Are we live or I don't know. I assume we are. We're rolling. We're rolling. I'm rolling. Okay. You guys can talk. That's how I normally talk. I just go into randomly. So, okay. Well, it's good to see yours. You too. There you go. Yeah. Lovely country of Poland. Yeah, exactly. Didn't expect to meet a nice girl like you here, but it's here we are in Poland. Greatest world together. Exactly. So, I want to ask you about what feels like a giant war on the meritocracy, on achievement. You're the richest person in the world. You've started three of the biggest companies in history. Non-sovereign over not counting sovereign. Not count not and who would? Say I'm not richer than Putin from you know I'm just starting you know. Well yeah I mean I'm not start a war rich. Exactly. Exactly. Fewer assassinations high levels of wealth like all good. So, so, so why do you think right now there is such a war? And it seems like on all sides of the political aisle against people who achieve, against people who are smart, it feels like right now innovators are under attack. And again, it doesn't seem like that's super political. Seems like people on the right and people on the left have this giant theory that the economy that whoever succeeds in the economy must necessarily be rigging it, that innovators are somehow screwing the little guy. And what do you make of that? Where's that coming from?
Well, I mean, I think some of this is really just communism rebranded. You know, just with different marketing. Fundamental to the free market or capitalism is that is meritocracy. Like may the best product or service win and the best product or service will be made by the team that works the hardest as the most talented and that is what results in great products and services in a capitalist economy. And you know I always blows my mind when I discover that kids coming out of college in America who have had things very easy take communism actually seriously. It blows my mind. I thought it was a joke. In fact, I was on XFK at Twitter. I was joking about the ridiculousness of taking that seriously anymore. And then a whole bunch of people attacked me. Like, of course, it's serious. I'm like, what are you guys crazy? Just dust off your copy of Dusk Copel. Like, what are you kidding me? How many times has that experiment been run with terrible consequences? And generally for any given political philosophy you have to say which side has to build the wall to keep people in? That's the bad side. It's not subtle. It wasn't West Berlin that built the wall.
But you see this giant sort of there's like a giant mythmaking project that's taken place where if you are successful they now have to rewrite history about you. So you've gotten the you were apparently an emerald scion. You were you were brought uber wealthy inherited all your wealth. I'd like to see a picture of this mine. If everyone can dig this mine up, I'd love to see it.
First of all, the entire emerald industry is like worth a pittance. And I've never even seen this mine. This is some like random story that my dad made up basically. But my dad who has many talents I want to be clear he's an extremely talented engineer electrical and mechanical engineer and a very talented artist. I mean he could draw everything from like in the style of Rembrandt to watercolors to sketches anything. He could sketch this room and then say do a caricature of anyone and he'll do a character that matches their personality. He might be the best real-time artist I've ever seen. So he's got a lot of talents. But unfortunately he has a few screws loose. Faster don't we all. And he actually went bankrupt in the '90s. So my brother and I have been supporting him financially for the last 25 years and we've inherited nothing from him. So there's no anything. I arrived in Canada with just over $2,000 in Canadian travelers checks back when that was a thing, and one bag full of my clothes and a backpack full of books. Those were my entire possessions. That's how I started. Nothing more.
So why do you think people insist on rewriting the history, making it that you're an heir? I mean, I get some of the same thing on a minor level, right? So he air, right? To air is human. They say, but they air on the air. But there is something that's weird happening out there. You innovate and you make new things and there is a drive to hem in that innovation. I was recently talking with a pretty major political figure in the United States who's not of the left and he was suggesting for example that we need to outlaw automated driving because he's going to put truckers out of work because if we don't outlaw the new technologies this kind of elitism then people are going to be out of work. It's going to destroy the society and what we really have to focus on are the people who are going to be left behind by the technology. What do you make of that?
Well, first of all, I think ultimately if you have digital super intelligence, I'm not sure there's a job for anyone. So the whole AI discussion is a question in and of itself. No, I do think in a positive AI future, that there will be no shortage of goods and services. So it won't be universal basic income, it'll be universal high income. Now that all sounds good, but in terms of like the book Man's Search for Meaning, if to the degree that you're defined by your career, you may have trouble finding meaning in life. So that's the challenge is to have an existential crisis. It's like, well, how can I do anything useful if the computer could do everything better than me? That'll really be the challenge. Now, maybe that'll be fine. Maybe you just play, watch incredible movies, play video games, and do water sports, and computer just does everything else. That I guess that's the benign scenario.
