CPAC February 20, 2025 Surprise CPAC appearance: after Argentina's Javier Milei hands him a chainsaw, Musk sits for a back-and-forth with Newsmax's Rob Schmitt on DOGE, his turn to politics and his security fears.
Surprise CPAC appearance: after Argentina's Javier Milei hands him a chainsaw, Musk sits for a back-and-forth with Newsmax's Rob Schmitt on DOGE, his turn to politics and his security fears.
Transcript Interviewer
Hey, Man, that is a big crowd, and they are not here for me. How you guys doing? Nice vibe this year, right after the best month we've ever had. Nice to see you all. Thanks for coming out. Good to see you. I'm not going to kill any more time. Let's bring out Elon Musk.
Interviewer
We've got. We've got one more. We've got one more surprise. In case this wasn't enough, I'm gonna let Elon do it. Who else is here?
Elon Musk
Well, President. President Malay has a gift for me.
Interviewer
Javier Malay from Argentina. You guys know who that is, right? Why don't we bring him out?
Elon Musk
Yeah. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy, Church. All right. I love it.
Interviewer
Mr. President, thank you so much.
Elon Musk
All right. Thank you.
Interviewer
Thank you, sir.
Elon Musk
Good to meet you. I love it.
Interviewer
We love it. We love it.
Interviewer
They told me to put this right here. They want it right here.
Elon Musk
All right, great. A little stage prop. All of you guys, Sue. Thanks, guys.
Interviewer
Have a seat. So. That was something.
Elon Musk
I am become meme? Yeah, pretty much. I'm just. I'm living the meme. It's like there's living the dream and there's living the meme, and it's pretty much what's happening.
Interviewer
You know, you're like. I think you're bigger.
Elon Musk
I mean, Doge started out as a meme. Think about it. And now it's real. Isn't that crazy?
Interviewer
It is. It is crazy.
Interviewer
Let me ask you this. A year ago, if someone had told you you'd be at CPAC and working with the president to absolutely shred the government, the swamp, whatever you want to call it. Would you ever believe that?
Elon Musk
Me neither. But it's cool. This is awesome. And I just want to say, you know, thanks for your support. I mean, guys are, you know, so. I mean, you know, we're trying to get. Get good things done, but also, like, you know, have a good time doing it and, you know, and have, like, a sense of humor, you know, so, like, like, I mean, the sort of. The left wanted to make comedy illegal. You know, you can't make fun of anything. So there was like, comedy sucks. It's like nothing's funny. You can't make fun of anything. It's like legalized comedy. Yeah, legalized comedy.
Interviewer
And we've. We've shifted the entire culture in just the last few months. The whole culture of this country has shifted dramatically just because of that election.
Elon Musk
Yeah, exactly. You know, freedom of speech, having you Know, having fun again. It seems like we should. We should have a good time, you
Interviewer
know, I mean, it's a great time. Everybody in this place is so excited and. Yeah, I haven't. I mean, when you talk to conservatives, everybody's happy.
Interviewer
And everybody feels this great sense of relief because we were going to help
Elon Musk
for about four years.
Interviewer
It really felt bad, especially toward the end. It felt really bad.
Elon Musk
Yeah. And I thought. I thought we were sort of heading for a point of no return, really. Yeah. You know, and so that's why it was so essential that President Trump win the election and. And that there be a Republican majority in the House and Senate, which, thanks to you, that. That has been accomplished.
Interviewer
Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask you one of the biggest questions I have for you is you've been, you know, politically, you weren't really on one side or the other for a long time. You're a businessman. A lot of people stay away from it. Now you're on a side and you've chosen to decide. You're sitting here in a maga hat. What's it, you know, how did that happen? What was the moment like?
Elon Musk
You know, dark gothic maggots.
Interviewer
That's a good one. What was there a specific moment? Was there a moment that it all changed?
Elon Musk
Yeah. When I realized it was a fool. But no, it was, I guess.
Elon Musk
I mean, I'd say, like, I. Politically neutral for. For quite a while, you know, you know, leaning a little Democrat, you know.
Interviewer
How do you go from this?
