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