埃隆·马斯克，非常感谢你做客《Insider》。谢谢你邀请我们。在这座Tesla超级工厂里，介绍你时真的很难不用最高级的词。我是说，我认为，在建设未来这件事上，你所做的事情确实比目前任何一个在世的人都多。

总的来说，我确实在做很多建造工作。

你确实在做很多建造工作？

我想，我是个凭本能行事的建造者。我就是喜欢建造东西。

你确实是，但你正在建造，我是说，

你，你知道，整天到处跑着建造东西。

你到处跑着建造了很多东西。你开创了电动汽车的先河，你革新了太空旅行。你现在拥有一个尖端的AI模型，还有人形机器人。我们能否请你先把这一切串联起来，以此开始这场对话？告诉我，假设你成功了，比如说10年后，世界会是什么样子。

10年后。所以我们说的是2036年。

对。希望我们俩那时都还在。

希望如此，是的，我们可以，我们可以。很可能我们都会在。很难想象这样一种未来，其中没有数量压倒性的人工智能。意思是，比如说，10年后，我预计人工智能将远远超过人类智能的总和。是远远超过。事实上，我认为AI可能会在大约5年后超过人类智能的总和。5年后，我猜大约是5年。所以，除了作为人类之外，真的不会再有任何事情是AI无法做得比人类更好的，或许在一个更

平实的层面上，生活会是什么样子？

最可能的结果是一个惊人富足的时代，每个人都能拥有他们能想到的任何东西。这听起来可能很荒谬，但是，嗯，我们现在已经到了2026年。让我们看看2036年时会处于什么境地。当然，有些事情可能会让这一切脱轨，比如一场大规模的全球热核战争，或者类似的事情。但假设不会发生第3次世界大战，我认为我们正走向一个惊人富足的时代。所以我想，这是一个关于未来的乐观而令人振奋的信息。

所以我们马上会谈到这种富足。但只说一个非常实际的问题，你的公司要如何赚钱？因为当你在SpaceX的IPO招股说明书中时，它，它看起来像是绝大部分收入都会来自AI，来自Grok，真的，不会是像SpaceX现在这样把东西运往太空。你的公司在10年后会做什么，又将如何赚钱？

嗯，你完全可以把经济看作数字智能和物理智能。所以，我们现在拥有的、正在非常迅速发展的，是数字智能。显然，随着 AI 的发展，似乎几乎每过一周都会有更多 AI 突破。它能做到一些以前做不到的惊人之事，但它仍然在某种程度上局限于数字领域。它没有末端执行器。你需要以人形机器人的形式存在的末端执行器。你基本上需要大量机器人。简而言之，你需要大量机器人。然后，你就可以从仅以数字形式展现自身的智能，转向塑造原子。你会问，什么是经济？经济就是商品的生产和服务的提供。而如果你拥有数量庞大的机器人和海量数字智能，你就拥有了一种近乎无限的经济。所以这真的。未来将与过去非常、非常不同。我想不出任何类比或隐喻能够说明我们将在这里经历的变化有多么巨大。

我明白这一点，我也在试图弄清楚那个世界会是什么样子。但从某种意义上说，你有好的。

那会非常不可思议。

是的，我们也会做。确实存在一些风险，我们会谈到那些。但就你之后要如何赚钱这个问题而言，因为归根结底，人们购买你的股票，是因为他们期望你赚钱。

我再做一个预测。到 2036 年，钱将不再重要。

我不确定那些购买了你公司股票的人是否认为，到 2036 年钱将不再重要。

你要钱做什么？你要钱来购买商品和服务，对吧？显然，你要钱来购买食物、住房、交通和娱乐。好吧，如果这一切都丰富到有更多，多到机器人和 AI 提供的商品与服务超过任何人所能消费的量，那么在这种情况下，你还需要钱做什么？

但你从现在起正在制造这些机器人

而且那时你会需要钱。当然。

你会出售这些机器人吗？你会出售人形机器人吗？还是会用你控制的人形机器人来生产商品和提供服务？我把李维的带子给你。

我想我可能会是。要是我认为自己能控制远比我聪明的超级天才 AI，那就是一种虚荣之举。我认为，我们能够而且应该努力做的，是确保 AI 拥有良好的价值观，确保它关心人类，并希望我们幸福、繁荣。我认为它很可能会这样。我的生物神经网络告诉我，对 AI 安全而言，最重要的是最大限度地追求真相和保持好奇。如果是这样，我认为它会促进人类发展。

那么，我们来详细分析一下。你确信 10 年后人类将不再掌握控制权吗？

我认为不太可能。就像如果 AI 与人类之间的智力差距，远远大于 AI 与黑猩猩之间的智力差距，那么很难想象黑猩猩会掌权。

我对此真的很满意。

而我们本质上是黑猩猩的一种进化形态。所以就在不久以前，我们还在树林间荡来荡去，在丛林里吃香蕉。顺便说一句，我们现在仍然吃香蕉。确实。而且仍然，你知道，香蕉有时也会荡

过树林。

是的，有时在树林间荡来荡去还挺有趣的。这有点让人回想起过去。看在往日时光的份上，偶尔在树林间荡一荡，大概，你知道，应该有更多人在树林间荡来荡去。我敢说。这比人们想象的有趣多了。

这点我同意你。我绝对同意你说的在树林间荡来荡去。我喜欢在树林间荡来荡去。但是，但是，但是现在听你这么说，我真的很震惊，因为这些年来我听过你说的很多东西。而且，而且 10 年前，你上过一期播客，我想是和尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森一起，你说最令你恐惧的是 AI 快速的递归式自我改进。

是的。

而且你说过，这让我印象非常深刻。你说，最好的情况下，我们也只会成为宠物拉布拉多犬。好吧，现在你看，拉布拉多犬是相当快乐的生物，但在 2023 年，你，你抓住了，你要求放缓空气，因为你对此感到担忧。

嗯，我签署了，你知道，作为许多人之一，像 500 人之一。我，我，我，我只是，你知道，那份东西上众多签名中的一个。

但是，但是我想，甚至就在去年，你还说过，我，是什么来着？在特德·克鲁兹的播客上，你说杀手机器人消灭人类的概率是 10% 到 20%。

对。

所以你当时听起来很担忧。现在你似乎对此非常放松。你的看法改变了吗？

我仍然认为存在，我仍然认为 AI 和机器人伴随着风险。风险并非为零。我想，我得出的某种哲学结论是，要看到光明的一面。我看不出有什么办法能真正阻止 AI 和机器人的这种惊人势头。有时我会想，嗯，也许即使有一个停止按钮，我们可能也不该按下它，因为。因为最可能的结果是难以置信的富足，供。供所有人享有。

我也是这么想的。实际上，我突然觉得，你现在似乎已经认定这是不可避免的了。让我们抱最好的希望，享受这段旅程吧。

对，我是说，是的，差不多就是这样。让我们享受这段旅程吧。我认为这就是我目前的哲学，因为，我是说，老实说，AI 和机器人领域似乎正呈现一种不可阻挡的进步，即便我想阻止它，也做不到。

你仍然认为杀手机器人有 10% 到 20% 的概率会导致人类终结吗？正如人们所说，这是很高的毁灭概率。

嗯，从长远来看，我们当然都会死，你知道，所以我是说，我是说，按照物理学的标准模型，宇宙的终点是一锅漫长、乏味、逐渐冷却的稀薄灰汤，也就是所谓的热寂，宇宙是这么称呼的。所以，如果宇宙热寂事实上就是我们这个现实的结局，那么真正重要的就全在旅程本身，因为目的地糟透了。

10 年并不是很。对，我明白。但那可能还很遥远，非常遥远。如果 10 年内发生这种事的概率是 10% 到 20%，而你认为你的某枚火箭有 10% 到 20% 的概率会爆炸并炸死你，你还会登上它吗？

是的，但假设你对此无能为力。我想，我们唯一能尝试做的，就是尽量降低坏结果发生的概率。但是试图阻止机器人拥有智能，我是说，在很长一段时间里

我

拒绝参与AI，或者说创建OpenAI，本质上是为了制衡谷歌，因为当时他们差不多垄断了AI。然后Anthropic从OpenAI分拆出来，而真要说起来，似乎我的行动确实加速了AI。你知道，我原本并不是想加速AI，但由于创建了OpenAI，接着Anthropic又从中分拆出来，而现在Anthropic目前是AI领域的领导者。我的意思是，这些行动实际上产生了连锁效应，加速了AI，而这并非我的本意。所以看起来，所有道路都通向AI加速。于是我就想，好吧，你可以只是为此感到难过，或者加入这个俱乐部，我想。

嗯，你显然已经加入这个俱乐部了。是的，你绝对已经加入这个俱乐部了，但是

打不过他们，就加入他们，你知道。

嗯，你显然已经这么做了，而且非常成功。但努力把风险降到最低呢？你知道，其他一些模型开发商的领导者一直在推动以不同方式设法把风险降到最低。就在上周，Demis Hassabes提出了一项关于公私联合监管机构的方案。我想你说过，这是展开讨论的一个好起点。我想。你认为你们应该更积极地努力建立某种机制来控制风险，还是你认为那也是不可能的？

我给Demis的建议是，因为他发表那篇文章之前，我和他谈了几个小时，我们眼下最可以做的事，是让领先的AI公司至少每隔几周见一次面，或者进行某种通话，讨论任何安全和安保问题。而且在一项突破成果，也就是某种新的前沿模型发布之前，如果它远比现有的任何东西都更智能，就让各家相互竞争的AI公司有机会测试该模型是否存在任何有害影响，并且能够建议暂停发布，以解决其中一些安全问题。我认为那是。那是。那算是我们可以做的简单、快捷的事情。而且它可以。随着时间推移，它可以发展成更多东西，但那是。那，我认为，会是明智之举。

但为什么。为什么你们还没有这么做？我的意思是，你们大概有5个人，对吧？我是说，大家都知道名字。Dario、Demis、Sam。我的意思是，你们彼此不太喜欢。是的，是的，但你们并不。你们并不全都。我的意思是，你们也全都在竞争，对吧？你们都想成为第一。

是的，但那是。那正是我认为竞争对手可以彼此监督、确保对方诚实的地方。所以，意思是，比如，如果是政府中某个并不具备深厚技术理解、也没有在推动AI前沿发展的人，我认为他很难知道某个东西是否应该发布。然而，我认为竞争对手可以，你知道，如果有大约1周或2周时间进行审查，就可以指出新模型的问题，而且有动机让所有竞争对手，都有动机确保其他人诚实。

你们彼此之间有足够的信任来这么做吗？我的意思是，你们不太喜欢彼此。如果你们这么做，Sam Altman难道不会觉得你要偷走他的所有想法吗？

嗯，我们只是在说，我认为私下测试只需要短至1周时间。这不是要把AI交出去，只是测试它。

你提出过这个建议吗？

是的，只是通过API之类的东西进行测试。我认为那或许会是一件值得做的好事。

你提出过吗？我是说，你可以推测。

把那件事组织给Demis，我想我也会和Daria谈谈。当然，还有一些非常有能力的中国AI公司。有好几家。有好几家。都非常出色。新的Kimi模型。

Kimi K3。是的。上周发布的那个已经。我是说，它几乎和Fable一样好，对吧？所以。

嗯，我。我认为实事求是地说，Fable 是。仍然显然是最聪明的模型。我认为任何实事求是的人都会说情况依然如此。但 Kimi 模型现在已经相当接近 Fable 了。Anthropic 曾有 Mythos，Fable 就是从它衍生而来的。我想他们在2月就准备好了。所以他们已经有了。他们已经有了。我不确定他们会怎么称呼它，但可能是 Mythos 2 或 Fable 6 之类的。比他们2月时拥有的好得多的东西。他们几乎肯定还没有。几乎肯定。他们现在肯定有了，而且我认为他们随时都可以发布。

在我们谈到发布之前，你怎么看中国的模型以及其中的地缘政治？你担心中国追上并领先吗？

鉴于中国人工智能公司用相对少量的计算资源就做得这么好，似乎如果它们拥有大量算力，就很有可能成为领先者。而且在某个时候，它们很可能会拥有大量算力。

所以他们会。因此，他们将成为领导者。

它们很有可能成为领先者。在某个时候。你可以这样看，比如说，人工智能的。人工智能的制约因素，本质上是电力和人工智能芯片，然后对于实体人工智能而言，则是机器人。中国也有一些非常优秀的机器人公司。事实上，他们还举办这类，比如说，机器人的体育赛事。我不知道你是否看过其中一些。

是的，我看过。我看到了。上次我在北京时，我看到了那些机器人。

嗯，然后他们还有那种像是。一种机器人拳击赛或格斗赛，相当有趣。我看到过一段视频，一个机器人的头被打掉了，即使头被打掉了还在继续战斗。看起来很滑稽。但我是说，事实上，我认为。机器人大战会非常有观赏性。

但是。但是就是这样。

所以中国的。中国在机器人方面非常强，在数字人工智能方面也非常强。而且。而且如果你看发电量，你可以说，比如说，人工智能取决于那个限制因素是什么。是芯片还是电力。中国的电力远多于美国。事实上，中国目前的电力已经超过美国、欧洲和印度的总和，并且正在朝着，而我的猜测是，中国的发电量将达到美国的4倍，这与人口比例大致相称。

美国政府应该对此做些什么？我的意思是，如果一个威权政权在最强大的技术上遥遥领先，想必这多少有些令人担忧。而美国政府一直试图做的，显然是通过出口管制等措施阻止中国前进。你认为他们是否应该禁止使用 K3 Kimi、K3，比如说？

嗯，美国政府做不到。他们可以通过某项法律，阻止美国公司使用中国模型，但他们无法阻止世界其他地方使用。所以，并不是说美国政府对中国或世界其他地方拥有管辖权。

你认为他们应该阻止美国公司使用这些模型吗？目前正在讨论这件事。对吧。

我认为那没有帮助。那实际上无法阻止中国成为人工智能领域的领先者。对于数字智能来说。归根结底是你有多少人工智能算力？嗯，你有多少芯片，又有多少电力？你有多少电？所以我认为，目前的制约因素实际上稍微更多地在于供电和冷却，而不是人工智能芯片，因为人工智能芯片的电力需求非常、非常高。我们会谈到用水需求，但实际上人工智能的用水量微不足道，几乎为零。但电力需求非常高。

想必这就是你在考虑轨道数据中心的原因。

是的。在中国，任何人工智能芯片未被启动运行的制约因素都是电力。还有，比如供电和冷却、电气设备以及一切，人工智能芯片的制造速度超过了新增电力在中国——中国境外——上线的速度。

