[0:00:00] Thank you and good afternoon. So we have a lot to cover. Elon does a lot of things. There is at the moment one of his spaceships docked to the space station, the Dragon spaceship. This is the third time that it's been docked, second commercial one. It was launched last week. Many of you may have followed the launch, but there was drama. There were solar panels and all this kind of stuff. We could follow it on your Twitter feed. Yeah, rocket set drama. Can you just tell us what it's like to be Elon Musk?
[0:00:29] In the control room during a launch when something happens, when there's an issue? Well, it's extremely nerve-wracking. I mean, the thing about rocket launch is that all of your work is distilled into these few minutes, particularly the first several seconds around the liftoff. Because the worst thing that could happen with a rocket, in a touch word, is if you have an engine failure or some huge failure right above the launch pad.
[0:00:59] And the whole thing can come down with about a million pounds of TNT equivalent and destroy the whole launchpad. That's what's going through my mind, in case you're wondering. That's actually what I'm thinking about. So when it clears the lightning towers and it's gotten further enough away from not actually destroying the launchpad, then that's one sort of go down a notch on...
[0:01:29] You know, fear and anxiety. And then after first stage separation, that's another one, when the second stage lights up. So it's sort of going down in intensity as the rocket is going up. And the thing is that the first three rocket launches that we had failed. The first one failed quite close to the launch pad, almost destroyed the launch pad.
[0:01:59] I spent that day picking up rocket pieces off the reef, which sucks. So I think there's a pretty powerfully ingrained fear response as a result of that, because three in a row. The image of those rocket failures kind of going through my mind as I'm seeing the rocket launch. So that's what's going on.
[0:02:20] And then in this case, you made it through the stage separation, but then there was an issue with the solar cells. Tell me a little bit how you sort of spotted the problem, diagnosed it, what does the team do? I mean, you got there in the end, but how does it work? Yeah, so the solar panels were actually okay, and the rocket launch went really well, so that was not a problem. Where things kind of went awry was after spacecraft separation, we tried to initialize the four thruster pods.
[0:02:50] So there's four thruster pods with a combined total of 18 engines. And the system is designed with a huge amount of redundancy, so it can take all sorts of failures and still complete its mission. That's the whole way it's been made. In fact, it can work with, even if it has only two of the four thruster pods working, it can still do a mission. So three weren't working.
[0:03:18] Which was a huge puzzle, like why are three not working? Because these things are cross-strapped, so you'd kind of think that either maybe one wouldn't work, or a cross-strapped pair wouldn't work, but not three. It was really, really strange. So we had the spacecraft just going through kind of free drift in space, like they're just tumbling. And which makes it also difficult to communicate with, because the antennas are like pointing.
[0:03:48] You know, every which way you can imagine. So we had, all we had was a very slight two kilobit, occasional two kilobit link that would go in and out. And that was an omnidirectional signal beaming off the NASA TDRS satellite system. So in order to actually improve the, we first had to improve the bandwidth. So we actually asked the Air Force if we could have some of their long range.
[0:04:16] So we had to recode the mega proxy to go through the Air Force long range dishes to blast the spacecraft with enough intensity to be able to upload new code to try to fix the problem. And so we wrote some new software to essentially pressure slam the
[0:04:46] The three oxidizer tanks that were refusing to pressurize. It turned out, I think we figured out the problem, which is that there was a slight change made to a check valve that was in three of the tanks and not in the other. We were able to replicate that problem on the ground later. We were able to basically have the system build up pressure upstream.
[0:05:15] Then release that pressure and slam the valve. So we're trying to give it the spacecraft equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver, basically. And then we got one of the pods that looked like it was making progress. And we didn't want to unfurl the solar panels until we had at least two pods active so we could go from sort of drifting to an active hold.
[0:05:41] But then the temperatures of the solar panels, which are in these protective covers, was dropping. And it can drop to almost absolute zero if it's pointing at dark space. So it was dropping, dropping, dropping. And we're like, OK, shit, we better release the solar panels. Otherwise, they could literally freeze in place. And so we ran a simulation to see what would happen. And it was actually slightly beneficial.
[0:06:10] And it's kind of like when a skater puts their arms out, it slows down, pull them in, it speeds up. So actually when the arms went out, when the solar panel arrays went out, it slowed down the rate of rotation. Actually slightly helped us with maintaining communication with the spacecraft. And so then we're able to, with that pressure slam thing, get a pod active.
