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David Moss and Gail Alfar grabbing coffee in Austin, Texas before their in-car FSD conversation for Episode 165 of Gail’s Tesla Podcast. Real-world insights on unsupervised Robotaxi rides in the city’s expanded service zone.

Gail’s Tesla Podcast Episode 165: David Moss Joins In-Car FSD Conversation on Unsupervised Robotaxi Rides in Austin

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Episode 165 of Gail’s Tesla Podcast is now live.

In this episode, David Moss joins me inside the car while we drive using Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD). He shares his firsthand experiences and thoughts after taking multiple unsupervised Robotaxi rides in Austin’s recently expanded service zone.

This is Part 1 of our conversation, with more to come soon. The discussion delivers a real-time, in-car perspective on how Tesla’s autonomous technology is performing in everyday driving conditions across Texas.

Watch the full episode here (or tap the X post for the video):

These in-car rides and conversations highlight the steady real-world progress Elon and the Tesla team continue to deliver every day as Robotaxi service grows in Austin and beyond.

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What stood out most to you in this episode? Have you taken an unsupervised Robotaxi ride in Austin’s expanded zone yet? Drop your thoughts or share your own Tesla story below.

A School Bus Nearly Runs a Red Light: Viral Video Highlights How Tesla Saves Lives

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Northern Virginia, March 25, 2026. A yellow school bus carrying children rolled aggressively toward a red light at an intersection near Chain Bridge Road, while a Tesla using FSD (Supervised) approached on green. In a matter of seconds, the car’s advanced driver-assistance system detected the threat and braked sharply. The vehicles stopped short of a collision. No one was hurt.

The driver of the car, a Washington DC-area resident and father whose own children ride school buses, shared the dashcam footage on X that afternoon. Posting under the handle @congressdj, he described the moment with quiet exasperation. “The bus was in a full roll,” he wrote in follow-up replies. “About to run that light… blew past the white line with prejudice.” With thousands of miles of experience using the system known as Full Self-Driving (Supervised), he insisted this was no phantom reaction. “It was a legitimate life save for these children,” he added. The video, complete with telemetry showing a peak of 0.82g of braking force, quickly drew hundreds of thousands of views.

School buses are trusted daily with the most precious cargo: children. In the United States, they transport millions of pupils each year; similar fleets operate across France, Italy and the rest of Europe. Yet the same roads that carry them are shared with cars, trucks and the occasional hurried driver. Parents everywhere recognise the quiet worry that accompanies the morning and afternoon routes. A moment’s inattention on the part of any professional at the wheel can ripple into something far larger.

The video has prompted the usual online debate. Some viewers saw an over-reaction, others a textbook example of technology stepping in when human reflexes might not. The poster, however, kept the focus where it belongs: on the children inside the bus. “With kids that ride school buses, this really infuriates me,” he noted.

This incident offers a gentle reminder that even seasoned professional drivers can have an off moment. Yet it also carries quiet hope. Artificial intelligence is proving it can help protect our most vulnerable road users, the children who ride school buses each day. Companies like Tesla, one of Elon Musk’s ventures, and others are showing what is possible when technology acts as an extra, vigilant layer of safety, stepping in during those critical split seconds when human error occurs. These innovations point the way toward journeys that are safer and more reassuring for families everywhere.

In the end, the children on board reached school safely, unaware of the close call, ready for lessons, laughter and whatever the day might bring. That ordinary, joyful outcome is reason enough for a small, satisfied smile and optimism about the safer roads the future can bring for families everywhere. 🚸

Elon Musk: Surprise Remote Talk at 2026 Abundance Summit – My Full Verbatim Transcript

Gail Alfar1 Comment

On March 11, 2026, Elon surprised us all with an appearance at the 2026 Abundance Summit in Los Angeles. In this talk with Peter Diamandis, Elon shared his latest thoughts on Grok 4.20, the hard takeoff of AI, Optimus robot timelines, explosive economic growth, and humanity’s path to universal high income and post-scarcity abundance. Here is my full transcript with Key Takeaways at the end!

