Elon Musk explains why we’ll have to move AI to deep space.

Elon Musk: “I see a path to Starship cost-per-ton-to-orbit being lower than air flight. That opens up a very wide range of possibilities.

The most obvious one I think is actually solar-powered AI satellites. So, to move the AI to orbit and essentially deep space over time, because you can actually access over a billion times more energy from the sun in deep space than you can on Earth.

To scale to Kardashev, to make any progress on a Kardashev 2 scale, which is using some non-trivial amount of energy from the sun, you kind of have to do space solar power.

You could only beam a tiny amount of that back to Earth or you would melt Earth. Earth actually receives a very, very tiny amount of the sun’s energy. I mean, Earth is a tiny dust mote.

Earth, to scale with the sun, we look like a little crumb.

So, to scale civilization, to be at all relevant on a Kardashev 2 scale, like to even use a millionth of a percent of the Sun’s energy, you really have to have your solar power in deep space.”

Elon at Tesla Shareholder Meeting, November 6, 2025