Elon Musk | SXSW Live 2013 | SXSW ON

thank you and good afternoon so we have a lot to cover Elon does a lot of things um there is at the moment one of his spaceships docked to this the space station uh the dragon spaceship this is the third time uh 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 you know there were solar panels and all this kind of stuff we could follow it on your Twitter feed yeah Rock drama what's it can you just tell us what it's

like to be Elon Musk in the control room during a launch when something happens when there's an issue uh well it's I mean it's extremely nerve-wracking I mean it's the thing about rocket launch is that all of your work is distilled into these few minutes particularly the the first several seconds around uh the the liftoff because the worst thing that could happen with a rocket in touch word is uh if if if if you have an engine failure or some some huge failure right above the Launchpad and the whole thing can come down with about

a million pounds of TNT equivalent and destroy the whole Launchpad that would be that that's what's going through my mind if case you're wondering that's actually what I'm thinking about [ __ ] um so when it clears the lightning towers and it's gotten further enough away from uh not actually destroying the Launchpad then uh then it's that's one sort of go down a notch on on um you know know uh the fear and anxiety and then after first stage separation that's another one when the second stage lights up so it's sort of you going down

um in intensity as the rocket is going up uh and the the thing is that the first three rocket launchers that we had failed okay and then the first one failed quite close to the Launchpad almost destroyed launch pad in fact I SP that day picking up rocket pieces off the reef uh which is which sucks so I think like there's a pretty powerfully ingrained fear response um as a result of that because three in a row just you know and uh the 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 and then in this case um you made it through the the stage separation but then there was an issue with the solar cells um 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 um how's it work yeah so uh the solar panels were actually okay but uh and the rocket launch went went really well so that was not a problem uh where things kind of went AR right

was after spacecraft separation we try to initialize the four threr pods so there there four threr pods with a combined total of 18 engines and uh 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 that's the whole way it's been made um in fact it can it can work with even if it has only two of the four Thruster pods working you know they can still do a mission um so three weren't working wow um and uh that 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 strap pair wouldn't work but not three it was really really strange so um so so we had the spacecraft just going through kind of free drift in space like we're just tumbling um and and which makes also difficult to to communicate with because the antennas are like pointing you know every which way you can imagine so we had all we had was was a a very slight 2 kilobit

uh occasional two 2 kilobit Link that would go in and out um and and that was an omnidirectional signal beaming off the NASA tedra satellite system um so in order to actually improve the the we first had to improve the bandwidth so we we actually asked the Air Force if we could have some of their longrange Camry scanners can can would they give us access and we have this um communication system that we call the mega proxy so we had to uh recode the mega proxy to go through the air force longrange dishes to to

blast the the spacecraft with enough intensity to be able to upload new code uh to try to fix the problem and uh so so we wrote some new some new software to um essentially pressure slam the uh two of the three oxidizer tanks that were um refusing to pressurize um and it turned out I think we've figured out the problem which is that there's a there was a slight change made to a check valve that was in three of the tanks and on the other and we're able to replicate that problem in the ground later

um and and we're able to to to basically have the have the system build up pressure Upstream then release that pressure and slam the valve um so we're trying to give it the sort of the spacecraft equivalent of the heck maneuver basically um and and then we got one of the pods to that looked like it was making progress and uh we we didn't want to unfill the solar panels until we had at least two pods active so we could we could go from sort of drifting to to an active hold uh but then the

the the temperatures of the solar panels which are in these protective covers was dropping uh and it can drop to like almost absolute zero if it's pointing in at dark space uh so uh so it was dropping dropping dropping and we're like okay [ __ ] we better release the solar panels um otherwise they could literally freeze in place um and so we ran a simulation to see what what would what would happen um and it's actually slightly beneficial and it's kind of like when a skater you know when a skater uh puts her arms

out um it slows down pull them in it speeds up so when actually when the the arms went out when the solar pan arrays went out it slowed down the rate of rotation actually slightly helped us with um maintaining communication with the spacecraft and um so then we're able to uh with with that precious lamp thing get get get a part uh active then then then a third one and then a fourth one then we got all four working and we're able to continue the mission duck with the space station in fact dragon is currently

ducked with the space station right now and um if if all goes well we'll return uh to Earth in about a week or two that sounds terrifying yeah wow that was that was Hardcore I don't want to go through that again okay um you are not just here in in 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 um yeah so right now we've got uh two main launch locations one is Cape Canaveral in Florida and

