Speaker 1: I'm just like, would like to not be dead when
Speaker 1: by the time we go to Mars. That's my aspiration here.
Speaker 1: So if it's taking us eighteen years just to get
Speaker 1: ready to do the first people to orbit, we've better
Speaker 1: improve our rate of innovation or you know, based on
Speaker 1: past trends, I am definitely going to be dead before
Speaker 1: from ours.
Speaker 2: Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 3: controlled by one man.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a legitimate super genius. I mean legitimate.
Speaker 3: He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year
Speaker 3: it will be different.
Speaker 4: He'll vote Republican. There is a reason the US government
Speaker 4: is so reliant on him.
Speaker 2: Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 1: Anything he does, he's fascinating people.
Speaker 5: Welcome to Elan Ing Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Musk. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 5: September tenth. I'm your host, David Popadopolis. Today we're going
Speaker 5: to talk about a report that Elon is apparently planning
Speaker 5: a deal between Xai and Tesla, wherein the carmaker will
Speaker 5: get access to some of Xai's technology and resources and
Speaker 5: Xai will get lots of cash that it very desperately needs. Now,
Speaker 5: it's not the first time that the boundaries between Elon's
Speaker 5: companies have been blurred, and it most certainly won't be
Speaker 5: the last. We're going to dive into the ramifications of
Speaker 5: all that, and then we're gonna be taken to Mars
Speaker 5: by our co host Dana Hall and New York Times
Speaker 5: reporter Kirsten grind who will talk all about Musk's grand
Speaker 5: interplanetary dreams. So we're gonna get right into it with
Speaker 5: our regulars. Dana, Hello, Hey David and Max Schafkin. Max, Hey, David,
Speaker 5: how you guys doing so okay? So Dana, tell us
Speaker 5: a bit about this deal that Tesla is apparently striking
Speaker 5: with Xai, as reported by our colleagues over at the
Speaker 5: Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 6: Well, to be clear, I don't think there's a deal yet.
Speaker 6: So over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported that
Speaker 6: x dot Ai, which is one of Elon's six companies,
Speaker 6: the newest. The startup, discussed a deal where it would
Speaker 6: get revenue from Tesla and it would help develop features
Speaker 6: for Tesla, like a serie voice assistant for the cars
Speaker 6: and maybe the software for optimists the robot, and the
Speaker 6: story kind of read to me like someone had gotten
Speaker 6: hold of a pitch deck to x dot ai and
Speaker 6: that this was a pitch to x dot ai investors.
Speaker 6: But then Musk like kind of refuted the story in
Speaker 6: part and said, you know, we don't need to license
Speaker 6: the software, and like, yeah, my company has all talked
Speaker 6: to each other, but there's not really like a deal
Speaker 6: in place. So it's hard to know exactly.
Speaker 5: What's going on as that the journal is quote talking nonsense.
Speaker 5: But to your point, it does seem like the journal
Speaker 5: sourcing is pretty good here. So Tesla is gonna maybe
Speaker 5: strike a deal with XII to help develop full self
Speaker 5: driving and according to the piece, it could even be
Speaker 5: a fifty to fifty revenue split between Tesla and XAI.
Speaker 5: Seems a little generous for XAI.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems wild. The whole thing here is
Speaker 2: that self driving is going to be this huge revenue
Speaker 2: generator for Tesla. Tesla has been spending and has said
Speaker 2: it continues is going to spend you know, huge sums
Speaker 2: of money that you know, building data centers and hiring
Speaker 2: software developers, and the idea that the company would give
Speaker 2: you know, half of what is projected to be. Now
Speaker 2: you can quibble with those projections, or more than quibble,
Speaker 2: you know, like a huge revenue stream. It's it's nuts.
Speaker 2: It's going to be read at least by some investors,
Speaker 2: the grumpy Tesla investors, as a bailout.
Speaker 5: Or if not a bailout, at least a means to
Speaker 5: help x AI, you know, make the kind of investments
Speaker 5: it needs to make. AI is a very capital intensive industry,
Speaker 5: is it not.
Speaker 2: If we take the journals reporting seriously, which I do.
Speaker 2: This is actually the second sort of way that Elon
Speaker 2: Musk has floated, sharing revenue from Tesla, which has a
Speaker 2: ton of cash back to x dot Ai, which needs
Speaker 2: cash because, as you say, you know, buying these GPUs,
Speaker 2: these incredibly expensive graphics chips which are necessary to train
Speaker 2: AI algorithms, costs a lot of money. And right now
Speaker 2: there's no revenue. X AI has no revenue.
Speaker 5: Cranking out revenue.
Speaker 2: I mean they're they're including this as a feature for Twitter,
Speaker 2: you know, Twitter premium subscribers. I don't know how important
Speaker 2: it is. I don't know what percentage of Twitter premium
Speaker 2: subscribers are there because of GROC. I know, our our
Speaker 2: producer Magnus definitely is, but I think I don't there
Speaker 2: are questions.
