Back in 2014, Elon Musk Interview!!!

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Elon Musk Thinking
Episode: Back in 2014, Elon Musk Interview!!!
Host: Astronaut Man
Date: December 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

This special episode dives into a wide-ranging interview with Elon Musk, covering both his reflections on the past decade and his thoughts about the future. Musk discusses governmental inefficiency, artificial intelligence, space exploration, company culture, and even his take on fashion—sprinkled with characteristic humor and candid admissions. The episode is a mix of serious insights on technology and the future, personal philosophy, and lighter moments with the host.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dogecoin and Government Reform

• Musk recounts (01:39) his tongue-in-cheek involvement with "Doge," originally named via internet suggestion as "Department Of Government Efficiency," as an exercise in government waste reduction.
• Achievements:
  • Identified and eliminated “$100, maybe $200 billion worth of zombie payments per year” just by enforcing a payment code and explanation for payments.
  • “It's actually quite hard to stop. So it's a pretty rare individual that would ask the government to stop sending them money.” (Elon Musk, 03:18)
• On looking back, Musk admits he “probably would have just worked on my companies. And the cars, they wouldn't have been burning the cars.” (04:33)

2. Disillusionment with Politics and Government

• Musk shares his skepticism: “I wouldn’t say I was super illusioned to begin with...you really want the least amount done by government possible.” (05:29)
• Expresses concern about large transfer payments to illegal immigrants, framing it as “voter importation.”
• Musk: “I don’t know, we just don’t want to turn into a... Communist hellhole, basically.” (07:36)

3. The Future of AI, Robotics, and Work

• Optimistic but cautious:
  • “If current trends of AI and robotics continue...the AI and robots will be able to do anything humans want them to do, essentially.” (08:12)
  • “Work will be optional.”
• On pace of progress: “If I could, I would certainly slow down AI and robotics, but I can't. It seems to be... advancing at a very rapid pace. Whether I like it or not.” (08:54)
• AI-induced anxiety: “If you say, why do I wake up in nightmares? Oh, AI. Yeah. Actually, I’ve had a lot of AI nightmares. I had AI nightmares many days in a row.” (11:31)

4. Musk’s Personal Habits and Philosophy

• On sleep: “Six [hours]. You can tell based on my expos. People have mapped them." (12:24)
• Less than 6 hours? “My cognitive function is reduced.”
• On context switching: “Fear is not the mind-killer, context switching is.” (12:58)
• On fear: “Fear is the mind killer. So I’m not somebody who feels fear strongly.” (12:09)
• Funniest person Musk knows: “You know, President Trump is very funny. He’s got a great sense of humor... somewhat effortless.” (14:02)
• Spiritual beliefs: Musk describes “God is the creator,” but frames it as: “I believe the universe came from something. People have different labels.” (14:50)

5. Security and Isolation

• Musk cannot go to public places like Target: “Can I have a selfie line forms. And these days…there are serious security issues. It's not that I don't want to. I simply can't.” (15:05)
• On security after a public murder: “It only takes one. One mistake.” (15:37)

6. Reflections on Major Achievements and Missions

• Favorite moments: “When my kids were born, or the first time SpaceX got to orbit, or Tesla made an electric car work.” (15:53)
• Upcoming milestones: “Starship… the degree to which a starship is a revolutionary technology is not well understood...the first design where a reusable rocket is one of the possible outcomes.” (16:12)
• Explains “evolutionary hall of fame” of planetary colonization, placing multi-planetary life among humanity’s greatest evolutionary milestones. (17:31)

7. On SpaceX, Tesla, Mars, and Multi-Planetary Life

• All companies serve different, aligned purposes; Tesla/AI for Earth, SpaceX for making life multi-planetary.
• The reality of Mars colonization: “Mars will be very dangerous and… uncomfortable… much higher risk of death than if they stayed on Earth.” (19:24)
• The “sales pitch for Mars”: “You might die. It’s going to be a mass amount of hard work and it may not succeed.” (19:54)

8. On Fashion and Cultural Stagnation

• “My son Saxon said at one point, why does everything look like it’s 2015? I was like, damn... If you took a picture from 2015 and said in 2025 it looks exactly the same.” (21:12)
• Musk wishes for bolder style evolution, referencing how decades prior had more distinct style.

