Elon Musk - Why We Need a Government Efficiency Agency

you know one of the things is there's this image on X of like basically like you Bobby uh Trump and JD are like the Avengers I guess and then there's another meme where you're in front of a desk where it says d g the department of governmental efficiency yes yes I posted that one tell us about I I made it using grock the grock image generator and I posted it tell us about put it to my profile SE for efficiency um how how do you do it well I I mean I I think with great

difficulty uh but you know look it's been a long time since there was a serious effort to reduce the size of government and to um remove absurd regulations yeah and you know the last time there was a really concered effort on that front was Reagan in the early ' 80s so we're 40 years away from um a a a a serious effort to remove um you know not regulations that don't serve the greater good and and reduce the size of government and I think it's just if we don't do that then what's what what's happening

is that we get regulations and laws accumulating every year until eventually everything's illegal uh and that's why we can't get uh major infrastructure projects done in the United States like if you look at the absurdity of the California highs speed rail I think they they spent $7 billion and have A600 put segment that doesn't actually have rail in it I mean your tax dollars at work I mean yeah what are we doing that's an expensive 600 feet of concrete you know um and and I mean I think it's like if you know uh I realize

sometimes I'm perhaps a little optimistic with schedules but uh you know I mean I wouldn't be doing the things I'm doing if I was uh you know not an an optimist uh so but but but but at the current Trend you know California High Street rail might finish sometime next Century maybe probably not we're just we'll have teleportation by that time yeah exactly AI do everything at that point so so so so you I think you really think of um you know the the United States and many countries it's it's arguably worse than the EU

as being like galiva tied down by a million little strings and like any one given regulation is not is not that bad but you've got a million of them and um or Millions actually and and then then eventually you just can't get anything done and and this is a this is a massive tax on the on the consumer on the people uh it's just they don't they don't realize that there's this this massive tax in the form of irrational regulations um I'm going I'll give you a recent uh example that that you know is is

just insane um is that uh like SpaceX was fined by the EPA $140,000 for um they claimed dumping uh portable water on the ground drinking water so and we're like uh this is that star base and and we're like it's we're in a TR tropical uh thunderstorm region um that stuff comes from the sky all the time and um and there was no actual harm done you know it was just water to cool the the the launch pad during uh liftoff and um there's zero harm done like and they're like they agree yes there's zero

harm done we're like okay so there's no harm done and um you want us to pay $140,000 fine it's like yes because you don't have a pmit okay we didn't know there was a ponent needed for zero harm fresh water being on the ground in a place that where fresh water falls from the sky all the time got it next to the ocean next to the ocean cuz there's a little bit of water there too yeah yeah I mean sometimes it rain so much the the roads are flooded so we're like you know how does

this make any sense yeah and and then like then then they were like well we're not going to process any more of your any more of your applications for launch for Starship launch unless you pay this $140,000 they just ransomed us and we're like okay so we paid $140,000 but it was a it's like this is no good I mean at this rate we're never going to get to Mars I mean that's the that's the confounding part here yeah is we're acting against our own self-interest you know when you look at we do have to

make putting aside fresh water but hey you know there the rocket makes a lot of noise so I'm I'm certain there's some complaints about noise once in a while but sometimes you want to have a party where you want to make progress and there's a little bit of noise therefore you know we we trade off a little bit of noise for massive progress or even fun so like when did we stop being able to make those trade-offs but talk about the difference between California and Texas uh where you and I now reside um Texas you

were able to build the gigafactory I remember when you got the plot of land and then I it seemed like it was less than two years when you had the party to open it yeah from from start of construction um to completion uh was 14 months 14 14 months is there anywhere on the planet that would go faster is like China faster than that uh China was 11 months got it so Texas China 11 and 14 months California how many months and just to give you a sense of size the Tesla gigafactory in China is

