← BackNovember 29, 2023DealBook SummitWithElon MuskAndrew Ross Sorkin0:00 / 0:00CC1×YouTubeDealBook SummitNovember 29, 2023Musk's combative DealBook interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin on advertisers, the boycott and his mindset.Musk's combative DealBook interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin on advertisers, the boycott and his mindset.TranscriptAndrew Ross SorkinPlease welcome andrew ross sorkin and his guest ste. CEO of tesla, CEO of space x,Elon Muskchief engineer and cto of x, elon musk.Andrew Ross SorkinGood evening, everybody. Thank you so much for being with us throughout the day. And I couldn't be more pleased to sit with Elon Musk as our final interview of this remarkable time we've all had together. He doesn't need much of an introduction, but I want to say a couple of things. He's the richest person in the world.He very well be the most.Most consequential individual in the world right now. He runs the most innovative companies in the world, Tesla, Space X, Starlink, which is part of that neuralink, the boring company X and his X AI. And he's disrupted each of these lanes. He's moved at breakneck speeds, but he's faced a sort of controversy in the process.He joins us today following a visit, as you all know so well. We discussed earlier on Monday to Israel, where he met with the Prime Minister there and the President of Israel. And we're going to talk about everything. And my hope is that we can talk about how he thinks, about his influence, about his power, about all of it.And we're going to talk about innovation and everything else. I want to say just two other things real quick.Elon MuskSure.Andrew Ross SorkinWe met each other for the first time 16 years ago.Elon MuskYes. Long time.Andrew Ross SorkinIt's been a long time. And all the kids were three when we first met. I don't. I think you're just. You're about to deliver your first roadster. I don't think you had yet. Larry Page was still waiting. Yeah.Elon MuskTo get like 2007.Andrew Ross Sorkin2007. 2008. And I.Elon Musk2008.Andrew Ross SorkinI remember going back to the newsroom and saying, I think I just met the next Steve Jobs. And I'm going to hold to that.Elon MuskOkay.Andrew Ross SorkinI'm going to hold to that. But a lot has happened between when I first met you and now. You came to deal in boring, that's for sure.Elon MuskActually, technically, I do have a boring company.Andrew Ross Sorkin2012, you came to DealBook and sat on this stage and we're thrilled to have you back. But there's been so much that's happened between now and then. And there's been so much that's happened in the past week, week and a half. And a lot of folks. And I want to tell you this, a lot of folks called me up and said, you're really going to host Elon Musk here.Can you believe what he just said on Twitter? On what On X. On X.Elon MuskNo idea what this Twitter thing is you keep talking about.Andrew Ross SorkinShould you platform him? That's what they said.Elon MuskYeah.Andrew Ross SorkinDid you platform them? And I said that I think that it's our role. And I know you have issues with journalists.Elon MuskI have a platform.Andrew Ross SorkinI know you have an issue with journalists oftentimes, but I said it's our role to have conversations and to inquire and to. And sometimes even interrogate ideas. And that's. I'm hoping we can do that. So I want to start just so we can begin this conversation and just level set, take us through everything that happened, if you could.Elon MuskEverything.Andrew Ross SorkinNo. Over the past week and a half.Elon MuskHow long have you got?Andrew Ross SorkinWe're gonna. We've got the time.Elon MuskOkay.Andrew Ross SorkinYou send out. You send out a. A post or an X or a tweet.Elon MuskYeah.I'm trying to change, like when things were just 140 characters, it made sense to call them a tweet because, like a bunch of little birds chirping. But when, you know, point at which you can put like three hour videos on, it's like, it's a very long tweet.Andrew Ross SorkinSo here we are. More descriptive, I think, and at some point, I don't know where you were, but you write in responding to another tweet. Yes, this is the actual truth. And it set off a firestorm of criticism all the way to the White House.Elon MuskRight.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd then you make this trip to Israel. You have advertisers who've left the platform,Elon Muskpeople calling, well, the trip to Israel is independent of. It wasn't something like apology tour. I want to be clear. That was.Andrew Ross SorkinLet's talk about that. So just. But just take us back to the moment at which you write that tripElon Muskto Israel is independent of. It wasn't like in response to that at all.Andrew Ross SorkinWell, let's do it. We'll do Israel in just a moment.Elon MuskI have no problem being hated byAndrew Ross Sorkinthe way I hear it away. Well, but you know what, let's go straight to that then for a second.Elon MuskSure.Andrew Ross SorkinBecause there is an idea. And you could say that I thinkElon Muskit's a real weakness to want to be liked. A real weakness. I do not have that.Andrew Ross SorkinLet me ask you this then. There's a difference between saying, I don't care if anyone likes me or they hate me, but given your power and given what you have amassed and the importance you have, I would think you want to be trusted. I would think maybe you don't need to be liked or hated, but trusted matters if, if X is going to become a financial platform where people are going to put their money, where people, where, where the government's going to give you money for, for, for rockets, where people are going to get into the cars they need to ultimately decide that you are, they don't have to say that they, they love you, but that you are ultimately a decent and good human being.Elon MuskYes, I mean, I think I am, but I'm certainly not going to do some sort of tap dance to prove to people that I am.So as for trust, I mean, I think we break that down in a few ways. If you want satellites sent to orbit reliably, SpaceX will do 80% of all mass to orbit this year. China will do 12%. The rest of the world will do eight. That includes Boeing, Lockheed and everyone else. So the track record of the rocket is the best by far of anything.You could, you could hate my guts next. You could not trust me. It is relevant. The rocket track record speaks for itself with respect to Tesla. We make the best cars. Whether you hate me, like me or are indifference. Do you want the best car or do you not want the best car? So, so I will certainly not pander. And Jonathan, like, the only reason I'm here is because you are a friend.Like what was my speaking fee?Andrew Ross SorkinYou're not making any. First of all, I'm Andrew, but.Elon MuskYeah, sorry.Andrew Ross SorkinIt's okay. Second of all, we've known each other for a very long time.Elon MuskYes.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd listen, you know.Elon MuskWhat I'm trying to illustrate is that sometimes I say the wrong thing.Andrew Ross SorkinI think there are a lot of people who are tired. But let me go back.Elon MuskNo, you should hear the sketches that SNL wouldn't post by the way. Those are really good.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd I would say unfortunately or fortunately or unfortunately, whatever friendship we have. Not great, we don't talk to you that much. But let me ask you this. It's true, that's true.Elon MuskWhere am I? Yeah, I'm here because you're a friend. Not because, I mean paid or because I need any validation or anything. Is that we've been friends for 16 years and I promise you I'd be here and that's why I'm here.Andrew Ross SorkinWell, I appreciate you being here for any other reason, but let me ask you this then go.Elon MuskGo at it.Andrew Ross SorkinJust tell me what happened. You write this tweet that says that this is the actual truth. People read that tweet.Elon MuskYes.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd they say Elon Musk is an anti Semite that he, he, he, he is, he is riling up this base. You're hearing it from, as I said, the White House. You're hearing it from Jewish groups all over. I think Jonathan Greenblatt from the ADL is here. There's lots of people who say this. And by the way, it's not just that.Elon MuskDid you read the whole thing?Andrew Ross SorkinI did, and that's why I want to ask you the responses.Elon MuskExcuse me? I said more.Andrew Ross SorkinMore responses?Elon MuskYeah. I said more than what you just read?Andrew Ross SorkinYes. No, there was absolutely. There was absolutely more.Elon MuskYes.Andrew Ross SorkinBut I'll tell you the thing that struck me. It wasn't. And I'm an American Jew, it wasn't just the people who had that view. It was actually people who really are anti Semites who said, oh, my goodness, go, Elon. This is fabulous. And that actually was the thing that really, really set me back. I said to myself, what's going on here?And I want to know how you felt about that in that moment when you saw all of this happening.Elon MuskYeah, well, first of all, I did clarify almost immediately what I meant. I would say that that was, you know, if I could go back and say I should, in retrospect, not have replied to that particular person, and I should have written in greater length as to what I meant. I did subsequently clarify it in replies, but those clarifications were ignored by the media.And essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are anti Semitic to. And for that, I'm quite sorry.Andrew Ross SorkinThat.Elon MuskThat is not. That was not my intention.So I did, you know, post on my primary timeline to be absolutely clear that I'm not anti Semitic and that I, in fact, if anything, am phylo Semitic. And the trip to Israel was planned before any of that happened. It was neither here nor there. Do you see? You see this thing? You know what it is?Andrew Ross SorkinI do, because I actually followed your entire trip to Israel.Elon MuskRight.Andrew Ross SorkinWhy don't you tell everybody?Elon MuskThis is. This says, bring them home, the hostages.It was given to me by the parents of. Of one of the hostages. And I said I would wear it as. As long as there was a hostage door remaining. And I have.Andrew Ross SorkinWhat was that trip like? And obviously, you know that there's a public perception that. And you're clarifying this now, but there's a public perception that that was part of a apology tour, if you will, that this had been said online. There was all of the criticism. There was advertisers leaving. We talked to Bob Iger.Hope don't advertise you don't want them to advertise?Elon MuskNo.Andrew Ross SorkinWhat do you mean?Elon MuskIf somebody's gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money. Go fuck yourself.But go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob, you're in the audience.Andrew Ross SorkinWell, let me ask you then.Elon MuskThat's how I feel. Don't advertise.Andrew Ross SorkinHow do you think then about the economics of X if part of the underlying model, at least today, and maybe it needs to shift. Maybe the answer is it needs to shift away from advertising.If you believe that this is the one part of your business where you will be beholden to those who have this view, what do you do?Elon MuskF. Why?Andrew Ross SorkinI understand that, but there's a reality too, right?Elon MuskYes. No, no.Andrew Ross SorkinI mean, Linda Yakarino is right here and she's got to sell advertising.Elon MuskAbsolutely. So. No, no, no. Actually, what, what this advertising boycott is, is going to do, it's going to kill a company.