An interview with Elon Musk

30:07But what about for physical jobs, for assembly jobs, you will also need the capability in humanoid robots, which so far isn't there yet, is it? Right. So that's why I said digital AI and then physically manifested AI in the form of robots, where the robot is more or less an end effector. It would have some amount of local intelligence, but be managed by a large AI model. And I've said many times, I think work is going to be optional. all so i mean let me so so i think maybe maybe a good a good uh comparison would be gardening like you don't have to garden you know you don't like you don't have to grow vegetables for in your garden you can go to the store and they're going to be pristine vegetables or you could grow vegetables in your garden and they will actually be less perfect your tomatoes are not going to be as plump and juicy as the ones at the store.

31:07They'll, you know, look a little artisanal. But, you know, if you go to a friend's house and they make dinner with vegetables from their garden, it's a nice touch. This is what work is going to be like. I get that. I mean, in that world, I would be hopeless because I can't garden to save my life. But I get the idea. People still like playing chess with each other, even though every computer is better. But let's just think about the politics of this. because it sounds, you're describing a world where within 10 years, pretty much every job can be done better by an intelligence. And you're seeing huge returns to this intelligence.

31:43Two people like you, you're the wealthiest man in the world. People who lose their jobs, who are displaced, who may go off and garden, but how are they going to live? And what kind of, I mean, it sounds to me like - It's going to be universal high income. But how are you going to get there? Let's talk about the politics of this. Because right now, if we look at the political pressures in most countries, people are very, very worried about this, very against it. It seems to me that there's a risk that we are heading more for revolution than for an easy route to this nirvana you're playing at. I mean, it will be a bumpy road.

32:14I'm not suggesting it will be that everything will be smooth sailing here. I mean, there are many jobs that used to exist that don't exist because of computers. I mean, the word computer used to refer to a person doing computations. Like, that used to be a job description of a person. And you can see pictures online of buildings that have entire skyscrapers just filled with people doing calculations to do things like calculate the interest on your bank balance. This is how things were done for a long time until computers came around. And even in the beginning, computers were very expensive and hard to use.

32:53So the thing that's different here is that the pace of change is radically accelerated. But still, some people were upset that their job of calculating bank interest would no longer be available. But now I think you'd be hard-pressed to find people who want to do that job. So I think I have a suggestion for, say, what science fiction books people might want to read to get a sense of what the future will be like. And the best envisioning of an AI future that I've read are the books by Ian Banks, the culture books. I'm just reading Accession. So thanks to you, I've started reading these. but I actually don't find that future a terribly appealing one because I don't think humans have agency in that future.

33:48They have agency in their small way. But the irony, I mean, Ian Banks, as you know, was a socialist. Ian Banks had a very different political philosophy. I'm not sure I would entirely agree with that. Let's agree that that could be where we end up. I'm concerned about the road. And we live in democracies and people are very worried about this. So I guess two questions. Firstly, do you have to have massive redistribution from people like you to the people who are losing their jobs? Do you need to have, do you need to pay more tax? Do you have much higher taxes on capital so that you fund some kind of universal income?

34:29Otherwise, what do people live off? I think that the Treasury should just simply issue people checks. But where's the revenue coming from? I mean, I'm enough of an economist. If you just issue checks, you're going to have inflation. This is like a lot of what we're trying to think about is these things were relevant in the past. They will not be relevant in the future. So like inflation is simply the ratio of money to goods and services. So if the goods and services output increases dramatically, if it increases, you know, a thousand percent, You can literally print, or in this case, change the database.

35:10It's not print money. You create money in the database. Provided the creation of that money is less than the rate at which goods and services increase, you actually have deflation. So I'll make a prediction, which is that deflation will be the issue, not inflation. Because as the output of goods and services increases, if the output of goods and services increases faster than the money supply, you all have deflation. I'm actually, I'm perfectly willing to believe that. You may well be right. Yeah, absolutely, you may well be right. But I'm really hung up on how we get from the current polarized, angry, fearful policy we have now to this nirvana.

35:51And I think you could, you can paint a picture where people are so scared by this. You know, they essentially try to stop it. Maybe they can't, but you get nationalized. There's a kind of, you know, far left government there's exorbitant tax increases the kind of economy crumbles because people are so worried about a future which does sound quite scary as you describe it so how do you how do you handle the politics now? It's exhilarating and terrifying but if you were in yeah exactly honestly if you ask me on any given day in fact even intraday I've gone from exhilaration to terror regarding AI so I want to be clear I'm not sort of some I'm trying to be sort of candide here and just be some, oh, everything's wonderful, some Panglossian view of the world where everything's going to be great, no risk.

