May 18, 2026 — Elon Musk made a surprise remote appearance at the 9th International Samson Smart Mobility Summit in Israel. Despite it being 2:30 AM in Austin, he joined the stage virtually and delivered thoughtful answers on Full Self-Driving, robotaxis, Optimus, Starship, Neuralink, and humanity’s path toward universal high income and abundance.
Here is my full verbatim transcript (carefully stitched from @CBDoge, Sawyer Merritt, and the video itself):
Host (Daniela Geromar-Galiot): We’re absolutely thrilled to have you joining us here today at the 9th International Samson Smart Mobility Summit in Israel, a country that shares your spirit of relentless innovation.
Elon Musk: Thank you for having me. I would be there in person, but we gotta get this SpaceX IPO going pretty soon. So I’m happy to answer any questions you may have or whatever would be interesting.
Host: Perfect. So Tesla has spent years developing the vision and technology for smart mobility. Now that you’re moving from testing, what is the biggest challenge in scaling this technology to millions of users around the world?
Elon Musk: In terms of having self-driving be ubiquitous… I think we’re making steady progress. The Tesla Full Self-Driving software, which is really just AI and cameras, we don’t use radars or LIDAR or anything like that. It’s really trying to drive the car in the same way that a human drives the car, which humans primarily drive the car with vision and with a biological neural net. We take the same approach with our vehicles, which is a digital neural net and cameras. I expect this approach to ultimately be at least an order of magnitude safer than humans driving.
I’m not sure if we have approval for this in Israel. I think we may have, or we will get it soon hopefully and you’ll be able to experience it for yourself.
It is quite magical, because the car feels like it is sentient. It actually feels like it’s alive. And you can actually, as we improve the software, you can feel the sentience growing in the car. It feels alive.
And I think we already have some vehicles operating with no people inside and no safety monitors in three cities in Texas, and probably will be widespread in the U.S. by end of this year, and hopefully in Israel too.
Host: Thank you. We look forward to that.
Elon Musk: The world is going to have a lot of robots in the future, and what Tesla makes is effectively four-wheeled robots right now.
And in the future we’ll also be having humanoid robots. You’re seeing a lot of startups with humanoid robots. My prediction is that there’ll be far more robots, like intelligent robots, in the world than there will be people, and I think this is most likely to be a good thing. We always want to be a little paranoid, or certainly not complacent about the safety of robots, but I think it will usher in an age of not universal basic income, but universal high income.
Host: Right, thank you… And I think we have one of your robots out here in the exhibition, so that’s also a lot of fun for everybody here. Go and take a look.
Elon Musk: Optimus subprime, haha!
Host: Exactly. When you think about, let’s say, the most exciting development or breakthrough that you’re working on right now, what do you think would be the one that people aren’t talking enough about enough?
Elon Musk: Well, I guess people are mostly aware of the rockets that SpaceX does. This Starship rocket, which we are now in version 3 of, will, I think, achieve full and rapid reusability. This is the fundamental breakthrough necessary to make life multi-planetary, to extend consciousness beyond Earth, and have self-sustaining cities, self-growing cities on the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system.
This is really quite a profound breakthrough, and we might succeed in doing that this year. The critical factor being full and rapid reuse of all parts of the rocket. That’s a much bigger deal than people would realize. When that technology is developed, that’ll be a fork in the road in human history, where we can become a spacefaring civilization, a multi-planet species, and I think that’s an incredibly exciting thing.
Elon Musk: Perhaps to some degree there is also, not many people are aware of Neuralink, which is creating a cybernetic interface to AI from your brain.
It has enabled people who have completely lost their brain-body connection to speak again and to use their computer and their phone and we believe it will enable people to walk again… because you can take the signals from the brain, from the motor cortex and if somebody has, say, a severe spinal injury, you could transmit those signals to a second neural implant and reanimate the body so that people can use their limbs. We think at some point they can live a normal life by effectively bridging the signal from the brain to past the point in the spine where damage has occurred.
These are pretty wild things that are possible. And then later this year we expect to do our first implant for what we call “blindsight,” where even if somebody has lost both eyes or lost the optic nerve or perhaps has never seen, even if they were blind at birth, it will give them initially limited vision, but I think over time very precise vision, perhaps superhuman.
So restoring control of people who are tetraplegics and restoring sight are pretty big deals. Those sort of Jesus-level technologies, you know… miracles. Yes, exactly. Miracles of science
Host: . Miracles! Yeah. Great, thank you!
Host: I have another question about the automotive world. If I bring it back to smart mobility. When you look past the immediate rollouts of FSD, what does the ultimate endgame for smart mobility look like in 10 or 20 years from now? I mean, what is the grand vision that still keeps you up at night when we talk about mobility?
Elon Musk: Well, at this point the path to cars driving is an order of magnitude safer than humans is very clear, and I think it’s not really a question mark. So I’m not sure if this really keeps me up at night because the path is just so obviously there.