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd do you think that the companyElon Muskand the whole world will know that those advertisers killed company? And we will document it in great detail.Andrew Ross SorkinBut there are those advertisers, I imagine, are going to say. They're going to say, we didn't kill the company.Elon MuskOh yeah, they're going to say tell it to Earth.Andrew Ross SorkinBut they're going to say that. They're going to say, Elon, that you killed the company because you said these things and that they were inappropriate things and they didn't feel comfortable on the platform.Elon MuskRight?Andrew Ross SorkinThat's. That's what they're going to say.Elon MuskAnd let's see how Earth responds to that something.Andrew Ross SorkinOkay, this, then this goes back to, well, we'll both make our cases, right?Elon MuskAnd we'll see what the outcome is.Andrew Ross SorkinWhat are the economics of that for you? I mean, you have enormous resources, so you can actually keep this company going for a very long time. Would you keep it going for a long time if there was no advertising?Elon MuskI mean, if the company fails because an advertiser boycott, it will fail because of an advertised boycott and that will be what bankrupt the company. And that's what everybody on earth will know.Andrew Ross SorkinWhat do you think then of the idea of trust, though?Elon MuskThen it'll be gone and it'll be gone because of an advertiser boycott.Andrew Ross SorkinBut, but you recognize that some of those people are going to say that they didn't feel comfortable on the platform. And I want, I just wonder and ask you and think about that forElon Muska look at the judge.Andrew Ross SorkinBut the judge is going to beElon Muskthe judge is the public.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd you think that the public is going to say that, that Disney is making a mistake?Elon MuskYes.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd they're going to boycott Disney?Elon MuskThey already are.Andrew Ross SorkinWell, there, there are some that are for, for. For lots of different reasons. But you think that this is going to, that you have the, this goes to actually the interesting of power and leverage.Elon MuskLet the chips fall where they may.Let the chips fall where they may.Andrew Ross SorkinCan I ask why that is the approach? I ask it because you've been. Whatever approach. Well, you've been very particular about the approach to Tesla. When you think about the engineering involved in that, the approach to Space X, the approach to some of the stuff you're doing with, with AI has been very specific. Right.There's not a let the chips fall where they may approach to those businesses.Elon MuskI don't think we focus on making the best products. And Tesla has gotten to where it's gotten with no advertising at all.Andrew Ross SorkinI understand that Tesla currently sells toElon Musktwice as much in terms of electric vehicles as the rest of electric car makers in the United States combined. Tesla has done more to help the environment than all other companies combined.Fair to say that therefore, as a leader of the company, I've done more for the environment than everyone, any single human on earth.Andrew Ross SorkinHow do you feel about that?How do I feel about that? Yeah. No, I'm asking you personally how you feel about that because this goes. We're talking about power and influence andElon MuskI'm saying what I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. And what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil them. Okay,Andrew Ross Sorkinlet me ask you this because I think part of this, by the way, there's some people who said, look, owning X to begin with has just created problems that you've created so many amazing things that are changing our world. And I know you want to make X this fabulous town square free speech platform, but that unto itself that that has created such a distraction of all of these things.This is the conversation we're having. We're not focus or not talking at least yet. And we will on Tesla. You have your cybertruck deliveries tomorrow and everything else that you're doing.Elon MuskBut yes, it will be the biggest product launch of anything by far on earth this year.Andrew Ross SorkinIs there any part of you though that just says, you know what, I just shouldn't have done this or maybe I should sell it or give it away or do something else with. With the X piece of it? Yeah, given. Give it Given the propensity for some of the things that you do and say on that platform to create these. These issues.Elon MuskYeah.Of all the posts I've done on the platform, I think there might be 30,000 or something like that.Andrew Ross SorkinRight.Elon MuskOnce in a while I'll say something foolish, and I have, and I would certainly put that comment that you said the actual truth among perhaps one of the most foolish, if not the most foolish thing I've ever done on the platform.And I did do my best to clarify afterwards that, you know, I certainly do not mean anything antisemitic in that the nature of the criticism was simply that the Jewish people have been persecuted for thousands of years. There is a natural affinity, therefore, for persecuted groups. This has led to the funding of organizations that essentially promote any persecuted group or any group with the perception of persecution.This includes radical Islamic groups.Everyone here has seen the massive demonstrations for Hamas in every major city in the West.That should be jarring.Well, a number of those organizations received funding from prominent people in the Jewish community. They didn't expect that to happen. But if you generically, without condition, sort of fund. If you fund persecuted groups in general, some of those persecuted groups, unfortunately, want your annihilation. And what I meant by that, when I subsequently clarified is that it's unwise to fund organizations that support groups that want your annihilation.Is this coming across clearly?Andrew Ross SorkinYeah. My question to you, though, is.Elon MuskI think logically this makes a lot of sense.Andrew Ross SorkinIs there any part of you. I mean, just tell me what happens, though, once all this happens.Elon MuskLet's say you fund a group and that group supports Hamas, who wants you to die. Perhaps you should not fund them.Andrew Ross SorkinRight. But you. But you do.Elon MuskThank you.Andrew Ross SorkinYou do appreciate that when you wade into these very delicate waters at these very delicate times.Elon MuskYes.Andrew Ross SorkinThat it can create a real. I mean, as it created headlines for the past two weeks and economic impact.I'm just so curious what happened in your brain when you see all this happening? Are you sitting there going, oh, my God, I stepped in it. I wish I didn't do that. Are you saying, screw them. I hate these people. Why are they after me?Elon MuskBut all of that.Yeah, all of that. I mean. I mean, look, I'm sorry for that tweet or post. It was foolish of me. Of the 30,000. It might be literally the worst and dumbest post that I've ever done. And I try to do my best to clarify six ways to Sunday, but, you know, at least I think over time, it will be obvious that in fact, far from being anti Semitic, I'm in fact philosemitic.And all the evidence in my track record would support that.Andrew Ross SorkinLet me ask you this, though. There are people who say crazy things on X. As, you know, maybe you think they're crazy, maybe they're not.Elon MuskThe aspiration for X is to be the global town square. Now, if you were to walk down to, let's say, Times Square, right.Do you occasionally hear people saying crazy things?Andrew Ross SorkinYes, but they're not. But they don't have the megaphone. Right. And that's, that's the conundrum. No, they can only say it to the 50 or 100 people that are, that are sitting, standing there in Times Square.Elon MuskThey don't have a mega. I mean, look, the joke I used to make about old Twitter was it was like giving everyone in the psych ward a megaphone.So, you know, I'm aware that things can get promoted that are negative beyond the sort of circle of somebody simply screaming crazy things in Times Square, which happens all the time, you know, so the. It's actually, it's pretty rare for something, frankly, that is hateful to be promoted. It's not that it never happens, but it's fairly rare.I mean, I would encourage people to look at, for those that use the system, when you look at the sort of, the feed that you receive, how often is it hateful? And over time has it gotten more or less hateful? And I would say that if you look at the X platform today versus a year ago, I think it is actually much better.I mean, what is your personal experience?Andrew Ross SorkinAre you surprised?Elon MuskI'm just curious. You use this.Andrew Ross SorkinI use the platform religiously. I admit to being an addict and I use the. For you. And I will, I will say, now the problem is because I'm a journalist, I go looking