SPEAKER_00: So, live from an undisclosed location, with the sultry filter on, very sultry filter on, having a great hair day. Yeah, that is a good hair day for you. Great hair day, my pal, and your favorite CEO and Twitterer, Mr. Elon Musk.

SPEAKER_03: How you doing, pal?

SPEAKER_00: Nice.

David Friedberg: Appreciate you coming to the event, or zooming in. What's new in your world?

SPEAKER_26: Well, let's see. I guess right now, I'm sort of debating the number of bots on Twitter.

SPEAKER_28: With Parra on Twitter. And currently, what I'm being told is that there's just no way to know the number of bots.

SPEAKER_29: It's like as unknowable as the human soul. Basically.

SPEAKER_34: You have no idea what level of witchcraft and alchemy is needed to determine these bot percentage. Have you determined?

SPEAKER_38: I said, like, why not try calling people? But I haven't got a response. You know, like, have you tried calling people or something? You know, like, maybe try that answer. It's not a bot.

SPEAKER_41: No, no, no, I don't know. But I think like that would be one of the things to do to say, like, have you tried calling them as opposed to trying to read the tea leaves here? That's like impossible. You know, obviously, you can have an account that looks exactly like a human account or is being operated where one person is operating a thousand accounts or something. But that person can only buy one toaster, they're not going to buy a thousand toasters. So you care about like number of unique, real people that are on the system. It's extremely fundamental. And anyone who uses Twitter is well aware that the comment, the comment threads are full of spam, scam and just a lot of, you know, fake accounts. So it seems beyond, beyond reasonable for Twitter to claim that the number of essentially the number of said another way, the number of real unique humans that you see making comments on a daily basis on Twitter. Twitter is above 95%.

SPEAKER_28: That is what they're claiming. Does anyone have that experience?

SPEAKER_46: I mean, really?

SPEAKER_50: It's like there's a bridge I'd like to sell you, you know, you know, you can buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

SPEAKER_60: What do you think it is? What do you get? What's the what's the I mean, it's not 5%. What is it?

SPEAKER_62: I think it's some number that is probably at least four or five times that number.

SPEAKER_63: I'd say at if you did sort of the the lowest estimate would be probably 20%.

SPEAKER_41: And and this and this is a bunch of quite smart outside firms have done analysis of Twitter and looked at the the sort of daily daily users and their conclusion is also about is about 20%.

SPEAKER_63: But that's a lower bound, it's not an upper bound, if you look at say, most liked tweets on Twitter. So I have the honor of having the most liked tweet of any living human. This is thank you, everyone for liking my tweet, including you with some of the bots out there. But that tweet is less than 5 million likes. It's like 4.7 or something like that. And that was the where I tweeted about that next time buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in.

SPEAKER_67: It's definitely it's clearly something that the public really wants. And, you know, Coca-Cola Corporation should really think about going back to their roots, Coca-Cola.

SPEAKER_71: I mean, this this, I guess, is the reason why our grandparents could sort of walk 20 miles in the snow because they had Coca-Cola with cocaine. This is real reasoning.

SPEAKER_63: Anyway, that's that's that's literally the most popular tweet of any of any living human and but Twitter says that the daily money, the sort of monetizable daily active users is 217 million. So why would it be that the most popular tweet ever basically is only, you know, two, two and a half a cent of the entire user base? This this seems a very, very low number.

SPEAKER_41: And and the most popular tweets generally are clustered around that sort of 4 million like level. So it's like sort of like basically two percent or less or less than two percent of the daily active users and technically monetizable daily active users is how Twitter refers to it. So it just seems how is this possible?

SPEAKER_63: Surely there's something that maybe, you know, 10 percent of people would like not merely two percent.

SPEAKER_78: Well, actually, you know, if you think about it, Elon, there's a corollary on YouTube. What do what's the total user base of YouTube?

SPEAKER_81: And what have the most popular videos gotten there? Yes. And I think there's a billion or two, maybe a billion people using YouTube. And those the most popular videos have tens of billions of views.

SPEAKER_41: Yes.

SPEAKER_84: That might be instructive.

SPEAKER_41: Exactly. That ratio makes a lot more sense.

SPEAKER_63: So something doesn't add up here. And my concern is, isn't it is not that is it like, you know, is it five or seven or eight percent, but is it potentially 80 percent or 90 percent bots?

SPEAKER_41: Yeah. You know, is it I mean, I certainly know there's some real people on Twitter. But but what's if it is it an order of magnitude is it is it 50 percent instead of five? And that's obviously an incredibly material number, especially since Twitter relies primarily on brand advertising as opposed to specific click through advertising where you make a purchase. If you make a purchase, it doesn't really matter that much. But for brand advertising, which is really just awareness advertising, it matters if real humans are seeing that or not.

SPEAKER_90: Yeah.

SPEAKER_81: And so I guess stepping back for a second, people are curious why you want to buy Twitter. Why is this so important to you?

SPEAKER_90: And then I guess what are the chances you think the deal gets done at this point? So a two parter.

SPEAKER_91: Why is it so important to me?

SPEAKER_63: I mean, some of this I've articulated before, but I think there's a need for a public town square, digital town square that where people can debate issues of all kinds, including the most substantive issues.

SPEAKER_41: And in order for that to be the case, you have to have something that is as broadly inclusive as possible, that has as much of the people on the platform as possible, where it's it feels balanced from a political standpoint. It's not biased one way or the other and where the system is transparent. This is why I think it's important to put the algorithm on on GitHub and actually allow the public to see it and critique it and improve it. And if there are any manual changes, sort of shadow banning, as it's called, or increasing or decreasing the prominence of a tweet that's done manually, that that should be noted. So, you know, what has happened and it's not just, you know, you're just where it is right now.

SPEAKER_63: We don't know what the heck is going on. Why is one tweet doing well?

SPEAKER_41: Why is another tweet not? Is it the algorithm that someone manually to intervene? Why are some accounts banned? With no recourse, apparently.

SPEAKER_63: And, you know, the reality is that Twitter at this point, you know, has a very far left bias. And I would class myself as a moderate and neither Republican nor Democrat. And in fact, I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats historically, overwhelmingly.

SPEAKER_41: Like, I'm not sure. I might never have voted for Republican, just to be clear. Right. Now, now, this election, I will.

SPEAKER_96: Well, David, you okay?

SPEAKER_99: He's fine.

SPEAKER_101: He's fine. Keep going. Keep going. He's fine. He's fine. We're going to resuscitate him. We're going to resuscitate David Sachs. I mean, let me ask you a personal point.

SPEAKER_63: The point I'm trying to make is that this is not some sort of attempt to, you know, it's not some right-wing takeover, as people on the left may fear, but rather a moderate-wing takeover and an attempt to ensure that people of all political beliefs feel welcome on a digital town square. And they can express their beliefs without fear of being banned or shadow banned and that we obviously need to get rid of the bots and scams and trolls and people that are operating huge bot armies in an attempt to unduly influence the public opinion. So this is what I think it's so important that we have that, like the, the, some of the smartest people in history have, have thought about it and said, like, free speech is important for a, for a healthy democracy. It is important and free speech only matters, like, like say, when does free speech matter most it's when someone, when it's someone you don't like saying something you don't like, uh, that's when it actually matters.

SPEAKER_41: Um, so, um, you know, obviously, and, and, and, and it's pretty annoying when someone you don't like says something you don't like that's, that's, that's bad, but it's actually a good sign of, uh, that, that, that you have free speech.

SPEAKER_63: Um, so, um, I mean, I get trashed by the media all the time. It's fine. I don't care. Uh, good. Do, do it twice as much. I couldn't care less.

SPEAKER_41: Um, but it's indicative of the fact that even though, um, I, you know, I have like a lot of resources, I do not actually have the ability to stop the media from trashing me. And that's actually a good thing.

SPEAKER_110: Yeah.

SPEAKER_78: I, I have to ask, um, with regard to this current administration, I know how hard you work, uh, on the car company.

SPEAKER_81: And then Biden, you know, uh, you've been a lifelong Democrat, you've donated to Obama and to everybody, probably never voted Republican. And yet, and the same is true for Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan is, you know, a Bernie Sanders supporter. And that the democratic party has been openly hostile to Joe Rogan and Biden can't even say the word Tesla or invite you to the white house when they do an EV summit. And I'm curious, just on a very personal basis, what does it feel like to have that experience where the party you supported is, won't even say the name of your company or invite you there.

SPEAKER_114: They should be celebrating the work you're doing.

SPEAKER_116: Yeah.

SPEAKER_63: I mean, it, it definitely feels like this is not right.

SPEAKER_41: Like this is, uh, the, the, the, the issue here is that there's just an, uh, this, the, the Democrat party is overly, overly controlled by the unions and by the, uh, trial lawyers, particularly the class action, uh, lawyers. Um, and generally, if you, if you'll see something that doesn't, that is not in the interest of the, of the people, um, on the, on the Democrat side, it's going to come because of the unions, uh, which is just another form of monopoly. And the, uh, the trial lawyers, uh, that that that's where actions will be happening from the Democrat side, they're not in the interest of the people. And then, um, to be fair on the Republican side, uh, there's, there's, if you say like, where does something like not, not ideal happening, it's because of corporate evil, um, and, uh, religious zealotry. Um, but that's generally where the bad things will be coming from on the Republican side, um, that are not representative of the people.