9. Space and Cities

• Starbase origin: “We needed something inspirational… Starship departs from Starbase.” (27:40)
• Musk created a city on a sandbar by the Rio Grande as an engineering and inspirational feat.
• On Disney World: “I’ve been to Disney World probably 10 times… the thing they’d want to do is go to Disney World or Harry Potter Land.” (29:22)
• Favorite ride: “Probably Space Mountain. I mean, I do think Space Mountain needs an upgrade.” (29:51)

10. Technology, Media & the Big Picture

• Short form video: “Maybe short form video. It seems to be rotting people's brains.” (32:13)
• Inventions to avoid: “People don’t invent a virus that can kill all humans.” (32:25)
• Simulation theory: “If simulation theory is accurate… only the most interesting simulations will continue. Therefore, the most interesting outcome is most likely because it’s either that or annihilation.” (34:45)
• Social media: “More performative... but you also see real life videos that challenge the narrative.” (35:12)

11. Addressing Conspiracy Theories and Aliens

• Conspiracies coming true: "We've run out of conspiracy theories that... won't come true as far as I can tell." (24:15)
• On aliens: “I have seen no evidence of aliens. No one on the SpaceX senior team has any evidence of aliens.” (24:37–24:52)
• On the Moon Landing: “Yes, we went to the moon a few times actually... played golf on the moon.” (25:29)

12. On His Public Persona

• “Everyone always thinks you’re a very difficult person to work for... you are a very good employer to work for. And I think people assume you are not.” (26:23–26:39)
• Musk: “Talented people can go work anywhere. They’re only going to work at one of my companies if they want to. If they’re mistreated... they would leave.” (27:12)

13. "Would You Rather" & Lighter Quest Game

• Save humanity on Earth or Mars?
  • “It’s a false dichotomy... Earth’s much better than Mars. To be clear. Mars is just our best option if we want to become a multi planet species.” (37:12)
• Marvel superhero or Bond villain?
  • “I suppose I’d rather be a Marvel superhero. They did model Iron Man in the movies after me.” (37:50)
  • Filming of Iron Man 2 at SpaceX factory, interactions with Downey Jr. and Favreau. (38:05–38:26)
• Algorithmic platforms: Musk details improvements to X's recommendation engine.
  • “So the acid test for this is... are you seeing content that you find really interesting from accounts you’ve never seen before?” (41:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Fear is the mind killer.” (Elon Musk, 12:09)
• “Work will be optional.” (Elon Musk, 08:48)
• “Talented people can go work anywhere they want. So they're only going to work at one of my companies if they want to.” (Elon Musk, 27:12)
• “The most interesting outcome is the most likely... only the most interesting simulations will continue.” (Elon Musk, 34:45)
• “Starship… is one of the most profound things that ever happened. Now you can think of historic events as where would they fit in the evolutionary hall of fame?” (Elon Musk, 17:05)
• “Mars will be very dangerous and… uncomfortable… you might die. That’s the sales pitch.” (Elon Musk, 19:54)
• "Maybe short form video. It seems to be rotting people's brains." (Elon Musk, 32:13)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:39 – Musk recalls the origins of “Doge” and government reform.
• 04:52 – On the high cost of fighting corruption.
• 08:12 – The future of AI, robotics, and the end of work.
• 11:31 – Musk's nightmares about AI.
• 12:24 – Musk's sleep and efficiency habits.
• 14:02 – Funniest person Musk knows (Trump anecdote).
• 15:05 – Safety concerns and public incidents.
• 16:12 – Starship and becoming multiplanetary.
• 19:24 – The reality of Mars colonization.
• 21:12 – Commentary on fashion and cultural stagnation.
• 27:40 – Starbase: building an inspirational city.
• 32:13 – Short form video as a societal ill.
• 34:45 – Simulation theory and the “most interesting outcome.”
• 35:12 – Social media as performative and revelatory.
• 37:12 – “Would you rather” segment begins.

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Tone & Style

The conversation moves fluidly between serious, analytical, and wryly humorous. Musk’s candid, sometimes blunt assessments are balanced by the interviewer’s informal, conversational prompts. The episode is accessible to lay listeners, with only light jargon and many personal anecdotes and philosophical musings.

