Elon Musk talks Twitter, Tesla and how his brain works — live at TED2022
Summary
TLDR在这段引人入胜的视频中,埃隆·马斯克谈论了他对可持续未来的愿景,重点讨论了特斯拉和他对人工智能的看法。他提到,特斯拉不仅仅是制造电动汽车,更重要的是创建一个能够大规模生产电动汽车的系统。马斯克还探讨了自动驾驶技术的挑战,并透露他们正在开发的Optimus机器人,预测这将成为特斯拉最重要的产品。此外,他还提到了他对推特的收购计划,强调了他对推特作为自由言论平台的看重,并分享了他个人的成长经历和对未来的看法。
Takeaways
- 🚗 特斯拉的巨大成功不仅在于制造电动汽车,而在于创造了一个高效生产电动汽车的系统,这是实现可持续未来的关键。
- 🔮 埃隆·马斯克对人工智能发展的预测显示出他对未来技术进展的深刻见解,尽管有时候他的预测并不完全准确。
- 🤖 全自动驾驶技术的挑战在于需要解决真正的世界人工智能问题,包括高级视觉识别和理解复杂环境。
- 🌐 马斯克提出,要实现全自动驾驶,必须构建一个能够模仿人类大脑和视觉的系统,这意味着在计算机上实现真实世界的人工智能。
- 👥 通过解决自动驾驶的挑战,马斯克认为这将推动在其他领域应用真实世界人工智能的发展,如通过他们的机器人项目Optimus。
- 🏭 特斯拉在制造领域的创新不仅仅是为了生产汽车,还包括了推动制造业的现代化,例如通过高度自动化的工厂和生产流程。
- 💡 马斯克关于未来技术和人工智能的思考,反映了他对于科技如何塑造未来社会和经济的深刻理解。
- 📈 马斯克预测,机器人技术将在未来扮演关键角色,不仅在制造业中,也在日常生活中,通过提供个人助理和服务。
- 🚀 对于马斯克而言,探索和利用人工智能技术的最终目的是推动人类文明向前发展,包括通过改进交通系统、提高生产效率和改善生活质量。
- 🌍 马斯克对于可持续能源解决方案的推广,例如通过电动汽车和太阳能,体现了他对于解决全球能源问题和减少环境影响的承诺。
Q & A
埃隆·马斯克如何描述特斯拉的'机器制造机器'的概念?
-埃隆·马斯克将特斯拉的'机器制造机器'概念描述为实现可持续未来的关键。他认为,不仅仅是制造电动汽车,而是要建立一个能够大规模生产电动汽车并保持利润率的系统,以资助进一步的增长。
为什么全自动驾驶技术难以实现?
-马斯克指出,全自动驾驶技术之所以难以实现,是因为存在许多假阶段,人们可能认为他们已经掌握了问题,但实际上却达到了瓶颈。要真正解决全自动驾驶问题,需要解决现实世界的人工智能和复杂视觉问题。
特斯拉如何设想未来的家用机器人应用?
-特斯拉设想,未来的家用机器人将能够理解家庭的三维结构,知道家中每个物品的位置,以及能够识别所有物品。这些机器人可以执行诸如整理房间、做饭、割草或为家庭成员提供服务等任务。
Outlines
🚀 开场与特斯拉工厂探秘
在这段视频中,主持人介绍了即将与埃隆·马斯克进行现场对话的节目。在与马斯克的对话之前,他分享了自己对特斯拉位于德克萨斯州奥斯汀的巨型工厂的参观经历。这座工厂在正式开放的前一天晚上,主持人得以独自探访,发现了马斯克所说的“制造机器的机器”,这是实现可持续未来的关键。此外,主持人还提到了他与马斯克进行的一次精彩采访,并展示了采访的一部分,聚焦于人工智能、特斯拉车辆销售的预测、自动驾驶的挑战以及对未来的展望。
🤖 特斯拉Optimus机器人的启示
在这一段中,马斯克讨论了特斯拉在开发自动驾驶技术过程中的一个关键发现——为了实现自动驾驶,他们需要解决真实世界的人工智能问题。这个认识为特斯拉开发Optimus机器人奠定了基础,一个可以在没有具体指令的情况下,在真实世界中导航并执行有用任务的机器人。马斯克认为,这将对制造业和家庭生活产生深远影响,从执行危险、枯燥的任务到家庭护理和娱乐。他还强调了人工智能监管的重要性,以及如何确保技术的安全使用。
🌍 马斯克关于收购推特的动机
在这一段视频中,马斯克讨论了他提出收购推特的原因,强调了他对于自由言论的重要性和推特作为公共讨论平台的角色。他提议开源推特的算法,以增加透明度和公众信任。马斯克还分享了他对于如何处理争议性言论的看法,主张在法律允许的范围内最大限度地促进自由表达。他强调了这项收购的目的不是为了经济利益,而是为了确保推特能够作为一个促进民主和自由表达的平台继续发挥作用。
💬 马斯克提出的推特改进措施
马斯克在这一段中提出了他对推特进行改进的计划,包括增加编辑按钮、消除垃圾邮件和欺诈性内容、以及减少自动化机器人的影响。他讨论了如何通过公开算法和手动调整的透明度来增强用户对推特的信任。马斯克还谈到了他对于内容审查和自由表达之间平衡的看法,强调了在不确定情况下倾向于允许言论自由的重要性。
🧠 马斯克的个人挑战和特斯拉的背景
在这段视频中,马斯克分享了他在个人和职业生活中面临的挑战,以及特斯拉的成立背景和它的使命。他讨论了特斯拉如何克服了创业初期的困难,并最终成为领先的电动汽车制造商。马斯克强调了他对于可持续能源的承诺,以及他对于特斯拉在未来能源转型中的角色和影响的看法。
Mindmap
Keywords
💡言论自由
💡算法
💡安全
💡封禁
💡机器人
💡特斯拉
💡可持续发展
💡未来主义
💡意识
Highlights
Elon Musk discusses the impact and future of Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.