Interviewer
Well, did they go crazy?
Elon Musk
Yeah, they did work. They did go crazy.
Interviewer
Yeah, they went crazy.
Elon Musk
No, I mean, the whole cancel culture and, you know, it's trying to stop freedom of speech and infringe upon, just in general infringe upon people's personal freedoms. You know, they just want state control. State control of what you say. They want to, you know, take away your guns. And the reason they want to take away your guns. So, like, there's nothing you do to oppose them. So it's sort of like, you know, I just, like, we just need to restore the fundamental elements of what made America great, which is freedom and opportunity. Yeah.
Interviewer
We're seeing a lot of these freedoms disappearing in the West. It's. It's not just about America. We're watching. We're all watching Europe and knowing that they're about fifty hundred years ahead of us.
Interviewer
Because they got an early start, and we're watching how they're devolving, and you're trying to save it from happening here.
Elon Musk
I Mean, in Europe, they put people in prison for memes.
Elon Musk
You know, I'm like, that's insane.
Interviewer
And they're collapsing. I mean, this society is. It's a collapsing society. It feels that way. It feels like France was nicer 50 years ago than it is today. Yeah. I don't think you can question it.
Elon Musk
Yeah. So. But, yeah, I mean, really. Thanks. Love you, too. I mean, I really. I really just wanted to do useful things, like, you know, basically build products, you know, provide products and services that are good and that. That. I wasn't really, like, that interested in being political. It just, like, there was, at a certain point, no choice. Yeah. So. Yeah.
Interviewer
Can I ask you what. On the same side of that coin, what's it like from going neutral to being vilified, largely vilified, by the media?
Elon Musk
What? No, really?
Interviewer
I mean, you turn on some of these channels, brother.
Elon Musk
I mean, they don't.
Interviewer
They're angry. Does it bother you at all?
Elon Musk
I mean, when they're chanting for my death? I suppose that's a little. Yeah. And then, like, the song's not even that good. And it's like. Like, you call that a death chant? That's nothing. Please.
Interviewer
They've been singing a lot lately.
Interviewer
There's a lot of music lately.
Elon Musk
It's not good music either. Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer
I would say that they're, you know, watching. What you're doing with Doge is just. People love it. I mean, I've always looked at the government and I've always looked at the government. I've seen this big machine that. And you just know that they waste because they don't care. Nobody could. There's more money coming. They don't care. You're cutting all this out. Everybody in this country knows that the government is full of waste, fraud and abuse, and you're doing the work, and the Americans love it. Watching their reaction politically to this, I can't believe how bad they are at responding to this. I don't know how you're going to sit there and scream and complain because they're cutting waste out of the government and try to win another election. How do you try to win on that?
Elon Musk
Well, at this point, I'm like, I'm not sure how much of the left is even real,
Interviewer
how much was propped up by our money.
Elon Musk
Yeah. Literally, you see these sort of fake rallies where there's, like, hardly any. Any people, and the media will, like, frame it and, like, you know, get all six people, you know, in the frame, but it's like nobody else Is there like just. It doesn't have popular support. But, but, but there's, but, but then you, then you, you learn that like there's hundreds of billions of dollars going to these so called NGOs. Yeah, that, that, that. And it's your tax dollars that are funding things that are fundamentally anti American
Interviewer
and they're propping up their narrative. Yes. A lot of that government money has been propping up a left that I don't think is as strong as they made it seem.
Elon Musk
In fact, a massive amount of, of your tax dollars is going to legacy media companies. Yes. Directly from the, from, from the government.
Interviewer
The government wants to take over media.
Elon Musk
Yeah. It's terrible.
Interviewer
Yeah. That's why we have X. Yeah. And that's, that's why you spent $44 billion. I mean there's a lot of money.
Elon Musk
I mean, more than it was probably
Interviewer
worth, but it had a, there was a message.
Elon Musk
Freedom is priceless prices.
Interviewer
Yeah. Probably one of the most important investments this country's ever seen. If you got to protect the First Amendment, it's not much more important than that.
