Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Podcasts, radio, news. We want to go live to the stage in Davos now where Elon Musk is speaking with BlackRock CEO, Barry Fink. It's an important component of who we and what we are, and I'm thrilled to have Elon Musk here. He came all the way from California to be here to see all of you, so thank you, Elon.
You're most welcome.
Thank you.
I heard about the formation of the Peace Summit, and I was like, is that P-I-E-C? You know, a little piece of Greenland, a little piece of Venezuela. We got one. All we want is peace. As I said, I'm a pretty proud CEO of BlackRock since we went public. The compounding return of BlackRock to our shareholders was 21%.
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Chapter 2: What are Elon Musk's views on AI costs and robotics at Davos?
I'm often asked, are there aliens among us? And I'll say that I am one. Or you're from the future. They don't believe me. Okay. So... I think if anyone would know if there are aliens among us, it would be me. And we have 9,000 satellites up there, and not once have we had to maneuver around an alien spaceship. So I'm like, I don't know.
Bottom line is, I think we need to assume that life and consciousness is extremely rare, and it might only be us. And if that's the case, then we need to do everything possible to ensure that the light of consciousness is not extinguished.
Because we're effectively, the way I view it is, the image in my mind is of a tiny candle in a vast darkness, a tiny candle of consciousness that could easily go out. and that's why it's important to make life multi-planetary, such that if there is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster on Earth, that consciousness continues. That's the purpose of SpaceX.
Tesla is obviously about sustainable technology, and also, at this point, we've sort of added to our mission sustainable abundance. So, with robotics and AI, This is really the path to abundance for all. If you say, you know, people often talk about solving global poverty or essentially how do we make, give everyone a very high standard of living.
I think the only way to do this is AI and robotics. Which doesn't mean that it is without its issues. We need to be very careful with AI. We need to be very careful with robotics. We don't want to find ourselves in a James Cameron movie. You know, Terminator. He's got great movies, I love his movies, but we don't want to be in Terminator, obviously.
But if you have ubiquitous AI that is essentially free or close to it, and ubiquitous robotics, then you will have an explosion in the global economy, an expansion in the global economy that is truly beyond all precedent. Can that expansion be broad? Yes. Or is it narrow? And how can that be created? How can it broaden the global economy?
Yeah, it's... I mean, the way to think of it is that if you have a large number of humanoid robots, the economic output is... the average productivity per robot times the number of robots. And actually my prediction is, in the benign scenario of the future, that we will actually make so many robots in AI that they will actually saturate all human needs.
Meaning you won't be able to even think of something to ask the robot for at a certain point. There will be such an abundance of goods and services. My prediction is there'll be more robots than people. But how do you then have human purpose in that scenario? Yeah, I mean, nothing's perfect, you know. But it is a necessary... Like you can't have both.
You can't have work that has to be done and amazing abundance for all. Because if it's work that has to be done, and only some people can do it, then you can't have abundance for all. Then it's narrow. It's narrow, exactly. But if you have billions of humanoid robots, and I think there will be, I think everyone on Earth is going to have one and going to want one.
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Chapter 3: How is OpenAI securing funding from Middle Eastern investors?
That's when we are confident that it's very high reliability, very high safety, and the range of functionality is also very high. You can basically ask it to do anything you'd like.
Chapter 4: What could the potential valuation of OpenAI reach?
You're already seeing that in Tesla cars. The software changes that you're doing. What is it, every quarter now a software change that upgrades the ability of the robot within the car?
Yes, the Tesla full self-driving software, we update it sometimes once a week. And recently some of the insurance companies have said that it is actually so safe, Tesla full self-driving is so safe that they're offering customers half-price insurance if they use Tesla full self-driving in their car.
And that can be monitored by the insurance company? Is that part of the agreement? Yeah.
But I think self-driving cars is essentially a solved problem at this point. And Tesla's rolled out a sort of robo-taxi service in a few cities and will be very widespread by the end of this year within the U.S. And then we hope to get supervised full self-driving approval in Europe hopefully next month. Really, that quickly? Yeah, and then maybe a similar timing for China, hopefully.
I want to move to space, because historically space is very capital intensive. It's historically been done by governments. Obviously SpaceX changed the whole model. But we've seen it slow to scale, and now I'm starting to see it ramping up in what you're doing and other things.
Talk to us about the automation and AI, how it's changing the economics in building and preparing for us in operating in space. Sure. Well, the key breakthrough that tells, the major breakthrough that SpaceX is hoping to achieve this year is full reusability. So no one has ever achieved full reusability of a rocket, which is very important for the cost of access to space.
We've achieved partial reusability with Falcon 9 by landing the boost stage. We've now landed the boost stage over 500 times. But we have to throw away the upper stage. The upper stage sort of burns up on reentry for Falcon 9. And the cost of that is equivalent to a small to medium-sized jet. But with Starship, which is a giant rocket, it's the largest flying machine ever made.
