Verdict with Ted Cruz - Complete Interview-A Sit Down w Elon Musk at the WH Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.440 Welcome.

00:00:06.120 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.060 And this is a special week in review.

00:00:12.340 We had the awesome opportunity to sit down with Elon Musk at the White House.

00:00:17.300 And we did it as a two-part series this week.

00:00:19.820 Some of you may have missed it or you may want to share that with your family and your friends.

00:00:23.940 So if you would do us a favor, because what Elon Musk had to say, we want everyone to hear it.

00:00:29.320 It's a lot of info the media refuses to cover.

00:00:32.800 Now, the good news is this interview went viral on X.

00:00:36.840 But if you are on other social media platforms, please share this podcast right now so that everyone can hear what Musk said about waste, fraud, and abuse in our government.

00:00:47.060 He also had some amazing things to talk about when it comes to colonizing Mars and the idea that it may actually become a reality.

00:00:54.860 So grab this and share it.

00:00:56.820 This is the entire interview uninterrupted with Elon Musk at the White House.

00:01:02.700 Well, we're in the White House right now.

00:01:04.900 And we're here with my friend Elon Musk, who really has not been doing much of anything, has not made any news, and nobody has noticed the impact.

00:01:15.020 Welcome, Elon.

00:01:16.160 Thank you. 0.94

00:01:16.580 Holy crap. 0.97

00:01:17.980 Yes. 0.99

00:01:18.380 Let me just say.

00:01:21.280 Never a dull moment.

00:01:22.220 Never a dull moment.

00:01:23.520 The first 50 days the president has spent in office over the top and the first 50 days you've spent, I don't think there's ever been anyone to have an impact the way you have at the beginning.

00:01:35.220 Let me start with a question you know a lot about.

00:01:37.400 Which was worse, the mess you found at Twitter or the mess you found in the federal government?

00:01:44.020 Well, it's hard to compete with the federal government.

00:01:46.720 What surprised you about the federal government?

00:01:48.560 I assume you came in and assumed it was bad.

00:01:51.020 Is it worse than you expected?

00:01:52.280 It is worse than I expected, but on the plus side, that means there's more opportunity for improvement.

00:01:59.560 So, if you look on the bright side, there's actually a lot of opportunity for improvement in federal government expenditures because it's so bad.

00:02:08.820 If it was a well-run ship, it would be very difficult to improve.

00:02:12.460 So, now it's like people say, well, how will you figure out how to save money in the federal government?

00:02:17.540 Well, it's like being in a room where the walls, the roof, and the floor are all targets.

00:02:23.220 You should in any direction, you can't miss.

00:02:26.600 Wow.

00:02:27.260 Again, I'm sure you would agree.

00:02:29.240 So, a lot of folks have talked about like, you can't miss.

00:02:33.020 You can't miss.

00:02:34.600 This is going in any direction.

00:02:37.060 A lot of the crazy expenditures, things like two million bucks for sex change surgeries in Guatemala.

00:02:42.700 An essential.

00:02:43.260 An essential.

00:02:44.380 You know, transgendered mice and Sesame Street in Iraq. 0.90

00:02:49.860 A lot of that has gotten attention.

00:02:51.240 But some of the stuff you've told me about, like tell us about computer licenses and government agencies.

00:02:57.260 Yeah.

00:02:57.640 So, most of what Doge is finding, you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes.

00:03:01.040 It's very obvious, basic stuff.

00:03:03.160 So, in every government department, I say every because we've not yet found a single exception, there are far too many software licenses and media subscriptions, meaning many more software licenses and media subscriptions than there are humans in the department.

00:03:19.920 Like you were saying, like an agency with 15,000 people might have 30,000 licenses.

00:03:24.640 Yes.

00:03:24.920 And even of the 15,000 employees, a good chunk of them hadn't used the license, had never logged on or used the application.

00:03:33.940 Yes.

00:03:34.740 We found entire situations of software licenses or media subscriptions where there were zero logins.

00:03:42.620 Wow.

00:03:42.760 So, it had that.

00:03:43.520 And yet we were paying for it.

00:03:44.580 Yes.

00:03:45.040 So, the government was paying for thousands of licenses of software or media subscriptions and no one had ever logged in even once.

00:03:52.680 Or like credit cards.

00:03:53.560 You found the same thing with government credit cards.

00:03:55.560 We found that there are twice as many credit cards as there are humans.

00:03:59.560 And I still don't have a good explanation for why this is the case.

00:04:03.280 And these are $10,000 limit cards.

00:04:06.040 So, it's a lot of money.

00:04:07.500 Is it incompetence that you're finding or is this like the biggest money laundering scheme in the history of the world that you're finding?

00:04:15.200 Look, I think it's mostly, if you say, look, what's the waste to fraud ratio?

00:04:20.140 Yeah.

00:04:20.320 In my opinion, it's like 80% waste, 20% fraud.

00:04:24.920 But you do have these sort of gray areas.

00:04:28.340 Yeah.

00:04:28.800 Example.

00:04:29.720 Example would be, so, we saw a lot of payments going out of treasury that had no payment code and no explanation for the payment.

00:04:39.220 And then we're trying to figure out what that payment is and we'd see that, okay, that contract was supposed to be shut off, but someone forgot to shut off that contract.

00:04:50.460 And so, the company kept getting money.

00:04:52.980 Wow.

00:04:53.420 Now, is that waste or fraud?

00:04:56.700 Yeah, both.

00:04:57.340 Both.

00:04:58.000 Yeah.

00:04:58.400 Yeah.

00:04:58.600 I mean, both.

00:04:59.240 It's sort of a gray area.

00:05:00.320 If you know you're getting something you're not supposed to get.

00:05:02.360 You're not supposed to get it, but the government sent it to you and nobody from the government asked for it back.

00:05:08.580 Take, for example, the $1.9 billion given to Stacey Abrams, a fake NGO.

00:05:14.060 Utter insanity.

00:05:15.400 Explain that.

00:05:16.040 That's corrupt.

00:05:17.320 But that's corrupt.

00:05:19.020 That's just corrupt, I think.

00:05:20.400 That's paying off cronies at that point.

00:05:22.220 1,000%.

00:05:22.780 Yeah.

00:05:23.400 Yeah.

00:05:23.740 And by the way, she knew.

00:05:25.140 Like, when you get $2 billion, you don't miss that.

00:05:27.520 Yeah.

00:05:27.640 That's not.

00:05:28.180 It's not an accident.

00:05:29.920 Allegedly, it was for, like, you know, environmentally friendly appliances or something.

00:05:34.760 And they've given, like, 100 appliances so far for $2 billion.

00:05:39.100 It's a very expensive toaster.

00:05:40.440 But they're really nice.

00:05:41.340 One hell of an appliance.

00:05:42.580 That's some zero fridge. 0.83

00:05:43.920 Boy, it's nice.

00:05:44.660 Right.

00:05:45.080 This is obviously one of the biggest scam fraud holes we've uncovered, which is really

00:05:50.420 crazy, is that the government can give money to a so-called non-profit with very few controls.

00:06:00.340 And there's no auditing subsequently of that non-profit.

00:06:03.480 So there's no, so this is with the, you know, 1.9 billion to Stacey Abrams, who's, they then

00:06:10.620 give themselves extremely lavish, like, insane salaries, expense everything to the non-profit,

00:06:17.800 you know, buy jets and homes and all sorts of things.

00:06:20.760 Live like kings and queens.

00:06:22.100 Yes.

00:06:22.580 On the taxpayer dime.

00:06:23.620 Correct.

00:06:24.300 You mentioned.

00:06:25.120 And this is happening at scale.

00:06:26.480 It's not just one or two.

00:06:27.720 We're seeing this everywhere.

00:06:28.780 Now, one of the things you told me about is what you call it magic money computers.

00:06:34.560 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:06:36.060 So tell us about it, because I'd never heard of that until you brought that up.

00:06:39.400 Okay.

00:06:39.740 So you may think that these, that the government computers, like, all talk to each other.

00:06:45.380 They synchronize.

00:06:46.220 They, they add up what funds are going somewhere, and it's, you know, it's coherent that, that,

00:06:52.940 that, that, you know, there's, and that, and that the numbers, for example, that you're

00:06:56.760 presented as a senator.

00:06:57.940 Yeah.

00:06:58.320 Are actually the real numbers.

00:07:00.500 In, one would think.

00:07:01.500 One would think.

00:07:02.040 They're, they're not.

00:07:02.760 Yeah.

00:07:02.940 Okay.

00:07:05.520 I mean, they're not totally wrong, but they're probably off by 5% or 10% in some cases.

00:07:11.000 So I call a magic money computer any computer which can just make money out of thin air.

00:07:14.880 That's magic money.

00:07:16.980 So how does that work?

00:07:18.220 It just issues payments.

00:07:20.560 And you said there's something like 11 of these computers at Treasury that are, that

00:07:24.180 are sending out trillions in, in payments?