中国境外，我明白了，是的。

而且由于中国，你知道，美国已经禁止向中国出口最新的人工智能芯片，中国在一定程度上缺少芯片。

所以他们使用现有芯片的效率正在大幅提高。而 Kimik 3 最引人注目的事情之一。对吧。就是他们多么高效地。

而且我认为，中国距离解决光刻问题也比大多数人意识到的更近，这将使他们能够大批量制造人工智能芯片。所以我认为这里存在。这不应该演变成一场只谈中国的对话。所以目前在中国境外，制约因素是电力。在中国，制约因素是芯片。一旦，一旦我们用太空中的人工智能数据中心解决了，这个电力制约因素，那么在中国境外，制约因素将再次变成芯片。

这在我看来意味着，如果你打算设置某种总体安全限制，就需要中国和美国合作，如果你打算尝试的话。而且你曾提出，你知道，那5个

在这里开展工作的模型制造商，或许也应该包括那些正在研发前沿人工智能模型的中国公司。

你认为政府需要参与吗？

我的建议是，如果一些领先的人工智能公司表示某个新模型非常危险，那么它们应该通知政府，并且新世界非常危险，而生产该模型的公司没有采取措施应对这种危险，那么它们就应该提醒政府采取行动，限制该模型的发布。而这可以是中国政府采取的行动，也可以是美国政府采取的行动。实际上，只有美国政府和中国政府有权在这里采取行动。

我猜人们会担心依赖一群模型开发者来决定是否这么做。我的意思是，如果你看看美国政府对 Mythos 所做的事，他们进行了干预，因为他们担心网络安全风险，而且他们以出口管制相威胁来进行干预，以，你知道，阻止这个模型被广泛发布。我很难想象政府会不想保留这种权力，也就是最终由他们决定是否发布。

我认为他们应该保留。他们应该拥有那种权力。但并不是政府里的某个人发现 Matthos 存在过某些可怕的网络安全风险。是亚马逊。亚马逊指出了这一点，而且亚马逊给白宫打了电话。

所以，你会建立一个模型制造商相互检查工作的系统。如果有什么让他们担忧的事情，你会告诉政府。然后政府会考虑是否存在

还有别的事情令人担忧，而那家公司没有采取任何措施来应对那项风险，那么那就是政府介入并采取行动的时刻，这实际上正是刚发生改变的地方

总是必须发生。

我认为这么做会很好，我认为，立即去做。真的吗？是的。

是的，人们一直在对我这么说。由于模型改进的速度，我们必须在未来6个月内建立某种这样的系统。

是的，6个月是很长一段时间。

所以你认为要比那更短？

嗯，我的意思是，AI 突破性的公告太多了，有时一天就有多个。我的意思是，上周有多少个？

很多。

我都记不清了，你知道。

是的，很多。所以基本上，你知道，不管是 Demis 的提议还是其他人的提议。你们需要聚到一起，而且听起来你是在告诉我，现在就得把这套东西建立起来。

是的，我会建议我们至少进行某种非正式的每周或每两周一次的通话，而且有。那。可能让竞争对手提前1周或2周获得访问权限。这就是为什么我认为这种激励机制行得通，因为如果，你知道，竞争公司，我认为很可能能够理解某件事是否构成安全风险，而且他们不会羞于指出，他们竞争对手的模型应该推迟发布。我认为那里的激励结构确实相当有效。这有点像美国电影协会的运作方式。它是一个行业组织，决定电影应该如何分级，以及是否适合幼儿观看。而那。那似乎运作得相当好。然后，只有当一家公司正在做非常危险的事情，而且拒绝采取行动降低危险时，你才真正要求政府介入。

你认为这是一件棘手的事吗，但是你们这些人彼此并不太喜欢，也不太信任彼此。你们经常在社交媒体上相互辱骂。所以，你认为你能和自己不喜欢的人做到这一点吗？这些领导人中的一些人之间似乎存在这种强烈的个人恶意。

能。嗯，我不喜欢 Sam Alban，因为如果你创办了一家本应是开源 AI 公司、由全世界拥有的非营利组织，而它不知怎么变成了一家价值8000亿美元、闭源的营利性公司，我想你会说，嗯，等一下，这和我捐钱所支持的目标完全相反。那，那就是我的问题。我认为这是个合理的问题。然后是 Dario，我认为他也不喜欢 Sam Altman，因为他觉得，事实上，Anthropic 团队离开 OpenAI 的原因是他们，他们不信任 Sam Altman。否则 Anthropic 就不会存在。他们仍会留在 OpenAI。我，我认为 Dario 是一个非常有原则的人。他非常关心很多事情，关心世界的未来。而且我认为到目前为止，我在 Anthropic 遇到的每个人都像是，没有人触发我的邪恶探测器。你知道，他们似乎总是，总是出于善意，而通往地狱的道路，我认为，大部分是由恶意铺成的。里面也有几块出于善意的铺路石。所以我们，我们不想自满，但归根结底，如果我们必须谈，我们就会谈。我的意思是，为了世界的利益，把我们的个人分歧放到一边。

嗯，这对我们其他人来说是个非常好的消息。

是的。

我们能谈谈人们担心的另一个风险吗，尤其是，我认为，普通美国人所担心的风险，你知道，人工智能已经变得极其不受欢迎。75%的人对此感到担忧，我认为他们担心的是自己的工作。而且如果你看看，Dario曾有一句名言，怎么说来着，50%的入门级工作，入门级白领工作将在几年内消失。你正在制造人形机器人。

是的。你也说过，比如，我的意思是，Dario在Mythos这件事上确实是自掘坟墓，因为他说，你知道，Mythos超级吓人、令人恐惧。另外，顺便说一下，我们还要发布它。然后他又像是在说，你什么意思？你知道，所以我认为他。我认为将来大概会换一种措辞。

但什么是。

因为很明显，如果你把所有人都吓坏了，然后说，哦，我们要发布这个可怕的东西，人们显然会对此感到惊恐。你实际上已经告诉他们要害怕，然后又发布了这个吓人的东西。所以他们会害怕。这很自然。

所以我当然不希望你惊吓人们。但我确实认为，关于人工智能将以多快的速度、在多大程度上取代人们的工作，有一场非常重要的辩论。因为这正如你所说，如果在10年内，它更多。它。人工智能的智能超过了任何人类智能。

是的。

而且如果你正在，我认为至少在这个国家，你在驱动人形机器人方面领先于所有人，那。那也将会是一种工厂工作。所以你是否。你是其中一部分。你是否。比方说，就你对工作将以何种速度被取代的判断而言，你是否更接近Dario？

我确实认为这将是一条崎岖的道路，因为人工智能将能够把任何工作都做得比任何能做那项工作的人更好。对于数字化工作，或者其实任何涉及人在电脑或手机上操作的工作，这很快就会成为现实。人工智能可以完成所有这些。我们很快就能完成所有这些。在软件工程方面，我们已经处于这样一种情况：人工智能编写软件的能力胜过至少90%的人类，胜过90%的专业软件工程师。而且现在真的快要到它将胜过99%的程度了，然后它将达到根本无法与之竞争的程度，它会。它会达到我所说的Stockfish水平。所以Stockfish。Stockfish是那个国际象棋程序。Stockfish的棋艺好到，你知道，它能轻松击败Magnus Carlsen或任何棋手，在一台。甚至是在一台小型电脑上运行。我猜，你或许可以在手机上运行Stockfish并击败Magnus Carlsen。它的棋艺就是这么好，而人工智能编写软件以及其他方面的能力也会这么好。

软件之外。

而这适用于一切。

一切，一切，一切，一切。但体力工作、装配工作呢？你还需要人形机器人具备相应能力，而到目前为止还没有达到，对吧？

对。所以这就是为什么我先说数字人工智能，然后再说以机器人形式具象化的人工智能，其中机器人或多或少是一个末端执行器。它会具备一定程度的本地智能，但由一个大型人工智能模型管理。而且我说过很多次，我认为工作将成为可选项。所以我的意思是，让我。所以，所以我认为也许，也许一个不错的、不错的类比是园艺。比如，你不必做园艺，你知道，你不必。比如，你不必在自己的花园里种蔬菜。你可以去商店，那里会有品相完美的蔬菜。或者你可以在自己的花园里种蔬菜，而它们实际上会没那么完美。你的西红柿不会像商店里的那样饱满多汁。它们会，你知道，看起来有点手工制作的感觉。但是，你知道，如果你去朋友家，他们，他们用自家花园里的蔬菜做晚餐，这，这是一份贴心之举。

所以这就是我所说的。

未来的工作就是这样。

我明白。我是说，在那个世界里我会无可救药，因为我怎么也学不会园艺。但我明白这个意思，即使每台电脑都更厉害，人们仍然喜欢彼此下棋。但我们还是，就让我们思考一下这件事的政治问题。

是的。

因为这听起来。你描述的是这样一个世界：在10年内，几乎每一项工作都能由一种智能做得更好。而且是的，你正看到这种智能带来巨额回报。两个像你这样的人，你是世界上最富有的人。那些失去工作、被取代、可能离开去做园艺的人怎么办。但他们要怎么生活？以及什么样的。我是说，在我听来它

将会是全民高收入。

但你要怎样实现这一点？让我们谈谈这件事的政治问题，因为现在，如果我们看看大多数国家的政治压力，人们对此非常、非常担忧。非常反对。在我看来，我们面临的风险是，与其说我们正轻松地走向你所描绘的这个极乐世界，不如说我们更可能正走向革命。

我是说，这条路会很颠簸。我不是说这里的一切都会一帆风顺。所以，我是说，过去存在的许多工作已经因为计算机而不复存在了。我是说，computer（计算员）这个词过去指的是进行计算的人，那曾经是对一个人的职位描述。你可以在网上看到一些建筑物的照片，整栋摩天大楼里全是进行计算的人，做的事情包括计算你银行余额的利息。在计算机出现之前，很长一段时间里事情就是这样完成的。即使在早期，计算机也非常昂贵且难以使用。所以这里不同的是，变化的速度从根本上加快了。但仍然有些人因为计算银行利息这份工作将不复存在而感到不满。但现在，我想你很难找到愿意做那份工作的人。所以，对于人们可以读哪些科幻小说来了解未来会是什么样子，我想我有一个建议。在我读过的作品中，对人工智能未来最出色的构想来自伊恩·班克斯的书，也就是“文化”系列小说。

我刚在读《Accession》，所以多亏了你，我开始读这些书了。但实际上，我并不觉得那种未来特别有吸引力，因为我认为人类在那个未来没有自主权。

与心智的小方式相比，他们拥有最低限度的自主权。

但讽刺的是，正如你所知，班克斯是一名社会主义者，伊恩·班克斯有着非常不同的政治理念。

我不确定那是。我不确定我会完全同意这一点。

我们姑且同意，那里可能就是我们的最终归宿。我担心的是这条路，而我们生活在，你知道，我们生活在民主国家，人们对此非常担忧。所以我想有两个问题。首先，你是否必须把财富从像你这样的人大规模再分配给那些正在失去工作的人？你是否需要，你是否需要缴纳更多税款？你是否必须大幅提高资本税，从而为某种全民收入提供资金？否则人们靠什么生活？

我认为财政部应该直接给人们发支票。

但收入从哪里来？我的经济学知识至少足以让我知道，如果你只是发支票，就会引发通货膨胀。

这就像，我们正在努力思考的很多事情是，这些东西过去有意义，但未来将不再有意义。所以，比如说，通货膨胀只是货币与商品和服务之间的比率。因此，如果商品和服务的产出大幅增加，如果增长1000%，你就可以增加。你真的可以印钞，或者这些人修改数据库。从来不印钱。你在数据库里创造货币，只要创造货币的速度低于商品和服务增长的速度。实际上就会出现通货紧缩。所以我要作出一个预测，那就是问题将是通货紧缩，而不是通货膨胀，因为随着商品和服务产出的增加，如果商品和服务产出的增长速度超过货币供应量，你就会出现通货紧缩。

实际上，我完全愿意相信你很可能是对的。绝对如此，你很可能是对的。但我真正纠结的是，我们如何从目前这种两极分化、愤怒、恐惧的政策走向这个极乐世界。我认为，你可以描绘这样一种情景：人们对此恐惧至极，你知道，他们实际上会试图阻止它。也许他们阻止不了。但你会被国有化。会出现某种，你知道，极左政府，税收过度上涨。整个经济会崩溃，因为人们对未来太过担忧。而按照你的描述，这个未来听起来确实相当可怕。你要如何，你现在要如何应对政治问题？

这既令人振奋，又令人恐惧。

但如果你身处那个。对，没错。

坦率地说，如果你问我，在任何一天，事实上甚至是在一天之内，我对人工智能的感受都曾从振奋转为恐惧。所以我想说清楚。我并不是，我并不是什么，你知道，我不是想在这里当个憨第德式的人，只会说，哦，一切都很美好，抱着某种潘格洛斯式的世界观，认为一切都会，你知道，变得很棒。没有，没有，没有风险。我是说，确实存在一些风险。

我想我们在这一点上意见一致。我想我是在努力更，你知道，更具体、更务实一些，思考现在能做些什么来限制这些风险。你也非常有力地论述了你和其他模型制造者能做些什么。那应该。

政府，我们进行协调或许会有好处，只需把我们在彼此模型中发现的问题指出来，以减轻下行风险。

应该做什么，政府是否应该。你是否应该缴纳更多税款，为更多转移支付项目提供资金？

嗯，首先，我确实，我确实缴纳了很多税。事实上，我创下了人类有史以来纳税金额最高的纪录。

这也是因为你是世界首富。

嗯，甚至在那之前就是如此。所以我猜我会缴纳数万亿税款，我对此没有意见。所以，是的，事情就是会这样。但我认为，在一个货币仍有意义的未来，税收也会变得有些无关紧要。

那么，让人们感觉自己能分享其中的收益呢？

当然。

把SpaceX和Tesla的股份分给人们。你认为那是。而且现在有很多人讨论这个问题？

嗯，我让SpaceX上市的原因之一，就是让公众能够参与，因为他们可以拥有SpaceX的一部分。而作为一家私营公司，在上市之前，我们获准拥有的股东数量非常有限。所以，作为一家上市公司，我们可以有数百万名股东。作为一家私营公司，我们只能有几千名股东。

所以你认为应该分配股份吗，比如，你知道，阿拉斯加财富基金就是为此设立的，你能否想象这样一个世界。而且有些人谈到，特朗普账户可以成为实现这一点的某种载体，让你的部分股权归普通美国人所有。

