Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX chief executive, spoke to Peter Campbell, global motor industry correspondent, at FT Live’s Future of the Car conference in London on Tuesday May 10. This is an edited transcript of their which covered everything from to lifting the Twitter ban on Donald Trump.Peter Campbell (PC): Let me ask you to put your product development hat on. And if you pare Twitter all the way back, what is it and what do you think it can be in 10 years’ time?Elon Musk (EM): Well, what I’ve said is that I think Twitter is currently the best, or looked at another way, the least bad public square, a forum for the exchange of ideas, nationally and internationally. But I think it could be a lot better at that. In order to be better at that, it needs to really get rid of the bots and the scams and spammers, and you know, basically, anyone [who] tried to create sort of fake influence on the site, whereby one person is operating 100,000 accounts, obviously scammers, are not good and really Twitter needs to do a much better job at that. Twitter also needs to build trust, more trust with users. I think the way to do that is by open-sourcing the algorithm so everyone can see how the algorithm works and can suggest improvements and changes. I would literally just put the Twitter algorithm on GitHub and say like,‘Hey, anyone want to suggest changes to this, please go ahead’. And just you really want transparency to build trust. And then any sort of adjustments to tweets or any human intervention with any account on Twitter should be highlighted as ‘a Twitter person took the following action with your account or with this tweet’, so that you’re not sort of sitting in the dark wondering, ‘why did this tweet not get any attention or why did this one get a lot of attention’? It’s far too random. And then I think Twitter needs to be much more even handed. It currently has a strong left bias, because it’s based in San Francisco. I don’t think the people there necessarily intend to have a left bias. Just from their perspective, it seems moderate but they’re just coming out of an environment that is very far left. So but then this fails to build trust in the rest of the United States and also perhaps in other parts of the world because Twitter needs to be even handed and you know, I think as I said publicly, victory would be that the most far right 10 per cent and the most far left 10 per cent are equally upset. I don’t think this is a situation where you’re going to get necessarily a lot of praise. You’re just gonna balance the anger.PC: Because people will automatically associate you with Tesla and you with Twitter, is there any risk in your mind that the actions that you’re going to take at Twitter, which you’ve admitted will upset some people, will potentially lead to a commercial impact on Tesla.EM: I’m confident that we will be able to sell all the cars we can make. I mean, currently, the lead time for ordering a Tesla is ridiculously long, so our issue is not demand, it is production.PC: But that’s at the moment because of the global supply chains and the chip shortages. That’s less around electric car demand which we are expecting to go through the roof.EM: Yeah, I mean even before there were supply chain issues, Tesla demand exceeded production. So now its demand is exceeding production to a ridiculous degree. We’re actually probably going to limit that. Just stop taking orders for anything beyond a certain period of time because some of the timing is like a year away. So anyway, the frustration that we’re seeing with customers is being unable to get them a car, not are they willing or interested in, buying a car? So basically, I think zero about demand generation and a lot about production, and engineering and supply chain.PC: I have two more questions on Twitter if I may, before we turn for the rest of the session to Tesla. How confident are you the deal will happen, because there is a risk, because you are putting a lot of your personal stake up to fund it, that if the whole thing goes south, you’re imperilling your stake in Tesla, and potentially in SpaceX, if it all goes to pot. That’s the technical term.EM: Yeah, Sure. So, I mean, I think there’s still a lot of things that need to get done before this deal concludes. Obviously there’s not yet even been a shareholder vote and Twitter has not yet filed the proxy for a shareholder vote. So there are still some outstanding questions that need to be resolved. And so it is certainly not a done deal. That just objectively it is not a done deal. You know, the best-case scenario is that this would be, I think, perhaps done in two or three months.PC: And the final question, and this is really the toupe’d elephant in the room. Are you planning to let Donald Trump back on?EM: I think there’s a general question of truth. There’s a general question around this: should Twitter have permanent bans. And, you know, I’ve talked with Jack Dorsey about this and he and I are of the same mind, which is that permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for people where