Have you read Iain Banks? No. I highly recommend Iain Banks, the Culture books. It's probably the best semi-utopian future of AI where the computers are far smarter than humans, but they take care of the humans like they make they care about the humans being happy. So in that future, I mean I think one of the things you've talked about is the fact that the West is completely underreproducing. Not due to you personally, you've been very productive, but I have four kids, so we're both ahead of the curve. But that would be presumably one of the places where people will have to put their efforts and what's interesting is that the people who are putting their efforts in those directions tend to be by and large more religiously oriented. We're seeing the scientific humanist community has very few kids and religious people have many kids. The atheists are breathing themselves out. I talked to Richard Dawkins, you know, wrote The Selfish Gene, Blind Watchmaker, and coined the term meme I believe. And I said, well, so how many kids do you have Richard? Oh, one. Okay, so you're going to have one kid. Great. Yes, the birth rate tends to correlate with the degree to which someone is religious, the degree to which they have the least amount of education, and basically the poorer someone is, the less educated someone is, and the more religious they are, the more kids they will have. So those are objective correlates. So, I'm going to make the case to you on a religious level that the only one of those things that is possible to have in the West and not get rid of all the glories of the West is a belief in a higher power or in a religious belief of some sort because you can be rich and I mean like I'm doing pretty well. You can't be like a nihilist or something, right? Exactly. Like nihilism doesn't tend toward anything. And I know that you've thought a lot about that sort of stuff. And how do you get out of that sort of the nihilist box and find what to do?
Well, my religion for lack of a better word is one of curiosity. Where we want to expand the scope and scale of consciousness on Earth and beyond Earth and ultimately to other star systems. And in order to do that, we need to increase the number of conscious beings. And we need to advance technology such that we can have a self-sustaining city on Mars. Ultimately populate the whole solar system and then go beyond our solar system to other star systems. And therefore, we need more humans. Pretty simple.
That's an amazingly different goal than what we've had for the past.
Well, I propose this as a new philosophy. Not new, but maybe niche, but getting hopefully a bit bigger. So with that philosophy in mind, the purpose of that philosophy is that the more we expand the scope and scale of consciousness, the more we are able to understand the reality that we live in, the nature of the universe, and to answer the questions that we have and perhaps more importantly to know what questions we are not asking. As Douglas Adams would say in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the answer is the easy part, the question is the hard part. Answer is 42, what's the question? So I think that's a pretty optimistic positive philosophy. Also has a lot of room for other beliefs if you want to add them to, but the fundamental tenets of my belief structure are expand the scope and scale of consciousness. More people, I guess more computers too to the degree that they are conscious, and we want to pass through one of the great filters that you know, you familiar with the Fermi paradox and the great filters? No, okay. So Enrico Fermi, great amazing physicist, posed a very simple question. He said, where are the aliens? Because we've seen no sign of them. Now, a lot of people think they've seen signs of aliens. I have seen no evidence whatsoever of aliens. So, it's a troubling question. Why not? So, one of the answers, perhaps the most likely answer, is that the tiny candle of consciousness that constitutes humanity is all that there is in this vast darkness. And I think we should assume that that is the case until we actually affirm evidence to the contrary. And moreover, human consciousness only arose after 4 and a half billion years. So it took a long time and if it had taken even 10% longer it probably would not have evolved because the sun is expanding. As the sun expands, it'll start heating Earth and Earth will the oceans will evaporate, become more like Venus inhospitable to life. So I think we may have achieved consciousness just in time. I find it remarkable that we are at this point in history where we are able for the first time to go beyond Earth, to send people. We sent people to the moon in the early '70s but have not since gone back. But with the Starship rocket that SpaceX is developing, had two test flights. We'll have many more this year. That vehicle is designed to make life multiplanetary. It's the first vehicle that is capable of doing that. A permanent base on the moon and a city on Mars. So I think we want to get that done as soon as possible. The window of opportunity to make life multiplanetary and secure the future of consciousness may be open for a long time or it may be open for a short time. I think it would be wise to not assume that it'll be open for a long time. So act now to make life multiplanetary.
One of the things that's fascinating what you're saying is that it assumes an innate level of belief and love for human beings. Yes. And so I love humanity. So why I mean it's a weird question, but I mean really kind of why? I mean we're not that great. I mean we have amazing capabilities. No, but we can be angels, we can be devils. Obviously we have the capacity for all of the things in between. What do you think makes, aside from just the qualities that theoretically could be duplicated by AI in the very near future, what makes human beings unique and worthwhile?
I'll tell you something so that I think that maybe resonates. I think actually everyone loves humanity. Now they may not love everyone in humanity but you say how many people want to be in solitary confinement? Okay. How many people want to live alone in a forest by themselves? Almost no human beings want to do that. That actually in reality all humans love humanity and want to be part of humanity. With the rare exception of someone who's got severe psychological issues. So that's why solitary confinement is considered a terrible punishment in prison. Because even though other prisoners are probably not the finest examples of humans, you still want to hang out with them. So I think it's a natural thing. As long as kids aren't taught to hate other people, I think the natural inclination is to love humanity.
