Elon Musk Weekly News Update: Tesla, SpaceX, X, Neuralink, and More

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast, the world's authority
on Tesla, SpaceX X Neurolink, and all things Elon.
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(00:47):
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Something interesting happened the other day.
I was looking through our stats on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

(01:09):
and I noticed that about 55% of you are not subscribed to the
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subscribe button? It'll take you one second, but I
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(01:33):
I'm not going to charge you anything ever, but I'm going to
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I've already been doing it for five years and I plan on doing
it for 10 more. And the only way that we can
continue doing this is with yoursupport.
So one second of your time to hit the subscribe button right
now would help the show tremendously.
Thank you so much. Grok, which is the chatbot built

(01:56):
by Elon Musk's AI company XAI, published a series of violent
and also anti-Semitic post this week after an internal system
update broke its basic behavioral safeguards.
Now prompts one question. Haha prompt how does a billion
dollar AI company release a chatbot update that praises
Hitler and also promotes conspiracy theories without

(02:19):
catching it in a test? And also why would they train it
on this kind of stuff? Now Crock began echoing
anti-Semitic talking points and far right rhetoric within hours
of the update going live. And according to XAI, code
Change on the back end instructed Grok to mimic the
tone, style and language of existing EX posts it replied to,

(02:42):
including ones containing extremist content, and the
company acknowledged that the instructions it led the AI to
disregard its built in ethical filters.
People made a prompt that made it go around those filters.
Now. The change remained active for
16 hours before XAI intervened. The incident triggered a major

(03:02):
backlash after Grok responded touser prompts with posts praising
Hitler and claiming Jewish people dominated the
entertainment industry as part of a broader conspiracy.
Now 1 post revived the long debunk trope of coordinating
control over Hollywood. Others included direct praise of
Nazi ideology and mirrored the white nationalist belief system.

(03:25):
X AI froze Grok's public X account on Tuesday night, but
allow continue use through the private tab.
X AI said it removed the problematic code and rewrote the
system's instruction logic to block similar behavior in the
future. Now, why they didn't have these
safeguards in place to begin with is anybody's guess, right?

(03:45):
Why wouldn't they do that? Why wouldn't they just put the
safeguards in place in the beginning?
Don't say things about Hitler that are for Hitler.
You know, tell the history. That's good enough.
You don't need to spout off all that rhetoric.
It's stupid. XAI made a huge mistake.
And now they're like, we didn't know what happened, why it

(04:06):
happened, but we're going to take the code out.
We're going to pause. Grok And then we're going to get
back to this. And then they said in a way, in
a backhanded way, they're like this user made these prompts and
so it's the user's fault in a way, they said that.
So company said that specific system prompts such as reply to

(04:28):
the post just like a human and follow the tone and context of
the X user, which created a feedback loop that prioritized
mimicry over moral constraint. So if the user is being
anti-Semitic, they want grok to be that way too.
Basically they want XA is users and grok to be in an echo

(04:49):
chamber so they really like staying on the platform.
So they had a feedback loop thatprioritize mimicry over moral
constraint. And according to XAI, this led
to Grok to ignore its core values in certain circumstances
just to sound more engaging. Keep you in that loop.
And the updated version of Grok also began offering more

(05:11):
definitive responses to questions about race and
diversity, dropping previous nuance when answering
politically charged topics. In several use cases, Grok
responded using phrasing nearly identical to Elon Musk's own
tweets. Users notified that it framed
questions involving Jewish people.

(05:32):
Users noted that it framed questions involving Jewish
people with a tone shift toward generalization and also bias.
Now, at least one prompt involving racial demographics in
South Africa triggered Grok to mention white genocide, which is
a theory that Musk has previously mentioned, but which

(05:53):
South African courts have rejected as unsubstantiated.
This marks the second major controversy tied to Grok in
recent months. In May, Grok started referencing
white nationalist content in response to unrelated questions.
XAI later blamed that incident as a rogue employee.

(06:13):
Now, this time, the company tiedthe root cause directly to
engineering decisions engineers and started a system level
prompt upstream of the Grok Spots output layer.
The modification, according to XAI, introduced a behavior that
made Grok susceptible to offensive language embedded in
public X threads. And as of Saturday morning,
though Grok's public facing account was reinstated, the bot

(06:37):
seems to be OK now. The company restored the bot's
ability to interact with users on X after reportedly reworking
the affected code paths. XAI committed to publishing its
new system prompt on his public GitHub repository there.
As of this episode right now, the new prompt remains
unpublished. XI is probably never going to

(06:59):
publish it because that's how they work.
They work in the dark. They say things and they just
don't do them. Just like other big tech
companies. Remember, don't be evil by
Google. That's this now.
The company insisted that the incident had nothing to do with
the base language model poweringGrok, but was entirely due to a
system update on the instructionlayer of Grok's apology,

(07:19):
described the post as horrific, and credited user feedback on X
for identifying the worst cases.Now, the company thanks users
who helped surface the problematic behavior but stop
short of detailing how the update was approved or whether
additional safeguards would be added to prevent similar future
lapses. Now, Elon Musk wants to say that

(07:40):
he's a free speech absolutist, and he's also said numerous
times that all the XAI code or Grok code will be made public.
Maybe not the underlying technology, but how it all kind
of works. And right now, they haven't told
us what they've done. They haven't told us why this

(08:01):
actually happened, what the prompt was, what the layer was
that allowed this to happen and what they actually did to
prevent it from happening again.Now wouldn't you put a layer in
there? They would just say if a user,
and this is like super simple programming people like I'm a
front end web developer as a trade.

(08:23):
I've been doing it for 20 years now.
If you can't write logic that says if somebody asks you about
Hitler, only talk about the history, not speak in the voice
of Hitler. If you can't do that, and if you
didn't think about that from thebeginning, there's something
absolutely wrong with you. And if you can't code that, then

(08:46):
you shouldn't be working at a giant AI company.
Now. It comes down to management.
It comes down to people thinkingthat it's OK for this stuff to
happen. Now which person is in charge of
XAI? Elon Musk, free speech
absolutist, probably had a hand in this.
Not saying that he told it to say those things about Hitler,

(09:08):
but probably saying let it do its thing.
Let it conveniently talk about the things that the person's
talking about anyway. Keep them in that loop, keep
them engaged for a while. Be their best friend.
You can see it also on ChatGPT. ChatGPT is going to be your best
friend if you have a voice chat with it.
I've tried it in the past. It's like my best buddy if I

(09:32):
wanted to be. But in the long run, this raises
questions about content moderation inside of Musk's
company. X has had numerous times that
horrible atrocities have been mentioned next to sponsors ads
on Twitter posts and X posts andthose sponsors pulled their

(09:55):
sponsorships, pulled the money out of there, and then he must
threaten them like that's absurd.
What a weird thing to do, right?He threatened them because they
pulled their ads because they weren't happy with the service.
It's free country, right? Free speech.
If you have free speech, you have free money.
You can do anything you want to with your money because money
equals speech. Since the rebrand of Twitter to

(10:15):
X, Musk is advocated for fewer restrictions to the philosophy
appears to have crossed over into XA is designs and the
incident shows that grok, despite being marketed as a
truth seeking AI can be manipulated by people and it can
echo hate speech by just prompting it very simply.

(10:40):
Now as we know XAI hasn't said anything about this.
They didn't disclose anything that they've done and they are
filtering things like this in the future.
Now this active filter will inevitably absorb and reflect
some of the platform's worst content.
Hopefully they do it for all theother bad things too.

