Elon Musk (Full Interview) | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

my first guest is the man who made electric cars a thing and is currently working on perfecting reusable Rockets space travel connecting the human brain directly to computers connecting cities with electromagnetic bullet trains the Starling satellite system that's so important to the war in Ukraine and then on Tuesday on traffic he also tweets a lot Elon Musk wow [Music] what did I get the full order of things that you do in a day there when I was reading there I left out the tunnel thing at the end um do you work on all these a

lot of jobs do you do all these things every day do you work on all of them in a single day no no but I do have I do have a long work day um yeah so I work a lot I'm so thrilled you're here because you know we do a show where we talk about what changes happen in the world and but we just talk there's a very few people who actually make change happen you are one of those people probably um you know I just want to say I just want to say I

love this audience [Applause] well you're a likable guy I mean thanks I mean they attack you a lot they do yeah [Laughter] and you seem to laugh it off which I think is fantastic I love it that you have a sense of humor because a guy as important as you who makes changes could use your powers for evil and not good the fact that absolutely you could of course I would yeah never use them for equal deaths no I know but but the way I know that is because you have a sense of humor uh

yeah you really do yeah you like laughing you like to be funny I kill me right [Applause] as opposed to somebody like Zuckerberg who I'm not even sure is a real boy yeah um yeah I I actually love comedy and and uh actually you know like um many years ago actually was in the audience here and watched your show oh really been a long time admirer of your show oh well thank you I let me get back to you being ingenious okay but that has always been my view is that as I was a history

major and when you study history what you realize is that you know there's the great man Theory and they talk about Kings and princes and queens and presidents it's really the people in Tech who change the world they're the people who deal the cards at whether it's fire or electricity for good or bad or the cotton gin or the iPhone or the atom bomb those are the cards and the rest of us just play it would you agree with that assessment I think I think technology is the thing that causes these big step changes in

in Civilization so obviously you've got things like say the Gutenberg Press um before which uh right it was very difficult to get books they were very rare even if you had a thirst for knowledge you really couldn't do anything about it um because there were very few books to read so uh and the the internet is something beyond beyond the bug price I think but you know it's it's a like when I first saw the internet uh coming into being in a way that that the general public could use it it felt like the what

the the humanity as a whole was uh developing a nervous system so previously uh the way the information would travel would be by osmosis one person to another or one person calling another um but uh you did the access to information was very limited now with the Internet it's like having a nervous system it's like any part of of humanity has access to almost all the information of humanity hmm like you could be in the in the middle of the Amazon jungle uh whether it's a starling terminal and have access to more information uh than

the president did in 1980. right well anything on your phone everything is yeah okay so so you are one of these dealers these people who deal the cards and I feel some memes too quickly so I think a lot of people thought when you bought Twitter that this is kind of an outlier like how does this what doesn't fit with these other things you're doing I never thought that because I think you're dealing with big civilizational issues and problems and I was right on your page I think Twitter is one of them I mean you

have talked about this at woke mind virus yes and really apocalyptic terms yeah I don't you should explain why you don't think it's hyperbole to say things like it's pushing civilization towards suicide first of all what is the walk mine virus and if we don't deal with this nothing else can get done tell me why you think that yeah so um I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that is uh that that results in the suppression of a free speech so you know those are two other aspects

of the work mind virus that I think are very dangerous uh is that it's often anti-mureaucratic you can't you can't question things uh even the questioning is bad so uh you know you know another way to almost Anonymous would we cancel culture and obviously people try to cancel you many times many times yeah I mean every week yeah from left and right I've had it from both sides yeah and it's interesting people you and I are both like in that little group of people maybe it's a bigger group now yeah who who are called conservative

who haven't really changed I don't see you think of you as a conservative definitely yeah like I I at least think of myself as a moderate uh you know uh so I mean uh at least that like I've spent a massive amount of My Life Energy building sustainable energy uh you know electric vehicles and and batteries and solar and stuff uh to help save the environment that's that's not that's not a it's not exactly far right now you drew that diagram you drew that diagram once where you're here I I related to that and like

the world has changed right I feel the same way I feel like very often wokeness is it's not building on liberalism it's the opposite of liberalism I can mention yes exactly many examples where it's the op including Free Speech free speech is actually is extremely important and it's bizarre that we've come to this point where um like free speech used to be a left or liberal value and and yet we see uh from you know in quotes left uh a desire to actually censor um and uh that seems crazy I mean I think we should