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In Summary

This episode offers a rich portrait of Musk as engineer, philosopher, and cultural critic. He reveals the stakes and challenges of both his high-profile ventures and his public persona, expressing optimism for what humanity can achieve—if it remains conscious, curious, and keeps things interesting.

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For listeners:
Skip the first 1:30 and after 42:00 to avoid sponsor and ad content. The core interview is packed with insights on work, technology, Mars, innovation, and always keeping life—and reality—interesting.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Get started [e-mail] Latest interview of Elon Musk Talking about the Doge. Here's the episode.

[Interviewer]

What was your first thought on how Doge was going to proceed?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I guess I couldn't believe I was there for the most part. It's like it all seemed extremely surreal at the time. You know, Doge was a made up name that had been made up, I don't know, two or three months before and based on Internet suggestions and.

[Interviewer]

I.

[Elon Musk]

Was going to call the Government Efficiency Commission and then someone on the Internet said, no, it should be the Department of Government Efficiency dog. I'm like, that sounds great. So we just kind of made up an apartment.

[Interviewer]

Do you think you were successful?

[Elon Musk]

We're a little bit successful. We were somewhat successful. I mean we stopped a lot of funding for that really just made no sense. That was just entirely wasteful. Where like for example, there was like probably 100, maybe $200 billion worth of zombie payments per year which simply by enforcing that there be a payment Code and an explanation for the payment, that the payment would not go out. So we've made that change to the main treasury computer and a bunch of other computers. It seems like insanely obvious, but there are just call it 2 or 3% of government payments that go out that really should not be going out. And it's actually quite hard to stop. So it's a pretty rare individual that would ask the government to stop sending them money.

[Interviewer]

Would you ever do Doge again?

[Elon Musk]

Do you mean, would I repeat history or would I.

[Interviewer]

Two ways to think about it. One is, if you could go back and start from scratch, like it's January 20th all again, would you go back and do it differently? And knowing what you know now, do you think there's ever a place to restart you not saying others in your stead, you go back and restart doing Doge?

[Elon Musk]

I mean, no, I don't think so. What I do. I think I probably. I don't know.

[Interviewer]

Would you do Doge again, knowing what you know now?

[Elon Musk]

I mean, the thing is, like, I think instead of doing Doge, I would have basically built, you know, worked on my companies, essentially, so. And not. And the cars, they wouldn't have been burning the cars.

[Interviewer]

You gave up a lot to do Doge.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, like, if you stop money going to. Going for political corruption, they will lash out big time. So they really want the money to keep flowing. So if you stop it from flowing, there's like a very strong reaction to stopping the money flowing.

[Interviewer]

After you were in D.C. for a while, did you become disillusioned with how it operates?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I wouldn't say I was super illusioned to begin with. I mean, I guess it's just like you really want the least amount done by government possible. The least amount. I guess maybe the biggest thing is that. I guess the biggest single thing is that there are massive transfer payments going to illegal immigrants. Like, massive. Essentially we're paying people to come here from somewhere else in vast numbers, including flying them in. So, like, it's not like you need a border wall. If you're flying them in, then fast tracking them to citizenship and making them beholden to government payments and voting hard left. That's essentially. It's like voter importation. If you create a gigantic money magnet to you say, if anyone comes here from anywhere else, we're going to pay you tons of money, give you lots of free stuff, come to America and get paid to do so. Like, you're going to get a lot of people taking up on that offer. People say, like, this is fake. I'm like, actually, well, let's look at, you know, Ilhan Omar, who literally was voted into power, voted into Congress by a large group of people from Somalia who are in Minnesota, which is really far from Somalia. Or Mamdani, who was voted to be mayor, but by a majority of people who are not born in America. That's my understanding at least. And then California, same big time situation. So I don't know, we just don't want to turn into a. Communist hellhole, basically.

[Interviewer]

You've said in the future that no one's going to need to worry about money or work because AI is going to take care of the rest. AI and robotics. What do you mean that people won't have to work in the future?

[Elon Musk]

Assuming the current trend of artificial intelligence and robotics continues, which seems likely, the AI and robots will be able to do anything that humans want them to do, essentially. So hopefully not more than that, but AI and robotics will be able to provide us, provide all the goods and services that anyone could possibly want.