SPEAKER_63: So, um, in, in the case of Biden, he is simply too, too much, uh, captured by the unions, um, where, which was not the case with Obama.

SPEAKER_41: Um, so in the case of Obama, you could have, you know, he was sort of quite reasonable. Um, and I think he took more of a view of that, you know, obviously you need to take the concerns of the unions into account, but, uh, there, there are, there are bigger issues at stake.

SPEAKER_122: And, and unfortunately, if Biden does not do that, you'll have a, I have a Tesla question I read today. It's incredible. There was a Bloomberg article that said the following. So the setup is this, it said, since you went public, Tesla's up 22,000, uh, 11 quarters of profit, sequential profitability.

SPEAKER_129: So hitting on all cylinders, but the public analysts, but analysts, uh, when they put out their projections, okay.

SPEAKER_122: It's, it's, it's one of the most enormous bands for any company in America, the, the price targets for Tesla, despite all of this success, some have it at 200, some have it at 1600. It's all over the place. You tweeted, uh, a couple of months ago, Tesla's not a company. It's like six companies inside of a company. Like you've had to build this. Yeah, maybe more. Can you just explain to people all these companies inside the super company, just so folks have a sense of what had to be done to get here?

SPEAKER_62: Okay.

SPEAKER_41: I mean, this, this question requires thought and I'll probably be leaving out, uh, quite a few things, but if you look at say, what, what does a typical, uh, car company do, uh, what, what they do is they, they, um, they, um, they, they assemble vehicles, um, and they send them to dealers and they manage the supply chain, uh, the, they, they, they might make the engine, uh, or typically we'll make the engine, but most of the parts are made by suppliers. Um, and a lot of the actual technology development is done by suppliers. And most of this, most of the vehicle software is done by suppliers. So the actual amount of, uh, real work done by car companies that what do you think of sort of like a GM or Ford is not actually that much. Um, and, but like, so they don't do, they don't do, uh, sales, they don't do service. Um, they, uh, so, so in the case of Tesla, for example, we, we do, we, we do our own sales and service. Uh, we don't have dealerships, um, then, uh, Tesla also has by far the biggest network of superchargers, sort of the electric equivalent of gas stations. So we built an entire global supercharger network, which is still the most advanced and by far the best, uh, way to charge your car when traveling long distance, or if you live in a city, um, and, uh, and don't have the ability to charge your car, there's a street parking or an apartment. So the whole supercharger network, we, we developed the supercharger network, we deployed it. I think we have, I don't know, 15,000 superchargers globally, um, in travel anywhere in America right now with, uh, uh, the Tesla supercharger network. Um, then, uh, in terms of vertical integration, uh, we, uh, we make the, the battery pack, uh, the, the power electronics, the drive unit, um, we, uh, we actually make, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're more integrated in the parts. We actually make so much of the car, uh, internally, uh, we're vertically integrated, um, not necessarily because we're just, we think that there's some religious reason to be about integrated, but because, uh, the pace of which we needed to move was just much faster than the supply chain could move. And to the degree that you inherit the legacy supply chain, you inherit, inherit the legacy constraints, including their speed, uh, cost and, uh, and technology. And then Tesla is as much a software company as it is a hardware company. So the software that runs in Tesla operates, the car operates, the, the screen, uh, does the charging, uh, all of that stuff is developed by Tesla. And, um, so we have sort of a car, a Tesla OS in the car.

SPEAKER_63: I could go on for a long time. And then very importantly, uh, Tesla has built, uh, uh, an, uh, an autopilot AI team from scratch.

SPEAKER_41: Uh, that is the best real world AI team on earth. Um, and if anyone else has got a better one, I'd like to see it demonstrated in a car. Um, the, the, the, the full self-driving beta at this point, uh, uh, can, uh, very often take you with zero interventions across the Bay area from San Jose to Marin. So through, through complex traffic, it's really quite sophisticated. Um, and I invite anyone to, to join the beta or, or look at the videos of those who are in the beta. We've got like a hundred thousand people in the beta, so it's not tiny. And we'll be expanding that to, I don't know, probably a million people or a million. I don't know, it's on that order by the end of the year. So, um, it's, um, You had this slide, we also, we also built a chip team to, because there wasn't, it wasn't hardware that we could run the frigging, uh, AI on, uh, we couldn't just, uh, fill the trunk with a whole bunch of GPUs. Um, and, and, uh, you know, cause they would, would have created a trunk full of GPUs that would have been very expensive and take massive amount of power and cooling, uh, just to, to be able to do what the Tesla designed, uh, full self-driving computer can do. So, and we started a chip team from scratch, designed it. It was the best in the world and still is the best in the world several years later. Um, and we're also then developed, we were designing a, a dojo, a super computer to be able to process the, um, all the video. You know, that's coming in from billions of miles of data, because just sort of like the way that, that it's critical to compete with Google because they have so much data and they have all the people doing searches all the time. And, and humanity is training it, but the same is true of, of, of Tesla. You really need billions of miles, ultimately tens of billions of miles of training data combined with, uh, sort of a vast training computer, and then, uh, optimize, uh, inference hardware in the car, um, and state of the art AI and training and specialized software across the board. To be able to achieve a full self-driving solution.

SPEAKER_130: I, uh, I just thought that when, when he opened Tesla Gigafactory, remember this six or seven years ago? I'll just tell the audience a story quickly, Elon.

SPEAKER_122: He puts a slide up there and he says, guys, we're not actually building a factory. We're building a machine that makes machines. And he puts the layout of the factory and it looks like a chip. And it was basically like how you would actually lay out a microchip if you were, or, you know, you were like a layout engineer. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. I was like, that was when I first got it. Yeah. You know, you walk in 10 and you see what's happening.

SPEAKER_148: And you have an insurance company. Now you're doing insurance for Tesla owners.

SPEAKER_149: And an Uber competitor.

SPEAKER_148: Right. And eventually a robo taxi Uber competitor, RIP.

SPEAKER_150: Um, yeah. I mean, insurance is not quite significant.

SPEAKER_152: Now are you okay? I'm okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_41: Just the, the, the car insurance thing is a bigger deal, it may seem, uh, a lot of people are paying, um, you know, 30, 40% as much as their lease payment for the car in, in, in car insurance. Um, so the car insurance industry is incredibly inefficient because they're, they're, they're just, uh, personally, you've got like so many, um, sort of middle entities you've got, you've got from the insurance agent all the way to the final sort of reinsure. There's like a half a dozen companies each taking a cut. And then the it's all very statistical so that there's even if you're a very good driver, like you could be like, you know, 20 years old and a great driver, but they it's all statistical. So you can't get you can't get insurance or it's extremely expensive. So Tesla allows for real time insurance based on how you actually drive the car. You can actually if you drive the car in a safer way, you actually have lower insurance. So ours is is insurance is based on how you actually drive, not how, you know, historically people that, you know, fit your whatever demographic have drive.

SPEAKER_37: And then you can close the loop around your insurance rate by simply driving better and looking at your score and and and lowering your insurance in real time. And people do it actually promote safer driving.

SPEAKER_20: I actually have had this experience because in my household, two people drive my car and one of them has a 93 score and the other one does not.

SPEAKER_81: They have like a 60 score. And you may have met this other person, but I've been trying to work with her on the aggressive turns and stops in advance of our insurance bill, which we're hoping will go down at some point.

SPEAKER_159: You didn't know the one question. Is this Twitter deal going to get closed, do you think the chances here?

SPEAKER_62: Well, I mean, it really depends on a lot of factors here.

SPEAKER_41: I'm still waiting for some sort of logical explanation for the number of sort of fake or spam accounts on Twitter and Twitter is refusing to tell us.

SPEAKER_63: So, you know, this just seems like a strange thing.

SPEAKER_122: Wait, sorry. Are they refusing to tell you or you don't think they really know? I mean, there's a good chance they may just have no idea.

SPEAKER_112: They claim that they do know.

SPEAKER_164: Yeah.

SPEAKER_77: And they claim that they've got this complex methodology that only they can understand. But the guy who landed two rockets simultaneously can't understand.

SPEAKER_71: Which is through, you stir this cauldron and then you throw it in another room.

SPEAKER_67: And then suddenly it comes to you in a dream. I don't know.

SPEAKER_63: But there should be some, you know, objective way to the thing. Because this is a material public statement.

SPEAKER_170: It's a threshold issue. Yeah.

SPEAKER_63: You know, it's a, you know, it's a material adverse misstatement.

SPEAKER_41: You know, if they in fact have been vociferously claiming less than 5% of fake or spam accounts. But in fact, it is four or five times that number or perhaps 10 times that number. This is a big deal. It's not the same. It's like if you said, okay, I'm going to, I agree to buy your house. You say the house has less than 5% termites. That's, that's an acceptable number.