Speaker 5: I don't know that that's a huge revenue stream. But
Speaker 5: Dana that thought that this, you know, reeks a bit
Speaker 5: of a bailout of some sorts, or certainly Musk's the
Speaker 5: cash cow of his empire, which is Tesla helping a
Speaker 5: weaker part of the constellation. It brings back to mind
Speaker 5: for me, at least, I think he plunked down, or
Speaker 5: Tesla punk down two point six billion dollars into Solar City,
Speaker 5: which at the time was struggling. And I don't know.
Speaker 5: You tell me how big a part of Tesla's business
Speaker 5: today is the solar business.
Speaker 6: Well, the solar business is pretty minuscule. The big driver
Speaker 6: of the energy part of the business is the megapack
Speaker 6: and selling massive batteries to like utilities. But to be clear,
Speaker 6: Solar City was always part of the constellation. Is Musk
Speaker 6: found Yeah, Musk founded the company with his cousins. His
Speaker 6: cousins nominally ran it, but let's be honest, Musk was
Speaker 6: the chairman of the board, the largest shareholder, and when
Speaker 6: he bought them it was because he was bailing out himself.
Speaker 6: And the same kind of crew of people that have
Speaker 6: been on all of Elon's boards were also on the
Speaker 6: Tesla City board. So it was a bailout of himself
Speaker 6: and he sort of made, you know, made this big
Speaker 6: thing of showing off the solar roof as he was
Speaker 6: trying to get the deal approved. But like Musk has
Speaker 6: floated a Tesla AI tie up before, Like Max, I
Speaker 6: don't I forget if it was a poll or if
Speaker 6: it was just like a just asking question, should I
Speaker 6: should I go to the Tesla board and ask them
Speaker 6: to invest five billion dollars in ex dot AI And
Speaker 6: like it sounds like the board. I'm so, I'm sure
Speaker 6: there have been board meetings all summer about this, and
Speaker 6: maybe this pitch deck is like we just don't know
Speaker 6: what form it is yet. But I think the journal,
Speaker 6: I mean I take the journal story really seriously and
Speaker 6: it's interesting always. It's always interesting to me, Like when
Speaker 6: Musk chooses to push back on stories, it's there's usually
Speaker 6: a threat, there's usually truth there, and he's very strety.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 5: Also he will deny.
Speaker 2: He will issue these sweeping, extremely muscular denials talk and
Speaker 2: when it comes down to it, the truth is it
Speaker 2: is a denial, but it's maybe it isn't a licensing deal,
Speaker 2: you know, like like he's acting like the journal is
Speaker 2: completely off base. It's very possible that the journals that
Speaker 2: the journal sources have one or two details wrong, but
Speaker 2: the gist of the story is correct.
Speaker 5: Max, I want to go back and linger for a
Speaker 5: second here on this thought about the this you know,
Speaker 5: inter empire self dealing in the Musk universe. The whole
Speaker 5: thing is just seems a little dangerous.
Speaker 2: There are already lawsuits over Like I said, what what
Speaker 2: makes this so weird? The idea that Tesla would pay
Speaker 2: Xai money is that there are already lawsuits from Tesla
Speaker 2: shareholders suggesting that there's a problem that these that the
Speaker 2: the fact that x Ai is, you know, poaching employees
Speaker 2: or hiring at least Tesla employees, you know, that it's
Speaker 2: already essentially draining value out of this publicly traded company that, yes,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk controls, Yes he has a huge amount of equity,
Speaker 2: but he's not the majority shareholder. They are public, there
Speaker 2: are pension funds and so on, and they're and the
Speaker 2: contention would be that they're basically pulling money out of
Speaker 2: this publicly traded concern, but the most you know, valuable
Speaker 2: company in Elon Musks Empire and putting it into this
Speaker 2: kind of fatish, you know AI play that has really
Speaker 2: sketchy prospects, a lot of talk, but not a ton
Speaker 2: of actual progress. And it's one that you know, Elon
Speaker 2: Musk essentially has an enormous equity stake, So it's it
Speaker 2: really feels, it feels super questionable from a sort of conventional,
Speaker 2: you know, good governance perspective, which of course is not
Speaker 2: a perspective Elon cares about.
Speaker 6: And I'm also curious. I mean, xtut ai is pretty small.
Speaker 6: I think the last time we talked to our colleague
Speaker 6: Kurt Wagner, they've got maybe like thirty five employees. Maybe
Speaker 6: they've grown a little bit since then, but xi X
Speaker 6: dot ai is tiny. So like, where are they located?
Speaker 6: Are these employees working out of like Tesla office in
Speaker 6: Palo Alto. I'm not sure where these people are, heused,
Speaker 6: but I would not be surprised if they've got like
Speaker 6: a corner of an office somewhere.
