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Elon Musk
Founder, CEO, Chief Technology Officer & Board Chair, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)

BREAKING: Elon Musk And Jensen Huang Speak At America.Gov Event, An AI-Powered Government Website

📅 Sep 29, 2026 Forbes Breaking News 26 MIN 512735 VIEWS 37 SEGMENTS · 4 SPEAKERS
Elon Musk and Jensen Huang spoke at an America.gov event on Tuesday. Stay Connected Forbes Breaking News on X: https://x.com/ForbesTVNews Forbes Breaking News on TikTok:   / forbestvnews   More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

What Elon Musk said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Elon Musk and Jensen Huang discussed the future of super intelligence (SI) at an America.gov event. Musk emphasized the need for massive energy scaling, noting China has about three times the electricity production of the U.S. He argued that a 1% increase in power usage corresponds to roughly a 1% increase in GDP, and that SpaceX aims to produce 200 gigawatts of solar power per year, with orbital compute as a key long-term goal. Huang described SI factories as reindustrializing America, creating about a million jobs, and introduced Nvidia's OpenShell containment system and Bluefield monitoring chip for SI safety. Musk reported Starship's first orbital flight, deploying Starlink V3 satellites, and expected weekly or twice-weekly cadence next year. Both signed a joint declaration on SI safety at the White House.

Key takeaways

  1. Musk said China has about three times the electricity production of the U.S., making energy the central long-term challenge.
  2. Musk bet that a 1% increase in power usage corresponds to roughly a 1% increase in GDP, with 10 gigawatts adding 2% to GDP.
  3. SpaceX and Tesla aim to produce 200 gigawatts of solar power per year, with orbital compute as a key future application.
  4. Starship reached orbit for the first time, deploying Starlink V3 satellites, and is expected to reach weekly or twice-weekly cadence next year.

Numbers and commitments

FigureWhat it refers toTypeAt
200 gigawatts annual solar production target for SpaceX and Tesla commitment 6:18
10 gigawatts incremental power that would add 2% to U.S. GDP metric 4:27
1% increase in power usage corresponding to 1% GDP increase metric 4:27
500 gigawatts average U.S. power consumption metric 4:27
10 to 20 gigawatts a year rate of building SI factories in the U.S. metric 8:27
$250 million water recycling plant built by SpaceX commitment 10:24

Chapters

  1. 0:00Energy as the foundation for super intelligence
  2. 3:02China's energy advantage and U.S. response
  3. 4:27Power and GDP correlation
  4. 6:18Orbital compute and solar power
  5. 8:27SI factories and reindustrialization
  6. 10:24Community impact of data centers
  7. 12:55SI safety framework and new technologies
  8. 16:22Starship's first orbital flight
  9. 20:14Super intelligence for ordinary Americans
  10. 24:29White House declaration on SI safety