for stuff.Elon MuskWell, that's.Andrew Ross SorkinI'm just saying.And I also think the algorithm, for me personally, because I'm looking for stuff, also is feeding me other things.Elon MuskThis is actually a challenge in that sometimes people will say, like, why is it showing me posts from this person that I hate? And we were like, well, did you interact a lot with this person that you hate? Well, yes. Well, therefore it thinks that you want to interact more with this person that you hate. That's like a reasonable.You kind of want to have an argument. Yeah.Andrew Ross SorkinDo you ever post, let's say post. When you post.Elon MuskListen, I'm open if anyone can come up with a better word. That would be great.Andrew Ross SorkinWhen you post, though.Elon MuskBut the least bad word I can think of is post.Andrew Ross SorkinWhen you post, though, do you. Are you trying to rile up either a base or an audience? Do you. Do you recognize the power you have in that? And also, by the way, not just rile up one version of. But also riled down, which is to say, as I said, there are people who are demonstrably anti Semitic on the site who. I get Jew boy things and all sorts of things that come my way.Elon MuskHey, for a while they thought I was Jewish, so they would, you know, I'd get it, too. But.Andrew Ross SorkinBut, no, but the question is, myElon Muskname is super Jewish.Andrew Ross SorkinDo you ever think to yourself, you know what? I'm going to go online and I'm going to say, these people. I condemn these people that are on my site saying these things.Elon MuskBecause I've said I have.Andrew Ross SorkinNo, you say, I've condemned anti Semitism,Elon Muskbut do you ever go, yeah, I said, I literally. I literally posted, I condemn anti Semitism in all its forms. Like, that is a literal, I believe, literal post that I made.I mean, I'm like, listen, if I can get out the thesaurus, if you, you know, and we could, you know,Andrew Ross Sorkinlet me ask you a different question. You.Elon MuskYou compose it, I'll post it.Andrew Ross SorkinOkay, let me ask you this. You. You were on. You were on a podcast about a month ago, and you said something that struck me, and it struck me as accurate came out of your mouth. So hopefully it is, but I'm hoping we go deep on this.Elon MuskJust because it came out of my mouth does not mean it's true.Andrew Ross SorkinYou said my mind is a storm. I don't think most people would want to be me. They may think they want to be me, but they don't know. They don't understand.What did you mean by that? Your mind being a storm? I think it. I mean, I have known you for quite some time. I think it is a bit of a storm.Elon MuskYes.Yeah. I mean, in as much as a way, the metaphor makes sense.My mind often feels like a very wild storm.I mean, I have a fountain of ideas. I mean, I have more ideas than I could possibly execute. So I have no shortage of ideas. Innovation is not the problem. Execution is the problem. I've got a million ideas. I mean, I've got an entire design for an electric supersonic vertical takeoff jet, but, I mean, I just can't do that as well.I've had that for 10 years, and there's a million things.Andrew Ross SorkinIs your storm a happy storm?No, it's not A happy storm.Tell us about that. Because I think that, that actually when people try to really understand you, I think that there's a lot of this comes from some other place and I want to talk about that. What do you think that.Elon MuskLike a psychiatrist couch here or something?You know, I think to some degree I was born this way, but. And then it was amplified by a difficult childhood, frankly, so. But I can remember even in happy moments when I was a kid that there's just, it just feels like there's just a rage of forces in my mind constantly. Now this, you know, productively manifests itself in technology and building things for the most part.So.And I think on balance the output has been very productive.I think the results, as we discussed earlier with SpaceX, Tesla, PayPal, which is still going today, the first Internet company that I started, in fact the first Internet company I started, Zip2, was funded by New York Times company, Hearst Niter. And we wrote some of the software for the New York Times website and we helped bring online several hundred newspapers that previously were only in print.Now this is in the 90s, which at this point is like a grandpa Black. Basically the 90s and Internet feels like a pre Cambrian era when there were only sponges.So anyway, so you know, I feel like a lot of productive things have been done. And you can also look at Tesla as being many companies in one. Like our supercharging network is. If it were, if the Tesla supercharging network were its own company, it would be a Fortune 500 company by itself. Just the supercharging system.We also make the cells, we, we, we build the power electronics in the powertrain from scratch.We have the most innovative structural design, the largest castings ever used. We have the best manufacturing technology at Tesla, better manufacturing technology than companies that have been doing it for 100 years. So, so these, these demons of the mind, you know, are for the most part harnessed to productive ends.Andrew Ross SorkinLet me ask you.Elon MuskBut that doesn't mean that once in a while they, you know, go wrong.Andrew Ross SorkinBut, and this is a question I think a lot of people, you know, are always trying to figure out about not just you, but sometimes themselves. Meaning what is driving all of this? You're doing all of these things. Do you think it's, do you think that you would be as successful, whatever success is, if it wasn't being driven by some.I think that there's something you're trying to prove either to yourself or to somebody. I don't know. We're all trying to Prove science. You're not trying to prove it's my mother. I don't know.Elon MuskNo. If I were to describe my, my philosophy, it is a philosophy of curiosity.I mean I did have this existential crisis when I was around 12 about what's the meaning of life? Isn't it all pointless? Why not just commit suicide? Why exist?I read the religious texts, I read the philosophy books, that, especially the German philosophy books made me quite depressed frankly. One should not read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche as a teenager.But then I read Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is a book on philosophy in the form of humor. And the point that Adams was making there was that we don't actually know what questions to ask. That's why I said the answer is 42. Basically Earth's a giant computer and, and it came up with the answer 42.But then to actually figure out what the question is, that's the actual hard part. I think this is generally true also in physics, at the point at which you can properly frame the question, the answer is actually the easy part.So my motivation then was that, well, my life is finite really a flash in the pan on a galactic time scale. But if we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then we are better able to figure out what questions to ask about the answer, that is the universe and maybe we can find out the meaning of life or even what question to ask.What the right question to ask is, you know, where do we come from, where are we going?Where are the aliens? Are there aliens?You know, these, these questions, you know, and is there new physics to discover or is this because there seems to be some real questions about dark matter and dark energy? And so the purpose of SpaceX is to extend life beyond Earth on a sustained basis so that we can at least pass one of the Fermi great filters, which is that of being a single planet civilization.If we are a single planet civilization, then we are simply waiting around for some extinction event, whether that is man made or natural. But if you're a single planet civilization, eventually you will, something will happen to that planet and you will die. If you're a multi planet civilization, you will live much longer.Also multi planet civilization is, that's the natural stepping stone to being a multi stellar civilization and being out there among the stars. So now this I think has two, this is not simply a defensive motivation, but it is also one where that, you know, that gives meaning, man's search for meaning.Let me finish this philosophy point. Even though it may seem rather esoteric. It may resonate with a few people. We must get past this Fermi filter of being a great filter of being a single planet civilization.And if we do that, we are more likely to understand the nature of the universe and what questions to ask.If you're a believer in the philosophy of curiosity, then I think you should support this ambition.But it's more being a multi planet species is more than simply life insurance for life. Collectively that's a defensive reason.But I think also that life has to be more than simply solving one sad problem after another. You know, there have to be reasons where you wake up in the morning and you're happy to be alive. There have to be reasons that you have to say why are you excited about the future? Like what gives you hope?And if you aren't sure, ask your kids.And I think the idea of us being a space faring civilization and being out there among the stars is incredibly inspiring and exciting and something to look forward to. And there need to be such things in the world.Andrew Ross SorkinLet me ask you a different question about competence. We were having a conversation here earlier, but people and where you're, where people get their confidence from. Some people have great insecurity, other people have great confidence. And I was thinking about you because you have a very interesting history where people have told you over and over again that you're wrong.Elon MuskWell, sometimes they're right.Andrew Ross SorkinWell, sometimes they are. But I would say that when it comes to Tesla, when it came to Space X, people told you that you were crazy, you're out of your mind, this was never going to happen.Elon MuskYeah, we're going to work. And so yes.Andrew Ross SorkinAsk you this though is now when people say you're wrong, this isn't right, do you look at that and say, you know what, that's like a red flag for me because you know, I've been told so often that I'm