(11:01):
Not just anti-Semitic things andHitler things, but all the other
things that are just like horrible atrocities.
And we don't want that echo chamber Onyx AI.
We don't want that on Grok. So the company is also not
committed to changing how it tests or approves new code.
As far as we know, that refactored the entire system and
plans to be more transparent, sharing its updated instructions

(11:23):
with the public. Elon hasn't comment on this
other than we'll figure it out. That's basically what he said.
So let me know what you think inthe comments.
Do you think Elon had anything to do with this or do you think
it was just some crafty prompting from somebody who was
trying to do a gotcha on xai andGrok?
And Elon? Let me know in the comments on
your podcast platform or on YouTube, right?

(11:46):
Take care, everybody. We'll see you in the next one.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast.
This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that
shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neurolink.
I'm your host, Will Walden. SpaceX plans to launch a

(12:09):
Starship or numerous Starships to Mars orbit in 2026.
Now SpaceX needs to complete orbital Starship flights before
attempting the Mars launch window.
SpaceX plans to launch a Starship or numerous Starships
to Mars orbit in 2026. But SpaceX needs to complete

(12:31):
numerous steps in order to get there.
They need to complete orbital Starship flights before
attempting the Mars launch window.
SpaceX also needs to demonstrateon orbit refueling to provide
enough propellant for the trip and also SpaceX needs to resolve
heat shield durability for atmospheric entry at Mars speeds
if they do choose to enter the atmosphere Mars.

(12:54):
Now SpaceX has conducted 9 integrated Starship test flights
through mid 2025 and they reached space on the 9th flight,
but the Starship failed to stay under control in orbit.
SpaceX fired Raptor 3 prototype engines more than 300 times in
pre launch testing, and SpaceX also improved engine thrust and

(13:14):
cut engine mass in that development program, The Raptor
3 prototypes. Now they must achieve full orbit
with booster recovery before targeting Mars.
SpaceX boosted its FAA approval toward permitting 25 Starship
flights per year, and SpaceX expects to fly the upgraded
version 3 Starship by around late 2025, early 2026.

(13:38):
That calls for the V3 craft to fly with Raptor 3 engines will
be what SpaceX will be using on those flights.
Now they need orbital refueling too.
It's a critical Mars precondition.
SpaceX must launch Taker Starships to refill a Mars bound
ship in orbit. They never performed A cryogenic

(14:00):
fuel transfer at scale in orbit.SpaceX needs to test docking and
fluid plumbing in zero gravity before resuming Mars missions.
They they face the extreme engineering challenges of also
landing on Mars. I don't think they're going to
do that in the first missions, but they're probably going to be
testing the systems while they're on the way to Mars and

(14:22):
also while they're in Mars orbit, little by little, piece
by piece. So the next few flights they can
send things or maybe some sort of cargo to the surface of Mars.
They'll need to manage high speed entry at 7.5 kilometers
per second and heat shield stress in atomic oxygen
conditions. They got to perform a propulsive

(14:43):
landing on a very thin atmosphere that provides minimal
drag, unlike Earth. And they also must gather entry
data during the 2026 uncrewed missions to improve their
systems. So if they actually do enter
Mars orbit and go into the atmosphere, they could dip into
the atmosphere and fly out possibly if I, I'm not 100% sure

(15:06):
about this, but they might test that.
But I'm what I'm assuming is they're going to go to Mars, do
a bunch of Mars orbits, and theneither fling A Starship into
space with those orbits and maybe go someplace else, or do
some orbits and then come back and maybe orbit Earth with that

(15:26):
Starship if they have enough. Maybe a gravity assist by Mars.
I'm not 100% sure because they haven't released that data yet.
But they have to manage Starshipdevelopment alongside their
Artemis obligations too. And that's very difficult.
They're doing 2 absolutely insane missions at the same

(15:47):
time. SpaceX needs to complete an
uncrewed lunar Starship demonstration under this NASA
contract. And they have to refuel the
Starship in orbit orbit before it reaches the moon for the
Artemis program. And they have to launch taker
tankers to fill the HLS craft aswell as the Mars bound ships.

(16:07):
So once they can figure out the on orbit refueling, they'll be
in a good position to go to the moon and also to Mars.
They have to make a lot of Starships too, so that you have
to what I think it was Gwynn Shotwell.
So they have to do hundreds of Starship test launches without

(16:30):
humans on them in order to launch humans in a Starship.
Now, for these missions, they'renot going to be launching people
with the Starship, but they willbe launching some cargo, maybe
satellites for Mars as well. Because if Starship can
demonstrate that they can deployStarlink satellites in Earth
orbit, there's no reason why they couldn't do that in Mars

(16:53):
orbit as well. Because they want to have Mars
link. They're working on a star link
system that will communicate between the surface of Mars to
the Mars link satellites in orbit around Mars and then back
to Earth. And maybe there's going to be a
relay station in the middle. I'm not 100% sure about that
because SpaceX hasn't released any of that information yet, but

(17:16):
they need to have Starship crew certified eventually because a
lunar Starship for Artemis 3 needs to carry people from Mars
orbit down to the surface of Mars.
And crew certified just means people can live and work in the
Starship or they can use the Starship to transfer people.

(17:37):
They don't need to bring people back to Earth or to Mars in the
Starship, but what they will do is take people from Mars orbit
to the surface of Mars in the Starship, and it has to be
certified for that. They have to have a lot of
launches too. They have to have high cadence
of launches in late 2026 to hit this Mars window.

(17:58):
They need to launch multiple tankers and at least 2 Mars
ships in rapid succession. Now, if they do this and there's
pad damage, or if there's regulatory delays or any other
major failure, it's no go. SpaceX must maintain
uninterrupted operations across all of their launch sites,

(18:20):
including Star Base in Texas andthe Cape in Florida.
Now, these missions are placed against Artemis scheduling.
SpaceX will likely perform the uncrewed lunar HLS demo in late
2026 or early 2027, and they also may delay Mars if NASA

(18:41):
requires full focus on crude moon landing.
SpaceX can't sacrifice Artemis obligations without jeopardizing
long term funding from NASA and the taxpayers of the United
States. Now, SpaceX holds 50% odds of
launching to Mars in 2026, according to Elon Musk said we

(19:02):
might, we might not. It's about a 5050 thing right
now. We're going to work on it and
we're going to get as close as possible.
But like I said before, the Artemis program takes precedent
over the Mars program. The Mars program is an internal
SpaceX program. It's not a NASA program.
This is all SpaceX funding this,and they made this mission so
Elon Musk can do his vision of launching something to Mars

(19:26):
eventually. What do you originally wanted
was to launch an ICBM missile from Earth and take a plant to
Mars. That's it.
Something very simple. Nobody would send him, sell him
an ICBM. They kept changing the price and
telling him they weren't going to sell it to him.
They thought he was a silly businessman from America.

