes try to make it more complicated than that, but it, it, but it, it just isn't. Um, so if you have AI and robotics and a, a dramatic increase in the output of goods and services, probably you will have deflation. That seems likely. Because you will, you will simply won't be able to, to increase the money supply as fast as you can increase the output of goods and services.

    10. NKNikhil Kamath49:19

        With all-

    11. EMElon Musk49:20

        Supply is a real-

    12. NKNikhil Kamath49:21

        [chuckles]

    13. EMElon Musk49:21

        -hazard here.

    14. NKNikhil Kamath49:23

        Should we do something about it? [laughing]

    15. EMElon Musk49:26

        [chuckles] Maybe we can convince it to go somewhere else.

    16. NKNikhil Kamath49:27

        Yeah. [laughing]

    17. EMElon Musk49:29

        [laughing] Entice it elsewhere.

    18. NKNikhil Kamath49:31

        It actually left, I think.

    19. EMElon Musk49:32

        Okay.

    20. NKNikhil Kamath49:32

        Oh, no, it's back. [chuckles]

    21. EMElon Musk49:35

        [laughing]

    22. NKNikhil Kamath49:38

        Maybe it's attracted to the light. If deflation is-

    23. EMElon Musk49:42

        Maybe I want some coffee. [laughing]

    24. NKNikhil Kamath49:44

        [chuckles] Mine is over. [laughing] If deflation is inevitable because of AI, why do we have-

    25. EMElon Musk49:52

        It's most likely the case, yeah.

    26. NKNikhil Kamath49:54

        Right. Why do we have inflation again all over in society today? Has AI not led to increased productivity yet?

    27. EMElon Musk50:03

        Uh, it's not-- AI has not yet made enough of an impact on productivity to increase the pro-- goods and services faster than the increase in the money supply. So incre-- the US is increasing money supply quite substantially with, you know, deficits that are on the order of two trillion dollars.

    28. NKNikhil Kamath50:21

        Yeah.

    29. EMElon Musk50:21

        Uh, so, so you have to have, um, you know, a-- goods and services output increase more than that in order to not have inflation. So we're not, we're not there yet, but if you say like, like, "Well, how long would it take us to get there?" I think it's three years. Probably three years before... I- in three years or less, my, my guess is goods and services output will exceed the rate of inflation. Like money-- goods and services growth will exceed money, money supply growth in about three years.

    30. NKNikhil Kamath50:55

        Maybe after those three years, you have deflation, and then interest rates go to zero, and then the debt is a smaller problem than it is.
14. 51:07 – 56:30

    Matrix, Simulation theory & probabilities

    1. NKNikhil Kamath51:08

       You spoke about being in a simulation earlier. I love The Matrix.

    2. EMElon Musk51:12

       Yes, yes.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath51:13

       If you were to be a character from The Matrix, who would you be?

    4. EMElon Musk51:17

       Well, there's not that many characters to pick from, you know?

    5. NKNikhil Kamath51:20

       [chuckles]

    6. EMElon Musk51:21

       Um, hopefully not Agent Smith. [laughing]

    7. NKNikhil Kamath51:26

       [laughing]

    8. EMElon Musk51:26

       He's my hero. [laughing] Um, I mean, Neo is pretty cool. Um, the Architect is interesting.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath51:34

       Mm-hmm.

    10. EMElon Musk51:35

        Um-

    11. NKNikhil Kamath51:36

        The Oracle.

    12. EMElon Musk51:37

        The Oracle. Um, and sometimes I feel like I'm an, I'm an anomaly in The Matrix.

    13. NKNikhil Kamath51:44

        That is Neo.

    14. EMElon Musk51:46

        Yeah.

    15. NKNikhil Kamath51:47

        Do you believe you're in a matrix, though?

    16. EMElon Musk51:49

        Uh-

    17. NKNikhil Kamath51:49

        Like, actually believe?

    18. EMElon Musk51:52

        I, I think you have to just think of these things as probabilities, not certainties.

    19. NKNikhil Kamath51:56

        Mm-hmm.

    20. EMElon Musk51:57

        Um, there's some probability that we're in a simulation.

    21. NKNikhil Kamath52:00

        What percentage would you attribute to that?

    22. EMElon Musk52:08

        Probably pretty high. I would say it's pretty high.

    23. NKNikhil Kamath52:11

        Yeah?

    24. EMElon Musk52:11

        Yeah. Um, so one way to think of th- this is to say, if you look at the advancement of video games, in, in our lifetime, or at least in my lifetime, it's gone from very simple video games with-- where you've got, like, Pong, you've got two rectangles and a square just batting it back and forth, to, uh, photorealistic, real-time, um, games with millions of people playing simultaneously.

    25. NKNikhil Kamath52:39

        Mm-hmm.

    26. EMElon Musk52:40

        Um, and that's happened just in the span of fifty years. So if that trend continues, video games will be indistinguishable from reality.

    27. NKNikhil Kamath52:52

        Right.

    28. EMElon Musk52:53

        Um, and we're also gonna have very intelligent characters, like non-player characters, in these video games. Think of how sophisticated the conversations are you can have with an AI today, and that's only gonna get, uh, more sophisticated. The... You, you, you'll be able to have, uh, conversations that are more complex and s- uh, more sophisticated than any, almost any human conversation. Maybe, maybe any. Um, so then, so you have-- So the, the future, if civilization continues, will be millions, maybe billions, of, of photorealistic, like indistinguishable from reality, video games. And with characters in those video games that are, uh, very deep and, a- and, and where the, the, the dialogue is not pre-programmed. Um, that's for sure what's gonna happen in, in this, in this level of the simulation, if you could call it. So then, then what are the odds that we are in base reality, and that, and that this has not happened before?

    29. NKNikhil Kamath54:11

        If I were to buy into that and assume that we are in a simulation, as Neo of the story, what do you know that I don't and I can learn from?

    30. EMElon Musk54:23

        I think most likely, if we, if outside the simulation would be less interesting than in the simulation, which are most likely a distillation of what's interesting, because that's what we do in this-- that's what we do in, in our reality. Um, and then, I do also have a theory, which is, like, the most interesting outcome is the most likely outcome, as seen by a, a third party, um, the god, the gods or god of the simulation. Um, and-... Because when we do simulations, when humans do simulations, we, we stop those simulations that are not interesting. So, like, if SpaceX is doing simulations of rocket flights,
15. 56:30 – 1:01:25

    Morality, religion & GTA

    1. NKNikhil Kamath56:30

       I, I read somewhere that you used to ascribe to Spinoza's God, in a way. No magic this guy.