wrong that I know that I and I know I'm right because I've had that experience or other people in your life when they say, you know what, Elon, this is not, this is not right.Do you know what I'm saying?Elon MuskI mean, I think what you sort of try to say is that, do I at this point think because I've been right so many times from others have said I'm wrong, that now I believe I'm right when in fact I'm wrong?Andrew Ross SorkinYou do very well.What do you think?Elon MuskNo, I'm right.So yeah, look, here's the thing.Physics is unforgiving physics is unforgiving. So I mean, I have, you know, these various little sayings I've come up with that physics is the law and everything else is a recommendation in the sense that you can break any law made by humans, but try breaking a law made by physics, that's much more difficult.So if you are wrong and persistent being wrong, the rockets will blow up and the cars will fail.So this is, we're not trying to figure out what flavor of ice cream is the best flavor of ice cream. Like if there's a thousand things that can happen on a rocket flight and only one of them gets the rocket to orbit.And so being wrong results in failure when dealing with physical objects.Andrew Ross SorkinBut that's the interesting part. So now you've built this, these great companies that physically the physics of them are enormously successful. So successful arguably that you have leverage over everybody else. Right? There's nobody else can do Starlink, nobody else can get, nobody else can get the rockets in space yet.Amazon and Jeff Bezos are trying, but they haven't yet.Elon MuskI hope he does.Andrew Ross SorkinYou hope he does?Elon MuskYeah, yeah, I think, you know, but I actually agree with, with, with a lot of Jeff's motivations. I mean, I think, you know, he's, you know, and so let me put their foot this way. If there was a button I could press that would delete Blue Origin, I wouldn't press it.So I think it's good that he's spending money on making rockets too. You know, I suggest perhaps he spend more time on it, but you know, it's up to him.I should make a point here. So nothing, nothing any of my companies have done has been to stifle competition. In fact, we've done the opposite. So at Tesla we have open sourced our patents. Anyone can use our patents for free. How many companies do you know who've done that? Can you name one? I can't. At SpaceX we don't use patents.So I mean, once in a while we'll file a patent just so some patent troll doesn't cause trouble. But we're not stopping any. We've done, we've done nothing anti competitive. We've done nothing to stop.Andrew Ross SorkinI'm not suggesting you at all.Elon MuskI just want to clarify for the audience because some companies have done anti competitive things. I think the strange thing or the unusual thing about SpaceX and Tesla is that we've done things that have helped our competition. So at Tesla we have made our supercharger system open access, we made our charger technology Available for free to the other manufacturers.The reason I no wall of garden. We could have put a wall up, but instead we invited them in.Andrew Ross SorkinThe reason I mentioned this though is because you've had the success in the physical physics world. You now have these very difficult decisions that have huge impacts on the world that are not physical decisions at all. They're decisions of the mind. They're decisions that you and others have to make. And there's a question whether you should be making these decisions at all.And I think about it in the context of Starlink. Obviously there was the report about how it's being used in Ukraine and the Russia war. There's questions about Taiwan, whether Taiwan should use it or will use it. I believe they're not right now because they're worried that at some point maybe the Chinese will tell you that you have to, they have leverage over you and you're going to have to turn that off.Right. I mean these are, these are very difficult decisions and I'm so curious how you think about that. And not just the decisions, the fact that you have that power.Elon MuskI just, I think it's important for the audience to understand that the reason I have these powers not because of some anti competitive actions, it's simply because we've executed very well.Andrew Ross SorkinOh, I'm not dismissing that. I think there are so many people, by the way, who are huge supporters of what you.Elon MuskThere are satellites out there, you know,Andrew Ross Sorkinbut, but, but they're not as good as yours and the same. And we can say that maybe make the same argument of cars and everything else but as a result that gives you enormous leverage. Right.Elon MuskOkay.Andrew Ross SorkinWith the exception of the, by the way, these advertisers who aren't on X in every other instance, everybody needs you.Elon MuskI mean nobody's that may use our product if it's better than use somebody else's product, if it's the other productAndrew Ross Sorkinbetter and I accept that. And maybe one day somebody else better products.Elon MuskLike, you know, how is it a bad thing to make better products with other companies?Andrew Ross SorkinWell, and I want to go back to this, to the Starlink piece of it though, because that has sort of a geo, geopolitical ramification in terms of your power and how you think about that specific power and then the power that the US government might have either over you or not over you, the power the Chinese government might have over you or not over you and how those things get used.Elon MuskI mean, what are you suggesting?Andrew Ross SorkinI'm asking the question around this, this very idea of how These satellites are going to be used whether you think that you should have control of them, whether the government should have control of them.Elon MuskThe government, well, that's, there's a lotAndrew Ross Sorkinof people who don't trust the government.Elon MuskExactly.Andrew Ross SorkinBut then this goes back to the trust of you, right?Elon MuskI mean, like I said, we're not the only company who has communication satellites. The archive satellites are just much better than theirs. So it's not like we have a monopoly.Andrew Ross SorkinDo you have, do you feel like anybody has product? It's not like, do you feel anybody has leverage over you?Elon MuskI mean, I think at the end of the day, if we make bad products that people don't want to use, then the users will vote with their resources and use something else.Andrew Ross SorkinNick, pivot the conversation for a second.Elon MuskI mean, certainly my company's overseen by regulators. And while, you know, once since SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla are overseen by, you know, cumulatively over 100 regulators and actually more than that few hundred regulators, because you've got, we're in 55 countries.If you sum up all the times that I had an argument with regulators of hundreds of regulators over decades, it can sound really terrible. Except. But they forgot to mention that there were 10 million regulations we complied with and only five that I disagreed with, but it was still the five. And it sounds like, wow, this guy's a real maverick.I'm like, yeah, but what about the 10 million we complied with?Andrew Ross SorkinDo you. Let me one related thing on this. The leverage of countries and things over you and regulators.X is this free speech platform you do business in China? Lots of business China. That's an important part of your business, I imagine.Elon MuskWell, not Space X.Andrew Ross SorkinHow do you think about the leverage that the Chinese have over you? And do they have leverage over you? And how do you feel about. Some people would say, is it hypocritical for you to be doing business in China or frankly in other countries as it relates to X and other things that don't follow this free speech path that you have espoused.Elon MuskThe best that the platform can do is adhere to the laws of any given country. Do you think there's something more we could do than that?Andrew Ross SorkinI think it would be very hard. But I just wonder, given the sort of strong philosophical approach that you've, you've, you, you've been vocal about whether you say to yourself, you know, maybe I shouldn't be doing business in that country.Elon MuskWell, first of all, Starlink and Space X do are no business in China whatsoever. Tesla has one of Four factories, four vehicle factories in China. And China is, you know, I don't know, a quarter of our market or something like that. So it's a quarter of the market of one company. The same is true, by the way, of all the other car companies.They also have something on that order of a quarter of their sales in China. So if you. If that's a problem for Tesla, it's a problem for every car company.I mean, I think one has to be careful about not conflating the various companies, because I can only do things that are within the bounds of the law. I cannot do beyond that. My aspiration is to do as much good as possible and to be as productive as possible within the bounds of what is legal. More than that, I cannot do.Andrew Ross SorkinI want to pivot and talk about AI for a moment. We had Jensen Huang here, who's a big fan of yours, as you know.Elon MuskYeah, Jensen's awesome.Andrew Ross SorkinTalk about talking about bringing you the first box, by the way, with Ilya, interestingly enough.Elon MuskYes.Andrew Ross SorkinBack in 2016, I think there's aElon Muskvideo of Jensen and me unpacking the first AI computer at OpenAI.Andrew Ross SorkinSo I'm so curious what you think of what's just happened over the past two weeks while you were dealing with this other headline. Series of headlines. There was a whole other series of headlines at OpenAI. What did you think?Well, you founded it. Co. Founded.Elon MuskCo founder. Yeah.Well. Well, the. The whole arc of OpenAI, frankly, is a little troubling because the. The reason for starting OpenAI was to create a counter. Counterweight to Google, Google and DeepMind, which at the time had 2/3 of all AI talent and basically infinite money and compute. And there was no. There was no counterweight. It was unipolar world.And Larry and Paige and I used to be very close friends, and I would stay at his house and I would talk to Larry into the late hours of the night about AI safety.And it