[Interviewer]

So you wouldn't need to work. What would you do with your free time?

[Elon Musk]

People will be able to do whatever they want with their free time. Work will be optional. I mean, I just want to separate out from like what I wish would happen versus what I predict will happen because people get confused about that. They think that what I predict will happen is what I want to happen. What I predict to happen is not the same as what I want to happen. If I could, I would certainly slow down AI and robotics, but I can't. It seems to be. Well, it's advancing at a very rapid pace. Whether I like it or not.

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[Interviewer]

What keeps you up at night?

[Elon Musk]

It used to be this point. I don't know. I wouldn't say there's nothing particularly keeping me up at night right now except that. But if you say, why do I wake up in nightmares? Oh, AI. Yeah. Actually I've had a lot of AI nightmares. I had AI nightmares many days in a row. What am I supposed to do about it?

[Interviewer]

What's your biggest irrational fear?

[Elon Musk]

I try not to have irrational fears.

[Interviewer]

None.

[Elon Musk]

If I find an irrational fear, I squelch it. I don't believe fear is. Fear is the mind killer. So I'm not somebody who feels fear strongly.

[Interviewer]

On average, how many hours do you sleep a night?

[Elon Musk]

Six. You can tell? Based on my expos yes you can. People have actually mapped them. It's very clear when I'm sleeping and where I'm not. I tried having less than six hours sleep, but although I'm awake more hours per day, my cognitive function is reduced. So my natural sleep. I actually timed it with the phone. You can get a phone app time. It's like 5 hours 56 minutes. That's what the phone said.

[Interviewer]

What's an average day for you look like?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I have a lot of inbound Communication. So that's information triage. I try to segment the days so that there's not too much context switching, because arguably, fear is not the mind, and killer context switching is. It's hard not to context switch if you've got an inbox full of stuff, but you can think, like, if you had to Context switch every three seconds or every 30 seconds or every three minutes, the context switching cognitive penalty would be very high. Every three seconds.

[Interviewer]

And you're talking about switching between, say, Tesla X, XAI, SpaceX personal. SpaceX personal.

[Elon Musk]

But even within Tesla and SpaceX, there are many different things getting this sort of the stuff on X, like random news things, you know, people being burned alive and stuff like that. Like, what the hell's going on in this country?

[Interviewer]

Who's the funniest person you know in real life?

[Elon Musk]

You know, President Trump is very funny. He's got a great sense of humor.

[Interviewer]

President Trump is very funny.

[Elon Musk]

He's very funny. He's like naturally funny. Somewhat effortless. I mean, you know when he was Ed Mamandani in the office and they asked him if he still thought the President was fascist, and the President said, just say yes. It's easier that way. Don't worry about it. Just say yes. He's like, yes. What a love. Whatever. How silly.

[Interviewer]

Who do you look up to the most?

[Elon Musk]

The creator.

[Interviewer]

What's your current position on God?

[Elon Musk]

God is the creator.

[Interviewer]

You don't believe in God, though, do you?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I believe there was DC Universe came for something. People have different labels.

[Interviewer]

When's the last time you did something extremely ordinary, like go to Target or cvs?

[Elon Musk]

I can't go to things where there's a general public because I. There's an immediate. Can I have a selfie line that forms. And these days, particularly in light of Charlie Kirk's murder, there are serious security issues. It's not that I don't want to. I simply can't.

[Interviewer]

Has Charlie's murder changed how you do things, or were you already locked down pretty well before that?

[Elon Musk]

It certainly reinforced the severity of the situation where life is on hardcore mode. You make one mistake and you're dead. It only takes one. One mistake.

[Interviewer]

What's one moment in your life that you could live again? Just to feel it?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I mean, obviously when my kids were born, or the first time SpaceX got to orbit, or Tesla made an electric car work.

[Interviewer]

You've had a big. A lot of them.

[Elon Musk]

It's a lot of things. There's a lot coming down the pike.

[Interviewer]

Like what?

[Elon Musk]

Starship. The degree to which a starship is a revolutionary technology is not well understood in the world. It's the first time that there's been any rocket design where full and rapid reusability is possible or full reusability at all is possible. This is the first design where a reusable rocket is one of the possible outcomes, where success is in the set of possible outcomes.