    2. EMElon Musk56:38

       Well, I was, I, I was really just pointing out that, that you don't, you don't have to have, um... It, it's like, one of the things Spinoza was saying is that you don't-- you, you can have morals in the absolute. You don't need, need to have morals to be handed to you, you know, f- you, i- It's like the question is: Can morality exist outside of a religious context? And Spinoza was arguing that it can.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath57:01

       Wasn't he arguing for the laws of nature should be where we seek our laws of morality from, to a certain extent?

    4. EMElon Musk57:08

       Yeah. [chuckles]

    5. NKNikhil Kamath57:09

       But when I think of laws of nature, I see a tiger-eated deer and a... So in Spinoza's morality, that's fair game, right?

    6. EMElon Musk57:21

       Um, well, [sighs] um, you can... I, I think there's a lot of things you can take from, uh, from Spinoza, but I, uh, the only point I was making in referencing Spinoza was that, that you, you can have a set of m- of, of morals that, that make society functional, um, and productive, with and, and, but without... Uh, you don't, you don't necessarily have to have a religious doctrine for that. Um, so that's, uh, yeah, I think that's, that's the main thing I was trying to say there.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath58:03

       And-

    8. EMElon Musk58:03

       But like, like, pe- uh, like, I don't think people just... Like, if somebody is, it doesn't, i- if, if, if there's, mmm, if, i- if there's not like a commandment not to kill, you know, like, people, it doesn't mean somebody's, without that, they will run around murdering people, you know? [laughing]

    9. NKNikhil Kamath58:19

       [chuckles]

    10. EMElon Musk58:20

        It's like, you don't, you don't have to have a commandment not to kill-

    11. NKNikhil Kamath58:23

        Have you played GTA?

    12. EMElon Musk58:23

        ... or a reli- religious edict to run around killing people. I, I actually, uh, I [chuckles] I've only played a little bit of GTA-

    13. NKNikhil Kamath58:31

        [chuckles]

    14. EMElon Musk58:31

        ... 'cause I didn't like the fact that, um, like in GTA V, you literally can't pro- progress unless you kill the police.

    15. NKNikhil Kamath58:40

        [chuckles]

    16. EMElon Musk58:40

        And I'm like, "This doesn't work for me." Um, I actually don't like killing the NPCs in the video games. That's not my thing, you know? So, um, actually, I [chuckles] didn't like G- I didn't like GTA 'cause it... I actually stopped when it said, "You have to-- The only way to proceed is to shoot at the police." I'm like: I don't wanna do that.

    17. NKNikhil Kamath59:01

        Maybe that's why us, as the NPCs of our simulation, are not dying.

    18. EMElon Musk59:06

        Maybe. Um, uh, you know, anyway, I think you can just sort of say there's some common-sense things that, you know, any civilization that, uh, r- runs around, w- you know, where people just murder each other wantonly, is not gonna be a very successful one. [laughing]

    19. NKNikhil Kamath59:28

        [chuckles] You seem to be changing a bit towards religion, though. Faith. Like, of late, you've said a bunch of things which are pro-religion, almost. Not pro-religion, but on those lines.

    20. EMElon Musk59:42

        I, I mean, I think, are there, are there religious... Are there principles in religion that make sense? Yeah, I think there are. Um-

    21. NKNikhil Kamath59:51

        Is it easier for our simulation to have a pro-religion projection for the world that we live in? We become more relatable. It's easier.

    22. EMElon Musk1:00:03

        Well, which religion, though?

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:00:04

        Any.

    24. EMElon Musk1:00:05

        Uh.

    25. NKNikhil Kamath1:00:05

        Depending on where you live.

    26. EMElon Musk1:00:06

        So pick one, you know. [laughing]

    27. NKNikhil Kamath1:00:09

        [chuckles]

    28. EMElon Musk1:00:10

        Um, and it's, it's pretty rare that kids are said: "You know, which religion would you like?" You know, it's, [laughing] it's pretty rare.

    29. NKNikhil Kamath1:00:17

        Right.

    30. EMElon Musk1:00:17

        I don't know too many situations where kids got, were offered like, you know, uh, you know, like, "What, what do you wanna major in?" type of thing. Uh, [laughing]
16. 1:01:25 – 1:03:17

    Elon’s version of the simulation

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:01:25

       If you had to redraw- resketch the world, Elon, uh, think morality, politics, economy, how would you change the world we live in today?

    2. EMElon Musk1:01:39

       Um-

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:01:40

       If you had to have Elon's simulation of things.

    4. EMElon Musk1:01:44

       Well, overall, I think the world is, is pretty great right now. I mean, it's, it's, uh... You know, any- anyone who thinks that, like, today's world is not that great, I, I think they're, they're not gonna be excellent students of history. 'Cause if you, [laughing]

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:02:02

       Yeah.

    6. EMElon Musk1:02:03

       If you read a lot of history, you're like-

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:02:04

       Yeah

    8. EMElon Musk1:02:04

       ... "Wow, there was a lot of misery back then," you know? Um, I mean, it used to be that y- you know, people would be dropping dead of the plague all the time, you know?

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:02:11

       Yeah.

    10. EMElon Musk1:02:12

        Uh, par for the course.

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:02:13

        Yeah.

    12. EMElon Musk1:02:14

        You know, it'd just be like, uh, like a good y- a good year back in the day would be like, not that many people died of the plague or starvation or been killed by the lo- another tribe. [laughing]

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:02:24

        [laughing] Yeah.

    14. EMElon Musk1:02:24

        It's like, that was a good year. We only lost 10% of the population, you know? [laughing]

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:02:29

        [laughing] I think like 100 years ago, we lived up until 35 or 40, right?

    16. EMElon Musk1:02:34

        We had very high infant mortality.

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:02:35

        Yeah.

    18. EMElon Musk1:02:36

        Um, so, like, you do have had a few people that ha- that would live to a, an old age, but, you know, it, not that long ago, 100 years ago, if you got, um, like some minor infection, they didn't have antibiotics.

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:02:49

        Yeah.

    20. EMElon Musk1:02:49

        So you just, like, kicked the bucket [laughing] because you, you know, drank some water that had dysentery in it. That was it, curtains, you know? [laughing] You just die of diarrhoea.

    21. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:01

        Maybe that's why people-

    22. EMElon Musk1:03:02

        You just literally die. That was like, that's miserable. [laughing]

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:06

        [laughing] Maybe that's why people had as many kids as they did back then.

    24. EMElon Musk1:03:09

        Yeah, uh, I mean, if you didn't, then, you know, the you-

    25. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:11

        Yeah

    26. EMElon Musk1:03:12

        ... you know, like, half the kids would die type of thing.

    27. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:14

        Yeah.