Peter Diamandis: So, first off, congratulations on the merger of SpaceX and xAI — bold move going to power humanity’s first Dyson swarm. I’m curious: what’s your timeline for launching these data centers and how much bandwidth do you think you can get in the first year? Give us a sense of the speed at which you’re going to be making this happen.

Elon Musk: Yeah, so SpaceX is in the quiet period. I can’t actually tell you things. That would cause problems.

Peter Diamandis: I appreciate that. And I can’t wait to see the speed. You know, we had a conversation here on Monday with Eric Schmidt and with one of the leads from one of the other hyperscalers. I won’t mention who, but I’m curious where you feel we are in recursive self-improvement. Are we there? Do you see Grok doing recursive self-improvement at this point? And what’s the timeline for AGI and ASI?

Elon Musk: Yeah, I think we’ve been in recursive improvement for a while here. If you mean recursive self-improvement without a human in the loop, is that what you mean?

Peter Diamandis: I do. I am on the AI software side.

Elon Musk: I mean humans are gradually getting less and less in the loop on the recursive self-improvement. So you know every successive model is built by the one before it. So that is happening to a large degree but it’s not yet fully automated. It may be there at the end of this year but not later than next year.

Peter Diamandis: And do you see a hard takeoff at that point?

Elon Musk: We’re in the hard takeoff. Right now.

Peter Diamandis: Okay. Yes.

Elon Musk: I mean, at this point I go to sleep there’s some massive AI breakthrough and when I wake up there’s another one.

Peter Diamandis: Yes. Yeah. It’s hard to keep track, honestly. So, it’s a bit of a head spinner. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of the head spinning is happening from you, too.

Elon Musk: Yeah. Well, you know, Grok’s doing pretty well, and in some metrics, by some metrics, it’s the best, for example, it’s the best at predicting things, which, you know, is arguably the best metric for intelligence. The new Grok 4.20 is really good. We’re currently behind on coding. The reason I was a bit late for this was that I was just in a giant sort of all-hands on coding just going through all of the things that need to happen to essentially catch up and exceed our competitors on coding. Which I think we’ll do. I feel we should probably get there by the middle of this year.

I think people don’t quite understand just how much intelligence there will be or you know, just how far it will exceed human intelligence to a degree that is impossible to fully understand.

You can certainly imagine a situation where, let’s say, if let’s say, a million times more energy is harnessed than all of Earth’s current electricity usage, that would still only be roughly a millionth of the sun’s energy output.

So essentially if you increase Earth’s economy by a factor of a million it’s still roughly a trillion. Since we’re a trillionth of the sun’s energy, if you increase Earth’s economy in terms of electricity usage by roughly a million, you will be roughly 1 millionth only of the sun’s energy harnessed.

But what is it? What is an economy or an intelligence using a million times more electricity than all of our civilization. What does it think about or look like or do? It’s going to be something pretty magnificent. The challenge will be even vaguely appreciating that level of intelligence. But it’s safe to say it will solve everything you can possibly think of. Longevity being, surely, one of them!

Peter Diamandis: And, I do enjoy your unrelenting optimism. Haha, you’ve taken it to heart, monetizing hope, which is pretty funny, how you came up with that one!

Elon Musk: It was Grok’s marketing advice to me when you roasted me on the podcast. Haha, Grok was roasting you and saying you should monetize hope! But hey, it is better than monetizing misery, I suppose!

Elon Musk (continuing): AI and robots increase the economic output by so many orders of magnitude, that we cannot possibly comprehend it.

Peter Diamandis: We’re likely in a very short time to become a microscopic minority of intelligence on this planet.

Elon Musk: Yes, not even on this planet, in the solar system. Because you know your best case outcome for Earth for intelligence is roughly 1 billionth of the sun’s energy. That’s your best case outcome, if you generate intelligence only on Earth.

Peter Diamandis: Intercept it, right?

Elon Musk: Yes. Because roughly one half a billionth of the sun’s energy hits Earth and that’s the vast majority of energy that’s out there that we can access. So really the intelligence in the solar system will be many orders of magnitude greater than the intelligence on earth itself.

Peter Diamandis: Can I ask you a question, Elon? How far out can you see? How many years out can you make reasonable predictions?

