BREAKING: Elon Musk's First Interview Since Jury Rejected Claim Against Altman's OpenAI

All right, everybody. We have a very special guest. Listen, we love all of

special guest. Listen, we love all of you. This is a this is the most amazing

you. This is a this is the most amazing room of innovators in America. Uh we

love you all. It's a dinner of equals, but there can only be one number one. Uh

we do we're Forbes. We do rank things.

uh and the Forbes 250 uh innovators, the number one innovator uh and it wasn't that close to be honest

was Elon Musk. So

uh and we are very honored to have him join us. Elon, are you here?

join us. Elon, are you here?

Oh yeah.

Oh, we're glad that you're glad that you're here. Thank you. There he is.

you're here. Thank you. There he is.

You do like ranking things. It's true.

We do. We're good at it. Uh and and again first congratulations. It was not that close. There were a lot of there

that close. There were a lot of there were a lot of battles in a lot of places but number one was not in doubt. Uh but

anyway this is a room of your people.

Yeah you welld deserved. There's a room of your people. I will say they were asking that the first question and we we want to get really nerdy about innovation. The first question though

innovation. The first question though that everybody was asking is all right ask Elon. We had one of the great CA

ask Elon. We had one of the great CA cases in the world of innovation over the last few weeks. What's uh Elon's verdict on the verdict today?

Uh that that that um the case in Oakland. Yes.

Oakland. Yes.

Oh. Oh, that good.

I was like, what are you talking about?

Um yeah. Yeah, I guess. Uh

well they they basically just decided that the uh statute limitations have passed. They

did not uh actually render an opinion on whether um you know there have been unjust enrichment or they shall which I

think is obviously the case. Um so um but I I do think it's somewhat of a dubious situation because um you know what happened was in by degrees meaning

it wasn't it wasn't stolen all at once.

It was stolen one of these at a time and um so we have to say like well was there really even a basis for illegal action

before um you know proposal? I don't

think there is actually. Um, so you know like the first step I don't believe this point but the first step into adding a for-profit thing had a cap for profit

and was at a small scale um and also that uh all stock was revert to the charity upon the invention of artificial intelligence

uh that that clause has now been removed though it it will continue to be a forprofit after developing artificial general intelligence. Um that removal

general intelligence. Um that removal was quite recent just in the last few weeks. Um so

weeks. Um so um it is this point is it it is it is a whatever an $800 billion for-profit company somehow from a nonprofit. And I

I think this is a dangerous precedent to set because if if it means that someone can um start take money as a nonprofit, convert that to a for-profit when it's

successful, um it undermines all charitable giving in America.

It certainly would uh you'd see a lot of people starting to start nonprofits with a path towards forprofit. Uh you

Exactly. What do you got to lose?

Exactly. What um you said on X you're appealing, optimistic about the appeal?

Yeah, I think we we necessarily have to appeal um because uh it this will this will become precedent, you know, which people can actually then essentially

loot to charities and use this case as a as a basis for doing so. Um which I think would be wrong.

Let's uh let's talk innovation. Your

your title we have up here, I mean again, you're the CEO of four major companies. Even those companies have

companies. Even those companies have major companies within those companies.

Was this was this part of the plan or did it just happen?

More or less just happened. I mean,

well, let's just say that when I was in college, I wanted to be part of um things that would change the world in a significant way.

Um I didn't originally think I wanted to be doing things in AI because AI was somewhat of a double-edged sword. But I

I I did want to um accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy economy which is the sort of electric

cars, solar and batteries. Um and um you know I think some some kind of brain machine interface uh that can give you cybernetic superpowers I think is

probably good. Um, it could, you know,

probably good. Um, it could, you know, help people that have brain or spine injuries. Uh, you know, restore enable

injuries. Uh, you know, restore enable people who've never spoken for years to speak again, which is which we've done.

Um, give people eyesight who have lost uh both eyes or the optic nerve uh or maybe have never even seen at all, blind

from both. um by direct interface to the

from both. um by direct interface to the uh the um optical centers in the brain you you can actually restore eyesight or give people eyesight that they've never

had before and you can enable people to walk again which I think is profound. I

mean these are kind of Jesus level things you know like uh I say like when technologies are hitting like Jesus level miracles you're like that's pretty good.

Yeah. How how do you um how do you again it's asked a lot but it's it's fun to ask it to you. How do you prioritize? I

mean, because you're right, you've got you've got multiple deities here. If

it's if these are Jesus level solutions, which which one do you serve?