[0:06:40] Then a third one and then a fourth one. Then we got all four working. And we're able to continue the mission docked with the space station. In fact, Dragon is currently docked with the space station right now. And if all goes well, we'll return to Earth in about a week or two. That sounds terrifying. Yeah. Wow. That was hardcore. I don't want to go through that again.
[0:07:11] Okay, you are not just here in Austin for South by Southwest, but also to meet with the Texas legislature to talk about possibly a launch base here in Texas. Tell us more about that. Yeah, so right now we've got two main launch locations. One is Cape Canaveral in Florida, and the other is Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. And so Cape Canaveral is good for kind of eastward launches.
[0:07:41] Vanderbilt for southerly launches. And we figure we need a third launch site that's kind of a commercial launch site. You know, it's not... Because Cape Canaveral and Vanderbilt are Air Force bases, which is cool. And it's... Obviously, there's an important need for Air Force space launch bases as there is for Air Force airports. But then there's also a need for commercial airports. And just like you wouldn't expect commercial airliners to land...
[0:08:07] It makes sense to have a commercial spaceport. And we need to be able to launch eastward, and we want to be close to the equator. So that basically means the potential states are Virginia through Texas, going south, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Because the other thing is we need to stay on U.S. territory.
[0:08:37] Because rocket technology like we're doing is considered an advanced weapons technology. So it's very difficult to export that, if you will, to other countries. And anyway, so those are our options. Right now, Texas is arguably the leading candidate. But we need certain legislation passed that's supportive of space launch. I don't think it's particularly controversial. But one of the things we need, for example, is we need to be able to close the beach when we're doing a launch.
[0:09:07] And Texas has the Open Beaches Act. It's like, okay, you know, we can't launch if there's someone right next to the rocket, you know, on the beach. So that's, like I said, I don't think it's a particularly controversial thing. It's pretty straightforward. And then we kind of need liberal protection for kind of the one in 10,000 person case who complains about the thing. Like we had this dude who filed a lawsuit against us for our rocket.
[0:09:37] Development site in Central Texas near Waco. He's not even in the same county. He's in a neighboring county. And he also thinks the CIA is listening to his brain waves. So we need just a little bit of protection for people like that so we're not spending a ton of time in court. So that's basically what we're asking for. It's nothing major. And I think it's likely to move forward.
[0:10:04] If things go as expected, it's likely that we'll have a launch site in Texas, which I think would be really cool. Around when? So it depends on how the environmental approvals go and all that. But I think if things go well, I mean, not all of it's in our hands. But assuming that things go as expected, there would be a decision this year, and then we'd start construction next year. And probably the first launches would take place from there in two to three years.
[0:10:37] Terrific. Yeah. So Falcon 9, the rocket that launched Dragon, is a traditional rocket, which is to say it's disposable bits, but you're ultimately focused on reusable rockets. Yes, absolutely. Grasshopper is the name of that. Can you talk a little bit about why reusable, what's different about reusable, and I think you probably have some things to show as well. Yeah, absolutely. So reusability is extremely important. If you think it's important that humanity extend beyond Earth,
[0:11:07] And become multi-planet species and all that. I mean, it's super important. I think it's also incredibly obvious common sense. Like you can imagine watching Star Trek and then they got a new starship after every trip. That would be pretty silly. And every motor transport that we're used to, like cars, planes, trains, automobiles, horses, bikes, they're all reusable. But not rockets.
[0:11:37] If we can't make rockets reusable, the cost is just prohibitive. The cost of the fuel and oxygen on a Falcon 9 is 0.3% of the cost of the rocket. So it's basically a very tiny number. It's very similar to an airplane. So it's how much does it cost to fuel up an airplane and how much does it cost to buy an airplane. They're very different things. So if humanity is ever to expand beyond Earth
[0:12:06] Establish a self-sustaining base on another planet. It's critical that we solve this problem. Whether it's SpaceX or someone else, someone has to solve the problem. And we can have a hundredfold reduction in the cost of space flight. So that's what SpaceX has been trying to do. And really that's been the goal since the beginning of the company. So far I've not been very successful in that regard. But I think we kind of have a handle on it. I think we've got to...