Musk shares insights on the challenges and advancements in Tesla's self-driving technology.
Musk emphasizes the importance of sustainable energy and Tesla's role in promoting electric cars.
Elon Musk's interview unveils his vision for artificial intelligence in Tesla's operations.
Musk reveals Tesla's shift towards AI and its significance in the future of autonomous vehicles.
Musk highlights the potential of Tesla's Optimus robot in revolutionizing manufacturing and domestic tasks.
Musk addresses the challenges in predicting advancements in technology and Tesla's strategies to overcome them.
Discussion on the importance of a transparent and inclusive platform for free speech in relation to Musk's Twitter acquisition.
Musk's proposal for an open-source algorithm for Twitter to enhance public trust and reduce manipulation.
Insights into Musk's personal philosophy on free speech and its implications for Twitter's content moderation.
Musk shares his motivation behind the Twitter offer, focusing on the platform's role in democracy and public discourse.
Elon Musk's candid reflection on Tesla's near-bankruptcy phase and the intense effort to stabilize the company.
Musk's personal journey with Asperger's syndrome and how it shaped his communication and perspective.
Musk's vision for humanity's future, emphasizing sustainability, technological advancement, and optimism.
The interview concludes with Musk's commitment to fighting for a positive future for humanity.
Transcripts
hello
so
in just a few minutes um elon musk will
be joining us here live on stage
for a conversation uh
rumor has it there are a few things to
talk about with him
um
we we we will see
but um before that
i just want to show you something
special
i want you to come with me to
tesla's huge gigafactory in austin texas
so the day before it opened last week
the evening before i was allowed to walk
around it
no one else there
and what i saw there was honestly pretty
mind-blowing
this is elon musk's famous machine that
builds the machine and his view the
secret to a sustainable future is not
just making an electric car
it's making a system that churns out
huge numbers of electric cars with a
margin so that they can fund further
growth
when i was there um none of us knew
whether elon would actually be able to
make it here today so i took the chance
to sit down with him and record an epic
interview
and i just want to show you
a nine
an eight minute excerpt of that
interview so here from austin texas elon
musk
i want us to switch now to think a bit
about artificial intelligence i i'm
curious about your timelines and how you
predict and how come some things are so
amazingly on the money and some aren't
so when it comes to predicting
sales of tesla vehicles for example
i mean you've kind of been amazing i
think in 2014
when tesla had sold that year 60 000
cars you said 2020 i think we will do
half a million a year yeah we did almost
exactly half a million five years ago
last time you came today we um i asked
you about for self-driving and um you
said yep this very year where i am
confident that we will have a car going
from la to new york uh without any
intervention yeah i i don't want to blow
your mind but i'm not always right
um
so talk what's the difference between
those two why why
why has full self-driving in particular
been so hard to predict i mean the thing
that really got me and i think it's
going to get a lot of other people is
that
there are just so many false stones with
with self-driving um where you think you
think you've got the problem
have a handle on the problem and then it
nope uh it turns out uh you just hit a
ceiling um and and uh
uh
because what happened if you if you were
to plot the progress
the progress looks like a log curve so
it's like yeah
a series of log curves so
uh most people don't like cookies i
suppose but it shows the show
it goes it goes up sort of a you know
sort of a fairly straight way and then
it starts tailing off right and and and
you start there's a kind of ocean
getting diminishing returns you know in
retrospect they seem obvious but uh in
in order to solve uh full self-driving
uh properly you actually just you have
to solve real-world ai
um you you you know because you said
what are the road networks designed to
to work with they're designed to work
with a biological neural net our brains
and with uh vision our eyes
and so in order to make it work
with computers you basically need
to solve real world ai
and vision
because because we we need
we need cameras
and silicon neural nets
uh in order to have to have
self-driving work for a system that was
designed for eyes and biological neural
nets
it you know when you i guess when you
put it that way it's like quite obvious
that the only way to solve full
self-driving is to solve real-world
ai and sophisticated vision what do you
feel about the current architecture do
you think you have an architecture now
where where there is
a chance for the logarithmic curve not
to tail off any anytime
soon
well i mean
admittedly these these uh may be an
infamous uh last words but i i actually
am confident that we will solve it this
year
uh that we will exceed uh
you're like what the probability
of an accident at what point should you
exceed that of the average person right
um i think we will exceed that this year
we could be here
talking again in a year it's like well
yeah another year went by and it didn't
happen but i think this i think this is
the year is there an element that you
actually deliberately
make aggressive prediction timelines to
drive people to be ambitious and without
that nothing gets done
so it's it feels like at some point in
the last year
seeing the progress on
understanding you that you're that the
ai the tesla ai understanding the world
around it led to a kind of an aha moment
in tesla because you really surprised
people recently when you said
probably the most important product
development going on at tesla this year
is this robot optimus yes
is it something that happened in the
development of fourself driving that
gave you the confidence to say you know
what we could do something special here
yeah exactly so you know it took me a
while to sort of realize that that in
order to solve self-driving you really
needed to solve real-world ai um
at the point of which you solve
real-world ai for a car which is really
a robot on four wheels uh you can then
generalize that to a robot on legs as
well
the thing that the things that are
currently missing are uh
