[Music]

I believe Optimus is going to be the

greatest product ever created by

humanity.

>> Elon Musk and his XAI startup have built

the largest and most powerful artificial

intelligence training supercomputer in

the world. As far as I know, there's

only one person in the world who could

do that. You know,

>> this is an arms race of epic

proportions.

>> He's a big thinker. You guys went on Fox

the other day with the Doge team. You

saw Elon's face nodding while they were

speaking with a grin ear to ear. He was

proud.

>> XAI has acquired X in an old stock

transaction.

>> Tesla's first robo taxis are officially

on the road.

>> The company's board proposed a new

compensation package for the CEO that

could pay him just about a trillion

dollars in stock.

>> He gets nothing if he doesn't hit the

numbers.

SpaceX will buy wireless spectrum

licenses from Echoar for its Starlink

satellite network for about 17 billion.

>> 3 2 1.

[Music]

There's a

splash down.

How do you have time? this I I I never

understand you.

>> Yeah. Well, I do work a lot.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

>> Elon Musk.

>> All right. Good.

>> All right. Where are you?

>> Alto.

>> You're in Palo Alto and um not

Washington DC.

>> I'm I'm at Tesla Global Engineering

Headquarters in Palo Alto.

>> Yeah. So, no more Washington DC. You're

back at work. You're focused. Yeah.

>> Uh, yeah. I haven't been to DC since

May.

>> Okay. Uh,

>> that was a that was a hell of a side

quest.

>> That was a good Any lessons from your

time in Washington DC?

>> Uh,

the government is basically unfixable.

>> Elon O only.

I support David's noble efforts and this

uh it's good to it's good to have

talented people in the administration uh

but at the end of the day um if you look

at our national debt which is uh

insanely high uh the interest payments

exceed the u defense department I guess

sorry war department uh budget

um and um Nikki Bryzy so if AI and

robots don't solve our national debt,

we're we're toast.

>> Which is a great segue. Um, Optimus is

um I think going to be the greatest

>> uh product in the history

of humanity.

What's the progress like and how much of

your how many of your cycles are going

specifically to Optimus? What's the

timeline? I think you're on version

three, maybe four. Tell us everything.

Uh well,

yeah, everything would take a long time.

>> We've got time.

>> Um

we're we're finalizing the design of

Optimus version 3

and

uh that that really is going to be a

very remarkable robot.

Um

it will have the essentially the manual

dexterity of a human. So meaning a very

complex hand.

Um the a an AI mind that can navigate

and comprehend reality.

Um and it will be made in very high

volume. Uh those are the three things

that are missing. Like if you see any

other um robotics uh company, they're

missing those three things. Those are

the three really hard things. Um

and uh I I I spent actually at this

point

um

it it might be more of my mental cycles

than anything anything else any other

single thing on Optimus. Uh that's

that's that that's solving for

uh real world AI

uh all of the electro mechanical issues

of Optimus the the supply chain and

production challenges of it because we

have there is no supply chain that

exists for humanoid robots. So it has to

be we have to recreate it from scratch

um and which requires doing a lot of

vertical integration.

um

none of the actuators in Optimus um are

available from an existing supply chain.

Um so but I I think it is accurate to

say that if successful Optimus will be

the biggest product ever

>> and the cost of it at scale 2030 $40,000

a robot. What what do you think the

first wave of them will cost? And yeah,

when will we be able to buy one to work

on the ranch?

>> I think that the the marginal cost of

production once you hit a million units

per year

uh is probably around the $20,000 range.

Uh it it it sort of depends on how much

you spend on the AI chip in the in the

robot. Um

and you need to achieve a lot of

efficiencies in the actuators. Uh there

are um 26 actuators per arm like 26

electric like motors, gearboxes and

power electronics.

Um,

so, so, but but the the the AI chip will

be pretty expensive like that that might

be like55 or $6,000 of the of the bill

of materials, maybe more. Um,

and um

but but so I but I think at volume at a

million units a year, the the production

cost is probably on the order of

$20,000, maybe 25, something like that.

