Part 2: Elon Musk 1-on-1 Exclusive at the White House-DOGE, AI, Trump, Mars & Killer Robots

Summary

Verdict with Ted Cruz: Part 2 — Elon Musk 1-on-1 Exclusive at the White House: DOGE, AI, Trump, Mars & Killer Robots

Release Date: March 19, 2025

In the second installment of an exclusive conversation with Elon Musk, Verdict with Ted Cruz delves deep into the mind of one of today’s most influential entrepreneurs. Hosted by Senator Ted Cruz alongside co-host Ben Ferguson, the episode navigates Musk's ambitious visions for space exploration, his unconventional views on intellectual property, and his relentless work ethic. This comprehensive summary captures the essence of their riveting discussion, highlighting key insights and notable moments.

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1. Pioneering Mars Colonization

Setting the Stage for Humanity’s Next Frontier

The conversation kicks off with Cruz inquiring about Musk's timeline for human settlement on Mars.

• Ted Cruz (02:52): "Let me start with a question. You know a lot about what year does man first set foot on Mars?"

• Elon Musk (03:00): "I think the soonest would be 29."

Musk envisions humans stepping onto Mars by 2029, emphasizing the urgency to establish a self-sustaining city. He underscores the importance of Mars as a contingency for civilization's longevity.

• Musk (03:19): "The key threshold is when that city can continue to grow, continue to prosper, even when the supply ships from Earth stop coming." [03:19]

2. Technological Hurdles and Solutions

Building a Self-Sustaining Martian Society

Cruz probes deeper into the technological advancements required for such an ambitious project.

• Cruz (04:55): "And how close are we technologically to be able to do that? To have a self-sustaining settlement on the surface of Mars?"

• Musk (05:40): "You need to recreate the entire base of industry of Earth... and Mars is a hostile environment." [05:40]

Musk elaborates on the necessity of replicating Earth's industrial base on Mars, highlighting challenges like mining, material refinement, food production, and habitat construction.

3. The Genesis of SpaceX

From Internet Ventures to Rocket Science

Transitioning to his entrepreneurial journey, Musk recounts the inception of SpaceX and the obstacles he faced.

• Cruz (13:54): "So a few months ago, you and I were down in Boca Chica with the President for a starship launch."

• Musk (14:05): "You have to start with a philosophical premise... in my case it was that we want to expand the scope and scale of consciousness to better understand the nature of the universe." [14:05]

Musk discusses his initial plans to fund a Mars mission through philanthropic efforts, which ultimately led to founding SpaceX when he realized the need for affordable and reliable rocket technology.

4. Navigating Challenges with Competitors

Negotiations and Setbacks

A particularly candid moment arises when Musk shares his attempts to purchase ICBMs from Russia to jumpstart his space endeavors.

• Cruz (19:07): "So, you try to buy CBMs. Do you succeed or no?"

• Musk (20:16): "They kept raising the price on me... So I got pretty frustrated there, actually." [20:16]

This segment reveals the high-stakes negotiations and Musk's frustration with escalating costs, ultimately reinforcing his resolve to develop in-house rocket technology.

5. Rethinking Intellectual Property

Open-Sourcing for Greater Innovation

Musk offers a provocative stance on patents, advocating for open innovation to accelerate technological progress.

• Cruz (25:57): "What's your view of IP patents for the week?"

• Musk (26:17): "Patents for those who innovate slowly... At Tesla, we actually open sourced all our patents." [26:17]

He argues that patents often hinder innovation, suggesting that allowing free access to technological advancements can lead to exponential progress, a philosophy he practices at Tesla by open-sourcing their patents.

6. Relentless Work Ethic

The Price of Success

The dialogue shifts to Musk's unparalleled dedication to his ventures, shedding light on his personal habits and sacrifices.

• Cruz (29:42): "You're managing multiple companies and doing Doge. How much do you sleep in a given night?"

