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Elon Musk - I'll Say What I Want! · Elon Musk Thinking

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I'm certainly saying that that is their policy, and I think you should take
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their words seriously. Like, I work seven days a week. But but
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I I'm not expecting others to do that. Offer me money, offer me
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power, I don't care. Yeah, this this is actually where, UM,
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I don't actually have an office here. I either walk the floor or
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I hold meetings in this room. Okay, And this room allows me to
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see what's going on with production while I'm holding meetings. Is there one particular
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production that you focus on when you're here or that you sort of your eyes
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always go to, or you you actually walk over to. Um, Well,
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this is the end of line that we're seeing here. So if if
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cars aren't moving, um, that means there's some blockage upstream. And then
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I can go and see what that blockage is. UM. So I think
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we might be on a break right now. But this if this, this
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is if this, if a vehicle end of line is not moving, that
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means there's something up stream that's wrong. Got it. Well, it's been
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amazing just to walk around the facility a bit and get a sense for the
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size. All right, you just finished your annual meeting. You took a
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lot of questions from a very eager audience. I feel like most of it
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you've shared before, but there was some news and I want to start there.
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Advertising. You got a big applause. You didn't sound like you were
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going to advertise that much, but you did at least seem to open the
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way to saying, Okay, we might consider doing some advertising. Why.
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Well, I mean, I've believen listened to listening to shareholders, and I
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actually was surprised by the level of enthusiasm for advertising, since we are not
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historically done that. But there perhaps is some good logic to it in that
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if we're simply saying that information by I say that the Tesla Twitter account on
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my Twitter account, we're somewhat preaching to the converted and not reaching people that
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are not already convinced. Essentially, so I think they're probably have a good
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point. Well, I mean, I think it's worth a try and we'll
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see, we'll see how factor Do you have any idea how you'd like to
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try it or what that would involve. Um Well, I mean I have
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some general thoughts about advertising. Um that that you know, if advertising is
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informative, um and and entertaining, then it is it can start to approach
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content. UM. So I think sometimes advertising is perhaps a non informative or
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perhaps in some cases a bit misleading. Um. And in fact, we've
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lost some advertisers on Twitter because community notes applies to advertising too, and so
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if somebody advertises something that isn't, um perhaps a bit inaccurate, then it
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gets community noted, and then they get mad and stop advertising. But we're
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we're care enough about the truth that we're willing to give out give up advertising
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dollars on Twitter, even if in order to having the worst, the least
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inaccurate, right, And I want to talk about that, but I want
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to obviously spend some time on Tesla again. Back to adds though, I
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mean, am I going to start to see test lads during the NFL broadcast
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on a given Sunday Monday Thursday? The NFL's always on, well bar in
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mind. I mean I only just agree to it, so it's not like
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I have a pulle formal strategy. Okay, Well, how much time does
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go into when you think about these things? I mean, was it something
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you decided to do up on stage or at least did you know coming in?
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I may you know this comes up that I may go there. No,
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I mean the questions are not scripted in any way, right, So
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so in that moment, you just said, all right, I'll do some
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ads. That's right. So we're only like twenty minutes later and I'm asking
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you detailed questions. Yeah, have any answers? I guess I'm not sure
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what the most spectrum thing is, except that, like I said, I
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believe that advertising should be informative about a product. It should be ideally esthetically
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pleasing, should be you know, beautiful to some autistic element to it,
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and it should be something that you don't regret watching after it's done. And
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I think if advertising fits those criteria, that it starts to approach content,
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and you wan't advertising that is as close to content as possible such that you
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don't regret the time you spent watching it. But you did say something as
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well, which is that you know you've been preaching in the converted. You
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mentioned a few statistics for example, about safety, about price during the meeting.
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It may not be fully understood by the general auto bio public at large.
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Yeah, so a lot of people still think teslas are super expensive because
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we did start out with an expensive sports car, then slightly less expensive sedan
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and suv. But now we're at the point where the starting price of a
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Tesla is actually below the average selling price of a car in the United States.
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So it Teslas are actually much more affordable than people realize, and so
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we should just make sure people at least know that right and that it tells
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is also the safest cars in the road US in so many ways that people
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actually a lot of people with Tesla don't even know. Um, you know,
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sort of the cabin overheat protection for example, or the fact that we
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continuously update the automatic emergency breaking software and the way the airbags deploy. So
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we look, we look at an accident, we say, is there anything
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we could do from a software standpoint to improve the cars that are already on
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the road, And then what can we update in the design to improve safety?
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So, UM, and I think that you know, the statistics speak
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for themselves. This is not simply a matter of opinion. It's the statistically
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it's safer than anything else. Um, you mentioned affordability. It's something you
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discussed during your meeting. You've also discussed it a bit on the call on
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the earnings call recently, as well, in relation to the Federal Reserve raising
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interest rates and obviously the monthly cost for a typical auto buyer, you think
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it's going to be a tough twelve months ahead. You've said that a few
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times, yes before everyone not just has understood. So it's um, I
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mean simply, uh, you know you can you can think of raising the
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FRED rate as as somewhat of a brake pedal and the economy frankly, it's
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so it's um. It makes a lot of things more expensive, certainly things
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that are bought with credit, but then it has downstream effects on on even
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things that are on board with credit. So um. You know, if
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if the car payment or your home mortgage payment is absorbing more of your monthly
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budget, then you have less to money to buy other things. So actually
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it affects everything, even those that aren't things that are important on credit.
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So UM. And my concern with the with the way that the Federal Reserve
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is making decisions is that they they're just operating with um too much latency.
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Basically, the data is somewhat stale, so they So the federals was was
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slow to raise interest rates um and and now I think they are slow to
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they're going to be slow to lower them. That's that that appears to be
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the case. Yeah, that may well be. We spent a lot of
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time talking about that is a bad imagine, perhaps too much. But when
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it comes to latency, that takes me to pricing, because you've discussed the
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lack of latency in your own ability to understand exactly what's going on in the
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market for those cars as opposed to Yeah, many of the legacy and other
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Yes. Yes, we have real time information on demand so um, so
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we know how many people place an order for it has yesterday, so the
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computer calculates that all um. And literally every day we get a you know,
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an automated email to the exact staff that says how many people place an
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order in which countries for which cars, So we know what demand, we
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know, we know what the orders were yesterday. Um. And you don't
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want to overreact to these things because sometimes you get like little dips for you
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know, reasons that are hard to explain. Do you look at them every
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day? Yeah? Yeah, um, But like I said, you don't
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want to over react to to you know, if like the week is slow
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or something, you don't overreact to that. Um. But if but if
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you look at the trend, say for the over two weeks span or something
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like that, you can see that, Okay, there's this for some reason
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the demand is is less than it was or it's higher. Um, just
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pricing. Yeah, yeah that I mean is that Are you almost like an
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airline at this point in terms of kind of dynamic pricing model? Yes,
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so, um, we we're basically adjust pricing to match demand. Um.