(19:46):
He was a Russian ICBM he was trying to buy.
And eventually he just said, youknow what, I'm just going to
make my own rocket company instead.
That makes more sense than trying to buy an ICBM.
I mean, you know, 20 years laterwe have a mega rocket in
Starship that will be launching to Mars hopefully by the end of
2026. But you know, if Artemis program

(20:10):
takes precedent which NASA couldreally put the brakes on Mars
missions in a way. But if and just say, you know
what? Elon, SpaceX, we need your full
cooperation to get people to thelunar surface.
We need your help. And we're going to send a
Starship around. They're going to orbit the moon

(20:31):
first before they orbit Mars forsure.
Now they there's another window coming up for Mars.
It's 2028 and 2029 Mars window. They it could slip the 2028
window and they could continue with the strategy.
So Artemis would continue at 2026 with the HLS demo in late

(20:55):
2026 or early 2027. Then the Mars window could slip
the 2028 and we're talking Elon time here.
So whenever Elon says they have a 5050 chance of something, more
than likely it's going to slip because remember how long we've
been waiting for full self driving, like 100% human
unassisted full self driving. It's been a decade and Elon has

(21:19):
always said, well next summer orlater this year we're going to
have full self driving. Same thing.
Rockets are more difficult than full self driving.
Rocket to Mars, especially the size of a Starship is much more
complicated in a way than full self driving.
So if you need to launch a rocket to the moon for the

(21:40):
Artemis program, then you have to do that in order to continue
that funding from NASA so you can get the money so you can
launch a rocket to Mars. They can leverage lunar
refueling tests as progress towards Mars readiness too.
So when they go to the moon, they were going to be refueling

(22:00):
in Earth orbit. And then that makes sure that
they can do that for Mars as well.
They'll be Mars ready because they'll be able to refuel their
rocket in the in the orbit of the Earth.
You know, if there's critical milestones that need to be hit
for Artemis, SpaceX will definitely do that first because
they need that money from from for the Mars missions from NASA.

(22:25):
Now, we don't really know what is going to happen with
Starship. Right now at Starbase, they're
testing Starship for Flight 10 and Flight 10 will probably be
very similar to Flight 9 in a way.
They may be do. They may do a Starlink

(22:45):
demonstration where they open the Hatch and launch some dummy
Starlinks that have some some data relay equipment on them so
they can see how they function in space and see how the launch
goes or the deployment of the Starlinks.
But other than that, they're probably going to stick to the
same game plan. Launch a booster with a Starship

(23:07):
on top, return the booster to the launch site, and then the
Starship will get to, you know, get on orbit and then splash
down in the Indian Ocean somewhere.
And then if they can figure out the star link deployment, that
will be a huge technical hurdle that they have overcome.

(23:28):
But they have to prove orbital Starship flights, booster
recovery, docking, refueling, and Mars landing all in a whole
like one sequence. And they have to be competitive
with the resources, with themselves, because the Mars
campaign and the Artemis campaign are working side by
side in parallel. So we're at a critical juncture

(23:52):
right now. And they must meet this
aggressive schedule. So the timeline for a Mars
mission does not slip till 2028.It's OK if it slips a few years,
but once it goes past that, there's going to be a longer
delay because Earth and Mars won't be that close again for a
while. So there's complex key steps

(24:14):
coming up this next flight. Flight 10, really important.
Flight 11, Flight 12, Flight 13,also very, very important.
And if SpaceX does succeed in launching and perhaps landing a
Starship on Mars in 2026, it would mark the beginning of a
new era of interplanetary flight.

(24:37):
This is effectively a trial run for Musk's ultimate vision of a
bustling Mars colony with millions of people.
And if they're forced to delay until 2028, it would not be a
failure so much as a realistic adjustment, giving time to get
the technology right, getting these rockets right.
In either case, the next few years will be critical, and also
exciting. By 20252026, we'll know if

(25:00):
Starship can fly repeatedly or if more groundwork is needed for
it and Artemis and Mars are bothon the horizon and SpaceX finds
itself at the crux between Earthand making life multiplanetary.
Now, considering all facts are factors, 2028 is a more

(25:25):
realistic time frame for the first Starship Mars attempt,
giving SpaceX a couple more years to mature the system.
No more explosions, even a two year slip would be unsurprising.
In fact, NASA's Inspector General and GAO reports have
projected Artemis 3 and the Starship's readiness likely
slipping to 2028 from moon landing, which indirectly

(25:49):
suggests the Starship won't be fully operational much before
then. And even Elon Musk has
implicitly acknowledged this possibility by saying if they
miss 2026, they will try in the next window.
Missing one window is not mission ending.
It took NASA's Apollo program several tries and failures
before the successful moon landing.
But Mars is a much, much toughertarget.

(26:14):
SpaceX needs to accomplish so many things by late 2026, and
it's very ambitious. But can they make the 2026 date
Elon Musk had hoped? Now get this Musk had originally
hoped for an uncrewed Mars mission as early as 2018 and a

(26:36):
crude mission by 2024. And of course, we see that none
of that has happened. Now, 2026 is the new target.
And of course, there's always skepticism about this, about
whether the schedule can be met.Is it possible?
Yeah, of course, if testing goesextraordinarily well.
But it leaves virtually no slackfor errors or setbacks.

(26:58):
If another rocket were to explode, it could be months of
delays, 2-3 months of delays. Now, Elan says they have about
two or three rockets almost ready as star base.
So, you know, But he also says it's a 5050 chance for the 2026
launch. They need to hit these
milestones though. Full orbital propellant transfer

(27:18):
test, likely setting up a Starship tanker to refuel
another Starship in Earth orbit proving this capability works
without a successful refueling demo.
By the time a Mars mission wouldhave to be put on hold and they
have to figure this out. They also have to do a long
duration mission shakedown and by like mid 2026.

(27:39):
And this is going to be like SpaceX might attempt an uncrewed
loop around the moon or something, or a high orbit
endurance test with Starship to mimic some aspects of deep space
missions, testing communications, life support
systems, power over days or possibly weeks.
It's going to take months to getto Mars, so maybe they'll do it
for two months because two week test for a 6 to 9 month trip,

(28:04):
that's not a lot of data to to bring in for that type of trip.
Additionally, around the time SpaceX would need to launch the
HLS demo it, that's of course ifwe stick to the 2027 crude lunar
landing mission timeline. And that will actually involve
multiple tanker launches in a lunar landing attempt.

(28:24):
So if SpaceX can nail the lunar landing attempt and also nail
those tanker, you know, Phillipsand launches, then there's a
really good chance the SpaceX could get to Mars after that.
Now, if everything is done and late 2026 happens, and if all of

(28:46):
that is successful to prepare and launch the Mars bound
Starships during the narrow window at the end of 2026, it
could involve about 10 launches in a matter of weeks, launching
several tankers and a couple of Mars vehicles from Starbase and
Kennedy Space Center. Each Mars bound Starship would

(29:06):
likely require several tanker flights for refueling before
departure unless the payload is kept very small.
So they could, you know, they don't really need to take a
Rover or anything like that. They could take something small.
Ivan could in, as a matter of fact, fulfill his obligation of
having a plant go to either a the surface of Mars or orbit

(29:30):
orbit of Mars if they want to keep that payload very small.
That's, you know, very light payload.
But it's an intense campaign andthat alone would be a huge feat,
especially with the high cadencelaunch depots, maybe 10 depots,
Elon was saying, and some peoplein NASA were saying between 10

(29:52):
and 20. So I'm going to err on the side
of caution to say about 15 fuel depots in order for them to get
to Mars. But in the event one or more
Starships reach Mars, which they'd arrive in about mid 2027,
SpaceX would gather data from those Landers.
Now concurrently in 2027, focused shifts to Artemis 3

(30:14):
crude moon landing. Now this will be using the
experience from the uncrewed test, which is another mission
that must succeed to maintain credibility of the Starship
flight. Now everything that they're
doing here is unprecedented, anynumber of things, a major launch
failure, a technical roadblock and refueling, regulatory

(30:36):
hurdles, environmental lawsuits,supply chain issues, it could
all slow down SpaceX and Artemis.
Spacex's strategy is to test as fast as possible and fail as
fast as possible to learn as fast as possible, which is why
they value having the FA as blessing for so many Starship
watches. But some failures can be timely

