What's this? This is an unbiased just-the-facts news timeline ('newsline') about Interview, created by Newslines contributors. Become a contributor

Interview

Latest News view > Click for Biography view
20 Jul, 2023

Daypart.AI founder details Burnt Hair domain trade with Boring

Negotiation0 Comments

Jeremy Sonne, founder of Daypart.AI, details his trade of the burnthair.com website domain to the Boring Company. Just after Musk announced Boring’s plan to sell “Burnt Hair” cologne, Sonne bought the domain and tweeted at Musk, offering him the domain if the billionaire would “have lunch with me at the gigafactory or coffee or something like that.” (The tweet has since been deleted.) Minutes later, Boring messaged him directly, telling him to email them about the idea.

“They said lunch wouldn’t happen,” Sonne says, so he made more “outlandish” requests like a phone call with Musk or a “ride on his private plane,” until Boring finally agreed to give him a tour of its Texas facility and some Boring products (including one of the first 10 bottles of Burnt Hair cologne) in exchange for the domain. Sonne’s wife and four-year-old son also went on the tour, during which, for security reasons, they were not allowed to take out their phones. They also had to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevented them from talking about what they saw inside. Ownership of the domain, which now redirects to Boring’s main website, was transferred in December 2022. Sonne says the tour left a big impression on his son:

My four year old is on the spectrum and is like really obsessed with construction and that’s a special interest for him, construction, diggers, that sort of thing. Since we’ve gotten home, he has been building tunnels with Magna-Tiles and running his cars through them and stuff. Honestly, that was worth the entire adventure, just seeing him get really hyped up about it.

25 Jun, 2023

Musk: SpaceX ‘six weeks’ away from second Starship launch

0 Comments

In a Twitter Spaces discussion with Vance, Musk says SpaceX is six weeks away from launching their second attempt to reach orbit with their Starship rocket. Despite implementing “well over a thousand” changes since the first attempt the launch will not go ahead unless the Federal Aviation Administration gives it clearance and signs off on the Starship’s self-destruct system which was slow to respond on the first attempt. During the Super Heavy’s maiden flight, a half-dozen engines shut down or never started and the Starship never separated from the Super Heavy first stage. The next test will use ‘hot staging’, which means that the Starship engines will ignite before separation.

We shut down most of the engines on the booster, leaving just a few running and then at the same time, start the engines on the ship, or upper stage

Musk says roughly 1,000 cubic meters of steel-reinforced high-strength concrete will be added to the launchpad to avoid damaging breakup.

On top of that, we have a sort of a steel sandwich, which is basically two thick plates of steel that are welded together with channels going through (with) perforations in the top so it will actually shoot a lot of water out. Think of it like a gigantic upside-down shower head. It’s going to basically blast water upwards while the rocket is over the pad to counteract the massive amount of heat from the booster. The booster is basically like the world’s biggest cutting torch with a massive amount of … heat, but also a massive amount of force.

Musk says the chance of the test getting to orbit is 60%:

I think the probability of this next flight working, getting to orbit, is much higher than the last one. Maybe it’s like 60%. It depends on how well we do at stage separation…In launching, what you’re doing is trying to resolve the unknowns which you cannot know before you launch, or at least we are not smart enough to know. So like I said, what appears to be the biggest risk right now is stage separation.

31 May, 2023

Musk apologizes to Magneto for Soros comparison

0 Comments

In an interview with The Babylon Bee, Musk is asked about his comments comparing Soros to the Marvel character, Magneto, while claiming Soros ‘hates humanity:

Sorry Magneto. Y’know, I shouldn’t have said that. It was unfair to Magneto.

Musk criticises NPR: ‘You don’t generally bite the hand that feeds you’

0 Comments

In an interview with The Babylon Bee, Musk talks about NPR leaving Twitter, after the company labelled it as state0funded media:

We’re trying to apply the rules consistently at Twitter. If we’re going to call some media state-affiliated, then we should apply the label equally. They got pretty upset at that, and said that ‘state-affiliated’ implies that the state has editorial authority and influence over the content. So you’re saying you don’t have that? How self-aware are you? NPR literally, on their own website, said government funding was essential to their operation. We even changed [the label] from ‘state-affiliated’, to ‘state-funded’. That’s literally a statement of fact. But they’re unhappy with that. They have got to their punches in criticizing the government. It’s just a guess, based on their extreme dependence on government funding. I mean you don’t generally bite the hand that feeds you.