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And um we obviously did a big price drop in Q one, but now
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January is is usually a terrible time for car binding. Um, so there's
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there's seasonality to car purchases. Um with January January, January is often the
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worst month. So um, so we did, we did a big price
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drop and then and then then recently we did we did a pricing care So,
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as I mentioned to the audience, the realities that all companies do significant.
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All car companies make significant adjustments to price because you've got the MSRP number.
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And then if demand is high, a dealers will charge some premium of
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MSRP. If demand is lower, they will have manufacturing incentives, so that
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you can actually see a very big difference over the course of say six months
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between the peak to trough of all cars. It's just that Tesla is so
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immediate and obviously transparent. It's not a question of MSRP and then mock ups
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or discounts. Right, But after your last earnings, a lot of investors
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came away wanting to talk about your margins and wanting to talk about your pricing
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in particular. I think you know, you talked about vehicle cost reduction.
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You sort of even said it's hard to explain the profundity of technically selling cars
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now for no profit and still yielding tremendous economics over time. Yes, I'd
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like you to explain a little bit more of what that means. You did
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a bit in the meeting as well. You're talking about sort of the move
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I think from manual to autonomous and the value add that will come along with
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that. But explain to people why that's profound and why conceivably not that you
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want to You could sell automobiles now for no profit and still make enormous profit
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in the future. Yeah, So Tesla is the only car company selling cars
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that where we believe the car is capable of achieving full autonomy with a software
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update. So the value of a folios or folio autonomous car is we think
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perhaps five times more valuable than an autonomous car. Why, well, the
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utility of a car, typically a passenger car is going to be maybe ten
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ten hours a week, maybe twelve if you say, like somebody's going to
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drive an hour and a half a day on average, so maybe an hour
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commute per day and then an occasional long trip. But figure it's like ten
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twelve hours a week is typical for um, a passenger vehicle. UM.
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And then uh, you also have a lot of costs associated with parking.
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You need a garage or we've got to buy a parking space, or you've
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got to get a you know, got a parking ticket at the at the
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mole. It's there's there's a lot of costs associated with cars. UM.
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And uh, Now if you've got a car that's autonomous, UM, that
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can go around and essentially be like an autonomous uber, UM, the utility
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I think is going to be what it's going to be much higher perhaps you
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know. And then this again there was there's so much speculative I understand we're
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talking about robot taxis here at least what people have called and you have called
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Yeah, autonomous uber is what you think about. So perhaps the utility there
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would be on the order of fifty hours a week. It's just a guess,
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say there's one hundred and sixty eight hours a week. Um, and
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probably as rough guess an autonomous car is will be able to be active instead
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of four or four ten hours a week, probably in argue for about fifty
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But it's the same car, so the and it costs the same to build.
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Um, you're I want to understand the business model a little bit because
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I'm buying the car and instead of it parking at my lot while I'm working,
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it goes off and picks people up and drops them off. Yes,
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who's making the money from that? I assume that that's the value add you're
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talking about. Is it a revenue share? Do you have this model sort
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of took planned out specifically? Is how it would look? Um? Yeah,
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it's it's it's been in the tens of terms and conditions for for quite
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a long time. It has. Yeah, So the the owner of the
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car would make I don't know some amount, who knows what it'd be,
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but perhaps uh, you know, it could be fifty fifty split or seventy
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thirty. I don't know, but um, the cars are are if you
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buy it tells the car, it can only be used in to tells a
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network. It cannot be used in someone else's network. So um that that
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means that if the car is able to be used five times as much and
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and Tesla is likely to make basically two or three times the original value or
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sale value of the car um in in Robotaxi revenue. Right, this is
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this is gigantic, um ass. It'll be like selling cars for software margins
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because in fact it is software, right. So um, instead of effectively
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having say twenty five cent margins, it might be seventy seventy percent or more.
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Um and I mean the free cashal associated with that. It is actually
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truly a staggering amount. The best analysis that I've seen thus far about this
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is from Kathy Woods from arc in Best. We know Kathy, well,
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yeah, she's great. Ye I would assume you like her obviously, she's
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been a used proponent of your stock for many years. Was right, by
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the way, very early on she was right yeah. Um, So I
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thought she was being optimistic, but I she turned out to be in fact
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almost spot on. Yeah. Um And I am familiar somewhere with her analysis.
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What a lot of investors come back to where everybody is your promises of
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full autonomy. Um, and you seem to be saying again it's close.
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Yeah, you said it before, you know that. Yes, I mean
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you said nineteen, I think about twenty and I've certainly been Um. You
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know, if I guess I have somewhat of a pathological optimism. Um,
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well, it works, by the way, because you don't end up with
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this unless you're optimistic. But yeah, exactly. I mean, who would
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try to do this and this and rockets if they weren't pathologically optim No,
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you'd have to be. Yeah, so there's a you know, there's a
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double edged sword. I guess. Um. But but you know, do
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you ever say to yourself, all right, I'm getting a little ahead of
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mysel self here. I mean when you said again, we're going to have
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full autonomy. No, I didn't say, well, I said, I
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think you think, my opinion, we probably will. Okay, Right,
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there's a number of qualifiers there. I think my opinion, we probably will.
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So what do you think in your opinion you probably will win? I
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mean, it does look like it's going to happen this year. Why,
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well, we're not at the point where the car can drive on highways and
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entities with and where a human intervention is extremely rare. So I mean,
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just I was able to drive for several days just dropping a navigation pen in
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random locations in the Greater Wilson area with no interventions, and the same in
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San Francisco, which is a very difficult place to drive. So I mean
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it's you've got bus lanes, one way streets, you know, so it's
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quite quite a challenging a homeless situation. You were driving recently in San Francisco
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where the car was. I have been doing doing that quite a lot because
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of the Twitter's headquartered quarter. Maybe less, maybe a little less soon.
