Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language.

Everyone wants to know who Elon Musk really is.

There are clues to be found in his family history.

Whilst his mother, May, is often at his side, he is never seen

with his father, who has stayed in South Africa.

Something to steal things with.

Go to some place and break their lock!

My name is Errol Graham Musk.

I'm Elon's father.

I've had to do a lot of repairs on this car.

It takes months to do this wood work because you have to spray a time,

let it dry, a time.

Let it dry.

My relationship with Elon is very much the same

as my relationship I had with my father.

We mostly communicate on email.

I haven't spoken to them for quite a long time.

In 2017, Elon gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine.

He said about his father...

You have to be a bit of a nutcase, really, you know?

When a gang of intruders broke into Errol's house,

he killed three of them.

He was charged with murder but pleaded self-defence,

and was not convicted.

My daughter and I were attacked there by a gang.

They fired 52 shots at me, and I fired two shots at them.

I was using a Magnum.

One shot killed two people.

And the second shot, he died from the shot to the groin.

I was charged with murder, but at the inquest I did get annoyed

when they said to me, "couldn't you have used less violence?"

And then I said in the court,

I said, "well, you know, I only fired two shots, you know.

"They fired 52."

So, you know, it was silly.

"Can't you use less violence?"

Well, I don't know.

But it's terrible. I'm not happy with that.

I'm not proud of it.

I didn't expect it.

I didn't ask for it.

But that's what happened.

But I was in the military in South Africa.

So my advice is, don't tangle with guys who are in the military

in South Africa!

Elon Musk is the richest man who has ever lived

but says he doesn't own a house.

He's a little different than a lot of other people.

He truly embodies big thinking and risk taking.

With a few taps from his fingers,

global markets can crash and soar.

CEO Elon Musk creating chaos with a single tweet.

It's bizarre, shook confidence.

He's probably sleep deprived.

This company is not run properly.

He is creating a chip that can be put into our brains.

Yeah, a chip and a bunch of tiny wires.

And it would do what, could you input?

Could you download Jim?

Yes. What?

And right now, he's building rockets that could take 100 people to Mars.

His power and wealth continue to grow.

No-one on Earth is doing more to change the world.

Come on over, man. Why?

Why would you want to talk to me?

Because you...

Dude, my friend, you are the dude.

He's done things that no other country can do.

It's quite magnificent.

You're Elon's mum? Yes.

And his greatest champion? Yes.

He's so dangerous.

Completely, totally irresponsible.

It's not as much fun being me as you'd think.

I'm not sure I want to be me.

It seems a little strange to be handing it all over to private

enterprise, but I guess I'm kind of stuck in the past, huh?

Unstable, reckless.

I'm just being me.

In 2016, a new president has just been elected.

Ginni Rometty, the CEO of IBM...

Elon will now need to work with a new government

when delivering on his multibillion dollar SpaceX contracts.

Well, I just want to thank everybody.

This is a truly amazing group of people.

I want to add that I'm here to help you folks do well.

There's nobody like you in the world.

In the world, there's nobody like the people in this room.

Elon, how about a wave?

Elon Musk is going big.

His profile is growing with millions of Twitter followers.

And he's expanding his business empire

with wildly ambitious companies, designed to shape our future.

Shrouded in secrecy up until now,

this is Elon Musk's pet project.

The goal is to solve the problem of chronic traffic congestion.

Either we try something new or we will be stuck in traffic hell

for the rest of our lives.

Elon Musk is looking to get inside your head.

His neuroscience startup, Neuralink, aims to implant chips in the human

brain to combat various diseases.

Basically an effort for man to merge with machine in a healthy way? Yes.

To beat machines, you basically have to merge with machines?

Most likely, yes.

But perhaps his biggest call is building one of the world's

largest factories in the middle of the Nevada desert.

The Gigafactory will supply the ever growing fleet of Tesla cars

with lithium ion batteries.

He needs to convince 20,000 people to come to the desert

and join the electric car company.

The hope for the Gigafactory was that we were going to finally

solve the market problem of not being able to produce or secure

enough lithium ion batteries, right?