对。嗯，就我缴的税而言，像是我，我缴的税，我是说，我会，我会，你知道，就我的股票期权而言，我在国家层面缴纳40%的所得税。然后因为我大约有30%的时间在加利福尼亚州，差不多吧，我还要再缴大约三分之一的加利福尼亚州税，而这个税率现在约为15%。所以，所以我大约缴45的税，就是让大家知道这件事。你知道，我不知道。差不多，大致是一半，然后等我去世时，还会再有某种45%，大约一半会被征税。所以到最后，我拥有的，我所拥有的，无论是什么，可能只会剩下四分之一。但我认为它带给我的唯一东西是，在一段时间内，我可以控制这些公司的发展方向。所以这基本上就是它带给我的东西。直到我猜AI聪明到由它掌权，而到了那个时候，控制公司也就真的不重要了。

好吧，我们来谈谈这个，因为我认为，人们对我们前进方向感到担忧的另一件事是，我要把它夸张地描述一下。但人们认为，世界的走向正由极少数权势极大的人塑造。而你就在这份名单的最顶端。

还有什么是。但这和过去不同吗？

我同意你的看法。我觉得，我觉得就像

什么时候不是这样呢？

向来如此。

但向来如此。没错。

这是一个。正如你非常生动地描述的那样，这是一次快得惊人的变化。而我。而且，那么让我们从你对自己公司的控制权谈起，在IPO之后，你现在肯定拥有这种控制权，基本上，你拥有80%多一点的投票权股份，而且据我理解，只有通过你本人控制的股份投票，才能把你罢免。所以如果我说错了，请告诉我，但我认为你可以发疯。

顺便说一下，AI公司也属于那一类，像谷歌这样的AI公司也属于那一类。Alphabet由拉里和谢尔盖控制。

但我认为你的情况更极端。无法去。

程度是一样的，他们拥有那家公司的投票控制权。马克·扎克伯格控制着Omata。而且你知道，马克正在AI领域非常努力，我认为他很可能也会拥有一个领先的AI。我想他上周发布了一个。所以我认为他会是其中之一，你知道，Meta会成为AI公司之一。

但由一个人对一家公司拥有如此大的控制权，合理吗？

嗯，我其实只需要确保自己可以专注于长期。所谓长期，我指的只是在5到10年内。所以上市公司的挑战之一，就是每个季度都要拿出出色业绩的压力，以及不能真正投资那些可能要到5到10年后才会获得回报的事物。就SpaceX而言，我希望把意识扩展到地球之外，并在月球、火星以及太阳系其他地方建立一个不断发展的文明。我认为这最终会带来非常高的投资回报。但在短期内，我们会把所有这些钱花在月球基地或NMRS基地上。然后人们就会说，我会承受所有这种压力，比如，嗯，你这个季度没达到盈利预期，因为你在火星上花得太多了。我会说，是的。顺便说一句，那已经写在S1招股说明书中了，而且确实被列为我们会做的一件事。但他们仍然会为这些事情生气，你知道，因为他们会说，嗯，你本来，不管怎样，你知道，你说你的毛利率会是这个数，但实际上稍微差了一点。而现在，现在我们要惩罚你，所有卖空者都会蜂拥而至，你会承受很大的压力。

你会遇到很多这种情况。

是的。所以我只是需要某种方式，大致这样说：听着，各位，我们将专注于时间跨度为5到10年或更长的投资。这会压低我们的短期收益。但从长远来看，我是说，如果你采取长期视角，而且确实有这样的投资者，我们有许多投资者确实采取长期视角。事实上，我非常喜欢散户投资者。事实上，我发现，总体而言，我们的散户投资者有，有，他们非常有洞察力，而且持有非常长期的观点。但如果其中一部分归结为你所说的，投资组合经理的激励结构是什么？他们为什么会对季度收益施加如此大的压力，这在某种程度上是可以理解的，因为他们的薪酬以及能否获得晋升，取决于其投资组合的表现。而且他们只有几年来作出这些决定，随后就会根据这些决定接受评估，有时评估期仅为1年或更短。因此，由于他们承受着获得即时回报的压力，他们继而也向公司施压，要求获得即时回报。所以，一旦你理解了激励结构，这种行为的自然就会随之而来。

不过，关键人物风险呢？我是说，会发生什么，你知道，但愿不会，可如果你明天被那辆俗话说的公共汽车撞倒了，会发生什么？你知道，这些公司是你，你对这些公司拥有完全控制权。对于没有你之后它们将如何继续发展，你有计划吗？

我认为它们其实会在，会在好几年里表现得非常好。而且你知道，SpaceX 有一份清晰的路线图，或者我应该说是太空图，而 Tesla 其实也确实有一份道路图。所以我认为，我认为，有，你知道，如果你看看史蒂夫·乔布斯之后的苹果，史蒂夫·乔布斯有，你知道，他有战略愿景，还有一批他，他构思过的产品，而苹果一直表现得非常好。但当你没有史蒂夫·乔布斯这样的创意天才时，你所缺少的、苹果所缺少的，就是那些令人难以置信的突破性产品。所以他们制造很棒的手机、出色的电脑，但苹果还没有推出这种史蒂夫·乔布斯级别的突破性产品。

所以以此类推，这就是你为旗下所有公司带来的东西。你提到了火星。大多数人认为你是那个想在火星上建立殖民地的人。这样我们就有了多行星文明。

我这么说已经说了很长时间了。

你确实说了，但现在你似乎更专注于AI，以及AI在未来10年里会做什么。而且谈到把月球用作基地，再从那里，知道，弹出轨道AI卫星时，你听起来兴奋得多。你已经把注意力从火星上移开了吗，还是你仍然像以往一样对殖民火星感兴趣？

我，我，我感兴趣的是这样一组行动：尽最大可能让意识延续到未来，从而让意识的未来光锥尽可能大，尽可能大。你知道，就像，存在一个令人兴奋的未来，在那里我们是一个航行于太空、置身群星之间的文明，而那些非反乌托邦科幻书籍和电影中设想的美好事物终有一天会成为现实。我有点想要《星际迷航》和《星球大战》那样的未来。顺便说一句，《星球大战》是我第一次在电影院里看过的电影。

真的吗？

也许它对我产生了深远影响。我想是这样。我记得当时我。说实话，让我大为震撼。我想我当时6岁，我就觉得这是我见过最了不起的东西。

你的一生一直都在致力于让那件事发生吗？

是的，我是说，我没想到会这样，但是当我年轻的时候。但我的人生感觉有些超现实。我不敢相信这些事情真的在发生。我觉得这个世界的让我相信模拟理论。是的。这里就像是。嗯，这个，就像，我正在做的这些事情荒诞得如此离谱，很难相信它们是真的。我是说，我们有星舰，它是有史以来制造的最大、最强大的飞行物体。而且我们打算以每小时超过1次的频率发射它。

我知道，我读到了。而且我们可以，你知道，人们可以争论它会多快实现，但我认为，根据你过往的成绩，我们应该假定它终有一天会实现。

它会实现。

我只是有点震撼，当我，当我，我和你一样，也被这个世界震撼得无以复加。而我，我是从一个，从一个天真得多的层面观察它。但对我来说，AI的整个演进以及这些模型的能力，本身就令人无比震撼。

事情基本上正如我，我原以为，以为的那样发生。

是吗？

是的。哦，那很有意思。而且不只是我。很多人都预测到了这一点。我认为雷·库兹韦尔的预测一直准确得惊人。

是的。奇点正在临近。让我们更直接地回到此时此地。我们谈过你对自己公司的控制权集中。你已经很好地阐明了为什么你应该拥有这种控制权。你还通过星链拥有不可思议的地缘政治。我的意思是，我就是你的客户之一。产品很出色。但没有它们，乌克兰人就会陷入非常、非常严重的困境。

是的。乌克兰政府已经多次公开感谢星链，称它在保卫乌克兰方面发挥了关键作用。

而且你最近决定阻止被占领土上的俄罗斯人接入星链。

嗯，不是，我们确实这样做。我们从未在任何时候向俄罗斯人出售星链。

但他们弄到了，对吧？他们当时在使用它。而你现在已经阻止他们这样做了。

嗯，他们实际上弄到了通过乌克兰订购的星链终端，然后把它们走私到俄罗斯人所在的乌克兰东部，并且在某些情况下用它们发动袭击。现在，为了解决这个问题，我们与乌克兰政府合作，创建了一份获准使用的星链终端白名单。现在，这也有一些弊端，因为有一大批人只是星链的无辜用户，只是想为了工作或教育接入互联网，如今却无法使用星链了。

这些都是影响重大的地缘政治决定。拥有这种权力让你感觉如何？你可以决定战争的结果。这感觉如何？而且，由你拥有这种权力是正确的吗？

嗯，我不确定我们正在决定，比如说，乌克兰战争的最终结果。我确实希望很快能达成某种和平协议，因为过去2年或3年来，边界几乎没有移动，而每天都有许多人死在前线。我认为这里有很多一厢情愿的想法，有人说，嗯，俄罗斯应该完全撤军，等等，但这不现实。我真的认为需要有某种，你知道，一块内容，也就是，你知道，我们必须务实地看待这件事。我们不能。依我看，如果再有。如果又有3年的人在前线毫无意义地死去，那会很可怕，而且。你不得不说，比如，嗯，你知道，你要如何向那些死在前线的男人的孩子们解释，顺便说一句，俄罗斯一方也是如此，他们被征召入伍并被送到那里。我对那种衣着光鲜的外交官相当反感，他们在，你知道，在奢华的地方享用，你知道，7道菜的晚宴，而与此同时人们正在前线死去，他们还高谈阔论俄罗斯应该如何撤军，但他们不会走。俄罗斯，俄罗斯不会撤军。所以确实需要接受一块沿着这些界线的内容。

那么，鉴于你认为存在正确的和平道路，你是否认为自己有责任发挥作用，让天平向那条道路倾斜？

我倡导和平已经很久了。我几年前发帖说，这里确实需要对俄罗斯作出一些让步。这并不是说我亲俄。我只是务实，否则人们会死上很多年，却一无所获。而事实恰恰如此。

我不知道。我的意思是，乌克兰人正在。乌克兰人现在做得相当不错，你知道，凭借那种不可思议的无人机能力打击俄罗斯境内。而某种普遍共识是，你知道，战争的态势正在转变。但我的重点并不太在于

关于乌克兰，它不会夺回那些领土。这不会发生。

我真正关心的是，鉴于你通过星链拥有不可思议的权力，由你行使这种权力是否合适。一个个体行为者能够通过开启和关闭某种能力来塑造冲突，这种情况相当罕见。

嗯，有什么事情是你认为我应该以不同方式去做的吗？

我的意思是，我认为你支持乌克兰是正确的。我认为，你知道，这不会令你惊讶，我认为俄罗斯的侵略，你知道，出于很多、很多原因，是一次骇人听闻的侵略。而且我认为，你所做的那件事很重要。

是的，我的意思是，我非常深入地研究了那场冲突的背景，以便准确了解当时发生了什么。这让我想起一句古老的格言：战争中没有天使。

我认为，谈到国内政治时也有类似的基调；在国内政治上，你，你知道，你在国内的政治中发挥了很大作用。在这里，你为唐纳德·特朗普再次当选花了很多钱。选举后，你非常积极地参与其中，你知道，通过Doge，你试图削减大量开支，重塑政府。你如何看待它没有取得巨大成功这件事？这里的意思是，你知道，实际削减的开支远没有你试图削减的那么多。当你回顾这件事时，你怎么看？你后悔如此深入地参与政治吗？你认为那是一件值得做的事吗？

我想。我想我有点过度卷入政治了，坦率地说，有些忘乎所以。所以，你知道，搞那类 DOGE 事务的目标，是，是试图对赤字采取一些行动，赤字规模巨大，利息支出超过了花在战争部上的金额。比如，基本上，如果把花在如今的战争部以及，以及，以及美国情报部门上的所有钱加起来，也少于债务的利息支出。所以，嗯，我们，我们，我们，我们需要认真审视一下支出，确保钱以合理的方式花出去，没有被浪费，也没有被用于欺诈活动。而我显然因此遭到了很多抨击。但人们不明白，DOGE 团队要批准付款的要求有多么简单。确切地说，我们只是要求提供收款人的联系信息，或者某些证据，证明比如这笔钱将用于预定用途。但一次又一次，我们被告知需要为非洲的某项重要事业电汇款项。然后我们就说，好吧，但电汇指示是汇给华盛顿特区的 Deloitte and touch，而不是汇往非洲。所以我们希望把钱汇到非洲。能否请你们帮我们联系收款人，让我们可以直接把钱汇给他们？然后就没了回应。

我已经。我没必要重新争论 DOGE。我毫不怀疑确实存在。美国政府存在大量浪费。

我觉得实际情况可能比任何人所能想象的都糟糕得多。

但这种方式，我是说，我认为确实如此。你们关闭一大批项目的方式很可能，事实上，肯定造成了不必要的苦难，这是一项合理的批评。我是说，不，你完全不认同这一点。

这引发了大量抱怨。

所以你不认同这种说法——说得非常粗略和简单一点——非洲有任何一个孩子因为这种突如其来的方式而死亡。0。我就是认为这不对。我就是不认为。我是说，我有人在非洲进行报道，他们。

有多少非政府组织可以介入？因为请记住，事情发生得很快，而且确实有数以万计的非政府组织。

不是所有人的运转速度都像你一样快。如果抗逆转录病毒药物的资金在一夜之间被切断，就这样停止了，那么当人们无法获得这些药物时，他们就会死亡。而且就是。

不，只有当他们无法为此获得资金时才会如此。但盖茨基金会有500亿美元。他们呢？其他许多组织中的任何一个呢？麦肯齐呢，不管她以前的姓是什么。贝索斯给了500亿美元。那又怎么说？

但是，你知道，我们实际一点。在其中许多国家，USAID是最大的资助方，但我，我不

想要有AID是一个政治组织。

它可能也是如此。但它是医疗保健系统最大的资助方。所以我，我，我非常确定，

最大的资助方，资助政权更迭。

而且，而且很可能有来自……的好处。

此外，USID的资金并未停止。它被转到了国务院。

它停止了。非洲有大量项目被关闭，那些项目曾经。那是对此的说法。

这些说法是虚假的。都是胡说，完全是胡说。但显然，当欺诈组织或某些东西的资金被停止时，你认为他们会说。你认为他们会说，好吧，请继续为这场欺诈提供资金，还是你认为他们会编出一个听起来惹人同情的悲惨故事，以便让资金恢复？显然会是后者，而他们正是这么做的。但0人死亡是因为……

嗯，那正是我。那是0。那正是我会提出异议的地方。

0。

我认为你可以。我其实非常认同特朗普政府促使美国援助体系发生的变化。然而，我认为其发生的速度和突然性几乎肯定造成了不必要的痛苦和死亡，而且我认为这两者。

不，我认为那完全是错误的。

好吧，那么，让我们。

而且显然是错误的，因为有。我们所谈的资金数额远低于盖茨基金会或麦肯齐·贝索斯基金会这类基金会能够做到、能够提供支持的数额。她已经捐出了数百亿美元。盖茨基金会拥有数百亿美元。他们有能力非常迅速地采取行动，如果他们没有这样做，我会说他们负有同等责任。