36:43I'm saying there is some risk. I think we agree on that. I guess I'm trying to be more small bore and practical and think about what can be done now to limit those risks. And you gave a very strong argument for what you and your fellow model makers could do. I think it probably would be good for us to coordinate and just highlight issues that we see in each other's models to mitigate downside risk. Should the government, should you be paying more tax to fund more transfer programs? Well, first of all, I do pay a lot of tax. So, in fact, I set a record for the most amount of taxes ever paid by a human.

37:19That's also because you're the world's richest man. Well, even before that.

37:25So my guess is that I will pay many trillions in tax. And I'm fine with that. That's just the way it's going to be. But I don't think in a future way money is relevant. I think taxation also becomes somewhat irrelevant. And what about giving people a sense that they have a share in the upside? Sure. Giving people shares in SpaceX and Tesla. Do you think that's... And there's a lot of talk about this right now. Well, one of the reasons I took SpaceX public is so that the public could participate in, they could own a piece of SpaceX, whereas as a private company, we're very limited in the number of shareholders we're allowed to have before going public.

38:03So as a public company, we can have millions of shareholders. As a private company, we're limited to just a few thousand shareholders. Do you think there should be distribution of shares? The Alaska Wealth Fund is there for, could you imagine a world, And some people talk about the Trump accounts being a kind of vehicle for this, that your share of your equity goes to ordinary Americans. Right. Well, in the taxes that I pay, I mean, I'll, you know, so for my stock options, I pay 40 percent income tax on a national basis. And then because I spend, I don't know, about 30 % of my time in California, thereabouts, I pay another sort of roughly a third of the California state taxes, which are now around 15%.

38:49So I pay about 45 % in taxes, just so people know this. I don't know. It's quite roughly half. Then when I die, there'll be another 45%, roughly half, that will be taxed. So at the end of the day, I'll have a quarter of whatever I have. But I think the only thing it gives me is that for some period of time, I would have control of the direction of the companies.

39:22So that's pretty much all it gets me. Until I guess the AI is so smart that it's in charge. And at that point, controlling companies won't really matter. Well, let's talk about that, because I think one of the other things that worries people about the direction we're heading in, and I'm going to caricature it, but people think that the direction of the world is being shaped by a very small number of incredibly powerful people, and you are right at the top of that list. What else is different from the past? I agree with you. I think it was like that. When wasn't that the case? It was ever thus.

39:57It was ever thus, exactly. It is, as you've described very vividly, it's an incredibly rapid change. And so let's start with control of your company, which you definitely have now. After the IPO, basically you have 80 % odd of voting shares. And as I understand it, you can only be removed by a vote of shares which you yourself control. So tell me if I'm wrong, but I think you could go crazy. There's a few companies in that bucket. By the way, the AI companies, Google's in that bucket. Alphabet is controlled by Larry and Sergey. I think yours is more extreme. No, it's the same level. of that company.

40:33Mark Zuckerberg has control of Amado. And Mark is trying very hard on the AI front, and I think probably will also have a leading AI. I think he released one last week. So I think he'll be one of the... Amado will be one of the AI companies. Is it sensible for one person to have so much control over a company? Well, I really just need to make sure that I can focus on long-term. By long-term, I just mean in five to ten years. So one of the challenges with being a public company is that the pressure to have great results every single quarter and to not really invest in things that may only pay off in five to ten years.

41:24and in the case of SpaceX, I want to extend consciousness beyond Earth and have a growing civilization on the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system. I think ultimately this would have a very high return on investment, but in the short term, we'll be spending all this money on a Moon base and a Mars base, and people are like, I'm going to get all this pressure for like, well, you missed your earnings this quarter because you spent too much on Mars. I'm like, yes. By the way, that was in the S1 prospectus and it's literally listed as a thing we will do. But they still get grumpy about these things, you know?

42:05They're like, well, you had whatever, you know, you said your gross margin would be this and it's actually slightly worse and now we're going to punish you and the short sellers all descend upon you and you get a lot of pressure. You're going to get a lot of that. Yeah, so I just need some way to sort of, you know, say like, listen, guys, we're going to focus on five to 10 year or longer time horizon investments. This will depress our short term earnings. But the long, I mean, if you take a long term view, and there are investors, we have many investors that do take a long term view. In fact, I'm a big fan of the retail investors.

42:38In fact, I find our retail investors on balance have the, they're very insightful and have very long term views. But if part of this comes to say, what's the incentive structure is the for portfolio managers it's sort of understandable why they put so much pressure on on a on quarterly earnings because their compensation and whether they get promoted or not is dependent on how their portfolio does and they have they only have a few years to to make these decisions and then they're evaluated based on those decisions over the course of sometimes only a year or less. And so since they're under pressure to have immediate returns, they then put companies under pressure to have immediate returns.