So it really was a survival mechanism.

Announced to the world, like, as it's occurring to him,

that we need to build the biggest battery factory

the world has ever seen.

Because if our own forecast is true, we won't have enough batteries,

even if we took all that are being made by everyone.

Eventually all cars will be electric, with zero exception.

It will be companies like Tesla and individuals like Elon Musk

who lead that charge.

We need to encourage and find more people like that and celebrate

their existence on this planet, because that's the only hope

we have for the future of the planet.

I want to welcome everyone to the Gigafactory launch party.

I hope you have a good time!

Listen, I really want you to have a great time tonight.

To work at Tesla, I think you really need

to be inspired by more than just the job

that they're doing on a day to day basis.

But why they're doing it, those are the people that are called

to the mission and will stay with the company

and help it to succeed.

I think you'll find the majority of people that have worked

definitely at Tesla and I would assume probably at SpaceX to say

like, he asks us to do the impossible,

but it's only unattainable until you attain it, right?

Hopefully people will buy into it and...

And, you know, start to believe and...

But thanks.

You know, we're only able to do this because of you guys.

So it's without, without you,

this could not be possible.

So I just want to say thank you very much.

I mean, all of our secrets are right here!

I mean, it was a crazy, crazy sort of upwards trajectory

from nothing to everything.

It felt like being on a rocket.

You know, we were being invited places.

And I remember we were, you know, we were at a party,

and then actually at that dinner, I think I sat next to Bill Clinton.

And Elon said, "the great thing about being famous is

"that when you sit next to somebody you don't know a dinner party,

"they think the bad conversation is their fault"

because that is sort of what happens now.

Everyone sort of listens to everything he says.

And I've had people say to me, "Oh, I met Elon and, you know,

"and you know, I could tell he was a genius because he seemed

"incredibly distracted and he was clearly thinking great things."

And I'd be thinking, really?

He probably just didn't like you or was probably a bit bored.

And then I'd text Elon and be like, "just met so-and-so"

and he'd be like, "Oh, yeah, really boring."

Do that thing, Dad.

Talulah and Elon married in 2010.

They then divorced and remarried.

Now in 2016, things are once again rocky and they will divorce

for a second time later in the year.

I found LA really tough from the moment I landed there.

It was an incredible culture shock.

But I just wanted to come home.

Yeah, and I kept trying to come home.

But then also, I do really love Elon as well.

And so, you know, it took quite

a few years of us figuring that out.

But I mean, I think he could kind of see the way the world

was going in a way I just did not understand.

And I love having that perspective.

And I'm grateful for that,

that whole, for every part of that.

I hope he gets humanity to Mars,

because I think that is his reason

for being more than any other.

There are really two fundamental paths.

One path is we stay on Earth forever.

And then there will be some eventual extinction event.

The alternative is to become a multi-planet species.

That's what we want.

Of all of Elon's dreams, building a colony on Mars is the biggest.

Should Elon make it,

he plans to set off a series of nuclear explosions.

Vaporising the ice caps and heating the red planet,

in an effort to make it more habitable for humans and plants.

Mars, especially in the beginning, will not be luxurious.

It will be dangerous, cramped.

Difficult, hard work.

But it will be glorious.

Elon has bought part of a village called Boca Chica

next to the Gulf of Mexico.

He is buying the residents out of their homes and creating

a base to build his spaceships.

The plan is for a mission to Mars in 2029.

I can't do the selfie.

If I do it, I must actually work.

If I do one selfie, then I must do many selfies.

This is the problem. Nourish me fit.

Then I get in, selfie... I'm trapped in selfie land.

What are the plans in coming months? Why are you here?

Are you from, like, the news? Local media. OK, cool.

Well, well, obviously, as you can see, we're building a production

facility here, a real production facility.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you're building,

just in basic terms?

A spaceship.

Please join me in welcoming Elon Musk.

What I really want to try to achieve here is to make Mars the impossible.

Make it seem as though it's something that we can do

in our lifetimes.

And that you can go.

This is to give you a sense of size.

It's quite big!