[0:12:36] We've got a design that in the simulations and in CAD and so forth, it closes, like it should work. If we can build that thing, it should work. And in fact, it may be worth just rolling the reusability videos so people have a sense of what I'm talking about. I don't know where that plays, but behind us, in front of us? Can people in the audience see that? Oh, there we go. All right, so what you're seeing here is that the first stage,
[0:13:15] After stage separation, the first stage turns around, boosts back to the launch pad, and then lands propulsively with landing gear. It's kind of how rockets should land. That's the upper stage. This is the quick version of the video, obviously. And then you're seeing Dragon version 2. So Dragon version 2 will land on thrusters with landing gear as accurately as a helicopter. So it can land anywhere on Earth with the accuracy of a helicopter.
[0:13:55] One last question about space before we turn to cars. You've talked before about how you decided to get into this. You co-founded PayPal. You have a physics degree. You know something about the underlying mechanics, but you didn't have any space experience. You decided, I think on a train, to go to Mars and decided that you could out-compete NASA, that you could get to Mars, you could get to space.
[0:14:23] Faster, cheaper, better than one of the largest space agencies in the world. How did you get that confidence? First of all, I should say, maybe give some of a preface to what happened before starting SpaceX. In fact, the way I got into space was...
[0:14:51] I was really disappointed that we had not sent anyone to Mars, that we had not progressed beyond Apollo. And I kept waiting for when we would, and it just didn't happen, year after year. And so a friend of mine asked me about what I wanted to do after PayPal, and I said, well, you know, I was always curious about space, but I didn't think about that there was anything I could do in space. And I went to the NASA website to just see when are we going to Mars, and I couldn't find that out.
[0:15:21] I thought maybe it was there, but I didn't hear it or something. So then I thought, well, perhaps this is a question of will. Is there sufficient will to do this? And the first idea I came up with was actually to do a philanthropic mission to send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars with seeds and dehydrated gel that would hydrate upon landing, and you'd have this cool greenhouse.
[0:15:51] These green plants on a red background, they'll be the money shot. And then, you know, people like precedents and superlatives. So it'd be the first life on another planet, furthest that life's ever traveled, and that would get people excited. And you also learn a lot about what it took to support earth plants in a greenhouse on Mars. The whole purpose of that was to get people excited about sending people to Mars.
[0:16:21] And increase NASA's budget. So that was my whole goal. I was going to basically torch... It had nothing to do with competing with NASA. In fact, my goal was to increase their budget. And I should say that today, NASA is our biggest customer. We've got almost 50 launches, and about a quarter of those are for NASA.
[0:16:52] But three quarters commercial, but one quarter NASA. And NASA's been incredibly supportive and helpful, and we wouldn't be where we are today without the help of NASA. So it's really got nothing to do with competing with NASA. It's really just about what do we need to do to have an exciting, inspiring future in space. That's what I think really matters. At the end of the day, you didn't end up raising the money to pay NASA to do the mission. You ended up building your own company.
[0:17:20] And ideally to do it cheaper than governments could. Yeah. So I was able to figure out how to get the cost of the spacecraft and the greenhouse and the communication system way less than it normally would cost for such a thing. I got stuck on the rocket. And I went to Russia three times to try to buy a couple of their biggest ICBMs.
[0:17:51] This is in 2001, late 2001 and 2002. It was definitely an interesting experience. And I sort of got the feeling I could have bought the nuke too, but I didn't want to go there. When I got back from the third trip to Russia, that's when I thought, okay, look, even if we buy these...
[0:18:24] ICBMs from Russia. I thought my initial supposition was wrong. And so what I thought really was that we'd lost the will to explore, that we'd lost the will to push the boundary. And in retrospect, that was actually a very foolish error. Because the United States is a nation of explorers. The United States is a distillation of the human spirit of exploration.
[0:18:55] In retrospect, to have made such an assumption. But people need to believe that it's possible and that it's not going to bankrupt them. They're not going to have to give up something important like healthcare. It's going to be a cost that isn't going to meaningfully affect their standard of living. And I think the United States would absolutely be super excited about sending people to Mars. And I think a lot of people really wish that would occur. Anyway, so that was...
[0:19:25] That was what I came to the conclusion of. And I thought, well, if we don't make a difference in the cost of the rocket, of the transport system, it doesn't matter. Like I said, it's not a question of will, it's a question of way. And so that's when I came back and started SpaceX. But when I started SpaceX, it wasn't with the perspective of, like, we'll just take over the world with awesome rockets. I don't know what the frick I was doing. I was, like, clueless.