be extremely concerned about anything that uh undermines the First Amendment there's a reason for the First Amendment um the first amendment is because people came from countries where they could not speak freely and and where and we're saying certain things would get you thrown into prison and they were like well we don't want that here and by the way in many parts of the world including possible that people might think are relatively similar to the United States the the speech laws are draconian England is quite different I won't name any countries but why are we

protecting them they have no first it's very easy to prove libel in England whereas here it's almost England um I wouldn't want to say the wrong thing or uh yes you could be sued easier there I mean there are a lot in in France I think if you deny the Holocaust which I think is abhorrent but I also think it should be part of free speech right you can be thrown into jail okay so this my I I really can't emphasize this enough we must uh uh we must protect free speech and Free Speech only

matters it's only relevant when it's someone you don't like saying something in your life because obviously every speech that you like is uh yes that's easy um so it it's uh and it's the thing about censorship is that sure for those who would Advocate it um just remember at some point that will be turned on you [Applause] so this uh woke mind virus how did it start was it bats was it a yeah escape from a lab I mean what is your assessment of what because it's fairly recent why how did it start and why

I was I was trying to figure out where where it's coming from I think it's actually been a long time Brewing um in that it's uh I think it's been going on for a while um it it and um the amount of indoctrination that that's happening in schools and universities is I think far beyond what parents realize um and I only I sort of came to realize this somewhat late um the the experience that we had uh in high school and college is not the experience that that kids today are having um and and hasn't

been for I don't know 10 years maybe 20 years so uh my parents themselves also a big part of the problem they well I I suppose in some cases that parents but but I think like the parents are just generally not aware of what their their kids are being told or what they're not being taught um they're letting the kids think that they're equal I mean yeah let me let me let me give you an example that a Fairmont told me which uh you know his daughters uh go to college and and sorry go to

high school in the Bay Area um and um and he he was asking them like well so who are the you know who are the first few presidents of the United States uh that they could name Washington but and I said what do you know about him well he was a slave owner what else right exactly nothing right like uh okay that's maybe you should know more than that you know yeah yeah that and that that is the world mind virus exactly yeah so exactly it's it's like you know the uh you know slavery is

obviously a horrific institution but we should still know more about George Washington than that and by the way one that was practiced all over the world forever since the beginning of time by every race including people of color I'm sorry to tell you that it's huge in the Bible absolutely so the Bible loves it really yes they're quite strict about like you know don't take someone else's slave and that kind of thing right but no one ever says just don't do it they don't they don't they don't at no point does it say slavery is

bad in the Bible no they do not condemn it at all they just have so so it's um but Twitter is not doing bad right I mean I saw today that Tucker Carlson yeah recently fired you were just on his show and he lost his job so I hope this isn't enough yeah yeah but uh luckily uh the angel of death exactly I'm not the Typhoid Mary of uh talk shows uh his rant yesterday or today on Twitter yesterday or something more than every cable news monologue or something like that is that right well Twitter

has a tremendous audience so there's 250 million people that spend an average of half an hour a day on Twitter so it's about 120 to 130 million user hours per day and it's been increasing so um the we didn't do anything to be clear we did nothing special whatsoever I learned about it afterwards that he had posted something on Twitter um so it's just the Twitter has a lot of people's attention uh so and it tends to be the people that are uh that read read a lot or or interested in current events um and

um generally are pretty influential so but most of the people who tweet are the same people right I mean the people who actually tweet it's mostly just reading it yeah I feel like that's I've read this many times it's a very very small percentage of the people on Twitter and it seems like yeah see here's why I don't tweet anymore because you may be the mayor of tweak town now yeah I'm getting a cap with that and I'm glad and I like it that the mayor likes my jokes but the reason I don't do it

anymore is because the mob of Mean Girls is still there and that has not changed I know like it's too easy to get canceled and I don't even know what pisses them off they're so nuts these kids I feel like I'm walking on a roof with a blindfold I could fall off anytime yeah that was the most innocuous thing but it's like you know I said George Washington was a great president oh how dare you yeah yeah exactly had some flows but but how do you fix this instrumental in this Mr Mayor creation of the