But it kind of needs to be about this size because in order to fit

100 people or thereabouts in the pressurised section,

plus carry the luggage and all of the unpressurized cargo

to build propellant plants and build everything from iron foundries

to pizza joints to you name it in the...

But we need carry a lot of cargo.

Elon's plan is to send thousands of spaceships to Mars

in order to build a new civilisation.

In order to build a self-sustaining city,

it needs to be a million people or something like that.

If moving to Mars costs $100,000, then I think, you know,

almost anyone can work and save up and eventually be able to go to Mars

if they want.

If you look at who the most famous human being

in all of human history is,

I can tell you who that is, but I can't tell you

what their name is.

I can't tell you what sex the person is.

But I can tell you it's going to be the first human born on another

planet like Mars, right?

So this vision is what drives Elon.

There are a number of steps on the road to Mars.

The first is a successful launch of the Falcon Heavy.

This will demonstrate that a significant payload

can be launched into Earth's orbit.

You are looking at a live view of the Falcon Heavy.

Yes, the Falcon Heavy.

Falcon heavy is essentially three Falcon 9 rockets,

all strapped together,

which means it can carry much larger payloads not only

to Earth orbit, but to the moon and Mars as well.

OK, everything's great, guys.

OK, party times.

It must be experienced live.

I can't...

Hey, it's just, yeah!

Ten, nine, eight, seven,

six, five, four, three, two, one.

You see them both light up?

What?

That's unreal!

Once the rockets have lifted the Falcon Heavy into orbit,

they then detach themselves and land back on Earth.

When the Falcon Heavy is in orbit, it's then able to release

the cherry red Tesla, which is heading towards Mars.

# Look at those cavemen go

# It's the freakiest show

# Take a look at the lawman

# Beating up the wrong guy

# Oh, man, wonder if he'll ever know...#

Star booster and boost off...

Centre court beat back on shutdown.

I mean, it's kind of silly and fun, but, you know, silly, fun things

are important and it's still tripping me out.

I mean, I'm tripping bulls here!

They're looking to be on track towards the respective landings...

for Elon's final trick,

he successfully lands the two Falcon rockets.

And the Falcons have landed!

You have to give him credit.

He's one of our great geniuses, and we have to protect our genius.

You know, we have to protect Thomas Edison and we have to protect

all of these people that came up with originally the light bulb

and the wheel and all of these things.

And he's one of our very smart people.

And we want to we want to cherish those people.

That's very important.

But he's done a very good job.

The success and showmanship of this rocket launch

only adds to Elon's public profile.

For many, he is turning into a real life superhero.

It's a long way from where it started.

In 1970, South Africa, in a city called Pretoria.

South Africa was a bit of a rapscallion set-up, you know?

Getting knocked about was pretty normal.

I mean, if you did well at school, they would wait for you

at the exit of the school and pummel you with a bag.

So, I mean, if you call that bullying, we had a lot of that.

Elon was a good reader very early on, Elon was very keen on reading

about Napoleon, about Alexander the Great, and he would,

he even had a copy of Napoleon's last will and testament,

which is in French.

People would say to him,

"are you reading that big, thick book, little boy?"

some idiot would say to him and Elon would say,

"What, are you stupid?

"You think I'm just looking at the pictures or what?"

So, you know.

But he liked to be with the adults in company.

So if the other kids were running around, playing,

he would like to sit with the adults.

He was often told, "why don't you go and play with the children?"

And he'd say, "no, I'd rather sit here with the adults."

This engine was used for many, many cars from about 1968 to 1986.

I had a lot of nice cars during Elon's youth.

Porsche and Mercedes,

Ferrari and Maserati.

He was always interested in taking the doors apart and all that sort

of stuff, because sometimes you had to fix something

and he would do it.

He would open it up himself for me.

I wouldn't say he was the best mechanic,

you know, most amateur mechanics are a little bit ham-handed.

But he would certainly try.

He was definitely not a boring child.

Not a boring child.

Tesla has launched the Roadster and the Model S,

but for electric cars to take over,

the more affordable Model 3 needs to be a success.

The scaling of the company was a challenge, and Elon definitely

had a handful of people that he trusted and he put

in place in charge of the Gigafactory

and design and etc.