became apparent to me that Larry did not care about AI safety. I think perhaps the thing that gave it away was when he called me a species for being pro humanity, as in, you know, like a racist, but for species.So I'm like, wait a second, what side are you on, Larry?And then I'm like, okay, listen, this guy's calling me a species. He doesn't care about AI safety. We've got to have some counterpoint here, because this seems like we could be.Andrew Ross SorkinThis is.Elon MuskThis. This is no good. So OpenAI was actually started and it was meant to be open source. I named it OpenAI after open source. It is in fact closed source. Super. It should be. It should be renamed super closed source for maximum profit.Andrew Ross SorkinAI.Elon MuskSo. Because this is what it actually is.I mean, fate loves irony. I mean, in fact, friend of mine has this says, like, the way to predict outcomes is the most ironic outcome is the most. Like is Occam's razor. Like, the simplest sort of explanation is most likely. And my friend Jonah's view is that the most ironic outcome is the most likely. And that's what's happened with OpenAI.It's gone from an open source foundation of 501c3 to suddenly it's like a $90 billion for profit corporation with closed source. So I don't know how you go from here to there, but that seems like a. I don't know how you get. I don't know if. Is this legal?Andrew Ross SorkinSo as you saw Sam Altman get ousted. Yeah, by somebody, you know, Ilya. And Ilya was. Somebody was a friend of yours.Elon MuskYes.Andrew Ross SorkinYou brought him there. Your relationship with Larry Page effectively broke down over you recruiting him away.Elon MuskI think that's correct. That was the fight. That was the. Larry refused to be friends with me after I recruited Ilya.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd so here's Ilya apparently saying something is very wrong.Elon MuskI think we should be concerned about this because I think Ilya actually has a strong moral compass. He thinks about, you know, he really sweats it over questions of what is right. And if Ilya felt strongly enough to want to, you know, fire Sam. Well, I think the world should know. What was that reason?Andrew Ross SorkinHave you talked to him?Elon MuskI've reached out, but he doesn't want to talk to anyone.Andrew Ross SorkinHave you talked to other people behind the scenes? Is this all happening?Elon MuskI've talked to a lot of people.I've not found anyone who knows why. Have you?Andrew Ross SorkinI think we are all still trying to find out.Elon MuskI mean, look, one of two things is either it was a serious thing and we should know what it is, or it was not a serious thing and then the board should resign.Andrew Ross SorkinWhat do you think of Sam Altman?Elon MuskI have mixed feelings about Sam.I do, you know, the ring of power, you know, can corrupt.And he's the ring of power. So, you know, I don't know. I think I want to know why Ilya felt so strongly. As far as Sam, this sounds like a serious thing. I don't think it was trivial.And I'm quite concerned that there's some, you know, dangerous element of AI that they've. They've discovered, yes.Andrew Ross SorkinYou think they've discovered something?Elon MuskThat'll be my guess.Andrew Ross SorkinWhere are you with your own AI efforts relative to where you think Open Air is, where you think Google is, where the others are.Elon MuskI mean on the front I'm in somewhat of a quandary here because I've thought AI could be something that would change the world in a significant way since I was in college, I mean like 30 years ago. But the reason I didn't go bull AI right from the get go was because I was uncertain about which, which edge of the double edged sword which would be sharper, the good edge or the bad edge.So I held off on doing anything on AI could have created. I think leading AI company and kind of OpenAI actually kind of is that because I was just uncertain if you make this magic genie, what will happen?You know, Whereas I think building sustainable energy technology is much more of a single edged sword. That is single edged good. Making life multi planetary, I think single edged good.Installing mostly single edged good. I mean giving people better connectivity to people that you know, don't, don't have connectivity or too expensive I think is very, you know, very much a good thing.Sonic was instrumental by the way, in halting the Russian advance. The Ukrainians said so.So, you know, I think there's. But with AI, you, you've got the magic genie problem. You may think you want a magic genie, but that, but once you, that genie's out of the bottle, it's hard to say what happens.Andrew Ross SorkinHow far are we away from that genie being out of the bottle?Elon MuskYou think?Andrew Ross SorkinWe think it's already out.Elon MuskAnd the genie is certainly poking its head out.Andrew Ross SorkinThe AGI, the idea of artificial general intelligence, given what you now are working on yourself and you know how easy or hard it is to train to create the inferences, to create the weights. I hope I'm not getting too far in the weeds of just how this works, but those are the basics behind the software end of this.Elon MuskIt's funny, you know, all these weights, they're just basically numbers in a comma separated value file and that's our digital God. A CSV file.Not that funny, But that's kind of literally what it is. So I think it's coming pretty fast.Andrew Ross SorkinYou know, I mean you famously have admitted to overstating how quickly things will happen, but how quickly do you think this will happen?Elon MuskIf you say smarter than the smartest human at anything. Yep. It may not be then quite smarter than all humans, all machine augmented humans, you know, because people have got computers and stuff. There's a higher bar. But you say smarter than any, you know, can write as good a novel as, say, J.K. rowling, or Discover new physics or invent new technology.I would say that we are less than three years from that point.Andrew Ross SorkinLet me ask you a question about XAI and what you're doing because there's an interesting thing that's different, I think, about what you have relative to some of the others, which is you have data, you have information, you have all of the stuff that everybody in here has put on the platform to sort through.And I don't know if everybody realized that initially. What is the value of that?Elon MuskYeah, I mean, data is very important.You could say data is probably more valuable than gold.Andrew Ross SorkinBut then maybe you have actually, maybe you have more. Maybe you have the gold in X in a different way. In a way again, that I, I don't know if the public appreciates what that means.Elon MuskYes, X is the. Might be the single best source of data.I mean, it is. There are more, you know, people links that go to people. People click on more links to X than anything else on Earth. Sometimes people think Facebook or Instagram is a bigger thing, but actually there are more links to X than anything. You can. This is public information. You can Google it.Andrew Ross SorkinOkay, let me ask you a.Elon MuskSo it is where you would find what is happening right now on Earth at any given point in time. The whole OpenAI drama played out in fact, on the DX platform.So it is one of the. It's not there. You know, Google certainly has a massive amount of data, so does Microsoft.So it's not like. But it is one of the best sources of data.Andrew Ross SorkinCan I ask you an interesting IP issue which I think is actually something I can say as somebody who's in the creator business and journalistic business and whatnot, or care about copyright. So one of the things about training on data has been this idea that you're not going to train or these things are not being trained on people's copyrighted information.Historically, that's been the concept.Elon MuskYeah, that's a huge lie.Andrew Ross SorkinSay that again.Elon MuskThese AIs are all trained on copyrighted data, obviously.Andrew Ross SorkinSo you think it's a lie when. When OpenAI says that this is not. None of these guys say they're training on copyrighted.Elon MuskThat's a lie.Andrew Ross SorkinIt's a lie. Straight up.Elon MuskA straight up lie. Okay, 100. So obviously it's been trained on perforated data.Andrew Ross SorkinOkay, so let me ask your second question. Which is all of the people who have been uploading.Elon MuskIt's like about every minute here, allAndrew Ross Sorkinof the people have been uploading articles, the best quotes from different articles, videos, 2X, all of that can be trained on. And it's interesting because people put all of that there and those quotes have historically been considered fair use. Right? People are putting those quotes up there and individually on a fair use basis you'd say, okay, that makes sense.But now there are people who do threads and by the way, there may be multiple people who've done, you know, an article that has 1000 words, technically all thousand words could have made it onto X somehow. And effectively now you have this remarkable repository and I wonder what you, how you think about that again and how you think the creative community and those who were the original IP owners should think about that.Elon MuskI don't know. Except to say that by the time these lawsuits are decided, we'll have digital God. So digital God at that point, these lawsuits won't be decided before on a timeframe that is relevant.Andrew Ross SorkinIs that a good thing or a bad thing?Elon MuskI think we live, you know, there's that. I don't know if it's actually a real Chinese thing or not, but may you live an interesting time. It's apparently not a good thing, but I would prefer to, personally, I would prefer to live in interesting times. And we live in the most interesting, interesting of times. I think for a while I was like really getting demotivated and losing sleep over the threat of AI danger.And then I finally sort of became fatalistic about it and said, well, even if I knew it was annihilation was certain, would I choose to be alive at that time or not? And I said I probably would have choose to be alive at that time because it's the most interesting thing, even if there's nothing I could do about it. So then, you know, then basically sort of a fatalistic resignation helped me