Joe Rogan Experience #2054 - Elon Musk

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Joe RoganMe? Take my dog. Cool. Yeah, like looking in the mirror. Have you seen that before? Did people get you one of those?

Elon MuskYeah, he's awesome, he's awesome. He's pretty edgy.

Joe RoganYeah, he's, it's amazing that he puts out a piece of art per day, 365 days a year.

Elon MuskYeah, I was following him on the X platform, fuck Twitter, but some of it was too jarring, too jarring, some of the images.

Joe RoganYeah, well cheers sir, happy Halloween. Cheers, thanks for doing this, appreciate it.

Elon MuskYou're welcome. Thanks for rolling up in the Cybertruck too.

Joe RoganYeah, I got a chance to look at it in the factory, but that was almost, was that like a year and a half ago or so?

Elon MuskIt was a while ago, yeah, a year ago I guess.

Joe RoganYeah, at least a year, at least a year. And it's different in real life, like you see it in person, like you images are just, we were talking about it outside, that you just can't contextualize them.

Elon MuskYes, it looks so odd that you have to see it in the flesh. It looks like computer graphics in reality.

Joe RoganYeah, it's the coolest looking production car that's ever been made. It's bulletproof, literally, literally, literally.

Elon MuskYeah, one of the videos we're going to show is just going all like full Al Capone, just like Al Capone showed up and emptied the entire magazine of a Tommy gun into the side of the car, you'd be okay. The only thing that's not bulletproof is the glass, the glass is optionally bulletproof.

Joe RoganOh, it is optional, if you want it you can.

Elon MuskWell, you can make anything bulletproof if you want, but the glass has to be very thick for it to be bulletproof. So it can't go up and down, so if you want fixed glass.

Joe RoganAh, um, then how do you order drive-thru?

Elon MuskYeah, exactly, that's a problem.

Joe RoganAw, you gotta pull ahead and open the door, get out.

Elon MuskBut it's okay, you can just duck.

Joe RoganYeah, you can just duck. Um, how far away are you from fully like delivering them to people? Has anybody gotten them yet?

Elon MuskUm, we planned our first deliveries next month.

Joe RoganOh wow, so now it's just testing and fucking around.

Elon MuskThe hard part by far is manufacturing, not designing the car. So, um, you know, there's just not really a movie about that, but there should be. So in the sort of the, you know, the movies will always be about the sort of inventor who invented the car, and then the job is done.

Joe RoganRight, that's all invented the object, now the job is done.

Elon MuskThis is not true, that's the easy part. The hard part is manufacturing by far.

Joe RoganWhy is it so much harder than making an individual model?

Elon MuskWell, in order to make it affordable you have to make it at volume, so you've got to make everything at high rate, consistently. If you tour the production line you'd have a sense for it. You've got to have all of the casting machines, all of the stamping machines, as the case may be, the glass machines, the wheels, the tires, everything required, from the motor, the battery cells, all of the constituents, the battery cells, all of the silicon that goes in there, the chips. It is the manufacturing, it's somewhere between 100 and a thousand times harder than making a prototype.

Joe RoganWhoa.

Elon MuskAnd then if you want to say, like, you want to get from, once you reach volume manufacturing, which is insanely difficult, then you want to make the car affordable, it's harder to reduce the cost of the car by 20% than it is to get to volume production in the first place. So I really cannot emphasize enough how hard production is relative to design. I'm not saying the design is trivial, because you have to have taste and you have to know what to make. If you don't have taste and judgment, then your prototype will be bad. But it is trivial, really, to turn out prototypes and it is extremely difficult to build a factory.

Joe RoganAnd how much more difficult is it to make this considering the body's made out of steel?

Elon MuskIt's a very difficult, the difficulty of manufacturing is proportionate to the amount of new technology that you have in a car and or in the product, and in this case there's a lot of new technology. The production line will move as fast as the slowest and least lucky and most foolish part of the entire production line. And you could say, to first approximation, there are 10,000 things that have to go right at least for production to work. So if you have 99,999 things that are working and one that isn't, that sets the production rate.

Joe RoganYeah.

Elon MuskBy far the hard, in fact the really the amazing thing about automobiles was not so much the invention of the automobile, but the invention of the factory, the mass manufacturing, and for that Henry Ford deserves a tremendous amount of credit. He was next-level genius. In fact Ford is really responsible for the entire mass manufacturing industry, because he actually founded Cadillac, which was the heart of General Motors, then got kicked out, then started Ford.

Joe RoganReally? Yeah.

Elon MuskThen everyone just copied him.

Joe RoganDo you know he made one of his first cars out of hemp?

Elon MuskWell, he used hemp fiber for panels.

Joe RoganOkay, yeah, it's, there's a fascinating video of him banging on it with a hammer, because hemp is bizarrely durable when it's compressed, and when they take the fibers, and I don't know what kind of epoxy they use or something to put it all together, but what it makes, the actual physical form of it, is insanely light, like fiberglass light, but very very durable. See if you can find the video, it's kind of crazy. Henry Ford is banging on it, it was the hood of it, with a hammer, here it is, so this was like, look at that, that's crazy, that was wild. I don't know why they stopped making them out of that, that was from 1941.

Joe RoganHow much does the Cybertruck weigh?

Elon MuskUh, depends on configuration, but it's about, six or seven thousand lb, six, there's different versions, but 6-7,000 lb, it's like similar to, it's a heavy truck, like a Ford F250 or something like that.

Joe RoganYeah, and it's because of all of the metal and the weight and everything like that, but with the engines that you have, it's still, the 0 to 60 is pretty bizarre, right? It's like 3.5 or something like that.

Elon MuskWell, I get the 0 to 60 below three seconds.

Joe RoganBelow three? Yes, wow.

Elon MuskFor the, you know, the Beast Mode version. So we've got a Beast Mode version that's, um, there's, well I don't want to give it all away right now, but there are three demonstrations, one of them people are aware of, which is emptying a Tommy gun into the side of the car, a shotgun, a 45, and a 9 mil, and no penetrations.

Joe RoganWow.

Elon MuskAnd that comes that way from the factory.

Joe RoganCan I try it with an arrow?

Elon MuskYeah, it'll be fine.

Joe RoganYou think so? I mean, I bet I can get in. A crossbow might, I have a 90 lb compound bow that shoots 520 grain arrows at 300 feet per second, with, I think, a razor-sharp broadhead.

Elon MuskWe could try right now if you want.

Joe RoganI wish I had it with me. I don't, is it at your house or something?

Elon MuskYeah, should we send someone to go get it, do the demo tonight? That would be interesting.

Joe RoganI'll maybe I'll drive back with an arrow sticking out of my car. I bet I can get in there.

Elon MuskOkay, I'll bet you can't, really.

Joe RoganYeah, about your dollar. Damn, I'd like, damn, I think, I think if you have a crossbow that's with enough force, you might.

Elon MuskA crossbow thing about a crossbow is the bolt, even though it's very fast, it's not going to be nearly as heavy, you won't have as many, you can make a heavy crossbow bow.

Joe RoganYou could, yeah, but generally crossbow bolts are considerably lighter, they're much smaller, and they're much faster, they're moving at like 400-500 feet per second easy.

Elon MuskYeah, I mean the thing that matters is kind of the energy per unit area.

Joe RoganSo, um, so interesting.

Elon MuskLike a 9mm or 45, which is basically sort of a 10mm, um, the 45 is, they're roughly the same, but the 45 actually has slightly worse penetration than a 9mm.

Joe RoganYou know what, I just realized I do have some broadheads, I do have some broadheads, and I have a less powerful bow, but I have an 80 lb bow back there, I think we should do it.

Elon MuskAbsolutely, okay, when do you want to do it, right now?

Joe RoganYeah, I can do it right now.

Elon MuskOkay, let's do it right now.

Joe RoganLet's, now fuck yeah, let's do it, sick.

Elon MuskWe'll be right back, this could be funny.

Joe RoganI just like, why does he have an arrow sticking out of his car?

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Joe RoganJR, bring it back.

Elon MuskYou know, had the arrow come back in, I mean, just where's it.

Joe RoganRicochet, like you might want to do it at a slight angle.

Elon MuskYou know what I mean, it is.

Joe RoganBar, blew the, the arrow apart.

Elon MuskYeah, flattened the tip of the arrow, look at the tip of the broadhead, that's impressive.

Joe RoganHey cutie, thank you.

Elon MuskWell now we know.

Joe RoganSo we just shot an arrow into it and it barely scratched it, barely scratched it. Yeah, it was probably moving 275 ft a second, that was a 525 grain arrow with, yeah.

Elon MuskEven more than that, cause it had the 125 grain head, so that was 545 grains.

Joe RoganThat's impressive, yeah, very impressive. It just destroyed the broadhead, broadhead flattened at the tip, and then the arrow blew apart.

Elon MuskYeah, amazing, yeah, it's, like I said, we have a cool video we'll show at the handover event next month, which is emptying an entire magazine of a Tommy gun, which, think like on the order of 50 rounds, just going full Al Capone, you know, like on the side of the car, shotgun, 9mm, 45.

Joe RoganAnd you built it like this just for fun?

Elon MuskWell, I mean, cause it's cooler, I mean, cause you can, you know, trucks are supposed to be tough, right?

Joe RoganYeah, so is your truck bulletproof?

Elon MuskNo, mine is definitely not.

Joe RoganExactly, and if I shot mine with my bow, it would go right through it.

Elon Musk100%, 100%. If you shoot any normal car, unlike in the movies where people hide behind car doors, a car door is basically a very thin mild steel. So if you shoot a gun through a regular truck, it'll go through both doors.

Joe RoganSo it's, you can't hide behind a car door like they do in the movies, you know, back way back in the day, dating myself, at The A-Team, where they would like, you know, they'd be like bullets flying everywhere and they'd be hiding behind the car door.

Elon MuskRight, that doesn't work.

Joe RoganUm, but a Cybertruck did, was there ever invest in apocalyptic technology?

Elon MuskYeah, well, you know, it's an amazing car to have in the apocalypse.

Joe RoganYeah, doesn't it also, does it still do this thing where the ride height raises so you can, and there's also no regular drivetrain, so there's no axles, that correct? Are the impediment to going over rocks and things like that?

Elon MuskYeah, normally in other, in gasoline or diesel vehicles, you've got the differential, which hangs down low between the rear wheels, so you look under a car, under a truck, there's almost always a differential there that's hanging out pretty low, so if you hit the diff on a rock you'll break it. But there's no, there's no, um, at the bottom the sub, the truck is completely flat and has the best clear height of any vehicle.

Joe RoganHow far away are we, if it's ever going to happen at all, from having a vehicle that can operate entirely on solar?

Elon MuskWell, you've got a surface area thing, um, so it's about a kilowatt per square meter normal to the sun, roughly.

Joe RoganUm, so you just, it really depends on what kind of mileage you can.

Elon MuskUm, you don't have enough surface area to keep the car going just from the car's surface area, but if you had something that folded out, you could make it self-sustaining.

Joe RoganSomething that folded out, so like you could park it and then leave it on?

Elon MuskYeah, you'd have to like unfold, like the Starlink satellites do, where you unfold the solar panels, you know, just, you just need more surface area.

Joe RoganIs there any potential for an advancement in technology that would make a smaller area much better at conducting sun?

Elon MuskNothing, no, it's a kilowatt per square meter, that's what you're going to get from the sun if you're normal to the sun, so at 90 degrees to the sun.

Joe RoganAnd there's nothing that could accelerate that, or no, that's just.

Elon MuskLiterally the solar, yeah, so then you multiply your efficiency by that, so if a commercial panel is like maybe 25% efficient if they're a good one, so you get like 250 watts per square meter.

Joe RoganThere was a car, what was it, like a Fisker, that was using a solar panel that claimed that it was operating like the electronics, like it could start the radio.

Elon MuskYeah, um, I mean you can definitely, you just don't have enough surface area for it, but like, um, but you can like certainly, you could run a house with the solar roof, with the Tesla solar roof you can run a house, but it's never going to get to a point where you can just have a car that's made out of solar panels that could drive around, just could never be that efficient.

Joe RoganCorrect, so you do not have enough surface area. What research or what breakthroughs have been made in terms of battery technology, like how far away are we from having batteries that are far more efficient and last far longer? Cause I know there was some talk of like sodium-based batteries.

Elon MuskThe battery range is not a problem at this point, I mean the Model S will go 400 miles, Model, Model 3, Model Y will do over 300 miles, so, you know, that's more than most people need.

Joe RoganSo yeah, right, but are we, I mean, how far are we from making batteries that are more efficient?

Elon MuskThis is like, we obviously haven't, at least saying this is not really a constraint at the point in which you've got a car that can do, let's say, even at highway speeds 250 miles, then, or let's say run 40 min at 80 mph, now you're driving for 3 hours straight, and so if you start a trip at say 9:00 a.m., by noon you want to stop for lunch, go to the restroom, grab a coffee, by the time you come back your car is charged.

Joe RoganHow long does it take to fully charge?

Elon MuskUh, yeah, like half an hour. Well, you don't want to, it's, people will get used to it because it's a little different, um, you know, like for a gasoline car you'd want to fill it up, for an electric car you'd want to actually go very close to zero, and the car can calculate how much range it has with precision. So if you enter a road trip in a Tesla, it'll calculate all of the superchargers along the way, where you should stop, how much you should charge, and just let the computer do its thing and it'll work well. Um, so you actually want to charge to about 80% and then run it down all the way to 10% or less.

Joe RoganDo you want to do that on everyday use as well, or just with long trips?

Elon MuskNo, just long trips, if you're trying to minimize the amount of time you stop when charging. Um, so let's say you want to stop for 20-30 minutes, then, um, you really, it's a little counterintuitive, because for a gasoline car you would fill it up, for a battery, um, the charge state tapers off as you get above 80%. You can think of it like, I think the right analogy here is cars in a parking lot, so the lithium ions are trying to find a parking space as they move across, you know, from one side of the battery to the other side, from cathode to anode. I mean, they're sort of just these ions are just bouncing around looking for a parking space. So when the parking lot's empty, they can zip right in there and find a spot, it's easy. As the parking lot gets full, just like trying to find a parking space at a mall, you have to hunt around for a spot, and that's basically what's going on, is the ions are looking for a parking spot. So as the battery gets closer to full, it's harder and harder to find a spot, they have to bounce around more, so it takes longer from 80 to 100.

Joe RoganCorrect, getting from 80 to 100 it takes about as much time as getting from 0 to 80.

Elon MuskOh.

Joe RoganJust think of like, the ion's got to find a parking spot, oh, and just like if you're in a mall and it's busy, then it takes longer to find a parking spot than if it's empty. So essentially you're satisfied with the technology that's available right now in terms of like the amount of mileage that you get out of it and things along those lines.

Elon MuskYeah, range is not an issue, um, cost is more of an issue, so just need to make the car affordable, a long-range car needs to be affordable.

Joe RoganWhen you fully roll out, how many of those things, how many Cybertrucks can you guys make a month?

Elon MuskUm, we're aiming to make about 200,000 a year at volume production, maybe a little more, but I just can't emphasize enough that manufacturing is much much harder than the initial design. Um, you know, you can not, that the Cybertruck was easy to design, I'm not trying to trivialize design, it's just what I'm trying to do is to emphasize the difficulty of manufacturing, which is not understood by the public, because there's no movie about it, so there's lots of movies about the sort of wild inventor in the garage, um, but I'm not aware of any movie about manufacturing.

Joe RoganHave you ever heard of a movie about manufacturing?

Elon MuskI can't remember any, Jamie, any movie about manufacturing coming in my brain, but I don't think that's what it's even about, so I have no idea what is that, the Michael Keaton was making some cars in, somewhere, I was going to look it up.

Joe RoganIt's Tommy Boy.

Elon MuskYes, the only one that's a great movie, that might be the only one.