Questions asked in this interview

8
  1. 2:56Elon, how do we win? How do we keep winning?
  2. 4:02So can you talk about that?
  3. 10:11How do you think about that?
  4. 16:11But Elon, if the Starship's going to be a big part of those 200 gigawatts, what can you tell us about Monday's flight, what you learned, how you're feeling about the program?
  5. 19:42And what's it going to be able to do in a year?
  6. 20:14How are you seeing super intelligence helping ordinary Americans, and what do you think it'll do in a year or two?
  7. 23:00Are we allowed to say anything controversial?
  8. 24:29Is there anything that you can share with the world about what came out of what was evidently a long and productive lunch?
Host 0:01 ↗
Hey team. Oh gee. Are we late, guys? Good to be here. Go America. Go America. Team America.com. Yes indeed. So America, right, brothers. First man on the moon. The internet. The two of us. Wright brothers. I like that. Indeed. We've essentially led every major technological revolution, which has been to the enormous benefit of America, ordinary Americans. We're, I guess, we're now calling this super intelligence, which I think is actually good branding. And so let's talk about how America wins this and we make that winning good for ordinary Americans. Well, um, excuse me, Diet Coke. Sorry.
Jensen Huang 0:51 ↗
So first of all, artificial super intelligence, super intelligence is a complete reinvention of the computing stack. Everything from the way the processors, the chips are designed and the way they operate, to the way software is now trained and developed, to the way that the applications are able to perform what they're able to do and how they perform. Every single layer of the computing stack has been reinvented. This way of doing computing, unlike previous ways of retrieving information, this is a generative approach to computing, and therefore in order for us to succeed, the first thing we need is energy, because we need the energy to run the compute. The compute runs the algorithms. The algorithms then feed the applications. And so at the foundational layer is energy, and from that energy we build the land, power, and shell that host the infrastructure, so on and so forth. And so the way we win, of course, we are world class in chip design. We're world class in algorithm development. And so one of the things that we need to do is just be vigilant about enabling power delivery and power generation to happen. And President Trump has been visionary in being pro-energy. Without the pro-energy vision of President Trump, it would have been impossible for us to build the data centers on top of it. Now, of course, these data centers are coming online so quickly. We're coming into a lot of neighborhoods and a lot of communities. We have to do a better job in partnering with the communities and to bring them along and make them part of the prosperity and the success of this industrial revolution. But you know, that's how we win. You know, we got to build the world's best chips. We got to build it. We have to have lots and lots of energy. Create incredible algorithms. And then lastly, make sure that America is enthusiastic about the technology so that we diffuse it into all of these various industries, from manufacturing to healthcare, you know, space exploration, so on and so forth.
Host 2:56 ↗
Awesome. Elon, how do we win? How do we keep winning?
Elon Musk 3:02 ↗
Well, we need a lot of power, a lot of energy generation. So, scaling energy, I think, is one of the biggest things. You've got to scale energy, you've got to scale chip production. And I think we're winning on software, on anything intellectual or digital. But in the long run, we need to be able to generate enough power to compete with... I think essentially China is the biggest competitor, and China has about three times the electricity production of the United States. And I think we'll figure out how to make chips. So the really central challenge, I think, long term is going to be how do you generate enough power, and how do you ensure that we have enough logic and memory fabrication capacity in the United States or in a safe region?
Host 4:02 ↗
Well, you are... we need the Wright brothers on the job. Yes. Well, it turns out the Wright brothers are on the job. Elon, if you bring on 10 gigawatts, which SpaceX has discussed publicly, that'll be about 25% of all the power added in America. And I know you have literal rocket engineers working on bringing on the power. Helping make the turbines. So can you talk about that?
Elon Musk 4:27 ↗
Yeah, it's... I mean, just to frame this, the average power consumption in the United States is about 500 gigawatts. So every 5 gigawatts of incremental steady-state production is a 1% increase in the power used, and I think actually will materialize to be approximately a 1% increase in GDP, because the intelligence per watt keeps increasing. So if you just plot on a curve how is the useful intelligence per watt increasing, both at the hardware level, at Jensen's GPUs keep getting better in terms of the compute per watt, and the algorithms also get better in using and getting more intelligence per watt. So I think that's maybe an interesting note. I would bet anyone that a 1% increase in power usage corresponds to roughly a 1% increase in GDP, and so 10 gigawatts will be a 2% increase in GDP, with the Reuben, I think. So...
Host 5:32 ↗
Well, let's do the simple math. So each gigawatt can probably generate about, call it, 40 to 50 billion dollars of economic output each year.
Elon Musk 5:44 ↗
Uh, yeah, I mean, 1% would be... yeah, I mean...
Host 5:48 ↗
1% of the United States would be...
Elon Musk 5:51 ↗
300 billion.
Host 5:51 ↗
Yeah. 300 billion. And so 50 to 60... what, 1% of the 1% increase. So 5 gigawatts would be... Yeah. Well, 5 gigawatts would be 300 billion. Yeah. Exactly. 60 billion a gig. Yeah. That's right. The math maths. Yeah. That's what we're good at. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So that's quite... not good at too many other things, but math.
Elon Musk 6:18 ↗