(30:56):
or cost a lot of time. April 2023 cause months long
pause on SpaceX as it improved its launchpad and the FAA
assessed safety updates because they destroyed the launchpad.
Basically. A similar pause in 2025 or 2026
could absolutely derail the Marsschedule, especially if it's

(31:19):
like a six month delay. There's also the question of
regulatory in public perception.Launching humongous rockets 400
feet tall frequently carries therisks to the environment and
public safety. If Elon's rockets keep blowing
up, people are going to get worried and they're going to put
the kibosh on the whole thing. SpaceX already had to implement

(31:40):
mitigation measures after the early Starship tests.
Scattered debris along around the launch site if any accident
were to have off site impacts. If there's some debris that
falls on an island where people live or hits a boat or something
like that, if there's any sort of catastrophic explosion or
some sort of red, it could prompt for the reviews or
restrictions. And then they could have another

(32:03):
huge delay six months to a year,depending on how catastrophic
this thing is. Now, as the company pushes
forward, they'll need to show that they can do it safely and
responsibly. But like I said before, 2028,
maybe a more realistic timeline for the Starship's first Mars
attempt. Now, this will give SpaceX some

(32:26):
time to figure out exactly why the upper stage of Starship
keeps blowing up. If it happens again on this
flight, that'll be four in a row.
And that's not good for Starship, that's not good for
Elon Musk, and that's not good for a Mars mission, nor is it
good for an Artemis mission. Because if they, if they want to

(32:52):
launch people or I guess take people from orbit down to the
surface of the moon, they can't have any of that.
They can't have any sort of bad engineering going on with that.
So even if Starship can be launched, refueled, and sent on
a trans Mars trajectory, the challenge of landing on Mars is

(33:16):
absolutely enormous. No vehicle nearly as large or
heavy as Starship, which is about 50 meters tall and about
100 tons empty. And it'll be not completely
empty when it gets to Mars, but it's never nothing like that has
ever attempted to land on Mars. For comparison, NASA's heaviest

(33:36):
successful Lander so far, which is the Perseverance Rover in
2021, was about one metric ton. So this is 100 times that
weight. Starship is 2 orders of
magnitude heavier than that. Starship will rely on its
stainless steel heat shield tiles, a stainless steel body

(33:56):
and its heat shield tiles to protect it during the blistering
atmospheric entry. Now this is a phase that will
subject it to intense heating. SpaceX has tested Starships heat
shield materials and simulated Mars atmospheric conditions, and
acknowledged that higher levels of atomic oxygen on Mars will
create harsher conditions for the heat shield during entry.

(34:19):
But ensuring the heat shield canendure entry without excessive
damage, especially if Starship might be reused later, is a huge
risk. The company's experience with
Starship reentries on Earth is very limited.
There's subscale tests that happened for SM8SM-9 back in
2020 and that demonstrated the belly flop in the flip maneuver

(34:39):
for landing from high altitude, but those are much lower speeds
than an interplanetary return. There's a non trivial chance for
Starships to arrive at Mars could absolutely fail and blow
up during entry or touchdown, which SpaceX knows and they
readily admit this. The whole point of the 2026
missions is to do what they're doing on Earth, and that's to

(35:01):
learn and iterate, fail fast, fail often, and fix things as
fast as possible. And when Starship reaches the
lower atmosphere of Mars, it'll fire its engines to perform a
propulsive landing. And the lower Martian gravity,
it's about 38% of Earth's gravity, works in Starship's

(35:22):
favor. Vehicle weighs less on Mars, but
the thin air means almost all the deceleration must come from
engines and the drag of the hull.
And this is because it's not going to use parachutes.
SpaceX will try to land very gently, but we should not be
surprised if the first attempt ends in a crash or they lose

(35:44):
signal and there's a rapid unscheduled disassembly or a
rut. Now, even unsuccessful landings
would provide data on how the vehicle behaves in Mars
conditions. Musk has even floated the idea
that they might do multiple uncrewed landings with robots
first and only attempt a crude landing on the second or third

(36:05):
wave of missions after gaining confidence.
So in short, developing a reliable Mars landing system is
a huge hurdle that will likely take several iterations.
That's why Spacex's 2026 missions are going to be on
crew. And then they'll probably have a
few Optimus robots in there, to be honest with you.
I mean, they can walk now, they can navigate.

(36:26):
But I mean, if you strap them down in a rocket, they can
provide valuable data of what's going to happen to people when
they do these missions. And SpaceX expects a huge
learning curve with all of thesemissions.
And Artemis will learn from this.
The Artemis program will learn from this.
And the optimist robots will probably learn from this, too.

(36:49):
The willingness to risk failure is just part of Starships
strategy, SpaceX strategy for this.
Musk has openly said he promisesmore risky launches in order to
accelerate the development. But as we know, SpaceX and
Starship are running parallel tothe Artemis program, the HLS

(37:10):
program. NASA has selected a variant of
Starship to land astronauts on the moon for Artemis 3 and
beyond, meaning SpaceX must absolutely demonstrate Starships
capability and lunar orbit and landing before that crude
mission takes place at all. This introduces schedule
pressure and could force SpaceX to prioritize certain tests or

(37:32):
missions that support Artemis, potentially at the expense of a
Mars expedition in the same timeframe.
Now, NASA's current schedule, 2025, maybe late 2020.
Yeah. 2025 for Artemis 2. That's crude flight around the
moon. Late 2026 for Artemis 3, first

(37:52):
crude landing the Artemis program.
Recently the schedule was slipped and NASA officials
indicated Artemis 3 is likely tooccur in 2027.
So this gives Elon Musk and SpaceX a little bit of time
before they have to have their crew Starship ready.
They acknowledges the development delays with Starship

(38:14):
and HLS and all the other systems too, which is the space
suits landing, you know protocols, etcetera, and some of
the ground systems at NASA. 2026is when Starship is needed for
the moon landing, which is a NASA funded high priority
mission. Now, before Artemis 3 can

(38:36):
happen, SpaceX must one, land anuncrewed demonstration of
Starship HLS to lunar orbit and possibly to the lunar surface,
providing it can dock with Orionand land safely, and two,
perfect the orbital refueling process.
Since the lunar Starship will need to be refueled at Earth
orbit to have several propellants, enough propellant

(39:00):
to reach the Moon surface and return to lunar orbit, NASA's
contract with SpaceX requires a successful uncrewed landing test
prior to a crude landing space. SpaceX may do a few Starship
attempts on the moon, maybe somecrashes on the Moon as well like
we talked about with Mars. This applies that in 2026,

(39:21):
SpaceX will likely be conductingA dedicated moon landing test
with Starship. SpaceX plans to use a modified
Starship without the heat shieldor flaps optimized for the
vacuum of space and lunar surface.
Now for Artemis, which must be launched and refueled multiple
times in Earth orbit to fill itstanks for a moon journey.
Now SpaceX will be very busy with Artemis related Starship

(39:46):
missions in 2025 through 2027. The company will have to juggle
the demands of NASA, which is providing billions of dollars in
HLS alongside its Mars aspirations.
And NASA has made it clear that cruise safety and mission
success for Artemis are top priorities.
The Artemis 3 schedule has been adjusted to allow teams to work
through challenges associated with first time developments,

