Elon Muskļ¼ 1-on-1 Exclusive at the White House-DOGE, AI, Trump, Mars & Killer Robots (Part 1)
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Summary
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sits down with Elon Musk (SpaceX CEO, Tesla CEO, and Billionaire) at the White House to discuss government waste and corruption. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Senator Cruz and Elon discuss how the federal government is wasting our money and what they can do to fix it.
Transcript
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It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
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And today is a very special day as we are doing part one of our two-part conversation
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Now, Elon is going to break news during today and Wednesday's show on Doge and some credible,
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shocking information about corruption within our government.
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I want to make sure you hit that subscribe button, that auto-download button right now
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Also, please help this go viral as we're exposing government waste by sharing this episode on
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But before we get to that, after more than a year of war, terror, and pain in Israel, the
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need for security essentials and support for first responders is still critical.
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Even in times of ceasefire, Israel must be prepared for the next attack, wherever it
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may come from, as Israel is surrounded by enemies on all sides.
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That is where the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and you come in.
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They are the ones that help give the support that is needed.
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And the people of Israel need now more than ever before, life-saving security essentials.
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And your gift today will help save lives by providing bomb shelters, armored security vehicles
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and ambulances, firefighting equipment, flak jackets, and bulletproof vests, and so much more.
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Your generous donation today will help ensure the people of Israel are safe and secure in the days to come.
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So give a gift to bless Israel and her people by visiting supportifcj.org.
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So, without any further ado, here is part one of our sit-down conversation at the White House with Elon Musk.
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Well, we're in the White House right now, and we're here with my friend Elon Musk,
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who really has not been doing much of anything, has not made any news, and nobody has noticed the impact.
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The first 50 days the president has spent in office, over the top, and the first 50 days you've spent,
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I don't think there's ever been anyone to have an impact the way you have at the beginning.
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Let me start with a question you know a lot about.
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Which was worse, the mess you found at Twitter or the mess you found in the federal government?
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Well, it's hard to compete with the federal government.
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What surprised you about the federal government?
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It is worse than I expected, but on the plus side, that means there's more opportunity for improvement.
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So, look, 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.
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If it was a well-run ship, it would be very difficult to improve.
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But, you know, so now it's like, people say, well, how will you figure out how to save money in the federal government?
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Well, it's like being in a room where the walls, the roof, and the floor are all targets.
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A lot of the crazy expenditures, things like, like, two million bucks for sex change surgeries in Guatemala...
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You know, transgendered mice and Sesame Street in Iraq.
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But some of the stuff you've told me about, like, tell us about computer licenses and government agencies.
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Yeah, so, most of what Doge is finding, you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes.
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So, in every government department, I say every because we've not yet found a single exception,
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there are far too many software licenses and media subscriptions,
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meaning many more software licenses and media subscriptions than there are humans in the department.
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Like you were saying, like, an agency with 15,000 people might have 30,000 licenses.
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And even of the 15,000 employees, a good chunk of them hadn't used the license,
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We found entire situations of software licenses or media subscriptions where there were zero logins.
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So, the government was paying for thousands of licenses of software or media subscriptions,
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You found the same thing with government credit cards.
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We found that there are twice as many credit cards as there are humans.
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And I still don't have a good explanation for why this is the case.
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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?
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If you say, look, what's the waste-to-fraud ratio?
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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.
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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.
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If you know you're getting something you're not supposed to get.
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You're not supposed to get it, but the government sent it to you, and nobody from the government asked for it back.
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Take, for example, the $1.9 billion given to Stacey Abrams, a fake NGO.
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Like, when you get $2 billion, you don't miss that.
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Allegedly, it was for, like, you know, environmentally friendly appliances or something.
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And they've given, like, 100 appliances so far for $2 billion.
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This is obviously one of the biggest scam fraud holes we've uncovered, which is really crazy, is that the government can give money to a so-called non-profit with very few controls.
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And then that, and there's no auditing subsequently of that non-profit.
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So there's no, so this is where, with the, you know, $1.9 billion to Stacey Abrams, who's, they then give themselves extremely lavish, like insane salaries, expense everything to the non-profit, you know, buy jets and homes and all sorts of things.
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Now, one of the things you told me about is what you called magic money computers.
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So tell us about it, because I'd never heard of that until you brought that up.
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Okay, so you may think that these, that the government computers, like, all talk to each other, they synchronize, they add up what funds are going somewhere, and it's, you know, it's coherent.
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That, you know, there's, and that the numbers, for example, that you're presented as a senator are actually the real numbers.
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I mean, they're not totally wrong, but they're probably off by 5% or 10% in some cases.
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So I call it magic money computer, any computer which can just make money out of thin air.