• Musk (30:00): "About six hours on average." [30:00]

Musk candidly discusses his rigorous schedule, often working "almost every waking hour," and recounts the early days of his career when he and his brother would sleep in their office to sustain their startups.

7. Building Organizational Precision

Creating a Culture of Excellence

Musk attributes his companies’ successes to a culture rooted in manufacturing excellence and a first-principles approach.

• Musk (28:43): "I take a physics first principles approach to everything... I became very good at manufacturing because I had to." [28:43]

By insourcing manufacturing processes, Musk ensured higher precision and efficiency, positioning his companies at the forefront of their respective industries.

8. Reflections and Future Aspirations

Looking Beyond Earth

As the conversation wraps up, Musk reflects on the broader implications of his work and the future of humanity in space.

• Musk (21:10): "Patents... maximize innovation, not inhibit it... the execution is the hard part." [28:09]

This emphasizes his belief in proactive execution over theoretical innovation, aiming to leave a lasting impact on both Earth and beyond.

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Conclusion

This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz offers an intimate glimpse into Elon Musk's visionary mindset and the practical steps he's taking to revolutionize space travel and technology. From demystifying the challenges of establishing a Martian colony to redefining intellectual property norms, Musk's insights provide a roadmap for future innovators and entrepreneurs. His unwavering dedication and strategic approach underscore the transformative potential of his ventures, making this conversation a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of technology and space exploration.

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Notable Quotes:

• Musk (03:19): "The key threshold is when that city can continue to grow, continue to prosper, even when the supply ships from Earth stop coming."

• Musk (26:17): "Patents for those who innovate slowly... At Tesla, we actually open sourced all our patents."

• Musk (28:43): "I take a physics first principles approach to everything... I became very good at manufacturing because I had to."

• Musk (30:00): "About six hours on average."

---

For those seeking to explore the boundless possibilities of human innovation and space exploration, this episode encapsulates the relentless spirit and strategic vision driving Elon Musk’s groundbreaking endeavors.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Ben Ferguson]

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[Senator Ted Cruz]

Let me start with a question. You know a lot about what year does man first set foot on Mars?

[Elon Musk]

I think the soonest would be 29.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

29?

[Elon Musk]

Yes. And I don't think it's more than two to four years beyond that.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And that's not an unmanned, that's a human being putting his foot on the surface.

[Elon Musk]

Yes. Best case would be 29.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And what do you put the odds of finding either alien life or evidence of alien life?

[Elon Musk]

I don't think we're going to find aliens.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Okay, but do we find ruins, do we find remnants?

[Elon Musk]

We may find the ruins of a long dead alien civilization. That's possible. And we may find subterranean microbial life. That's possible. All right.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

If man lands on Mars in 29, how soon after that do you land on Mars?

[Elon Musk]

Remains to be seen. I'm not sure. The important thing is that we build a self sustaining city on Mars as quickly as possible. The key threshold is when that city can continue to grow, continue to prosper, even when the supply ships from Earth stop coming. At that point, even if something were to happen on Earth, it might not be World War 3, but it might be that a bad virus. Yeah, it might not be anything. What I'm saying is like say civilization could die with a bang or a whimper. It may be that civilization dies with a whimper rather than a bang and simply loses the ability to send ships to Mars. So you obviously need Mars to be become self sustaining and be able to grow by itself before the resupply ships from Earth stop coming. That is the critical civilizational threshold beyond which the probable lifespan of civilization is much greater.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And how close are we technologically to be able to do that? To have a self sustaining settlement on the surface of Mars?

[Elon Musk]

I think it can be done in.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

20 years, but it would take 20 years. So we're not in 29, we're not there. What are we missing? What are the big technologies we don't have?

[Elon Musk]

A few people running around the surface in a hostile environment is not going to make it self sustaining. So you're going to need on the order of a million people, maybe a million tons of cargo.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So. But you think we could have a million people on Mars in 20 years?