00:07:26.380 They're mostly at Treasury.

00:07:27.700 Some are, there's some at HHS, some at, there's one at, one or two at State, there's some at

00:07:35.540 DOD.

00:07:36.720 I think we found now 14 magic money computers.

00:07:40.480 14, okay.

00:07:41.200 They just send money out of nothing.

00:07:43.600 You have an ability to see where leverage points are and, and how things actually happen.

00:07:51.520 So I remember back, I think it was September, October of this year, before the election,

00:07:55.400 we didn't know who was going to win.

00:07:56.520 And I, I was at your house in Austin.

00:07:58.400 We were talking about it.

00:07:59.260 And, and, and you said, you said, look, I, I don't want a job in, in Washington.

00:08:03.780 And you said, all I want is the login for every computer.

00:08:06.060 And I remember thinking at the time that sounded kind of weird.

00:08:09.560 Like, I just didn't get it.

00:08:11.060 And I have to say what, what's interesting on this, if I would have thought like, okay,

00:08:17.460 how do you reform government?

00:08:18.780 Like sort of the traditional way to think about it is, okay, give me an org chart.

00:08:22.140 Let me sit down with the people who are running agencies.

00:08:24.300 And, and what you saw immediately is to understand what's really going on, get to the payment

00:08:30.520 systems, get to the computers.

00:08:32.460 Yeah.

00:08:32.860 Like, like why are, why is getting to the computers so critical to understanding what's actually

00:08:39.940 happening?

00:08:40.980 Well, the government is run by computers.

00:08:43.200 So you've got essentially several hundred computers that effectively run the government.

00:08:48.780 Um, and if you want to know, did you know that Ben?

00:08:51.780 No.

00:08:52.240 Like, yeah.

00:08:53.280 So when somebody, like even when the president issues an executive order, that's going to

00:08:57.120 go through a whole bunch of people until ultimately it is implemented at a computer somewhere.

00:09:01.700 And if you want to know what, what the situation is with the accounting and you're trying to

00:09:05.600 reconcile accounting and get rid of waste and fraud, you must be able to analyze the computer

00:09:09.500 databases.

00:09:10.360 Otherwise you can't figure it out.

00:09:12.220 Um, because all you're doing is asking a human who will then ask another human, ask another

00:09:17.020 human, and finally, usually ask some contractor who will ask another contractor to do a query

00:09:21.700 on the computer.

00:09:23.280 Wow.

00:09:24.260 That's how it actually works.

00:09:25.720 So it's many layers deep.

00:09:27.400 Um, so the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to, um, to

00:09:33.060 actually look at the computers and see what's going on.

00:09:35.340 So you, that's what I call it.

00:09:37.260 That's like, that's what I, when I sort of cryptically referred to reprogramming the matrix,

00:09:42.920 you have to understand what's going at the computers.

00:09:44.980 You have to reconcile the computer databases, uh, in order to identify the waste and fraud.

00:09:49.260 I don't know that there was anyone in Congress who understood, certainly myself included,

00:09:56.480 who understood the leverage that comes from the computer and the data in particular, that,

00:10:02.960 that Congress would think about, give me a report on what your expenditures are, rather

00:10:07.480 than actually getting into the pipes. 0.98

00:10:09.380 And I think that has been fascinating that it's let you uncover a bunch of crap that 0.62

00:10:14.620 just nobody knew. 0.90

00:10:16.300 Yes.

00:10:17.440 I mean, in order for money to go to a bank account, it's, it's not like we're sending

00:10:21.240 truckloads of cash all over the place.

00:10:23.540 It's a, we're wiring money.

00:10:25.720 Right.

00:10:26.020 We're sending money through the ACH system or through the SWIFT system.

00:10:28.820 So in order for money to flow, it's going to flow electronically.

00:10:31.920 So that's, that's what you need to look at.

00:10:33.380 You need to look at the, the, the actual electronic money flows.

00:10:36.080 And Tesla and all your companies, you have accounting and you have every expenditure,

00:10:39.840 you have it coded for what it's going for.

00:10:42.480 Federal government doesn't work that way.

00:10:43.900 They don't code what the money's going for.

00:10:45.080 They do now.

00:10:45.960 But they didn't.

00:10:46.900 They didn't.

00:10:48.060 And, and like one of the things that, that, that you told me, you said, if any company

00:10:51.740 kept its books the way the federal government does, they'd arrest the officers and put them

00:10:56.260 in jail.

00:10:56.680 Yes.

00:10:57.160 If it was a public company, it would be delisted immediately.

00:10:59.580 It would fail its audit.

00:11:00.740 And the, the officers of the company would be imprisoned.

00:11:03.440 And that's the level of malfeasance in the federal government, unfortunately.

00:11:07.980 It's, it's, it's, um, deliberately, or do you think this is incompetence again?

00:11:11.880 It's 80%.

00:11:12.700 It's 80% incompetence or, and 20% malice.

00:11:17.320 If you look at Doge now and you look at the government and what you're finding, what percentage

00:11:23.080 have you guys even gotten to?

00:11:25.260 And how much of it is Mars where you haven't even gotten there yet because there's so much

00:11:29.400 you're finding out here.

00:11:30.640 I mean, how many, you seem like a timeline guy when you say, all right, I want to get

00:11:33.920 in there and get all these, you know, numbers and things.

00:11:36.640 How far are we from the end game where you've seen it all, been able to process it all and

00:11:42.300 fix it?

00:11:43.420 I mean, are we years away, months away?

00:11:46.300 Uh, not years.

00:11:47.520 I mean, I'm reasonably confident that we'll be able to get a trillion dollars of waste and

00:11:53.560 fraud out.

00:11:54.220 Uh, and that, that meaning that it will have, we'll have a net savings in FY26, which starts

00:12:01.320 in October, obviously, um, of, of a trillion dollars.

00:12:04.620 Wow.

00:12:04.920 Provided we're allowed to, we're allowed to continue and, and we're, and our progress is

00:12:08.360 not impeded.

00:12:09.180 And, and, and we're very public about what we do.

00:12:11.200 Yeah.

00:12:11.420 You put it on the website.

00:12:12.600 It's on the website.

00:12:13.500 I don't know how we could be more transparent.

00:12:14.840 Uh, literally every action we do, small or large, we put on the doge.gov website, uh,

00:12:21.040 and we post on, on the X handle.

00:12:23.260 Um, and when people complain about it, I, I, I, and they say, oh, you're doing something

00:12:26.700 on costum?

00:12:27.220 I'm like, well, which of these cost savings?

00:12:28.840 You're doing it in the daylight.

00:12:29.960 I mean, everyone knows exactly what you're doing.

00:12:32.160 Extreme transparency.

00:12:33.220 Yeah.

00:12:34.060 Um, I don't think it's, anything's been this transparent ever.

00:12:37.300 So five years ago, you were a hero to the left.

00:12:41.180 You were cool.

00:12:42.520 You had electric cars.

00:12:43.780 You had space.

00:12:45.560 And in five years, you've got, I could go to a party in Hollywood and not get dirty

00:12:49.000 looks.

00:12:49.420 Yeah.

00:12:50.000 In fact, uh, yeah.

00:12:51.180 And now you might not even get invited.

00:12:53.240 I think it's invited, but I don't know if I should go.

00:12:56.960 And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say today, after Donald Trump, the left hates

00:13:03.880 you more than any person on earth.

00:13:05.520 Uh, yes.

00:13:06.220 I appear to be number two.

00:13:07.600 I mean, if you're judged by the various signs, they, um, it's derangements.

00:13:12.200 It's Trump derangement syndrome and Elon derangement syndrome.

00:13:15.080 Yes.

00:13:15.220 How is that for you?

00:13:16.300 That's a little bit of whiplash of going from being like Mr. Cool to the devil incarnate

00:13:22.420 in just a couple of years.

00:13:23.700 Is that, is that kind of weird to experience that transformation?

00:13:26.660 Yes.

00:13:27.780 Why do they hate you so much?

00:13:29.940 Well, because we're, we're clearly over the target.

00:13:34.060 If those was ineffective, if we were not actually getting rid of a bunch of wasting fraud and

00:13:39.180 a bunch of that fraud, uh, I mean, the fraud we're seeing is overwhelmingly on the, on the

00:13:45.640 left.

00:13:46.140 Mm-hmm.

00:13:46.700 I mean, it's, it's, it's not zero on the right, but, uh, these NGOs are almost all left-wing

00:13:52.200 NGOs that are being funded, for example.

00:13:53.920 Yep.

00:13:54.400 Um, so they, they hate me because Doge is being effective.

00:13:59.800 Um, and Doge is getting rid of a lot of, uh, wasting fraud that they were, that people

00:14:05.260 in the left were taking advantage of, that, that's, that's, that's what it comes out of.

