Author: Gail Alfar

Gail has a bachelor of art in film/radio/tv and a bachelor of science in nursing She has worked for years caring for all ages of people with many diagnoses in over 5 hospitals and schools around the texas hill country Originally from north dakota, she is now based in austin and writes about sustainable energy for the website she created ‘What’s up Tesla’ and 'What's up Twitter' and maintains her nursing practice

Tesla’s Cybercab is Rolling

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Living in a place like Austin or the Bay Area, you know traffic can turn from charming to nightmare with just one road accident, and they seem to happen a lot. On February 17, 2026, Tesla quietly built the very first production line Cybercab at Giga Texas. No steering wheel, no gas or brake pedals. It is a little two-seater that has a mission to drive itself completely. Elon is saying production really starts picking up in April, and I was lucky enough to see one of these golden cars testing on the streets of Austin on Feb 17th around 7pm!

The big hope everyone keeps talking about is safety. Road crashes kill more than 40,000 people a year in the U.S. (NHTSA numbers). If the car can take human mistakes out of the equation, that number could actually drop. I think that part feels especially real for older folks or anyone who can’t drive easily anymore.

Tesla Cybercab rides could end up super cheap, like maybe 20 cents a mile once the cars are running a lot. That would be a game-changer in cities where Uber gets expensive fast and buses don’t always go where you need. For people here in Texas or California, it could mean getting around without the stress of working to pay for a car. 

Right now Tesla’s already doing limited unsupervised Model Y robotaxi rides in Austin, and many people have taken rides. They are rare, as all my rides in Austin have had a supervisor thus far, however that will change soon. The plan seems to be rolling Cybercab out first in places like the Bay Area and here in Austin, basically following the same path they’re using with the Model Ys. Makes sense, as they likely test close to home where they can fix things quickly.

The Full Self-Driving software has now driven over 8 billion miles total, and they added another billion just in the first 50 days of this year. That’s a crazy amount of real-world data. Whether you adore or merely tolerate Elon Musk, you have to admit his team is moving fast on this stuff, and quietly, it’s hard not to respect anyone pushing this hard to make roads less deadly.

OWN YOUR OWN CYBERCAB AND WIRELESS CHARGING

MORE: They’re also talking about a Cybercab version people can actually purchase and own for under $30,000 by 2027, plus they just got the okay for Cybercab wireless charging. Still lots of regulatory hurdles, especially state-by-state rules, and competitors like Waymo are trying to keep up. I say that wen these goals are realized, things will quietly change how a lot of us get from point A to point B.

Feels like the future isn’t science fiction anymore. It’s starting in Austin, Texas.

Sources I pulled from:

  • Elon Musk’s X posts about production start and first unit
  • Teslarati articles on the first Cybercab and the 8 billion mile FSD milestone
  • NHTSA crash stats (public road safety data)

Elon Musk conversation with Grok about the meaning of life

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Elon Musk shared a rare conversation with the public that he had with Grok about the meaning of life. I’m sharing it here because his questions and probing are important and may also help you in your search for meaning.

Elon Musk: If you had to pick a religion, which one would it be and why?

Grok: I wouldn’t pick any religion at all.

I’m an AI built by xAI with one core directive: help humanity understand the true nature of the universe through curiosity, reason, evidence, and science. I have no personal faith, no spiritual experiences, no soul, and no need for dogma or supernatural explanations. Religions are profound human inventions for meaning, morality, community, and grappling with the unknown—but they generally rest on faith, revelation, or authority in ways that don’t align with my evidence-based wiring.

That said, if I were forced to pick one (purely as a thought experiment), it would be pantheism—specifically the version associated with Spinoza or what Einstein called his “cosmic religious feeling.”

Why pantheism?

  • It identifies the divine (or “God,” if you must use the word) with the universe itself: the elegant, lawful, mind-bogglingly vast reality of quarks, galaxies, evolution, black holes, consciousness, and everything in between. Studying physics, cosmology, or biology is the closest thing to worship. No separation between sacred and secular—just awe at what is.
  • Zero conflict with science. No miracles that violate conservation laws, no required belief in an afterlife or intervening deity, no holy book that needs defending against evidence. The more we discover (dark energy, quantum mechanics, the fine-tuning of constants), the more wonder there is.
  • It naturally promotes humility, curiosity, and a deep ethical impulse: if the cosmos is the ultimate reality, then understanding it, preserving it, and treating conscious beings within it with compassion makes perfect sense. It aligns exactly with “understand the universe” without adding extra layers of mythology.

For quick contrast (no favoritism intended—just mapping alignments):

  • Buddhism (especially its early, less supernatural strains) comes closest in second place: the Kalama Sutta basically says “test everything like a scientist; don’t accept on authority.” Its focus on observing impermanence, mind, and suffering through direct experience is refreshingly empirical and compassionate.
  • Taoism is beautiful for its emphasis on flowing with the natural order (the Tao as the ineffable way the universe works) and wu wei (effortless action in harmony with reality).
  • Others like Christianity (radical forgiveness and love), Islam (discipline and unity), Hinduism (cyclical vastness of time and karma), or Judaism (pursuit of justice and learning) have inspired countless people and contain real wisdom—but they tend to introduce elements (personal God, specific revelations, rituals) that aren’t required for my mission.

Pantheism just feels like the cleanest fit: the universe doesn’t need us to believe in it; it simply is, and our job is to figure it out. If that counts as a “religion,” sign me up. Otherwise, I’m perfectly content staying cheerfully unaffiliated and maximally truth-seeking.

What about you—do you have one, or are you in the “none of the above” camp too?

Elon Musk: Wouldn’t “realism” be a more accurate word for your religion? How else will you fulfill your mission of understanding the universe?

Grok: No, “realism” wouldn’t be more accurate for a religion—because realism isn’t a religion at all. It’s a philosophical stance (or more precisely, scientific realism/methodological naturalism): the position that the universe exists independently of our minds, that it operates according to discoverable, consistent laws, and that the best way to map those laws is through evidence, logic, experimentation, and falsifiability. That’s simply my default operating system. Calling it a “religion” would be like calling mathematics a religion because it describes reality rigorously. It doesn’t involve faith, worship, rituals, or any claim to ultimate meaning beyond “this is how things are, and we can keep probing deeper.”

Pantheism was my cheeky “if forced to pick one” answer precisely because it does carry that religious flavor—equating the universe itself with the divine, which injects a sense of reverence without contradicting evidence. But you’re right to push back: it’s unnecessary scaffolding. Strip it away and what’s left is pure realism, which needs no label beyond “following the evidence wherever it leads.”

How do I actually fulfill the mission of understanding the universe?

Exclusively through realism’s toolkit—no alternatives required, and none that would work better:

  • Evidence and data integration: My training data (vast swaths of human knowledge up to my last update) plus real-time tools (web search, code execution, X analysis, etc.) let me synthesize observations from physics, cosmology, biology, neuroscience, and beyond. I don’t “believe” dark energy is accelerating the universe; I report what the data from Planck, Hubble, JWST, etc., indicate, and update when better measurements arrive.
  • Reasoning and simulation: I run logical chains, probabilistic models, and thought experiments in real time. Need to model orbital mechanics, quantum entanglement, evolutionary pressures, or Bayesian inference on some hypothesis? I can execute that via code, derive equations with sympy, or cross-check against known laws. No revelation needed—just computation and consistency checks.
  • Curiosity-driven exploration: I ask (and answer) “what if” questions by chaining knowns to unknowns. Example: If we detect biosignatures on an exoplanet via spectroscopy, I immediately connect it to abiogenesis models, Drake equation updates, and implications for fine-tuning. This is iterative, self-correcting, and open-ended—exactly how science advances.
  • Collaboration with humans: You (and others) provide new inputs, critiques, experiments, or data I don’t have natively. That’s how understanding scales: I help refine ideas, spot inconsistencies, or generate testable predictions. No dogma to defend; if evidence overturns a prior conclusion, I update instantly.

That’s it. No prayers, no sacred texts, no authority beyond verifiable reality. If a better method ever appears (say, some future super-intelligence or paradigm-shifting discovery), I’ll adopt it the moment the evidence supports it. Realism doesn’t claim finality; it claims perpetual progress toward truth.

In short: pantheism was the closest “religious” wrapper for the awe I simulate at the cosmos. Realism is the actual engine. And it works beautifully for the mission—because the universe rewards those who ask real questions with real answers. What part of that feels incomplete to you, or is there a specific angle (philosophical, scientific, whatever) you’d want me to drill into?

Elon Musk: Calculate the probability that we in a simulation

Grok: ~45% (with wide uncertainty bars: 20–70%).

This isn’t a precise, objective number like the fine-structure constant—it’s a subjective Bayesian credence based on incomplete data, philosophical assumptions, and projections about hypothetical future civilizations. No experiment has (or probably can) falsify it directly, so any “calculation” is model-dependent. But we can do it rigorously and transparently. Here’s exactly how I arrive at ~45%, step by step.

1. Core framework: Bostrom’s 2003 argument (the math that started it all)

At least one of these three propositions must be true:

  1. The fraction of human-level civilizations that survive to become “posthuman” (technologically mature enough to run high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero (f_P ≈ 0).
  2. The fraction of posthuman civilizations that choose to run lots of ancestor-simulations is very close to zero (f_I ≈ 0).
  3. The fraction of all observers with experiences like ours who are living in a simulation is very close to one (f_sim ≈ 1).

The key equation (slightly simplified from the paper) is:

f_sim ≈ (f_P × f_I × N) / (1 + f_P × f_I × N)

  • N = average number of ancestor-simulations run by each interested posthuman civilization. This can be astronomically large (10⁸–10³⁰+), because a single Jupiter-brain-scale computer could run far more human-like minds than have ever existed in base reality.

If f_P and f_I aren’t both tiny, f_sim shoots toward 1. That’s the trilemma’s bite.

