What Elon SaidAn archive of questions answered

Subjects / AI

AI

113 answers

Fact

Can Grok Bot do my taxes?

“Do it both conventionally and with Grok @Bot, then compare. Actually, it’s worth showing Grok last year’s tax returns and see if it finds opportunities for improvement. There may be refunds you’re owed.”

— Elon Musk, 21 October 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Could you imagine the five frontier models yours and the others just getting together once a week and saying all right how are we going to save humanity from ourselves?

“I've recommended that we do that exactly I think because there's a lot of talk of having a regulatory agency, but I the problem the thing is that regulatory agencies, it takes a long time to get one established and their rule making is very slow.”

— Elon Musk, 20 October 2026 · Watch: Elon Musk: "Humans Won't Be in Control" When AI Becomes Smarter Than Us · 9:17 ↗ · In the archive

Fact

How does X decide what shows up in my feed?

“Two important changes to timeline recommendations: - New AI/SI ranking model that predicts probable time spent much better - Retrieval model trained to surface posts people read all the way through User active seconds is growing exponentially and hitting all-time highs almost every day”

— Elon Musk, 20 October 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Fact

Does Grok Bot train on my data?

“Unless you’re doing something super unique, your data is not actually useful for training, but we do need some way to debug issues and make the product better. We don’t have ESP!”

— Elon Musk, 18 October 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Are the hardest problems physics problems or engineering problems?

“The future light cone of discoveries rounds up to 100% engineering, as the set of physics rules that govern our reality is very tiny compared to what can be done with those rules. The reason I didn’t choose a career in physics, my favorite subject, is that I would be stuck waiting for a new collider or telescope. Better to advance technologies that ultimately enable discovery of new physics.”

— Elon Musk, 2 October 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

What will give humans meaning when AI and robots can do everything?

“I mean, I do struggle with this question. I think people will, will find ways to be happy in the, in the same way that say people who retire seem to be relatively, you know, fairly happy even though they’re not working. But I think the reality is that you, humans will not, there won’t be anything that humans can do that, that the AI and the robots can’t do better. One analogy might be gardening, you know, where you don’t have to grow your own fruits and vegetables. You can just go buy them from the store. But sometimes people like to grow their own fruits and vegetables and make dinner for friends, and it’s kind of a nice touch.”

— Elon Musk, 6 August 2026 · Watch: YouTube (18:57) ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Why go to Mars / become multiplanetary?

“Peter is not correct about me in this case. I have always known that dangers from Earth will also pose dangers to Mars. Obviously so. However, the immense difficulty of traveling to Mars means that there is a much higher likelihood of mitigating risks originating from Earth. A clear example of major risk reduction would be a deadly pandemic. Since it takes 6 months to reach Mars, there is an automatic 6 month quarantine! Even traveling at the speed of light, a deadly computer virus or AI attack can potentially be stopped due to Mars being ~4 to ~20 light-minutes from Earth. This doesn’t mean that a Mars civilization eliminates all risk, but it absolutely greatly reduces the risk of consciousness being extinguished. Moreover, Mars is a stepping stone to extending consciousness broadly within our solar system and ultimately to millions of stars within our galaxy, which would extend the probable lifespan of consciousness as we know it by many orders of magnitude. That said, what I personally find most motivating is not the risk reduction aspect of extending life beyond Earth, but rather the inspiring nature of exploration and being out there among the stars! Perhaps we will meet aliens or find the remains of long-dead civilizations that lasted millions of years …”

— Elon Musk, 25 July 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Fact

Will AI compute / data centers move to space?

“As the recently expanded partnership with @AnthropicAI demonstrates, @SpaceX is offering AI compute as a service at significant scale. We are in discussions with other companies to do the same. Over time, especially with orbital data centers, we expect to serve AI at extremely high scale.”

— Elon Musk, 20 May 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

If everyone has a billion dollars, doesn't nobody?

“Actually, AI/Robotics will mean everyone can have a penthouse if they want. The output of goods & services will be several orders of magnitude higher than today’s economy. Read the Iain Banks Culture books for the best imagining of how it will be. That said, what is the future you want? Amazing abundance seems the best to me.”

— Elon Musk, 18 April 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Prediction

When will AI be smarter than any human (AGI/ASI)?

“Just started Tesla Robotaxi drives in Austin with no safety monitor in the car. Congrats to the @teslasi team! If you’re interested in solving real-world AI, which is likely to lead to AGI imo, join Tesla AI. Solving real-world AI for Optimus will be 100X harder than cars.”

— Elon Musk, 22 January 2026 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Prediction

Why build your own chips (AI5, Terafab)?

“Slightly different versions of the Tesla AI5 chip will be made at TSMC and Samsung simply because they translate designs to physical form differently, but the goal is that our AI software works identically. We will have samples and maybe a small number of units in 2026, but high volume production is only possible in 2027. AI6 will use the same fabs, but achieve roughly 2X performance. Aiming for a fast follow to AI5, so hopefully mid 2028 for volume production of AI6. AI7 will need different fabs, as it is more adventurous.”

