The CEO of Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, met with Musk for an interview.
The men talked about Russia's invasion into Ukraine, space travel, and what makes human beings special in the interview that took place at the Gigafactory in Berlin.
Below is a transcript of the conversation.
Before we talk about the future, we should look at the present. There is war in Europe. If you see the images of Putin's troops invading Ukraine. What are you thinking?
It is surprising to see that in this day and age. We had moved beyond those things for the most part. It is concerning. If you can get away with it, this will be a message to other countries that they can too.
Have you been surprised by Putin? Most of the Europeans thought he was not going to do it. A lot of Americans thought he was going to invade. What was your expectation?
My best guess was that he would try to capture the Eastern third of the country. If you just listened to the rhetoric, it's clear that he was going after parts of Ukraine that have a lot of Russian speakers. He did it in Georgia.
If you listen carefully, dictators often say what they want to do. You had to take it seriously.
Musk: Yeah. They are not subtle.
There is a chance that Putin will achieve things that he doesn't want to. He wants America out of Europe. He wants to weaken NATO. He has strengthened NATO. The west has been united by him. It is a topic that both democracies and open societies agree on. Do you think it will strengthen Putin and pave the way for other examples like China or elsewhere? Are you more confident that it will lead to a different security policy in the West?
I think this will hit the west. I think people realize that we should not have all these internal squabbles when there are more serious threats.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy put it very clearly. Europe, particularly Germany, was 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 What about the American government?
I think the American government has done more than people realize. It has not been very public. It's important to do something serious. We can't let Putin take over the country. This is crazy.
Europe has learned the wrong lesson from the Third Reich and the Holocaust. No military intervention will ever happen again. Trying not to get involved. There is an opportunity that we learned the real lesson, and that is never ever racism, never ever genocides, and never ever appeasement.
Appeasing Hitler did not work. The world would have been better if they had stopped him early. Better for everyone.
The digital minister of Ukraine requested that you do something very concrete within 48 hours. Delivery of Starlink material in order to grant internet access. How is the motivation developing?
We took some actions to make sure that Starlink could be provided quickly. We acted quickly when the request came. On the day of the invasion, the satellite internet connection of Ukraine was taken offline. The cell towers are either jammed or blown up. The Russians are aware of a major fiber backbone. It was likely that they would sever that link. Ukraine would have very few connections open. Starlink might be the only connection in some parts of Ukraine.
What happens if the Russians and Chinese target satellites? Is that a threat for Starlink?
It was interesting to see the Russian anti-satellite demonstration a few months ago. That caused a lot of trouble for the satellite operators. There are Russian cosmonauts on the space station. Why did they do that? It was a message to the other side of the world. There are 2000 satellites so it's not easy to take out Starlink. That means a lot of missiles. I think we can launch satellites faster than they can launch anti-satellites missiles, so I hope we don't have to put this to a test.
Russia said they are going to stop the delivery of rocket engines. Is that a threat or an opportunity for the company?
Musk said that they design and manufacture their own rocket engines. We did not own any Russian components.
Is it dangerous for the United States of America?
The Russian RD-180 Engine is used by Boeing and Lockheed. To be fair, the engine is a great one. They want to use engines from Blue Origin in the future. I believe the ants use the RD-180. They won't be able to fly as a result.
Musk is a strategic weapon in modern warfare because of his knowledge, products and services. How do you see yourself in that situation?
I think I can help in conflicts. I try to take actions that are most likely to improve the future. Sometimes I make mistakes in this area. I do whatever I can to make the future a good one. I will take those actions.
A couple of months ago we had an exchange about the book Storm of Steel. You were fascinated by the book, which was published a hundred years ago, about the experiences of JFC. Why is that book important to you?
I am fascinated by war and history in general, and I read a lot of books. It is more than just the history of war. The book is an excellent account of World War One. The lesson from that book is that we don't want to do that again.
There is controversy around that book. Some people think this is glorifying war.
It is definitely not!
It is positive or negative. It's just a description of what happened.
Nobody is reading that book and saying, I want to do that as well. It's fascinating to read about history. We don't repeat the mistakes of the past if we learn the lessons of history.
History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. We see a rhyme these days. The big strategic picture needs to be returned to. The terrible actions of Putin are a result of strategic mistakes made by Europe, particularly Germany, which dropped nuclear energy in 2011.
It is important that Germany does not shut down its nuclear power stations. I don't think this is normal.
If we want to reduce Putin's power as well as Europe's and Germany's dependence on Russian energy, we have to decarbonize. It is the only way. Is it possible to free ourselves from dictators and autocrats with more nuclear energy?
I want to be clear. Nuclear power plants should not be shut down, but they should be reopened. Those are the ones that produce the most energy. If you are in a place where there are no natural disasters, it's crazy to shut down nuclear power plants. It's more of a question mark if you're in a place where there are large earthquakes. There is no danger with the nuclear power plants if there is no massive natural disaster risk.