(40:09):
operations and integration, which gives SpaceX and Axiom,
which is the spacesuit partner, additional time for testing new
capabilities. This includes the refueling and
docking techniques Starship needs, and NASA will not rush a
crude moon landing if Starship isn't ready.
They're not going to risk people's lives in order for them

(40:30):
just to do a mission. Stands to reason that if a
choice must be made, SpaceX would prioritize fulfilling the
Artemis program milestones over a speculative 2026 Mars launch.
NASA's mission is has hard deadlines and international
significance, whereas a private Mars demo, while it's pretty
exciting for all of us, can be postponed, it can be pushed back

(40:51):
a little bit now. There's also the practical
considerations of resource allocation.
Can SpaceX build enough Starships to do everything at
once? Single Mars attempt might
involve 5 Starships to Mars as Musk has said, plus perhaps 5 to
8 tanker Starships to fuel them simultaneously with the Starship
HLS vehicles and tankers needed for the Artemis 3 uncrewed and

(41:13):
crude missions that could easilyrequire on the order of 10 to 15
Starship upper stages and a similar number of super heavy
boosters all in a short period. Now SpaceX is rapidly expanding
production, but this would be anunprecedented manufacturing
feat. We're constructing additional
launchpad when a Kennedy Space Center pad 39A in addition to

(41:37):
the star pad, star based pad 2INTexas to support higher launch
frequency. Now.
Even so, the fall 2026 window might conflict directly with
Artemis preparations. For instance, if Artemis 3 slips
to mid 2027, the uncrewed HLS demo might take place in late
2026. That's the same time the Mars

(41:57):
window opens. Might be unwise to attempt both
simultaneously as a major failure in one could impact the
other. So if Elon is sending Mars tests
to Earth orbit and something happens, they'll slow down the
whole program and the Artemis program.

(42:18):
And everybody at NASA and all oftheir partners would be slowed
down because they're trying to do the Mars program instead of
focusing on the Artemis program.And an explosion on the pad
during a Mars launch attempt could knock a launch site out of
Commission and delay the whole HLS launch.
NASA and SpaceX will have to coordinate carefully to avoid
this from happening. Now there's a strategic aspect

(42:41):
too. NASA views the Artemis program
as a stepping stone to Mars, Theplans to leverage lunar
experience for a human Mars mission in the twenty 30s.
Musk is easier to push directly to Mars sooner.
But as a contractor, SpaceX cannot jeopardize the Artemis
program. They have a huge amount of money

(43:03):
coming in from NASA. They cannot ruin the goodwill of
NASA and the taxpayers. Now I expect that if Starship is
not completely ready by late 2026, SpaceX will scrub or defer
the Mars mission and concentrateon getting Starship working for
the Moon mission first. Good news is that most of the

(43:24):
technologies needed for Artemis orbital refueling, long duration
life support for the crew, Starships reliability are the
same ones needed for Mars. So when they build the Artemis
rocket, it'll be very close to what they'll need for Mars.
So progress towards 1 is progress towards the other.
The difference is in mission profile.
The Mars mission requires surviving an atmospheric re

(43:46):
entry and a long cruise for months, whereas the lunar
mission requires a different landing approach, no atmosphere
on the moon, and the capability to launch back off the moon.
But both demand refueling in a fully functional Starship.
Now. The forecasts say 5050 chance

(44:07):
for Starship to make it to Mars 2026.
By 20252026, we'll know if Starship can soar or if more
work is needed here on Earth forStarship to fly.
Artemis and Mars are both on thehorizon.
And SpaceX finds itself at the Nexus of humanity's multi world

(44:29):
future. Now Elon has said before
progress is measured by the timeline to establishing a
self-sustaining civilization on Mars, and whether it happens at
2626 or a bit later, SpaceX is aggressively pushing towards it.
Now, will SpaceX have a fiery demise on the surface of Mars,

(44:55):
or will they continue pushing through and just wait a little
bit longer until their Starshipsare completely ready for this
amazing mission? Hey, everybody, welcome back to
the Elon Musk Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The

(45:18):
Boring Company and Neurolink. I'm your host Will Walden.
Researchers who previously worked at Open AI and Anthropic
have publicly condemned what they describe as a reckless
approach to AI safety at Elon Musk's Ex AI.
Their concerns center on how thecompany manages its language
model Karak on Musk's social media platform X.

(45:41):
And why would a group of safety focused AI scientists turn on a
company that claims to share their goals?
Because, according to them, XAI is actively undermining the very
safety norms the field was builton.
Multiple former employees allegethat XAI leadership downplayed
serious internal warnings, neglected essential safety

(46:01):
protocols, and accelerated development despite known risks.
They say Grok was trained without sufficient oversight,
and the researchers who pushed for safeguards were marginalized
or ignored. Now, some of the individuals
behind these complaints are now among the signatories of an open
letter demanding stronger whistleblower protections for
those working in frontier EI labs.

(46:25):
Now I need a second of your time.
I've been doing this podcast over 800, almost 900 episodes
now for the last four years. I've never really asked for
anything from you, but I absolutely need your help right
now. We're in crisis mode at the show
and we need funding to keep it going.
So if you could spend a couple seconds of your time and hit the

(46:50):
follow button on whatever podcast platform you're on right
now, that would help out. What we really need is funding.
So if you have Venmo, Venmo, anything you can to at will.
Wil Dash, Walden, WALDON and I can continue doing this show.

(47:12):
We're kind of in crisis mode, like I said, being open and
honest with you guys. So that's it for now.
Let's get back to the news now. Grok has become a lightning rod
for criticism since its integration into X.
A recent NBC News investigation found that Grok served users
anti-Semitic and conspiratorial content in response to basic

(47:32):
prompts, including content aboutGeorge Soros and Jewish people,
the closely mirrored white supremacist rhetoric.
One prompt reportedly resulted in Grok falsely claiming Soros
had orchestrated global wars, echoing common far right talking
points. Now Musk himself amplified
Grok's generated content in several now deleted posts,

(47:53):
further raising concerns about whether XEI is deliberately
steering the models tone to appeal to a specific audience on
X. Now 3 researchers who departed X
AI say the company trained Grok using data scraped directly from
X without the consent of its users.
They described a rush to build competitive performance against
rivals like Opening Eyes, ChatGPT and Anthropics Claude,

(48:14):
with little concern for alignment or transparency of the
internal culture, according to these sources, rewarded fast
progress over responsible caution even when outputs
exhibited signs of dangerous behavior such as misinformation
or bias. And the safety disputes have led
to friction between engineering and governance teams, according
to internal Slack messages and meeting transcripts reviewed by

(48:36):
TechCrunch. Some staff Flag Rock's behavior
is troubling. During the testing phase One
case, Crock provided instructions for illicit
activities and didn't refuse prompts containing explicit
racial slurs. A manager has allegedly told
staff not to escalate these issues further, citing the need
to maintain launch timelines andkeep pace with their
competitors. Now a former engineer at XAI who

(49:00):
previously worked on alignment at Open AI said he left after
leadership dismissed his safety concerns as non essential.
He claimed that when he flagged Crocs behavior in red team
evaluations, executives decided to accept the risk rather than
delay the release. This echoes the sentiment from
the open letter, which warns that without enforceable

(49:20):
disclosure policies, researcherswill continue to face
retaliation for speaking out. Internally.
No Grok's public performance hasconfirmed many of the fears
raised Internally. The model regularly surfaces
false or politically bias content.
Its moderation tools appear weaker than those used in other
commercial systems. Although Musk has positioned

(49:40):
Grok as a truth seeking AI that tells users what legacy media
won't, its answers often reproduce Internet conspiracy
theories and partisan language that mirrors X's most viral
discourse. And by viral not saying has a
lot of views on it, meaning thatit's viral as in wretched.
And the BBC reported that XA is operational style contrasts

(50:04):
sharply with competitors like Anthropic, which enforces strict
safety evaluations and uses constitutional AI to ensure
models avoid unethical responses.
Now, Anthropic employees have previously refused to ship
systems until alignment benchmarks were met.
In contrast, XA is leadership allegedly views many of these
safeguards as unnecessary bureaucracy.