Joe RoganThat's interesting that it's such an immense part of American culture, and also the decline of some American cities. I mean, it's famously documented in Roger and Me, which is a great documentary where he just talks about how Flint got destroyed when they pulled out the car manufacturing.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, um, I mean there's a reason why, generally, politicians really try very hard to get a factory in their area, is because it's a massive generator of jobs, and for every factory job there's like five, roughly five, support jobs. You know, so it's like teachers, electricians, plumbers, lawyers, accountants, what not, um, restaurants. So manufacturing is kind of like a nucleus from which many jobs spring. That's why, generally, you know, governors and prime ministers and presidents will try so hard to get a factory in their country or region.

Joe RoganWhen you decided to build the Gigafactory, and what you decided, well, just even when you decided to get involved with Tesla, did you have any idea of how difficult this would be? Did you have a preconceived notion?

Elon MuskI thought it would be very difficult, I thought our probability of success was less than 10%.

Joe RoganWhoa.

Elon MuskYeah, I mean it would be foolish to think anything else other than that. I mean, even at this point, the only car companies that have not gone bankrupt are Ford and Tesla, American car companies, you know, General Motors went bankrupt and Chrysler went bankrupt in 2009. There's some chance they'll go bankrupt again. Ford and Tesla barely made it, um, it was incredibly difficult to keep Tesla alive when General Motors and Chrysler were going bankrupt. So, um, because manufacturing is the actual hard thing, not, by far the hard thing, I just can't emphasize that enough, and I hope somebody makes a movie about that.

Joe RoganMaybe they should make a movie about Tesla.

Elon MuskSure, why not, yeah, perfect.

Joe RoganWho would you want to play you?

Elon MuskI don't care.

Joe RoganHow about David Spade?

Elon MuskAnyone, no, I don't care, I'm kidding. I don't care if anyone plays me, I, but I do think that, I just went back to Tommy Boy.

Joe RoganYeah, it rocks. Um, so, you know, Jim Farley is the CEO of Ford, and he's Chris Farley's cousin.

Elon MuskNo way.

Joe RoganYes, wow.

Elon MuskThat's crazy.

Joe RoganYes, that's crazy, and they look, I mean, they look related.

Elon MuskYeah, there should be a movie.

Joe RoganYeah, I just, you got to get someone good that doesn't fuck it up.

Elon MuskSomeone doesn't, well, I mean, the thing is that writers are just disconnected from manufacturing, they just never see it.

Joe RoganSo right, um, and I guess you have to try to create some narrative.

Elon MuskUm, I mean there are some shows like How It's Made type of thing, um, but they're pretty niche, um. The, but I know, I'm sounding like a broken record here, but I can't emphasize enough how it is insanely difficult to manufacture.

Joe RoganMakes sense.

Elon MuskYeah, well it particularly makes sense when there's something that's novel, something is, but ultimately cool as fuck.

Joe RoganYeah, um, what has it been like, uh, you've owned X for a year now?

Elon MuskOh yeah.

Joe RoganDo you ever wake up in the middle of the night and have a dream that you didn't do it, and your life is infinitely easier?

Elon MuskWell, it's certainly, um, a recipe for trouble I suppose, or contention.

Joe RoganUm, what was it ultimately that led you to make the decision to do it?

Elon MuskI mean, this is going to sound somewhat melodramatic, but I was worried about that, that it was having a corrosive effect on civilization, that I was just having a bad impact. Um, and, um, I think part of it is that it's where it was located, which is downtown San Francisco, um, and while I think San Francisco is a beautiful city and we should really fight hard to write the ship of San Francisco, if you've walked around downtown San Francisco right near the xfk Twitter headquarters, it's a zombie apocalypse, I mean, it's rough.

Joe RoganHave you been in that area?

Elon MuskNot lately.

Joe RoganNo, I've heard it's crazy, I've heard it's crazy, I've heard you really can't believe it until you actually go there.

Elon MuskYou can't believe it until you go there. So now you have to say, well, what philosophy led to that outcome, and that philosophy was being piped to Earth. So, um, you know, a philosophy that would be ordinarily quite niche and geographically constrained, so that the sort of the fallout area would be limited, was effectively given an information weapon, um, tech, information technology weapon, to propagate what is essentially a mind virus to the rest of the world. And the outcome with that mind virus is very clear, if you walk around the streets of downtown San Francisco, it is the end of civilization, and it's not just propagating the mind virus, but suppressing any opposing viewpoints.

Joe RoganYes, well, in order for the virus to propagate it must suppress opposing viewpoints, so because it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Elon MuskCorrect.

Joe RoganYeah, I mean you've felt the virus.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, people try to cancel you so many times.

Joe RoganYeah, it's fascinating, yeah, um, I don't think you're melodramatic at all, I think it's a, I mean, I don't want to be melodramatic, but it's almost like a death cult.

Elon MuskIt's a death cult.

Joe RoganNo, no.

Elon MuskThat is exactly right, um, it's essentially, uh, extinctionist, like it's in the limit, it is that they're propagating the extinction of humanity and civilization. Um, and there's some people who are, most of the time it's implicit, they don't say it explicitly, but sometimes it's explicit. Like there was a guy on the front page of the New York Times who literally has the thing called the extinctionist movement, um, and he was quoted on the front page of New York Times as saying, uh, there are 8 billion people on the world, but it would be better if there were none.

Elon MuskAnd I'm like, well buddy, you can start with yourself.

Joe RoganYeah, um, does he have friends? That's what always fascinates me.

Elon MuskWell, here he is, that guy, he looks like, you not long for this earth.

Joe RoganI mean, doesn't Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, that's hilarious, spend, I'd like to party with that dude, I would just like to, like that's the death, that's an explicit version of the death cult.

Elon MuskYeah, may I and die out, it's, I mean, it's not, extinction is a word he uses.

Joe RoganYes.

Elon MuskNo, I mean it's not, it's literally a self-description, they cover was in charge of social media, and still likely is, at uh Google and Facebook by the way.

Elon MuskYeah, so I'm like, uh, I'm not in favor of human extinction, uh, they are, and, uh, they can go to hell.

Joe RoganWell, that guy is, yeah, he can go to hell, that guy seems silly, I like to hang out with him though, I would like to find out what makes him tick, I bet that guy is fascinating.

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Elon MuskWell, you get them alone for a few days. I'm in favor of, I'm pro-environment, but, the, in the limit, if you take environmentalism to an extreme, you start to view humanity as a plague on the surface of the Earth, like a mold or something, right, um, and but this is actually false, the Earth could take probably 10 times the current civilization, the population could be, you could 10x the population without destroying the forest. So the environmental movement, and I'm an environmentalist, has gone too far, they've gone way too far, um, you know, if you saw thinking that humans are bad, then the natural conclusion is humans should die out. Now I'm headed to an AI safety, international sort of AI safety conference later tonight, leaving in about 3 hours, um, and I don't meet with the British Prime Minister, a number of other people.

Joe RoganUm, so you have to say, like, how could AI go wrong?

Elon MuskWell, if AI gets programmed by the extinctionist, its utility function will be the extinction of humanity.

Joe RoganYeah, clearly, yeah, yeah, I mean particularly if they won't even think it's bad, like that guy.

Elon MuskRight, yeah, if you let, there's a lot of decisions that AI would make that would be very similar to eugenics. I mean, there would be some radical changes in what people are allowed to and not allowed to do that allow them to survive, that may be detrimental in terms of like pollution and things like that, but it may be the only solution they have. In their area, I mean, maybe AI would come up with some sort of a different structure in terms of how they get power and resources, but there's no shortage of power, um, like we talked about solar power for cars, the issue is the cars just have a very low surface area, um, but you could actually power the entire United States with 100 miles by 100 miles of solar.

Joe RoganReally?

Elon MuskYes, so you could just pick some dead spot that you find, still plenty, cover that sucker up with solar panels and charge the whole country.

Joe RoganAbsolutely 24/7?

Elon MuskYou need batteries, but yes.

Joe RoganYeah, wow.

Elon MuskYeah, it's not hard, I mean, meaning it's like it's very feasible, in fact, uh, I mean the sun is converting over 4 million tons of mass to energy every second, and it's no maintenance, that thing just works. We have a giant fusion reactor in the sky, that is the sun. In fact, people, like, someone's like, what about the radiation, I'm like, the sun is literally a nuclear reactor in the sky.

Joe RoganYeah, are you scared to go in daylight, rocks of radiation?

Elon MuskYes, the radiation risk is greatly overestimated, you know, um, I always wonder why radiation is always bad in real life but always awesome in comic books.

Joe RoganYeah, exactly, get bit by a radioactive spider and suddenly you have spider abilities, get hit with gamma ray, I, what if you radioactive a cockroach, it'd be like the Cockroach Man, yeah, you can be one of the X-Men.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, it's, I think the problem is like most people just don't understand what radiation is, and so it just sounds like a mysterious invisible death ray.

Joe RoganWell, it's almost like drugs, like we think of it, we put a blanket over it like it's all one thing, you know, radiation is Chernobyl, you know, right, I mean the thing is you can actually tour Chernobyl right now.

Elon MuskSo is, you can actually go to the, well I mean it's a war zone, but apart from that, the issue is more getting shot than it is, there's, you don't have a radiation risk. I mean, but the problem is like, I think when people don't understand what radiation is, they can't see it, they can't feel it, they think, well I could just die at any moment, like from a magic death ray.

Joe RoganRight, um, you know, I've had people say like, oh, the radiation from their phone is going to hurt them, or they're scared of the microwave.

Elon MuskI'm like, when you say radiation do you mean particles or photons, and if you mean photons, what wavelength, um, and they're like, I don't know what you mean, that's, they don't know anything about that.

Joe RoganRight, they just have, they're afraid of the term, but it's because of Three Mile Island and Fukushima, we've been.

Elon MuskYeah, but nobody died of radiation from Fukushima, not one person.

Joe RoganTrue.

Elon MuskIn fact, but I was asked by people in California, like when Fukushima happened, um, whether the radiation would get to California. I'm like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and so, actually, to help support Japan, I flew to Fukushima and ate locally grown vegetables on TV, and I'm still alive.

Joe RoganI have a friend, he's very smart, but he won't eat fish out of the Pacific because he's worried about the radiation from Fukushima.

Elon MuskYeah, that's irrational, there is no physics substance to that, I would say, at all, not even slightly.

Joe RoganI'm going to send him this clip.

Elon MuskYes, um, go back to the sushi place, bro.

Joe RoganNo, you should be, if you eat too much tuna you can have mercury.

Elon MuskYes, correct, mercury poisoning from tuna is a real thing.

Joe RoganYou can get arsenic from sardines too, I found that out the hard way.

Elon MuskReally?

Joe RoganYeah, I ate too many sardines, yeah. I ate, I got my blood work done, and the doctor says, you have arsenic in your blood, and I go, someone's poisoning me? He goes, it's very very low level, it's like, is your girlfriend angry at you? And I said yeah, I eat like three cans of sardines a night.

Elon MuskThat's a lot of sardines, man, I love sardines.

Joe RoganI mean, yeah, it's, them, I really do, I've always loved sardines.

Elon MuskOkay, I love them, but turns out you can't eat too much of it, cause they, yeah, they're not good for you.

Joe RoganOkay, yeah, I mean a little sardines once in a while, but not three cans a night.

Elon MuskWell, for me it's like I come home late from the comedy club, but I want something easy to eat, and I don't want to stop for fast food, so I open up a few cans of sardines and I'll, you know, watch a little TV, eat a few cans of sardines. Doing it every night, and then I stopped doing it and I got my blood work done a couple months later, it was gone.

Joe RoganYeah, well, I think anchovies really pep up a Caesar salad.

Elon MuskYeah, they do, I'm a fan.

Joe RoganI'm a fan of anchovies as well, one of my favorite pizzas ever is pineapple and anchovy, double pineapple double anchovy, it's amazing, it's the sweet and the salty, and then you got the tomato sauce and the cheese, it's my favorite pizza.

Elon MuskIt's very good, I mean, as a kid I was like very much a Hawaiian pizza, and as an adult I like it.

Joe RoganHawaiian's good, but I'm telling you, anchovies pineapple is the bomb diggity.

Elon MuskThat's the bomb diggity, I'll give it a shot.

Joe RoganThat's the bomb diggity, hey wait, can we order some right now? Is that feasible?

Elon MuskI bet we could.

Joe RoganOkay, let's try it, that'd be sick.

Elon MuskYeah, I can, we'll have someone out there have Jeff order a very large pizza with double pineapple, double anchovies.

Joe RoganGreat, fantastic, I'm hungry, fuck, go, yes, let's fucking go, no time like the present, enjoy life.

Elon MuskWell, there's got to be a good spot around here.

Joe RoganTell, we'll find a good spot and tell them it's for us, they'll cook it up, if they won't.

Elon MuskIf they won't the pizza, all right, tell them we'll mention their name, tell them we'll mention their name on the podcast.

Joe RoganDon't tell them it's us.

Elon MuskYeah, tell them it's us, fuck it, if they're going to close, tell them we'll mention their name.

Joe RoganWhat is this, what is this salty sauce that's so mysterious?

Elon MuskOh no, right, don't tell them it's us, good call.

Joe RoganYeah, don't tell us, make sure you don't buy it from any Ohialis.

Elon MuskWhat is the salty tangy substance, don't buy it from East Austin, don't buy from anyone who still wears a mask.

Joe RoganThere's a lot of them out there, there's a lot of them out there, they're still masked up, it's wild.

Elon MuskYeah, once in a while I see someone paranoid, I'm like, on the street.

Joe RoganYeah, I saw a guy on the street the other day just walking around with a mask on, and I'm like, okay buddy, you look like you're about 28 years old, yeah, I think you're going to be okay.

Elon MuskYeah, you're probably not going to be okay breathing that same air in that mask and all the bacteria spitting out.

Joe RoganYeah, it's attaching to that cloth, yeah, it's, masks are not like some magic health shield.

Elon MuskUm, I mean there are times where, you know, masks are warranted, like if a surgeon is operating on you or whatever, then you don't want the surgeon spitting in your wound, you know, of course, um, but, uh, most of the time a mask is not good for you. If you can breathe out of it, that means you can, you're breathing in, that means you're also exhaling, so like how much is it filtering, like what is it.

Joe RoganWhat it's like, I'd say like a mask is much like a sort of a shield in battle, in that, yeah, you know, it'll help protect you a little bit from arrows and stuff, but it doesn't make you arrow-proof.

Elon MuskWe're just talking about, you know, shooting arrows and stuff, right?

Joe RoganThere's so, I mean there are times when masks are warranted, but most of the time it's actually counterproductive.

Elon MuskWell, that was one of the things about the old Twitter, was the propaganda, and yeah, the adherence to whatever the CDC was saying, and the dismissing of legitimate scientists, guys like Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford and legit guys.

Joe RoganYes, and they were suppressing them and even banning them, they banned Alex Berenson, I mean this is, it was wild, they banned Alex for essentially reading peer-reviewed papers.

Elon MuskYeah, no, I mean, all Twitter was basically an arm of the government.

Joe RoganYeah, so was that shocking, like what was that like, is that? To me that was the most bizarre, was the Twitter Files, when you let Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi and all those guys get in the Twitter, and the response were, Matt Taibbi gets audited, I mean, which is just wild, I mean it's just so blatant and so in your face.

Elon MuskYeah, it's weird.

Joe RoganNo, I mean, the yeah, the great, to which.

Elon MuskAnd by the way, Jack didn't really know this, but the degree to which Twitter was simply an arm of the government was not well understood by the public, and it was, there was no, it was whatever the official government, it was like propaganda, basically, um, you know, a state publication is the way to think of old Twitter, it's a state publication.

Joe RoganAnd was the justification from their perspective that they are progressive liberals, they have the right intentions, it's important that they stay in power, that the progressive liberals stay in government and power, because this is the?

Elon MuskThis is their, there was, there was, uh, basically oppression of, um, any views that would even, I would say, be considered middle of the road, um, but certainly anything on the right, I'm not talking about far right, I'm just talking mildly right, the people, like Republicans were suppressed at 10 times the rate of Democrats. Um, now, that's because old Twitter was fundamentally controlled by the far left, it was like completely controlled by the far left, and that's why I say like, San Francisco Berkeley is a niche ideology, it's hard to say like is there a place that's more far left than San Francisco Berkeley, maybe Portland.