[Elon Musk]

Yes.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And what's the technology we're missing right now. When you think about a million people on Mars, do we have the ability to get water, to get food, to keep them safe? I mean, what do we need to make that happen?

[Elon Musk]

Well, you need to recreate the entire base of industry of Earth. So we're here at the top of a massive pyramid of industry that starts with mining a vast array of materials. Those materials going through hundreds of steps of refinement. We grow food, obviously, we grow trees. We make things out of the trees. You've got to build all that on Mars. And Mars is a hostile environment. It sometimes gets above zero on a warm summer day near the equator. On Mars it's quite cold.

[Ben Ferguson]

How do you prep for that?

[Elon Musk]

Well, in the beginning on Mars you have to have a, a life support habitation module. Right. Like you need. You can't just live outdoors, you can't breathe the air.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Like a dome you think is likely.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, glass domes type of thing.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Have you identified a location on Mars that is likely to be ideal for habitat?

[Elon Musk]

What might be Arcadia Planeta is one of the. One of the good options. That's one of my daughters is named Arcadia after that.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And what makes that attractive?

[Elon Musk]

My eldest son's middle name is Aries. Mars.

[Ben Ferguson]

You've been thinking about this for a long time if you're naming your kids around it.

[Elon Musk]

My eldest kid is middle name is essentially Mars.

[Ben Ferguson]

When did you get the dream?

[Elon Musk]

Like, I mean he's 20 now, turning 21 soon.

[Ben Ferguson]

This is a decades old.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

Dream.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So like when you were 10, did you look up and say I'm going to Mars?

[Elon Musk]

No, no. I read a lot of science fiction books and program computers. But the first, funnily if the first video game that I sold was a space video game called Blastar, maybe I was born this way.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

How do you, how do you become Elon Musk? Look, you're obviously smart as hell, but. But there are human. There are a lot of smart people that don't do squat. And you've managed everything you've touched has been an extraordinary success. Yeah, look, I mean that's just objectively right? So what, what has led to that? Because there are other smart people that. That's not true. And they gaze at their navel and they don't do anything. So what, what do you do differently that makes you so effective?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I suppose I have a philosophy of curiosity. I want to find out the nature of the universe, understand the universe. And in order to do that we have to travel to other planets, see other star Systems, maybe other galaxies, find perhaps other alien civilizations, or at least the remnants of alien civilizations, gain a better understanding of where is this universe going? Where did it come from? And what questions do we not yet know to ask about the answer that is the universe?

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So let's go back 25 years. Late 90s, you're at PayPal. How do you turn PayPal into the success it was, which then helped launch you to the next one? And the next one.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah. So I studied physics and economics in college, which is a good foundation for understanding how the economy works and how reality works, and then was going to do a PhD at Stanford in advanced ultracapacitors actually, as a potential means of energy storage for electric transport. Put that on hold to start an Internet company. I essentially came to the conclusion that the Internet was one of those rare things, and I could either watch it happen while a grad student or participate. And I figured I'd always go back to grad school. Grad school is going to be kind of the same. But I couldn't bear the thought of just watching the Internet happen, so I wanted to be a part of building it. So I created an Internet company. We did the first maps, directions, yellow pages, white pages on the Internet. I actually wrote the first version of software just by myself in 95. And we ended up selling that to Compaq Texas Company, I guess, for about $300 million in cash about four years after I graduated.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Wow.

[Elon Musk]

So I should say, just to preface that, I graduated with about $100,000 in student debt, so it wasn't.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Yeah, you and me both.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Where's my.

[Ben Ferguson]

I'm right.