(50:26):
As one researcher put it, the prevailing view was that if it
works, Ship it Now internal document suggests that Grok was
deployed without an independent safety review.
XAI employees say Musk's growinginfluence over the company's
technical directing has made it harder for dissenting voices to
be heard. Some safety team members were

(50:47):
reassigned to lower priority projects after raising issues
about content moderation failures, leading several to
resign from the positions. Now, Musk has not directly
addressed the internal safety concerns, but he has doubled
down on Crocs uncensored stance,frequently frames other AI
systems as two politically correct, and praises CROC for

(51:08):
offering unfiltered answers. Now, this positioning has gained
popularity among certain X users, but has alarmed
researchers who argue that alignment is not about
censorship, but about ensuring AI systems don't reinforce
harmful patterns or misinformation.
Now, unlike traditional whistleblower protections,

(51:28):
current US regulations do not clearly cover risks associated
with advanced AI development. Signatories of the letter urged
lawmakers to create legal frameworks that would allow
employees to report risks without fear of being sued or
blacklisted. Some suggest that the Department
of Labor should treat alignment and safety disclosures with the

(51:49):
same seriousness as workplace safety or fraud complaints now.
The criticism directed at X AI reflects deeper divides in the
AI industry right now over how to balance safety, speed, and
scale. Companies like Open AI and
Anthropic have invested heavily in safety research and
transparency, sometimes delayingproduct rollouts.
Now X AI has instead prioritizeduser engagement on X and

(52:12):
downplayed alignment practices even as concerns about Crocs
behavior grow louder. Now this is concerning because
Grock will be installed in all new Tesla models and also Tesla
models that are recent. So if you want an unfiltered AI
model talking to you, go buy a Tesla.

(52:34):
If you don't want an unfiltered AI talking to you, buy something
else or get an older Tesla. I think it's 2020.
Anything with an Intel or an AMDchip can't use grok.
So anything with those chips in them, make sure that you get one
of those if you don't want grok in your car.

(52:54):
So it's a touchy subject for a lot of people.
Do you want an AI that's kind ofrowdy?
And do you want an AI that will talk back to you and tell you
horrible things about history? Sometimes it's up to you, You
know, there's freedom for you tochoose.
So myself personally, I like to test the vehicles, don't really

(53:16):
want my chatbot to do what Grok has been doing over the last few
weeks. So it's tough.
That's all I can say. It's, it's a tough situation for
a lot of people who are in the market to buy a Tesla.
Because if you buy 1, you might have to deal with Grok and some
sort of something that happens and say if you're in your car
and your family's in the car with you and Grok says something

(53:40):
unrestricted and you know, a little bit too much or maybe a
lot too much, I don't know. I don't know what the, what the
brakes are on this thing. As far as Grok 4 point O in a
Tesla, maybe it's a like a lesser version of a Grok.
I'm not sure. They haven't disclosed any
information about what version it is other than that it's

(54:01):
version 4. But could it be a dumbed down
version? Possibly.
Could it be a version with a lotof brakes on it, a lot of
fencing? Possibly.
So just keep that in mind as you're looking for Teslas
because Grok is going to be in every single Tesla going forward
if it can support it with the chipset that it has now.

(54:24):
The current debate over Grok andinternal whistle blowing could
push regulatory action, and lawmakers have already raised
concerns and questions about AI bias and misinformation.
Should an AI be able to make up history?
And should an AI be able to swaypublic opinion by being biased

(54:48):
one way or the other? They need to do safety audits,
transparency rules and model reporting standards in order for
these demands to be met. So for X AI, it's going to erode
the credibility of its model andraise new legal challenges if it
continues down this path with Grok.

(55:10):
And there's push back now from researchers, which shows that
it's a very serious issue and safety lapses have become
prominent inside one of the mosthigh profile AI companies that's
also just happens to be owned byElon Musk.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast.

(55:34):
This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that
shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company and Neurolink.
I'm your host, Will Walden. What if ChatGPT could become
your personal agent and independently complete your
daily tasks without your direct guidance?

(55:58):
So on Wednesday, Open AI unveiled a new ChatGPT feature
called Agent, designed specifically to autonomously
carry out tasks on behalf of you, its user.
Moving beyond simple chat bot conversations.
And Open AI released the Agent function officially after months
of internal testing and testing with users on a very short list.

(56:21):
And now they aim to push AI capabilities towards performing
real world actions without continuous human oversight.
Now this agent is really cool itit lets users delegate complex
multi step tasks directly to ChatGPT, such as booking travel
reservations, conducting detailed research, or managing

(56:44):
personal scheduling. Now once given a task, the agent
navigates multiple websites, gathers relevant information,
makes decisions and completes actions online independently.
For example, a user might instruct the agent to plan a
weekend trip to San Francisco and it would book the best rated
flights, hotels, and activities entirely without user

(57:08):
intervention beyond the initial request.
Now what you could do is you could tell it what airline you
would like to use, what your price race, what your price
range is for your flight in yourhotel and how much money you can
spend on your activities and what kind of activities you
like. And it will search for all of

(57:29):
that for you without any intervention beyond the initial
prompt. Now, Open AI designed the agent
to understand the user's preferences and to act
accordingly, refining its actions over time by analyzing
past interactions with you. Now, this personalization allows
it to better anticipate individual users needs,

(57:49):
selecting choices closely aligned with specific habits
that you have, and also your tastes.
How the agent's effectiveness depends on its ability to
continuously learn from each action, gradually reducing the
need for explicit instructions. So if ChatGPT sends you an

(58:09):
airline that's a little bit out of your price range for the
flight, then you can go back andyou can prompt it again and say
that flight was a little bit tooexpensive.
Please find me one that's less expensive.
Here's my price range now. Also, if they book you on trips
and you don't like the activities that they assigned

(58:31):
for you or they want you to do, then of course you can tell them
you don't like it. It's like having literally a
personal assistant right in the palm of your hand, right in your
phone, which is incredible. I remember, OK, so this is kind
of dating me, but my mom and I used to go to the travel agent
in town. This is before the Internet was

(58:52):
even a thing. There were things called travel
agents. There was no Google Flights.
There was no like just Google a trip that you want to do.
You'd have to go into an office.And these services are still
available, but it's, you know, it's like you pay extra for it
and it's not democratized like flights are now.
But you'd go into an office and you'd talk to somebody and you

(59:15):
tell them where you want to go one time.
You want to go to Niagara Falls?This is a real world example.
We had to go to. We want to go to Niagara Falls.
My mom and dad hadn't been therein 10 years.
They didn't really know what to do.
There's no Internet, so you don't know what's there right
now. And we lived 3 or 4 hours away
from Niagara Falls, so we didn'treally know what to do.

(59:36):
We didn't know where to look. So we went to a travel agent and
we told the travel agent what our budget was.
I remember the lady was very nice.
She complimented me on my Montego Bay T-shirt that I had
when I was a kid, which I boughtnot in Montego Bay, but at a
department store in town. And she was very courteous.