[0:19:55] I thought the most likely outcome was that we would fail. And the first three rockets did fail. And you put all your money into it. Between Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity, all in. Yeah. That wasn't the plan at the beginning, by the way. And Peter Thiel says we don't think big anymore. You must have interesting conversations with him about that. Well, Peter's been a big supporter, actually. So he invested in...
[0:20:29] SpaceX at a very important time in 2008 before we reached orbit. So after our third failure but before our first success. So big credit to Peter and Luke Nosek and the other guys at Founders Fund. Basically my buddies from PayPal. My buddies from PayPal saved my butt. It was really, really good. So let's talk about cars.
[0:20:59] Many in the audience may recollect the notorious New York Times review of the Model S. Yes, exactly. Of the Model S earlier this year. And your reaction to that review and the Times reaction to your reaction and the effect on your share price and on orders and all that. Without rehashing the review or the facts,
[0:21:24] I'd like you to just postmortem the entire experience. Wait, how do I do a postmortem without any facts or anything? Postmortem your reaction to the review and put you on the couch. What would you do differently today having seen the way it all played out? Well, I think there's one thing I didn't do and maybe still should, which is...
[0:22:00] To post the rebuttal to the rebuttal, because I withheld that and waited for the public editor. I sent that information to the public editor, waited for her to do her thing, and she came down kind of on the side of Tesla with respect to the fact that the article was an error, but disagreed on the motive. On the ethics? Yes. Because you impugned both facts and ethics.
[0:22:29] I did, yes. And I think it was, I would call it a low-grade ethics violation, not like a big one. I don't think he thought he was doing anything particularly terrible, but I would call it a low-grade violation. Not of the Jason Blair, you know, crazy fabrication variety, but I would call it a low-grade. It was not in good faith. That's an important point.
[0:23:00] And I probably should have posted that rebuttal to make that clear, but I didn't do it. That's what I regret. So the only change you would make is that the very last bit, the rebuttal that you wrote but has not been published, you would get it out there. Maybe I should. You would get it out there. Yeah. So you would continue to use the same language in the same way in your initial reaction? I don't think the language was inaccurate. I really don't. You've often...
[0:23:33] You've often said that one of your management techniques, one of the secrets of your success is that you listen to negative feedback. Yes. Was the Times review not, didn't fall into the category of negative feedback? I have no problem with negative feedback. I have a problem with, nor do I have a problem with critical reviews. If I had a problem with critical reviews, I would spend all my time battling critical reviews. There have been hundreds of negative articles, hundreds. And yet, I've only spoken out a few times.
[0:24:02] I don't have a problem with critical reviews. I have a problem with false reviews. All right. One of the technologies that you had to basically develop to near perfection or at least work on hardest was lithium batteries. For electric cars that run on lithium batteries, safety has always been an issue, accidents, et cetera. Recently, Boeing had...
[0:24:29] Can you talk a little bit about what they did wrong, what you would have done differently, and what do you think the future of Boeing and other airline batteries are going to be?
[0:24:50] Well, first of all, on the Boeing front, I mean, obviously, even though SpaceX and Boeing compete on the space side, we have no competition on the commercial airliner side. And some of the comments that I made about Boeing have somehow been interpreted as an attack on Boeing when it is, in fact, not an attack on Boeing. The only reason I actually... I mean, the main reason, I should say, I offered to help was that there's a friend of mine, Richard Branson, whose airline is suffering as a result of this lithium-ion fire.
[0:25:17] And he was mentioning that he's losing hundreds of millions, or his airline is, as a result of this problem. I said, well, I think we could probably help. And then he said, oh, great. Well, let me connect you with the chief engineer of the 787. I said, cool. We're happy to help. So I provided some advice, and hopefully that'll be helpful. And I said, we're also happy to actually do the solution if you want.
[0:25:45] And they haven't taken us up on that offer. But we're happy to help either in an advisory capacity or to do the solution, whatever would result in the 787 getting back to flight sooner. We're just trying to be productive and helpful. So I think in the case of the battery, Boeing doesn't have a ton of in-house battery expertise.