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And you said there's something like 11 of these computers at Treasury that are sending out trillions in payments?
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Some are, there's some at HHS, some at, there's one at one or two at State, there's some at DOD.
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You have an ability to see where leverage points are and how things actually happen.
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So I remember back, I think it was September, October of this year, before the election, we didn't know who was going to win.
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And you said, you said, look, I don't want a job in Washington.
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And you said, all I want is the login for every computer.
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And I remember thinking at the time that sounded kind of weird.
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And I have to say, what's interesting on this, if I would have thought, like, okay, how do you reform government?
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Like sort of the traditional way to think about it is, okay, give me an org chart.
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Let me sit down with the people who are running agencies.
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And what you saw immediately is to understand what's really going on, get to the payment systems, get to the computers.
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Like why is getting to the computers so critical to understanding what's actually happening?
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So you've got essentially several hundred computers that effectively run the government.
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So when somebody, like even when the president issues an executive order, that's going to go through a whole bunch of people until ultimately it is implemented at a computer somewhere.
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And if you want to know what the situation is with the accounting and you're trying to reconcile accounting and get rid of waste and fraud, you must be able to analyze the computer databases.
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Because all you're doing is asking a human who will then ask another human, ask another human.
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And finally, usually ask some contractor, we'll ask another contractor to do a query on the computer.
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So the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to actually look at the computers and see what's going on.
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That's what I, when I sort of cryptically referred to reprogramming the matrix, you have to understand what's going on at the computers.
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You have to reconcile the computer databases in order to identify the waste and fraud.
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I don't know that there was anyone in Congress who understood, certainly myself included, who understood the leverage that comes from the computer and the data in particular.
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That Congress would think about, give me a report on what your expenditures are, rather than actually getting into the pipes.
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And I think that has been fascinating that it's let you uncover a bunch of crap that just nobody knew.
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I mean, in order for money to go to a bank account, it's not like we're sending truckloads of cash all over the place.
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We're sending money through the ACH system or through the SWIFT system.
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So in order for money to flow, it's going to flow electronically.
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You need to look at the actual electronic money flows.
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And Tesla and all your companies, you have accounting and you have every expenditure.
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And like one of the things that you told me, you said if any company kept its books the way the federal government does, they'd arrest the officers and put them in jail.
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If it was a public company, it would be delisted immediately.
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And the officers of the company would be imprisoned.
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That's the level of malfeasance in the federal government, unfortunately.
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Deliberately, or do you think this is incompetence again?
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So if you look at Doge now and you look at the government and what you're finding, what percentage have you guys even gotten to?
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And how much of it is Mars where you haven't even gotten there yet because there's so much you're finding out here?
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I mean, how many, you seem like a timeline guy when you say, all right, I want to get in there and get all these, you know, numbers and things.
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How far are we from the end game where you've seen it all, been able to process it all and fix it?
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I mean, I'm reasonably confident that we'll be able to get a trillion dollars of waste and fraud out.
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And that meaning that it will have, we'll have a net savings in FY26, which starts in October, obviously, of a trillion dollars.
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Provided we're allowed to continue and our progress is not impeded.
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Literally every action we do, small or large, we put on the doge.gov website and we post on the X handle.
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And when people complain about it, and they say, oh, you're doing something on costume?
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I don't think anything's been this transparent ever.
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So five years ago, you were a hero to the left.
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I could go to a party in Hollywood and not get dirty looks.
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Still get invited, but I don't know if I should go.
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And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say today, after Donald Trump, the left hates you more than any person on earth.
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I mean, if you're judged by the various signs, theyā
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It's Trump derangement syndrome and Elon derangement syndrome.
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That's a little bit of whiplash of going from being like Mr. Cool to the devil incarnate in just a couple of years.
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Is that kind of weird to experience that transformation?
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If Doge was ineffective, if we were not actually getting rid of a bunch of waste and fraud, and a bunch of that fraudāI mean, the fraud we're seeing is overwhelmingly on the left.
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I mean, it's not zero on the right, but these NGOs are almost all left-wing NGOs that are being funded, for example.
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So they hate me because Doge is being effective, and Doge is getting rid of a lot of waste and fraud that people on the left were taking advantage of.
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And the single biggest thing that they're worried about is that Doge is going to turn off fraudulent payments of entitlements.
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I mean, everything from Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, disability, small business administration loans.
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Okay, this is the thing thatāwhy they really hit my guts and want me to die.
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And do you think that's billions, hundreds of billions?
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I think across the country, it's well worth of $100 billion, maybe $200 billion.
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So by using entitlements fraud, the Democrats have been able to attract and retain vast numbers of illegal immigrants.
