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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being with us. You're at

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Wired Science, Well, thank you for having me. I need

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to first lay a little bit of a foundation here.

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Two days into your physics program at Stanford University, you

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quit school to start a company called zip to a

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media company, which you sold a few years later for

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a paltry three hundred and seven million dollars. Then four

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years later eBay buys PayPal. Is that correct? A company

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that you established or helped you establish as work. And

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now you've taken those two enormous successes and you set

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your ambition on space. How did you go from online

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payment systems to building a spaceship? Essentially?

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Speaker 2: Well, when I.

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Speaker 3: Graduated from college, there were three areas that I thought

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will be most impactful to the future of humanity. The

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three were the Internet, space exploration, and then changing the

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economy from a mine and burn hydrocobony based economy to

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one which is cellar electric, which I think is going

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to be the primary, but not exclusive means of energy

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and transportation.

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Speaker 1: Have we screwed it up so badly here on this

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planet that our only hope is to build a new

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civilization out there.

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Speaker 2: No, not at all.

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Speaker 3: Actually, I'm quite optimistic about the future of humanity on Earth.

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Speaker 1: You are, yeah, absolutely, So what is the benefit to

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humanity then to inhabit Mars, which is really what is

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an ambition of yours? Well, I think if you consider

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two paths, one where we're forever confined to Earth and

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the other where we are space frank civilization out exploring

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the stars, I think the latter is far more exciting

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and will result in a richer and more diverse human experience.

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How can you do that better than NASA?

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Speaker 3: Well, well, you know, NATA is a customer of ours,

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So there's a confusion in the public mind that perhaps

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a company like SpaceX is competing with NASA, but in fact, NASA.

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Speaker 2: Is a customer of ours.

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Speaker 3: So we're actually providing services to NASA launch services.

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Speaker 2: And when the.

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Speaker 3: Shuttle retires in twenty ten, so starting in twenty eleven,

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SpaceX's a rocket will replace the Space Shuttle in so

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the space station with astronauts and Cogo transportation.

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Speaker 1: The name of your rocket ship is called the Falcon Explorer.

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Speaker 3: Is that it, Well, the Falcon nine, the Falcon nine, yeah,

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is the rocket, and then the spaceship is Dragon Dragon. Yeah,

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So the Falcon nine rocket lifts the Dragon spaceship. And

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this Dragon spaceship is what goes to the space station

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and then returns to Earth.

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Speaker 1: So it transports the falcon as almost cargo.

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Speaker 3: Then, so yeah, the Falcon nine is kind of like

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the Semi okay or something like that, and transit the

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falcon Ie booster rocket takes the Dragon spaceship to space

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and drops it off. Then it goes to the space station,

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but it ducks with the space station, transfers astronauts or

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resupply you know, cargo, whatever whatever the case may be,

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and then the Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth.

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Speaker 1: Reading some of the speeches that you have given in

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your your career, and you mean like that, you're particularly

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twenty three years You're twenty three years old.

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Speaker 2: I'm actually twelve, you're twelve.

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Speaker 1: I was going to say, you look terrific, But you

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have said that we got law along the way with

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our space program. What do you mean by that? Right?

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Speaker 3: I think I think that was in some of my

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congressional testament I gave a few speeches to Congress. Well,

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what I mean by that is in nineteen sixty nine

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we were able to go to the Moon, and here

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we are over three decades later and we can barely

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get to lower orbit. And I think by any measure,

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that is a step backwards.

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Speaker 1: Is that for a lack of leadership or technology.

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Speaker 3: I think we made the wrong technological choices. And I

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think there was also a lack of will at the

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highest levels of government to take the next step and well,

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at least go at least stay on the Moon and

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peraps build a base there and then go beyond the

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Moon to Mars. And if you look at the news

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articles in the late sixties early seventies, the expectation was

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that by now in the twenty first century, we would

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have a Moon base and probably even a Mars bace.

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And I think if you'd asked anyone at that point

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in time whether we would be unable to go to

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the Moon and have no and not have been to Mars,

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think they would I think you're crazy.

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Speaker 1: Do we need a leadership in that realm? Do we

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need a John F. Kennedy who sets a goal for

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us when he said one one day man will walk

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on the moon.

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Speaker 2: Do we need that.