I want to go back to some of the business conversation, then I want to go back to the SpaceX of it. When it comes to business, what do you see as sort of the biggest obstacles to not only the success of your companies but to success generally because there seems to be this idea abroad that people can't duplicate the path that basically it used to be that people like you could succeed but now it's totally finished and now you can't get ahead. In America, nothing's changed in that regard as far as we're aware. There are new companies being formed all the time in the US. What do you see as the obstacles to companies being successful increasingly in the west if there are obstacles to that?
Well, I think excess regulation. Taxes do ratchet up every year making it a little difficult, a little harder every year as taxes ratchet up. But the regulatory creep is I think a massive danger. Laws and regulations are immortal. But the regulators and the lawmakers make new rules, regulations, and laws every year. And so you have this every year you've got another layer of laws, regulations. It starts getting to the point where everything's legal. You can't get anything done. Now you say, well, how did they deal with it in the past? Well, the way they dealt with it in the past would there'd be a war and the war would wash away the old rules, laws, and regulations. That would literally take a war to change things. Like Napoleon establishing the Napoleonic code from that overrode the old law systems of the lords and peasants. And for all the bad that Napoleon did, I think he did more good actually. The evidence is that maybe a third or a half of all countries on earth still run on the Napoleonic code. So, now we prefer to have some cleanup process for laws, regulations that doesn't require war. That would be nice. I think we need to institute basically garbage collection for laws and regulations.
One of the things that has been suggested there's a book called The Sovereign Individual written in the late '90s that basically suggested that we are entering the era of avoidance that people are going to be able to be sovereigns. You talked about sovereign wealth earlier. You're not king of something, but you are the head of your companies. And so in the future, people will just be able to move money around, locate where the regulations are the friendliest. And so the United States right now thinks that we have the advantage because we historically have. But that doesn't mean that that's how it's going to go in the future. You're seeing more and more companies, for example, going to Singapore or going elsewhere just to move away from those regulations. So avoidance, which wasn't the strategy in 17th century France, where you going to go exactly, is now a very real set of possibilities for a lot of entrepreneurs.
Yeah. Well, and regulation in the US varies by state as well. California is the most regulated state. So increasingly people seek to do things outside of California or outside of New York. Those are the two most heavily regulated states.
So given all those things, do you think that there's going to be a backlash to regulation in America or do you think that the west is sort of America being a stand-in for that sliding into this morass of regulation based on honestly looks like to a certain extent jealousy, it looks like trying to tear down success in the name of fairness as opposed to I mean there's two different things. There's regulations which are intended to serve the public good, rules against one thing or another. Like the car industry gets, has lots of rules in how to make a car. There'll be like piles of books in this room to cover just the US regulations what is required to build a car. Those are at least ostensibly aimed for safety. But in terms of other regulations, yeah, I think generally we want to be averse to any regulation that is anti-meritocratic. The point of fighting racism, sexism, and whatnot was not to replace it with another form of racism and sexism, but rather to get rid of racism and get rid of sexism, not change it to another form. And DEI is fundamentally racist and sexist.
I want to get back to the space conversation because that's fascinating. And I was telling you before we started this, my son is like the biggest SpaceX fan it's possible to be because what you're doing is inspiring on a truly galactic level. So when we talk about getting to Mars, how realistic do you think that is? There's a book that just came out, was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal talking about all of the various obstacles to human beings actually living on Mars, like we live in a pretty propitious place. The world is a pretty wonderful planet and so well suited to us. So, what are the biggest obstacles and what do you think the timeline is in terms of having a robust presence on other planets?
Well, we're hoping to have the first humans on the moon in less than 5 years. Mars maybe a little longer than 5 years. I'd be surprised if we don't have humans on Mars within 10 years. Wow. Yeah. And then we're going to aim to have a lot of humans and build a city on Mars and a base on the moon.
How do we mobilize that many resources there that quickly? That's a lot of resources necessary. It's not like you can draw from the environment in a lot of resources.
Now, I should say, in order to pass the Fermi great filter of being a multiplanet species, the second planet has to be self-sustaining. So the acid test being that if the resupply ships from Earth stop coming for any reason whatsoever, could be mundane or serious, will Mars die out or not. So basically Mars has to be completely self-sufficient in order to pass the great filter. The particular great filter I'm talking about is if something collapses happens to one planet, is humanity gone or not.