[Interviewer]

Are you talking about V3 or V2?

[Elon Musk]

Well, we could have made V2 reusable, but there were a lot of performance improvements for V3, so it made sense to go to V3. There's like 10,000 different changes between V2 and V3. Maybe more than 10,000, really. So. If there are historians in the future, they'll look back at starship and say, this is one of the most profound things that ever happened. Now you can think of historic events as where would they fit in the evolutionary hall of fame? So you've got things like single celled life, then you've got multicellular life capturing a mitochondria, capturing mitochondria so that you have a power cell in the plant, in the cell, you've got like a power plant in the cell. You have differentiation into plants and animals, life going from oceans to land. And then also on that scale, probably in the top 10, is life becoming multi planetary. There just aren't very many things that are in the top 10 of the evolution of life or where you could basically say you could evaluate any given civilization or any given life form as on that scale. So life becoming multi planetary, it's on the top 10. It needs to be sustainably multiplanetary. So not just visiting, but actually multiplanetary in the sense that if you have planetary redundancy. So if one of the planets, if there were to be a catastrophe on one of the planets, the other planet would survive.

[Interviewer]

Are all of your companies.

[Elon Musk]

Starship is capable of doing that for the first time in history and no AI was used to create it, so the AI will appreciate that.

[Interviewer]

Are all of your companies working towards that same goal to help us become multiplanetary? Like, does the AI exist to be able to help life on Mars, or is that primarily for what is happening here currently?

[Elon Musk]

You know, Tesla is mostly about making sure life on Earth is good. And as an XAI is about that too. Because multi planetary means Earth's got to be good and you need another planet. Sometimes people think because they have legacy templates, mental templates, they think that going to Mars is an escape from Earth, or that it would be some place where billionaires would go or something like that. But actually Mars will be very dangerous and the moon base will be also dangerous. Much more dangerous and much less comfortable than Earth. So the people that would go in the early days to make life multi planetary on Mars or the moon, they would have a much higher risk of death than if they stayed on Earth. And things would be cramped and uncomfortable. So that's the sales pitch for Mars. It's going to be uncomfortable. The food won't be as good as Earth. You might die. It's going to be a mass amount of hard work and it may not succeed. That's the sales pitch. Do you want to go?

[Interviewer]

Same as when people came to America.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah. Didn't want to be in Jamestown.

[Interviewer]

People went anyway.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah. Maybe if there had been social media back then, they would have saying, we're all dying. Here's videos of us dying. Would have probably put a damper on future voyages. But yeah, a whole bunch of people just disappeared. We don't know what happened to them.

[Interviewer]

You talk a lot on X about wardrobe and how you wish current wardrobe would be differently.

[Elon Musk]

I just think like from a fashion standpoint, we should evolve. It's like my son Saxon said at one point, why does everything look like it's 2015? I was like, damn, things do everything does look like it's 2015. It's like if you took a picture from 2015 and said in 2025 it looks exactly the same.

[Interviewer]

There were.

[Elon Musk]

Stylistically, things were the same as 2015. We've not moved the needle in a decade.

[Interviewer]

So what should it look like?

[Elon Musk]

Something new. Like the 60s had a definitive style, the 70s had a definitive style, the 80s had a different style. And then the 90s also had a different style. But then you start looking at the 2000s and the 2010s and it's like less and less every year. I think we should evolve our style. And if you look at some of the older paintings of past cabinet secretaries, some of them, they look cool. Their jackets are cooler than what we have right now. They have sort of like a high collar and like a sort of, I don't know, some sort of. What do you call those things? Ascot or something like that. I mean, it just looks cool, but everything's like a very normal looking suit at this point. But like literally the same as 2015. I'm being generous because arguably the same as 2010.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Elon Musk]

So in 15 years. And I'm like, from a fashion standpoint, I think we've moved since 2000. In 25 years, if you showed someone a picture of. This is a bunch. This is a bunch of dudes in 2000. There's a bunch of dudes in 2025. Which year is which? So I think we should, I don't know, spice it up a little.

[Interviewer]

What's a conspiracy theory?

[Podcast Host]

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[Interviewer]

You believe in.