Joe RoganMaybe Portland, but it's like, it's a, right there, it's those two places are the most far-left places in America.

Elon MuskYes, um, so from their standpoint, everything is to the right, including moderates.

Joe RoganRight, right, so now if you internalize a far-left position.

Elon MuskUh, everything seems wrong to you, that if that is not far left, right, and so they naturally suppressed anything that didn't agree with their views, that's why I say that it was an accidental far-left information weapon, so, uh, is because, like, Silicon Valley attracts the smartest engineers, the smartest sort of technologists and programmers from around the world, um, they created an information weapon that was then harnessed by the far left, who could not themselves create the weapon, but happened to be collocated where the technologists were, and happened to be aligned politically with the people that possessed it. The technologists are generally moderate, maybe moderate left, but they're not far left. That's why I say San Francisco Bay Area, it doesn't even extend to South San Francisco or even to Palo Alto, so SF Bay Area is the most far left, um, perhaps, you know, in a competition with Portland, but I'd say SF Bay Area is more far left even than Portland. Like, literally in America, it's, we're talking about an area that's maybe a 10 mile radius, and so normally the negative effects of a far-left ideology that would be geographically limited to a 10 mile radius, that's like not, it's small, like the, so any bad effects of that ideology would be geographically constrained under normal circumstances, and have been in the past. But when you have basically a technological megaphone, which was Twitter and social media in general, suddenly the far left handed a megaphone to Earth, an incredibly powerful technology weapon that they themselves could not create, but they happened to be collocated with the technologists who created it, by accident.

Joe RoganIs it shocking that more people don't understand how dangerous that is?

Elon MuskI think some people understand, um, some people do, some people understand, um.

Joe RoganSo, I mean, from the standpoint of some of the people who used to be at Twitter, the people like, well, it's a big shift to the right.

Elon MuskThat is correct, it is a shift to the right, because everything is to the right if you're far left.

Joe RoganBut how many far-left people have actually been suspended or banned from Twitter, now X?

Elon MuskZero.

Joe RoganSo it's really just moved to the center, but from the perspective of the far left it is, it's moved to the right, everything's relative.

Elon MuskThe difference in moderation, sorry, I should say, it propagated that far-left philosophy not just to America but to everywhere on earth.

Joe RoganRight, yeah, yeah, and with the same level of suppression in other countries as well?

Elon MuskYes, but the Taliban is on Twitter.

Joe RoganRight, like I always think of like, hey Mr. Taliban, telling your banana.

Elon MuskI mean, there but there's definitely some people on Twitter that are.

Joe RoganI want to go.

Elon MuskUm, yeah, so the point is, um, I, that I, from my standpoint, is that xfk Twitter should represent the sort of collective consciousness of humanity, so now that means that there's going to be views on there that you don't like or disagree with, um, but that's humanity, so are you going to exclude them or not? Now, I mean, if somebody breaks the law then the account is suspended, I mean, if they actively advocate murder, then the account is suspended. We do have what I call like the kind of United Nations exclusion rule, which is that you can have, say, the Ayatollah, who would prefer that Israel didn't exist, for example, um, and, but he's allowed to go to the UN building in New York, um, and, in fact, generally officials from Iran do in fact go to the UN building in New York, even though they are heavily sanctioned. Country, so I think that there's merit to having, uh, just like there's merit to the UN, one can disagree with the UN, and I think one, we shouldn't have a world government that we bow down to, but in fact that's risky for civilization, but I think you do want to have the leaders of countries represented on social media, you want to hear what they have to say, even if what they say is terrible.

Joe RoganBut I think that is true across the board, and I think one of the things you just said that's very important is that's humanity, and I think it's important that a social media platform, especially the biggest one, represents humanity, so we understand what we're talking about, because if we have this distorted idea of what people think and want and need, because everyone only exists inside this ideological bubble, and anything outside of that bubble gets censored.

Elon MuskYes.

Joe RoganThen that changes, literally changes the tone of the entire country, changes what people think is okay and not okay, makes people feel differently.

Elon MuskYes, it's not humanity, it's different, it's a very forced version of humanity.

Joe RoganYes, absolutely.

Elon MuskYeah, so, um, I mean the whole point of free speech, the only free speech, is only relevant, the First Amendment is only relevant if you allow people you don't like to say things you don't like, um, because if you like it you don't need a First Amendment. So the whole point of free speech is that, frankly, even people you hate say things you hate, because if people you hate can say things that you hate, that means that they can't stop you from saying what you want to say, right, which is very very important.

Joe RoganRight, but the problem with Twitter was it was not the case.

Elon MuskIt was correct.

Joe RoganIt was people that you hate couldn't say anyone they didn't like, they censor.

Elon MuskYeah, or what's called deamplify.

Joe RoganNo, well, not just deamplify, but under the behest of the government would suppress real news, which was very bizarre.

Elon MuskYes, so they were very aware of something being accurate and they still suppressed it because the government wanted them to suppress it. I mean, in my view, there have been severe First Amendment violations by multiple government agencies, and there should be repercussions for that.

Joe RoganAnd is it, do different laws apply because it's a privately owned social media company? I mean, what laws do apply in terms of like, when you're looking at it, one of the arguments that the leftists would use is it's a private company, they can do whatever they want.

Elon MuskYeah, it's funny that when the shoe's on the other foot, they now say the private company can't do whatever it wants.

Joe RoganWell, yeah, now they're upset, now it's like, but the, the government itself is not allowed to censor speech.

Elon MuskUm, but in my view the government de facto did censor speech, and there should at least be a case where that is heard by the public, um, because if the government civilly coerces, you know, a platform, a sort of coerces the press, um, then I think that is or should be a First Amendment violation.

Joe RoganWell, they can't do it with other media forms, right? They're not allowed to do it with any other, they're not allowed to do that with a newspaper, that'd get in trouble, would they?

Elon MuskYou know, that's the question.

Joe RoganIt's like, you didn't know about the federal government, you didn't know about the intelligence agencies inside of Twitter until we found out, like, do you think that this is ubiquitous?

Elon MuskIs this?

Joe RoganIt's absolutely all the social media companies, in fact, right now X, if you know for, know as Twitter, is the only one that is not, uh, cow to the government.

Elon MuskIt's the only one, there isn't, all the others just do exactly what the government wants.

Joe RoganThat wild, yes, what I was getting at, do you think that that's everywhere, yes, do you think that that's CNN, do you think that that's the New York Times, do you think that that's the Washington Post, because if they were going to infiltrate media, they're going to infiltrate social media.

Elon MuskI mean, it is weird the degree to which the media is in lockstep, like why is the media in lockstep, and why doesn't the media question the government, they used to, right?

Joe RoganWhy don't they do that anymore, seems weird, something doesn't add up, what do you think?

Elon MuskWell, there seems like there's a bunch of factors, right, I think one of the big factors is pharmaceutical drug companies are allowed to advertise on television, and we're one of two countries in the world that allow that. I actually agree with pharmaceutical advertising, provided it is truthful, because there could be some drug that is helpful to someone, but obviously the claims need to be accurate, um, so I actually think pharmaceutical advertising.

Elon MuskIf it is accurate, I think it actually — you know, play devil's advocate here — I think fatal ad advertising is generally accurate. Um, I I think that's actually okay. Um, now, now I should say that a lot of the censorship that we see is is coming indirectly from advertisers and advertising agencies, um, and from PR companies, um, who want a particular viewpoint pushed, um, or are being driven by nonprofits to push a particular... like, what will happen is there'll be a sort of a group of nonprofits that push advertisers to advertise or not advertise on a particular platform. Um, you often hear of the sort of George Soros boogeyman, but I mean Soros — actually, you know, he is, I believe, the top contributor to the Democratic Party, um, the second one was uh Sam Bankman-Fried. And Soros, I don't know, I mean he had a very difficult upbringing, um, and uh, in my opinion, he fundamentally hates humanity. That's my opinion.

Joe RoganReally? Yeah, I mean, well, he's doing things that erode the fabric of civilization, you know, uh, getting DAs elected who refuse to prosecute crime. That's part of the problem in San Francisco and LA and much of other cities. So why would you do that? Was it human, or is it just the United States as a whole in pushing things to other countries too? Same thing?

Elon MuskYeah, now George at this point is pretty old. I mean he's not, uh, you know, he's basically a vegetable at this point. But I mean he he's very smart, um, and he's very good at arbitrage. You know, famously he uh shorted the British pound, that's sort of how I think he made his first money — was shorting the pound. Um, so he's good at spotting, uh, basically arbitrage, like spotting value for money that other people don't see. So, uh, one of the things he noticed was that in that the value for money in local races is much higher than it is in national races. The lowest value for money is a presidential race, then next lowest value for money is a Senate race, then a Congress, and then, but once you get to sort of city and state district attorneys, um, the value for money is extremely good. And Soros realized that you don't actually need to change the laws, you just need to change how they're enforced. If nobody chooses to enforce the law, or the laws are differentially enforced, it's life-changing. The laws — that's what he figured out. But is what, is this trend that people haven't pulled the brakes on this and have it reverse course?

Joe RoganPulling the brakes.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, pulling the brakes right now, yeah, you are.

Joe RoganBut you might be the only one.

Elon MuskWell I think more people should. Um, most people just don't want to rock the boat. Um, most people are looking for acceptance from society, and they're, you know, if there's some negative press article, they're like shattered.

Joe RoganI couldn't give a damn, right? Go ahead, make my day.

Joe RoganWell, it's fascinating — if you're a high-profile public figure like yourself...

Elon MuskNo, there's no, there's — it's impossible to make everybody happy, so there's going to be someone who says something shitty about you.

Joe RoganYeah, somehow or another, when it's in print, does that mean more because other people are going to see this shitty thing?

Elon MuskWell I guess that's where it gets odd, because essentially an article in the New York Times is just a single person's opinion, and whatever editor gets involved, it's just a lot of people will read that. I mean, less people, at least I think people know that now.

Joe RoganPeople, the New York Times these days, be hard to read.

Elon MuskWell, unfortunately they make some grave errors.

Joe RoganYeah, like that Hamas bombing the... no, the Israeli bombing the hospital story.

Elon MuskYes, it's delicious. I mean, I think we should cut off chick-fil-a exports, that'll bring them to their knees right away.

Joe RoganWhat do you do, take a trip and dip it in nothing?

Elon MuskWhat we need to do is introduce them to pineapple and anchovy pizza, they will have... I hope that's coming.

Joe RoganIs that coming? Do we have a a pizza name, like a company?

Elon MuskI think so, I'll get some information.

Joe RoganGood one though, Pizza Leon.

Elon MuskOh, that's legit, it's pretty close.

Joe RoganThere we go, nice. Did they give us a timeline?

Elon MuskUh, it shouldn't take too long, they're not too far away.

Joe RoganSo it shouldn't — I would have bet 20 minutes, 30 minutes maybe, all right, max 40.

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Joe RoganYou know, that's something like — after I say I've got a lot of respect for somebody who's willing to make pizza late at night, yeah, my hat is off, I mean, that is like great.

Elon MuskAbsolutely, you know, late night food, I appreciate the — if you can get a really good late night meal, yeah, hats off.

Joe RoganOr wigs off, whatever. Yeah, I'm I'm a giant fan of very good late night food, and that's one of the things that, like, Los Angeles really used to have. They had a Pacific Dining Car where you can get a legit steak 24 hours a day.

Elon MuskReally?

Joe RoganThat's great. Yeah, I don't know if it's still open in downtown LA. I believe the one in Santa Monica closed, but a Pacific Dining Car in downtown LA was a legit steakhouse, and you'd — we would leave The Comedy Store 2, 3 in the morning, get a legit steak.

Elon MuskThat's cool, is that still open?

Joe RoganTemporarily closed. Ah, fuck, Covid got him. Covid just took out so many restaurants, crazy, it's not coming back. Website seems to be down too, yeah, they're not coming back. Covid got 70% of the restaurants in LA at one point.

Elon MuskWow. Not Covid, I should say, policies. Well, lockdowns, the mind virus, I mean it's like just crazy. Um, I moved here — one of the reasons why I moved here is we came here in May of 2020, and you could go indoors and eat in restaurants, and my kids, who were pretty young at the time, 10 and 12, they were like, we want to live here. Was like, they were freaked out, like LA was weird. I mean, for most of Covid I was actually in South Texas building this uh Starship factory. Um, and you know, we're just — yeah, no mask, no nothing, just building a factory, building rockets. And uh, then, you know, that you have a team from California visit, all masked up, and uh they'd freak out that we're not, we don't have masks, and we're like, we're still alive, man.

Joe RoganYeah, so um, did you lose anybody? Did anybody from your factory die of Covid?

Elon MuskNot that I'm aware of. Now, so part of it is that, like, uh, I I kind of saw a dress rehearsal, which is that, you know, I kind of started in Wuhan, um, and so Tesla's got uh 20,000 employees in China. Um, and so, you know, the first wave of Covid happened in China, and we had nobody died or got seriously ill. I was like, okay, well, like, this is — you know, can't be that bad if — and we're not relying on government statistics, we literally know who showed up for work, you know, right, did they badge in or not. Um, and we had no one die and no one got seriously ill. So I'm like, well, I don't know what the big deal is.

Joe RoganWell, there's a problem, that people still want to stick to this initial narrative that they believed and that they espoused, like they repeated it, and so they'll still fight you on this today. People will still fight you today on the merits of the lockdowns, the importance of vaccine mandates, closing schools. There's people that stated an opinion in 2020, and they still are doing mental gymnastics to try to make it seem like that was the right choice.

Elon MuskNo, it was just a panic, yeah, um, and a lot of disease got ascribed to Covid that had nothing to do with Covid. And in fact, I'd say in the beginning, um, the cure is worse than the disease, so uh, because people panic too much. And so, somebody would, um, get diagnosed with Covid, they put them on uh intubated ventilator for a week, and this was going to basically cook your lungs. So if if you if you are on pure O2, um, under pressure, with a tube stuck down your throat, um, and under anesthetic, this is very bad for you. Like, it's one thing if you do that for a couple hours for an operation, but you do that for a week, uh, it's going to roast your lungs. Like, what the air that we're breathing right now is 78% nitrogen, 1% argon, about 21% oxygen, and some miscellaneous. Um, so if you ask most people what are you breathing, they say oxygen, no, you're breathing nitrogen, um, only about a fifth of it is oxygen and there's about 1% argon.

Elon MuskUm, so, um, now I know quite a lot about life support systems, because we make spaceships, and there you have to keep people alive in a vacuum, so you got to say, okay, what percentage nitrogen, what percentage oxygen you're going to do, what's the pressure going to be. Um, and uh, so, like, sea level pressure is about 15 pounds per square inch, um, and the partial pressure of oxygen, uh, at 20% — being 20% is therefore roughly 3 pounds per square inch of oxygen. So in a spacecraft, you want to, and especially if you're in a spacesuit, uh, you want to lower the pressure, so you want to keep the oxygen — still give people enough oxygen to function, obviously — but you want to lower the nitrogen content so that you don't have a spacesuit that's at 15 psi, because at 15 psi you just — you know, just pop out like a balloon, it's hard to move. Ah, so you want to try to lower the pressure, um, you know, down to around, I don't know, 6, 7 psi, maybe even 5 psi. Um, so you'd lower it to, you know, try to keep the partial pressure of oxygen roughly the same, so maybe around 3 psi, and then 3 psi of nitrogen. So you got a 50/50 mix of nitrogen and oxygen, and um, and then it gets pretty hot in that suit.

Joe RoganYeah, it got hot the whole time I just felt it.

Elon MuskGet hot to... I'm sweating, it's going to be sweaty and itchy a little bit.

Joe RoganYeah, can't believe people wear them all day.

