Elon Musk, Joe Rogan share thoughts, laughs — and a joint — during YouTube podcast

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In a wild and wide-ranging podcast Thursday night, Elon Musk talked candidly about how close Tesla came to folding during the 2008 automotive industry crisis, wryly remarked about the pitfalls of engaging with others on social media and even shared a marijuana-infused cigarette with host Joe Rogan. Oh, and he copped to being an alien.

Musk’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience in Los Angeles came on the heels of an audacious August in which he tweeted about taking Tesla private, publicly apologized to analysts for bad conference-call behavior and gave an emotional tell-all to the New York Times.

During the roughly 2½-hour podcast based in Los Angeles, Rogan zeroed in on Musk’s seemingly limitless energy for projects, including digging a tunnel under Los Angeles to ease congestion on freeways.

“When I watch you doing all these things, I’m like how does this m———– have all this time and all this energy and all these ideas, and then people just let him do these things?” Rogan asked.

“Because I’m an alien,” Musk replied.

Musk, however, revealed his human side when asked by Rogan what keeps him up at night.

“Well, it’s quite hard to run companies, especially car companies. SpaceX is no walk in the park, but it’s very difficult to keep a car company alive,” Musk said, referring to the private aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company he founded in 2002.”

Tesla “barely survived” the 2008 automotive industry crisis, said Musk, adding that the electric carmaker and Ford are the only automobile companies in American history that have escaped bankruptcy.

Musk pinned the then-fledgling Tesla’s troubles on the “super dumb strategy” of using a Lotus Elise as a basis for the Roadster. Adding a battery pack and electric drive train negated the sports car’s crashworthiness, necessitating a wholesale redesign.

“Less than 7 percent of the parts were common with any other device including cars,” Musk said.

The pair also discussed Musk’s more recent ventures, including Neuralink, an artificial-intelligence startup focused on integrating the human brain with computers.

“I think we’ll have something interesting to announce in a few months that’s at least an order of magnitude better than anything else,” he said. “Probably better than anyone thinks is possible.”

The podcast was punctuated by a pair of odd moments, the first of which involved Rogan producing a vintage samurai sword and handing it to Musk to examine. Musk, at the urging of Rogan, also took a drag from a cigarette Rogan said was infused with marijuana.

“You probably can’t because stockholders,” Rogan said.

“I mean it’s legal, right?” Musk replied before inhaling.

Twitter also surfaced as a topic. Rogan asked Musk what percentage of his engagement with other users was a “good idea.” The question elicited a wry laugh from Musk.

“Probably 10 percent,” Rogan guessed.

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Will Elon Musk’s ‘child rapist’ comment be too much for Tesla to ignore? “On balance, it’s more good than bad,” Musk replied, “but there’s definitely some bad.”

He added that he ignores the “vast majority” of negative comments, but admitted to getting “drawn in” every now and then.

“It’s not good,” he said.

Asked at the close of the podcast whether he had a final message, Musk urged people to give each other more credit.

“I think people should be nicer to each other and give more credit to others and don’t assume that they’re mean until you know they’re actually mean,” Musk said. “It’s easy to demonize people. You’re usually wrong about it. People are nicer than you think.”

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