America PAC Town Hall — Folsom, PA October 17, 2024 Musk's first solo town hall for Donald Trump, at Ridley High School in Delaware County, where he called Pennsylvania the "linchpin" of the 2024 election and took voter questions on immigration, voting and free speech.
Musk's first solo town hall for Donald Trump, at Ridley High School in Delaware County, where he called Pennsylvania the "linchpin" of the 2024 election and took voter questions on immigration, voting and free speech.
Transcript Elon Musk
Wow, this is a amazingly great energy. Thank you for coming. So I'm, I'm holding my phone since we're doing sort of a live spaces as well as a video cast. So I'm holding my phone for that reason. If you see me holding. Why is he holding his phone? This is, we're doing a live X spaces at the same time as a video stream. So I'll be able to take some questions from as many questions as possible from the audience and as well from people online. But as you can see, I'm obviously here in person. This is me, not a clone of me. The reason I'm here in person is because Pennsylvania is so important to the future of the, You know, You show what matters by your actions, not your words. And my actions are I'm here, I'm in Pennsylvania and I'm here for a very important reason. Which. Yeah. Which is I can't emphasize, I can't emphasize enough that Pennsylvania is I think the linchpin in the selection. And this election I think is going to decide the fate of America and along with the fate of America, the fate of western civilization. And I think the things we all want are simple, sensible, I mean, common sense things, you know, we obviously want. We want secure borders, we want safe cities, you know, sensible spending so that we don't have crazy inflation. We want freedom of speech, we want the Constitution to be upheld.
Elon Musk
you know, you know, I've been told at times that these are like right wing values. I'm like, are you insane? There's literally the fundamental values that made America what it is today. And anyone who is against those things is fundamentally anti American and the hell with them. I see I'm getting a lot of agreement from everyone in this room.
Elon Musk
And you know, so I actually lived in, in Pennsylvania for three years by the way. I'm no stranger to the state. I lived in the city for three years. I went to school here. So, you know, so I know the state. I'm not some, you know, just arrived situation. You know, I've been here, spent three years of my life here. So it's a great state. Love it, you know, and yeah, yeah, it was awesome. But you know, the thing is like I talking to friends of mine who like when I went to Japan it was very dangerous at the time, but everyone thought it would get better over, you know, would get better as the years went on. You know, one of the issues was like there would. Students would get killed from time to time and that was pretty bad obviously. And I was talking to someone who recently graduated from Penn. They said, actually, it's worse. And I'm like, it's worse? What the hell is going on? You know, it's like. Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, the reality is that if someone is a violent criminal, you know, where they either are unable to control their violence or they like it, if you do not incarcerate them, they will hurt people. That's what it comes down to. So. So if you don't put hardened criminals in jail, they will kill people. That's what it comes down to. And that's. Unfortunately, the situation we have here is that the Democratic Party will not put hardened criminals in prison. And so they roam free and they prey upon you and your kids and your family and your friends. This is insane. How can we be, you know, the most powerful country in the world and. And it's. And you're not. It's. It's not safe to walk around our cities. What the hell is going on? Yeah, I mean, Soros, honestly, misanthropic, you know, for someone who has, you know, sort of claims to be doing good, but actually he is not, you know, he is tearing down the fabric of society. So terrible. Yeah. So. But I think it's just unbelievable that we. That, like, you should be able to feel safe walking around American cities. And it's not just, you know, it's. Philadelphia has a challenge. New York has a challenge. Every major city in the US like my, you know, my mom lives in New York, for example. Three of our friends have been assaulted on the street this year. You know, it's like. And it's getting worse. And now if. When she takes her dog for a walk, she has to stay, you know, inside of the building so that. So she can call for help if need be. This is not the future we want. And if we get. If we get four more years of this, I mean, we're going to be fully Mad Max. You know, it's like, it's nice to watch a Mad Max movie, but we don't want to be in the Mad Max movie. Okay. So.