43:24So once you understand the incentive structure, the behavior naturally follows. The global energy system is under pressure from climate change to rising costs and energy security. New research from Economist Impact shows consumers want more affordable energy and are open to sustainable technologies, but 65 % worry renewables may drive prices even higher. The Empowering Energy Consumers Barometer, supported by Kraken, explores how to enable consumers to participate in the shift to cleaner, more resilient energy without losing out. Search Empowering Energy Consumers Barometer to find out more. Monday AI agents took over my work.

44:03And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com, so they see the full picture. My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com.

44:33What about the key man risk? I mean, what happens? heaven forbid, but what happens if you get run over by the proverbial bus tomorrow? You know, it is, you have total control over these companies. Do you have a plan for how they would progress without you? I think they would actually do very well for several years. And, you know, there's a clear roadmap for, or space map, I should say, for SpaceX. And there's a roadmap, actually for Tesla, literally. So, I think there's... If you look at Apple after Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs had a strategic vision and a bunch of products that he had ideas for, and Apple has done very well.

45:26But when you don't have a creative genius like Steve Jobs, what you miss, what Apple's missing are the incredible breakthrough products. So they make amazing phones, great computers, but Apple hasn't come up with a sort of Steve Jobs-level breakthrough product. So by analogy, that's what you bring to all of your companies. You mentioned Mars. Most people think of you as the man who wants to create a colony on Mars so we have multi-planetary civilization. I've been saying that for such a long time. You have, but now you seem more focused on AI and what AI will do in the next 10 years. And you sound much more excited about using the moon as a base from which to, you know, pop out orbital AI satellites.

46:20Have you shifted your attention away from Mars or are you as interested in colonizing Mars as you ever were? I'm interested in the set of actions that propagate consciousness into the future to the maximum degree possible. So that the future-like cone of consciousness is as big as we could get. There's an exciting future where there's a space-faring civilization out there among the stars. And the great things that are envisioned in the non-dystopian sci-fi books and movies become real one day. I sort of want the Star Trek, you know, Star Wars future. This Noir Wars was the first movie I ever saw in a theatre, by the way.

47:04Really? Yes, maybe it had a profound effect on me, I suppose. So I remember it was, it blew my mind, honestly. I think I was six years old. And I was like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. Has your life been about making that happen? Yeah. I mean, I didn't think it would be when I was young. But my life feels somewhat surreal. I can't believe these things are actually happening. I think the world feels somewhat surreal. I believe in simulation theory, where it's like, well, this... Like, the things I'm doing are so preposterous that it's hard to believe they're real. I mean, we've got Starship, which is the largest, most powerful flying object ever made.

47:47And we intend to launch that more than once per hour. I know. I read that. And we can, you know, people can quibble about how quickly it happens. But I think based on your track record, we should assume it will happen at some point. It will happen. I'm just sort of struck that when I am as blown away by this world as you are, and I watch it from a much more naive level, but for me, the whole evolution of AI and the capabilities of these models is in and of itself so mind-blowing. It's pretty much happening as I thought it would. Is it? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. And not just me. Many people predicted this.

48:28I think Ray Kurzweil's predictions have been remarkably accurate. Yeah, the singularity approaching. Let's go back more immediately to the here and now. We've talked about concentration of control in your companies. You've made a very good case for why you should have it. You also have, through Starlink, incredible geopolitical power. I mean, I'm one of your customers. Thank you. It's an excellent product. But without them, the Ukrainians would have been in serious, serious trouble. Yes, the Ukrainian governor has publicly thanked Starlink many times for being instrumental in defending Ukraine.

49:04And you recently decided to prevent the Russians in the occupied territories from having access to Starlink. Well, no, we were never at any point selling Starlink to Russians. But they were grabbing it, right? They were using it and you've now stopped them from doing that. Well, they essentially got Starlink units that they ordered through Ukraine and then smuggled them into eastern Ukraine where the Russians are and were then using them in some cases for attacks. Now, in order to address this, we worked with the Ukrainian government to create a whitelist of approved Starlink terminals. Now, this has some downsides because a whole bunch of people who were just innocent users of Starlink and just trying to access the internet for work or for education now don't have Starlink.

