What’s on Elon Musk’s mind? In this exclusive conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Musk details how the radical new innovations he’s working on — Tesla’s intelligent humanoid robot Optimus, SpaceX’s otherworldly Starship and Neuralink’s brain-machine interfaces, among others — could help maximize the lifespan of humanity and create a world where goods and services are abundant and accessible for all. It’s a compelling vision of a future worth getting excited about. (Recorded at the Tesla Texas Gigafactory on April 6, 2022)
Just over a week after this interview was filmed, Elon Musk joined TED2022 for another (live) conversation, where he discussed his bid to purchase Twitter, the biggest regret of his career, how his brain works and more. Watch that conversation here:
0:14 A future that’s worth getting excited about
2:44 The sustainable energy economy, batteries and 300 terawatt hours of installed capacity
7:06 “Humanity will solve sustainable energy.”
8:47 Artificial intelligence and Tesla’s progress on full self-driving cars
19:46 Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot
21:46 “People have no idea, this is going to be bigger than the car.”
23:14 Avoiding an AI dystopia
26:39 The age of abundance
28:20 Neuralink and brain-machine interfaces
36:55 SpaceX’s Starship and the mission to build a city on Mars
46:54 “It’s the people of Mars’ city.”
50:14 What else can Starship do and help explore?
53:18 Possible synergies between Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink
54:44 Intercontinental travel via Starship
58:41 Being a billionaire
1:02:31 Philanthropy as love of humanity
1:03:39 Population collapse and birth rates as a threat to future of human civilization
1:04:13 Elon’s drive
1:06:06 “I think if you want the future to be good, you must make it so.”
If you love watching TED Talks like this one, become a TED Member to support our mission of spreading ideas:
Follow TED!
Twitter:
Instagram:
Facebook:
LinkedIn:
TikTok:
The TED Talks channel features talks, performances and original series from the world’s leading thinkers and doers. Subscribe to our channel for videos on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more.
TED’s videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy ( For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at