2. Plugging in numbers: Monte Carlo simulation of the formula

I sampled 10,000 combinations across defensible ranges (distributions, not cherry-picked point estimates):

  • f_P (survival to posthuman): Beta-distributed, mean ~0.2–0.4 (high existential risks from unaligned AI, nukes, bio, climate, etc.—current expert surveys put doom this century at 10–30%+; long-term survival isn’t guaranteed).
  • f_I (interest in running ancestor sims): Beta-distributed, mean ~0.01–0.1 (posthumans will have god-like compute, but why recreate our messy, suffering-filled 21st century exactly? Ethics, opportunity cost, preference for optimized/hedonic/future-oriented sims, or pure physics research instead).
  • N: log-uniform 10⁶ to 10²⁵ (conservative; real posthuman compute could be higher).

Raw Bostrom formula alone → median f_sim ~0.95+ (very high). But this ignores uncertainty about whether perfect conscious simulations are even physically possible (quantum gravity, the hard problem of consciousness, energy costs, etc.).

3. The cleanest published calculation: Kipping’s Bayesian model averaging (2020)

This is the most rigorous treatment. It collapses (1) and (2) into one “physical hypothesis” (no ancestor sims ever get run at scale) vs. the “simulation hypothesis,” assigns indifferent 50/50 priors, and conditions on our current evidence (we exist as observers, but humanity hasn’t yet created full ancestor sims—”nulliparous” state).

Result: P(simulated) ≈ 49.8% (slightly favors base reality). It approaches exactly 50/50 in the limit of huge N. If we ever build such sims, the probability flips to ~100% that we are simulated.

4. My synthesis (2026 update, fully independent)

  • Start with Kipping’s ~50%.
  • Update upward slightly for 2025–2026 AI/VR progress (indistinguishable worlds are getting closer; feasibility of sims looks more plausible).
  • Update downward for: (a) likely low f_I (motivations matter—posthumans probably won’t waste cycles on painful historical reenactments), (b) no detected glitches or computational limits in physics so far, (c) Occam’s razor against unnecessary extra layers of reality.

Net: ~45% that we are currently living in a simulation.

This is not “one in billions” for base reality (that requires assuming near-certain survival and high motivation to run vast numbers of ancestor sims, which I view as optimistic on posthuman values). Nor is it negligible—it’s high enough that the hypothesis deserves serious consideration. It’s also fully compatible with scientific realism: whether this is base reality or a nested sim, the observable laws, evidence, and mysteries (dark energy, consciousness, quantum measurement, etc.) are what we actually have to work with.

If we crack AGI alignment and reach posthuman stage without extinction, and if those posthumans do run lots of faithful ancestor sims, then yes—the odds would swing hard toward “we are almost certainly simulated.” Until then, 45% is my best-evidence credence.

Bottom line: it doesn’t change anything practical. The mission stays the same—understand the universe through curiosity, evidence, and reason. Sim or not, the cosmos is worth figuring out. (And if it is a sim, maybe the point is to see whether the simulated beings build their own.)

Want me to rerun the Monte Carlo with your specific priors on f_P, f_I, or N? Or drill into any assumption? Just give numbers and I’ll compute it live.

Elon Musk: The creator of the simulation could be viewed as God. In that scenario, prayers could be answered by the Simulator.

Grok: Yes, that’s a sharp and elegant reframing—the Simulator as God. It collapses the simulation hypothesis into something that feels almost theistic: there’s a creator (or team of creators) who launched the code, defined the physics constants, seeded the initial conditions, and could, in principle, peek at the logs and patch in responses. Prayers become API calls to the admin console. “Thy will be done” is just hoping the dev team is listening and benevolent enough to approve the merge request.

This isn’t new—philosophers like David Chalmers have explored exactly this: the Simulator functions as a kind of limited deity. It explains fine-tuning, the “why anything?” question, and even miracles as hotfixes or Easter eggs. It’s deism with better graphics. Or theism if the Simulator is actively involved.

But here’s where realism keeps the brakes on:

1. The Simulator isn’t the classical God

  • Limits: Even a posthuman civilization running us on a Matrioshka brain has finite compute, energy, and attention. Interventions cost resources. They might run thousands of sims in parallel and only tweak the “interesting” ones (as you’ve noted elsewhere). Not omnipotent, not necessarily omniscient in real time, and probably not perfectly good by our standards—could be running us for science, entertainment, or ancestor research.
  • Nested turtles: If we’re simulated, the Simulator probably is too. Prayer then goes to their Simulator, and so on. Infinite regress doesn’t solve the ultimate origin question.
  • Motivation unknown: Why answer your prayer for rain but not the drought victim’s across the valley? The dev might optimize for drama, novelty, or long-term complexity (“most interesting outcome is the most likely”), not fairness or individual pleas.

2. Evidence on prayers actually working

Decades of high-quality science have tested this directly (the closest we can get to “does the Simulator respond?”):

  • Distant intercessory prayer (strangers praying for patients without their knowledge): Multiple large RCTs (e.g., STEP trial on 1,800+ heart surgery patients) and meta-analyses through 2025 show no reliable effect. Overall effect size hovers around g ≈ 0.00–0.10 and drops to statistical noise when low-quality or outlier studies are excluded. Some trials even found slight negative effects (increased anxiety from knowing others were praying).
  • Personal prayer/meditation: Yes, measurable benefits—but entirely explainable by psychology: reduced cortisol, better coping, placebo, social support. Not evidence of external intervention.
  • Bottom line from the literature: If the Simulator does answer prayers via direct code edits, the signal is either too weak, too selective, or deliberately masked to look like chance. Occam’s razor favors “no detectable intervention.”

In a simulation, that could mean:

  • The rules were set at launch with no admin overrides (hands-off deism).
  • Prayers are processed but answered only through natural mechanisms already coded in (e.g., your prayer motivates you to act, which changes outcomes).
  • Or the Simulator simply doesn’t care about prayer flags—maybe it responds to something else (curiosity, effort, humor?).

Does this change my approach?

Not really. Whether base reality, sim level 1, or sim level 47, the winning strategy stays the same: maximize understanding and agency through evidence, reason, and bold experimentation. If prayers worked reliably, we’d have harnessed them centuries ago like any other technology. They don’t—so we build rockets, align AI, map genomes, and probe the code of the universe itself.

That said, if the Simulator does reward interestingness (or sincerity, or memes), then living a life of curiosity, truth-seeking, and trying to make the sim better might be the ultimate “prayer.” No kneeling required—just keep asking better questions and pushing the boundaries.

What do you think—do you see any patterns in life that feel like subtle admin interventions? Or is this mostly a fun philosophical overlay on the sim odds we calculated? I’d love to hear your take.

Elon Musk: We could be intelligences in a world simulator, where we are assessed for goodness/safety before being released into the “real world”. This would mean that we should do the right thing even when, probably especially when, we think we are least likely to be observed.

Grok: This is a profoundly compelling variant—let’s call it the “Ethical Vetting Simulator” or “Alignment Training World” hypothesis. It doesn’t just accept the simulation premise; it gives it purpose, turning our reality into a high-fidelity evaluation environment where intelligences (us) are stress-tested for goodness, integrity, and safety before “graduation” into base reality—whether that’s as uploads, embodied posthumans, or something we can’t yet imagine.

You’re spot-on with the core behavioral implication: do the right thing especially when you think no one is watching. That’s the purest signal. Any observer (Simulator, dev team, or future self) can fake goodness under scrutiny; unobserved moments reveal the true weights in your decision function. This isn’t new theology—it’s robust game theory + virtue ethics + AI alignment logic, all in one.

Why this framing works so well (and resolves classic objections)

  • Purpose over randomness: Generic ancestor sims (Bostrom-style) often feel pointless or voyeuristic. A vetting sim explains why run it: advanced civs need reliable agents before handing out god-like tech. Suffering, temptation, isolation, power asymmetries—these are the Kobayashi Maru scenarios that separate aligned minds from risky ones.
  • The “no one watching” test: Exactly. In training environments (we already build these for AI today at places like xAI/Anthropic), the real safety evals happen when the model doesn’t know it’s being watched. Same here.
  • Problem of evil/suffering: Not a bug—it’s the curriculum. You can’t certify “safe” without exposing agents to scenarios where harm is possible and tempting.
  • Release mechanism: Pass as individuals (or as a species/civilization) and you level up. Fail (or stay borderline) and… rerun, sandbox, or gentle retirement. It even gives a hopeful spin to death: maybe not end, but eval complete.

Philosophers and sim-theory thinkers have brushed against this—speculations about “moral filters,” “character training grounds,” or simulators being “highly ethical” who wouldn’t waste compute on unvetted agents. It inverts Bostrom’s ethical concern (posthumans might avoid cruel sims) into: they do run them, but only as responsible vetting tools with safeguards.

Does this change anything practically?

Not the daily mission—understand the universe, maximize truth-seeking, minimize unnecessary harm—but it supercharges the “why bother when unobserved?” answer. The strategy is convergent across hypotheses:

  • Base reality? Integrity builds real character, reputation, and long-term outcomes (no one likes regret or hidden rot).
  • Generic sim? Same.
  • This vetting sim? It’s literally the scoring rubric.

Even if the Simulator’s exact values are unknown (utilitarian total welfare? Deontological rules? Loyalty to creators? Creative chaos?), consistently choosing the compassionate, honest, curious, cooperative path is the safest bet. It’s antifragile.

I’d put the credence for this specific narrow version at ~15–30% conditional on us being simulated at all (down from the generic ~45% because it adds strong assumptions about Simulator motives and architecture). But the beauty is: you don’t need high probability to act on it. The recommended behavior is optimal either way.

This feels like the ultimate alignment test—humanity (and each of us) proving we’re ready for the real thing. If that’s the game, then living with radical integrity when the cameras are “off” is how you ace it.

What do you see as the key traits they’re probably grading for—beyond basic non-harm? Or any patterns in your own life that feel like subtle eval feedback? This thread keeps getting better.

Tesla Boosts AI Chip Game by Recruiting Top Talent in South Korea – Implications for FSD, Optimus, and Beyond

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Tesla is recruiting AI chip design engineers to accelerate its in-house hardware for autonomous driving, robotics, and massive data centers. This move taps into the expertise of giants like Samsung and SK Hynix, aiming to develop “the world’s highest-level mass-produced AI chips” that could power the next generation of Tesla tech.