我明白了。好吧。

显然。

好吧，有道理。

0，各位。

我听得非常清楚。0，听得非常清楚。

显然，

在国内，你离开了Doge。你试图做的事情很难做到。你刚才已经解释过了。但本届政府走向了一些我猜是2年半前你未曾预料到的方向。你知道，与伊朗的战争。

我不会赞同任何一届政府所做的每一件事。

你对本届政府感到失望吗？

不，我认为总体而言，本届政府非常出色。没有哪届政府是完美的，但它比另一种选择好得多。

我们能谈谈欧洲吗，一个你非常、非常关注的地方？

我并没有那么关注欧洲。

我认为，从你的帖子来看，你相当担忧欧洲。你支持。

我是说，偶尔，我

相当频繁地发一些东西。并不是偶尔，因为我真的对此感兴趣。作为一个住在欧洲、住在伦敦的人，你描绘出了一幅图景。嗯，首先，你不仅支持民粹主义右翼，还支持极右翼，事实上，是一些国家中非常边缘的政党。

不，我支持普通人，也就是那些被你错误地称为极右翼的人。

你认为是普通人？好吧。

是的。真的，你可以回到10年或15年前，这些政策当时完全正常。事实上，其中一个。我觉得有一个把戏很有意思。嗯，我觉得相当有意思，就是拿一篇奥巴马或希拉里的演讲，然后去找某个人，也就是，你知道，属于。属于那种我所谓的疯癫左派的人，然后问，你觉得特朗普的这篇演讲怎么样？对方会说，哦，哇，他是有史以来最糟糕的人。其实，那是奥巴马的演讲。或者其实，那是希拉里的演讲。

真的。不，我同意这个国家的重心已经发生了偏移，当然，民主党已经向左偏移了。但那不是我。不是我在谈的事。我说的是鲁珀特·洛这样的人。

拜托。其实就只是普通人。就只是普通人。就只是普通人。而且。这些就是原则。你告诉我其中哪一条听起来很糟糕。我们应该有安全的边境，我们应该有安全的城市，我们应该有合理的支出。这3条中的哪一条是极右翼边缘主张？而且我只想就你和媒体对极右翼的荒谬描述告诫你。这种描述是虚假的、误导性的，也是胡说八道。请保留这一部分。

我们会把这些全都保留下来。但让我。让我。

别剪掉这一部分。

让我反驳一下。让我反驳一下这种胡说八道。埃隆，你在X上有，多少来着，接近2.5亿粉丝？

对。

你会说一些像“受欢迎的人”，引用，“英国发生内战不可避免”这样的话。只是问一下当前的趋势。

是的。

你上一次去英国是什么时候？

几年前。

正是如此。所以我住在那里。我一直都在那里。那是胡说八道。

你过着与世隔绝的生活。

不，实际上并没有。而且数据也驳斥了你的说法。什么数据？所有数据都表明，伦敦是一座比美国任何城市都安全得多的城市。英国的暴力犯罪并不像你想的那样。事实上，它正在下降。你描绘了。而且因为你有这么多粉丝，所以很多美国人都相信这样一种看法，即欧洲和英国有点，你知道，被可怕的穆斯林移民占领了，每个街角都有强奸案。存在某种文明毁灭。

我没有说过其中任何一件事。

就是没有。嗯，你说过英国发生内战不可避免。

是的，如果当前趋势持续下去。确实如此。

为什么？

嗯，如果有一个庞大且不断壮大、迅速壮大的人群，他们的信念与西方信念背道而驰，那么到了某个时刻，必然会有一场清算。他们会试图推行自己的观点，而反对的人会加以反对。这就是所谓的内战。而且显然，这就是趋势。而且，而且你确实生活在与世隔绝的环境中。如果你愿意，我们可以去英国各地走一趟。

当然。我非常乐意去英国各地走一趟。

然后。然后你就会看到。

你来看看我一直生活的国家。而你几年前没有去过。

我确确实实去过那里100次。

但上一次是什么时候？

确确实实就是几年前。

你知道为什么这让我如此激动吗？因为你确实塑造了人们对英国的看法，而我遇到过那么多美国人，也和他们交谈过，他们会。而且就在前几天，我刚遇到过一个，大致是：哦，伦敦是个多么危险的地方。你怎么能知道？到处都有某种性诱骗团伙。是有的。到处都有暴力。这就是人们从你发布的内容或 X 上发布的内容中得到的印象。比如，你，你发布了。那是什么来着？48小时的《公民义警》。那部电影，你知道，描绘了一个反乌托邦式的。我看过了。

是的。

并不好玩。我昨天看了。那不是一部很好的电影，但它也描绘了一幅欧洲的反乌托邦图景，并且美化了义警暴力。它美化了对一个穆斯林移民家庭的谋杀。老实说，我认为你把那个发在……上是不负责任的。

X。我认为那是一部电影，值得一看。

你显然是在暗示欧洲是个反乌托邦之地。而你。

是的。我的意思是，你为什么不更多地做更多事情来反对欧洲的审查？为什么你不是看起来在反对欧洲审查方面什么也没做？

这是真的。我认为他们把人关进监狱

在英国，因为社交媒体帖子。你认为这合适吗？

不。我们写过反对这种做法的社论，但我要花好几天。

我的观点是，这类事情

我认为是不好的，而且我同意你的看法，但我不认为你必须美化义警暴力，以及有点，你知道，发布你正在发布的那些东西，并描绘一幅完全不准确的欧洲图景，而你确实是这么做的。

我不认为是这样。

我们应该去英国各地走一趟。

是的。还要去一趟布鲁塞尔，因为英国

实际上在融合移民方面做得非常好。英国在做这件事上非常有效，确实存在问题。我第一个承认存在问题。

是的，存在重大问题。

存在问题，但它不是，它真的不是你向你的2.4亿关注者描述或暗示的那样。

我认为就是那样。

而且我认为存在一个问题。

不，我认为我。我认为我完全说中了。

我们将不得不。

而这就是为什么你拥有言论自由，或者至少，嗯，你在英国已经没有了。

那些是错的。但你的观点并不只是说，我完全有权说我想说的话。你是在说，你知道，我对欧洲的看法是正确的，而我真的不认为你是正确的。

我认为我是正确的。

我想你会发现，欧洲的大多数人，或者说欧洲的许多人，并不认为你在这件事上是对的。但我们来谈谈这个，因为这

媒体一直无视现实。

我也不认为那是真的。我真的。

而且他们被电视和传统媒体灌输观念。

而你为什么。这，我想，即使对我来说，也算是一个更宏观的问题。你为什么关注这个？你为什么对此感兴趣？因为一方面，我们开始这场对话时，你向我描述了这种极具变革性、令人惊叹的。所以，是的，未来10年里将发生的改变文明的事情。然而你同时也是，你知道，社交媒体上最恶劣的那种部落主义，你知道，污水坑的持续参与者。比如，这怎么说得通？你是，你知道，在一方面。这里有2种截然不同的世界观。

是的。我不认为它们相互矛盾。

但你为什么要做后面那件事，也就是部落主义？我的意思是，人们说你是种族主义者，人们说你，你知道，关于你有各种各样的说法，我确信你不会认同，但我就是不明白，这么做的动机是什么？你是在发酵吗？

我的伴侣，她有一半印度血统，而我的。而且我和她有4个孩子。你知道，其中一个是以一位著名的印度物理学家命名的。所以我会说我不是种族主义者。而且，你知道，如果你看看受雇于我公司的人，你知道，我们有各个种族的高级管理人员。我不认为那里存在任何种族主义。

你反穆斯林吗？

我是。我反对让。如果人们带着与这里截然对立的观点来到一个国家，我反对那样。我反对那样。你知道，我反对。我反对强奸和谋杀。我反对强加与我们在西方已经逐渐接受的东西相悖的规则和法律。而我认为，像你们这样的传统媒体不承认这一点，实在令人痛心。

首先，我认为你极大地夸大了欧洲面临的挑战。其次，在一些方面我完全同意你，我认为，你知道，英国在某些领域对言论自由的限制是有问题的。令我担忧的是，你所支持的人在某些方面确实是相当卑劣的人，比如德国选择党的一些成员。我见过的爱丽丝·魏德尔是一个完全有思想的人，但她的党内有一些真正的新纳粹分子，有一些真的、真的很糟糕的人。而你拥有2.4亿粉丝，却对这类政党全盘支持，这意味着你在欧洲拥有一种力量，我想你或许没有意识到你的影响有多大，但你可以。

哦，很好。我希望我正在产生巨大影响。但为什么？

你凭什么？你凭什么能够塑造欧洲政治？你甚至都不住在那里。

我把它看作某种整体意义上的西方。

但你明白为什么这会让人们觉得，这个拥有这一切权力的人，他是世界首富，他认为自己有权影响我们的政治。它让人们。这就是为什么，你知道，我们开始这场对话时提到了最高级。正因如此，人们憎恶你。我的意思是，确实有些人憎恶你。

是的，确实有些人。

但你明白为什么吗？你认为你正在做的事情对西方商业有帮助吗？

也许确实有些人憎恶我，那大概是真的。我不在乎。但事实是，正如你指出的，有2.5亿人关注我，我认为真正喜欢我的人远比不喜欢我的人多。而且我认为，憎恨你和媒体的人远比你意识到的多。你意识到媒体受人鄙视吗？你意识到人们对记者的看法就像。就像对记者持正面看法的比例大约是15%。

我确实知道，在美国是这样，这意味着。

所以现在情况反过来了。他们恨你。他们对你的恨远远超过对我的恨。

我认为，人们对新闻业的信任无疑有所丧失。我认为，这在一定程度上是记者和新闻业犯下错误所致。我完全承认这一点。但我也认为，这种两极分化的环境，尤其是社交媒体上的环境，受到你在X上推动的那些东西的助长，实际上有所帮助。这让情况更糟。

我不这么认为。我认为问题在于你们。媒体。说到憎恶，你们受到的憎恶远比我多，而你似乎甚至都没有意识到这一点。

我认为，与认识你的人相比，知道我是谁的人非常少。所以我不认为我参与的是

同一场游戏，媒体，作为一个整体。所以，我的意思是，你们遭人憎恨。你到底知不知道？你大概不知道。

我愿意相信，我了解自己个人的缺点、《经济学人》的缺点以及我们世界观的缺点。但如你所知，我们所捍卫的是自由主义价值观、传统的古典自由主义价值观，在这种价值观下，我们担忧权力集中，并且我们相信个人、个人的尊严和个人自由。

我同意这一点。

我对此深信不疑。而且我长期以来一直认为你是一个古典自由主义者。但当我读到詹姆斯所写的。古典自由主义者，J.S.密尔，有限政府，个人自由。

是的，我同意这一点。

但当我阅读你在动态中发布的内容时，我有时会怀疑你是否真的相信这一点。

我确实说过，听着，我相信安全的城市、牢固的边境，以及政府在支出方面要明智。这完全不会让我成为右翼。丝毫不会。

美国或欧洲国家在这些方面谁表现得更好？

美国更好。

不。对，安全的城市，美国比英国危险得多；明智的支出，赤字更大。这里失控了。你负责过。你，你已经。你没能减少它。牢固的边境。现在，在特朗普政府治下。我同意你说的，以前不是。但3项中有2项，毫无疑问，欧洲的处境更好。然而，你似乎把欧洲描绘成了一个人间地狱。

我不认为欧洲是人间地狱。

好吧，我们总算能在一件事上达成一致。

我什么时候说过那种话？

嗯，你描绘出的画面，你在编造事情。不，我没有。

你真的就是在编造。

你说英国的内战不可避免，然后你基本上又在为这部公民义警影片传教，而它确实把欧洲描绘成了人间地狱。它一开始就是不祥的音乐，然后它说，欧洲。

嗯，当时强奸和谋杀已经失控了。

这个国家比欧洲更危险。

这个国家之所以存在危险，是因为我们未能监禁屡次实施暴力犯罪的人。而那就是典型的那种 SARSDA，或者未能监禁屡次实施暴力犯罪者的法官。如果有人被捕了50次，确确实实是因为暴力犯罪，那么他们最终会杀人。所以你要么监禁他们，要么就会有人死亡。

我认为枪支的普遍存在也与此有很大关系。我的意思是，这是一个危险得多的国家。谋杀率高得多，很大程度上是因为有如此多的。有如此多的枪。

好吧，让我给你一个有趣的数字。欧洲死于高温的人数，比美国死于枪支的人数更多。你为什么不写一篇关于空调的文章？

我们已经写过好几篇关于空调的文章，而且我们上周的封面上有一整篇很长的文章，关于，你知道，

为什么支持空调。

是的，我们非常支持学术。

好，很好。嗯，很好。非常积极主动。

你应该读读我们。绝对应该。

功劳更糟，应得。

我认为你对《经济学人》的看法并不完全准确。所以我会——你来看看英格兰，开始阅读《经济学人》，而我会，你知道，承认我对你在这个领域的批评有误。

英国和欧洲有很多地方并不安全。你不能随便四处走动。

但这个国家这样的地方要多得多。多得多。

不，我不这么认为。

好吧，那就让我的事实核查员去核查一下。

是的，我不认为那是真的。

我们别再谈这个了，因为我想我已经大致明白你为什么要做你正在做的事了。

关键不在于，问题不是美国完美吗？问题是欧洲是否存在一个严重且日益恶化的问题？这个问题更危险。

这正是我们开始讨论这个话题的地方。

欧洲存在一个严重且日益恶化的问题。我不会说美国没有问题。它当然有。但你知道，我们都应该努力解决这些问题。

这一点我们可以达成一致。我们都应该努力解决这些问题。我的观点只是，我认为你夸大了欧洲问题的规模

而且我认为人们在值守时睡着了，没有意识到这个问题有多严重。

我还认为，你的介入无论本意多么良好，都有可能让欧洲的问题恶化许多。

怎么会？

因为你在支持那些具有威权主义雏形的人，他们并不只是想，你知道，确保穆斯林更好地融入社会，或者确保边境安全，而是具有非常明显的法西斯倾向，而且你会导致，你就是在彻底地让欧洲。

我认为你说的完全是虚构的。而实际上我只是在说，需要有，需要欧洲必须拥有安全的边境，并且不应该生活在大量持有与欧洲、欧洲所接受的观点相悖之观点的人之中，而且在那里将会、在那里不会有某种程度的安全文化融合。这只是常识。