There was so much on his plate that he couldn't be,

because he liked to be very involved in a lot of the details.

But that kind of way of working was starting to fracture.

Breaking news, Tesla reporting first quarter results.

We can't call them earnings because it's a loss.

This is a 15-year-old company that could genuinely risk

running out of cash in 2018.

As well as production issues,

there are also cash flow issues.

Investors are starting to get nervous.

There were things that would come out of his mouth.

And words that he would say to people that,

under any amount of stress, were not OK.

He was more erratic.

I can count three times that he got really upset with me.

And the last time he was yelling at me about a mistake that someone

on my team made,

and he was...

really angry

and there was a disconnect.

I wasn't seeing Elon.

I was seeing this person being overtaken by this anger.

It was so bizarre and kind of, the blink of an eye,

I saw him snap out of it and recognise that it was me

and it was fine.

And he apologised to me the next day.

But it was in that moment that I decided,

I've hit my limit,

and it is time to go.

As the CEO of Tesla,

every quarter, Elon is asked questions by Wall Street investors.

In May 2018,

he is irritated by their questions.

JPM says it's bizarre.

RBC says the call shook confidence.

This is not OK.

If you stripped away Tesla and you didn't know who the CEO was,

you would come away from this conference call,

most people would at least, and say this company is not run properly.

This company just cost us $2 billion in market cap

because of what the CEO did.

The pressure on Elon Musk continues to mount.

There are problems on the factory floor.

Whistle-blowers from his Gigafactory

contact journalists with information.

Am I wrinkly? Am I?

Linette Lopez breaks the story.

The first piece I wrote about Tesla was in the spring of 2018

and it was called "Elon Musk Doesn't Care About You".

It was shortly after Elon Musk had sat on a earnings call

and insulted a bunch of the investment bankers

trying to ask questions about the company.

Digging even deeper,

there were many environmental violations, which was crazy

considering that this guy was trying to save the planet.

And I just realised, Elon's project is Elon

and it's not about anyone else.

A secret whistle-blower approaches Linette

to discuss the waste issues within Tesla.

As he was working in the factory, he saw all the waste,

all the incompetence.

It was a whole mess.

He emailed Elon Musk and said,

"look, our manufacturing process is so disjointed."

And Elon did respond to that email and say,

"yes, at Tesla, we need to lower our scrap count,

"this is crucial."

And that's when I realised how damaging

what I had written actually was.

Linette publishes an article based on confidential documents,

leaked to her by the whistle-blower,

reporting that 40% of the raw materials used

to produce the batteries needed to be scrapped or reworked.

Auto-makers around the world have really minimal scrap.

And here was Tesla, its share price beating all these legacy auto-makers

and they waste hundreds of millions of dollars on waste.

That, to me, was also something investors should know.

Well, it's not something you see every day.

A well known CEO calling out a reporter publicly.

But that's exactly what happened last week when Tesla founder

Elon Musk criticised Business Insider's Linette Lopez

over her coverage of the company.

Linette Lopez is with us in studio today.

This all started because Musk took issue with a story that you posted

on Business Insider on 4 June.

What my reporting indicates is that the mission of Tesla is not

really quite in line with the manufacturing of Tesla,

which is to say...

After that article,

that's when Elon started harassing me on Twitter.

All of his fans are stalking me and making fun of me.

Pretty soon after that, he started looking into the person

who might be feeding me this information.

After some internal investigations, the whistle-blower is located.

It's a worker on the assembly line called Martin Tripp.

Leaking internal documents to the press is in breach

of his contract and he is fired.

But the after effects of the spat still rumble on.

At one point, the Nevada police are called and are told

Martin is on his way to the Gigafactory with a gun.

Put your hands behind your back, you're not under arrest.

Just checking you for weapons, OK?

You don't have any guns on you?

Mind if I just pat you down real quick?

Yeah, well, don't worry.

We just want to find out what's going on,

because everybody...

For Martin, this situation was a disaster.

It upended his home life.

He couldn't work for a very long time.

Elon did what he did to Martin to make sure that everyone at Tesla

understood the consequences of speaking to the press.

