Lex Fridman (02:25:42):

You, like I mentioned with SpaceX, you give a lot of people hope, and a lot of people look up to you, millions of people look up to you. If we think about young people in high school, maybe in college, what advice would you give to them about, if they wanna try to do something big in this world, they wanna really have a big positive impact, what advice would you give them about their career, maybe about life in general?

Elon Musk (02:26:11):

Try to be useful. Do things that are useful to your fellow human beings to the world. It’s very hard to be useful. Very hard. Are you contributing more than you consume? You know, like, can you try to have a positive net contribution to society? I think that’s the thing to aim for. You know, not to try to be sort of a leader for the sake of being a leader or whatever.

(02:26:48):

A lot of the time, the people you want as leaders are the people who don’t want to be leaders. So if you live a useful life, that is a good life, a life worth having lived. You know, and like I said, I would encourage people to use the mental tools of physics and apply them broadly in life. They are the best tools.

Lex Fridman (02:27:20):

When you think about education and self-education, what do you recommend? So there’s the university, there’s a self-study, there is a hands-on sort of finding a company or a place or a set of people that do the thing you’re passionate about and joining them as early as possible. There’s taking a road trip across Europe for a few years and writing some poetry. Which trajectory do you suggest? In terms of learning about how you can become useful, as you mentioned, how you can have the most positive impact.

Elon Musk (02:28:04):

Well, I’d encourage people to read a lot of books. Just read, basically try to ingest as much information as you can and try to also just develop a good general knowledge. So you at least have a rough lay of the land of the knowledge landscape. Try to learn a little bit about a lot of things. Because you might not know what you’re really interested, how would you know what you’re really interested in if you at least aren’t doing a peripheral exploration of broadly of the knowledge landscape.

(02:28:44):

And talk to people from different walks of life and different industries and professions and skills and occupations, just try to learn as much as possible. Man’s search for a meeting.

Lex Fridman (02:29:00):

Isn’t the whole thing a search for a meeting?

Elon Musk (02:29:06):

Yeah, what’s the meaning of life and all. But just generally, like I said, I would encourage people to read broadly in many different subject areas. And then try to find something where there’s an overlap of your talents and what you’re interested in. So people may be good at something, or they may have skill at a particular thing, but they don’t like doing it. So you wanna try to find a thing where you’re, that’s a good combination of the things that you’re inherently good at, but you also like doing.

Lex Fridman (02:29:44):

And reading is a super fast shortcut to figure out which, where are you. You’re both good at it, you like doing it, and it’ll actually have positive impact.

Elon Musk (02:29:54):

Well, you gotta learn about things somehow. So reading a broad range, just really read it. You know, one point when I was a kid, I read through the encyclopedia, so that was pretty helpful. And there are also things I didn’t even know existed, well, a lot, so obviously. It’s like as broad as it gets. Encyclopedias were digestible, I think, you know, whatever, 40 years ago. So, you know, maybe read through the condensed version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I’d recommend that. You can always skip subjects the way you read a few paragraphs, and you know you’re not interested, just jump to the next one. That’s how I read the encyclopedia, or skim through it.

(02:30:46):

And, but I put a lot of stock in, certainly have a lot of respect for someone who puts in an honest day’s work to do useful things. And just generally to have like not a zero sum mindset, or like have more of a grow the pie mindset, like the, if you sort of say like, when I see people like perhaps, including some very smart people, kind of taking an attitude of, like doing things that seem like morally questionable, it’s often because they have, at a base, sort of axiomatic level, a zero sum mindset. And they, without realizing it, they don’t realize they have a zero sum mindset, or at least they don’t realize it consciously. And so, if you have a zero sum mindset, then the only way to get ahead is by taking things from others.

(02:31:42):

If it’s like, if the pie is fixed, then the only way to have more pie is to take someone else’s pie. But this is false, like obviously the pie has grown dramatically over time, the economic pie. So, in reality, you can have, so, overuse this analogy, we have a lot of, there’s a lot of pie. The pie is not fixed, so you really wanna make sure you’re not operating without realizing it from a zero sum mindset, where the only way to get ahead is to take things from others, then that’s gonna result in you trying to take things from others, which is not good, it’s much better to work on adding to the economic pie.

(02:32:31):

So, creating, like I said, creating more than you consume, doing more than you, yeah. So, that’s a big deal. I think there’s a fair number of people in finance that do have a bit of a zero sum mindset.