[0:26:10] They outsourced the battery, and then you had a whole bunch of kind of nested outsourcing, where they outsourced the battery system, and then that got outsourced to another company, then to another company, and then to a whole bunch of other companies, and you were like four layers deep before you actually got to any hardware. And so that resulted, I think, in a kind of a breakdown of communication. I mean, from an architectural standpoint,
[0:26:40] The fundamental issue is that I think is that the cells are too big, the battery cells are too big, and the gaps between the battery cells are not big enough. And the problem with a big battery cell is that the thermal pathway is, in a worst case scenario, is very long. So you have to say, well, if there's a hot spot in the battery, can it get its heat out? And if it's deep in a cell, it can't do that.
[0:27:09] And it's also hard to thermally condition the cells. The life of the pack will be dependent upon on the temperature, not the average temperature, but the worst temperature at any point in any cell. So you want to really even that temperature out. That's why Tesla is a fan of having lots of small cells. And then actively cooling each cell to keep the temperature even. And make sure that if Hotspot does develop, it's a very short pathway to the cooling system.
[0:27:39] And it can take care of it. And you also want to make sure that it's, I'm getting quite technical here, sorry. It's passive propagation proof. So even if your active cooling system fails and you get thermal runaway in a cell, that thermal runaway event can't cascade into a neighboring cell. And you get the thermal domino effect. I mean, it's not super complicated.
[0:28:10] If you have big cells, you want big gaps. And ideally, you don't want big cells. But if you do, you want big gaps. Small cells, small gaps. This is really important because the whole thing about this new generation of airplanes is that they're light. They use composites. They use electronics rather than mechanical systems. And so electricity drives the whole thing.
[0:28:36] So basically, my understanding is that you need lithium batteries in the sky. It just doesn't work any other way, and your point is it can be done. Oh, it totally can be done. Like, lithium's getting a bit of a bad name here. Lithium is obviously the way to go. I mean, people have lithium-ion batteries in their cell phones and their laptops. I mean, I don't think anyone's panicking here with the fact that they've got a lithium-ion battery, you know, next to a sensitive region of probably their body, you know? Got it. Well, just staying on power.
[0:29:06] For one last set of questions before I return to your life, which seems insane. It is insane. You're also chairman of SolarCity, which I believe is America's largest solar installer. So space, transportation, energy. Picking off the big ones there.
[0:29:28] Now, you know, solar got a bad name over the last few years because of the Solyndra meltdown, etc. But in my sense, the people are not differentiating between the making of solar cells and the using of solar cells. And the Chinese competition and the glutting of the market on the supply side is what got Solyndra in trouble. They couldn't compete with the falling prices. But you're a consumer of solar cells. So how do you see, you know, the Chinese competition and sort of the glut of solar cells on the market?
[0:29:57] What does that give you? I mean, I think what China's doing in the solar panel arena is awesome because they're lowering the cost of solar power for the world. And they have these huge gigafactories that they created out in the Chinese desert and with a ton of funding from the Chinese government. So it's like a giant donation from the tiny Chinese government. Like, thanks, that's awesome, you know? And, you know, people sort of complain about this Lundra, but, I mean, obviously anyone who's been involved in the venture world knows that...
[0:30:27] You don't bet a thousand. There's some companies that die. The only reason we know about Slender is because it became a political football. There are other solar panel manufacturers that are still doing reasonably well. But it is tough when you're competing. I think a good rule of thumb is don't compete with China with a commodity product. You're really asking for trouble in that scenario.
[0:30:56] And it's really super easy to make 15% efficient or standard efficiency solar panels. It's super easy. It's like easier than making freaking drywall at this point. So it's like, does anybody think we should be competing with China in drywall manufacturing? Okay, probably not. So that's the thing. The hard part of solar power is not the panel. It's actually the whole system.
[0:31:24] Basically designing something that's going to fit on a particular rooftop. Because you have all these heterogeneous rooftops. Then you've got to mount the system. You've got to wire it up. You've got to connect it. The inverter is connected to the grid. You've got to do all the permitting. I mean, it's a bunch of thorny, unglamorous, stupid problems. But if somebody doesn't optimize them, they're still going to cost a ton of money. And a lot of them are really not fun problems. They're not exciting problems to optimize.
[0:31:54] But they are the problems that actually matter in the cost of solar power. So it's really more like a roofing contractor than it is a semiconductor company. What you're doing is you're putting a second roof on a building. And you've got to do it at scale. And then you've got to manage all these systems. Even though the after-sales service is small, when you've got hundreds of thousands of systems, that's still a lot to manage.
[0:32:24] And so what SolarCity really is, is a giant distributed utility. And it's working in partnership with the house and business and in competition with the big sort of monopoly utility. I mean, I think it's like literally power to the people, okay? It's like, literally. So I think it's really awesome because utilities just never had any competition before.