And um price will be as a function of

demand.

>> Elon um can you maybe explain to

everybody why the hand is so important

to get right and why you know the

actuator design is so unique and you

know why it's so difficult why nobody

makes it and why you have to start there

almost to build the rest of the the

robot properly.

Well, it turns out the human hands are

incredibly they've evolved to this to be

this incredibly sophisticated machine.

Like the your hand is an in actually a

remarkable thing. It's look look closely

at your hands

and and think of all the things you can

do with your hands, which is a lot.

>> I can think of many things.

>> Yeah, I was just thinking about

something.

>> You know, your hands are very versatile

instrument. Yeah, you can give him a

high five.

>> Very versatile.

Um, you know, you you you can swing a

baseball bat, you can thread needles,

you you can you put thread in a needle.

Uh, you can play the piano with violin.

Um, you know, you could disassemble or

assemble a car. The hands are incredibly

versatile instruments. Um and um most of

the muscles of of the hand are are

actually in the forearm. So your hand is

kind of like a like a like it's like a

puppet. Like it's mostly a puppet. The

mus the muscles are coming from the

forearm and they're pulling the tendons

uh which are you know

also human tendon designs or human human

tendon evolution is incredibly good. Um,

so you you've got this web of tendons.

You you you've got um I think I think

the the human hand is something like

depending on how you count it, 27 or 28

degrees of freedom per you know in in

the hand. It's uh it's amazing. So

in order to create a robot that can uh

be a generalized uh humanoid, you you

must solve the hand the hands problem.

>> Yeah. We had uh we had

>> it's got hands, needs hands.

>> And so is it like uh when you were first

building Tesla where the supply chain

doesn't exist and now you have to go out

and find folks to work with and you know

build all this vertical integration, get

support. Is it is it literally like it's

just nowhere to be found and

>> you're going to have to build all of

this stuff up?

>> Yes, we we we could not actually buy the

actuators for any amount of money. they

simply didn't exist. Even though there

are, I don't know, 10 20,000 electric

motors out there of various sizes and

shapes. Um, we've had to design uh every

electric motor, gearbox um and and the

controlling electronics from scratch

basically from physics first principles.

>> The good news is you've got a lot of

experience with factories over the last

couple of decades. So,

>> how challenging is this versus Cybert

truck model Y

>> Model X

>> Gigafactory? You know, the Yeah. The

Fabra Egg known as the Model X. Yeah.

>> Right.

>> Um

it's hotter than any any of those

things.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Much hotter significantly. Yeah.

Starship.

>> Yes. Well, more No, not Starship's

harder.

Okay.

>> So, somewhere between a Model X and a

Starship?

>> Yeah.

>> Is it is the What's harder, the hardware

or the software?

>> Right now, we're struggling with the

the final design of the hardware. Like I

said, it's really primarily the hand.

Not to just just dismiss the rest of the

robot. the rest of it's also uh

important but but the hands are the

hands inclusive of the forearm are a

majority of the engineering difficulty

of the entire robot and then let's

assume you get past the hardware

challenges how much do you sort of get

for free um based on all the progress

that's happening with LLMs will you know

will consumers just be able to interact

with this talk to the robot ask it to do

things it'll understand and sort of

>> Oh yeah

>> yeah no problem

>> you're spending a lot of time with any I

noticed online.

>> Not not that long. Um maybe I went a

little over the top from Bunning Grom

Imagine, but uh

>> well, but in all seriousness, those

characters and these robots that seems

to be, you know, like maybe they

>> you could get the embodiment of Annie, I

suppose.

>> Yeah. Why why the human form factor,

Elon? You could make something that's

maybe better than a human or maybe

simpler than a human to do specific

tasks and maybe better than a human to

do more things than a human can do. How

do you decide to make it just like a

human?

>> Well, if you wanted to do all the things

that a human can do, it turns out you

need a humanoid robot.

Um, so if you want to just do a subset,

it that's much easier.

Um but uh

it turns out humans evolved to this the

shape and capabilities that we we we

have. Um it it it for for good reasons.