sleep at night because I was having trouble sleeping at night because of AI danger.Now what to do about it? I mean, I've been the biggest, the one banging the drum the hardest, by far the longest, or at least one of longest for danger. And these regulatory things that are happening, the single biggest reason they're happening is because of me they're ever going toAndrew Ross Sorkinget their arms around it. We talked to the Vice President this afternoon. She said she wants to regulate it. People have been trying to regulate social media for years and have done nothing effectively.Elon MuskWell, there's, there's regulation around anything which is like a physical danger or a danger to the public. So, like cars are heavily regulated, communications are heavily regulated, rockets and aircraft are heavily regulated.The general philosophy about regulation is that when something is a danger to the public, that there needs to be some government oversight.So I think in my view, AI is more dangerous than nuclear bombs. And we regulate nuclear bombs. You can't just go make a nuclear bomb in your backyard.I think we should have some kind of regulation with AI. Now, this tends to cause the AI accelerationists to get up in arms because they think AI is sort of heaven, basically.Andrew Ross SorkinBut you typically don't like regulation. You've pushed back on regulators for the most part in the world of Tesla and so many, so many instances where we read articles about you pushing back, back on the regulators. I'm so curious why in this instance now you own one of these businesses.Elon MuskAs I said a moment ago, One should not take what is viewed in the media as being the whole picture. There are literally hundreds. This is not an exaggeration. So There are probably 100 million regulations that my companies comply with and there are probably five that we don't.And if there, if we disagree with some of those regulations, it's because we think the regulation that is meant to do good doesn't actually do good. But that's not defying regulations.Andrew Ross SorkinBut the question, if there are lawsElon Muskand rules,Andrew Ross Sorkinwhether the idea is that you're making the decision that the law and the rule shouldn't be the law and the rule, and then right isn't.Elon MuskNo, I'm saying you're fundamentally mistaken. And it should be obvious that you're mistaken. My company's automotive is heavily regulated. We would not be allowed to put cars on the road if we did not comply with this vast body of regulation. Now you could, you could fill up the stage with literally, you know, six foot high, the regulations that you have to comply with to make a car would make.You could have a room full of phone books. That's how many, that's how big the regulations are. And if you don't comply with all of those, you can't sell the car. And if we don't comply with all the regulations for rockets or for Starlink, they shut us down. So in fact, I am incredibly compliant with regulations. Now, once in a while there'll be something that I disagree with.The reason I would disagree with this is because I think the regulation in that particular case, in that rare case, does not serve the public good. And therefore I think it is my obligation to object to a regulation that is meant to serve the public good, but doesn't. That's the only time I object. Not because I seek to object, in fact, I'm incredibly rule following.Andrew Ross SorkinLet me ask you a separate question, social media related question. We've been talking about TikTok today ahead of the election.Elon MuskTikTok is.Andrew Ross SorkinWhat do you think of TikTok? Do you think it's a national security threat?Elon MuskI don't use TikTok.Andrew Ross SorkinSay that again. You don't.Elon MuskI don't personally use it, but for, for people that. For teenagers and people in their 20s, they seem almost religiously addicted to TikTok.Some people will watch TikTok for like two hours a day.I stopped using TikTok when I felt the AI probing my mind and I don't. It made me uncomfortable, so I stopped using it.And in terms of anti Semitic content, I mean, TikTok is rife with that. It has the most viral anti Semitic content by far.Andrew Ross SorkinBut do you think the Chinese government is using it to manipulate the minds of Americans?Elon MuskNow?Andrew Ross SorkinIs that something that you think we should worry about? I mean, you have different states that are trying to ban it.Elon MuskI don't think this is some Chinese government plot, butAndrew Ross Sorkinit is.Elon MuskThe TikTok algorithm is entirely AI powered, so it is really just trying to find the most viral thing possible.It's what is going to keep you glued to the screen. That's it. Now, on sheer numbers, there are on the order of 2 billion Muslims in the world and I think, you know, much smaller number of Jewish people, what, 20 million something many orders magnitude fewer. So if you just look at content production, just on sheer numbers basis, is going to be overwhelmingly anti Semitic.Andrew Ross SorkinLet me ask you. Let me ask you a political question. And I've been trying to square this one in my head for a long time.Elon MuskYeah.Andrew Ross SorkinIn the last two or three years you have moved decidedly to the right, I think.Elon MuskHave I?Andrew Ross SorkinWell, we can discuss this.I think that you have been espousing and promoting a number of Republican candidates and others. You've been very frustrated with the Biden administration over, I think unions and feeling like they did not respect what you created.Elon MuskWell, I mean, without any doing nothing to provoke the Biden administration, they held an electric vehicle summit at the White House and specifically refused to let Tesla attend this. In the first six months of the administration and we inquired, we're like, we literally make more electric cars than everyone else combined.Why are we not allowed. Why are you only letting Ford, gm, Chrysler and UAW and you're specifically disallowing us from the EV summit at the White House. We've done nothing to provoke them. Then Biden went on to add insult to injury and publicly said that GM was leading the electric car revolution. This was in the same quarter that Tesla made 300,000 electric cars and GM made 26.Does that seem fair to you?Andrew Ross SorkinSo, but tell me this then. It doesn't seem fair. And I've asked repeatedly. You've probably seen me, I had aElon Muskgreat relationship with Obama. So this is not a stupid. But, you know, but then there's for six, I sit in line for six hours to shake Obama's head.Andrew Ross SorkinOkay, so, okay, so let me just ask on a personal level. I can see it in your face. This, this hurt you personally and itElon Muskhurt the company too. And it was an insult to, you know, Tesla has 140,000 employees. Okay. Of the half of them are in the United States. Tesla has created more manufacturing jobs than everyone else combined.Andrew Ross SorkinSo we ask this then. You've devoted at least the last close to 20 years of your life, if not more, to the climate, climate change, trying to get Tesla off the ground in part to improve climate. You talked about that.Elon MuskYeah. A real right wing motive.Andrew Ross SorkinRepeatedly got a far right, if anything, I understand that. And then it's reverse psychology next level. Well, no, but. So here's then the question, which is how do you square the support that you have given? I believe you were at a fundraiser for Vivek Ramaswamy, for example, who says that the climate issue is a hoax.Right.Elon MuskI disagree with him on that.Andrew Ross SorkinBut I would think that that would be such a singular issue for you. I would think that the climate issue is such a singular issue for you that actually it would disqualify almost anybody who didn't take that issue seriously.Elon MuskWell, I haven't endorsed anyone for president. I mean, I wanted to hear what Vivek had to say because I think some of his things are, some of the things he says I think are pretty solid. You know, he's concerned about government overreach, about government control of information. I mean, the degree to which old Twitter was basically a sock puppet of the government was ridiculous.So, you know, it seems to me that there's a very severe violation of the First Amendment in terms of how much government control, how much control the government had over old Twitter, and it no longer does. So, you know, there's a reason for the First Amendment. The reason for the First Amendment, for freedom of speech is because the people that immigrated to this country Came from places where there was not freedom of speech.And they were like, you know what, we gotta make sure that that's constitutional. Because where they came from, if they said something, they'd be put in prison or they'd be, you know, something bad would happen to them. So. And freedom of speech, you have to say, when is it relevant? It's only relevant when someone you don't like can say something you don't like or it has no meaning.And as soon as you sort of, you know, throw in the towel and concede to censorship, it is only a matter of time before someone censors you. And that is why we have the First Amendment.Andrew Ross SorkinCould you see yourself voting for President Biden if it's, if they Biden Trump election, for example?Elon MuskI think I would not vote for Biden.Andrew Ross SorkinYou'd vote for Trump?Elon MuskI'm not saying I'd vote for Trump, but I mean, this is definitely a difficult choice. Yeah.Andrew Ross SorkinYou know, would you, would you vote for Nikki Haley? Nikki Haley, by the way, wants to all social media names to be exposed as, you know.Elon MuskNo, I think that's outrageous. Yeah, no, I'm not going to vote for some pro censorship candidate. Like I said, I mean, I think these, you have to, you have to, you know, consider that there is a lot of wisdom in these amendments. You know, I mean, the Constitution and you know, a lot of these, A lot of things that we take for granted here in the United States that don't even exist in Canada.There's not no constitutional right to freedom of speech in Canada. So, you know, and there's no Miranda rights in Canada. People like think like, you know, you have the right to remain silent. You don't actually in Canada.So, you know, half Canadian saviors from Godfrey. But, you know, so like you just got. The freedom of speech is incredibly important even when people. And like I said, it's actually especially important. In fact, it is only relevant when people you don't like can say things you don't like.