50:01These are geopolitical decisions of consequence. How do you feel about having that power? You can determine the outcome of wars. How does that feel? And is it right that you should have that power? Well, I'm not sure we're determining the ultimate outcome of the, you know, say the war in Ukraine. You know, I think, I do hope that there's some sort of peace agreement reached soon because for two or three years now, the border has barely moved. And every day there are lots of people dying at the front line. And I think there's a lot of wishful thinking here of people saying, well, Russia should completely withdraw, etc.

50:43But this is not realistic. I really think there needs to be some, you know, a piece that is, you know, we have to be pragmatic about this. What I think would be terrible is if there's another three years of people dying senselessly at the front lines. and you have to say like, well, you know, how do you explain to the children of the men that are dying at the front lines? Russia, on the Russian side too, by the way, they're being conscripted and sent there. I am quite offended by sort of fancy diplomats who have, you know, seven-course dinners in luxurious places while people are dying at the front lines and who pontificate about how Russia should withdraw, but Russia's not going to withdraw.

51:35So there really needs to be an accepted peace along those lines. And do you think it's your responsibility to play a role in tipping the scales towards what you see as the right way to peace? I've been advocating peace for a long time. I posted a few years ago that there really needs to be some concession here to Russia. this is not me being pro-Russia, I'm just being pragmatic, or people will die for years with nothing achieved. And that is exactly what happened. I don't know. I mean, the Ukrainians are doing pretty well right now with their incredible drone capacity hitting inside Russia and the kind of general consensus is that the balance of the war is shifting.

52:27But my point is not so much about what the right... We're not going to retake those territories. It is not going to happen. My interest is really on whether you think, given that you have through Starlink, you have an incredible power, whether it's appropriate that you should wield it. That's quite rare that an individual actor has such power by turning on and off a capability to shape conflict. Well, is there something you think I should do differently? I mean, I think you were right to support Ukraine. I think that, you know, I won't surprise you. I think that the Russian aggression was, you know, for many, many reasons, an appalling aggression.

53:02And I think that that was an important thing that you did. Yeah. I mean, I did a very deep dive into the background of that conflict to understand exactly what was going on. And I'm reminded of the old adage that there are no angels in war. It's a similar tone, I think, about domestic politics where you've, you know, you've played a big role domestically. politically here. You spent a lot of money on Donald Trump's re-election. After the election, you got very actively involved. Through Doge, you tried to cut a lot of spending, reshape the government. How do you feel? That wasn't hugely successful in the sense that there wasn't nearly as much spending cut as you tried.

53:44As you look back on that, do you regret getting so involved in politics? Do you think it was a good thing to do? I think I got a little too involved in politics got carried away, frankly. So the goal with the Doge stuff was to try to do something about the deficit, which is massive, where the interest payments exceed the amount of money spent on the Department of War. Basically, if you add up all the money spent on what is now the Department of War and intelligence in the US, that is smaller than the interest payments on the debt. So I thought, well, we need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities.

54:36And I got a lot of flack for this, obviously, but people don't understand just how simple it was for the Doge team to approve payments. Literally, we just asked to have the contact information of the recipient or some evidence that, say, money was going to its intended purpose. But over and over there, we're told, we need to wire money for some sort of important cause in Africa. And we're like, okay, but the wiring instructions are to Deloitte and Tush in D.C., in Washington, D.C., not to Africa. So we would like to send the money to Africa. Can you please connect us with the recipients so we can send them the money directly?

55:20and then we get silence. I have, we don't need to relitigate Doge. I have no doubt that there was, there's a lot of waste in the US government. I think probably - Much worse than anyone could possibly imagine. But the way, I mean, I think there is, it is a fair criticism, but the way you shut down a whole bunch of programs probably, in fact, certainly caused unnecessary suffering. I mean - No. No? No. You don't buy that at all? It caused a lot of complaining. So you don't buy the idea that anybody, to put it really crudely and simply, any kid in Africa died because of the suddenness with which...

55:56Zero. I just don't think that's right. I just don't think... I mean, I've had people reporting in Africa who... How many NGOs are there that could step in? Because bear in mind, it happened quickly, and there are literally tens of thousands of NGOs. Not everyone functions as fast as you do. If funding is cut off for antiretrovirals overnight and it just stops, then people will die when they don't have access to them. And it just... No, only if they cannot get funding for that. But the Gates Foundation has$50 billion. What about them? What about any one of a number of organizations? What about the...

56:37In lots of these countries, USAID... Mackenzie, whatever her last name is, used to be Bezos, gave$50 billion. What about that? But, you know, let's be practical. In many of these countries, USAID was the biggest funder. But I don't want to have an argument. USAID was a political organization. It may also have been that, but it was the biggest funder of health care systems. So I am very sure that there was... Biggest funder of regime change. And there may well be benefits from having changed the system. Also, USAID funding was not stopped. It was moved to the State Department. It was stopped. There were huge numbers of things shut down in Africa that were health-related.