Elon Musk
Yeah, I got a lot of criticism and people said, well, that proves he's a huge idiot from a, you know, like, look, you know, he bought it for whatever, $44 billion and now it's worth like 8 cents. And it's not worth 8 cents. But you know, there's, but yeah, it was essentially to, you know, buy freedom of expression and.
Interviewer
Yeah. Once that's gone, it's all over.
Interviewer
Tyranny is really quick after that. Yeah.
Elon Musk
I mean, like, you know, all the sort of federal money going to media companies is what, what helps explain why the legacy media all says the same thing at the same time.
Elon Musk
Like, isn't it like, it's like weird like you put them up where it's
Interviewer
like, you know, like when they're mouthpieces for, for the state. For the state. Yes. And that's, that's what we've come to know.
Elon Musk
And I like that meme when they, where they. Because they're always saying like, threat to our democracies. That. Threat to. But if you just replaced democracy with bureaucracy, it makes a lot of sense.
Interviewer
Makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Elon Musk
Big threat to the bureaucracy.
Interviewer
That's exactly right. Let's talk about, let's talk about these doge dividend checks that everybody's talking about this week. And I know you tweeted out that you're going to. Is everybody want like a $5,000 check in the mail? It sounds kind of Good. Right. And the best part about it would be knowing where it came from, that that's five grand that you sent them last year.
Elon Musk
Totally. It's money that's taken away from. From things that are destructive to the country, that. And from organizations that hate you to you. That's awesome.
Interviewer
Does it seem. I mean, have you talked.
Elon Musk
I mean, that's like glorious. That's like the spoils of battle, you know, I like that.
Interviewer
Is there, Is there traction on that?
Elon Musk
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, took the President. He's supportive of that. And so it sounds like, you know, that's something we're going to do.
Elon Musk
So as we're finding savings, that's going to translate directly to reduction savings and attacks. So.
Interviewer
Yeah, I mean, I think they fired 6,000 people at the IRS today, and I think Lutnick said last night that they're talking about shutting down the irs.
Interviewer
I think it's fair. I think people should realize this is. I mean, the amount of money that we said we send Washington, like 5 or 6 trillion a year, that is such an ungodly amount of money. I mean, what are they say, like a trillion seconds is like 30 years or something like that. I mean, that's how much we send them, and they seem to never have enough. There must be a lot you can cut.
Elon Musk
No, absolutely. People ask me, what's the most surprising thing that you've encountered when you go to D.C. you know, when you're in D.C. and I said, well, the most surprising thing is the scale of the expenditures and actually how easy it is to just. When you add caring and competence where it was absent before, you can actually save billions of dollars sometimes in this. In an hour.
Elon Musk
Like it's, it's wild.
Interviewer
And then they scoff at it and say, oh, a few billion here, there. I mean, the way they're talking about it, they, you can see they don't care.
Interviewer
It's. So it's such little money compared to how much they're used to wasting. That's what's really scary. Yeah.
Elon Musk
No, I mean, it's. Exactly. But obviously it's, it's. It just shows that they really lack empathy for the average taxpayer who's working hard, paying, paying taxes. And then, and then they say, oh, a million dollars doesn't matter. I'm like, I think it matters a lot, people, you know, so what are you talking about?
Interviewer
I'd like to have it. Let me ask you a question. I, you know, I know the President fairly well. Watched him survive two Assassination attempts. The second. Had the first one not happened, the second one would have gotten him. You know, it was very. Because without those extra guys, they would have never seen that gun poking through the fence at the golf course. I saw the crew that you like,
Elon Musk
mind blowing that this has happened. I mean, it just. And what, by the way, why do we still know nothing about that guy in Butler, what's going on? But Cash is going to get to the bottom of it.
Interviewer
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, confirmed. Confirmed just a couple hours ago. But I saw that the security detail that you had come in is enormous.
Elon Musk
Well, I don't. Enormous. Maybe it should be bigger.
Interviewer
I think you could probably afford it. But I mean, how concerned are you about your safety? Dealing. I mean, it's. You are. You are a wanted man, Are you? Are you?