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd do you think right now that meaningless. You think right now the Republican candidates or the Democrats are more inclined, I mean this is where you go to, I assume to woke and anti woke and the mind virus issue that you've talked about. Which party do you think is more pro freedom of speech given all the things you've seen?We also see, you know, Desantis, you know, preventing people from reading certain things. Maybe you think that's correct?Elon MuskNo, look, we actually are in an odd situation here where on balance the Democrats appear to be More pro censorship than the Republicans. And that used to be the opposite. It used to be, you know, left position was freedom of speech.You know, I believe at one point the ACLU even def. Defended the right of someone to claim that they were Nazi or something like that. You know, so, like there really were, like the left was. Freedom of speech is fundamental. And I mean, my perception, perhaps it isn't accurate, is that the pro censorship is more on the left than the right.We certainly get more complaints from the left than the right. Let me put it that way.So.But my aspiration for the X platform is that it is the best source of truth or the least inaccurate source of truth. And well, you know, I don't know if you won't believe me or not, but I think honesty is the best policy and I think that the truth will win over time. And the, you know, we've got this great system and it's getting better, called Community Notes, which is fantastic, I think, at correcting falsehoods or adding context.In fact, we make a point of not removing anything, but only adding context. Now that context could include that this is completely false, and here's why.And no one is immune to this. I'm not immune to it. Advertisers are not immune to it. In fact, we've had Community Notes, which has caused us some loss in advertising. Speaking of loss of advertising revenue, if a Community note, if there's false advertising, the Community note will say, this is false. And here is why.I mean, like, there's one specific example that is public knowledge, so I'll mention it, which is at one point, Uber had this ad which said, earn like a boss. And it was Community noted. If by Boss you mean $12.47 anAndrew Ross Sorkinhour,Elon Muskthis, this did cause at least a temporary suspension of advertising from Uber.Andrew Ross SorkinI got to ask you a question that might make everybody in the room uncomfortable or not uncomfortable. It goes to the free speech issue. The New York Times Company and the New York Times newspaper. It appeared over the summer to be throttled. What did the New York Times.Elon MuskWell, we do require that.That everyone has to buy a subscription, and we don't make exceptions for anyone. And, and I think if I want the New York Times, I have to pay for a subscription, and they don't give me a free subscription. So I'm not going to give them a free subscription.Andrew Ross SorkinBut were you, but were you throttling the New York Times relative to other news organizations, relative to everybody else? Was it, was it, was it specific to the, to the Times they didn'tElon Muskbuy a subscription, but it only costs like $1,000 a month. So if they just do that, then, then they're back in, back in the saddle.Andrew Ross SorkinBut, but, but you are saying that it was throttled.Elon MuskNo, I'm saying, I mean, was thereAndrew Ross Sorkina conversation that you had with somebody you said, look, you know, I'm unhappy with the times. They should either be buying the subscription or I don't like their content or whatever, whatever.Elon MuskAny organization that refuses to buy a subscription is, is not going to be recommended.Andrew Ross SorkinBut then what does that say about free speech and what does it say about amplifying voices?Elon MuskIt costs a little bit.Andrew Ross SorkinRight, but that's it. But that's an interesting.Elon MuskYou know, it's like in south park when they say, you know, freedom isn't free, it costs a buck or five or whatever. So. But it's pretty cheap. Okay. Low cost, low cost freedom. I got a couple more questions for you.Andrew Ross SorkinYou're heading back to Texas after this freedom to launch the cybertruck? Yeah, it's going to be a big launch. But I wanted to ask you right now more broadly just about the car business and what you see actually happening. And specifically the government put in place lots of policies as you know, to try to encourage more EVs.And one of the things that's happened uniquely is you have now a lot of car companies saying actually this is too ambitious for us. These plans are too ambitious. 4,000 dealers, I don't know if you saw just yesterday sent a letter to the White House saying this has gone too far, you're going too far.Elon MuskYou had this anti ev.Andrew Ross SorkinIt was an, it was, this is going too fast, too far and that there's not enough demand are underneath all this is this idea that maybe there's not enough demand for EVs that the American public has not bought into the. I mean they bought into, with your company, but they haven't bought into it broadly enough.Elon MuskWell, I think if you make a compelling electric car, people will buy it. No question about it. I mean, electric car sales in China are gigantic. That's by far the biggest category. And I think that would be the case, you know, I mean, it's worth noting. Okay, so the, probably the best reputation of that is that the Tesla Model Y will be the best selling car of any kind on earth this year.Of any kind, gasoline or otherwise.Andrew Ross SorkinIs there another car company that you think is doing a good job with EVs?Elon MuskI mean, I think the Chinese car companies are extremely competitive. By far our Toughest competition is in China. So, I mean, there's, there's a lot of people who out there who think that the top 10 car companies are going to be Tesla, followed by nine Chinese car companies. I think they might not be wrong. So China is super good at manufacturing and the work ethic is incredible.So, you know, like, if we consider different leagues of competitiveness at Tesla, we consider the Chinese league to be the most competitive. And by the way, we do very well in China because our China team is the best China.Andrew Ross SorkinHow worried are you that the unionized unionization effort that just took place at what I shouldn't say effort, but the new wages and the like at GM and Ford are. That they're coming for you.They are coming for you. What is that going to mean to you and your business?Elon MuskWell, I mean, I think it's generally not good to have an adversarial relationship between people online, you know, one group at the company and another group. In fact, I mean, I disagree with the idea of unions, but perhaps for a reason that is different than people may expect, which is I just don't like anything which creates kind of a lords and peasants sort of.And I think the unions naturally try to create negativity in a company and create a sort of lords and peasants situation. There are many people at Tesla who have gone from working on the line to being in senior management. There is no lords and peasants. Everyone eats at the same table, everyone parks in the same parking lot.You know, at GM there's a special elevator for only for senior executives. We have no such thing at Tesla.You know, and the things that I actually know, the people on the line, because I worked on the line and I walked the line and I stepped in the factory and I, and I worked beside them.So I'm no stranger to them.And there actually many times where I've said, well, can't we just hold a union vote? But apparently a company is not allowed to hold a union vote, so it has to be somehow called for. But the unions can't do it. So I said, well, let's just hold a vote and see what happens.The actual problem is, is the opposite. It's not that people are trapped at Tesla building cars. The challenge is, is how do we retain great people to do the hard work of building cars when they have like six other opportunities that they can do that are easier? That's the actual difficulty is, is that building cars is hard work and there are much easier jobs.And I just want to say that I'm Incredibly appreciative of those who build cars and they know it, you know, so there's, there's. I don't know, maybe there will be unionized. If I say, like, if Tesla gets unionized, it will be because we deserve it and we failed in some way.But we certainly try hard to ensure the prosperity of everyone. We give everyone stock options.We've made many people who are just working the line who didn't even know what stocks were. We've made them millionaires.Andrew Ross SorkinSo we're going to run out of time. Final couple of quick questions. When do you have the timeElon MusktoAndrew Ross Sorkintweet or to post?I actually think about it all the time.Elon MuskAs I said, I use it sometimes.Andrew Ross SorkinI use it all the time. Meaning if we were to. If we were to open up our phones and look at the screen time, what does yours look like?Elon MuskWell, about every three hours, I make a trip to the laboratory.Andrew Ross SorkinThat's the only time you do this. Seems like you're on there a lot.Elon MuskNo, I mean, there'll be, like, brief moments between meetings.I mean, it's not. Obviously I've. I've like, 17 jobs, so, you know, and. No, no, I guess technically it's work at this point.Andrew Ross SorkinIt is, but I'm thinking just in terms of your mind share. I mean, by the way, there's a lot of people who should be working who are on. Who are on this.Elon MuskTechnically, posting on Twitter is. Or X is work. It does count as work. So that's, you know, there's that.But no, I mean, I think I'm on.Well, I guess usually, probably I'm on for longer than I think I am.Andrew Ross SorkinI know, but do you think that's five hours a day?Elon MuskIf we have the screen time of, like, number of hours per week, Sometimes that's a scary number.It's probably, I don't know, it's a little over an hour a day or something like