16:07
Yeah, well we'll get to that. But go finish your point though,
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in terms of why you feel more, why you're optimistic for that reason,
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which is that the I've actually never, um, the first time I've had
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a situation where there's been several days in a row going picking random destinations and
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having no safety related intervention, right, so the first time ever. Um.
16:37
I want to get to a lot of other topics, but you know,
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I am curious on Tesla in particular. UM. One thing I haven't
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heard you discuss is the impact on your business of the Inflation Reduction Act.
16:48
At least I haven't heard it. Maybe you've discussed it. Um. You
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know Adam Jonas who follows your company. Morgan Stanley said, we believe the
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IRA is so advantageous to Tesla in terms of absolute dollars versus a legacy AMS
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it could equal as much as forty five percent of current earnings per share.
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Is the IRA going to be usually beneficial to your company? I think I'm
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not sure it'd be it's gonna be that beneficial. Um Uh, there's UM.
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There are. There are significant advantages for having domestic production of batteries,
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which I think is important for strategic reasons. You know. I think as
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we moved to an electric transport economy, I think it's important for the United
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States to UM have some independence with respect to battery production, including all of
17:38
the precursors necessary for a battery. So the the IRA strongly instands that,
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UM, and I think that will prove to be something of important of national
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strategic importance in the future. So I'm not sure I would say it's as
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good as say a forty five percent increase in earnings to share or it's it's
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a it's it's helpful. Yeah, yeah, I would say it's maybe it's
18:04
a half that or something, Okay, but I mean it is quite significant.
18:10
Have you mapped to that at all? Do you have a sense.
18:11
I mean, obviously you talk about storage, for example, which is so
18:15
important. You spend time on that as well. The megapac Is it beneficial
18:18
in that particular area beyond obviously the credits, the tax credits that certain people
18:22
get for buying a Teslam. Yeah, there's two. There's really two posts
18:26
to the IRA. There's the incentive for battery manufacturing um. And it's really
18:34
quite a detail. It's it's actually a very well written uh well in that
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it's it really makes sure that you can't game it. You know, so
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you actually have to build the batteries in the US, and you actually have
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to build the precursis to the batteries. Um. But if you do it
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is um uh. I believe thirty dollars at the at the cell level and
18:55
fifteen dollars at the pack level. I believe, if article correctly so,
19:00
that that that is very significant for batteries and then you've got the consumer tax
19:04
credit for evs provided they are built in the US. Uh and end that
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the package built in the US. So UM, no, this this this
19:15
is the really the first time that we've we've actually had the the first time
19:19
in many years that Tesla has actually had the consumer tax credit. Yes,
19:25
because we actually exceeded the limit for the consumer at tax credit several years ago.
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Um. And so up until December until January this year, I should
19:33
say, there was no consumer attax in center to buy a Tesla, but
19:37
there was for the other car companies because they have not reached They've not made
19:42
that many electric cars, right, they didn't reach their limit. Yeah.
19:45
Um. You know, before I wrap on Tesla, I would like to
19:48
get to China, which is obviously an important market for you. Um.
19:51
You know, I noticed that chart you put up by D's the only company
19:55
that seems to be making money so far. Um, are you concerned at
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all about U, you know, ruthless pricing sort of at the low end
20:02
in the Chinese market and what that will mean to your market share? Though?
20:06
Um? Well, currently a limitation UM with is that is the is
20:11
the production rate of our Shanghai factory it's not demand so UM. I mean,
20:19
so that's there's some constraints on our ability to expand in China and UM,
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and so it's we're making as many card as we can. It's not
20:32
a demand issue, and you can be making batteries soon as well. Yes,
20:37
yes, UM for the Mega pac UM for for mostly for non US
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markets. Yeah. So are you concerned at all about the growing belligerence between
20:47
China and the US? UM. I think that should be a concern for
20:49
everyone. I think you're right. I think it is shared by many people
20:55
who run large organizations and smaller ones. Do you think, for example,
21:00
wild will make a move to take control of Taiwan The official officially, the
21:07
official policy of China is that Taiwan should be integrated. One does not need
21:15
to read between the lines. One consintuely read the lines. Do you think
21:21
so. I think there's a certain there's some inevitability to the situation that would
21:26
not be good for Tesla conceivably, or for any any company in the world.
21:32
Frankly, yes, or any company in the world. I think most
21:36
almost no one really realizes that the Chinese economy and the global the rest of
21:42
the global economy are like conjoin twins, it would be like trying to separate
21:47
conjoin twins. That that's the severity of the situation. UM. And it's
21:52
actually worse for for a lot of other companies than it is for for Tesla.
21:59
I mean, I'm not sure sure where you're gonna get an iPhone,
22:00
for example. UM, and Apple's recently started doing some some sort of small
22:04
amount of production in India. But it's tiny con tiny not to mention an
22:07
advanced semiconductor chip if they take over Taiwan Semi. Correct, you design your
22:12
own chips, but you manufacture them at Taiwan Semi too, Right, we
22:17
do some we do. We do. We use Samsung an TSMC UM.
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But uh, you seem to think it's it's likely to happen. I'm only
22:29
saying that that is their policy, and I think you should take the word
22:33
seriously. They mean it. Um. You know your time. I think
22:40
you've said, in fact some of the brief conversations we've had, you know,
22:42
it's one of the most valuable things in your own control. And I
22:45
am curious now and Tesla investors sort of seemed to rejoice at the announcement of
22:49
a new CEO at Twitter in part because they thought, well, he's going
22:52
to have more time for Tesla. That's true, Is it true? How
22:56
do you see sort of allocating your time now that you will suit no longer
23:00
be the CEO of Twitter? Um? Yeah, so, um, you
23:07
know it was. It was really very pretty challenging, um situation at the
23:10
point which the Twitter A position closed because um, you know, in rough
23:15
terms, uh, that there was a billion and a half dollars of debts
23:18
osing was added. Um. While at the same time, um, there
23:22
was a massive psyche exactly you've said you were four months away from bankruptcy.