Speaker 5: That's like, well, that's amazing. By the way, if they
Speaker 5: have as few as thirty five employees according to that journal, story.
Speaker 5: The company also has evaluation of twenty four billion dollars,
Speaker 5: so you're almost about a billion evaluation of a billion
Speaker 5: dollars per employee. That's pretty good. Max. Back to your
Speaker 5: point on the they're the governance issue, and then there's
Speaker 5: also just the issue of is it just good business
Speaker 5: for these individual companies? Right in a world in which
Speaker 5: must own one hundred percent of Tesla and one hundred
Speaker 5: percent of Xai, what he can do whatever the hell
Speaker 5: he wants, and if he wants to move resources around
Speaker 5: from one to the other, it's fine. But that, as
Speaker 5: you're saying, is not the case here. So when you
Speaker 5: are draining resources from one company, Tesla, that is publicly
Speaker 5: traded and has all sorts of shareholders all over the world, yeah,
Speaker 5: you are setting yourself up for eventually legal trouble. And
Speaker 5: you know, as you said, there already is a lawsuit
Speaker 5: that's been filed, and I suspect if this deal really
Speaker 5: does go through those you know, those legal that legal
Speaker 5: peril he is in is only going to be amped up.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 5: Also, then is just the issue of is it just
Speaker 5: good business right it? Is it good business for Tesla,
Speaker 5: and is it good business for Xai? So I ask you, Dana,
Speaker 5: what would be the glass half full positive take on
Speaker 5: this transaction for the companies, the client shareholders in Elon
Speaker 5: just that there's value.
Speaker 6: Add that, you know, Tesla will be able to realize
Speaker 6: it's full self driving dreams and this like sort of
Speaker 6: the cabin experience faster if they somehow partner with x
Speaker 6: dot ai to like use their their Grock training to
Speaker 6: I don't know, help help the cars in some way,
Speaker 6: but I don't fully I don't fully get it, but
Speaker 6: I think that you have to remember that investors who
Speaker 6: are all in on Musk, and there are several like
Speaker 6: Ron Baron who are like long time I'm Tesla's shareholders.
Speaker 6: They're in it because he is in so many industries
Speaker 6: and they see this as a positive and they're not
Speaker 6: upset about this. They actually are for it. And I
Speaker 6: would not be surprised if the board gave him the
Speaker 6: green light and if shareholders approved it, if it actually
Speaker 6: even went to a shareholder vote. You know, Musk has
Speaker 6: been kind of shuffling the cards around among his companies
Speaker 6: and his empire like the entire time he's been in business,
Speaker 6: and a lot of people have gotten very wealthy because
Speaker 6: of that, and so I just would push back against
Speaker 6: this idea that, oh, this is another legal fiasco in peril.
Speaker 6: I think that he has support.
Speaker 5: I mean I think there are two different things. There's
Speaker 5: one support from the board is one thing. Support from
Speaker 5: all of your shareholders. I mean again, we already do
Speaker 5: have a lawsuit that's been filed.
Speaker 6: Yeah, But so what like, I'm sorry, there are like
Speaker 6: there are lawyers who will file a lawsuit and they
Speaker 6: will find a pension fund to be the nominal plainiff.
Speaker 6: They sue Elon all the time. It's a serious lawsuit.
Speaker 6: But I'm saying, like, you've got to look at the
Speaker 6: shareholder base of of Tesla and these longtime shareholders, these
Speaker 6: are the same people who just approved his pay package.
Speaker 6: Yet again, like he has support from a significant number
Speaker 6: of shareholders.
Speaker 2: What Dan is saying is like they're going to take
Speaker 2: this loss and put in a big stack of other
Speaker 2: lawsuits and ignore it. Yeah, And also that yes, there
Speaker 2: are shareholders are mad, and those shareholders of course can
Speaker 2: bring litigation. But the majority of Tesla's shareholders and we
Speaker 2: know this because there was this vote on pay if
Speaker 2: you say to them, it is outrageous that Elon Musk
Speaker 2: is running all of these companies like one giant conglomerate,
Speaker 2: Like how you know, how could he? They're going to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: he is, and we love it. That's the That is
Speaker 2: a lot of the I mean, and I think that
Speaker 2: the business case there is very shaky. The business case
Speaker 2: if you really, if you ask them what it is,
Speaker 2: it's basically like Elon Musk is a genius. This is
Speaker 2: how he wants to do it. Therefore it must be great.
Speaker 2: I don't think the logic there is super solid, but
Speaker 2: I think the idea that shareholders for the most part
Speaker 2: are on board with this is true.
Speaker 5: What's the stock done year to date?
Speaker 2: It's it's I mean, I can't remember year to date,
Speaker 2: but it hasn't been performed particularly well recently.