Elon Musk
So look, I'm open to ideas for improving security. I have to tell you, like, I don't actually have a death wish, I think, but. But, you know, it's not that easy. So. Yeah, I mean, yeah, but. But I have like, I've had even like, people like President Bukele from El Salvador who. Who managed to put in prison, like, I don't know, a hundred thousand, like, murderous thugs. And he was like, he called me, he's like, I'm worried about your security. I'm like, you're. You're worried about my security? I'm like, what? Okay.
Interviewer
You know, I mean. Yeah, talk about guts to do that down there. I mean, yeah, totally. And then survive. Like, I'm like.
Elon Musk
I was like, how did you put all those thugs in prison without dying? Because it seems like that would have been not easy, you know.
Interviewer
Well, there's a. The president has. One of his top attorneys is now investigating, I guess, Chuck Schumer for threats against scotus, a congressman on the Democrat side who's saying, you know, basically saying we're going to bring a war to you, like a fight to you. I mean, the rhetoric. You guys are screwing with things that are not supposed to be messed with. With. And we're fighting a lot of people that really don't want that to happen.
Elon Musk
Yeah, we're fighting the Matrix big time here. Yeah, but that's got to be done.
Interviewer
It certainly does. What's. What's going on with. Tell us about Fort Knox.
Interviewer
Kentucky. It's a military base. It's a ton of gold. Tons and tons and tons.
Elon Musk
5,000 tons of gold or something are
Interviewer
there in the ground in like this. I mean, it's a very secure Thing. We all want to see it, you know, I'd love to see it.
Elon Musk
Like, this is your gold, by the way. It's. It's the public's goal.
Interviewer
You think it's not there?
Interviewer
We just want to see it.
Elon Musk
Yeah, we want to go see it and just make sure, like, somebody did a spray paint, some lead or something, you know?
Elon Musk
Like, is this real gold? Light up the bite the bar, you know, didn't. But I think, honestly, you know, part of this also is just like, you know, let's have some fun. And, you know, like. Like I said this. All this gold at Fort Knox. It's the public's gold. It's your gold. So, like, I think you have, like, a right to see it.
Interviewer
Take a tour, you know?
Elon Musk
Yeah, I think we should have it. Do it. Do it. And then the president last night was like, that's how. I think he's in favor of it. That'd be cool. And then it should be like a live tour. Like, you can see what's going on. Open the door. Like, what's behind it. Well, in this, you know, I think I'd watch that.
Interviewer
Oh, are you kidding?
Interviewer
I mean, what is. What is 5,000 tons of gold look like? How big is that? Is it. Is it the size of this?
Elon Musk
Got to be pretty big.
Interviewer
You know, it's got to be a lot of.
Elon Musk
There's some other stuff in there. Like, there's. Walk around, like, I don't know, maybe I got some other stuff in there.
Interviewer
Are you thinking about auditing the Federal Reserve as well? Which is obviously.
Interviewer
Regular regulatory economy. I. I imagine you think the waste has got to be everywhere.
Elon Musk
Yeah, no, waste. Waste is pretty much everywhere. People ask, how can you find waste in D.C. i'm like, look, it's like being in a room. And this target, the wall, the roofs, and the floor are all targets. So it's like you're gonna close your eyes and go shoot in any direction. You can't miss, you know, so it's pretty wild. Like, you just push on things a little bit and you save billions of. Of dollars, like, just a little bit, you know? It's wild.
Interviewer
It's scary, isn't it? It's.
Elon Musk
That's why I say, like, it really is underrated where if you add caring and competence, how much things improve.
Elon Musk
And. And, you know, and we. We just find so many totally crazy things, which, you know, we're. Obviously, we're sharing with the public. We post everything we learn, you know, Just.
Elon Musk
You know, so you can see it. You know, what do you. It's like, isn't it like. It's totally wild. Like, we did just. We just did like a check. The database on Social Security, like, says, how many. A lot Americans alive Americans eligible for Social Security are there. And according to the database, it's over 400 million. And we're like, wait a second.
Interviewer
And how many are getting. Yeah.
Elon Musk
And then, like, we found, like, one person in there is like 366 years old. I'm like, what? They know, Ben.
