Elon Musk: The robots are not the scary part. The scary part is AGI. “The robots are not the scary part. The scary part is AGI, digital superintelligence that far exceeds human intelligence. If there's a digital superintelligence that is just vastly smarter than the smartest human, we could lose control of it, and then it could do something bad. Potentially. These things are just probabilities; they're not certainties. It's not the robots; it's the digital superintelligence to be concerned about.” Source: Interview with The Babylon Bee, December 22, 2021

Elon Musk back in 2017: “I intend to stay with Tesla as far into the future as I can imagine.” “I think almost every automaker has some electric vehicle program. They vary in seriousness. Some are very serious about transitioning entirely to electric, and some are just dabbling in it. And some, amazingly, are still pursuing fuel cells. But I think that won't last much longer.” Chris Anderson: “But isn't there a sense, though, Elon, where you could now just declare victory and say, ‘We did it, let the world electrify,’ and you go on and focus on other stuff?” Elon: “I intend to stay with Tesla as far into the future as I can imagine.” Source: TED Interview, April 28, 2017. @TEDchris

Elon Musk: xAI is the best at AI hardware. “The elements that define success for an AI company are going to be one, the talent, two, the hardware. How much AI hardware can you bring to bear? That's actually a very big deal. And we've shown that we're the best at doing that at xAI. And then third, unique access to data. And for that we've got the 𝕏 system, formerly the Twitter system, which is by far the best source of real time data in the world. Those are some pretty significant assets.” Source: Elon Musk Fireside Chat at Ron Baron's 32nd Baron Investment Conference 2025, November 14, 2025

Elon Musk: Only Chuck Norris could get the Defense Department to pass an audit. “The Defense Department hasn't passed an audit in I don't know how many years. Only Chuck Norris could get the Defense Department to pass an audit. That's the level of skill you need. Their accounting error, the stuff that they lose in the couch cushions is like 20, 30 billion dollars a year. They don't know where it went. It's gone. Where did it go? And it's gone. That's why I say that even simple things like just requiring that outgoing payments for the treasury computer have a payment code and a comment of what the payment is about and someone to call about the payment, I think will have a very powerful effect in stopping wasteful outflows and stopping fraud.” The Joe Rogan Experience, February 28, 2025

Elon Musk: I didn't build SpaceX and Tesla because I thought they were easy ways to make money. “Anyone who starts a car company thinking it's the easy way to make money is a fool. There are only two car companies that have not gone bankrupt in the history of the United States, and that's Ford and Tesla. And Tesla came within inches of going bankrupt multiple times, as did SpaceX. Who starts a rocket company thinking it's going to be successful? For both of those companies, I thought I had less than a 10% chance of success, and I thought it was overwhelmingly likely that I would lose the money that I made from PayPal.” Interview with The Babylon Bee, December 2021

Elon Musk, 14 years ago: "I think we're at the dawn of a new era and I think it's going to be very exciting. What we're hoping to do with SpaceX is to push the envelope and provide a reason for people to be excited and inspired to be human.” (60 Minutes, March 2012)