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Speaker 1: Kind of leadership for this technology to move forward in

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that big step.

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Speaker 3: I do think it's it's very important the president set

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the priority and and determine that the goal.

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Speaker 2: Uh you know that that reals nation will all aspire to.

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Speaker 3: And you know, George Bush has his pluses and minuses,

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but at least one plus is that he has helped

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to steer the space program in a direction that that.

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Speaker 2: More or less makes sense. You know.

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Speaker 3: The only thing I would I would sort of argue

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with is that I don't think we should be going

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back to the Moon.

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Speaker 2: I think we should be focused on Mars. I think

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we saw the Do.

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Speaker 1: You think that's a mistake focusing on the Moon?

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Speaker 3: I do think I do think we should rather go

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I think we should rather be focused on on Mars.

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You know, the Moon is kind of like it's kind

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of like the Arctic, and it's just it's just a

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very barren place and very very little resources.

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Speaker 2: It's small, it's not it's not really a place.

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Speaker 3: That we could establish of the human civilization.

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Speaker 1: There's a there's a there's a feeling of been there,

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done that too with the Moon.

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Speaker 3: Yes, we saw that movie of the Sexies, you know,

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and the room makes never as good.

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Speaker 1: Did we really go to the Moon?

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Speaker 2: Ah?

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Speaker 3: Yes, we definitely just wanted to the government is incapable

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of suppressing a conspiracy of that.

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Speaker 2: Mantor of that newture.

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Speaker 1: Okay, good, This ambition to explore space absolutely entrepreneur. There's

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there's quite a bit of competition out there. There's Jeff

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Bezos with Blue Origin, There's Richard Branson with his Virgin

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Galactic and I'm not talking about NASA either. There's Paul Allen,

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there's the European Space Agency in Boeing and Lockheed Martin,

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the Chinese, the Russians. Let's just throw all of them

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into this a competitive field. How is SpaceX different? How

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do you think you'll sort of surpass them?

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Speaker 3: Well, you know you've You've listed a wide range of

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entities there, and I think the differences are really different

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depending upon which one you're referring to.

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Speaker 1: The Well, let me ask you this question. Who is

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your competition?

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Speaker 2: We have no serious competition, No, not presently.

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Speaker 1: Who's chasing you?

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Speaker 3: Well, if you mean chasing and have and has a

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serious chance of catching, then I think none that I'm

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aware of. And by the say you guys kind of

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a hack, then well, what Branson is doing, by the way,

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I'm great admirer at Branson is really a much smaller

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technological challenge.

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Speaker 2: So their craft.

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Speaker 3: Would be suborbital, so it would go to about mark three.

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Our craft is orbital, it goes to mark twenty five,

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so twenty five times to speed of sound. But that

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doesn't describe the whole scale of difficulty because the energy

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required to get those philosophies scales as the square of

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the velocit. So to do what Branson is doing, you

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need to say about nine units of energy. To do

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what we're doing, you need six hundred and twenty five

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units of energy. The difference is monumental, and then when

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you Rehanner you have to you have to burn off

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all that energy, so that double's the problem.

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Speaker 2: Really.

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Speaker 3: So what Branson is known for a technological standpoint is

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building something that can cross the English Channel. What we're

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building is something that can circ navigate the globe. It's

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a very different scale of technological difficulty. I still think

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what he's doing is great, and by the way, I

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bought a ticket on his effort. Yeah, yeah, I still

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think it's great, but it's not in the same league technologically.

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Speaker 1: So you're not particularly worried.

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Speaker 3: Certainly, not about no sileinly not about that. Now, the

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things that worry me are are we going to make

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a mistake? The things that can really hurts face x

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are I mean, our own foolishness, our own errors can

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hurt us, but not none of the competition that I'm

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aware of.

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Speaker 1: So generally you're worried about what's in front of you,

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not the other guy, And in fact, you probably don't

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think about them in terms of how they criticize you

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or what they think about you.

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Speaker 3: I don't think, actually, I don't think there's much criticism.

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I mean Boeing and Lockied of course that they would criticize,

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but I don't think any of the entrepreneurial guys would

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criticize what we're doing. And it certainly possibly I think,

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you know, what Jeff Bezos is working on could ultimately,

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I mean, he does have aspirations to get to over

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and beyond. It's just that what they're doing right now

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is sub orbittal and at the sort of lower technology level.

