I'm certainly saying that that is their policy, and I think you should take
their words seriously. Like, I work seven days a week. But but
I I'm not expecting others to do that. Offer me money, offer me
power, I don't care. 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 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 this if this, this
is if this, if a vehicle end of line is not moving, that
means there's something up stream 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 were
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've believen listened to listening to 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 that information by I say that the Tesla Twitter account on
my Twitter account, we're somewhat preaching to the converted and not reaching people that
are not already convinced. Essentially, so I think they're probably have a good
point. Well, I mean, I think it's worth a try and we'll
see, we'll see how factor 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, um 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 give up advertising
dollars on Twitter, even if in order to having the worst, 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 see test lads 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 not like
I have a pulle formal strategy. Okay, Well, how much time does
go into when you think about these things? I mean, was it something
you decided 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, I'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, should be you know, beautiful to 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 wan't 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 in the converted. You
mentioned a few statistics for example, about safety, about price during the meeting.
It may not be fully understood by the general auto bio 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 and that it tells
is also the safest cars in the road US in so many ways that people
actually 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 could 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 the 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 auto buyer, you think
it's going to be a tough twelve months ahead. You've said that a few
times, yes before everyone not just has understood. So it's um, I
mean simply, uh, you know you can you can think of raising the
FRED rate as as somewhat of a brake pedal and the economy frankly, it's
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 to money to buy other things. So actually
it affects everything, even those that aren't things that are important 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 stale, so they So the federals 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 that appears to be
the case. Yeah, that may well be. We spent a lot of
time talking about that is a bad imagine, 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 Yeah, 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 all 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 the week is slow
or something, you don't overreact to that. Um. But if but if
you look at the trend, say for the 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 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 now
January is is usually a terrible time for 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 we did a pricing care So,
as I mentioned to the audience, the realities 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 dealers will charge some premium of
MSRP. If demand is lower, they will have manufacturing incentives, 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 average, so maybe an hour
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 we've got to buy a parking space, or you've
got to get a you know, got a parking ticket at the at the
mole. It's there's there's a lot of costs associated with cars. UM.
And uh, Now 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 it's going to 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 at least what people have called and you have called
Yeah, autonomous uber is what you think about. So perhaps the utility there
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 guess an autonomous car is will 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 took planned out specifically? Is how it would look? Um? Yeah,
it's it's it's been in the 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 it'd be,
but perhaps uh, you know, it could be fifty fifty split or seventy
thirty. I don't know, but um, the cars are are if you
buy it tells the car, it can only be used in to tells a
network. It cannot be used in someone else's network. 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 is
this is gigantic, um ass. 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 I mean the free cashal 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 in Best. We know Kathy, well,
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 somewhere 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. Yes, 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 optim 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, all right, I'm getting a little ahead of
mysel self here. I mean when you said again, we're going to 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
entities 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 interventions, and the same in
San Francisco, which is a very difficult place to drive. So I mean
it's you've got bus lanes, one way streets, you know, so it's
quite quite a challenging a homeless situation. You were driving recently in San Francisco
where 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 go finish your point though,
in terms of why you feel more, why you're optimistic 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, right, 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 dollars versus a legacy AMS
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 think I'm
not sure it'd be it's gonna be that beneficial. Um 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 instands that,
UM, 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 say a forty five percent increase in earnings to share or it's it's
a it's it's helpful. Yeah, yeah, I would say it's maybe it's
a half that or something, Okay, but I mean it is quite significant.
Have you mapped to 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. The megapac Is it beneficial
in that particular area beyond obviously 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 it'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 at the pack level. I believe, if article correctly so,
that that that is very significant for batteries and then you've got the consumer tax
credit for evs provided they are built in the US. Uh and end 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 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 at tax credit several years ago.
Um. And so up until December until January this year, I should
say, there was no consumer attax in center to buy a Tesla, but
there was for the other car companies because they have not reached They've not made
that many electric cars, right, they didn't reach their limit. 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 U, you know, ruthless pricing sort of at the low end
in the Chinese market and what that will mean to your market share? Though?
Um? Well, currently a limitation UM with 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 card as we can. 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. Yeah. 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,
wild 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 consintuely 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, or 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 Tesla.
I mean, I'm not sure sure where you're gonna get an iPhone,
for example. UM, and Apple's recently started doing some some sort of small
amount of production in India. But it's tiny con tiny not to mention an
advanced semiconductor chip if they take over Taiwan Semi. Correct, you design your
own chips, but you manufacture them at 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 only
saying that that is their policy, and I think you should take the 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 at Twitter in part because they thought, well, he's going
to have more time for Tesla. That's true, Is it true? How
do you see sort of allocating 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 very pretty challenging, um situation at the
point which the Twitter A position closed because um, you know, in rough
terms, uh, that there was a billion and a half dollars of debts
osing was added. Um. While at the same time, um, there
was a massive psyche exactly you've said you were four months away from bankruptcy.