the other is uh venberg Air Force Base in California um and so they cap naral is good for kind of Eastward launches uh vanderberg for southernly launches and we figure we need a a third launch site that's kind of a commercial launch site you know it's not um because cape nille and vur got Air Force baces um which is cool and it's obviously there's an important need for air force space launch bases as there is for Air Force uh airports um but then there's also a need for commercial airports and just like you wouldn't expect

commercial airliners to land um at an Air Force Base in a normal course of events um it makes sense to have a commercial space port um and we need to be able to launch Eastward um and we want to be close to the equator um so that basically means uh the potential states are Virginia through Texas um going you're going south um Hawaii and Puerto Rico because the other things we need to stay on on US Territory because um rocket technology like we're doing is considered an advanced weapons technology so it's very difficult to uh

export that if you will to other countries um and uh anyway so those are our options right right now Texas is arguably the leading candidate um but uh we need certain legislation passed that's supportive of space launch um I don't think it's particularly controversial um 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 and Texas has the open beaches act it's like okay you know we we we can't launch if there's someone right right next to the rocket you know on

the beach um so that's I don't like I said I don't think it's a particularly uh controversial thing it's pretty straightforward um and and then and then we we we kind of need a littleit of protection for kind of the the one in 10,000 person case who who complains about the thing like we had this dude who filed a lawsuit against us for our rocket development site in in Central Texas near Waco he's like not even in the same county um he's in a neighboring County and he like also thinks like the ca is listening

to his brain waves um so we need like just a little bit of protection for for people like that so we're not like spending a ton of time in court um so that's basically what we're asking for it's nothing nothing major um and uh I I think it's likely to to move forward so I think you know if if things go as expected there's this it's likely that we'll have a l site in Texas which I think be really cool around when um so it depends on how the environmental approvals go and all that but

I think um I think we if if things go well I mean not all not all of it's in our hands so but assuming that things go as expected you know there'd be a decision this year and then we start construction next year and then and probably the first launches would take place in uh from there in 2 to three years terrific yeah um so um Falcon 9 or the the rocket that launched dragon is a traditional rocket which is to say it's disposable bits but you're essentially you're ultimately focused on reusable rockets and grasshopper

is the name of that can you talk a little bit about what's 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 um if you think it's important that Humanity extend beyond Earth um and become multiplet species and all that um and I mean it's super important I thought I think it's also incredibly obvious common sense like you can imagine watching like Star Trek and then they they got a new starship after every every trip that would be pretty silly um

and and and every uh motor transport that we're used to like cars Planes Trains automobiles horses bikes they're all reusable um and but but not rockets and if if we can't make rockets reusable the cost is just prohibitive the the uh like the cost of the fuel and oxygen on a falcon9 is 0.3% of the cost of the rocket wow so it's basically it's a very tiny number it's it's very similar to uh to an airplane so it's how much does it cost to fuel up an airplane um and how much the cost of buy

an airplane they're very different things so if if we're if humanity is ever to expand beyond Earth and 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 um and we can have a 100-fold reduction in the cost of space flight um so so that's what SpaceX has been trying to do um and really that's been the goal since the beginning of the company so so far I've not been very successful uh in that in that regard so but I

I think we kind of have a handle on it I think I think we've got a we've got a design that in the simulations in and in CAD and so forth it it it closes like it should work if we can build that thing it should work and uh in fact it may be worth just rolling the reusability videoos 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 right all right so

what you're seeing here is that the the first stage after stage separation the first stage turns around boosts back to the Launchpad um and then lands propulsively with landing gear it's kind of how rocket should land that's that's the upper stage this is the this is the quick version of the video obviously and then you seeing Dragon version two so Dragon version 2 will land on thrusters with landing gear with the as accurately as a helicopter so it can land anywhere on Earth as with with the accuracy of a helicopter one last question about space

before we turn to to cars um you've talked before about how you decideed to get into this you were you founded you co-founded PayPal um you don't really I mean you have a Physics degree you know something about about you know the underlying mechanics but you didn't have any space experience right you decided I think on a train to go to Mars and decided that you could out compete NASA or that you could get to Mars you could get to space faster cheaper better than the one of the largest well the largest space agency in