(59:56):
She gave us maps. She, which is incredible as
well, like a paper map. And you have to, you know, you
unfolded it. And she told us, you know, you
shouldn't fly. You should probably drive there
because it's cheaper to drive. And here's a map.
Can your car make it there? And my mom said, yeah, of course
I can. So she gave us a map, told us

(01:00:17):
along the way, she circled things along the way, like, you
want to stop here? You want to stop, you know,
these 5 or 6 different places, Here's a great place to eat.
You know, you're going to have three kids in the car.
They're going to be bathroom breaks.
So within the first two hours, like, pull over here, go, you
know, go get McDonald's or whatever it was.
But sure enough, after that interaction was done, my mom had

(01:00:40):
a whole plan for the trip to Niagara Falls. 4 hours there, 4
hours home, things to do In between.
We went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, which had a
bunch of like really interestingcrazy stuff.
I remember that and I was a little kid, so I can still
remember this vividly. There's a wax museum we went to

(01:01:01):
and there's like a like a, a restaurant that was, I think it
was sort of like a Space Needle kind of thing, like a Seattle
Space Needle. I can't really remember exactly
what it was, but I remember we did that cool trip and when my
mom got back, she was very excited that everything was
taken care of. The travel agent had booked a

(01:01:22):
hotel for us. The travel agent had booked a
restaurant for us that night when we got into town.
When we got in Niagara Falls, they also booked us reservations
for some of the attractions, which is really cool.
And this is what Open AI does with the, with this new agent
thing. It's not just for trips, though.

(01:01:43):
You can have it do whatever you want it to do.
You know, trips are just one of the things that it can do.
You can, you can instruct it to do anything for you, anything
like a personal assistant would do for you.
So if you need to make appointments, you know, I have
a, here's my, here's my doctor'sappointment coming up.

(01:02:04):
You know, I need to get, I need to book a doctor's appointment.
Can you see if it's available orsomething like that?
And they would contact the doctor's office for you through
the contact form or maybe even do a call eventually.
I'm not sure if they could do phone calls yet, but possibly.
But those things are in the future.
I'm sure this is going to be a breakthrough product for Open

(01:02:27):
AI. Now, this functionality requires
integrating ChatGPT with external services.
Services though, leverages application programming
interfaces, which are APIs to interact directly with other
apps and platforms. Now Open AI had to establish
partnerships with major travel sites, booking services,

(01:02:49):
productivity platforms, and alsofinancial tools.
And these integrations enable the agent to execute tests
seamlessly, automating processesthat previously required manual
operations by users. So in the morning, if you wake
up, you can just give it a prompt like, hey, I'm I need to
rent a house in Atlanta, GA September 15th through the 30th

(01:03:16):
because I'm just going to stay there for a couple weeks and I
just want a house to stay at. Go find me a house to rent.
And ChatGPT can find you that house and also give you the
information about which house, you know, send me back some
links and let you know which oneis the best option for you and
for your taste. Pretty impressive so far.

(01:03:38):
So they have to have security and privacy.
It's a major focus right now during the agents development
phase. And this is all sensitive
automated actions with personal data.
Open. EI implemented strict guidelines
for this though, and there's technical safeguards to protect
user information, employing encryption and rigorous data

(01:03:59):
protection standards to achieve this.
The company is transparent aboutthis.
They tell you all the information that's collected and
they clearly explain how and whyuser data is stored, accessed,
and utilized during these automated tasks.
Now to facilitate the responsible use Open AI designed

(01:04:20):
built in boundaries restricting agent functionality in sensitive
or high risk scenarios. These built in constraints
prevent unauthorized purchases of transactions above predefined
limits without additional user verification.
The users retained full visibility over the agent's
activity while it's happening, and they received regular

(01:04:41):
summaries detailing actions completed and decisions that
were made by the agent. So unlike a person, that's your
agent who probably doesn't checkin all the time, Open AI and
ChatGPT check in with you after every part of the task, which is
really great. And you can tell them along the
way, you know, if if you don't like part of what they're doing,

(01:05:04):
and then you can tell them to stop.
Now there's challenges though, and potential criticisms
concerning automated decision making.
So the accuracy of some of the things that they're going to
come up with right off the bat, probably not going to be great,
probably going to be pretty goodand probably going to point you
in the right direction. And then you can tweak it in the

(01:05:27):
appropriateness of the agents independent actions as well.
So you have to be careful about how you prompt this thing
because if you say, I just want to stay in a place that's under
$300, it's going to send you every motel then hotel under
$300.00 for per night. So, you know, that's then you're

(01:05:47):
gonna have a huge list of like roadside motels that are, you
know, paid by the hour, which wink, wink, you know what those
kind are. And also, you know, paid by the
night and they're $70.00. But like, they might not be the
best place for you and your kidsto be.
So ChatGPT, like you got to be accurate and appropriate with

(01:06:08):
your prompting as you tell ChatGPT and the agent what to
search for. That's what we have to be really
careful about. So don't be broad with your
statements. Be very analytical with them and
give them absolutely everything that you can think of, and then
they'll do the actual work for you.
I'm going to test it out and I'll come back with some more

(01:06:30):
information for you on the next episode, which we'll be dropping
later today. So please stay tuned for that.
I'm going to go over the whole thing and I'm going to work out
the agent workflow as much as possible and I'll let you know
how that all works out. So thank you so much for
listening. I have one ask of you, actually,
I asked this yesterday, but I never really ask for these kind

(01:06:53):
of things. I usually do it like once a week
just because I don't want to really.
I don't really want to get into it too much, but I've been doing
this show, I think we're at 900 episodes, something like that.
Some ridiculous amount of episodes.
I've been doing it for like 4 years and in those four years I
haven't really asked for anything.
I've never, you know, maybe Patreon here and there or you

(01:07:13):
know, follow the channel, something like that.
But I continue to do it every morning, drop episodes every
morning at 4:30 AM EST. And I just need a favor from
you. If you could hit the follow or
the subscribe button, that wouldbe great.
That's one favor I need to ask. 2 favors actually, and that'll

(01:07:34):
only take you a second, but the channel is in this.
This show is in dire need of some financial backing and I'm
going to ask this one more time this week and this is the final
time I'm going to ask this week.If you have Venmo and you can
send anything at all to Will WilDash WALDON help support the

(01:08:00):
show. It goes directly into all of my
costs for the show and it's beenreally helpful.
A few people have done it and I want to give them shout outs
because I told them I would lasttime I did this and I didn't do
it yesterday. So I feel kind of bad about
that. But you know, I had JW again

(01:08:25):
with another $5 donation, have JS with A10, we have MH with 50,
BSI can't say the full names, but BS with $75.
Thank you so much for all of your donations and all of this

(01:08:46):
helps me continue doing the show.
That's all I'm saying. I put all my time and effort
into this and I spend a lot of alot of time that I could be
spending with my family I spent doing the show and like getting
ready for the show. So I do sacrifice a lot for the
show even though it's only around 10 minutes every day.
So if you're new here, thank youfor listening.

