#400 – Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity

The following is a conversation with Elon Musk, his fourth time on, um, this, the Lex Friedman podcast. And now, if you allow me a quick few second mention of each sponsor, check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got element for electrolyte deliciousness, asleep for naps, betterhelp for your mind, simply safe for your safe. Shopify for your online shopping, and netsuite for business management software. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to work with our amazing team or always hiring, go to lexfreedman.com slash hiring. And now onto the full ad reads, as always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you must skip them, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will, too. This episode is brought to you by the very thing I'm drinking as I speak to you right now. Element electrolyte drink mix. I'll usually fill a power, uh, rate or Gatorade bottle. I think it's 28oz of water. And mix it with one element packet. My favorite flavor is watermelon salt. That's the one I'm drinking now. Um, that's the one I've been drinking for a long time. I apologize, because I'm recording these words very late at night. It's been a long day. It's been a long night before that, and, uh, a long night, this one. So it's just me in front of a microphone right now, looking at a 28 ounce bottle of water that tastes like watermelon. Just me in the water, happily reunited in the desert of human experience. I'm also surrounded by three computer screens that all have beautiful wallpaper looking at me, taunting me with beautiful, uh, picturesque scenes of nature. And I just before this played about ten minutes of Diablo, where I got to escape to a whole other world that is also picturesque, but not with nature, but filled with the, uh, intense, intimidating sounds of demons attacking you from all sides. And all of that is somehow relaxing. Anyway, element is not just delicious, it combines this perfect amount of magnesium, um, potassium and sodium watermelon salt. Anyway, get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it@drinkelement.com. Lex this episode is also brought to you by the thing that's calling my name at this very moment, the eight sleep pod three mattress. It, uh, has two sides of the bed, so you can cool or heat each side of the bed separately. I've actually recently was, uh, briefly at a get together of a lot of really interesting people, and somebody brought up the topic of asleep. And I just heard that, uh, a bunch of other folks said, oh, I love asleep. And they started talking about the different temperatures that they use. And I was shocked and horrified to learn that some people actually heat their bed up. This was fascinating, uh, discovery for me because I've never even tried the heating feature. I always cool the bed, um, sometimes very cold with a warm blanket. It's heaven, but I can't recommend it enough. Sleep really is a magical place. It's a bit surreal saying these words while quiet, sleep deprived, a bit melancholic, a bit hopeful, thinking about the asleep bed just a few steps away. And somehow that thought fills me with gratitude for just having these things in my life. Anyway, check them out and get special savings when you go to eight. Sleep Lex. This episode is also brought to you by betterhelp, spelled H-E-L-P. Help. Anytime I spell out a word, I always imagine myself spelling out that word in giant letters on sand, stranded alone on the island, uh, looking at an airplane floating above, hoping that they see the text. That right? Help. I just actually got a text from a friend. I'm looking at it now again, filled with gratitude for having so many amazing people. The text says, hey, brother. Just sending you some love. Miss you sent late at night. Oh, boy. Yeah. So, betterhelp speaking, uh, of friends. It's good to talk. It's good to talk to people. It's good to talk to people that truly listen. That could be friends, loved ones, or that could be a professional therapist. But you don't have to choose one. You can have all of those. And, uh, easy, accessible therapist is what betterhelp is all about. Check them out@betterhelp.com. Slash lex. And save in your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash lex. This show is also brought to you by Simplisafe. And as we go on with this program, I'm starting to have more and more fun, because fun is all you need. Simplisafe is a home security company. After, of course, you establish security. Once you're safe, then the fun can begin. Uh, for me, Simplisafe just establishes that first base layer of physical security. It's super easy to set up. They have a cool new feature called Fast Protect monitoring that allows simplisafe monitoring agents to see, speak to, and deter intruders through the smart alarm indoor camera. I'm tempted to test the system by having one of the quadrupeds, the legged robots, roll up to it and see what the agents say. Just attach a chad GPT. GPT four agent or groc agent on top of it, and, uh, have the two of them have a conversation and see what they figure out. I'm not sure it's going to end well, but science proceeds. One experiment at a time, friends. Anyway, I love how easy, simple, uh, safe was to set up. Their sensors are awesome. Their monitoring is awesome. It's affordable, easy to use. I love products that just easy to set up, easy to maintain. Everything works easy. Anyway, go to simplisafe.com lex to get 50% off any simplisafe system when you sign up for fast protect monitoring. That's simplisafe.com lex. This show is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere. And when I say anyone, I mean somebody like me. It took me minutes, maybe even seconds to set up a store and, uh, sell shirts, which you can now buy at. I think the link is lexfreed.com store that forwards you to the shopify store with three different shirts. In this case, it's not really about the store. It's about just celebrating, um, stuff we love. I'm a huge fan of a lot of bands and podcasts, and I just love buying up their merch, wearing it and seeing who notices. I love wearing a Huberman, uh, lab shirt on the trail when I run and just see, uh, who recognizes the full absurdity of it, what they say. It's just wonderful, the joy that we can share by this little kind of sign that you wear in yourself that, oh, I like this particular thing. Uh, let's talk about it. Yeah, I love it. I like wearing, like, orwell shirts or Dostoevsky, uh, shirts or bukowski shirts or Sci-Fi stuff. 2001 space odyssey, all of it. You can get all of those things or sell those things, um, on Shopify, sign up for a one dollars per month trial period@shopify.com. Lex. That's all lowercase. Go to shopify.com Lex to take your business to the next level today. This show is also brought to you by Netsuite, an all in one cloud business management system. They take care of all the messy, complicated things involved in running a business. A company, like Elon says, is a kind of super intelligent being comprised of individual human beings working together in interesting ways that, uh, when effective, can be greater than the sum of their parts. But there's a lot of things involved there. It's not just great design and engineering. It's not great innovation. It's all of the things the financials the human resources of hiring and firing. It's maintaining inventory. It's the ecommerce. It's all the messy business details. So you should use the best tools for the job of handling that mess, that beautiful, beautiful mess involved in running a company. And I, too, by the way, would love, um, to be a part of that mess, a small cog in the machine, in the super intelligent machine that is a company, uh, someday soon, anyway. You can start now with no payment or interest for six months. Go to netsuite.com slash Lex to access their one of a kind financing program.