enough intelligence enough to tell
intelligence for the robot to navigate
the real world and do useful things
without being explicitly instructed it
is so so the missing things are
basically real world uh intelligence and
uh scaling up manufacturing um those are
two things that tesla is very good at
and
uh so then we basically just need to
design the the uh specialized actuators
and sensors that are needed for a
humanoid robot
people have no idea this is going to be
bigger than the car
um but so talk about i mean i think the
first applications you you've mentioned
are probably going to be manufacturing
but eventually the vision is to to have
these available for people at home
correct if you had a robot that really
understood the 3d architecture of your
house and
knew where every object in that house
was or was supposed to be and could
recognize all those objects i mean that
that's kind of amazing isn't that like
like that the kind of thing that you
could ask a robot to do
would be what like tidy up yeah um
absolutely
or make make dinner i guess mow the lawn
take take a cup of tea to grandma and
show her family pictures and
exactly take care of my grandmother and
make sure yeah exactly and it could
recognize obviously recognize everyone
in the home yeah could play catch with
your kids yes i mean obviously we need
to be careful this doesn't uh become a
dystopian situation
um like i think one of the things that's
going to be important is to have a
localized rom chip on the
robot that cannot be updated over the
air uh where if you for example were to
say stop stop stop that would if anyone
said that then the robot would stop you
know type of thing
and that's not updatable remotely um i
think it's going to be important to have
safety features like that
yeah that that sounds wise and i do
think there should be a regular free
agency for ai i've said this for many
years i don't love being regulated but i
you know i think this is an important
thing for public safety do you think
there will be basically like in say 2050
or whatever that like a
a robot in most homes is what they will
be and people will
probably count
you'll have your own butler basically
yeah you'll have your sort of buddy
robot
probably yeah i mean how much of a buddy
do like do you do
how many applications you thought is
there you know can you have a romantic
partner
lot of a sex
inevitable
i mean i did promise the internet that i
would make cat girls we'll have we could
make a robot cackle
how are you because yeah
you know
so
yeah i i guess uh it'll be what whatever
people want really you know so what sort
of timeline should we be
thinking about of the first the first
models that are actually made and
sold
you know the the first units that that
we tend to make are
um
for jobs that are dangerous boring
repetitive and things that people don't
want to do and you know i think we'll
have like an interesting prototype uh
sometime this year we might have
something useful next year but i think
quite likely within at least two years
and then we'll see rapid growth year
over year of the usefulness of the
humanoid robots um and decrease in cost
and scaling out production
help me on the economics of this so what
what do you picture the cost of one of
these being well i think the cost is
actually not going to be uh crazy high
um
like less than a car yeah but but think
about the economics of this if you can
replace a
thirty thousand dollar forty thousand
dollar a year worker
which you have to pay every year
with a one-time payment of twenty five
thousand dollars for a robot that can
work longer hours
doesn't go on vacation i mean that could
it could be a pretty rapid replacement
of certain types of jobs how worried
should the world be about that
i wouldn't worry about the the sort of
putting people out of a job thing um i
think
we're actually going to have and already
do have a massive shortage of labor so i
i i think we'll we will have um
uh
not not people out of work but actually
still a shortage labor even in the
future uh but
this really will be a world of abundance
any goods and services
uh will be available to anyone who wants
them that it'll be so cheap to have
goods and services it'll be ridiculous
so
that is part of
an epic 80 minute interview
which we are releasing to people
members of ted 2022 right after this
conference um you should be able to
look at it on the ted live
website
um there's public interest in it we're
putting that out to the world on sunday
afternoon i think sunday evening but uh
but if you're into this kind of stuff um
definitely a good thing to do over the
weekend um
now then
hearing from elon live there's there's
huge public interest in that we have
opened up this segment to live stream
and so
we're joined right now by i think quite
a few people around the world um welcome
to vancouver welcome to ted 22 you're
joining us on the last day of our
conference here in a packed
theater
and
we've been hearing all week from
people with dreams about what the next
era
of humanity is going to be
and now arguably
the biggest visionary of them all elon
musk
[Music]
hey elon welcome
so elon um a few hours ago
you
made
an offer to buy twitter
why
[Laughter]
how'd you know
little bird
tweeted in my ear or something i don't
know
by the way have you seen the movie ted
about the bear
i i i have i have a movie
so um
yeah yeah so
was there a question
why why make that offer oh so
um
well i think it's very important for
uh there to be
an inclusive arena for
free speech
where
all yeah so uh yeah
um
twitter has become kind of the de facto
town square um so
uh
it's just really important that people
have the both the uh the reality and the
perception
uh that they're able to speak freely
within the bounds of the law um
and
you know so one of the things that i
believe twitter should do is open source
the algorithm
um and make any changes
uh to people's tweets you know if
they're emphasized or de-emphasized uh
that action should be
made apparent so you anyone can see that
action has been taken
so there's there's no sort of behind the
scenes
manipulation either algorithmically or
manually um
but
last week when we spoke elon um i asked
you whether you were thinking of taking
over you said no way said i i do not
want to own twitter it is a recipe for
misery everyone will blame me for
everything what on earth changed no i
think i think everyone will still blame
me for everything
yeah if something if if i acquire
twitter and something goes wrong it's my