It was three billion dollars in a year, conceivably negative three billion dollars cash
flow, 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 that. The analogy
I was using was it's like being teleported into a plane that's in a nose
dive, head to the ground, with the engines on fire and the controls
don't work. Right, you were that's what I want to be. 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 where I first, first we posed the acquisition, they said
hell though they adopted a poison pill, basically saying they'd rather die than be
then be acquired, like the rather chew on Sanide. But 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 I can't. It
was made clear to me that the decision would not come down in my favorite
Leaguely yeah, all right, well now you have a new CEO. Why
I think little Linda Yakuen is gonna be great? Why? Um well,
Twitter is it's very much an advertising dependent business. Linda's obviously incredible at bat
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'll continue to play role advancing the software. Um and you know, you
know, getting the futures product stuff basically. Um So, I mean the
general idea is Linda 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, Gwynchotwell, who's amazing um
uh, you know, operates the company and I and I booked the sort
of advanced technology, right, both sort of designing in new rockets and that
kind of thing. And and then that's uh, you know, everyone you
played 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 think 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 returned 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. From 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 a 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 to
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're you know, the timing kind of worked out well that that UM.
I mean, we have really some of the world's best engineers at 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
a member, but that was that the number. Yeah, it's crazy,
there's a lot of demand. Have one hundred and twenty seven almost one undred
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 it's even lower one for two.
Well, yeah, it's it's it's it's the acceptance rate is lower than the
most demanding of uses in the world. It's insane. Speaking of employment,
though, you had seventeen hundred people at Twitter when the plane was nose diving,
I think you're a fifteen hundred. Now, that's roughly sixty three hundred
people. Were they all superfluous? No, not all. Do you figure
out which ones are or is it a little late? You know, sometimes
it gets a little late. I mean, looked desperate time was called for
desperate measures. So um, there's no question that some of the people who
will 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 going from Twitter is like somehow terrible or something. It's just we have
to with very little information. Uh, get get the the the headcount expenses,
and that the non Postonalexy it is down to or 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
South orders. So um so, I definitely, I definitely would not want
to say, uh, you know, disparage. You know, any I
understands. 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 they, you know,
they said, wow, that was something. I mean to cut that deeply
and still be able to shun the company. People will argue about how well
or things were running. Have you heard from any of the CEOs 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, or
that those were desperate times. So do you see starting to I mean,
we'll lend hire people. Do you think are you ready for people to be
hired to Twitter? You know, I think we absolutely um need to need
to hire people and and and if they're not too mad at us, probably
re hire some of the people that they were let go. Um, and
they're gonna have to come into the office. Look, 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 the whole sort of work
from home thing, it's like I think it's Look, there are some exceptions,
but I kind of think that that the whole notion to work from home
is a bit like the you know, the fake Marie Antoinette quote. Let
the meat 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
make 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 it's also a moral issue.
People should get off the moral high horse. Would 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 coming back. People the laptop classes living in lala land.
Okay, As I said, you can't look at the cars while people
are working from from home here of course not um so so the people were
you know, building cars, servicing the cars, building houses. It's fixing
houses, making the food, um, making all the things that 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
listen, I like, 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
but I'm not expecting others to do that. How muchly do you get by
the way, about six hours you do six hours typically? Yes, 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 less
done, okay, And the brain pain level is bad if I get less
than 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 meaningful 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. Then I still want to get to AI. You're gonna give
us some time here, can we still? Um? Yeah? I think
We've got a board meeting coming up, but I'm happy to give as much
time as reasonably possible. I think it's maybe it's six or something. Okay,
Well, let's time, is it now? I love another twenty 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 extra Twitter is to be a cybernetic
collective mind for humanity. This is going to sound quite esoteric and sci fi,
but 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.
And the effect of community notes is actually bigger at the and 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 if you get community noted. Okay, and and that applies even
to advertisers. By but we've lost that's so far forty million dollars in advertising
because it was misleading or because because the community notes to two pretty big advertisers
got community noted. Um. And I yes, um, I think on
balance the community notes were 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. If you've got 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 away, 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's not 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 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 want't 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 I said that, but somebody very wise, um, and
I would I would say, if we could do that, for the president
that that would be you're not obviously you're not happy with b don't we all
just want an all human beings and whatever resids whatever? Sure, normal means
not 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, right,
and and you just want a good executive because they're seeing you over America they
are they are. We want a good CEO of America. I was going
to do be it effective. Unfortunately, we live in highly partisan times where
there is were 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 there places so many I mean, to be clear,
I don't think it was there was a stolen election. 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 if if
one hundred million people vote, the probability that the fraud is zero is zero.