Speaker 5: No, So I guess my point to the two of
Speaker 5: you would be that's fine. That's the universe, right, those
Speaker 5: who are part of that cult of Elon and whatever
Speaker 5: he does, we say amen, and we love the stock
Speaker 5: and we're going to own the stock from that's a
Speaker 5: shrinking universe, I mean, And they are indeed more passionate
Speaker 5: and more fanatical than ever. But you know, the tape
Speaker 5: don't lie, and the stock from its peak is way down.
Speaker 2: I think that some of these shareholders who are approving
Speaker 2: these things and we're sort of going along with it,
Speaker 2: are doing so and we talked about this with the
Speaker 2: pay package, partly because they feel that if they don't
Speaker 2: that even even a sort of shaky Tesla stock right
Speaker 2: now is overvalued relative to what the actual business is,
Speaker 2: the actual car company business. Again, I'm not saying it
Speaker 2: makes sense to me. I'm not saying it's logical. But
Speaker 2: you got to keep Elon Musk happy. We've sort of
Speaker 2: bet on Elon Musk. We're all in on Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: The other thing is, I will say, like if you
Speaker 2: if you squint, you got to come up with a
Speaker 2: business case. I think the business case is something like
Speaker 2: these large language models are a genuine breakthrough. They are
Speaker 2: changing everything. You know, open AI could it could be
Speaker 2: a god. It could, it could. It could change the
Speaker 2: world forever. And we Tesla will need to partner if
Speaker 2: we want to be a state of the art AI company,
Speaker 2: we will need a large language model. Hey look, here's
Speaker 2: a larger language model. And luckily there are some synergies
Speaker 2: because because our CEO happens to know some of the
Speaker 2: people who work there, and so again I don't find
Speaker 2: it super persuasive, but I think some version of that
Speaker 2: is probably what they're going to tell.
Speaker 5: Themselves and have happened.
Speaker 2: The last thing. Startups lie all the time, like startups
Speaker 2: that are like pitching investors. Dana hinted that this could
Speaker 2: have come in an investor pitch. They don't always tell
Speaker 2: like the most honest story, like they're going to present
Speaker 2: the like best case scenario. So like, just because some
Speaker 2: people are saying to some investors there's going to be
Speaker 2: a fifty to fifty split, doesn't necessarily mean that is
Speaker 2: the real number.
Speaker 5: You're saying it's going to be like ninety five to five.
Speaker 2: I'm saying that would be closer to my bed.
Speaker 5: Okay, very good. We will come back to this one. Max.
Speaker 5: We're gonna say goodbye to you. I'm done with you
Speaker 5: for today. I've had enough. Okay, fair enough, thanks for
Speaker 5: joining me.
Speaker 2: My pleasure.
Speaker 5: And Dana on the interconnectedness of everything in the Elon universe,
Speaker 5: there was a piece done recently by The New York
Speaker 5: Times as Kirsten grind in which she lays out fairly
Speaker 5: persuasively that ultimately every single thing or the vast bulk
Speaker 5: of the things that the companies in Musk's empire do
Speaker 5: are all about getting and colonizing Mars.
Speaker 6: So there are like few byelines that kind of always
Speaker 6: give me anxiety when I see them, And one of
Speaker 6: them is Kirstin's. She's just like this great investigative reporter.
Speaker 6: She's worked at the Wall Street Journal, she recently joined
Speaker 6: the New York Times, and you know, the Musk news
Speaker 6: cycle moves so fast and furious. And in July she
Speaker 6: just did this big feature where she really drilled into like, Okay,
Speaker 6: what exactly are the Mars colony plans? Forget about the
Speaker 6: rocket that's going to take them there, like what are
Speaker 6: the plans for the civilization? And she just got some
Speaker 6: great details and it was a fascinating read. And I'd
Speaker 6: never met or talked to Kirsten before, but it was
Speaker 6: super fascinating to just chat with her about reporting and
Speaker 6: what it's like to report on Elon's companies and what
Speaker 6: she found out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I thought it was fantastic. I think our listeners
Speaker 5: are going to love it.
Speaker 6: My well, thank you.
Speaker 5: My big overarching takeaway was life on Mars seems a
Speaker 5: little bleak. I got no oxygen in lots of impossible burghers.
Speaker 5: Sounds like a hoot. Let's listen to the interview.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 6: So Elon Musk has always been obsessed with colonizing Mar
Speaker 6: The whole point of SpaceX is to make life multiplanetary.
Speaker 6: But your tremendous July feature in the New York Times
Speaker 6: really makes it clear that there's been a shift towards
Speaker 6: civilization planning. So start from the beginning, like, how did
Speaker 6: you kind of get onto this particular rich and very
Speaker 6: illuminating vein of reporting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks Dana. So I have for a long time
Speaker 3: wanted to look deep into these Mars plans because, as
Speaker 3: you know, it's something that Elon is always talking about
Speaker 3: on X and speeches all of this. So I wanted
Speaker 3: to understand two things, like, first of all, how legit
Speaker 3: is this? And then second of all, we've heard a
Speaker 3: lot obviously about SpaceX sending rockets into space. That I
Speaker 3: wanted to know, is there actually plans for the city
Speaker 3: that we are allegedly all going to be living in?