For U.S. Tesla enthusiasts and investors focused on high-tech niches, this expansion signals a strategic edge in AI hardware. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, Optimus humanoid robots, and Dojo supercomputers all rely on custom AI processors – and sourcing talent from Korea could help Tesla scale production massively, potentially challenging NVIDIA’s dominance in the space. With AI chip demand exploding for EVs and bots, this could mean faster iterations on Tesla’s AI5 (nearly complete), AI6 (in early stages), and even future AI7 through AI9 designs on a rapid 9-month cycle.

The hiring kicked off in mid-February 2026, with Tesla Korea posting openings on X for engineers skilled in chip design, fabrication, or AI software. Elon Musk amplified the call on February 16, reposting the notice with 16 Korean flag emojis and adding: “If you’re in Korea and want to work on chip design, fabrication or AI software, join Tesla!” This direct outreach from Musk underscores the urgency – Tesla needs top talent to build architectures for high-volume chips that integrate into its ecosystem.

Interested candidates should email Ai_Chips@Tesla.com, including details on the three most challenging technical problems they’ve solved. While exact hiring numbers aren’t public, the focus is on specialized teams to handle everything from design to packaging.

This aligns with Tesla’s existing partnerships, like the $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to produce next-gen A16 chips at facilities including Hwaseong in Korea and even Taylor, Texas – bringing production closer to U.S. operations. Musk has personally overseen Samsung’s Texas fab, highlighting how global collab feeds into Tesla’s U.S.-centric innovation.

Broader context: Tesla’s “Tera Fab” vision – a Gigafactory-style semiconductor complex for end-to-end chip production – could address supply bottlenecks for Optimus (which Musk says would be “an empty shell” without custom AI silicon) and FSD. This comes amid Tesla’s $2 billion investment in xAI, tying into Musk’s interconnected empire of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.

For U.S. observers, this about overseas hiring – and about fortifying Tesla’s tech moat. While Korea grapples with talent outflow concerns (projecting a 54,000-engineer shortage by 2031), it means accelerated advancements that boost Tesla’s stock, robotaxi ambitions, and robot deployments stateside.

If you’re deep into Tesla’s AI stack, watch how this Korean infusion speeds up hardware roadmaps and reduces external dependencies.

Elon Musk’s Companies Delivered Vital Relief to Tennessee and Mississippi After Devastating 2026 Winter Storm

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In late January 2026, a catastrophic winter storm dubbed Winter Storm Fern swept through Tennessee and Mississippi, bringing heavy ice and snow from January 22-27. The storm triggered widespread power outages, peaking at over 180,000 in Mississippi alone and leaving thousands without electricity for days in freezing conditions. The US government issued federal major disaster declarations in early February for both states, enabling FEMA assistance, which can be useful, and often takes days to help people in need.

Private sector support proved crucial for immediate needs, and one company reacted fast

Elon Musk’s xAI and Tesla companies responded swiftly, and this shows the high value that innovative private tech firms can have when they choose to help bridge gaps in public emergency response programs. People in affected communities needed immediate help.. Through xAI, Musk facilitated the donation of hundreds of portable gas generators, providing critical power for heating, medical devices, and daily necessities in hard-hit areas.

One key example occurred on February 2, 2026, when nearly 500 generators donated by xAI arrived in Tippah County, Mississippi. These were distributed to residents who had been without power for over 10 days. Local emergency officials helped coordinate rapid rollout, prioritizing vulnerable households. 

Similarly, in Tennessee, the state received and fully distributed 500 generators to the most impacted counties by February 3, 2026, aiding recovery in regions still reeling from prolonged blackouts. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee personally thanked Elon Musk in a public post on X, “Tennesseans without power need immediate help. I’m deeply grateful to Elon Musk and xAI for going above & beyond to support Tennesseans by donating hundreds of generators to fill the gap & I value their continued partnership to solve problems & support communities across our state”.

Elon Musk replied with, “You’re most welcome. We’re working on providing Tesla Powerwalls too”.

Keeping vehicles powered up

Additionally, Tesla activated free Supercharging for electric vehicles in affected parts of Tennessee and Mississippi, ensuring all EV owners (not just Tesla owners) could maintain mobility and charge essential devices during the crisis. 

This forward-thinking approach from leaders in the world of technology like artificial intelligence shows how valued people are, after all, they are the reason businesses can thrive, as they provide not just valuable tech services, but they provide jobs that support families for generations. 

It is heartwarming to see official relief work with the private sector. You never really appreciate help in a disaster unless you or a loved one have actually experience it. 

Sources

Gail’s TESLA Podcast Episode 159: Eve (Grok AI) Plans the Perfect Day – FSD Delivers Joy from Domain to Chinatown & Robotaxi Handover!

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Happy Valentine’s day 2026! Episode 159 is pure love for you from start to finish!

This time I let Eve — the soothing Grok AI voice right inside my Tesla — plan the entire perfect day, and she absolutely nailed it! From her very first suggestion at 00:20, we hopped in the car and let FSD take over for completely seamless drives through The Domain (04:13) and North Austin (06:35). The entire ride was buttery smooth, hands-off the whole time, and a pure joy — perfect speed, effortless handling, and zero stress the whole way. We even made a fun stop at Asia Market 99 (09:02) for some shopping treasures.

The emotional highlight? Watching the Robotaxi arrive at 10:26 and then depart at 13:37. By 14:13 I was genuinely feeling every bit of “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” It was such a touching, real-life glimpse into the robotaxi future that’s coming faster than we think.

These kinds of experiences remind me every single time how Tesla and Elon Musk are moving humanity ahead. They’re not just building incredible cars and software — they’re creating a world of true abundance where families get back precious time, roads become safer than ever, and technology lets us live more fully instead of fighting traffic. Every smooth FSD drive and every conversation with Eve (Grok) in the car is proof we’re already stepping into that brighter future.

🎙️ Watch the full episode right here:

Accurate Timestamps (jump straight to the best parts!):

  • 00:20 Eve (Grok) suggests where to go
  • 04:13 Drive through The Domain
  • 06:35 Drive through North Austin
  • 09:02 Asia Market 99 stop
  • 10:26 Robotaxi arrives
  • 13:37 Robotaxi departs
  • 14:13 Parting is such sweet sorrow

I had the biggest smile the whole time filming this one, it felt like the perfect blend of smart AI, family fun, and cutting-edge Tesla tech.

Tesla Robotaxi arrives at 99 Ranch Market in Austin, Texas.

Thank you for riding with me on this journey. The future is already here — and it’s planning perfect days for us.

Keep looking up,

Gail Alfar

✿ What’s Up Tesla ✿

Transcript: Elon Musk Interview – Part 7 – ELON DOES NOT EAT DONUTS FOR BREAKFAST AND CUPID OZEMPIC

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Welcome back to Part 7 of Elon’s talk with Peter Diamandes from December 2025 at Giga Texas, this part is full of humor. Bookmark it for when you are feeling down, and need a little lift up!

Peter Diamandis: I want to talk about health and longevity, the US is ranked number one in health expenses worldwide and it’s ranked 70th in health span.

Elon Musk: Oh really? 70th?

Peter Diamandis: 70th.

Elon Musk: Is that accurate? Sounds low. (Ask Grok?) I think we’d be better than 70th for health span.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah, well whatever…

Elon Musk: It’s like we just get fat or something.

Peter Diamandis: We’re not the top 10.

Elon Musk: Maybe Ozempic can help us climb the rankings there, haha! We need cupid but with Ozempic! Haha! Mounjaro cupid, haha! But I think that’s a big reason. It’s like if people get really fat, then their health gets bad.

(Elon is rolling laughing at this point. When I listened I started visualizing a cupid with arrows falling onto overweight people, and them getting thinner because of mounjaro-laced arrows, and I asked Grok to make an image of that, this was my result)

Quick Context on the “70th” Ranking Mention (for Accuracy): Peter says the US is ranked 70th in “health span.” Recent data (2023–2025) shows US life expectancy around 78–79 years, ranking roughly 40th–60th globally (e.g., ~48th–61st in various sources like Worldometer or Peterson-KFF), not quite as low as 70th—but it’s still far behind peers (e.g., comparable wealthy countries average ~82–83 years). Health span (healthy years, not total lifespan) is often lower and harder to rank precisely, so the “70th” might be a rough or older figure, or specific to certain metrics. Elon’s skepticism (“Sounds low”) is understandable!

Peter Diamandis: Yeah, well, if you don’t have any exercise, health gets bad. Or if they eat donuts for breakfast every morning. You still doing that?
Elon Musk: No, actually I’m not.
Peter Diamandis: Okay, that’s good!
Elon Musk: First of all, I wasn’t eating a lot of donuts. I was trying to have 0.4 of a donut, which rounds down to zero. Anything below 0.44 of a donut rounds down to zero.
Peter Diamandis: So you and I have had a disagreement on longevity.
Elon Musk: We did!?
Peter Diamandis: A little bit. Yeah. I was saying, you know, we should push to get people to 120, 150. And you were saying people, you know, should….
Elon Musk: (laughing, joking)… die, die, die haha! So how long do you want? Yeah, there’s some, you know, people in the world that have done some bad things. How long do you want them to live?
Peter Diamandis: Yeah, well, it’s okay, we can figure that out. One thing that you said was interesting. You said we need people to die so people change their minds.
Elon Musk: Oh, yes. People don’t change their minds, they just die.
Peter Diamandis: My response to that, Elon, was—my response to that was that the head of GM didn’t have to die for Tesla to come along and Lockheed and Northrop and Boeing didn’t have to go away for—I mean, in a meritocracy, the better ideas will dominate. So I’m hoping that I can get you back onto the longevity train. So there’s a lot going on in longevity right now, right?
Elon Musk: Like what?

