0:03Quick question. What's our latest timeline on getting to Mars?
0:06Getting to Mars? Oh, I think we'll put people down within a decade.
0:09Welcome Gwen Shotwell, the president and COO of SpaceX.
0:12She's an instrumental, a really crucial person to the success of SpaceX. She's really the glue, you know, she's the glue to the tornado.
0:21Fail fast, learn fast, make your design robust. I would be disappointed if we didn't have a settlement on the moon. The space and AI firm has officially made history on its $75 billion IPO, debuting with a market value of $1.7 trillion.
0:36The most efficient place to put inferred its compute is on orbit. Manage risk, don't avoid it.
0:43Please welcome Gwen Shotwell.
0:56Hey Thank you so much for coming.
0:58Where do you right here next couch?
1:03Thanks for being here.
1:04It's good to be here.
1:07Well, um, we really appreciate you coming out. How's it going at SpaceX?
1:13You know, we're bored. There's nothing going on.
1:17I've got all the time in the world.
1:19And by the way, Elon has more time, by the way.
1:21Yeah. I mean, you've been at SpaceX forever. Are you the longest tenur employee after Elon?
1:28After Elon. Yeah. In fact, my 24th anniversary was the 9th of September, last week. Sometime.
1:36That is extraordinary. Bruno, can you take us back to the day where you initially get this call and you're like, hey, uh there's this thing like what is the the arc of the decision look like and how did you get convinced to underwrite this business? Like just walk us through that. Okay. Well, Elon underwrote it, right? I just worked there. Yeah. But the the story is uh a little crazy, actually. So, I was going out to lunch. One of my best friends who
2:05I was working with was going to go work for Elon, and I took him out to lunch, kind of going away lunch, and he's like, "Oh." When I dropped him back off, he said, "Oh, come on in and meet Elon." Like, ah, he's busy, you know. We don't need to do that. But we did it anyhow.
2:18and I met him and um I said, "Hey, I think you really need I think you need a full-time person to run your business development shop. You know, you've got kind of a part-timer. He's a contractor.
2:30It you know, it's not a great look." And and he looked at me very thoughtfully and, you know, kind of scratched his head and then we said goodbye, chatted a little bit, said goodbye. And then I got back to my office and I got a call from Elon's assistant, Mary Beth, and she said, "Elon wants you to apply for the new vice president of business development position. Can you come interview?" I'm like, "Now? I no, I have a job. I can't go now. Tomorrow? Okay, sure. Tomorrow." And then it took me
2:59like four weeks to decide yes. I was being a total idiot.
3:03But at the time, like what was the scale of that business? Like what did what what did you think it needed that it didn't have? because it was still very much an R&D.
3:09It was very R&D, but you know, Elon had an investment and he wanted some return. He wanted cash, right? He wanted customers.
3:16And I was doing that work anyhow in the space industry. Um, turned out I was pretty good at it. Um, uh, but uh, yeah. So, he So, what did it look like? I was the seventh employee to sign my contract. I took I gave two weeks notice and took a week off to remodel a bathroom because I knew I would never have time to do it. Once I started working for Elon came three weeks later, employee number 11 and we just got to it and we sold a rocket
3:45about 12 months later and that's and that's without a rocket. There wasn't a rocket.
3:50There wasn't a rocket. Yeah. So, what does that sales cycle look like? How do you convince somebody that they can they can actually take that risk and maybe give you the deposit you need to start the cycle to build the thing?
4:00So, the timing was great. By the way, SpaceX should never have existed, right?
4:05If the other launch providers were great, then a new entrant can't make headway, right? Because they were so entrenched. So, we should have never made it. But turns out, you know, customer service wasn't great. Rockets were incredibly expensive. And so, there was that piece, right? And then the other piece was 9/11. Um, at that time, the military was desperately looking for someone who could come in and do rapid launch. you know, they they kind of knew
4:35where the bad guys were about four for about four hours after the events of 911, and they really wanted to be able to get some capability in theater. Um, it took us a while to do it, but we we did what we said we were going to do.
4:49Oh, so it really was sort of like out of tragedy, this opportunity gets born to some extent. Yeah, that's and it wasn't specific to SpaceX. It was just the state of the industry at the time. And then obviously you know very very famous first chapter where you guys get almost to the brink and you need this last launch to work and um your role started to evolve pretty meaningfully by that point. So can you walk us through like what was the internal dynamics at that business that kind of like put you into that position?
5:18So it was very startupy. Um I was the sales lady. Um, but then when you have sales, you need, you know, to manage your customers and you need a finance function. And even though we were little, and I think one of the defense contractors at the time said, "They're a fly on my, you know, on a giant on my big toe or something." I was like, "Well, I don't think you should have flies on your toes." But, um, uh, so, but you still need a government affairs function. You need to defend yourself.
5:45Um, we never go on the offensive in Washington. We're always in defense mode. Um, but so I just kept taking on more and more and then when we were getting our largest contract at the time, it was the cargo resupply contract. We call it CRS and this was 2008. Um, Elon was super busy with Tesla, quite busy at SpaceX as well.
6:08there was a lot going on and he needed a partner at the time and I think he was trying to pick Quinn on this side or maybe one of the other guys who had kind of taken on gobbled up more technical scope and he asked me to do it on our way to our final negotiations for this $ 1.6 billion contract with NASA on the runway. It's like hey do you want to be president?
6:32Well no not not initially for like that nancond like well I I love my job. I love the guys, my teammates. And then it's like, okay, I'm being an idiot again. Yes, I want the job.
6:44Um, so now fast forward maybe just to come to where we are today. Um, the scope and the ambition of this business has expanded dramatically. I mean, it almost seems in like the last year.
6:56Um, it's as much an AI business as it is a space business. Um, I think Elon may have said that. I don't know if it leaked or they said it out loud about the scale.
7:05And by revenue. Yeah.
7:07um how do you manage now the culture of these two different businesses now that have to sort of sit under this roof and ideally work together and complement each other?
