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In 2007 Interview, Elon Musk Predicted Everything! · Elon Musk Thinking

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being with us. You're at
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Wired Science, Well, thank you for having me. I need
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: to first lay a little bit of a foundation here.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Two days into your physics program at Stanford University, you
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: quit school to start a company called zip to a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: media company, which you sold a few years later for
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a paltry three hundred and seven million dollars. Then four
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: years later eBay buys PayPal. Is that correct? A company
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: that you established or helped you establish as work. And
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: now you've taken those two enormous successes and you set
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: your ambition on space. How did you go from online
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: payment systems to building a spaceship? Essentially?
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Well, when I.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Graduated from college, there were three areas that I thought
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: will be most impactful to the future of humanity. The
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: three were the Internet, space exploration, and then changing the
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: economy from a mine and burn hydrocobony based economy to
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: one which is cellar electric, which I think is going
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: to be the primary, but not exclusive means of energy
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: and transportation.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Have we screwed it up so badly here on this
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: planet that our only hope is to build a new
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: civilization out there.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Actually, I'm quite optimistic about the future of humanity on Earth.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: You are, yeah, absolutely, So what is the benefit to
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: humanity then to inhabit Mars, which is really what is
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: an ambition of yours? Well, I think if you consider
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: two paths, one where we're forever confined to Earth and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the other where we are space frank civilization out exploring
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the stars, I think the latter is far more exciting
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and will result in a richer and more diverse human experience.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: How can you do that better than NASA?
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Well, well, you know, NATA is a customer of ours,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: So there's a confusion in the public mind that perhaps
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: a company like SpaceX is competing with NASA, but in fact, NASA.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Is a customer of ours.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: So we're actually providing services to NASA launch services.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: And when the.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Shuttle retires in twenty ten, so starting in twenty eleven,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: SpaceX's a rocket will replace the Space Shuttle in so
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: the space station with astronauts and Cogo transportation.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: The name of your rocket ship is called the Falcon Explorer.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Is that it, Well, the Falcon nine, the Falcon nine, yeah,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: is the rocket, and then the spaceship is Dragon Dragon. Yeah,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: So the Falcon nine rocket lifts the Dragon spaceship. And
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: this Dragon spaceship is what goes to the space station
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: and then returns to Earth.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So it transports the falcon as almost cargo.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Then, so yeah, the Falcon nine is kind of like
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: the Semi okay or something like that, and transit the
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: falcon Ie booster rocket takes the Dragon spaceship to space
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: and drops it off. Then it goes to the space station,
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: but it ducks with the space station, transfers astronauts or
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: resupply you know, cargo, whatever whatever the case may be,
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: and then the Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Reading some of the speeches that you have given in
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: your your career, and you mean like that, you're particularly
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: twenty three years You're twenty three years old.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I'm actually twelve, you're twelve.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, you look terrific, But you
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: have said that we got law along the way with
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: our space program. What do you mean by that? Right?
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: I think I think that was in some of my
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: congressional testament I gave a few speeches to Congress. Well,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: what I mean by that is in nineteen sixty nine
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  Speaker 3: we were able to go to the Moon, and here
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: we are over three decades later and we can barely
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: get to lower orbit. And I think by any measure,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: that is a step backwards.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Is that for a lack of leadership or technology.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: I think we made the wrong technological choices. And I
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: think there was also a lack of will at the
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: highest levels of government to take the next step and well,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: at least go at least stay on the Moon and
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: peraps build a base there and then go beyond the
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Moon to Mars. And if you look at the news
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: articles in the late sixties early seventies, the expectation was
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: that by now in the twenty first century, we would
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: have a Moon base and probably even a Mars bace.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: And I think if you'd asked anyone at that point
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: in time whether we would be unable to go to
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: the Moon and have no and not have been to Mars,
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: think they would I think you're crazy.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Do we need a leadership in that realm? Do we
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: need a John F. Kennedy who sets a goal for
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: us when he said one one day man will walk
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  Speaker 1: on the moon.