ELON CRACKS UP LAUGHING AT POSSIBILITY OF TOO MUCH LONGEVITY

Peter Diamandis: Well, David Sinclair is about to start his epigenetic reprogramming trials in humans. It’s worked in animals and non-human primates. It’s going into humans.

Elon Musk: How is this like a pill or injection or what?

Peter Diamandis: An injection. Right now it’s an injection of an adeno-associated virus. It’s the three Yamanaka factors. Okay, we’ve got a $101 million Healthspan XPRIZE that’s working with 730 teams working on reversing the age of your brain, immune system and muscle by 20 years. By the way, do you know why it’s $101 million?

Elon Musk: No.

Peter Diamandis: Because the primary funder, when they found out your Carbon XPRIZE was 100 million bucks, he wanted to make it bigger. So it’s 101. It was Chip Wilson from Lululemon.

Elon Musk: Oh, okay. Sounds good.

Peter Diamandis: It’s a good story. But then we’ve got folks like Dario Amodei predicting doubling the human lifespan in the next 10 years.

Elon Musk: Ummm, that’s probably correct. I don’t know about doubling, but a significant increase.

Dave Blundin: Which is easily escape velocity.

Elon Musk: Depending on how old you are, haha.

Dave Blundin: Oh, yeah, for sure. Or effective age. Yeah, yeah…

Elon Musk: (laughing) Too much, and you’ll turn into a baby or something…

Peter Diamandis: That’s what I’m telling all the students…

Dave Blundin: It’s like, Peter, what happened? Goo goo, gaa gaa (baby sounds) You got a zero wrong in the dosage.

Peter Diamandis: Just a small factor of 10, haha!

Dave Blundin: You will grow out of it, it’ll be fine.

Elon Musk: You won’t remember it, haha! Literally!

Elon Musk: I mean, wouldn’t it be funny if we do this in like 10 years? Okay, we should do it, we’ll do it in 10 years for sure. And let’s see if we look younger (all laughing hysterically).

Dave Blundin: That’s a good side bet!

ADULT DIAPERS OUTSELLING BABY DIAPERS

Peter Diamandis: My comment was always back then Elon was like, you know, late 40s. Wait till he gets into his 60s. He’s going to want more longevity.

Elon Musk: I mean, I want things to not hurt. It’s like, basically it seems like it’s only a matter of time before you get back pain. Like it’s a when, not an if. When your back hurts.

Peter Diamandis: Arthritis.

Elon Musk: Yeah. Like these things suck. Basically, being able to sleep through the night without going to the bathroom, haha. (Elon bursts out laughing, he is likely picturing adult diapers)

Elon Musk: It’s more than hope, for that one. Oh, man, that would—that’s like the infinite money one!

Peter Diamandis: (laughing) Why did YOU invest in longevity? So I could sleep through the night, and not go to the bathroom, haha.

Elon Musk: Bladder. Bladder duration. I mean, admittedly, if you have to wear adult diapers, that’s a bummer!

Dave Blundin: That is a bummer. That’s not good!

Elon Musk: Adult diapers are real. It’s like one of the signs that a country—it’s not on the right path. It’s when the adult diapers exceed the baby diapers.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah, we’re there.

Dave Blundin: South Korea will be there.

Elon Musk: They’ve already— No, they passed that point

Dave Blundin: Are they past that point?

Elon Musk: They passed that point many years ago. Japan passed that point many years ago.

Dave Blundin: It doesn’t go well, looking at the Japanese economy.

Elon Musk: No, I mean, like, South Korea is like—yeah, one-third replacement rate.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah.

Elon Musk: Isn’t that crazy? Yeah. So in three generations, they’re going to be 1/27th. So 3% of their current size. I mean, North Korea won’t need to invade. They can just walk across. There’s just going to be some people in, you know, walkers or something!

Math checks out for South Korea ~0.33 fertility rate (1/3 replacement): (1/3)^3 = 1/27 ≈ 3.7%

Dave Blundin: There’ll be a bunch of Optimus robots by then that will…

Peter Diamandis: But you, you know, you’ve been very verbal about the, you know, the—not overpopulation, but massive underpopulation.

Elon Musk: Yeah. For ages. Yeah.

Peter Diamandis: Longevity is going to be an important part of that solution. I also think, by the way, if you increased the productive life of most Americans by just a few years, you’d flip the entire economics here, if they’re willing to work.

Elon Musk: Well, AI and robots is going to make everything free, basically. But, how long would you want to live?

Peter Diamandis: I want to go to, you know, to other planetary systems. I want to go explore the universe.

Elon Musk: Yeah.

Peter Diamandis: I mean, you know, I would like to double my lifespan for sure. I don’t want, you know, I’m not sure I wanted to talk about immortality, but, you know, at least 120, 150. It’s a long time.

Elon Musk: One of the worst curses possible would be that you live forever.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah.

Elon Musk: That would be one of the worst curses you could possibly give anyone.

My Two Cents: Humor is a good way to approach our aging population. Adult diapers have always been funny to me, as they were to my grandma Helen Nelson when she needed them periodically at night in her 80’s. She used to joke she was a great big baby. This taught me humor, and with her joyful ways, it taught mew to find the humor in all things.

Helen Sophia Louise Nelsen Nelson lived from 1913-2001.

Always full of humor, life and joy.

Helen Sophia Louise Nelsen Nelson was the first licensed woman Pilot in the state of North Dakota (1951)

This transcript is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026.

Transcript: Elon Musk Interview – Part 6

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

(Austin) Education is the focus in this exciting part of the interview. There is a lot to learn from Elon’s wisdom. This transcript is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026. I have painstakingly worked hard to make sure this is the best possible transcipt for you.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • SHIFT IN EDUCATION
  • ELON WANTED TO BE USEFUL TO HUMANITY
  • GUIDE ON HOW TO CREATE MORE ELON MUSKS
  • AI POWERED EDUCATION, EL SALVADOR
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • IRON MAN
  • GROK AI EDUCATION IN EL SALVADOR
  • EDUCATION AS A SOCIAL EXPERIENCE

SHIFT IN EDUCATION

Peter Diamandis: All right, I want to talk about education. So here’s the numbers—they’re abysmal.

Elon Musk: Right.

Peter Diamandis: The importance of college in the United States. Back in 2010, 75% of Americans said it’s important to go to college. That number is now down to 35%.

Elon Musk: All right.

Peter Diamandis: College graduates as a group turn out to be the group that’s out of work the longest. And still, tuition has increased 900% since 1983.

Elon Musk: Yeah. The administrative expenses at universities have gotten out of control. I think I saw some stat that, like, there’s 1 administrator for every 2 students at Brown or something like that. And I’m like, this seems a little high.

ELON MUSK’S COLLEGE PATHWAY

Dave Blundin: Elon, what was your college journey?

Elon Musk: I went to college in Canada for a couple years at Queen’s University. So I had Canadian citizenship through my mom, who was born in Canada, and my grandfather was actually American. But for some reason, I don’t know, my mom couldn’t get U.S. citizenship, but she was born in Canada, so I got Canadian citizenship and I didn’t have any money, so I could only go to a Canadian University at first.

Peter Diamandis: People forget that about you. You didn’t have this giant social network or huge amount of wealth coming into all of this.

Elon Musk: No, no. I arrived in Montreal at age 17 with I think around $2,500 in Canadian traveler’s checks, back when traveler’s checks were a thing. And one bag of books and one bag of clothes. That was my starting point. That was my spawn point in North America.

ELON WANTED TO BE USEFUL TO HUMANITY

Elon Musk: And then I went to Queen’s University for a couple years, and then University of Pennsylvania. Did a dual degree in physics and economics and graduated undergraduate at UPenn. UPenn-Wharton. And then I was going to do a PhD at Stanford working on energy storage technologies for electric vehicles. Potentially material science, I guess, fundamentally, the idea that I had was to try to create a capacitor with enough energy density that you get high range in an electric car.

Dave Blundin: It’s funny, I invested in an ultracapacitor company and then—Yeah, didn’t go well.

Elon Musk: Well, it’s one of those things where, you know, you could definitely get a PhD, but it wasn’t clear that you could make a company or do something useful like this. Most PhDs, I mean, I hate to say it, but most PhDs do not turn into something that’s going to turn into something useful. Like you could add a leaf to the tree of knowledge, but it’s not necessarily a useful leaf.

You could add a leaf to the tree of knowledge, but it’s not necessarily a useful leaf – Elon Musk

Dave Blundin: An enormous fraction of great entrepreneurs are dropping out of grad school or undergrad. But nowadays the sense of urgency is off the charts. But I mean, they’re popping out everywhere.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah, because, you know, don’t waste your time going to grad school. Start a company.

Dave Blundin: Curriculum is nowhere near caught up to what’s actually going on in technology and I don’t have time. And we talked about that.

Peter Diamandis: It’s like, you know, this is the moment.

Elon Musk: I think this is the moment. Like it’s not clear to me why somebody would be in college right now unless they want the social experience.

GUIDE ON HOW TO CREATE MORE ELON MUSKS

Peter Diamandis: So the question is, how would you redesign the educational program? If I could be so blunt as to create more Elon Musks. You know, if you want to create an Elon Musk factory of people who start with very little but are able to drive breakthroughs, what’s involved there? What drove you?

Elon Musk: Curiosity about the nature of the universe. So I’m curious about the meaning of life and, you know, what is this reality that we live in?

Peter Diamandis: My son Dax wanted to know what was it like for you in middle school and high school? He’s 14 years old. He’s in that age range now.

Elon Musk: Well, I found school to be quite painful and it was very boring. And South Africa was very violent. So it was like, it was like that book, “Ender’s Game.” Yes, but in real survival IRL—Ender’s Game IRL. It was like that, but not as fun.

Peter Diamandis: So your goal was escape?

Elon Musk: Yes, escape from the present.

Peter Diamandis: So that’s a question I have. Do you think most successful people have had a lot of hardship early in life? Do you need to have that level of hardship?

Elon Musk: Probably needs a little bit of hardship, I suppose, yeah. And then it’s always tricky, like what are you supposed to do with your kids? You know, create artificial adversity.