57:11No, there were claims of this. These claims are false. They're nonsense and absolute nonsense. But obviously, when funding is stopped for fraudulent organizations or for something, do you think they're going to say, well, please keep funding the fraud? or do you think they're going to come up with a sad story that sounds sympathetic in order to get the funding restored? Obviously, it will be the latter, and that's exactly what they did. But zero died because of Doge. Well, that's what I would take issue with. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the change of the aid regime that the U.S. under the Trump administration has precipitated.

57:58However, I think the pace and the suddenness with which it happened will almost certainly have caused unnecessary suffering and deaths. And I think both of those can be true. No, I think that's totally false. Okay. And obviously false because the amount of funding we're talking about is far less than what can be supported by a private foundation like the Gates Foundation or Mackenzie Bezos' foundation. She's given away tens of billions of dollars. The Gates Foundation has tens of billions of dollars. they are capable of acting very quickly. And if they didn't, I would say they're equally responsible.

58:38I see. Okay. Obviously. All right. Fair point. Zero people driving because of Doge. I hear you loud and clear. Zero. Hear you loud and clear. Obviously. Domestically, you stepped away from Doge. It was hard to do what you were trying to do. You've just explained it. But this administration has gone in directions that I suspect you were not expecting two and a half years ago. I'm not going to agree with everything any administration does. Are you disappointed by this administration? No, I think this administration, on balance, is excellent. No administration is perfect, but it's vastly better than the alternative.

59:18Can we talk about Europe? Europe, a place that you are very, very focused on. I'm not that focused on Europe. I think judging by your posts, you're pretty concerned about Europe. You support... I mean, once in a while I post something. It's reasonably frequently. It's not once in a while. But because I'm genuinely interested in this, as someone who lives in Europe, lives in London, you paint a picture. Well, first of all, you support not just the populist right, but the far right. In fact, very fringe parties in some countries. No, I support the normal people. What do you call the far right, falsely?

59:52You think is the normal person? Okay. Yes. Literally, you could go back 10 or 15 years, and these policies were completely normal. In fact, one of the tricks that I think is funny, what I think is quite funny is to take a speech from Obama and Hillary and then go to someone, say, who's sort of on the sort of what I call the lunatic left, and say, what do you think of the speech by Trump? are like, oh, wow, he's the worst person ever. Actually, that was a speech by Obama. Or actually, that was a speech by Hillary. I agree. No, I agree that the center of gravity in this country has shifted, certainly the Democratic Party shifted to the left, but that's not what I'm talking about.

1:00:36I'm talking about people like Rupert Lowe. You're a fringe right, please. It's actually just normal people. It's just normal people. It's just normal people. And here are the principles. And tell me which of these sound terrible. That we should have secure borders, that we should have safe cities, that we should have sensible spending. Which of those three are far-right fringe? And I would like to just admonish you and the media for the absurd characterization of the far-right, which is false and misleading and nonsense. Please keep this part in. We'll keep all of this in. Don't cut this part.

1:01:15Let me push back on that. Let me push back on that. Because it is nonsense. Elon, you have, what is it, close to 250 million followers on X. Yeah. You say things like, quote, civil war in Britain is inevitable. Just a question of when. On the current trends, yes. When were you last in the UK? A few years ago. Exactly. So I live there. I'm there the whole time. That is nonsense. You live out of cloisted existence. No, I don't, actually. And the numbers also disprove what you say. What numbers? All the numbers about... London is a much safer city than any city in the United States. Violent crime in the UK is not where you think it is.

1:01:53In fact, it's coming down. You have painted, and because you have so many followers, so many Americans believe it, a kind of view that Europe and the UK are kind of overrun with terrifying Muslim immigrants. There's rape on every corner. There's a sort of civilizational destruction. I haven't said any of those things. It's just not, when you say civil war in Britain is inevitable. Yes, if current trends continue, it is. Why? Well, if you have a large and rapidly growing group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to Western beliefs, at some point there will be a reckoning. They will try to implement their views, and those who oppose it will oppose it, and that's what you call civil war.

1:02:40And obviously, this is the trend. and you absolutely do live in a cloistered existence and if you'd like, we can go on a tour of Britain Sure, I'd be very happy to come on a tour of Britain and you'll see for yourself You come see my country that I live in all the time and you haven't been to a few years ago I've been there literally a hundred times But when was the last time? Literally a few years ago You know why this exercises me? Because you have really shaped opinion about the UK and so many Americans I come across and I have conversations with, and I just had one the other day, along the order of, oh, London's such a dangerous place.

