{"id":19180,"date":"2016-11-04T21:09:49","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T13:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/elon-musk-holds-forth-on-solarcity-tesla-spacex-and-donald-trump\/"},"modified":"2016-11-04T21:09:49","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T13:09:49","slug":"elon-musk-holds-forth-on-solarcity-tesla-spacex-and-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/elon-musk-holds-forth-on-solarcity-tesla-spacex-and-donald-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk holds forth on SolarCity, Tesla, SpaceX \u2026 and Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_217727\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-217727\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-217727\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/151215-musk7-630x452.jpg\" alt=\"Elon Musk\" width=\"630\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/151215-musk7-630x452.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/151215-musk7.jpg 682w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-217727\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elon Musk is the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. (Credit: AGU file)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Today Elon Musk laid out his views on&nbsp;electricity-generating solar roofs, the Tesla-SolarCity merger, SpaceX\u2019s return to flight and artificial intelligence during an extraordinary 30-minute telephone interview on CNBC.<\/p>\n<p>His timeliest comments may relate to next week\u2019s presidential election:&nbsp;Musk gave a&nbsp;lukewarm endorsement to&nbsp;Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would say it\u2019s not going to make much of a difference one way or the other, honestly,\u201d he said. \u201cI think Hillary\u2019s economic policies and her environmental policies particularly are the right ones, you know? Yeah. Also, I don\u2019t think this is the finest moment of our democracy in general. But so it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So what about GOP candidate Donald Trump? \u201cI feel a bit stronger that probably he\u2019s not the right guy,\u201d Musk said. \u201cHe just doesn\u2019t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Musk&nbsp;\u2013 who\u2019s the billionaire CEO of the SpaceX rocket venture and the Tesla electric-car concern as well as chairman of SolarCity, a producer of solar panels&nbsp;\u2013 touched on a wide range of topics, with occasional commentary from one of Tesla\u2019s biggest investors, billionaire Ron Baron.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a sampling of other topics from the interview:<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022 Musk said SpaceX was&nbsp;closing in<\/strong> on the cause of a launch-pad explosion that destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket and its satellite payload in September. The problem had to do with how liquid helium&nbsp;was loaded into bottles contained within the liquid oxygen tank. The process caused some of the oxygen to turn solid and react explosively with the carbon composite tank. Changing the process should make it possible to&nbsp;\u201cbe back to launching around mid-December,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022 He defended the use<\/strong> of the term \u201cAutopilot\u201d when referring&nbsp;to the autonomous features provided in Tesla\u2019s electric cars. Musk compared it to the way the word is used with regard to airplanes. \u201cThe autopilot does not mean the plane is self-flying,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are plenty of planes that crash all the time when autopilot is on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022 Musk said merging Tesla and SolarCity<\/strong> will play off the natural symbiosis between electric-powered transportation and solar electric generation and storage. Once you have solar panels, batteries and electric cars, \u201cyou have a complete solution to a sustainable-energy future \u2013&nbsp;but if any one of those pieces is missing, then you don\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Elon Musk: Solar Roof Will Last Longer Than Most Houses | CNBC\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CFa5BfDzE4Q?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022 The recent announcement that SolarCity<\/strong> will be offering integrated electricity-generating roof panels is just the start of what Musk expects will be a long-term construction trend. \u201cI really think it\u2019s going to get to the point where if you get a \u2018normal\u2019 roof, it\u2019s sort of odd,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be, \u2018Of course you\u2019d get a solar roof. \u2026 Why would you get anything else?&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022 As automation plays an increasing role<\/strong> in everyday life, the effect on employment will probably force government officials to consider systems that provide a universal basic income, Musk said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what else one would do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022 Musk was asked about his ultra-long-term vision<\/strong> for artificial intelligence.&nbsp;\u201cUltimately, I think there would need to be some kind of improved symbiosis with digital super-intelligence,\u201d he replied, \u201cbut that\u2019s a pretty involved discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Elon Musk: Moving Toward Universal Basic Income Due To Automation | CNBC\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vJgtRBkFnfw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk is the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. (Credit: AGU file) Today Elon Musk laid out his views on&nbsp;electricity-generating solar roofs, the Tesla-SolarCity merger, SpaceX\u2019s return to flight and artificial intelligence during an extraordinary 30-minute telephone interview on CNBC. His timeliest comments may relate to next week\u2019s presidential election:&nbsp;Musk gave a&nbsp;lukewarm endorsement to&nbsp;Democratic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5486,1045,4467,5487,316,3086],"class_list":["post-19180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-autopilot","tag-elon-musk","tag-politics","tag-solarcity","tag-spacex","tag-tesla"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}