SPEAKER_67: But if it turns out it is 90% termites, that's not okay. You know, it's not the same house. This house is made mostly of termites.

SPEAKER_63: If termites leave, it literally, your house will disappear because it's mostly made of termites. So, you know, that would obviously just not be appropriate. So, in making the Twitter offer, I was obviously reliant upon the truth and accuracy of their public filings. And if those, those filings are not accurate, it's simply not, that's, that it's, it's not, you can't pay the same price for something that is much worse than they claimed.

SPEAKER_81: And, you know, they say, Elon, life's a negotiation.

SPEAKER_177: So, at a different price, it might be a totally viable deal, correct?

SPEAKER_63: I mean, that, I mean, it's not out of the question, but I really would, you know, this is, you know, the more, the more questions I ask, the more, I, the more my concerns grow. So, you know, at the end of the day, acquiring it has to be fixable and, and fixable, you know, with, with reasonable, reasonable timeframe and without revenues collapsing along the way and all that sort of stuff. Um, and so, uh, you know, I, I really need to see how these things are being calculated and, and it, it can't be some deep mystery that is like more complex than the human soul or something like that.

SPEAKER_41: Um, it's gotta be, you know, I think we can apply the scientific method to this and try to figure out what's really going on. Um, and, um, you know, Twitter's revenue is, is, is primarily dependent. I think 70% or some of that order on brand advertising, as opposed to specific purchase advertising. This is a big deal because brand advertising is not, there's not a, there's not a purchase that results from that.

SPEAKER_63: So it's basically, you know, how much mindshare or like, basically if you're a big company, how, how often do they hear your name? Um, it's as opposed to something that where you can directly measure the outcome.

SPEAKER_41: Um, so that, that means that they're somewhat going on faith. Um, and if that faith is undermined or, or reduced because of the reality of the situation coming to the fore, then the, the, the, the, the Tesla's revenue, or Twitter. Um, uh, will be, uh, significantly impaired and that's a major problem.

SPEAKER_187: Elon, did you have a chance to ask these questions during your negotiation?

SPEAKER_63: Uh, the, I would like said, I was reliant upon their, their public filings. So to the degree that they're probably public, and this is normal for a public company. If you, you know, if, if, if, if you make a formal filing, um, that, that, that is what investors are relying upon or relying on whether they are making an acquisition offer or simply buying some shares. So this, this, this, the accuracy of these filings is important, whether you're buying one share or the whole company.

SPEAKER_41: Um, and so if, if these filings are inaccurate or if they're sort of potentially blatant, it's a big deal.

David Sacks: Elon, do you have a sense of why this has been such a persistent problem for Twitter? Do they not have the technical capabilities to solve the, the bot problem, or is it more of like just, uh, they've under-prioritized the issue or been unwilling to, because potentially the ramifications for, uh, ad, ad, ad revenue?

SPEAKER_63: I, I, I, I don't know. It's sort of speculative at this point. So the, you know, the, the, uh, the worst interpretation would be that they don't want to look too closely at the thing because they might not like the answer.

SPEAKER_41: That'd be the worst interpretation. Um, the, the best, I'm not sure what the best interpretation is, but the least bad interpretation would be maybe they thought it was this way, but they're the way they were doing, it was wrong. And they didn't realize they were mistaken and simply weren't paying enough attention. Um, it does seem as though it should be a lot easier to get rid of the bots and, and spam and trolls than, uh, like, this is not some, we're not trying to split the atom here. You know, uh, we're not trying to get to the moon. Okay.

SPEAKER_63: We're just trying to, uh, limit the amount of obviously scammy accounts.

SPEAKER_116: If it's, if it's, if it's like Bitcoin giveaway, um, you know, probably it's full, it's a spammer, you know, like maybe, you know,

SPEAKER_196: Wait, you're not giving away a hundred bitcoins? I just sent you 10 E.

SPEAKER_63: If, if, if, if you send me two Bitcoin, I'll send you one back, right?

SPEAKER_198: That's my, what if I send you 20?

SPEAKER_81: Actually, um, I thought one of the interesting things that came up in your product roadmap, um, or I guess this was released and people covered it was the, um, possibility of Twitter becoming kind of a super app with payments included. Um, maybe perhaps even doge or something, this seems to me, uh, based on your work with, with David at PayPal, like a pretty brilliant idea. What's, what's the vision there in terms of, if you were able to buy it, you know, perhaps at the right price, um, what, what would it look like if, you know, I could add Jason to add Elon Musk, you know, 10 bucks or something.

SPEAKER_20: If, you know, we, we were splitting a check or something.

SPEAKER_204: Sure. Well, for those that have used WeChat, I think that's, WeChat's actually a good model. Um, if you're in China, it's basically, you kind of live on WeChat, it does everything.

SPEAKER_41: Um, it's sort of like Twitter plus PayPal plus a whole bunch of other things and all roll into one with actually a great interface and it's, it's really an excellent app and we don't have anything like that, um, outside of China. So, uh, I think such a, such an app, um, would be really, uh, useful, um, and it just like the utility of, of, of, of, of, of, of sort of a, a spam-free thing where you could, you can make comments, you can post videos, you can, uh, you know, I think it's important for content creators to have a revenue share. Um, now, now this, this does not need to be done on Twitter. It could be done from something that's created from scratch. So it could be something new. Um, so really, but, but I think this thing needs to exist, whether it is, uh, converting Twitter to, uh, be the sort of like kind of all-encompassing app that, that, like I said, everything from digital town square where important ideas are debated. Uh, you know, maximally trusted and inclusive and at a point where you're, you're, you're, you're sort of have a high trust situation than, than payments, uh, whether it's, uh, crypto or fiat, uh, can make a lot of sense. Just, we just want something that's incredibly useful and that people love using. Um, so that, that, that, but it's, it's, it's either convert Twitter to that or start something new. Those are the two, but it does need to happen somehow.

SPEAKER_81: Well, it's interesting you bring that up because the price of Twitter, um, is pretty high and you've built a couple of companies and some engineers like to come work for you. Um, and you've now gone through the intellectual exercise of studying all this. Um, if you're looking at the two choices now, fixing Twitter, given all these problems and maybe just starting your own version, which one are you leaning towards? Cause it, I have watched you build a couple of companies and the products have turned out pretty good.

SPEAKER_78: So is it easier for someone like you to just start from scratch?

SPEAKER_41: I mean, I mean, it's certainly the, my, my default inclination is to start things from scratch. Uh, I mean, I'm not really, I don't buy things like this.

SPEAKER_63: There's still this sort of, you know, uh, um, yeah, like, like SpaceX would start up from scratch, you know, in, in the case of, of Tesla, uh, you know, it was like five people.

SPEAKER_41: There's still this guy ever hard. Who's the worst guy I've ever worked with, who tries to claim like soul credit essentially for creating a Tesla. And if he's so damn great, why didn't he just go, you know, create another car company when he was fired? Um, but anyway, um, so, uh, I mean, that's a pretty good story.

SPEAKER_81: I mean, I remember, I mean, no, but I remember having this conversation with you. We were having a conversation about the roadster. I think I can tell the story. I said, how's it going, pal? And you said, well, I got one problem. Um, it turns out the roadster parts and putting it together cost 190,000. Yeah. And I said, I gave you 150 for number 16. So if you make 2000 of these, you're going to lose $80 million. And you were like, yeah. Or double that. I mean, they basically, the parts of the car costs more than they were selling it for when you were starting to get involved.

SPEAKER_114: That's it was.

SPEAKER_216: No, no, no. I got involved well, well before that. Before that.

SPEAKER_38: I got involved when Twitter, when, when, when Tesla was, was, was nothing but a piece of paper. Let me be crystal clear, crystal fucking clear. Uh, no, they didn't bring me in either. Uh, I, I was going to start, I was going to start, uh, an EV company with JV struggle.

SPEAKER_63: Uh, based on the, the AC propulsion T zero. Uh, and when I, when I asked AC propulsion, if it was okay to do that, uh, they said, well, there's also some others who want to create an EV company, but have not created one yet.

SPEAKER_41: Yes. Would you like to join forces with them? And I said, okay, well, we'll do that. That was a huge mistake. JB and I should have just started the car company ourselves.

SPEAKER_63: Uh, we, uh, teamed up with, uh, ever hard topening and right. Um, big mistake. Uh, the, the, the, the actual moral error here was me trying to have my cake and eat it too, which is like, uh, I just want to work on the technology and the product and have someone else be the CEO and, and, and sort of run the business operations.

SPEAKER_41: Cause I just like working on technology and product and design and, um, and, and also I was like doing SpaceX, uh, you know, uh, at the time and our rockets were blowing up. So it seemed like, uh, okay, this is like, I always wanted to do an electric car company. This is how I can have my cake and eat it too. Uh, that was a huge mistake and fundamentally a moral error. Um, and, uh, so, so, uh, in the end I had to frigging be CEO and I didn't want to be basically. Um, uh, so, but it's either that or it'll come. He's going to die. So, uh, so we started with, with really just nothing. And, uh, the, uh, you know, the, the T zero prototype from AC propulsion, not, not if that's the, that's the precursor to Tesla.