Is there any safer alternatives that could have the same effect? Wind and solar won't do it. Do you have any other ideas about the future of energy policy?
Most of civilization's energy is going to come from solar, and then you need to store it with battery because the sun only shines during the day, and sometimes it is cloudy. You need solar batteries. That is the main way that civilization is powered. We need to maintain nuclear. I cannot emphasize that enough. This is crazy to shut them down. I want to be clear.
Let's see if the very clear words are heard in Germany.
I think this is a national security risk.
How will the climate issue look in 15 years? Better than today?
From a sustainable energy standpoint, it's much better.
So we are going to solve this problem?
Yes, absolutely. The climate issue will be solved. It is a question of when. That is the fundamental goal of the company.
The decrease of birth rate is one of the most underestimated problems. Why?
Most people in the world think we have too many people. This is not true. The birth rate has plummeted. We have ridiculous population estimates from the UN that need to be updated. The growth rate was last year. You can see how many kids were born and how long they will live. I think that is how many people will be alive in the future. Is the trend for birth rate positive or negative? It is not positive. Unless something changes for the birth rate, that is the best case.
That is also why we need alternatives. You have recently presented a human robot, and shared expectations for what it could do for the world. I think it is more than just the first visit to Mars that could be done by Optimus, but it could also be a game-changing change in the field of artificial intelligence. Is it possible to share this vision?
Musk sees things with some apprehension with respect to artificial intelligence and robotic devices. I don't want anything that could be harmful to humanity. There are humanoid robots. Look at Boston Dynamics. Every year they do better demonstrations. The rate of advancement is very fast.
It's going to be used in the factories. That is a use case, but what is the broader use case?
Optimus is a general purpose worker-droid. Work that is repetitive, boring, or dangerous is what the initial role must be. Work that people do not want to do.
Why does Optimus have two legs? Is it more practical if it looks like a human? I thought four legs were better.
Musk said four legs good and two legs bad. It reminds me of Orwell. The world has been designed to interact with a bipedal humanoid with two arms and ten fingers. If you want to have a robot that can do things that humans can do, it needs to be the same size and shape.
Döpfner: Do you think that Optimus will help us in the household or something like that?
Yes, Musk. A humanoid.
The prototype will be ready by the end of the year. When can a product be mass marketed?
I think we will have a prototype this year that will be good enough to be ready for volume production by the end of next year, according to Musk.
The potential is bigger than the potential of the company. It must be a mass market product if that is true. It is an answer to the problem of dropping birth rates. If we don't have enough humans, we need more machines.
Musk said thatOptimus would be helpful in dropping growth rates. What happens if these things continue? Humans die out. Is that what we want?
Or replaced by artificial intelligence. Neuralink is used to power human beings.
In the short term, neuralink is just about brain injuries, spine injuries and that kind of thing. For many years Neuralink's products have been helpful to people who have lost their arms or legs due to a traumatic brain injury. Neuralink will be useful for a long time.
Imagine if we could download our human brain capacity into a computer?
I think it is possible.
It would be a different way of eternal life if we downloaded our personality into a bot.
We could download the things we believe make us unique. If you are not in that body anymore, I think we could preserve our memories and personality.
The moment that the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has, I think, is approaching fast. Is this still realistic?
I am not sure if there is a very sharp boundary. I think it is a lot better. There is a lot of compute that we are outsourcing. Our phones and computers have pictures and video. We can do things that would have been considered magical if we had computers and phones. Two people can have a video call for free on opposite sides of the world. It is amazing. Our human brains have already been amplified with computers. It is possible to divide the amount of compute that is digital by the amount of compute that is biological. How does that ratio change over time? The ratio should be increasing rapidly with so much digital compute happening.
You think that one day, Starship could be able to get from A to B in 30 minutes around the globe. Is that correct? It is like a global super taxi. Is it possible to go from San Francisco to Nairobi?
The landing will be loud. You would connect cities that are near the ocean. The landing noise is not a problem for people.
Coast to coast would be a realistic option.
It is like an intercontinental rocket.
You have presented many solutions to the problems of mankind. Longevity is one topic that does not seem to interest you. A significant increase in life span. Why are you not passionate about that? Are you interested in living longer?
I don't think we should try to live for a long time. Most people don't change their minds so it would cause asphyxiation of society. They die. We will be stuck with old ideas if they don't die. I think we have a serious issue with gerontocracy, where the leaders of many countries are very old. It is a very old leadership in the US. It's not possible to stay in touch with the people if you're older than them. Minimum ages for local offices were put in place by the founding fathers of the USA. They didn't put maximum ages because they didn't expect people to live so long. They should have. For a democracy to function, the leaders must be in touch with the majority of the population. You cannot say that you will be attached if you are too young or old.
Is there an ideal age? How old would you like to be?
For political leadership, you want to be within 10 or 20 years of the average age of the population. I would like to maintain my health for a long time. I am not afraid of dying. It would be a relief.
You may not be able to see the vision of the company.
I would like to live long enough to see that.