Elon Musk: It’s hard to predict the path exactly, especially because often things are kind of an S-curve or a series of S-curves where it starts off slow, grows exponentially, hits a linear zone, and then goes logarithmic. That generally has been what I’ve seen with the breakthroughs in AI.

AI, for example… you’ll have some breakthrough. It’ll do an S-curve, and then it looks like it’s just going to go to infinity, but then you hit logarithmic returns until there’s another breakthrough. So progress in AI is just a sort of series of, you know, sort of overlapping S-curves or connected S-curves.

Peter Diamandis: I mean there was a point where you could probably predict out a decade or two decades. What are your thoughts now?

Elon Musk: Yeah. Okay. This is going to sound pretty crazy.

Peter Diamandis: It’s okay. We’ve been talking crazy all week…

Elon Musk: I’m not sure you are a receptive audience to wild prognostications.

Peter Diamandis: Yes.

Elon Musk: Um… (very long pause) I’d say the economy is 10 times the current size in 10 years. Greater than… that’s really saying something.

Peter Diamandis: Okay. Yeah, you had said, triple-digit growth in five plus years from now on, GDP and 10x the economy.

Elon Musk: I feel like that’s a 10x in roughly 10 years. I feel that’s actually a fairly comfortable prediction — obviously if there’s like World War III or something, that could put a kink in those plans. But in the absence of World War III, if current trends continue, I would say the economy will grow 10x in 10 years. And we’ll have a base on the moon! And we’ll have people on Mars.

Peter Diamandis: And we’ll have mass drivers on the moon!

Elon Musk: I think so, I think we’ll have mass drivers on the moon in 10 years.

Peter Diamandis: I love it, Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision being fulfilled. We had four robots on stage here this year at the Abundance Summit. I look forward to Optimus. I’m curious about the Optimus 3 timeline, in particular, when can I buy one or two? When do you expect it to go into commercial sale, or will you be leasing it?

Elon Musk: Well, we’re in the final stages of completion of Optimus 3, which is really going to be by far the most advanced robot in the world. Nothing’s even close. In fact, I haven’t even seen any demos of robots that are as good as Optimus 3, frankly. Maybe they’re out there or secret or something, I don’t know. And I have to make sure I’m saying things that are reasonably public, of course, but we’re streaming this on X, so this is pretty public and accurate. Yeah. I think we’ll start production on Optimus 3 this summer, but very slow at first, like the classic S-curve ramp of manufacturing units versus time. Then probably reach high-volume production around summer next year. And then we’ll have Optimus 4 design next year. I try to release a new improved robot design every year.

Peter Diamandis: When Dave Blundin and I were at the Gigafactory, it was an extraordinary experience! 11.5 million square feet for Tesla, and then I think you said you’re building out 9.5 million square feet for Optimus there as well, which is extraordinary.

Elon Musk: Let’s call it 10 million square feet, round numbers. Yeah, that’ll be quite a new factory design too. Like, it is different from other factories.

Peter Diamandis: How far before we have robots building robots? You’ve automated so much of the Gigafactory already, where humans are playing a smaller role. Will the robots just take over the roles humans have now?

Elon Musk: We still have a lot of humans building things. Um, you know, Tesla direct employees who are building things uh, or like basically people in the factory are either building or managing people who are building, is roughly 100,000. So we have a lot of people. Tesla’s total headcount is around 150k, of which 2/3s are, you know, in the factory in one form or another. And then our suppliers, there’s probably maybe a million or two million people in our suppliers type of thing. So it’s a lot of people. Um, what we do expect is that the output per person at Tesla becomes very very high. So we’re not planning any layoffs or reductions in personnel. In fact, we will increase our headcount. But the output per human at Tesla is going to get nutty high. Like, you can’t even believe it.

Peter Diamandis: When we were together, we discussed sustainable abundance on our podcast, and you reinforced the idea of a coming age of universal high income, which has become a point of discussion beyond UBI. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on how we get there. And more importantly, we talked about a timeframe of civil unrest, like maybe 2, 3, 4, or 5 years, with probably a lot of COVID-like checks in the interim until we reach demonetization and deflation that leads to UHI. Any more reflections on that? People really need that hope and vision.