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Basically, bring in, I don't know, 10, 20 million people who are beholden to the Democrats for government handouts.
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And will vote overwhelmingly Democrat, as has been demonstrated in California.
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And it doesn't take much to turn the swing states blue.
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I mean, often a swing state might be won by 10,000, 20,000 votes.
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So if the Dems can bring in 200,000 illegals and over time get them legalized, not counting any cheating that takes place, because there is some cheating, but even without cheating, if you bring in illegals that are 10x the voter differential in a swing state, it will no longer be a swing state.
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And the Dems will win all the swing states, just a matter of time.
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And America will be a permanent, deep blue socialist state.
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The House, the Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme Court will all go hardcore down.
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They will then further cement that by bringing in even more aliens, so you can't vote your way out of it.
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And it will be a permanent, one-party socialist state.
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And it will be much worse than California, because at least California is mitigated by the fact that someone can leave California.
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But they're going to make everywhere California a bit worse.
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By the way, the middle of the pandemic, I spent 45 minutes on the phone with Elon.
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I was walking my dog, Snowflake, and trying to convince you, come to Texas.
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The commies in California can't stand you.
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And you didn't quite go then, but you went not that long afterwards.
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I mean, the COVID actions almost killed Tesla, because every other auto plant in the country was allowed to open
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but ours, which was in California, was not allowed to open.
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So as a personal matter, do you ever regret it?
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Like five years ago, you go to the Oscars and we're Mr. Cool, and now you've got death threats every day.
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And God bless the movies they nominate no one on earth has ever seen.
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Like, could they actually nominate a movie that human beings go watch?
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I mean, how many great movies have come out in the last several years?
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I was sad that Gene Hackman just passed away, because Unforgiven was spectacular.
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But that was a long time ago that Unforgiven came out.
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You've mentioned today here and before about the possibility of someone wanting to take you out,
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There are people with signs and demonstrations saying that I need to die.
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Do you think there are foreign entities behind this?
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Do you think there are domestic entities behind the threats?
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I mean, you know, you're getting Tesla's charging stations lit on fire.
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I think by domestic, you know, basically left-wing organizations in America, funded by left-wing billionaires, essentially.
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You know, Arabella, you know, the classic.
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It's funded by the, you know, the blue, basically the left-wing NGO cabal.
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More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
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00:20:38.380
How big of a thread is this to, like, what you build at Tesla?
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I mean, I remember when Teslas came out, it was people that they didn't want to have gas cars.
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I'm always going to have something that burns gas.
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My kids now, all three of my boys, think that Teslas are awesome.
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The Cybertruck is the car they want their dad to buy, which I laugh because I never could have imagined that five years ago.
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And now I'm looking at, well, we're at the White House and the President's Teslas parked right outside the West Wing, which is the coolest damn thing.
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When you look at my kids are six and eight, and they're going, Dad, buy a Cybertruck, and I'm considering it, that's a full circle in a weird way.
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Well, I do have this theory that the most entertaining outcome is the most likely.
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You see, like, what twist or turn of fate would generate the highest ratings?
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If we were a TV show, what twist or turn of fate would generate the highest ratings?
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Well, I will say if ActBlue and Arabella Networksā
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Do you think it's foreign money, Chinese money?
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Where do you think the money in ActBlue is coming from?
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Well, it's not coming from a whole bunch ofāfrom a groundswell of public support.
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Because when individual donors are looked at in ActBlue, they eventually turn out to be, like, diehard Republicans.
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So you're going to track down a bunch of these people where it says, oh, I gave $16,000.
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Republican friends of mine have found themselves on the ActBlue list.
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If it can actually be shown that they are funding firebombing of Tesla charging stations, that's objectively a criminal act.
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And the statutes make clear that an incendiary device qualifies.
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If putting things down is a terrorist activity.
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In 10 years, how is life going to be different because of AI for just a normal person?
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In 10 years, probably AI could do anything better than a human can, cognitively.
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Probably almostāI think in 10 years, based on the current rate of improvement, AI will be smarter than the smartest human.
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By the way, I've got to ask, how come your robots look so much like the creepy robots from iRobot?
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I was hoping he was going to say, yeah, just to mess with you.
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And you'll be able to haveāa lot of the robot parts are cosmetic.
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You'll be able to switch out the kind of snap-on cosmetic parts of the robot, make it look like something else if you'd like.
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So there will be ultimately billions of humanoid robots.
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In 10 years, probably 90% of miles driven will be autonomous.
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In 5 years, probably 50% of miles driven will be autonomous.
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Now, if AI will be smarter than any person, how many jobs go away because of that?
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And what do people do if you've got millions of people that are losing their jobs?