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  Speaker 2: Do we need that.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of leadership for this technology to move forward in
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  Speaker 1: that big step.
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  Speaker 3: I do think it's it's very important the president set
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: the priority and and determine that the goal.
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  Speaker 2: Uh you know that that reals nation will all aspire to.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, George Bush has his pluses and minuses,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: but at least one plus is that he has helped
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: to steer the space program in a direction that that.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: More or less makes sense. You know.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: The only thing I would I would sort of argue
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: with is that I don't think we should be going
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: back to the Moon.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I think we should be focused on Mars. I think
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: we saw the Do.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: You think that's a mistake focusing on the Moon?
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: I do think I do think we should rather go
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: I think we should rather be focused on on Mars.
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  Speaker 3: You know, the Moon is kind of like it's kind
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: of like the Arctic, and it's just it's just a
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: very barren place and very very little resources.
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  Speaker 2: It's small, it's not it's not really a place.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: That we could establish of the human civilization.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: There's a there's a there's a feeling of been there,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: done that too with the Moon.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: Yes, we saw that movie of the Sexies, you know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: and the room makes never as good.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Did we really go to the Moon?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Ah?
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, we definitely just wanted to the government is incapable
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: of suppressing a conspiracy of that.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Mantor of that newture.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, good, This ambition to explore space absolutely entrepreneur. There's
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: there's quite a bit of competition out there. There's Jeff
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Bezos with Blue Origin, There's Richard Branson with his Virgin
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Galactic and I'm not talking about NASA either. There's Paul Allen,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: there's the European Space Agency in Boeing and Lockheed Martin,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the Chinese, the Russians. Let's just throw all of them
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: into this a competitive field. How is SpaceX different? How
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: do you think you'll sort of surpass them?
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: Well, you know you've You've listed a wide range of
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: entities there, and I think the differences are really different
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: depending upon which one you're referring to.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: The Well, let me ask you this question. Who is
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: your competition?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: We have no serious competition, No, not presently.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Who's chasing you?
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Well, if you mean chasing and have and has a
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: serious chance of catching, then I think none that I'm
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: aware of. And by the say you guys kind of
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: a hack, then well, what Branson is doing, by the way,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: I'm great admirer at Branson is really a much smaller
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: technological challenge.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So their craft.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Would be suborbital, so it would go to about mark three.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Our craft is orbital, it goes to mark twenty five,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: so twenty five times to speed of sound. But that
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: doesn't describe the whole scale of difficulty because the energy
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: required to get those philosophies scales as the square of
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: the velocit. So to do what Branson is doing, you
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: need to say about nine units of energy. To do
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: what we're doing, you need six hundred and twenty five
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: units of energy. The difference is monumental, and then when
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: you Rehanner you have to you have to burn off
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: all that energy, so that double's the problem.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Really.
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  Speaker 3: So what Branson is known for a technological standpoint is
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: building something that can cross the English Channel. What we're
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: building is something that can circ navigate the globe. It's
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: a very different scale of technological difficulty. I still think
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: what he's doing is great, and by the way, I
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: bought a ticket on his effort. Yeah, yeah, I still
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: think it's great, but it's not in the same league technologically.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So you're not particularly worried.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Certainly, not about no sileinly not about that. Now, the
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: things that worry me are are we going to make
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: a mistake? The things that can really hurts face x
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: are I mean, our own foolishness, our own errors can
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: hurt us, but not none of the competition that I'm
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: aware of.