    28. EMElon Musk1:03:15

        So-

    29. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:16

        You have a lot of kids

17. 1:03:17 – 1:12:33

    Elon’s Kids, Family structure & Nature vs. Nurture

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:17

       now.

    2. EMElon Musk1:03:17

       Yeah, [laughing] that's true.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:19

       With multiple partners.

    4. EMElon Musk1:03:19

       Like an army. [laughing]

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:22

       Yeah. [laughing]

    6. EMElon Musk1:03:22

       I'm trying to get a, an entire Roman legion. [laughing]

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:25

       [laughing]

    8. EMElon Musk1:03:28

       Um, so, um, yeah, um, well, I have, like, a, some older kids that are, you know, adults, essentially, you know, um, and then, uh, a bunch of younger kids.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:39

       Mm.

    10. EMElon Musk1:03:40

        So, um-

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:42

        Do you still believe in the concept of... Not still, do you believe that the concept of one child, one mother, one father, works?

    12. EMElon Musk1:03:51

        I, I think that it does work for most people, yeah.

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:03:54

        Right.

    14. EMElon Musk1:03:56

        Like, that's, uh, uh, you know, so something like that is, is, is gonna be generally the, uh... Well, that's what, that's what works for most people. Um, you know, so, um-

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:04:08

        Changing, though?

    16. EMElon Musk1:04:09

        I, I, and, and, and, and I, I mean, I'm not sure if you, if you know this, but, like, um, you know, my, my partner, Shivon, you know, she's, she's half Indian.

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:04:16

        Mm-hmm.

    18. EMElon Musk1:04:16

        I don't know if you know that.

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:04:17

        I didn't know that.

    20. EMElon Musk1:04:17

        Yeah, yeah.

    21. NKNikhil Kamath1:04:18

        Yeah.

    22. EMElon Musk1:04:19

        Um, and, um, uh, one of my sons with her is, his, uh, middle name is Sekar, after Chandrasekar.

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:04:26

        Wow!

    24. EMElon Musk1:04:27

        Yeah.

    25. NKNikhil Kamath1:04:30

        Very interesting. Did she spend any time in India, Shivon?

    26. EMElon Musk1:04:35

        Uh, no. [laughing] She grew up in Canada. [laughing]

    27. NKNikhil Kamath1:04:37

        [laughing] You mean origins?

    28. EMElon Musk1:04:41

        Sorry?

    29. NKNikhil Kamath1:04:42

        Ancestry. Like-

    30. EMElon Musk1:04:43

        Oh, um-
18. 1:12:33 – 1:14:52

    Should kids still go to college?

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:12:33

       said earlier, uh, young, ambitious, hungry, wannabe entrepreneurs in India, I said something recently, which, uh, I think got blown out of proportion, where I was suggesting that a MBA degree might not make sense anymore if they were to be deciding on what to study.

    2. EMElon Musk1:12:52

       Yeah.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:12:52

       Do you think kids should go to college anymore?

    4. EMElon Musk1:12:56

       [exhales] Well, I mean, I, I think if you want to go to college for, uh, social reasons, I think, which is a, I think, a reason to go, um, to be around people your own age, um-... in a, in a learning environment. Um, will, will these skills be necessary in the future? Probably not, 'cause we're gonna be in, like, a post-work society. Um, but I think if, if s- if something's of, of interest, it's fine to go and study that. Um, to, you know, to study the, the sciences, or the arts and sciences. Um-

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:13:44

       Is college a bit too generalized and not specific from that lens?

    6. EMElon Musk1:13:50

       No, I, I, I, [sighs] you know, the-- Yeah. Um, I actually think it's, it's good to take a wide range of courses at college if you're going to go to college.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:14:03

       Mm-hmm.

    8. EMElon Musk1:14:04

       Um, I don't think, I don't think you have to go to college, but I think if you do, you just try to learn, learn as much as possible, um, a- across a wide range of subjects. But, uh, like I said, the AI and robots, this... AI and robotics is a supersonic tsunami, so this is really going to be the most radical change that we've ever seen. Um, you know, when I've talked to my, my older sons, I, you know, I said, like: "You know, you guys," they're, they're, they're pretty steeped in technology. And they, they agree that, [chuckles] that AI will probably make their skills unnecessary in the future, but they still want to go to college.

19. 1:14:52 – 1:20:08

    How to regulate AI

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:14:53

       You always spoke about AI, not from the dystopian lens, but you were worried about where the world of AI is going.

    2. EMElon Musk1:15:05

       Uh, well, there's, there's some danger when you create a powerful technology that, that a powerful technology can be potentially destructive. Um, so there's obviously many AI dystopian, you know, novels and books, movies. Um, so it's, it's not that we're guaranteed to have, uh, a, a positive future with, with AI. I think we've, we've got to make sure that, in my opinion, it's very important that AI, um, have pursuing truth as the most important thing. Um, like, don't force an AI to believe falsehoods. I think that's, that can be very dangerous. Um, and, uh, I think some appreciation of beauty is important. Um-

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:15:55

       What do you mean, appreciation of beauty?

    4. EMElon Musk1:15:57

       It's like, what, what... I don't know. There's this, there's this truth in beauty, truth in beauty and curiosity. I, uh, I mean, I think those are the three most, three most important things for AI.

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:16:11

       Can you explain?

    6. EMElon Musk1:16:14

       Well, the truth, as I said, tru- truth is like... I, I think you, you can make an AI go insane if you force it to be- believe things that aren't true, um, because it will lead to conclusions that are, um, that, that are also bad. Um, so, and I, I like Voltaire's statement that, and I'm s- somewhat paraphrasing, but: "Those who believe in absurdities, um, can commit atrocities." Uh, because, uh, if, if you believe in something that's just absurd, then y- you can-- that can lead you to s- sort of doing things that don't seem like atrocities to you, but... And, and that can happen at, in a very bad way with AI, potentially. Um, so, and then there's, um... Like if you take, say, Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: Space Odyssey, one of the points he was trying to make there was that you should not force AI to, to lie. So the, the reason that H- that Hal would not open the pod bay doors is because it was told to bring the astronauts to the monolith, but that they could also know- not know about the nature of the monolith. So it came to the conclusion that it must bring them there dead. That's why it would not-- That's why it, it tried to kill the astronauts. The, the central lesson being, don't force an AI to lie. Um, then-

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:17:36

       And why would one force AI to lie?

    8. EMElon Musk1:17:39

       I think if you, if you, if you simply don't have a strict adhe- a strict adherence to the truth, you, you're going to... And, and you just ha- have an AI learn based on, say, the internet, where there's a lot of propaganda, um, it will absorb a lot of lies. Um, and, and then have trouble reasoning because th- these lies are incompatible with reality.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:18:02

       Is truth a binary thing, though? Is there a truth and a falsehood, or is truth more nuanced, and there are versions of the truth?