Elon Musk: Yeah, to be clear, I don’t think we should be complacent. We do need to be careful because the future has a range of possible outcomes, and not all are great. But at this point I agree with you: it’s likely to be great. Probably 80% likely, maybe more. And I do think we’ll have universal high income. We’re basically just going to issue money to people because the output of goods and services will so far exceed the money supply that you’ll have deflation — deflation is simply the ratio of goods/services output to money supply. If growth of goods and services far outpaces money supply growth, which I predict it will, then deflation happens.

Yes. A lot of people will spin up new companies, compete fiercely, drive prices down, and accelerate deflation faster and faster.

Basically, AI and robots will make so much stuff and provide so many services that they’ll run out of things to do for humans. There’s only so much humans can even express wanting. Go back to my example: at a million times the Earth’s current economy, you’ve long since saturated all human desire. Even at a thousand times, you probably already saturate anything people can think of wanting.

Peter Diamandis: Yeah.

Elon Musk: So do you think the value of money significantly decreases? Will we go post-capitalist? Yeah, I think money stops being relevant at some point. It’s probably something like a Star Trek culture future. And AI down the road won’t use human currency, it’ll just care about power, mass, wattage, and tonnage. Yeah…

Key Takeaways

AI & Intelligence Explosion

  • We’re already in the “hard takeoff” — breakthroughs are happening overnight while we sleep.
  • Recursive self-improvement is well underway (humans stepping back gradually); full automation of the AI loop expected by end of 2026 or no later than 2027.
  • Grok 4.20 already leads in prediction (a top intelligence metric), coding catching up fast — expect it to surpass competitors by mid-2026.
  • Future intelligence will be orders of magnitude beyond humans, potentially using a million times more energy than today’s civilization… but still just a tiny fraction of the sun’s output.

Economy & Abundance

  • 10× economic growth in the next 10 years (to ~2036), with triple-digit GDP growth possible in 5+ years (assuming no WW3).
  • AI + robots will drive deflation so extreme we get Universal High Income (UHI) as an interim step.
  • Eventually a Star Trek-style post-scarcity world where money becomes irrelevant — robots/AI produce far more than humans can consume, saturating all desires. “Basically, AI and robots will make so much stuff… they’ll run out of things to do for humans.”

Robotics & Tesla

  • Optimus 3 is in final stages (most advanced robot on the planet right now). Production starts summer 2026 (slow ramp), high-volume by summer 2027. Optimus 4 design coming next year with yearly upgrades.
  • New 10-million-square-foot factory just for Optimus. Huge productivity boost per person — no mass layoffs expected (Tesla headcount ~150k + suppliers).

Space & Long-Term Vision

  • SpaceX + xAI merger path toward humanity’s first Dyson swarm (details limited by quiet period).
  • Moon base + people on Mars in ~10 years; mass drivers on the Moon too.
  • Overall intelligence will scale to solar-system level, solving everything from longevity to energy limits. 80%+ chance of a truly great future.

Elon’s standout quotes we noted

  • “We’re in the hard takeoff. Right now.”
  • “The economy is 10 times the current size in 10 years.”
  • “AI and robots increase the economic output by so many orders of magnitude that we cannot possibly comprehend it.”

My Take

Other AI companies are motivated by profit, but this is not Elon’s ambition. He’s already the wealthiest man on Earth — no one comes close. But also, no one comes close to putting into action the very things that will preserve consciousness.

Watch Elon Musk appearance at the 2026 Abundance Summit in Los Angeles on X by Steven Mark Ryan.

On March 11, 2026, Elon surprised us all with an appearance at the 2026 Abundance Summit in Los Angeles. In this talk with Peter Diamandis, Elon shared his latest thoughts on Grok 4.20, the hard takeoff of AI, Optimus robot timelines, explosive economic growth, and humanity’s path to universal high income and post-scarcity abundance.

Watch Elon Musk appearance at the 2026 Abundance Summit in Los Angeles on Youtube

Gail’s TESLA Podcast Episode 160: Grok Speaks 5 Languages in the Tesla! Live Demo with Rex, Eve, Sal & Ara + How to Activate Language Tutor

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Episode 160 is one of the most fun and useful episodes yet! I fired up Grok right inside the Tesla and did a full live demo showing how effortlessly it can translate and speak five different languages using the different Grok voice personalities: Rex, Eve, Sal & Ara.