[Elon Musk]

I know. And when I first arrived in North America, I arrived with $2,500, a bag of books, and a bag of clothes.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

All right, so you sell the company for 300 million. How much does that change your life?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I got $21 million. Blackjack, and. But I wanted to do more on the Internet, so started a company called X.com, which merged with a company called Confinity, which is Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. And the combined company was actually at first still called X.com, but we later changed the name of the company to PayPal because of all the name changes. It's kind of confusing, but the company that people know as PayPal today was actually. I filed those incorporation documents for that company.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Interesting.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Well, and as you know, Peter Thiel and I were buddies back in the mid-90s before he went and did any of this. But you Know, I became friends with him when he was a corporate lawyer in New York and just sort of a young libertarian with, with a lot of dreams. So it's. It's been a heck of a journey.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, yeah. And now obviously Peter was involved in a coup. You know, we had a little sort of knifing in the Senate situation where, you know, that they did coup me at PayPal. I kind of.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Now, did y'all make peace after that?

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was doing a lot of sort of risky moves that I think ultimately would have been successful. But I then went on a two week trip, which was a dual money raising trip and honeymoon, and said, not done my honeymoon earlier in the year. So I was raising money while doing it, doing honeymoon, but I was kind of a waste.

[Ben Ferguson]

How'd that go over, by the way?

[Elon Musk]

It worked. It worked.

[Ben Ferguson]

There you go.

[Elon Musk]

Kind of. It worked. I raised money.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Elon Musk]

And we had a honeymoon.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

There you go.

[Elon Musk]

So, yeah, but you don't want to be away from the battle when things are scary. So I was not there to assuage the concerns of the troops. And anyway, we patch things up and have been friends nonetheless. And these days I like to stay at his house and stuff. So we're friends. And he's also invested in most of my companies.

[Podcast Host]

This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know, when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself, talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them? Where do you even start Talkspace? Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need. With Talkspace, you can go online, answer a few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule wherever you feel most at ease. If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a relationship, or if you want some counseling for you and your partner or just need a little extra one on one support, Talkspace is here for you. Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with code [e-mail].

[Senator Ted Cruz]

All right, so 2002, you start SpaceX. Like, how do you start a rocket company? Like, what's the first day where you're like, I want to make rockets and I want to go to Mars, like what do you do on day one?

[Elon Musk]

So I think you have to start with a, some sort of philosophical premise in order to have, in order for the, in order to be, in order to be highly motivated, you have to have some philosophical foundation. In my case it was that we want to expand the scope and scale of consciousness to better understand the nature of the universe. And in order to expand, expand consciousness, we need to go beyond one planet. If we're on one planet, there's too much risk. Hopefully Earth civilization prospers very far into the future, but it may not. There's always some risk that we self annihilate through nuclear war or that there's a big meteor that takes us out like the dinosaurs. There's always some risk if all your eggs are in one basket. So it's going to be better if we're multi planet species. And then once we're multi planet species the next step would be to be multi stellar and have civilization among on many different star Systems. So in 2001 I didn't think that I could, I didn't think I could sell a rocket company so I, I thought I'd take some of the money from PayPal. In that case I think it was about $180 million after tax, something like that. And I thought I don't need $180 million so I'll spend a bunch of it on a philanthropic Mars mission to get the public excited about going back to Mars or going to Mars I should say. Yeah, Mars was always going to be the destination after the moon. Right. In fact, if you told people in 1969 that it would be 2025 and we've not even gone back to the.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Moon, let alone, it's hard to believe.

[Elon Musk]

Let alone Mars, they'd be like, what happened? Did civilization, did civilization collapse?

[Ben Ferguson]

Stop?

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, like, like they would be incomprehensible that we've not been to Mars by now. If you told people this and after landing on the moon in 69, why.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Do you think in 50 years America never went back to the moon?

[Elon Musk]

Well, we destroyed the Saturn V rocket that was, that could take people to the moon and had the space shuttle which could only go to low Earth orbit and then there really hasn't been anything to replace. No vehicle has been made since then that can go to the moon or to Mars until the SpaceX Starship rocket.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Yeah.