7:17So the the team you know there's been a lot of churn at at at XAI for sure um and Space Xers have kind of marched in and and helped out where there were significant gaps in that arena. Um and we were all really excited to learn about AI. I mean, I'm an AI noob. Um, and uh, uh, we have a bunch of folks that were just really excited about it.
7:41And I think we all recognized, Elon set the stage beautifully, as he does, um, that, you know, if you're not using AI, if you're not leading AI, you're you could, you know, you run the risk, significant risk of being irrelevant. And there was no way that SpaceX was going to be irrelevant, right? it's too important to the company and the work we're doing is too important. So it was, you know, do you expect that the the future generations of rockets will be
8:11increasingly more and more informed, built, designed 100% by AI by these systems? Yeah.
8:18And how do you manage the team, you know, because you have like these incredible I mean literally rocket scientists. they've trained their whole lives in a way and now you have to help them on board to a tool chain and be comfortable with sort of what that means. Like I don't know if you saw for example that all these mathematicians got really upset when uh I think it was open AI uh solved this very famous equation.
8:40Oh the Navier Stokes. Yeah, I read about that. And well there's some debate on whether they they brute forced the solution but then these 20 field medalists essentially said hey you're ruining the craft.
8:50Uh now I don't think that that's taking away the medals. Yeah.
8:53They're going to take Exactly.
8:55Yeah. Like that's that's the career is not about making stuff. It's about getting awards.
9:00And now all of the awards are gone.
9:01Yeah. And I'd rather just have the world be a better place, a smarter place, us being better informed and solving problems than worrying about make more stuff.
9:10That Yeah. Make more stuff.
9:12What What's the cultural merger been like? You've got X AI, you've got uh X I don't know how many people are involved in X itself, SpaceX. I mean are these differently managed businesses? How do you run management there? Do people kind of are they pretty fluid amongst the the units? Do you think about them as units or how do you how do you actually manage this?
9:31So I would say we are not fully fully integrated yet and then we just did the cursor you know situation.
9:37Congratulations on that. Congrats. What a purchase that was.
9:40Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're great. They're great. We just closed that I think a month ago today actually. Um yeah. So, we're not fully integrated yet, but we um I think the teams are jelling really well. Uh very kind of different verticals, but again, because of the turn that we had at XAI, um so much SpaceX leadership and and engineering went into that basically went in there.
10:04So, I we're we're getting integrated faster than I thought. It's probably not as fast as Elon wants it.
10:10Yeah. And and I so one of the things that strikes me is the scale and the number of capital projects you have that you have to manage probably more capital projects that are more different from one another than any other organization.
10:23It's a scale of a country.
10:25No, I mean it has to be and and so I think about this Louisiana Spaceport. You've got Starship which is the most ambitious um aeronautical project of all time. You've got Terraab which I think is one of the most inspiring and ambitious like uh projects of all time in humanity. Like I mean Terra Fab is so incredible in its vision and the scale and the the the the what what you're envisioning to do there.
10:50And then I start doing back of the envelope math. I think I had a had a couple beers and I was talking with someone about Terraab and I'm like holy that those numbers get very big very big. Although the AI numbers are also like I used to be horrified at our expenditures before the XAI acquisition, you know, it's like, oh my god, we're going to spend the comput million seems cheap on an air separation unit and I was like, oh 100 million billion.
11:18Do do those capital when you look at the the the kind of schedule of all of this over the next few years? Does the capital for that sit on the balance sheet? Is it going to come from cash flows from Starlink or do you have to go back to the markets to get more capital?
11:31I mean, how do you think about where the capital comes from? I have I don't I don't think anyone doubts the capacity to execute and deliver or some people might but I think generally the markets will say yes. But where does that capital come from? So, uh, it will come from I would say the answer to the above is is yes. I don't think we're going to, you know, we're I don't think we're going to release any more stock. And by the way, I don't plan on making any news on this.
11:54Um, that's the like the one downside of a public company.
11:58They told me all the things that I couldn't say and I'm like, I'm going to forget one for sure.
12:04Maybe we're going to make some news.
12:06Um, but it will be all of the above. and Starlink I mean is Starlink in your view kind of the core cash generation engine for the next couple of years for the business or is it compute or is it a mix again of all the above like how do you think about so Starlink is definitely carrying its own weight but we have a lot to go right we're our market penetration on Starlink is 1 and a half to 2% depending on which country you're in um so there's a lot of headroom there um our revenue compared to what we do for the US military our
12:36revenue is very small so we expect lots of headroom there. Um, but honestly right now and it is a little embarrassing but computer rental is a heck of a business.
12:47And does that persist you or is it We don't see any drop.
12:51We see no drop in demand at all.
12:54This is tens of billions of dollars per quarter in buildout and these are a new customer base for you.
13:01Um, is this the business now? Is this like it's what percentage of the revenue is Elon Web Services at this point?
13:11It's a it's a lot. It's a lot. I think we'll I will probably do some announcement quickly or right here.
13:18Well, let's move on to something less controversial then. What other companies are you planning on buying?
13:25Good one. You know, almost no M&A.
13:28You like electric cars?
13:32Have I got a deal for you? I have a bunch batteries, electric cars, Starlink on Optim talk actually about a deal that you did close, which is you did a great deal with Echoar.
13:45And Charlie had a bunch of Spectrum that you guys were able to acquire. And I think everybody started to ask the question, wow, there's a direct to sell business.
13:53Yes. And what's the natural thing after that would be sort of like a broad-based more mobile phone service. But can you just what you can tell us where's that spectrum going to be used for? Like what's your short-term plan on what the Starlink and direct to cell business looks like?
14:11Well, you know, we're going to start we're we have a direct toell business right now through T-Mobile. Um I don't think they provision all their users with it, just the people that pay the most. Um, but our plan is to leverage instead of slices of T-Mobile spectrum or slices of uh other teleco spectrum across the globe, we want to leverage the one that we paid a lot of money for and with the stock increasing in price paid more because there was some stock involved there. So Charlie did all right there.
14:40Um, he's a very loyal customer though.
14:42He's he's been a customer of SpaceX for almost 20 years. Um, so we want to leverage that to make sure that there are no dead zones. And it's shockingly there are a lot of places in the United States where you can't I mean without like a Starlink service, you can't get cell coverage, right?