Uh there actually is that there is

like there's value to having five, you

know, four fingers and the thumb. Um and

even the pinky actually is is quite

useful. Um toes are much more aggression

walk but but but the fingers

>> well also humans humans have designed

the world as well. So we designed it for

us. So

>> if you can make a humanoid robot it'll

be immediately backwards compatible with

what we've built the world for.

>> Precisely.

>> Elon there's another there's another

part of um the robot. So there's the

LLMs, there's the actuation in the

hands, but also there's the um the

silicon that runs it. And there was, you

know, Dojo, I think you you posted on X

AI5 and AI6, and it just seemed like you

were incredibly excited about the

direction in which the silicon layer was

also going. Can you tell us about that

and what that is and what what what what

are we what are we building here? What

is being built? Is it a complement to

everything that exists in the world? Is

it a potential long-term competitor?

What is it?

>> Um, yeah. So,

at at Tesla, we basically had two

different chip programs. One dojo and

one uh dojo on the training side and

then what we call, you know, AI for it,

which just our inference chip. um uh

that the AI Force is currently shipping

in all vehicles. Um and we're finaliz

finalizing the design of AI5 which will

be an immense jump from AI4. Um by some

metrics the improvement in AI5 will be

40 times better than AI4.

>> Wow.

>> So 40% 40 times. Um and and uh this is

because we work so closely at a very

fine grade level on the AI software and

the AI hardware. So we know exactly

where the limiting factors are and and

um and so effectively the AI hardware

and software teams are co-designing the

chip. Um

>> so a 40x improvement in the silicon I

think then as it as everybody here in

the audience experiences it is that just

an almost like an order of magnitude

increase in the quality of FST and the

safety that you experience as a Tesla

driver and then the quality of the robot

like where does it all manifest when you

when you you know bring it up and

actually get it into production?

Yeah to be precise the 40x is on if you

say like compared to the worst

limitation on AI4 which is running the

softmax operation.

>> Yeah

>> we currently have to run softmax in

around 40 steps in emulation mode

whereas that'll be just be done in a few

steps uh natively in AI5.

Um AI5 trip will also be u easily handle

mixed precision um models. So you don't

have it'll dynamically handle mixed

precision. There's a bunch of sort of

technical stuff that AI will do a lot

better. Um in terms of of nominal sort

of uh raw compute, it's it's eight times

more compute. Um about nine times more

memory uh roughly five times more memory

bandwidth. Um so uh but because we're

addressing some core limitations in AI4,

you multiply that by that that 8x

computer improvement by another 5x

improvement because of of uh

optimization at a at a at a very fine

grain silicon level of things that are

currently suboptimal in AI4. That's

where you get the 40x improvement.

>> You had um I'll keep going, keep going.

Uh so now now that said I I'm I am

confident that the current uh chips uh

AI AI4 chips that are in the cars will

uh achieve self-driving safety that is

at least two to three times that of of

human and and maybe even 10x. Um and the

software that uh will be released for

that is is coming out over the next few

months. So version 14 will be the

biggest uh upgrade in Tesla software

since version 12. Um we are increasing

the uh parameter count by an order of

magnitude. Um the there's there's

there's a lot of uh reinforcement

learning that's been used. there's um

we we there there there's like you can

think of AI sort of as a way of

compressing reality and and and some of

those compression steps uh we uh were

too lossy and and we addressed the

lossiness in the compression steps. Um

so the these are all software updates

that'll that'll go out. So just over

there updates um your car is going to

feel like it is sentient by the end of

the year.

>> Yeah, it feels that way already to be

honest. Um I saw in the trades that you

spent about $17 billion on some spectrum

and that um

>> yeah um so some couch change um to

enable your satellites and the Starlink

network to connect directly with phones.

What will that look like in a year or

two? Are we going to drop our Verizon

account and just expand our Starlink

account?

>> Uh, thank you.

>> We're kind of hoping cuz Verizon kind of

sucks.

>> How How many of you want a Starlink

phone?

>> Who wants a Starlink phone?