the world how did you get that confidence uh so um well I think first of all I should say maybe give some of a preface to um what happened before starting SpaceX um in fact the way I sort of got into space was um to do I I was really disappointed that we had not sent anyone to M that we had not progressed Beyond Apollo um and I kept waiting for when we would and it just didn't happen uh year after year and 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 do in space and and I went to the NASA website to just see when are we going to Mars and I couldn't find find that out uh I thought maybe I it was there but I well hidden or something but um so so then I thought well perhaps this is a question of of will is there sufficient will to do this and 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 in dehydrated gel that would hydrate upon landing and you'd have this cool Greenhouse with these green plants on a red background that would be the money shot um and and and then uh you know people like precedents and superlatives so it would be the first PL first life on another planet furthest the life's ever traveled and uh and that would get people excited and you also learn about a lot about what it to support Earth PLS Earth

plants in a greenhouse on Mars um the the whole purpose of that was to get people excited about sending people to Mars and increase NASA's budget so that was my whole goal I was going to basically torch yeah it it was not had nothing to do with competing with NASA in fact my goal was to increase their budget um and uh and and I should say that today NASA is our biggest customer um I mean um we've got almost 50 launches and uh about a quarter of those are finesse that but 34 34 commercial but

one quarter NASA um and NASA's been incredibly supportive and helpful and we wouldn't be where we are today without without the help of NASA so it's not 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 that's that's what I think really matters but at the end of the day you didn't end up raising the fun the money to pay NASA to do the mission you end up doing building your own company and and ideally to do

it cheaper than government's good yeah um the I so I was able to 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 um and I went to to Russia three times to try to buy a couple of their biggest icbms um this is about this is in 2001 late 2001 and 2002 um there was definitely in interesting experience uh and uh I I sort of got the feeling I could have

bought the nuke too but don't want to go there um and then when I when I got back on from the third trip to Russia um that that's when I thought okay look uh even if we do even if we buy these these icbms from Russia um I I I I I thought it I thought my initial supposition was wrong um and so what what I thought really was that we'd lost the world to explore that we'd lost the world to push the the boundary and and and in retrospect that was actually a very foolish

error uh because the United States is a nation of explorers United States is a distillation of the human Spirit of exploration it's ludicrous to to to actually in retrospect to have made such an assumption um but people need to believe that it's possible and that it's not going to it's not going to bankrupt them it's not they're not going to have to give up something important like healthcare uh you know it's going to be a cost that isn't going to meaningfully affect their their standard of living and I think the United States would absolutely be

super super excited uh about uh sending people to Mars and people I think a lot of people really wish that that would occur anyway so that was um that was what I uh came to the conclusion of and and I thought well if if we don't make a difference in the cost of the rocket of the transport system it's all it doesn't matter um it's it's not like I said it's not a question of will it's a question of way um and so that's when I came back and started the SpaceX but when I started

SpaceX there wasn't with the perspective of like oh we'll just you know take over the world and with with awesome Rockets I don't know what the pr gu is doing I was like clueless um I I thought the most likely outcome was that we would fail and and the first three rockets did fail so and you put all your money into it between Tesla SpaceX and Solar City all in yeah that wasn't the plan at the beginning by the way and Peter Tails says we don't think big anymore he must have interesting conversations with him

about that uh well you know Peter's been a big supporter actually so he's uh um he invested in in uh SpaceX at at a very important time in 2008 uh before we reached orbit so after our third failure but before our first success so you know big credit to Peter and um Luke NOK and the other guys at Founders spond basically my my my buddies from PayPal my buddies from PayPal saved my butt you know it was really really good so so let's talk about cars um uh many many in the audience May recollect the

notorious New York Times review of the model S yes exactly of the model S um earlier this year yeah and your reaction to that review and the times reaction to your reaction and and and the effect on your share price and on orders and all that and without rehashing the review or the facts I'd like you just to postmortem the entire experience wait how do I not do I do postmortem without any facts or anything post postmortem postmortem your reaction okay to the review and what you know put you on the couch and what would

you do differently today having seen the way it all played out um well I think um I think there's one thing I didn't do maybe still should which is to to to post the the rebuttal to the rebuttal CU I I withheld that and waited for the public editor I sent that information to the public editor waited for her to do her sort of thing and she came down kind of on the side of Tesla with respect to the fact that the article was an error but but disagreed on the motive on the ethics yes