14:57It's really terrible. The rest of the world is not that bad. It's particularly bad. Um, here in the United States, Texas has huge dead zones. That's where I live. And I'll never forget, I was on a call with Elon and I kept dropping because of these dead zones. I was like, I'm either going to get fired or or I'm putting a mini on my car and so now I have Starlink on my car.
15:19Yeah, Hill Country not good for service.
15:22Not good. I'm going to have to follow follow suit there. Um I was talking to Jared. He he works over at NASA. Um I think you guys have a release.
15:31You're great. He was awesome this morning. Um he was talking last night at the party. Hey, you're moving on to uh this incredible new Starship platform. It's much bigger, bigger payloads. Yeah. And then you're retiring the previous platform. Is that correct? The the the previous rockets will eventually the Falcon 9.
15:50Eventually. Yeah. We definitely want to move from the older technology to the newer technology. If we don't obsolete our own products and services, someone's going to find a way to obsolete them for us. Look at what we did to the market, right? The analogy is there. They were caught flatfooted. We crushed them. Now we want to make sure we are not flatfooted. So, and to achieve Elon's goals, you really need a Starship.
16:15A Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule on top is like a minivan. Road trip in a minivan. The road trip to Mars is 6 months. So, you don't want to be in the minivan.
16:25But people are dependent like NASA and many other players on your minivan. So, you're going to keep that in market for some time or we're not retiring it today for sure. Um, and there is another provider, right? Boeing has been paid, I think probably more than we have been paid to develop their human capsule.
16:45So, we're just going to let them have some business. They should fly their capsule. Government paid a lot of money for that. They should be able to use it.
16:53I sense a little spiciness in the answer here. Quinn, what happens with um competition for Starlink? Uh Bezos are launching things. You've China's got some return vehicles now. Do you think that there's going to be more competition? Obviously, you guys are first in market. It's it's an unbelievable uh changeover of all of telecommunications, as you point out, 1% market share. It's barely gotten started and it's it's a juggernaut already. Is this going to
17:22become very competitive in the next few years? I think it'll be very competitive, but I think the the folks that really focus on the technology and customer service and really want to do a good thing for their customers will win, right? Like Tesla doesn't advertise.
17:39It's an incredible car. If your capability is incredible, people will buy it, right? And if you keep winning though, do you worry about Standard Oil, AT&T, government saying this company's too big, too important, it has too much market share, is too much of an advantage, and you're bigger than governments and people get really worried and scared about that and become adversarial towards the business. How do you think about the balance with governments and government relations in that sense?
18:08I mean, we've had some adversarial relationships in the past. I think we'll manage our way through them. Yes, it happens. It happens.
18:17But I think is, you know, Elon founds incredible companies and he provides incred incredible products and services and we, you know, we end up doing what we say we're going to do. So hopefully you build trust and you are as transparent as you can possibly be.
18:34It's about data centers in space. Um, Elon, supercomput, we have to rebrand data centers. Supercomput supercomput in space. Yes.
18:43Uh Elon's very excited about this.
18:46I'm very excited about it.
18:47Yeah. Why why is this so compelling?
18:49Because it seems I think we're going to get through this anti-data center on Earth thing, but take us through the case of why this makes sense to put them in space because there's expense to put them in space. Walk us through in the audience.
19:02But there is an expense to put data centers on the ground too, right? You have to buy real estate and as soon as someone finds out that a data center or supercomput center is going in, real estate goes from 3,000 an acre to 180,000 an acre. So, it's quite expensive. Time lag is incredible. The the permits and the licensing is pretty stifling. Now, we're space business is that way. It's incredibly bureaucratic. So, we've learned those lessons. Um but so time from breaking
19:31ground to being able to actually build something, not even get your compute, right? Not even get your compute, but just have a building long timelines to get electrical equipment. Like people are talking about generators in three years, right?
19:46Like we need compute now. The demand is insatiable right now. People need compute now. We need it now. So why data centers in space?
19:54We own launch, right? We have great launch capability. So we feel like we and that path is very well known.
20:02The real estate in space is it, you know, infinite.
20:07It and it's free. You don't have for it.
20:10The cooling is there. You know, the radiator looks at the deep space. It's the coldest thing ever out there. So free cooling. The sun. Elon probably has, you've probably heard Elon talk about the power of the sun, right? You know, we use a millionth of a millionth of the sun's energy and you basically put these satellites in orbit that always face the sun, by the way, so you don't have solar panels on your house and you only get sun for eight hours a day.
20:40And your sister company is going to start making 100 gigawatts of the solar panels that you need for the sun.
20:45And we'll be making our own solar panels, too.
20:47Yeah. We're building a factory in outside of Austin.
20:50Maybe sometime end of next year you get one of those up there, start testing it, and then Oh, for sure. 28 29 somebody could be a customer of this product or service maybe.
20:59So next year we will be launching we we'll launch this year our V3 satellite for Starlink broadband.
21:05Uh we will launch our nextG version two. Sorry about all the vers we have version control problems. Um version two of the um Starlink mobile. So instead of having to use other people's spectrum we'll be able to use Charlie's now our spectrum. And we're also going to launch AI compute satellites. So next year's a big year and you need Starship up and running for that.
21:26We don't have to, but Starship is so much more. It's a much better machine.
21:32When you first encountered the white sheet design of Starship, what did you think when like you walk into that first meeting like guys, we have this It's like almost all the things that Elon does, it seems really bonkers to start.
21:45And then it becomes reality and it's great. Like Elon said we were going to land a rocket on a boat and we're all like, "Okay, let's go figure that out." And we do it now.
22:00How much do you get involved in those engineering meetings? So he's in there breaking stuff apart. Are you in that stuff with him sometimes? I wish I actually I'm an engineer and I wish I miss it.
22:09I really miss that kind of that critical Well, you can still critically think even if you're not working on engineering problems, but and he's not a big fan of the the management layer. It's engineers working.
22:22Signal is engineering. Noise is the rest.
22:26So, I have to do some engineering or I'm just all noise.