00:14:08.560 And, and the, the, the single biggest thing that they're, that they're worried about is

00:14:12.860 that, um, Doge is going, is going to turn off fraudulent payments of entitlements.

00:14:19.160 Uh, I mean, everything from social security, Medicare, uh, you know, unemployment, disability,

00:14:26.180 uh, small business administration loans, turn them off to, uh, illegals. 0.52

00:14:31.540 This is the crux of the matter.

00:14:33.660 Yep.

00:14:33.940 Okay.

00:14:34.160 This is, this is the, this is the thing that, why, why they really hit my guts and want me 0.96

00:14:38.460 to die.

00:14:39.420 Um, and do you think that's billions, hundreds of billions?

00:14:42.600 What do you think the scale is of that?

00:14:44.400 I think across the country, it's, it's in the, it's well worth of a hundred billion, maybe

00:14:48.200 200 billion.

00:14:49.640 Um, so, uh, by, by using entitlements fraud, the Democrats have been able to attract and

00:14:58.140 retain vast numbers of illegal immigrants.

00:15:02.060 And, and by voters.

00:15:03.340 And, and by voters.

00:15:05.560 Exactly.

00:15:05.880 The, the, basically bring in, I don't know, 10, 20 million, uh, people who are beholden

00:15:12.800 to the Democrats for government handouts.

00:15:15.140 And, and we'll vote overwhelmingly Democrat, as has been demonstrated in California.

00:15:20.100 This is, it's an election strategy.

00:15:23.000 Yes.

00:15:23.500 It's power.

00:15:24.200 Yes.

00:15:24.660 And, and it doesn't take much to turn the swing states blue.

00:15:27.700 I mean, often a swing state might be won by 10, 20,000 votes.

00:15:30.940 Sure.

00:15:31.100 So if the Dems can bring in 200,000 illegals and over time get them legal, legalized, not, 0.93

00:15:37.340 not counting any cheating that takes place, because there is some cheating.

00:15:40.400 Uh, but even without cheating, if you, if you, if you make, if you have, if you bring in

00:15:44.680 illegals that are 10x the, the voter differential in, in a swing state, it will no longer be 0.53

00:15:49.160 a swing state.

00:15:49.760 Right.

00:15:50.680 Um, and the, the Dems will win all the swing states, just a matter of time.

00:15:54.680 Um, and America will be permanent, deep blue socialist state.

00:15:59.460 The, uh, the, the house, the Senate, uh, the presidency and the Supreme court will all

00:16:05.480 go hardcore down.

00:16:07.020 They will then further cement that by, by except bringing in even more aliens.

00:16:11.260 So you just, you can't vote your way out of it.

00:16:14.320 Their, their objective is to make it one party socialist state.

00:16:17.440 And it'll be much worse than California because at least California is mitigated by the fact

00:16:21.100 that someone can leave California.

00:16:22.040 Right.

00:16:22.240 You can go to Texas.

00:16:23.100 Yeah, exactly.

00:16:24.820 It's what you did.

00:16:25.400 But they're going to make everywhere California a bit worse.

00:16:27.240 By the way, the middle of the pandemic, I spent 45 minutes on the phone with Elon.

00:16:31.640 He was still in California.

00:16:33.160 I was walking my dog snowflake and trying to convince you, come to Texas.

00:16:37.900 The commies in California can't stand you. 1.00

00:16:40.380 We love you.

00:16:41.160 We want you here.

00:16:41.980 And you didn't quite go then, but you went not that long afterwards.

00:16:45.540 I mean, the, the, the COVID actions, uh, almost killed Tesla.

00:16:49.660 Uh, cause they let every other auto plant in the country was allowed to open, but ours,

00:16:54.920 which was in California was not allowed to open.

00:16:56.920 Wow.

00:16:58.640 So they almost killed Tesla.

00:17:00.500 So as a, as a personal matter, do you ever regret it?

00:17:05.160 Like five years ago, you go to the Oscars and we're Mr. Cool.

00:17:08.100 And now you're, you've got death threats every day.

00:17:10.600 Like, do you, well, these days the Oscars are boring.

00:17:14.380 I wouldn't want to go.

00:17:15.380 God bless the movies they nominate.

00:17:16.860 No one on earth has ever seen.

00:17:18.100 Like, like, could they actually nominate a movie that human beings go watch?

00:17:21.640 I mean, the, the, how many great movies have come out in the last several years?

00:17:25.760 Very few.

00:17:26.500 Depressingly few.

00:17:27.340 Yeah.

00:17:27.620 Very few.

00:17:28.500 The last Oscars came and went, I didn't even watch it.

00:17:30.540 There's nothing to see.

00:17:31.700 I was sad that Gene Hackman just passed away.

00:17:34.580 Because Unforgiven was spectacular, but that was a long time ago that Unforgiven came out.

00:17:38.560 You've mentioned today here and before about the possibility of someone wanting to take you out,

00:17:45.940 dealing with the death threats.

00:17:47.860 We see.

00:17:48.400 It's not in my imagination.

00:17:49.580 You could just look on social media.

00:17:50.600 Yeah.

00:17:51.340 But like, is, is it because.

00:17:53.460 They make that very clear.

00:17:54.400 Yeah.

00:17:54.620 And look, I'm, I'm very familiar with it.

00:17:56.260 And they've got science.

00:17:57.100 There are people with science and demonstrations saying that I need to die.

00:18:01.300 Do you think, are these just whack jobs or do you think there are foreign.

00:18:07.780 Not sane people.

00:18:08.660 Do you think there are foreign entities behind this?

00:18:11.300 Do you think there are domestic entities behind the threats?

00:18:13.660 And also the attacks to Twitter, not Twitter, Tesla.

00:18:17.580 I mean, you know, you're getting Tesla's charging stations lit on fire.

00:18:22.220 Do you, do you think that's organized and paid for?

00:18:25.400 Yes.

00:18:26.060 At least some of it is organized and paid for.

00:18:28.220 Um, I think by domestic, uh, you know, what, basically left-wing organizations in America,

00:18:35.820 um, funded by, uh, left-wing billionaires essentially.

00:18:41.720 Is it like ActBlue or what?

00:18:43.480 ActBlue is one of them.

00:18:45.020 Um, you know.

00:18:47.580 Arabella, you know, the classic. 0.90

00:18:48.960 It's funded by the, you know, the, the, the blue, uh, basically the, the, the left-wing

00:18:54.320 NGO cabal.

00:18:56.680 How big of a thread is this to like what you build at Tesla?

00:18:59.720 I mean, I remember when Tesla's came out, it was people that they didn't want to have

00:19:03.360 gas cars.

00:19:04.380 A lot of it was environmental reasons.

00:19:06.340 I jokingly said, I was like, I'm a Texas guy.

00:19:08.780 I'm always going to have something that burns gas.

00:19:10.200 My kids now, all three of my boys think that the, that Tesla's are awesome.

00:19:16.240 The cyber truck is the car they want their dad to buy, which I laugh because I never could

00:19:20.860 have imagined that five years ago.

00:19:23.020 And now I'm looking at, well, we're at the white house and the president's Tesla spark 0.97

00:19:26.800 right outside the West Wing, which is the coolest damn thing. 0.68

00:19:28.920 But I mean, you've changed a generation. 0.95

00:19:30.600 When you look at my kids are six and eight and they're going, dad, buy a cyber truck.

00:19:35.020 And I'm considering it.

00:19:36.560 That's a, that's a full circle in a weird way.

00:19:39.880 Yeah.

00:19:40.400 Well, I do have the theory that the most entertaining outcome is the most likely.

00:19:43.740 So, um, yeah, it seems often to be true.

00:19:47.680 You see, like what, uh, what twists or turn of fate, uh, well, I would generate the highest

00:19:53.080 ratings.

00:19:53.620 If this was, if we were a TV show, what twists or turn of fate would generate the highest

00:19:57.620 ratings that there's a good chance that happens.

00:19:59.760 Well, I will say if, if act blue and Arabella network, it was a huge scam.

00:20:05.200 Do you think it's foreign money, Chinese money?

00:20:07.920 Where do you, where do you think the money in act blue is coming from?

00:20:10.040 How do you figure that out?

00:20:11.600 Well, it's not coming from the, from, from a whole bunch of, from a groundswell of public

00:20:16.180 support, uh, because when individual donors looked at an act blue, they eventually turn

00:20:21.820 out to be like diehard Republicans, people that have never given money in their life.

00:20:25.660 So you're going to track down a bunch of these people where it says, Oh, I gave $16,000

00:20:29.640 and they're like, I didn't give $16,000.

00:20:31.700 What are you talking about?

00:20:33.060 There's this.

00:20:33.660 Well, if, if those, Republican friends of mine have found themselves on the act blue

00:20:37.300 list and they're like, wow, so that's, if it can actually be shown that they are funding

00:20:43.140 firebombing of Tesla charging stations, that's objectively a criminal act that that is funding

00:20:49.020 terrorist activity.