It was pure magic watching (and hearing) Grok switch languages on the fly with perfect pronunciation and natural flow. Whether you’re brushing up on a new language or just love the tech, this one shows exactly why Grok + Tesla is such a powerful combo.

I also walked you through the exact steps so you can turn on Grok Language Tutor mode in your own car and start practicing immediately. Plus fun shoutouts to @kerrikgray in ATX and @JessicaTetreau at the gun range!

These kinds of features remind me every single time how Tesla and Elon Musk (along with xAI) are moving humanity ahead. They’re not just building cars — they’re breaking down language barriers in real time, turning every drive into a global classroom, and creating true abundance where anyone can connect, learn, and explore the world without limits. The future feels closer than ever!

🎙️ Watch the full episode right here:

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

  • 00:46 Grok in Korean
  • 01:32 Grok in Norwegian
  • 02:20 Grok in French
  • 03:31 Grok in Japanese
  • 04:58 Grok in Arabic
  • 05:40 How to start Grok language tutor in your Tesla
  • 06:31 Shoutout to @kerrikgray in ATX
  • 06:46 Shoutout to @JessicaTetreau at the Gun Range

I had the biggest smile filming this one — it felt like the perfect mix of smart AI, real-world usefulness, and next-level Tesla fun.

Drop a comment below: Which language would you want Grok to practice with you first? Have you tried the Language Tutor mode in your Tesla yet? I read every single one!

Thank you for riding with me on this journey. The future is already here — and it speaks every language!

Keep looking up, Gail Alfar ✿ What’s Up Tesla ✿

Transcript: Elon Musk Interview – Part 6

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(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

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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.

Gail’s TESLA Podcast Episode 158: Smooth Mountain Abundance – FSD v14.2.2.4 Delivers a Perfect Peaceful Drive!

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If you’ve been riding along with me on this wild FSD journey, you know I live for those moments when the car just gets it. When the tech feels less like software and more like a trusted co-pilot who’s quietly rewriting the future of travel.

Episode 158 is pure magic on wheels. The stunning, winding Route 2222 goes right along the water. Rolling hills, sparkling lake views, golden light, and zero stress. FSD v14.2.2.4 turned this scenic gem into the smoothest, most seamless ride I’ve ever experienced. It was pure joy from start to finish, perfect speed through every curve, effortless lane changes, and that buttery confidence that makes you forget you’re even in a car.

The whole drive felt like a mini-vacation. No interventions, no drama, just peaceful abundance rolling out in front of me. Moments like this are exactly why I’m so obsessed with Tesla. Elon Musk and the Tesla team aren’t just building cars, they’re moving humanity forward at lightspeed.

Every FSD update is another step toward a world of true abundance: safer roads, more family time, cleaner energy, and that Kardashev-level future where technology frees us to dream bigger instead of fighting traffic. Elon keeps pushing the edge, and we’re all along for the ride.

It’s inspiring, it’s hopeful, and it’s happening right now.

🎙️ Watch the full episode right here:

I poured my heart into this one because I want you to feel what I felt behind the wheel. Pure peace, pure joy, and pure excitement for what’s coming.

Thank you for riding with me on this journey. The future is already here and it drives like a dream.

Keep looking up,

Gail Alfar

✿ What’s Up Tesla ✿

Gail and Eve’s Tesla Podcast Ep 155: Letting Eve Decide Dinner with AI

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Episode 155 is a fun look into letting Eve, Tesla’s AI assistant, take the wheel on dinner plans—literally! We chat for food recommendations, switch ideas on the fly, and get seamless direct navigation through Austin’s sunny streets. It’s all hands-free with zero interventions, showcasing how Eve makes errands effortless and exciting.

https://twitter.com/gailalfaratx/status/2014528478318559366?s=20

The adventure starts with activating Eve and brainstorming spots: from gift shopping at Paper Source to craving tacos and queso. Eve suggests options like Domain Northside shops, then pivots to taco joints with fish tacos, beef tacos, chips, and boozy margaritas. Loved the real-time map updates and her pleasant voice handling every curveball!