Lex Fridman (02:32:49):

I mean, it’s all walks of life, I’ve seen that. One of the reasons Rogan inspires me is he celebrates others a lot, is not creating a constant competition, like there’s a scarcity of resources. What happens when you celebrate others and you promote others, the ideas of others, it actually grows that pie. I mean, the resources become less scarce, and that applies in a lot of kinds of domains. It applies in academia, where a lot of people are very, see some funding for academic research is zero sum, and it is not. If you celebrate each other, if you make, if you get everybody to be excited about AI, about physics, about mathematics, I think there’d be more and more funding, and I think everybody wins. Yeah, that applies, I think, broadly.

(02:33:38):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, last question about love and meaning. What is the role of love in the human condition broadly and more specific to you? How has love, romantic love or otherwise, made you a better person, a better human being? Better engineer?

Elon Musk (02:34:00):

Now you’re asking really perplexing questions. It’s hard to give a, I mean, there are many books, poems, and songs written about what is love and what exactly, you know, what is love, maybe you don’t hurt me.

Lex Fridman (02:34:23):

That’s one of the great ones, yes. Yeah. You have earlier quoted Shakespeare, but that’s really up there.

Elon Musk (02:34:29):

Yeah, love is a many-splendored thing.

Lex Fridman (02:34:34):

I mean, there’s, it’s because we’ve talked about so many inspiring things like be useful in the world, sort of like solve problems, alleviate suffering, but it seems like connection between humans is a source, you know, it’s a source of joy, it’s a source of meaning, and that’s what love is, friendship, love. I just wonder if you think about that kind of thing, when you talk about preserving the light of human consciousness and us becoming a multi-planetary species, I mean, to me, at least, that means, like, if we’re just alone and conscious and intelligent, it doesn’t mean nearly as much as if we’re with others.

(02:35:20):

Right? And there’s some magic created when we’re together. The French of it, and I think the highest form of it is love, which I think, broadly, is much bigger than just sort of romantic, but also, yes, romantic love and family and those kinds of things.

Elon Musk (02:35:38):

Well, I mean, the reason I guess I care about us becoming a multi-planet species in a space-faring civilization is, foundationally, I love humanity. And so I wish to see it prosper and do great things and be happy, and if I did not love humanity, I would not care about these things.

Lex Fridman (02:36:03):

So when you look at the whole of it, the human history, all the people who’s ever lived, all the people alive now, it’s pretty, we’re okay. On the whole, we’re a pretty interesting bunch.

Elon Musk (02:36:18):

All things considered, and I’ve read a lot of history, including the darkest, worst parts of it, and despite all that, I think, on balance, I still love humanity.

Lex Fridman (02:36:30):

You joked about it with the 42. What do you think is the meaning of this whole thing? Is there a non-numerical representation?

Elon Musk (02:36:39):

Yeah, really, I think what Douglas Adams was saying in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is that the universe is the answer, and what we really need to figure out are what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe, and that the question is really the hard part, and if you can properly frame the question, then the answer, relatively speaking, is easy. So therefore, if you want to understand what questions to ask about the universe, you want to understand the meaning of life, we need to expand the scope and scale of consciousness so that we’re better able to understand the nature of the universe and understand the meaning of life.

Lex Fridman (02:37:24):

And ultimately, the most important part would be to ask the right question. Yes. Thereby elevating the role of the interviewer. Yes, exactly. As the most important human in the room.

Elon Musk (02:37:38):

Good questions are, it’s hard to come up with good questions. Absolutely. But yeah, it’s like that is the foundation of my philosophy is that I am curious about the nature of the universe, and obviously I will die, I don’t know when I’ll die, but I won’t live forever. But I would like to know that we’re on a path to understanding the nature of the universe and the meaning of life and what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe. And so if we expand the scope and scale of humanity and consciousness in general, which includes silicon consciousness, then that seems like a fundamentally good thing.

Lex Fridman (02:38:27):

Elon, like I said, I’m deeply grateful that you would spend your extremely valuable time with me today and also that you have given millions of people hope in this difficult time, this divisive time, and this cynical time. So I hope you do continue doing what you’re doing. Thank you so much for talking.

Elon Musk (02:38:46):

All right, you’re welcome. Thanks for your excellent questions.