00:20:49.900 And the statutes make clear that an incendiary device qualifies.

00:20:54.160 So that's a big deal.

00:20:55.200 It's a terrorist activity.

00:20:56.500 Yeah.

00:20:56.540 Let me ask AI in 10 years, how is life going to be different because of AI for, for just

00:21:04.180 a normal person?

00:21:05.620 Well, 10 years is a long time.

00:21:07.900 In 10 years, probably AI could do anything better than a human can cognitively.

00:21:12.900 Probably almost, I think in 10 years, based on the current rate of improvement, AI will

00:21:18.200 be smarter than the smartest human.

00:21:20.420 Yeah.

00:21:21.340 There will also be a massive number of robots.

00:21:25.260 So humanoid robots.

00:21:26.960 By the way, I got to ask, how come your robots look so much like the creepy robots for my robot?

00:21:31.540 Was that intentional or just?

00:21:33.080 I was hoping he was going to say, yeah, just to mess with you.

00:21:38.620 It's not meant to look like any prior robot.

00:21:42.500 And we'll iterate the design.

00:21:45.300 And you'll be able to have, a lot of the robot parts are cosmetic.

00:21:49.060 You'll be able to switch out the kind of snap-on cosmetic parts of the robot, make it look

00:21:54.080 like something else if you'd like.

00:21:55.160 So there'll be, ultimately, billions of humanoid robots.

00:22:01.640 All cars will be self-driving.

00:22:03.680 In 10 years?

00:22:04.680 In 10 years, probably 90% of miles driven will be autonomous.

00:22:09.660 Huh.

00:22:10.140 Wow.

00:22:10.640 That fast?

00:22:11.680 Yeah.

00:22:12.440 In five years, probably 50% of all miles driven will be autonomous.

00:22:16.940 Now, if AI will be smarter than any person, how many jobs go away because of that?

00:22:23.220 And what do people do if you've got millions of people that are losing their jobs?

00:22:27.340 Like that, a lot of people are understandably freaked out about that.

00:22:30.960 Well, goods and services will become close to free.

00:22:36.860 So it's not as though people will be wanting in terms of goods and services.

00:22:41.260 So why is that?

00:22:42.580 Why are goods and services free in an AI world or close to free?

00:22:47.020 Well, you have, I don't know, tens of billions of robots.

00:22:50.840 It's, they will make you anything or provide any service you want for basically next to nothing.

00:23:00.940 It's not that people will be, will have a lower standard of living.

00:23:04.560 They'll have actually a much higher standard of living.

00:23:06.680 But the challenge will be fulfillment.

00:23:10.460 How do you derive fulfillment and meaning in life?

00:23:13.120 Is Skynet real?

00:23:16.180 Like you get the apocalyptic visions of AI.

00:23:19.860 How real is the prospect of killer robots annihilating humanity?

00:23:25.320 20% likely.

00:23:26.960 Maybe 10%.

00:23:27.860 On what time frame?

00:23:29.760 Five to 10 years.

00:23:31.200 So soon.

00:23:32.180 Like you see a world where that's possible.

00:23:35.660 Yeah.

00:23:36.240 But I mean, you can look at it like the glass is 80, 90% full.

00:23:40.460 Meaning like 80% likely will have extreme prosperity for all.

00:23:46.080 Now, I guess my view, we're in a race to win AI.

00:23:49.700 We're in a race with China. 0.99

00:23:51.320 And my view is if they're going to be killer robots, 0.95

00:23:53.580 I'd rather they be American killer robots than Chinese. 1.00

00:23:55.740 How likely are we winning right now?

00:23:59.940 Is America winning right now?

00:24:01.100 And how likely is America to win the race for AI vis-a-vis China or anyone else?

00:24:06.120 Well, the next few years, I think America is likely to win.

00:24:09.140 Then it will be a function of who controls the AI chip fabrication.

00:24:15.340 The factories that make the AI chips, who controls them?

00:24:18.240 If they are controlled, if more of them are controlled by China, then China will win. 0.98

00:24:22.320 More of the factories that are making the AI chips.

00:24:25.040 You think that will determine it?

00:24:26.900 Yes.

00:24:27.600 And how are we doing versus China on that front?

00:24:30.540 Well, right now, almost all the advanced AI chip factories, they call them fabs, are in Taiwan.

00:24:39.900 And what if China invades Taiwan?

00:24:41.120 Which is 69 miles away from China.

00:24:42.260 Yeah.

00:24:42.580 What happens if China invades Taiwan?

00:24:45.540 What happens to the world?

00:24:47.800 Well, if they were to invade in the near term, the world would be cut off from advanced AI chips.

00:24:54.560 And currently 100% of advanced AI chips are made in Taiwan.

00:24:58.540 How fast can we put that online in America and how important is that for national security?

00:25:02.520 I think it's essential for national security.

00:25:04.920 And we're not doing enough.

00:25:06.440 You're 53 years old.

00:25:08.160 I'm 118 days older than you.

00:25:10.000 By the way, what the hell have I done in my life?

00:25:11.900 I know, right?

00:25:12.900 53 years old.

00:25:14.200 You did pretty well.

00:25:14.760 Well, so 71 was a great year.

00:25:19.360 And I was December 70.

00:25:20.820 So I was just right before.

00:25:22.960 You were the summer of 71.

00:25:25.660 I was born 69 days after 420.

00:25:28.320 Wow.

00:25:29.340 I did ask Ben.

00:25:30.860 This is true.

00:25:31.940 Look, this is true.

00:25:32.880 All right.

00:25:33.080 You just opened up the can of words.

00:25:34.680 I did ask Ben, should I show up and pull up a joint and say, can we beat Rogan's views?

00:25:39.300 But I was pretty sure it might cause a scandal if we spoke pot in the White House.

00:25:44.980 It just turned out to be like a chocolate cigar.

00:25:47.000 Yeah.

00:25:49.680 Let me ask you, if today was your last day on Earth, I'm not suggesting it's going to be,

00:25:55.820 but if it were, what do you think your biggest legacy would be?

00:25:57.720 If everything you've done 100 years from now, what do you think people would remember if it were zero to today?

00:26:05.440 And will you ever go to space?

00:26:07.480 In the distant future, 100 or 1,000 years ago, if SpaceX got humans to Mars, that's what they would remember me for.

00:26:16.500 All right.

00:26:16.980 Final set of questions.

00:26:18.320 Who's the smartest guy you've ever met?

00:26:20.320 You hang out with some brilliant people.

00:26:21.980 Like when you look, what's a CEO you look at other than yourself? 0.99

00:26:26.020 What CEO do you say, damn, that guy's good? 0.97

00:26:30.080 Larry Ellison's very smart. 0.98

00:26:32.940 So I'll say Larry Ellison's one of the smartest people.

00:26:36.720 You know, Larry Page.

00:26:39.460 I mean, there are a lot of people that are very smart.

00:26:40.700 It's hard to say, like, you know, I think to some degree smart is as smart does.

00:26:45.160 So, you know, what have they done that is difficult and significant?

00:26:51.260 You know, Jeff Bezos has done a lot of difficult and significant things.

00:26:58.960 I mean, there are a lot of smart humans.

00:27:00.700 I call them smart for a human.

00:27:03.180 A lot of people who are in the smart for a human category.

00:27:05.980 All right.

00:27:06.300 Final lightning round.

00:27:07.980 Star Wars or Star Trek?

00:27:09.520 The first movie I saw in the theater was Star Wars.

00:27:11.800 So I think it had a profound effect on me.

00:27:14.080 I was six years old, I think.

00:27:15.340 Imagine if the first movie you ever see in a theater is Star Wars.

00:27:20.480 It's going to blow your mind.

00:27:21.440 Best Star Wars movie?

00:27:23.760 Empire Strikes Back.

00:27:25.100 The only objectively right answer.

00:27:27.000 I stood in line for three hours with my dad to see it on opening day.

00:27:30.900 Kirk or Picard?

00:27:32.900 I like them both, but Kirk.

00:27:35.040 Again, objectively right answer.

00:27:37.080 By the way, James T. Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat.

00:27:41.480 And the left gets very mad when I say that.

00:27:44.940 Best Star Trek movie?

00:27:46.760 I mean, the first Star Trek movie, maybe?

00:27:49.480 Now that's interesting.

00:27:50.220 Wrath of Khan.

00:27:50.800 Wrath of Khan.

00:27:52.380 Wrath of Khan.

00:27:53.880 Actually, both Wrath of Khans were pretty good. 0.95

00:27:57.120 But yeah, the original Wrath of Khan.

00:27:59.060 Ricardo Montalban.

00:28:00.920 Revenge is a dish best served cold.

00:28:03.780 It is very cold in space.

00:28:06.520 Although I will say Wrath of Khan is objectively the right answer. 0.99

00:28:10.180 But four is a sleeper.