Elon Musk
You know, and then the. The whole border thing is just insane. Yeah. I always want to try to figure out what is the truth of the matter, what's really going on. So with on the border situation, it's like, is. Is it real or is it not real? So I went there in person, and I just literally livestreamed what I saw, and the, you know, our border looks like World War Z. Okay. It's like zombie apocalypse, you Know, it's insane. So this is. If you don't have a border, you don't have a country. Yeah, I mean, we're just saying, like, you know, we, we, we have to have real borders and. Or if you don't have real borders, you don't have a real country. And obviously, as someone who's an immigrant, I'm pro immigrant, I just want to make sure that people come here are going to be assets to society and that, that they're going to raise our standard living. You know, I think it's like, I think the sort of sports team analogy is a good one. So, like, let's say you're, you know, pro sports team, you want to win the championship, then. Well, you want aces on your team, obviously, because they help the whole team win. You know, so that. The same is true for immigration. If, you know, if we have this sort of equivalent of like, you know, Kobe Bryant or Steph Curry or LeBron or something like that, they want to join the team. Like, absolutely. Of course they do. You like winning? Yeah. Okay. But if they can't play basketball, they shouldn't be joining. So that's real important. And. Yeah, and then something that doesn't get a lot of attention is the fact that the federal government is spending America into bankruptcy, which is crazy. It's sort of. And that's really what leads to inflation, is that when the government spends more than it brings in, that's what causes inflation. Yeah. So it's just a pernicious tax. So there has to be much. We have to radically reduce the amount of government spending so that we don't rack up a debt that is impossible to repay and drive the country to bankruptcy. I mean, just basic stuff, really. You know, this shouldn't be controversial topics. It's just like normal common sense. Exactly. And you know, you're seeing all these attacks on freedom of speech and they're like attacking me for freedom. It's like, yo, that's the First Amendment. Like, literally the first one, you know, tells me it's a high priority. And the reason they had the First Amendment was because, you know, the countries people came from, if you spoke your mind, you'd be imprisoned or killed. That's why you have it. That's really important. And then the right to bear arms is also really important. That's there to protect, you know, The Second Amendment is there to protect the First Amendment. As soon as the government can decide, disarm the people, they can do anything they want. And you see, we've seen this in one country after another, they take the guns away from the people, then they. Then they do fake elections, and then the people try to protest and they just get shot. That's what happened in, in Venezuela recently. They had a fake election. Maduro lost, like, massively lost, like, you know, 70% loss. And he's like, oh, no, I won't. Everyone's like, oh, you didn't win. There were big protests in the street. But the thing is that Chavez, when he came into power, took away everyone's guns. So now you're facing, you know, soldiers with assault rifles. Were you going to throw some sticks at them or something? Use finger guns? It doesn't work. So Maduro, even though he lost the election, is still in power. And that's the, that's the kind of risk. Risk that we face. So. But we got to do everything possible to protect the Constitution. And I think this is. Yeah, So the, you know, for all those reasons, that's why, you know, after thinking about a heart, it was very clear to me that Donald Trump has to win this election. It really does. And so I think the most important thing that you can do and what I'm asking everyone to do is make sure that you're registered to vote, that, you know, and then vote early and then talk to your friends and family and everyone you know to make sure that they're registered to vote, because Monday is the deadline for voting registration. And honestly, this is. If there's ever a time to be a pest with your friends and family, this is the time. You know, just. Yeah, this is the time. Everyone you know, everyone you meet, everyone you run into, register them to vote and then get them to vote immediately. And we only have until Monday night to register to vote. So the next, basically three days are essential. And I think we see this election decided in Pennsylvania by. It could be 10,000 votes, it could be 1,000 votes, it could be 10 votes. It could be some very tiny number. So every incremental person is a huge difference. So, you know, I haven't been politically active before. I'm politically active now because I think the future of America and the future of civilization is at stake. So, Yeah, please go all out registering people. Three. We have three days. Let's go. Anything you possibly do. So with that, I'm happy to answer questions or take comments from the audience and. Yeah, thank you.
Audience Member
We'll do one question per person.
Moderator
Yeah, I have the mic. Yeah. All right, here, Elon, first of all, welcome to Ridley Township. Thank you, Delaware County. And welcome to Ridley School district in our beautiful high school. Because you made this your first stop, we'd love to make you an honorary Ridley Raider.
Moderator
I'd like to give you the shirt football jersey. Sports is big in Ridley, big in Delaware county. This is Musk. 67 counties in Pennsylvania. We gotta turn every one of them red. Great.
Elon Musk
Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Moderator
First question, what can all of us hear? Everybody in this auditorium, everybody watching the livestream. What can we do now to make sure we get Donald Trump across the finish line in Pennsylvania and everywhere else in this country?