fault 100
i i think there will be quite a few
arrows uh yes um it will it will be
miserable but you still want to do it
why i mean i hope it's not too miserable
uh but
um
i i just think it's important to the fun
like
uh
it's important to the function of
democracy
it's important to the function of
uh the united states uh as a free
country and many other countries and to
help
actually to help
freedom in the world
more broadly than the u.s
and so
i think it's uh
it's a
you know i think this there's the risk
civilizational risk
uh is decreased if twitter
the more we can increase the trust of
twitter as a public platform and so
i do think this will be somewhat painful
and i'm not sure that i will actually be
able to to acquire it
and i should also say
the intent is is to
retain as many shareholders as is
allowed by the law in a private company
which i think is around
2000 or so so we'll it's not like it
it's definitely not not from the
standpoint of letting me figure out how
to monopolize or maximize my ownership
of twitter
but we'll try to bring along as many
shoulders as we right as we're allowed
to you don't necessarily want to pay out
40 or whatever it is billion dollars in
cash you you'd like them to come come
with you in in
i mean
i mean i could technically afford it um
what i'm saying is this this is
this is uh this is not a
way to sort of make money
you know i think this is it's just that
i think this is um this could
my
strong intuitive sense is that uh having
a public platform that is maximally
trusted
um and and and
and broadly inclusive
um is extremely important to the future
of civilization but you've described
yourself i don't care about the
economics at all
okay that's that's core to hear you this
is not about the economics it's for the
the moral good that you think will
achieve you you've described yourself
elon as a free speech absolutist
but
does that mean that there's literally
nothing that people can't say and it's
okay
well i i i think uh
obviously uh twitter or any forum is
bound by the laws of the country that it
operates in um
so
obviously there are some limitations on
free speech uh in in the us and and of
course uh
twitter would have to abide by those uh
right rules so so so you can't incite
people to violence like that that the
like a direct incitement to violence you
know you can't do the equivalent of
crying fire in a in a movie theater for
example no that would be a crime yeah
right
it should be a crime but here's here's
the challenge is is that it's it's such
a nuanced difference between different
things so
there's
there's excitement to violence yeah
that's a no if it's illegal um there's
hate speech which some forms of hate
speech are fine you know i hate spinach
um
i mean if it's a sauteed in a
you know cream sauce that would be quite
nice
but so so
but the problem is so so so let's say
someone says okay here's one tweet i
hate politician x yeah next tweet is i
wish polite politician x wasn't alive
as we some of us have said about putin
right now for example so that's
legitimate speech
another tweet is i wish politician x
wasn't alive with a picture of their
head with a gun sight over it
or that plus their address i mean at
some point
someone has to make a decision as to
which of those is not okay can an
algorithm
do that well surely you need human
judgment at some point
no i think
the like i said
in my view
uh twitter should um
match the laws of the of the country of
and and and really you know
that there's an obligation to to do that
um
but going beyond going beyond that um
and having it be
unclear who's making what changes to who
to where
uh having tweets sort of mysteriously be
promoted and demoted
with no insight into what's going on uh
having a black box algorithm uh promote
some things and other not not other
things i think this can be quite
dangerous
so so so the idea of opening the
algorithm is a huge deal and i think
many people would would welcome that of
understanding exactly how it's making
the decision and critique it and
critique like i want to improve what
wondering is like like i think like the
code should be on github you know so
then uh and so people can look through
it and say like i see a problem here i
don't i don't agree with this
um
they can highlight issues right um
suggest changes in the same way that you
sort of update linux or or signal or
something like that you know but as i
understand it like at some point right
now
what the algorithm would do is it would
look at for example how many people have
flagged a tweet as obnoxious
and then
at some point a human has to look at it
and make make a decision as to does this
cross the line or not that the algorithm
itself can't i don't think yet um tell
the difference between
legal and okay and and definitely
obnoxious and so the question is which
humans you know make make that
core i mean do you have do you have a
picture of that right now twitter
and facebook and others you know they've
hired thousands of people to try to help
make wise decisions and the trouble is
that no one can agree on on what is wise
how do you solve that
well i i i think we would want to er on
this if if in doubt
uh
let let the speech that let it exist uh
it would have you know if it's a
you know a
a gray area i would say let let the
tweet exist
um
but
obviously you know in a case where
there's perhaps a lot of controversy uh
that you would not want to necessarily
promote that tweet if uh you know so the
i'm not i'm not saying this is that i
have all the answers here um
but
i i do think that we want to be just
very reluctant to delete things
and and have um
just just be very cautious with with
with permanent bands uh you know
timeouts i think are better or uh than
sort of permanent bands
and um
but just just in general like i said
uh how how it won't be perfect but i
think we wanted to really uh have
like so the possession and reality that
speech is as
free as reasonably possible
and a good sign as to whether there's
free speech is
is
is someone you
don't like allowed to say something you
don't like
and if that is the case then we have
free speech and it's it's damn annoying
when someone you don't like says
something you don't like
that is a sign of a healthy functioning
uh
free speech situation
so
i think many people would agree with
that and look at the reaction online
many people are excited by
you coming in and the changes you're
proposing some others are absolutely
horrified here's how they would see it
they would say wait a sec we agree that