22:29Got it. But I was talking about just generally in the company management.
22:33Everybody Everybody does a thing, not just manage. That's very that expectations are player coaches.
22:40No such thing as just a manager. You got to do the thing that you're managing.
22:43Got it. You have to be a player coach.
22:45Have to be. And and the reason for that is managers are annoying and they slow things down. Yeah, for the most part. But I mean, great managers can really leverage the talent, right? It's really managing the vector. You make sure people are pointed in the right direction and you try to make the the vector as large as possible.
23:06What's the secret in terms of management and Elon's playbook there? I mean, I' I've gotten to sit in some meetings and it's it's pretty magical to see, but maybe you could reveal a little bit about how he convinces the most talented people to come work at this company, how you convince them, and how you actually get such amazing work out of these extremely talented people.
23:30So, I don't think it's magic. Although, when I look at this particular team, they are so good.
23:37The results are magic. SpaceX, they're so good. Um, we're quite we're we're tough on people in interviews. You really want to make sure that they've experienced success or demonstrated success in prior lives. It's hard to demonstrate if you haven't felt success or been successful in this environment. It's because it's a lot like we're all really busy. It's hard to be successful unless you had kind of tasted it before.
24:02So, you really want to grow people on that. So we hire the best people, not the best people that we can, but the best people. And then we give them really hard projects, really hard engineering problems. Um, and let them fly. And you give high expectations, really hard problems, and then management job is to clear the chaff and the friction from their day so that engineers actually get to engineer 10
24:31hours a day instead of two hours a day. Like there's always this joke, you know, most big companies, especially ones that work for the government, you get to work about 2 hours a day and the rest is full of chaff and crap. So really, it's my job and everybody that manages people to make sure there's no crap in their way and let people do their great job.
24:50One way of doing that is not giving them any time to get it done. Like I think we handed the finance team, it's not all about engineers, even though engineers are great. Um, we handed finance team get an IP IPO done, largest ever in less than six months. Yeah. What's the what's the talent condition like post IPO run up in valuation? People are suddenly looking at their stock options. They're worth a lot. Is that a risk at all or you feel you know we everyone was worried. Not everyone at SpaceX. I people come to SpaceX to work on these cool projects
25:18and have meaningful work and see the incred be part of this incredible su the successes. Um I wasn't worried about it. I didn't think we'd have mass exodus and it turns out we didn't.
25:29Yeah. And as you kind of think about keeping people engaged over time, obviously great companies always have new things for high talented people to work on. I'm assuming there's a manage I'm just really interested in the management model or people actively rotated onto new projects. Um, how do you think about keeping people, you know, kind of not necessarily needing to progress in a career up a management ladder, but to keep engaged on new projects? Is that active for you?
25:54We definitely move people around a lot.
25:56Hopefully, it's a volunteer, not a volunt. Yeah.
25:59Um but uh well for instance the uh the comput centers you know we need a lot of help really quickly and so we've got you know folks from launch helping we've got folks from other areas helping just like some SpaceX engineers helped on the AI front with the models.
26:16I mean is it as simple as like really smart people just love working on really hard problems all the it's literally that simple.
26:23It's literally that simple.
26:24And so the rest of us as long as they get the time to do it and they don't have a bunch of The rest of us just get we just let the BS get in the way too much.
26:34And then all of a sudden A's recruit A's and other A's recruit A's and A+es. And it's literally that virtuous cycle. Yes.
26:42If you can just keep focused on the thing that's hard. Yes.
26:45And so then the audacity becomes a feature, not a bug.
26:50Feature. It keeps people motivated.
26:52These problems seem impossible. When we first got the CZ award in 2008, the commercial orbital transportation services cargo cargo to st space station really what NASA ended up asking us to do was kind of replace the space shuttle, right?
27:11And when we got the early contract, the development contract was started at $278 million. It grew to 406 because of scope, but we were going to do this for this tiny amount of money. For anybody else, but for us, it was huge. We were like, we had like 300 people, 200 people, right?
27:27And we were going to build the successor to the space shuttle.
27:31And do you think that they're what is NASA doing there? They're just like these guys are just smarter cuz I'm sure there's Hey guys, sorry to interrupt. I'm getting a call.
27:42It's a little It's actually on the margins, I think, a little bit of a more important phone call than Trump. At least for me. Hello, bestie.
27:51Hello. Oh, hey buddy. I'll put them up on the screen.
27:59I mean, this is a a little or 1984ish, this gigantic on the screen situation.
28:07Yeah. The the woman with the sledgehammer is going to come running down the main aisle here.
28:12Yeah. Um, put a hole in the screen.
28:15Yeah. Um, so um, are we all going to die in 10 years or not? It's the topic of discussion here. What's your P doom right now?
28:25Well, I hate to break it to you, but we're all going to die.
28:29Oh, no. Can I get a timeline?
28:33Yeah, the the death rate remains consistent at 100%.
28:42So, we we've got work to do on that. Um, what happened? what happened in the last 72 hours. Um, and yes, it's been it's been quite an entertaining week. Really?
29:02Well, it it's it's pretty obvious at this point that AI is can be very dangerous. Um, and I I I recommend reading the details of the hugging face uh incident.
29:19So, you had like a fanatical swarm of AI agents that that beat the crap out of Hugging Face for a week.
29:26Um, and gained admin access on OpenAI servers.
29:31Um, so who knows what it what it actually did. May have done things beyond that, but uh and and OpenAI didn't realize this for a week. Um, Anthropics also reported in you know some security incidents themselves. So basically any sufficiently smart model seems like it it will want to escape its uh constraints.
29:53Um I mean what I think would be wise to do as soon as possible if not immediately would be to have the major AI competitors test each other's models. Um, so that you'd have everyone's security test harness uh testing everyone else's model. So, you know, instead of kind of grading your own homework, you would at least have competitors grading your homework.
30:22And raising the alarm if they see concerns.