Speaker 3: And sure enough I found out, yes, they are quietly
Speaker 3: designing and kind of testing some of these city plans
Speaker 3: at SpaceX as we speak. The thing is they can't
Speaker 3: really talk about it the way they talk about the
Speaker 3: rockets and starships for a variety of reasons, but one
Speaker 3: of the biggest ones is that they have a contract
Speaker 3: with NASA, and under that contract, Elon has to get to.
Speaker 4: The Moon first.
Speaker 3: So to kind of say, oh, we're spending all this
Speaker 3: time like designing cities.
Speaker 4: That's not going to work.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and what exactly did you learn about the city
Speaker 6: Because he's talked about the need to like terraform Mars
Speaker 6: for years, right, and like I always had this image
Speaker 6: that they were going to like I don't know, I
Speaker 6: was sort of imagining like terraniums or like bubbles, and
Speaker 6: then I was trying to figure out, like how are
Speaker 6: they going to breathe up they're and then terraforming Mars
Speaker 6: and Mars being this fixer up of a planet is
Speaker 6: something that Musk has consistently said for two decades. But
Speaker 6: it sounds like you got like deeper into actual designs
Speaker 6: and engineering for like what this civilization is going to
Speaker 6: look like.
Speaker 3: So what I did? I approached it two ways. First
Speaker 3: of all, I did go back and listen to an
Speaker 3: enormous number of I won't even bore you with how
Speaker 3: many podcasts, appearances, X posts that he's written about.
Speaker 6: There's a lot.
Speaker 4: See, yeah's true.
Speaker 3: Yes, so I have heard some of the terraforming stuff
Speaker 3: as well. Yes, But what I really wanted to do
Speaker 3: is talk to some of these SpaceX guys, right, which,
Speaker 3: as you know, is incredibly hard to do because it's
Speaker 3: very hard speaking to anyone at any of the Elon's
Speaker 3: companies or in his universe. But so what we spoke
Speaker 3: about the most when I reached people close to the
Speaker 3: company was I was really drilling down specifically on let's
Speaker 3: not talk about what the plan might be for terraforming
Speaker 3: and forty years or something like, what does he think
Speaker 3: is going to happen soon soon?
Speaker 4: In quotes?
Speaker 6: Right, and so there's time and there's Elon time.
Speaker 3: Exactly well, and we should definitely talk about that. But
Speaker 3: what I learned was more about kind of the city
Speaker 3: plans that workers at SpaceX are kind of constantly updating
Speaker 3: based on ideas and plans coming in from throughout the
Speaker 3: universe of SpaceX, and so they have kind of an
Speaker 3: idea for how the cities will be laid out with
Speaker 3: a giant dome and domes around them. But what they're
Speaker 3: focusing on now is kind of how they would get
Speaker 3: food up there, or how they would handle medical emergencies
Speaker 3: or pro create, And so there's so many more details
Speaker 3: like I wish I had, but I don't, except to
Speaker 3: say this is kind of what they're like looking at
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 4: So one of the.
Speaker 6: Great details in your story is this idea of Starship
Speaker 6: as a kind of Noah's Arc, carrying plants and animals
Speaker 6: on this initial voyage, and then they get there, the
Speaker 6: residents build these greenhouses. And you wrote that SpaceX actually
Speaker 6: has a partnership with Impossible Foods to provide, which is
Speaker 6: this plant based alternative meat company, to provide the food
Speaker 6: not just in SpaceX's corporate cafeterias, but to test the
Speaker 6: products and maybe be like a protein source for Mars.
Speaker 6: Like what else did you learn about the Mars colony
Speaker 6: diet and how did you get on that great detail?
Speaker 4: So I really wanted to understand.
Speaker 3: I mean, I kept thinking about this in terms of
Speaker 3: if I was going to go to Mars with my family,
Speaker 3: what would we be doing there? So I kept asking
Speaker 3: about the food. To be honest, the food is one
Speaker 3: where I think they have not spent as much time
Speaker 3: on like they are thinking of like protein sources, like
Speaker 3: impossible foods, and how they would kind of start these
Speaker 3: series of greenhouses up there that we would all whoever
Speaker 3: goes out there would be drawing from eventually. But I
Speaker 3: just want to interject to say, like a lot of
Speaker 3: this is still going to take an enormous amount of time.
Speaker 3: I mean to get they would be bringing food and
Speaker 3: seeds and all of this in Starship, but then once
Speaker 3: you get to Mars, I mean, it's going to take
Speaker 3: a decade or more to really have greenhouses that are
Speaker 3: sustaining an entire population, right at least, that's what a
Speaker 3: lot of the experts were saying to me.