um and um cuz you you impune both facts and ethics I I did yes um and and and I think it was I I think it was I would call it a low- grade uh ethics violation not not like a big one I don't think he thought he was doing anything particularly terrible but I I would call it a low grade low grade violation and not not not of the Jason Blair you know crazy fabrication variety but I I would call it a low grade it was not in good faith if that that that's that's

that's an important important Point um and uh and I 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 that has not been published you would get maybe I should you would get out there yeah so you would continue to use the same language in the same way in your I don't think the language was in accurate I really don't you've often you've often said that one of

your management techniques one of the secrets of your success is that you listen to NE negative feedback yes was a times forev youw 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 um there have been hundreds of of negative articles hundreds and yet I've only spoken out a few times I I don't have a problem with critical reviews I

have a problem with false reviews all right um one of the technologies that you had to um um you know basically develop to near Perfection or at least or at least work on hardest with lithium batteries um for the electric cars or run on lithium batteries safety has always been an issue accidents Etc um recently Boeing had uh fires with their lithium batteries and and the and the Dreamliner is now out of service because of that um you volunteer to help the Boeing Executives I guess diagnose and redesign yeah can you talk a little bit

about what they did wrong what you would have done differently and and what do you think that the the future of you know Boeing and others Airline batteries are going to be sure um well first of all on on the Boeing front I mean obviously even though SpaceX and Bo compete on the space side we have no competition on the commercial airliner side um 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 um the the only

reason I actually uh I mean the main reason I I should say I offered help was that there's a friend of mine Richard Branson who's whose aine is suffering as a result of this lithium ion fire and he he was mentioning that you know he's losing hundreds of millions or his Aline is um as a result of this this problem I said well I think we could probably help and then he so he said oh great well let me connect you with the the chief engineer um of the 787 I said cool we're happy to

help so uh you know provided some some advice and hopefully that'll be helpful um and I said we're also happy to actually do the solution if you want um and uh they haven't taken us up on that offer um but we're happy to help either you an advisory capacity or or to do the solution whatever would result in the 787 getting back to flight sooner um we're just trying to be you know productive and helpful so um I mean I think the in the case of the VY uh Boeing doesn't have a ton of In-House

battery expertise so they they outsourced the the battery and then you had a whole bunch of kind of nested Outsourcing where they outsourced the battery system and then and then that got outsourced to another company then to another company and then to a whole bunch of other companies and and you're like four layers deep before you actually got to um any hardware um and so that resulted in I think in a kind of a breakdown of communication um I mean from an architectural standpoint the fundamental issue is that the is that I I I think

um is that the the cells are too big the battery cells are too big and the gaps between the battery cells are are not big enough um and the problem with a with a big battery cell is that the the thermal path pathway is 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 yeah and if it's deep in a Cell it can't it can't do that um and it's also hard to thermally condition the cells um

the life of the pack will be will be dependent upon on the temperature the average 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 yeah um and then actively cooling each cell to keep the temperature even um and make sure that if if if um Hotpot does develop it's a very short pathway to the cooling system and it and it can you know take care of it and you also want

to make sure that it's it's I'm getting quite technical here sorry um it's it's um passive propagation proof so so if you even if your active cooling system fails um and you get thermal runway in a cell that thermal Runway event can Cascade into a neighboring cell so and you get the thermal do domino effect right I mean it's not it's not super complicated um so so um you know it just if if if you have big cells you want big gaps and ideally you want you don't want big cells but if you do you

want big gaps small cells small gaps yeah I mean so I mean this is this is really important because because um the the whole thing about this new generation of airplanes is that they're light they use composits they use Electronics rather than mechanical systems and so electricity drives the whole thing 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 yeah like lithium's getting a bit of a bad name here um 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 got a lithium ion battery you know next to a sense a region probably of their body you know got it well so just staying on on on power for one last set of questions before we um well before I return to your life which seems insane um it is insane um you're also a chairman of Solar City which I believe is America's largest solar

installer um you know so space Transportation energy just picking off the big ones there um now you know solar got a bad name over the last few years because of the cylinder meltdown Etc but you know my sense that people different are not differentiating between the making of solar cells and the using of solar cells and and the Chinese competition and the glutting of the market on the supply side is what cylinder what got cylinder in trouble they couldn't compete with the fallowing prices but you're a consumer of solar cells right so how do you

see you know the Chinese Chinese competition and sort of the glut of solar of of solar cells on the market what's that good view um I mean I think what China is 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 in the Chinese desert um and with 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 um and uh