如果你所说的全部内容就是欧洲应该拥有安全的边境，那我完全同意你的看法，那么，那就是我误解了你在社交媒体上的介入，因为那并不是那个观点。我没有，不是我在看到你所支持的人和你所做的事情之后会得出的结论。但如果那是你的目标，我也认同你关于欧洲应该拥有安全边境的目标。我认为这完全可以接受。这就引出了我的一个问题。

让我解释一下这里根本性的驱动机制是为了什么。边境为什么不安全，是因为当你拥有一个向任何来到那里的人提供大量福利的福利国家时，你就创造了一种非常强大的经济驱动力，促使任何生活水平低于该标准的人来到欧洲。这是一股显而易见的强大驱动力。而如果他们从欧洲获得的生活水平高于他们在世界其他地方的生活水平，人们就会来到那里。这非常基本。

我完全同意这一点。

是的，这是一种非常基本的激励结构。

经济状况、经济影响决定了许多移民活动。我认为庇护是另一个问题，但我认为你说得完全正确。确实存在移民压力。然而，还有一些你没有关注的事情，那就是移民带来了许多益处，尤其是在欧洲这样的大陆更是如此，这是一个人口迅速老龄化的大陆。所以我们可以同意，完全不受控制的边境是个坏主意。但我，我认为欧洲会从受控的移民中受益。移民它带来。

是的，我支持移民。显然，如果我不支持，那我就是虚伪的，因为我自己就是移民到美国的。如果移民者会成为富有生产力的社会成员，如果他们会诚实，而且如果他们不会虐待那个国家的人，他们会，我就支持移民。

这些我全都可以同意。

是的。

但我认为欧洲在这方面做得比你所承认的更好。我想，这就是我们的分歧所在。但我们继续吧。告诉我，你认为人们对你最大的误解是什么？

嗯，我是说，你搞错了。你刚才对我的一大堆事情都搞错了。刚才的几乎所有事情。倒回去看。过去20分钟全都是错的。

所以我误解了你的。

我们别在这里重复了。

好吗？所以人们对你的政治立场误解最大。

是的，我的政治观点非常，是中间派的，不是极右翼。坦率地说，把它称为极右翼，我认为是对历史的侮辱，也是对许多民族的侮辱。而且这是一个令人愤慨的谎言。完全荒谬。我确实已经阐明了我的立场，也就是，而且我对此已经说得非常清楚，也就是必须确保边境安全；如果有移民涌入，他们就必须是认同西方理念、认同西方价值观的人。如果他们不认同，而且如果，而且如果不认同西方价值观，或在某些情况下坚决反对西方价值观的人长期增多，你就是在给自己埋下内战的祸根。这显而易见。连孩子都看得出来。但这不是右翼观点。我只是在陈述现实。

嗯，我想我们都可以同意，证据将能够判定我们谁更正确或更不正确。而且我们会在欧洲不同地区找到支持我们双方观点的证据。问题是那个。

总的来说，我非常善于预测未来。我并不完美，但我非常善于预测未来。以人类而言，我的击球率非常高。但这确实多少存在一种卡珊德拉效应：人们不相信我所说的很可能会成真，因为我能以更高的击球，不是完美地，但以比大多数人更高的成功概率看见未来，包括一些在某些情况下人们认为违反直觉的事情。再说一次，我不是说自己永远正确，我当然不是。但我的击球率非常好。不过，就像我说的，这确实存在一种卡珊德拉效应，人们没有意识到我所说的将会发生。也许不会完全按照我所设想的时间发生，但它会发生。而且，是的，历史会作出裁决。但我想你会看到，我所说的话中几乎没有什么是不准确的。我所说的绝大多数都非常准确，并且将会发生，除非方向出现某种变化。

对于自己对人工智能未来的预期，你的信心水平更高吗？是我们谈话的前半部分，还是后半部分，也就是政治部分？这个，

我的意思是，人工智能，也就是数字超级智能，被称为奇点，就像黑洞一样，因为你不知道那之后会发生什么。而且它可以说会吸入一切。所以我认为，就这里真正重大的宏观影响而言，人工智能和机器人确实将主宰一切。所以在一个不到

10年的时间尺度上，这可能会让我们一直在谈的其他事情变得不那么重要，也不那么相关。

人工智能机器人革命会更早发生。我会说，它会比英国的内战更早发生。英国的内战可能还有20年，而人工智能机器人奇点还有10年。

嗯，希望这些善良、无所不能的人工智能会阻止这类结果。

它们很可能会。

埃隆，我并不同意你说的每一件事，但与你交谈总是绝对引人入胜。真的非常感谢你。

不客气。我并不无聊。

你绝对不无聊。

Elon Musk, thank you so much for joining me on the Insider. Thank you for having us. Here at Tesla Giga, it is really hard to introduce you without using superlatives. I mean, you are doing, I think, more to build the future than literally anybody alive right now.

I'm doing a lot of building in general.

You're doing a lot of building?

Instinctive builder, I suppose. I just like building things.

You are, but you're building, I mean,

you, you know, run around building things all day long.

You run around building a lot of things. You pioneered electric vehicles, you revolutionized space travel. You've got a cutting edge AI model now, humanoid robots. Can we start this conversation by you putting all of this together? Tell me what the world's going to be like in, let's say, 10 years if you succeed.

10 years. So we're talking 2036.

Yep. Hopefully we'll both be around.

Hopefully, yes, we can, we can. Probably most likely we will be. It's hard to imagine the future that where there's not an overwhelming amount of artificial intelligence. Meaning like in 10 years I would expect artificial intelligence to be far greater than the sum of human intelligence. Like far greater. In fact, I think AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in around five years. In five years, Roughly five years is my guess. So there really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps at a more

prosaic level, what will life be like?

The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance where anyone can have anything they can think of. This may sound preposterous, but, well, here we are in 2026. Let's see where we stand in 2036. Now, of course there are things that could derail this, like a massive global thermonuclear war or something like that. But assuming that there's not World War 3, I think we're headed for an age of amazing abundance. So this is, I guess, a message of optimism and excitement about the future.

So we'll talk about the abundance in a second. But just on a very prosaic matter, how are your companies going to be making money? Because when you in the SpaceX IPO prospectus, it, it looked as though the overwhelming amount of the revenue would be coming from AI, from Grok, really, it won't be transporting things to space as Space X is now doing. What is, what will your companies be doing in 10 years and how will they make money?

Well, you can really think of the economy as digital and physical intelligence. So what we have right now advancing very rapidly is digital intelligence. Obviously with AI, that is, it seems that almost with every passing week there are more AI breakthroughs. It can do something amazing that it couldn't do before, but it's still somewhat confined to the digital realm. It doesn't have end effectors. You need the end effectors in the form of humanoid robotics. You need basically lots of bots. In a nutshell, you need lots of bots. And then you can go from intelligence manifesting itself only digitally to shaping atoms. And you say, what is an economy? An economy is the production of goods and provision of services. And if you have vast numbers of robots with vast amounts of digital intelligence, you have a sort of a quasi infinite economy. So this is really. The future is going to be very, very different from the past. There's no analogy or metaphor that I think illustrates the magnitude of change that we're going to experience here.

I understand that and I'm also trying to kind of figure out what that world will look like. But in some way you have good.

It's going to be pretty incredible.

Yeah, we'll also do. There are some risks, we'll come to those. But just on how then you make money, because in the end people are buying your shares because they expect you to make money.

I'll make another prediction. Money won't matter in 2036.

I'm not sure that the people who bought your shares think that money won't matter in 2036.

What do you want money for? You want money for goods and services, right? You want money for obviously food, housing, transport, entertainment. Well, if that is so abundant that there's more, that the robots and AI are providing more goods and services than any human could possibly consume, what do you need money for in that case?

But you're creating these robots between now

and then you'll need money. Sure.

Are you selling these robots? Are you selling humanoid robots? Or are you producing goods and services with the humanoid robots that you control? I give you the Levi straps.

I think I would probably be. It would be an exercise in vanity for me to think that I would be controlling super genius AI that is vastly smarter than me. I think what we can and should try to do is to make sure that the AI has good values, that it cares about humanity and that it wants us to be happy and prosper. I think it probably will be. What my biological neural net tells me is that the most important thing for AI safety is to be maximally truth seeking and curious. If that's the case, I think it will foster humanity.

So let's unpack that. You're sure that humans will no longer be in control in 10 years time?

I think it is unlikely. In the same way that if the difference InTELLIGENCE between AI and humans is vastly greater than the difference in intelligence between AI and chimpanzees, it's hard to imagine that the chimpanzees would be in charge.

I'm really satisfied by this.

And we are essentially an evolved form of chimpanzee. So it wasn't that long ago that we're swinging through the trees and eating bananas in the jungle. And we still eat bananas, by the way. We do. And still, you know, bananas sometimes swing

through trees as well.

Yes, sometimes Swing through trees is kind of fun. It's sort of reminiscent of the past. For all time's sake, swing through the trees once in a while, probably, you know, there should be more swinging through trees. I bet. It's way more fun than people think.

I'm with you on that. I'm definitely with you on swinging through trees. I love swinging through trees. But, but, but I'm really struck listening to you say this now because I've been listening to a bunch of things that you've said over the years. And, and 10 years ago you were on a podcast, I think it was, with Neil Degrasse Tyson, and you said that the thing that terrified you most was rapid recursive self improvement in AIs.

Yes.

And that you said, and it really struck with me. You said that we will just be the pet Labradors at the best. Well now you see, Labrador is pretty happy creatures, but in 2023, you, you caught, you asked for a slowdown in air because you were worried about it.

Well, I signed on to, you know, one as one of many, like 500 people. I, I, I, I was just, you know, one of many sign signatures on that thing.

But, but I think even last year you said, I, what was it? Ted Cruz's podcast, you said there was a 10 to 20% chance of killer robots wiping out humanity.

Yeah.

So you sounded worried then. Now you seem very relaxed about it. Have you changed your view?

I still think there's, I still think there's risk associated with AI and robots. It's not zero. I guess I've come to my sort of philosophical conclusion is to look on the bright side. I can't see any way to really stop this incredible momentum of AI and robots. And at times I sort of think, well, perhaps even if there was a stop button, we probably shouldn't Press it because. Because the most likely outcome is incredible abundance for. For all.

That's what I thought. Actually, it struck me that now you seem to have decided it's inevitable. Let's hope for the best and go for the ride.

Yeah, I mean, yes, pretty much. Let's enjoy the ride. I think my philosophy at this point, because I mean, honestly, there seems to be just an inexorable progress here in AI and in robots that even if I wanted to stop it, I couldn't.

Do you think there's still a 10 to 20% chance that killer robots mean the end of humanity? That's a high p. Doom, as they say.

Well, in the long run we're all dead, of course, you know, so I mean, I mean according to the standard model of physics, the end of the universe is a long, boring, sort of thin gray soup of gradual cooling, meaning that sort of the heat death, the universe is called. So if the heat death of the universe is in fact the outcome for our reality, then it really is all about the journey because the destination is terrible.

10 years is not very. Yeah, I get that. But that could be a long way, very long way. If it's 10 to 20% in 10 years, would you go into one of your rockets if you thought there was a 10 to 20% chance of it blowing up and killing you?

Yes, but let's say you can't do anything about it. I guess the only thing we can try to do is minimize the probability of the bad outcome. But trying to stop the intelligence in robots, I mean, for the longest time

I

declined to participate in AI or was created OpenAI as essentially a counterweight to Google because at the time they had more or less a monopoly on AI. And then anthropic spun out of OpenAI and if anything it seems like my actions have really accelerated AI. You know, I wasn't really aiming to accelerate AI, but in creating OpenAI and then having anthropic spin out of that, and now currently anthropic's leader in AI. I mean these actions have actually resulted in knock on effects that accelerated AI, which wasn't really my intention. So it just seems like all roads lead to acceleration of AI. So then I'm like, okay, well you can just sort of be sad about it or join the club, I suppose.

Well, you've certainly joined the club. Yeah, you've definitely joined the club, but

you can't beat them, join them, you know.

Well, you've clearly done that and very successfully. But what about trying to minimize the risks and you know, a number of the other leaders of model makers have been pushing for different ways to try and minimize the risks. Just last week, Demis Hassabes came out with a proposal for a private public regulator. I think you said it was a good starting point for discussions. I think. Do you think you guys should be working more actively to get something in place to control the risks, or do you think that's impossible, too?

My recommendation to Demis, because I talked to him for a few hours before he published his piece, was that the most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies at least just meet or have some sort of call once every few weeks and just discuss any safety and security issues. And that before a breakthrough, sort of a new frontier model is released, something that sort of is far more intelligent than anything that already exists, that there's an opportunity for the various competing AI companies to test that model for any harmful effects and to be able to recommend pausing to address some of these security issues. I think that's. That's the. That's sort of the easy, quick thing that we can do. And it can. It can evolve to more than that over time, but that's. That, I think, would be a smart move.

But why. Why haven't you done that yet? I mean, there's like five of you, right? I mean, everyone knows the first name. Dario Demis, Sam. I mean, you don't all like each other very much. Yeah, yeah, but you're not. You're not all. I mean, you're also all competing, right? You all want to be first.

Yes, but that's. That's where I think the competitors can keep each other honest. So, meaning, like, if I think it's quite difficult for someone in the government who doesn't have a deep technical understanding and isn't driving the frontier of AI to know whether something should be released or not. However, the competitors, I think, can, you know, if given sort of a week or two to review, a new model can highlight issues and have an incentive to keep all the competitors, have an incentive to keep the others honest.

Do you have enough trust between you to do that? I mean, you don't much like each other. Wouldn't Sam Altman just think you're going to nick all his ideas if you did that?

Well, we're just talking about, I think as little as a week is all that would be needed for private testing. It's not to hand over the AI, it's just to test it.

Have you proposed this?

Yeah, just to test it via an API or something. I think that'll probably be a good thing to do.

Have you proposed it? I mean, you could presume.

Organize that to Demis, and I guess I'll talk to Daria about it, too. There's also, of course, some very competent Chinese AI companies that. There's several. Several that are. That are very good. The new Kimi model.

Kimi K3. Yeah. The one that came out last week has. I mean, it was almost as good as Fable, right? So.

Well, I. I think realistically, Fable is. Is still clearly the smartest model. I think anyone realistically would say that that's still the case. But the Kimi model is getting quite close to Fable Now. Anthropic had Mythos, from which Fable is derived. I think they had that ready in February. So they've got. They've got. I'm not sure what they'd call it, but Mythos 2 or Fable 6 or something. Something much better than what they had in February. They almost certainly have not. Almost certainly. They certainly have right now, and I think they could release it at any time.

Just before we get on to releasing, how do you think about the Chinese models and the geopolitics of it? Are you worried about the Chinese catching up and getting ahead?

