Part 2： Elon Musk 1-on-1 Exclusive at the White House-DOGE, AI, Trump, Mars & Killer Robots
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Summary
Part 2 of our exclusive conversation with Elon Musk, the entrepreneur and innovator who is transforming industries and is dismantling government waste, fraud and abuse. Elon Musk s relentless pursuit of technology and space exploration continues to capture the world s imagination. In this episode, we unravel the thoughts and aspirations of a man who defies conventional boundaries, pushing humanity towards new horizons.
Transcript
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It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
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Today is part two of our exclusive conversation with Elon Musk,
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the entrepreneur and innovator who is transforming industries
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and is dismantling government waste, fraud, and abuse with Doge.
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Musk's relentless pursuit of technology and space exploration
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In this episode, we unravel the thoughts and aspirations of a man
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who defies conventional boundaries, pushing humanity towards new horizons.
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So join us in the White House as we continue to explore the riveting journey of Elon Musk,
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a modern-day pioneer whose revolutionary ideas are set to redefine tomorrow.
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Let me start with a question you know a lot about.
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And I don't think it's more than two to four years beyond that.
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That's a human being putting his foot on the surface.
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And what do you put the odds of finding either alien life or evidence of alien life?
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We may find the ruins of a long-dead alien civilization.
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If man lands on Mars in 29, how soon after that do you land on Mars?
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The important thing is that we build a self-sustaining city on Mars as quickly as possible.
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The key threshold is when that city can continue to grow, continue to prosper, even when the
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At that point, even if something were to happen on Earth, it might not be World War III, but it might be that...
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I was saying it's like, say, civilization could die with a bang or a whimper.
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It may be that civilization dies with a whimper rather than a bang and simply loses the ability to send ships to Mars.
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So you obviously need Mars to become self-sustaining and be able to grow by itself before the resupply ships from Earth stop coming.
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That is the critical civilizational threshold beyond which the probable lifespan of civilization is much greater.
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And how close are we technologically to be able to do that, to have a self-sustaining settlement on the surface of Mars?
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A few people running around the surface in a hostile environment is not going to make it self-sustaining.
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So you're going to need, on the order of a million people, maybe a million tons of cargo.
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But you think we could have a million people on Mars in 20 years?
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And what's the technology we're missing right now?
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When you think about a million people on Mars, do we have the ability to get water, to get food, to keep them safe?
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Well, you need to recreate the entire base of industry of Earth.
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So, you know, we're here at the top of a massive pyramid of industry.
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That starts with mining a vast array of materials, those materials going through hundreds of steps of refinement.
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There's, you know, you've got to build all that on Mars.
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It's, you know, it sometimes gets above zero on a warm summer day near the equator on Mars.
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Well, in the beginning on Mars, you have to have a life support habitation module.
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Have you identified a location on Mars that is likely to be ideal for a habitat?
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What might be Arcadia Planetae is one of the good options.
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One of my daughters is named Arcadia after that.
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You've been thinking about this for a long time if you're naming your kids around it.
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My eldest kid's middle name is essentially Mars.
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So, like, when you were 10, did you look up and say, I'm going to Mars?
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No, I read a lot of science fiction books and programmed computers.
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But the first video game that I sold was a space video game called Blastar.
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But there are a lot of smart people that don't do SWAT.
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And you've managed everything you've touched has been an extraordinary success.
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Yeah, look, I mean, that's just objectively right.
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Because there are other smart people that that's not true.
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And they gaze at their navel and they don't do anything.
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So, what do you do differently that makes you so effective?
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Well, I suppose I have a philosophy of curiosity.
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I want to find out the nature of the universe, understand the universe.
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And in order to do that, we have to travel to other planets, see other star systems, maybe other galaxies.
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Find perhaps other alien civilizations or at least the remnants of alien civilizations.
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Gain a better understanding of where is the universe going, ready to come from.