SPEAKER_63: Um, to be one half sink and clear once again, uh, when, uh, we created Tesla. I, when I, when I joined, there were no, no employees, there was no intellectual property.

SPEAKER_38: There was no prototype. There was no, nothing.

SPEAKER_229: Yeah.

SPEAKER_38: We crystal fucking clear.

SPEAKER_229: And it almost bankrupted you.

SPEAKER_84: I mean, you, that sent you to the cliff of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_62: I mean, that was, we were on the ragged edge of bankruptcy so many times. It was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_41: Um, so, um, I went, 2008 was one of the worst years where basically the, you know, GM and Ford, just the GM, GM, Ford almost went bankrupt and, um, you know, trying to raise money for a startup electric car company in 2008 while GM's going bankrupt was, uh, difficult to say the least. Um, uh, you know, people were angry that I even asked them, uh, for money.

SPEAKER_67: Um, they were like, fuck you and hang up. Um, so the, the only way that, that, that, that Tesla actually made it through 2008 was, uh, a

SPEAKER_41: subset of the existing investors, um, which includes like, you're like Antonio Gracias and, uh, you know, um, Steve Jovetson and, and, and a, and a, and a few other key people, our Aaron price, uh, who, who, who I hold a debtor grab to, to the state.

SPEAKER_63: Um, and, and I, I, I put in all the money I had left and they said everything, literally everything. Um, uh, I didn't even have a house. Uh, so, uh, this is my ex-wife at the house. So I was like staying actually in Jeff skulls bedroom, spare bedroom. Um, and, and, but there was the, the, the, uh, the, uh, the, the, uh, the

SPEAKER_41: the subset of the best is would said, okay, if I put in, they're putting as much as I put in, so I put in everything. Um, and, and then we closed that round 6 PM, uh, Christmas Eve, 2008. It was last hour of the last day that it was possible because after that people were like, I kept breaking for the holidays and we would have bounced payroll two days after Christmas.

SPEAKER_78: It was a pretty, I mean, it was an incredible moment in time.

SPEAKER_81: And people also forget at the time that the first two rockets spacex sent up, uh, didn't exactly make it to orbit. Like the first three. And I remember having dinner with you at that time. And I asked you, Hey, how's it going? I heard, uh, Gawker says you got four weeks of payroll left. And you said, that's not true. And I said, thank God.

SPEAKER_250: And you said, we have two.

SPEAKER_63: I said, I mean, both SpaceX and Tesla in 2008, if we'd simply paid our suppliers on time, we would have gone bankrupt immediately.

David Friedberg: Hey, tell us, tell us actually, uh, it was a, it was a pretty crazy moment in time.

SPEAKER_81: Cause I also remember asking you at, we were having dinner at Boa. And I said, well, certainly it's gotta be some good news. And you took out your blackberry to date the conversation. I don't remember it. Oh yeah. And you said, don't tell anybody, Jake. I said, no problem. And you showed me the clay version of the Model S. Yeah.

SPEAKER_260: Yeah.

SPEAKER_81: The most beautiful car I'd ever seen. And I said, oh my God, it's stunning. Um, how much is it going to cost? He said, I think I can make it for 50,000. I remember it was yesterday. I said, if you make that car for 50,000, you'll change the fucking world.

SPEAKER_266: And you did it.

SPEAKER_265: And I, it was a little more than 50,000, but, uh, let's ask about SpaceX.

SPEAKER_81: Okay. Well, that's what space, but I want to ask one more personal question. Has life gotten easier for you as these companies have hit scale or has the complexity made life even more challenging because those early days, it was just fighting to survive. Nobody knew who you were. You were anonymous. Um, and it was really just about the work. And now let's face it. You're the world's most famous guy. Um, and everybody's watching everything you do, but these companies are also very big.

SPEAKER_266: So what's life like for you today? Are you enjoying what you're doing every day?

SPEAKER_26: Um, well, I mean, it's, it's, it's somewhat of a rollercoaster. Um, so there were like good days and bad days.

SPEAKER_63: Um, and there's, there was a crisis issues. Um, and, you know, like sort of, you know, knock on wood, like, we're not like, uh, facing, you know, death in the face. Like, like it's, it's, it's definitely like quite stressful when like, you know, death is like trying to eat your face off.

SPEAKER_273: And like the, the foam is like, you know, just getting it and like, yeah, right there, you know, no, that's, it's pretty stressful in that situation.

SPEAKER_63: Um, so like, right. You know, both space X and Tesla have, um, you know, significant cash reserves. So like, you know, it's not worth staring death in the face. We can sort of see it over in the horizon, you know, so I don't want to get complacent or entitled.

SPEAKER_41: Cause, um, but, but, but if it's not like just sort of foaming at the mouth and gnashing, trying to eat your face off, uh, on a daily basis, that's, that's certainly we've moved on from that point. Um, and hopefully never, never return. Um, but, but there are a lot of issues that need to be, it's just like the, if you're a CEO of a company, the chore level is high.

SPEAKER_63: And if you don't do your chores, then the company goes to hell and I hate doing chores, frankly.

SPEAKER_41: So, uh, who do, who does, uh, so that's the real, like, there's a whole bunch of sort of, uh, you know, personnel issues and legal issues and, and, and things that I, I, I don't find enjoyable to work on. But if I don't work on them, the company suffers. So it's more like just the sheer volume of work is insane. That's the, uh, and then, and then, you know, go do some, go add to it with, you know, Twitter or something like that. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_282: I mean, honestly, I'm an extra processor. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_41: I mean, I, I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew. And then just sitting there with like chipmunk cheeks. Tell us, uh, you know, tell us a little bit about where we are at spacex.

SPEAKER_122: Like how you fund the ability to go to Mars, but then also commercially still build, um, uh, a conventional space business domestically. I think this Russia thing was probably really good for spacex. If you want to just tell us a little bit about that. Um, sure.

SPEAKER_41: Um, well, the, the, the, the, I mean, the goal of spacex is to develop the technology that enables life to become multi-planetary, um, and, uh, and make humanity a space-faring civilization, which I think is very exciting, inspiring thing. And it's like some, one of those things where you can, that, that I think just makes kids like be excited about the future. And we need things that are inspiring and exciting and make the future seem like it's going to be better than the past. Life can't just be about solving one miserable problem after another. It's gotta be like, like what's, what's inspiring and exciting. And I think that a future where we are space-faring civilization is, is one that we can all get excited about. Um, and, and we can go out there and find out what, what's, what's out there in the universe and what's the meaning of life. And, you know, where are the aliens and hopefully they're friendly and that kind of thing. Um, so, uh, you know, it's, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_63: I do get asked about the aliens question a lot and I've, I've not seen any evidence of, of aliens. Um, and I'll, I'll be the first to, you know, tweet about it or whatever. If I found it, if I see someone, I mean, you'll tell us if you find them, I will tell you, I, I will definitely tell you if there's aliens. Um, and, um, you know, uh, I think it'd be quite helpful for, you know, like, like if, if we found aliens, like probably SpaceX would get a ton more revenue. Because people are like, Oh man, aliens, we would upgrade on space technology. Pronto was what if you're on friendly, you know?

Chamath Palihapitiya: Um, it is like, you know, uh, that is the idea that you build, um, basically the ability to do orbital cargo, take all those profits.

SPEAKER_286: Launch Starlink, take all those profits and move it all into building something that can get to Mars. Is that the kind of rough plan? Pretty much.

SPEAKER_41: It's, if it was like a three step, a three slide PowerPoint, it would be pretty much as you described, which is, um, develop rockets that are, that are capable of, of taking, uh, satellites to orbit and, uh, crew to the space station. Um, you know, basically servicing government commercial, uh, space launch needs, um, and then, uh, uh, build a, a global communication system in space, uh, that obviously it does a lot of good for earth, but by providing, uh, internet content, internet connectivity to the least served. Um, because a satellite system is really great for remote locations, um, and, you know, countryside or, or remote islands or, or places where someone's trying to cut off their internet.

SPEAKER_304: Uh, as a prelude to a war, we take them system like in star Wars.

SPEAKER_26: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_63: So it's like, you know, so it, it can be pretty, pretty helpful. Like, I think it, like, it's not like basically, I think is a, a sort of forceful grid in its own right.

SPEAKER_41: Um, by providing, uh, connectivity to the, the, the, the least served or where they've got either no connection or a very expensive or poor connection. Uh, you know, um, the, like, we're like, we're, we're connecting a lot of schools, remote schools in Brazil right now. I'm actually going to be going to be headed there, uh, to sort of kick things off. Um, but they've got a lot of schools that have no connectivity at all. And in a modern age, uh, how do you learn with no connectivity? I mean, you could, I guess, old textbooks and stuff, but it's really, um, you're at a huge disadvantage if you, um, have no digital connectivity. Um, so I think there's just a lot of good that Starlink can do in it despite by itself. But, but then the, the, the revenue generated from Starlink is what can enable the, uh, of a permanently, uh, crude base on the moon, which will be the next, you know, next step from Apollo, which is like, let's just not go there for a few hours and then head back. Let's have a permanently occupied science station on the moon. Um, and we, we could also build, um, some pretty epic, uh, telescopes, uh, on the moon, uh, that, uh, would enable us to learn more about the nature of the universe and, and figure out what's going on and maybe detect those aliens.

