Elon Musk Interview on the Joe Rogan Experience

Elon intrigues me because he manages billions of dollars with brilliant thoughts on expanding civilization. He has the dual ability to create ingenious ideas while explaining them so the average joe can understand. He talks to Joe Rogen like he’s his equal instead of a dumb civilian. That’s not saying that is what Joe is, but it’s what the audience is. This is why Elon is as popular as he is because you almost feel like you can relate to what he’s talking about instead of nerd scientists who have no people skills. The only part of Elon that caught me as odd was he is a tad overweight. Funny how his health isn’t as important to him as his brain.

I’ve taken the 3 hour interview and jotted down some notes on what I thought were key Elon thoughts. I will add that the video support to only audio is far superior than only audio. Watching him adds to the experience. The time stamps I’ve added are estimates and this can be watched on Spotify in case you were wondering.

Elon Musk on The Joe Rogan Experience

• We are 2 years away from a rocket landing with people on Mars. The holy grail of rocketry is to have a reusable rocket. Take a rocket and fly it to space, have it return, and take off again, just like airplanes. (2:00)
• Elon gets 6 hours of sleep. Joe seems surprised that he gets this much sleep but he notes that his productivity decreases without it. He says he routinely works until 1-2am. (7:00)
• Everything will go electric except rockets. (17:00)
• It takes 6 months to get to Mars. Earth is 8 light minutes away from the sun, Mars is 12. It would be possible to get the journey down to 3 months. You can do the transfer to Mars every 2 years. In order to live on Mars, you would need to survive with no ships coming from Earth. (18:00-25:00)

• The Great Filter – Where are the aliens? Fermi Paradox. Carl Sagan said there are either a lot aliens or none, and it’s equally terrifying. If there are a lot of aliens, the infestation may view you as a bug and have no interest in us. Elon says there is no direct evidence to alien life. If we find a cube of titanium, aliens for sure. He notes, it’s possible that all civilizations become destroyed before they are interstellar. (26:00-33:00)
• Earth has been through a few extinction events. Permian extinction event was rough unless you were a sponge or a mushroom. This motivates Elon. The universe is the answer and we need to figure out what questions to ask to better understand it. So we want to expand the scope and scale of consciousness. To understand the scope of life we have to get past “the great filter” which is to become a multi planetary species. A species that doesn’t is waiting around for an extinction event. It’s way more exciting to find the super exciting future. It’s worth 1% of our resources. (35:00-37:00)
• Regular travel to Mars, with a civilization built, could be 5 years. It is possible to terraform Mars. There is a lot of frozen water and Co2. You can warm it up with solar reflectors or miniature suns over the poles. (38:00)
• Elon is optimistic about the future. The meaning of life is to understand the nature of the universe to figure out the meaning of life. It’s not the right question to ask. If we learn more about the universe, if we expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then we are better able to ask the questions of which is the answer that is the universe. (49:00)

*Drinks Poured*

• Getting to Mars will be a high probability of death relative to earth, a long journey, bad food, lot of hard work, and you might not make it back. (53:00)
• He tells the story of sending his Tesla into space. It’s not that interesting. (57:00)

• The new Tesla Model S, the Plaid, will be go from 0-60 in 1.9 seconds. Better handling to beat a record on the Norbreck track. It will be uncomfortably fast. Auto pilot is getting good enough so you won’t have to drive. (62:00-64:00)
• The best game for the Tesla is Polytopia – you have to tap a button that says your the passenger to play it while your car is self driving. (69:00)

• “All input is error”.
• Elon is a fan of sea shanties. There is something appealing about people singing in harmony. (71:00)
• Tesla is going to make the cyber trucks in Austin. Austin is going to be the biggest mega boom town in a half century. Need to make sure Austin does not re-create the issues that occurred in California. (72:00)
• “You can’t talk people out of a good panic, they sure love it. Rule #1, don’t panic.” (77:00)
• Story about braking the cyber truck window breaking. Had to do with the testing and hitting it with a sledge hammer before the demo. (83:00)