three times the size of the Pentagon which was the biggest building in America uh no there are bigger buildings but the pentagon's a pretty big one yeah or it was the bigest in units in units of Pentagon it's like three okay three pentagons and Counting yeah got it in 14 months um the just the just the regulatory approvals in California would have taken two years yeah so that's that's the issue where where do you think the regulation helps like for the people that will say we need some checks and balances we can't have some because

for every good actor like you there'll be a bad actor so where is that lying then yeah I mean I have a sort of you know in in sort of doing Su sensible deregulation and um reduction in the size of government the is is just like be very public about it and say like which of these rules do you if the public is really excited about a rule and wants to keep it we'll just keep it and and here the thing about the rules if if like if the rule is um you know turns out

to be a bad we'll just put it right back okay and then you know PR Sal it's like it's easy to add rules but we don't actually have a process for getting rid of them that's the issue there's no garbage collection for rules um when we were um watching you work David and I Antonio um in that first month at Twitter which was all hands on deck and you were doing zerob based budgeting you really quickly got the cost under control and then miraculously everybody said this site will go down and you added 50 more

features so maybe explain because this is the first time yeah there were like so many articles like the that this this is Twitter is Dead Forever there's no way it could possibly even continue at all it was almost like the Press was rooting for you to let's write the obituary here's the obituary uh they were all saying their goodbyes on Twitter remember that yeah yeah yeah they were all leaving and saying they're goodbyes cuz the site was going to melt down and yeah totally fail and and uh all the journalists left yeah and which if

you ever want to like hang out with a bunch of Hall monitors oh my God threads is amazing every time I go over there and post they're like they they're really triggered but yeah I mean if you like being condemned repeatedly then you know for reasons that make no sense then threads is the way to go it's really it's it's the most miserable place on Earth if Disney's the happiest this is the anti- Disney but if we were to go into government you went into the Department of Education or Pi pick the department you've worked

with a lot of them actually sure you can't go in there in zerob based budget okay we get it but if you could just pair two three four five% of those organizations what kind of impact would that have yeah I mean I think we' need to do more than that I think ideally but compounding every year 2 3% a year I mean it would be better than what's happening now yeah I look I think we' we' um you know uh if if Trump wins and and obviously I suspect there are people with mixed feelings about

whether that should happen but uh but if but we do have an opportunity uh to do kind of a once- in a-lifetime deregulation and reduction in the government um because the other thing besides the regulations um America is also going bankrupt extremely quickly um and and nobody seems everyone seems to be sort of whistling past the graveyard on this one um but they're all they're all grabbing the silverware everyone stuff in their pockets of the silverware before this the Titanic sinks it's like well you know the the defense department budget is a very big budget

okay it's a trillion dollars a year DOD Intel it's Trill a trillion dollars and interest payments on the national debt just exceeded the defense department budget they're over a trillion dollars a year just in interest and Rising we're we're adding a trillion dollars to theet to our debt which our you know kids and grandkids are going to have to pay somehow um you know every every 3 months and then soon it's going to be every two months and then every month and then the only will be able to pay his interest and and if if

this it's just you know it's just like a person at scale that has racked up too much credit card debt um and uh this this is not this does not have a good ending so we have to reduce the spending let me ask one question because I've brought this up a lot and the counter argument I hear which I disagree with um but the counter argument I hear from a lot of politicians is if we reduce spending because right now if you add up federal state and local government spending it's between 40 and 50% of

GDP so nearly half of our economy is supported by government spending and nearly half of people in the United States are dependent directly or indirectly on government checks and either through contractors uh that that the government pays or they're employed by government um entity so if you go in and you take too Harden acts too fast you will have significant contraction job loss and recession what's The Balancing Act Elon just thinking realistically cuz I'm 100% on board with you the steps the next set of steps however assume Trump wins and you become the the chief

uh do um uh dog uh d g how how like yeah and I think the challenge is how quickly can we yeah how quickly can we go in how quickly can things change and without without I want that on my business Cod yeah without all the lot without all the contraction and job yeah so so I guess how do you really address it when so much of the economy and so many people's jobs and livelihoods are dependent on government spending well I mean I I do think it's it's it's sort of um you know it's