Do you feel like you're the richest person on the planet?
I think that Putin is richer than me.
Do you really do?
Musk: Yeah.
Do you know John Law?
Musk: No.
300 years ago, John Law was the richest person on the planet. He lived in the late 17th century and early 18th century. He was a gambler, investor, and financial engineer. He was the biggest collector of art. The stock market bubble in France was created by a rush behind the shares of the Mississippi company. One of the first financial crises was caused by this. John Law owned 30% of the United States of America. He went bankrupt. Did you ever think about what would happen if something went wrong?
There have been times when I expected to lose everything. Who started a car company and a rocket company? Certainly not me. I had a small chance of success. I knew that if the fourth launch failed, it would be the end of the company. We didn't have money for the fifth launch. The company has been on the verge of insolvency many times. We closed on the last day of the financing round. Ford was on the verge of going bankrupt back then, along with General GM and Chrysler. Imagine trying to raise money for an electric car startup while General GM was going out of business. I asked the people how angry they were. We were able to raise enough money to survive. The financial round was closed on the last day of 2008. Christmas Day. We would have gone bankrupt two days after Christmas if we hadn't closed the round.
Elon Musk is a philanthropist as well as anentrepreneur. What are the goals of your organization?
The quality of the future will be improved by the two companies, Musk said. It's in terms of usefulness. By speeding up sustainable energy. Multiplanetary intercourse was made possible by SpaceX. This is more than I can do on my own. It is difficult to give away money effectively when it comes to donations. It is hard to give away money effectively if you care about the reality of doing good and not the perception of doing good. I care about reality. It's perception that's being damned. Education, especially science and engineering education, is one of the environmental causes. Children's healthcare. Hunger these days is more of a political problem than it is a lack of food. There is a lot of food. In the US and many other countries, the issue of overweight people is more important than the issue of hunger. I look for ways to give away money that is effective.
I think you would have more than 200 million search results and 80 million followers if you searched for him. You are one of the most popular people. Is it a pleasure or a liability to be popular?
It's hard to buy coffee at the corner. It's hard to get around in places, and it's even harder to get to the store or walk down the street. It is difficult to do that.
It reminds me of a former chancellor of Germany, who once told me, "You cannot imagine how terrible it is to go into a restaurant and everybody recognizes you, comes to your table, asks you for an autograph." That is terrible. One thing in life is worse. If nobody comes to your table anymore.
Musk: Hahaha. I try to stay out of the way of the corner table that is in a dimly lit area.
Do you want to achieve anything?
In the short run, the most pressing is to complete full self-driving so that we can operate at a substantially safer level than humans. It comes down to finding a solution to the problem of real world artificial intelligence. It consumes a lot of my thoughts. The starship needs to work. The holy grail of rocketry is achieving rapid reusability, which is necessary for humanity to become a multiplanet species. I think those things could happen this year.
Do you think anything that you really want to achieve is going to be possible?
Impossible is a strong word.
You don't like that word.
It is a strong word. The word impossible is not allowed in physics. I am really worried about birthrate. It has been troubling me for a long time, because I don't think it will turn around. It is worse every year. My friends are crazy with this.
Walter is working on your biography. Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo DaVinci are some of the people he has written about. Who would you like to meet and have a glass of wine with?
I would be honored to meet them. I think Benjamin Franklin is the funniest person at dinner.
Who is the one you think is closest to you? Is it Leonardo DaVinci?
I am not the same as Musk. It could be Benjamin Franklin. He did a lot of research. The author of the book saw himself first and foremost as an engineer. In his application for the position that allowed him to create all of the art, it was all about his engineering ideas. He mentioned doing some art. It is funny that DaVinci thought of himself as an engineer. He was impressive for his time.
You said that you can't be alone. I also share that feeling. Where does it come from?
Musk thinks it is a natural human reaction.
A lot of people are happy if they are alone.
Musk: Really? Most people don't like being alone.
Do you feel lonely?
There are times when I feel lonely.
Why can't you find people who you can talk to about your feelings and thoughts? You are one of the most popular people on the planet. Everyone wants to speak with you. It seems like it doesn't work.
There are times when I am lonely. I am sure that there are times when everyone is lonely. It is pretty basic. If I am working on the starship rocket and I am only staying in my little house by myself, I feel lonely because I don't have a dog.
What is your biggest fear?
What are the threats that humanity faces? I talked about the birthrate a lot. That could be the biggest threat to the future of civilization. Artificial intelligence is concerned about going wrong. I think religious extremists are another concern.
What is your biggest hope?
Musk hopes that humanity will create a city on Mars.
If I am not in love, I cannot be happy. Are you happy?
Musk thinks there are degrees of love. I think it's important to be happy at work and happy in love. I suppose I am happy.
Can love for projects, for work, compensate for love among people?
I tried to be as accurate as possible. If humanity has a city on Mars that is self-sufficient, I would be happy. I think we have a small light in the void. We don't want this small candle to go out.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
