Dueling Presidential interviews, SpaceX's big catch, Robotaxis, Uber buying Expedia?, Nuclear NIMBY

The Trump Bloomberg interview and Kamala Harris Fox interview in mid-October 2024 will not materially change the election probabilities or polling; voter views are already effectively 'baked in' for the November 5, 2024 election.

“How do you think they're going to change after the interviews the last couple of days. Trump on Bloomberg and Kamala on Fox. Do you think they're going to change anything? ... I don't think so. I think it's all baked in now.” View on YouTube

Kamala Harris’s October 2024 Bret Baier Fox interview will not improve her standing; it will not help her close the gap with Trump in the weeks leading up to the November 5, 2024 election.

“Trump over the past few weeks seems to have had a surge, owing to the fact that Kamala's interviews generally don't go well... I don't think the interview is going to help her.” View on YouTube

If SpaceX achieves routine re-use of Starship’s heavy booster (on the order of ~10 flights per vehicle with fast turnaround on the order of an hour), then within the next few years the Starship system will be able to deliver payload to low Earth orbit at roughly $10 per kilogram.

“So if you can reuse that thing ten times, that's a $3.5 million cost per launch, plus a million for fuel... That's how you start to get to ten bucks a kilogram over the next couple of years, but it was critical to be able to reuse that heavy booster. And that's what Elon just demonstrated, is we can actually catch that heavy booster, refuel it and launch it an hour later. And if you can do that over and over again, you're spending ten bucks a kilogram to put material into space.” View on YouTube

Over time, if Starlink achieves broad satellite-to-phone availability, its subscriber base will grow from about 4 million in 2024 to on the order of 100 million or more, potentially reaching several hundred million subscribers and becoming the largest subscription business in history by subscriber count.

“Starlink is apparently... running at 4 million subs right now... If we can get satellite to phone and you can get Starlink more broadly available, this could be 100 million subscriber business. I mean, this could be it could be the biggest businesses on the on the on the earth. It could be the largest subscription business in the history of humanity... it could be hundreds of millions of subscribers. It could even be crazy.” View on YouTube

Starlink has the potential to become the first product in history to reach approximately 500 million paying subscribers.

“And it could be the first 500 million subscriber product in the world.” View on YouTube

Over the next 10–20 years, to meet projected U.S. (and broader industrialized-world) electricity demand driven by GDP growth, nuclear power using uranium fuel will need to provide a substantial share of new generation capacity; renewables alone (solar, wind, geothermal) will not be sufficient to meet that incremental demand.

“Fundamentally, we are going to need to use uranium to make electricity to meet the demand of the growing the GDP that it seems we're going to to be growing it. I think this is just such a necessity.” View on YouTube

Despite current plans and announcements in 2024, the United States will not see large-scale deployment of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs); local community opposition (NIMBY) will prevent widespread siting and build-out.

“Well, I don't think we're going to, because I don't think anyone wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard... I just don't think your typical community wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard... So I don't think this is going to happen.” View on YouTube

At some point in the future, there will be a significant accident at a nuclear power plant (including potential SMRs) in or near a poorer/working-class community in the United States, resulting in harmful radioactive fallout affecting that community.

“And inevitably there's going to be some accident. I mean, you can tell me how safe they are to your blue in the face. I don't believe it... something's going to happen. I mean, something's going to happen. And then the the fallout is, is literally going to fall out on, on the people in that poor community.” View on YouTube

Over the coming years and decades, most of the world (including China) will widely adopt new nuclear power technologies out of economic necessity, while the United States risks becoming a "Luddite state" that is comparatively slow to adopt such technologies.

“I think globally this is the case and we're seeing it in China now where the US, whether the US ends up becoming... And we may be the we may end up being the Luddite state. And we'll end up just saying, you know what? We're not going to adopt new technology.” View on YouTube

Within roughly the next 5–10 years (i.e., by 2029–2034), advances in compute-driven material science and specialty chemicals will substantially improve, leading to multiple new businesses that increase generally available energy density through non‑nuclear technologies.

“I don't think that we have a very good grasp of the material science. Broadly speaking, I don't think we really understand how to build next generation materials. I don't think our specialty chemicals capabilities are all that strong. The way that they're going to be over the next 5 or 10 years, just with better compute. So I think that there's going to be a lot of interim steps that increase the generally available energy density without going to nuclear. I think there's going to be a lot of businesses to do that.” View on YouTube

Over the next several decades, as the global economy becomes increasingly digital and automated, countries and businesses with cheaper and more abundant electricity will achieve superior economic performance, and the United States will suffer negative economic consequences if it is slower than competitors in achieving low-cost, abundant power.

“The countries and the businesses that have a lower cost of electricity and a more abundant source of electricity will end up winning as the economy continues to progress towards a much more kind of digital state and an automated state over the next decades. So if we're going to be slower, we're going to suffer the consequences of that as a country.” View on YouTube

If China is able to reduce its large-scale electricity costs toward roughly $0.05 per kWh while U.S. electricity remains around $0.20 per kWh over the coming years, the United States will lose economic competitiveness relative to China.

“Are Smrs operating in China, Russia and India today. And there's about 65 being built at this moment. Right. So and that's outside the US. So that's why the US is is is kind of observing and trying to catch up and adopt these technologies that are being used by call it economic competitors and economic partners around the world. It's important for economic prosperity in the US, for us to have a degree of competitiveness and electricity prices. If China races towards $0.05 per kilowatt hour for electricity, and we're sitting here at $0.20 a kilowatt hour for electricity, what's that going to do to our economic competitiveness?” View on YouTube

By the time AI and broader technological innovation in the United States become truly constrained by energy availability (if that point is reached in the next couple of decades), there will be many different practical energy solutions available, rather than a single bottleneck technology.

“So I think by the time that you are rate limited by energy, you'll have a plethora of solutions.” View on YouTube

If Donald Trump loses the 2024 presidential election, the use of "lawfare"—legal and regulatory actions perceived as politically motivated—against figures like Elon Musk and other political opponents will significantly increase over the subsequent presidential term (2025–2029).

“There's going to be lawfare all over the place.” View on YouTube

If the current governing coalition associated with the Biden–Harris administration is not electorally defeated in 2024, legal and regulatory "lawfare" actions against Elon Musk and other political opponents will continue or intensify during the following presidential term (2025–2029), because the actors face no effective downside for doing so.

“I mean, I'm definitely not at the top of the list. Ellen's at the top of the list. Right. So he has. No he has no choice but to go all in. They're already doing lawfare against him. It's ridiculous. I think the point is just that if they're not defeated, they're going to keep doing it because there's no downside for it.” View on YouTube

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Chevron decision (referenced as already issued by the time of this podcast in October 2024), the scope and authority of the California Coastal Commission are likely to be reduced ("peeled back" and "dialed down") in the ensuing years through legal or regulatory changes.

“It has since grown into effectively a much larger entity with much more authority, which potentially, after the Chevron ruling and the Supreme Court may get peeled back and may get dialed down. We'll see what happens” View on YouTube

In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the outcome is expected to be very close in electoral-vote terms unless Donald Trump wins; Trump is the only candidate with a realistic chance of achieving a landslide electoral victory.

“Right now, the only candidate who looks like he could get a landslide is Trump. Otherwise, it's going to be very close. So you're rooting for Trump if you want a landslide.” View on YouTube