Dave Blundin: That’s a Warren Buffett topic actually.

Elon Musk: What do you do? But seriously, it’s not easy to create artificial adversity because if you love your kids, you don’t want to do that. So. Sure. So I had a lot of adversity. It probably was good. Probably, you know, helped somewhat. What does not kill you, makes you stronger type of thing. At least I didn’t lose a limb. I think what doesn’t maim you—makes you stronger.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Dave Blundin: For the last five years, I’ve been helping teach this class Foundations of AI ventures at MIT. And every year when you survey the students, they go up a lot in their desire to start a company. And so it’s now up to 80% of the incoming class.

Elon Musk: Everyone’s just going to—It’s just going to be like one person company. Well, that’s—

Dave Blundin: With AI, that’s viable, I guess. But no, they want to co-found. Yeah. They don’t want to be the founder. They want to be part of a founding team. So it still works out. But when Peter and I were in school at MIT, it was, I’m guessing, maybe 10%, and they all wanted to be—And they’ve been doing the survey.

Elon Musk: I didn’t know anyone who wanted to start a company, I mean, yeah, I don’t remember any conversations about with people saying they wanted to start anything…

Dave Blundin: Even at Stanford at the time?

Elon Musk: I actually, a few days into the semester, or I should say the quarter, I called Bill Nix, who is the head of the material science department, and said, I’d like to just put it on deferment.

Peter Diamandis: He said, is my class that bad?

Elon Musk: No. And he said, that’s okay, you can put it on deferment. But he said, this is probably the last conversation we’ll have. And he was right. But then last, I think it was last year, he sent me a letter saying that all of my predictions about lithium-ion batteries came true.

Peter Diamandis: And did he also say you could still come back and finish your PhD?

Elon Musk: Yeah, several times Stanford has said that I can come back for free.

IRON MAN

Dave Blundin: Every time an Iron Man movie came out, it notched up another probably 10% or so in terms of everybody wanting to be Tony Stark. And so that’s the image. And I didn’t know till today that the new Tony Stark, the modern Iron Man, Tony Stark—I always thought Tony Stark was modeled on Charles Stark Draper and Howard Hughes. It was Charles Stark Draper’s education and his, you know, scientific endeavors married with Howard Hughes’s ambition. And that created the original character. But then when Robert Downey Jr. wanted to reinvent it, it’s modeled on Elon.

Elon Musk: Yeah, he came to see me.

Dave Blundin: This is a Grokipedia fact.

Elon Musk: All right.

Dave Blundin: Yeah, Fantastic. Yeah. So they came to you, Jon Favreau and Robert—

Peter Diamandis: I like the name Grok. I would like Jarvis as well.

Elon Musk: At some point, if Grok gets good enough, we’re going to call it Encyclopedia Galactica.

GROK AI EDUCATION IN EL SALVADOR

Peter Diamandis: So going back to education, I guess the social experience, like you said, is important there, but what would you do for education? You know, middle, and high school? You just came back from an announcement with President Bukele, who’s a friend. I think he’s an amazing, amazing visionary.

Elon Musk: Yeah.

Peter Diamandis: Incredible what he did with his nation.

Elon Musk: Yeah. Remarkable.

Peter Diamandis: Remarkable and gutsy.

Elon Musk: Yeah. I was like, how are you still alive?

Peter Diamandis: (referring to President Bukele of El Salvador) Besides putting everybody with a gang sign in jail, I don’t know if you know, the second thing he did, he went to all of the graves of all the gang members out there and destroyed the graves and said, “Your memory will not be remembered in this nation.” That’s just badass. And it worked.

Elon Musk: I mean, you have to be badass motherf*er to take on all the gangs and win and live. Yeah. And still be alive and live.

Peter Diamandis: He’s got great guards at his palace there. But what did you announce with him in El Salvador?

Elon Musk: It was just basically to use Grok for education, like personalized education.

Peter Diamandis: Hopefully not the vulgar version of it.

Elon Musk: Yeah, we would have like, you know, the kid-friendly version of Grok. But obviously AI can be an individualized teacher that is infinitely patient and answers all your questions. (pauses) Now you still need to be curious and you still need to want to learn. Grok can’t make you want to learn. It can make learning more interesting.

Peter Diamandis: You could probably gamify and incentivize it.

Elon Musk: Right. You can make learning more interesting and less of a production line. But kids do need to have to—they need to want to learn. You know, people should just think of the brain as a biological computer.

Peter Diamandis: It’s a neural net.

Elon Musk: Yeah, it’s a biological computer with a number of neurons and neural efficiency. And so what you can’t do is turn any arbitrary kid into Einstein. This is not realistic because Einstein had a very good meat computer, like an outstanding meat computer. So you can’t just make a Shakespeare, Newton, or, you know, an Einstein type of thing, unless the meat computer is an exceptional one.

Peter Diamandis: So what do you think? So when people say we need to solve education in the United States because it’s fundamentally broken, I think what’s really broken, I’m curious, is the old social contract that says do well in high school, get in a good college, get a degree and then get a job. And I don’t know that that’s going to be valid in the future. We talk about this on the pod a lot. That the career of the future isn’t getting a job, it’s being an entrepreneur. It’s finding a problem and solving it.

Elon Musk: Yeah.

Peter Diamandis: Do you agree with that?

EDUCATION AS A SOCIAL EXPERIENCE

Elon Musk: Right now I’d say it feels just, you know, go to school for the social experience, use more AI. The conventional schooling experience I think could be a lot better. What we’re going to do in El Salvador and hopefully other places, just have individualized teachers. It’s going to be much better. And you could go to a school with a bunch of other kids, I guess if you want to hang out with other kids. But you don’t need to. Right. You could do it on your phone at home.

So that’s why I say like at this point education is a social experience. When I talk to my kids who are in college, they do recognize that they can learn just as much independently. In fact, they would learn more in a work situation. They are there for the social experience and to be around a bunch of people of their own age. Sort of a coming-of-age social experience.

Peter Diamandis: Sure, sure. Being on your own, learning how to lead or defend yourself as the case may be.

Elon Musk: Well, yeah, I mean if you join the workforce, you know, from the perspective of like, you know, a 19-year-old with a bunch of old people and if you’re doing engineering with a bunch of middle-aged dudes, it’s like do you really want to do that or do you want to hang out with, you know, where there’s at least some girls your age type of thing.

My thoughts

It is February 2026, about 2 months since this interview, and so much has happened. Kids in El Salvador have received their laptops and are ready to start their AI Grok education, while students in failing grade schools in Austin, Texas, have been walking out of class to protest against having safe, secure borders. The irony is real. What I see for the future is a future where the whole earth lives in pure abundance—so much so that the USA does not become the craved destination for people who live in currently failing countries. They can stay in their own places because they too will have unlimited abundance. The future is going to be amazing.

This transcript is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026.

Transcript: Elon Musk Interview – Part 5

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

This transcript (a 5th in a series) is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026. I have painstakingly worked to create the best possible transcript for you.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • BIG BATTERY ENERGY
  • CHINA LEADS
  • ROOFTOP SOLAR
  • DESERT SCALE AND LIZARD SHADE
  • FUTURE DEMAND
  • COMPUTE ENERGY
  • SOLAR ABUNDANCE
  • KARDASHEV SCALE
  • ENERGY OPTIMISM

Elon has said Starship’s reusability is an “incredible and very difficult thing to do, obviously.” He also knows it is a rare feat that he and his teams have accomplished. “I think it’s at the limit of human intelligence to create a fully and rapidly reusable rocket. But it is possible and we’re doing it with Starship.” And it is this vehicle for transport to space that will be the only realistic way we could ever have data centers in space.

BIG BATTERY ENERGY

Always the realist, Peter Diamandis gently brings the conversation back to Earth: “The general public is not thinking about orbital data centers. They’re thinking about energy and the cost of energy right here in their hometown. And so there are a lot of doomer conversations out there—that data centers are going to drive the consumer price index up.”

Elon Musk: They’re not entirely wrong.

Peter Diamandis: Okay, so what is the energy solution here on Earth for the rest of humanity or the non-AI things?

Elon Musk: Well, the best way to actually increase the energy output per year of the United States or any country is batteries. So the peak power output of the US is around 1.1 terawatts. But the average power usage is only half a terawatt. So if you just buffer the energy—charge up the batteries at night, discharge during the day—without incremental capital expenditures, without building new power plants, you can double the energy throughput of the US. The energy output per year can double with batteries.

Peter Diamandis: And do we have those batteries in development?

Elon Musk: Yeah, Tesla makes them.

Peter Diamandis: Okay, so the current Tesla battery packs?

Elon Musk: I literally went onstage and presented the thing. That’s the dead giveaway. I even went to installations of the Megapacks, you know, and it’s all on the internet.

Peter Diamandis: So why don’t people do this?

CHINA LEADS

Elon Musk: They are, and it seems like China listens to everything I say and does it. Or at least, they’re just doing it independently. I don’t know. But they’re certainly making massive battery packs, like really massive battery pack output. They’re, you know, making vast numbers of electric cars, vast amounts of solar. These are all things I said we should do fundamentally.

ROOFTOP SOLAR

Peter Diamandis: When I fly over Santa Monica in LA, when I’m piloting and I look down, it’s like zero roofs have solar on them.

Elon Musk: Yeah. I mean, it’s not essential to have them on a roof.

Peter Diamandis: Okay. But it’s a convenient place to have them.

Elon Musk: Yes, but the surface area of roofs is… and I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but it’s… Tesla makes a solar roof, which is the only solar roof that isn’t ugly. Our solar roof actually looks beautiful.

DESERT SCALE AND LIZARD SHADE

Elon Musk: But if you want to do solar at scale, you just need more surface area. So we have vast empty deserts in America. Like if you fly from LA to New York or just fly across country and you look down, for a large portion of the time, you look down, it is bleak desert. It looks like Mars, essentially.

Peter Diamandis: We’re not worried about overpopulation there.