Elon MuskYeah, um, so anyway, so about keep people alive in a vacuum, you know, um, so, um, you know, we designed the life support system for keeping humans alive in a vacuum, the vacuum of space, which is very difficult. Um, so we know quite a lot about, um, what it takes to keep people alive. So you do not want to, um, be 100% oxygen — this actually, for an extended period of time, this is not good for you.

Joe RoganWell, 80% of the people they put on ventilators died.

Elon MuskYeah, so, in fact, I actually posted about that because, um, I called doctors in Wuhan and said, what are the biggest mistakes that you made on the first wave, those were early on, and they said, we put far too many people on intubated ventilators. So then I actually posted on Twitter at the time and said, hey, uh, what I'm hearing from Wuhan is that they made a big mistake in putting people, uh, on intubated ventilators for an extended period, um, and that this is actually what is damaging the lungs, not covid, it's the treatment. The cure is worse than the disease. And they, I just — people yelled at me and said, I'm not a doctor.

Elon MuskI'm like, yeah, but I do make spaceships with life support systems, what do you do?

Joe RoganI like that, like twiddle knobs, like okay great.

Elon MuskYeah, rock on.

Joe RoganWell, again, it was there was this very bizarre narrative that you had to believe everything that the government was telling you, you had to believe everything the CDC was telling you, and that even as time went on and we realized, hey, it looks like this came from a fucking lab, like even as time went on, disputing that would get you banned, it would get you kicked off of YouTube. Yeah, I think to this day there's certain things you're not allowed to say in regards to the vaccine on YouTube.

Elon MuskAs I said, the the only media that does not have crazy censorship at this point is X, that I'm aware of. Everyone else, um, everything else is censored.

Joe RoganSpotify isn't, that's why this can... Daniel.

Elon MuskOh, Daniel Ek's the man, great, I love that dude, and you know I think more companies should follow suit, I don't think it has to be this way. Unfortunately for us, they're — they're in Sweden, Stockholm Sweden, they have a very different perspective on all this shit.

Joe RoganYeah, what's wild about the nitrogen is that, like, that's most of the nitrogen from fertilizer we suck out of the air.

Elon MuskSorry, what do you mean, most of the nitrogen for fertilizer we suck out of the air?

Joe RoganYeah, yeah, one of the actually, the big um inventions in chemistry was binding nitrogen.

Elon MuskIt's, uh, nitrogen is actually fairly inert, um, so it's quite hard to, um, to actually pull nitrogen out of there and bind it into, into like, uh, ammonia, like basically the process for creating ammonia was actually very important, the Haber method.

Joe RoganYeah, Fritz Haber.

Elon MuskYeah, same guy who invented Zyklon gas. Um, but it was actually very important to, uh, bind nitrogen from the air, uh, to fertilizer. So, um, that actually was, frankly, it's a life-saving invention, um, at scale, um, because you just run out of, of, of nitrogen. Um, so, uh, like, nitrogen, pure nitrogen, is a low energy state, so to try to bind it into fertilizer requires light energy to do that, that's quite tricky. So that was a very important breakthrough.

Joe RoganYeah, I read that 50% of the nitrogen in most people's body comes from that method.

Elon MuskUm, 50% of the nitrogen in most people's body that they've consumed from food?

Joe RoganOh, yeah, yeah, because of that, that might be true.

Elon MuskUm, it was a fundamental problem for, um, most of civilization is how do you get, uh, nitrogen for the plants. Um, the limiting factor, in fact, even in the rainforest, is, like, the nitrogen is — it's about bound nitrogen.

Joe RoganWhat are — when you do eventually colonize Mars, what what's the idea in terms of terraforming? Is it contained ecosystems that are under domes? Like, what what are you planning on doing to make it habitable?

Elon MuskWell, at first, you would have to have a life support system, um, because Mars has a low-density atmosphere, only about 1% the density of Earth, and it's primarily CO2. Um, now, over time, you can terraform Mars — terraform means make it like Earth essentially — um, and if you warm Mars up, you will, um, there's a bunch of frozen CO2 that will evaporate, densify the atmosphere, and, um, you'd actually want kind of global warming on Mars, 'cause Mars is about 50% further away from the Sun than the Earth, um, so it gets about less than half the solar energy that Earth does.

Elon MuskAnd it's believed at one point in time Mars had a much different environment.

Joe RoganRight?

Elon MuskIt appears highly likely that Mars had liquid oceans, albeit a long time ago. There's a lot of ice — so this Mars is, um, covered in ice, um, and now the ice is then covered in dust for the most, mostly, except at the poles. Uh, so there's a lot of ice. In fact, I believe if Mars was warmed up, you'd have an ocean about a mile deep on, uh, 40% of the planet. Wow. So it's it's quite a lot of water.

Joe RoganAnd do we think that it was like that at one point in time?

Elon MuskThe evidence suggests that, uh, it is most likely that Mars had, uh, liquid water.

Joe RoganWhat's the prevailing theory of its demise?

Elon MuskWell, just over time the solar system cooled, so Earth used to be much hotter, like in the very early Earth was like molten rock, you know, so really almost nothing could survive. In the beginning, we were just a ball of lava. We're still mostly a ball of lava, um, we're like crème brûlée, like there's a thin crust, and uh, and it's mushy rock underneath, very hot mushy rock underneath, um, and technically that rock is in a semi-solid state, but as soon as it gets to a low pressure, like pops out of the ocean, uh, you have a volcano, obviously, with lava.

Elon MuskYeah, so it's, um, at at at service ambient pressure, uh, we're basically covered in liquid rock.

Joe RoganAre you aware — a thin crust on liquid rock — are you, we, the origin myth of the Dogon tribe?

Elon MuskNo.

Joe RoganThere's a tribe — I believe it's a tribe in, I forget what part of Africa — but they believe that they came from Mars, and that there was a civilization that left Mars, you know, many, many eons ago, and it's, it's a really weird, uh, it's a really weird theory, because they know some things about Mars.

Elon MuskYeah, I'm pretty sure they didn't come from Mars.

Joe RoganOh, yeah, I'm pretty sure too, but I mean it's, it's — any spaceships, if they don't have any spaceship, then I'm like, I don't believe it.

Elon MuskWell, like, you do have a spaceship, I'll believe it if you parked the spaceship.

Joe RoganHow many thousands of years, you parked a metal spaceship, like if you left a Cybertruck in the desert.

Elon MuskYeah, how many thousands of years do you think it would be there for before it's gone? If it got, if it got buried in dirt, we'd find it — you'd find it even like a million years from now.

Joe RoganA million?

Elon MuskYeah.

Joe RoganWow, really?

Elon MuskWell, what you'd find is stainless steel, so it would have to be some sort of an alloy, it would — it's kind of like, um, but iron wouldn't, right?

Joe RoganYeah, you'd — but you'd have something similar to, like, fossils basically, you know, like the fossils, they essentially discolor the rock, so event — whatever the fossil is, and sometimes the fossils, like an amber or something like that, that's that where it still does survive more or less intact, but I mean there's fossilized like dinosaur fossils and tree fossils, um, that essentially remineralize.

Elon MuskRight?

Joe RoganYeah, yeah, so you'd, you'd see like a Cybertruck shape in the rock basically.

Elon MuskAh, yeah, but that's it, you wouldn't find the actual Cybertruck.

Joe RoganUh, so if they did have a spaceship, and it came here 30,000 years ago...

Elon MuskOh, yeah, yeah, we'd definitely find evidence of it.

Joe RoganWell, not — I mean, if it was one spaceship, maybe not, but if it was a lot of them, sure. That is the origin myth of the Dogon tribe, right? Am I getting that right? Mars specifically, it's a hidden star, star in the... Sirius, oh, somewhere else, system.

Elon MuskYeah, you cannot be serious.

Joe RoganSirius, Sirius, XM. It's, uh, it's just very strange when people have this, uh, this bizarre origin myth. Like, I wonder who was the first one to tell them they came from stars, and when we eventually do — I mean, how bizarre, imagine if you're successful, we eventually do colonize Mars, and you're correct, we — Earth winds up, through human folly or natural disaster, getting wiped out, and there's only the colony on Mars, and that colony exists for 10, 20,000 years, and they have their origin myth that we all came from Earth. I mean, ultimately, that's going — if this does happen, you do colonize Mars, and Earth does get destroyed, and if there's a period of time that takes place, like, look at the the period, like, at least the conventional timeline of the Great Pyramid, which is 4,500 years ago, 5,000 years.

Elon MuskYeah, so that's not that much time.

Joe RoganIt's not that much time, no, I mean, it's nothing on the galactic time scale, right? So if we're talking 20-30,000 years from now on Mars, and people talk about Times Square and what Earth used to be like...

Elon MuskI mean, it is, I think, like there's some debate as, like, how do you say what — when did civilization start, and I'd say like probably from the first writing. Um, and the first writing is only 5,500 years old.

Joe RoganYeah, it's worth reading about the history of writing.

Elon MuskBut only 5,500 years, and then, um, one has to credit basically the ancient Sumerians, who aren't around anymore, uh, with the first writing.

Joe RoganAre you aware, though, that, like, there's hieroglyphs that depict a history of Egypt that goes back far longer, maybe even 30,000 plus years ago, but archaeologists dismiss it because they think that that's mythical. But non-conventional archaeologists who believe in what's called the Younger Dryas impact theory, okay, that, uh, somewhere around 11,800 years ago, civilization was essentially all but wiped out by comet impacts. Um, okay, and that is the reason why they keep finding these insanely old huge structures, megalithic structures that are carved out of stone, like when you go back to, like, Göbekli Tepe, which is 11,600 years ago, that's that's an insanely old structure that they didn't even know people were capable of building until they discovered it in the 1990s. So the conventional timeline, of, people, when you go to 11,600 years ago was just hunter-gatherers, but now that they have Göbekli Tepe with its 3D carved uh things, and have you seen Graham Hancock's amazing series on Netflix called Ancient Apocalypse?

Elon MuskI know.

Joe RoganYou should check it out, it's amazing, but it's about — it's all about that there's a lot of physical evidence of an advanced civilization from far, far, far longer ago than we have conventionally dated, which is ancient Sumer, which we put at about 6,000 years ago.

Elon MuskYeah, like the first — it's difficult to date it with precision, or at least to within a few hundred years, but it's roughly 5,500 years.

Joe RoganLike you say, like, what is the oldest, like, stone tablet?

Elon MuskYeah, um, because this is, you know, if you're like an archaeologist, if you were to discover something older than that, you'd be very famous, you know, it's like — they really looked hard, um, and 5,500 years, uh, really is kind of the — if you say like any kind of evidence that I've seen that is actually substantial is, is writing is 5,500 years old.

Joe RoganYeah, in terms of writing, yeah, well what they believe is that there's very little of this ancient civilization other than things like the pyramids, other than things like the Sphinx. There's a geologist that really stuck his neck — his name is Dr. Robert Schoch, from Boston University, and what he said was, his theory is that there's deep water erosion all over the Temple of the Sphinx, where the Sphinx was carved out, that is indicative of thousands of years of rainfall, and the last time they had rainfall in the Nile Valley was around 9,000 BC. So what he believes is because back then the whole Nile Valley was a lush rainforest, and eventually receded into desert.

Elon MuskOkay.

Joe RoganYeah, so the entire that whole area, like even the Sahara used to be rich rainforest, and it receded into what it is now. But if you go back then, he believes that's when that thing was constructed, and he says the physical — the geologists look at it, and if they, if he shows it to them in terms of, like, just shows an image of the erosion, doesn't tell them where it is, they'll almost all of them will say that's water erosion from thousands of years of rainfall. I I think even if you say like, okay, even if — even if, you know, even if you say like, okay, civilization is like 9,000 years old, it's still nothing, nothing. So, you know, we're still talking about like a very tiny fraction of Earth's existence.

Elon MuskLike, um, the geological evidence suggests Earth is about 4 and a half billion years old. Um, so, um, human civilization has been around for roughly 1 millionth of Earth's existence.

Joe RoganYeah, 'cause just basically nothing, and if even if it's 10,000 years, even if it's 30,000 years ago, it's still nothing. What they're saying, though, is that civilization is insanely fragile.

Elon MuskThat's exactly — and much, much more fragile, I think, we realize.

Joe RoganYes, absolutely, I think we should view civilization as being fragile.

Elon MuskYeah, but we don't, isn't that bizarre? It's one of the weird things about people is that we, unless the threat is in front of us, it's abstract, unless it's like really is — the pizza here?

Joe RoganOh yeah, pizza's here.

Elon MuskYeah, civilization, no — actually one, like, one of my sons, X, he has these profound observations, um, you know, and he asked me, what was LA like 4,000 years ago? I'm like, it wasn't around. And they said, what will it be like in 4,000 years from now? Probably buried under rubble, I guess, probably very similar to what it was like 4,000 years ago.

Joe RoganYeah, exactly.

Elon MuskAnd, radio, and he asked me, did they speak English 4,000 years ago? I'm like, nope. Like, did they — will they speak English in 4,000 years from now? Probably not.

Joe RoganI should point out that I never eat pizza.

Elon MuskReally?

Joe RoganYeah, never.

Elon MuskWhy not?

Joe RoganBecause it's not really good for you.

Elon MuskWell, I don't think anyone's going to accuse pizza of being like the healthiest thing in the world.

Joe RoganThis looks awesome.

Elon MuskThat does look awesome, want to play?

Joe RoganYeah, get in there, sir, grab a piece. All right, sick, let's go, this is awesome. And uh, what's the name of this pizza?

Elon MuskPizza Leon.

Joe RoganPizza Leon, shout out to Pizza Leon.

Elon MuskOh yeah, that really hits the spot, that's legit.

Joe RoganI mean, I'm no Dave Portnoy, I'm not like a pizza analyst — he'll probably — I'm not going to rate it, it's excellent.

Elon MuskThis Portnoy really gets into pizza, oh man.

Joe RoganMan, ever seen Portnoy's videos where he analyzes pizza?

Elon MuskOh my God, has like a whole method, got a number system, all right, he's into the crust and the flop and all these different things.

Joe RoganWow, yeah, everybody knows the rules.

Elon MuskYeah, what what is everybody knows the rules?

Joe RoganOne bite, you only get one bite of a pizza.

Elon MuskYeah, no, one bite to taste it.

Joe RoganThat's the rule, yeah, he bites into it and then just starts nodding his head, he's basically like a sommelier of pizza.

Elon MuskPizza sommelier, okay.

Joe RoganYeah, and and is he — what's his favorite pizza joint, cheese? Oh, the favorite one — that's the everyone wants to know that, it's cheese. Yeah, we spent so much time on pizza, and it's New Haven, New Haven Connecticut.

Elon MuskReally?

Joe RoganYeah, for some reason the Italians that moved to New Haven Connecticut really figured pizza out, like they have insane pizza in New Haven Connecticut.

Elon MuskOkay.

Joe RoganYeah, like really, like legendary, I've had it, there was a comedy club I used to work out there called The Joker's Wild, and I had New Haven pizza, and even back then it's just really good pizza.

Elon MuskWell, okay, I don't know why.

Joe RoganThough it seems like something that could be replicated.

Elon MuskExactly, yeah, it's not like a rocket ship, yeah.

Joe RoganYeah, the thing is the people that are making pizza are not like the people that are making rocket ships.

Elon MuskIf they were, they would replicate it.

Joe RoganYeah, they would go, what are these guys doing, let's back-engineer it, sure can't be that hard, you know, all these secret sauces and shit.

Elon MuskWell, shit, what's in there?

Joe RoganYeah, well I was hungry, it's good though, right?

Elon MuskThe combination of pineapple and anchovy, surprisingly good, right?

Joe RoganYeah, is the first pineapple and anchovy pizza they ever made there? I don't see it on their menu, very... nobody, I used to order it when I would order for delivery, they'd go, are you sure? I'm like, don't you think I know what I'm doing, I'm ordering it with extra anchovy.

Elon MuskThis is good, this is good.

Joe RoganI do know why I don't eat this stuff though, 'cause I cannot stop.

Elon MuskThat's the problem, this pizza is too delicious.

Joe RoganOh, so good.

