Founded SpaceX in 2002, joined Tesla's board in 2004 and became its chief executive in 2008, and later founded Neuralink, The Boring Company and xAI. Bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X. Posts as @elonmusk, which is where almost everything he says publicly now appears.
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8 of Elon Musk's claims fit 5 mental models. Most often: First principles, Exponential growth, Bottlenecks.
Reason up from what is known to be true, not from what is usually done or said.
Their wordsAnd physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.
Their wordsIt turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around 2 percent of the typical price—which is a crazy ratio for a large mechanical product.
Their wordsThe problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking.
Growth that doubles looks like nothing for a long time and then like everything; intuition is linear and gets it wrong.
Their wordsProduction on the Moon & Mars will accelerate by far more than double every year, until natural limits are encountered
Their wordsThe solar power exponential will continue until all other energy sources are <<0.1%
A system moves only as fast as its narrowest point; speed up anything else and nothing changes.
Their wordsConsensus estimate is that ~15GW of AI compute produced in 2027 cannot be turned on in 2027. This is harder than just finding power, as you also need to build out all the transformers, wiring, liquid-cooling, (massive) chillers & complex networking.
Look at what people are rewarded for; it explains more behaviour than what they say, your own included.
Their wordsThe NGOs end up increasing the number of homeless people they manage, because that’s the only way to increase their revenue!
Ask "and then what?": follow a decision past its first effect to the ones that come after.
Their wordsWhat I’m saying is that there is an argument that if you wish for no war, you should be careful what you wish for because what’s required in order for there to be no war might be worse than a little war.