SPEAKER_122: Um, do you, do you, um, do you think that there's enough profit in those businesses to fund all this, or do you need Wall Street and other investors to come share the load with you?

SPEAKER_187: Is going to Mars a partnership with the government? Does it need to partner with governments to get there?

SPEAKER_41: Um, well, I think technically it does not need to partner with governments. Um, but of course, uh, government support would be helpful. Um, so, um, I mean, it's going to be very expensive to build a self-sustaining city on Mars. Like in order for us to become multi-planetary in a way that's meaningful. Um, the, the key threshold is, um, at which point does the city become self-sustaining such that if the ships from earth stopped coming for any reason. And it could be any reason could be world war three, or it could be just, you know, civilization subsided and, um, and, and just gradually got decrepit or something. But, but if the ships stop coming, if the resupply ships from earth stopped coming to Mars for any reason, does the city still survive? Um, and, and that's, that's like really a large base of resources that are, that, that, that are needed, uh, on Mars. You can't be missing any one critical ingredients. Uh, so, and, and you can think of this, like there are these various great filters, um, you know, that, that perhaps stop civilizations. Um, and one of the great filters is, will we become a multi-planet species or not? Will humanity be one of those species that passes the great filter of going beyond one planet and being a multi-planet species? And this is certainly something we will have to do at some point because this, the sun is expanding and will eventually boil the oceans, um, and destroy all life on earth. So if you care about life on earth, you should really care about life. About life becoming multi-planetary and ultimately multi-stellar because otherwise you're basically saying you're, you're signing the, the sort of death warrant for all life. As we know it, it's, it's inevitable. Um, and then there's also the, the various things that killed off the, you know, the dinosaurs. And, and I mean, you look at the fossil record, there've been five major extinctions, uh, that are sort of on the order of 89, 89% of all creatures on earth dying, um, for, for a wide range of reasons. Um, but, uh, and then humans can also, you know, where there's the, the world war three danger, um, that, that, that other creatures didn't have where we could do ourselves in, um, by sort of misusing advanced technology and, and sort of just, you know, having some radioactive hell hole. That's all that's left after world war three. So, um, you know, it won't, you could even characterize it potentially as which will come first world war three or, uh, life becoming multi-planetary on Mars. Um, and this, yeah.

SPEAKER_186: Sorry. I was going to chip, but, um, you know, when you think about the importance of going to Mars versus solving critical energy and climate change problems here on earth, obviously the effort with Tesla's related to sustainable energy. And I think going back to like probably the 1950s, there were engineering designs around plasma fusion or fusion based systems that have evolved to these plasma systems, to these tokamak systems. And every year, every decade, it's like, Hey, next decade, we're going to have it. What's your point of view on where plasma fusion systems are? Are we going to have fusion energy this century, this decade? And does it create limitless energy where the electricity production goes up by 10,000 fold and the price of electricity drops by 10,000 fold? And then what does that world on earth look like if that happens? So I guess question is like, is that technology real? When does it happen and what happens to the world here when, and if that happens?

SPEAKER_63: I'll answer that question, but then I'll, I'll, let me sort of point out what the, what the actual issue is. Uh, if question is like, uh, is it possible to solve a fusion energy? Uh, 100%? Yes, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely for sure.

SPEAKER_41: Um, so the, the, and, and, and really just using a tokamak style, which is like a, basically a donut ring with, uh, uh, with electromagnets that control the, the, the plasma. Uh, the, the way to solve that is simply scale up the tokamak.

SPEAKER_63: Uh, fusion is, uh, very much a scale, uh, uh, base thing. You want to minimize your surface volume ratio. So as you scale up, uh, a tokamak, you reduce your surface volume ratio, which means like the, the, the, the volume you have relative to the, the, the surface, uh, you, you, you now have much more, uh, like you, you can basically have a hot zone in the center. That's relatively far away from the walls and had more of a hot zone.

SPEAKER_41: Um, so the, the, so it's, it's not in my mind, a question as to whether each fusion can work, but there is a question as to whether it is economically viable, um, and, and whether it is competitive with, uh, with, with alternatives. I think the, the economic viability of fusion is a much bigger question. And I, I think the answer probably is that, uh, a fusion earth fusion is not competitive economically.

SPEAKER_63: I think that is, that is, uh, I would say it's probably not competitive economically by an order of magnitude. Where does it break? Where does it break?

SPEAKER_321: Is it a materials breakdown or where does it break down economically?

SPEAKER_41: Well, so, so you can't just, um, use, uh, normal hydrogen, you know, you, you need to use like deuterium and tritium. Like unusual forms of hydrogen, helium three, uh, uh, you know, that there, um, there are some, uh, some, uh, other types of, of fusion that could be used. Uh, but, um, these are just not, they're not like, there's not a lot of this raw material. It's quite difficult to get the raw material. So first you have to get the raw material. Uh, that's, that's expensive raw material. Um, and then, um, it's not just about generating the, the, the energy you've, you've got to, um, turn that energy into usable electricity. You can't just have a hot thing. Okay. So the hot thing has to translate to usable electricity. So I think you've got, you've got a cost of fuel issue, which is very significant. Uh, you've got, you have a whole bunch of knockdowns from, uh, when you generate the heat to, uh, when you actually convert that into electricity. Um, you've got some very difficult maintenance issues with, with, uh, a fusion reactor. Um, so, uh, and, and that should be then compared to alternatives. Uh, the, the, the sustainable energy alternatives that I think, uh, are overwhelmingly more competitive are, um, uh, solar energy, wind, uh, geothermal, uh, hydro, uh, some title and energy, but it's really primarily, uh, solar.

SPEAKER_63: Uh, and, and wind, um, that, and you can really say like, what, what, why bother creating, uh, fusion on earth when we have a gigantic fusion reactor in the sky that just works with zero maintenance.

SPEAKER_67: And it shows up every day. Right.

SPEAKER_186: It's pretty consistent. Yeah. But can we scale to a thousand X or a hundred X our electricity production here using solar and other renewable sources?

SPEAKER_26: Yes.

SPEAKER_41: So the, the, the amount of, uh, service area you need to, uh, power the United States is remarkably tiny. Um, so you need like basically roughly a hundred miles by a hundred miles of territory. And it's obviously just in one place, uh, in the United States to power the United States. It's like a little corner of Texas or Utah, the entire country.

SPEAKER_63: Um, and, and then if you, if you, if you, you, you, you could, you could basically power, uh, you, you probably 10 X the, the, the, just with solar alone, um, without displacing, uh, anyone's home, uh, power and economy, 10 times the size of the United States in the United States. What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what does that look like was the last part of my question, which is a world where energy costs are say, let's a hundred times cheaper than they are today.

SPEAKER_186: And we have a hundred times more energy production capacity. What, what, what changes about civilization? What do we do differently?

SPEAKER_187: And what do we see change most kind of dramatically?

SPEAKER_63: Well, currently we're, we're not because of, of just generally, uh, low birth rates almost worldwide.

SPEAKER_41: Uh, civilization is not headed to have a population that is an order of magnitude greater than where, where we're currently, we're currently headed towards a population decline. Uh, and this is almost everywhere in, well, in the world. Um, so, you know, it basically seems as, as those, as you have like urbanization, um, and, and, and education beyond a certain level and income beyond a certain level, birth rates plummet. Um, and so as countries get, get wealthier, their birth rates plummet, it's, it's somewhat counterintuitive because people will say like, well, it's too expensive to have a baby. Nope. The, the wealthier they are, the, are the fewer kids you have. Um, the more educated you are, the fewer kids you have. So, um, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the, it's the inverse. Um, so, so I'm not sure who to use all that energy, um, unless there's a, a significant change in the birth rate. Um, or we have a very robot oriented economy. So that's also possible. That's also possible. So if we've got a lot of, um, you know, four wheeled robots in form of cars and, uh, androids, uh, humanoid robots, then you can certainly see that there'd be perhaps a need for an order of magnitude more energy. But it's not coming from the humans unless something major changes on the, on the human, uh, birth rate, uh, level. Uh, this, by the way, is, I think the biggest single threat to civilization, uh, right now is the, why, why do you think societally people just make those decisions when they become more affluent?

SPEAKER_122: Is it that they just become more selfish or there's more things for them to do and they have more money to spend on themselves. And they say, you know what, I don't want to have a large family. I want to, you know, go to Coachella.

SPEAKER_62: Yeah.

