New York – Elon Musk, the controversial CEO of Tesla and Twitter, sat down for a wide-ranging interview with New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin this week amidst an especially turbulent period.
Touching on topics from free speech to artificial intelligence and electric vehicles, Musk made headlines on several fronts. He acknowledged regret over a recent tweet that was condemned as antisemitic, accepted some blame for self-imposed obstacles facing Twitter, and reaffirmed his lofty goals for Tesla and SpaceX.
The interview comes on the heels of Musk tweeting and then deleting an unfounded conspiracy theory related to the attack on Paul Pelosi. The tweet prompted widespread criticism and accusations of anti-semitism.
“I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me, and arguably to those who are anti-Semitic,” said Musk. “For that, I’m quite sorry.”
Musk also addressed the advertiser exodus plaguing Twitter since he took over the platform. Over half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have paused spending, imperiling the company’s primary revenue source.
While Musk remained defiant that “if somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f*** yourself,” he accepted blame for self-inflicted wounds.
“By the time these lawsuits are decided, we’ll have digital god,” said Musk on copyright issues related to AI training data. “So I’d ask digital god at that point.”
Musk also expressed concern over the direction of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research company he co-founded. He questioned the moral compass of current CEO Ilya Sutskever, who ousted a co-founder last month, and speculated OpenAI may have discovered “some dangerous element of AI” prompting leadership changes.
The interview highlighted the tensions between Musk the businessman and Musk the idealist. He reaffirmed Tesla’s mission is climate change action, not profit, while attacking politicians for allowing competing interests to undermine that goal.
“My companies have done nothing anti-competitive,” asserted Musk. He touted Tesla’s industry-leading supercharging network being opened to other automakers for free.
Musk also touched on two of his other companies, SpaceX and Neuralink. He said SpaceX is poised to carry out over 80% of all orbital launches this year. Meanwhile, Neuralink’s brain-machine interface technology could help paralyzed patients type faster than normal humans within months, he claimed.
The eclectic interview provided insight into the unfettered mind of the world’s richest man. Musk continues to think big while navigating successive self-created firestorms.