00:28:11.860 When they go back to San Francisco and go find the whales and, you know, Scotty picks up the mouth and talks to it and goes,

00:28:20.360 A keyboard!

00:28:21.120 How quaint!

00:28:22.840 That's a sleeper.

00:28:23.780 All right, last question.

00:28:25.480 Did Khan shoot first?

00:28:28.200 It seemed like he shot second.

00:28:30.080 This is verdict.

00:28:31.180 And by the way, I apologize, Ben.

00:28:33.020 So Ben was a jock and played tennis at Ole Miss.

00:28:35.520 And so occasionally when we geek out a little bit.

00:28:38.360 I love watching y'all geek out over there.

00:28:40.180 He might have shot first, though, because the guy missed...

00:28:41.780 He's still on the question.

00:28:42.780 I love it.

00:28:43.200 He missed his...

00:28:43.940 The alien missed his vassal shot.

00:28:45.800 So why did he miss his vassal shot?

00:28:47.040 It must have been because he got shot first. 0.97

00:28:49.340 Now he's missing a point-blank vassal shot unless they got knocked off killed.

00:28:53.020 But it's a question of real consequence. 0.97

00:28:54.420 But he was going to shoot.

00:28:55.220 Yeah.

00:28:55.740 Which is, is Han Solo simply a hero or an anti-hero?

00:28:59.580 And so I'm in the Han shot first category. 0.70

00:29:02.480 I don't like sanitized stories.

00:29:04.140 He would have had to have shot first, because otherwise, why would the alien miss a point-blank range?

00:29:09.340 Are you ever going to go to outer space?

00:29:11.060 Is that saying in your life goals?

00:29:12.740 Yeah, I'd like to go to Mars at some point.

00:29:14.240 And people have said, do I want to die on Mars?

00:29:17.820 And I say, yes, just not on impact.

00:29:19.780 Now that's a very good answer.

00:29:21.560 The astronauts on the space station, are they political prisoners?

00:29:26.720 Some of them are.

00:29:27.580 Because you could have given him a ride back, and Joe Biden said no purely for politics.

00:29:35.300 Yeah, I mean, you know, there's been some debate about this online.

00:29:39.260 But the thing is that it was a very high-level decision.

00:29:42.440 So it wasn't really even a NASA decision.

00:29:45.060 It was just that the Biden White House did not want to have someone who was pro-Trump rescuing astronauts right before the election.

00:29:55.700 So they pushed it.

00:29:56.660 Well, if you're one of those astronauts, you've got to be pretty pissed off about that.

00:29:59.980 Well, if they're a Democrat, yes.

00:30:02.640 If they're a Republican, yes.

00:30:03.920 But if they're a Democrat, everything's fine.

00:30:05.980 Fair enough.

00:30:07.340 So I think one of them is a Republican or is a Democrat.

00:30:09.740 So it depends on which one you ask.

00:30:11.300 Well, thank you, Elon.

00:30:11.960 This was awesome.

00:30:13.640 And let me say, and by the way, I put out on X the day before yesterday, if you were having a beer with Elon and could ask him anything, what would you ask?

00:30:22.080 And got lots of responses.

00:30:23.380 The most common response people said is say thank you.

00:30:28.140 Look, Texans and the American people appreciate what you're doing.

00:30:31.400 You don't have to put up with this BS and you're doing it.

00:30:34.200 I'm grateful.

00:30:35.240 You're making a hell of a difference for this country.

00:30:37.580 I appreciate you and the Americans appreciate you.

00:30:40.280 Thank you.

00:30:40.620 It's essential for the future of civilization.

00:30:42.300 Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing it.

00:30:43.380 Yes.

00:30:43.640 It's not like I want to get death threats, you know?

00:30:45.520 No.

00:30:45.720 What year does man first set foot on Mars?

00:30:50.220 I think the soonest would be 29.

00:30:53.520 29.

00:30:54.340 Yes.

00:30:54.960 And I don't think it's more than two to four years beyond that.

00:30:58.660 And that's not an unmanned.

00:30:59.860 That's a human being putting his foot on the surface.

00:31:03.360 Yes.

00:31:03.640 Best case would be 29. 0.58

00:31:05.000 And what do you put the odds of finding either alien life or evidence of alien life?

00:31:11.540 I don't think we're going to find aliens.

00:31:13.080 Okay.

00:31:13.240 But do we find ruins?

00:31:14.860 Do we find remnants?

00:31:16.120 We may find the ruins of a long dead alien civilization.

00:31:19.120 That's possible.

00:31:19.880 And we may find subterranean microbial life.

00:31:23.840 That's possible.

00:31:24.700 All right.

00:31:25.000 If man lands on Mars in 29, how soon after that do you land on Mars?

00:31:30.580 It remains to be seen.

00:31:31.320 I'm not sure.

00:31:32.000 The important thing is that we build a self-sustaining city on Mars as quickly as possible.

00:31:37.940 The key threshold is when that city can continue to grow, continue to prosper, even when the supply ships from Earth stop coming.

00:31:48.900 At that point, even if something would happen on Earth.

00:31:52.240 It might not be World War III, but it might be that...

00:31:56.660 A bad virus.

00:31:57.960 Yeah.

00:31:58.240 It might not be anything...

00:31:59.220 An asteroid.

00:31:59.680 I was saying it's like, say, civilization could die with a bang or a whimper.

00:32:02.640 It may be that civilization dies with a whimper rather than a bang and simply loses the ability to send ships to Mars.

00:32:09.820 But so you obviously need Mars to become self-sustaining and be able to grow by itself before the resupply ships from Earth stop coming.

00:32:18.860 That is the critical civilizational threshold beyond which the probable lifespan of civilization is much greater.

00:32:26.880 And how close are we technologically to be able to do that, to have a self-sustaining settlement on the surface of Mars?

00:32:34.320 I think it can be done in 20 years.

00:32:36.020 But it would take 20 years.

00:32:37.240 So we're not...

00:32:37.900 In 29, we're not there.

00:32:39.160 What are we missing?

00:32:40.080 What are the big technologies we don't have?

00:32:42.600 A few people running around the surface in a hostile environment is not going to make it self-sustaining.

00:32:46.880 So you're going to need, on the order of a million people, maybe a million tons of cargo.

00:32:51.080 So, but you think we could have a million people on Mars in 20 years?

00:32:54.240 Yes.

00:32:54.840 And what's the technology we're missing right now?

00:32:58.040 When you think about a million people on Mars, do we have the ability to get water, to get food, to keep them safe?

00:33:04.300 I mean, what do we need to make that happen?

00:33:06.200 Well, you need to recreate the entire base of industry of Earth.

00:33:08.580 So, you know, we're here at the top of a massive pyramid of industry that starts with mining a vast array of materials, those materials going through hundreds of steps of refinement.

00:33:20.960 We grow food, obviously.

00:33:24.380 We grow trees.

00:33:25.540 We make things out of the trees.

00:33:27.420 There's, you know, you've got to build all that on Mars.

00:33:30.080 And Mars is a hostile environment.

00:33:31.800 It's, you know, it sometimes gets above zero on a warm summer day near the equator on Mars.

00:33:37.200 I mean, it's quite cold.

00:33:38.520 And how do you prep for that?

00:33:40.080 Well, in the beginning on Mars, you have to have a life support habitation module.

00:33:45.840 Like, you can't just live outdoors.

00:33:48.140 You can't breathe the air.

00:33:49.060 Like a dome, you think, is likely?

00:33:50.780 Yeah.

00:33:51.200 Glass domes type of thing.

00:33:52.440 Have you identified a location on Mars that is likely to be ideal for a habitat?

00:33:58.720 What might be Arcadia Planetaeia is one of the good options.

00:34:04.440 That's, one of my daughters is named Arcadia after that.

00:34:08.460 And what makes that attractive?

00:34:10.060 My eldest son's middle name is Aries, Mars.

00:34:13.760 You've been thinking about this for a long time if you're naming your kids around it.

00:34:16.700 My eldest kid is, middle name is essentially Mars.

00:34:20.340 When did you get the dream?

00:34:21.360 Like, I mean.

00:34:22.120 He's 20 now.

00:34:23.060 2021 soon.

00:34:24.140 This is a decades old dream.

00:34:26.700 So, like, when you were 10, did you look up and say, I'm going to Mars?

00:34:29.600 No.

00:34:31.460 No, I read a lot of science fiction books and programmed computers.

00:34:35.160 But the first, finally, the first video game that I sold was a space video game called Blastar.

00:34:41.760 Maybe I was born this way.

00:34:43.460 How do you become Elon Musk?

00:34:47.760 Look, you're obviously smart as hell.

00:34:49.800 But there are a lot of smart people that don't do SWAT.

00:34:53.040 And you've managed everything you've touched has been an extraordinary success.

00:34:58.400 Yeah.

00:35:00.000 Yeah, look, I mean, that's just objectively right.

