Key points:

After stably producing 1 million Optimus robots annually, the material and labor costs can be reduced to $20,000 – $30,000 (conservative estimate).

Neuralink has been implanted in over 10 paralyzed patients, enabling real – time communication. By integrating Optimus legs, disabled people can run at high speed, with a cost of only $60,000.

xAI will release Grok 5 in the first quarter of 2026. It has 6 trillion parameters and a 10% probability of achieving general artificial intelligence.

The A15 is Tesla’s next – generation AI inference chip. Its performance is 2 – 3 times that of NVIDIA’s chips, the cost is only 1/10, and it has a low – power design. It will drive FSD autonomous driving and Optimus robots.

Elon Musk is considering building a giant wafer factory. The goal is to complete it in 1 – 2 years and expand infinitely in 3 years, providing 10 – 20 billion AI chips.

On November 14th local time, “the Iron Man of Silicon Valley” Elon Musk was invited to participate in an exclusive interview live – streamed on the X platform by Baron Capital, hosted by Ron Baron, the founder of Baron Capital. This dialogue delved deeply into Musk’s strategic vision for artificial intelligence, robotics, sustainable development, and the future of humanity.

During the conversation, Musk talked about many topics, such as the combination of Neuralink and Optimus will endow disabled people with superhuman abilities, the expected delay of Grok 5’s release until 2026, and the consideration of building a wafer factory. Musk also called on people to expand human consciousness through technology, explore the universe, and ensure the prosperity and survival of civilization.

The following is a selected version of this dialogue:

01. Optimus Robot: The Path to Large – scale Production with Costs Reduced to $20,000

Ron Baron: The prices of robots used in industrial production manufactured by Japanese companies (such as KUKA) range from $50,000 to $150,000, while the Optimus robot you described only costs $20,000. To achieve this price, we must produce 1 million units annually, or 10 million units annually. Is it affordable? Will people rent or buy it? Will enterprises buy it? Will we get some kind of share of the benefits from their purchases? How will this work? Or, do we not have a well – developed business model yet?

Elon Musk: My rough estimate is that after Optimus reaches a stable production state of 1 million units per year (that is, one year after reaching this production volume), the material cost and labor cost will be reduced to $20,000 – $30,000 in current US dollars. This is a rather conservative estimate because cost optimization requires a lot of effort.

In terms of cost improvement, similar to cars, we have a clear understanding of the costs of all car parts purchased from outside, so we can precisely tell suppliers the price we will pay. If the suppliers’ profits are too high, we will produce them ourselves. For robots, the production process should be much simpler than that of cars, unless we consider the hand design.

02. The Design of 50 Actuators in the Hand: The Core from Dexterous Manipulation to Sustainable Abundance

Ron Baron: The hand design is indeed extremely complex. You mentioned that there are a total of 50 actuators in the hand and forearm. An actuator is a motor.

Elon Musk: Actuators include motors, gearboxes, and power electronics. So, each robot has a total of about 100 actuators. In fact, there are a large number of actuators and sensors.

Ron Baron: Why is this complexity so important? Why do we need such a complex hand design?

Elon Musk: To achieve dexterous manipulation, we must have the same sensitivity, precision, and freedom of movement as a human hand. Tasks that are easy for humans to complete (such as picking up a screwdriver, turning a wrench, threading a needle, or playing the guitar) actually require a very high level of dexterity. More importantly, we believe that this helps to achieve sustainable abundance. This is a revised version of the company’s goal. The original goal was to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy, and as you mentioned, we have basically achieved it. The new goal is sustainable abundance, which means providing abundant resources for everyone in a sustainable way without destroying any natural wilderness.

Ron Baron: How do we decide on resource allocation? If someone wants to buy my house, can they just come in and live in it?

Elon Musk: I’m not sure why this would happen. However, your house is really nice, and I can completely understand its appeal. But robots will be able to build houses for anyone, as long as it’s not in a specific location. You can even let robots build a castle for you. The reason for the hand dexterity is that it can perform surgeries and precise medical operations.