23:26
It was three billion dollars in a year, conceivably negative three billion dollars cash
23:30
flow, and had a billion billion dollars in the bank. Yeah. Um,
23:32
no, that's not good. No, anybody who knows anything about corporate
23:34
finance knows it's bad. No. I mean I say that. The analogy
23:38
I was using was it's like being teleported into a plane that's in a nose
23:41
dive, head to the ground, with the engines on fire and the controls
23:45
don't work. Right, you were that's what I want to be. Chose
23:49
to get into the plane? Well, well I did try to exit the
23:53
deal, and it wouldn't let me. I mean it was it was a
23:56
funny situation where where I first, first we posed the acquisition, they said
24:00
hell though they adopted a poison pill, basically saying they'd rather die than be
24:07
then be acquired, like the rather chew on Sanide. But then a few
24:14
months later that they're like, basically have a gun to my head saying no,
24:17
you must acquire us. I mean that's quite a change. It is
24:18
quite a change. But you seem to think I can figure out a way
24:22
out of this, until finally, I guess you realized I can't. It
24:26
was made clear to me that the decision would not come down in my favorite
24:29
Leaguely yeah, all right, well now you have a new CEO. Why
24:34
I think little Linda Yakuen is gonna be great? Why? Um well,
24:41
Twitter is it's very much an advertising dependent business. Linda's obviously incredible at bat
24:45
and she's just a great executive in general. Um So, the and you
24:51
know, my skills and interests are in technology. Um so, you know
24:57
I'll continue to play role advancing the software. Um and you know, you
25:06
know, getting the futures product stuff basically. Um So, I mean the
25:11
general idea is Linda will operate the company and I will build products. Yeah,
25:17
and that's I think that's that's that's a good, that's a good,
25:18
and that will take less of your time. Yeah, and I have I
25:22
have that situation at SpaceX. Um you know, Gwynchotwell, who's amazing um
25:29
uh, you know, operates the company and I and I booked the sort
25:33
of advanced technology, right, both sort of designing in new rockets and that
25:36
kind of thing. And and then that's uh, you know, everyone you
25:40
played to their strengths and that's that's that's mine. That's although I wonder you
25:41
mean in twenty twenty one you said you spend most of your time on the
25:45
development of Starship. I think you've also been quoted I've read I think I
25:48
heard you say, actually think most of your mental energy at certain points has
25:52
been on Starship. Yes, So I wonder have you been diverted from Starship
25:56
a little bit and we'll returned to it as the main focus or is it
26:00
Tesla? You know again, your time, I know, having tried to
26:03
schedule this interview with time. Time treach is a real thing. From Yeah.
26:08
In fact, I I'd say that the only real currency is time.
26:14
Time is the only true currency. So where you're going to spend the currency
26:17
now that you don't have to spend as much a Twitter, Well, I'm
26:21
going to be devoting a lot more time to to Tesla UM and especially on
26:27
the AI development UM and your product development, the and and then there's and
26:36
I'll also be allocating some more time to getting Starship to orbit UM. In
26:42
the case of SpaceX UM, what I was able to do there was to
26:48
as as the Starlink constellation I started working. I was able to move some
26:53
of the best people from the Starlink program to the Starship program UM, so
27:00
they're you know, the timing kind of worked out well that that UM.
27:06
I mean, we have really some of the world's best engineers at SpaceX and
27:10
Tesla, really some incredible human beings. There was some statistic you shared.
27:14
I think three point six million people applied for a job at Tesla. I
27:18
think I didn't I wrote it down. I didn't write it down here since
27:19
a member, but that was that the number. Yeah, it's crazy,
27:23
there's a lot of demand. Have one hundred and twenty seven almost one undred
27:27
twenty thousand employees, but three point six million people applying for a job.
27:33
Yes, and I mean there's you know, we would only add like to
27:37
twenty or thirty thousand jobs. So it's it's it's sort of the acceptance rate
27:41
for for Tesla is it's much more difficult to get into Tesla or SpaceX than
27:48
Harvard, right, the acceptance rate is it's even lower one for two.
27:53
Well, yeah, it's it's it's it's the acceptance rate is lower than the
27:56
most demanding of uses in the world. It's insane. Speaking of employment,
28:03
though, you had seventeen hundred people at Twitter when the plane was nose diving,
28:07
I think you're a fifteen hundred. Now, that's roughly sixty three hundred
28:11
people. Were they all superfluous? No, not all. Do you figure
28:17
out which ones are or is it a little late? You know, sometimes
28:18
it gets a little late. I mean, looked desperate time was called for
28:22
desperate measures. So um, there's no question that some of the people who
28:27
will let go probably shouldn't have been let go because we we simply did not
28:33
have the time to figure out we had to be you know, make make
28:37
widespread cuts to get the run rate under control. So um, you know,
28:42
and uh so this is not to say that hey, everyone who is
28:47
like going from Twitter is like somehow terrible or something. It's just we have
28:51
to with very little information. Uh, get get the the the headcount expenses,
28:57
and that the non Postonalexy it is down to or at least break even,
29:03
And we're not quite a break even yet, but we're close. We
29:07
need to do it fast and if you, if you, if you do
29:08
it fast. Unfortunately, there are gonna be some babies thrown out with the
29:12
South orders. So um so, I definitely, I definitely would not want
29:17
to say, uh, you know, disparage. You know, any I
29:22
understands. But it's funny, you know, I hear from other I've heard
29:23
from other tech CEOs quietly they look at what you did at Twitter, and
29:29
they sort of they won't admit it publicly, but they, you know,
29:33
they said, wow, that was something. I mean to cut that deeply
29:36
and still be able to shun the company. People will argue about how well
29:40
or things were running. Have you heard from any of the CEOs said thank
29:42
you for doing that giving us sort of runway or leeway to at least make
29:47
some cuts of our own. Um I have I've heard that from a few
29:49
people and and I've heard that through the grapevine. Yeah. Um, but
29:53
um, like I said, if desperate times call for desperate measures, or
30:00
that those were desperate times. So do you see starting to I mean,
30:02
we'll lend hire people. Do you think are you ready for people to be
30:04
hired to Twitter? You know, I think we absolutely um need to need
30:08
to hire people and and and if they're not too mad at us, probably
30:12
re hire some of the people that they were let go. Um, and
30:18
they're gonna have to come into the office. Look, I'm a big believer
30:22
that that that that people need to are more productive when they're in person.
30:26
Um, and and and and and really man and the whole sort of work
30:33
from home thing, it's like I think it's Look, there are some exceptions,
30:41
but I kind of think that that the whole notion to work from home
30:44
is a bit like the you know, the fake Marie Antoinette quote. Let
30:48
the meat cake. It's like it's like it's like, really, you're gonna
30:52
work from home, and you're gonna make everyone else who made your car come
30:55
work to the fact work in the factory. You're gonna make the people who
30:57
make your food that gets to live it that they can't work from home.
