Elon Musk on Economist Podcasts
An interview with Elon Musk
Mostly familiar Musk material—and effectively the same interview catalogued in appearances 33618 and 33619. Skip if you have heard either version; the specific Starlink whitelist account and AI-infrastructure constraints are the main reasons to listen.
They were using it, and it now stopped them from doing that. Well, they essentially got Starlink units that they ordered through Ukraine and then smuggled them into eastern Ukraine, where the Russians are, and were then using them in some cases for attacks. Now, in order to address this, we worked with the Ukrainian government to create a white list of approved Starlink terminals. Now, this has some downsides, because a whole bunch of people who were just innocent users of Starlink and just trying to access the Internet for work or for education now don't have Starlink.
Elon Musk discusses rapid AI progress, the risks and governance challenges surrounding frontier models, and his expectations for abundance, automation, and changing work. The interview also covers space exploration, Starlink's role in Ukraine, immigration, European politics, and Musk's own political influence.