That's the rocket that you're using for the idea of going to Mars, right? Yeah, Mars and the moon, as well as for high-volume satellite stuff. So Starship, hopefully this year we should prove full reusability for Starship, which will be a profound invention because the cost of access to space will drop by a factor of 100. when you achieve full reusability.
It's the same sort of economic difference that you would expect between, say, a reusable aircraft and a non-reusable aircraft. Like if you have to throw your aircraft away after every flight, that would be a very expensive flight. But if you only have to refuel, then it's the cost of the fuel. And so that's really the...
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of AI data centers in space?
Got to say, basically, if it impacts financial markets, if it impacts companies, if it's impacting trends and narratives that are out there, we are on it.
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This is Bloomberg Tech, and that was Elon Musk, the world's richest man, CEO of Tesla, CEO of SpaceX, alongside BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink there in Davos, and Caroline. A lot of this is Elon Musk's talking book, things we've heard before. And I was trying to discern, like, what's new and what's news?
We sent the headline on the Bloomberg terminal that Tesla could be selling Optimus to the public, their humanoid robot, at the end of next year. That seemed to move the shares for Tesla. What else caught your ear? Because there was a lot.
Yeah, and I think the idea of how much more improved Optimus will be, how sophisticated it will become, and how many billions will be out there in the world. But more broadly, he also talked about where he is in terms of Starship, where he aims in terms of space, and the idea that they want to be proving full reusability for Starship this year.
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Chapter 6: How does Elon Musk envision the future of AI and robotics?
These comments come as politicians have been more focused, of course, on tensions between the U.S. and Europe, perhaps, rather than the AI race with China. Let's discuss the AI race with China.
with Liza Tobin, Managing Director at Garnaut Global. Your expertise is so important. You're at the Special Competitive Studies Project. You were also helping with national security at the government level and the China director there, Liza.
So are you on the idea that it's a fairy tale that they're behind, that actually they are in lockstep with the United States in terms of AI agility and compute power?
Well, good morning, Caroline. It's great to be on with you. Yeah, so a couple of things can be true at the same time. China is absolutely going gangbusters in AI innovation at several layers of the stack. You know, they're doing amazing things in open source models and applications and, of course, at the energy level.
where America's number one advantage still lies is in computing power at scale. I think that's widely agreed upon. Jensen Huang in his interview at Davos on Fox was acknowledging this when he was talking about the demand constraints that he's facing and how this growing demand for a limited supply of these AI chips is actually growing right now.
And so that's why it's somewhat ironic and unfortunate for where America is.
Liza, let me just jump in here. Liza, let me just jump in. Jensen Huang may have said that in that interview, but Jensen Huang's got a vested interest to drive the sales of what is the world's most valuable company in a market, he said, is a potential $50 billion market, right? What he doesn't address is the concern of those that basically don't think the balance is right.
Exporting some deprecated technology still being a national security risk, in part because it allows China to catch up, which is the debate of Davos we're having. Have they got that balance right to your mind?
No, the current policy in the United States doesn't. The policy to license H200 chips to China is giving them a lifeline right where they need it most. The compute advantage that the United States has was poised to grow exponentially if the controls stay in place. But President Trump and Jensen Huang, for the reasons you suggest, Nvidia wants a foothold in the China market.
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Chapter 7: What are the challenges in the adoption of AI technology?
We'll wait for confirmation from Blue, but as it stands, another successful mission.
It is seemingly successful.
We'll check in on those six astronauts as they're known and what the Karman line touching and the zero gravity feel was like for each individual.
Lauren, we always come back on Bloomberg to the financing of this. And we await potentially 2026, an enormous IPO of SpaceX as well. That must be something you're tuned in for.
Oh, absolutely. I think the entire space industry is kind of on pins and needles awaiting how this IPO will play out. And obviously, as we mentioned, one of the big fueling, the things fueling the IPO is this concept of raising capital for space. space data centers. So I think it'll have a very sizable impact on the entire space industry, not just SpaceX.
I've spoken to a number of experts who think that this will open the door for even more investment in the space industry, which is sometimes considered very niche. So I think even the competitors of SpaceX are probably pretty excited to see how this plays out. We're going to move away from West Texas.
And when Blue Origin confirms all as well, we'll bring it to the audience and go back to Elon Musk at Davos. And let's listen to some of what he had to say on stage. Probably sometime next year, I'd say that by the end of next year, I think we'd be selling humanoid robots to the public.
That's when we are confident that it's very high reliability, very high safety, and the range of functionality is also very high. You can basically ask it to do anything you'd like. Well, that was the timeline prediction that moved markets. Tesla shares rose when Musk said that. Musk often misses his own deadlines. In the space context, Lauren, that's your domain.
Just real quick, what were the kind of timelines that he gave, if any, on that part of his business?
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