31:00
That you know, the people that come fix your house, they can't work
31:04
from home, but you can. Does that seem morally right? That's messed
31:10
up. You see there's a moral issue. Yes, I mean I see
31:12
it more. It's a productivity issue, but it's also a moral issue.
31:17
People should get off the moral high horse. Would work from home bullshit?
31:21
Um because they're asking everyone else to not work from home while they do.
31:25
And they're still pushback. By the way, it's still going on. This
31:27
battle is still happening. I mean leaders of organizations and I speak to plenty
31:32
of them. I want people back. I want people back three days a
31:34
week. They're still battling. It's not clear that it's ever going to change
31:38
to people are not coming back. People the laptop classes living in lala land.
31:45
Okay, As I said, you can't look at the cars while people
31:49
are working from from home here of course not um so so the people were
31:55
you know, building cars, servicing the cars, building houses. It's fixing
31:59
houses, making the food, um, making all the things that that that
32:04
people consume. It's it's messed up to assume that that this they have to
32:09
go to work, but you don't how is that that is. It's not
32:14
just a productivity thing. I think it's Marley Marley wrong. Although productivity is
32:20
definitely impacted too, and the ability people learn, I mean on and on
32:24
listen, I like, so, I mean, look, you know people
32:27
will disagree with me about this, but I you know, it's like,
32:30
um, so if you want to work at Tesla, you want to work
32:34
at SpaceX, you want to work at Twitter, You've got to come into
32:37
the office every day. Yes, I mean you know, Like I'm not
32:40
saying um, I'm saying, like, look, we put forty hours in,
32:45
you know, and it, frankly, it doesn't even even need to
32:47
be like, you know, Monday through Friday. You know you work Monday
32:52
through Thursday. And also not saying no one should take I mean, I
32:54
think people should take vacations, like I work seven days a week, but
33:00
but I'm not expecting others to do that. How muchly do you get by
33:02
the way, about six hours you do six hours typically? Yes, No,
33:07
that's not bad. I thought it would be less. I've tried less,
33:09
but my productivity, even though I'm awake more hours, I get less
33:13
done, okay, And the brain pain level is bad if I get less
33:16
than six hours, but you work seven days a week. Yes, yeah,
33:21
I actually only um in terms of actually you say, like, how
33:28
many days in a year do I not put in some meaningful amount of work?
33:30
It's probably about two or three, right, two or three days a
33:37
year? Yeah? A year? Yeah? Yes, Um. I want
33:40
to get to some more specific questions about Twitter that's sort of have a more
33:45
global aspect. Then I still want to get to AI. You're gonna give
33:46
us some time here, can we still? Um? Yeah? I think
33:49
We've got a board meeting coming up, but I'm happy to give as much
33:52
time as reasonably possible. I think it's maybe it's six or something. Okay,
33:54
Well, let's time, is it now? I love another twenty all
33:59
right, at least twenty great. Um, let's talk about free speech a
34:02
bit. You know, you call yourself a free speech absolutist. You want
34:06
Twitter, and this isn't aspirationally. Aspirationally you want Twitter to be as truthful
34:08
as possible, most accurate source of information about the world. Um, so
34:15
what does that mean for how you police lies on the platform? You mentioned
34:19
community notes? Is that I think community? Yeah? I mean i'd say
34:23
so. My overall kind of vision for extra Twitter is to be a cybernetic
34:32
collective mind for humanity. This is going to sound quite esoteric and sci fi,
34:37
but um, so the if if you know, in pursuit of that
34:43
objective, you want to have information move quickly, have that information be accurate,
34:49
and you want to have error correction on that information. So you can
34:52
think of community notes as like an error correction on information in the network.
34:57
And the effect of community notes is actually bigger at the and it would seem
35:00
it's bigger than the number of notes, because if somebody knows that they're going
35:04
to get noted, they are less likely to say something that is false because
35:08
it's embarrassing if you get community noted. Okay, and and that applies even
35:13
to advertisers. By but we've lost that's so far forty million dollars in advertising
35:20
because it was misleading or because because the community notes to two pretty big advertisers
35:28
got community noted. Um. And I yes, um, I think on
35:36
balance the community notes were correct. And I did I did say to those
35:40
advertisers, look provide just go on Twitter and provide some facts that contradict the
35:50
community note. That's the way to deal with the community note is to say,
35:53
is that the community note is saying that the ad is misleading for the
35:57
following reasons. If you've got information that rebuts that note, then just add
36:04
that to the ad. Okay, well, we're coming up on an election.
36:07
I mean it's a ways away, but it's going to all start.
36:09
Um. Yeah, President Trump is allowed back on the platform. He hasn't
36:14
actually come back, right, but one would imagine if and when he does,
36:16
or there are others who will say twenty twenty election was rigged? Is
36:21
that something? I assume that's not something you believe? I well, I
36:27
think the answer The answer is is nuanced, like do I believe Biden?
36:34
One? Yes, I believe you want you voted for I did? Actually
36:37
do you regret that? I mean, man, I wish we could have
36:47
just a normal human being as president. That's what I want't I think,
36:51
if if, if we could, you know, there's that that old saying
36:53
of like we're better we're better off being run by um, by people picked
37:00
at random from the phone book, then the faculty of Harvard. Yeah,
37:02
I don't know I said that, but somebody very wise, um, and
37:07
I would I would say, if we could do that, for the president
37:09
that that would be you're not obviously you're not happy with b don't we all
37:15
just want an all human beings and whatever resids whatever? Sure, normal means
37:21
not what I mean like you know, just I don't know. So you
37:23
want somebody's competent it's helpful, Yes, I think definitely. Um, somebody's
37:29
executive ability is underrated. Since the president is effectively the chief executive officer of
37:32
the country. Um, it actually matters if they are a good executive officer.
37:37
Yeah, it's it's not simply a matter of do they share your beliefs
37:40
and you know, um, but but are they good at getting things done?
37:45
There's a lot of decisions that need to be made every day. Um,
37:49
many of them are unrelated to moral beliefs, you know, right,
37:53
and and you just want a good executive because they're seeing you over America they
38:00
are they are. We want a good CEO of America. I was going
38:04
to do be it effective. Unfortunately, we live in highly partisan times where
38:09
there is were about everything, including ideas, including the truth, which gets
38:14
back to it's not true that the election in twenty and twenty was rigged.