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What I think about at basics is really entirely what

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are we doing to ensure that our rocket is going

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to be successful and that we are truly optimizing the

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cost and ensuring a higher liability. I mean, that's just

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a very very difficult problem. There's a reason why there's

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an atomatic expression about rocket science being hard.

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Speaker 2: It really is really hard.

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Speaker 1: So rocket science really is rocket science.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks hard, and it's harder than it looks.

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Speaker 1: What's the big goal here, what's the long term plan?

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Speaker 3: Well, that the long term ultimate objective, the holy grail

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is we would like to help make life multiplanetary.

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Speaker 1: That's really what we'd like to do, so establish societies

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on as many any planets as possible.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I think there's only one possibility. But yeah,

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I mean even if we can just go from one

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planet to two, I think that's a pretty big step.

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Speaker 2: And you'll start with well Mars. Mars is the only Bible.

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Speaker 1: Viable planet, so multiplanetary life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, helped make life multiplanetary. I think that's an important thing.

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Speaker 1: I don't think your goal is big enough. Hah, Yeah,

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it's ambitious.

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Speaker 3: Well, like I said, we don't expect to do it

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single handedly, but we certainly would like to help make

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it happen.

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Speaker 1: It's fair to say you've made a fortune.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so if you have any reasonable standard.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, those who work in science probably

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understand your trajectory. But there are those who are watching?

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Who would think if I made that money, I'd sit

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on a beach, I'd drink beer, and I would just

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watch the sunset, kind of like a Corona beer commercial.

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Have you ever thought about that as a career option?

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Speaker 3: You know, I find that really pretty boring, So that

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would be torture. If I had to do that every day,

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that would really be pretty awful for me.

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Speaker 1: Is there something about startup businesses that really fuels your

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desire to work?

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Speaker 3: Well, I guess I really need to be preoccupied to

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something and if I'm just sort of sitting there relaxing,

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I can only do that for a very short period

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of time and then it becomes unbearable.

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Speaker 2: Although startups definitely have their highs and lows.

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Speaker 3: And as a friend of mine, who is a good phrase,

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you know, a startup business is like eating glass and

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staring into the abyss.

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Speaker 1: What is the criteria that you established for yourself or

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a startup?

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Speaker 2: I mean, why one business over another?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Well, for me, it's always about does what I'm doing matter?

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If we are successful, does it matter to the world?

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And so there are easier ways to make money than

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starting a rocket company, or say a car company, or

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even when I started an Internet company, because when I

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started the first Internet company, nobody had made any money,

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and it wasn't clear that anyone would make any money.

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It was simply from the perspective of the Internet being

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a very important thing and something that needed to be built,

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and so I wanted to.

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Speaker 2: Help hold it.

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Speaker 1: Well, you touch upon something that's interesting is that there

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is a benefiting humanity is a very integral part of

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your criteria no matter what you're starting up. Yes, absolutely,

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really not everybody has that as a prime interest, but.

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Speaker 3: I think that's that's probably relatively unusual, although there are

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many people that I know in Silicon Valley for whom

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that is a significant motivation.

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Speaker 1: You said in your endeavor here to explore space that

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we are committed to failing in a new way, if

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nothing else. What did you mean by that? Just just

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how it sounds.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean we're I mean we're committed to succeed.

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Speaker 3: Really, but if we do fail, I would hope that

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greatly stads to the body of knowledge such that those

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who follow may make few mistakes.

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Speaker 1: Now, if Mars were not enough you you are busy

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here on earth, the world is not enough.

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Speaker 2: That's for you?

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Speaker 1: Where what have you no limits? My friend? Here on earth.

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You are establishing a presence, certainly with Tesla Motors. Tell

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us a little bit about that. This is your electric

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car company wreck right, and this is no this is

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no hybrid car you could buy on a car lot.

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This thing goes from zero to sixty and four seconds?

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Speaker 2: Is that? Yes? Absolutely is zero sixteen under four seconds.

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Speaker 3: It's faster, a better acceleration than any port currently in

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production and any Ferrari except the end Zoe.