Elon MuskHigh calorie, high carbohydrate foods, once they start going down the hatch they don't want to stop.

Joe RoganCarbs are the devil.

Elon MuskOh are the devil.

Joe RoganRemember they used to be the base of the food chain, yeah, the whole pyramid, the food pyramid, was carbs — the food pyramid, what would the Egyptians say?

Elon MuskSaid we're out of our fucking minds, what even, eating.

Joe RoganYeah, exactly, stuff, it's just — that's the bizarre thing about it, it's like Fourth of July in your mouth. Like, how many human beings eat just processed food, like the majority of their diet is processed food, like the entire center of the supermarket is fucked, you really probably shouldn't eat except every now and then.

Elon MuskIt's good, Jamie, I bet you want one, I don't — you seem offended.

OtherNo, I did two of my not, like, favorite, I don't like either of those things honestly.

Elon MuskHave you tried it?

OtherIt's not my — I feel like you should try it, I understand, I feel like I should.

Joe RoganThis show's all about trying it, we shot an arrow at a car.

OtherI'm just not going to like it, and I don't want to offend Pizza Leone, I like that place.

Joe RoganI would be offended, it's hard to mess with pizza, frankly, unlike the creeps who used to run Twitter, I don't care if someone has a different opinion than me, I just don't like fish, to be honest with you, like I've tried it many times and I still haven't liked it yet.

Elon MuskI bet the day's going to be, I'm going to be one over, you like any fish?

Joe RoganNot really. You fish? I can do crab meat, yeah, but I don't like the whole...

Elon MuskDo you like sushi?

Joe RoganNo, I'm — I'm gonna, Phillip's, I'm gonna try some of Phillip's on Thursday though.

Elon MuskYou're gonna try it but you don't like fish?

Joe RoganI'm like, DC, I'm afraid of that whole thing.

Elon MuskMm, I've talked to Phillip about it in detail.

Joe RoganOkay, I don't eat fish that often, I like it.

Elon MuskYeah, it's particularly good when you catch it yourself, eat it fresh, fresh fish really is way better, way better, way better.

Joe RoganYeah, fish goes bad quick, unlike meat, yeah, like meat you can let it sit for a while, kind of marinate before you cook, you don't marinate fish, I think.

Elon MuskWell, they do, they actually dry-age fish.

Joe RoganOkay, yeah, a lot of places dry-age fish.

Elon MuskDry-age fish, yeah, I didn't know that, I wasn't aware of that.

Joe RoganBut that's actually a common practice, to dry-age fish for certain sushi dishes, like really gourmet places. Have you ever been to Sushi by Scratch?

Elon MuskIs that in town?

Joe RoganYeah, it's just outside of town, he used to run a sushi bar and then he sold it — my friend Philip Frankland Lee, a Michelin star chef, he uh used to run a sushi bar in town, he sold that, and then he opened up Sushi by Scratch, but because of the uh contractual obligations, he has to be like outside of the Austin proper, so he's about 30 miles away, it's fucking fantastic if you like sushi, it's like the best sushi you'll ever eat.

Elon MuskOkay.

Joe RoganI mean, it's really insane, I say that, you eat it and you're like, Jesus Christ, the best sushi of all time, Sushi by Scratch.

Elon MuskMm-hm.

Joe RoganThey have ones in Miami, where they have it now, Chicago, they got a bunch of them, he's not allowed to do it in Austin, no, it's not in Austin proper. I think once his contract is up, you know, he had a non-compete Austin for like three years or something, I don't know how long it was.

Elon MuskBut maybe eventually he'll open up one in Austin.

Joe RoganBut it's about 30 minutes outside, what what city is it again, Cedar...

Elon MuskPast?

Joe RoganYeah, Cedar Creek, it's out at Los Pinas area, yeah, it's 30 minutes, no big deal, Sushi by Scratch, got it, yeah, it's a fuck — let me know if you want to go, I'll hook it up.

Elon MuskYeah, sure.

Joe RoganYeah, it's awesome, it's really worth it, like if you like sushi, it's a mind blower, it's a mind blower, and it's omakase, so like you sit down, they bring you food, that's it, it looks good, it's pretty fucking cool. You've been to Mahesa in LA?

Elon MuskYes, that host, Bo, is great.

Joe RoganYes, that place is outstanding, yeah, yeah, I love good sushi.

Elon MuskAnd it's, uh, one of the things that's amazing is how many good restaurants there are in Austin, I mean for a city that's relatively small, I mean the restaurants per capita is excellent.

Joe RoganAmazing, yeah, and they're so good, there's like so many artists and restaurants, we just found a new one that Brian Simpson told us about, it's called Bacalar.

Elon MuskOkay.

Joe RoganIt's uh this Mexican restaurant that's in town.

Elon MuskFantastic, really good.

Joe RoganYeah, they just opened up, I think they've only been open for like six weeks, so shout out to them, just at there the other night, okay, it's just — there's so many good places here.

Elon MuskYeah, like you can't have a bad restaurant in this town, you will go under quickly, the competition is strong there.

Joe RoganSo much competition, it's like, and there's so much variety.

Elon MuskYeah, all kinds, lot of good restaurants in the town.

Joe RoganYeah, it's amazing, you know, I remember uh we were hanging out at your place like way back in the day when I first moved here, and you said something very prophetic, when all this was happening, like Austin's about to go supernova.

Elon MuskYeah, kind of did.

Joe RoganYeah, it's boom town.

Elon MuskYeah, it really is, yeah, legitimately.

Joe RoganYep, and with uh the Gigafactory, I mean how many jobs have you brought into Austin from that factory alone?

Elon MuskWell, we're about uh 10,000 direct, um, and then I think 50,000 indirect, so it's a lot.

Joe RoganThat's pretty fucking awesome, yeah, I mean there's only 2 million people in the greater Austin area.

Elon MuskI know, that's crazy, um, in fact the kind of limiting factor for growth is just finding enough people.

Joe RoganReally, yeah, this is terrible for sound, just have to like the subtitle chewing sounds, this is my last piece.

Elon MuskSubtitled: drink sound, people going to have to deal with it.

Joe RoganThis is my last piece, are you taking it away, want me to?

Elon MuskYou son of a bitch, I should — you son of a bitch, I I certainly eating myself.

Joe RoganYeah, take it away, I'll keep going, I'll eat the whole thing, that's the problem, being carbs.

Elon MuskYeah, carbs are awesome, mm-hm, yeah I know, it's like uh I feel good though, I mean this the dopamine explosion from carbs, I'm happy I did it.

Joe RoganYeah, I mean once in a while it's fine, once in a while.

Elon MuskFor me it's once in a great while.

Joe RoganBut well there like, like Tim Ferriss has like, you know, you have one whatever, one meal a week or something.

Elon MuskYeah, that's good, yeah, one meal a week I'll go with sweets, I'll have an ice cream sundae or some shit.

Joe RoganIce cream sundaes are great.

Elon MuskOh, they're fucking amazing, fucking amazing, yeah.

Joe RoganI don't — most people know what an ice cream sundae tastes like unless they smoke marijuana, and then you're like, oh, this is a different thing, uh it's an amazing invention, whoever figured out the hot fudge and then the whipped cream on top of it, what a combo, incredible.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah.

Joe RoganThose too, maybe.

Elon MuskOh yeah, maybe great idea.

Joe RoganI don't know if that's Dairy Queen, for sure Dairy Queen, well I mean that's what's open right now, what's legit, it's 11:30, I know, think, what's that, there's like that pizza restaurant, that pizza chain, that they got the best ice cream sundae that I've ever seen, it's giant, one out here, um God, I remember the name of it, it's it is a it is a chain but it's not like a big chain.

Elon MuskPeople that are upset right now because they're listening like on the treadmill, and they're hearing us chewing like, these fuckers are going to get ice — we're seeing pizza and ice cream sundae while people try to lose weight, yeah, sweating out.

Joe RoganOh, Bibo's, oh yeah, they, they, they, if you — they've got a gigantic ice cream sundae, everything they have is gigantic, it's amazing.

Elon MuskYeah, I worked there for a long time, it's actually really good, it's amazing.

Joe RoganOh bro, they have that rigatoni, that rigatoni with the meat sauce and oh my god.

Elon MuskIt's great, it's fantastic, yeah, and it's very reasonably priced for the amount of food you get.

Joe RoganYeah, this one crazy amount of food.

Elon MuskYeah, it's really good, yeah, um, I like a little photographs on the wall, there's one of those down the street from our old studio, you know Woodland Hills, remember?

Joe RoganYeah, yeah, it's legit, yeah, yeah, um yeah I used to take my kids the one at The Grove in LA. What, if anything, is out near SpaceX, like what do you guys have out there in LA, or here, out here?

Elon MuskUh, we've got the Starlink terminal factory, so we, um, for the Starlink V4 terminals, we build them here, we built the — what's it called, the V, well the version 3 terminals and the version 3 mini, there's like — or there's like, we do part of the production, or actually I should say, we've done all of the production of the terminals thus far in LA. Um, and um, we'll continue to do production in LA, but we're also just completed a second factory, um, in Bastrop, just about 20 minutes from here. And then SpaceX is where you make the launches.

Joe RoganWhat what part of Texas is that?

Elon MuskUh, well, the Starship stuff is in South Texas, uh, near the border, just uh right on the Rio Grande.

Joe RoganAnd how did you pick that location?

Elon MuskUh, I was just literally looking, um, at satellite images, um, and, and uh, you for for going to orbit you kind of need to — you want to launch eastward so that you can take advantage of Earth rotation to get to orbit. So it's a little counterintuitive that, um, reaching orbital velocity, getting to orbit, is about your speed parallel to the Earth's surface. It's like how fast are you zooming around Earth. Uh, it's not a like, um, the gravity at the altitude of the space station is almost the same as it is on the ground. The reason the space station is actually up there — it's kind of the wrong terminology — it's it's actually moving around the Earth at 17,000 miles an hour. So the space station, um, goes around the Earth at roughly every 90 minutes. Um, so, and because Earth is turning, um, and the speed at which it is turning, um, or the way you experience velocity, is it's moving at like roughly 1,000 miles an hour at the equator. So the closer you are to the equator, the more you can take advantage of Earth rotation to reach orbital velocity. So you want to, and so, and since it's rotating eastward, you want to be on the east coast, um, to make it easier to get to orbital velocity. So you need a section of coast that's on the east, fairly southward, that is not occupied. Um, so like most of, really almost all of Florida except for Cape Canaveral, um, is you know wall to wall houses on the beach, like there's almost no section of Florida — every section of Florida has houses, except for Cape Canaveral, um, which is a government base.

Elon MuskSo one of the few spots that wasn't occupied was the area just uh adjacent to the border with Mexico, um, and uh it just wasn't super well suited to, um, holiday homes. Um, and um, there was at one point a development that was going to take place, but then a hurricane came and destroyed the entire place, and, in fact, rearranged the land, so some of the plots were underwater. So it's, it's kind of a — it's a tough spot to, um, build a home, and that's why it was unoccupied. So we needed a piece of — and it needed to be US territory, because if you go outside the US, um, there are export restrictions, because rocket technology is an advanced weapons technology, so we can't just, like, you know, arbitrarily go to another country. Um, so it needed to be US land, East Coast, um, and fairly southward.

Joe RoganThat's fascinating, that Rockets, one of the few spots that exist like that, that rockets fall into the category of weapons technology.

Elon MuskYeah, intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Joe RoganHuh, I mean it makes sense.

Elon MuskYeah, we could drop a rocket anywhere, nobody can stop us.

Joe RoganWow, that is crazy about the space station too, yeah, that's going 17,000 miles an hour.

Elon MuskYes.

Joe RoganI mean, you've seen the videos of the rocket landing, right?

Elon MuskYes, it's amazing, very precise.

Joe RoganIt's pretty fucking amazing, we can make it land basically anywhere.

Elon MuskNo, or not land.

Joe RoganYeah, just — I mean, doesn't have to turn on its thrusters to slow down.

Joe RoganWhat is it like to try to juggle these different things in your mind on a daily basis? Like, what is it like to try to juggle X, Tesla, SpaceX, all these different things at the same time?

Elon MuskIt's a lot for a human brain to handle.

Joe RoganYeah, I would imagine.

Elon MuskYeah, my — it strains my meat computer.

Joe RoganI mean, do you need something like that though? Does your meat computer need more problem solving than the average one? I mean, is this something like if you only had one thing to work on, do you think you would get bored, or you would get distracted, or you would not be satisfied, like do you need these things to be so complex and have so many of them simultaneously juggling, 'cause you didn't pick three easy ones, you picked three of the fucking hardest things you could ever get into. You already detailed how difficult manufacturing is, rockets, duh, it's it's one of the craziest things, like not only that, rocket science completely innovative, rockets that land, like that never happened before, so you're doing that, right, and then you said, you know what, we got to save humanity, let me go spend 44 billion on Twitter, man, that was expensive, what's it worth, what do you think it was actually worth?

Elon MuskEverything.

Joe RoganYeah, not for the market, right?

Elon MuskI mean, like for for humans.

Joe RoganYes, I agree with you, I mean I really genuinely do think this, and I've said this many times publicly, I think you did humanity an immense service, and that if that didn't happen, the narrative of this country would have gone further and further down that road to the point where people would have been scared to speak their mind, and they would have — scary, and it changes the way people communicate at their jobs, which changes the way it it just changes the way people, when they leave universities and they go to get jobs, the the way they're allowed to communicate. And people don't like to be on the outside, they don't like to be ostracized, they don't like to be kicked out of communities, so people would adhere.

Elon MuskYeah, they would change. Absolutely, um, people, I guess, are afraid of, like, being — yeah, ostracized, is, is like fear of being ostracized, I think, is probably the biggest issue. Um, and then just being totally shut down, yeah, you know, um, where you have no outlet, um, and you can just basically disappear, except for in posts and meetings, um, so, um, yeah, it was important to, uh, like steer — have at least one social media outlet that, um, wasn't canceling people.

Elon MuskWhat I really enjoy is, uh, reading the tweets — I guess you still have to call them tweets, read posts, or whatever, I don't have a good word for it — but, yeah, you can't say the X's, but reading the — All My Exes Live in Texas — reading the words, or should say, I enjoy reading the words of people who proclaimed that they were leaving and going over to Threads.

Joe RoganYeah, yeah, that's what an interesting thing about momentum, very difficult to start a whole new social media platform, even one that initially got, like, what what did Threads get, like some crazy number of initial people signing up for it, but it just dropped off within like a couple of weeks, now it's a fucking ghost town.

Elon MuskYeah, it's like wild, eerily quiet, it's wild, I mean, Zuck himself doesn't post, so that's what's crazy.

Joe RoganGot, you got to use your own product, it's interesting though 'cause they're sneaking them in now in Instagram, they sneak a little thread in there, because every now and then I'll see something, think, oh that's interesting, and I click on it, oh you fuck, and it opens up Threads for me, like you got me, 'cause they're, you know, they're integrated, but I don't use Instagram.

Elon MuskIt's fascinating that I'm sure you don't.

Joe RoganWhy would you, if I bought X or Twitter, whatever, I wouldn't use anything else either.

Elon MuskYeah, but I didn't use Instagram for a while, um, I mean, there was a time where I was posting on Instagram, but um, I found myself doing selfies and I'm like, what the hell is wrong with me, why am I posing with selfies to get likes, this is crazy, bizarre. Um, and I'm like, so then I was like, you know, if you post with selfies on on Twitter, that people would jump all over you, you know.

Joe RoganYeah, they're like, that's true, they were like, what's wrong with you.

Elon MuskThat's so true, yeah, people are like way more lenient on Instagram for some strange reason.

Joe RoganYeah, it's like pretty pictures basically.

Elon MuskYeah, so pretty pictures and a lot of shit, a lot of it, there's a lot of weirdness that comes with Instagram, like filters, like uh I've caught grown men using filters on their pictures, it's very strange. You know, I I am concerned that, like, say Instagram actually leads to, uh, more unhappiness, not, not less, um, in the sense that, like, it just looks like everyone's, like, having a great time, and is way better looking than they really are.