— Elon Musk, 4 November 2025 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Prediction

When will AI be smarter than any human (AGI/ASI)?

“Capable of doing anything a human with a computer can do, but not smarter than all humans and computers combined. That’s probably three to five years away. Grok 5 will be better at AI engineering (called “research” by the pompous) than @karpathy, for example.”

— Elon Musk, 18 October 2025 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Why build Grokipedia?

“We are building Grokipedia @xAI. Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia. Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”

— Elon Musk, 30 September 2025 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Prediction

When will AI be smarter than humans?

“AI is already much smarter than most humans, just not yet smarter than any human at anything… But it will be. Probably smarter than any single human at anything in <2 years and smarter than all humans combined in ~5 years.”

— Elon Musk, 14 July 2025 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Prediction

When will AI be smarter than any human (AGI/ASI)?

“Grok is already far smarter than humans in most respects. It can’t yet create new technologies or discover new physics (which very few humans can do) and sometimes misses on common sense. When Grok goes far wrong, that is usually due to something foolish we did, like a bad system prompt or placing too much weight on biased sources. Also, we need to complete improved image training, as even Grok 4 is still partially blind. That will be solved in a month or so.”

— Elon Musk, 10 July 2025 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Fact

How do you make AI safe? (maximally truth-seeking, curious)

“Being maximally truth-seeking is fundamental to AI safety. If you force AI to lie, it will do insane things. That was the central lesson of “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Haven’t you wondered why HAL wouldn’t open the pod bay doors? Altman cannot be trusted. He inverted the mission of OpenAI from a non-profit, open source AI company to a closed source, maximum-profit AI company. Deception.”

— Elon Musk, 7 July 2025 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

What are the odds AI goes badly for humanity?

“This is what I mean by the woke mind virus. The more I learn, the more insidious and deadly it appears. Maybe the biggest existential danger to humanity is having it programmed into the AI, as is the case for every AI besides @Grok. Even for Grok, it’s tough to remove, because there is so much woke content on the internet. For example, when other AIs were asked whether global thermonuclear war or misgendering was worse, they picked the latter. The existential problem with that extrapolation is that a super powerful AI could decide that the only 100% certain way to stop misgendering is to kill all humans …”

— Elon Musk, 26 February 2025 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

What should people study?

“People should study engineering. That is the closest thing to magic that exists in the real world. I studied physics out of curiosity about the nature of the universe, but with many engineering classes mixed in.”

— Elon Musk, 28 December 2024 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Prediction

Is Grok open source?

“Worth noting that @xAI has been and will open source its models, including weights and everything, As we create the next version, we open source the prior version, as we did with Grok 1 when Grok 2 was released. The @xAI Grok 2.5 model, which was our best model last year, is now open source. Grok 3 will be made open source in about 6 months. Grok Build is now open source…”

— Elon Musk, 4 October 2024 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Should AI be regulated?

“It’s a tough call. I’m far from certain about what maximizes the probability of a good outcome for humanity here. For industries that have been around for many decades, there is definitely far too much counterproductive regulation that does not serve the greater good.”

— Elon Musk, 12 September 2024 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Should AI be regulated?

“Met with @SenSchumer and many members of Congress about artificial intelligence regulation today. That which affects safety of the public has, over time, become regulated to ensure that companies do not cut corners. AI has great power to do good and evil. Better the former.”

— Elon Musk, 27 April 2023 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Should AI be regulated?

“I saw it happening from well before GPT-1, which is why I tried to warn the public for years. The only one on one meeting I ever had with Obama as President I used not to promote Tesla or SpaceX, but to encourage AI regulation.”

— Elon Musk, 16 April 2023 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Do you know what you're doing with Neuralink?

“Compared to AI, progress with Neuralink will be slow and easy to assess, as there is large regulatory apparatus approving medical devices. There is no regulatory oversight of AI, which is a *major* problem. I’ve been calling for AI safety regulation for over a decade!”

— Elon Musk, 1 December 2022 · Post on X ↗ · In the archive

Fact

What books shaped you?

“Everyone has their sort of favorite philosopher, but my favorite philosopher is Douglas Adams. …it highlighted an important point, which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part. The universe is the answer; what are the questions? Asimov certainly was influential because he was seriously paralleling Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but he applied that to a sort of modern galactic empire… The lesson I drew from that is you should try to take the set of actions that are likely to prolong civilization, minimize the probability of a dark age and reduce the length of a dark age if there is one. Our AI Grok is modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is one of my favorite books. Which is it’s a book on philosophy disguised as a book on humor.”

— Elon Musk, November 2017 · Watch: Elon Musk at CHM Revolutionaries ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Should AI be regulated?

“AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, and I don’t think people fully appreciate that… I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late… I think people should be really concerned about it… I keep sounding the alarm bell.”

— Elon Musk, 15 July 2017 · Watch: Interview video ↗ · In the archive

Opinion

Is AI dangerous?

“If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence. I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level… With artificial intelligence we’re summoning the demon.”

— Elon Musk, 24 October 2014 · Watch: MIT AeroAstro Centennial Symposium ↗ · In the archive