they’re trying for accounts that are bots or spam, scam accounts, where there is just no legitimacy to the account at all. I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I do think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice. He is now going to be on Truth Social as will a large part of the right in the United States. So I think this could end up being frankly worse than a single forum where everyone could debate. So I guess the answer is that I would reverse the permaban. I don’t own Twitter yet. So this is not like a thing that will definitely happen because what if I don’t own Twitter? But my opinion and Jack Dorsey, I want to be clear, shares this opinion, is that we should not have events. Now, that doesn’t mean that somebody gets to say whatever they want to say. If they say something that is illegal or otherwise just, you know, just destructive to the world, then that could be a time out or that tweet should be made invisible or have very limited traction. But I think permanent bans just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square, where everyone can voice their opinion. It was a foolish decision, I think it was a morally bad decision to be clear, and foolish in the extreme.PC: Even after he egged on the crowds who went to the US Capitol, some of them carrying nooses. You still think it was a mistake to remove him?EM: I think that if there are tweets that are wrong, they should be either deleted or made invisible and a suspension or a temporary suspension is appropriate, but not a permanent ban.PC: So if the deal completes, he might potentially come back on but with the understanding that if he does something similar again, he’ll be back in the sin bin.EM: He has publicly stated that he will not be coming back to Twitter but will go on Truth Social. And this is the point that I am trying to make, which is perhaps not getting across:banning Trump from Twitter didn’t end Trump’s voice. It will amplify it among the right, and this is why it is morally wrong and flat out stupid. PC: OK, thank you. Let’s turn to Tesla again. I’d like to ask you about your ambitions for the future. You’ve said you want the company to be able to make 20 million cars a year by 2030, which would make it the same size as Toyota and Volkswagen combined today. Give us a sense, what does the business look like by 2030 to make 20 million cars? Plants, footprints, models?EM: Yes, well, this is not a forum for announcing new products, new Tesla products. The 20 million by 2030 is an aspiration, not a promise. And the reason for aiming for something like that is there are approximately 2 billion cars and trucks in the world. And for us to really make a dent in sustainable energy and electrification. I think we need to replace at least 1 per cent of the fleet per year to really be meaningful, and that’s where the 20 million units comes from. Let’s try to replace 1 per cent of the global fleet of 2 billion cars and trucks per year and that’s our aspiration. It’s not a promise, it’s an aspiration. I think we’ve got a good chance of getting there. And people will see based on the products that we unveil, they’ll be able to judge for themselves whether that goal is realistic or not.EM: We have an incredible team at Tesla and executing very well and our annual growth rates are faster than any large manufacturer product in the history of Earth. But I think the next fastest was the growth of the Model T and we’re faster than Model T. So, you know, if that growth rate continues, then obviously we will reach 20 million vehicles a year, but we may stumble and not reach that goal. So, it’s roughly equally difficult to have gotten to this point, as will be to get to 20 million.PC: And what’s the biggest uncertainty with getting to 2030? Is it manufacturing ramping? Is it the raw materials? Is it something else?EM: There are some raw material constraints that we see coming. In lithium production, probably in about three years and in cathode production. Cathode, the two main cathode choices are nickel and iron phosphate. Obviously iron is extremely plentiful, but both is 32 per cent higher by composition. So, little bit of trivia if someone says what is Earth made of? The single biggest element that Earth is made of is iron. The second biggest element that Earth is made of is oxygen, which is about 30 per cent of Earth’s mass. So clearly iron’s not in short supply. The phosphate is slightly more of a challenge, but still quite common. So I do not see any fundamental scaling constraints and lithium is also quite common. Lithium is practically everywhere. So this is not a question of a shortage, as though some rare element it’s really just that the lithium mining and especially the refining capacity, and that of the taking iron and phosphorus and turning it into battery grade iron phosphate, or nickel and turning it into battery grade nickel it’s really the equipment. I think the single biggest constraint would be the equipment necessary to convert the ore into battery grade materials.
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