Elon Musk Wants Credit for Cutting Waste, Not Cutting Aid

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1:51One portato. Flawless pour, perfectly timed. Just beautiful. Big league reliability for any business. That's Genius. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. In terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future. And why is that? I think I've done enough. Is it because of blowback? Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I don't currently see a reason. Elon Musk, one-time White House special advisor and still the richest man in the world. I'll ask you a question. This is your interview. Everyone wants to hear from you. I'll ask you a question.

2:32Yes or no? Why do you like racist law? This is not for me to answer. Come on. Yes, it is. Now, you wouldn't be trying to dodge a question that is difficult for you to answer, would you? From Bloomberg Weekend, this is the Michelle Hussain Show. I'm Michelle Hussain.

2:55It's that time of year when, if you're anything like me, you might be doing a mix of looking back and looking forward. And in that spirit, let me take you back to a conversation from May 2025. It's kind of obvious why. Elon Musk remains as consequential a figure now as he was then, even if he is no longer working with President Trump, trying to slash the US budget and slash bureaucracy in the way you might remember he once demonstrated with an actual chainsaw. Within 10 days of the conversation you're about to hear, he had left Doge, the Department of government efficiency. And soon after that, he was publicly trading insults with the president, the man he helped get elected.

3:42So as you listen, see this as a moment in time and an insight into the mind of someone whose media appearances are rare and who I discovered doesn't really like questions at all. The conversation is a little different to those on the podcast so far in other ways too. Elon Musk joined Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum via a live link. So I was on stage in front of an audience and he was on a giant screen above me. We talked about Tesla, his ambitions for SpaceX and Starlink and his political spending. So see what you think. Here it is in full in a special episode of The Michelle Hussain Show. Hello, everyone.

4:31And Elon Musk, welcome to Qatar Economic Forum. How are you? Thank you for having me. I'm fine. How are you? Very well, thank you. And very pleased to have you with us. You know, among those here in the audience in Doha are some you will know, people who have backed you financially over the years. Since you last spoke here in 2022, a lot has changed in your life. You're not only running multiple companies. You were doing that then, but now you also have a role in government. So first of all, I hope you won't mind if from time to time I have to move you from one topic to another because we have a lot to cover in the time we have.

5:05That would be all right? Okay. Well, let's start then with exactly the fact that you now have this combination of being a CEO and having a role as a government advisor. Tell me about your week. How does it work? What's the split of your time? Well, I travel a lot. So I was in Silicon Valley yesterday morning. I was in LA yesterday evening. I'm in Austin right now. I'll be in DC tomorrow. I'll be there having dinner with the president tomorrow night, I believe. And then a bunch of cabinet secretary meetings and then back to Silicon Valley on Thursday night. But I mean the balance of your time. Is it, well, clearly it's a lot, but is it still the case, as you said a while ago, that it's about one to two days a week on your government work?

5:58Yeah, that's correct. And what does that mean for your corporate life? Because if we start with Tesla, the company has suffered in recent months what you've called blowback. So what is your plan for turning that around, the declining sales picture? And by what stage do you think you're going to be able to turn it around? Oh, it's already turned around. Give me some evidence for that. I've just been looking at the sales figures for Europe in April, which show very significant declines in the big markets. Europe is our weakest market. We're strong everywhere else. so our sales are doing well at this point we don't anticipate any meaningful sales shortfall and the obviously the stock market recognizes that since we're now back over a trillion dollars in market cap so clearly the market is aware of the situation so it's already turned around.

7:04But sales still down compared to this time last year? In Europe In Europe, okay. Yes, but that's true of all manufacturers. There's no exceptions. Does that mean that you're not going to be able to... The European crop is quite weak. Okay, but you would acknowledge, wouldn't you, that what you are facing... Okay, let's just take it as Europe. What you are facing is a significant problem. Tesla was an incredibly aspirational brand. People identified with it. They saw it being at the forefront of the climate crisis. And now people are driving around with stickers in their cars saying, I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy.

7:45And that there are also people who are buying it because Elon's crazy or however they may view it. So, yes, we've lost some sales perhaps on the left, but we've gained them on the right. The sales numbers at this point are strong and we see no problem with demand. So what do you... I mean, you can just look at the stock price. If you want the best inside information, the stock market analysts have that. And our stock wouldn't be trading near all-time highs if things weren't in good shape. They're fine. Don't worry about it. Okay. I was citing sales figures rather than share price. Well, tell me then how committed you are to Tesla.

8:31Do you see yourself and are you committed to still being the chief executive of Tesla in five years' time? Yes. No doubt about that at all? Well, no, I might die.

8:49Okay, short of that. I can't be CEO if I'm dead, so there's a slight amount of doubt. Does that mean that the value of your pay doesn't have any bearing on your decision?