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And what questions do we not yet know to ask about the answer that is the universe?
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How do you turn PayPal into the success it was, which then helped launch you to the next one and the next one?
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So, I studied physics and economics in college, which is a good foundation for understanding how the economy works and how reality works.
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And then was going to do a PhD at Stanford in advanced ultracapacitors, actually, as a potential means of energy storage for electric transport.
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I put that on hold to start an internet company.
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I essentially came to the conclusion that the internet was one of those rare things, and I could either watch it happen while a grad student or anticipate.
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And I figured I'd always go back to grad school.
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You know, grad school is going to be kind of the same.
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But I couldn't bear the thought of just watching the internet happen.
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We did the first maps, directions, yellow pages, white pages on the internet.
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I actually wrote the first version of the software just by myself in 1995.
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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.
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So, I should say, just to preface that, I graduated with about $100,000 in student debt.
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And when I first arrived in North America, I arrived with $2,500, a bag of books, and a bag of clothes.
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So, I started a company called X.com, which merged with a company called Confinity,
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And the combined company was actually, at first, still called X.com,
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but we later changed the name of the company to PayPal.
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Because of all the name changes, it's kind of confusing.
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But the company that people know as PayPal today was actually…
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I filed those incorporation documents for that company.
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Well, and as you know, Peter Thiel and I were buddies back in the mid-90s before he went
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But, you know, I became friends with him when he was a corporate lawyer in New York and just
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sort of a young libertarian with a lot of dreams.
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And now, obviously, Peter was involved in a coup.
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So, you know, we had a little sort of knifing in the Senate situation where, you know,
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I mean, I was doing a lot of sort of risky moves that I think ultimately would have been
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successful, but I then went on a two-week trip, which was a dual money-raising trip and
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Because I'd not done my honeymoon earlier in the year.
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So, I was raising money while doing a honeymoon, but I was kind of away from…
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But you don't want to be away from the battle when things are scary.
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So, I was not there to assuage the concerns of the troops.
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And anyway, we passed things up and have been friends nonetheless.
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And, you know, these days I'll, like, stay at his house and stuff.
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And he's also invested in most of my companies.
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Like, what's the first day where you're like, I want to make rockets and I want to go to Mars?
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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.
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In my case, it was that we want to expand the scope and scale of consciousness to better understand the nature of the universe.
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And in order to expand consciousness, we need to go beyond one planet.
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You know, hopefully Earth civilization prospers very far into the future, but it may not.
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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.
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There's always some risk if all your eggs are in one basket.
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So, it's going to be better if we're a multi-planet species.
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And then, once we're a multi-planet species, the next step would be to be multi-stellar and have civilization among, on many different star systems.
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So, in 2001, I didn't think that I could, I didn't think I could sell a rocket company.
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So, I thought I'd take some of the money from PayPal.
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In that case, I think it was about $180 million after tax, something like that.
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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.
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Mars was always going to be the destination after the moon.
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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...
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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.
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Why do you think in 50 years, America never went back to the moon?
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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.
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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.
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So, you can't go to Mars if you don't have the ride.
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So, I remember, you and I first met in 2013, when I was a brand new baby senator.
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They stick freshman senators in the basement office, kind of like hazing.
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There are 100 senate offices, but for six months, you stay in the basement.
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They just, they want you to know where you're supposed to be.
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You know, I got to say, now 13 years into it, I think there's a lot of wisdom to doing that.
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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.
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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.
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It's a little amazing to think the journey SpaceX has gone from then to now.
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Because, originally, if it's 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.
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So, and I think, I thought, well, if I can just get the public excited about Mars, then they'll do a mission to Mars.
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And, so initially, my thought was to have, to send a small greenhouse with seeds and dehydrated nutrient gel, then land the greenhouse, hydrate the seeds, and you'd see these, the sort of money shot.
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The money shot would be green plants on a red background.
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I also recently know that money shot has a different meaning in some other arenas.