Elon Musk
Yeah, it's fundamentally, for the next three days, just everyone needs to focus on registering. Friends, family, acquaintances, everyone, you know, because if you're not registered by Monday, that's why I'm being sort of repetitive about this and really emphasizing this. Anyone not registered by Monday evening or if they're registered incorrectly, their vote won't count. They won't be able to vote. So we have three days. It's all about registration, registration, registration, registration, every single day. And like I said, this election could be decided by a handful of people. It could just be that a little bit of extra effort on voter registration decides the entire future of civilization. So that's why I'm saying, man, this is. If there's ever a weekend to spend going hog wild on registration, this is it.
Audience Member
Hi, Elon, thank you so much for being here. It means so much, and I think it's really in line with your character as I've come to know you from listening to you speak in interviews. In addition to voting for Donald Trump, what can the average citizen do to help train I AI to be truth seeking?
Elon Musk
Well, I think definitely, you know, publicly pushing to ensure that that AI is truth seeking and is not sort of politically correct or which is. Means factually incorrect. That's. That's a big deal. Like, just speak out on. On social media and. And certainly complain loudly when. When other companies attempt to essentially program their AI with a dystopian San Francisco Berkeley philosophy. And if you want to know where that philosophy leads, just. Just walk around the streets of San Francisco, but be careful because do not get killed by a violent drug zombie because they're all over this down downtown sf. It's insane. So you can see, you know, where does that philosophy lead? And unfortunately, I think a lot of the AI is often programmed, you know, at least implicitly, with that misanthropic dystopian philosophy. Yeah.
Audience Member
Hi, Lon. Right here on your right.
Elon Musk
Sorry. With the lights in my eyes. And stuff. It's hard to see. So.
Audience Member
Hi, my name is Jasmine. I'm originally from Malaysia and I've been here 20 years. I came here legally. I see a lot of immigration and a lot of immigrants who came here legally. They all support Trump and they want a strong economy. They want, you know, family values and all that. And oh, by the way, I came here because my daughter goes through school, school here. She told me to come over. I used to be really, really active in promoting, you know, Trump campaign four years ago and I got burned out and I'm so frustrated and, and it's all because of the cheating. So what are we going to do with that?
Elon Musk
Well, there is, I think, some amount of cheating that takes place. It's hard to. Because they've, you know, when you, when you have mail in ballots and no, no sort of proof of citizenship, it becomes almost impossible to prove. Cheating is the issue. So a lot of, you know, a lot of people on the Democratic side will say, there's no cheating, there's no cheating. And I'm like you, you've made it impossible to actually prove that it's that there's cheating. But the. Statistically, there are some very strange things that happen that, that are statistically incredibly unlikely. So, you know, there's always a question of like, say, the Dominion voting machines. It is weird that the, you know, I think they're used in Philadelphia and in Maricopa county, but not in a lot of other places. Doesn't that seem like a heck of a coincidence? So I think there's, that is, you know, in my view, we should only do paper ballots hand counted. That's it.
Elon Musk
I'm a technologist, I know a lot about computers and I'm like, the last thing I would do is trust a computer program because it's just too easy to hack. It's too easy to add just one line and it's really difficult to hack paper ballots. So, you know, it's in person voting with, you know, proof of. Yeah, with id, which, by the way, every country has, I mean, like almost every country that has democratic elections requires in person voting with voter id. This is weird. It's super weird to not have that. I think that's the only way to effectively address fraud. You know, given that we are where we are today. I think we just need a very big margin of victory. You know, there's. Yeah, if the margin of victory is big enough, then, you know, as they say, it's got to beat the cheat. Yeah. So that's it. First off, you're my hero and I love your sneakers. Thank you. So if you do choose to be the head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Yeah, those. Yep. What do you think about. We stopped giving money to other countries such as Israel, Ukraine, and we stopped funding forever wars that most likely is going to the deep state anyway. Yeah, well, I think in general, the amount of waste that happens with the federal government is really staggering. It's a staggering amount of waste of taxpayer money. And if we're, you know, for any given expenditure, we have to say, well, what does this do for the citizens of America? Like, how is this good for the people of America? That's it's their money. Like, for some weird reason, you know, a lot of people in the sort of, you know, state or whatever, the politicians, they seem to forget that the money being spent is your money. And if it's not spending being spent in a way that is beneficial to the American people, it's a misuse of the funds. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of money that's being spent where sort of illegals are getting more benefits than citizens. Like, what the heck is that? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah.