it's false dichotomy it's not like no government spending is going to happen um you really have to say like is it the right level um and just remember that that you know any any given person if they are doing things in a less efficient organization versus more efficient organization their contribution to the economy their net output of goods and services will reduce um I mean you've got a couple of clear examples between uh East Germany and West Germany North Korea and South Korea um I mean North Korea they're starving uh South Korea it's like amazing

it's the future the compounding effect of productivity gains yeah yeah it's night and day um and so in the north North Korea you've got 100% government um and in South Korea you've got probably I don't know 40% government it's not zero yeah U and yet you've got a standard of living that is probably 10 times higher in South Korea at least at least exactly um uh and then eastn West Germany um in West Germany uh you had just thinking in terms of cars I mean you had BMW Porsche Audi Mercedes um and and East Germany

which is a random line on a map um you you the the car only car you could get was a a trabant which is basically a lawn mower with a shell on it um and uh it was extremely unsafe and you there was a 20-year wait so you like you know put your kid on the list as soon as they're conceived um they're conceived and and even then only I think um you know a quarter of people maybe got got this lousy car and the same so so that's just an interesting example of like basically

the same people different operating system and and it's not like uh West Germany was some you know you know a capitalist uh Heaven it was it's quite socialist actually so uh so when you look you know probably it was half half government in West Germany and 100% government in East Germany and again sort of a five to like it call at least a 5 to 10x standard of living difference and even qualitatively vly better and and it's obviously you know sometimes people have these amazingly in this modern era this debate as to which system is

better well I'll tell you which system is better um the one that doesn't need to build the wall to keep people in okay that's that's how you can tell okay it's a dead giveaway spoiler alert dead giveaway are they climbing the wall to get out or come in you have to build a barrier to keep people in that is the bad system um it wasn't West West berin that built the wall okay they were like to you know anyone who wants to flee West berin go ahead speaking of walls so it you know and and

and and if you look at sort of the flux of boats from Cuba there's a large number of boats from Cuba and there's a bunch of free boats that you anyone can take to to back to Cuba like plenty of seeds there's like hey wow an abandoned boat I could use this boat to go to Cuba where they have communism awesome Yes um and and and yet nobody nobody picks up those votes and does it amazing um so he given this a lot of thought yeah wait so your point is jobs will be created if

we cut government spending in half jobs will be created fast enough to make up for right just to count yes obviously you know I'm not suggesting that that people you know um have like immediately Ted you know tossed out with with no severance and and you know can't not can't pay their mortgage they need to see some reasonable offramp uh where yeah yeah so reasonable off ramp where you know they're still um you know earning they're still receiving money but have like I don't know a year or two to to f to find drops in

the private sector which they will find and then they will be in a different operating system um again you can see the difference East Germany was incorporated into West Germany living standards in East Germany uh Rose dramatically um well so in four years if you could shrink the side size of the government with Trump what would be a good Target just in terms of like Ball Park I mean are you trying to get me assassinated before this even happen no no Piccolo number I mean you know there's that old phrase Go postle I mean it's

like they might yeah on me so we'll keep the post office I mean I'm going to need a all the security details guys yes I mean the year number of just gruntled workers for former government employees is you know quite a scary number I mean I might not make it you know I was saying low low digits every year for four years would be palatable yeah and I but the thing is that if if it's not done uh like if you have a once once in a lifetime or once in a generation opportunity and you

don't take Serious action and and then you have four years to get it done and then and if it doesn't get done then how serious is Trump about this like you've talked to him about it yeah yeah I think he is very serious about it got it um and no I I think actually the reality is that if we get rid of nonsense regulations and shift people from the government sector to the private sector we will have immense Prosperity um and and I think we will have a golden age in this country and it'll be

fantastic can we uh can we talk about SP [Applause]