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But, what I'm trying to say is, the captivating shot would be the green plants on a red background.
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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.
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No, the original plan was literally to take a bunch of the money from PayPal, and, I guess, by some people's definition, waste it with no profit on a non-profit thing.
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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 frigging Mars.
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I was like, damn it, why am I going to go to Mars?
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When did it strike you, okay, you're going to have to do this if you want to?
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So, I couldn't afford any of the U.S. rockets, because, as you know, the U.S. rockets are way too expensive.
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Even with $180 million, there's no way I could have afforded to.
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Well, with the additional stage to get to Mars, it would have been about like $80 million.
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So, technically, I could have afforded one of them, but I wanted to do two in case one of them didn't work.
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So, and then I didn't have enough money for that.
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And I was sort of prepared to, you know, I don't know, waste half the money.
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And I figured if I had $90 million left, that would be fine, you know.
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So, I went to Russia twice to try to buy ICBMs.
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You've got to tell us a story that I want to know.
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I might not return, you know, depends on the situation.
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So, it gets slightly less insane when you understand that the Russians had to demolish a bunch of their ICBMs because of, you know, salt talks.
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Because of basically an agreement between the United States and Russia to reduce the total number of ICBMs.
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Russia was actually obligated to scrap a bunch of their ICBMs.
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So, if you're talking to the very biggest ICBMs, you could convert those into a rocket, add an additional stage, and send something to Mars.
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So, those are big enough with one more stage to get to Mars?
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So, you try to buy ICBMs, do you succeed or no?
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Or do you figure out you've got to build your own instead?
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So, because I figured, like, look, they've got to throw these things in the scrapyard anyway.
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Then, the next conversation, they were at $8 million.
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Then, the next conversation, they were at, like, $19 million.
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And I'm like, this is before we signed a contract.
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By the way, was there another bidder, or were you the only one trying to buy them?
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I think, I don't know if there were other bids, but they didn't mention any other bids.
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But, I was like, man, if the price is increasing this much before the contract signed, I'm really going to get fleeced after the contract signed.
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Actually, in some cases, we got into, like, shouting matches in Moscow.
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How many days were you there negotiating that first time?
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These conversations took place over probably six months or so.
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So, and then the final trip there was with Mike Griffin, who later became NASA administrator.
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I actually realized in the course of this that my original premise was wrong.
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That America actually has plenty of will to go to Mars.
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That is affordable, and that doesn't break the budget.
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Well, as you know, we couldn't even get to the space station.
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We needed the Russians to get us to our own space station.
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I'm not sure most Americans know just how much we were being fleeced.
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Like, I think they got up to, like, $90 million a seat.
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But $90 million a seat for a seat that cost them $10 million is high.
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So a few months ago, you and I were down in Boca Chica with the president for a Starship
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launch, and it is incredible what you built in Boca Chica.
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You know, five years ago, it was an empty beach at the southern tip of Texas.
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And it's now a city and a factory where you're building a rocket ship a month with incredible
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Well, one of the things you said to me when we were down there that really stood out to
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me is you said your philosophy on intellectual property.
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I literally do not know anyone else in business who would say something like that.
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And what Elon said down there is he said, look, this stuff, I assume everyone will steal everything,
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but by the time they steal it, we'll be five generations beyond and it won't matter.
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At Tesla, we actually open sourced all our patents.
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So we said our patents are anyone can use them for free.
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We only do patents at Tesla to avoid patent trolls causing trouble.
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So we'll try to look ahead and say, okay, patent trolls are going to file patents to block
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We'll file patents and then open source the patent, make it free.
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Now, there are a few cases in, say, with pharmaceuticals where it might cost you a billion
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But then subsequently, the drug is very cheap to manufacture.
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So cases, there are some, in my opinion, which is massively reduced what can be patented.