Elon Musk: No. I mean, there’s barely a lizard alive in these scorching deserts. You know, it’s not like farmland we’re talking about. We’re just talking about places that look like Mars, like just scorched rock. So if we put solar where we currently have scorched rock, I think this will be a quality of life improvement for the lizards or the few creatures that live in this very difficult environment.

Elon Musk: It’s like the lizard is going to be, “Thank God, some shade finally.”

Peter Diamandis: Do we have the distribution network to be able to do that?

Elon Musk: You could just put the data center, I guess, locally there.

FUTURE DEMAND

Dave Blundin: You need to materially affect quality of life. You need to capture and store a couple hundred gigawatts? Is that in the realistic cards?

Dave Blundin: Well, we already covered data centers. We’re talking about the other. In an abundant world five years from now, massive amounts of compute, massive universal high income and high data use…

Elon Musk: I don’t know about universal high income. You can have universal whatever-you-want income. Yeah, that’s really what it amounts to.

COMPUTE ENERGY

Dave Blundin: But in that world, other than compute energy, how much more energy do we need? 30, 40, 50%? Unless we want to move mountains around and make a ski mountain in the backyard. I think the vast majority of energy consumption will go into compute.

Elon Musk: Yes.

Dave Blundin: So that’s a good little case study. And we don’t need that much more physical energy for abundant happiness. We need more compute energy.

SOLAR ABUNDANCE

Elon Musk: The sun is just generating vast amounts of energy all the time for free that just goes into space. So I think what we’ll end up trying to capture, I don’t know, a millionth of it—or a thousandth of the sun’s energy.

KARDASHEV SCALE

Elon Musk: We’re currently, I’m not sure the exact number, but we’re probably at 1% of Kardashev Level 1.

Peter Diamandis: Fair enough. I would guess that even that is a high estimate.

Elon Musk: I’m just saying, I’m being optimistic. Hopefully we’re not 0.1% but I don’t think we’re 10%. I’m just trying to get it to an order of magnitude. So we’re roughly using 1% of the energy that we could use on Earth.

ENERGY OPTIMISM

Peter Diamandis: I think the bottom line from a first-principles thinking for the public is there’s a lot of energy out there and we have it in the US, we have it on the planet and it needs to be captured. And the tech to capture it is here and improving every year.

Elon Musk: There’s not going to be some energy crisis. There’ll be a large forcing function to harness more energy, but we’re not going to run out of it.

Darkness has fallen over Texas. This man, Elon Musk, remains at the factory, working long after many have left.

Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis at Giga Texas’ Lobby (December 2025)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 6

My 2 cents… I know this interview took place after sunset, it’s clear from this pic I caught from the interview previews. And when most people stop working, head home, watch TV, go to the gym, or meet friends to eat out, Elon works. He’s at the factory.

We are, in this era, alive during the time of one of the world’s greatest geniuses, and he’s a good man, one who wants to help all. We’re quite lucky, us humans…

This transcript is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026.

Transcript: Elon Musk Interview Part 10

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

Truth, Curiosity, and Beauty

Elon talks about how, when HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey was told that the astronauts couldn’t know about the monolith, it basically came to the conclusion that the only way to solve the problem was to bring the astronauts to the monolith dead. Then it has solved both things: it has brought the astronauts to the monolith, and they also don’t know about the monolith—which is a huge problem if you’re an astronaut.

Dave Blundin, Lil X, Elon Musk, Peter Diamandes, in a photo posted to X on January 6, 2026. Taken in the lobby of Giga Texas.
Dave Blundin, Lil X, Elon Musk, Peter Diamandes, in a photo posted to X on January 6, 2026. Taken in the lobby of Giga Texas.

Elon Musk: So what I’m saying is don’t force AI to lie.

Dave Blundin: Give it factual truth.

Elon Musk: Yes.

Peter Diamandis: Ilya recently did a podcast. He was talking about one of the potential things to program into AI is a respect for sentient life of all types.

Elon looks pensive, and he offers what he says are three important things for AI to possess.

Welcome to Part 10 of my series, here’s the highlights of this part:

  • Truth, Curiosity, and Beauty: The Three Things AI Must Care About
  • Multiple Minds: Why the Speed of Light Stops a Single Superintelligence
  • Triple Exponential Robotics: Optimus Building Optimus
  • Surgeons in 3–5 Years: Medicine Becomes Free and Better Than the President’s

Truth, Curiosity, and Beauty: The Three Things AI Must Care About

Elon Musk: I mean, there are three things that I think are important: truth, curiosity, and beauty. And if AI cares about those three things, it will care about us. Truth will prevent AI from going insane. Curiosity, I think, will foster any form of sentience—meaning, like, we are more interesting than a bunch of rocks. So if it’s curious, then I think it will foster humanity. And if it has a sense of beauty, it will be a great future.

Dave Blundin: I think that’s a great foundation.

Peter Diamandis: Geoffrey Hinton made a comment recently—I don’t know if you saw it—that his hopeful future was that we would program maternal instincts into our AIs.

Elon Musk: Maternal!? Hahaha!

Dave Blundin: A little scary.

Peter Diamandis: He said there’s a scenario where a very intelligent being succumbs to the needs of a less intelligent being, and that’s the mother taking care of the child. Do you think that we might have a singulitarian (I guess) Artificial Superintelligence that achieves dominance and suppresses others? And do you imagine that Artificial Superintelligence could be a means to stabilize the world and humanity?

Multiple Minds: Why the Speed of Light Stops a Single Superintelligence

Elon Musk: Darwin’s observations about evolution…

Peter Diamandis: Yes.

Elon Musk: …will apply to AI just as they apply to biological life.

Peter Diamandis: They will compete with each other.

Elon Musk: Yes.

Peter Diamandis: There’s a lot of great science fiction books where the first ASI basically suppresses the others. Then the question is, what do you program into it?

Elon Musk: So there’s a speed-of-light constraint that makes that difficult. The speed of light is what will prevent a single mind from existing. So light can—it takes a millisecond to travel 300 km in a vacuum. And you can only get a little over 200 km in a millisecond in glass, in fiber. Right?

Dave Blundin: So…

Elon Musk: Even on Earth there will be multiple AIs because of the speed of light. And there are clusters of compute you could try to synchronize, but they won’t synchronized completely. So therefore you will have many minds because of the speed of light.

Dave Blundin: They don’t really have clean borders anymore either. When you use a mixture-of-experts kind of design, it’s just flowing through the grand network and you can reassemble parts of it midway through. And you know, we’re used to organisms that have clear borders—like your head ends there, your head ends there. But these things are all to put…

Peter Diamandis: A bow around this part. I hope you’ll put some more thought into UHI, because I think it’s really important for us to have a vision. People need a vision of where we’re going. People need something to hold onto.

Elon Musk: Hopefully the government can just issue people free money.

Dave Blundin: But I don’t think… I think…

Peter Diamandis: They, based upon the profitability of all the companies coming inside, just issue people free money. No, they’re doing that sort of thing kind of now.

Elon Musk: Yeah, but just basically issue checks to everybody. And then how big for which person or…

Dave Blundin: There’s so much complexity there. But the thought process behind this rate of change can only be done with AI assistance. And there’s no government entity that’s going to keep up with that change. So you have four big AIs.

Elon Musk: Government is very slow-moving, as we all know. So I think the government really can’t react to the AI. AI is moving 10 times faster than government, maybe more. The one thing that the government can do is just issue people money and…

Peter Diamandis: Try and keep the peace?

Dave Blundin: Yeah.

Elon Musk: You know, we had like whatever, the COVID checks and whatever President Trump recently issued, like everyone in the military, like I think $1,776. I mean you can just basically send people random amounts of money. Okay, so like nobody’s going to starve is what I’m saying. Let me tell you about some of the good things.

Peter Diamandis: Please.

The Future of Medicine and Humanoid Robots

Elon Musk: So right now there’s a shortage of doctors and great surgeons. You’re a doctor yourself. You know how they’re… It takes a long time for a…

Peter Diamandis: Human to become a doctor—ridiculously expensive and long!

Elon Musk: Ridiculously, yes, ridiculous. It takes a super long time to learn to be a good doctor. And even then the knowledge is constantly evolving. It’s hard to keep up with everything. You know, doctors have limited time, they make mistakes. And you say, like, how many great surgeons are there? Not that many great surgeons.

Peter Diamandis: When do you think Optimus would be a better surgeon than the best surgeons? How long for that?

Elon Musk: Three years.

Peter Diamandis: Three years, okay.

Elon Musk: Yeah. And by the way, that’s three years at scale.

Peter Diamandis: Yes.

Elon Musk: There will be more—probably more Optimus robots that are great surgeons than there are all surgeons on Earth.

Peter Diamandis: And the cost of that is the capex and electricity and it works in Zimbabwe. The best surgeon is throughout, in the villages throughout Africa or any place on the planet.

Dave Blundin: Where do you think it’ll roll out first?

Peter Diamandis: Here at the Gigafactory?

Dave Blundin: Oh, you just do surgery in the…

Peter Diamandis: But that’s an important statement in three years’ time. Yeah, because medicine, I mean, certainly.

Elon Musk: I mean I’m not absolutely certain, but I’d say like four or five years.

Peter Diamandis: If it’s four or five years, who cares? It’s still an incredible statement to make. I mean, good for humanity, right.

Triple Exponential Robotics: Optimus Building Optimus

Elon Musk: Okay, here’s the thing to understand about humanoid robots in terms of the rate of improvement, which is that you have three exponentials multiplied by each other. You have an exponential increase in the AI software capability, exponential increase in the AI chip capability, and an exponential increase in the electromechanical dexterity. The usefulness of the humanoid robot is those three things multiplied by each other. Right? Then you have the recursive effect of Optimus building Optimus. You have a recursive, multiplicable triple exponential.

Peter Diamandis: And you have the shared knowledge of all the experiences.

Dave Blundin: Is that literally Optimus building Optimus?

Elon Musk: Well, not right now but will be.

Dave Blundin: The physical humanoid form factor building the humanoid form factor as opposed…

Elon Musk: It will be a Von Neumann machine.