Two weeks later, Elon will once again

find himself in the middle of a news story.

But, this time, it's an event on the other side of the world.

Because the water continued to rise,

the equipment for a serious diving operation was transferred by hand

and by hoist deep into the cave.

In the Tham Luang Cave in northern Thailand,

12 boys and their football coach are trapped.

The world becomes gripped by the story,

waiting to see if they can be rescued alive.

But it remains unclear

how they're going to get the children out

without the boys needing to use scuba equipment.

Despite the mounting issues for Elon,

he decides to allocate some of his engineers

to build a mini submarine that he believes

can save the stranded children.

All right. Let's pull him all the way out.

Elon flies to Thailand to talk to the Thai rescue team

and deliver his mini submarine.

But as he arrives, the rescue is already under way.

The 13 trapped people are successfully rescued.

British cave diver Vernon Unsworth is at the heart of the rescue

and is unimpressed by Elon's submarine.

The submarine, I believe, was about 5'6" long, rigid,

so it wouldn't have gone round corners

or round, you know, round any obstacles.

It wouldn't have made the first 50 metres into the cave

from the dive start point.

Just a PR stunt.

Irritated by the rescuer's comments

Elon takes to Twitter.

I think, when Elon tweets, he just goes

what's in his mind at the moment.

Yeah, some I understand and some I don't.

When Twitter first started, I used to call it "naughty Twitter fingers"

because I'd be like, "Please don't, like, stop, like, don't...

"There's no need to do that. Don't do that."

Three days later, Elon returns to Twitter and apologises.

But for Vernon, the damage has already been done.

Vern Unsworth, the hero of the rescue,

should have been enjoying

this morning's cave cleansing ceremony.

Instead, he was fuming.

It's not finished.

What is your sense of this trial as it begins?

We got to get in the courtroom.

How has it damaged you?

Vernon decides to sue Elon.

18 months later, they face each other in court.

What is expected to be a fiery trial,

pitting the richest man in Los Angeles

against a British cave expert.

Now, did Elon Musk imply Vernon Unsworth was a paedophile

and did he take, "reasonable care to determine

"whether that was true before he said it?"

Jury's going to have to decide that.

Elon Musk was described in court as a "billionaire bully",

but the jury saw it differently.

They said the tweet was an insult, but not an accusation.

Vernon went toe-to-toe with a billionaire bully.

Not many people have the courage to do that.

It's a combination of he doesn't realise quite what the impact

of his words are going to be in a lot of cases

and in a lot of other cases,

I just don't think he cares.

How is Mr Musk with the decision?

Everyone is well. Thank you, all.

That is why he's so dangerous on Twitter,

because he's a powerful person

who is completely, totally irresponsible.

Elon's Twitter account is now one of the biggest in the world.

He has 22 million followers.

Check, check, one, two, three.

Test, one, two, three.

On August the seventh, he sends a tweet

saying that he is thinking of taking Tesla private

by buying out other shareholders.

This inflates Tesla's stock price. Good evening, everybody.

Thanks for joining us.

Here is Stephanie Avakian and Stephen Peikin,

co-directors of enforcement.

They'll deliver opening remarks and then take a few questions.

So I'll hand it over.

We start with the tweet heard round the world,

or at least around Wall Street.

CEO Elon Musk creating chaos with a single tweet

which led to the stock soaring and then being halted

and then soaring once again.

Today, the SEC filed securities fraud charges against Elon Musk,

the chairman and CEO of Tesla Motors,

stemming from his August seventh, 2018 statements

disseminated over Twitter that he was considering

taking Tesla private.

I see a smile, do you want to say something?

Do you want to say something?

What about the SEC?

After the court case, Elon agrees to settle.

There is a $20 million fine.

He steps down as the chairman of Tesla

and agrees to have his tweets checked before they are sent.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Have you had any of your tweets censored since the settlement?

No. None?

Does someone have to read them before they go out?

No.

So your tweets are not supervised.

The only tweets that would have to be, say, reviewed

would be if a tweet had a probability

of causing movement in the stock.