that twitter is an incredibly important
town square it is a it is you know where
the world exchanges opinion about life
and death matters
how on earth could it be owned by the
world's richest person that can't be
right
so how how do you i mean what's the
response there is there any way that you
can
distance yourself from the actual
decision-making that matters on content
at
in some very clear way that is
convincing to people
well like i said i think the
it's it's very important that like the
the algorithm be open sourced and that
any manual uh adjustments be
uh identified like so if this tweet if
somebody did something to a tweet it's
there's information attached to it that
this that action was taken and i i i i
won't personally be uh you know in their
editing tweets
um
but you'll know if something was done to
promote demote or otherwise affect uh a
tweet um
you know
as for
media sort of ownership i mean you've
got you know um mark zuckerberg owning
facebook and
instagram and whatsapp um
and with a share ownership structure
that will
have
mark zuckerberg the 14th still
controlling those
uh entities
so
literally um
what's that need we won't have that on
if if you commit to opening up the
algorithm that that definitely gives
some level of confidence um talk about
talk about some of the other changes
that you've proposed so you
at the edit button that's that's
definitely coming if you if you have
your way yeah yeah
and how do you i mean i i think
i mean
one
frankly
um
the
top priority i have i would have is is
eliminating the the spammings and scam
bots
and the bot armies that are on twitter
um
you know i think i think these these fun
influence
that
they're not they're they're they they
make the product much worse
um if i see if you know
if i had a dogecoin for every crypto
scam i saw
[Laughter]
more you know 100 billion dollars
do you regret sparking the sort of storm
of excitement overdose and you know
where it's gone or
i mean i think deutsche is fun and you
know i've always said don't bet the form
of dogecoin uh fyi
yeah
but i i think i think it's it's i like
dogs and i like memes and uh it's got
both of those
and
but just on the on the edit button how
how do you get around the problem of so
someone tweets elon rocks and it's
tweeted by two million people um and um
and then then after that they edit it so
i'm elon sucks and um and then all those
retweets
they're all embarrassed and how how do
you avoid that type of
changing of meaning so that retweeters
are exploited
well i think uh you know you'd only have
the edit capability for a short period
of time and probably the thing to do at
upon the edit would be to zero out
all retweets and favorites
okay
i'm open to ideas though you know
so in one way the um algorithm works
kind of well for you right now i just i
wanted to show you this this is so
this is a typical tweet of of mine kind
of lame and wordy and whatever and look
at and the amazing response it gets is
this oh my god
97 likes
um and then i tried another one um
and uh
29 000 likes so the algorithm at least
seems to be at the moment you know if
elon musk expanded the world immediately
um not bad right
yeah i guess so i mean that was
cool
i mean you but but you've
so help us understand how it is you've
built this incredible
um following on twitter yourself when
i mean some of the people who love you
the most look at some of what you tweet
and they they
they think it's somewhere between um
embarrassing and crazy some of it's
amazing i mean
[Laughter]
is that actually why it's worked or why
why has it worked
i mean i don't know i mean i i'm
you know tweeting more or less stream of
consciousness you know it's not like let
me think about some grand plan about my
twitter or whatever you know i'm like
literally on the toilet or something i'm
like oh this is funny and then tweet
that out you know
that's
that's like most of them
[Laughter]
you know over sharing
but um but you are obsessed with getting
the most out of every minute of your day
and so why not you know
um
so
i don't know i just like try to tweet
out like things that are interesting or
funny or
you know and then people seem to
like it
so if if you are unsuccessful actually
before i ask that let me ask this if i
don't
yeah so how can i say
is uh funding secured
[Music]
i i have sufficient uh assets to
complete the
uh
it's not a forward-looking statement
blah blah but
i have to i mean i can do it if possible
right um
so um
and um
i mean i should say actually even in the
in
originally
the
uh with with tesla back in the day
funding was actually secured
i want to be clear about that
um in fact this may be a good
opportunity to to to clarify that um
if funding was indeed secured um and uh
i should say like why why do i do not
have respect for the sec in that
situation and i don't mean to
blame everyone at the sec but certainly
the san francisco office
um it's because the sec
knew that funding was secured
but they pursued the
an active public investigation
nonetheless at the time tesla was in a
precarious financial situation
and i was told by the banks that if i
did not agree to settle with the sec
that they would the banks would cease
providing working capital and tesla
would go bankrupt immediately
so that's like having
a gun to your child's head
so i was forced to concede to the sec
unlawfully
those bastards
and and and now that they they say
it makes it look like i lied when i did
not in fact lie i was i was forced to
admit that i lied for to save tesla's
life and that's the only reason
given what's actually happened
given what's actually happened to tesla
since then though aren't you glad that
you didn't take it private
yeah i mean
it's difficult to put yourself in the
position at the time tesla was under the
most relentless short seller attack in
the history of the stock market
uh there's something called short and
distort
um where the barrage of negativity that
tesla was experiencing from short sales
wall street was beyond or belief tesla
was the most shorted stock in the
history of stock markets
this is saying something
so
you know this was affecting our ability
to hire people it was affecting our
ability to sell cars
it was
uh
they were
yeah it was terrible um
yeah they wanted tesla to die so bad
they could taste it
well most of them have paid the price
yes
where are they now
um
so
so that was a really strong statement i
mean obviously a lot of people
who who support you i thought would say
you have so much to