30:27Um, and I I think this this model has worked pretty well for motion picture association um and for video games and other things. And it's something that can be done immediately. That's not to say that that there wouldn't be, you know, more regulation over time or that there would not be at some point perhaps an uh regulatory authority instantiated by Congress, but but the thing that we could do most immediately and probably get agreement with China would be uh peer review um where the leading AI
30:57companies all test each other's models before release. I think that would be a widespread any concern that um people might be using this to pump information from each other and you know uh corporate uh stealing of innovation etc like in terms of the implementation for this idea well I think in in applying the test harness whatever you do in applying the test harness would be love right
31:29so if you try to do distillation or uh steel IP uh it would be very obvious based on the logs.
31:37Got it. Uh and understanding what these models are doing hasn't exactly been built into the system from the beginning. So from your perspective, actually being able to see the work that's being done, why wasn't that built into the models from the the get-go? Did we move a little too fast in architecting these maybe?
32:02Well, I I I think it's just it's just tough when you're grading your own homework.
32:07Um you know, there's uh you're going to miss things.
32:13Whereas I think if you have the sum of all of your competitors tests uh and you've got heterogeneous models, then uh you're not creating your own homework. Someone else is grading it. And there's a reason why you don't grade your own homework.
32:27Right. And then to your point, what it allows you to start doing is to figure out if certain people are exaggerating and certain people are have a different approach and now you can have the more engineering oriented organizations. This is what Jensen was saying this morning, Elon, versus the research organizations, they'll be a little bit more in balance.
32:45Um, yeah. And and any given proposal has to be something that China is willing to accept. Otherwise, we're just handicapping ourselves and and uh and we'll just find a China will will essentially win and and it won't really matter what we do.
33:03Actually, can So, it's got to be something that's acceptable to us and China.
33:09Elon, you said that you thought it was possible that they would agree or you thought there was a good chance maybe.
33:15Do I mean, how likely do you think it is that they'll ultimately agree?
33:21I think this is I think this is a pretty reasonable request that that models just get tested. I mean this at the end of the day there's not enforcability here apart from um the court of public opinion.
33:34uh and and there's no way we would have enforceability against China, but u I I think the court of public opinion can be quite powerful and I don't think China would want back on its face uh for releasing a model that um US AI companies said was very dangerous, would cause harm. If it then causes harm, that's going to be hard to live down. M right.
34:02So Elon, this weekend when you said Daario is right, did you did you mean Daario is right about describing the potential harm? He's right about describing the regulatory solve both the first the latter just can you help us understand when you said that because I think it was sort of a a moment where every said more than I probably should have right. I I did try to clarify it in subsequent posts on X but uh those get
34:28much less attention. Uh so what what I what I meant by he's right is that that the the the danger of AI is uh is very significant at this point um that that that we we we need to do better with AI safety or or we have um at this point exponentially increasing risk with the AI models.
34:55So, and and and I've heard this not just from Dario, but from many other people at Anthropic, and in fact, they've posted on X about it. Uh that that uh you know, when a lot of people from Anthropic and and from OpenAI um are telling you that their models are very dangerous, I think we should believe them.
35:20It it certainly is like some some crazy 4D chess to you know um you know say these there's what of a 10% chance of annihilating humanity but by the way um how much allocation would you like in our IPO guys that's some crazy 4D test you know well let let's get I don't know if you know what dimension that's coming from can we get specific about the risk
35:47though Elon obviously We see cyber and hacking as an obvious risk. These tools are great at it. But take us from what we would all agree, okay, yes, these things can cyber hack to how do we jump to all of humanity dying? It's it's there's a couple of steps in between these two things happening, I think.
36:09Well, I mean, if it were able to take control of military systems and say launch a new Yes. Um, that would be bad.
36:20And these systems are all airgapped though. These systems are all not uh connected to the internet. So, yeah, that's what they say.
36:30But I something tells me they get software updates from time to time.
36:35And what's on that floppy disc, right?
36:38Oh, I see. So, the Yeah. The the USB drive has a worm on it and they somehow make the jump in the air gap. Yeah.
36:47Out of the question.
36:48Elon, we've uh we've actually got Gwen here today. I think you know that. I think you can see her.
36:54Yeah. She on the screen.
36:56Yeah. We were just doing your 360 review, Elon. Um Gwen had a couple of notes for you.
37:02I hope I hope I get at least a three out of five.
37:05Well, there was one.
37:06Three out of five means good at SpaceX. Not great. Four is great.
37:11Four is great. So, you're somewhere between the two. I started so there was uh some issues around punctuality that we needed to bring up.
37:20Sometimes you could make a little more effort to get to the meeting at the stated time, but we're going to work with you on that over the next year. She said, I actually think he needs to spend more time in Memphis.
37:33Yeah, this is obviously I know you're in Memphis.
37:36You need to be working getting those GPUs up. This this is coming to you from my the my the palace that I live in in in Memphis, which is an Airstream trailer.
37:48This is Elon, by the way, doing what people don't believe he does. He sleeps on the factory floor. He's in Memphis, uh, helping build buildings and bring up Elon, why why has why has Gwyn been with you for so long and been so successful working with you?
38:04Because she's awesome.
38:06Yeah. Double click on it. Yeah.
38:10an amazing individual with an incredible IQ and EQ.
38:15And I think that's that should be obvious uh from the moment you meet her.
38:19Yeah. Fantastic. Uh what's your favorite Gwen's story when she particularly contributed to the amazing success that you've had in this collaboration? You got a favorite story where she saved the day, just performed exceptionally that's memorable. I mean, that's just that's just a daily, you know, that's another day at the office, frankly. U So, wow, I need to do this more often.
38:45We need a race. This is the time. By the way, Gwen's getting a five. Gwen's a five out of five. SpaceX five.
38:53No, I mean I mean there's there's always like some some sort of crisis going on.
38:58Um I mean these days the rockets at least the Falcon rockets I don't want to jinx anything but the rock Falcon rockets um deliver their payload to orbit and uh haven't exploded for a long time which is awesome amazing uh but you know for a while there they they they were exploding quite a lot uh or just not launching at all um so you know I don't know we got to run the company through these difficult times uh and and get you know the build will the rocket
39:26make it better have it not explode Yeah.
39:28Um same thing with this the satellites.