Audience Member
Hi, Elan. So as we bring government spending and look inward to our country, I am a government employee. I care about innovation and efficiency. With your vision for a department of Government efficiency, you know, what can we do? How can we support you? And also how can we spotlight the needs of people in North Carolina? The body count is abnormally underreported. You know, what can we. We do to press on that and to support people within our country?
Elon Musk
Sure. Well, I do think. I do think that, you know, government efficiency is not simply about reducing the size of government, but making sure that there are incentives for. For excellent work. You know, so if somebody's. Whatever you incent will happen. So if you have incentives for excellent work, and by the same token, if someone's not doing excellent work, they're exited. Just respect normal. That's really what happens in a properly functioning company. Is that your reward? Or think of a sports team. The players that are doing well, they get rewarded. In the players that are not doing well, they exit the team. And that should just be how it works. And I think that'll have a profound effect on the effectiveness of government, because whatever you insent will happen. So if the incentives are aligned with saving people in North Carolina, and then that's what will happen. But if, if, if, if, you know, if you have a sort of a failed Response to the disasters, to the hurricane disasters and no one even gets fired. Well, okay, what do you expect? No one's going to take action. You know, people have, if there's, if there's a track record of failure, you have to exit the people who failed. Otherwise people will look around and say, well, I guess I don't need to do anything because you know, the, nothing bad happens to you even if you do a terrible job and people die, which is insane. So. Hi Elon.
Audience Member
Can you tell us about your trip to Israel?
Elon Musk
Yeah, I mean it was a very moving trip. So, you know, there's, yeah, it's a pretty moving trip. Definitely one of the toughest regions to, you know, like how do you, what, you know, what set of actions result in the greater good in Israel? I mean obviously, you obviously cannot have people who, you know, if they want to slow to everyone in Israel, you got to stop that. There's no, you know, there's no way. Yeah. Those people either need to be that they killed or incarcerated or they will simply try to kill more Israelis. This is what it amounts to, obviously. And they want to kill Americans too, by the way. Generally like Israel is referred to as the little Satan. In America we are the big Satan. That's what the Ayatollah calls us. So, you know, so I think,
Elon Musk
know, I think a lot of what's happening there is people are being taught to hate, you know, in Gaza from when they're children, they're taught to hate. And that, that's really the thing that, that needs to stop for the, to be, you know, long term, long term peace, hopefully is that you just cannot have the kids be taught to hate from the moment they can talk. That's fundamental. So. You know, so I think there's it's kind of a three step process process there which is, I've mentioned one has to do the difficult thing which is to. Yes, lemonade, a moss. Exactly. And then so, and then the, you know, I think also going, going forward, anyone who's teaching hatred in the, in Gaza or elsewhere, you know, they need to stop doing that. That can't be acceptable. And we have to stop yet. People, your kids being taught to hate America in America.
Elon Musk
And then the third thing that's also very important is that there has to be economic prosperity in Gaza. So this is very difficult. It's like how do you sort of, you know, after terrible things have been done, you then have to sort of, you know, you have to bring prosperity to Gaza, you know, and that's, that's the thing that will ensure provided kids are not taught to hate and there's long term prosperity. I think there will be peace in Gaza. And we see an example of that after World War II where with Germany and Japan, you know, they were defeated. They obviously did terrible things, but changed the education system. And Unlike World War I, we helped rebuild Japan and Germany. The Marshall Plan, instead of exacting vengeance, America insisted, we're going to help rebuild Germany, we're going to help rebuild Japan. And now they are allies and there's been no war ever since.
Audience Member
And I want to say congratulations on
Elon Musk
the successful redocking of your rocket.
Elon Musk
And I'm gonna go.
Elon Musk
I mean, honestly, it was a great week. Yeah, we had the Tesla sort of, sort of cool autonomous car and robot stuff, which I think is going to be really, really great. You know, I think, you know, who wouldn't want their own personal C3PO? R2D2. That'd be awesome. You know, so I think that we're going to build some awesome like helper robots and autonomous cars and then, I mean, this is a good day if you fate is smiling upon, upon us here. Thank you. We caught the rocket, which is just totally nuts. You know, you see that rocket booster? It's the largest, heaviest flying object ever made. And it just got caught by Mechazilla arms. You know, kind of like Karate Kid, but bigger. Catch on the fly with the chopsticks, you know. So my question is, do you think
Audience Member
there is a shadow government behind the Biden Harris administration?