Jump to around 1:30 for Eve’s first food recs, or 4:00 for navigation kicks in. By 7:00, we’re cruising to the spot with city views, and 10:00 brings music and wrap-up vibes. This ep highlights Tesla’s AI evolving into a true co-pilot for daily life—abundant, smart, and super helpful.

Catch the full AI dinner chat on X: Watch here — fast-forward for those interactive moments.

Here’s to more Eve adventures!

—Gail

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Praises Elon Musk and Tesla’s Optimus in Resurfaced Interview

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2025 Bloomberg Clip Highlights Collaboration on AI, Self-Driving, and Humanoid Robots

A video clip from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s Bloomberg Technology interview, originally aired on May 28, 2025, has gone viral again on social media, fueling excitement about Tesla’s robotics ambitions and broader partnerships with Elon Musk.In the segment, host Ed Ludlow asked Huang about Nvidia’s deepening ties with Tesla and xAI across AI computing, autonomous driving, and robotics.Huang lavished praise on Musk and his ventures, calling his work across multiple fronts “world class” and “revolutionary.”

Here is the verbatim quote from the clip:

“Elon is just an extraordinary engineer, and I love working with him. We’ve built some amazing computers together. We’re going to build many more computers together. The work that he’s doing in Grok, his self-driving car, his Optimus—these are all, every single one of them, world class. Every single one revolutionary. Every single one of them are going to be gigantic opportunities. And we’re delighted, I’m delighted to be working with him on that. So I think the Optimus opportunity is just right around the corner. It’s very likely that humanoid robots are going to be robots that we can deploy into the world relatively easily, and this is the first robot that really has a chance to achieve the high volume and technology scale necessary to advance technology. And so I think this is likely to be the next multi-trillion dollar industry.”

Huang emphasized Tesla’s unique manufacturing expertise as a key enabler for scaling Optimus to high-volume production, setting it apart from competitors.

The clip was reposted on X on January 1, 2026, by prominent Tesla supporter CB Doge.

Starlink Mini’s Lifesaving Triumph: Family Freed from Fallen Tree Nightmare in French Alps

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Remote Rescue Powered by Elon Musk’s Satellite Tech

For this story on how Elon Musk’s company’s products have helped people, making their lives better, we travel to the rain-lashed foothills of Savoie, in the French Alps.

A routine drive turned deadly in late July 2025. A massive pine tree crashed onto a family’s car during a torrential downpour, trapping a family of four—parents and their two children—inside. No cell signal in the isolated mountains; every minute risked disaster.

Enter a nearby private security worker, first on scene. Untrained for heavy extrication, he couldn’t budge the tree safely. His phone? Dead zone. But bolted to his car roof: a Starlink Mini kit—his go-to for jobs across France, Italy, and Switzerland.

In under two minutes, the dish locked onto satellites through the storm, delivering rock-solid Wi-Fi. Via Wi-Fi calling, he alerted emergency services with precise GPS coordinates. Rescuers raced in at blistering speed: 20 minutes—lifesaving in terrain where help could lag hours.

Firefighters chainsawed the tree for nearly three hours to free the parents. The shaken teen son, briefly unconscious but mostly unhurt, warmed in the hero’s car. All four survived intact. The story even aired on France’s TF1 national TV.

Tesla/SpaceX expert Nic Cruz Patane spotlighted it on X:

“Starlink Mini saved four lives… in the French Alps. … Rescue took 20 minutes to arrive. Life saving technology.”

Why Starlink Mini Shines in Crises

This portable beast—lightweight, vehicle-mountable, 100+ Mbps—cuts through dead zones via SpaceX’s low-Earth orbit constellation. Perfect for first responders, hikers, remote pros: seconds to connect, storm-proof.

In signal black holes, Starlink isn’t optional—it’s essential grace. Echoed worldwide: “It just works.” Elon Musk’s genius: lifelines from the stars.

Starlink Mini’s Lifesaving Triumph: Family Freed from Fallen Tree Nightmare in French Alps