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  Speaker 1: So generally you're worried about what's in front of you,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: not the other guy, And in fact, you probably don't
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: think about them in terms of how they criticize you
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: or what they think about you.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think, actually, I don't think there's much criticism.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I mean Boeing and Lockied of course that they would criticize,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: but I don't think any of the entrepreneurial guys would
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: criticize what we're doing. And it certainly possibly I think,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: you know, what Jeff Bezos is working on could ultimately,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, he does have aspirations to get to over
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: and beyond. It's just that what they're doing right now
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: is sub orbittal and at the sort of lower technology level.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: What I think about at basics is really entirely what
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: are we doing to ensure that our rocket is going
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: to be successful and that we are truly optimizing the
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: cost and ensuring a higher liability. I mean, that's just
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: a very very difficult problem. There's a reason why there's
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: an atomatic expression about rocket science being hard.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: It really is really hard.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: So rocket science really is rocket science.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks hard, and it's harder than it looks.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: What's the big goal here, what's the long term plan?
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Well, that the long term ultimate objective, the holy grail
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: is we would like to help make life multiplanetary.
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  Speaker 1: That's really what we'd like to do, so establish societies
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  Speaker 1: on as many any planets as possible.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I think there's only one possibility. But yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I mean even if we can just go from one
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  Speaker 3: planet to two, I think that's a pretty big step.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And you'll start with well Mars. Mars is the only Bible.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Viable planet, so multiplanetary life.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, helped make life multiplanetary. I think that's an important thing.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think your goal is big enough. Hah, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's ambitious.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Well, like I said, we don't expect to do it
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: single handedly, but we certainly would like to help make
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: it happen.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: It's fair to say you've made a fortune.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so if you have any reasonable standard.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, those who work in science probably
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: understand your trajectory. But there are those who are watching?
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Who would think if I made that money, I'd sit
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: on a beach, I'd drink beer, and I would just
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: watch the sunset, kind of like a Corona beer commercial.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about that as a career option?
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: You know, I find that really pretty boring, So that
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: would be torture. If I had to do that every day,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: that would really be pretty awful for me.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Is there something about startup businesses that really fuels your
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: desire to work?
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess I really need to be preoccupied to
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: something and if I'm just sort of sitting there relaxing,
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  Speaker 3: I can only do that for a very short period
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: of time and then it becomes unbearable.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Although startups definitely have their highs and lows.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: And as a friend of mine, who is a good phrase,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: you know, a startup business is like eating glass and
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: staring into the abyss.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: What is the criteria that you established for yourself or
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: a startup?
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, why one business over another?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Well, for me, it's always about does what I'm doing matter?
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: If we are successful, does it matter to the world?
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: And so there are easier ways to make money than
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: starting a rocket company, or say a car company, or
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: even when I started an Internet company, because when I
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: started the first Internet company, nobody had made any money,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: and it wasn't clear that anyone would make any money.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: It was simply from the perspective of the Internet being
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: a very important thing and something that needed to be built,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: and so I wanted to.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Help hold it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Well, you touch upon something that's interesting is that there
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: is a benefiting humanity is a very integral part of
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: your criteria no matter what you're starting up. Yes, absolutely,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: really not everybody has that as a prime interest, but.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: I think that's that's probably relatively unusual, although there are
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: many people that I know in Silicon Valley for whom
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: that is a significant motivation.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: You said in your endeavor here to explore space that
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: we are committed to failing in a new way, if
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: nothing else. What did you mean by that? Just just
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: how it sounds.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean we're I mean we're committed to succeed.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Really, but if we do fail, I would hope that
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: greatly stads to the body of knowledge such that those
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: who follow may make few mistakes.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Now, if Mars were not enough you you are busy
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: here on earth, the world is not enough.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: That's for you?