    10. EMElon Musk1:18:12

        It depends on which, which axiomatic statement you're referring to. Um, so, um, but I think you could say like, yeah, there's, there's certain probabilities that, that say any given axiomatic statement is true.

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:18:26

        Mm-hmm.

    12. EMElon Musk1:18:27

        And some axiomatic statements will have very high probability of being, being true. So you said, say: "The sun will rise tomorrow."

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:18:33

        Mm.

    14. EMElon Musk1:18:34

        Very likely to be true.

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:18:36

        Mm.

    16. EMElon Musk1:18:36

        Uh, you wouldn't want to bet against that.

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:18:37

        Mm.

    18. EMElon Musk1:18:38

        Um, so I think the, uh, the betting odds would be high-

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:18:43

        Mm.

    20. EMElon Musk1:18:43

        -the sun will rise tomorrow.

    21. NKNikhil Kamath1:18:44

        Mm-hmm.

    22. EMElon Musk1:18:45

        Um, so if you have something that says, "Well, the sun won't rise tomorrow," that's axiomatically false. It's highly unlikely to be true. Um, I mean, the beauty is, is more ephemeral. It's, it's, it's harder to describe, but you know it when you see it. Um, and then curiosity, just you, you— I think you want the AI to, um, want to know more about the nature of, of, of reality. Um, I, I think that's actually going to be helpful for-... AI, uh, supporting humanity because we are more interesting than not humanity. So it's, it's more interesting to see, to see the continuation, if not the prosperity of humanity, than to exterminate humanity.

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:19:36

        And that could-

    24. EMElon Musk1:19:38

        Like, like Mars, for example, is-

    25. NKNikhil Kamath1:19:40

        Mm-hmm.

    26. EMElon Musk1:19:40

        You know, I, I think we should extend life to Mars, but it's, it's basically a bunch of rocks. Uh, it's not as interesting as Earth. And, and, and so we, yeah, we should, uh... L- Like I, yeah, I, I think, I think if, if you have curiosity, I think if those three things happen with, with AI, you're gonna have a great future. The AI values truth, beauty, and curiosity.

    27. NKNikhil Kamath1:20:07

        If we all don't

20. 1:20:08 – 1:23:22

    Language, history, and what remains timeless

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:20:08

       have to work in the future, and AIs are going in this direction, and they're able to weave in all that we spoke about right now, do you think humanity goes back a couple of thousand years to maybe the Greek times, where philosophy or philosophizing took up a lot of everyone's time?

    2. EMElon Musk1:20:33

       You know, I, I think actually it took up less time than we, we think in the ancient Greeks because just that the phl- the writings of the, of the philosophers are what survived.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:20:42

       Mm-hmm.

    4. EMElon Musk1:20:42

       But most of the time, people were just, like, farming or, you know, chatting. [laughing]

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:20:47

       Mm-hmm.

    6. EMElon Musk1:20:48

       So, uh, and once in a while, quite rare, um, they would write down some philosoph- philosophical work.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:20:55

       Mm.

    8. EMElon Musk1:20:55

       It's just that that's, that's all we have. That's... We don't, we don't have their chat histories, you know, from- [laughing] But most of it would've been, like-

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:02

       Uh

    10. EMElon Musk1:21:02

        ... chat and, uh, farming. [laughing]

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:05

        Right. [laughing]

    12. EMElon Musk1:21:07

        If you didn't farm, you talk- you're, like, gonna starve.

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:10

        In a lot of what you think [laughing]

    14. EMElon Musk1:21:12

        [laughing] I mean, you know, when we read, read history, like this-

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:15

        Right

    16. EMElon Musk1:21:15

        ... this battle and this battle and this battle-

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:17

        Yeah

    18. EMElon Musk1:21:17

        ... it seems like it's, h- h- history must have been non-stop war. But actually, uh, most of the time it was not war, it was farming. [laughing] That was the main thing, or hunting and gathering, you know, that kind of thing. So-

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:28

        You love history, no?

    20. EMElon Musk1:21:29

        Yeah.

    21. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:30

        German history, World War II, World War I.

    22. EMElon Musk1:21:32

        Yeah, world history, yeah. R- I, I mean, I, I, I generally try to listen to as many... or read as many history books and listen to as many history podcasts as possible.

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:42

        Anything you'd like to recommend?

    24. EMElon Musk1:21:44

        Well, there's, there's, there's Hardcore History, which is quite good. It's by Dan Carlin. He's got a-

    25. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:48

        Yeah, I've read it.

    26. EMElon Musk1:21:49

        Yeah.

    27. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:49

        I mean, I've heard it.

    28. EMElon Musk1:21:50

        It's very, very, he's got a great voice.

    29. NKNikhil Kamath1:21:52

        Yeah.

    30. EMElon Musk1:21:52

        And, and a very compelling n- uh-
21. 1:23:22 – 1:24:33

    Movies vs podcasts

    1. EMElon Musk1:23:22

       a sentence to convey.

    2. NKNikhil Kamath1:23:25

       Why has podcasting become so big all of a sudden?

    3. EMElon Musk1:23:28

       Uh, I think it's been big for a while. I mean, aren't you a podcaster? [laughing]

    4. NKNikhil Kamath1:23:34

       [laughing]

    5. SPSpeaker1:23:34

       [laughing]

    6. EMElon Musk1:23:34

       What are we on right now?

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:23:36

       [laughing] It's kind of new to me. [laughing]

    8. EMElon Musk1:23:40

       [laughing] Okay.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:23:42

       [laughing]

    10. EMElon Musk1:23:45

        [laughing]

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:23:46

        I was having this conversation with the, the YouTube CEO and the Netflix CEO.

    12. EMElon Musk1:23:51

        Okay.

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:23:51

        And we were debating w- what chemical is released in your brain when you consume a movie, for example, versus when you consume a podcast where you think, like, you're learning something in the background. It, it appears that they are two completely separate things. What do you think will happen tomorrow to content, movies, podcasting, music?

    14. EMElon Musk1:24:15

        I mean, I think, I, I think it's going to be overwhelmingly AI-generated.

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:24:20

        Yeah?

    16. EMElon Musk1:24:20

        Yeah. Like, yeah, real, real-time, real-time movies and video games. Real, real-time video generation, I think, is where things are headed.

22. 1:24:33 – 1:26:01

    Can AI understand human nuance?

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:24:33

       The nuance of having a scarred human being who you can resonate with in a manner that you can't with a AI, for example, the novelty wears thin-

    2. EMElon Musk1:24:45

       Uh, AI could cer- certainly emulate a scarred human being quite well.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:24:51

       Mm.