Given that the Chinese AI companies are doing as well as they are with a relatively small amount of computer, it seems that if they had a lot of compute, there's a good chance that they would be the leaders. And at some point they probably will have a lot of compute.

So they will. Ergo, they will be the leaders.

There's a good chance that they are the leaders. At some point. You can think of, like, the. The constraints on AI, essentially electricity and AI chips, and then for physical AI, the robots. China's also got some very good robot companies. In fact, they have these, like, robot sporting events. I don't know if you've seen some of them.

Yes, I have. I saw. The last time I was in Beijing, I saw the robots.

Well, and then they have the sort of like a. Like a boxing match or fighting match with the robots, which is quite entertaining. And I saw some video of robot that got his head knocked off, kept fighting, even with its head knocked off. It looked pretty funny. But I mean, in fact, I think the. The robot battles are going to be quite entertaining to watch.

But. But just so.

So China's. China is very strong on robots, very strong on digital AI. And. And if you look at electricity production, you say, like, AI is a function of whatever the limiting factor is. If it's chips or electricity. China has far more electricity than the United States. In fact, China has more electricity than the United States, Europe and India combined already and is heading to, and my guess is China gets to four times the electricity production of the US which is roughly proportionate to the population.

What should the US government do about this? I mean, presumably it is a little alarming if you have an authoritarian regime far ahead in the most powerful technology. And clearly what the US Government's been trying to do is with the export controls and so forth, keep China back. Do you think they should ban the use of K3 Kimi, K3, for example?

Well, the US government can't. They can pass some law that prevents US companies from using Chinese models, but they can't stop the rest of the world from using them. So it's not like the US government has authority over China or the rest of the world.

Do you think they should stop US companies from using them? There's talk of that right now. Right.

I don't think that helps. That won't stop China from being the leader in AI really. For digital intelligence. It comes down to how much AI compute do you have? Well, how many chips do you have and how much power do you have? How much electricity do you have? So the constraint right now I think is actually slightly more on power and cooling than it is on AI chips, because the power demands of the AI chips are very, very high. We'll talk about water demands, but really the water usage of AI is negligible, almost nothing. But the electrical demand is very high.

That's why you're thinking of orbital data centers, presumably.

Yes. The constraint for any AI chips not being turned on in China is electricity. And like power and cooling and the electrical equipment and everything, the rate at which AI chips are being made exceeds the rate at which new electricity is coming online in China outside of China.

Outside China, I see, yeah.

And since China, you know, the US has banned the export of the latest AI chips to China, China is somewhat chip starved.

So they are becoming much more efficient at using the chips that they have. And that one of the striking things of Kimik 3. Right. Is how efficiently they.

And China is also, I think, closer than most people realize to solving the lithography problem, which would enable them to make AI chips at very large volumes. So I think there's. This shouldn't devolve into just a China conversation. So the current constraint is electricity outside of China. In China, the constraint is chips. Once the, once we address the, the power constraint with AI data centers in space, then the constraint will once again be chips outside of China.

That suggests to me that you need China and the U.S. if you're going to have some overall safety constraints, that they will need to work together if you are going to try. And you suggested, you know, the five

model makers here working, probably it should include the Chinese companies that are doing frontier AI models too.

And do you think governments need to be involved?

My recommendation would be that if some of the leading companies in AI say that a new model is very dangerous, then they should inform the government and New World is very dangerous, and that the company producing that model is not taking steps to address the danger, then they should alert the government to take action to limit the release of that model. And that could be action by a Chinese government or action by the US Government. It's really just the US Government and the Chinese government that have the power to take action here.

I guess people would be worried about relying on a group of model builders to decide whether to do this. I mean, if you look at what the US Government has done with Mythos, they stepped in because they were worried about the cybersecurity risks, and they stepped in using threat of export controls to, you know, prevent the widespread release of this model. I find it hard to see how governments will not want to keep that power, that they ultimately decide whether or not it gets released.

I think they should keep. They should have that power. But it wasn't as though someone in the government figured out that Matthos was had had some scary cybersecurity risk risks. It was Amazon. Amazon highlighted this and Amazon called the White House.

So you'd have a system where the model makers would check each other's work. If there was something that worried them, you'd tell the government. The government would then think if there's

something else was worrisome and that company was not doing anything to address that risk, then that would be the moment for government to step in and take action, which is literally what just changes

always have to happen.

I think it'd be good to do that, I think, immediately. Really? Yeah.

Yeah, that's what people keep telling me. We have to get this some kind of system in the next six months because of the pace at which the models are improving.

Yeah, six months is a long time.

So you think shorter than that?

Well, I mean, there's so many AI breakthrough announcements, sometimes multiple per day. I mean, how many were there last week?

A lot.

I lost track, you know.

Yeah, a lot. So you basically, you know, whether it's Demis's proposal or others. You need to get together and get this set up kind of now it sounds like you're telling me.

Yeah, I would recommend that we at least have some sort of informal weekly or bi weekly call and that there's. That. That there's maybe a week or two weeks of early access by competitors. And this is why I think the incentives work is because if, you know, competing companies, I think are likely to understand if something is a security risk and they're not going to be shy about highlighting that their competitors, models should be delayed in release. I think the incentive structure does work quite well there. This is sort of how it works with the Motion Picture Association. It's an industry group that decides how movies should be rated whether it's appropriate for young children or not. And that's. That seems to have worked quite well. And then you really just ask the government to intervene if a company is doing something very dangerous and refuses to take action to reduce the danger.

Do you think this is a tricky one, but you guys don't much like each other and you don't much trust each other. You're insulting each other on social media constantly. So do you think you can do that with people that you dislike where there seems to be such kind of personal vitriol between some of these leaders?

Yes. Well, I'm not a fan of Sam Alban because if you started a nonprofit that was meant to be an open source AI company and owned by the world and it somehow got turned into an $800 billion for profit company with closed source, I think you'd be like, well, wait a second, that's the exact opposite of what I donated the money for. That, that's my issue. I think it's a legitimate one. And then Dario, I think also is not a fan of Sam Altman because he felt in fact, the reason the anthropic team left OpenAI is because they, they didn't trust Sam Altman. Otherwise Anthropic wouldn't exist. They would still be at OpenAI. I, I think Dario is very principled person. He cares about things a lot, cares about the future of the world. And I think everyone I've met at Anthropic so far has been like, no one set off my evil detector. You know, they always seem, seem like they're well intentioned and the road to hell is, I think, mostly paved with bad intentions. There are a few well intentioned paving stones in there. So we, we don't want to be complacent, but at the end of the day if we have to talk, we'll talk. I mean, set aside our personal differences for the good of the world.

Well, that's a very good thing for the rest of us to hear.

Yeah.

Can we turn to one other risk that people worry about, particularly, I think, ordinary Americans where, you know, AI has become incredibly unpopular. 75% of people are worried about it, and I think they worry about their jobs. And if you look at Dario has said famously, what, 50% of entry level jobs, entry level, white collar jobs will be gone within a few years. You're building humanoid robots.

Yes. You also said, like, I mean, Dario did dig his own grave here regarding Mythos, because he said, you know, Mythos is like super scary, terrifying. And also, by the way, we're going to release it. And then he's like, what do you mean? You know, So I think he. I think probably in the future we'll choose its words differently.

But what's.

Because obviously if you terrify everyone and then say, oh, we're releasing this terrifying thing, people will obviously be alarmed about that. You've literally told them to be scared and then you release the scary thing. And so they will be scared. That is natural.

So I certainly don't want you to alarm people. But I do think there is a really important debate about how quickly and to what degree AIs displace people from jobs. Because it is, as you say, if within 10 years, it's more. It's. There's more intelligence, artificial intelligence, than any human intelligence.

Yes.

And if you are, and I think you're ahead of everyone, at least in this country, on powering humanoid robots, that's. That's also going to be kind of factory work. So do you. Are you part. Do you. Are you closer to Dario, let's say, in your sense of the pace at which jobs are going to be displaced?

I do think it's going to be a bumpy road because AI will be able to do any job better than any person can do that job. And that will be true very quickly of jobs that are digital or really anything that involves a person at a computer or on a phone. AI could do all of that. We'll be able to do all of that very soon. For software engineering, we already have a situation where AI is better than at least 90% of humans at writing software, 90% of professional software engineers at writing software. And it really is getting to the point where it'll be better than 99%, and then it'll get to the point where there's just no way to compete, it'll. It'll get to what I call Stockfish level. So Stockfish. So Stockfish is the chess program that. Stockfish is so good at chess that you know it, it will easily beat Magnus Carlsen or anyone at chess on a. Even running on a small computer. I suspect that you could probably run Stockfish on your phone and beat Magnus Carlsen. That's how good it is at chess and that's how good AI will be at writing software and beyond.

Software beyond.

And that applies to everything.

Everything, Everything, everything, everything. But what about for physical jobs, for assembly jobs? You will also need the capability in humanoid robots, which so far isn't the there yet, is it?

Right. So that's why I said digital AI and then physically manifested AI in the form of robots, where the robot is more or less an end effector. It would have some amount of local intelligence, but be managed by a large AI model. And I've said many times, I think work is going to be optional. So I mean, let me. So, so I think maybe, maybe a good, a good comparison would be gardening. Like, you don't have to garden, you know, you don't. Like, you don't have to grow vegetables in your garden. You can go to the store and they're going to be pristine vegetables. Or you could grow vegetables in your garden and there will actually be less perfect. Your tomatoes are not going to be as plump and juicy as the ones at the store. They'll, you know, look a little artisanal. But, you know, if you go to a friend's house and they, they make dinner with vegetables from their garden, it's, It's a nice touch.

So that's what I'm saying.

This is what work is going to be like.

I get that. I mean, in that world I would be hopeless because I can't garden, save my life. But I get the idea people still like playing chess with each other, even though every computer is better. But let's just, let's just think about the politics of this.

Yeah.

Because it sounds. You're describing a world where within 10 years, pretty much every job can be done better by an intelligence. And yes, you're seeing huge returns to this intelligence. Two people like you, you're the wealthiest man in the world. What people who lose their jobs, who are displaced, who may go off and garden. But how are they going to live? And what kind of. I mean, it sounds to me it's

going to be universal, high income.

But how are you going to get there? Let's talk about the politics of this because right now if we look at the political pressures in most countries, people are very, very worried about this. Very against. Seems to me that there's a risk that we are heading more for revolution than for an easy route to this nirvana you're playing out.

I mean it will be a bumpy road. I'm not suggesting it will be sort of that everything will be smooth sailing here. So I mean there are many jobs that used to exist that don't exist because of computers. I mean the word computer used to refer to a person doing computations like that used to be a job description of a person. And you can see pictures online of buildings that have entire skyscrapers just filled with people doing calculations to do things like calculate the interest on your bank balance. This is how things were done for a long time until computers came around. And even in the beginning computers were very expensive and hard to use. So the thing that's different here is that the pace of change is radically accelerated. But still some people were upset that they the job of calculating bank interest would no longer be available. But now I think you'd be hard pressed to find people who want to do that job. So I think I have a suggestion for say what say science fiction books people might want to read to get a sense of what the future will be like. And the best envisioning of an AI future that I've read are the books by Ian Banks, the culture books.

I'm just reading Accession so thanks to you I've started reading these. But I actually don't find that future a terribly appealing one because I don't think humans have agency in that future.

They have agency minimum compared to the mind small way.

But the irony in Banks as you know was a socialist, Ian Banks had a very different political philosophy.

I not sure that's. I'm not sure I would entirely agree with that.

Let's agree that that could be where we end up. I'm concerned about the road and we live, you know, we live in democracies and people are very worried about this. So I guess two questions. Firstly, do you have to have massive redistribution from people like you to the people who are losing their jobs? Do you need to have, do you need to pay more tax? Do you have much higher taxes on capital so that you fund some kind of universal income? Otherwise what do people live off?

I think that the treasury should just simply issue people checks.

But where's the revenue coming from? I mean I'm enough of an economist if you just issue checks, you're Going to have inflation.

This is like a lot of what we're trying to think about is these things were relevant in the past, they will not be relevant in the future. So, like, inflation is simply the ratio of money to goods and services. So if the goods and services output increases dramatically, if it increases 1000%, you can increase the. You can literally print or these guys change the database. Never print money. You create money in the database, provided the creation of that money is less than the rate at which goods and services increase. You actually have deflation. So I'll make a prediction, which is that deflation will be the issue, not inflation, because as the output of goods and services increases, if the output of goods and services increases faster than the money supply, you will have deflation.

I'm actually, I'm perfectly willing to believe that you may well be right. Absolutely, you may well be right. But I'm really hung up on how we get from the current polarized, angry, fearful policy we have now to this nirvana. And I think you can paint a picture where people are so scared by this, you know, they essentially try to stop it. Maybe they can't. But you get nationalized. There's a kind of, you know, far left government, there's exorbitant tax increases. The kind of economy crumbles because people are so worried about a future. Which does sound quite scary as you describe it. How do you, how do you handle the politics now?

It's exhilarating and terrifying.

But if you were in the. Yeah, exactly.

Honestly, if you ask me, on any given day, in fact, even intraday, I've gone from exhilaration to terror regarding AI. So I want to be clear. I'm not like, I'm not sort of some, you know, I'm not trying to be sort of candide here and just be some, oh, everything's wonderful, some Panglossian view of the world where everything's, you know, going to be great. No, no, no risk. I'm, I'm saying there is some risk.

I think we agree on that. I guess I'm trying to be more sort of, you know, small bore and practical and think about what can be done now to limit those risks. And you gave a very strong argument for what you and your fellow model makers could do. What should.

Government probably would be good for us to coordinate and just highlight issues that we see in each other's models to mitigate downside risk.

What should, should the government. Should you be paying more tax to fund more transfer programs?

Well, first of all, I do, I do pay A lot of tax. So in fact I set a record for the most amount of taxes ever paid by a human.

It's also because you're the world's richest man.

Well, even before that. So my guess is that I will pay many trillions in tax and I'm fine with that. So yeah, that's just the way it's going to be. But I don't think in a future where money is relevant, I think taxation also becomes somewhat irrelevant.

And what about giving people a sense that they have a share in the upside?

Sure.

Giving people shares in SpaceX and Tesla. Do you think that's. And there's a lot of talk about this right now?

Well, one of the reasons I took SpaceX public is so that the public could participate in, because they could own a piece of SpaceX. Whereas as a private company we're very limited in the number of shareholders we're allowed to have before going public. So as a public company we can have millions of shareholders. As a private company, we're limited to just a few thousand shareholders.

So do you think there should be distribution of shares like, you know, the Alaska Wealth Fund is there for which could you imagine a world. And some people talk about the Trump accounts being a kind of vehicle for this that you share of your equity goes to ordinary Americans.