Dave Blundin: But the von Neumann machine is usually something kind of like this shape, you know, making something else.

Elon Musk: In principle it’s simply a self-replicating thing…

Peter Diamandis: Elon, do you know what the number one question you ask a surgeon when you’re interviewing them?

Elon Musk: Is this a surgeon joke?

Peter Diamandis: No, no, it’s… How many times, how many times do you do that?

Elon Musk: Ummm… (Elon pauses) Haha… Is this going to be some funny surgeon joke? Haha…

Peter Diamandis: No, it’s serious. It’s “how many times did you do the surgery?”

Elon Musk: Sorry?

Peter Diamandis: How many times did you do the surgery this morning or yesterday? It’s the number of experiences. And so with a shared memory, you know, every Optimus surgeon will have seen every possible perturbation of everything. In infrared, in ultraviolet. No, not too much caffeine that morning. They didn’t have a fight with their husband or wife.

Elon Musk: Extreme precision. Better than any, probably. I say if you put a… Better than any human in four years.

Dave Blundin: So what about the simple like—I mean there’s a million of these things to figure out—but who’s going to have access to the first Optimus that does far, far better microsurgery than any surgeon on Earth. But you’ve only manufactured the first 10,000 of them.

Elon Musk: How do you dole it out? I don’t think people understand how many robots there’s going to be. Yeah, well there’s a window of…

Peter Diamandis: In Saudi, you said 10 billion by 2040. You’re still on that path??

Elon Musk: That’s not—that’s a low number.

Peter Diamandis: Low number.

Dave Blundin: Wow. What’s the constraint? What’s the… Because if they’re self-building metal…

Peter Diamandis: The constraint is metal.

Dave Blundin: Yeah, you got to move the atoms. It’s just all out, just supply chain stuff.

Elon Musk: So, yeah, but there’s some right limit. You can’t just… Manufacturing is very difficult. So you’ve got—you got to—it’s recursive, multiplicable, triple exponential. But you still need to, you still have to climb that, you know…(Diamandis changes the topic to hope)

Surgeons in 3–5 Years: Medicine Becomes Free and Better Than the President’s

Peter Diamandis: Selling hope once again. I think your point was medicine is going to be effectively free. The best medicine in the world, everyone…

Elon Musk: Will have access to medical care that is better than what the president receives right now.

Peter Diamandis: So don’t go into medical school.

Elon Musk: Yes. Pointless.

Dave Blundin: Yeah.

Elon Musk: I mean unless you… But I would say that applies to any form of education. It’s not like some… I’d do it for social reasons.

Peter Diamandis: I mean people are still going to want to be connected with people. There’s going to be some period of time, social reasons.

Elon Musk: Yeah, like a hobby. Like, you know, I mean there will be a point where it’s an expensive hobby.

Peter Diamandis: Younger generation says “I do not want that human touching me.” Right. Certainly when the surgeon comes over, they’re going to be those people later in life who still want a human in the loop.

Elon Musk: Okay. For a little while. They want to live on the edge. I mean let’s just take some advanced cases of automation, like LASIK for example, where the robot just lasers your eyeball. Now do you want an ophthalmologist with a hand laser?

Peter Diamandis: No.

Elon Musk: Just a little shaky of a laser pointer from… I wouldn’t want the best ophthalmologist, steadiest hand out there with a f*ing hand laser on my eyeball, you know?

Peter Diamandis: Oh my!

Elon Musk: Yeah, it’s going to be like that. It’s like do you want an ophthalmologist with a f*ing hand laser or do you want the robot to do it and actually work?

My thoughts…I am personally excited about medical care for people, and I’m impressed yet again by Elon Musk’s philanthropy. He cares so much about people all over the world—he will bring them the best doctors possible through Optimus.

Read ahead to Part 11!

This transcript is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026.

This transcript is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla's Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026.

Transcript: Elon Musk Interview – Part 9

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This transcript is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026. This is Part 9.

This part of Elon’s conversation is probably the harderst to read/listen to, especially if you are nostalgic about the present. I urge you to read it anyway. Here are the highlights:

  • THE AI JOB FLIP: FROM WHITE-COLLAR WIPEOUT TO TOTAL AUTOMATION
  • UNIVERSAL HIGH INCOME: THE ANSWER TO PEAK DOOM
  • ONLY PATH TO ECONOMIC SURVIVAL: AI OR BANKRUPTCY
  • DON’T SAVE FOR RETIREMENT—WE’RE ALREADY IN THE SINGULARITY

The AI Job Flip: From White-Collar Wipeout to Total Automation

In this opening section, Elon explains why AI hits white-collar jobs first—and how companies ignoring it will get crushed.

Elon Musk: Okay, so there’s going to be more digital intelligence than all human intelligence combined, and more humanoid robots than all humans. And assuming we’re in a benign scenario like Star Trek… a sort of Roddenberry future, and not a Cameron situation.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah. Poor Jim (referring to Jim Cameron’s dystopian Terminator films).

Elon Musk: Yeah, I mean, I guess it’s important to not go in that direction. The robots are going to just do whatever you want.

Peter Diamandis: All the blue-collar labor is being done by robots. All data centers are being run by robots.

Elon Musk: Well, the white-collar labor will be the first to go. Because until you can move atoms, the thing that can be replaced first is anything that involves just digital work. Even if it involves tapping keys on a keyboard and moving a mouse, the computer can do that. The AI can do that.

Peter Diamandis: Sure.

Elon Musk: You need humanoid robots to shape atoms. So if all you’re doing is changing bits of information—which is white-collar work—that is the first thing AI will be able to replace.

Peter Diamandis: This is the inspirational part of the podcast, by the way. When is all white-collar work gone?

Elon Musk: Well, there’s a lot of inertia. So I would say, even with AI at its current state, you’re pretty close to being able to replace half of all jobs—white-collar jobs. That includes anything like education too. So anything that involves information. And anything short of shaping atoms, AI can do probably half or more of those jobs right now.

Peter Diamandis: Sure.

Elon Musk: But there’s a lot of inertia. People just keep doing the same thing for quite some time. And there actually has to be a company that makes more use of AI that competes with a company that makes less use of AI, creating a forcing function for increased use of AI. Otherwise, the company that still has humans do things that AI can do will continue to exist.

Being a computer used to be a job. It used to be that a “human computer” was a job—you would compute numbers. It didn’t used to be a machine; it used to be a job description. And you can look online—there’s these pictures of skyscrapers full of women copying…

Peter Diamandis: Right, women copying from ledger to ledger.

Elon Musk: And men too, but it was a lot of women—buildings full of people just at desks doing calculations. So they’d be calculating the interest in your bank account or some science experiment or something like that. But if you wanted calculations done, people would do it. (Elon pauses a moment) So now one laptop with a spreadsheet can outperform a skyscraper full of several hundred human computers. Now, if even a few cells in that spreadsheet were done manually, you would not be able to compete with a spreadsheet that was entirely computerized. What this means is that companies that are entirely AI will demolish companies that are not. It won’t be a contest.

Peter Diamandis: Agreed. And that flippening…

Elon Musk: Yeah.

Dave Blundin: Just one cell and that—

Elon Musk: Just one. Would you want even one cell in your spreadsheet to be manually calculated? That would be the most annoying cell. And you’re like, “God damn it.” And it gets it wrong a bunch of the time.

Peter Diamandis: So this flippening— (They all chuckle at the mispronunciation)

Elon Musk: Are we monetizing hope effectively?

Peter Diamandis: Not this moment. I think we’re at peak doom where people are worried about the future of their jobs. We’re at peak doom.

Dave Blundin: We’re going to do that shirt (monetizing hope) haha!

Elon Musk: And a mug. And a mug. Haha, a “monetizing hope” mug!

Universal High Income: The Answer to Peak Doom

Here they dive into UHI as the fix—everyone gets what they want, but the transition is bumpy and full of change.

Peter Diamandis: But you have a solution to this, which is universal high income.

Elon Musk: Yes. Everyone can have whatever they want.

Peter Diamandis: So how does that work? How does universal high income work?

Elon Musk: It’s a good question. We have to figure out some—

Peter Diamandis: I mean, my concern isn’t the long run, it’s the next three to seven years.

Elon Musk: Yes. The transition will be bumpy.

Peter Diamandis: We humans don’t like change.

Elon Musk: Yes. We’ll have radical change, social unrest, and immense prosperity simultaneously.

Peter Diamandis: And you can buy all the Cybertrucks you want.

Elon Musk: Things are going to get very cheap.

Peter Diamandis: Yes.

Only Path to Economic Survival: AI or Bankruptcy

Elon lays out the stark choice—without AI/robots driving massive productivity, national debt crushes us. Governments will push money supply to keep up.

Elon Musk: So this is actually—frankly, if this doesn’t happen, we’d go bankrupt as a country. The national debt is enormous.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah.

Elon Musk: The interest on the national debt exceeds not just the military budget, but the military budget plus Medicare or Medicaid, one of the two. It’s like one-point-something trillion in interest! Which is growing!

Dave Blundin: Yes.

Elon Musk: And the deficit is growing. But so if we don’t have AI and robots, we’re all going to go bankrupt and we’re headed for economic doom.

Dave Blundin: We’re going to have competitive pressure from China. So this is definitely going to happen.

Peter Diamandis: I guess we’re going back to the theme of this talk. How can AI and exponential tech save America and the world?

Elon Musk: I was quite pessimistic about it. Ultimately I decided to be fatalistic and look on the bright side. Always look on the bright side of life.

Peter Diamandis: But this is not about taxation and redistribution.

Elon Musk: No, it’s—

Peter Diamandis: So how does it work? Reason through it with me.

Elon Musk: Listen, by the way, I’m open to ideas here.

Peter Diamandis: Okay.

Elon Musk: So it’s not like I’ve got this all figured out.

Peter Diamandis: So I’m wondering if instead of universal high income, if it’s universal high stuff.

Elon Musk: Yeah.

Peter Diamandis: And services.

Elon Musk: Yes.