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Speaker 2: And it's twice the energy efficiency of a Prius.

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Speaker 3: So it's you really have the moral high ground and

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you get to, you know, leave the Ferrari guy in

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your dest So.

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Speaker 1: Well, let me start to be let me ask the obvious. Well,

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and you don't look like one of those guys who's

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trying too hard in Ferrari.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, you don't look like a jerk, you know you.

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Speaker 1: Up right banana yellow Lamborghini or or absolutely.

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Speaker 3: I mean this something I just point out about Tesla,

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which is we didn't you know Tesla is the first

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car is a sports car, not because we think the

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world lacks for a sports car, but because it is

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the right entry point for the market. If you have

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a new technology, the right place to enter is high

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unit cost, low unit volume. Just as you know when

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a new cell phone come out comes out, or a

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new a new laptop or or some some new thing,

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it tends to be expensive at first because they're figuring

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out all the issues and it takes time to optimize,

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and then over time that that technology will become cheaper

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and cheaper. And so the model two of Tesla, UH,

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maybe I'm leaping ahead here, but Model two of Tesla

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is a forty nine thousand dollars four door, five passenger sedan,

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and that's that's going to be obviously a much broader

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market segment that that that can make use of that car.

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And then model three is intended to be around a

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thirty thousand dollars price point, and so that's that's really

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affordable by by almost everyone who's who's who can buy

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a new car. So the idea is to drive to

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mass market as rapidly as possible, but only at the

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pace at which the technology matures.

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Speaker 1: So is Henry Ford and someone you admire.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think Henry Ford made some very important contributions

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to UH to business and obviously, you know, moving moving

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manufacturing line and that sort of thing. So I think

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you certainly worthy of admiration. Here's a bit of an

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out duct, but you know, certainly noteworthy. But the interest

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in Tesla's is not from the perspective of, you know,

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the world needs another car company. It's more from the

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perspective of we have a very important environmental problem that

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needs to be addressed, which is driven by the burning

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of fossil fuels and the increasing K two concentration in

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the atmosphere and global climate change, which I think is

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going to be one of the most significant issues of

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the twenty first century. And the only way to really

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get around that, in my view, is really with an

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electric vehicle, and then you need to pair that up

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with a zero mission power generation method such as solar power.

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Speaker 2: I think is solar power is going to be a

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really big deal.

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Speaker 1: Tesla is not a hybrid car.

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Speaker 2: Tesla's pure electric, pure electric.

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Speaker 1: So help connect the dots from me, why aren't we

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seeing Tesla cars on the car lots?

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Speaker 3: Then, well, what's keeping the day them yet? So we're

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just finishing up the development right now.

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Speaker 1: And anybody can buy this, Yes, how will you?

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Speaker 3: Actually we've almost sold out of two thousand and seven productions.

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So if somebody doesn't want to buy next year's model,

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they better act quickly.

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Speaker 1: One of the primary complaints about hybrid vehicles is they're

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not fast enough. You seem to overcome.

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Speaker 3: You won't have any trouble with this. In fact, really

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there's something uniquely better about electric vehicles, which is that

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the talk response is immediate. So if you want to

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pass someone, I mean you just the response to the

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car is very immediate. It's just it's more fun to

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drive an electric car than it is to drive a

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gasoline car.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was going to say that Tesla the car,

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the name of the car company is no coincidence, is it.

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We'll explain a little bit about that, right.

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Speaker 3: The company is named after Nicola Tesla, who was an inventor.

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He was originally from the sort of the area of

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Yugoslavia and Europe, but he moved to America when he

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was young and was an inventor of the ac induction motor.

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Invented a lot of the principles of magnetism. So he

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was a great man, a great, great inventor, and so

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the company is named in honor of him.

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Speaker 1: So these cars, the Tesla Roadster the first the first

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issue of the Tesla Roster available in two thousand and seven. Yes,

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in the spring the summer. How do you get on

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the waiting list?

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Speaker 2: Well, you buy the car.

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Speaker 3: You basically put down a deposit, and we've actually can

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you do that through the web. Yeah, we'll have by

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the way customer centers all around the country. So we'll

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have one in La, one of the various Cargo Miami,

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New York, and eventually nationwide customer centers where somebody does

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want to see the current person take a test drive

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or see the car being worked on. I mean, we

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have this idea for the way that the car is

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a service, that it should be a really really pleasant experience.