[Elon Musk]

I mean, which, which conspiracy theories haven't come true at this point? We've run out of conspiracy theories that. Because it will come true as far as I can tell. I mean, I don't know of any aliens. People always ask me if there's. There are aliens. I have seen no evidence of aliens. No one on the SpaceX senior team has any evidence of aliens. Because I've asked him like, guys, am I missing something? Has anyone on the team, has anyone seen any evidence of aliens?

[Interviewer]

Does that include UFOs?

[Elon Musk]

That's just an unidentified flying object. So UFOs like it could be like some new weapons program or whatever that's, you know, some hypersonic missile or something like that. That would be technically a ufo, but it's just basically some weapons prototype. It's not like aliens. So although Neil Armstrong. Neil A spelled backwards is alien. Coincidence.

[Interviewer]

You believe we actually went to the moon?

[Elon Musk]

Yes, we went to the moon a few times actually and played golf on the moon. We didn't just go to the moon. We actually got a little bored and started playing golf on the moon.

[Interviewer]

But why didn't the flag move? There's like that conspiracy.

[Elon Musk]

That was the jump the truck moment.

[Interviewer]

About the flag?

[Elon Musk]

No, the Playing golf on the moon.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Elon Musk]

You know, I literally did.

[Interviewer]

No, I understand that.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, yeah. Whacked golf ball on the moon.

[Interviewer]

Is there. There's no gravity though. Right?

[Elon Musk]

So like there is gravity. 1 6. If it wasn't gravity, you just float away. There's no atmosphere.

[Interviewer]

Okay, fair.

[Elon Musk]

But there is 1/6 gravity.

[Interviewer]

What's the biggest misconception about you?

[Elon Musk]

I don't know. How would I know? What do you think?

[Interviewer]

I think it's. I get asked this a lot when I do interviews about you.

[Elon Musk]

Me?

[Interviewer]

Oh. Everyone always thinks you're a very difficult person to work for.

[Elon Musk]

Oh.

[Interviewer]

But you're. I think you're very kind.

[Elon Musk]

Thanks.

[Interviewer]

Like people think, which you are like a very demanding boss. I think that you are. I've never heard you yell at any employee.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, I don't yell.

[Interviewer]

I think every employee who works at every single one of your companies is incredibly mission driven, which is unlike any other workplace I've ever seen. Like, Starbase is the most inspirational place you'll ever go to. Everyone is there to work on a singular goal. And so I think to me, the biggest misconception about you is how every employee at all of your companies are fiercely loyal because it's all mission driven and you are a very good employer to work for. And I think people assume you are not.

[Elon Musk]

Right. Well, why would they think anyone would work at the companies? Yeah, I mean, talented people can go work anywhere they want. So they're only going to work at one of my companies if they want to. And if they're mistreated in some way, they would leave and go work somewhere else.

[Interviewer]

How did you come up with the idea for Starbase?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I think we needed something inspirational. We kind of have a lot of star things, so we've got Starlink, Starship. Well, where would Starship depart from Starbase? I mean, Starbase is, as you've mentioned, I think it's probably the coolest place on Earth.

[Interviewer]

I agree.

[Elon Musk]

And it used to be a sandbar down by the Rio Grande. It's only like 3ft above sea level. So we built a gigantic rocket factory and two giant launch towers down by the river, literally within side of the Rio Grande. And on an actual sandbar, kind of had to have like an inspirational name. And then we made it a city. So it's an incorporated city, like legally a city. You don't hear about new cities being formed that often.

[Interviewer]

The last time there was a company town, it was Disney World.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, I think Ford had some kind of like company town situations, but yeah, Disney World is. It's literally its name. I'm Walt Disney. This is my world. I've gone from land to world. They got incorporated as a city and got tax exemption, which was like a whole, was a big deal. I've been to Disney World probably 10 times.

[Interviewer]

Really?

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, maybe more than, maybe more than 10, but at least 10 times because Cape Canaveral is right by Disney World.

[Interviewer]

This makes sense now.

[Elon Musk]

So when I'd have the kids, then I would. My older kids and I was, we're trying to get the rocket launch from Cape Naveral. Then you know, the thing they'd want to do is go to Disney World or Harry Potter Land.

[Interviewer]

What's your favorite ride?

[Elon Musk]

I'm sort of tempted to say Space Mountain, I suppose. Yeah, probably Space Mountain. I mean, I do think Space Mountain needs an upgrade.