United States so yeah um well you have to say like what does canceled mean you know uh I mean it's yes people attacking on Twitter that's one thing but frankly that's just going to increase engagement so I would just ignore it well that's easy for you because they can't take your job away or any of your main 10 jobs but they could take mine and they did Once by the way yeah so still Affair you know I was like literally canceled yeah I mean like the Show is canceled so you but okay so you were

in Congress uh at Congress the other day talking with Chuck Schumer about AI I'm very interested in this because you've been on this for years I've always thought you were right about this I think you're right about almost everything I mean let's have more babies and raise them on Mars I don't get that but okay well uh I just think we should be cautious about civilizational decline with with and we have plummeting growth rates um most places yeah right and also plummeting resources no no resources will be fine look I'm not suggesting complacency but we

do want to move to a sustainable energy economy as quickly as possible but but we're not in any danger of uh resource collapse but lots of people don't have enough food or water we will run out of water they're running they're running out of sand Earth is 70 Water by surface area um but you can't drink that desalination is absurdly Chief why don't we do it then we do it is you have a lot of free time it is done this there is a lot of desalination done okay but there's plenty of water this is

not an issue I want to be clear all right so but let's talk about AI because like you were you were on this tip 10 years ago when nobody else was that and I always thought he's right why because I've seen too many movies everything that happens in movies that happens in real life and yeah you know if you make things that are way smarter than you why wouldn't they become your overlords so what did you say to Chuck Schumer and what are we doing about this I know you want to pause in AI because

in the just in the last six months with chat GPT which came from a company you started yes [Laughter] um well I mean A friend of mine has a sort of modification of Occam's razor you know you know instead of the simplest thing being the most likely that like the most ironic outcome is most likely right right yes so um with respect to AI um I just think we should be uh we should have some sort of regulatory oversight so uh you know for anything that is a danger to the public uh if it's sort

of uh aircraft uh cars uh Food and Drug and whatnot we've got some regulatory oversight like a referee essentially and making sure that uh companies don't cut Corners so um I think that since if one agrees that uh AI is a potential risk to the public then there should be some regulatory body that oversees uh what companies are doing so they don't cut corners and potentially do something very dangerous don't do something lay out a scenario for me in the next two five ten years if nothing is done because we're very good at doing nothing

especially when it comes in the way of profit and this is a big profit engine now for companies they're going to want to just compete with each other I mean there are people like Ray Kurzweil who doesn't think it's a problem at all uh actually Ray kurzweil's prediction for artificial super intelligence uh is 2029. he's not far wrong right but he doesn't think it's a problem whereas people like you and Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking thought think it's a problem um yeah it depends if some people want to live forever or for a much longer

period of time and they see AI as the only way to or digital super intelligence is as the only thing that can figure out how to get them to live forever I think Kurzweil is in that category so he would prefer to have ai artificial general intelligence than than not uh because it can figure out longevity so are you are you optimistic I read in your Rolling Stone article back in the day that you said you can never be happy unless you're in love well you can be half happy I suppose I mean this I

mean there's two things I think if to be to be full to be to be most happy if you're happy in love and and you love your work then then you'll be I think fully happy if you lack either of those two if you have one of those two things be half happy you know roughly I feel like the theme in a lot of your works that connect all these different things is connecting like you want to connect things you know you want to connect on the hyperloop and you want to connect this to Mars

and even to connect four people in that game what uh Connect Four you know [Laughter] this is a comedy right you know it's hard for you because when you bought Twitter you're kind of doing what you did when you took over when you started Tesla you lived at the factory right I feel like that's your that's your your your pattern you get into this thing and then you got to live at the factory to make it work if you've been back in you moved to Texas then you went back up to San Francisco because of

Twitter I just I was living in the in the library of Twitter for a while um yes but it's I think things are reasonably stabilized right now it was uh just on the fast track to bankruptcy after that position so I had to take a drastic action there wasn't any choice I'm just saying it's hard for a woman yeah to like when the guy lives at the factory yes that could be that could be a stumbling block but yes but um overall with you know my my concern with Twitter was to that it is somewhat

of the digital Town Square and um it's it's important that there be both the reality uh and perception of of trust uh for a wide range of viewpoints um and uh there was a lot of censorship going on um and we've we sort of uncovered a lot of that with uh the Twitter files including a lot of of government-driven censorship which you know it's it's I mean it seems that that's got to be a constitutional violation of what was going on there but um so so and I can since I'm like I have a Twitter

user I could detect that like something's not right here um and so that's that's really why uh I did that position it wasn't because I thought this was an easy way to make money or something like that it was a man this is being mayor Twitter town tweetown or whatever is is is definitely like there's a lot of arrows pointed at you like flying at you of course but you know but you seem to handle that okay I hope you do because yeah look I mean Geniuses are going to be a little quirky sometimes but

your heart is always in the right place you were trying to fix this world and look I could talk to you forever we can't today I'd love to get high with you I know a great place I can't tell you how much I appreciate you I know you have a lot of choices and places you can go thank you Elon Musk ladies and gentlemen all right I'll see you soon