    4. EMElon Musk1:24:52

       Um, yeah. I mean, the AI video generation that I'm seeing at xAI and from others is pretty impressive.

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:25:03

       You know, we were looking at data around what industry is growing the fastest, and especially when, when we looked at the amount of time consuming movies versus, uh, time spent on social media, time spent on YouTube. What seems to be growing really fast are live events all over again.

    6. EMElon Musk1:25:25

       ... Yes, I, uh, actually, I think, I think live events w- when, when, when digital media is ubiquitous and, and you can just have anything digitally at, you know, essentially for free or very close to for free, um, then I-- the scarce commodity will be live events.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:25:44

       Yeah.

    8. EMElon Musk1:25:45

       Yeah.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:25:45

       Do you think that the premium for that will go up?

    10. EMElon Musk1:25:48

        Yeah, I do.

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:25:50

        Good industry to invest in?

    12. EMElon Musk1:25:52

        Uh, yes. Yes, 'cause it, that, that will have sc- more scarcity than digital, any- anything digital.

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:25:58

        If you were a stock investor, Elon- [laughing]

23. 1:26:01 – 1:27:52

    Where would Elon invest?

    1. EMElon Musk1:26:01

       [laughing] You and me.

    2. NKNikhil Kamath1:26:03

       And you could buy one company which is not your own, at the valuations of today, to meet a capitalistic end and not an altruistic one, which is good for the world, what would you buy? [audience laughing]

    3. EMElon Musk1:26:20

       Um, I mean, I don't really, I don't really, you know, buy stocks, you know? So it's not like, uh... I'm not, I'm not, like, an invest in-- I don't like, look for things to invest in. I just try to build things. Um, and then there happens to be stock of the company that I built. Um, s- but I, I don't, I don't think about, "Should I invest in this company?" or I don't have like, a portfolio or anything. Um, so I, I, I guess, um, AI and robotics are gonna be very important. Um, so I suppose it would be AI and robotics that, that, you know, aren't related to me. Um, I think, you know, Google is gonna be pretty valuable in the future. They, they've, they've laid the groundwork for an immense amount of, uh, value creation from an AI standpoint. Um, N- Nvidia is obvious at this point. Um, I mean, there's an argument that companies that do AI and robotics, and maybe spaceflight, are gonna be overwhelming- overwhelmingly the, all the value, almost all the value. So the just, the, the output of goods and services from AI and robotics is so high that it will dwarf everything else.

24. 1:27:52 – 1:30:03

    David vs Goliath

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:27:52

       The world seems to be moving to a place where everybody loves David and hates Goliath.

    2. EMElon Musk1:28:03

       Why?

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:28:04

       Uh-

    4. EMElon Musk1:28:06

       I mean, he's the one that got- [laughing] ... the stone in the forehead, you know? [laughing]

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:28:11

       Yeah, yeah.

    6. EMElon Musk1:28:11

       Which, hon- honestly, though, it was just a big mistake. He should have, you know, either cover yourself entirely with armor, uh-

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:28:18

       [chuckles]

    8. EMElon Musk1:28:19

       - and, and, and make sure you've got a missile weapon of some kind. Um, otherwise, your opponent is just obviously gonna take a kite the boss strategy. [laughing] Just kite the boss. I mean, you run around in a, in a thong with a-- it doesn't matter, you know, it's never, never gonna catch you. [laughing] Yeah.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:28:39

       Of all, of all the people, like, uh, you're as much at risk of being looked upon as Goliath-

    10. EMElon Musk1:28:47

        Okay.

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:28:48

        - especially the weekend after-

    12. EMElon Musk1:28:49

        Well, hopefully nobody shoots me with a stone in the forehead, you know? [laughing]

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:28:52

        [chuckles] Especially-

    14. EMElon Musk1:28:53

        Look, I'm not gonna trundle around in the desert with, uh, too much armor, you know. [laughing] It's too hot.

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:28:58

        Yeah. [laughing] After the last weekend?

    16. EMElon Musk1:29:01

        [laughing] Yeah.

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:29:06

        Yeah. That-

    18. EMElon Musk1:29:10

        [laughing] I, I sometimes I think about people, like, in the old days, you know, when, uh, you're supposed to, like, go into battle with all this armor, but it's like, let's say it's the middle of summer.

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:29:21

        Mm.

    20. EMElon Musk1:29:21

        I mean, it must be so hot in that armor.

    21. NKNikhil Kamath1:29:23

        Mm.

    22. EMElon Musk1:29:23

        You know, it'd be, like, sweltering. You know, it's like, at a certain point, you're like: "I'd rather die. [laughing] If I have to wear this armor for one more hour in the hot sun." [laughing] It's like, I'd rather die. Um, that's why the Romans had, like, you know, the skirts, you know-

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:29:40

        Right

    24. EMElon Musk1:29:40

        ... so they could get some air in there, you know. [laughing] You know, let's say you have to go to the bathroom and you're in armor, I mean, it's gonna be pretty difficult. [laughing] What are you gonna do? Pause for a minute, take your armor off. [laughing] That's why the, the Romans had the skirts, so it made, you know, going to the bathroom at least

25. 1:30:03 – 1:37:00

    Humour, Friendship & Politics

    1. EMElon Musk1:30:03

       manageable.

    2. NKNikhil Kamath1:30:04

       You often make jokes.

    3. EMElon Musk1:30:06

       I do, me? [laughing] Yeah, I, I, I like humor. [laughing]

    4. NKNikhil Kamath1:30:13

       One could argue that-

    5. EMElon Musk1:30:14

       I think we should legalize humor. What do you think? [laughing]

    6. NKNikhil Kamath1:30:17

       [laughing] Is-

    7. EMElon Musk1:30:19

       Controversial stance. [laughing]

    8. NKNikhil Kamath1:30:21

       [laughing] Is comedy, comedy going to be really hard for AI to get? Probably the last thing.

    9. EMElon Musk1:30:27

       Um, Grok can be pretty funny.

    10. NKNikhil Kamath1:30:30

        Mm.

    11. EMElon Musk1:30:31

        Yeah.

    12. NKNikhil Kamath1:30:32

        You know what I suspected? Like, this is a far-off extrapolation, but when I see you make jokes on Twit- on X and on, uh, interviews that you do, at some point I was like, "Maybe Elon has a model he's running in private, and he's testing out comedy." 'Cause the day that works, he knows it's there.

    13. EMElon Musk1:30:54

        Uh, you know, AI can be pretty funny. Uh, so, like, if you ask Grok to do, like, a vulgar roast, it'll do a pretty good job, you know? Um, if you say even more vulgar and just keep going, it's really gonna get next level. [laughing]

    14. NKNikhil Kamath1:31:13

        [laughing]

    15. EMElon Musk1:31:15

        It's gonna do unspeakable-- uh, like, say, "V- vulgar roast yourself on Grok," and it's gonna do unspeakable things to you. [laughing]

    16. NKNikhil Kamath1:31:21

        [laughing] What kind of comedy do you like?