Jesus level, you're like, "Okay, that's pretty good." Um, so um and and then

pretty good." Um, so um and and then SpaceX is about um making life multilanetary uh

expanding consciousness to the stars. Um

and hopefully we will make uh a fundamental breakthrough later this year which is to have the the the first fully

reusable uh orbital rocket um which is necessary in order to transport enough tonnage uh to the moon or Mars to create

a self uh a self-growing city. um

basically to extend civilization to to to other planets. Um,

I mean I I think probably you need to move a rough order of magnitude about a million tons to the moon or to Mars uh to create enough of an of an industrial

base to have have the civilization there be um self growing meaning like the asset test being if the resupply shifts

from Earth stop coming for any reason um does it does the the civilization on the moon on Mars continue to grow or does it

die out? Um and um

die out? Um and um and I I think that's that's a a fundamental branching point in the future of civilization. Um are we a multilanet space fairing civilization or

are we um stuck on one planet forever?

Um, and um, I do want to emphasize like being a multilanet civilization is it doesn't mean like we leave Earth and go somewhere else cuz that would just be a single planet civilization somewhere else,

right?

And a lesser place probably.

Yeah. And a tougher place to live than than here by far. Um, Earth is extremely uh easy and comfortable compared to the moon, Mars or pretty much anywhere else.

Um, but you know, I think I think at some point we want to be a space bearing civilization. We want to um be out there

civilization. We want to um be out there among the stars and and and be Yeah. Um,

so these are again, these are huge huge things you're dealing with. So

when you try to figure out when you get up every morning, is it just kind of like a buffet or is it do you have kind of a plan on what you're going to what you're going to focus on? because that's something that

focus on? because that's something that a lot of innovators here have to deal with on a much smaller scale.

Well, uh I guess I don't really uh I don't really get up and say, "Hey, what should I innovate today?" You know, type of thing. Um it's it's really just um

building the technologies necessary to uh extend life beyond Earth. Um there's

you know there's this there's the Starlink internet which is re rebuilding the entire internet in space. Um

but better you know I guess that's kind of pretty cool. Um this

yeah the Optimus robot that we're developing at Tesla the self-driving cars. Um

cars. Um solar power at scale you know big stuff. A lot of again they're all

big stuff. A lot of again they're all pointing a lot of them are pointing to becoming interplanetary.

Is there a is there a time when you could see again putting these companies together and just running one big company? I mean some you have a

company? I mean some you have a portfolio but do you envision that would and would that help you in terms of making these things mesh?

Um well it it'd be difficult for me to to sort of comment on that you know because uh you know there's publicly traded companies and y one's publicly traded and one's you know

about to be.

So uh it would be like difficult to you no no problem we we'll move on although we we did the you know the reports today that that you might follow your SpaceX

S1 this week. Is that that a go?

I'm not I think I'm not allowed to comment on on these things.

Like a quiet period or something to that effect.

That that is the beauty that is the beauty of going public or being in that quiet period. Um do you have a favorite

quiet period. Um do you have a favorite of all your we know you love all you love all your your children all your companies. Is there a favorite among

companies. Is there a favorite among your companies?

Well, no. Oh, I mean, I'm not really going to say that's like what's your favorite kid type of thing, you know?

Um, I think you can't really say that, you know. Uh,

you know. Uh, what um if it's not your favorite company, who's your favorite role model as an innovator historically?

Well, I guess uh you know, I'm obviously a big fan of Nicola Tesla since uh named the company after him. Um

um but I also I I also like uh you know um I don't know um Edison is great too. Um

like some people like don't like don't don't like Edison but I think some pretty impressive stuff. Um and um like General Electric is like Edison's

company. Um

company. Um that's I mean I certainly admire like great scientists, engineers, but like anyone I

mean you know Ben Franklin, uh Shakespeare, Newton, uh Einstein, you know, we did usual suspects.

We did we surveyed historians and so you were number one on the 250 living list.

We did a 250 historical in the top three were Edison, you said Franklin, uh, and Henry Ford. So, you you've you know,

Henry Ford. So, you you've you know, you're we should have had you as a judge.

Uh, I think was like actually more awesome than people realized cuz I mean, he basically invented um mass manufacturing of of complex objects like

people didn't really know how to do that uh before uh before Ford.

Yes. Um, and like Ford actually created the automotive industry uh of of Earth really. Um, and uh cuz because he he he

really. Um, and uh cuz because he he he pretty much started what became General Motors and then he kind of got I don't know kicked out of that or something and

then started uh Ford Motor Company and uh and and really developed mass manufacturer of complex objects. Um

it's quite quite a tricky thing and then everyone just pretty much copied him.