23 May, 2023

Musk: Tesla will ‘strongly consider’ building Gigafactory in England

Makes Statement0 Comments

In an interview for The Wall Street Journal, Musk says Tesla is preparing to look for a location to build a new battery factory later this year and would assess England as an option.

I will strongly consider England for a future location of a gigafactory. We are not currently looking at new locations but we will probably towards the end of this year.

Tesla already operates several production facilities in Fremont, California, Austin, Texas, Berlin, Germany, and Shanghai, China. A factory in Mexico was announced in early 2023, but ground has not been broken yet.

Musk details succession plans

0 Comments

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Musk discusses his succession plans, including potential successors, how to handle ownership control of his companies, his plan for an educational institution to control his shares, and how he will not automatically give his children shares in his companies:

Succession is one of the toughest, age-old problems. It’s plagued countries, kings, prime ministers, presidents and CEOs, since the dawn of history. There is no obvious solution.

There are particular individuals that I’ve told the board,  ‘Look, if something happens to me unexpectedly, this is my recommendation for who should take over.’ The board is aware who my recommendation is. It’s up to them of course.

I want to make sure the stewardship ultimately accrues the benefit of humanity. We’re not always successful in that, but that is aspirationally our goal. I have one idea that is partly in place, which is to create an education institution that would control most of my vote.

I am not of the school of automatically giving my kids some share of the companies, even if they have no interest, or inclination, or ability to manage the companies. I think that would be a mistake. It’s a very hard problem to solve.

Musk: AI could be ‘a danger’

0 Comments

Musk warns that AI could be a danger to humans, calling it “a double-edged sword” and saying it is not “necessary for anything we’re doing.”

If you have a genie that can grant you anything, that presents a danger…

He thinks AI advances the end of empires and expects governments to use it for weapons development before anything else.

There’s a little late-stage empire vibes right now…So just having more advanced weapons on the battlefield that can react faster than any human could is really what AI is capable of. Any future wars between advanced countries or at least countries with drone capability will be very much the drone wars.

On AI’s potential for peace, he says:

One way to achieve world peace is to take all the weapons away from the humans so they can no longer use them. I don’t think the AI is going to try to destroy all humanity but it might put us under strict controls

In terms of politics and the upcoming US presidential election, he says:

One of the first places you need to be careful of where AI is used is social media to manipulate public opinion. I think it’s something we need to be on the lookout for in the way of minimising the impact of AI manipulation. We’re certainly taking that seriously at Twitter and I think we’re putting in all the protections to detect large-scale manipulation of the system.

17 May, 2023

Musk: ‘Working from home ‘morally wrong’

0 Comments

During an interview with CNBC anchor David Faber, Musk criticises the hypocrisy of expecting service industry workers to go to work while others had the privilege of working from home, using a quote often attributed to Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France before the French Revolution.

There are some exceptions, but I think that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the fake Marie Antoinette quote, ‘Let them eat cake’. It’s like, really, you’re going to work at home and you’re going to make the people who made your car come to the factory? You’ve got people who deliver your food, but they can’t work from home? The people that come fix your house, they can’t work from home, but you can? Does that seem morally right? It’s a productivity issue and a moral issue. Get off the goddamn moral high horse with the work-from-home bulls**t. The laptop class is living in la-la land.

Musk says that he works seven days a week, but doesn’t expect others to do that.

I’m saying put 40 hours in.

Musk: Tesla will have a ‘ChatGPT moment’ with full self-driving cars

0 Comments

Comparing Tesla’s self-driving AI to OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, which came to sudden public attention at the end of 2022, Musk says that a similar situation will happen when Teslas are able to drive themselves without human intervention.

I think Tesla will have sort of a ChatGPT moment, maybe if not this year, I’d say no later than next year…Suddenly, three million cars will be able to drive with no-one [at the wheel].

Musk says he envisions a future where millions of Tesla cars would operate autonomously, gradually expanding to three million, five million, and eventually 10 million self-driving vehicles. When owners are not using the vehicles, they will be used as Robotaxis, licenced by Tesla.