1:03:18How can you know? There are sort of grooming gangs everywhere. There's violence everywhere. This is a picture that people get from things that you post or that are posted on X. And for example, you're posting for, what was it? 48 hours of Citizen Vigilante. That film which, you know, paints a dystopian, I've watched it. It was not fun. I watched it yesterday. It's not a very good movie. But it also paints a dystopian picture of Europe, and it glorifies vigilante violence. It glorifies the murdering of a Muslim immigrant family. I honestly think that it is irresponsible for you to put that up on accident.

1:03:53I think that it's a movie, and it's worth watching. You're clearly suggesting Europe is a dystopian place, and you... Yes, I mean, why aren't you doing more to fight censorship in Europe? Why aren't you? You seem to be doing nothing to fight censors up in Europe. That's not true. I think that there are issues with free speech. They put people in prison in the UK for social media posts. Do you think that's appropriate? No, and we've written editorials against it. Okay, great. But I don't think... That's the sort of thing that I think is bad. And I agree with you, but I don't think you have to glorify vigilante violence and kind of post the things that you are doing and paint an entirely inaccurate picture of Europe that you do.

1:04:37I don't think it is. we should we should do a tour of the uk yes and one of brussels too because the uk has actually been very good at integrating immigrants the uk has a is very effective at doing that there are problems i'm the first to admit that there are problems yes there are major problems there are problems but it is not it really is not what you are describing to or suggesting to your 240 million followers i think it is and i think there's a problem no i think i'm i think i'm spot on and that's why you have freedom of speech or at least freedom of speech allows people to say things that are wrong but your point is not that you're not just saying I have every right to say what I want you're saying I am right about Europe and I really don't think you are I think I am I think you will find that most people in Europe or many people in Europe don't think you're right about it but let's come to that because the media keeps ignoring reality I don't think that's true either and they're programmed by the TV and conventional media And why are you, this is, I guess, even to me, sort of the bigger picture question.

1:05:41Why do you focus on this? Why are you interested in it? Because on the one hand, we started this conversation and you described to me this extraordinarily transformative, amazing, so yeah, civilizational changing stuff that's happening in the next 10 years. Yes. And yet you're also, you know, an ongoing participant in the worst kind of tribalism cesspit of social media? How does that fit? They're two very different views of the world. Yeah, I don't think they're inconsistent. But why do you do the latter one, the tribalism? I mean, people say that you're a racist. People say that there's all kinds of things said about you, which I'm sure you would disagree with.

1:06:29But I just don't understand. What is the motivation for doing that? My partner, she's half Indian, and I have four children with her.

1:06:43One of them was named after a famous Indian physicist. So I would say I'm not racist. And also, if you look at the people that are employed at my companies, we have senior executives of all races. I don't think there's any racism there Are you anti-Muslim? I am I'm against

1:07:13having if people are coming to a country with antithetical views I am against that I'm against I'm against

1:07:31I'm against rape and murder. I'm against the imposition of rules and laws that are contrary to what we've come to accept in the West. And I think it's a crying shame that the sort of traditional media like you don't recognize this. First of all, I think that you hugely exaggerate the challenges that Europe faces. Secondly, in areas I completely agree with you, I think that the constraints on freedom of speech in the UK in certain areas are problematic. What worries me is that the people you are supporting are really quite vile people in some areas. Like some members of the AFD, Alice Weidel, whom I've met, is a perfectly thoughtful person.

1:08:29But in her party are some real neo-Nazis, are some really, really awful people. And your blanket support of this kind of party with 240 million followers means that you have a power in Europe that I think perhaps you don't realize the scale of impact you have. But you can. I hope I am having a big impact. Why? Why should you? Why should you be able to shape European politics? You don't even live there. I think of it as sort of the West collectively. But do you see why this makes people think that this man who has all this power, he's the world's richest man, he thinks he has a right to influence our politics.

1:09:08It makes people... It's why we started this conversation saying superlatives. It's why people loathe you. I mean, some people do loathe you. Yes, some people do. But do you understand why? Do you think what you're doing is helpful for Western democracy? Maybe some people do loathe me, and that's probably true. I don't care. But the fact that, as you pointed out, a quarter billion people follow me is that I think a lot more people actually like me than don't. And I think a lot more people hate you and the media more than you realize. Do you realize the media is despised? Do you realize that the view of journalists is like, it's like a favorable view of journalists is like 15%.