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Like that, a lot of people are understandably freaked out about that.
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Well, goods and services will becomeāit's close to free.
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So it's not as though people will be wanting in terms of goods and services.
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Why are goods and services free in an AI world or close to free?
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Well, you have, I don't know, tens of billions of robots.
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They will make you anything or provide any service you want for basically next to nothing.
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It's not that people will have a lower standard of living.
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They will have actually a much higher standard of living.
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How do you derive fulfillment and meaning in life?
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How real is the prospect of killer robots annihilating humanity?
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But you can look at it like the glass is 80-90% full.
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Meaning like 80% likely will have extreme prosperity for all.
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Now I guess my view, we're in a race to win AI.
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And my view is if they're going to be killer robots,
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I'd rather they be American killer robots than Chinese.
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And how likely is America to win the race for AI vis-a-vis China or anyone else?
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Well, the next few years, I think America is likely to win.
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Then it will be a function of who controls the AI chip fabrication.
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The factories that make the AI chips, who controls them?
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If more of them are controlled by China, then China will win.
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More of the factories that are making the AI chips.
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And how are we doing versus China on that front?
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Well, right now, almost all the advanced AI chip factories, they call them fabs, are in Taiwan.
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What happens if China invades Taiwan, what happens to the world?
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Well, if they were to invade in the near term, the world would be cut off from advanced AI chips.
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Currently, 100% of advanced AI chips are made in Taiwan.
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How fast can we put that online in America, and how important is that for national security?
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I think it's essential for national security, and we're not doing enough.
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By the way, what the hell have I done in my life?
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And I was December 70, so I was just right before.
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All right, you just opened up the can of words.
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I did ask Ben, should I show up and pull up a joint and say, can we beat Rogan's views?
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But I was pretty sure it might cause a scandal if we smoke pot in the White House.
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It just turned out to be like a chocolate cigar.
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Let me ask you, if today was your last day on Earth...
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I'm not suggesting it's going to be, but if it were,
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what do you think your biggest legacy would be?
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what do you think people would remember if it were zero to today?
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if SpaceX got humans to Mars, that's what they would remember me for.
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What's a CEO you look at, other than yourself?
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What CEO do you say, damn, that guy's good?
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So I'll say Larry Ellison's one of the smartest people.
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I mean, there are a lot of people that are very smart.
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It's hard to say, like, you know, I think to some degree smart is as smart does.
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So, you know, what have they done that is difficult and significant?
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You know, Jeff Bezos has done a lot of difficult and significant things.
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A lot of people who are in the smart for a human category.
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The first movie I saw in the theater was Star Wars.
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Imagine if the first movie you ever see in a theater is Star Wars.
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I stood in line for three hours with my dad to see it on opening day.
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By the way, James T. Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat.
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Although I will say, Rath of Khan is objectively the right answer.
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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, a keyboard.
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And so Ben was a jock and played tennis at Ole Miss.
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And so occasionally when we geek out a little bit.
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I think he might have shot first, though, because the guy missed.
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It must have been because he got shot first.
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Now he's missing a point-blank basal shot unless they got knocked or killed.
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Which is, is Han Solo simply a hero or an anti-hero?
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And so I'm in the Han shot first category.
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He would have had to have shot first because otherwise, why would the alien miss a point-blank range?
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And people have said, do I want to die on Mars?
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Here, the astronauts on the space station, are they political prisoners?
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Because you could have given them a ride back and Joe Biden said no purely for politics.
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I mean, you know, there's been some debate about this online.
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But the thing is that it was a very high-level decision.
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It was just that the Biden White House did not want to have someone who was pro-Trump rescuing astronauts right before the election.
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Well, if you're one of those astronauts, you've got to be pretty pissed off about that.
00:32:31.520
But if they're a Democrat, like, everything's fine.
00:32:34.040
So I think one of them is a Republican, as a Democrat.
00:32:41.300
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?
00:32:51.540
The most common response people said is say thank you.
00:32:55.780
Look, Texans and the American people appreciate what you're doing.
00:32:59.000
You don't have to put up with this BS and you're doing it.
00:33:01.820
I'm grateful you're making a hell of a difference for this country.
00:33:05.200
I appreciate you and the Americans appreciate you.
00:33:11.260
It's not like I want to get death threats, you know?
00:33:14.120
Now, part two of this interview with Elon Musk and some bigger breaking news that we're going to have for you about corruption.
00:33:24.220
So make sure you hit that subscribe or auto download button right now.
00:33:28.220
And again, please help this show go viral so that we can continue to expose government waste.
00:33:33.360
Wherever you're on social media, hit that little forward button and post this episode on social media.
00:33:40.500
And the center and I will see you back here with Elon Musk.