>> Is it Is it technically possible?

>> I know you can't see it, but it's

everyone.

>> Yeah, All right, cool. Um so this is a

kind of a long-term thing. Uh it it will

allow

SpaceX to h uh deliver high bandwidth

connectivity directly from the

satellites to the phones. Um but uh

there are hardware changes that need to

happen in the phone. So the since these

frequencies are not supported in current

phones uh that the chipset has to be

modified to add these frequencies um and

that probably is a 2-year time frame. So

the phones that um are able to use the

spectrum that was acquired probably

start shipping in around 2 years. Um and

um and then we also need to build the

satellites that are going to communicate

on those frequencies. So, in parallel,

we're building the satellites and

working with the handset makers to add

these frequencies to the phones. Um, and

then the the satellites and the phones

will then handshake very well to achieve

high bandwidth connectivity. But the net

effect is that you should be able to

watch uh videos uh anywhere on your

phone.

>> Wow.

>> And it's going to be crazy. And what and

do these do these frequencies would they

work indoors inside buildings, you know,

like like your phone currently does?

Okay.

>> And so will you be able to have

basically like

>> if you if if you're in a building with a

with a like a a thick metal roof then

No. But um

>> no the the same types of of

>> Yeah. Normal normal homes. Yes.

>> Yes.

>> Elon is your vision for this that

instead of you know having an AT&T

account or and then roaming when you're

in the UK or you're in India. It's just

we could have one direct deal with

Starlink. It works all over the world

eventually. Not today but at some point.

Is that the end goal? That basically we

don't need a regional carrier. We have a

global carrier and that would be you.

>> Uh that that would be one of the

options. To be clear, we're not going to

put the other carriers out of business.

They're still going to be around cuz

they they own a lot of Spectrum. So, uh

there's uh but but yes, you you should

be able to have a Starlink uh like you

have like you have an AT&T or T-Mobile

or Verizon or whatever, you should be

you could have a you know account with

Starlink that uh works with your you

know Starlink uh antenna at home uh free

Wi-Fi as well as on your phone and um

yeah it would be a comprehensive

solution for high bandwidth at home and

for high bandwidth direct to sell.

>> Could you buy some carriers to have more

>> spectrum?

>> Maybe you could buy Verizon.

>> Not out of the question. I suppose it

that may happen.

>> Let's talk about um let's talk about

Starship. You just had a really what

appeared to be a phenomenal um launch. H

how close is it to, you know, being

predictable and ready to go in a

commercial setting?

I I I think we'll recover the ship next

year. Um we've got one more launch of

the um Starlink version two

uh uh stack that there's only one one

uh booster and ship left that's in the

version two uh design. Uh and then

thereafter it's it's version three which

is a gigantic upgrade cuz that's got

Raptor 3. Um, and pretty much everything

changes on the rocket with version 3.

Um, so version 3, you know, might have

some initial teething pains, uh, cuz

it's such a radical redesign.

Uh, but, uh, it's it's capable of over

100 tons to orbit fully reusable. Um,

and I think it's I think I think um

unless we have unless we have some very

major setbacks, uh, SpaceX will

demonstrate uh, full reusability next

year uh, catching both the booster and

the ship um, and being able to deliver

over 100 tons to a useful orbit.

>> What does the best rocket in the world

do now in terms of tonnage to space?

Uh well in terms of

uh sort of commercial rockets there's

there's Falcon Heavy.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh which will do uh in

um with with side booster reuse uh will

do about 40 tons.

>> So this is five times bigger. Yeah.

>> Well two and a half times bigger in but

but Starship would be full reuse full

reusability.

>> Got it. Okay. So everything comes back

>> Elon after after the explosion that

happened um with the the the the failed

launch

>> um there was a lot of

>> sorry

>> which which failed

>> oh the more recent one the more recent

the starship with

>> the big boom yeah

>> the big boom on the base and and and

there was a lot of

>> there was a lot of proclamations that

there's going to be environmental and

FAA and all these other sorts the

recovery back to the launchpad again was

incredible.

fast. How did you get back so fast? Not

just technically and work-wise, but just

like regulatory clearance-wise because

they said there were going to be all

these questions and reviews and so on.