But how do they know if it's going to move the market

if they're not reading all of them before you send them?

I guess we might make some mistakes.

Who knows?

Are you serious?

Nobody's perfect.

HE LAUGHS

Look at you.

I... I... I want to be clear.

I do not respect the SEC.

I do not respect them.

One of the things about Elon Musk is that he hates

when other people win.

He hates when people...

More than anything, I think, he hates when people bet against him.

I think that's like a real thing for him.

I think that what Elon realised

after his 420 tweet was,

"OK, I got to be careful, like, I don't need to cause this havoc

"and this mayhem, but at the same time, like, they can't stop me."

There was a tweet afterwards where he said

that he had a new acronym for what the SEC stood for.

It was "Suck Elon's..."

Yeah.

He really likes to fuck with them.

That's the most powerful person in the world right there.

But it was definitely a defining moment for Elon.

And I think, after that, he was kind of just over it all.

He was just done with it and that was it.

He just started doing whatever he really wanted to.

Billionaire Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX fame

like we've never seen him before - smoking pot on YouTube.

So is that a joint?

Or is it a cigar?

No. OK.

It's marijuana inside of tobacco. It's weed.

OK, so it's like posh pot, tobacco pot.

You never had that? Yeah, I think I tried one once.

Come on, man.

You probably can't because stockholders, right?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is the subject of a new controversy

after he appeared to smoke marijuana during a podcast interview.

Billionaire Tesla head Elon Musk.

What is he up to?

We know what he's up to.

Once again, seeming to dare people to call him out.

I think the concern is his ego.

Why did he make himself, you know, smoking pot with Joe Rogan,

the fact that he tried to make a mini submarine

to save those boys in Thailand.

Stop making yourself the news.

With the noise growing around Elon's behaviour,

Elon decides to go on one of the biggest shows on American TV

to reveal something about himself that he has not mentioned before.

Thank you very much.

It's an honour to be hosting Saturday Night Live.

I mean that.

Sometimes, after I say something, I have to say,

"I mean that". LAUGHTER

So people really know that I mean it.

That's because I don't always

have a lot of intonation or variation in how I speak.

Which I'm told makes for great comedy.

I'm actually making history tonight as the first person

with Asperger's to host SNL...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I would not call it Asperger's chronic.

I'd call it Asperger's acute.

..or at least the first to admit it.

Once we sort of get our mind on something,

we tend to not stop.

Not so much, you can't sleep,

but you wake up, you go to bed with it in your head,

you wake up with it in your head.

You focus on it entirely, continually,

to the point that you might forget to eat

and not ever...

You know, you can't get the person to say,

"Look, quit, quit now, quit now, stop this."

You know, it's a kind of passion

or something that possesses you to just keep on trying.

Keep on trying.

After his divorce from Talulah Riley,

Elon dates Amber Heard.

Elon, right here!

But in 2018, he appears at the Met Gala with Grimes,

an electro pop artist.

Over the shoulder!

Elon Musk and Grimes met in the modern way through Twitter.

They both made a similar nerdy joke about a scary AI theory

of the future called Roko's Basilisk,

which I don't really even get.

And that her interests are all the same as his.

And that her music is very technologically oriented.

I think for me to even spend more than 20 minutes on something,

I have to get to that place where I'm like, "Ooh, I feel it."

Like, I might sit down, like, on a day that I'm going to write

and just do, like, start a beat. Oh, I hate it. Throw it out.

Start a beat. Oh, I hate it. Throw it out. Start a beat...

And then, finally, like, something...

You know, just pressing enough buttons, enough keys, like, you...

I hear something and I'm like, "OK, I could loop that."

And that could be, you know...

I'm fascinated by their relationship.

If I could be the fly on the wall in any relationship

that we know in this world,

from the moment they got together, I was always like,

"Oh, God, I would love to be in the room with them."

Grimes and Elon have had two children together -

Exa Dark Siderael and X AE A-XII.

Hi!

Hey! Hi!

# ..like Lucifer

# I can't beat God

# I fall like Lucifer... #

She told me repeatedly that Musk has this theory of her

that she's not real,

that she's a simulation who was created by him

and exists in his cerebral cortex

as sort of the perfect companion for him,

which sounds a little crazy and maybe even a little creepy,

except she agrees with it.