you know people sort of complain about Sindra but I mean obviously anyone who's been involved in the Venture world knows that you about a thousand there's some companies that die the only reason we know about slender is because became of political football right um and uh I mean there are other solar panel manufacturers that are still doing reasonably well um but but but it is tough when you're competing um I mean I think good rule of thumb was don't is don't compete with China with a commodity product yeah um you know you're really asking for

for travel in that in that scenario um and 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 um so it's like does anybody think we should be competing with China in drywall manufacturing okay probably not so um so so that's the thing so and and the the the hard part of solar power is not the panel it's it's actually the whole system it's basically designing something that's going to fit on a particular rooftop CU all you have all

these heterogeneous rooftops um then you've got to you've got to mount the system you've got to wire it up you got to Connected the inverters connected to the grid you got to do all the permitting I mean it's a bunch of like thorny unglamorous stupid problems but if somebody doesn't optimize them they're still going to cost a ton of money um and and a lot of them are really not they're not fun problems they're not you know exciting problems to to optimize but but but they are the problems that actually matter in the cost of

of solar power so it's it's really more like you know like a like a a roofing contractor than it is a Semiconductor Company I mean what what you're doing is you're putting a second roof on a building yeah okay so and you got to do it at scale and then you got to manage all these systems because there's still some I mean even though the after sales service is small when you've got like hundreds of thousands of systems that's still a lot to manage um and and so what Solar City really is is a giant

distributed utility um and it's working in partnership with the the house and business um and in competition with the 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 CU utility just never had any competition before yeah um and and now they're like they have to actually think about the cost of power and and figure out better ways to do it and that kind of thing I think it's really great um and and the credit there is really due

to lyen and Peter RI co-founders uh 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 it's those guys are just doing such an awesome job so you are CEO and CTO of SpaceX so not just 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 yeah and you're chairman of Solar City right what is your life like it's

it's it's very busy uh and uh I'd actually like to take it down just a scooch honestly um because there there all these I mean these these things that the last few years have been really really great um but then there were a number of years that sucked horribly um and uh I'd like to just just not have it be so extreme um uh 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 um my newest resolution was to have

a little bit more fun this year so hey I'm at South by Southwest you know and you have five children do they're awesome kids are awesome by the way you guys should all have kids kids are great uh how much do you see them I I don't see them enough actually but but I uh uh what what I find is that I'm able to be with them and uh still be on email because I don't need like constant interaction except when we're talking directly so um I find I can be with them and still be

you know working at the same time um but wait wait are you saying you can do email while you're with your children yeah absolutely sure um wow I mean not all the time but a lot of the time um that's that's why it's tny to have a phone you can sort of you do email in in interstitial moments um in the absence of that I would not be able to get my job done wow that's uh impressive um we [Music] are 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 I do have to have a nanny there otherwise they'll kill each other so um yeah um we are going to turn to audience questions at this point um just a reminder that um if you tweet your questions hash askm musk there's a team in the back that will be selecting the um 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 as the first one from David soless um

he asked when it comes to researching analyzing entrepreneurial opportunity how do you go about qualifying or legitimizing presumably the idea sure um well um I'm not sure I'm the best guide here because things that I've chosen have not been um op I've not been trying to optimize on a risk adjusted return basis so there are uh like I I would not say that I went to The Rocker business the car business uh or the solar business thinking that it's a it's a great opportunity I just thought that that something needed to be done in in

these uh Industries in order to make a difference and that's why I did it so um but but in general I do think it's worth thinking about like what whether what you're doing is going to result in disruptive change or not if it's just incremental it's unlikely to to be something major it it's it's got to be something that's substantially better than than what's gone on before that cues up to our next question really well um this is from uh Craig lre um space Automotive Finance energy you've disrupted major industries what would you do if

you had a free Reign Over education um well I I think that the way that we currently do education is is is wrong and and we're when you see something like the KH Academy and so forth I think that's probably going in the right direction Direction I mean generally you want education to be like as close to a video game as possible like a good video game like you do not need to tell your kid to play video games they will play video games on autopilot all day so if you can make it interactive and

engaging uh then then you can make education far more compelling and and far easier to do um so I think that's how it should be and it shouldn't be that you've got like these grades where people move in lock step um and so everyone goes through you know goes like normally you will go through English math uh science and so forth from like fifth grade to sixth grade to seventh grade like it's an assembly line U but but people are not objects on an assembly line that's a ridiculous notion um people learn and are interested

