Elon Musk
Partly Right
00:14:56
governmenteconomy
At the current pace of regulatory delay, the California high-speed rail project might not finish until sometime next century.
“at the current Trend you know California High Street rail might finish sometime next Century maybe probably not we're just we'll have teleportation by that time”
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Explanation
California High-Speed Rail construction has continued to face major delays and cost overruns through 2025-2026, with full completion still not achieved and current estimates pushing full system completion well past originally planned dates, broadly consistent with the pessimistic framing though 'next century' was hyperbole.
Elon Musk
Partly Right
00:29:06
governmentpoliticseconomy
If Trump wins and Musk leads a government-efficiency effort, government spending/size could be reduced by a low single-digit percentage each year over four years.
“I was saying low low digits every year for four years would be palatable”
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Explanation
DOGE (the Trump-era Department of Government Efficiency effort Musk led in 2025) pursued aggressive spending and workforce cuts, but it fell well short of achieving sustained multi-year low-single-digit annual spending reductions, and Musk himself departed DOGE and the administration acrimoniously by mid-2025 before such a multi-year plan could be realized.
The upcoming Polaris Dawn mission (imminent at time of interview) will be the first private/commercial spacewalk and will reach the highest altitude since Apollo, the furthest from Earth anyone has traveled since then.
“this will be the first time uh the first private first first commercial space walk and and it be at at the highest altitude uh since Apollo so it's the furthest from Earth that anyone's gone”
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Explanation
Polaris Dawn launched in September 2024 and did achieve the first private/commercial spacewalk, reaching the highest Earth orbit altitude since the Apollo program.
SpaceX's Starship will launch to Mars (uncrewed) within two years, with an aspirational crewed launch to Mars about four years out, in the next available launch window.
“announced just the other day Starship going to Mars in two years and by the way huh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and then four years for crude uh aspirational launch in the next window”
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Explanation
SpaceX's Starship did not launch an uncrewed mission to Mars within two years of this August 2024 interview; the 2026 Mars transfer window passed without a Starship Mars launch, and Musk has repeatedly pushed back Starship's Mars timeline.
Musk estimates roughly an 80% probability that AI leads to a good future of abundance, versus about a 20% probability of an existential/annihilation-level bad outcome.
“that's probably 80% likely so look on the right side only 20% 20% probability of annihilation nothing”
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Explanation
This is a long-range probabilistic forecast about AI outcomes (utopia versus existential catastrophe) that cannot be resolved with current information.
Tesla's Dojo 2 training computer will be in volume production towards the end of next year (2025), roughly comparable to an Nvidia B200-type training system.
“we should have Dojo 2 in volume towards the end of next”
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Explanation
Tesla did not reach volume production of Dojo 2 by the end of 2025; instead, Tesla dissolved its Dojo supercomputer program in August 2025, shifting to Nvidia, AMD, and Samsung chips, before Musk announced a surprising revival of a Dojo 3 effort in January 2026.
Tesla will reach its third major iteration of the Dojo training computer (Dojo 3) by roughly late 2026.
“we'll only have the second major iteration next year um the third iteration I don't know maybe late you know 26 or something like that”
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Explanation
Tesla did not steadily progress to a 'Dojo 3' iteration by late 2026 on the originally described timeline; the entire Dojo program was shut down in August 2025 before being unexpectedly revived focused on space-based compute in January 2026, a very different trajectory than predicted.
At scale production (three major design iterations, million-plus units/year), Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot will cost around $20,000, less than a small car.
“so if a small car you know costs $25,000 you know it's it's probably like I don't know $20,000 for for an Optimus for a humanoid robot”
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Explanation
Optimus has not yet reached the scale production (million-plus units/year, three design iterations) needed to test this cost prediction, as of 2026.
It will take on the order of five to six years for Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot program to reach production scale of about a million units per year.
“I I would say m major iterations are less than two years so okay um it's probably on the order of five five years yeah uh maybe six to get to a million units a year”
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Explanation
Tesla's Optimus program has not yet reached anywhere close to a million units per year of production as of 2026, so this five-to-six-year timeline (through roughly 2029-2030) remains unresolved.
Within about 30 years, the number of humanoid robots on Earth will vastly exceed the number of humans, with a ratio of at least 2:1 and possibly 3:1.
“I think the ratio of humanoid robots to humans is going to be at least 2 to one maybe 3 to one because everybody every everybody will want one”
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Explanation
This is a roughly 30-year projection about humanoid robot population ratios that cannot be evaluated this early.