As President Trump units about shrinking the federal government, he has time and again claimed that well-liked protection internet techniques, together with Social Safety and Medicaid, are off the desk, and spoken about them delicately.
Throughout a three-hour interview with the podcast host Joe Rogan on Friday, it gave the impression as though Elon Musk hadn’t gotten that memo.
“Social Safety is the most important Ponzi scheme of all time,” Musk declared.
The instant presented a direct opening for Democrats, who accused Musk of taking a look to chop advantages for older and disabled other people. And it created a recent headache for Republicans who’ve worked to give an explanation for how they plan to chop the price range enormously with out slashing well-liked techniques like Medicaid.
Those are the exceptional and from time to time surreal dangers inherent in Trump’s determination to show his presidency into one of those co-production with a world-famous, ceaselessly undisciplined billionaire. And the interview laid them naked.
The illusion — Musk’s maximum in depth solo interview for the reason that starting of Trump’s 2d management — presented a window into his worldview that used to be via turns crude and contradictory. Musk defended his efforts along with his Division of Govt Potency, then again casting it as existential and downplaying its scope, whilst expounding on not-safe-for-work pursuits like A.I. intercourse robots.
Listed here are some takeaways from the dialog.
Musk said he has far-reaching targets.
Musk time and again said simply how radical his objectives are, calling his mission of slashing the federal government paintings pressure, slicing contracts and getting rid of rules a “revolution” towards the federal paperwork.
“In most cases, the paperwork eats revolutions for breakfast,” he stated. “That is the primary time that they’re now not, that the revolution would possibly in fact prevail.”
It’s, he admitted, very other from the slower tempo of exchange right through Trump’s first management.
“That is not anything like the primary time period,” Rogan later agreed.
“Yeah, it is a progressive cupboard,” the billionaire stated, “and possibly probably the most progressive cupboard for the reason that first revolution.”
However from time to time he downplayed his function.
A number of proceedings towards Musk and his division contain the query of simply what his function is, and whether or not he’s legally obligated to be extra clear round his paintings.
Within the interview, Musk gave the impression neatly acutely aware of the wish to downplay his function consequently. At the same time as he portrayed his efforts as transformational, he forged his division as a nonbinding adviser to govt businesses.
“Those are cuts that DOGE recommends to the dep.. And generally those suggestions are adopted,” Musk stated. “However those are suggestions which might be then showed via the dep..”
He expounded on his futurist ideals.
Musk described synthetic intelligence as “one thing we will have to be apprehensive about,” however recommended he had gotten concerned within the era so as to broaden a gadget that “doesn’t let you know that misgendering is worse than nuclear battle.”
Musk stated he believed A.I. could be smarter than anyone human within the subsequent 12 months or two, and predicted that A.I. could be smarter than all people blended via 2029 or 2030. He stated he concept there used to be an 80 % probability that A.I. would have a “just right end result,” and that there used to be a 20 % probability of “annihilation.”
He additionally mentioned his long-held dream of populating Mars, which he described as “extremely vital in making sure the long-term survival of civilization.”
He characterised it as a race towards time.
“Are we able to make Mars self-sufficient earlier than civilization has some kind of long term fork within the street the place there’s both, like, a battle, nuclear battle or one thing, or we get hit via a meteor or just civilization would possibly simply die with a whimper in grownup diapers as a substitute of with a bang?”
Musk invoked a lot of conspiracy theories.
At one level, Musk reputedly referred to a guiding principle of the so-called great replacement theory, which holds that Western elites wish to “change” white American citizens with immigrants.
“The extra illegals that the Democrats can herald, the much more likely they’re to win, in order that’s what they’re going to do,” he stated.
He then described a conspiracy principle that liberals had been making plans to show swing states blue via legalizing undocumented immigrants, calling it “an try to ruin democracy in The united states” and announcing that combating that end result have been the “fork within the street” second that led him to toughen Trump.
“We can be an enduring one-party-state nation — an enduring deep-blue, socialist state, that’s what The united states will turn out to be,” he warned.
Throughout the interview, Musk additionally recommended that the federal government used to be retaining secret “a mountain of proof,” together with movies and recordings, made by Jeffrey Epstein; speculated that federal govt techniques to stop the unfold of Ebola had been in fact fascinated with growing new lines of the virus; and claimed without evidence that “a number of truly just right, proficient outdated white guys” have been driven out of the Federal Aviation Management as air site visitors controllers to make room for much less certified girls and other people of colour.
“We will have to now not put the general public protection in danger as a result of some demented philosophy,” he stated.
Musk stated he’s now not a Nazi — and reputedly made gentle of such accusations.
At one level, Rogan requested Musk what it used to be love to have bought Twitter, “after which other people name you a Nazi on that very same factor you purchased?”
Musk appeared to reply with puns. “I didn’t see it coming,” he stated, reputedly saying the phrase “Nazi” in the midst of the sentence, a comic story he has also made in writing. “It’s vintage,” he stated.
“Other people will Goebbels anything else down,” he stated, seeming to pronounce the closing identify of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi baby-kisser, as a substitute of the phrase “gobble.”
Rogan stated it used to be “unusual” that Musk have been accused of doing a Nazi salute after he made a hand gesture that gave the impression of one after Trump’s inauguration. “Now, I will by no means level at issues diagonally,” Musk stated.
“Optimistically, other people understand I’m really not a Nazi,” Musk stated, including that one would should be invading Poland, committing genocide and beginning wars to be thought to be a Nazi. “The battle and genocide is the unhealthy phase,” he stated, “now not their mannerisms and their get dressed code.”
Musk and Rogan mentioned A.I.-powered intercourse robots.
Improbably, the hole mins of the interview featured Rogan and Musk, who’s a distinct adviser to the president and who has an place of job within the Eisenhower Govt Place of business Construction, discussing how temporarily intercourse robots powered via A.I. era may well be delivered to marketplace.
“More than likely now not lengthy,” stated Musk, who just lately unveiled his personal A.I. tool. “Not up to 5 years most probably.”
“In reality?” Rogan requested. “Will or not it’s heat?”
“You’ll be able to most probably have no matter you need,” Musk spoke back, earlier than the 2 males mentioned the opportunity of having intercourse with a “hairy woman” or an alien from the film “Avatar.”