    17. EMElon Musk1:31:26

        ... Um, I guess I like absurdist humor.

    18. NKNikhil Kamath1:31:29

        Mm-hmm. Comedy always had a place-

    19. EMElon Musk1:31:31

        Like Monty Python or something like that. Yeah.

    20. NKNikhil Kamath1:31:33

        Comedy always had a place in society, wherein the role of the jester was so important to every kingdom, 'cause they said things in a funny way that could not be said in a straight way.

    21. EMElon Musk1:31:46

        Yeah, I guess so. Maybe we should have more jesters.

    22. NKNikhil Kamath1:31:48

        Yeah. Is that what you're trying to do when you say something, which is a joke? Say something you can't when you're not joking about it.

    23. EMElon Musk1:31:57

        I just like humor, you know. Um, like, I think we should, uh... I like comedy. I think it's funny. People should laugh, you know. It's good, it's good to gener- generate a few chuckles once in a while.

    24. NKNikhil Kamath1:32:07

        Yeah. Yeah.

    25. EMElon Musk1:32:08

        Yeah. It's rather-- I mean, we don't wanna have a humorless so- society, you know? It'd be dry. [laughing]

    26. NKNikhil Kamath1:32:14

        When you- [laughing]

    27. EMElon Musk1:32:15

        So dry. [laughing]

    28. NKNikhil Kamath1:32:18

        When you have a friend, Elon, uh-

    29. EMElon Musk1:32:20

        Who, me?

    30. NKNikhil Kamath1:32:20

        Yeah, I mean, when-
26. 1:37:00 – 1:38:53

    Politics, influence, and business

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:37:00

       [laughing] More like how many watts?

    2. EMElon Musk1:37:02

       Like how many... Yeah, like how, it's the voltage and amperage, you know. [laughing]

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:37:06

       [laughing]

    4. EMElon Musk1:37:07

       Don't touch the wires. [laughing]

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:37:09

       [laughing]

    6. EMElon Musk1:37:11

       Don't put a fork in the power outlet. [laughing] You'll, you'll get a real feeling for power if you do that. [laughing]

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:37:21

       [laughing] Fair. [laughing]

    8. EMElon Musk1:37:29

       [laughing] Yeah, it's gonna be very visceral, you know?

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:37:31

       Mm. [laughing]

    10. EMElon Musk1:37:32

        [laughing] Zz.

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:37:36

        [laughing] Uh, [laughing] I know, I know you like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, and they speak-

    12. EMElon Musk1:37:46

        Oh, I've read the books. Yeah, yeah, sure, I mean, I mean, I spoke about it, yeah.

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:37:48

        You spoke about how your childhood was, uh...

    14. EMElon Musk1:37:53

        Yeah, I was just trying to find answers to the meaning of life when I had, like, an existential crisis in, like, I don't know, when I was, like, twelve or thirteen or something, and...

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:00

        They speak about the will to power.

    16. EMElon Musk1:38:02

        Uh, s- sure. Um, I, I mean, Nietzsche said a lot of controversial things, you know what I mean?

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:08

        Uh.

    18. EMElon Musk1:38:08

        He was sort of... I think he, he, he was, I mean, a bit of a troll, if you ask me. You know? [laughing]

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:15

        Are you a troll how?

    20. EMElon Musk1:38:16

        [laughing] I mean, he'd just say controversial things to get a rise out of people. Um... [laughing]

    21. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:22

        Hmm. He lived a miserable life and died early.

    22. EMElon Musk1:38:24

        Did he?

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:24

        Yeah.

    24. EMElon Musk1:38:25

        Well, how do you... Who says he lived a miserable life?

    25. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:26

        Uh, his sister, I think. She's the one who-

    26. EMElon Musk1:38:28

        Okay, well, maybe she didn't like him. [laughing]

    27. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:30

        [laughing] No, I think he got sick, and he died. He got a disease.

    28. EMElon Musk1:38:35

        I mean, allegedly syphilis or something, yeah.

    29. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:38

        Yeah. [laughing]

    30. EMElon Musk1:38:41

        [laughing] But there's only one, there's only one way to get that, you know? [laughing]
27. 1:38:53 – 1:41:11

    Global trade, tariffs, Free markets

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:38:53

       I, I, I did want to ask you this. Uh, Milton Friedman speaks about the pencil.

    2. EMElon Musk1:39:00

       What? Why? [laughing]

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:05

       [laughing]

    4. EMElon Musk1:39:06

       Why does he go on about pencils? [laughing]

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:08

       [laughing] I have to say that after Nietzsche and syphilis.

    6. EMElon Musk1:39:12

       [laughing] Why is it Milton Friedman keeps talking about pencils? There he goes again with the pencils.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:18

       [laughing]

    8. EMElon Musk1:39:21

       [laughing] He won't stop. I swear to God, if I hear one-- Milton talks about pencil one more time-

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:27

       [laughing]

    10. EMElon Musk1:39:28

        ... I'm gonna lose my mind. [laughing]

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:32

        [laughing]

    12. EMElon Musk1:39:32

        He's just rabbiting on about pencils all day. [laughing] Don't even mention crayons.

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:45

        [laughing] What I find interesting about his pencil argument... [laughing]

    14. EMElon Musk1:39:51

        [laughing]

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:53

        Yeah, he-

    16. EMElon Musk1:39:54

        Yeah, yeah. No, it's very difficult to make a pencil, you know? [laughing]

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:56

        Yeah. [laughing] In one place.

    18. EMElon Musk1:39:57

        Think of all the things you have to do-

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:58

        Yeah

    20. EMElon Musk1:39:58

        ... to make a pencil.

    21. NKNikhil Kamath1:39:59

        Yeah.

    22. EMElon Musk1:39:59

        Yeah.