Right. Well, in the taxes that, like that I, that I pay, I mean I'll, I'll, you know, so for my stock options, I pay 40% income tax on a national basis. And then because I spend, I don't know, about 30% of my time in California, thereabouts, I pay another sort of roughly a third of the California state taxes, which is, are now around 15%. So, so I pay about 45 in taxes just so people know this. You know, I don't know. It's quite so roughly half, then when I die there'll be another sort of 45%, roughly half that that will be taxed. So at the end of the day it probably I'll have a quarter of what I, what I, whatever I have. But the, I think the only thing it gives me is that for some period of time I would have control of the direction of the companies. So that's pretty much what it gets me. Until I guess the AI is so smart that it's in charge and at that point controlling companies won't really matter.

Well, let's talk about that because I think one of the other things that worries people about the direction we're heading in and I'm going to caricature it. But people think that the direction of the world is being shaped by a very small number of incredibly powerful people. And you are right at the top of that list.

What else is. But is this different from the, from the past?

I agree with you. I think, I think it was like

that when wasn't that the case?

It was ever thus.

But it was ever thus. Exactly.

It is a. As you've described very vividly, it's an incredibly rapid change. And I. And so let's start with control of your company, which you definitely have now after the IPO, you basically, you have 80% odd of voting shares and as I understand it, you can only be removed by a vote of shares which you yourself control. So tell me if I'm wrong, but I think you can go crazy.

The AI companies in that bucket, by the way, the AI companies like Google's in that bucket. Alphabet is controlled by Larry and Sergey.

But I think yours is more extreme. The inability to.

It's the same level of they have voting control of that company. Mark Zuckerberg has control of Omata. And you know, Mark is trying very hard on the AI front and I think probably will also have a leading AI. I think he released one last week. So I think he'll be one of the, you know, meta will be one of the AI companies.

But is it sensible for one person to have so much control over a company?

Well, I really just need to make sure that I can focus on long term. By long term I just mean in the five to 10 years. So one of the challenges with being a public company is that is the pressure to have great results every single quarter and to not really invest in things that may only pay off in five to 10 years. And in the case of SpaceX, I want to extend consciousness beyond Earth and have a growing civilization on the moon, Mars and elsewhere in the solar system. I think ultimately this would have a very high return on investment. But in the short term, we'll be spending all this money on a moon base or NMRS base. And then people are like, I'm going to get all this pressure for like, well, you missed your earnings this quarter because you spent too much on Mars. I'm like, yes. By the way, that was in the S1 prospectus and it's literally listed as a thing we will do. But they still get grumpy about these things, you know, because they're like, well, you had whatever, you know, you said your gross margin would be this and it's actually slightly worse. And now, now we're going to punish you and the short sellers all descend upon you and you get a lot of pressure.

You're going to get a lot of that.

Yeah. So I just need some way to sort of say like listen guys, we're going to focus on 5 to 10 year or longer time horizon investments. This will depress our short term earnings. But the long, I mean if you take a long term view and there are investors, we have many investors that do take a long term view. In fact I'm a big fan of the retail investors. In fact I find our retail investors on balance have the, have the, they're very insightful and have very long term views. But if part of this comes you say what's the incentive structure for portfolio managers? It's sort of understandable why they put so much pressure on quarterly earnings because their compensation and whether they get promoted or not is dependent on how their portfolio does. And they only have a few years to make these decisions and then they're evaluated based on those decisions over the course of sometimes only a year or less. And so since they're under pressure to have immediate returns, they then put companies under pressure to have immediate returns. So once you understand the incentive structure, the behavior of naturally follows.

What about though key man risk? I mean what happens, you know, heaven forbid, but what happens if you get run over by the proverbial bus tomorrow? You know it is you, you have total control over these companies. Do you have a plan for how they would progress without you?

I think they would actually do very well for, for several years. And you know there's a clear roadmap for, or space map I should say for SpaceX and there's a road map actually for Tesla literally. So I think, I think there's, you know, if you look at Apple after Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs had, you know, he had a strategic vision and a bunch of products that, that he had ideas for and Apple has done very well. But when you don't have a creative genius like Steve Jobs, what you miss, what Apple's missing are the incredible breakthrough products. So they make amazing phones, great computers, but Apple hasn't come up with this sort of Steve Jobs level breakthrough product.

So by analogy that's what you bring to all of your companies. You mentioned Mars. Most people think of you as the man who wants to create a colony on Mars. So we have multi planetary civilization.

I've been saying that for such a long time.

You have, but now you seem more focused on AI and what AI will do in the next 10 years. And you sound much more excited about using the moon as a base from which to know pop out orbital AI satellites. Have you shifted your attention away from Mars or are you as interested in colonizing Mars as you ever were?

I, I'm, I'm interested in the set of actions that propagate consciousness into the future to the maximum degree possible so that the future light cone of consciousness is as big as, as big as we could. You know like the, there's an exciting future where we're a space faring civilization out there among the stars and the great things that are envisioned in the non dystopian sci fi books and movies become real one day. I sort of want the Star Trek Star wars future. Star wars was the first movie I ever saw in a theater by the way.

Really?

Maybe it had a profound effect on me. I suppose so. I remember I was. Blew my mind honestly. I think I was 6 years old and I was like this is the greatest thing I've ever seen.

Has your life been about making that happen?

Yeah, I mean I didn't think it would be but when I was young. But my life feels somewhat surreal. I can't believe these things are actually happening. I think the world's makes me believe in simulation theory. Yeah. Where it's like. Well this like the things I'm doing are so preposterous that it's hard to believe they're real. I mean we've got starship, which is the largest, most powerful flying object ever made. And we intend to launch that more than once per hour.

I know, I read that. And we can, you know, people can quibble about how quickly it happens, but I think based on your track record we should assume it will happen some point.

It will happen.

I'm just sort of struck that when I, when I, I am as, as blown away by this world as you are. And I'm, I watch it from a, from a much more naive level. But for me the whole evolution of AI and the capabilities of these models is in and of itself so mind blowing.

It's pretty much happening as I, as I thought, thought it would.

Is it?

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. And not just me. Many people predicted this. I think Ray Kurzweil's predictions have been remarkably accurate.

Yeah. The singularity approaching. Let's go back more immediately to the here and now. We've talked about concentration of control in your companies. You've made a very good case for why you should have it. You also have through Starlink, incredible geopolitical. I mean I'm one of your customers. Excellent product. But without them, the Ukrainians would have been in serious, serious trouble.

Yes. The Ukrainian government has publicly thanked Starlink many times for being instrumental in defending Ukraine.

And you recently decided to prevent the Russians in the occupied territories from having access to Starlink.

Well, no, we do. We were never at any point selling Starlink to Russians.

But they were grabbing it, right? They were using it. And you've now stopped them from doing that.

Well, they essentially got Starlink units that they ordered through Ukraine and then smuggled them into Eastern Ukraine, where the Russians are, and were then using them in some cases for attacks. Now, in order to address this, we worked with the Ukrainian government to create a white list of approved Starlink terminals. Now, this has some downsides, because a whole bunch of people who were just innocent users of Starlink and just trying to access the Internet for work or for education now don't have Starlink.

These are geopolitical decisions of consequence. How do you feel about having that power? You can determine the outcome of wars. How does that feel? And is it right that you should have that power?

Well, I'm not sure we're determining the ultimate outcome of, say, the war in Ukraine. I do hope that there's some sort of peace agreement reached soon because for two or three years now, the border has barely moved, and every day there are lots of people dying at the front line. And I think there's a lot of wishful thinking here of people saying, well, Russia should completely withdraw, et cetera, but this is not realistic. I really think there needs to be some, you know, a piece with it that is that, you know, we have to be pragmatic about this. What we can't. What I think would be terrible is if there's. If there's another three years of people dying senselessly at the front lines with. And you have to say, like, well, You know, how do you explain to the children of the men that are dying at the front lines, Russia on the Russian side, too, by the way, they've been conscripted and sent there. I am quite offended by sort of fancy diplomats who have, you know, seven course dinners in, you know, in luxurious places while people are dying at the front lines and who pontificate about how Russia should withdraw, but they're not going. Russia, Russia's not going to withdraw. So there really needs to be an accepted piece along those lines.

And do you think it's your responsibility to play a role in tipping the scales towards what you see as the right way to peace?

I've been advocating peace for a long time. I posted a few years ago that, that there really needs to be some concession here to Russia. This is not me being pro Russia. I'm just being pragmatic, or people will die for years with nothing achieved. And that is exactly what happened.

I don't know. I mean, the Ukrainians are doing. The Ukrainians are doing pretty well right now at, you know, with that incredible drone capacity hitting inside Russia. And the kind of general consensus is that, you know, the balance of the war is shifting. But my point is not so much

about Ukraine is not going to retake those territories. It is not going to happen.

My interest is really on whether you think, given that you have, through Starlink, you have an incredible power, whether it's appropriate that you should wield it. That's quite rare that an individual actor has such power by turning on and off a capability to shape conflict.

Well, is there something you think I should do differently?

I mean, I think you were right to support Ukraine. I think that, you know, as it won't surprise you, I think that the Russian aggression was, you know, for many, many reasons, an appalling aggression. And I think that that was an important thing that you did.

Yeah, I mean, I did a very deep dive into the background of that conflict to understand exactly what was going on. And I'm reminded of the old adage that there are no angels in war.

It's a similar tone, I think, about domestic politics, where you've, you know, you've played a big role domestically, politically. Here you spent a lot of money on Donald Trump's reelection. After the election, you got very actively involved, you know, through Doge, you tried to cut a lot of spending, reshaped the government. How do you feel that it wasn't hugely successful in the sense that, you know, there wasn't nearly as much spending cut as you tried. How do you, as you look back on that, do you regret getting so involved in politics? Do you think it was a good thing to do?

I think. I think I got a little too involved in politics, got carried away, frankly. So the, you know, the goal with the sort of Doge stuff was, was to try to do something about the deficit, which is massive, where the interest payments exceed the amount of money spent on the Department of War. Like, basically, if you add up all the money spent on what is now the Department of War and the, and, and intelligence in the US that is smaller than the interest payments on the debt. So, well, we, we, we, we need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities. And I got a lot of flack from this for this, obviously. But people don't understand just how simple it was for the DOGE team to approve payments. Literally, we just asked to have the contact information of the recipients or some evidence that, say, money was going to its intended purpose. But over and over we were told we need to wire money for some sort of important cause in Africa. And we're like, okay, but the wiring instructions are to Deloitte and touch in D.C. in Washington, D.C. not to Africa. So we would like to send the money to Africa. Can you please connect us with the recipients so we can send them the money directly? And then we get silence.

I have. We don't need to relitigate doge. I have no doubt that there was. There's a lot of waste in the US Government.

I think probably much worse than anyone could possibly imagine.

But the way, I mean, I think there is. It is a fair criticism that the way you shut down a whole bunch of programs probably, in fact, certainly caused unnecessary suffering. I mean, no, you don't buy that at all.

It caused a lot of complaining.

So you don't buy the idea that anybody, to put it really crudely and simply, any kid in Africa died because of the suddenness with which.0. I just don't think that's right. I just don't think. I mean, I've had people reporting in Africa who.

How many NGOs are there that could step in? Because bear in mind, it happened quickly and there are literally tens of thousands of NGOs.

Not everyone functions as fast as you do. If funding is cut off for antiretrovirals overnight and it just stops, then people will die when they don't have access to them. And it just.

No, only if they cannot get funding for that. But the gates foundation has $50 billion. What about them? What about any one of a number of organizations? What about the Mackenzie, whatever her last name is used to be. Bezos gave $50 billion. What about that?

But, you know, let's be practical. In many of these countries, USAID was the biggest funder, but I, I don't

want to have AID was a political organization.

It may also have been that. But it was the biggest funder of health care systems. So I, I am, I'm very sure,

biggest funder of, of regime change.

And, and there may well be benefits from.

Also, USID funding was not stopped. It was moved to the State Department.

It was stopped. There were huge numbers of things shut down in Africa that were. That were claims of this.

These claims are false. They're nonsense and absolute nonsense. But obviously, when funding is stopped for fraudulent organizations or for something, do you think they're going to say. Do you think they're going to say, well, please keep funding the fraud, or do you think they're going to come up with a sad story that sounds sympathetic in order to get the funding restored? Obviously, it will be the latter, and that's exactly what they did. But Zero died because.

Well, that's what I. That's Zero. That's what I would take issue with.

Zero.

I think you can. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the change of the aid regime that the US under the Trump administration has precipitated. However, I think the pace and the suddenness with which it happened will almost certainly have caused unnecessary suffering and deaths, and I think both of those.

No, I think that's totally false.

Okay, well, let's.

And obviously false because there are. The amount of funding we're talking about is far less than what can be done, than what can be supported by foundations like the Gates foundation or Mackenzie Bezos Foundation. She's given away tens of billions of dollars. The Gates foundation has tens of billions of dollars. They are capable of acting very quickly, and if they didn't, I would say they're equally responsible.

I see. Okay.

Obviously.

All right, fair point.

Zero, people.

I hear you loud and clear. Zero hear you loud and clear.

Obviously,

domestically, you stepped away from Doge. It was hard to do what you were trying to do. You've just explained it. But this administration has gone in directions that I suspect you were not expecting two and a half years ago. You know, war in Iran.

I'm not going to agree with everything any administration does.

Are you disappointed by this administration?

No, I think this administration, on balance, is excellent. No administration is perfect, but it's vastly better than the alternative.

Can we talk about Europe, a place that you are very, very focused on?

I'm not that focused on Europe.

I think, judging by your posts, you're pretty concerned about Europe. You support.

I mean, once in a while, I

post something reasonably frequently. It's not once in a while, because I'm genuinely interested in this. As someone who lives in Europe, lives in London, you paint a picture. Well, first of all, you support not just the populist right, but the far right, in fact, very fringe parties in some countries.

No, I support the normal people, what you call the far right, falsely.

You Think is the normal person okay?

Yes. Literally, you could go back 10 or 15 years and these policies were completely normal. In fact, one of the. One of the tricks I think is funny. Well, I think it's quite funny is to like, take a speech from Obama and Hillary and then go to someone and say, who's sort of, you know, on the. Sort of, what I call the lunatic left, and say, what do you think of the speech by Trump? Like, oh, wow, he's the worst person ever. Actually, that was a speech by Obama. Or actually, that was a speech by Hillary.

Literally. No, I agree that the center of gravity in this country has shifted, certainly in the Democratic Party, shifted to the left. But that's not what. What I'm talking about. I'm talking about people like Rupert Lowe.

