TL;DRWhy (IAC 2017): the future is vastly more exciting as a spacefaring, multi-planet species — he can't think of anything more exciting than being among the stars. When: in May 2024 he said he hoped to land the first uncrewed Starship on Mars within 5 years, and people probably within 10, maybe 7 or 8.
TL;DRIn Jan 2026 he said it already is: Tesla was running cars in Austin with no one inside and no safety monitor, while keeping the customer rollout deliberately cautious.
TL;DRAbout six hours; with less, his thinking suffered. His days are mostly triage of inbound information, segmented to avoid too much context switching.
TL;DRTo keep an inclusive arena for free speech. Twitter had become the de facto town square, and people need to be able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.
TL;DRHe's in the Douglas Adams school: the universe is the answer, so expand the scope and scale of consciousness to learn what questions to ask. What gives him hope: becoming a spacefaring civilization.
TL;DRSolar: the sun rounds up to 100% of all energy, so it's really all about the sun. Batteries: lithium-ion still has room, about 8% better a year, which halves cost in four or five years.
TL;DRAI. In Dec 2025 he said nothing much was keeping him up, but his nightmares are about AI. He also calls a below-replacement birth rate the most obvious sign of the West being suicidal.
TL;DRHis latest word is on X: in Apr 2026 he told people to "vote Republican," while in Mar 2026 he still called the two parties a "uniparty." He formed the America Party in July 2025 after backing Trump in 2024. On DOGE (Dec 2025): probably not again; he'd have worked on his companies instead.
“He better vote Republican wherever he goes or wherever he goes will become just like the place he left”@elonmusk on X
TL;DRIn Oct 2026 he said the next flight, about 4–6 weeks away, would try to catch the ship as well as the booster: the first full recovery of an orbital-class rocket. Reusability matters because single-use transport is extremely expensive; no city on Mars without low-cost reusable rockets.
TL;DRMany more electrodes and better signal processing. In Aug 2024 he said the first patient had already reached twice the world record, and expected big gains over the following five years.
TL;DRA hard-to-contain kid: at four or five he kept running off, and poked the key through a locked door to escape. On Asperger's: social cues weren't intuitive, so he was very bookish.
TL;DRHe named OpenAI and funded its first ~$50 million as an open-source nonprofit; in May 2025 he said it was becoming a closed-source for-profit and that he was pushing ahead with the lawsuit.
TL;DRBy matching risk tolerance to the program: Dragon can never fail, so everything is tested with tons of margin, while Starship iterates rapidly and test failures are acceptable.