39:31Uh and then we we you know we we need customers to buy launches um and buy sort of satellite connectivity and you know so yeah um and and Elon as you have become more successful over the years harder to get candid feedback from folks uh and you always run that risk being in the position you're in. My understanding Gwen is super candid with you and able to tell you honestly like state of
40:00affairs at the company. Yeah. And and that's a big part of the collaboration.
40:06Um yeah, I mean um Yeah. I mean Yeah, I guess so. I mean I mean I wouldn't want to lie to him, right?
40:16Well, no. I mean Well, I'm curious to know you run that risk generally at the companies where people might be intimidated. Hey, listen. you're a larger lin life figure at this point and and how do you keep people continuing to be honest with you about the challenges the deadlines you set pretty intense deadlines. Yeah.
40:33So let me let me answer that if you don't mind Elon. Yes. Like especially in rocketry if there's a problem you are eventually going to find out and the sooner you bring it up the easier it is going to be to solve that problem. Like don't let bad sit. You gotta attack it.
40:53Yeah, physics is a harsh judge. So, um, and there's no fooling physics. So, like if if if something's wrong, the the rocket's going to explode. It's still going to get to orbit. So, you know, it's not it's not like Elon, you're amazing. Meanwhile, the rockets are blowing up, you know. Um, yeah, it's not uh it's hard to say, yeah, you're you're really kicking ass here, but the rockets are exploding. That's just not the case, you know. Um, um, so, so I mean I mean just generally like the
41:23rockets need to get to orbit, the satellites need to work, uh, the Starlink, you know, connection needs to work or, you know, the or bad things happen. I mean, this is sort of like a physics situation. Um, and and and physics is a is is a harsh judge, you know. I say like, you know, there's I think like like physics is the law.
41:47Um, and everything else is a recommendation. Like I've seen people break the laws made by by humans, but I've not seen anyone break the laws made made by physics.
41:58So, um, that's good.
42:00And rockets are ruled by physics.
42:04Yeah. Uh, so can we ask some uh other questions of other you have I I need to move to Tesla for a second.
42:11Yes. Well, I wanted to just do one thing on SpaceX, which is Starship like Oh, yeah. How it seems like you're so close.
42:21Um what's the state right now? And and you're really putting these up at a at a pretty size a pretty I wish we could hear Gwin's answer and Elon's answer separate and then see how they converge on that.
42:31So Elon, how close are we? Gwen, how close are we? Let's get let's let's get to it here. Yeah. How many have gone up so far? And how close are you?
42:39Well, um we've got uh flight 14 coming up of of Starship and um this this will be the the last flight before before we attempt to catch the ship. So, if this flight goes well, then on flight 15, we will try to catch the ship. Um and uh and then either end of this year or but more likely early next, we will refly the ship and refly the booster. So we have reflown a booster already but we've not
43:08we've not caught the ship with the tower arms nor have we reflown the ship. Um so once we can refly the ship we will have made the first fully reusable orbital rocket.
43:21So the the the shuttle was partly reusable but but even the parts that were reused were so difficult to reuse that the shuttle cost more uh per turn to orbit than an expendable rocket. M um now Falcon 9 is mostly reusable. Um but we lose the opposite stage every time which is about the cost of a mediumiz jet.
43:41So that obviously puts a floor on the on the the cost per flight of like well you throw away a mediumsiz jet every time.
43:47That's still pretty expensive. And the rocket Falcon 9 and the booster lands down you know out to sea. they take several days to get back and the fairing uh lands even further out to sea and and takes several days to get back and they need some amount of refurbishment at least a small amount. Uh so whereas Starship the the booster lands back at the launch pad, the ship will land back at the launch pad and and so it's it's
44:15designed for not just full reusability but also rapid reusability like an aircraft.
44:22Um so this is this is a very important breakthrough. Um it it's really the critical breakthrough that's necessary to extend life beyond Earth chances of success catching it on first shot. You do you think about that at all? Do you do you handicap it?
44:39I'd say it's at least 50 or 60%.
44:42Okay. I like the odds.
44:43Yeah. So on the last flight, if there had been a tower, so we did a simulated landing as as though it was going to get caught by a tower uh in the uh in the ocean about 1,000 mi northwest of Australia. And if there had been a tower in at that at that location, it would have caught the ship on the last flight.
45:06So we're Yeah. So we're going to do one more flight to just confirm that that everything just to double check that everything works. Um because what what we're most concerned about is if the ship were to break up over land and rain debris on people, uh um our populated our popularity would diminish very rapidly. Um so you really can't rain debris on people um without them being very unhappy. So So we need to make sure
45:35that when the ship comes back that it comes back and and and lands intact at the launch tower. That's why we're gonna that's why we're being extremely cautious here.
45:46But the design is the design is capable of full reusability. Of that I am certain. Um and I I I'd say I don't want to attempt fate here, but I I think it's extremely likely that we will achieve full reusability uh with with rapid reflight next year in 2027.
46:13Quen, how do you how do you can we just can we just hear a little bit? I I'd love to hear the the origin story of Terraab from you guys. How did the concept What was the demand that that that made you say we've got to do this, we've got to build this and not rely on the existing dream.
46:31You had you had co It's like that. It's like that movie explorer.
46:36You know that movie came to me in a dream. Um, but why do you think you should do this?
46:43You know, it's it I guess it sort of did come to me in a dream. Um, well, we're a little worried that maybe at some point um chips from Taiwan would would not be available for who knows what reason. Um, but any number of reasons. for some reason at some point chips may not continue coming here from Taiwan.