Um, yeah. I mean, it's going to increase quite dramatically year-over-year. So, yeah. I mean, and from a SpaceX standpoint, we're looking at long-term, how do we access a lot more energy than could be accessed on the ground, and that's with space. So, orbital compute is going to be a very big deal. In fact, and Google agrees. They just actually sent up, or are either about to or soon about to send up some TPUs. I think there was an H100 that was put into orbit like last year, I think. So it does work in space, and SpaceX is aiming together with Tesla to do 200 gigawatts of solar production per year. And if brought to space, you get the nameplate or better on the solar power, whereas if it's on the ground you're going to get somewhere between a fifth and an eighth of the solar power generation, and you need enormous batteries. So whereas it's essentially always sunny in space. And right now is a great time to do it because the economic returns of these computing systems are so good that the launch cost, although still quite high, in terms of the overall economic benefit is quite affordable.
Host 7:44 ↗
Absolutely. This is the perfect time to do it. Putting Nvidia computing in space is the best way to get there. Yeah. Climbing the card of scale with American power and American chips on American rockets. I love it. Yeah. So Jensen, you said something that I thought was important about how when we bring the energy to all these small towns, we're reindustrializing America. We're revitalizing small towns. We're modernizing the grid. These are things that essentially every American politician has wanted for the last 35 years. What would you say? What are some specifics you can give about how data centers are good for ordinary Americans in the communities and how they're getting better for those communities?
Jensen Huang 8:27 ↗
Yeah, we used to call them data centers. We call them data centers because that's where we hold data. But the things that we're building now, these are really SI factories, super intelligence factories. And the reason why it's a factory is because you're producing something of economic value. You're just not storing it. And so these SI factories are real factories. It's like a big giant power generator and real factories. It's got a lot of computing in there, networking in there, power generation, cooling systems. It's complicated things. And so we're building out, you know, just as the internet today allows you to find anything anywhere, in the future with these AI, excuse me, SI infrastructure, SI factories, you'll be able to know anything and do anything from anywhere. And so now we're building this infrastructure out, and you know, call it across all of the United States, somewhere between 10 to 20 gigawatts a year. Let's just estimate that creates just, you know, probably about a million jobs in building out these data centers. Don't forget you've got to build the power generation plants. You've got to build the data centers. You've got construction. You've got, you know, power cooling. You've got, you know, pipe fitters. And so this is the first time in probably, as you mentioned, 35, I was going to say 50 years, first time in 50 years we are re-industrializing the United States, creating a whole bunch of blue-collar jobs. And I think we want an economy that has a shape that includes white-collar jobs and blue-collar jobs, not just white-collar jobs. And so I think that this is our great chance of reshaping our economy and bringing that type of builders and craft back into the United States.
Host 10:11 ↗
Absolutely. And it feels like what Colossus and Macrohard and Macroharder have done have been amazing for the communities around them, the jobs they've created. How do you think about that?
Elon Musk 10:24 ↗
Uh, yeah, I mean, the economic impact, positive economic impact has been tremendous. I mean, there's actually a job shortage in the region, and whereas there used to be quite a bit of unemployment, and now there's over-employment, if you will, there's more jobs than there are people. And the tax benefits for the community have been tremendous. I think we might have doubled their tax budget or something, quite tremendous. Then we do like small things that are helpful, like provide, you know, low-price, half-price Starlink access. We're building a water recycling plant that's a $250 million water recycling plant. I think you do need to do things for the community. And if you do so, they will reciprocate.
Host 11:13 ↗
Awesome. Now, one of the things that people forget is that for the first time in probably forever, we have the market forces to support the investment of sustainable energy. You give me an example of a fusion, fission, you know, small nuclear reactor, large reactor, almost every form of sustainable energy is being funded today. And so we have the opportunity to fund the future of energy without the government subsidizing. Right. I mean, you give me an example of a great energy battery storage idea, it's going to get funded. Awesome. By the way, on behalf of all Americans, I want to thank both of you. I think combined you have created more than 5 trillion dollars of wealth for ordinary Americans in their 401ks. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of jobs directly, many tens of billions of wages. So thank you.
Elon Musk 12:13 ↗
I think Jensen has done 5 trillion by himself, actually. I'm sorry. I think Jensen's done 5 trillion by himself. I think around 3.5 or something. Yeah. I was trying to be conservative. Yes.

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Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX
APA

Musk, E. (2026, September 29). BREAKING: Elon Musk And Jensen Huang Speak At America.Gov Event, An AI-Powered Government Website [Interview transcript]. Forbes Breaking News. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2951260/

MLA

Elon Musk. "BREAKING: Elon Musk And Jensen Huang Speak At America.Gov Event, An AI-Powered Government Website." Forbes Breaking News, 29 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2951260/.

BibTeX
@misc{musk2026_2951260,
  author       = {Elon Musk},
  title        = {BREAKING: Elon Musk And Jensen Huang Speak At America.Gov Event, An AI-Powered Government Website},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Forbes Breaking News. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {sep},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2951260/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}