Five years from now, or certainly ten years from now, probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car. It will be quite a niche thing in 10 years to actually be driving your own car, because the car will drive you.
I think there will also be humanoid robots that are pretty much everywhere. And I think it would be pretty cool because who wouldn’t want their own personal C-3PO, R2-D2 — but even better than that! And I think everyone is going to want one, maybe two.
Host: A terminator?
Elon Musk: Well, hopefully not. We should always be concerned about such a thing because yeah, Terminator is one of the possible outcomes. I think it’s an unlikely one, but it’s not impossible. And so we should always be careful to make sure that robots are safe.
This is why I actually think we’re headed to a future of amazing abundance. You can think of the output of the economy as productivity per capita times the population. And if the robots are extremely productive, and there are a lot of them, you’re effectively going to have an economy that will be maybe 10 or even 100 times bigger than what it is today. And that’s why I think it is going to be a future of universal high income, where pretty much anyone can have whatever they want.
There are larger questions of meaning. How do we derive meaning in a world where AI and robots can do anything better than what we can do? Because that is probably where we’re headed. But I think people will still find ways to have meaning.
And sometimes it’s like, what is the future that you want? Or what do you think the future is? What’s the best picture you can possibly imagine? And a lot of people are a little surprised by that question. Because, let’s say you are praying to God and you ask for a given future. Well, what future do you want God to give you?
Probably a future where there is an amazing abundance for all, where everybody has incredible medical care and in fact anything can be cured. No one is hungry. People are free to do what they would like. I think that’s probably the best future.
Host: And peace, peace and love!
Elon Musk: Well yeah. I always worry about it becomes some dystopian version of that, you know. But certainly love — I mean, I think we want a future with that seems like a no-brainer. Peace is an interesting one because sometimes the price for complete peace may be maybe too high, because complete peace may require too much suppression of the people. So perhaps there is peace to some degree but not completely. Ideally there’s not like a large-scale war of course. But you know, you have to think about these questions kind of deeply. Do you want a world where there’s no conflict? But how do you achieve a world where there is no conflict at all without some form of suppression?
So my guess is probably people would want a future with some conflict, not total peace, but nothing… not a serious war perhaps. But these are interesting philosophical questions. What future would you like?
Host: Do you have a message to the Israeli innovators here?
Elon Musk: Honestly, I’m a huge admirer of the innovation coming out of Israel. I think it is objectively true that Israel punches far above its weight for population. I think, probably number one My hat is off to Israel for how much incredible innovation per capita. Israel must be number one by far in the world!
Host: Thank you so much. Before you go, I would like to invite Israel’s Minister of Transport and Road Safety, Brigadier General Miri Regev, to join our conversation…
Minister Miri Regev: Thank you Elon, you are great! We love you! I see that you are tired! it’s wonderful to have you with us even remotely.
Elon Musk: Thank you. It’s about 2:30 in the morning here in Austin, Texas, and thank you for having me! It was a pleasure, thank you! so I’m going to get some sleep, I really appreciate the invitation and looking forward to seeing progress in Israel.
Host & Minister: Thank you Elon! (Audience applause)
Host (wrap-up): That was Elon Musk joining us remotely from Austin…
Key Takeaways
Full Self-Driving & Robotaxis
Vision-only FSD (no radar or LIDAR) already feels “sentient” and is running unsupervised in Texas cities. I have taken many unsupervised Model Y Robotaxi here in my city of Austin, Texas.
Widespread U.S. robotaxi deployment expected by end of 2026, with Israel to follow soon after.
In 10 years, ~90% of all miles driven will be by AI — personally driving your own car will become a niche activity.
Robots & Abundance
Far more intelligent robots than humans expected in the future.
Tesla’s current cars are “four-wheeled robots”; Optimus humanoid robots are coming next.
Shift from Universal Basic Income → Universal High Income as robots drive massive economic growth (10x–100x bigger economy).
Starship & Multi-Planetary Life
Starship Version 3 targeting full & rapid reusability this year.
Critical step toward self-sustaining cities on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. we are at a “fork in the road in human history.”
Neuralink & Medical Miracles
Already restoring speech and device control for patients.
Upcoming “blindsight” trials later this year could restore (and eventually enhance) vision.
Described as “Jesus-level technologies.”
Praise for Israel
Elon called Israel #1 in the world for innovation per capita and said the country “punches far above its weight.”
Elon’s Standout Quotes
“It is quite magical, because the car feels like it is sentient. It actually feels like it’s alive.”
“We might succeed in doing that this year… That’ll be a fork in the road in human history.”
“Innovation per capita, Israel’s must be number one by far in the world.”
“10 years from now, probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car.”
My Take
I’m in awe that Elon stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, 2:30 AM his time, to do this interview. I woke up to phone notifications form CB Doge and Sawyer Merritt sharing clips of the interview. Perhaps the biggest treat of the whole thing was a podcast episode that Elon also shared around the same time from Steven Mark Ryan. Please watch it (it is super short) and you’ll get the real picture of all the phenominal things Elon does!
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