Elon Musk
I mean, well, they put it this way, it's not Biden. We know that for a fact. Okay. Barely got two functional neurons. So, you know, it's like. And he just seems to be at the beach a lot and he's obviously not in charge. So I mean, when the polls started going low on Biden, he, you know, he, he was saying, oh, he's staying in the race, he's staying in the race. But then I guess the real powers that be told him he's not, you know, so, so who is it that's behind him? We know Obama.
Audience Member
Okay, but Obama,
Elon Musk
I mean, I'm just as curious as you are. You know, it is, it is. As far as I can determine, there isn't any one sort of puppet master. It's more like there's a thousand or a lot services. But I mean, I'd like to talk to them to understand more about. Listen, what are your goals, puppet masters? I'm just curious. I mean, maybe I agree with some of them. It's possible, but. But. But it's just obvious that. That Biden's on a charge. It's obvious that Kamala's not in charge. I mean, they just replaced the Biden puppet with the Kamala puppet very obviously. And. And so you can tell, like, if a teleprompter stops working, then the puppet stop breaks, and it's like, oh, the puppet just starts looping because the teleprompter broke. I don't have a teleprompter. I can just talk like a normal human. So. So, I mean, yeah, I think there's. It's not. From what I can tell, it's not one puppet master, it's many. But, you know, interesting to see the crossover between the Epstein client list and Kemala's puppet masters. I bet there's a lot of names that appear in both lists.
Elon Musk
Yeah. Did he too?
Moderator
Can you hit a little higher? So I'm.
Moderator
Elon, My name is Gregory Stenstrom. I'm from here, Delaware County. Two people who know me in my hands. You asked earlier you'd like to go to a hand count. We have three federal suits right now. One, because we know for a fact, and we have proof that the election code in the machines in Dominion and Hard and Pacific are fraudulent. Here. Right here in Delaware county, the Secretary of State for their elections, Jonathan Marks, admitted this in court last week.
Moderator
In court. On a transcript.
Elon Musk
I'd read about that for some reason. For some reason, the. How many people here legacy media didn't forgot to report about that one?
Moderator
How many people here know me? Quite a few.
Elon Musk
I. I mean, I. I usually keep up with these things and I did not know that.
Moderator
Well, we're also co defendants. Leah Hoops and myself, also from Delaware county, were co defendants with President Trump and Rudy Giuliani in a defamation suit where we proved over 952 days that there was massive election fraud in 2020. We proved it in court. It's a matter of public record. We also have the proof that the election machines that are currently being used are fraudulent. We have videos right now that I can show you of ballot boxes being stuffed here in Delaware County, Montgomery County, Chester county and across the state.
Elon Musk
Okay, we have that video.
Moderator
We have submitted this to the federal courts in three federal cases. We have a SCOTUS case right here. And the SCOTUS case is just simple. It asks the DOJ to remove. Rescind their policy, not to investigate election
Elon Musk
fraud, which seems crazy.
Moderator
We are being blocked.
Elon Musk
Yeah. I mean, this DOJ is doing a great. Don't know what. They just take the J out of their name, you know, Department of Injustice.
Moderator
What I'd like you to do, Elon, is I don't want to take too much time. And I know this is kind of a shock, but we have a book here. Parallel Election. I have a Supreme Court case.
Moderator
And I have the federal suits here. We've called your people. We've called the people who are supposed to be helping. We have hundreds of people right now. Ready?
Moderator
They're out taking videos. They're training poll workers. And we are not getting support from many of the people in the first front rows here. And their pictures, if you want to know who they are, are in this book.
Elon Musk
What I recommend. What I recommend is to post content on the exper platform and then. And then people can. Can it. Can. Can argue and say it's right or wrong or.
Elon Musk
And. But, you know, if you have videos or evidence, then post them publicly on. On social media. And. And then people can, you know, judge for themselves. Exactly. Okay, great. Excellent. Thank you. Anyway, let's not get contentious. This is a. I think, you know, teamwork makes the dream work here.