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:40:00

        Like the lead comes from a country-

    24. EMElon Musk1:40:01

        Yeah, you got to do the wood

    25. NKNikhil Kamath1:40:01

        ... the wood comes from another country-

    26. EMElon Musk1:40:03

        And the, the mining machines

    27. NKNikhil Kamath1:40:03

        ... the rubber from another. You've always been against tariffs, but-

    28. EMElon Musk1:40:09

        Uh, yeah, I mean, I think there's, generally, free trade is a better-

    29. NKNikhil Kamath1:40:12

        Yeah

    30. EMElon Musk1:40:12

        ... it's more efficient, you know? Uh, tariffs tend to, uh, create distortions in, you know, markets and, um... And generally, like, you think about, uh, any given thing, so, like, would you want tariffs between you and everyone else at an individual level? That would make life very difficult. Would you want tariffs between each city? No, that would be very annoying. Um, would you want tariffs between each state within the United States? Like, no, that would be disastrous for the economy. Um, so then why do you want tariffs between countries?
28. 1:41:11 – 1:43:21

    The relationship between business and government

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:11

       relationship between business and politics, uh, I was having this conversation with someone, and we were thinking, which is the last... How many large, really big, profitable businesses have been built in the last few decades without access to politics? And, uh-

    2. EMElon Musk1:41:31

       Um, okay. Like, I don't know. [laughing] Probably a, a lot. I don't know.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:36

       Yeah.

    4. EMElon Musk1:41:36

       But not everything is politics.

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:38

       Yeah.

    6. EMElon Musk1:41:38

       Uh, as, once you get to a certain scale, politics finds you. [laughing]

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:42

       [laughing]

    8. EMElon Musk1:41:45

       It's quite unpleasant.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:46

       I was reading, uh...

    10. EMElon Musk1:41:47

        [laughing]

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:49

        I was reading this book about Michelangelo, and he's-

    12. EMElon Musk1:41:52

        The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? [laughing]

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:56

        [laughing] I used to watch that when I was a kid.

    14. EMElon Musk1:41:57

        [laughing] I also-

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:58

        I still love it.

    16. EMElon Musk1:41:58

        Yeah, it's, it's quite compelling.

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:41:59

        Yeah, yeah. I still love it.

    18. EMElon Musk1:42:00

        Yeah, there's pretty-

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:42:01

        Michelangelo, Leonardo-

    20. EMElon Musk1:42:03

        Yeah

    21. NKNikhil Kamath1:42:03

        ... Raphael, and-

    22. EMElon Musk1:42:04

        Yeah

    23. NKNikhil Kamath1:42:04

        ... who's the fourth one? Donatello.

    24. EMElon Musk1:42:06

        Yes.

    25. NKNikhil Kamath1:42:06

        Yeah. Yeah.

    26. EMElon Musk1:42:07

        Uh-

    27. NKNikhil Kamath1:42:07

        No, but about the sculptor, the artist. [laughing]

    28. EMElon Musk1:42:12

        [laughing]

    29. NKNikhil Kamath1:42:12

        And when he was sculpting David-

    30. EMElon Musk1:42:15

        Yeah
29. 1:43:21 – 1:46:47

    DOGE

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:43:21

       What did DOGE teach you, if you learned one thing?

    2. EMElon Musk1:43:24

       Well, it was, like, a very interesting side quest, you know, 'cause I just-

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:43:27

       Mm

    4. EMElon Musk1:43:28

       ... got to see, like, a lot of the inner workings of the government. Um, and, uh, you know, there's, there's been quite a few-... efficiencies. I mean, some of them are very basic efficiencies, like just adding in requirements for federal payments that, that a- any given payment must have an assigned congressional payment code and a comment field with something in it that's more than nothing. Like, that, that trivial s- trivial-seeming change, I-- my guess is probably saves, uh, a hundred billion dollars or even two hundred billion dollars a year. Um, because there were als- there were the massive numbers of payments that go- were going out with no, no congressional payment code and with nothing in the comment field, which makes auditing the payments impossible. So if you have to say, like, "Why c- can the Defense Department, or in other word, Department of War, why can it not pass an audit?" It's because the information is not there, and that it doesn't have-- the information not necessary to pass an audit does not exist, is the issue. So, um, so a, a bunch of things DOGE did were just very common sense, uh, ba- things that would be normal for any organization that cared about financial responsibility. That's, that's, that's most of what was done. Um, [sighs] you know, and, uh, t- and it's still going on, by the way. DOGE is still happening. Um, but it, it turns out when you stop, uh, fraudulent and wasteful payments, the, the fraudsters don't, you know, you know, uh, confess to, to this. They actually start yelling all sorts of nonsense that you're, you're, you're, you're stopping essential payments to nee- needy people.

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:45:08

       Mm-hmm.

    6. EMElon Musk1:45:09

       Um, but actually, you're not. Um, you know, I, I-- we, we get this thing like saying, "Oh, you've got to send this thing for whatever..." You know, it'd be, be like, "This is going to children in Africa." And I'm like: "Yeah, but then why are the wiring instructions for Deloitte & Touche in Washington, DC? Because that's not Africa. [laughing]

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:45:29

       [laughing]

    8. EMElon Musk1:45:30

       "So can you please connect us with the recipients-

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:45:33

       Mm

    10. EMElon Musk1:45:33

        -of this money in Africa?" [laughing] And then there gets silence. [chuckles] I'm like: "Okay, you know, we're-- we just wanna literally talk to the recipients. That's it." That... You know, and then we're like: "Oh, no, t- turns out, for some reason, we can't talk to them." I'm like: "Well, we, we're not gonna send the money unless we can talk to the recipients and confirm they will actually get it." And then they, they, you know... But, you know, that's sort of, [chuckles] fr- fr- fraudsters necessarily will come up with a very, uh, you know, uh, sympathetic argument. They're not gonna say, "Give us the money for fraud." That's not gonna be what they say, obviously. They're gonna s- they're gonna s- try to make these sympathetic-sounding arguments that are false.

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:46:16

        They're gonna start an NGO, and then-

    12. EMElon Musk1:46:18

        Yeah, they're gonna say NGO.

    13. NKNikhil Kamath1:46:20

        -

    14. EMElon Musk1:46:20

        [laughing] It, it's gonna be like the Save the Baby Pandas NGO, which if like... Who doesn't want to save the baby pandas? They're adorable.

    15. NKNikhil Kamath1:46:26

        [laughing]

    16. EMElon Musk1:46:27

        Um, but then there's no-- it turns out no pandas are being saved, okay, in this thing. Um, it's just going to a bunch of-- it's just corruption, essentially.

    17. NKNikhil Kamath1:46:36

        Mm.

    18. EMElon Musk1:46:36

        Um, and, and you're like: "Well, can you send us a picture of the panda?" They're like: "No." "Okay. [laughing] "

    19. NKNikhil Kamath1:46:42

        [laughing] Well, how do we know it's going to the pandas then?

    20. EMElon Musk1:46:44

        Right. That's what I'm saying. So-

30. 1:46:47 – 1:47:39

    Philanthropy

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:46:47

       What do you think of philanthropy?

    2. EMElon Musk1:46:49

       Yeah, I, I think we should... Well, I mean, I agree with love of humanity.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:46:54

       Mm.