00:35:02.240 So what has led to that?

00:35:03.640 Because there are other smart people that that's not true.

00:35:05.820 And they gaze at their navel and they don't do anything.

00:35:08.040 So what do you do differently that makes you so effective?

00:35:11.460 Well, I suppose I have a philosophy of curiosity.

00:35:13.740 I want to find out the nature of the universe, understand the universe.

00:35:16.740 And in order to do that, we have to travel to other planets, see other star systems, maybe other galaxies, find perhaps other alien civilizations or at least the remnants of alien civilizations.

00:35:27.860 Gain a better understanding of where is this universe going, where did it come from and what questions do we not yet know to ask about the answer that is the universe.

00:35:36.340 So let's go back 25 years, late 90s, you're at PayPal.

00:35:41.500 How do you turn PayPal into the success it was, which then helped launch you to the next one and the next one?

00:35:46.960 Yeah, so I studied physics and economics in college, which is a good foundation for understanding how the economy works and how reality works.

00:35:54.440 And then was going to do a PhD at Stanford in advanced ultracapacitors, actually, as a potential means of energy storage for electric transport.

00:36:08.700 Put that on hold to start an internet company.

00:36:13.000 I essentially came to the conclusion that the internet was one of those rare things.

00:36:16.660 And I could either watch it happen while a grad student or anticipate.

00:36:20.280 And I figured I'd always go back to grad school.

00:36:21.720 You know, grad school is going to be kind of the same, but I couldn't bear the thought of just watching the internet happen.

00:36:27.620 So I wanted to be a part of building it.

00:36:29.280 So I created an internet company.

00:36:31.880 We did the first maps, directions, yellow pages, white pages on the internet.

00:36:36.300 I actually wrote the first version of the software just by myself in 95.

00:36:40.560 And we ended up selling that to Compaq, a Texas company, I guess, for about $300 million in cash about four years after I graduated.

00:36:49.360 Wow.

00:36:49.540 Wow.

00:36:50.260 So I should say, just to preface that, I graduated with about $100,000 in student debt.

00:36:55.700 So it wasn't...

00:36:56.600 Yeah, you and me both.

00:36:57.680 Yeah.

00:36:58.660 Yeah.

00:36:59.080 Where's my $300 million?

00:37:00.000 I'm right, I know.

00:37:02.060 And when I first arrived in North America, I arrived with $2,500, a bag of books, and a bag of clothes.

00:37:07.960 All right.

00:37:08.240 So you sell the company for $300 million.

00:37:10.060 How much does that change your life?

00:37:11.620 Well, I got $21 million, blackjack.

00:37:16.280 But I wanted to do more on the internet.

00:37:19.560 So I started a company called X.com, which merged with a company called Confinity, which is Peter Thiel and Max Levchin.

00:37:27.240 Yeah.

00:37:27.400 And the combined company was actually at first still called X.com, but we later changed the name of the company to PayPal.

00:37:35.180 Because of all the name changes, it's kind of confusing.

00:37:37.280 But the company that people know as PayPal today was actually...

00:37:41.400 I filed those incorporation documents for that company.

00:37:44.280 Interesting.

00:37:45.000 Yeah.

00:37:45.520 Well, and as you know, Peter Thiel and I were buddies back in the mid-90s before he went and did any of this.

00:37:51.620 But, you know, I became friends with him when he was a corporate lawyer in New York and just sort of a young libertarian with a lot of dreams.

00:37:58.380 So it's been a heck of a journey.

00:38:00.440 Yeah, yeah.

00:38:01.120 And now, obviously, Peter was involved in a coup.

00:38:03.320 So, you know, we had a little sort of knifing in the Senate situation where, you know, they did coup me at PayPal.

00:38:16.880 I kind of...

00:38:17.580 Now, did you all make peace after that?

00:38:19.080 Yeah, yeah.

00:38:19.720 Yeah.

00:38:20.300 I mean, I was doing a lot of sort of risky moves that I think ultimately would have been successful.

00:38:24.660 But I then went on a two-week trip, which was a dual money-raising trip and honeymoon.

00:38:33.020 And so I'd not done my honeymoon earlier in the year.

00:38:35.880 So I was raising money while doing a honeymoon, but I was kind of away from...

00:38:39.140 How'd that go over, by the way?

00:38:40.560 It worked.

00:38:41.400 It worked?

00:38:42.020 There you go.

00:38:42.740 It worked.

00:38:43.420 I raised money.

00:38:44.100 Yeah.

00:38:44.340 Yeah.

00:38:44.820 And we had a honeymoon.

00:38:45.760 There you go.

00:38:46.420 So, yeah.

00:38:47.840 But you don't want to be away from the battle when things are scary.

00:38:51.580 So I was not there to assuage the concerns of the troops.

00:38:56.360 And anyway, we passed things up and have been friends nonetheless.

00:39:04.380 And, you know, these days I'll, like, stay at his house and stuff.

00:39:06.860 So obviously we're friends.

00:39:08.020 And he's also invested in most of my companies.

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00:39:17.400 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:39:20.760 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:39:22.380 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:39:23.660 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:39:27.280 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.

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00:39:33.100 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:39:36.320 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:39:41.920 All right.

00:39:42.640 So 2002, you start SpaceX.

00:39:45.260 Like, how do you start a rocket company?

00:39:46.900 Like, what's the first day where you're like, I want to make rockets and I want to go to Mars?

00:39:51.480 Like, what do you do on day one?

00:39:52.960 So I think you have to start with some sort of philosophical premise in order to have, in order for the, in order to be highly motivated, you have to have some philosophical foundation.

00:40:04.500 In my case, it was that we want to expand the scope and scale of consciousness to better understand the nature of the universe.

00:40:14.520 And in order to expand consciousness, we need to go beyond one planet.

00:40:20.380 If we're on one planet, there's too much risk.

00:40:23.220 You know, hopefully Earth civilization prospers very far into the future, but it may not.

00:40:27.080 There's always some risk that we are, we self-annihilate through nuclear war or that there's a big meteor that takes us out like the dinosaurs.

00:40:33.720 Yep.

00:40:34.440 There's always some risk if all your eggs are in one basket, so it's going to be better if we're a multi-planet species.

00:40:40.320 And then once we're a multi-planet species, the next step would be to be multistellar and have civilization among, on many different star systems.

00:40:48.520 So in 2001, I didn't think that I could, I didn't think I could sell a rocket company.

00:40:52.520 So I thought I'd take some of the money from PayPal.

00:40:56.320 And in that case, I think it was about $180 million after tax, something like that.

00:41:01.620 And I thought, you know, I don't need $180 million, so I'll spend a bunch of it on a philanthropic Mars mission to get the public excited about going back to Mars.

00:41:13.500 Or going to Mars, I should say.

00:41:15.500 Yeah.

00:41:16.180 Mars was always going to be the destination after the moon.

00:41:18.400 Right.

00:41:18.560 In fact, if you told people in 1969 that it would be 2025, and we've not even gone back to the moon, let alone...

00:41:25.900 It's hard to believe.

00:41:26.980 ...let alone Mars, they'd be like, what happened?

00:41:28.940 Did civilization collapse?

00:41:31.020 Stop, yeah.

00:41:31.280 Like, like, there would be incomprehensible that we've not been to Mars by now, if you told people this after landing on the moon in 1969.

00:41:38.560 Why do you think in 50 years America never went back to the moon?

00:41:41.240 Well, we destroyed the Saturn V rocket that was, that could take people to the moon, and had the space shuttle, which could only go to low Earth orbit.

00:41:47.360 And then, there really hasn't been anything to replace, no vehicle has been made since then that can go to the moon or to Mars until the SpaceX Starship rocket.

00:41:59.220 Yeah.

00:41:59.600 So, can't go to Mars if you don't have the ride.

00:42:01.900 So, I remember, you and I first met in 2013, when I was a brand new baby senator.

00:42:08.360 Yeah.

00:42:08.900 And I was still down in the basement office.

00:42:11.020 They stick freshman senators in the basement office, kind of like hazing.

00:42:14.360 Yeah, yeah, I was about to say, it sounds like it.

00:42:15.500 There are a hundred senate offices, but for six months you'd stay in the basement.

00:42:19.140 Put you in your place.

00:42:19.860 Yeah, it's like wearing a beanie.

00:42:21.020 They just, uh, they want you to know where you're supposed to be.

00:42:23.340 You know, I got to say, now 13 years into it, I think there's a lot of wisdom to doing that.

00:42:27.060 Sure, sure.

00:42:28.060 But, you were down in the basement office, and I remember you were coming and sitting down with SpaceX, and at the time, the Air Force was not letting y'all bid to launch satellites.

00:42:36.440 And so, you were coming and saying, look, we got a company, I think we can do a really good job of this, and yet we're locked out of this.

00:42:41.560 It's a little amazing to think the journey SpaceX has gone from then to now.