[0:32:54] And now they have to actually think about the cost of power and figure out better ways to do it and that kind of thing. I think it's really great. And the credit there is really due to Linda and Peter Rive, co-founders. I mean, I throw in a few ideas every now and then, but mostly it's just about showing up at the board meeting to hear the good news. Those guys are just doing such an awesome job. So you are CEO and CTO of SpaceX, so not just...
[0:33:21] You're running the company, but you're actually chief technology officer as well. You are CEO and chief product designer for Tesla, so not just running the company, but designing the cars. And you're chairman of SolarCity. What is your life like? It's very busy. And I'd actually like to take it down just a scooch, honestly. Because there are all these things that the last few years have been really, really great.
[0:33:52] But then there were a number of years that sucked horribly. And I'd like to just not have it be so extreme. And like last year was a year of great achievement. But honestly, I didn't have that much fun. It sucked. I didn't have that much fun. My New Year's resolution was to have a little bit more fun this year. So, hey, I'm at South by Southwest. And you have five children. I do. They're awesome. Kids are awesome, by the way. You guys should all have kids.
[0:34:27] Kids are great. How much do you see them? I don't see them enough, actually. But what I find is that I'm able to be with them and still be on email because they don't need constant interaction except when we're talking directly. So I find I can be with them and still be working at the same time. Wait, wait. Are you saying you can do email while you're with your children? Yeah, absolutely. Sure.
[0:34:58] Wow. I mean, not all the time, but a lot of the time. That's why it's handy to have a phone. You can sort of do email in interstitial moments. In the absence of that, I would not be able to get my job done. That's impressive. I have five children. I can't do email while I'm with my children. It's not good for the children, and it's really not good for the email. Well, I do have to have a nanny there. Otherwise, they'll kill each other.
[0:35:31] We are going to turn to audience questions at this point. Just a reminder that if you tweet your questions, hashtag AskMusk, there's a team in the back that will be selecting the ones that we haven't already covered and seem interesting. And I get them in front. Maybe you can see them as well. So I'll ask the first one from David Solis. He asks, when it comes to researching, analyzing entrepreneurial opportunity, how do you go about qualifying or legitimizing, presumably, the idea?
[0:36:01] Sure. Well, I'm not sure I'm the best guide here because the things that I've chosen have not been... I've not been trying to optimize on a risk-adjusted return basis. So there are... Like, I would not say that I went into the rocket business, the car business, or the solar business thinking that it's a great opportunity. I just thought that something needed to be done in these...
[0:36:35] What do you think is the best way to make a difference in the industry?
[0:37:04] That queues up our next question really well. This is from Craig LaGrease. Space automotive finance energy disrupted major industries. What would you do if you had a free reign over education? Well, I think that the way that we currently do education is wrong. And when you see something like the Khan Academy and so forth, I think that's probably going in the right direction. I mean, generally you want education to be like as close to a video game as possible, like a good video game. You do not need to tell your kid to...
[0:37:37] Play video games. They will play video games on autopilot all day. So if you can make it interactive and engaging, then you can make education far more compelling and far easier to do. So I think that's how it should be. And it shouldn't be that you've got these grades where people move in lockstep. And so everyone goes through, normally will go through English, math,
[0:38:08] Science and so forth from like 5th grade to 6th grade to 7th grade like it's an assembly line. But people are not objects on an assembly line. That's a ridiculous notion. People learn and are interested in different things at different paces. So you really want to disconnect the whole grade level thing from the subjects. Allow people to progress at the fastest pace that they can or are interested in in each subject.
[0:38:37] It seems like a really obvious thing. I mean, I think most teaching today is a lot like vaudeville. And as a result, it's just not that compelling. It's like somebody's standing up there and lecturing to you. And they've done the same lecture several years in a row. They're not necessarily all that engaged in doing it. And you compare that to, say, Batman the Dark Knight.
[0:39:03] And then you've got the world's best special effects, you've got the world's best director, screenwriter, multiple cuts, amazing editing, and that's amazing. But imagine if instead you had the local town aspiring actor do a one-person play version of that. That would not be compelling. Do you agree with Peter Thiel about the unnecessariness of university?