[Elon Musk]

So can't go to Mars if you don't have the ride.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So I remember you and I first met in 2013 when, when I was a brand new baby senator and I was still down in the basement office. They stick freshman senators in a basement office. Kind of like hazening.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like there are.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

100 Senate offices, but for six months you stay in the basement, put you in your place, it's like wearing a beanie.

[Ben Ferguson]

They want you to know where you're supposed to be.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

You know, I got to say, now, 13 years into it, I think there's a lot of wisdom to doing that. But you were down in the basement office and I remember you were coming and sitting down with SpaceX and at the time the Air Force was not letting y'all bid to launch satellites. And so you were coming and saying, look, we got a company, I think we can do a really good job of this. And yet we're locked out of this. It's a little amazing to think the journey SpaceX has gone from then to now.

[Elon Musk]

Yes, it's hard to believe that this is all real because originally consistent with my belief that we need to become a multi planet species, I thought the only way to do that would be through NASA. And I think I thought, well, if I can just get the public excited about Mars, then they'll do a mission to Mars. So initially my thought was to have to send a small greenhouse with seeds and dehydrated nutrient gel, then land the greenhouse, hydrate the seeds, and you see the sort of money.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Here's your truth.

[Elon Musk]

The money shot would be green plants on a red background. I also recently learned that money shot has a different meaning in some other arenas. But yeah, I'm glad you didn't do that.

[Ben Ferguson]

Very different story.

[Elon Musk]

What I'm trying to say is the captivating shot would be the green plants on a red background and that hopefully that would, if we did something like that, that would get the public excited about Mars, that would increase NASA's budget and then we could send people to Mars.

[Ben Ferguson]

Your dream was NASA to do this?

[Elon Musk]

Yes. Not, you know, the original, original plan was literally to take a bunch of the money from PayPal and I guess by some people's definition waste it with no profit on a nonprofit thing. I wanted to spend a whole bunch of my money for free to get NASA's budget to be bigger. So you go to friggin Mars, right? Wow. That's what I wanted.

[Ben Ferguson]

So that was the holy grail.

[Elon Musk]

That's what I wanted.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

I was like, so when did you change?

[Elon Musk]

Why am I going to Mars? That's what I wanted to know.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

When. When did it strike you? Okay, you're gonna have to do this. If you want.

[Elon Musk]

I'll tell. It gets crazier. All right, it gets crazier. So. So then I couldn't afford any of the US Rockets because, as you know, the US Rockets are way too expensive. The Boeing Locky Lucky rockets are crazy money I didn't have. I didn't even. Even with 180 million, there's no way I could have afforded.

[Ben Ferguson]

How much were they back then?

[Elon Musk]

Well, with the additional stage to get to Mars, it would have been about, like, 80 million. So technically, I could have afforded one of them, but I wanted to do two in case one of them didn't work. And then I didn't have enough money for that. And I was sort of prepared to, you know, I don't know, waste half the money. And I figured if I had 90 million left, that'd be fine, you know, but ideally, not all of it. So I went to Russia twice to try to buy ICBMs.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Oh, interesting.

[Ben Ferguson]

How'd that go? And who do you call?

[Elon Musk]

The Russian rocket forces.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Do they sell ICBMs? Does that work?

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, you got to tell us the story that I want to know.

[Elon Musk]

Who turns out you can buy anything in Russia.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, like, please walk me down that. I want to know how you made that phone call and when you get there, how did that work?

[Elon Musk]

And what do you tell your friends? Yeah, listen, I'm going to Russia device in my CBMs. I might not return. Depends on this situation, literally. So it gets slightly less insane when you understand that the Russians had to demolish a bunch of their ICBMs because of salt talks. Like because of basically an agreement between United States and. And Russia to reduce the total number of ICBMs. Sure. Russia was actually obligated to scrap a bunch of their ICBMs. So if you took the very biggest ICBMs, you could convert those into a rocket at an additional stage and. And send something to Mars.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So. So those are big enough with one more stage to get to Mars.