How long will it take for that to be self-sustaining when you say in 10 years people will be on Mars? Like 40-ish years. One of the things I think that captures the imagination about what you're doing is that you're speaking in ambitious terms that people have not spoken in the west for solidly half a century. I mean really it's an amazing thing. I say it so often, you say this stuff because it's you all the time, but the reality is that the last time people were talking about within a decade we're going to have a man on the moon was JFK talking at the beginning of the 1960s. It's been full on half a century since anybody talked like this. And I think people find it shocking. And I think maybe we should look at the other side of that. So both sides. One, what makes you different? And two, why do you think that dream went away? Why do you think it was that for half a century after we put a man on the moon, we just kind of receded back into whatever the hell was else going on?
Yeah. That's a long story, but the follow-up to the Saturn 5 was the space shuttle. Space shuttle could only go to low Earth orbit. The aspiration was to make it reusable but they unfortunately did not succeed in that goal. The space shuttle was so difficult to refurb that it ended up costing as much as a Saturn 5. And then the primary structure of the space shuttle orbiter system, that big orange tank, was actually a primary airframe because it takes the load from the orbiter and the side boosters, so you lose that every time. The side boosters land in the ocean and they're solid rocket boosters so they have to get back to the factory to get solid propellant loaded in. Cut a long story short, the cost per flight of the shuttle ended up being roughly the same as a Saturn 5 expendable. So the shuttle had about a quarter of the payload to orbit and could not reach the moon. So it had some noble ideas at the start, but ultimately it was not a good design. So, and then the shuttle retired obviously and then we had nothing. That curve is not a good curve going from the moon to low Earth orbit to nothing. That does not extrapolate to being a multiplanet species. So that's why I started SpaceX is to try to reverse that trend and get us back on to doing exciting things in space again. Things that make people excited to get up in the morning and say, 'Yes, humanity is going to do some amazing thing in space.'
And one of the things that's so impressive about SpaceX is not just the aspiration, but the fact that it's a successful business and that you realized very early on that it's not enough to have the aspiration, I mean, it was a government that put a person on the moon. That's not the same thing as actually being able to build a self-sustaining business that actually has the capacity in a profit-driven model to do something like that.
Yeah. I mean, to be clear, at the start of SpaceX, I gave us a less than 10% chance of success. I thought we'd probably die. But I think if something's important enough, it's worth doing even if you think it's going to fail. And we almost did fail. The first three launches of our small rocket failed. Only the fourth one succeeded and if that fourth one had failed we would be dead. So it's close. At this point, knock on wood, SpaceX is quite prosperous. SpaceX did about 80% of all payload to orbit last year of Earth. China did about 12% and the rest of the world did 8%. So in this year if things go well, SpaceX will do 90% of all payload to Earth. And then as Starship really takes off, SpaceX will be doing at least based on what other companies are currently doing which is around 3-400 tons to orbit. SpaceX ultimately will be doing several hundred thousand tons to orbit, maybe a million tons to orbit.
It's amazing and what you mentioned there that it's a sort of skin of the teeth thing. I mean that's been true in a lot of companies that you've worked with. I mean that was true in Tesla also that it was a real skin of the teeth thing. And so maybe you can talk a little bit about what does that feel like? I mean as a CEO and you're a person who is a professional. You must do you enjoy the risk? Do you enjoy that stress level?
I don't see risk for risk's sake. Tesla had many close calls with death. The natural state of a car company in America is dead. I mean, the only two car companies that have not gone bankrupt are Ford and Tesla. GM and Chrysler went bankrupt in 2009. There have been hundreds of car bankruptcies before. So, it's one of those things where, like I said, the natural state of a car company is dead. So, you have to keep pulling rabbits out of a hat to not be dead.
Do you think that your personality is suited to that and that's why you're successful at this? That you think that's unique to the companies you pick that you're pulling rabbits out of hats or is it that every company is pulling rabbits out of hats?
Pull so many rabbits out of the hat, it's like a arc of rabbits flying through the air. I mean, I'm good at solving technology problems. So, and rockets and cars are both technology problems. Have a very strong team that work with me. And, yeah, so far so good. And now on to X, which is its own set of issues and difficulties, right?
You come in and for many of us it was like you're coming in to save free speech and it was I think really a signal moment because it is very clear that there is a censorious hand that's been placed on all of these tech companies and you came in and you said we're going to open this place up and you definitely did. And the blowback has been absolutely wild. I mean really tremendous and pretty clearly coincident with the amount of mainstream media hatred of you. You went from being Golden Boy, Time magazine, Newsweek, we all love you. Everyone loves you. SNL, right? Like every now if SNL had you on, there might be a riot in the street because apparently by opening up free speech, you've I mean, I think there's like a small section of the sort of elite media that hate me. But if I go down if I walk down the street, people are real super friendly. So I think the average citizen is a fan or certainly doesn't hate me. I mean I am the most followed account, most interacted account in social media by far. So I think technically there's people on Instagram with more followers but in terms of interactions, I'm the most interacted with social media account on earth. I think I recently passed 169 million followers. So, can 169 million people be wrong?