offer the world on the upside on the
vision side don't don't waste your time
getting getting distracted by these
these battles that bring out negativity
and and and make people feel that you're
being defensive or like people don't
like fights especially with with
powerful government authorities they'd
rather they'd rather buy into your to a
dream do do you like aren't you
encouraged by people just just to edit
that
in that
you know temptation out and uh
go with the bigger story
um well i mean i i would say like you
know i'm sort of a mixed bag you know i
mean well you're a fighter and you you
don't you don't you don't you don't
you don't like to lose and and you you
you are determined that you don't
basically i i mean you are sure i don't
like to lose i'm not sure many people do
um
but the truth matters to me a lot really
like
sort of pathologically it matters to me
okay so so you don't like to lose if in
this case you are not successful in you
know the board
does not accept your offer you've said
you won't go higher is there a plan b
there is
i i think we i think we would like to
hear a little bit about plan b
for it for another time i think
another time yeah all right
[Applause]
i that that's a nice tease all right so
um
i i would love
to
try to understand this brain of yours
more ilan i i if with your permission
i'd like to just play this this is the
oh actually before we do that
um here was one of the of the thousands
of questions that people asked i thought
this was actually quite a good one um if
you could go back in time and change one
decision you made along the way
do your own edit button
which one would it be and why
do you mean like a career decision or
something
just any decision over the last
few years like your decision to invest
in twitter in the first place or your
anything um i mean the
the worst business decision i ever made
was
um
not starting tesla with just jb straval
by far the worst decision i've ever made
is not just starting tesla with jb
that that that's the number one by far
all right so jb strabo was was the
visionary co-founder who who who was
obsessed with and knew so much about
batteries and your your decision to go
with tesla the company as it was meant
that you got locked into what you
concluded it was a weird architecture
now this this
there's a lot of confusion tesla
tesla did not exist in any
tesla was a shell company with no
employees uh no intellectual property
when i invested but the
a false narrative has been created by um
one of the other co-founders uh martin
everhard and i don't want to get into
the nastiness here but uh
i didn't invest in an existing company
we created a company yeah and
ultimately the creation that company uh
was was done by
uh jv and me um and
unfortunately there's a someone else and
another co-founder who has made it his
life's mission
uh to make it sound like he he created
the company which is false wasn't there
another issue
right at the heart of the development of
the tesla model 3 where tesla almost
went bankrupt and i i think you have
said that part of the reason for that
was that you overestimated the extent to
which it was possible at that time to
automate a a factory a huge amount was
spent
kind of over automating and it didn't
work
and it nearly took the company down is
that fair
uh i mean
first of all it's important to
understand like what what has tesla
actually accomplished that is that is
most noteworthy um it is not the
creation of
an electric vehicle or creating
electrical vehicle prototype or
low volume production
of a
of a car that they've been
uh hundreds of cars startups over the
years hundreds and uh in fact at one
point um bloomberg counted up the number
of electric vehicle startups and they i
think they got to almost 500. yeah so
the hard part is not creating a
prototype or going into limited
production
the the the absolutely difficult thing
which has not been accomplished by an
american car company in 100 years is
reaching volume production without going
bankrupt
is the actual hard thing
um the last company american company to
reach volume production without going
bankrupt was chrysler in the 20s right
and and and it nearly happened to tesla
yes it but it's not like oh geez i guess
if we just done more manual stuff things
would have been fine
of course not uh that is definitely not
the case uh
so
we basically messed up
almost every aspect of the model 3
production line
from
from cells to packs to
driving voters
motors
body line the paint shop
uh
final assembly
um
everything everything was messed up
um and i lived in that fa i lived in the
fremont and and nevada factories
for three years
fixing the that production line running
around like a maniac
through every part of that factory
living with the team
i slept on the floor
so that the
the team who was going through
a hard time
could see me on the floor
uh
that they knew that i was not in some
ivory tower
whatever pain they experienced i was i
had it more and some people who knew you
well
actually thought you were making a
terrible mistake that you were driving
yourself you were
you were driving yourself to the edge of
sanity almost and yeah and
and that you were in danger of making
bad
choices and in fact i heard you say last
week elon that that you because of
tesla's huge value now and and you know
the the significance of every minute
that you spend that you are in danger of
sort of
obsessing over spending all this time to
the point of to the edge of
sanity
um
that doesn't that doesn't sound super
wise isn't that like your your your time
your your completely sane centered
rested time and decision making
is more powerful and compelling than
that sort of i can barely
hold my eyes open so surely it should be
an absolute strategic priority to look
after yourself
i mean there wasn't any other way to
make it work
there were three years of hell
17 8 2017 18 and 19
with three years
this longest period of excruciating pain
in my life
uh
there wasn't any other way and we barely
made it and we're on the ragged edge of
bankruptcy the entire time
so
so when you felt like i want
pain
i don't like it
um
those were three or three so so much
pain
but it had to be done or tesla would be
dead when you looked around the
gigafactory that we saw images of
earlier
um last week and just see where the
companies come i mean do you feel that
that this this challenge of
figuring out the the new way of
manufacturing um that you that
you actually have an edge now that it's
different that you've figured out how to