How how did you guys manage that?

>> Uh well, there were a lot of questions

and reviews. We got through them all. Um

and credit to the SpaceX team. They

worked incredibly hard and they uh got

the next trip and booster tested and on

the pad and and flown and um yeah, huge

credit to the SpaceX team. Very proud of

them for

>> doing doing such a job, a great job

recovering.

>> Um

I mean creating a fully reusable orbital

rocket is one of the hottest engineering

problems ever.

and certainly, you know, a candidate for

most difficult engineering project ever.

You know, it's on the podium at least.

Um,

so it's a that that's been the goal of

SpaceX from the beginning from 2002. Um,

and here we are 23 years later. So, it's

it's a long journey

and um

with with a a super talent like by far

the I think the most talented group of

rocket engineers that ever been

assembled. Um and uh and we're finally

next year I think we'll be able to

achieve full reusability.

>> Elon, what are the big um technical

blockers that you're focused on there

between now and that full reusability?

Are there some showstoppers where you're

just kind of literally just obsessing

over trying to figure out still or is it

more about getting through a laundry

list of your learnings and just

integrating it into the next launch?

>> Well,

that the

for for full reusability of the ship,

there's still a lot of work that remains

on the heat shield. So, no one's ever

made a fully reusable orbital heat

shield. Like the shuttle heat shield uh

had to go through nine months of repair

after every flight,

>> right?

>> Um so, no one has ever made a fully

reusable orbital heat shield.

>> And is that a material science problem

or is that an engineering problem or

both?

>> Uh yeah, I mean it's a material science

engineering problem. So, it's but we

really are uh looking at the fundamental

physics here. Um again physics first

principles and trying to figure out how

do we make something that

um is uh

you know can can withstand the heat is

very light doesn't transmit the heat to

the the primary sh

>> Yeah.

>> primary structure um and uh

whose integ

>> Yeah.

>> Um

Uh, and then as you ascend, if you hit

some rain, you know, the tiles don't

dissolve in rain. There's there's a lot

of different issues and and then you

really need to know that these tiles are

working. You can't uh,

you know, go through this laborious

inspection. So, it really needs to be

we're, you know, these these tens of

thousands of tiles all work and don't

need to be refurbished or checked one by

one as was the case with the shuttle.

>> Can we maybe um switch now? It's I mean,

who who else were you talked about

Tesla, then you go to SpaceX? Yeah. Now,

I' I'd like to ask you some questions

about Grock and um XAI. Um you want to

just give us an update? I think you you

kind of talked about where the nextG

model is and you said something

incredible. I still don't think people

really understand it which is you know

there's going to be a next training run

where you expect you know not to start

from the you know common web and common

crawl where you expected an enormous

amount of synthetic data. Just tell us

about how uh the evolution of Grock is

going and this innovation and why it's

so important.

Yeah. So we're we're running a lot of

using a lot of of inference compute and

um and reasoning to look at all of the

source data which is really the corpus

of human knowledge and then

uh thinking about each piece of

information and then adding mod adding

what's missing um and correcting

correcting mistakes and removing

falsehoods from the from that training

data. So it's it's it's like if you take

say Wikipedia as an example but this

really applies to to books, PDFs,

uh the websites,

uh every form of information. Um the

the Grock is using um heavy amounts of

inference compute to say to look at at

an example a Wikipedia page and say uh

what is true, partially true or false or

missing

uh in this page. Now rewrite the page to

in to correct the remove the falsehoods

uh

uh correct the half-truths and add the

missing context.

>> Well, Elon, by the way, could you just

publish that? Could we create like a

groipedia? I mean, that would

>> Yeah, especially for our bio pages,

which are a disaster.

>> Wikipedia is so biased and it's it's a

constant war. you know, if something

gets corrected, five minutes later,

there'll be an army of people trying to

>> I mean, it's become hyperartisan and

there's activists all over it.