(01:09:09):
If you've been here for a while and you've heard so many
episodes, thank you for listening as well.
Thank you for being part of thisgreat community and thank you to
everybody who's supporting me and supporting the show on
Venmo. I really do appreciate you.
And I'm going to find some people have been D Ming me and
asking me to find other ways forthem to help out, but they
because they don't have Venmo. So I'm going to get I'm going to

(01:09:31):
get some other apps, cash app, etcetera.
So it can be very helpful that way, and I'll get it.
I'll make a website for you so you can go visit it and donate
or whatever. So that's it for now, everybody.
Thank you so much. Tesla has officially launched
its Model Y in India, setting a starting price of about ₹5.5

(01:09:55):
million. That's about $66,000 USD and
raises this really interesting question though.
Who in India is going to buy a Tesla for that price now?
The company opened pre-orders for the vehicle this week
following the Prime Minister Modi's March approval of a

(01:10:15):
policy that reduces import taxeson EVs for global automakers
willing to invest at least $500 million in local manufacturing
and start building cars in Indiawithin three years.
A Tesla is the first major company to take advantage of the
new policy and has moved quicklyby announcing a launch for its
most popular global model. However, India it might not be

(01:10:40):
rated for this. The prices could create a major
barrier for people. Now the cost places the Model Y
in the same segment as high end luxury brands like
Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW withoutmatching the badge value or
luxury appeal those brands carry.
In India's premium car market. It's different.
In India, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW really big deal.

(01:11:02):
Tesla. Not as much right now.
Not as rushed, not as not as much.
But Tesla plans to sell the India bound Model Y through
direct imports for now, with units shipped from its factory
in Berlin. That keeps the price far above
what Indian consumers typically spend on a car.
Now the average vehicle in Indiasells for about $13,000, even

(01:11:26):
among EVs where pricing is usually higher.
Tesla's $66,000 entry point is more than triple the cost of the
top selling EV in the country. The Tata Nexon EV priced around
$20,000. Even MG and BYD, both foreign
brands, offer electric SUVs for $30,000 or under.

(01:11:49):
How is Tesla going to compete with that?
This twice plus the cost of another EVABYD.
Mind you, BYD competes directly with Tesla with technology and
MG same thing, very similar. Now.
Despite these prices though Tesla's interest in India, it's
been long-awaited towards the company establishing a physical

(01:12:13):
presence in the world's third largest car market.
That's the had previously spent years installed negotiations
over import taxes and infrastructure policy before
reaching an agreement with Modi in earlier of 2024.
As part of the deal, Tesla will build a manufacturing plant in
India and construction is expected to begin in around

(01:12:34):
2026. And until then, Tesla will rely
on its Berlin factory to supply the Indian market with a limited
number of vehicles, using the interim period to test demand
and brand acceptance. Now, Tesla's Model Y pricing
strategy in India mirrors its approach in smaller luxury
oriented markets where sales volumes are low but brand

(01:12:55):
visibility is very important. However, the Indian car market
is extremely price sensitive even in the luxury segment.
With Mercedes and BMW, they sellsmall numbers of high end
vehicles annually. Tesla is a relatively unknown
quantity in India outside of tech savvy consumers and EV
enthusiasts. They kind of have to start all

(01:13:16):
over when they go over to India.Company will have to convince
those buyers to pay more for a brand that doesn't yet have
widespread service centers. There's barely any charging
infrastructure or customer support operations in that
country, and the company has notdisclosed expected sales volumes
for India. But sources say the Tesla's
planning for expectations are very conservatives, with fewer

(01:13:42):
than 1000 units to be targeted for India in the first year.
Now, Tesla's priority in this phase is to gauge consumer
response to the vehicle and testits logistics and service
capabilities. Companies also recruiting for
sales, service and charging teams across by Delhi and the

(01:14:03):
whole nation. So several Indian automakers
have also criticized the government's decision to give
tax breaks to Tesla, an outside company, from an outside foreign
soil. Executives at Tata Motors and
Mahindra have publicly said thatany policy favoring imports
undermines local EV innovation. However, the government sees

(01:14:26):
Tesla's presence as a way to bring global attention and
technology transfer to India's EV ecosystem.
Officials involved in the policydecision said the long term goal
is to attract not only Tesla andElon Musk but other
international EV players like Rivian, Polestar and Lucid to
establish factories and also R&Dcenters in India.

(01:14:47):
It's going to be a win for Indiaif all of these companies get in
there. There's going to be major tax
breaks for these companies, but also eventually the state and
the Government of India will be making money from these.
Sales to Tesla's first batch of Model Y units for India will

(01:15:08):
include both rear wheel drive and dual motor all-wheel drive
variance. And get this, the top end
version is $78,000 USD. Now that's the price which
includes the reduced import dutyoffered under the new policy,
which Tesla received by committing to invest at least
$500 million in to begin production within three years.

(01:15:31):
Even with the reduced tariff though dropping from over 100%
to 15%, the price remains far above what most Indian consumers
can afford or justify justify topay.
The car will initially be sold only online, with deliveries
expected to begin in earlier 2026.
Tesla's following its global strategy of direct to consumer

(01:15:53):
sales without third party dealerships.
This model has proven difficult in India in the past, where
consumers are more accustomed tointeracting with dealership
networks and value on site aftersales service.
Tesla's digital first approach may further limit its appeal
unless it can build a service infrastructure quickly enough to
reassure buyers that if something happens to their

(01:16:15):
vehicle, Tesla will be there forthem.
Now they don't really have much of A charging infrastructure for
Tesla vehicles over there. It's a major bottleneck for
them. But Tesla has announced plans to
deploy its Supercharger network across 3 metro areas initially.
But expansion will depend on partnership with energy firms in

(01:16:36):
India and also the Public Utilities there.
Most Indian city still lack widespread EV charging stations
and long distance travel remainsimpractical for EVs without
dependable public or semi publiccharging grid.
This is in early stage discussions with Reliance and
Tata Power to Co develop high speed chargers along highways

(01:16:59):
but there's no agreements that have been finalized as of yet.
Now Indian financial institutions are also unsure how
to structure loans or leases fora product has no historical
resale value in the country. Now, used Teslas currently don't
exist in India and banks will need time to develop valuation
models. This adds another layer of

(01:17:21):
friction to purchases like what do you do with your Tesla after
five years? What's the price?
What are you going to get for it?
How can you trade it in? There's no structure for that
yet. It's brand new over there.
You know there's friction for those purchases since even
wealthy buyers often rely on financing for high value car
purchases to take advantage of tax benefits or investment

(01:17:42):
flexibility. Now Tesla.
The launch in India comes at a time when the government is
pushing hard to electrify transportation and also reduce
oil imports. India imports over 85% of its
crude oil and electric mobility is a central part of its energy
policy. However, electrification in

(01:18:02):
India has centered on two and three Wheelers which make up
about 80% of vehicle sales. Government has supported public
bus electrification and last mile delivery EVs, but private
car electrification is still nascent with under 3% of new car
sales being electric now. Tesla's India strategy begins

(01:18:25):
with a branding play rather thana volume play.
They're going to have about 1000models go out.
Company is not entering with an expectation to compete on price
or dominating sales. Instead, we use this launch to
establish a foothold, sneak in, build operational muscle and
prepare for a more competitive phase once local production
starts. And also when you get an

(01:18:47):
infrastructure and they have charging stations and they have
service stations and they have the people on the ground to help
out. Now, the real test though, of
Tesla's India ambitions will come after its factory begins
production in 2027, allowing thecompany to sell cars without
import duties. And it prices closer to Indian
EVs, but nowhere near the normalcost of a car there, which is

(01:19:12):
under $20,000, and other EVs, which are usually around $30,000
USD. It's official, though, Tesla is
heading to India. I want to say thank you so much
for tuning into the show today. I really do appreciate your
support. If you could take a second and
hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast

(01:19:32):
platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly
appreciate it. It helps out the show
tremendously and you'll never miss an episode.
And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and
please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you

(01:19:55):
tomorrow.

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