9:04Well, that's not really a subject of discussion in this forum. I think, obviously, there should be a compensation for, if something incredible is done, that compensation should match that something incredible was done. But I'm confident that whatever some activist posing as a judge in Delaware happens to do will not affect the future compensation. This is the judge who twice struck down the$56 billion pay package that was awarded to you. I think on the current value of stock options. Not a judge. Not a judge. the activist who is cosplaying a judge in a Halloween costume. Okay, that's your characterization.

9:56I think on the current value of stock options, I think the actual... Judges dispense justice according to the law. On the current value of stock options, I think the value of that pay package stands at about$100 billion. Are you saying you are relaxed about the value of your future pay package? Your decision to be committed to Tesla for the next five years, as long as you are still with us on this planet, is completely independent of pay? No. It's not independent. So pay is a relevant factor then to your commitment to Tesla. Sufficient voting control such that I cannot be ousted by activist investors is what matters to me.

10:39And I've said this publicly many times. But let's not have this whole thing be a discussion of mileage pay. It's not a money thing. It's a reasonable control thing over the future of the company, especially if we're building millions, potentially billions of humanoid robots. I can't be sitting there and one day get tossed out by, for political reasons, by activists. That would be unacceptable. That's all that matters. Now let's move on. Okay, well, just one question. Now let's move on. Well, one question before we move on to other companies, which is that I wonder if some of what has happened to Tesla in the last few months, did you take it personally?

11:20Yes. And did it make you regret or think twice about your political endeavors?

11:31because it is i did i did what needed to be done uh the the violent antibody reaction um and i'm just i'm not someone who's ever committed violence um and yet uh massive violence was committed against my companies massive violence was threatened against me who are these people why would they do that how wrong can they be they're on the wrong on the wrong side of history and that's an evil thing to do to go and damage some point of some person's car to threaten to kill me what's wrong with these people i've not harmed anyone

12:17so something needs to be done about them and a number of them are going to prison and they deserve it. And more will. You're referring to the attacks on Tesla showrooms. But I think... Yeah. Biring bullets into showrooms and burning down cars is unacceptable. Those people will go to prison and the people that funded them and organized them will also go to prison. Don't worry. We're coming for you. Wouldn't you...

12:49Wouldn't you... some of the people who turned against Tesla in Europe were upset at your politics, and very few of them would have been violent in any way. They just objected to what they saw you say or do politically. Well, it's certainly fine to object to political things, but it's not fine to resort to violence and hanging someone in effigy and death threats. That's obviously not okay. you know that's absurd that is in no way justifiable at all in any way shape or form and some of the the legacy media nonetheless have sought to justify it which is unconscionable shame on them okay let's talk about your other companies then another business area SpaceX I saw that you said in a speech at the West Point Military Academy recently that the future of warfare is AI and drones.

13:47And obviously, defense is an increasingly booming sector with the state of the world at the moment. Do you see SpaceX moving into weaponized drones?

14:04You certainly ask interesting questions that are impossible to answer. So SpaceX is it's the space launch leader. So SpaceX doesn't do drones. SpaceX builds rockets, satellites, and internet terminals. So SpaceX has a very dominant position in space launch. So of the mass launch to orbit this year, SpaceX will probably do 90%. China will do half of the remaining amount, so 5%, and the rest of the world, including the rest of the US, will do about 5%. So SpaceX will do about 10 times as much as the rest of the world combined, or 20 times as much as China, which is... And China is doing actually a very impressive job.

14:55The reason for this is that we are putting into orbit the largest satellite constellation the world has ever seen by far. So I think at this point, about maybe approaching 80 % of all active satellites in orbit are SpaceX. And they're providing high bandwidth level connectivity throughout the world. In fact, this connection is on a SpaceX connection. So I think this is a very good thing because it means that we can provide low cost, high bandwidth internet to parts of the world that don't have it or it's very expensive. And I think the single biggest thing you can do to lift people out of poverty and help them is giving them an internet connection.

15:37Because once you have the internet connection, you can learn anything for free on the internet. And you can also sell your goods and services to the global market. And once you have knowledge by the internet and the ability to engage in commerce, this is going to greatly improve quality of life for people throughout the world. And it has. and I'd just like to thank anyone in the audience who may have been helpful and you know with Starlink and getting it approved in their country and I think it's doing a lot of good on the countries that have approved it which is I think at this point 130 countries are very happy with it.

16:16I don't currently anticipate SpaceX getting into the weapons business that's certainly it's not an aspiration we're frequently asked to do to do weapons programs but we have thus far declined. Do you envisage SpaceX or indeed Starlink as a separate entity publicly listing in the near future or at all? It's possible that Starlink may go public at some point in the future. And what would be the time frame? What kind of time frame do you consider? I'm in no rush to go public. The public is, I guess, a way to potentially make more money, but at the expense of a lot of public company overhead and inevitably a whole bunch of lawsuits, which are very annoying.