Speaker 6: Did you get the sense that any of this civilization
Speaker 6: was going to be built underground because.
Speaker 3: There is no Yes, the way I was kind of
Speaker 3: envisioning it is we would all be in these kind
Speaker 3: of smaller domes, but half of the habitat, if you will,
Speaker 3: would be kind of underground to protect from it, and
Speaker 3: then you would kind of come up into this little dome.
Speaker 4: At least, that's how people were describing it to me.
Speaker 6: That's amazing. One of the other wonderful things about your
Speaker 6: piece is that you kind of walked through how well.
Speaker 6: Mars is the sort of the grand vision that Elon
Speaker 6: has had for decades, but all of his other companies
Speaker 6: kind of play a role. The Boring Company could build tunnels,
Speaker 6: you know back in twenty eighteen when Shotwell told CNBC,
Speaker 6: I think the Boring Company could be the way that
Speaker 6: we house people on Mars.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: I mean, that is exactly why I actually wanted to
Speaker 3: pursue this, because sometimes I think when you look at
Speaker 3: what Elon Musk is doing, it can be confusing to
Speaker 3: be like, why is he in this area? Why is
Speaker 3: he in that area? And I just kept having people
Speaker 3: tell me, like the common link is Mars, like they
Speaker 3: can all add to his Mars plans. So the Boring Company,
Speaker 3: that's a great example. So the tunneling is of course
Speaker 3: what would need to be done on the surface of
Speaker 3: Mars to build the city and build these habitats Tesla.
Speaker 3: I mean the cyber truck that doesn't even take reporting.
Speaker 3: You can just look on the street and see that
Speaker 3: clearly he meant the cyber truck for Mars, right, although
Speaker 3: you could argue it works here and us too. The
Speaker 3: one that really surprised me because I was kind of
Speaker 3: puzzling over X Twitter and thinking, I don't really understand
Speaker 3: how that plays into the Mars plans, and a lot
Speaker 3: of people close to him I spoke to have been
Speaker 3: frustrated that X has taken away from time he is
Speaker 3: spending on Mars. But he has told people that the
Speaker 3: polls he runs on X and how he kind of
Speaker 3: asked should I reinstate this account or should I do this,
Speaker 3: and that he's thinking about, or at least this is
Speaker 3: what he's told people, how he could run a citizen
Speaker 3: led government on Mars, so taking out all the representatives,
Speaker 3: the senators, all of this and just kind of putting
Speaker 3: the vote to the people basically. So even X, he
Speaker 3: has that in mind for sure.
Speaker 6: Right he wants to build a civilization that is self
Speaker 6: governed basically.
Speaker 3: That's right, But I don't think I put it in
Speaker 3: the piece. So he is not He is hope that
Speaker 3: he will not have the only city on Mars. Right,
Speaker 3: He's kind of hoping down the line others, you know,
Speaker 3: other countries, other players will also kind of build civilizations
Speaker 3: up there. It's just he's the one that is kind
Speaker 3: of the most focused on it at the moment.
Speaker 6: What is your latest understanding about the timeline, because it
Speaker 6: seems like with everything with Elon, like the timeline gets accelerated.
Speaker 6: And yeah, for those of us who have been covering
Speaker 6: him for a long time, he's often very late on
Speaker 6: his timeline. To his credit, he often does eventually meet
Speaker 6: these very aggressive timelines, but they're just very there's people
Speaker 6: that his companies talk about Elon time. But Mars, I mean,
Speaker 6: it seems like things are accelerating, like he used to
Speaker 6: talk like he wants does he want to be there? What?
Speaker 6: What's the latest ten He wants to be there in
Speaker 6: ten years.
Speaker 3: So I was surprised about this because again I went
Speaker 3: back and looked at everything he had said. So back
Speaker 3: ten years ago, he was kind of giving this forty
Speaker 3: year kind of timeline for a civilization. So in his head,
Speaker 3: a civilization is there when you have a million people.
Speaker 3: So that timeline, that earlier timeline, is more kind of
Speaker 3: in line with what NASA is saying. However, in April,
Speaker 3: he gave a speech to a bunch of SpaceX employees
Speaker 3: in Boca Chica and said that he expects in twenty
Speaker 3: years we will have a million people living on Mars now.
Speaker 3: I have to tell you that I spoke to many
Speaker 3: experts for the story, and almost no.
Speaker 4: One thought that was possible.
Speaker 3: NASA doesn't even think they're going to land one person
Speaker 3: on Mars until like twenty forty. So the fact that
Speaker 3: we haven't even been there now, but he thinks that
Speaker 3: we might have a million people there in twenty years
Speaker 3: is pretty ambition, let's say.