in different things at different Paces so you really want to um disconnect the whole grade level thing from the the subjects allow people to progress at the fastest Pace that they can or are interested in in each subject um it seems like a really obvious thing um I mean I think like most teaching today is is a lot like fordville where um and it's and as a result just not not that compelling it's like somebody 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 or or in doing it um and you compare that to say Batman The Dark Knight okay um and then you've got like the world's best special effects You' got the world's best director screenwriter multiple cuts um amazing you know editing and um and and and and and that's amazing but but like imagine if instead you had like the local Town um aspiring actor do uh the a oneperson Play version of that yeah that would not be compelling yeah do do you agree with Peter te about the classmates um because you can always

buy the textbooks and just read them like nobody stopping you from doing that or go online or go online um so uh now now for a lot of companies they they they do want to see the completion of the degree because they're looking for um someone who's going to persevere and see it through to the end and and that's actually what what what's important to them so it really depends on on what somebody's goal is if the goal is to start a company I would say no point in finishing uh College um in my case

I had to otherwise i' get kicked out of the country yeah um so uh that was important but although you went on and got a master's degree as well right um I I came out silic valy to do a PhD at Stanford and applied physics and Material Science to work on um Ultra capacitors for use in electric cars and that's what I was going to do and then I started put that on hold to start a company but since I already had my under undergrad I could then get H1B visa and that kind of thing

so H1B Visa requires uh a degree um but other than that I I would have if what that wasn't the case I probably would have stopped education sooner did you not go to Wharton for yeah yeah they did dual undergrading physics and and business at Wharton I see yeah but it was undergrad not not Masters understood um another question from the audience from Dan Griffith um fill in the blank you will be disappointed if blank does not happen in your lifetime um um well probably the most thing I just pointed out is if if Humanity

doesn't land on Mars in my lifetime I'd be really disappointed that would be you know that that would probably be my biggest disappointment um and uh yeah I think I think that's the thing I'm most concerned about because because we're at this obviously that's what SpaceX is working on um so I'm not trying to be self- serving here but it's just I kind of worry that we've hit this if I I don't know whether our technology level will keep going or subside and for the first time in 4 and a half billion years the technology

level is at the point where we can extend life to another planet make life multiplanetary and um I I think it's too easy to take for granted that it's going to stay above that level um and if it doesn't and it falls below that will it return who who knows um uh you know the the sun is gradually expanding and in about you know roughly 500 million years maybe a billion years the outside um uh the oceans will boil and and there will be no no meaningful life on Earth I mean it might be like

some you know chatres or or ultra high temperature bacteria or something but nothing that can make a spaceship um and and that's like if you think of like maybe it's a 500 million year time frame that's only a 10% increase in the life of lifespan of Earth so if if if um Humanity had taken an extra 10% longer to get here it wouldn't have gotten here at all yeah um and so far we haven't seen any signs of life from other worlds that we we haven't detected anything I hope you know hopefully we do and

hopefully it's not a warship coming towards us um uh but uh I I just think that's the thing that really concerns me we we we we need to get this done um and and then that is the best thing we can do to ensure the continued existence of humanity um so that's why I would say that's the most important thing do you personally do you do you personally want to step foot on Mars I I do personally want to step foot on Mars um but honestly I would be doing this even if there was no

even if I knew there was no chance of me going to Mars it's because I think like I said I think it's just important that we are on a path to getting there um so um I I would like to go at some point I I'll go if I'm certain that SpaceX will be fine without me um and that that path will continue um cuz that you may have heard me uh some may have heard the joke I've made before which is like you know I I I I would I think be I would like

to die on Mars just not on impact you know so another question uh from the um audience so we just we just lost lost that one there was I don't remember um who had asked this question but the question was um uh which um when when which do you think is going to have more impact on the world SpaceX or Tesla well I I think if we look back or if historians if I would look back on the impact of Tesla many years from now I think uh it would be that Tesla hopefully the Tesla

