Transcription
Sean: As I said in my opening monologue, SpaceX successfully completed its rescue of astronauts who spent nine months stranded in space. They were only supposed to be there eight days. Elon Musk joins us for an exclusive interview. First of all, what a triumph to the human spirit, human ingenuity, engineering. First of all, on behalf -- many people thank you for what you did to those asked Knott’s today. How are you feeling throughout the day? I felt butterflies in my stomach, and I rarely feel them.
I’m usually a little nervous about these returns. There’s always a risk of something going wrong. Thanks to the excellent work of the team working with NASA, the astronauts are now safely home. So congratulations to the teams on excellent work and a huge note of appreciation to President Trump for prioritizing and expediting the return.
Sean: You have been the chief engineer of SpaceX and remain the chief engineer of SpaceX. It’s the first private company to ever make it to orbit. Walk us through the beginnings of that. It’s something that nobody else has been able to accomplish.
It’s quite a long story. In the beginning, we didn’t actually know anything about rockets. The first three missions failed, of our rocket, and we almost ran out of money and just barely made it with the fourth launch. If it didn’t succeed, we would’ve failed as a company, so we barely made it. I was not a very good chief engineer in the beginning, but I did learn over time, and I think we’ve gotten at this point to where it’s very reliable, and we are going to be able to take astronauts to Mars. We want to take anyone who goes to Mars and ultimately build a self-sustaining civilization on Mars.
Sean: That is a very bold vision. How long do you think that might take to be able to accomplish?
I think we can do it in 20 to 30 years.
Sean: I can always hope. I would love to be able to see that; that would be amazing. I happen to have a telescope, and I love to look at the stars in the sky and the planets. I am amazed at the majesty of all of creation and the idea that we even look at the Moon and we can go there and come back. I want to ask you this question if I may. Every aspect of this rescue had challenges and danger. The launch, we start there, then the rocket landing. We showed, I couldn’t believe you were able to land the rocket that fell off perfectly where you wanted it to land. The video when they actually connected and got onto the space station, then the taking off earlier today was a 17-hour trip leading to the splashdown that all of America watched today. Every single aspect of that has danger and complications. Walk us through the dangers of each phase.
On the ascent phase, there’s a chance that the first or second stage will blow up. It’s remarkable when you see a rocket. When I see the rocket, I see a list of all the things that are wrong and all the ways it could go wrong and potentially fail. The Dragon could fail, separate from the rocket. There could be an engine failure on the spacecraft itself. When it’s coming back, it’s coming in so fast, it’s a blazing meteor, and if anything happens to the heat shield, the whole craft is going to incinerate. It’s remarkable that humans can actually go all the way to orbit and come back from orbit given the immense amounts of energy that is required to get to orbit and the amount of energy that must be dissipated up on -- among return. It all has to work. Long term, we are going to be doing -- this year we are launching the Starship rocket, which I recommend doing a piece on because that is truly a revolutionary rocket. Starship is the first rocket that has the potential to make life multiplanetary, to make us a multi-planet civilization for the first time in the history of Earth. And that’s truly profound.
Sean: I studied a lot of this because of my need to cover it. At one point going 17,000 miles per hour, going through 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. You have this thermal protection system. We know that the Boeing Starliner, we know that it had problems, so these problems that you talk about, we can’t take it for granted or get complacent. Explain how you get up to 17,000. How do you withstand 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit and a thermal protection system that protects that capsule and then the launch of the parachutes which were critical to slow it down before it’s splashdown?
I’d be happy to explain in detail. I will do the two-minute version here. The rocket takes off with 1.7 million pounds of thrust. You can imagine something that has enough thrust to lift an office building off its foundations. It gets to orbit, and gets to roughly 17,000 miles per hour in 9 minutes. And then when it comes back, you’ve got that heat shield that’s got to dissipate that energy. You are coming in like a blazing meteor. Hardly anything can survive that heat, and if the shield fails, you get vaporized immediately. We are really testing the very edge of human ability here, the very edge of material science. It’s kind of amazing that humans can do this at all, but hopefully for people out there, this is a moment of optimism about the future, excitement about the future, great things for America and humanity.
Sean: I’m only going to ask you one political question for clarification purposes. I don’t think it should be a political night. This is a moment where the country should celebrate the fact that you were able to rescue them, that it happened successfully in spite of the difficulty and the challenges and danger. I want to clarify on the issue of whether or not you had offered to send this rocket to space to rescue these astronauts sooner to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I heard somebody say the fact that didn’t happen when I believe it did.
We definitely offered to return the astronauts earlier. There’s no question about that. They were only supposed to be there for eight days, and they’ve been there for almost ten months. So that doesn’t make any sense. SpaceX could have brought the astronauts back after a few months at most. We made that offer to the Biden administration. It was rejected for political reasons, and that’s just a fact.
Sean: I followed this from the very beginning. Did America and the world make a mistake by slowing down going to the Moon and other planets? Was not a mistake on our part? Don’t we have so many scientific and innovative breakthroughs every time we go?
I think we will have tremendous breakthroughs when we establish a city or a base and then a city on Mars because we will have to overcome so many challenges that it will serve as a forcing function for the development of new technologies that will have tremendous benefits to people on Earth.
Sean: Let’s talk about the health issues that the astronauts will face. They only trained for an eight-day mission, but there are certainly things involved with returning to gravity, adjusting to gravity, nauseous in this. Then it gets a little bit more serious, a variety of other health problems. Bones become about 1% less dense for every month they are in space. That could lead to issues like osteoporosis or bone fracture. Astronauts grow in space because the spinal column expands back; there was one astronaut who became 2 inches taller, and others, then when it contracts when you come back, then they have some back issues. They have vision issues because fluids in the eye shift upward to the head. You can explain the baby feet if you want. They have some significant health issues, but they will be okay.