do this and
and um from
those three years
what won't be repeated you've actually
figured out a new way of manufacturing
at this point i think i know
more about manufacturing than anyone
currently alive on earth
between that
yeah
i'll tell you i can tell you how every
damn part part in that car is made
which basically if you just live on the
factory live in the factory for three
years and
that was nice that was a poignant note
or something
someone wants to compose a symphony to
that uh expression of confidence uh
something like that i have no idea what
that is
anyway yeah
every aspect of a car six weeks to
sunday i know
i mean you you you
talk about scale right now you're in the
middle of writing your new master plan
and you've said that scale is at the
heart of it
why does scale matter why are you
obsessed with that what are you thinking
yeah well see
in order in order to accelerate the
advent of sustainable energy
uh there must be scale
because we've got a transition um a vast
economy that is currently uh overly
dependent on fossil fuels to a
sustainable energy economy one where the
energy is uh
yeah i mean we got to do it
so so the energy's got to be sustainably
generated with wind solar uh hydro
geothermal i i'm a believer in nuclear
as uh as well i think ever talk about
and
uh and then you you
since solar and wind is intermittent you
have to have stationary storage
batteries and and then we're going to
transition all transport um
to to electric uh
if we do those things we have a
sustainable energy future the faster we
do those things the less risk we
the less risk we
put to the environment
uh so sooner is better uh and and so
scale is very important um
you know it's not about it's not about
press releases it's about tonnage what
was the tonnage of
of batteries produced
and obviously done in a sustainable way
and and our estimate is that
approximately 300 terawatt hours of
battery storage is needed to transition
uh transport uh
electricity and and heating and cooling
uh to a fully electric situation others
may
there's there may be some
different estimates out out there but uh
our estimate is 300 terawatt hours yeah
so we dug into this a lot in the
interview that we recorded last week and
so people can go in and hear that more
but i mean the context is that is i
think about a thousand times the current
install battery capacity i mean the
scale up needed is
breathtaking basically yeah and and and
um
yeah so so your vision is to commit
tesla to try to deliver on a meaningful
percentage of what is needed yeah and
what and call on others to do the rest
that this is what this is a task for
humanity to massively scale up our
response to change change the energy
grade
yes it it's
it's like basically how fast can we can
we scale um and encourage others to
scale
to get to that 300 terawatt hour
installed uh base of batteries right
and then of course uh there'll be a
tremendous need to recycle those
batteries which is i and it makes sense
to recycle them because the raw
materials are like high grade ore um so
people shouldn't think well they'd be
this big pile of batteries now they're
going to get recycled because the
even a dead battery pack is worth about
a thousand dollars so
um but but this is what's needed for a
sustainable energy future so we're going
to try to take the set of actions that
accelerate the day of and bring the day
of a sustainable energy future sooner
okay
there's going to be a huge interest in
your master plan when you when you
publish that um meanwhile i just i would
love to
understand more
what goes on in this brain of yours
because it is it is a pretty unique one
i want to play with your permission this
very funny opening from snl saturday
night live can we have the volume there
actually please sorry
it's an honor to be hosting saturday
night live i mean that
sometimes after i say something i have
to say i mean that
[Music]
so people really know that i mean
that's because i don't always have a lot
of
international variation in how i speak
which i'm told makes for great comedy
i'm actually making history tonight as
the first person
with asperger's to host snl
[Applause]
and i think you followed that up with at
least the first person to admit it the
first person to admit it
but i mean
so this was a great thing to say
but i i would love to
understand
whether you know how you think of of
asperger's like whether you can give us
any sense of even you as a boy how what
what the experience
was or as you now
understand with the benefit of hindsight
can you talk about that a bit
well i think i think everyone's
experience is going to be somewhat
different
but i guess for me the
social cues were not uh intuitive so
i was just very bookish and i didn't
understand
this i guess
others could
sort of intuitively understand uh
what watches meant by something
i would just tend to take things very
literally as just like the words
as spoken word exactly what they meant
but but then that
didn't turn out to be wrong
you can't they do not they're not simply
saying exactly what they mean
there's all sorts of other things that
are meant it took me a while to figure
that out um
so
i was you know bullied quite a lot
um
so
i didn't i did not have a sort of happy
childhood to be frank was quite quite
rough um
and um
but i read a lot of books i read lots
and lots of books
and so that you know
sort of
gradually i sort of understood more from
the books that i was reading and watched
a lot of movies
and
you know just
but it took it took me it took me a
while to understand things that most
people
intuitively understand
so i've wondered whether it's possible
that that was in a strange way an
incredible gift to you and and
indirectly to many other people
in as much as
brains you know are plastic and they
they they go where the action is and if
in for some reason the external world
and social cues which so many people
spend so much time and energy and mental
energy obsessing over if that is partly
cut off
isn't it possible that that is partly
what gave you
the ability to
understand inwardly
the world at a much deeper level than
than most people do
i suppose that's certainly possible um
i think this may be some value also from
a technology standpoint because
i found it uh rewarding to spend all
night programming computers
um just by myself and
i think most people
most people don't enjoy typing strange
symbols into a computer by themselves
all night
they think that's
not fun but i thought it was i really