Please. It's actually just normal people. It's just normal people. It's just normal people. And the. And here are the principles. And tell me which of these sound terrible. That we should have secure borders, that we should have safe cities, that we should have sensible spending. Which of those three are far right fringe? And I would like to just admonish you and the media for the absurd characterization of the far right. It is false and misleading and nonsense. Please keep this part in.

We'll keep all of this in. But let me. Let me.

Don't cut this part.

Let me push back on that. Let me push back on that nonsense. Elon, you have, what is it, close to 250 million followers on X?

Yeah.

You say things like popular guy, quote, civil war in Britain is inevitable. Just a question on the current trend.

Yes.

When were you last in the uk?

A few years ago.

Exactly. So I live there. I'm there the whole time. That is nonsense.

You live at a cloistered existence.

No, I don't, actually. And the numbers also disprove what you say. What numbers? All the numbers about London is a much safer city than any city in the United States. Violent crime in the UK is not where you think it is. In fact, it's coming down. You have painted. And because you have so many followers, so many Americans believe it a kind of view that Europe and the UK are kind of, you know, overrun with terrifying Muslim immigrants, there's rape on every corner. There's a sort of civilizational destruction.

I haven't said any of those things.

Just not. Well, you said civil war in Britain is inevitable.

Yes, if current trends continue. It is.

Why?

Well, if you have a large and growing, rapidly growing group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to Western beliefs at Some point, there will be a reckoning. They will try to implement their views and those who oppose it will oppose it. And that's what you call civil war. And obviously this is the trend. And, and you absolutely do live in a cloistered existence. And if you'd like, we can go on a tour of Britain.

Sure. I'm very happy to come on a tour of Britain.

And then. And you will see.

You come see my country that I live in all the time. And you haven't been to a few years ago.

I've been there literally a hundred times.

But when was the last time?

Literally a few years ago.

You know why this exercises me? Because you have really shaped opinion about the UK and so many Americans I come across and I have conversations with, and they'll be. And I just had one the other day along the order of, oh, London's such a dangerous place. How can you know? There are sort of grooming gangs everywhere. There are. There's violence everywhere. This is a picture that people get from things that you post or that are posted on X. And for example, you're, you're posting for. What was it? 48 hours of citizen Vigilante. That film which, you know, paints a dystopian. I've watched it.

Yes.

It was not fun. I watched it yesterday. It's not a very good movie, but it also paints a dystopian picture of Europe and it glorifies vigilante violence. It glorifies the murdering of a Muslim immigrant family. I honestly think that it is irresponsible for you to put that up on

X. I think that it's a movie and it's worth watching.

You're clearly suggesting Europe is dystopian place. And you.

Yes. I mean, why aren't you more doing more to fight censorship in Europe? Why aren't you seem to be doing nothing to fight censorship in Europe?

That's true. I think they put people in prison

in the UK for social media posts. Do you think that's appropriate?

No. We've written editorials against it, but I take days.

My point is the sort of thing

that I think is bad and I agree with you, but I don't think you have to glorify vigilante violence and kind of, you know, post the things that you are doing and paint an entirely inaccurate picture of Europe that you do.

I don't think it is.

We should do a tour of the uk.

Yes. And one of Brussels, because the UK

has actually been very good at integrating immigrants. The UK is very effective at Doing that there are problems. I'm the first to admit that there are problems.

Yes, there are major problems.

There are problems, but it is not, it really is not what you are describing to or suggesting to your 240 million followers.

I think it is.

And I think there's a problem.

No, I think I'm. I think I'm spot on.

We'll have to.

And that's why you have freedom of speech, or at least, well, you don't anymore in the uk.

That are wrong. But your point is not that you're not just saying, I have every right to say what I want. You're saying, you know, I am right about Europe, and I really don't think you are.

I think I am.

I think you will find that most people in Europe, or many people in Europe don't think you're right about it. But let's come to that, because the

media keeps ignoring reality.

I don't think that's true either. I really.

And they're programmed by the TV and conventional media.

And why are you. This is, I guess, even to me, sort of the bigger picture question. Why do you focus on this? Why are you interested in it? Because on the one hand, we started this conversation and you described to me this extraordinarily transformative, amazing. So, yeah, civilizational changing stuff that's happening in the next 10 years. And yet you're also, you know, an ongoing participant in the worst kind of tribalism, you know, cesspit of social media. Like, how does that fit? Are you, you know, on the one. There are two very different views of the world.

Yeah. I don't think they're inconsistent.

But why do you do the latter one, the tribalism? I mean, people say that you're a racist, people say that you're, you know, there's all kinds of things said about you, which I'm sure you would disagree with, but I just don't understand what is the motivation for doing that? Are you fermenting?

My partner, she's half Indian and my. And I have four children with her. You know, one of them was named after a famous Indian physicist. So I would say I'm not racist. And also the, you know, if you look at the people that are employed at my companies, you know, we have senior executives of all races. I don't think there's any racism there.

Are you anti Muslim?

I am. I'm against having. If people are coming to a country with antithetical views, I am against that. I'm against that. You know, I'm against. I'M against rape and murder. I'm against the imposition of rules and laws that are contrary to what we've come to accept in the West. And I think it's a crying shame that the sort of traditional media like you don't recognize this.

First of all, I think that you hugely exaggerate the challenges that Europe faces. Secondly, in areas I completely agree with you, I think that, you know, the constraints on freedom of speech in the UK in certain areas are problematic. What worries me is that the people you are supporting are really quite vile people in some areas, like some members of the AfD. Alice Weidel, whom I've met, is a perfectly thoughtful person, but in her party are some real neo Nazis, are some really, really awful people. And your blanket support of this kind of party with 240 million followers means that you have a power in Europe that I think perhaps you don't realize the scale of impact you have, but you can.

Oh, good. I hope I am having a big impact. But why?

Why should you? Why should you be able to shape European politics? You don't even live there.

I think of it as the sort of the west collectively.

But do you see why this makes people think that this man who has all this power, he's the world's richest man, he thinks he has a right to influence our politics. It makes people. That's why, you know, we started this conversation saying superlatives. It's why people loathe you. I mean, some people do loathe you.

Yes, some people do.

But do you understand why? Do you think what you're doing is helpful for Western business?

Maybe some people do loathe me and that's probably true. I don't care. But the fact that as you pointed out, a quarter billion people follow me is that I think a lot more people actually like me than don't. And I think a lot more people hate you and the media more than you realize. Do you realize the media is despised? Do you realize that journalists, the view of journalists is like. It's like a favorable view of journalists is like 15%.

I do know that in the United States, which means that.

So the shoe is on the other foot. They hate you. They hate you far more than they hate me.

I think there is certainly a loss of trust in journalism. I think in part there have been mistakes by journalists and journalism. I totally acknowledge that. But I also think that the kind of polarized environment, particularly on social media, fostered by the kinds of things you are pushing on X, actually helps. This makes it Worse.

I don't think so. I think you're the problem. The media. And speaking of loathing, you're loathed far more than I am and you don't seem to even realize that.

I think very few people know who I am relative to you. So I don't think I play in

the same game, the media, collectively. So, I mean, you're hated. Do you even know that? You probably don't.

I like to think that I'm aware of my own personal shortcomings and the economist's shortcomings and our worldview shortcomings. But what we stand for, as you know, is liberal values, traditional classical liberal values, where we worry about concentrations of power and we believe in the individual and the dignity of the individual and individual freedom.

I agree with that.

I firmly believe that. And I have long thought that you were a classical liberal. But when I read what James. Classical liberal, J.S. mill, Ltd. Government, individual freedom.

Yeah, I agree with that.

But when I read what you post on your feed, I sometimes wonder whether you really do believe in that.

I literally said, look, I believe in safe cities, secure borders and sensible spending with respect to government. That doesn't make me right wing at all. In the least.

Does the US or do European countries score better on those?

The US is better.

No. Yeah, safe cities, much more dangerous in the us in the uk, sensible spending, bigger deficit. Here out of control. You managed. You, You've. You failed to reduce it. Secure borders. Now, under the Trump administration. I agree with you before not. But on two out of three, unequivocally, Europe is in a better place. Yet you seem to paint a picture of Europe being a hellhole.

I don't think Europe's a hellhole.

Okay, we can agree on something.

When did I ever say that?

Well, the picture you paint of your making up things. No, I'm not.

You're just literally making it up.

You say civil war in Britain is inevitable and then you basically proselytize for this citizen vigilante film which really does paint Europe as a hellhole. It just starts with ominous music and it says Europe.

Well, there was out of control rape and murder.

It's more dangerous in this country than it is in Europe.

Where there is danger in this country is because we fail to incarcerate repeat violent offenders. And that's the classic sort of SARSDA or judges that fail to incarcerate repeat violent offenders. And if somebody gets arrested 50 times, literally for violent crimes and eventually they're going to kill somebody. So you either incarcerate Them or people will die.

I think the prevalence of guns has quite a lot to do with it too. I mean, this is a much more dangerous country. Murder rates are much higher in large part because there's so much. There are so many guns.

Well, let me give you an interesting number. There are more people that die in Europe from heat deaths than people that die from gun deaths in America. Why aren't you writing an article about air conditioning?

We've done several on air conditioning and we had on our cover last week a whole long piece about, you know,

why pro air conditioning.

Yeah, we're very pro academic.

Okay, good. Well, good. Very proactive.

You should read us. Absolutely.

Credit's worse due.

I think you have a view of the Economist that is not entirely accurate. So I will you come look at England, start reading the Economist and I will, you know, stand corrected on my criticism of you. In this area.

There are many parts of Britain and Europe which are not safe. You can't just walk around.

But there are far more in this country. Far more.

No, I don't think so.

All right, let's go and get my fact checkers to check them.

Yeah, I don't think that's true.

Let's move on from this because I think I've got a sense of why you're doing what you're doing.

The point is not that the question is not is America perfect? The question is does Europe have a serious and growing problem? The question is more dangerous.

That's where we started this.

Europe has a serious and growing problem. I'm not going to say that the United States has no problems. Of course it does. But you know, we should all try to address these issues.

We can agree on that. We should all try to address the problems. My point was simply that I think you exaggerate the scale of Europe's problem

and that I think people are asleep at the switch and do not realize the magnitude of the issue.

I also think that your interventions, however well intentioned they may be risk making Europe's problem a lot worse.

How?

Because you are putting your support behind people who are proto authoritarians, who are not trying simply to, you know, make sure there is better integration of Muslims or to secure the borders, but who have very clear fascist tendencies and you will cause you're just completely making Europe.

I think what you're saying is total fiction. And really I'm simply saying that there needs to be, there needs to that Europe has to have secure borders and should not live in vast numbers of people who with views that are antithetical to the accepted views in, in Europe and, and where there will, where there will not be some level of safe cultural integration. This is simply common sense.

If all you are saying is Europe should have secure borders, I completely agree with you then that, then I have misunderstood what your interventions have been on social media because that is not what the view. I have not what I would conclude having seen what the people you are supporting and the things you're doing. But if that's your goal, I share your goal that Europe should have secure borders. I think that's perfectly agreeable. That gets me to a question.

Let me explain what the fundamental forcing function here is for. Why the borders are not secure, which is when you have a welfare state that provides substantial benefits to anyone who comes there, you create a very powerful economic forcing function for anyone who is below that standard of living to come to Europe. It is an obvious powerful driving force. And people will come there if their standard of living is from what they get in Europe is above where they are elsewhere in the world. It's very basic.

I completely agree with that.

Yes, it's a very basic incentive structure.

Economic conditions, economic influences determine a lot of migration. I think asylum is a separate issue, but I think you're absolutely right. There are pressures for migration. However, there are other things that you haven't focused on, which is migration brings a lot of benefits and it also particularly does so in a continent like Europe, which is a rapidly aging continent. So we can agree that completely uncontrolled borders are a bad idea. But I am, I think Europe benefits from having immigration controlled. Immigration it brings.

Yes, I'm in favor of immigration. Obviously I'd be hypocritical if I wasn't since I'm an immigrant to the United States. I'm in favor of immigration if the person immigrating is going to be a productive member of society, if they're going to be honest and if they're not going to mistreat people in that country, they're going to.

I can agree on all of those.

Yes.

But I think Europe does better on that than you give it credit for. That's, I think where we disagree. But let's move on. Tell me, what do you think people get most wrong about you?

Well, I mean, you get. You just got a whole bunch of things wrong about me. Pretty much everything in the last. Just rewind. The last 20 minutes is all wrong.

So I got wrong your.

Let's not be repetitive here.

Okay? So that political side of you people get most wrong.

Yeah, my Political views are very, are centrist, they're not far right. And frankly, calling it far right, I think is an insult to history, an insult to many peoples. And it is an outrageous falsehood. It's completely absurd. I literally have stated my position, which is that, and I've been very clear about this, which is that there need to be secure borders, that if there's an influx of immigrants, there needs to be people who will agree with western ideals, with Western values. And if they don't, and if, and if there's a long term growth of people who do not or in some cases are adamantly opposed to Western values, you are setting yourself up for civil war. This is obvious. A child can see this. But this is not a right wing view. I'm simply stating reality.

Well, I think we can both agree that evidence will be able to decide which of us is more or less right. And we will find evidence for both of our views in different parts of Europe. The question is what the.

Overall, I'm very good at predicting the future. I'm not perfect, but I'm very good at predicting the future. My batting average is very high for a human. But this does have somewhat of a Cassandra effect where people don't believe that what I'm saying is likely to be true because I can see into the future with a higher bat, not perfectly, but with a higher probability of success than most people, including things that people believe to be, in some cases, counterintuitive. And again, I'm not saying I'm always right, I certainly am not. But my batting average is very good. But this does have, like I said, a Cassandra effect where people don't realize that what I'm saying will come to pass. Maybe not exactly in the timing that I thought, but it will come to pass. And yeah, history will write the verdict. But I think you will see that very little of what I have said is inaccurate. And a super majority of what I've said is very accurate and will come to pass unless there's some change in direction.

Do you have higher confidence level in your expectations of the future for AI? The first part of our conversation or the latter part, the political part? The,

I mean, AI is digital superintelligence is called the singularity, like a black hole, because you don't know what's going to happen after that. And it sort of sucks in everything. So I think really in terms of the really big macro effects here, AI and robots will really dominate everything. So on a timescale that is less

than 10 years, which probably renders this other stuff that we've been talking about, less important and less relevant.

The AI robotics revolution will happen sooner. It will happen sooner than civil war in Britain, I would say. Civil war in Britain is probably 20 years away and the AI robot singularity is 10 years away.

Well, hopefully these benign, all powerful AIs will prevent such outcomes.

They probably will.

Elon, I don't agree with everything you say, but it's always absolutely fascinating to talk to you. Thank you very much indeed.

You're welcome. I'm not boring.

You're definitely not boring.