[Elon Musk]

To send a small payload to Mars. Yeah. So the SS18.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So you try to buy CBMs. Do you succeed or no? Or do you figure out you got to build your own instead?

[Elon Musk]

They kept raising the price on me, so. Because I figured, like, look, they're going to throw these things in scrapyard anyway. You should get a really good deal. Right? So the price started out at 4 million. Then the next conversation, they were at 8 million. Then the next conversation, they were at like, 19 million. And I'm like, this is before we signed a contract, by the way.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Was there another bidder? Was there another bidder or were you the only one trying to buy them?

[Elon Musk]

I think. I don't know if there were other bids, but they didn't mention any other bids. But I was like, man, if the price is increasing this much before the contract signed, I'm really going to get fleeced after the contract sign. So I got pretty frustrated there, actually. In some cases. We got into shouting matches in Moscow. Some guy's shouting at me in Russian. I'm shouting back at him with my interpreter.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

That put it really badly, you know.

[Ben Ferguson]

I'm like, so you are all. I mean, you're all in ripping me off.

[Elon Musk]

In Moscow. Yeah. So, man, I should have recorded that. That would have been wonderful.

[Ben Ferguson]

How many days were you there negotiating that first time? I mean, was this, like, ongoing?

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, yeah. This. This took place. These conversations took place over probably six months or so.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow.

[Elon Musk]

So then the final trip there was with Mike Griffin, who later became NASA administrator. I actually realized in the course of this that my original premise was wrong, that America actually has plenty of will to go to Mars, but it just needs a way to Mars that is affordable and that doesn't break the budget.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

As you know, we couldn't even get to the space station. We needed the Russians to get us to our own space station.

[Elon Musk]

That was embarrassing.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

It really was pitiful.

[Elon Musk]

I'm not sure most Americans know just how much we were being fleeced. Like, I think they got up to like $90 million seat.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah. For a seat that cost them.

[Ben Ferguson]

Like, that was pre doge, obviously, but.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

It was the only.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, it was before space X, but $90 million seat for a seat that cost them 10 million is high. Yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

That's a lot of money.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

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[Senator Ted Cruz]

So a few months ago, you and I were down in Boca Chica with the President for a starship launch. And it is incredible what you built in Boca Chica. You know, five years ago, it was an empty beach at the southern tip of Texas sandbar.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And it's now a city and a factory where you're building a rocket ship a month with incredible precision.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

But one of the things you said to me when we were down there that really stood out to me is, is, is you said your philosophy on intellectual property talked to lots of CEOs or like, we fight to guard our IP and you had a very different approach. What's your view of IP patents for the week?

[Elon Musk]

Patents for those who innovate slowly.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

I literally do not know anyone else in business who would say something like that. Like. Like it was a startling. And what Elon said down there is, he said, look, this stuff, I assume everyone will steal everything, but by the time they steal, it will be five generations beyond and it won't matter.

[Elon Musk]

Yes, at Tesla, we actually open sourced all our patents. So we said our patents Are anyone can use them for free.

[Ben Ferguson]

Really?

[Elon Musk]

Yeah. We only do patents at Tesla to avoid patent trolls causing trouble. So we'll try to look ahead. Say okay, patent trolls are going to trial, patent troll going to file patents to block certain things. We'll file patents and then open source that make it free. I mean it when I say patents for the week. Now there are a few cases in say with pharmaceuticals where it might cost you a billion dollars to do a phase three human trial, but then subsequently the drug is very cheap to manufacture. So cases. There are some, in my opinion, which is massively reduce what can be patented and say. Because the whole point of patenting is to maximize innovation, not inhibit it. And in my opinion, maybe a controversial opinion. Most patents inhibit innovation, they do not help it. But there are cases I want to do want to single out cases like where such AS a phase 3 clinical trial that might cost a billion dollars, but then the drugs thereafter cost a few dollars to manufacturer. And if you can then immediately copy those drugs for a few dollars, no one will pay for the billion dollars.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

It's a free rider prop.