Elon Musk
You know, America didn't exist before at that time. Like, so I. So, yeah, we were colonies, you know, maybe it's just me, but I think it's a red flag. I don't know.
Interviewer
But are there indications that those that were checks going to those people or any of those people?
Interviewer
I guess the question right this. I mean, I get the Social Security Administration is dumb, but are they paying these people? Are they that dumb? I don't know.
Elon Musk
A bunch of money is going out from the Social Security Administration and in fact, from all entitlements programs.
Interviewer
76 billion in waste in, like seven years. That's 10 billion a year.
Elon Musk
Well, I think the fraudulent payments. The rough estimate from General Government Accountability offices is over $500 billion afford a year. 500 billion.
Interviewer
And how long the time per year? Per year On Social Security?
Interviewer
On all government.
Elon Musk
On all entitlements. All entitlements. Yeah.
Elon Musk
It sort of actually makes sense when you look at the thing from a top level and say, like, okay, the $7 trillion of spending by the government, what percentage do you think is fraudulent? Okay, exactly. Like a conservative estimate of the 7 trillion would be 10% conservative.
Interviewer
Probably a little higher than that. Yeah, exactly. Feels like a quarter out of every dollar. Right.
Elon Musk
But if. If the fraud's only 10% of 7 trillion, you've got $700 billion of fraud. Yeah. And by the way, it's, like, really easy to take advantage of the federal government. Very easy.
Interviewer
Look at Covid.
Interviewer
Everybody got rich during COVID I mean,
Elon Musk
look at all these years.
Interviewer
I mean, it's unbelievable.
Elon Musk
It looks like in terms of COVID payments, there was something like $200 billion of COVID payment fraud taken by fraudsters out of the country.
Interviewer
Out of the country.
Elon Musk
That's like. I think, listen, if there's going to be fraud, it should at least be domestic.
Elon Musk
So, you know, but they managed to get $200 billion out of the country. I'm like, what didn't we notice that?
Interviewer
Let me ask you, let's do immigration here for a second. You know, there's this move now that Trump's latest thing is that he cut, he's going to cut funding any kind of money that ends up in the hands of illegal immigrants. So if you're funding these sanctuary cities and states, that's how they thrive, Right? They're paying for these hotels. That's all federal money. If you got a hotel in your city, in New York, you got all these hotels full of migrants. That's not state money, that's the feds or covering that. He's going to cut all that. It's really hard to deport 15 million people. And it seems like the move now is, let's see if we, especially at the rate that we're going, it seems like the move now is let's make it so that they leave on their own. If there's no longer a dull system for them, if they can't get their hands on hotel rooms and money, they're going to go back, especially if there's no work.
Elon Musk
Well, I think it's really important for people to understand that the Biden administration sent any possible money that they could, they could, if there was money they could send to facilitate and amplify illegal immigration, they sent it. Okay. They took money from FEMA meant for helping Americans in distress and sent that money to luxury hotels for illegal immigrants in New York. That is a, an outrage.
Interviewer
Yeah, they actually did that.
Elon Musk
And not only that, even after president signed an executive order saying it has to stop the fema, the sort of whatever deep state bureaucrats still pressed send on $80 million last week to go to the Roosevelt Hotel in New York and other places last week. And now they're mad that they got stopped and they're like trying to sue to have it be restored. It's like the gumption is you think
Interviewer
they're creating a new voter class. Would you think that was the goal when they open up the borders for four years, create a new voter class, get them citizenship, get them in. Yeah.
Elon Musk
Cards, vote A lot of these things, like you don't actually have to assume some grand conspiracy. You just need to look at basic incentives, benefits. So if the incentives fundamentally, if the probability that an illegal is going to vote Democrat at some point, whether it's, you know, cheating, but eventually they can become citizens. But if the probability is like 80, 90%, just look at California, which is super majority Dem, and then the incentive is to maximize the number of illegals in the country. That is why the Biden administration was pushing to get in as many illegals as possible and spend every dollar possible to get as many, because every one of them is a customer. Everyone is a. A voter.
Elon Musk
So the whole thing was a giant voter importation scam.