She said that she does feel like in some way

she's like this simulation who is perfectly created for him.

I think Elon is busier than I've ever been.

And even when I'm with him,

I don't see him much unless I sit in the back of the meetings.

But then a wife or girlfriend doesn't have that,

and so they really don't see him much at all.

These are steps towards a new era of space flight.

And this is the rocket built by SpaceX,

a company about to make history by carrying people into space.

And there they are, NASA astronauts.

Doug on the left.

Bob on the right.

APPLAUSE

Now they are getting into the Tesla Model X

that's going to take them to the launchpad,

being strapped into their seats.

And those Falcon wing doors are closing. Super sleek.

With the imminent launch of the crewed Dragon spacecraft,

President Trump has flown in

to witness a day of national importance.

SIRENS WAIL

I just want to say, this is a very exciting day for our country.

I want to thank Elon who's been a friend of mine for a long time,

somebody I have great respect for.

But this is 24/7 for you. You're always thinking about this.

You're thinking about other things, too.

You have plenty to think about. But this has been your baby.

In fact, I've told my team it's not simply the top priority,

it's the only priority.

That's great.

15 seconds.

This will be the first time a private company has attempted

to transport astronauts into space.

Elon will be fulfilling his contract with the US Government and NASA.

Ten, nine, eight,

seven, six, five,

four, three, two, one, zero.

Ignition.

LOUD ROARING

Liftoff of the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon.

Go, NASA, go SpaceX!

Godspeed, Bob and Doug!

CHEERING

Flying crew on board Dragon and Falcon 9.

And look at them go!

He's one of our great brains.

We like great brains.

And Elon's done a fantastic job, and this is just the beginning.

They're going to Mars, and I think any one of you would say

that was an inspiration to see what we just saw.

Right now, everything continuing to look good.

Well, everyone, welcome aboard Dragon.

My name is Doug.

Next to me is Bob.

You probably know him.

We have Bob Behnken from SpaceX Demo-2 Mission entering

the International Space Station.

Followed by Doug Hurley.

I will tell you,

the whole world saw this mission.

And we are so, so proud of everything you have done

for our country, and, in fact, to inspire the world.

We sure appreciate that, sir.

It's obviously been our honour to be just a small part of this.

We have to give credit to SpaceX.

We're just really glad to be on board this magnificent complex.

Three, two, one.

Ignition.

LOUD ROARING

Starship is the tallest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built.

6 minutes, 10 seconds into flight, we're down beneath one and a half...

It is designed to be fully reusable.

Flip the vehicle vertical, then transition to one engine

for the landing burn.

Landing the 100-tonne spacecraft proves challenging.

EXPLOSION

But, on the fifth attempt, the engineers at SpaceX crack it.

Starship is the spacecraft

that will fulfil Elon's ultimate dream of flying to Mars.

So this is, I think,

the most inspiring thing that I've ever seen.

We're faced with a choice.

Which future do you want?

Do you want the future where

we become a space-faring civilisation

and are in many worlds and out there among the stars,

or one where we are forever confined to Earth?

And I say it is the first.

He wants to be known as the greatest engineer

that we have seen in our lifetimes.

He genuinely wants to move humankind forward

and he wants us to challenge ourselves.

That is a more exciting future for humankind from his standpoint,

than one where we are forever anchored to Earth.

No question, he's going to go to Mars.

Why do you think he's doing The Boring Company?

He's going to send one up there

so he can bore underground and you can have some shade.

He's... Why do you think he's doing electric?

Because you can use solar up there in Mars

and you can solar to battery, battery to vehicle, battery to home.

Why do you think he's doing that?

Because you've got to have that.

You can't go up there and plug something in.

There's a much bigger picture in Elon's mind

than what mere mortals are aware of today.

But when you step back and you look at it,

some way or another, it all goes together.

Let's make this real.

Let's make this real!

CHEERING

And I've also learned, and I think a lot of people have learned,

if he says it's like, he can do it, he's probably, you know,

don't discount Elon. Don't say no to Elon.