What's uh what's amazing if you look at the historical list and even the current list is just how much uh innovation comes out of America and how much of the things that everyone takes for granted came out of America. Do you have a do

you have a favorite in animator who's living today besides you know anybody in this room or anybody uh who are who are some of your favorite

entrepreneurs innovators you admire who uh who are your contemporaries now?

Well, uh h I mean I guess uh I I I mean I don't really think about these things that much, but uh well I mean I guess uh you know

Jensen Wong at Nvidia is like doing pretty great in terms of uh inventing you know developing AI computers. Um uh

and um well you me you listen you mentioned Jensen and uh listen you were early

uh warning about the dangers of AI but also you've been you know a somebody who's helping pioneer a lot of great things that come out of AI right now.

Where are you on the scale about being petrified or excited?

Well, I think I'm like simultaneously both honestly. It's like uh I mean at

both honestly. It's like uh I mean at this this point like like when I go to sleep there's like some AI breakthrough. When I wake up there's

breakthrough. When I wake up there's some AI breakthrough and by lunchtime there's another AI breakthrough.

So um it's like a head spinner at this point.

Um it you know it's it's pretty obvious that we're going to have AI that is vastly smarter than humans. Um and um

and already in some ways there it already is. Um

already is. Um I mean it seems like AI unequivocally smarter than humans in every way

including in innovation is probably not more than a year or two away would seem.

Um that's uh it's it's heavy to think about. Oh jeez,

this is this is kind of worrying. I hope

it's nice to us. You know

what? Um,

right. You know, when you look happy about all the things we've asked it to do, what what's something Listen, you have a better position to see this than anybody pretty much. What's going to happen in

pretty much. What's going to happen in five years that you're seeing that maybe a lot of people aren't seeing that's going to blow people's minds that will be doable in five years?

In five years we'll have probably so five years being say 2031 um I think

digital intelligence will exceed the sum of all human intelligence that there will be in 5 years probably

there might be a let's say at least a 100 million humanoid robots, but maybe a billion.

Yeah.

All right. The

I mean, and and and I I I would predict that the economy is probably twice its current size in five maybe six years,

seven five to seven years. Um because

you're going to hit a doubling period, you know, where it's where the the economic output is increasing so so fast uh that you know plus minus a few years

you're we'll see giant changes.

What um what you know a couple follow-up questions on that. When do you see the first data center in space? Again, you

have a better vision on that than pretty much anybody. You know, you're again if

much anybody. You know, you're again if when we're going to Mars it's you're clearly going to be leading the way.

When when do we get a colony in the moon? When do we get a colony on Mars?

moon? When do we get a colony on Mars?

Threeprong question. Data center in space, humans on the moon, humans on Mars.

Timeline.

Data center in space is much easier than people may think. I mean, SpaceX at this point has 10,000 satellites in orbit right now. Um and um

right now. Um and um and in the future with Starship, we'll be launching over 10,000 um communication satellites per year. Uh

each one of which is much more capable than our current satellites. So you can expect, you know, probably uh

10 to 100 times more communications capability than than is than currently exists from space. Um

but but that that will pale in comparison to the tonnage of uh AI satellites. So I mean it's always

satellites. So I mean it's always helpful to use the physics tools of thinking in the limit. If you say if you think in the limit, what is the most amount of uh AI compute you could

possibly bring bring to bear. Um and the the way to access power that's far beyond anything on Earth is in space.

Um, so these are some humbling ways to maybe frame the problem and see how tiny we are. We here on Earth, we are like

we are. We here on Earth, we are like microbes on a dust mode compared to the sun. Um, so

sun. Um, so we all of human civilization currently uses less than a trillionth of the

energy of say the power emitted by the sun. much less than a trillionth. All

sun. much less than a trillionth. All

human energy counted as generously as you could possibly imagine is much less than a trillionth of the sun's energy.

Um so that means if you were to increase civilizational the energy harnessed by a

million, you would still be much less than a millionth of the sun's energ.

Um so and another way to think about it is because people some say what about this this form of of power generation or that form of power generation. I'm look

everything is irrelevant compared to the sun. Um the sun is 99.8% of mass in the

sun. Um the sun is 99.8% of mass in the solar system. If if all mass that was

solar system. If if all mass that was not the sun was was burnt uh and you extracted the absolute maximum amount of energy from all mass that is not the sun, the amount of energy produced by

the sun would still round up to 100% of the energy produced in the solar system.

And then if you teleported two more Jupiters from other somehow teleported two more Jupiters into our solar system and burnt them too um the sun would

still be 100% of power uh rounding up.