1:09:56I do know that. In the United States... So the shoe is on the other foot. They hate you. They hate you far more than they hate me. I think there is certainly a loss of trust in journalism. I think in part, there have been mistakes by journalists and journalism. I totally acknowledge that. But I also think that the kind of polarized environment particularly on social media fostered by the kinds of things you are pushing on X actually helps this makes it worse? I don't think so. I think you're the problem the media and speaking of loathing you're loathing far more than I am and you don't seem to even realize that.

1:10:40I think very few people know who I am relative to you so I don't think I play in the same game. The media collectively. So I mean you're hated do you even know that? you probably don't I like to think that I'm aware of my own personal shortcomings and the economist shortcomings and our world view shortcomings but what we stand for as you know is liberal values traditional classical liberal values where we worry about concentrations of power and we believe in the individual and the dignity of the individual and individual freedom I agree with that I firmly believe that. And I have long thought that you were a classical liberal.

1:11:22But when I read what you post, classical liberal, J.S. Mill, limited government, individual freedom. Yeah, I agree with that. But when I read what you post on your feed, I sometimes wonder whether you really do believe in that. I literally said, look, I believe in safe cities, secure borders, and sensible spending with respect to government. That doesn't make me right-wing at all, in the least. Does the US or do European countries score better on those? The US is better. No. Safe cities, much more dangerous in the US than the UK. Sensible spending, bigger deficit here, out of control, you failed to reduce it.

1:12:10Secure borders now under the Trump administration, I agree with you, before not. But on two out of three, unequivocally, Europe is in a better place. Yet you seem to paint the picture of Europe being a hellhole. I don't think Europe's a hellhole. Okay, we can agree on something. When did I ever say that? Well, the picture you paint of Europe on X is a hellhole. You're making up things. No, I'm not. You're just literally making it up. You say civil war in Britain is inevitable. And then you basically proselytize for this citizen vigilante film, which really does paint Europe as a hellhole. It just starts with ominous music and it says, Europe.

1:12:44Well, there was out-of-control rape and murder. It's more dangerous in this country than it is in Europe. Where there is danger in this country is because we failed to incarcerate repeat violent offenders. And that's, you know, the classic sort of SARS-DA or judges that fail to incarcerate repeat violent offenders. And if somebody gets arrested 50 times, literally, for violent crimes, and eventually they're going to kill somebody. So you either incarcerate them or people will die. I think the prevalence of guns has quite a lot to do with it too. I mean, this is a much more dangerous country. Murder rates are much higher, in large part because there's so much, there are so many guns.

1:13:35Well, let me give you an interesting number. There are more people that die in Europe from heat deaths than people that die from gun deaths in America. Why aren't you writing an article about air conditioning? We've done several on air conditioning, and we had on our cover last week a whole long piece about, you know, why... Pro air conditioning? Yeah, we're very pro air conditioning. Okay, good. Well, good. Very pro air conditioning. You should read us. Absolutely. Credit where it's due. Credit where it's due. I think you have a view of The Economist that is not entirely accurate. So you come look at England, start reading The Economist, and I will stand corrected on my criticism of you in this area.

1:14:17There are many parts of Britain and Europe which are not safe. You can't just walk around. But there are far more in this country. Far more. No, I don't think so. All right, let's go and get my fact checkers to check them. Yeah, I don't think that's true. Let's move on from this, because I think I've got a sense of why you're doing what you're doing. The point is not that the question is not, is America perfect? The question is, does Europe have a serious and growing problem? Absolutely, it has a serious and growing problem. That's where we started this. Europe has a serious and growing problem.

1:14:55I'm not going to say that the United States has no problems. Of course it does. But, you know, we should all try to address these issues. We can agree on that. We should all try to address the problems. My point was simply that I think you exaggerate the scale of Europe's problem. I think people are asleep at the switch and do not realize the magnitude of the issue. I also think that your interventions, however well-intentioned they may be, risk making Europe's problem a lot worse. How? Because you are putting your support behind people who are proto-authoritarians, who are not trying simply to, you know, make sure there is better integration of Muslims or to secure the borders, but who have very clear fascist tendencies and you will cause huge divisions within Europe.

1:15:45I think what you're saying is total fiction. And really, I'm simply saying that there needs to be, that Europe has to have secure borders. and should not let in vast numbers of people with views that are antithetical to the accepted views in Europe and where there will not be some level of safe cultural integration. This is simply common sense. If all you are saying is Europe should have secure borders, I completely agree with you. Then I have misunderstood what your interventions have been on social media because that is not what the view I have concluded, Not what I would conclude having seen the people you are supporting and the things you're doing.