• Will the cyber truck be powered by solar? Will one day solar power a vehicle. No. There is not enough surface area. The new Model S has a 400 mile range of battery. The truck should have a 300 mile range. Having a truck bed vs a slope back for a truck is not helpful for drag. (86:00-91:00)
• Starlink is a global, low latency, broadband internet project. The satellites gets tossed out of the rocket. These will provide gigabit level bandwidth. People in the poles will go from having trash internet to being able to play video games. 5G is ideal for high density. Starlink satellites are great for low and medium density areas. Think of it like a flashlight beam shooting out photons. (98:00-103:00)

• “5G causes corona, it’s a fact (*sarcastic*)! When technology is magic, you don’t know what to believe.”
• If he had a helmet of cells phones, he wouldn’t be worried about cancer. Technically we are bathed in radiation. If you have a short wave, high frequency photon, that is capable of causing DNA damage. (1:08:00)
• Getting chipped is a slow process of helping people with serious brain injuries or spinal cord problems, how do we give them an implant that allows them to use their phone? We are turning into cyborgs. (1:12:00)
• Apple and Android can turn your mic, phone, GPS, on at any time, it’s never really off. Orwell would be losing his shit. Your phone has more capabilities than the best super computer in the 60’s. (1:17:00)
• Facebook AI takes all of the user data and is currently in a “let’s see what it does” phase. Who knows what will happen? A Dystopian outcome is possible. People feel safer with regulatory agencies and there are no regulatory agency for AI and that is our biggest existential threat. The government should be responsible. Elon rehashes the Terminator plotline and how realistic it could become with a Computer AI determining that humanity is the enemy (1:23:00)

• Elon laughs way too hard at this story about a lab in Australia in charge of artificial insemination and all the vials overheated, exploded, and cum went everywhere. Cum rockets all over the place. (128:00)
• Government is the biggest corporation and has a monopoly. You have more influence over who is president of General Electric than the country. Your vote doesn’t matter unless you’re in a swing state. In any state, there has to be above a 0% chance of the other party winning. Are they going to be responsible to the people or to the special interest groups that help them get there? (1:29:00)
• The government should do the least amount of things. They should be the referee. When the government starts being the player on the field, that’s a problem. When there are too many referee’s than players, which is the case in California, that’s a problem. (1:33:00)
• Car companies fought seat belts like there was no tomorrow. The data was absolutely clear. You need some regulation. Modern air bags are so good it would blow your mind that you will no longer need seatbelts. Tesla goes way beyond the regulatory requirements. (1:35.00)
• The star rating on safety is bullshit. If your smart car hits a freight train, you’re done. A low star rating in a big car will crush a high star rating in a small car. The roadster is not super safe. (137:00)

• What is the final good of Tesla? To what degree have we accelerated the advent of a sustainable energy. The original interest was that we are going to run out of oil, we need sustainable energy to survive. The power of batteries are increasing at the fastest rate in a century. In order to move from fossil fuels to batteries & solar, you need a shit ton of batteries.
• Prices and money are just information. If the price is wrong, the economy doesn’t do the right thing. There needs to be a carbon tax just like electricity and gasoline. The Biden administration said this was too politically difficult (1:61:00)
• Co2 parts per million has been increasing 2-3 ppm per year, a non-linear event could occur, like melting the Siberian tundra, and a massive amount of trapped gas that is frozen solid, warms up, that could put a massive amount of c02 in the atmosphere. This sudden release of Co2 could go haywire fast. Higher probability of weather events. You can’t change the chemical make up and expect nothing to happen. Why even run the experiment? It’s going to go down at the most foolish experiment in human history. (172:00)

• China has the most progressive pro-environmental rules. Super supportive or electric vehicles and solar wind. (175:00)
• The model S & X have hospital grade hepa filters and can drive through a bio-hazard. The X can’t flip over. The doors will open anywhere as long as they have 18 inches of space. The sound systems is epic in the model X. The range is also increasing to near 400 miles. He drives the high performance model S. He designed the model S because he designed the car that he wants and hopefully other people like what he wants. There are too many bells and whistle with the Model X. It goes against the Tesla mission. (187:00)
• His brain would be overloaded if he started designing planes. There is a way to have a vertical landing, supersonic jet. You could get rid of most the parts of a plane if you could have it take off like a rocket. (192:00)
• Could Tesla run itself? Elon is committed to running it for years into the future. (196:00)