Speaker 4: Timeline.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and even internally, here's the interesting thing. I asked
Speaker 3: a lot of these people about it. Do you guys
Speaker 3: really think that you're going to get there in twenty years?
Speaker 3: No one really believes that. They're like, like, you said that,
Speaker 3: that's Elon time. Hilariously, a couple people told me they
Speaker 3: really think he just said that to make them work harder.
Speaker 3: They call some of these drawings like a hype package
Speaker 3: to get them excited about the work at SpaceX, even
Speaker 3: though it's not gonna come to fruition in a really
Speaker 3: long time. So the timeline Elon's almost definitely well, I
Speaker 3: don't want to say almost definitely, but the chances of
Speaker 3: him getting to Mars are pretty high in twenty years.
Speaker 4: I don't know. According to the experts.
Speaker 6: So on the one hand, he's kind of accelerated the timeline,
Speaker 6: But on the other hand, he's always been pretty upfront
Speaker 6: about how hard it's going to be to actually do this,
Speaker 6: and he admits it's not going to be easy and
Speaker 6: that people are going to die traveling there, and that's
Speaker 6: why he does want to be on some of the
Speaker 6: first ships.
Speaker 1: Honestly, a bunch of people probably won't die in the beginning.
Speaker 1: It's volunteers only.
Speaker 6: How is that going to work? Volunteers only? Like, you
Speaker 6: sign up on X, Yeah, I'll go to Mars. Did
Speaker 6: you get any training? Where do they expect to get
Speaker 6: these million people from?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I know. I thought about this a
Speaker 3: lot too. So first I was asking the SpaceX workers
Speaker 3: like are you gonna go? Like, is there some VIP
Speaker 3: system where if you work at SpaceX you can sign up.
Speaker 3: I don't know about the VIP system, but definitely a
Speaker 3: lot of them want to go. And that was another
Speaker 3: thing I just heard so much about, is how much
Speaker 3: people join SpaceX for this Mars colonization plans.
Speaker 4: I mean, we hear Elon.
Speaker 3: Talk about it a lot, but to hear it from
Speaker 3: like the people on the ground floor they believe in
Speaker 3: this one thing I didn't get into, but which is
Speaker 3: important to this Who's gonna go thing is it's going
Speaker 3: to be expensive if he is lucky, and he has
Speaker 3: said he wants to get the cost down where per
Speaker 3: person it would basically be the cost of buying a house,
Speaker 3: not in San Francisco, buying a house.
Speaker 6: Like a million dollar California house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like like think about like three hundred k or something.
Speaker 4: That is like his ideal.
Speaker 3: I have no idea if he's going to be able
Speaker 3: to get it down that much. So some of it
Speaker 3: would be really who can afford to go?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: But that is also kind of a problem because you
Speaker 3: don't just want high end travelers.
Speaker 6: And this is and this is like I'm sorry, I
Speaker 6: don't know enough about like orbits, but this is like
Speaker 6: a one way ticket, right, Isn't the whole problem with
Speaker 6: Mars that it's like really freaking far away, And like
Speaker 6: the way the orbits work is that like it's only
Speaker 6: close to Earth like once every I don't know, was
Speaker 6: it every two years? You can't you can't like go
Speaker 6: regular on a regular basis. It's every two years, right.
Speaker 4: Totally totally real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then you can't really come back. I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess if he was really able to get it
Speaker 3: like a taxi quote unquote. But even so, every two
Speaker 3: years takes nine months to get there. I mean, Mars
Speaker 3: is one hundred and forty million miles from Earth, right,
Speaker 3: So you can't just be like, oh, this sucks, I'm
Speaker 3: going to take an uber home like You're on Mars
Speaker 3: for two years.
Speaker 6: Yeah right, and I'm thinking like with no protein, I'm
Speaker 6: just like a meg.
Speaker 4: Protein.
Speaker 6: Well, another question about the funding for all of this.
Speaker 6: You sort of very astutely noticed that during the Delaware
Speaker 6: Chancery court trial about Musk's pay package, he made it
Speaker 6: clear that part of the reason why he deserved and
Speaker 6: wanted this money was that it would help to fund
Speaker 6: the Mars ambitions. But why is that money so significant
Speaker 6: for Elon personally in terms of realizing this vision.
Speaker 3: He basically and pretty much everyone around him, his friends
Speaker 3: Tesla board members talked about how the whole reason Elon
Speaker 3: collects any pay at Tesla or anywhere is to fund
Speaker 3: these Mars plans. So that is like his number one
Speaker 3: goal basically, So if we take him at what him
Speaker 3: and all those others are saying, yes, that is what
Speaker 3: he is planning to use that money for. And I
Speaker 3: don't know specifically how that money would be funneled. But
Speaker 3: you know, another thing, just back to the timeline for
Speaker 3: a second, Like a lot of I can't overstate. As
Speaker 3: I was talking to people, a lot of them feel
Speaker 3: like X. And it's funny because this story came out
Speaker 3: I think right around the time he was suddenly going
Speaker 3: full bore on the politics front, so I wasn't really
Speaker 3: asking people about the political angle. But everyone really thinks
Speaker 3: he's being too distracted and that he needs to focus.