38:19
It wasn't stolen, and I wonder on the platform when you see that,
38:22
does that end up in a community note or is that something you take more
38:24
action on? And obviously there places so many I mean, to be clear,
38:28
I don't think it was there was a stolen election. Um. But
38:34
by the same token, if somebody's going to say that there's there's never any
38:37
election fraud anywhere, this is obviously also false. Yeah. If if if
38:42
one hundred million people vote, the probability that the fraud is zero is zero.
38:47
Of course there's always going to be some right, I mean, is
38:51
perhaps, I mean there were This election was audited, it was so many
38:54
judges, and it went on and on and on, and there was no
38:58
nothing whatsoever that I don't want to debate this with you. My question is
39:01
more about what I think it's important to say, like that in any given
39:05
election, even if you try your hardest, if you've got one hundred million
39:07
votes, there's gonna be some some amount of fraud that is not zero,
39:10
and that that it's important to acknowledge that without saying that that the fraud was
39:15
of sufficient magnitude to change the outcome. So uh so, my opinion would
39:21
be that there was some there was some small amount of fraud, but it
39:23
was not enough to change the right and by the way, it might have
39:25
been either way. I mean, you know, yeah, there will probably
39:28
a little bit, but again it's gonna be You're gonna let people say that
39:30
though on the on Twitter, and then you're gonna hope that they're corrected,
39:34
and they will be corrected. They will be Oh yeah. Let's talk a
39:38
bit about your tweets, um, because it comes up a lot um even
39:44
today it came up and you know, anticipation of this. I mean,
39:47
um, you know, you do some tweets that seem to be or at
39:52
least give support to some who would call others conspiracy theories. Well yes,
39:59
but I mean honestly, you know some of these conspiracy theories, uh I've
40:06
turned out to be true. Which ones, well, like the hunter Biden
40:10
laptop that's true. Yeah yeah, so uh you know that that that that
40:15
was a pretty big deal. There was Twitter and and and others engaged in
40:20
active suppression of information that was relevant to the public. M that's that's a
40:23
that's a terrible thing that happened. That's like your interference. But how do
40:27
you make a choice? You don't see I mean in terms of when you're
40:30
going to engage. I mean, for example, even today, Eli you
40:34
you tweeted this thing about George Soros. Well, I'm looking for because I
40:38
want to make sure I quote it properly. But I mean, you know
40:40
what you wrote, but it basically reminds me of my NATO. This is
40:44
like, you know, calm down, people, this is not like case
40:46
out of it. As you said, he wants to route the very fabric
40:51
of civilization and Sos hates humanity. Like when you do something like that.
40:54
Yeah, I think that's true. That's my opinion. Okay, but why
40:58
share it? Why share it especially? I mean why share it when people
41:02
who buy teslas may not agree with you, advertisers are on Twitter may not
41:06
agree with you. Why not just say hey, I think this. You
41:09
can tell me, we can talk about it over there, you can tell
41:12
your friends, But why share it widely? I mean, this is a
41:17
freedom of speech. I'm allowed to say whatever you absolutely are, But I'm
41:21
trying to understand why you do, because you have to know it's got a
41:23
there. It puts you in in the middle of a the partisan divide in
41:28
the country. It makes you a lightning rod for criticism. I mean,
41:30
do you like that. You know, people today saying he's an anti Semite.
41:35
I don't think you are. No, I'm definitely. I'm like,
41:37
I'm like a pro Semite. If anything, I believe that probably is the
41:42
case. Why would you even introduce the idea of it that that would be
41:46
the case. I mean, it looks we don't want to make this a
41:49
George Stars interview. No, God, no, I don't. I don't
41:52
want it at all. But I'm what I'm trying even came up there when
41:53
the annual meeting. I mean, you know, do your tweets hurt the
41:58
company? Are there test loan or just I don't agree with his political position
42:01
because and I know it because he shares so much of it, or their
42:05
advertisers on Twitter that Linda Yak Greena will come and say you gotta stop man,
42:08
or you know, I can't get these ads because of some of the
42:12
things you tweet. You know, I'm reminded of as we'll see it in
42:31
the Princess Bride Great movie, Great Um, where he confronts the person who
42:38
killed his father. He says, offer me money, offer me power.
42:52
I don't care. See, you just don't care. You want to share
43:01
what you have to say, I'll say I don't want to say and if
43:05
if if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it. Okay.
43:12
But I mean when you when you when you linked to somebody who's talking
43:15
about the guy who killed children in a mall in Allen, Texas, you
43:22
say something like it might be a bad siop. I'm not quite sure what
43:25
you meant. But oh, in that particular case, Uh, there was
43:36
a somehow that's that's not not not that the that the people people were killed,
43:44
but the it was I think incorrectly described to be a white supremacist action.
43:50
Um. And the evidence for that was some obscure Russian website that no
43:55
one's everihood of that had no followers, um and the like. The company
44:01
that that found this is belling Cat. Right. Did you know what belling
44:06
Cat does? Psy ops? Right? I couldn't really even follow exactly what
44:10
it was you were trying to express there, So that's part why I was
44:14
curious. But I'm saying that I thought this, the ascribing a two white
44:16
supremacy was bullshit, okay, and and uh and and and that the information
44:22
for that came from an obscure Russian website and was somehow magically found by belling
44:28
Cat, which is a company that does psy ops. And there's no proof
44:34
by the way that he was not. There's no I would say that there's
44:37
no proof that he is. And that's a debate you want to get into
44:40
on Twitter. Yes, because we should not be ascribing things to white supremacy.
44:45
If if there, if it's false. Okay, um, can we
44:51
talk about AI now? Actually I want to talk about AI. Well,
44:53
let me end with Twitter in the sense of Sam Altman was on the Hill
44:58
today and he said AI's ability to manipulate interactive disinformation is a significant area of
45:04
concern. It's moving so quick, it is a concern. And how do
45:08
you know, I'm curious as to whether you agree with that? How you
45:12
see that even playing out on Twitter with people who know somebody could you know
45:16
look like you and or me and use our voice. I don't know what
45:20
it could be. Oh that that that that that is happening in big time.