[Interviewer]

It's a little herky jerky.

[Elon Musk]

It doesn't look quite as sci fi as it used to. You know, it's like the day before yesterday's tomorrow, which is still yesterday.

[Interviewer]

What's your favorite age to parent of your kids?

[Elon Musk]

Generally, kids are the most fun between 5 and 10.

[Interviewer]

Do you think humanity is inherently good or is it just trying to be?

[Elon Musk]

The concept of good wouldn't exist without humanity. I do think humanity is, on balance, good. I generally think increasing the amount of consciousness in the universe is a good thing. Trying to try to understand the nature of the universe, which you can only do by increasing conscious awareness. I've thought about like, how did we get here? Because if we just start out as a hydrogen gas cloud that sort of condensed and then formed stars, and then these stars exploded and then they recondensed, formed stars again and then exploded, exploded again. And then eventually you get to us 13.8 billion years later. One of the interesting questions to think about is how many times have your atoms been at the center of a star? I think it's like on average three or four times, something like that. Then how many times will your atoms be at the center of a star? Estimates vary, but it seems like we're roughly halfway. So your atom's likely to be at the center of the star maybe another four times or something like that. It depends on what your predictions are for the future. But in terms of existence as measured by the number of times your atoms will be at the center of a star, we seem to be roughly halfway that early. You know, if you want to look at the big picture, that's the really big picture.

[Interviewer]

What's one invention that's made us worse, not better?

[Elon Musk]

What's one adventure that's made us worse.

[Interviewer]

Invention.

[Elon Musk]

Maybe short form video. It seems to be rotting people's brains.

[Interviewer]

What's one piece of technology you hope never gets invented?

[Elon Musk]

I hope never gets invented.

[Interviewer]

Like, yeah, like it's gonna destroy us all or you think with the proper safeguards?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I mean, obviously I hope like that people don't invent a virus that can kill all humans. Like that's an obvious thing. I mean, yeah, generally I hope inventions that destroy consciousness are not invented. I think the future is going to look very interesting. So I do have this theory about predicting the future, which is that the most interesting outcome is the most likely, which if simulation theory is accurate, makes sense. Because if anyone is simulating a wide range of futures, they're going to stop the simulation when it gets boring. Because this is what we do in our reality. So if SpaceX is doing, or Tesla doing simulations to understand how a car would work or robot or spaceship or something like that, we run all these simulations in the computer and the simulations that we pay attention to are the ones that are the most interesting. Like the simulation where everything goes right on the rocket we actually don't pay attention to because that's, that's not a everything goes right simulation is fine. So we actually test the, you know, when we simulate the rocket flight, we'll actually test all sorts of oddball situations. But we don't test it. We don't have the simulation be totally wrong because I mean, like if the rocket just explodes immediately, that's also not interesting. So it's like you need to find the envelope of possible flight paths where the rocket can make it to orbit and without exploding. And then you find those boundaries and then when you launch the actual rocket, you try, you make sure it stays within those boundaries. Or another way to think of it is like we could be an alien Netflix series. And that series is only going to get continued if our ratings are good.

[Interviewer]

Are the ratings good?

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, but you can think of it like from a Darwinian standpoint. If you apply Darwin to simulation theory, then only the most interesting simulations will continue. Therefore, the most interesting outcome is most likely because it's either that or annihilation. So really we have one goal. Keep it interesting.

[Interviewer]

Do you think social media has made people more honest or more performative?

[Elon Musk]

Well, social media makes people more performative. By the same token, you get more real life video of things that are actually happening and anything that is very interesting will spare, will go viral on the Internet. So you have both, you've got More performative, where people are doing anything they can to get a few more views on their TikTok video or whatever, or their reels or maybe on their X post or something. And so that's very performative. But then you also see real life videos that are. That challenge the narrative but are nonetheless real.

[Interviewer]

Is there any X accounts? You're surprised when you changed it so people could see country of origin that wasn't in the United States that you thought was in the United States?