that.Andrew Ross SorkinJust an hour a day.If we really looked at this together. Do you have your phone with you?Elon MuskYeah.Andrew Ross SorkinYou want to look?Elon MuskOkay.Andrew Ross SorkinOkay, here we go.Elon MuskYou ready?Andrew Ross SorkinScreen time.Elon MuskHit general screen time. Sometimes this is a scary number, but I know.Andrew Ross SorkinThat's why I thought.Elon MuskI just got a new phone. So I think this is not accurate because it's one minute.Pretty sure it's more than that. Wait, it's over the week. There we go.Andrew Ross SorkinYeah. Go to the week.Elon MuskOkay, so it's all wrong. It's more than four minutes.I just got a new phone, so this is not accurate.Andrew Ross SorkinIt Literally says, four minutes, new phone. Tim Cook said into that phone.Elon MuskNew phone. Who does?Andrew Ross SorkinYeah, I should ask, by the way, because I just mentioned Tim Cook. Do you feel like you're going to have to have a battle with him eventually? Is that. Is that the next fight?Elon MuskI mean, over the App Store, the idea of making a phone. What do you mean?Andrew Ross SorkinLike, no, no, no. Over the App Store. You ever make a phone? Sam Altman's apparently thinking about making a phone. Johnny Ives.Elon MuskI mean, I don't think there's a real need to make a phone. I mean, if there's a essential need to make a phone, I'll make a phone. But I got a lot of fish to fry. So, I mean, I do think there's a. There's a fundamental challenge that phone makers have at this point because you've got basically a black rectangle.You know, how do you make that better?Andrew Ross SorkinSo you want to do that. What does that. What does that look like in Elon's head?Elon MuskNo, that's literally. Yeah, good phrase in the head. Neuralink.Andrew Ross SorkinWell, there we go. We need touch that before it's over.Elon MuskYou know, the best interface would be a neural interface directly to your brain. So that would be a neural.Andrew Ross SorkinHow far do you think from that? And how excited or scared, scary does that seem to be? And we read these headlines, obviously, about monkeys who died. As, you know, what should we think about that?Elon MuskYeah, actually, the. This is the USDA inspector who came by neuralink facilities, literally said in her entire career she has never seen a better animal care facility.We are the nicest to animals that you could possibly be, even to the rats and mice, even though they did the plague and everything.So it is. It is like monkey paradise.So the thing that gets conflated is that there were some terminal monkeys where, you know, this is. This is actually several years ago where the monkeys were about to die. And we're like, okay, we've got an experimental device. It's the kind of thing we should only put on a monkey that's about to die. And then, you know, now the monkey died, but it didn't die because of the neural link.Died because it was, you know, had a total case of cancer or something like that. So Neuralink has never caused the death of a monkey, unless they're hiding something from me. It has never caused death of a monkey. And in fact, we've now had monkeys with neuralink implants for, I think, two, three years. And they're doing great.So.And we've even replaced the Neuralink twice and we're getting ready to do the, to do the first implants and hopefully in a few months. The early implementations of Neuralink I think are unequivocally good. Speaking of the double edged sword, I think these early implementations are single edged sword because the first implementations will be to enable people who are have lost the brain body connection to be able to operate a computer or phone faster than someone who has hands that work.So you can imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than someone who had full body functionality, how incredible that would be. Well, that's what this device will do and we should have proof of that in a human hopefully in a few months. It already works in monkeys and works quite well with monkeys that can play video games just using, just by thinking.So and the next application after the sort of those, you know, dealing with tetraplegics and quadriplegic, quadriplegics is going to be vision. Vision is the next thing. So it's like if somebody is like, has lost both eyes or the optic nerve has failed, basically where there's, they have no possibility of having sort of some ocular correction.That will be the next thing for neuralink is a direct vision interface. And in fact then you could be like Jordi LaForge from Star Trek. You could see in like any frequency actually you could see in radar if you want.Andrew Ross SorkinTwo final questions and then we're going to end this conversation which I think has taken everybody inside the mind of Elon Musk today.Elon MuskNot as well as neurolinquilla.Andrew Ross SorkinIt actually goes to self driving cars and vision and everything else. And I asked this question of Pete Buttigieg, Transportation Secretary. It's actually something you retweeted. So I wanted to ask you the same question.There's a big question about autonomous vehicles and the safety of them, but there's also a question about when it will be politically palatable in this country for people to die in cars that are controlled by computers, which is say we have 35, 40,000 deaths every year in this, in this country. Yeah, if you could bring that number down to 10,000, 5,000, that might be a great thing.But do we think that the country will accept the idea that 5,000 people, that your family might have perished in a vehicle as a result, not of a human making a mistake, but of a computer?Elon MuskYes. Well, first of all, humans are terrible drivers. So people text and drive, they drink and drive, they get into arguments, they, you know, do all sorts of things in cars that they should not do.So it's actually remarkable that there are not more deaths than there are.What we'll find with computer driving is I think probably an order of magnitude reduction in death deaths, I think now. And the US has actually far fewer deaths per capita than the rest of the world. If you go worldwide, I think there's something close to a million deaths per year due to automotive accidents. So I think computer driving will probably drop that by 90% or more.It won't be perfect, but it'll be 10 times.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd do you think that the public will accept that? Do you think the government will accept that?Elon MuskWell, in large numbers. It will simply be so obviously true that it really cannot be denied.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd what do you think? I know we've talked about the timeline before and I know people have criticized you for putting out timelines that may not have come true just yet, but what do you think it is? And by the way, do you feel that you ever say to yourself, I shouldn't have said that.Elon MuskSure, of course.Wait, I should have said that.So yeah, I mean I'm optimistic about, I mean I think I'm like naturally optimistic about timescales and if I was not naturally optimistic I wouldn't be doing the things that I'm doing. I mean I certainly wouldn't have started a rocket company or electric car company if I didn't have some sort of pathological optimism from frankly.So as you pointed out, many people said they would fail and in fact, actually I agreed with them. I said yes, it probably will fail and they're like okay, But I thought SpaceX and Tesla had less than a 10% chance of success when we started them.So yeah, anyway, but the self driving thing is I've been optimistic about it. We certainly made a lot of progress if anybody has tried the has been using the sort of full self driving beta. The progress is, you know, every year has been substantial. It's really now the point where in most places it'll take you from one place to another with no interventions and the data is unequivocal that that supervised full self driving is somewhere around four times safer or maybe more than just human driving by themselves.So I can certainly see it coming.Andrew Ross SorkinDo you think it's another five or ten years?Elon MuskNo, no, no, definitely not. Definitely not.Andrew Ross SorkinAnd do you feel like investors have invested in something that hasn't happened yet? Is that, is that fair to them? And that's the other question people have about that.Elon MuskWell, I mean I think they've all, with our exception, thought it wasn't happening. So they were investing despite thinking. They're very clear that they don't think it's real. So they're not saying, oh, we just believe everything Elon says, hook, line and sinker.But the thing is that, I mean, would be a fair criticism of me to say that I am late, but it isn't. But I always deliver in the end.Andrew Ross SorkinLet me ask you a final question. I took note of this. It was November 11th, and you took to Twitter and you wrote only two words. You said, amplify empathy.Elon MuskRight.Andrew Ross SorkinI was taken back by that. Given all the things that have been going on in the world.Do you remember what you were thinking?Elon MuskWell, I think it's quite literally.Andrew Ross SorkinI understand it. But what was going on? Why. Why did you write that?Elon MuskWell, I was encouraging people to amplify empathy. Literally. I tend to be quite literal.Andrew Ross SorkinBut was there something that had happened that you had seen that you said to yourself, I need to. I want to say that I thinkElon MuskI was talking to some friends and we all agreed that we should try to amplify empathy. And so I wrote, amplify empathy.Andrew Ross SorkinIf you wanted an unvarnished look inside the mind of Elon Musk, I think you just saw it.Elon MuskLook, sometimes it's pretty simple, you know.Andrew Ross SorkinElon Musk, thank you very, very much for the conversation.Elon MuskThank you.Andrew Ross SorkinAppreciate it very, very much. Thank you. Thank you so much.Take that with you for a second.I'm just going to say thank you to everybody who stuck around for what has been a remarkable day. We are so appreciative of everybody who has been with us for so many years coming back to this every year. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I hope you had a great day, and I hope we have an opportunity to do this again.Elon Musk, everybody. Thank you.It.