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Where what have you no limits? My friend? Here on earth.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: You are establishing a presence, certainly with Tesla Motors. Tell
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: us a little bit about that. This is your electric
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: car company wreck right, and this is no this is
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: no hybrid car you could buy on a car lot.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: This thing goes from zero to sixty and four seconds?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Is that? Yes? Absolutely is zero sixteen under four seconds.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: It's faster, a better acceleration than any port currently in
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: production and any Ferrari except the end Zoe.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: And it's twice the energy efficiency of a Prius.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: So it's you really have the moral high ground and
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: you get to, you know, leave the Ferrari guy in
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: your dest So.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Well, let me start to be let me ask the obvious. Well,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and you don't look like one of those guys who's
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: trying too hard in Ferrari.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, you don't look like a jerk, you know you.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Up right banana yellow Lamborghini or or absolutely.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: I mean this something I just point out about Tesla,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: which is we didn't you know Tesla is the first
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: car is a sports car, not because we think the
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: world lacks for a sports car, but because it is
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: the right entry point for the market. If you have
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: a new technology, the right place to enter is high
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: unit cost, low unit volume. Just as you know when
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: a new cell phone come out comes out, or a
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: new a new laptop or or some some new thing,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: it tends to be expensive at first because they're figuring
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: out all the issues and it takes time to optimize,
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: and then over time that that technology will become cheaper
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: and cheaper. And so the model two of Tesla, UH,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: maybe I'm leaping ahead here, but Model two of Tesla
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: is a forty nine thousand dollars four door, five passenger sedan,
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: and that's that's going to be obviously a much broader
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: market segment that that that can make use of that car.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: And then model three is intended to be around a
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars price point, and so that's that's really
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: affordable by by almost everyone who's who's who can buy
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: a new car. So the idea is to drive to
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: mass market as rapidly as possible, but only at the
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: pace at which the technology matures.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: So is Henry Ford and someone you admire.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I think Henry Ford made some very important contributions
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: to UH to business and obviously, you know, moving moving
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: manufacturing line and that sort of thing. So I think
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: you certainly worthy of admiration. Here's a bit of an
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: out duct, but you know, certainly noteworthy. But the interest
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: in Tesla's is not from the perspective of, you know,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: the world needs another car company. It's more from the
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: perspective of we have a very important environmental problem that
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: needs to be addressed, which is driven by the burning
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: of fossil fuels and the increasing K two concentration in
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: the atmosphere and global climate change, which I think is
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: going to be one of the most significant issues of
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the twenty first century. And the only way to really
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: get around that, in my view, is really with an
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: electric vehicle, and then you need to pair that up
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: with a zero mission power generation method such as solar power.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: I think is solar power is going to be a
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: really big deal.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Tesla is not a hybrid car.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Tesla's pure electric, pure electric.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: So help connect the dots from me, why aren't we
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: seeing Tesla cars on the car lots?
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Then, well, what's keeping the day them yet? So we're
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: just finishing up the development right now.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And anybody can buy this, Yes, how will you?
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Actually we've almost sold out of two thousand and seven productions.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: So if somebody doesn't want to buy next year's model,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: they better act quickly.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: One of the primary complaints about hybrid vehicles is they're
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: not fast enough. You seem to overcome.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: You won't have any trouble with this. In fact, really
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: there's something uniquely better about electric vehicles, which is that
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: the talk response is immediate. So if you want to
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: pass someone, I mean you just the response to the
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: car is very immediate. It's just it's more fun to
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: drive an electric car than it is to drive a
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: gasoline car.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I was going to say that Tesla the car,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the name of the car company is no coincidence, is it.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: We'll explain a little bit about that, right.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: The company is named after Nicola Tesla, who was an inventor.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: He was originally from the sort of the area of
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Yugoslavia and Europe, but he moved to America when he
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: was young and was an inventor of the ac induction motor.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Invented a lot of the principles of magnetism. So he
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: was a great man, a great, great inventor, and so
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: the company is named in honor of him.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: So these cars, the Tesla Roadster the first the first
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: issue of the Tesla Roster available in two thousand and seven. Yes,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: in the spring the summer. How do you get on
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the waiting list?