00:42:47.020 Yes.

00:42:47.720 It's hard to believe that this is all real.

00:42:50.180 Because, originally, consistent with my belief that we need to become a multi-planet species, I thought the only way to do that would be through NASA.

00:42:57.280 So, so, uh, and I think, I thought, well, if I can just get the public excited about Mars, then they'll do a mission to Mars.

00:43:04.400 And, uh, so initially, my thought was to have, to send a small greenhouse, uh, with seeds and dehydrated nutrient gel, then land the greenhouse, hydrate the seeds, and you'd see these, this, this sort of money shot.

00:43:16.280 The money shot would be green plants on a red background.

00:43:19.020 Yeah.

00:43:19.140 Um, I also recently know that money shot, uh, has a different meaning in some other arenas, but.

00:43:25.840 Yeah, I'm glad you didn't do that.

00:43:28.000 It's a very different story.

00:43:30.060 But, um, what I'm trying to say is, the, the, the captivating shot, um, would be the green plants on a red background.

00:43:36.920 Um, and then hopefully that would, if we did something like that, that would get the public excited about Mars, that would increase NASA's budget, and then we could send people to Mars.

00:43:44.140 So your original dream was NASA to do this.

00:43:46.360 Yes.

00:43:46.800 Not you.

00:43:47.820 No, the original, original plan was, uh, literally to, to take a bunch of the money from PayPal, uh, and I guess by some people's definition, waste it with no, no profit.

00:43:57.340 Yeah.

00:43:57.980 Uh, on a non-profit thing.

00:44:00.220 I wanted to spend a whole bunch of my money for free to get NASA's budget to be bigger so we could go to friggin' Mars.

00:44:05.120 Right.

00:44:05.580 Wow.

00:44:06.540 That's what I wanted.

00:44:07.660 So.

00:44:08.020 That was the Holy Grail.

00:44:09.200 That's what I wanted.

00:44:09.840 I was like.

00:44:10.300 So when did you change directions?

00:44:11.560 Why am I going to go to Mars?

00:44:12.500 That's what I wanted.

00:44:13.420 No.

00:44:13.580 Well, when, when did it strike you, okay, you're going to have to do this if you want.

00:44:17.140 Well, I'll tell you, it gets crazier.

00:44:18.520 All right.

00:44:18.820 It gets crazier.

00:44:19.500 So, so then I couldn't afford any of the U.S. rockets because as you know, the U.S. rockets

00:44:23.000 are way too expensive.

00:44:23.960 Right.

00:44:24.040 Boeing and Lockheed rockets are crazy money.

00:44:26.340 I didn't have, I didn't even, even with 180 million, there's no way I could have afforded

00:44:29.280 two.

00:44:29.300 How much were they back then?

00:44:30.740 Well, the, the, with, with the additional stage to get to Mars, it would have been about

00:44:36.720 like 80 million.

00:44:37.560 So technically I could have afforded one of them, but I wanted to do two in case one of

00:44:41.740 them didn't work.

00:44:42.540 Yeah.

00:44:43.080 So, uh, and then I didn't have enough money for that.

00:44:45.600 Yeah.

00:44:45.740 And I was sort of prepared to, you know, I don't know, waste half the money.

00:44:50.500 Uh, and I figured if I had 90 million left, that'd be fine, you know, uh, but ideally

00:44:55.060 not all of it.

00:44:56.020 So I went to Russia twice to try to buy ICBMs.

00:45:00.120 How interesting.

00:45:00.860 How'd that go?

00:45:01.880 And who do you call?

00:45:03.260 Uh, the Russian rocket forces.

00:45:04.980 Do they sell ICBMs?

00:45:06.440 Does that work?

00:45:07.160 Yeah.

00:45:08.800 You got to tell us a story that I want to know who I, I, it turns out you can buy anything

00:45:12.940 in Russia.

00:45:13.600 Yeah.

00:45:13.820 I, I, I, like, please walk me down that.

00:45:17.140 I want to know how you made that phone call.

00:45:19.080 And when you get there, how did that work?

00:45:20.960 And what do you tell your friends?

00:45:22.080 Yeah.

00:45:22.540 Listen, I'm, I'm going to Russia twice to my ICBMs.

00:45:24.860 I, I might not return, you know, depends on the situation.

00:45:29.120 Literally.

00:45:30.540 Yeah.

00:45:31.360 Um, so it gets slightly less insane when you, uh, when, uh, you understand that, uh, the

00:45:37.360 Russians had to demolish a bunch of their ICBMs because of, uh, you know, salt talks 1.00

00:45:43.540 like, yeah, right.

00:45:44.480 Because of basically an agreement between the United States and, and Russia to reduce

00:45:48.960 the total number of ICBMs.

00:45:50.360 Sure.

00:45:50.740 Russia was actually obligated to scrap a bunch of their ICBMs.

00:45:54.220 So if you're talking to the very biggest ICBMs, you could convert those into a rocket

00:45:58.120 at an additional stage and, and send something to Mars.

00:46:01.180 So, so those are big enough with one more stage to get to Mars?

00:46:04.780 To send a small payload to Mars.

00:46:06.360 Yeah.

00:46:06.780 So the SS-18.

00:46:08.200 So you try to buy ICBMs.

00:46:09.800 Do you succeed or no?

00:46:10.780 Or do you figure out you got to build your own instead?

00:46:13.860 They kept raising the price on me.

00:46:15.580 So, um, cause I figured like, look, they got to throw these things in the scrapyard

00:46:19.140 anyway.

00:46:19.780 Yeah.

00:46:19.980 You should get a really good deal.

00:46:21.200 Yeah.

00:46:21.420 Right.

00:46:22.000 Um, so the price started out at, at 4 million.

00:46:25.980 Then the next conversation, they were at 8 million.

00:46:28.200 Then the next conversation, they were at like 19 million.

00:46:31.020 And I'm like, this is before we signed a contract.

00:46:32.980 By the way, was there another bidder?

00:46:34.660 Was there another bidder or were you the only one trying to buy them?

00:46:37.200 I think, I don't know if there were other bids, but they didn't mention any other

00:46:40.220 bids.

00:46:40.580 Yeah.

00:46:41.080 But I was like, man, if the price is increasing this much before the contract

00:46:44.240 signed, I'm really going to get fleeced after the contract signed.

00:46:46.980 Yeah.

00:46:47.440 So, so I got pretty frustrated there.

00:46:50.140 Um, actually in some cases we got into like shouting matches in Moscow.

00:46:55.420 So some guys shouting at me in Russian, I'm shouting back at him in English.

00:46:59.600 I'm very glad that you didn't get a slide.

00:47:00.780 Yeah.

00:47:01.200 That put it on really badly.

00:47:03.680 You know, I'm like, so you are all, I mean, you're all in.

00:47:06.760 Stop rubbing me off.

00:47:07.500 Um, in Moscow.

00:47:11.200 Yeah.

00:47:12.900 So, uh, man, I should have recorded that.

00:47:15.020 That would have been one for the, how many days were you there negotiating that first

00:47:18.060 time?

00:47:18.580 I mean, was this like ongoing?

00:47:20.200 Yeah.

00:47:20.420 Yeah.

00:47:20.720 This, this took place.

00:47:22.260 These conversations took place over probably six months or so.

00:47:25.520 Wow.

00:47:25.800 Um, so, um, and then the final trip, trip there was with the, uh, with, was with, uh, Mike

00:47:32.500 Griffin, who later became NASA administrator.

00:47:34.620 Um, I, I actually realized in the, in the course of this, that my original premise was

00:47:39.800 wrong, that, that America actually has plenty of will to go to Mars, but needs, it just needs

00:47:45.360 a way to Mars, um, that is affordable, um, and that doesn't break the budget.

00:47:50.960 You know, just, you know, we couldn't even get to the space station.

00:47:52.980 We needed the Russians to, to, to get us to our own space station. 0.93

00:47:55.720 That was embarrassing.

00:47:56.480 It really was pitiful.

00:47:57.740 I'm not sure most Americans know just how much we were being fleeced.

00:48:00.860 Like, I think they got up to like $90 million a seat.

00:48:03.160 Yeah.

00:48:03.740 Wow.

00:48:04.380 Yeah.

00:48:05.040 For a seat that cost them like 10 million.

00:48:06.380 That was pre-Doge, obviously.

00:48:08.200 But it was the only ride.

00:48:09.240 It was pre-Sah. 0.80

00:48:09.860 It was before SpaceX.

00:48:11.580 But $90 million a seat for a seat that cost them 10 million is high.

00:48:16.360 Yeah.

00:48:17.180 That's a lot of money.

00:48:18.600 Yeah.

00:48:18.840 So a few months ago, you and I were down in Boca Chica with the president for a Starship

00:48:24.060 launch.

00:48:24.880 And it is incredible what you built in Boca Chica.

00:48:27.920 Yeah.