45:23
Um so the so the reason that I'm asking people to be verified on
45:32
Twitter and and and that we're saying, okay, verification means you've got a
45:37
phone number from a reputable carrier, which means that you've at least passed through
45:42
whatever they're uh security mechanisms are that you have a credit card, which so
45:49
you now have passed through whatever security mechanisms the credit card company has. And
45:53
that there's some small amount of money paid per month. Um uh. That
45:59
that sort of action um uh significantly increases the cost of of fake accounts.
46:06
Um and the with with modern with with with the latest AI um it can
46:13
bypass basically every test for are you a human? So so then how do
46:17
you know that a million accounts were created? How do you know that those
46:22
were people? I don't know? How do you exactly you have to do?
46:28
You have to do account verification um and and the thing that makes the
46:32
like I sort of put myself in a position of like, if it was
46:36
my goal to manipulate public opinion and create millions of accounts and make a team
46:40
as though a topic was trending um and and that and that this is actually
46:45
what the public beliefs um and But in order to do so, I had
46:50
to get a million phone numbers, a million credit card numbers and pay uh,
46:54
you know, eight bucks a month um and and and have that old
47:00
not be traceable and clustered. I would say it's impossible. Impossible. So
47:05
the goal of the uh of the sort of Twitter verification is fundamentally to prevent
47:12
AI manipulation of the system. Got it. Um final question on Twitter,
47:16
Walter Isaacson, your biographer, he said, your big goal for Twitter is
47:22
disrupting the banking industry. Um. I'd say that's that's that's a that's a
47:30
look. First of all, I don't want to disrupt something with the psake
47:34
of disrupting it. It's more like, if there is a better product,
47:37
that's great. But I'm not output disruption for the tsake disruption. I'm like,
47:39
if we're gonna make a product that improves a quality of life for people
47:44
that they find more useful, that that's great. Um and Uh, what
47:50
what people see in PayPal is sort of like sort of a halfway. It's
47:54
sort of a sort of it's frankly sort of a half baked version of what
47:59
it could be. Um and um and so I think there's potential to create,
48:05
um, a more efficient financial system. UM. And here we can
48:12
get again quite quite esoteric, sort of into a sort of information theory.
48:15
But um, the actual financial system today is a heterogeneous set of databases running
48:21
on mainframes and coval um that still engage in batch processing. It's really quite
48:27
uh very inefficient. Um so, UM things are still not real time um
48:31
and and so it's possible to have um a much more efficient, homogeneous real
48:37
time data system. Money is just information, um and and so the so.
48:45
But that's not like the only reason. It's it's just a thing that
48:49
that would be I think poetic to fulfill ultimately the vision that I had for
48:54
X over twenty three years ago. Um and and actually see that counter fruition
49:02
would be nice. But but there are many other things for Twitter, it's
49:07
not just financial. Well, you talk about enhancing humanity. You know,
49:10
I'm curious than a bad AI, which many people say will lead to great
49:15
productivity gains. You show those robots, I mean, I can imagine what
49:20
they conceivably could do empowered by AI. But I'm also curious, because you've
49:22
certainly been concerned, what percentage do you give the chance that it will destroy
49:28
humanity? Well, the event of artificial general intelligence is cult to singularity because
49:37
it is so hard to predict what will happen after that. UM. I
49:44
think it's it's it's very much a double double edged sword. I think it's
49:47
there's there's a there's a strong probability that it will make life much better and
49:52
that will have an age of abundance um and and there's some chance that it
49:57
goes wrong U and destroys humanity. Hopefully that chance is small, but it's
50:02
not zero um And so I think we want to take whatever actions we can
50:07
think of to minimize the probability that AI goes And you've called for a pause
50:09
along with the number of other people. Yes, I look when I call
50:13
for the a friend of mine, Max Techmark, because a physicist said at
50:16
mit UM you know, I wanted me to sign on to the letter.
50:21
And it's it's like I knew it would be futile. It is futile.
50:24
I knew would be futile. I just want to call it like it's one
50:27
of those things. Well, for the record, I recommended that we pause.
50:30
Uh did I think we would there would be a pause? Absolutely not.
50:36
So you're starting, uh x AI, I think that's what you're calling
50:40
it or some new AI effort. Um. Well, how is it going
50:45
to be different than open AI or alphabet This is this is not the time
50:51
to to this. I we don't have enough time and and order. Is
50:57
this the moment to really talk about it? Um, we will have a
51:01
launch event and will explore the issues in more detail. But UM, I
51:07
should say that that, and I mentioned this at the shareholder meeting, that
51:13
um Tesla has actually um tremenous capability in real world AI. Yes, in
51:20
fact, it is very far ahead of anyone I know. People actually on
51:24
Twitter prior to our interview, we're saying, you know, he never gets
51:28
asked about how advanced his AI is A Tesla. You always talk about the
51:32
other names. Tesla is, like I said, by It's like if there's
51:38
not I'm not even sure who's second. Frankly, Um, why is that?
51:42
Why? Then? What? What are people not understanding about what you
51:44
have? And why are we talking so much about chat, GPT and generative
51:46
AI at open AI and what Microsoft can be able to do with it and
51:51
not about Tesla. I don't know. I mean people do talk about it
51:54
online. UM. I think I think Tesla will have sort of a chat
52:00
GPT moment maybe, If not this year, i'd say no later the next
52:04
year. UM, wait say that again. I'm sorry you're going to have
52:07
a sort of chat GPT moment, Oh you will in terms of suddenly it
52:10
will Yeah, suddenly three million cars were a will drive themselves with no one
52:15
Right, it goes back to that right yeah, and then five million cars
52:17
and then ten million cars. So um, the and and and and I
52:23
would I would also say that if if positions were reversed, um, and
52:28
say um, well, in fact, the positions are our reverse. For
52:30
example, Google has way Moot, which is, you know, sort of
52:36
attempting self driving, and they are able to make self driving work in a
52:38
very limited geography with with very tightly mapped streets, but as soon as any
52:44
as soon as that anything goes wrong with those streets, like there's an accident
52:47
or a parade um or road construction, uh, it stops working. Basically,
52:54
Google is unable to produce a generalized solution to self driving that works anywhere.
53:00
They've been trying to that for a long time. They have been unsuccessful.
53:02
Tesla basically has that, and it's far more advanced that than Google.