SPEAKER_41: Well, uh, there is this like weird, like mind virusy thing where some people are, they think like having fewer kids is, is like better for the environment. Yeah. That's crazy. Total nonsense. Nonsense. The environment is going to be fine. They're going to be fine. Even if we, if we doubled the size of the humans, um, this is, and I know a lot about environmental stuff. So, um, you know, uh, we can't have civilization just dwindle into nothing. Um, and you know, Japan's leading indicator here, like the Japan's population declined by 600,000 people last year. That lowest birth rate in history. Uh, it's, you know, it's pretty bad. Um, so we, I dunno, we, we, we, we, we, and. I think. So, so this one element of is, is, is a lot of people just think that having kids is somehow bad for the environment. I want to be clear. It's not, it's essential for the main for maintaining civilization that would at least maintain our numbers. We don't necessarily need to grow dramatically, but at least let's not, uh, you know, gradually dwindle away. And until, uh, civilization ends with us all in adult diapers and in a whimper. Like we don't want civilization to end in adult diapers with a whimper. That would suck.

SPEAKER_28: Kind of suck. Yeah. Bleak.

SPEAKER_347: Bleak and sad.

SPEAKER_176: Well, I mean, and you and I have had this conversation.

SPEAKER_81: I mean, in, in Japan, I had two people tell me when I was there, like, I think it's immoral to bring humans into the world.

SPEAKER_267: I mean, people have gotten very sad about the future. It's kind of crazy. The world's great. Life's awesome. Yes.

SPEAKER_63: No, there's, there's literally, I've heard many times how, like, how can I bring a child into this terrible world? I'm like, have you read history? Because let me tell you, it was way worse back then.

SPEAKER_67: Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_351: Now's a good time. Now's a good time to be bored.

SPEAKER_78: Hey, you know, listen, I, I know you're super busy, but I wanted to ask you about the move to Texas. Cause I've been thinking about it. Uh, Austin, California.

SPEAKER_357: Uh, I, I don't know, some Senator told you to go fuck yourself and like, you know, like we don't need you here.

SPEAKER_359: Yeah, I think there's been a couple of senators that said that actually.

SPEAKER_20: Yeah. It seems to be turning into a bit of a trend.

SPEAKER_81: Um, but how has building the Tesla, um, Gigafactory, which I got to see in Austin a couple of weeks ago. And it was one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. I mean, I don't know how many months it took to build there, but how long did it take to build that dreadnought? And then what would have taken to build that in California, California under Gavin Newsom?

SPEAKER_41: So we, we built the, the, the, the gig of Texas, which is the biggest factory in North America. I think possibly the biggest factory in the world. Um, and it's, it's three times the size of the Pentagon to give you a sense of scale. Okay. This is frigging big. It's like, it's weird. It's like so big. It's weird.

SPEAKER_364: Like you, it's like, I was trying to find you in it and it, I was trying to drive around and it took me about 45 minutes to find you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_41: Like, no, you have to like call. So you can't like find someone in the building. You have to call them on their cell phone and say, where are you? You know? Um, so, uh, I mean, the building is like, uh, uh, just under a mile long and we're actually gonna extend it. It will be like literally a mile long, um, and about a quarter mile wide. Uh, and it's, uh, 80 feet tall. So it's just, uh, ridiculously big. Um, and when you think about it, like for manufacturing situation, like what, what, what are the two, the two things that really define. Manufacturing competitiveness are economies of scale and technology. And so if you've got an ACE on economy, like if you sort of maximize your, your ACE level on, on technology and you maximize your ACE level on scale, this is obviously going to be the most competitive situation. And that's why they're so frigging giant. Um, and the, the, the, the, a gig Texas will go all the way from, um, sell raw materials. Like, like, like basically rail cars of cell raw materials coming in and then forming the battery cell. Then the battery pack, uh, building the, the, the motor, uh, casting. We're also have introduced a major innovation, which is to cast the entire, uh, front third and rear third of the car. And as a single piece, um, I got this idea from toys actually, cause I was like, how do they make toys? Those are cheap. They just cast them. And I was like, well, can you build a casting machine that big? And they're like, well, no one ever has. I'm like, is it, are we breaking physics? Like, no, well, let's just ask them. And there were six major casting machines suppliers in the world. And five of them said, no. And the six said, maybe I'm like, I'll take that as a yes.

SPEAKER_352: Um, well, I mean, this, you wanted to do this for the model three, but it was just too soon, huh? Uh, and, and now it's almost there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_38: Actually this, this partly comes from the model three, which is actually a fantastic car in many ways.

SPEAKER_41: Um, um, but we were rightly criticized for an inefficient design, uh, with, for the front and rear body. Um, uh, like Sandy Monroe, who I think is really has excellent from an engineering standpoint and, and really a very fair critic. Uh, he, he, he pistol wept us for, um, the design of the, the battery.

SPEAKER_376: He ripped it apart and piece by piece told you why you suck. And then he did the why and told you why you were awesome.

SPEAKER_38: He took it apart and told us exactly why he, why we sucked. And he was correct. Um, and then, and I was like, well, that's pretty embarrassing.

SPEAKER_63: So, uh, no, he was complimentary of other parts of the carpet, not the body design.

SPEAKER_41: And, uh, and so it's like, okay, we're going to go from like, you know, uh, the, the, the, it's just incredibly difficult body to make. It's made out of like 120 different pieces with dissimilar metals that are joined. And you've got galvanic corrosion challenges. So it's, it's very difficult to make, um, to a single piece casting. That's one piece. So like 120 pieces went down to like one. So, um, it's, it's, it's a, it's a huge. And the, the, like the model Y body shop, especially the new one where we cast both the front and rear is 60% smaller than the model three body shop. So it's, it's, you know, gigantic. Uh, it's quite a, there's a lot of innovations of Tesla besides the stuff that is, is obvious.

SPEAKER_63: Um, so anyway, so yeah, the, the, but if we, and, and we really, you know, to, to, to refer to, to Gavin Newsom, like, uh, you know, if, if you, if you had a gun to Gavin's head. Okay.

SPEAKER_41: Um, and said, we need to build, start building this factory in California right now, he couldn't do it because there are so many, uh, regulatory agencies. Um, and so many, uh, litigators in California that want to stop you from doing anything that even if you're the governor of the, of the state, you cannot get it done. Um, so something's gotta be done to, to, to, to, you know, cause California used to be the land of opportunity and it's a beautiful state. And I love, I loved living there. I still spend a lot of time in California, even though every time I go there, I get literally every day I go there. I get the Jesus tax tax tax bill by day. Like the sheer cost per day of me going and working in California days boggles the mind. And I mean, I still do it, you know? Um, but, but it, the, the, the California's gone from the land of opportunity to, to the land of, of, of sort of taxes, uh, over-regulation and litigation. And the, this is not a good situation. And really there's gotta be like a serious cleaning out of the pipes in California.

SPEAKER_372: How many months was it to get the gig of Austin done? It took a year and a half, two years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_207: 18, 18 months to build something three times the size of the Pentagon.

SPEAKER_78: Incredible. And you just basically the answer to how many months it would take in California, infinity.

SPEAKER_382: We would, we would still be working on the permits.

SPEAKER_78: Yeah.

SPEAKER_384: Hey, Elon, this, this begs a good question, which is, you know, like.

SPEAKER_387: I'm not exaggerating. Can you keep signing paperwork? We have one more form for you.

SPEAKER_186: What's a better model? Yes. What's a better model for government? So, you know, like all governments tend to increase in complexity. Dictatorship. Capacity. Is the, is the dictatorship the right model? And, um, you know, like, like how do we solve this? Let's say you go to Mars or let's say you have to fix California. Is California permanently broken? Is there a way to fix it? Or like, how do you set up a better model so that you don't end up having this, this kind of special interest complexity situation that eventually kills the population?

SPEAKER_63: Well, I mean, I think ultimately with California, the people of California just have to get fed up and demand change.

SPEAKER_41: Um, that's the thing that really has to happen. Um, and, and, and there's, there's gotta be an above 0% chance of the, of the Republicans winning

SPEAKER_63: in California. If, if, if it's, if it's just the Democrats every time, it's gotta be. Yeah. Yeah. And this is, this is like occasionally it, it, it, the thing is that right, right now,

SPEAKER_41: uh, you've, you, and plus the level of, level of gerrymandering, uh, which is basically just treating the people like sheep, uh, and, and, uh, it's terrible. Um, if that's gone on in California is outrageous. So California, uh, the Dems have a super majority, uh, in, um, the house and Senate in California and the governor and everything. And so how responsive is any political party going to be to the people if they are, uh, guaranteed to win. It's, it's a one party state. Yeah. And so, uh, I'm not saying that, you know, go and sort of elect the Republicans every time, but if it's never, you're, you're just making California a one party state. They will no longer be responsive, responsive to the people. And they'll only be responsive to those that funded their political campaigns.

SPEAKER_397: Clip, Elon saying that 30 seconds on TV over and over. Go ahead, sex. Yeah.

David Sacks: So, uh, Elon shifting gears to the economy. Um, you know, we saw this, uh, surprise report of negative. 1.4% GDP growth in Q1, uh, interest rates been rising. That increased the cost of the consumer of getting loans, things like that. Uh, we've had a stock market correction, really a crash in a lot of gross stocks, software stocks. Um, what, from where you said and the data that you see, uh, where, where do you think the economy is, is headed right now? Do you think we're in a recession or is it just a risk? How do you, how do you assess our current economic situation?