1:16:27But if that's your goal, I share your goal that Europe should have secure borders. Yes. That's perfectly agreeable. That gets me to a question. Let me explain what the fundamental forcing function here is for why the borders are not secure, which is when you have a welfare state that provides substantial benefits to anyone who comes there, You create a very powerful economic forcing function for anyone who is below that standard of living to come to Europe. It is an obvious, powerful driving force. And people will come there if their standard of living is, from what they get in Europe, is above where they are elsewhere in the world.

1:17:16It's very basic. I completely agree with that. Yes. I don't disagree with that. It's a very basic incentive structure. Economic conditions, economic influences determine a lot of migration. I think asylum is a separate issue, but I think you're absolutely right. There are pressures for migration. However, there are other things that you haven't focused on, which is migration brings a lot of benefits, and it particularly does so in a continent like Europe, which is a rapidly aging continent. So we can agree that completely uncontrolled borders are a bad idea. But I think Europe benefits from having immigration, controlled immigration.

1:17:55Yes, I'm in favor of immigration. Obviously, I'd be hypocritical if I wasn't, since I'm an immigrant to the United States. I'm in favor of immigration if the person immigrating is going to be a productive member of society, if they're going to be honest, and if they're not going to mistreat people in that country, they're going to. I can agree on all of those. Yes. But I think Europe does better on that than you give it credit for. That's, I think, where we disagree. But let's move on. Tell me what do you think people get most wrong about you? Well, I mean, you've just got a whole bunch of things wrong about me.

1:18:29Pretty much everything in the last, just rewind the last 20 minutes, still wrong. So I got, we got, I got wrong, you're, you're... Let's not be repetitive here. Okay. So that political side of you people get most wrong. Yeah, my political views are centrist. They're not far right. And frankly, calling it far right, I think, is an insult to history, an insult to many peoples, and it is an outrageous falsehood. It's completely absurd. I literally have stated my position, which is that, and I've been very clear about this, which is that there needs to be secure borders, that if there's an influx of immigrants, they need to be people who will agree with Western ideals, with Western values.

1:19:18And if they don't, and if there's a long-term growth of people who do not, or in some cases are adamantly opposed to Western values, you are setting yourself up for civil war. This is obvious. A child can see this. But this is not a right-wing view. I'm simply stating reality. Well, I think we can both agree that evidence will be able to decide which of us is more or less right. And we will find evidence for both of our views in different parts of Europe. The question is what the overall... I'm very good at predicting the future. I'm not perfect, but I'm very good at predicting the future. My batting average is very high for a human.

1:19:57But this does have somewhat of a Cassandra effect, where people don't believe that what I'm saying is likely to be true. Because, you know, I can see into the future with a higher, not perfectly, but with a higher probability of success than most people. So, and including things that people believe to be, in some cases, counterintuitive. And again, I'm not saying I'm always right. I certainly am not. but my batting average is very good. But this does have, like I said, a Cassandra effect where people don't realize that what I'm saying will come to pass. Maybe not exactly in the timing that I thought, but it will come to pass.

1:20:39And history will write the verdict. But I think you will see that very little of what I've said is inaccurate. and a super majority of what I've said is very accurate and will come to pass unless there's some change in direction. Do you have higher confidence level in your expectations of the future for AI, the first part of our conversation, or the latter part, the political part? I mean, AI is... Digital superintelligence is called the singularity like a black hole because you don't know what's going to happen after that. and it sort of sucks in everything. So I think really, in terms of the really big macro effects here, AI and robots will really dominate everything.

1:21:33So on a timescale that is less than 10 years. Which probably renders this other stuff that we've been talking about less important and less relevant. The AI robotics revolution will happen sooner than civil war in Britain. I would say civil war in Britain is probably 20 years away. And the AI robot singularity is 10 years away. Well, hopefully these benign, all-powerful AIs will prevent such outcomes. They probably will. I don't agree with everything you say, but it's always absolutely fascinating to talk to you. Thank you very much indeed. No, you're welcome. I'm not boring. You're definitely not boring.

1:22:25Thank you for listening to this interview from The Insider. If you know someone who might enjoy it, there's a way to share it with them. Find the episode on The Economist app, click the share button, then select give us a gift. And to subscribe to The Economist, Follow the link in the show notes for our best offer.

1:23:09I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. This podcast is brought to you by Thomson Reuters. The best don't just do their work. They change what's possible. Cases won, audits completed, jobs saved. Behind every one of those moments is a professional who needed to get it right and did. Thomson Reuters builds the technology that sharpens insights, speeds up decision-making, and powers the outcomes that matter. So when professionals act, the impact is felt by everyone.

1:23:45Be a changemaker. Visit tr.com forward slash changemakers.