Advanced the Advent of sustainable transport by something like a decade maybe maybe two decades um 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 um so that's uh that's what I think and then for for Solar City perhaps something similar on the energy production site sustainable energy production then uh for SpaceX hopefully SpaceX deel develops the technology necessary to transport large numbers of people in Caro to Mars um and um I mean I think that's um you know a

bigger impact but rather the what what Solar City and Tesla are about are solving what I think is the most pressing terrestrial concern which is the sustainable production and consumption of energy or helping solve it I mean there's many people solving it um and then what SpaceX is about is helping solve the biggest non-terrestrial problem which is the extension of life beyond Earth so th those are how I see it we have two related questions one that's no longer on the screen but uh and another one that is um the first was what was the

best advice you ever got and the second you maybe can join them in your answer is you mentioned working with your friends Peter teal and Richard Branson who influences and inspires you sure um well I I'm inspired by a lot of historical figures like one of my favorite guys is Ben Franklin you know I just think he's you know he's a really guy I mean he was a scientist and he also I mean worked in um obviously publishing and the political sphere but he kind of like he just thought about like what are the what

are the problems that need to get solved and and worked on those um and he was just a seemed like a good guy all around um so really I like him and um and I like just the historical figures like in science and um literature and I mean uh F found of Churchill um and uh and obviously like Tesla we named Tesla after Nicola Tesla better than musk Motors you know um and actually haven't named any product or company after myself uh but but that maybe gives a sense of like I think like Tesla is

someone who deserves a lot of recognition um and uh sorry what was the well they're all dead any figures um yeah I mean I think um there's a friend of mine uh Like Larry Page I think what Larry's doing uh and Sergey at Google I'm um really admire what they've done um I think uh obviously he's recently dead but Steve Jobs who doesn't admire Steve Jobs um I think Jeff Bezos is doing some some great things and among others competing with you uh yes but that's a good thing in fact every time I see Jeff

bezas I say why aren't you doing more in space yeah the other half of the question was the best advice you ever got best advice I ever got um well I I think the uh you know the physics training is a very good Training where uh 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 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 for for getting there like quantum mechanics is incredibly counterintuitive uh but it's true um and so you had so so physics developed a framework for for figuring out uh things that aren't obvious and that's why I think it's it's not it's it's a lot of advice but it's it's it's the right framework um and then um you know just in general critical thinking is is good you know examining whether you have the correct axioms other the most

applicable axioms uh does the logic necessarily connect um and then what are the what are the range of probable outcomes um outcomes are usually not deterministic they're they're they're a range um and so you want to figure out what those Pro probabilities are and make sure ideally that you're the house you know it's it's fine to take it's it's fine to it's fine to gamble as long as you're the house yes um and uh you know and a subset of that is is to to um listen to critical feedback which you alluded to uh earlier

voice solicit critical feedback particularly from friends um because generally they will be thinking it but they won't tell you yeah um a question here um from Jal um any news or development on your hyperloop idea and you might explain what your hyperloop idea is is well um what I've said is that I'm I'm putting the hyperloop stuff on hold until I get Tesla to profitability U because I think if I was an investor in Tesla and they heard me sort of spouting off about the hyperloop before I got the company profitable they were like hey

you know go do go do your job so that's what I'm doing um I think once Tesla is in a in a has been profitable maybe for at least for a quarter maybe two quarters then then I'll I'll talk about the hyperloop um but I think it could be an interesting way to uh I mean 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 um it it would be something that would be say twice as fast

as a plane at least in terms of total Transit time um maybe a little faster uh it would be immune to weather uh and capable of crashing um pretty much unless it was like a terrorist attack um and um the ticket price would be like let's say half that of a plane um so it' be better in every way um train of some sort though it's kind of it's not exactly a train it would be a different 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 I think it's I think it's the capital cost would be less if it's mostly above ground but you can go underground too all right maybe the last question um what's the biggest mistake you've ever made and this is from Alexi 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 some are pretty big um um I mean it's hard to say CU things have worked

out pretty well in the end so how how big of a mistake could it have been as the as the question is really really asking um uh you know I did lots of dumb things at my first company and at PayPal um and uh you know I think I think sometimes yeah I don't know there's so many I like I'm hard pressed to say this is this is the biggest one you know give this one or two okay um personal okay sure um so there the biggest mistake in general that I've made and I'm trying

to correct for that is uh to put too much of a waiting on somebody's talent and not enough on their personality um and I've made that mistake several times in fact then i' would say I'm not going to make that mistake again then I would make it again um and and I think it actually matters uh whether some somebody has a good heart it really does and and I've made them I've made the mistake if they K that sometimes it's just about the brain on that heartfelt note we're done thank please join me in thanking

L thank you [Music] oh [Music]