Elon Musk
whatever the situation, I don't want to dissuade anyone from voting. It's very important to vote. So, you know, any actions with respect to voting machines and whatnot, we certainly want to put them under intense scrutiny, but nonetheless, everyone needs to vote. And like I said, if you leave here with one thing, the goal is to register as many people as possible to vote. That is the goal. And we only have until Monday night. That is the goal. One mission. Bam.
Audience Member
Hi, Elan. Thank you for being here. First, I want to thank you as somebody with a spinal cord injury for being innovative, because not many people are. I won't take up the time, but 18,000 people a year are injured. So thank you.
Elon Musk
Absolutely. And I'm hopeful that neuralink can do a lot, actually. You know, initially providing the ability for anyone who's lost the brain body connection to be able to interface with their phone and computer faster than a human with working hands, which is, I think, really cool. And then. But. But down the road, I think it will be possible to restore a whole body functionality if you have a neural link in the motor cortex that then shunts past where the neurons are damaged in the spine. I'm confident that long term you can actually restore people's ability to walk and use their hands.
Audience Member
I appreciate it. I would love to work with you on getting support around here, but.
Elon Musk
Well, yeah, in fact, well, one of the things that, you know, and to be, to be fair, the, the FDA has been within the context of their current rules have, has been actually quite supportive. They've given us sort of express lane, you know, because they've seen the quality of the work and the sophistication of the technology that they have given us sort of fast track approval. But, but still the, you know, our progress is limited by regulatory issues and that's the same thing that's happening with SpaceX. It's like SpaceX can build a giant rocket faster than the license can be processed by the, by the government, which is insane. So, you know, I should mention like one of the most fundamental things about V supporting and maybe the biggest showstopper of all for me in terms of why I feel Donald Trump must win, is that we have to have sensible regulations. We have so many regulatory, last time I checked, we have 428 regulatory, 428 agencies. There's like, so there's more than an agency a year has been created since the, since America was a country. Like we've got almost twice as many agencies as years that America has been a country, which means an agency has been created. You know, there's like sometimes two agent, two new agencies per year created, which is just madness. So America is being smothered by overregulation. It's like I call it slow strangulation by overregulation. That's the. Yeah.
Audience Member
I would like to ask about natural gas and lithium. That's kind of what Pennsylvania is rich of natural resources and fracking gas and lithium, which could benefit not only our state but our entire country, however many residents. And I have to be honest, along 350 miles of Pennsylvania had real challenges like eminent domain and the destruction of water sources, such as what happened with the Mariner east pipeline. How can we ensure that while utilizing these resources we work closely with local governments and residents without the federal government overreaching and forcing land from homeowners? Effective communication with citizens and their involvement in these decisions is crucial. What role do you see for technology or private industry and making sure that this process is transparent and fair? Because believe you me, lots of people were forced with eminent domain and aquifers poisoned all across Pennsylvania, including our veterans. And this has been a real problem since 2016. So we want to support our workers and use our gas and, and I want it, but we need to be careful of what we're taking from people who've lived here, families for centuries, certainly.
Elon Musk
I mean, I believe in sensible regulation. So. But what I see happening is that there are all sorts of. There's a mountain of rules that actually don't benefit people, and then there's missing rules that do benefit people. So it's this bizarre Kafkaesque nightmare of regulations where ultimately the good of the people is not served and we get regulatory, regulatory delays for things that are, that are fake. Meanwhile, bad things are allowed to happen simply because someone filled out the paperwork and gained the system. So that's what I mean.