The normal amount of time that astronauts are supposed to be in 0G is about three months and at the most about six months. That’s the normal rotation. They were up there for almost ten months. So that’s going beyond what is healthy or good. It’s a good thing that thanks to the support of President Trump we were able to bring them back because things get a lot worse if they stay in 0G past a year or more.
Sean: What you were able to accomplish today really is just fascinating to me. I’m interested in every aspect of it. It was pretty public that I bought one of your Teslas. By the way, it’s the greatest car ever invented. It really is, and I’m not just saying that. It’s got a thousand horsepower. Goes from 0 to 60 in 0.2 seconds.
Two seconds. [Simultaneous talking]
I think it would kill you if it went that fast. It’s pretty fast; that’s for sure; it’s faster than if her already, for example.
Sean: I watched it beat my other car. I watched… ‘s You are into robotics, AI. You are working with Neuralink, so the blind can see, and people with spinal cord injuries may one day walk. You help people in North Carolina and in California when they have no communications. I watch all of this, and I have to ask why. Why do I see people, I woke up this morning and saw that Teslas were put ablaze in one of your dealerships in Vegas. I’ve seen this happen all over the country. Bullets are being fired, charging stations put ablaze. You have experienced assassination threats of assassination for you and your family. What have you done that warrants this because I see nothing that you have done except help our country?
It’s really come as quite a shock to me that there is this level of hatred and violence from the left. I always thought that Democrats were supposed to be the party of empathy and caring, and yet they are burning down cars, firebombing dealerships, firing bullets into dealerships, smashing up the Teslas. Tesla is a peaceful company; we’ve never done anything harmful, only done productive things. I think we just have a deranged -- there is some kind of mental illness going on because this doesn’t make any sense. I think there are larger forces at work. Who is funding and whose coordinating it because this is crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this.
You tweeted out the level of violence is insane. It is deeply wrong. Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these evil attacks. You just rescued two astronauts that have been in space for 286 days that were only supposed to be there eight. You help the people in… You have the most creative and innovative car on the market. You created Starling for communications that’s used by hundreds of countries. You’re working on helping the blind to see and all these other things. Does it really come down to the basic you are aligned with President Donald Trump, who is a friend of mine, and that you have identified well over $100 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse that our federal government never should have been spending, is that what it comes down to?
It turns out when you take away people’s money that they are receiving fraudulently, they get very upset, and they basically want to kill me because I’m stopping the fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla because we are stopping the terrible waste and corruption in the government. I guess they are bad people. Bad people do bad things.
Sean: I know that overall financially in the end, yes, they can hurt you, but the people that they will end up hurting are the people that work in your dealerships that may risk losing their job. The people that they’re manning up hurting are the people that work on the line and build the Teslas. Not to me is despicable on their part just because they might have a political difference or perceived political difference. Let me ask you this because I think it’s a pretty important, the average American makes $66,000 a year. We are close to $40,000 in debt. You said to me in our last interview we won’t have a country unless we fix it now. Can you explain why this is so important that we identify all this waste?
The government waste and fraud is so high that it’s causing a 2 trillion-dollar annual deficit. That’s $2 trillion of waste and fraud that’s happening. The cost of our debt has gotten so high that just the interest payments on the debt exceed the entire military budget, and it was just growing out of control. So the country is going bankrupt. If a country overspends and doesn’t spend wisely, just like a person, the country will go bankrupt. The reason I’m here is because I’m very worried about America going bankrupt due to the corruption and waste, and if we don’t do something, the ship of America is going to sink. We are all on that ship. This might be a message to people out there who are wealthy and have a lot of means. Just remember we are all in America here. If -- your company is not going to exist if the ship of America sinks, and we should do everything we possibly can to ensure that America is strong for far into the future.
Sean: We are all sunk, and for doing that you should not have your company be a victim of domestic terrorism. If I may one last question. When I interviewed you and President Trump together, one of the questions I asked to of you was are you aware that there are groups that want to separate you, groups that would like to divide you, groups that would like to see you not work together? I feel it stronger than it’s ever been. Do you get the same sense?
I think they are getting desperate because the reason we are seeing this extreme amount of hatred and violence is because we are actually succeeding in getting rid of corruption and waste. If we weren’t succeeding in getting rid of corruption and waste, they wouldn’t care. But we are succeeding. Without President Trump, this would be impossible. I would like to say it’s only possible with this President, and we’ve got this narrow window of opportunity with the House, Senate, and a popular vote. Really, we’re just implementing the will of the people, and we’ve got this window where we can finally take corrective action, we can fix the government and fix the country and create a great future. It’s only possible because of President Trump. I can’t say enough good things about him.
Sean: I’m kind of supportive too, for good reason, all the reasons you are saying. I want to save our country. We can’t rob from our kids and grandkids and put all that debt on them. None of us will have any business opportunities because there won’t be any money or freedom. Thank you for what you did today; I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that, and on the other side of it, your company being a victim of domestic terrorism, I can’t say that I’m sorry enough. We need to get these people that are responsible for this, and you should not have to live through that. Your workers should not have to live through that, and this company and country should not have to live through that. By the way, I’m excited about my car; it’s the best car I’ve ever driven.
I kind of made the car that I wanted to drive, so that’s why I like it.
I’ve got mine on Hannity.com.