Interviewer
Pretty obvious.
Elon Musk
Very obvious. And then moreover, then they. They actually created the CVP1 voter app thing where they were, which is like, where they could. They would literally fly people in. It's not like, like at the point at which, you know, people being flown in at your expense, sending planes, building a wall.
Interviewer
Doesn't lie over them.
Elon Musk
They're literally flying him in.
Interviewer
No other. No other country in the world would do something like this. Nobody is as stupid. Yeah.
Elon Musk
And then we found that it was like $100 million contract given to some guy in London, actually. Oddly enough.
Elon Musk
For the CVP1 app. So. So then. So they're flying illegals into the swing states.
Elon Musk
And. And if you've got like a margin of victory of maybe 20,000 people and you fly 200,000 illegals into that state, it's not going to be a swing state for long.
Interviewer
Change the numbers eventually. Yeah. Maybe in four or eight years. You're talking about. It's a long game.
Elon Musk
It's just a matter of time. So it might take like a year for an asylum seeker or something to
Interviewer
get on the, to get a green
Elon Musk
card, then five years for the citizenship.
Elon Musk
It's. It's an investment that is guaranteed to pay off.
Elon Musk
Just a question of when they all
Interviewer
remember who brought them in and who left them here.
Interviewer
Exactly. I want to go back. I want to talk about big deal.
Elon Musk
Like, I think a lot of people don't quite appreciate that this was an actual real scam at scale to tilt the scales of democracy in America. Treason.
Interviewer
Yeah. One more Biden question. I remember when, you know, when they would do the electric car stuff, they would always try to box you out even though you have the only electric car anybody wants.
Interviewer
You said, I think this week that you think that Biden left these astronauts up in space because he didn't want to give you an opportunity to save them. Make NASA look bad, make the private sector look better, make you look good. You believe that?
Elon Musk
Yeah, absolutely. So, of course I kind of agree.
Interviewer
Why would he want to let you help them come down when you're supporting the President?
Elon Musk
The Biden administration was attacking me next level. I mean, the Department of Justice or injustice under the Biden administration was. I mean, they were suing SpaceX. They were suing SpaceX for not hiring asylum seekers. And we're like, but it's actually illegal for us to hire asylum seekers because we're. Rocket technology is covered under ITAR rules, which means it's advanced weapons technology. And so we can only hire permanent residents or green or citizens. So we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. We said like, so how can they sue us for not hiring asylum seekers when it's actually illegal for us to do so? But nonetheless, there was a big Department of Justice or injustice case about this against SpaceX. So obviously it was an antagonistic situation. And those astronauts were supposed to be up there for eight days, and now they're up there for eight months. Does that make any sense? And we obviously could have brought them back sooner, but they didn't want anyone who supported President Trump to look good. Basically. Yeah, that's the issue.
Interviewer
A lot of them are saying right now that the reason that you want to get into Social Security, that you want to get into all of these different, into treasury and things like that, is that you're looking for personal information and you're trying to make more money. Yeah, I, I've never met anybody as rich as you that cared less about money in my life. Every time I hear a story about you, you're sleeping on a couch of some other guy in a city that you could buy the entire thing. Yeah, I'm like, I don't think you care about money, do you?
Elon Musk
No, actually, I, I. Mean, listen, like, if I, if I steal some Social Security, I can finally buy nice things. Yeah.
Interviewer
And on that same question, they're also talking about, you guys are going to end Social Security, you're going to end Medicare, you're going to end these things. I don't imagine that conversation has been had with the President. And that's the plan.
Elon Musk
No, in fact, the actions that we're taking with the support of the President and the support of the agencies is what will save Medicare, what will save Social Security. And because if the country goes insolvent, if all the money is just spent on paying interest on debt, there's no money left for anything. So that's the reason I'm doing this, is because I was looking at the big picture here, and it's like, man, our debt's getting out of control. The interest payments, the interest on the national debt now exceeds the entire Defense Department budget, trillion a year in interest
Interviewer
just to carry the money that we owe is a trillion a year.
Interviewer
That is unbelievable.