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Well, you buy the car.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: You basically put down a deposit, and we've actually can
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: you do that through the web. Yeah, we'll have by
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: the way customer centers all around the country. So we'll
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: have one in La, one of the various Cargo Miami,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: New York, and eventually nationwide customer centers where somebody does
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: want to see the current person take a test drive
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: or see the car being worked on. I mean, we
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: have this idea for the way that the car is
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: a service, that it should be a really really pleasant experience.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: So we have you know, some some some somewhere between
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: like a Starbucks and Apple store. So you go in
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: and you see the car being car's being worked on
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: behind a glass partition that would be your car you're
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: watching or somebody else's can. But it's really clean, it's
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: really clean, present bright. It'll be sort of a you know,
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: coffee bar available, you know, just to we really want
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: to have a very pleasant experience that that you don't
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: typically get if you go into a dealership.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Have you heard from Toyota, Have you heard from General
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Motors and Ford saying use the company for sale?
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Nobody's actually made a formal offer. But the interesting you know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: I think one of the one of the biggest values
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: that Tesla can Can can provide is serving as an
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: example to the rest of the auto industry because right now,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: the order interest, you know, the big car companies believe
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: that a bible electric vehicle is not possible and be
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: if even if it was, people would buy it. So
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: we need to show that that need of those are true,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: that the technology works, that people want to buy it,
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: and that will be the most effective way of really
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: driving change in the in the order industries by serving
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: as an example in that matter. And if we were
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: to sell the company to one of one of the
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: big car compans, I think it would really slow things down.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, you think so. Absolutely.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: You're very busy enterprising the part of your company that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: will explore space. You're very busy with this car company.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Where do you find time to be CEO of two
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: companies that size well.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I should correct you that I'm CEO of SpaceX and
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: I'm chairmingan c of SpaceX and that is really my
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: day job.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: So I spend eighty percent of my time on SpaceX.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Okay, I am the chairman and the principal owner of
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Tesla Motors, but I do not run it on a
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: daily basis.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: You don't run that on a daily basis. Well, that
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: was really the question was how do you do how
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: do you run those two large enterprises on a daily basis?
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I is it a couple of phone calls or the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Tesla f So how's it going? I'm busy without her
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: space right now, you guys got that covered.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: I spent about I spent about two two to three
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: days a month on Tesla related business and almost all
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: the rest of the time is on SpaceX.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: So SpaceX is very much my my day to day job.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: And then I provide product guidance, strategic guidance, and obviously
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: funding for for Tesla. Like Steve jobs, right, so he
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: runs Apple on a daily basis, but he also, you know,
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: has overside over Pixar's.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like that.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: And in your day to day and this is this
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: is one of those silly lifestyle questions. But how early
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: do you get up in the morning and where do
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: you go to work? Physically. Is it an office?
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I go to work at SpaceX.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: How hourly do you get up in the morning?
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm not an early morning person, so so
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: a young like for young engineers and for inventors and creators,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: they can sleep in until ten or eleven.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: We have no fixed hours at SpaceX.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: And I mean my personally, I would I tend to
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: get up around seven thirty or eight and be a
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: the office around you know, nine, nine thirty.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: But then I tend to state about it till about
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: eight pm. Okay.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: College students across America are saying, oh rats, I thought
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: he was going to say, like noon. But then you
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: go into an office and you sit with in a
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: separate office away from those who are working, or.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Do you sit with No, I just have a cubicle
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: at SpaceX.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: You have a cubicle yeah, And are you surrounded by
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: your colleagues there?
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: What is your hope in terms of the impact you
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: will leave on culture, this civilization, this world, global civilization.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: What is it that you hope to leave here?
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I think what I'd like to do is help
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: solve some important problems. So I think, in a small way,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: help build the Internet, and then with respect to the
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: global warring problem that the transition from away from oil
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: and other hydrocobons to something which is clean and sustainable.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: I hope to have an impact there.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: And then with respect to space, I hope to have
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: an impact in helping make humanity a multiplanet species.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk, thank you so much for being with us
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: at wire Science. Let me get a straight CEO of
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: SpaceX and chairman of Test the Motors.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got other titles, but that's about. That's about
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I think that you're doing You've done very well. Thanks
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: for listening. See you in the next episode.