53:09
Yea, And so if the positions were reversed and you said okay, um,
53:15
Tesla's got to produce a large language model that has output equal to a
53:20
greater than CHATCHVT or Microsoft. Open Eye has to do self driving, and
53:24
we just we flipped the tasks. Tesla would win, You'd win. Yes,
53:30
you have a computing power and everything else. You'd have to do it
53:31
absolutely. Um I'm being told we don't have that much time. Do you
53:36
can you give me another five minutes? Or yeah? Yeah, I think
53:38
so. I do have a board meeting. I know five five minutes is
53:44
probably fine. Sure, okay, thank you? Um um open Ai.
53:51
I mean you seem somewhat frustrated with them. You were one of the big
53:52
contributors early on the reason I am the reason Opening Eye exists. How much
53:59
money did you give them? Um so. Uh, I'm not sure the
54:06
exact number, but it's some some number on the order of fifty million dollars.
54:09
So the man fate loves irony next level, um So, I used
54:17
to be close friends with our page, and I would say at his house,
54:20
and we'd have these conversations long long into the evening about AI, and
54:23
I would I would be constantly urging him to be careful about the danger of
54:29
AI, and and and and he just he was really not concerned about the
54:35
danger of AI, and was quite cavalier about it, um and and and
54:42
and. At the time, Google, especially after their acquisition of deep Mind,
54:45
had three quarters of the world's AI talent. They had obviously a lot
54:49
of computers and a lot of money. Um, so it was a unipolar
54:52
world for four AI and and go unipolar world. But but the the person
54:58
who controls that does not or at least did not seem to be concerned about
55:02
AI safety. That that's that sounded like a real problem, so um and
55:07
then the final straw was Larry calling me a speciist for being pro human consciousness
55:15
instead of machine consciousness. And I'm like, well, yes, I guess
55:17
I am. I am a specioust and so right, so you helped to
55:22
the creation of open AI. You put as much as fifty million dollars more
55:27
than help. It wouldn't exist without it wouldn't exist without you. So I
55:29
came up with a name. The name opening Eye refers to open source.
55:35
So it's the intent was what's the okay? So what was the opposite?
55:37
What's the opposite of of Google? Would would be an open source nonprofit because
55:44
Google is closed sourced for profit. Um and that profit motivation can be finicially
55:49
dangerous. Um. So uh, should you've gotten governance for that money?
55:53
Should you have gotten some level of control? Perhaps in retrospect? Yeah,
56:01
I fully admit to being a huge idiot here um so um anyway, So,
56:08
so Opening I was like meant to be. Opening I opened as an
56:13
open source. It was created as a buy one C three um and but
56:19
so so part of it is also in the beginning, I thought, look,
56:21
this is this is probably a hopeless endeavor. How could we possibly compete
56:24
with How could Opening I possibly compete with with Google Deep Mind? I mean
56:30
this, this seemed like an ant against an elephant, you know, which
56:32
is not a contest um and um. And I was also h I mean
56:45
I I was instrumental in recruiting that the key scientists and engineers, most specifically,
56:53
most notably Elias skier Um. In fact, Elio went back and forth
57:00
several times because he would say he's going to join an Opening Eye, then
57:04
Demis would convince him not to, Then I would convince him to do so,
57:07
and then and this went back and forth several times, and ultimately decided
57:10
to join an Opening Eye. And really Eliot joining was the was the lynchman
57:15
for Opening Eye being ultimately successful. You're very disappointed in what's happened there in
57:20
terms of it becoming a for profit. In way, I do think that
57:28
there's some look, it does seem weird that something can be UM a nonprofit
57:38
open source and somehow transform itself into a for profit closed source. UM.
57:45
I mean this would be like like, let's say you funded an organization to
57:49
save the Amazon rainforest and instead they became a lumber company and chopped down the
57:53
forest and sold it for money. And you'd be therefore like, oh wait
57:58
a second, that's the exact opposite of what I gave the money for.
58:02
Is that legal? That doesn't seem legal? And if it is, and
58:07
in general, if it is legal to start a company as a nonprofit and
58:14
then take the IP and transfer it to a for profit that then makes tons
58:17
of money, shouldn't everyone start shouldn't that be the default? Um? And
58:24
and and then I also think it's important to understand the like like when push
58:30
comes to shove, let's say they do create some some digital superintelligence, almost
58:35
godlike intelligence. Well, who's in control and what exactly is the relationship between
58:40
opening I and Microsoft? And I do worry that Microsoft actually may be more
58:45
in control than say the leadership team, and Opening Eye realizes I mean Microsoft
58:51
had as part of the Microsoft investment, they have rights to all of the
58:54
software, all of the model weights, and everything necessary to run the inference
59:00
them. So they essentially have a great deal of control. At any point,
59:05
Microsoft could cut off Open the Eye. Elana, I'm being told we
59:09
have to wrap up. Your board has been very satient. I want to
59:13
end on one AI question. You have a lot of kids. I have
59:16
some kids. I have one who's actually soon to go into the workforce.
59:22
I struggle with how to advise him about a career when this technology exists and
59:27
will only improve. I'm just curious when you think about advising your children on
59:30
a career with so much that is changing, what do you tell them there's
59:35
going to be a value. Well, that's a tough question to answer,
59:58
I guess m I would just say, you know, to to sort of
1:00:02
follow their heart in terms of what they find interesting to do or fulfilling to
1:00:07
do. UM and UM, you know, try to be as useful as
1:00:13
possible to the rest of the society. UM. You know, if we
1:00:19
do get to the sort of like magic Genie situation where UM, you can
1:00:22
ask the A for for anything. Um. And let's say it's even the
1:00:28
benign scenario. Let's say it's a benign scenario. How do we actually find
1:00:30
fulfillment? You know, it's ah, how do we find meaning in life?
1:00:36
If the air I could do your job better than you can? Um.
1:00:45
I mean, if I think about it too hot it correctly, it
1:00:45
can be uh just dispiriting and demotivating. Um. Because I mean I I
1:00:54
go through I mean I I've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears
1:01:00
into building the companies. And then and then I'm like, wait, well
1:01:02
should I be doing this? Because if I'm sacrificing time with friends and family
1:01:07
that I would prefer to do. But then ultimately the AI can do all
1:01:13
these things. Does that make sense? I don't know. Um. To
1:01:17
some extent, I have to have deliberate suspension of disbelief in order to remain
1:01:22
motivated. UM. So I guess I would say, just, you know,
1:01:30
work on things that you find interesting, fulfilling, and that contributes some
1:01:35
good to the rest of society.