[0:39:34] Higher education. I do agree with Peter's point that university education is often unnecessary. That's not to say it's unnecessary for all people, but I think you probably learn about as much, or the vast majority of what you're going to learn there in the first two years, and most of it is from your classmates. Because you can always buy the textbooks and just read them. Nobody's stopping you from doing that. Or go online. Or go online.
[0:40:05] So now for a lot of companies, they do want to see the completion of the degree because they're looking for someone who's going to persevere and see it through to the end. And that's actually what's important to them. So it really depends on what somebody's goal is. If the goal is to start a company, I would say no point in finishing college. In my case, I had to. Otherwise, I'd get kicked out of the country.
[0:40:34] So that was important. Although you went on and got a master's degree as well, right? I came out to Silicon Valley to do a PhD at Stanford in applied physics and material science to work on ultracapacitors for use in electric cars. And that's what I was going to do. And then I started to put that on hold to start a company. But since I already had my undergrad, I could then get an H-1B visa and that kind of thing. So the H-1B visa requires a degree.
[0:41:03] But other than that, if that wasn't the case, I probably would have stopped education sooner. Did you not go to Wharton? Yeah, yeah. I did a dual undergrad in physics and business at Wharton. I see. Yeah, but it was undergrad, not master's. Understood. Another question from the audience from Dan Griffiths. Fill in the blank. You will be disappointed if blank does not happen in your lifetime. Well, probably the most thing I'd be disappointed in is if humanity doesn't...
[0:41:35] If I could just land on Mars in my lifetime, I'd be really disappointed. That would probably be my biggest disappointment. I think that's the thing I'm most concerned about. Because we're at this... Obviously, that's what SpaceX is working on. I'm not trying to be self-serving here, but it's just... I kind of worry that we've hit this... I don't know whether our technology level will keep going or subside.
[0:42:06] And for the first time in 4.5 billion years, the technology level is at the point where we can extend life to another planet, make life multi-planetary. And I think it's too easy to take for granted that it's going to stay above that level. And if it doesn't, and it falls below that, will it return? Who knows? The sun is gradually expanding, and in about roughly 500 million years,
[0:42:35] Maybe a billion years at the outside, the oceans will boil and there will be no meaningful life on Earth. It might be like some chemotrophs or ultra-high temperature bacteria or something, but nothing that can make a spaceship. If you think maybe it's a 500 million year time frame, that's only a 10% increase in the lifespan of Earth.
[0:43:08] Humanity had taken an extra 10% longer to get here. It wouldn't have gotten here at all. And so far we haven't seen any signs of life from other worlds. We haven't detected anything. Hopefully we do. And hopefully it's not a warship coming towards us. But I just think that's the thing that really concerns me. We need to get this done.
[0:43:36] And then that is the best thing we can do to ensure the continued existence of humanity. So that's why I would say that's the most important thing. Do you personally want to step foot on Mars? I do personally want to step foot on Mars. But honestly, I would be doing this even if I knew there was no chance of me going to Mars.
[0:44:08] Like I said, I think it's just important that we are on a path to getting there. I would like to go at some point. I'll go if I'm certain that SpaceX will be fine without me and that path will continue. Some of you may have heard the joke I've made before, which is I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact.
[0:44:39] Another question from the audience. We just lost that one. I don't remember who had asked this question, but the question was, which do you think is going to have more impact on the world, SpaceX or Tesla? Well, I think if we look back, or if historians would look back on the impact of Tesla many years from now, I think
[0:45:11] It would be that Tesla, hopefully, that Tesla advanced the advent of sustainable transport by something like a decade, maybe two decades. But I do think electric cars are inevitable. In fact, I think all modes of transport will go fully electric with the ironic exception of rockets. So that's what I think. And then for SolarCity, perhaps something similar.
[0:45:41] On the energy production side, sustainable energy production. Then for SpaceX, hopefully SpaceX develops the technology necessary to transport large numbers of people in cargo to Mars. And I think that's a bigger impact. But what SolarCity and Tesla are about are solving what I think is the most pressing terrestrial concern.
[0:46:09] Which is the sustainable production and consumption of energy. Or helping solve it. I mean, there are many people solving it. And then what SpaceX is about is helping solve the biggest non-terrestrial problem, which is the extension of life beyond Earth. So those are how I see it. We have two related questions. One that's no longer on the screen, and another one that is. The first was, what was the best advice you ever got?