17:13So really something needs to be done about the shareholder derivative lawsuits in the U.S. because it allows plaintiffs, law firms who don't represent the shareholders to pretend that they represent the shareholders by getting a puppet plaintiff with a few shares to initiate a massive lawsuit against the company. And the irony being that extreme irony that even if the class they purport to represent were to vote that they don't want the lawsuit, the lawsuit would still continue. So how can it be a class action representing a class if the class were against it? And that's the bizarre situation we've got in the US.

17:52It's a dire need of reform. As anyone who's running a public company experienced this, it's an absurd situation that needs to change. Well, do you think Donald Trump might change it? You've certainly got his ear. I imagine that you've put this to him. Is this something you're trying to change before any Starlink IPO? Well, it would need a law to be passed. The trouble being that you need 60 Senate votes, and the Democrats will vote against it. The plaintiff's bar is, I believe, the second largest contributor to the Democratic Party. That's the issue. At the state level, this can be solved. And I should say Texas recently passed a law which at least the state level made class action lawsuits much more reasonable because you have to get at least one in 33 shareholders to agree that they are part of a class of shareholders.

18:553%. This will really help with frivolous lawsuits. Okay. Let's talk about AI, which is in so many of your businesses and in all our worlds in different ways. It's one of the big changes, the development of generative AI, since you last spoke to this forum three years ago. you're in this space, of course, with Grok, which almost everyone will know. You co-founded OpenAI and then left, and you've obviously got a legal battle with OpenAI and Sam Ortman. I wonder if you could say something about the status of that, because you were together in Saudi Arabia with the president last week, with Sam Ortman.

19:40In the same place at the same time. Sam was in the neighborhood. Okay, so does that mean you are pushing ahead with the lawsuit against OpenAI? Yes. So I came up with the name OpenAI as an open source and as a non-profit. And I funded AI, OpenAI, for the first roughly$50 million. And it was intended to be a non-profit open source company. And now they're trying to change that for their own financial benefit into a for-profit company that is closed source. So this would be like, let's say you funded a non-profit to help preserve the Amazon rainforest. But instead of doing that, they became a lumber company, chopped down the forest and sold the wood.

20:32You'd be like, wait a second, that's not what I funded. That's OpenAI. They've made some changes to their corporate structure, though, haven't they, since? In recognition of what you've said. No, that's just what they've told the media. Okay.

20:52They have partly walked back their plan to restructure the business. I guess that's made no difference to how you feel about it. So you're determined to see them in court? Of course. Well, that's certainly going to be one to watch. I also wanted to ask you about AI and regulation, because when you were here last talking to John Micklethwaite, you had some pretty strong words about the risk that AI poses. And you said that you really felt what the US was missing was a federal AI regulator, that something along the lines of the Food and Drug Administration or the Federal Aviation administration.

21:30Now, you're clearly now in a zone where you're more on the cutting regulation side than wanting new regulators. So has your view changed on the need for an AI regulator? Well, it's not that I don't think there should be regulators. You can think of regulators like referees on the field in sports. There should be some number of referees, but you shouldn't have so many referees that you can't kick the ball without hitting one. So in many, in most fields in the US, the regulatory burden has grown over time to the point where it's like having more referees than players on the field. So, and this is a natural consequence of an extended period of prosperity.

22:16It's very important to appreciate this. This has happened throughout history. When you have an extended period of prosperity with no existential war, there's no cleansing function for unnecessary laws and regulations. So what happens is that every year, more laws and more regulations are passed because legislators are going to legislate, regulators are going to regulate. And you will get the steady pile of more and more laws and regulations over time until everything is illegal. And let me give you an example of a truly absurd situation. Under the Biden administration, SpaceX was sued for not hiring asylum seekers in the US.

23:05Now, the problem is it's actually illegal for SpaceX under ITAR, International Traffic and Arms Regulations, to hire anyone who is not a permanent resident of the United States because the premise being that they will take advanced rocket technology and return to their home country if they're not a permanent resident. So we're simultaneously in a situation where it is illegal to hire asylum seekers and is also illegal to hire asylum seekers. And the Biden's Department of Justice chose to prosecute us despite both paths being illegal. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But my question was specifically about a regulator for AI, which you said three years ago was needed.

23:47And you said we need to be proactive on the regulation of AI rather than reactive. Have you changed your mind on that? No, of course not. What I'm saying is that there should be some referees on the field, a few referees, but you shouldn't have a field jam-packed with referees such that you could not kick a ball in any direction without hitting one. So the fields that have been around for a long time, such as automotive, aerospace, the sort of food and drug industries are over-regulated, but the new fields like artificial intelligence are under-regulated. In fact, there is no regulator at all.

24:31So there should be one. Do you still think that? Yes, I'm simply saying, which I think is just basic common sense, that you want to have at least you want to have a few referees in the field. You don't want to have an army of referees, but you want to have a few referees on any given field, in any given sport or any given arena, industrial arena, to ensure that public safety is taken care of. but you don't have so there's a proper number of referees like I said it's actually very easy to visualize this when compared to sports if the whole field is packed with referees that would look absurd but if there were no referees at all your game's not going to be as good

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