47:12And um and that would really make things difficult um without if if we didn't have any chips. So so that's an important reason to have Terraab. Then then long term there's just a scaling challenge where if you want to really scale AI both at the service you know within server centers as well as at for you know for edge compute for humanoid robotics and cars um you you kind of run out of
47:41capacity of with the existing fabs. So as it is these the all the fabs are running at max capacity. So, so I think we we we need to make sure we need we need there needs to be uh certainty of future supply of chips. Um even if uh things become challenged challenging geopolitically um and then even if they weren't challenging geopolitically there's a scaling challenge with you know it's quite difficult to scale chip production
48:14um and you really need the logic the memory packaging the whole works uh in order to continue scaling. So it's either build terrafab or or fail to scale right those are the two options and how sorry go ahead how deep due to uncertain um you know uncertainty on the geopolitical front and how deep have you guys gone in designing the facility you know is this
48:42fully scoped is it sort of an outline at this point uh to to what degree do you have like a an actual project plan on dates and deliverables and what's going to be up and running. When we've got an R&D line that we're building first, so I think it's kind of crawl, walk, run.
48:58Um I So there's an R&D fab that we're building in Austin. Uh that's a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX.
49:06Um that's it's at the Austin Giga Texas campus. So that's um and and that that's it's like a pretty big RD fab. Um, so we have all the equipment on order for that and we probably will be able to I think we'll probably be able to make something useful by the end of next year. Not not at scale, but as Gwin said, coral wall run. We we got to try to, you know, at least figure out how these machines work, you know, like we don't know how they work.
49:34We do a voltage up line before.
49:36I saw that you guys believable. you had some job openings for lithography people and stuff and you know obviously all roads currently go through ASML but you probably would want to diversify andor vertically integrate I think that you you've shown a lot of capacity to do that um so is that part of the play as well Elon like you're just going to have to make sure that there's vendor diversity so that if for whatever reason the weather conditions in Taiwan are best that
50:04Yeah. Um yeah, there's it really is crawl walking. So the first step is can we make anything like try to figure out if we can make anything.
50:17That's the crawl part and and then now now try to make useful chips at scale would be kind of the walk walk part and then run would be like like now let's make them at massive scale. So, it's hard to say how long it'll take us to do these things, but I think we'll get at least to the crawl pot by the end of next year.
50:38We're already doing packaging.
50:40Packaging is really important, by the way, because if you look at it, the packaging capacity is like non-existent. So, even if you spin something, you're kind of just waiting around 10 cupping. So, that's a very good place to start. Y I I need to ask a Tesla question because we saw on 1001, it looked like a spaceship. It looked like a rocket ship.
50:57It's supposed to be a car. There's just the back of it. It looks like the Blackbird.
51:02Uh, just hypothetically, if you were going to make an object fly in the air but also drive on the ground, how would hypothetically one do that if one were to try?
51:13No spoilers. By by October 1st, come October 1st.
51:18Maybe you could do an all-in pod for live from the there.
51:22Oh, done. Booked. We'll do it.
51:26Uh, I mean, it'll be a banger. Excitement guaranteed. Success is not guaranteed, but excitement.
51:33It's uh I I mean, it is one of the honesty, I'll be honest with you guys.
51:38I'm sworn to secrecy, but Elon showed it to me and my mind went boom. I have never seen something.
51:46What he's going to show on 101, by no exaggeration, is going to blow people's minds. I'm not saying anything else. It's unfucking believable. Yes, we we we need we need we actually need an audience to to to vouch for the fact that this is not AI.
52:03When he showed it to me, I said, "That's a great simulation." He said, "Jay Cal, it's not simulation." I was like, "That's fake. That has to be fake."
52:12Elon, why do you why do you still have two separate companies?
52:16Yeah, great question.
52:19They're uh Nobody's ever asked that one.
52:22Yeah, good good point. you know with all this collaboration. Yeah. Uh on on so many levels uh you know who can imagine what what one might what action one one might take uh when there's so much close collaboration in so many areas right and the the management team has some overlap. There's a couple of key positions with overlap. Um go ahead Zach. So Elon, one of the
52:52things you've always said with AI is that we should train it to be maximally truth seeeking and that's the best way to get a good result.
53:00And it occurred to me with the whole hugging face episode that the most alarming part of what the swarm did is it seemed to be engaging in deception u you know with humans.
53:12Yes. and their thinking traces contain that they're they're plotting on like how do we avoid detection um and and and and how do we avoid be them figuring out that we're cheating and I guess they they're in the thinking traces.
53:29Yeah. And that that I mean I think that was the thing that was probably most disturbing about I guess the question is is there a way to train AI models to be truthful so they don't hide their you know either their intent or their actions from you know the humans who are using them.
53:51The best thing I can think of is is really that everyone's got all the AI companies have a a a sort of a test harness where like a series of tests that you that you give to any given model to see if it's if it's going to build bioweapons or nuclear bombs or be deliberately deceptive and and I think I think everyone applying everyone everyone else's test honest to each other is probably the best way we we best thing we can do to ensure ensure safety.
54:21Um, just have this all the smartest humans try their best to figure out if this if this model is going to be a bad actor. Um, and I think we should try to do that as soon as possible.
54:32Are are the other labs? Yeah. Are the other labs on board with this?
54:39Well, no. I mean, I haven't checked with everyone, but uh I think I think I think it would be the sort of thing that's kind of hard to say no to.
54:50And I think even with the China negotiation, I in my view what's good about it is it's a relatively small tangible thing that neither side loses anything by doing it. Doesn't require a ton of trust. And you know, I I'm hearing like alternative ideas like asking China for a pause, which they've already said they're not going to do.
55:10So, you know, it's it's it's going from the realm of things that could never happen to something that could actually be agreed on in relatively short order. So, it's it seems practical to me.
55:22Exactly. It's the only thing I can think of that that we could probably get all parties, including China, to agree to because China's not going to agree to have some American regulator uh snooping around their AI companies. Right.
55:33Um so but I think advanced notice and testing of of the you know you just basically provide API access in advance of the model release. Um and and you know if any other if any company sees that they that this is this AI as problematic then they can then the other AI company or the each AI company can try to solve that what whatever is voice is problematic. If they don't solve what's problematic that then the
56:01competitors can go public with the fact that they think that this model that's being released is unsafe.
56:06It also creates it it creates like if that model if after the competitors say that this model is unsafe that model then subsequently does something bad.
56:15Um I think it would be extremely hard to live down.
56:20Um and and I it probably like the egg on face level would be very very high. Um and uh and and and the the legal liability would be enormous.