Elon Musk
When I say the Department of Government Efficiency, I mean, I mean addressing, addressing, you know, any, any issue which is not in the interest of the people. And, you know, and, and we do need to at times fight against what large corporations are pushing for because some of them are very short term and they, some large corporations do bad things. Corporations are like people, like, some people are good people. It's like, you know, some, some corporations are good, some are sort of meddling and some, sometimes some corporations are bad. And it's just like people, you know, is the way to think of corporations. So we've got to stop the corporations that want to do bad things, make sure they're doing things that are in the interest of the people. And then corporations that want to do good things, they shouldn't be slowed down by smothering regulation. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And I think these things should be done very much in the open so people can understand what's going on and nothing, you know, in the shadows. So sunlight is the best disinfectant. Hey, Elon, how are you? I'm Rob. These are two tough acts to follow here, but my question is a little more simple. What are some of the, the first courses of action you plan to take is ahead of government efficiency if Trump gets elected? And do you have any areas of concern in particular? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I definitely, you know, the focus right now is making sure that Trump wins the election, otherwise it doesn't matter. And I think if Trump loses, we're going to see, you know, our studies are going to get less safe, borders obviously going to be wide open. We're going to see government spending go ballistic. It's inflation go nuts. It's going to be just bad on every level. And like, fundamentally, if the current trend
Elon Musk
strangulation by overregulation is not turned around, we'll never get to Mars, it just will be illegal. And there will be a one planet civilization. There won't be a space bearings civilization. And Starfleet will never be real and we want Starfleet to be real. So, you know, I've had quite a bit of interaction with the government, you know, because SpaceX is the biggest NASA contractor. Actually. There's, there's a lot of work for NASA and I'm a big fan of the agency by the way. But, but it's, but there's, you know, there are expenditures that don't make a lot of sense that are wasteful and we need to put a stop to that. Honestly, the. There's so much government waste that's going on that I would call it a target rich environment. Like, it's hard in every direction. There's this just mad waste. And I think simply, if people simply know that, well, if they waste a ton of taxpayer money, they're going to get fired, that will immediately improve the situation. Immediately. It's like, yeah, it's just literally. And I think, but actually it's got to be both carrot and stick. It's like, so if a government official is very effective in spending your money to your tax preparer money is your money. If they're effective in spending your money, they should be promoted, they should be rewarded. And if they waste your money or do it just something that's basically corruption. They should be fired. Obviously, you know, they have a duty to spend your money. Well, yeah. Hey, Elon, as a veteran who was deployed because what would you say to an administration and a candidacy that is spreading lies or disinformation about the troops that are currently in combat, my friends.
Elon Musk
Can you believe that was it? And Hunter Biden's laptop presence decline and so on? Yeah. I mean, during the, the, you know, Trump Kamala debate, she said there was no active duty soldiers out there. I'm like, I know a whole bunch of them. What are you talking about? That's this, that's so. That's a shameful, terrible lie. And she wasn't even fact checked. And I'm like, are you kidding? I mean, yeah, thank you. Yeah. And I'd just like to say for the people, for the Americans out there who are serving in dangerous places right now, unlike what Kamala said. Thank you for your service to the country,
Elon Musk
Thank you for stepping up to help America when you don't have to. Like, you could be on an island right now. Yeah, Yeah, you know, I could be, you know.
Elon Musk
I have a lot of jobs, so no, it's true. I mean there are, you know, a lot of people I know who are on a yacht, sipping a Mai tai, whatever, in an island, you know, having. And you know, that is a thing I could be doing but I think I can't do that if I think the future of civilization is at stake, which I do. My question, my question, question for you, I guess one, do you know Alberto Kangawala? He's the system manager for Europa Clipper. Oh, which you said that's a cool mission by the way. Which you sent into space on Monday. Yeah, thank you very much. Absolutely. In fact that was a mission where I talked to, you know, SpaceX team. It's like, you know, every mission's important but you know, this mission's extra important. So. Yeah, because I'm actually, and you know, I want to, I think like you like, I think any most people, I want a future where you look forward to it and you're excited about what's going to happen, that we're going to learn new things, that we're, you know, we're going to, it's going to be better than the past, you know, and a future where we're a space faring civilization, we're out there among the stars where Star Trek is real. You know, that's exciting. I mean they have to be like life can't just be about solving one problem after another. There have to be things that inspire you, that move your heart. Yeah, that's a hard one to build, but at some point we should build a warp drive. But you know, but even without the warp drive, the, you know, the starship, the rocket made by SpaceX is capable of building a city on Mars and a city on the moon. That's what it's designed to do. But we're being massively slowed down by regulatory molasses. I mean I'll tell you like a crazy thing, like we got fined $140,000 during launch, you know, what a cool launch pad overheat. And in an excess of caution, we actually brought in drinking water. So clean, super clean water. And the FAA said no, you have sky water falls all the time. That is the same as the water that we used. It's lots of sky water. So. And they're not going to process any of our future applications. So like this is the kind of crazy stuff we're dealing with. Yeah, so.
Audience Member
Hi Elon, my name is Sarah, I'm from Philadelphia. I have a whole team here. I first of all, I am really excited about your really quickly I would like to sincerely like to. To accept our protocol. I mean, the proposal. And, you know, we want to have some further discussion with you from. To take our country back.
Elon Musk
Well, thank you.