Comparing Tesla’s self-driving capabilities to Google’s Waymo, Musk says that while Waymo has achieved limited success in a tightly-mapped geographic area, Tesla has a more advanced and generalized solution. Musk argues that if Microsoft, and Tesla was tasked with producing a large language model akin to ChatGPT, his company would emerge victorious.

Musk may rehire fired Twitter staff

0 Comments

During an interview with CNBC anchor David Faber, which is also broadcast as a Twitter space, Musk says he may rehire some of the staff he fired when he took over the company. At that time, Musk cut Twitter’s headcount by 80%, from 7,800 to about 1,500.

Some people who were let go probably shouldn’t have been. Desperate times call for desperate measures… Unfortunately, if you do it fast, there are some babies who will be thrown out.

Musk to build ‘TruthGPT’ AI platform

0 Comments

In an interview with Carlson, Musk says he is planning to build an alternative to ChatCPT, which he claims has been trained to lie. Musk says that OpenAI, which built ChatGPT, has now become a closed source, for-profit organization that’s far removed from the startup he helped found.

I’ve been thinking about AI since I was in college…I think I will create a third option, although I’m starting very late in the game…I’m going to start something which I call TruthGPT or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe. I think this might be the best path to safety, in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe.

Musk also says he supports the regulation of artificial intelligence.

AI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance or bad car production in the sense that it has the potential, however, small one may regard that probability, but it is not trivial; it has the potential of civilizational destruction

Elon Musk tells Tucker his plans to create a ‘TruthGPT’ AI platform

16 Apr, 2023

Musk: US Government had access to Twitter DMs

Trailer0 Comments

In a trailer for his interview with Carlson, Musk says the US authorities had full access to everything that happened on Twitter, including users’ private messages . Everything that happened on the social network was monitored by “various government departments.”

Musk: The degree to which various government agencies had effectively full access to everything that was going on at Twitter blew my mind. I was not aware of that.
Carlson: Would that include people’s DMs?
Musk: Yes

7 Mar, 2023

Musk ‘not saying’ Starship will get to orbit

Makes StatementUnmanned launch0 Comments

SpaceX will debut its Starship vehicle in a month or so, but the chances of its first-ever orbital mission being a success are apparently only about 50%.

I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. So, won’t be boring!…So I think we’ve got, hopefully, about an 80% chance of reaching orbit this year. It’ll probably take us a couple more years to achieve full and rapid reusability.

According to Musk, Starship will be the most powerful rocket to ever fly, featuring about 2.5 times more thrust at liftoff than NASA’s Saturn V. SpaceX hopes that, among other things, Starship will get people and cargo to the moon and Mars. It is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, which Musk considers the most important breakthrough for making Mars colonization and other ambitious exploration feats feasible.

New Elon Musk Interview with Timestamps. Morgan Stanley Interview 2023. Twitter, Tesla & SpaceX.

 

21 Dec, 2022

Musk: Twitter to break even in 2023

0 Comments

Musk explains Twitter’s financial situtaion during a Twitter Spaces chat, saying that after cutting staff and costs, Twitter is now on track to bring in around $3 billion in revenue in 2023 – roughly $2 billion less than the $5.1 billion reported at the end of 2021, while the company has $1 billion in cash on its balance sheet. He in part blamed the $12.5 billion in debt tied to his April agreement to buy the company, as well as the Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate hikes.

[It was like being] in a plane that is headed towards the ground at high speed with the engine on fire and the controls don’t work…With the changes that we’re making here on massively reducing the burn rate and building subscriber revenue, I now think that Twitter will, in fact, be OK next year, I think we will be…roughly cash-flow break-even — that’s what I expect for next year.

He says advertisers have been asking “sane” but “tough” questions about their return on investment,

[Decisions] may seem sometimes spurious or odd or whatever. It’s because we have an emergency fire drill on our hands. That’s the reason. Not because I’m naturally capricious. Or at least, aspirationally, I’m not naturally capricious.

Elon Musk Discusses Twitter Tech Stack, Free Speech and Looming Bankruptcy in Twitter Space 12/21/22

14 Nov, 2022

Musks says he has ‘too much work on his plate’

0 Comments

In a videolink interview for the B20 Indonesia conference in Bali, Musk, who is wearing a traditional batik shirt sent by the event’s organizers, says that has too much work:

You know my workload has recently increased quite a lot. I mean, I have too much work on my plate that is for sure. No doubt about it

When asked about his thoughts on other business leaders in Asia who wish to become the “Elon Musk of the East” the Tesla CEO says:

I’d be careful what you wish for. I’m not sure how many people would actually like to be me. They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same thing as actually being me. The amount that I torture myself is next level, frankly.