So really everything is just uh extremely tiny compared to the sun.

So that therefore when you go to space um if you if you want to to climb the cottage cottage scale in any meaningful way whatsoever you have to go to space.

Um and and and uh you know our rough estimate is that you could probably do a terowatt a year of AI powered uh you

know solar powered AI satellites um from launch from Earth. Um that would require let's say something like 10 million tons a year of payload to orbit at 100

kilowatts per ton and that would be a terowatt per year. The average power usage in the United States is half a terowatt.

That would mean you'd be launching twice the um twice the amount of AI power than than the entire electricity consumption in the United States per year.

Yeah. Yeah.

So this is this is this is we're not breaking any physics here. This is this is all achievable. Um, now if you want to take that up uh several or more orders of magnitude, then the the thing

to do is to build a base on the moon and construct a mass driver um and build the uh solar panels and radiators on the moon. Chips you could probably bring

moon. Chips you could probably bring from Earth, but those on the moon too.

Um and uh and that would enable you to do about a pedawatt per year into of solar powered AI. Um now I'm not sure how much AI we need at the end of the

day, but uh that's a lot out of the line.

What um it would be vastly greater than the than the Earth's economy. Um Earth's economy would be really inconsequential by

comparison with that. No, that's that's a vision of abundance for sure. Uh I

know you you've had a quite a busy day and you you always have a busy day. So

we don't we want to be mindful of your time. So I just have two last questions.

time. So I just have two last questions.

One, there must be I mean again you keep on coming up with these big ideas and you keep executing them. What's a what's a big idea in your head that you haven't

deployed yet uh that you'd like to?

Well, you know, I did I did say for the longest time that people want to build build tunnels and then everyone thought I was joking and then I was like, fine, we'll just create a company, the boring company to build tunnels. Um because

this is an obvious way to um reduce traffic to zero by going 3D with your transport system just as we go 3D with the buildings. Um, it's obviously uh

the buildings. Um, it's obviously uh logical to illogical to expect that you you uh won't have traffic if you have buildings that are 3D and and a

transport system that is 2D and everyone tries to go in and out of the 3D building at the same time. Um, but if you have a transport network that is threedimensional with tunnels going all

over the place um then um you can address any arbitrary level of traffic.

Um, now I encourage other people to start tunneling companies because the boring compan is the only one as far as I can tell that's taking this serious.

It's boring to be the only boring company, right? Uh,

company, right? Uh, yeah. Honestly, there's like a lot of

yeah. Honestly, there's like a lot of opportunity um, you know, in tunnels.

Um, there really is. Um, and it's quite hard work building these things. So, I would I hope others people do it too.

Okay.

Um, and I I guess there's there's probably a lot of opportunity in um, synthetic medicine. So um with like

synthetic medicine. So um with like these days you can basically create custom you know RNA uh and I think I

think like the the sort of we're going from uh from a situation where medicine has been analog where we kind of like just find drugs kind of by accident most of

the time. Um like finding sticks in the

the time. Um like finding sticks in the forest that you know seem like a this stick seems like a useful club um type of thing. It's it's it's quite primitive

of thing. It's it's it's quite primitive how we've found medication in the past.

Um now but once you can and since we can now construct synthetic RNA um you can effectively think of medicine the future of medicine as being digital like so if

if you just know what to program into that synthetic RNA strand um you can basically I think cure almost anything.

M all right the challenge to the room digital medicine and 3D transportation let's go let's give Elon some competition all right last question electric aircraft probably an

opportunity there I think there's some startups in that field what kind of what kind of aircraft electric aircraft y electric aircraft I'm sure that's coming um when we when we get together and you know hopefully you know who

knows what the way technology is going some of us will be here in another 250 years for the Forbes you know 500 celebr celebration innovation. What would you

celebration innovation. What would you want your again you're you're still building it but when you think about your legacy and I know it's early but what what would you what would be make

you feel good when people look back the way you talked about Edison and Franklin what would what would you like uh people to say about you played a useful role in the advancement

of civilization I Uh and I think by the way again this is the most incredible room uh in America today. I think that's true for

America today. I think that's true for all of us. So let's take inspiration.

You all are great but he's number one.

Uh Elon Musk, thank you for joining us uh here at this Thank for a human. That's what the AI will say.

Fair. Uh thank you again. Thank you for your time and uh all that. And thank

you. Now we're going to have a we're going to let you go and we're going to bring uh the other award winners up. But

again, Elon Musk again, thank you for your time and all all your good thoughts.