>> So, if you do fix, for example,

Wikipedia as a source of truth,

>> it'd be great to publish that just so

the world has it.

>> All right, I'll talk talk about that.

So, talk to the team about that like

Groedia or whatever. This here's the

Groedia version.

>> It' be interesting. Yeah. and then just

have it out there for just a few minutes

>> where in terms of um people here like it

um in terms of training Gro 5 um you're

you're scaling up your supercluster in

Colossus in in Memphis

>> can yeah have a second one

>> yeah can could you give us an update on

that and then also as part of that um

where are we in the scaling laws um if

you scale a bigger cluster do you get a

more powerful AI model is there a point

of dimin diminishing returns or like how

much more compute if you throw twice as

much compute at it do you get a 10%

better model do you get 100% better

model like is it log linear what what I

guess how much more juice is there left

in scaling hardware do you think

>> I think I think there's a natural

logarithmic function associated with the

amount of compute so

uh then like say for argument sake like

10x more compute will double the

intelligence.

Maybe that's that that might be a rough

rule of thumb, but you know, that still

means that, you know, you go from 100 IQ

to 200 IQ. Still pretty pretty big deal.

Um,

so I

and and I think I think we'll see

intelligence continue to scale all the

way up to where, you know, most of the

power of the sun is harnessed for

compute and then ultimately most of the

power of the galaxy, you know, sort of

cautev 2, cautev 3 scale uh compute. Um

so I guess once you think of artificial

intelligence not as sort of this

you know a destination that you reach

but really uh as part of the overall

escalation of intelligence

um that that that we are are aware of.

Um

you know human intelligence has also

scaled as you've have as the population

has increased um and we've been able to

store more and more information. uh

human intelligence has scaled. Now human

because of population declines and low

growth rate, human intelligence is is

somewhat plateauing um and will actually

decline. And

my guess is that

I I I I think that we might have AI

smarter than any single human at

anything as soon as next year.

>> Wow.

>> Um

>> Yeah. and and and then and then probably

within five like say 2030 probably AI is

smarter than the sum of all humans.

>> Do you think do you think humans are on

the decline because the AI is evolving?

Do you think there's this evolution of

the ecosystem on Earth that's underway

that we don't really understand the

structure of what's going on? But

>> maybe yeah, maybe we implicitly

know that it's coming. Um,

>> yeah.

>> I I I I mean I hope the birth rates turn

around. I'm a I'm a big proponent of

increased birth rate. Uh, obviously.

>> Well, you doing anything about it or no?

>> Yeah. I'm trying to set a good example.

You know, we had a big conversation at

this conference we didn't expect, which

is suicidal empathy, the West,

>> this um declining birth rate. Uh I

noticed you've been pretty active about

it

>> and open borders

>> and open borders is like let the

invaders in. Could all three of those be

the same thing? It

>> it seems like there's a number of

symptoms of the West being suicidal. The

most obvious one being the birth rate is

not a replacement level. So obviously if

that continues indefinitely then the

west will literally not reproduce enough

to replace itself. But there's other

things too. There's the fact that the

borders were totally opened to the point

where western culture the social fabric

start to come apart and you see this

especially in Europe where there um you

know the indigenous cultures of the UK

or France or Germany are starting to um

potentially be taken over by by cultures

of people who are brought in and aren't

assimilating. You have crime where, you

know, we have this case on social media

right now, this young woman, Ire Ina,

who's just

>> killed in a senseless way on a subway.

>> Uh, which is horrific enough in and of

itself, but then in addition to that,

the elite media just for whatever reason

just refused to cover it, like it didn't

exist.

>> Um, so you have this issue of crime

that's not being addressed or even

acknowledged

>> and no acknowledgement of this. like

it's almost like we're trying to deny

the reality of the spiral

>> and this Yeah. So you have the you have

all these data points um that seem to

suggest that um the west uh is suicidal

or doesn't you know doesn't seem to want

to defend itself or propagate itself. Um

look I think everyone in this room

thinks that um life is awesome right? I

mean it's

>> pretty great and I think

>> worth living.