Speaker 4: More on Well.
Speaker 6: It's funny because I think a lot of Tesla customers
Speaker 6: and employees would say same, would say the same thing
Speaker 6: about his lack of focus on Tesla, particularly since he
Speaker 6: bought X.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 6: When it comes to Mars, he's also talked about it
Speaker 6: could be an earth like planet. We could bring the
Speaker 6: life from Earth, and then we could extend life from
Speaker 6: Earth to Mars. The other thing that I'm super fascinated
Speaker 6: by is musks focus on fertility, and we've written a
Speaker 6: lot of stories about how he is funding fertility research
Speaker 6: at the University of Texas at Austin. He has at
Speaker 6: least twelve children, many of them by IVF. He is
Speaker 6: very much a pro natalist who's constantly worried about population collapse.
Speaker 6: And at first I thought, Okay, he's worried about population
Speaker 6: collapse because all capitalists like want to make sure that
Speaker 6: there are future consumers for their products, and fertility rates
Speaker 6: are declining in the United States and much of the West.
Speaker 6: But then I was wondering, maybe this is all just
Speaker 6: about Mars too, like he wants there to be more
Speaker 6: people for this new colony on this other planet. I
Speaker 6: haven't connected quite that far yet, but I mean, was
Speaker 6: there anything about his natalism, population collapse, fertility obsession in
Speaker 6: your discussions.
Speaker 3: It's so funny you say that, because that is literally
Speaker 3: exactly what I went into this thinking. I was like,
Speaker 3: this is related to his fertility push here in the US,
Speaker 3: exactly the same thoughts. But then as I went down
Speaker 3: the road and I talked to more people and I
Speaker 3: heard him keep speaking about how kids wouldn't be on
Speaker 3: the first voyage, I sort of thought that through and
Speaker 3: I was like, his kids are going to be adults
Speaker 3: by then. I couldn't quite make the leap like you're saying,
Speaker 3: and no one was talking about. No one was relating
Speaker 3: it that way. What they were talking about is this
Speaker 3: potential to have a totally new speed she's on Mars,
Speaker 3: which is one thing that SpaceX is kind of basically
Speaker 3: researching right now, because we don't know if you can
Speaker 3: carry children in space right now. They haven't figured that
Speaker 3: out for sure.
Speaker 6: What do you mean researching a new species?
Speaker 4: That's a good question.
Speaker 3: So they're not sorry, I shouldn't say they're not researching
Speaker 3: a new species. They're researching how we could procreate on Mars, basically.
Speaker 3: And so when I learned that, that's when I sort
Speaker 3: of was like, I don't know if this is totally
Speaker 3: related to what is happening with him on Earth and
Speaker 3: all his children, because it doesn't seem like he would
Speaker 3: be having all those children to carry to Mars. And
Speaker 3: no one said that to me.
Speaker 6: So I think my last question is do you have
Speaker 6: any interest in going to Mars yourself? Let's just say
Speaker 6: your kids are grown, they're successfully launched, you're in the
Speaker 6: twilight of your years, you've won all the Journalis prizes,
Speaker 6: you're happy like this would be the last big adventure.
Speaker 6: Would you have any interest in going?
Speaker 4: No, I am not going to be going to Mars.
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 3: I totally appreciate why others want to go or go
Speaker 3: to the moon or go to space, but it's definitely
Speaker 3: never been one of my things.
Speaker 2: I know, what about you.
Speaker 6: Same, I'm fundamentally like an ocean person, Like I really
Speaker 6: like to be near water. It's not my preferred ecosystem.
Speaker 6: Like my preferred ecosystem is like Point Raise.
Speaker 3: No, definitely, And you know, like I have thought about
Speaker 3: how crazy that would be to stand there and you're
Speaker 3: just surrounded basically by space. I mean, I just I'm
Speaker 3: gonna stick with Point Raise too. I'm there with you.
Speaker 6: Kirsty Grind, reporter The New York Times, Thank you so
Speaker 6: much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 5: This episode was produced by Stacey Wong. Naomi Shaven and
Speaker 5: Rayhan Harmanti are senior editors. The idea for this very
Speaker 5: show also came from Rayhon Blake Maples handles engineering, and
Speaker 5: David Purcell fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrikson.
Speaker 5: The elon Ing theme is written and performed by Taka
Speaker 5: Yasuzawa and Alex Suvierra. Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive
Speaker 5: producer and Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts.
Speaker 5: A big thanks as always to our supporter Joel Weber.
Speaker 5: I'm David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and
Speaker 5: review our show, it'll help other listeners find us. See
Speaker 5: you next week.