Joe RoganYeah, and so you're like, man, everyone's like good-looking and having a great time.

Elon MuskAnd, um, then you sort of compare yourself to that, and like it's like, damn, I'm not as good-looking, and I'm not — I seem to be sad a lot, and you're like, man.

Elon MuskUh, you know, I think, I think it could make you kind of depressed, right?

Joe RoganYeah, well, and also you're a grown man, and you experience this, you're also very intelligent, you experience this — imagine being a young kid. Jonathan Haidt documented that in The Coddling of the American Mind, there's a direct correlation between the invention of social media and its ubiquitous use and self-harm amongst kids, particularly girls, it's really bad for girls. And they, like, around 2007, there's this big uptick on suicide, self-harm, depression.

Elon MuskYeah, um, you — people can't just, like, make themselves be better looking, there like a limit, so...

Joe RoganRight, yeah, and then surgery.

Elon MuskYeah, it was a big uptick in people getting their jaws reshaped and shit, I mean, yeah, that's bad.

Joe RoganSo I don't know, I think, um, you know, I think, I think like they have to say, like, is is Instagram a net happiness generator or not? I'm not sure it is.

Elon MuskSpeaking of distorted images, have you seen the court artist's drawing of Sam Bankman-Fried? I mean, it's — I almost like they lost money or something, what the fuck happened, it looks like it melted.

Joe RoganHave you seen it? I just saw, he looks like a supermodel.

Elon MuskOh, what SPF does.

Joe RoganYes, the guy who drew him, whoever, one of them I saw, maybe there's more than one artist, maybe there's more than one artist, 'cause some of those ones I saw were unflattering, he looked like an anime superhero.

Elon MuskYou're joking.

Joe RoganNo, no, like perfect chisel jawline, ridiculous, he looked like he lost 30 lbs, started working out, look at this, look at that, are you kidding?

Elon MuskWhat the fuck, man, look at that guy on the left, that guy looks like Superman, doesn't he, look how hot that guy is.

Joe RoganI almost feel like it's not — or something, it might be, I feel like someone's fucking with us, there's a few other pictures when I googled, like you know, there's some rough pictures though.

Elon MuskIt seems like someone's fucking with us, 'cause that guy's handsome as fuck.

Joe Rogan'Cause there's this one that's not the same.

Elon MuskNo, that one's terrible, that's not real, that's Satan's drawing, but that one right there, if that is real, it's like come on, that's not real.

Joe RoganThis shit, that's fucked, because look at what they did with the girl.

Elon MuskOh wow, look at that picture there, even that picture is car — looks like she's melting.

Joe RoganYeah, I don't know, I don't, I have to — I mean but she's...

Elon MuskProbably massively depressed. I mean, I bet that's also like an artist's interpretation of the energy she's giving off in court. I mean, she has to rat on her boyfriend, and she's already pleaded guilty, and, you know, for a lesser sentence she's going to rat him out.

Joe RoganWell, I mean, I don't know who SBF's PR team is, but they're doing an incredible job. For real. I mean, the dude ripped tons of people off and stole their money, and yet he's getting basically, you know, a backrub from the press.

Elon MuskWell, don't you think that's because the amount of money that he donated?

Joe RoganYeah, I don't know. I don't know what the deal is. It might have something to do with that.

Elon MuskI'm not that cynical. I generally don't think people are influenced by money.

Joe RoganWell, I don't know what he's doing, but something's going on. The number of articles that I've seen where it's basically, you know, a misunderstood philanthropist -- it's ridiculous.

Joe RoganWell, your bullshit meter went off when he was offering money to buy in with you, with Twitter, correct?

Elon MuskWell, a large amount, yeah. And I mean, a lot of people, you know, fell for his bullshit. But I mean, I first of all hadn't really heard of the guy. I'm like, who is this guy, and what did he do? And he's in the Bahamas -- that's pretty sus to begin with. He's very sus. Like, if you're on a tropical island, your finance organizations in tropical islands generally have a bad track record. And he's involved in crypto, and crypto -- there's a lot of scam probability in crypto. It's high. So yeah, I'm not saying it's all scams, but I would leave that distinction for, uh, what are those, NFTs. I think that's like 80% scam, except for people -- some people's stuff is legit. I mean, it gives you like digital art. Yeah, people's stuff is great. But I mean, NFTs -- the funny thing is that the NFT is not even on the blockchain. It's just a URL to the JPEG. So it's not even like -- you should at least encode the JPEG in the blockchain, because if the URL, if the company housing the image goes out of business, you don't have the image anymore.

Joe RoganI never understood it. I tried so hard. I tried so hard. I know, I have a friend who made millions selling an artist -- I'm like, okay, save that money, because eventually people are going to figure this out.

Elon MuskLike, I mean, with art there is a fair bit of money laundering and tax avoidance -- that's some of these things that seem inexplicable.

Joe RoganHunter Biden -- you talk about Hunter Biden's paintings. Did he actually sell paintings for large sums of money?

Elon MuskImmense sums of money. Okay, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably.

Joe RoganThat seems unlikely to be a legit transaction, unlikely, right?

Elon MuskUnlikely, yeah, very. The work's not bad though, I got to say. Like, for that kind of art, it's not that bad.

Joe RoganYeah, I mean, the thing is that it's hard to price art, right? Because it's in the eye of the beholder, so how can you say whether something like this -- how much does that go for, 225k?

Elon MuskA steel? It's not bad. It's not that bad. Like, I mean, I would buy that. I wouldn't buy it for 225, but I'd buy it for five. Yeah, it's not bad. Like, look, a lot of crackheads are good artists. Like, you get crazy on drugs and splatter some stuff around, and you got a unique vision. That's not bad. It's not bad at all.

Joe RoganHow much did that one go for?

Elon MuskI -- so he's probably a legit -- meanwhile we're going to find out he had a ghost artist. I mean, I suspect -- I mean, artist, I think he's not untalented. So I mean, I actually don't have any issues with his lifestyle or anything. There's his stuff -- that stuff's not bad. Like, whatever that dog-wolf thing is on the wall, that's pretty dope.

Joe RoganYeah, I like that. What does it say underneath? Can you read it?

Elon MuskI can't read it either.

Joe RoganWay not bad, it's not bad, it's not bad. Have you ever heard the theory that the entire modern art movement, like Jackson Pollock and the like, was a CIA scop--

Elon MuskUm, I mean, I have heard that, but I have not heard any evidence for it.

Joe RoganI read the article a couple years ago. Okay, at least, uh, modern art's a psyop, yeah.

Elon MuskEvery day I wake up -- was that long ass, but it was fascinating.

Joe RoganYeah, every day, yeah. There's always something -- cat with a tin foil hat. Yeah, when was this? Beginning of 2020.

Elon MuskReally, a CIA scop? But I mean, if you can get someone to spend that kind of money on that kind of stuff, like the Jackson Pollock stuff.

Joe RoganSo here it is: PR, preeminent, culture war, cold war. What is it? Okay, uh, the relationship between modern art and American diplomacy began during World War II. Museum, MoMA, battle for hearts and minds. It's an interesting article.

Elon MuskSo I read the article a couple years ago. I can't remember what their argument was, but it's one of those things -- it starts there, like they spent money to buy paintings directly from artists in the 40s.

Joe RoganThe 40s, they -- okay, even though modern art and American diplomacy were of a piece, Soviet propaganda asserted that the United States was culturally a barren, capitalist wasteland. To make the case for American cultural dynamism, dynamism, the state department in 1946 spent $49,000 to purchase 79 paintings directly from American modern artists and mounted them in a traveling exhibition called Advancing American Art. That exhibition, which made stops in Europe and Latin America, included work from artists like Georgia O'Keeffe and -- Georgia O'Keeffe is the lady who makes vaginas, right? Isn't that her work?

Elon MuskI don't know, I think some of what she does, yeah, I think she makes like vagina-like flowers and stuff. I mean, I think some of it was pretty good.

Joe RoganBut um, well, the Jackson Pollock one was like, how did -- come on, happ -- that one is just wild, cuz I really think I could do that.

Elon MuskSome -- have like, Jackson Pollock -- the CIA teamed up to win the Cold War.

Joe RoganYeah, okay, this -- I think that's the article I read, because that's 2017. I don't remember, but well, I I think, you know, art is very much in the eye of the beholder. It's like, what does it make you -- how does it make you think and feel, and if it makes you think and feel in a way that you like, then it's good.

Elon MuskYes, absolutely, yeah. But it's also a way to launder money. Yes, a number of these like very high price art things are, um, tax evasion and money laundering.

Joe RoganHave you ever seen the documentary on The Lost Leonardo?

Elon MuskUm, no.

Joe RoganThat's crazy, that's crazy. MBS purchased this, okay, and he purchased it for some insane amount of money. It turns out it probably isn't Leonardo da Vinci -- not only that, but the vast majority of the painting was made by a modern-age woman who recreated everything, okay. Like, so she in restoring -- air quotes, restoring -- she essentially repainted the image in the style of Da Vinci, okay. And it's very sketchy, because if you look at the original painting, it was all messed up and missing paint, and there was many layers -- someone had painted over it. It's really an incredible documentary, because it just shows how much bullshit is involved in these high dollar transactions. And I think it went -- I think it was the most expensive painting that was ever sold. I think it went for something in the neighborhood of $400 million, $450 million.

Elon MuskYeah.

Joe RoganThe Lost Leonardo: a new film solved the mystery of the world's most expensive painting -- is the $450 million Salvator Mundi a fake? This film, featuring tearful cops, sneering experts, dodgy dealers, and a secretive superyacht, may finally settle the great Da Vinci controversy. Apparently there's multiple layers and different styles of painting involved in it, and when they do some sort of comprehensive examination, whether it's like, you know, I don't know what kind of imagery they're using, but they're doing something -- when they can say, like, this has been painted many times, and with it, it might have originally been one of Leonardo's students, might not have been Leonardo.

Elon MuskLike, there's not -- okay, a real to that time, yeah.

Joe RoganOkay, but whether it was -- it was Sotheby's that sold it, I think.

Elon MuskYeah, so they were kind of aware that there was some shenanigans with this piece, but they also were aware that this was going to -- this was three lemons -- this was, uh, they were going to hit the jackpot with this bad boy, yeah, and so they went through with it.

Joe RoganAnd yeah, Christie's -- that's it, the other one, Christie's -- was aware, it's a fascinating documentary. I don't know what's right, I don't know what's wrong, it might be real, but at the very least it's been retouched, mostly by this woman -- isn't it like 90% of the painting?

Elon MuskIt's some -- there's some very high percentage of the painting that was actually made by this woman, and they -- they show her, she worked on it forever, for years and years, worked painstakingly to retouch this piece of art, which is very odd.

Joe RoganYeah, that they do that, cuz like, wouldn't you just want it all messed up and old?

Elon MuskSure, I mean, that's the real piece of art.

Joe RoganYeah, the real piece of art is not like some woman in 2001, yeah, painting over it. That's just crazy.

Elon MuskYeah, um, I mean, I I you know, I enjoy art for the aesthetics, but not for the name value.

Joe RoganYeah, I feel the same way. Yeah, I enjoy art just because of what it makes you -- how it makes you feel, you know, it's a cool thing.

Elon MuskI mean, obviously my studio is filled with it. Like, you go outside, I love art. It's everywhere out there, I'm just -- I love it.

Joe RoganHave you seen -- oh, the woman, have you seen the one, the piece that she made of you, this uh Melania -- Blackman, have you seen that drawing that she did? Is that the weird one?

Elon MuskShe, it's everything, it's -- she -- it's enormous, okay, she draws it, and you're essentially made up of all these different characters and different things.

Joe RoganSo here you can find her work -- of his, she did one of me, and she did one of Anthony Bourdain that I bought, that's out there as well. She's super talented, this woman. So this is her -- she's really hot too.

Elon MuskOkay, so you can find her standing next to it.

Joe RoganThere it is. Instagram or something -- Instagram bandit. Oh, that was right, there was something that happened where Instagram did something. What happened?

Elon MuskSo Instagram not only banned me from promoting this artwork, but also shadowbanned me altogether after I posted my latest piece.

Joe RoganThis is after -- probably you said that you wanted to fight Zuck.

Elon MuskWell, actually I was just -- Zuck fight, Zuck fight is funny. Um, because, uh, you know, he was posting all these fight videos, and then someone on Twitter at the time said, um, hey, you should fight Zuck, and I said, well, I'm willing to fight if he is. Um, and then Zuck posted, uh, I think on Instagram or something, uh, name the place, or something like that, to that effect. And I was like, okay, how about the Vegas Octagon? Um, and then, uh, Italy actually was willing to let us use the Colosseum. So I was like, well, let's -- can't turn that down, you know. Um, and then, but then I was like, well, if it's going to be in the Colosseum, you know, we -- like, I like UFC and everything, but we don't have like tons of ads and UFC branding on the Colosseum, because it's a historical, you know place -- it's a history, you know, it's a place of great history. You don't want to just, uh, you know, have it be like NASCAR. So then, um, and then Zuck pulled out -- you know, use the pulled-out method. Um, so he pulled out, he pulled out of it.

Joe RoganYeah, yeah, oh, what was the narrative? What did you hear, Jamie?

Elon MuskI don't remember. Well, I'm -- so he was like, oh no, it's got to be UFC rules.

Joe RoganI'm like, well, okay, we got have UFC rules in the Colosseum, it's fine, but we just don't want to -- we got to respect the historical integrity of the place. You just -- the Colosseum just seems like the coolest place to do it. That's why I mean, like Gladiator, you know, come on, and if they said it's okay.

Elon MuskYeah, so he just wants it to be in the actual UFC, like in Vegas.

Joe RoganSo so then he said, oh well, you know, uh, like he accused me of not being serious, and I said, look, listen, at the end of the day, I'll fight you any place, anywhere, under any rules.

Elon MuskOh Zuck, that's what I said, so I'm, you know, name the -- he said, name of the place. I'm like, I'm happy to fight him in a house, on a mouse, with a louse, we -- like go full Dr. Seuss here.

Joe RoganNow, how much -- I'm way bigger than him, this is unfair, I don't think he should fight me.

Elon MuskUm, because you're so much bigger than him.

Joe RoganYeah, I'm like 50% him.

Elon MuskYeah, I'll just use a walrus move, I've got my panda war -- I just lie on him. Walrus move, well, you know, like a walrus doesn't need martial arts training, right, cuz it's really big -- you don't want to go wrestling a walrus, right, cuz he's going to roll on you.

Joe RoganHave you ever been -- ever rolled with someone who's much smaller than you that does jiu-jitsu?

Elon MuskYes, Lex.

Joe RoganYeah, yeah, yeah.

Elon MuskNo, I did ten years of martial arts.

Joe RoganUm, how much have you trained personally?

Elon MuskI -- for a decade of it.

Joe RoganWell, you did a lot of karate, right?

Elon MuskUh, I did judo, judo, kyokushin karate, yeah. Um, I did some jiu-jitsu, taekwondo, um, street fighting, which was involuntary. Um, I I I'm, you know, I think I'd be decent. I did martial arts competitions when I was a teenager.

Joe RoganReally interesting. So look at you, Georges St-Pierre, Elon, John Danaher the Grandmaster, and Lex Fridman. But like, Lex is -- I think he's got like 20% heavier than Zuck.

Elon MuskSo, and I'm way bigger than Lex.

Joe RoganYeah, that's why they have weight categories.

Elon MuskOh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe RoganUm, did you get a chance to talk to Danaher at all, the guy on the left? That guy's -- do you know his history?

Elon MuskNo.

