Two and Half Hours with Elon Musk

Elon Musk sat down for an extended interview with Lex Fridman, discussing Starship and Raptor design in detail, the state of Tesla self-driving, regulation paralysis, nuclear power, robotics, artificial intelligence, Russian rocket engines, and funny meme images.

It’s quite an investment of time to listen, but you get a sense that Elon Musk is exactly what he appears to be with no filters or focus groups in the loop. One of the things I find impressive in an interview is that there’s often a long pause before he replies to a question, as if he’s actually thinking about it and formulating an answer on the spot rather than rattling off a talking point which is not responsive to the question.

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I have a nine hour drive Wednesday. This will be perfect. Listened to a good portion of Lex’s discussion with Michael Malice on today’s nine hour drive. The independent interviewers like Lex and Rogan are far superior to the airheads the corporate media have on the boob tube.

The run of the mill corporate CEO wouldn’t have the guts to take a real interview. They have to prepare for weeks to regurgitate financial numbers at the shareholder meeting. Ask them how the plant expansion in Pukwana is going and they would either poop their pants like Brandon or try to throw some word salad together. No slides. More than fifteen minutes. No minions to help with the questions. That Is the no bueno zone.

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The interview is a big commitment of time – but well worthwhile, even if Mr. Fridman is rather frustrating as an interviewer. Elon Musk is not a smooth talker, but one really does get the impression he is completely genuine … and very smart.

Mr. Fridman is clearly more interested in AI than in rocketry. Nothing against AI, which is a very interesting topic on which Musk has a lot to say, but I would love to hear an interview of Musk which focused more on Starship, and on the challenges Musk mentioned about manufacturing.

Talking about the commitment of time – where does someone like Elon Musk find the time to give long interviews and do deep dives into the aircraft of World War II on top of running Tesla and SpacEx? Those of us who like to spend 8 hours a night sleeping can only stand in awe!

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Interesting interview. I’m not impressed by Fridman. Was kinda pushy trying to get Elon to take the woke position on British imperialism. Didn’t work, and made Fridman look petty.

I found Elon’s defence of the British Museum eloquent. I’d add that the British have a better record taking care of the treasures they exhibit than almost all of the countries of origin have with antiquities that remained there.

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That would be this interview:

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