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Um, and, and, and say, because the whole point of patenting is, is to maximize innovation,
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Um, and in my opinion, it's maybe a controversial opinion, uh, most patents inhibit innovation.
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Um, but there are cases, I want to do want to single out cases like where such as a phase
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three clinical trial that might cost a billion dollars, but the, then the drugs thereafter
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And, and if you can then immediately copy those drugs for a few dollars, no one will pay for
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But other than that, there should be no patents.
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You want ideas to flow maximum to people to get there faster and do things bigger.
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As the old saying goes, it's 1% inspiration, uh, if not less than 1%, and 99% perspiration.
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But I'll say the perspiration part, you're really damn good at also, because you're making,
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you know, the companies you're building are actually building stuff.
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They're building cars, they're building spaceships, they're building things that if they don't
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And, and the precision you manufacture things with, how do you get that level of precision?
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You're not, you're amazing at thinking outside the box, but, but what's interesting is you're,
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you may even be better at execution, which is, how do you execute so effectively?
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Well, I take a physics first principles approach to everything.
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It's not as though I, I wanted to insource manufacturing.
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It's just that I was unable to outsource it effectively.
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So, uh, you know, the idea at the beginning of Tesla was that we would outsource almost
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all the manufacturing, uh, but then it turned out there was no, there were no good companies
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to outsource manufacturing to, which there wasn't a, really, really, it wasn't feasible.
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Outsource manufacturing actually is, uh, the exception of the rule.
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Um, and, uh, and just over time we had to insource almost everything for Tesla and same
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I became very good at manufacturing because I had to, there was no choice at this point.
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I might know more about manufacturing than any, any human ever has, because I've done
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so many, I've manufactured so many different things in so many different arenas.
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Um, I think probably more than anyone ever has.
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Look, that's, that sounds like an astonishing statement, but it's not a crazy statement and
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you're somehow running Tesla and running SpaceX and running X and running the boring company
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So, so that's, it wouldn't have shocked me if you said three or four.
00:28:39.920
So the next question is how many hours do you work a day?
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Like when Elon and I were first getting to know each other, um, I suggested, I said,
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And I don't know if you remember what you said.
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I mean, you obviously eat food, but the idea of like, I don't, but it was, it was just
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kind of matter of fact, what, why would I go to dinner?
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I literally just thought I'll have lunch and dinner brought during meetings and continue
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How many nights have you slept at your offices?
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You think your career percentage wise, where you say, I just got to take this nap basically
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because my body forces me to, and I got to get back to work fast and efficiently without
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Well, I guess it started out even with, with the first company, uh, Zip2, which is a terrible
00:29:42.280
name, but the first internet company, um, the, we were able to rent an office, uh, which
00:29:48.500
was like in a leaky attic essentially for $500 a month.
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And the, the cheapest, um, apartment we could find was $800 a month.
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So like, and we only had about $5,000 between our brother and I.
00:30:01.800
So like, we're not, we'll, we'll, we'll just stay in the office.
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Uh, so we got some, um, couches that converted into beds.
00:30:11.220
Um, and we'd, uh, kind of sleep at night and then we just have to like, uh, turn the beds
00:30:20.640
And then we'd, we'd shower at the YMCA down the road.
00:30:24.480
And so that went, that, that, that literally was the, for several months, what we did.
00:30:30.380
I was in great shape, you know, uh, work out at the Y.
00:30:34.020
Um, but I still remember that, that YMCA, uh, at, uh, Page Mill at Al Camino, uh, in Palo Alto.
00:30:43.020
So it's been, I don't know, I've, I've never thought to count it, but, uh, several hundred
00:30:55.260
Maybe Mars, we'll, we'll, we'll find someone else.
00:30:57.540
But I think if so, if someone is a sovereign head of a country, they're de facto richer
00:31:06.880
Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
00:31:09.200
Hit that subscriber auto download button from the White House.
00:31:14.480
We'll see you guys back here in a couple of days.