Joe RoganHe's from New Zealand or something, he was a professor of philosophy at Columbia, okay, and fell in love with jiu-jitsu, okay, I mean, fell in love with it to the point where he was sleeping on the mats and teaching all day long. He's an obsessive, he is a real kaizen disciple, and oh man, he is one of the most unique characters I've ever met in my life -- one of the most brilliant men I've ever met, and he's completely dedicated to jiu-jitsu, and he has raised, through this particular disciple, Gordon Ryan, who also lives here in Austin -- he's the greatest jiu-jitsu competitor of all time, there's no question, and he's only 28, okay, he might even be 27, or maybe he's 28 now. But I mean, he is universally regarded as the greatest of all time, and he is John's greatest student, okay, and the two of them together, because Gordon has insane work ethic, they work 365 days a year, they do not take any days off, they train every day. That's Gordon to the right of John with the crazy beard -- he doesn't really have that hair, he bleaches it -- but the two of them together are literally an unstoppable combination.

Elon MuskI like -- look, ripped, he's pretty ripped, yeah.

Joe RoganHe's a combination of gigantic, brilliant, and insanely dedicated, with the most incredible instructor that's ever existed. I mean, John Danaher is universally regarded as the greatest jiu-jitsu instructor alive, and his student is universally regarded as the greatest jiu-jitsu competitor alive.

Elon MuskYeah, and it is because John is like a complete -- like a guy out of a superhero book, like you're not going to find another one of those, a guy with a genius level IQ.

Joe RoganWho's -- I mean, you talk to him, he's fascinating, and he is obsessed with combat sports, warfare, like, strategy.

Elon MuskYeah, brilliant guy.

Joe RoganBrilliant guy, see, I was impressed when I met him.

Elon MuskUm, I mean, the things that, like, uh, if I was fighting someone who I was not much bigger than them, then I would be more concerned.

Joe RoganUm, how much time would you need to prepare?

Elon MuskI don't need any time, no time at all.

Joe RoganNo, how's your cardio?

Elon MuskIt's not -- it that will not be a factor, really.

Joe RoganYeah, very -- I mean what's the likelihood of this actually happening?

Elon MuskI like -- I'm willing to do it anytime, anywhere, any place, any rules.

Joe RoganWell, I think stating it this way might accelerate this process, especially on this platform.

Elon MuskI mean, I I challenge him to a duel under any circumstances -- a sword fight, sure.

Joe RoganJesus, that's -- not necessary.

Elon MuskI think physical hand -- Nerf guns at noon, yeah, Nerf guns at noon.

Joe RoganWell, you could slash it out in the metaverse, but uh, yeah, in the real world.

Elon MuskI listen, I -- there's just a reason they have weight categories, you know, um, so, uh, you know, there's a friend of mine who is pretty good at fighting, um, but she weighs about half of what I do, and um, and I said, let me show you why there's weight categories on -- been fighting, and I'm going to do a move called the war, and you have to just -- I'm just going to lie on you. I'm not going to put you in a lock or anything, I'm just going to lie on you, but I'm going to, you know, position myself such that it's hard to get off, out from under me, and I'm just going to lie crossways on you, and you try to get away, and you won't be able to get away.

Elon MuskYou couldn't. Just, you know, like, like if a horse falls on you, right, you can get trapped under a horse, but you're not a horse.

Joe RoganWhat do you weigh, about 230?

Elon MuskYeah, 240, yeah, yeah. So no, I'm not a horse, but I'm saying in the limit, if something's heavy enough, like, you know, if a horse falls on you and dies, you can get trapped under a horse and not be able to get yourself out, right.

Joe RoganBut if someone's good enough, I mean, I'm sure you've seen like absolute weight classes in jiu-jitsu where you'll get 145lb competitor who strangles a 220lb competitor, and they're both well trained.

Elon MuskBecause if someone is that good, that's unlikely.

Joe RoganIt's not unlikely, it happens quite often when you get elite competitors, when you get elite competitors, like elite black belts at the 145, 155lb weight limit.

Elon MuskYou'd be shocked.

Joe RoganThere's a ton of videos of these guys who will strangle much larger black belts.

Elon MuskI'm not saying it's impossible, it's just highly unlikely. Um, and if this were not the case, there would not be strict weight categories in martial arts.

Joe RoganThat is true, that is true, but the reason why they allow absolutes in jiu-jitsu is because it is the thrill of watching these smaller people go against much larger people, and sometimes they win.

Elon MuskNo, I just -- like, um, armies, you know, people take note when a small army defeats a big army, because it is so unusual.

Joe RoganYes, not because it's normal, right?

Elon MuskUm, you know, if there's -- like, it was two against 10,000, and boy, would beat those two guys up. More likely, what happens, like, if if you're severely outnumbered, uh, you will lose, uh, almost certainly.

Joe RoganSo look at the size difference between these two guys, play it out. Well, it's the end of the video -- this is uh, Mikey Musumeci, who is another fascinating individual. This guy is another super genius who trains every day, 12 hours a day, and uh, he is competing against a black belt in the heavyweight division. Mikey Musumeci might weigh 145 pounds, and he beats this guy.

Elon MuskGuy doesn't look to be in super great shape.

Joe RoganWell, he's enormous, yeah, I mean, he's enormous, and he's a black belt, so he's skilled. I forget how Mikey wins this, he catches -- I couldn't tell what exactly happened.

Elon MuskGet it a little bit further here.

Joe RoganI think what happened here, it seemed like he got penalties or something.

Elon MuskOh, they pushed him out of bounds, I don't know what that -- won on the -- I think they're out of bounds there.

Joe RoganYeah, that's all that it was, that's just out of bounds. So scoot ahead, see what happens -- what he catches him with, what happened.

Elon MuskI'm not saying it's impossible, it's just very unlikely.

Joe RoganBy points, yeah, I -- so won by point, I think you're making the point for me here.

Elon MuskYeah, well, in that case, that guy's strangled a lot of much larger people than him.

Joe RoganUm, but again, he's extraordinary, he's a world champion -- he's a world champion for ONE, which is this huge organization, Singapore. They do these events where they have all kinds of different martial arts -- they have MMA, tai boxing, yeah.

Elon MuskYeah, um, so you would do it under any rules, sure.

Joe RoganAll right, let's go, I like it. I like the fact that you're interested in doing this, it's fun.

Elon MuskUm, it makes it fun. Yeah, I mean, I could, you know, this this could be an exercise in hubris.

Joe RoganFind out, we could find out. I like the fact that Zuck's interested in it too, I like the fact that he trained so much.

Elon MuskYeah, I mean, there aren't very many ways to actually -- if you stick with the rules that you -- just to, um, like for example, if you want to put somebody in an armlock, you have to be able to extend their arm. And if somebody is strong enough that you cannot extend their arm, then you're limited to chokes -- chokes, and you can do an armlock across the groin with both arms and legs like, uh, Royce Gracie did upside down, and I think it was like the third UFC fight or something like that.

Joe RoganYeah, he was pretty severely damaged, that was Big Nog, yeah, that Nogueira guy.

Elon MuskYeah, and he did upside down arm lock across the groin because he could not do an armlock, um, you know, a sort of sidebar armlock. So, um, but after that, people were like wise to that move, so they're like, we're not going to allow themselves to get an armlock across the groin without, you know.

Joe RoganThat was like, you know, overconfidence, I think.

Elon MuskUm, well, it was exhaustion. I mean, they fought like tooth and nail for something like seven or eight minutes, and you know, Royce survived, and then eventually wore the guy out.

Joe RoganWell, when you're a big, steroided-up guy like that too, the oxygen depletion -- like the amount of oxygen your muscles require, you gas out pretty quickly when you're that big, unless you're insanely conditioned.

Elon MuskYeah, but like there's no way for him to do, um, you know, arm lock, like an -- a single arm -- single arm arm lock. Uh, he couldn't do it because single arm arm lock, like if you try to do a lock on the side.

Joe RoganSo from some, like, legs across your face, is that what you mean?

Elon MuskNo, if if you try to do an arm bar on the side, you know, one arm across the knee, you know, across the thigh, like you have to be able to extend the arm -- your, uh, essentially your, you know, triceps have to be able to exceed the strength of their bicep, is where it comes down to, but if you cannot exceed the strength of that bicep, then you will not be able to do an arm extension.

Joe RoganI'm not sure what -- are you talking about like a straight arm bar?

Elon MuskYeah, oh, so you're talking about like with just the arms, where you just have one arm, like, if it's if it's one arm versus one arm. But that's never the case, it's almost always the whole body's engaged.

Joe RoganThat's -- I think that's it, well in judo that's a very common hold, very common.

Elon MuskA one arm armbar.

Joe RoganYeah, one arm, yeah, um, you know, you have your one arm around the neck, and you take their arm and you extend it across.

Elon MuskOh, I see what you're saying, okay, so like from a scarf hold, so a scarf hold, you would take the arm and put it over and you push it down with one arm.

Joe RoganYeah, that's unusual though, yeah, that's an unusual armbar.

Elon MuskBut if one person is much stronger than another, then that's the move.

Joe RoganYeah, but it's a very fast move, because you can take someone right from a throat drop, them on the floor, right into an armbar.

Elon MuskYeah, okay, that's a very specific armbar, 10 seconds, right?

Joe RoganThat's a rare armbar, you never see that in MMA. What you do see, though, is the two legs isolate the arm, and then the person grabs a hold of it with a thumb up and uses all their body weight.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, that's what that's what Gracie did.

Joe RoganYeah, that's what most people do when they apply an armbar, whether it's from the back, like a lot of people have done that, or whether it's from side control, which is a little more easy because you have control of the body.

Elon MuskYeah, I mean, it's also just that, you know, UFC is not just jiu-jitsu, you can punch people, right, that makes a big difference.

Joe RoganBig difference, big difference, huge, yeah. MMA has changed the ideas of jiu-jitsu, because there's a lot of techniques that people do where it works well in competition when someone's grabbing your leg, when you can't just rain down punches on their face. Yeah, there's a lot of unreal -- somebody's pounding in the face is pretty hard to to be chill, you know, especially if if somebody's got gorilla fists in your face.

Elon MuskYes, um, it's not going to be a good day.

Joe RoganYeah, Carlson Gracie famously had a phrase that if you take a black belt, you punch him in the face, he becomes a brown belt, punch him again, he becomes a purple belt, and so on and so forth.

Elon MuskIf, I mean, most people have not been punched in the face -- I've been punched in the face.

Joe RoganSo you know, it comes as a surprise, yeah, it probably does come as a surprise. There's also, like, even the UFC has a lot of limitations, like you can't do 12-to-6 elbows, you know.

Elon MuskSo that's changing, they're getting rid, uh, to do 12-to-6 elbows finally.

Joe RoganFinally, I've been singing that from the top of the roof forever.

Elon MuskOkay, it's so nuts, it's so stupid.

Joe RoganYou know where it came from?

Elon MuskNo.

Joe RoganIt came from uh, Big John McCarthy, who was the original UFC referee, okay, and a pioneer of the sport. He was bringing this to athletic commissions, and they were allowing certain techniques, but one of them they wouldn't allow was the 12-to-6, elbow, because they saw those late night karate demonstrations where someone would smash bricks like that, they thought someone would die if they hit him with this.

Elon MuskDefinitely going to sting, yeah, but it's not even harder than this one -- this one's harder, because this one you can throw your body weight into it, and it's a more natural movement. This is an unusual movement, I mean, I'm sure you could train it and get it probably as hard, but I think for most people -- for me, I can tell you for sure this elbow has more power.

Joe RoganWell, I think any elbow in the face is going to be a big wake up call, if you've never had an elbow in it.

Elon MuskFuck, sucks.

Joe RoganYes, it fucking sucks. Did you watch the Tyson Fury, Francis Ngannou boxing match?

Elon MuskIs that the one we bit the ear off?

Joe RoganNo, this is the -- that's That's Mike Tyson vs Evander Holyfield, that's from the 90s. Yeah, no, this fight that took place, this last weekend -- Francis Ngannou, who was the UFC heavyweight champion, he vacated the belt so he could take this fight with Tyson Fury. This was his dream fight -- Tyson Fury, who's the lineal heavyweight champion. Francis Ngannou had never had a boxing match ever in his life, had zero boxing matches, but he was the UFC heavyweight champion. Okay, knocked down Tyson Fury in the third round, beat him up in the eighth round, most people including me thought he should have won the decision, including most boxers, most boxing pundits. And he lost by one point on one judge's scorecard, he won on one judge's scorecard, another judge, who should go to jail, had it 96-93 for Tyson Fury, which is fucking outrageous. But Francis Ngannou, who is a a literal freak of nature, I mean, this guy grew up in Cameroon and was working in the sand mines when he was a child, like a fucking Conan movie, like full on warrior con, like pushing the thing around in sand, he's developing his body digging in the sand all day, he's supremely physically advanced, he's not just fit, he's the hardest puncher ever measured in all of MMA. There's a machine that we actually have outside at the gym, and if you hit this thing, Francis has hit it harder than any person who's ever lived.

Elon MuskYeah, well look at him, look, can I hit it?

Joe RoganYeah, we can set it up, I had the record for the kick for a while.

Elon MuskOkay, yeah, somebody a couple people beat it now.

Joe RoganBut Francis punched like it's an insane -- it's like getting hit by a fucking car, sure. And when he dropped Tyson Fury in the third round, you see Tyson's on his back going, what the fuck, and then he realizes, like, cuz he I think he--

Elon MuskYeah, a sledgehammer.

Joe RoganHe thought he was going to run him over, because he's the boxing heavyweight champion, he's like, there's no way this guy could box with me. He even said at the beginning of the fight, it's time to go to school, okay, and then Francis said at the end of the fight, you are a shitty professor. You should watch it, it's a good free show, it's on ESPN plus, you can still -- I'm pretty sure you can still get it.

Elon MuskYeah.

Joe RoganUm, anyway, I just, uh, yeah, I'm just excited that you're interested in doing it still.

Elon MuskSure, all right.

Joe RoganDidn't you fuck your back up doing like sumo wrestling? Yeah, what what happened there?

Elon MuskUh, still hurts a little bit, actually. I've had like four operations, really, from that. Well, I had like some childhood injuries, uh, like I said I was in some pretty severe fights as a kid, like, really, like I was almost killed at one point.

Joe RoganSo really, what happened?

Elon MuskI was just in school in South Africa, it's a very violent place. Um, so there's been many involuntary fights, it's just the way it was. Um, but anyway, so I had like -- and I had some rugby injuries as well.

Joe RoganI saw South Africa won the World Cup, which is cool, in rugby.

Elon MuskUm, so, uh, so so I think that was like not a good starting position, uh, but then, um, the world champion sumo wrestler -- world champion sumo wrestler, they did kind of like a demo bout for my birthday. Um, and since it was my birthday, they, I guess, they just call up the birthday boy and say like, hey, do you want to sumo wrestle. This is where, like, it's a similar weight differential, he was 50% heavier than me, so um, like I don't know, 360, 370lbs, um, and, um, it's -- I knew he'd take it easy on me in the first round, so the only way I'm going to knock him over is is momentum, so I got to basically run at him. Um, so I did, uh, run at him, did a judo throw, knocked him over, um, and smashed the disc in my neck in the process.

Joe RoganOh yeah, it's like it'd be like running at that wall, you know, if you run out of wall, it's kind of hurt. Did you have to get it fused or anything?

Elon MuskYeah, oh man, that's--

Joe RoganIt's like you can knock -- you can defeat someone bigger than you if willing to, you know, smash a disc in your neck.

Elon MuskYeah, well if you know what you're doing and you're willing to smash a disc in your neck, those two things -- so he wasn't expecting me to be a total lunatic on round one. Um, and he defeated me obviously in round two and three, because he was like, oh, he knows what to effect. But um, so I had like 5 minutes of glory and a decade of pain.

Joe RoganUm, now that you've got your neck fused, that that creates problems with the upper and lower discs as well, doesn't it, over time, if there's too much neck rotation, it can damage the -- how long ago was this? You had this operation?

Elon MuskMan, I had three operations.

Joe RoganWhere you got it fused, how long ago?

Elon MuskI had two artificial discs, and I'm actually in favor of artificial discs -- they put the wrong ones in, but then eventually the third one is like, let's just fuse it. Um, they put the wrong one in, yeah, twice.

Joe RoganSo and how how -- cuz I have friends that have artificial discs.

