Elon Musk

Early life

Career

Subsidies

Musk has stated that he does not believe the U.S. government should provide subsidies to companies but should instead use a carbon tax to price in the negative externality of air pollution and discourage "bad behavior". Musk argues that the free market would achieve the "best solution", and that producing environmentally unfriendly vehicles should come with its own consequences.[137]

Musk's statements have been widely criticized, with Stanford University Professor Fred Turner noting that "if you're an entrepreneur like Elon Musk, you will take the money where you can get it, but at the same time believe as a matter of faith that it's entrepreneurship and technology that are the sources of social change, not the state. It is not quite self-delusion, but there is a habit of thinking of oneself as a free-standing, independent agent, and of not acknowledging the subsidies that one received. And this goes on all the time in Silicon Valley."[138] Author Michael Shellenberger argued that "in the case of Musk, it is hard not to read that as a kind of defensiveness. And I think there is a business reason for it. They are dealing with a lot of investors for whom subsidies are not the basis for a long-term viable business, and they often want to exaggerate the speed with which they are going to be able to become independent." Shellenberger continues, "we would all be better off if these entrepreneurs were a bit more grateful, a bit more humble." While journalist and author Jim Motavalli, who interviewed Musk for High Voltage, his 2011 book about the electric vehicle industry, speculated that "Elon is now looking at it from the point of view of a winner, and he doesn't want to see other people win because they get government money – I do think there is a tendency of people, once they have succeeded, to want to pull the ladder up after them."[139]

In 2015, Musk's statements were subject to further scrutiny when an LA Times article claimed that SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity and buyers of their products had or were projected to receive together an estimated US$4.9 billion in government subsidies over twenty years. One example given is New York state, which is spending $750 million to build a solar panel factory in Buffalo which will be leased to SolarCity for $1 a year. The deal also includes no property taxes for a decade, an estimated $260 million valuation. Musk employs a former U.S. State Department official as the chief negotiator for Tesla.[140]

Political views

Opinions

Destiny and religion

When asked whether he believed "there was some kind of destiny involved" in humanity's transition to a multi-planetary species, rather than "just physics", Musk responded:

Well, I do. Do I think that there's some sort of master intelligence architecting all of this stuff? I think probably not because then you have to say: "Where does the master intelligence come from?" So it sort of begs the question. So I think really you can explain this with the fundamental laws of physics. You know it's complex phenomenon from simple elements.[160]

Musk has stated that he does not pray, or worship any being, although previously admitted to praying before an important Falcon 1 launch, asking "any entities that [were] listening" to "bless [the] launch". When asked whether he believed "religion and science could co-exist", Musk replied "probably not".[161]

Extraterrestrial life

Although Musk believes "there is a good chance that there is simple life on other planets", he "questions whether there is other intelligent life in the known universe".[161] Musk later clarified his "hope that there is other intelligent life in the known universe", and stated that it is "probably more likely than not, but that's a complete guess."[162]

Musk has also considered the simulation hypothesis as a potential solution to the Fermi paradox:

The absence of any noticeable life may be an argument in favour of us being in a simulation.... Like when you're playing an adventure game, and you can see the stars in the background, but you can't ever get there. If it's not a simulation, then maybe we're in a lab and there's some advanced alien civilization that's just watching how we develop, out of curiosity, like mould in a petri dish.... If you look at our current technology level, something strange has to happen to civilizations, and I mean strange in a bad way. ... And it could be that there are a whole lot of dead, one-planet civilizations.[163]

Artificial intelligence

Musk has frequently spoken out about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, declaring it "the most serious threat to the survival of the human race". During an interview at the MIT AeroAstro Centennial Symposium, Musk described AI as "[humanity's] biggest existential threat", further stating, "I'm increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish." Musk described the creation of artificial intelligence as "summoning the demon".[164][165]

Despite this, Musk has previously invested in DeepMind, an AI firm, and Vicarious, a company working to improve machine intelligence. In January 2015, he donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute, an organization focused on challenges posed by advanced technologies.[166] He is the co-chairman of OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company.[167]

Musk has said that his investments are, "not from the standpoint of actually trying to make any investment return... I like to just keep an eye on what's going on with artificial intelligence". Musk continued, "There have been movies about this, you know, like Terminator – there are some scary outcomes. And we should try to make sure the outcomes are good, not bad."[168]

In June 2016, he was asked whether he thinks humans live in a computer simulation, to which he answered "probably". Elaborated as follows:

The strongest argument for us probably being in a simulation I think is the following: 40 years ago we had Pong – two rectangles and a dot. That's where we were. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it's getting better every year. And soon we'll have virtual reality, we'll have augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable.[169]

Elon Musk's dark warnings over Artificial Intelligence has brought him some controversy. He and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have clashed with the latter terming his warnings "irresponsible". Musk responded to Mark's censure by saying that he had discussed AI with Zuckerberg and found him to have only a "limited understanding" of the subject.

Personal life

Patents

Title Application number Grant number Application date Grant date Original assignee Funnel shaped charge inlet

[196] 13/549185 8579635 2012-07-13 2013-11-12 Tesla Motors, Inc. Vehicle charge inlet

[197] 29/427056 D724031 2012-07-13 2015-03-10 Tesla Motors, Inc. Vehicle

[198] 29/412833 D683268 2012-02-08 2013-05-28 Tesla Motors, Inc. Vehicle door

[199] 29/412841 D678154 2012-02-08 2013-03-19 Tesla Motors, Inc.

Awards and recognition

In popular media

References

Further reading

‏Source en.m.wikipedia.org