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So we have you know, some some some somewhere between

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like a Starbucks and Apple store. So you go in

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and you see the car being car's being worked on

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behind a glass partition that would be your car you're

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watching or somebody else's can. But it's really clean, it's

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really clean, present bright. It'll be sort of a you know,

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coffee bar available, you know, just to we really want

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to have a very pleasant experience that that you don't

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typically get if you go into a dealership.

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Speaker 1: Have you heard from Toyota, Have you heard from General

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Motors and Ford saying use the company for sale?

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Speaker 3: Nobody's actually made a formal offer. But the interesting you know,

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I think one of the one of the biggest values

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that Tesla can Can can provide is serving as an

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example to the rest of the auto industry because right now,

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the order interest, you know, the big car companies believe

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that a bible electric vehicle is not possible and be

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if even if it was, people would buy it. So

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we need to show that that need of those are true,

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that the technology works, that people want to buy it,

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and that will be the most effective way of really

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driving change in the in the order industries by serving

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as an example in that matter. And if we were

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to sell the company to one of one of the

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big car compans, I think it would really slow things down.

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Speaker 2: Mm hmm, you think so. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: You're very busy enterprising the part of your company that

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will explore space. You're very busy with this car company.

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Where do you find time to be CEO of two

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companies that size well.

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Speaker 3: I should correct you that I'm CEO of SpaceX and

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I'm chairmingan c of SpaceX and that is really my

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day job.

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Speaker 2: So I spend eighty percent of my time on SpaceX.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I am the chairman and the principal owner of

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Tesla Motors, but I do not run it on a

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daily basis.

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Speaker 1: You don't run that on a daily basis. Well, that

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was really the question was how do you do how

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do you run those two large enterprises on a daily basis?

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I is it a couple of phone calls or the

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Tesla f So how's it going? I'm busy without her

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space right now, you guys got that covered.

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Speaker 3: I spent about I spent about two two to three

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days a month on Tesla related business and almost all

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the rest of the time is on SpaceX.

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Speaker 2: So SpaceX is very much my my day to day job.

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Speaker 3: And then I provide product guidance, strategic guidance, and obviously

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funding for for Tesla. Like Steve jobs, right, so he

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runs Apple on a daily basis, but he also, you know,

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has overside over Pixar's.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of like that.

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Speaker 1: And in your day to day and this is this

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is one of those silly lifestyle questions. But how early

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do you get up in the morning and where do

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you go to work? Physically. Is it an office?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I go to work at SpaceX.

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Speaker 1: How hourly do you get up in the morning?

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Speaker 3: You know, I'm not an early morning person, so so

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a young like for young engineers and for inventors and creators,

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they can sleep in until ten or eleven.

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Speaker 2: We have no fixed hours at SpaceX.

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Speaker 3: And I mean my personally, I would I tend to

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get up around seven thirty or eight and be a

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the office around you know, nine, nine thirty.

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Speaker 2: But then I tend to state about it till about

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eight pm. Okay.

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Speaker 1: College students across America are saying, oh rats, I thought

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he was going to say, like noon. But then you

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go into an office and you sit with in a

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separate office away from those who are working, or.

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Speaker 2: Do you sit with No, I just have a cubicle

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at SpaceX.

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Speaker 1: You have a cubicle yeah, And are you surrounded by

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your colleagues there?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely?

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Speaker 1: What is your hope in terms of the impact you

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will leave on culture, this civilization, this world, global civilization.

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What is it that you hope to leave here?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think what I'd like to do is help

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solve some important problems. So I think, in a small way,

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help build the Internet, and then with respect to the

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global warring problem that the transition from away from oil

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and other hydrocobons to something which is clean and sustainable.

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Speaker 2: I hope to have an impact there.

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Speaker 3: And then with respect to space, I hope to have

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an impact in helping make humanity a multiplanet species.

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk, thank you so much for being with us

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at wire Science. Let me get a straight CEO of

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SpaceX and chairman of Test the Motors.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I got other titles, but that's about. That's about

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right now.

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Speaker 1: I think that you're doing You've done very well. Thanks

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for listening. See you in the next episode.