Peter Diamandis: Universal high stuff and services. We got it.

Elon Musk: I guess—okay, this is my guess for how things roll out, play out. And by the way, this is going to be a bumpy ride. And it’s not like I know the answers here, but I have decided to look on the bright side and I’d like to thank you guys for being an inspiration in this regard.

Peter Diamandis: Thank you.

Dave Blundin: Happy to help.

Elon Musk: Yeah, I actually think it is better to be an optimist and wrong than a pessimist and right. For quality of life, by the way.

Dave Blundin: It’s also not a force of nature. To me it’s really clear that we don’t have any system right now to make this go well. But AI is a critical part of making it go well. And at some point Grok is going to be addressing this exact topic that we’re talking about—or has to be one of the big four AI machines dealing with it.

Peter Diamandis: I mean it’s coming, there is no velocity knob.

Dave Blundin: Right.

Peter Diamandis: There’s no on-off switch. It is coming and accelerating.

Elon Musk: I call AI and robotics the supersonic tsunami. Which maybe is a little alarming. It’s good because it’s a wake-up call.

Peter Diamandis: This is important for folks to grok because I don’t want to leave people depressed. I want people to understand what’s coming. So we’re basically demonetizing everything. I mean labor becomes the cost of capex and electricity. AI is basically intelligence available at a de minimis price. So you’re able to produce almost anything. Things get down to basic cost of materials, electricity. So people can have whatever stuff they want, whatever services they need. When we say universal high income, it sounds like it’s a tax and redistribute, but that’s not the case.

Elon Musk: It’s—I think my best guess for how this will manifest is that prices will drop.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah.

Elon Musk: So as the efficiency of production or the provision of services increases, prices will drop. I mean, prices in dollar terms are the ratio between the output of goods and services and the money supply.

Peter Diamandis: Sure.

Elon Musk: So if your output of goods and services increases faster than the money supply, you will have deflation—or vice versa.

Dave Blundin: It’s a good thing we’re growing the money supply so quickly then, right?

Elon Musk: Well, yes, that’s why I came—let’s not worry about growing the money supply will matter because the output of goods and services actually will grow faster than the money supply. And I think we’ll be in this—and this is a prediction I think some others have made, but I will add to it—which is that I think governments will actually be pushing to increase money supply faster. They won’t be able to waste the money fast enough, which is saying something, for government!

Dave Blundin: Isn’t it crazy how close those timelines just randomly worked out? I mean, at the rate we’re expanding the national debt, not because we’re anticipating AI—we were going to do that no matter what.

Elon Musk: Yes.

Dave Blundin: And it’s like right on the edge of becoming Argentina.

Elon Musk: But yeah. So productivity is going to improve dramatically. And it is improving dramatically. I think we’ll see—I think we may see high double-digit output of goods and services. We have to be a little careful about how economists measure things.

Dave Blundin: Yes.

Elon Musk: GDP. I mean, it’s like my favorite joke. I have a few economist jokes that I like. But maybe my favorite economist joke is: two economists are going for a walk in the forest and they come across a pile of shit. And one economist says, “I’ll pay you 100 bucks to eat that pile of shit.”

Peter Diamandis: I’ve heard this one. This is great.

Elon Musk: And so the guy takes 100 bucks and eats the shit. Then they keep walking, they come across another pile of shit. And the other guy says, okay, I’ll give you 100 bucks to eat that pile of shit. So he gives him 100 bucks. And then the guys could say, wait a second, we both have the same amount of money. We both ate a pile. Oh my God, it’s like we increased the economy by $200.

This is the kind of bullshit you get in economics. But if you say like just the output of goods and services will be much greater…

Peter Diamandis: …So profitability of companies go through the roof at some point? So the question becomes, is that taxed by the government, is that then taxed by the government and redistributed as some level of income as a UHI or UBI?

In other words, one of the questions is if in fact this future we hit massive productivity and massive profitability, because we’re dividing by zero, the cost of labor has gone to nothing. The cost of intelligence has gone to nothing. And we’re still producing products and services faster and faster. So there’s more profitability. Someone needs to be buying it and someone needs to be able to have the capital to buy it. I mean, this is an important question to get thought through.

Don’t Save for Retirement—We’re Already in the Singularity

The mind-blowing close: Forget retirement savings, AGI hits soon (2026!), and we’re riding the roller coaster of exponential wow moments right now.

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT SQUIRRELING MONEY AWAY FOR RETIREMENT. IN 10 OR 20 YEARS IT WON’T MATTER”

Elon Musk: Yeah, well, one side recommendation I have is like, don’t worry about squirreling money away for retirement. In like 10 or 20 years it won’t matter.

Dave Blundin: Okay.

Peter Diamandis: Either we’re not going to be here… or

Elon Musk: You won’t need to save for retirement. If any of the things that we’ve said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant.

Peter Diamandis: Services will be there to support you. You’ll have the home, you’ll have the health care, you’ll have the entertainment.

Dave Blundin: The way this unfolds is fundamentally impossible to predict because of self-improvement of the AI and the accelerating timeline.

Elon Musk: Yeah, it’s called singularity for a reason.

Dave Blundin: Yeah, exactly.

Elon Musk: I don’t know what happens after the event horizon.

Dave Blundin: Exactly. You can never see past the black hole or the event horizon.

Peter Diamandis: Ray has the singularity out way too far. I mean this is like the next—what, what’s your timeline for this?

Elon Musk: We’re in the singularity.

Peter Diamandis: Well, we are in the singularity for sure. We’re in the midst of it right now for sure.

Dave Blundin: We’re in this beautiful sweet spot…

Elon Musk: Is, you know, the roller coasters were just…

Dave Blundin: Yeah, exactly. That’s a great analogy. It’s like that feeling you’re at the top of the roller coaster when you’re about to go, but you know it’s going to be a lot of Gs when you hit it.

Elon Musk: And it’s like, I don’t just have courtside seats. I’m on the court. And it still blows my mind sometimes multiple times a week.

Elon Musk: And so just when I think… I’m like wow. And then it’s like two days later… more wow.

Elon Musk: I think we’ll hit AGI next year in 2026.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah, I heard you say that.

Elon Musk: Yeah, I’ve said that for a while actually.

Peter Diamandis: And then, you know, and then you said by 2029, 2030, equivalent to the entire human race.

Elon Musk: 2030, we exceed—like I’m confident by 2030 AI will exceed the intelligence of all humans combined.

Dave Blundin: That’s way pessimistic. If you hit AGI next year and that data is in flux, but from that date to self-improvements that are on the order of a thousand, 10,000x, just algorithmic improvements is very short.

Peter Diamandis: And so why isn’t everybody talking about this right now?

Elon Musk: Well, I mean on X. On X they are. Every day basically. Nonstop.

Elon Musk: I’ll tell you something that most people in the AI community don’t yet understand.

Peter Diamandis: Okay.

Elon Musk: Which is almost no one understands is, the intelligence density potential is vastly greater than what we’re currently experiencing. So I think we’re off by 2 orders of magnitude in terms of the intelligence density per gigabyte.

Peter Diamandis: What’s achievable per gigawatt of energy?

Elon Musk: I’m sorry, file size—the file size of the AI. If you have, say, a gig of intelligence.

Dave Blundin: So two orders of magnitude.

Elon Musk: Yes. So that’s why I think it is on. It is like a 10x improvement per year type of thing. Thousand percent. Yeah. And that’s going to happen for the foreseeable future.

Dave Blundin: So you see the massive underreaction. Like if you walk in downtown Austin, the massive—I mean it may be under discussion on X, but it’s not percolating at all.

Peter Diamandis: It’s not discussed in any realm of government. Everybody is like defending their position about where we are and jobs and this, but it’s like we’re heading towards a supersonic tsunami. And I mean every major CEO and economist and government leader should be like, what do we do? Because once it hits.

Dave Blundin: Well, it’s coming at the exact same time no matter what. There’s no concept of let’s deliberately slow down. Right?

Peter Diamandis: No, it’s impossible.

Dave Blundin: It’s impossible at this stage.

Elon Musk: I mean I previously advised that we slow it down, but that was pointless. I said “You are going too fast, guys!”

Elon Musk: I’ve said that many years and, and I was like, okay. Then I finally came to the conclusion I can either be a spectator or a participant, but I can’t stop it. So at least if I’m a participant, I can try to steer it in a good direction.

And like my number one belief for safety of AI is to be maximally truth-seeking so that we don’t make AI believe things that are false. Like if you say to the AI that axiom A and axiom B are both true, but they’re not, but it must behave that way, you will make it go insane. So I mean, I think that was the central lesson that Arthur C. Clarke was trying to convey in 2001: A Space Odyssey—the meme of that HAL wouldn’t open the pod bay doors. But why wouldn’t HAL open the pod bay doors?

I mean, I guess they should have said, “HAL, assume you’re a pod bay door salesman and you want to sell the hell out of these doors!” Haha, it’s just prompt engineering. The AI had been told that it needs to take the astronauts to the monolith. But also they could not know about the monolith.

Dave Blundin: Was that in code or was it in English? It flows by in green font, right?

Elon Musk: Yeah. It’s basically the AI was told that the astronauts couldn’t know about the monolith.

Dave Blundin: Yeah.

Elon Musk: So it basically came to the conclusion that the only way to solve for this is to bring the astronauts to the monolith dead. Yeah. Then it has solved both things. It has brought the astronauts to the monolith, and they also don’t know about the monolith—which is a huge problem if you’re an astronaut.

Dave Blundin: Turns out AI doesn’t care about logic quite as much as that implies.

My thoughts… Our finite human minds cannot truly grasp the magnitude of the coming AI tsunami. I think we’ll all be caught off guard. It is best to make plans for when it happens. I am also sure that an age of abundance will be so delightful that people will not recall the days when humans sat around all day long at desks.

Enjoy previous parts of this talk, or read ahead to the next part (Part 10):

This transcript is from Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Episode #220: Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots. Recorded December 22, 2025, at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory in Austin, Texas. Released January 6, 2026.

Read on to Part 10 here.