Musk also noted that longer video content is coming to Twitter.

Twitter for sure, I think it’s gonna be a lot more on video… And it’s kind of a no-brainer to enable longer video and also enable content creators to make a living with content on Twitter

Elon Musk 🔴Full Live Interview at B20 Indonesia 2022 | G20 di Bali

7 Oct, 2022

Proposes China-Taiwan peace plan

0 Comments

In an interview with The Financial Times, Musk talks about his plan for China-Taiwan relations

My recommendation … would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy. And it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong.

3 Apr, 2022

Ferry engine fears

0 Comments

Concerns are growing about engines purchased for the two Calmac ferries more than five years ago. Despite costing four million pounds, the state run Ferguson shipyard has never tested them. The process of testing allows ships engines to be both assessed and prevented from losing condition. It has been revealed that the first time this will be done is late summer 2022 which may be too late and they may seize up. Dr Spyros Hirdaris a head of Maritime Safety:

There is a high possibility that the ferry engines won’t work and it seems very high risk to expect everything will go according to plan. If you have a car for a long time and never switch on the engine it’s probably not going to work. It’s extremely important the engines are tested on board so it’s not a good thing that they haven’t been tested for all this time. They should have tested the functionality of the engines. There could be problems because the engines have been there for a long time. The engines could halt, there could be malfunctions in some of the sub-systems, there could be problems with lubrication and corrosion of engine components.There are a number of things that may not work, for example the dual-fuel system may not operate properly because it’s such a long time since it has been tested.

8 Feb, 2022

Sturgeon: Johnson should resign, says she nearly resigned

0 Comments

In an interview with Sky Sturgeon says that she had considered quitting her job last year whilst she was being investigated for breaching the ministerial code. She said that the position of First minister like that of Prime Minister was a privilege not something to be taken for granted and where you are found to have broken the standards required of the job, you have to be willing to step aside.

My own personal experience this time last year – I was being accused in a completely different context, of having breached the ministerial code. I should say I was found by an independent adviser, and in an independent report, not to have breached the ministerial code. But when that was ongoing, I had within myself to ask myself some serious questions and I had came to the conclusion in my mind, that had I been deemed to have breached the ministerial code – I didn’t think I had – but if an independent person had said I had, then in the interest of the office I hold and in the interest of the country, I at that point would have resigned.I’m sure it would have been really difficult and I’m glad that didn’t come to pass. But these responsibilities are heavy responsibilities, and they require all of us in these offices to contemplate things that perhaps others might think is difficult to imagine.

She also says Boris Johnson should resign.

I think if Boris Johnson has decency and integrity, however difficult it may be, he will reach the conclusion that the time is right for him to step aside.

25 Jan, 2022

‘I feel a responsibility to talk about menopause’

0 Comments

In an interview with The Shift podcast, Sturgeon says she is ambivalent about discussing the menopause in public:

We talk about the menopause much more, and I’m very conscious of being a woman with a profile and a platform, a fair degree of influence, so I feel a responsibility – given that I’m at that age – to talk about it myself. And yet even talking about it like this, I am so far out of my comfort zone, in terms of the intensely personal nature of it. That tells me no matter how far we’ve come in this discussion, we still have a long way to go that somebody like me still feels kind of uncomfortable with it. ven though there is more information available than there has ever been before, there’s still a massive amount of guesswork about it. We’re still all feeling our way through it.

Asked how she might deal with a hot flush during a work meeting:

I would like to think I would be open about it. If you look around the world, there’s not been that many women leaders … I guess Angela Merkel must have gone through when she was in office, Hillary Clinton … so if you’ve got that platform, then I would like to think I would use that positively, but I’m also a human. So I’ve got windows open in the depth of winter, my poor husband is shivering. I’ve thought to myself: what if that happens when I’m on my feet in parliament in the middle of first minister’s questions? What would I do? That could happen any time. I’m not sure I will know the answer to that question until it happens. Maybe male opposition leaders should be thinking about what I will do, as well

She says that she has already had a conversation with her doctor about taking hormone replacement therapy.