Elon MuskI'm actually in favor of artificial discs, you just need to have the right one. So in my case, um, at this point I know a lot about it -- the C5, C6 right facet is impacting the -- you know, the facets are like the outriggers, you got the center core of the spine, facets the outriggers, and they're shingled, so they're like one on top of the other, like this -- there's a little nerve that goes out in between the C5, C6, and if those nerves come close together, they grind the nerve. Um, so you get the -- they just sort of start shearing the nerve. Um, now, um, so my C5, C6 right facet, and it shows up clear as on a technetium scan -- so if you could do like a radioactive scan with technetium, it's very clear where the problem is. Um, so what should have been done was uh, a simple hinge, like a, you know, basically to move the vertebra -- the C5 vertebra back about maybe an eighth of an inch to sort of unload the facet, and then put a simple hinge, so just rotation. Um, but I was given a, what is called a mobi-C, which is a more mobile disc. The mobi-C allows not just rotation but also translation, so it can move back and forth. So that then didn't solve the impacting of the C5, C6, because it could slide, and when it would slide forward, the C5, C6 would bang and crunch the nerve.

Joe RoganAnd what does the normal neck do, does the normal move forward in that way?

Elon MuskThe disc is like it's like a gummy bear basically -- normally, so it allows rotation and translation, so it's like sitting on like a gel pillow.

Joe RoganThat's what, like one of those BOSU balls that people sit on, sometimes they work at a desk.

Elon MuskIt's like a rubber pillow, basically. Yeah, um, so the natural disc allows for rotation and translation, so um, they basically put a disc that had too much mobility in, and did not solve the C5, C6 impact. So then anyway, the third time around, I was like, listen, I just don't want to take a chance here, let's just fuse it.

Joe RoganOh wow, and so it just limits your mobility?

Elon MuskNo, I'm fine, I'm like, I can look right and left, it's okay, yeah, it's okay. Yeah, I'm not like, you know, totally stiff-necked.

Joe RoganNo, you don't seem like you're stiff-necked at all. No, there was a guy who fought in the UFC named Yoel Romero, and uh, he's a real freak too, amazing athlete, and he came from the Cuban wrestling program, he was one of the greatest wrestlers that's like ever competed amateur -- he had his entire neck fused, and when he runs, like, his neck doesn't move, it's kind of freakish, okay, like you see him running and his neck looks like it's a stick.

Elon MuskWow.

Joe RoganAnd the whole body is like moving around, but the neck is just locked in place, it's very bizarre to look at. I mean, he runs like a man whose entire neck is fused, like watch him, see if you can show the image of him here -- watch him run, wow, see how his neck -- he's in good shape.

Elon MuskOh yeah, you think?

Joe RoganI mean, you don't get in any better shape than this guy, by the way, he looks like that now, and he's 46, 47 years old, and still competing at the highest level, okay, in Bellator. I mean, he's an unbelievable athlete, and one of the most explosive guys that's ever fought in the sport, just insanely powerful and fast.

Elon MuskYeah, cool.

Joe RoganSo you compete at the highest level with your neck fused?

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not I'm not too worried about that.

Joe RoganAljamain Sterling, who was the UFC bantamweight champion, he um got his neck -- or not, got a disc replaced rather in his neck, and then went on to defend his title three times, still fighting at the highest level with a fake disc in his neck.

Elon MuskWell, I guess it'll be okay then.

Joe RoganYeah, well, medical science pretty fucking incredible what they can do now, you know, I mean, injuries that would have -- you would have been fucked for the rest of your life just a few decades ago.

Elon MuskYeah.

Joe RoganNow you're good to go.

Elon MuskYeah, so I'm excited, we've kind of rekindled this Zuck versus Elon fire.

Joe RoganI mean, he's checking out what -- that's the -- I don't think he's checking it out, yeah, there -- no, he's checking out, you think so?

Elon MuskYeah, buck buck buck, well maybe he's--

Joe RoganSuck him into fighting using taunts -- it might work.

Elon MuskYeah, it, I mean, somehow or another you got him to agree in the first place.

Joe RoganI was stunned, surely he will respond to a taunt like that.

Elon MuskSurely, I mean, how can you resist?

Joe RoganHow can he resist, resist, yeah, exactly, just go, let's go full schoolyard, uh, taunting.

Elon MuskWhat if there was like real, um, consequences on the line, like what if you guys had a real bet, okay, sure.

Joe RoganLike the moderation team from X takes over moderation of Facebook if you win.

Elon MuskNo problem, it sounds good, and if he wins vice versa.

Joe RoganIt a fight for civilization.

Elon MuskYeah, a literal fight for civilization, I mean, I'll do it.

Joe RoganWow, heavy.

Elon MuskTrue, and you wouldn't even train for this.

Joe RoganNo, I train a little bit, train a little bit.

Elon MuskYeah, like how many weeks you need?

Joe RoganI mean, I don't have to train, I could do it like tomorrow.

Elon MuskI tried going to his house actually.

Joe RoganDid you really?

Elon MuskYeah, cuz he lives in Palo Alto, um, and we're doing some, um, you know, Tesla Full Self-Driving testing, so I'm like, well, got to pick a destination, you press the button, go to Navigate, to Zuck's house. Yeah, basically he's not far, he's like, I think he's like three miles away from the Tesla California headquarters.

Joe RoganWow.

Elon MuskUm, but uh, I don't know, there's nobody there.

Joe RoganIt's probably in Hawaii, he was according to a spokesman, he was traveling.

Elon MuskOh yeah, been wild if he was there.

Joe RoganYeah, you say literally like, like anytime.

Elon MuskI just thought it was funny, um, to go like, you know, I'm coming over to your house, I'm gonna get you.

Joe RoganWell, it's even more funny when it's two of the richest guys in the world.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, um, so anyway.

Joe RoganYou didn't uh, didn't answer.

Elon MuskYeah, too bad, yeah, too bad, it's uh, it's just fun, and I'm I'm glad you're just for the fun of it.

Joe RoganI mean, I think it would be -- well actually, like Dana White thinks it would be like a really big ticket fight, it would be fucking huge.

Elon MuskYeah, I would commentate on that.

Joe RoganYeah, I mean, the proceeds could go to charity and stuff, it'd be -- yeah, it'd be crazy, people would want to see what the hell is going on. Oh my God, it would be fucking huge.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, it would be really crazy.

Joe RoganCrazy, like if they close the thing, yeah, and Bruce Buffer is in there, it's time, the place would go fucking bananas.

Elon MuskBananas, yeah, yeah, let's do it.

Joe RoganDoes it have to be in the Colosseum, would you agree?

Elon MuskNo, I'll do it anywhere, I literally said anywhere, anytime.

Joe RoganYou know, where you should do -- any rules, you know, you should do it, the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Elon MuskThe Sphere is great, the amazing -- it's amazing, it's amazing, yeah.

Joe RoganI was there, I've only seen it on the outside, but it looks -- the inside's even better.

Elon MuskI've seen video, I haven't seen it live.

Joe RoganBut I was there on Saturday night, and it was awesome, like it's really good, I think it might be the best show on earth.

Elon MuskOh yeah, yeah, I mean, if you have visuals that accompany the music, like if you have someone like Roger Waters, like which his show is like insanely visual.

Joe RoganSomething like that and the Sphere would be -- the art, the art in the show that I saw on Saturday night was incredibly good, I don't know who did all the art, but -- what was the band? Oh, was U2, oh yeah, yeah, but I mean, I've been to U2 concerts, and U2 is great, but but um, the Sphere is really like -- if U2 hadn't been there, it still be great.

Elon MuskYeah, U2's it's like a, you know.

Joe RoganLike on Sunday there was a movie that was played, a movie there, whoa, um, where -- do you look--

Elon MuskYeah, in all directions, oh my God.

Joe RoganYeah, are you -- I mean, it's like actually being like in virtual reality. In fact, it was such -- it was so wild, the Saturday night one especially, uh, that you step outside after the show and like you're like, why is reality so boring?

Elon MuskOh, so this is a postcard from Earth, Darren Aronofsky's thing.

Joe RoganOh wow, and you're watching this, I saw that on Sunday, and it covers the whole ceiling, oh my God, it's really great, you saw it there?

Elon MuskYeah, oh my God, that's incredible, yeah, it's really good.

Joe RoganThat'd be the greatest movie ever, I think, like Saturday night, the Saturday night show, and obviously U2 adds to it, but like I said, the the Sphere is really special in and of itself. Um, I think it's probably the best show I've ever seen.

Elon MuskWow, yeah, I could imagine, I mean, it's just what an amazing venue, and what an incredible idea to have the entire ceiling all screen. I got to hand it to Dolan, that was pretty amazing.

Joe RoganAbsolutely amazing, I'm so glad that he did that. And then also the outside, oh, that's incredible, they really play with perspective, God, it's it's round, but it doesn't look round, right, so it'll be like it'll simulate like a square, like all sorts of shapes.

Elon MuskWow.

Joe RoganAnd then also the outside of it, like they had the outside of it, it looked like Earth, it's just amazing, it's really cool.

Elon MuskYeah, super cool, so I like these epic things.

Joe RoganThat's the venue, you know, it's really cool, that's the venue, that's where it needs to go down, in the Sphere, sure.

Elon MuskYeah, that's even better than Colosseum, okay.

Joe RoganYeah, especially if the United States falls, that would be our Colosseum, this would be our Rome, Vegas will be our Rome.

Elon MuskI mean, the Sphere reminds me of being like a modern day Colosseum.

Joe RoganYeah, yeah, like a modern day version, like what they do with art, technology currently.

Elon MuskYeah, and then Vegas is like kind of risque in the sense that when we think about like the hedonism of Rome, its final days.

Joe RoganThat's Vegas, yeah, yeah, totally, yeah, perfect.

Elon MuskYeah, let's go, let's go.

Joe RoganAre you not entertained? You will fucking be entertained, you'll be fucking entertained.

Elon MuskNo doubt, um, let's do it.

Joe RoganThere's one point in time you were trying to get people to do a pause on AI.

Elon MuskI mean, I signed on to a letter that someone else wrote, um, I didn't think that people would actually pay -- but you thought it was probably a good idea if they did.

Elon MuskI mean, I think so, yeah, I mean, making some sort of digital superintelligence seems like it could be dangerous, it certainly has a potential -- and certainly has the potential.

Joe RoganWell, when you were talking about the the -- what, this mind virus, how it was able to propagate through the social media, and being in control of social media platforms -- think about what that means if that same mind virus gets in control of a superintelligence, and that is possible.

Elon MuskNo, that's what -- that's actually what I think the biggest danger is for AI, is that if AI is implicitly programmed -- I don't think they can do it explicitly, but implicitly programmed with values that lead to -- that have led to the destruction of downtown San Francisco, and a bunch of these AI companies are in San Francisco or in the San Francisco Bay Area, then, uh, you could implicitly program an AI to believe that extinction of humanity is what it should try to do. If you take that guy who was on the front page of New York Times, and you take his philosophy, which is prevalent in San Francisco, um, the AI could conclude, like he did, that -- there are, where he literally says, there are 8 billion people in the world, it would be better if there were none, and engineer that outcome.

Joe RoganYeah, well, especially if it doesn't need us anymore, if it becomes sentient, and then has the ability to make its own decisions and make a better version of itself, it would find us to be nothing but a problem, like we have nothing to offer anymore.

Elon MuskRight, yeah, it is a risk, so um, you know, and like if you query ChatGPT, I mean, it's pretty woke, you know.

Joe RoganYeah.

Elon MuskSo um, people did like experiments, like write a poem praising Donald Trump, and it won't, but if you ask write a poem praising Joe Biden, and it will.

Joe RoganYeah, so I'm like, you know, that's a little sketchy.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, well, it's unfortunately it's programmed.

Joe RoganAnd yes, it's programmed to be that way -- is it possible to overcome those problems, is it possible that we could realize the dangers that are involved in creating this, but somehow another engineer it in a way that would be ultimately beneficial to people, or is that just a whim, as a hope and a prayer, a utopian version of what could happen versus the most likely outcome?

Elon MuskIf you say, like, what is the most likely outcome of AI, I think the most likely outcome, to be specific about it, is is a good outcome -- most likely a good outcome, but it's not for sure. So I think we have to be careful how we program the AI, um, and make sure that it is not accidentally anti-human. So, um, yeah, you know, the accidentally extinctionist AI, you wouldn't want that, or even pruning.

Joe RoganWell, that that's that is kind of how it works, is that these, um, what they call large language models, but you know, it's really just a big pile of numbers, um, and how you tune those numbers matters, uh, it's like it's like pruning a tree, you know, you could have a mighty oak, you could be a little bonsai or mighty oak.

Elon MuskSo depending on how you prune it, right.

Joe RoganThat's what I'm saying, like if it decided to prune, if it decided the real issue, perhaps, yeah, we cause problems, or maybe it would prune places in the world that are, you know, overwhelmingly polluting, like third world countries, maybe it would decide that they're not very necessary, particularly if we use computers or AI or some sort of robotics to do human labor, and then you have these areas where human beings are doing this labor and they're polluting, and you know, there's all sorts of issues that come about because of that, you say, well, we just eliminate those people, we eliminate that issue, and then we have 30% less garbage in the ocean, and then it makes this call, yeah.

Elon MuskYeah, there's something we should be concerned about, and and I actually got to go -- oh shit, I'm sorry, I need to go.

Joe RoganShould we wrap it up?

Elon MuskYeah, cuz I have to go to the airport, um, I have to fly -- I'm flying to London.

Joe RoganYeah, you explaining that.

Elon MuskYeah, just um, for AI safety, AI safety conference in London, so.

Joe RoganYeah, I'm leaving in about an hour and a half. What do you hope to get out of this conference?

Elon MuskWell, I don't know, um, I mean, I'm just generally concerned about AI safety, but it's like, what should we do about it. Um, I don't know, um, have some kind of regulatory oversight of some kind, it's like you can't just go build a nuclear bomb in your backyard, you know, that that's against the law, and you'll get thrown in prison if you do that.

Joe RoganHow much of a concern -- I think maybe more dangerous than a nuclear bomb, really -- yes, how much of a concern is it if another country develops it before us?

Elon MuskUm, I don't know if that -- we just be concerned about AI being um anti-human, that's the sort of the thing that matters.

Joe RoganSo potentially.

Elon MuskUm, I'm saying it's it's it's like a genie, letting a genie out of a bottle, you know, it's sort of like a magic genie that can make wishes come true, except, um, usually when they tell those stories, that doesn't end well for the person who let the genie out of the bottle.

Joe RoganRight, do you think we're creating a life form?

Elon MuskUm, yeah, I mean, it's something that is indistinguishable from an intelligent life form, certainly.

Joe RoganI keep coming up against this idea, I keep banging it in my head, that we're some sort of an electronic caterpillar that's creating a cocoon, and we don't even realize what we're doing, and we're about to give birth to some technological butterfly.

Elon MuskYeah, yeah, well, I think that's -- we're on the cusp of an artificial intelligence revolution, and, um, you know, for a very long time, we've been the smartest creatures on Earth, that's been our defining characteristic. I mean, speaking of martial arts, I mean, I don't think anyone should challenge a silverback gorilla to a fight, you know, um, even if you're very good at wrestling, that thing's going to kill you, um, you know, it literally walks on its fists, if those fists meet your face, it's game over. Um, so but so we're not stronger than a gorilla, we're not faster than other animals, we're smarter. Um, now what happens when there's something way smarter than us, where does it go?

Joe RoganIt's a good question, yeah, well, listen, go talk to those people, go school them, and I hope something good comes out of it, and um, thank you for your time, appreciate you coming in here, it's been fun, good to see you, always good to see you.

Elon MuskThank you, thanks for everything, man.

Joe RoganThanks for buying Twitter too.

Elon MuskYou're welcome, really it means -- hopefully it a for good, you know, that is aspirationally a force for good, I think it at the very least it stopped a lot of bad.

Joe RoganYeah, good, all right, bye everybody.

Elon MuskAll right.