[Elon Musk]

Free rider problem. Yeah, exactly. So you have to address the free rider problem. But other than that there should be no patents. Ideas are easy.

[Ben Ferguson]

You want ideas to flow maximum to people to get there faster and do things bigger.

[Elon Musk]

The idea is the easy part, the execution is the hard part. As the old saying goes, it's 1% inspiration, if not less than 1% and 99% perspiration.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

But I'll say the perspiration part you're really damn good at also because you're making, you know, the companies you're building are actually building stuff. They're building cars, they're building spaceships, they're building things that if they don't work, it's a real problem. And, and yeah, the precision you manufacture things with, how do you get that level of precision? How do you get, how do you build a culture? You're not, you're amazing at thinking outside the box. But, but what's interesting is you're, you may even be better at execution, which is how do you execute so effectively?

[Elon Musk]

Well, I take a physics first principles approach to everything. It's not as though I wanted to in source manufacturing, it's just that I was unable to outsource it effectively. So the idea in the beginning of Tesla was that we would outsource almost all the manufacturing. But then it turned out there were no good companies to outsource manufacturing to which there wasn't really wasn't feasible outsourced manufacturing actually is the exception of the rule. And. And just over time, we had to insource almost everything for Tesla and same for SpaceX. I became very good at manufacturing because I had to. There was no choice. At this point, I might know more about manufacturing than any, any human ever has because I've done so many. I've manufactured so many different things in so many different arenas. I think probably more than anyone ever has.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Look, that's. That sounds like an astonishing statement, but it's not a crazy statement. And you're somehow running Tesla and running Space X and running X and running the boring company and running Neuralink and doing Doge. How much do you sleep in a given night?

[Elon Musk]

About six hours on average.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So about six. So that's. It wouldn't have shocked me if you said three or four.

[Ben Ferguson]

So the next question is, how many hours do you work a day?

[Elon Musk]

I work almost every waking hour.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And Ben, he's not kidding. Like, when Elon and I were first getting to know each other, I suggested. I said, hey, let's grab dinner sometime. And I don't know if you remember what you said. You said, I don't eat dinner.

[Elon Musk]

I don't have social dinners. Really.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Right. I mean that. Yeah, I mean, you obviously eat food, but the idea you're not going to.

[Ben Ferguson]

A restaurant for two hours.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

But the idea of like, I don't. But it was, it was just kind of matter of fact, why would I go to dinner? Like, I. You jump, you work.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, I literally just have lunch and dinner, bro. During meetings and continue being.

[Ben Ferguson]

How many nights have you slept at your offices, you think your career, percentage wise, where you say, I just got to take this nap basically because my body forces me to, and I got to get back to work fast and efficiently without going somewhere else.

[Elon Musk]

Well, I guess it started out even with the first company, Zip2, which is a terrible name, but the first Internet company, we were able to rent an office, which was like in a leaky attic, essentially for $500 a month. And the cheapest apartment we could find was $800 a month. And we only had about $5,000 between my brother and I. So we're like, we're not. We'll just stay in the office. So we got some couches that converted into beds and we'd kind of sleep at night. And then we'd just have to like turn the beds back into couches before anyone came. And then we'd share the YMCA down the road. And so that went. That literally was the for several months, what we did. I was in great shape. You know, work out the way. I still remember that. That ymca@page Miller El Camino in Palo Alto.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So that was a long time ago.

[Elon Musk]

So it's been. I don't know. I've never thought to count it, but several hundred days maybe. I don't know.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So you're now the richest man on earth. Do you still sleep in the office? Well, that's true. Maybe Mars will find someone else.

[Elon Musk]

But I think if someone is a sovereign head of a country, they're de facto richer by a lot.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Do you still sleep at the office now?

[Elon Musk]

I have sometimes slept at the office. Yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hit that subscribe or auto download button from the White House. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for being with us on Verdict. We'll see you guys back here in a couple of days.

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