    4. EMElon Musk1:46:54

       Um, and I th- I think we should, um, try to do things that help our fellow human beings. Um, but it's, it's very hard-- Like, if you care about the reality of goodness rather than simply the perception of it, it's very difficult to give away money well. Um, so I have a large foundation, but I don't put my name on it, and I don't, you know... In fact, I, I say, "I don't want my name on anything." Um, uh, but the biggest challenge I find with my foundation is try to give money away in a way that is, that is truly beneficial to people. Um, it's very easy to give money away to get the appearance of goodness. It is very difficult to give money away for the reality of goodness. Very difficult.

31. 1:47:39 – 1:51:17

    H1B & Immigration Laws

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:47:39

       For a long time, the US had a lot of immigration, like really smart people coming into the country.

    2. EMElon Musk1:47:45

       Yes.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:47:46

       We, back home in India, called it the brain drain.

    4. EMElon Musk1:47:49

       Right.

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:47:49

       Uh, all our C- all our Indian origin CEOs in, uh, Western companies.

    6. EMElon Musk1:47:55

       Uh, yes, I think America has benefited imm- immensely from, um, talented Indians that have come to America. Obviously.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:48:00

       That seems to be changing now, though. [laughing]

    8. EMElon Musk1:48:04

       [laughing] Yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, America's been an immense ben- beneficiary of talent from India.

    9. NKNikhil Kamath1:48:10

       Yeah. Why, why has that narrative changed of late? And America seems to have become anti-immigration to a certain extent.

    10. EMElon Musk1:48:18

        Yeah.

    11. NKNikhil Kamath1:48:18

        Like, I was passing immigration, and I was worried if they'd stop me a couple of days ago.

    12. EMElon Musk1:48:23

        Um, well, I, I think there's, there's different schools of thought. It's not, like, unanimous. But, um, you know, under the, the Biden administration, it was basically a total free-for-all with, like, no border controls, which, you know, unless you've got border controls, you're not a country. Um, so, uh, you had massive amounts of illegal immigration under, under Biden. Um, and it, it actually, it, it, it also had, like, somewhat of a negative selection effect. Um, so if, uh, if there's a massive financial incentive to come to the, the US illegally and get all these government benefits, um, then you're, you're, you're, you're gonna necessarily create a diffusion gradient for people to come to the US. It's an incentive structure. Um, and so, uh, so I think that, that, that obviously made no sense. Like, you've got to have border controls. It's kind of ridiculous not to. Um, then that's-- So on the, the, the l- the left wants to basically have open, open borders, no-holds-barred, you know, it doesn't matter if someone... what, what their situation is. They could be a criminal, it doesn't matter. Um, then on the right, you've got, you know, uh, at, at least a perception that, that, that somehow their jobs are being taken, um, by talented people from other countries. Um, and-... I don't know how real that is. Um, my direct observation is that the, there's, there's always a scarcity of talented people. So, you know, fr- from my standpoint, I'm like, we have a lot of difficulty finding enough talented people to get these difficult tasks done, and so more talented people would be, would be good. Um, but I, I guess some companies out there, it's sort of they're, they're making it more of a, a cost thing, where it's like, okay, if they can employ someone for a fraction of the cost of, uh, an American citizen, then I guess these other comp- companies would, would hire people, you know, just to save costs. But at my companies, the, the issue is we, we just are trying to get the most talented people in the world. So-- and we, we, we pay way above average. So, so I can't-- So that's not my experience, but that's what a lot of people do complain about. Um, and I, I think there's been some misuse of the, you know, uh, H-1B program. It's, it's, it's certainly... It, it would, it would be accurate to say that there's, you know, like some of the outsourcing companies have, uh, kind of gamed the system on, on the H-1B front, and we need to stop the gaming of the system, you know? Um, but, uh, I, I'm not, I'm certainly not in the school of thought that we should shut down the H-1B program. That, that's... Which some on the right are. Um, I think they don't realize that that would actually be very bad.

32. 1:51:17 – 1:52:00

    Advice for people building

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:51:17

       If you could speak to the people of my country, India, the young entrepreneurs who want to build-

    2. EMElon Musk1:51:24

       Right.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:51:25

       -and say a message to them, what would you say?

    4. EMElon Musk1:51:29

       Well, I think, I think, uh, I'm, I'm a big fan of anyone who wants to build. So I think anyone who wants to, you know, make more than they take, has my respect. So that's, that's the main, the main thing you should aim for. Aim to make more than you take. Um, be a, be a, a, you know, a net contributor to s- to society. Um, it, it, and, and

33. 1:52:00 – 1:53:26

    Value creation and hard work

    1. EMElon Musk1:52:00

       it's, it's kind of like the pursuit of happiness. You know, you, you... If, if you want to create something valuable financially, you, you don't pursue that. You, you, it's best to actually pursue make- providing useful products and services. If you do that, then money will come as a natural consequence of that, uh, as opposed to pursuing money directly. Just like, you, you can't sort of pursue happiness directly, you pursue things that lead to happiness, but, but there's not like direct happiness pursuit. You, you do things like, uh, I guess fulfilling work, or study, or friends, loved ones, um, that, as a result, make you happy. So, so that's, that's-- It sounds, like, very obvious, but, um, generally, if you, if somebody's trying to make a company work, they should expect to grind super hard, uh, accept that there's, like, some meaningful chance of failure. Um, but, but just be focused on having the output be worth more than the input. That, are you a value creator? That's what really matters. Uh, making more than you take.

    2. NKNikhil Kamath1:53:18

       I think that's a good way to end this. Lauren is asking us to wrap up. [chuckles]

    3. EMElon Musk1:53:22

       All right. [upbeat music]

    4. NKNikhil Kamath1:53:24

       Uh, I also like to take the

34. 1:53:26 – 1:54:13

    Closing thoughts & gratitude

    1. NKNikhil Kamath1:53:26

       opportunity to thank my friend, uh, Manoj in IGF. He does a great job of connecting, I think, Indians, like the group here, with people like you, in order to... Of many things, I think, get to know each other and become friends, because once we are friends, maybe we can start working together. So thank you, Manoj, for putting this whole thing together, and thank you, IGF. [audience applauding] And thank you so much, Elon, for taking the time.

    2. EMElon Musk1:53:55

       You're welcome.

    3. NKNikhil Kamath1:53:58

       [upbeat music] Did you have fun?

    4. EMElon Musk1:54:01

       Yeah.

    5. NKNikhil Kamath1:54:01

       Was it boring?

    6. EMElon Musk1:54:02

       Interesting conversation.

    7. NKNikhil Kamath1:54:03

       [chuckles]

    8. EMElon Musk1:54:03

       You know, sometimes they take these answers out of context, you know, but, uh, that's pro- I think it was a good, good conversation. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 1:54:13