Elon Musk
And rising rapidly. So. So, like, I mean, a country is not different from a person. Country overspends, country goes bankrupt. Same with. Same as a person who overspends goes bankrupt. So it's, it's not, like, optional to solve these things. It's essential.
Interviewer
So we're going to go bankrupt.
Interviewer
A couple minutes left here. Russia. There's a huge push from this.
Elon Musk
Oh, yeah. Yeah. People are like, sort of like, to end this. Say, like, yeah, you know, I, I'm a, I'm a bought asset of Putin.
Elon Musk
I'm like, he can't afford me.
Interviewer
Yeah, I think, I think you're worth more than Russia.
Interviewer
So you're trying to. Trying to end a war. It's all. Ending a war always means you have to compromise, you have to negotiate with an enemy or an adversary. That's just what it is. And right now, they are lambasting the president for trying a different method to war that they haven't been able to end for three and a half years or three years. Yeah, they, you know, they're saying Trump's blaming Zelensky for the invasion. How do you, how do you process all of the negativity toward him for trying to end this war? War?
Elon Musk
Well, first of all, I think we should have empathy for the people dying at the front lines. That's the most important thing. And people have been dying. You know, it's like, how many more years is this supposed to go on? Yeah. And imagine if that was your son, your father, you know, what are they dying for? What exactly are they dying for? That line has. The line of engagement is barely moved for two years. Yeah. This is how much people dead in trenches for what. And I'll tell you what, for what it's like, for the biggest graph machine that I've ever seen in my life. That's for what. It's. It's unreal. Like, the amount of money that is being taken in graft and bribery is disgusting. And so what's actually happening is that those, you know, people, those poor guys are getting sent into a meat grinder for money. That's what's actually going on and needs to stop.
Interviewer
And that's. I mean, that's. It seems. I mean, Trump is so pragmatic on this. He just, he's just looking at it and he's saying, it's Ukraine. It's not our country, it's not a NATO ally. I just want to see people not dying. I want to see on both sides, I Mean, think about how many young, so many young men have died in Ukraine that the, the army is starting to age out, the military is aging out. You got 40 and 50 year old guys fighting in a war because there's nobody left that's not killed or maimed in their 20s. That's the reality of it. Think about how many people that is. If you're a humanitarian at all, you just got to end the war, like no matter what, just get it over with.
Elon Musk
Yes. People, they need to stop dying and the growth machine's got to stop, you know, so. And I think people that don't, A lot of people out there don't realize, like the president has a lot of empathy. He really cares, you know, he's a good, he's a good man.
Interviewer
So I got one more for you. I've been fascinated by you for a very long time.
Interviewer
I've just, I just, I've never seen anybody that can, you know, do so many things at the same time. I mean, you got the rockets, you got the cars. I've always wanted to ask you, what is it like inside your mind like this? Is it just a thousand miles an hour? I mean, are you.
Interviewer
Is it just not. I mean, does it ever stop? Do you sleep? How much do you sleep? What's paint us a picture of inside of the mind of a genius?
Elon Musk
Like, how do you do all this?
Interviewer
Can you answer that question? It's not an easy question.
Elon Musk
Yeah, I mean, my mind is a storm. Yeah. So it's a storm. But I mean, let me maybe tell you something. Like, you didn't ask a question, but I think it's worth nonetheless, maybe just elaborating on something which is, you know, I grew up in South Africa, but my morality was informed by America. I read comic books, you know, played Dungeons and Dragons and I watched American TV shows and it seemed like America cared about being the good guys, you know, about doing the right thing. And that's actually pretty unusual, by the way.
Interviewer
It's like, it's like in the world, it's very unusual.
Interviewer
It's not like actually most countries don't do that.
Elon Musk
No, they don't. No. And so I was like, yeah, you know, you want to be this good, you want to be on the side of good, you want to care about what's right and, and yeah, so that's, that's, yeah, what I believe in, you
Interviewer
know, So I gave you, I gave you a tough one at the end and.
Elon Musk
Yeah, so, yeah, that's great.
Interviewer
That's great. Elon Musk.
Interviewer
Thank you. Thank you so much.