You know, he's...

You're going to lose.

You're going to lose.

We all know how the media treats you... So well.

Yeah.

So I don't have a question for you today.

I just want to say, on behalf of my six-year-old at home,

Kyler Scott, that's watching right now,

who thinks you're awesome as well,

thank you for making the world a better place.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.

In the summer of 2022,

Elon has over 100 million followers on Twitter.

I think Tesla, you know, would continue to do very well

even if I was kidnapped by aliens.

Or went back to my home planet, maybe.

LAUGHTER

Elon!

When are you taking us to space?

Real soon. Real soon?

How soon?

He's now the richest man in the world

and has become a divisive character.

Many believe he should spend his billions

helping to solve the problems on Earth.

You're asking those billionaires who are going to space,

the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, to help.

Every four seconds someone's dying out there

from hunger-related causes.

Wake up, smell the coffee, and help!

The days when these guys not only get to rake it all in,

but then rub everybody else's nose in it

while they head off into outer space

and declare how they did this all on their own.

When they were subsidised by the federal government

and subsidised by every waitress and by every public school teacher

who paid their taxes.

This is wrong.

Elon is really dedicated to saving this planet.

I'm happy to say that SpaceX and Tesla on the hands

of my brilliant son,

well, genius son, we admire him for that,

we don't want to be him.

Because, with those companies, he gets a lot of hate.

Stop being mean to him!

I hate it when the media are mean to him.

Why didn't you use the money to do something for charity?

Philanthropy.

More good with that money.

Well, I do do a lot of things philanthropically... Yes.

..and really, you know, my companies are intended to do good

for the future of humanity with the Tesla trying to accelerate

the advent of sustainable transport and energy.

He gets up every morning thinking, "What can I do for humanity today?

"How can I do something that will be impactful

"to humanity of the future?"

That's what he... That's what he's focused on.

I told him not to take on the world and the universe,

and he didn't listen.

Elon...

Elon is not going to buy Twitter.

He's got himself a mess.

You know, he said the other day,

"Oh, I've never voted for a Republican."

I said, "I didn't know that." He told me he voted for me.

So he's another bullshit artist, but he's not going to be buying it.

He's not going to be buying it, although he might later.

Who the hell knows what's going to happen?

Everything about Elon is a contradiction.

There's this incredible inventor,

and then there's this person

who makes some pretty silly business decisions.

Elon and a lot of these tech guys

are just casting themselves

as heroes in their favourite sci-fi novels.

A lot of those books are dark.

They're about a hero who saves the world from dystopia.

Of course, if you're going to be that hero,

dystopia has to exist first.

I do have some dark dreams.

I don't know why.

I've always had those from when I was a kid.

Vivid dreams, which are often scary.

In Elon's mind that dystopia is coming

and they want to be that hero.

And the work that they do is to aggrandise that vision.

It's not about you or me, and it's not even about the truth

of what's going to happen to our planet.

It's just really a monument to their childhood.

He learned everything about Tesla,

Einstein, like, he has learned everything that they knew.

And he's trying to take it to the next level.

So I think he is the closest thing that we have

to that kind of a figure in our day and age.

And I think, by the time he is done building his legacy,

it will be unquestionable that he is a combination

of Einstein, Tesla and Rockefeller.

When you set out to do something incredibly hard,

there's going to be, like, a lot of hard days that go along with that.

OK, thank you.

You tweeted that you are building a tunnel

under Washington DC.

Why?

What is it?

Well, it's a secret plot... OK. ..just between us.

There's parts of him that you'll never know.

Like, what motivates him? How did he get so strong of will?

But what I can say without a doubt is he's genuine.

There is not a shred of doubt in my mind.

There isn't an ulterior motive or a secret greedy bah-ha-ha!

You know, I'm going to have my, you know,

volcano island and do whatever.

Like, no, he leads with his heart on his sleeve

in a very honest, I would say, almost overly honest projection

of both opportunity and risk.

We're all going to die someday.

And if you're going to pick someplace to die, then why not Mars?

EXPLOSION