Of course there's always going to be some right, I mean, is
perhaps, I mean there were This election was audited, it was so many
judges, and 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, there will probably
a little bit, but again it's gonna be You're gonna let people say that
though on the on Twitter, and then you're gonna hope that they're corrected,
and they will be corrected. They will be Oh yeah. Let's talk a
bit about your tweets, um, because it comes up a lot um even
today it came up and 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 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, Eli 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 it basically reminds me of my NATO. This is
like, you know, calm down, people, this is not like case
out of it. As you said, he wants to route the very fabric
of civilization and Sos hates humanity. Like when you do something like that.
Yeah, I think that's true. That's my opinion. Okay, but why
share it? Why share it especially? I mean why share it when people
who buy teslas may not agree with you, advertisers are 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 got a
there. It puts you in 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 there when
the annual meeting. I mean, you know, do your tweets hurt the
company? Are there test loan or just I don't agree with his political position
because and I know it because he shares so much of it, or their
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 we'll see it 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. See, 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 linked 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. But oh, in that particular case, Uh, there was
a somehow that's that's not not not that the that the people people were killed,
but the it was I think incorrectly described 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 that I thought this, the ascribing a two white
supremacy was 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 white 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 a concern. And how do
you know, I'm curious as 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 asking people to be verified on
Twitter 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 per month. Um uh. That
that sort of action 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
were 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 a team
as though a topic was trending um and and that and that this is actually
what the 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 would say it's impossible. Impossible. So
the goal of the uh of the sort of Twitter verification is fundamentally to prevent
AI manipulation of the system. Got it. Um final question on Twitter,
Walter Isaacson, your biographer, he said, your big goal for Twitter is
disrupting the banking industry. 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 psake
of disrupting it. It's more like, if there is a better product,
that's great. But I'm not output disruption for the tsake disruption. I'm like,
if we'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 sort of 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 a sort of information theory.
But um, the actual financial system today is a heterogeneous set of databases running
on mainframes and coval 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. Um and and actually see that counter fruition
would be nice. But but there are many other things for Twitter, it's
not just financial. 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 show 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 event of artificial general intelligence is cult to singularity because
it is so hard to predict what will happen after that. UM. 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 um and and there's some chance that it
goes wrong U and 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 goes And 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 Techmark, because a physicist said at
mit UM you know, I wanted me to sign on to the letter.
And it's it's like I knew it would be futile. It is futile.
I knew would be futile. I just want to 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. Well, 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 about 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 tremenous capability in real world AI. Yes, in
fact, it is very far ahead 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. Tesla is, like I said, by It's like if there's
not I'm not even sure who's second. Frankly, Um, why is that?
Why? Then? What? What are people not understanding about what you
have? And why are we talking so much about chat, GPT and generative
AI at open AI and what Microsoft can 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, If not this year, i'd say no later the next
year. UM, wait say that again. I'm sorry you're going to have
a sort of chat GPT moment, Oh you will in terms of suddenly it
will Yeah, suddenly three million cars were a 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 I
would I would also say that if if positions were reversed, um, and
say um, well, in fact, the positions are our reverse. For
example, Google has way Moot, 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 solution 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 it's 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 CHATCHVT or Microsoft. Open 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'd have to do it
absolutely. Um I'm being told we don't have that much time. Do you
can you give me another five minutes? Or yeah? Yeah, I think
so. I do have a board meeting. I know 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 go unipolar world. But but the the person
who controls that does not or at least did not seem to be concerned about
AI safety. That that's that sounded like a real problem, so um and
then the final straw was Larry calling me a speciist for being pro human consciousness
instead of machine consciousness. And I'm like, well, yes, I guess
I am. I am a specioust and so right, so you helped to
the creation of open AI. You put as much as fifty million dollars more
than help. It wouldn't exist without it wouldn't exist without you. So 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 for profit. Um and that profit motivation can be finicially
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 idiot here um so um anyway, So,
so Opening I was like meant to be. Opening I opened as an
open source. It was created as a buy one C three um and 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 h I mean
I I was instrumental in recruiting that the key scientists and engineers, most specifically,
most notably Elias skier Um. In fact, Elio 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. In way, 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 rainforest and instead they became a lumber company and chopped down the
forest and sold it for money. And you'd be therefore like, oh 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? Um? 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
opening 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 to run the inference
them. So they essentially have a great deal of control. At any point,
Microsoft could cut off Open the Eye. Elana, 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 m 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 the 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 ah, 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, sweat and tears
into building the 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. Um. To
some extent, I have to have deliberate suspension of disbelief in order to remain
motivated. UM. So I guess I would say, just, you know,
work on things that you find interesting, fulfilling, and that contributes some
good to the rest of society.