SPEAKER_62: Well, predicting economic, macro economics is always difficult. Um, and, and one should assign probabilities to these things.

SPEAKER_41: Um, but ironically I did last year, people asked me what I think about the economy.

SPEAKER_63: I said, well, I, I think we might enter a recession in approximately, uh, uh, spring of, of 2020, of 2022. Um, yeah. Um, so, uh, I, you know, now the thing is that recessions are not necessarily a bad thing. Uh, they, they, you know, um, what, what I've not been through a few of them and what has happened is if you, if you have, um, a boom that goes on for too long, you get misallocation

SPEAKER_41: of capital, uh, it starts raining money on fools, basically it's like any, any dumb thing gets money. And I'm sure you've seen a few of those. Um, so at, at, at some point it gets just out of control and you just have a misallocation of, of human capital, uh, where, where people are doing things that are silly and not useful to their fellow human beings. Um, and, and then those companies, there needs to be sort of an economic enema, if you

SPEAKER_67: will, um, uh, to have everyone sort of shift uncomfortably in their seats. Um, so, but, but the economic enema, I mean, listen, it's got alliteration.

SPEAKER_375: Um, so, uh, this too shall pass. Eventually the economic enema does its job. It clears out the pipes, if you will.

SPEAKER_415: Yes.

SPEAKER_41: And, um, and, and, and sort of the, the, the bullshit companies, um, uh, go bankrupt and the ones that are doing useful products, uh, are prosperous. Um, and, um, but, but there's certainly a lesson here that if one is making useful part and, and, and do it has a company that makes sense, uh, make sure you're not running things too close to the edge from a capital standpoint, that you've got some capital reserves to, uh, last through, uh, irrational times, because in the, in the past, when there's been a recession, um, it has gone, it's, it's amazing. It's flipped like a light switch. I mean, David, do you remember this when, from the, from the PayPal, you know, ex PayPal days, when, when, when we, uh, raised a hundred million dollars in March of 2000.

SPEAKER_63: Uh, and, and we literally, we had the, the, the demand was so high. We had, uh, people like VCs, like just literally without even a term sheet wiring money into our account.

SPEAKER_418: Um, we'll send the term sheet later.

SPEAKER_67: They literally were like, like sleuth out our, our bank account number and wire money in.

SPEAKER_63: And we're like, where'd this come from? And it's like, oh, um, they, so it was like, there was virtually firehosing money in March

SPEAKER_41: of 2000 and, and then in April, 2000, the market went into free fall and it went from money. Raising money was trivial to even good companies could not raise money, uh, in a month. Um, so it's just important to bear in mind, like that, you know, PayPal almost went bankrupt in, in 2000, uh, we came close. Um, but, but thankfully we would raise that, that a hundred million dollars in, in March 2000, uh, without which we would be, uh, we would game over basically. Um, uh, and, and we kind of saw it coming. So it's like, we, we, we, we got that, the, the, the, the X infinity merger done in like three weeks and raised a hundred million dollars, because we were all like, oh, how is this? We, we see this coming to an end pretty soon. And then a month later it was like, you know, a nightmare basically. Um, and, and, uh, anyway, so it's just important to make sure if you're a healthy company, you got some capital to get through things, um, and, and then what, what's your costs. And, uh, if you, if, if, if it is a recession, which more likely than not, it is a recession, not saying it is, but probably probably is, um, then just, uh, make what's your cashflow and get positive cashflow as soon as you can. Um, so, um, yeah, uh, but I, I think we probably are, are in a recession and that, that recession will get, get worse. Um, but you know, these things pass and then there will be room times again. Um, so there'll probably be some, some tough going for, I dunno, a year, uh, maybe, maybe, you know, 12 to 18 months is usually, um, the, the amount of time that takes for, for the, a correction to, to happen. Um, I mean, what do you guys think?

SPEAKER_420: Yeah. David, uh, how do you feel about it? Yeah.

David Sacks: I mean, it feels like it started, um, you know, what started as a slowdown earlier this year, um, now seems like, I mean, technically, I guess we need two quarters of negative growth to be in a recession, but it feels like we're in one. It feels like it started. Um, you know, the growth stock, the software businesses that we invest in are sort of the canaries in the coal mine. And there's a lot of, a lot of dead canaries, not dead, but, uh,

SPEAKER_423: You're having a hard time breathing. Yeah. I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_425: It's not dead. It's just, it's just napping. It's napping.

SPEAKER_428: Wake up little birdie. Wake up. It's just, it's just, it's just stunned.

SPEAKER_71: It's got, it got stunned for a brief moment and, and, and it just, it'll be fine.

SPEAKER_77: Um, it, it, it sort of reminds me of the, the, the parrot that, you know, the pet shop sketch with a parrot with Monty Python. Yes. Monty Python. Um, where it's pining.

SPEAKER_438: This parrot is pining for the fjords.

SPEAKER_440: Hey, um, Elon, a lot of it's been talked about as we wrap here and you've been incredibly

SPEAKER_20: gracious giving us so much time. Thank you for that. Um, a lot of talk about American exceptionalism over the last couple of years, um, waning and

SPEAKER_81: maybe this country had seen its best days. And, uh, we see the work you're doing and other people in this great country are doing and the debates we're having about the future. And, uh, yeah, China's doing pretty fantastic. Russia's on the ropes. Um, but it does seem like, uh, America is still producing some of the greatest companies, uh, the world has ever seen some of the greatest innovations. What are your thoughts on America and our future and what we need to keep this country and this beacon of hope that, you know, four of the five of us were not born here. You know, two of you came from South Africa. No, three of you. Three of you came from South Africa and one of you from Canada.

SPEAKER_443: I don't know what they're putting on the line. Oh, from Sri Lanka. And from Sri Lanka and through Canada.

SPEAKER_81: Via Canada. Via Canada. He came through Canada too. Yeah, I know. It seems like that's the, that's the way. Canada is a gateway. It is a gateway. And how, how do we, it's a, well, I'm, I'm hinting at the answer here, but you know, it does seem like our immigration policy is absolutely insane. And, uh, maybe we need to keep collecting some of the great individuals that I get to share the stage with here and yourself. We need to keep bringing great people to this country.

SPEAKER_454: Why can't we get that in our heads that. Yeah. It's talent recruitment. No, absolutely.

SPEAKER_63: I think, uh, it's incredibly important that the United States be like the destination for the world's best talent. I mean, you can think of this, like, like, like a pro sports team. If you want to win the league, um, and, and, uh, you, you know, you, you want the best players on your team. Um, now there are obviously a lot of, uh, very talented people born in the United States. Um, but if you can add a few aces from, uh, from, uh, outside the country to the team, you're going to win the league. Um, and, and, and, and here's the thing, those aces actually want to work for your team. They don't want to compete against you.

SPEAKER_67: They want to, they want to be on team America. And, and so it's like, we have to like fight them off to not be on team America. That's the crazy thing.

SPEAKER_63: Um, and so it's like, if you had some aces that, that are the difference between winning and losing, we should be like really recruiting them. Like you'd recruit like a star basketball player or football player. That's what we should be doing.

SPEAKER_41: Um, active recruiting, um, just like if you're a company that wants, wants to succeed, you actively recruit the best talent. And then, and, and that's the way to win.

SPEAKER_457: And, and if, if that stops happening, America will stop winning.

SPEAKER_81: And we have two administrations in a row, Biden and Trump, who don't want to let the greatest minds, the most talented people into this country is absolutely insane. I mean, I think that with this every day,

SPEAKER_461: reality is like actually anyone who, who's going to, who wants to, to, to, to work hard and be,

SPEAKER_63: and, and do useful things. Um, and, and this, you know, uh, we, we, we want in the United States. Um, and, and it's not just people who are sort of intellectually strong, but it's just anyone with a,

SPEAKER_41: with a strong work ethic, you know, if, if, if they're coming from Mexico or if they're coming from, you know, Europe or China, wherever, it's just, if, if they're like gonna come here and crank hard and, and, and contribute more than they take.

SPEAKER_67: Hell yeah. I mean, that's just, it's a no brainer.

Chamath Palihapitiya: Will you, have you been, have you been disappointed in the similarities between Biden and Trump on this?

SPEAKER_122: Like maybe you could have expected it from Trump cause that was a rhetoric he needed to use to get elected,

SPEAKER_133: but it's not as if Biden has flipped the script and said, okay, we're going to go 180 degrees in the other direction.

SPEAKER_467: He's kind of kept it the same, which has been really surprising actually.

SPEAKER_371: Man, it's hard to tell what Biden is doing if you're totally frank. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_167: Like, I feel like the, the, the, the real president is whoever controls the teleprompter.

SPEAKER_63: You know, it's like, it's like, the, the, the, the path to power is the path to the teleprompter. You know, like what, what, cause that, then he just reads the teleprompter. So, you know, I, I do feel like if, if somebody would accidentally lead on the, lean on the teleprompter, it's going to be like anchorman. It's going to be like Q Q Q ASDF one, two, three, you know, type of thing.