00:48:28.040 You know, five years ago, it was an empty beach at the southern tip of Texas.

00:48:31.940 It's the sandbar, yeah.

00:48:33.280 And it's now a city and a factory where you're building a rocket ship a month with, with incredible

00:48:38.740 precision.

00:48:39.700 Yeah.

00:48:39.880 Well, one of the things you said to me when we were down there that really stood out to

00:48:43.380 me is you said your philosophy on intellectual property.

00:48:47.420 I've talked to lots of CEOs.

00:48:48.860 They're like, we fight to guard our IP.

00:48:51.240 And you had a very different approach.

00:48:53.020 What's your view of IP?

00:48:54.640 Patents for the weak.

00:48:57.640 Patents for those who innovate slowly.

00:48:59.560 I literally do not know anyone else in business who would say something like that.

00:49:03.620 Like, like it was a startling and, and, and, and what Elon said down there is he said, look,

00:49:08.520 this stuff, I assume everyone will steal everything, but by the time they steal it, we'll be five

00:49:12.340 generations beyond and it won't matter.

00:49:14.000 Yes.

00:49:14.820 At, at, at Tesla, we actually open source a lot of patents.

00:49:17.620 So we said our patents are, anyone can use them for free.

00:49:20.400 Really?

00:49:21.400 Yeah.

00:49:22.300 The only, we only do patents at Tesla to, to avoid patent trolls causing, causing trouble.

00:49:28.660 So we'll try to look ahead and say, okay, patent trolls are going to, going to trial

00:49:32.640 patent, you know, file patents to blocks and things.

00:49:34.920 We'll file patents and then open source the patent, make it free.

00:49:37.500 I mean, I want to say patents for the weak.

00:49:39.340 Now there are a few, uh, cases in, in say with pharmaceuticals where it might cost you a billion

00:49:44.200 dollars to do a phase three, uh, human file.

00:49:46.960 Um, but then subsequently the drug is very cheap to manufacture.

00:49:51.180 So cases, there are some, in my opinion, which is massively reduced what can be patented.

00:49:56.360 Um, and, and, and say, because the whole point of patenting is, is to maximize innovation,

00:50:01.400 not inhibit it.

00:50:02.420 Um, and, uh, in, in my opinion, it's maybe a controversial opinion, uh, most patents

00:50:07.460 inhibit innovation.

00:50:08.580 They do not help it.

00:50:09.740 Um, but there are cases, uh, I want to do want to single out cases like where such as

00:50:14.040 a phase three clinical trial that might cost a billion dollars, but the, then the drugs

00:50:17.380 thereafter cost a few dollars to a manufacturer.

00:50:20.560 And, and if you can then immediately copy those drugs for a few dollars, no one will pay

00:50:24.780 for the billion dollars.

00:50:25.360 There's a free rider prop.

00:50:26.560 Free rider problem.

00:50:27.300 Yeah, exactly.

00:50:27.940 So you have to address the free rider problem, but other than that, there should be no patents.

00:50:31.280 Yeah.

00:50:31.400 The ideas are easy.

00:50:33.140 You want ideas to flow maximum to people to get there faster and do things bigger.

00:50:38.900 The idea is the easy part.

00:50:40.640 Uh, the hard, execution is the hard part.

00:50:42.940 As the old saying goes, it's 1% inspiration, uh, if not less than 1% and 99% perspiration.

00:50:49.180 But I'll say the perspiration part, you're really damn good at also because you're making,

00:50:53.800 you know, the companies you're building are actually building stuff.

00:50:57.980 They're building cars, they're building spaceships, they're building things that if they don't

00:51:01.200 work, it's a real problem.

00:51:02.260 And, and the precision you manufacture things with, how do you get that level of precision?

00:51:08.020 How do you get, how do you build a culture?

00:51:10.460 You're not, you're amazing at thinking outside the box, but, but what's interesting is you're,

00:51:15.320 you may even be better at execution, which is how do you execute so effectively?

00:51:20.260 Well, I take a physics first principles approach to everything.

00:51:23.880 It's not as though I, I wanted to insource manufacturing.

00:51:27.500 It's just that I was unable to outsource it effectively.

00:51:30.520 So, uh, you know, the idea at the beginning of Tesla was that we would outsource almost

00:51:35.980 all the manufacturing.

00:51:37.000 Uh, but then it turned out there was no, there were no good companies to outsource manufacturing

00:51:42.680 to, which there wasn't a really, really wasn't feasible.

00:51:46.380 Outsource manufacturing actually is, uh, the exception of the rule.

00:51:50.240 Um, and, uh, and just over time we had to insource almost everything for Tesla and same

00:51:54.840 for SpaceX.

00:51:55.660 I became very good at manufacturing because I had to, there was no choice.

00:51:59.700 At this point, I might know more about manufacturing than any, any human ever has, because I've done

00:52:04.500 so many, I've manufactured so many different things in so many different arenas.

00:52:08.100 Um, I think probably more than anyone ever has.

00:52:10.740 Look, that's, that sounds like an astonishing statement, but it's not a crazy statement.

00:52:15.360 And, and, and you're somehow running Tesla and running SpaceX and running X and running

00:52:21.240 the boring company and running Neuralink and doing Doge.

00:52:24.920 How much do you sleep in a given night?

00:52:26.920 About six hours on average.

00:52:28.220 So about six.

00:52:28.860 So, so that's, it wouldn't have shocked me if you said three or four.

00:52:31.880 So the next question is how many hours do you work a day?

00:52:34.520 I work almost every waking hour.

00:52:36.560 And Ben, he, he's not kidding at that.

00:52:39.100 Like when Elon and I were first getting to know each other, um, I suggested, I said,

00:52:43.120 Hey, let, let, let's grab dinner sometime.

00:52:44.840 And I don't know if you remember what you said.

00:52:45.900 You said, I don't eat dinner.

00:52:48.040 I don't have social dinners.

00:52:49.860 Right.

00:52:50.100 I mean that.

00:52:50.780 Yeah.

00:52:51.000 I mean, you obviously eat food, but the idea of like, I don't, but it was, it was just

00:52:58.960 kind of matter of fact, what, why would I go to dinner?

00:53:01.420 Like I, you, you work.

00:53:03.780 Uh, yeah, I literally just thought I'll have lunch and dinner abroad during meetings and

00:53:07.900 continue being.

00:53:08.760 How many nights have you slept at your offices?

00:53:12.040 You think your career percentage wise, where you say, I just got to take this nap basically

00:53:16.600 because my body forces me to, and I got to get back to work fast and efficiently without

00:53:20.740 going somewhere else.

00:53:22.060 Well, I guess it started out even with, with the first company, uh, sub two, which is a terrible

00:53:28.180 name, but the first internet company, um, the, we were able to rent an office.

00:53:33.280 Uh, which was like in a leaky attic, essentially for $500 a month.

00:53:37.660 And the, the cheapest, um, apartment we could find was $800 a month.

00:53:42.380 So like, and we only had about $5,000 between our brother and I.

00:53:46.780 So like, we're not, we'll, we'll, we'll just stay in the office.

00:53:50.100 Yeah.

00:53:50.600 Uh, so we got some, um, couches that converted into beds.

00:53:53.740 Um, and we'd, uh, kind of sleep at night and then we'd just have to like, uh, turn the

00:53:59.180 beds back into couches, uh, before anyone came.

00:54:02.300 And then we'd, we'd shower at the YMCA down the road.

00:54:04.800 And so that went, that, that, that, that literally was the, for several months, what

00:54:09.000 we did.

00:54:09.580 I was in great shape, you know, uh, work out at the Y.

00:54:12.240 Um, but I still remember that, that YMCA, uh, at, uh, Paige Miller, Al Camino, uh, in

00:54:17.920 Palo Alto.

00:54:18.800 So that was a long time ago.

00:54:20.180 So it's been, I don't know, I've, I've never thought to count it, but, uh, several hundred

00:54:24.540 days, maybe.

00:54:25.180 I don't know.

00:54:25.800 So you're now the richest man on earth.

00:54:28.020 Do you still sleep at the office?

00:54:29.020 On earth, though.

00:54:29.620 Well, that's true.

00:54:31.180 Maybe Mars, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll find someone else.

00:54:33.460 But I think if, if someone is a sovereign head of a country, they're de facto richer by a lot.

00:54:38.080 Do you still sleep at the office now?

00:54:40.060 I've sometimes slept at the office.

00:54:41.260 Yeah.

00:54:42.020 As always, thank you for listening to verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:54:47.140 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:54:50.780 You're not listening to verdict or each day when you listen to verdict afterwards, I'd

00:54:54.440 love to have you as a listener to again, the Ben Ferguson podcast, and we will see you

00:54:58.600 back here on Monday morning.

00:55:01.340 This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 22, 2025

Complete Interview-A Sit Down w Elon Musk at the WH Week In Review

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