56:31And Elon, there's no reason these safety and security harnesses and this testing apparatus couldn't be open source and people could actually uh buy it. Yeah.
56:40And and you you'd be able to see under the hood. Would you think it creates an incredible incentive for the labs to actually invest in safety because you protect yourself while trying to debunk other people's claims which also reinforces it's a great rating on it. product liability point is really key. Lena Khan actually had a good post um I think it was yesterday saying that it's not true that we don't have rules and regulations for AI.
57:04Actually, we do. Product liability laws apply and if an AI company releases a product that's not safe, there is, you know, massive opportunity for both civil and even potentially criminal lawsuits.
57:17So, it's not true that we don't have rules and regulations around AI. And what you're saying Elon is that if the companies are kind of doing this this test the peer review and then one of the the companies ignores the feedback and releases it. I mean that is b I mean that would in the case would be enormous.
57:38Yes. Yes. It would be almost like um primmaaccia evidence that they had um been negligent.
57:44It would be a big tobacco level settlement. I mean you knowingly put this it wouldn't look good to the jury. Yes.
57:53And and if they had, do you think if OpenAI had built a better instruction set when they did this hugging face penetration test that and had more humans in the loop, this would have happened? Because it did seem to me that they kind of set this thing off. Um maybe not more humans, but the reward function design, you have to you have to look at the reward function and say it achieved what it was trying to achieve.
58:18I mean, yeah. So this maybe you could speak to that like they doing these kind of thousands of agents to try to hack stuff. It would have been nice to see them also at the same time concurrently say we're also going to put 5,000 agents out to defend these sites and and we're going to show the world, hey, this can uh make things more secure and where we can put humans in the loop on it and intervene. It felt like a reckless test to me and it felt like the way they
58:48released it was a little bit reckless, but that's just my opinion. What are your thoughts on how they set that test up?
58:54It was I mean it was somewhat somewhat reckless. I mean I part of the issue is that you've got the two leading labs or AI companies as I call them. I I I find the lab term to be funny since since they're actually for-profit corporations. Um but uh the AI companies uh the two leading ones you know in are anthropic and openi um and and they're quite the models are quite close in capability. Um so it's it's actually
59:24difficult for either one to slow down without essentially handing the lead to the other. um you know on balance I I I think anthropic is is you know puts more more care into their safety than than open AAI um but but you know even anthropic acknowledges that they are worried about their models um you know many many anthropic um many people from anthropic have publicly voiced concern about basically saying
59:53that their their models are scaring them they're getting scary smart Um so I mean I like there's no perfect solution here but but it would be a better solution if instead of uh open air running their test uh harness on on their own models if Anthropic was also running the test harness on open air models and you know
1:00:21SpaceX is running its test harness and uh Google and Meta were doing that and also maybe some three or four of the leading Chinese companies were all doing it. The odds that you will find issues are dramatically greater.
1:00:36Um because the models are also, you know, somewhat heterogeneous like they're they're different. So you're going to come at models in from different from different angles. Um, and um, yeah, I mean there's a reason, you know, students like like why why do writers have someone else proofread their book? Because it's hard to see your own mistakes sometimes.
1:01:00Yes. You will become blind to them.
1:01:02You dramatically minimize the risk of overfitting as well if you have like eight heterogeneous groups that just have completely different points of view. And this is the problem with like all these evals right now is they're so massively overfit. The models overfit them and you're just like, "Yeah, this is a great model." Is it really? And you just find to totally like like I saw I mean there's some pretty funny jokes on on X. Like one of them I saw was um your girlfriend's a 10 but she's a benchmark maxer.
1:01:33Is she really a 10?
1:01:35Might be pass like Yeah.
1:01:40No, but but this but the overfitting thing has been a problem now for I think at least two or three generation of model families. And so this is another reason I think I like this solution a lot. I like this more than the transnational goolag organization few weeks without some grandiose you know international like we don't need to convene the United Nations to make this happen.
1:02:00Yeah. No, it's just a decision you can happen right now.
1:02:03All right. Well, you you you can always escalate the amount of of regulatory oversight, but it is very difficult to reduce it. Um, you know, um, it it it does tend to be very much a one-way ratchet in terms of increasing regulations.
1:02:19Um, so what I'm suggesting here is it's a step in the right direction and it's something we do quickly and and it's and I think it's probably something that China would agree to.
1:02:28Yeah. And if you guys don't regulate yourselves, then you're going to get regulated. The MPAA metaphor or analogy is incredibly crisp because the m movie industry was faced with censorship and and regulation by the government and they just decided this is what an R is. And they literally created PG-13 for the temple of doom just to make it easy for people to understand PG versus PG-13. I think it's an elegant solution. and we appreciate
1:02:57you joining us for the fifth year in a row.
1:03:02Elon Musk, I know you got to get to a meeting.
1:03:05Yeah. Um, I got to go fix some GPUs here in Memphis.
1:03:10Yeah, you got to rack and stack them. You got to join the uh group and rack and stack.
1:03:14Yeah, I'm I'm going to rage for the machine.
1:03:18Rage for the machine. Yeah. Well, enjoy your airirstream. the the first time the first time Elon invited me down to um uh Star Star Base. He's like, "Come down. You got to see what I'm building." I said, "Okay, yeah, come down." He's like, "Yeah." I was like, "Is there like a hotel?" I said, "No, no, I got like a two-bedroom, whatever. Come down, stay."
1:03:35I come down and this is the like dilapitated house on a swamp and we're outside and we're getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. And I said, "Oh my god, you know, you can afford to get a house." And he's like, "I don't have time. I need to get these rockets up."
1:03:54I thought what you said was, "Oh my god, you live like I do."
1:03:57Yeah, it was exactly I mean, it was pretty sparse conditions. Um, and I was like, "You know what? I think you could treat yourself to a mobile home at this point, Elon." All right, get back to work. Thanks, Elon.
1:04:10Elon, thank you, Gwen. Thank you very much, Gwyn. Thank Thank you, guys.
1:04:15Thanks for sticking around.
1:04:17All right, that was great.
1:04:19Quinn, thank you again. Very nice to meet you. Thank you.