SPEAKER_357: Um, I mean, in fairness to Biden, he, he hasn't been napping as much as he needs to, but.

SPEAKER_63: Well, it's, it's just, it's hard to say. Hard job. That are getting done. You know, I mean, this administration just, it doesn't seem to get a lot done. Like, and you know, um, whatever, like the, the Trump administration, leaving Trump aside. I, there were a lot of people in the administration who were effective at getting things done. So, uh, but this, this administration seems just, just to not have like the drive to just get done. Uh, that, that, um, that, that's why it's, it's, that's my impression. Um, so, um, you know, we definitely need to fix immigration policy. Like we had COVID, which was an issue. And, and, and so that was like one reason to like, not, you know, I guess clamp down on it.

SPEAKER_41: But now, now we moved on. And so let's, let's just make sure we're, we're getting top talent, uh, in the United States. Um, and, and really I'd say broadly, it's anyone who, who wants to work grass off, um, and, and, uh, and contribute more than they take to the economy. Like that's just necessarily going to make for a stronger, better society in America.

SPEAKER_122: Elon, did you see, uh, Jeff's, uh, Bezos' tweet back and forth with Biden, um, where Biden, I think was talking about inflation, but then he correlated that to taxing corporations. And Bezos said, this is misinformation and disinformation, et cetera, et cetera. What do you, what'd you think about that whole exchange then back and forth?

SPEAKER_41: I mean, the, the obvious reason for inflation is that the government printed a zillion amount of more money than it had, uh, obviously. Um, so it's, it's like the government can't just, uh, uh, you know, have, um, issue checks for an excess of revenue without there being inflation. Um, you know, velocity of money held constant. So unless there's something would, would change with velocity of money, but, but it, it just, look, the federal government writes checks. They don't, they never bounce. So that is effectively creation of more, of more dollars. And if, if there are more dollars created than the increase in the goods and services output of the economy, then you have inflation.

SPEAKER_63: Again, velocity of money held constant. Um, but so, uh, this is just, this is very basic. Uh, this is not like, uh, you know, uh, super complicated.

SPEAKER_41: Um, and, and if, if, if the government could just issue, uh, massive amounts of money and have, and deficits didn't matter, then why don't we just make the deficit a hundred times bigger? Okay.

SPEAKER_63: And the answer is you can't because it will basically turn the dollar into something that is worthless. So, um, and, and various countries have, have tried this experiment multiple times. It's not like, oh, I wonder what happens if this, if, if, if this is done, have you seen Venezuela? Like the, the poor people of Venezuela are, you know, have been just run roughshod by their government.

SPEAKER_41: Um, and so obviously you can't simply, uh, create money. The, the, the true economy is very important. Like the true economy is the output of goods and services. It's not money. It's, it's literally, what is the output of goods and services? Money is simply a way to, to, for us to, or anything that you call money, uh, is, is a way for us to conveniently exchange goods and services without having to engage in barter and also to shift obligations in time. That those are the two reasons that you have money, this thing called money. It's, it's really a, it's a database, but money is, is an, is an information system for, uh, for labor allocation and for exchange of goods and services and for translating in time. Um, and the quality of that information is a function of, it's like, you basically you can apply information theory to money. And, and I think it, it, it, it helps explain why one money system is, or why, why one action is better than another. And so if like the, the, the, you, you, you just, just like, uh, an internet connection, you'd want something that's high bandwidth, uh, low latency and jitter, and, uh, is not dropping packets.

SPEAKER_63: There's not having a lot of errors in the system.

SPEAKER_41: Um, and the same is true, true of money. Um, you, you, you want, then, and really, like you said, what, what did PayPal really, really do? That helped improve the, the, the, the bandwidth, the, the speed at which money could move, um, instead of, of mailing checks back and forth, which amazingly, that was what people did, uh, in 2000. Um, uh, you, you could now do real time exchange of, of money. Um, and, and now you could ship your goods immediately instead of mailing a check and waiting for the bank to clear the check. So, uh, like the, uh, and, and the, the ultimate thing that with PayPal, or, or if it sort of was in the X.com sort of went, went more less sort of niche payments, more sort of broad financial would be to simply does that. Uh, destined to mediate all the heterogeneous, uh, COBOL databases out there running on mainframes during batch processing and have a single real time system that, uh, that was secure, um, and not batch processing. Um, and so it would just, it would just be from an information standpoint, more efficient and, and eventually it would all the, the batch processing COBOL mainframes operated by the banks would cease to exist.

SPEAKER_20: You've, um, spent more time, uh, and, uh, built more in China than almost anybody. I mean, Apple would be the only company I could think of. That's probably got a bigger footprint, but I'm not certain of that.

SPEAKER_78: Um, what have you learned about China, uh, that you didn't know before you opened the factories there and started, uh, delivering cars there. And what should we know about China?

SPEAKER_489: You know, as Americans, how should we think about China and our relationship with it? Cause we haven't spent time there. Sure.

SPEAKER_289: Well, I'd say like China, first of all, is not monolithic.

SPEAKER_62: It's not like, uh, everything, everything is not some plot by the Chinese government.

SPEAKER_41: Um, the, uh, the, the, the, there are many, uh, factions within China that compete, uh, vigorously within China. Um, and, uh, so, um, and, and, and perhaps most important is that there's just a, a, just a tremendous number of hardworking, smart people in China who want to get ahead and get things done. Um, and they're not complacent and they're not entitled. Um, and they're going to, they're, they're, they want to get things done and they, they, they want to make a better life for themselves. Um, and what we're going to see, uh, was, was trying to, uh, for the first time that anyone can remember who is alive is an economy.

SPEAKER_63: That is twice the size of the U S possibly three times the size of the U S it's going to be very weird living in that world.

SPEAKER_41: So, uh, we, we better stop the infighting in the U S and stop punching ourselves in the face. Cause like there's a whole, there's way too much, uh, you know, of America punching itself in the damn face.

SPEAKER_63: It's just, just dumb. Um, and, and think about like, Hey, we've got to be competitive here.

SPEAKER_41: And, and, uh, there's a new kid on the block. That's going to be two to three times our size. We, we better step up our game.

SPEAKER_77: Um, and, uh, you know, and stop infighting.

SPEAKER_122: Um, you think it's easier to stop infighting once we're beaten, or do you think that there's a way folks here can actually just, you know, get their political and commercial act together, but, or does it not happen until we've realized we've lost?

SPEAKER_286: Or do we need a war?

SPEAKER_77: I should, I mean, we, I sort of hope we don't even need a war.

SPEAKER_41: Um, uh, but there, there will be certainly, um, you know, an, an economic competition that I think will, will blow people away. Um, and when they realize just how competitive they have to be to be competitive with companies in China, it's very difficult. Um, you know, Tesla is competitive, but Tesla is competitive because we have an awesome team in China that, uh, you know, uh, you know, so, um,

Chamath Palihapitiya: Like do your Tesla China employees work some meaningful percentage more or harder than your Tesla non-China employees? Do you find like it's two different companies basically?

SPEAKER_63: Well, I mean, I, I think Tesla is somewhat, it tells us sort of pretty far out there in terms of work ethic, uh, anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_41: So, uh, the Tesla work ethic in the U S I think is substantially greater than any other car company or, or any large manufacturing company that I'm aware of. Um, so, you know, Tesla, Tesla does have a, a strong worth work ethic in the U S but, but to be totally frank, it, it, it, it, it, the work that work ethic is exceeded, um, uh, on balance by, uh, the Tesla China team. That, that is, I think, objectively true. So there's not to say there aren't lots of hardworking people at Tesla U S there certainly are. Um, but if you say on average, the, the, the work ethic in China is higher. It's just. Tell us, tell us. You're calling it like it is, you know?

SPEAKER_122: So what about if you're an American CEO, how do you deal with, do you think just the need for managing all these political factions inside of a company? You probably saw, you know, all the Sturm and Drang related to Disney and what happened to them and what's continuing to happen to them on both sides between their employees, as well as the governments, et cetera. Um, do you have any advice or what do you tell like young CEOs that you hang out with about how to deal with that? How to make those decisions, where you land in the spectrum of dealing with all of this stuff, the non work issues that are related to now, you know, going to work every day.

SPEAKER_507: I'm not sure I entirely understand what you mean. Like, uh,

SPEAKER_122: You know, whether it's the, the need for political correctness or the need for having political points of view and having to bring that and balance that in the workplace, how do you deal with that? How do you give advice to other folks about having to deal with it?

SPEAKER_63: Look, I think it, you know, the, the, the point of a company is to produce useful products and services for your fellow human beings.

SPEAKER_41: It is not, uh, you know, some political gathering place or a thing where it, that's the point of a company. Like it's, I'd say like, it's, you know, politics and other stuff should, let's not lose sight of why companies should exist. Um, so I, I, I, I gotta, I gotta, I'm, I'm actually late for, I gotta work on the rocket guys.

SPEAKER_513: Uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_515: Um, we're gonna go ahead and let you, uh, get to Mars and, uh, I'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_533: Ladies and gentlemen, Elon Musk!