liked it um so so i just programmed all
night by myself and
um i found that to be quite enjoyable
um but but i think that is not uh normal
[Music]
so i mean it does you know i've thought
a lot about
it's a riddle to a lot of people of of
how you've done this how you've
repeatedly innovated in these different
industries and it it does you know every
entrepreneur sees possibility in the
future and then acts to make that real
it it feels to me like you see
possibility just more broadly than
almost anyone and can connect with so
you see scientific possibility based on
a deep understanding of physics and
knowing what the fundamental equations
are
what the technologies are that are based
on that science and where they could go
you see technological possibility and
then really unusually you combine that
with
economic possibility of like what it
actually would cost is there a system
you can imagine where you could
affordably make that thing and that that
sometimes you then get conviction that
there is an opportunity here put those
pieces together and you could do
something
amazing
yeah i think one aspect of whatever
condition i had um was i was just
absolutely obsessed with truth
just obsessed with truth
and and so the obsession with truth is
why i studied physics
because physics attempts to understand
the
the truth the truth of the universe
physics just it's just what are the
provable truths of the universe
um
and and true and truths that have
predictive power
um
so for me physics was sort of a very
natural thing to study
nobody made me study it it was
intrinsically interesting
to understand the nature of the universe
and then computer science
or information theory
also to just i understand uh logic and
and
uh
you know there's an also there's an
argument that
you know that you the that information
theory is actually operating
at a more fundamental level more
fundamental level than than even physics
um
so
uh just yeah um
the physics and information theory uh
were really interesting to me so when
you say truth i mean it's it's not
like some people
so it's what you're talking about is the
truth of the universe like the
fundamental truths that drive the
universe it's like a deep curiosity
about what this universe is why we're
here simulation why not you know we
don't have time to go into that but i
mean it's you're just deeply curious
about
what this is for what this is this whole
thing yes i mean i think the why the why
of things is very important
um
i i actually
uh when i was a i don't know
so young teens
uh i i got quite depressed about the
meaning of life
um and i was trying to sort of
understand the meaning of life looking
at reading religious texts and and
reading books on philosophy
and i got into the german philosophers
which is definitely not wise if you're a
young teenager i have to say
can be ripped out but dark
so
[Music]
much better at as an adult i um and and
then actually i ended up reading um the
hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
which is actually a book on philosophy
just sort of disguised as a silly humor
book but but actually the book it's
actually a
philosophy book
and
uh adams uh makes the point that
it's actually the
the question that is harder than the
answer
um you know this sort of makes a joke
that the answer was 42. um that number
does pop up a lot um
and 420 is just 10 14 10 10 times 10
times more significant than 42. okay
you know there's um you can make a
triangle with 42 or 42 degrees and two
69s
um
so there's no such thing as a perfect
triangle or is there
but even more important than the answer
is the questions that was the whole
theme of that book i mean is that yeah
basically how you see meaning then it's
the pursuit of questions yeah so i have
a sort of
you know a proposal for a world view or
a motivate a motivating philosophy which
is to understand
what questions to ask about the answer
that is the universe and the to agree
that we expand the scope and scale of
consciousness
uh
biological and digital
uh we will be better able to to uh ask
these
these questions to frame these questions
and to understand
why we're here how we got here what
what the heck is going on
and so that that is my driving
philosophy is to expand the scope and
scale of consciousness that we may
better understand the nature of the
universe
elon one of the things that was most
touching last week
was uh was seeing you hang out with your
kids um here's if i may
um
it looks vaguely like a ventriloquist
dummy there
[Laughter]
i mean how do you know that's real
um
so that's x and and you know you're it
was just a delight seeing seeing you
hang out with him and
what
what what what's his future
going to be i mean i don't mean him
personally but the world he's going to
grow up in
what future do you believe he will grow
up in
well i mean a very digital future
um
a very a different world than i grew up
in that's for sure
um
but i think we want to obviously do our
absolute best to ensure that the future
is good uh for everyone's children
um and
and that
you know that the future is something
that that you can look forward to and
not feel sad about
um
you know you want to get up in the
morning and be be excited about the
future and we should fight for the
things that make us excited about the
future you know the future cannot it
cannot just be that one
miserable thing after another solving
one sad problem after another there got
to be things that get you excited like
you're like you want to live
these things are very important
you should have more of it
and it's not as if it's a done deal like
it's all it's all to play for like the
future may be
horrible still there are scenarios where
it is horrible but you you see a pathway
to an exciting future both on earth and
on mars and
in our minds through artificial
intelligence and so forth i mean in your
in your heart of hearts do you really
believe that you are helping deliver
that exciting
future
for
ex and for
others
i'm trying my hardest to do so
i
you know
i love humanity and i think
that
we should fight for a good future for
humanity and i think we should be
optimistic about the future and fight to
make that optimistic optimistic future
happen
[Music]
i think that's that's the perfect place
to close this thank you so much for
spending time coming here and for the
work that you're doing and good luck
with finding a wise course through on
twitter and everything else all right
thank you
hey guys
[Music]
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