>> Yeah. And when when Alex Karp was here

earlier today defending the West, that

got some of the loudest applause at the

conference. So, uh I guess we probably

don't really understand what's going on.

We don't really

>> Yeah. What's your take, Elon? Cuz you

you know,

>> what's your take on the suicide of the

West?

>> Yeah.

>> What's What's

>> I'm very worried about it.

>> Yeah.

>> I'm very worried about it. Um you know,

I think there's there's

just the actions of the West are

indistinguishable from suicide.

So, but it's

and look, at least in America, there's

there's there's generally a sense of

optimism, but when's the last time you

you talked to someone from Europe who

lives in Europe who's optimistic?

>> Not for a while. Yeah.

>> Decades,

>> like even one.

>> It's rare. So I I think unless people

have a sense of optimism and purpose

about the future, they

suicide might be just what happens. Um

like like like having a child is an act

of optimism about the future. So uh if

you're not optimistic, this Yeah.

So, so I think we need to maybe

give people a sense of optimism and

excitement about the future and and a

belief that the future will be better

than the past um and they'll be more

interested in having kids.

>> Did did religion play a role in the

past, Elon, to kind of plate and make

folks feel that way

>> when they

>> Yeah, I think so. uh

the nature abhores a vacuum and if you

take away religion then I think you

actually you you you get something in

its place which is actually worse than

what was there before I mean it's like

destructive basically you get you get

like the white work mind virus filling

filling the hole that religion used to

have taking the place of of of religion

you get these dystopian de facto

religions

um that uh that that are very very

self-destructive.

Um so

I I think perhaps

some some sort of re revival of religion

or at least what we need is is um some

coherent philosophy

that people can get excited about. Um

you know I mean for me it's a philosophy

of curiosity. I'm curious about the

nature of the universe and I want to go

out there and I want humanity to be out

there exploring the stars. Um maybe

meeting alien civilizations. Uh maybe in

some cases we we see the ruins of a long

dead alien civilization but they were

they were very strong for 10 million

years. Um you know the kind of stuff

that you see in Star Trek in in a

non-dystopian sci-fi book or or movie or

show. Um, and so I'm just I have I have

a philosophy of curiosity of of like I

just want to know what's going on. And

and in order to know what's going on, we

we must have u an an increase in the in

the scope and scale of consciousness, we

must we must expand uh consciousness. We

must grow. We must grow humanity and we

must extend humanity in order to

comprehend the and to to understand the

universe or even what what question

should we should ask about the answer

that is the universe. Um you know Doug

Douglas Adams

book the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

is actually a a deep book on philosophy

disguised as humor. Um and what the

point he was trying to make in that book

was that u the questions are the really

the hard part. The answer is the

universe. Like the answer is everything

you see around you. But but but one of

the questions that we don't know to ask.

>> Yeah.

>> Um now now some of the questions I guess

I we I do know. I'd like to know is the

standard model of physics correct about

the origins of the universe? Are we

actually 13.8 billion years old? Um how

does the universe end? Does it end in a

heat death or in some other way? Um, you

know,

>> a black hole.

>> We might be.

>> Um,

>> Elon, can you talk about

>> the whole sort of simulation question?

Are we a simulation? Maybe.

>> Where does the uh where do you think we

find the answer first? In AI or in the

stars?

Because you're pursuing both obviously.

>> Yeah.

I I I don't know if if I I hope I hope

more people can get behind a

philosophy of curiosity.

>> Yeah.

>> Because I think it's very exciting.

>> Yeah.

>> Um and and and and inherently

optimistic.

Um you like because there's there's this

amazing sense of wonder

about the nature of the universe. And

when you just when you uncover some

secret in the universe, that's amazing.

And you're like a whole world of

understanding is opened up. I mean, we

we used to not even know where all the

continents were. Um, you know, used to

be like just the map would be there be

dragons and like all we know is that

when they sailed in that direction, they

didn't come back.