[0:46:35] And the second, and maybe you can join them in your answer, is you mentioned working with your friends Peter Thiel and Richard Branson. Who influences and inspires you? Sure. Well, I'm inspired by a lot of historical figures, like one of my favorite guys is Ben Franklin. I just think he's a really good guy. I mean, he was a scientist, and he also worked in, obviously, publishing and the political sphere. But he kind of like, he just thought about what are the problems that need to get solved and worked on those.
[0:47:08] He seemed like a good guy all around. I like him. I like historical figures in science and literature. I'm a huge fan of Churchill. We named Tesla after Nikola Tesla. Better than Musk Motors. I haven't named any product or company after myself.
[0:47:38] But that maybe gives a sense of, I think, Tesla is someone who deserves a lot of recognition. And sorry, what was the other one? Well, they're all dead. Any living figures? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a friend of mine, Larry Page. I think what Larry's doing, and Sergey at Google, I really admire what they've done. I think...
[0:48:06] Obviously, he's recently dead, but Steve Jobs, who doesn't admire Steve Jobs. I think Jeff Bezos is doing some great things. Among others, competing with you. Yes, but that's a good thing. In fact, every time I see Jeff Bezos, I say, why aren't you doing more in space? The other half of the question was the best advice you ever got. Best advice I ever got. Well, I think the...
[0:48:37] You know the physics training is a very good training where it's a good framework for reasoning where you're trained to think about first principles and reason from there and that means boiling things down to the most fundamental truths and then connecting those truths in a way to try to understand how reality is because you know physics has this problem where they're trying to figure out things that are totally counterintuitive and so they had to have a framework.
[0:49:05] For getting there. Quantum mechanics is incredibly counterintuitive. But it's true. So physics developed a framework for figuring out things that aren't obvious. And that's why I think it's a lot of advice, but it's the right framework. And then just in general, critical thinking is good. Examining whether you have the correct axioms or the most applicable axioms.
[0:49:34] Does the logic necessarily connect? And then what are the range of probable outcomes? Outcomes are usually not deterministic. They're a range. And so you want to figure out what those probabilities are and make sure, ideally, that you're the house. It's fine to gamble so long as you're the house.
[0:50:02] And a subset of that is to listen to critical feedback, which you alluded to earlier. Always solicit critical feedback, particularly from friends. Because generally, they will be thinking it, but they won't tell you. A question here from Giles Lachance. Any news or development on your Hyperloop idea? And you might explain what your Hyperloop idea is. Well, what I've said is that I'm putting the Hyperloop
[0:50:33] How do you do stuff on hold until I get Tesla to profitability?
[0:51:02] I think it would be an interesting way to travel really quickly from one city to the next. Quickly explain, just in one sentence, what a Hyperloop is. Well, it would be something that would be, say, twice as fast as a plane, at least, in terms of total transit time. Maybe a little faster. It would be immune to weather, incapable of crashing, pretty much, unless there's a terrorist attack.
[0:51:32] The ticket price would be like, let's say, half that of a plane. So it would be better in every way. Train of some sort, though. It's not exactly a train. It would be a new mode of transportation that doesn't currently exist. Terrestrial. Terrestrial, yeah. Okay, underground, above ground? Could go either. A kind of subway, perhaps. I think the capital cost would be less if it's mostly above ground.
[0:52:03] But you can go underground, too. All right. Maybe last question. What's the biggest mistake you've ever made? And this is from Alexia Hill. What's the biggest mistake you've ever made, and how did you move forward? Looking back, was it really that big a deal? Biggest mistake? I've made lots of mistakes. Some of them are pretty big. I mean, it's hard to say, because things have worked out pretty well in the end. So how big of a mistake could it have been, as the question is?
[0:52:45] Really, really asking. You know, I did lots of dumb things in my first company and at PayPal. And, you know, I think sometimes, yeah, I don't know. There's so many. I'm hard-pressed to say this is the biggest one, you know. Give us one or two. Okay. Personal, professional. Okay, sure. So, there...
[0:53:31] The biggest mistake in general that I've made, and I'm trying to correct for that, is to put too much of a weighting on somebody's talent and not enough on their personality. And I've made that mistake several times. In fact, they don't say, gee, I'm not going to make that mistake again. They don't make it again. And I think it actually matters whether somebody has a good heart. It really does. And I've made the mistake of thinking,
[0:54:01] But sometimes it's just about the brain. On that heartfelt note, we're done. Please join me in thanking Elon Musk. Thank you.