[Elon Musk]

I don't really think about it that much. I mean, there's. In a country of origin, we have to be a little careful about this. You can actually technically, you know, just specify your region. Like you can say I'm in Asia or something like that, which is quite big. But it does make it a little harder that if somebody is trying to pretend that they're say, a member of the American public or in Europe or Africa, wherever, if they're, you know, if everything about their account is from a different continent than they are pretending to be from, it gets a little harder to pretend. We don't want to dox people, but we kind of think you're not really doxing someone if you say which continent they're from.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I think it's fair.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so in every episode we've played, would you rather. Okay, would you rather save humanity from extinction on Earth or guarantee its survival on Mars?

[Elon Musk]

It's a false dichotomy. I think I'd say guarantee Earth. Earth's much better than Mars. To be clear, Mars. But Mars is just our best option if we want to become a multi planet species. It's really our only option if you want to become a multi planet species. You've got Mars, which is very difficult, but not impossible. Earth is much better than Mars, but, you know, we can't. I think it was Tsiolkovsky or I think he said, you know, Earth is the cradle of civilization, but we can't stay in the cradle forever.

[Interviewer]

Would you rather be a Marvel superhero or a Bond villain?

[Elon Musk]

I think it would depend on which Marvel superhero or which Bond villain. I suppose I'd rather be a Marvel superhero. They did model Iron man in the movies after me.

[Interviewer]

Yes. So you were in the Iron man movie, right?

[Elon Musk]

Yes. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Robert Downey Jr. And Favreau met with me, toured SpaceX and stuff. So in fact, Iron Man 2, a large part of the movie is filmed in SpaceX.

[Interviewer]

Really?

[Elon Musk]

Yes. If you watch Iron Man 2, you'll see it's the SpaceX factory is the actual background.

[Interviewer]

That's so cool.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, it was cool. We had Scarlett Johansson doing martial arts in the lobby actually. Yeah. And you expect me to believe this is all real?

[Interviewer]

It's a simulation.

[Elon Musk]

Exactly. What are the odds? Yeah, I mean if you were me.

[Interviewer]

No, I agree with you.

[Elon Musk]

Would you think this is real or a simulation?

[Interviewer]

Your life is a simulation.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Your life gets to be the simulation.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah. And I'm like doing all the side quests and everything.

[Interviewer]

What's your best side quest?

[Elon Musk]

A Doge, probably.

[Interviewer]

Okay. Would you rather launch a social network with no algorithm or a rocket with no manual override?

[Elon Musk]

Who came up with these questions?

[Interviewer]

Just keep going. These are funny. Maybe not to you because they're too trivial.

[Elon Musk]

What do you mean? Like, so that with an algorithm means basically you only see the people you follow.

[Interviewer]

Like it's just a mess. Like it was Twitter before you bought it.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, yeah. There's the sort of people you follow and then there's a recommendation algorithm. I think probably in December we'll finally have a half decent recommendation algorithm.

[Interviewer]

It's a lot better recently.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, yeah. So it really just trying to show people stuff they'd be interested in. But there's an enormous amount of AI horsepower being applied to this where Grok, poor thing is reading all. Is going to read all 100 million posts per day, which is.

[Interviewer]

Does that take up a lot of compute?

[Elon Musk]

Hopefully it doesn't destroy its mind or something. Yeah, it does take a lot of computer like most posts are. There's a lot of spam scam stuff so it's just that can be easily discarded, I suppose. But then you've got to take 100 million pieces of content, match that to sometimes 3 or 400 million people per day. So that's a lot of matching.

[Interviewer]

My algorithm used to look a lot like other people's when you open their X account. Now mine is very unique comparatively to other people's.

[Elon Musk]

Well, we really are kind of. This is just the beginning kind of thing. What I mentioned, the Grok reading everything and recommending any given thing to anyone should go live in December. So the acid test for this is are you seeing content like are you seeing content that you find really interesting from accounts you've never seen before? If that's happening then the algorithm is working like it should be possible for somebody to post content as a new user with no followers. And if that content is excellent, it gets seen by a lot of people. So can an account with small number of followers or a new account, if the content is intrinsically excellent. Can that content be seen by a lot of people? That's our goal.

[Interviewer]

All right, last one. Would you rather invent time travel or teleportation?

[Elon Musk]

Actually those things are almost the same.

[Podcast Host]

Thing in that thanks for listening to this podcast. If you want to listen a full interview in this podcast, the link is.

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