>> I mean, the moon base,

>> that's all that's all they knew. I I

kind of feel like the moon base or just

going to the moon for real this time

would be a big step in the right

direction. You still have the moon uh

planned. What's the status of that? Is

is that still on the agenda?

>> Yeah, I I think it I think having I

think we want to try to reach new

heights as a civilization.

>> Yeah.

>> So, I think it's it's fine to go to the

moon, but but we should go to the moon

in order to establish a lunar base, like

a a lunar research base.

>> Yeah. Um, I mean there are parts of the

moon that are perhaps older than parts

of of Earth. Um, and we we we might

understand more about the nature of the

universe if we had a science base on the

moon.

>> Um, that would be very cool. And then we

we obviously want to go beyond the moon

uh to Mars and uh build a

self-sustaining city on Mars. the I I I

do think that uh that that there is a

fork in the road of human destiny where

um if we can establish a self-sustaining

city on Mars with the the key test being

if the resupply shifts from Earth stop

coming for any reason does Mars continue

to to prosper or does it die out

>> at the point at which Mars is able to uh

prosper and grow on its own the probable

lifespan of consciousness is

dramatically greater.

because we are no longer dependent on

everything going right on Earth. You

know, there's there's always some

possibility of self annihilation on

Earth with the World War II or or a

supervirus or um or or a meteor like

extin, you know, that destroyed the

dinosaurs. We know from the fossil

record that there've been many mass mass

extinction events. So uh the question

that I sort of was wondering about is

will civilization will the

civilizational arc continue to ascend

such that we can make Mars self-

sustaining before the civil

civilizational ark descends

>> um because the the window of opportunity

to make life multilanetary

exists now for the first time in the 4

and a half billion year history of

earth.

>> Yeah. Elon, let's assume that we get

there and you're there.

>> Um, you know, you'd be the elder

statesman. You'd have the moral

authority of Mars.

How do you run Mars?

>> But I just there's this point that I I

think I I want to just emphasize again

that that's that's it's more important

than the form of governance on Mars or

who's there in the early days. What

really matters is that Mars um is self-

sustaining that we are truly a

multilanet species and s such that we've

achieved planetary redundancy so that

that if if something and obviously we

should do everything possible to make

sure life on Earth is great but there's

always some risk that of an annihilation

event on Earth.

>> Yeah.

>> Um like I said self annihilation or some

natural disaster. Um

and uh and so the the probable lifespan

of consciousness increases dramatically

as soon as uh as soon as we are

multilanet species with the key test

being can Mars survive if the resupply

ships stop coming. So so getting like

the first missions to Mars are not that

important. The what matters is can you

get sufficient tonnage tonnage to Mars

such that Mars can prosper on its own.

Um, and that means it has to have all of

the ingredients of civilization. It it

it's not just that you need to build,

for example, a chip factory on Mars or

ship fab on Mars, but you you need the

ability to build.

>> Do you do you have a sense of the time

scale? Like, let's assume Starship is at

a state starting in, you know, 2026.

Then there's going to be a bunch of

testing. Obviously, there's going to be

a bunch of early testing. We only have

certain launch windows. So, there's a

bunch of time constraints. Is that is

this a 50-year thing in your mind? Is it

a 150 year thing? Is it something that

is for our generation or is it our

children's generation? Where do you see

that point if it's optimally possible?

You know, if things go and break our

way,

>> um I think it can be done in in 30

years.

Um

>> wow. So if provided there's an

exponential increase in the in the

tonnage to Mars with each successive

Mars transfer window, which is every two

years. So every two years the the

planets align and you can you can

transfer to Mars. Um, so

I I think in

roughly 15, but maybe as few as 10, but

10 to 15ish Mars transfer windows. If

you're um

seeing exponential increases in the

tonnage to Mars with each Mars transfer

window, then it should be possible to

make Mars self-sustaining um in in about

call it roughly 25 years.

>> Amazing. That's incredible. All right,

ladies and gentlemen, Elon Musk, we'll

see you when we're back in town. We miss

you. We'll

>> see you in person next time.

>> Thank you, brother. All

right.