Imagine a world where everyone can get the services of top – notch surgeons. Optimus will have a super – human level of precision and be able to perform very complex medical procedures, any medical procedure, perhaps including those that are difficult for humans to complete because they are too challenging. This will be available to anyone. People often talk about eliminating poverty and providing high – quality medical services, but they never really propose solutions. Moreover, money cannot solve this problem because the number of excellent doctors and surgeons is extremely limited. They don’t grow on trees. But now, they will be manufactured in factories.

03. The Fusion of Neuralink and Optimus: The Brain – Machine Revolution Endowing Disabled People with Superhuman Abilities

Ron Baron: One or two years ago, I sent you an article from Barron’s. It was about a 33 – year – old young man who had become a portfolio manager. He was a Paralympic athlete and lost his legs due to a meningitis bacterial infection. He asked if there was a way for him to get out of the wheelchair, and you replied that within three or four years, we could give him an Optimus body and then use the transistors in his brain to enable him to dance, sing, walk, and run like a normal person. Have we made progress in this regard?

Elon Musk: This is the combined result of my two companies. One is Neuralink, and the other is Tesla. Neuralink has also made good progress. Currently, more than 10 patients have had Neuralink devices implanted. These patients were originally unable to move their arms or legs, and some were even completely paralyzed, just like Stephen Hawking. Now, they can communicate at the same speed or almost the same speed as our current conversation, which is very exciting, and this progress will continue to accelerate.

A Neuralink implant obtains signals from the motor cortex of the brain and also receives signals from the sensory cortex. Then, for a person who has lost their legs, we provide Optimus legs. We have truly realized “The Six Million Dollar Man”. I’ve watched the show, and I thought it was quite interesting. Moreover, we can actually endow someone with super – human cyborg abilities, just like “The Six Million Dollar Man”, but in today’s era, the cost is far less than $6 million.

Back then, $6 million was a huge sum of money, but today, it’s almost nothing. Far less than that amount, for something reasonable and affordable, perhaps only about $60,000. You can transmit the signals from Neuralink (transmitted from the brain to the legs) to the attached Optimus robot legs. And he can actually run faster than a human. Just like in “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

04. The Original Intention of Acquiring X: Protecting Freedom of Speech and the Investment Friendship with Baron

Ron Baron: Three years ago, you acquired Twitter. It has now been renamed X, and you’ve received extensive criticism for this.

Elon Musk: I’m right. In fact, you even mentioned on this stage that you don’t want others to be angry with you because there are already enough people trying to kill you. Exactly.

Ron Baron: When you acquired X, I thought its value was about $42 billion at that time. You were raising funds everywhere, and I called you on my own initiative (you didn’t approach me). I said, “I want to invest $100 million in you. $60 million comes from one of our funds, and $40 million is my personal investment.” You also told me that you thought I could double my money. I said, “Of course, I hope so.” But for me, you’ve already created $8 billion in returns for us at Tesla. If I didn’t support your new venture, it wouldn’t make sense. So, we invested, but on the day of payment, the valuation was directly reduced by 70%.

Elon Musk: That’s exactly why I consider you a true friend, Ron. I really regard you as a trustworthy and close friend. The real test of friendship is who stands by your side in adversity – when everyone is against you and everything is falling apart. The people who support you at that time are true friends. You are one of them, Ron. Thank you.

Ron Baron: We invested $100 million, and it shrank to $30 million. About a year later, a hedge fund came to us and wanted to buy back our shares at the original price – those guys always know things they shouldn’t. I refused and chose to hold on. Later, you renamed it X, optimized the business model, and integrated the social network into a data – explosive platform: real – time interaction data of 600 million users in the physical world, which is unique to us.

Then, you launched Grok, which is directly trained based on this data – others only have digital content, while we have real – world interactions. Moreover, Grok requires a huge amount of computing power as soon as it goes online. You built a super – data center within a few months: four times larger than anyone else in the world, starting with 25,000 nodes, using GPUs instead of CPUs, and now expanding to hundreds of thousands of units. As a result, we’ve invested $350 million in the past two or three years, and now it’s worth $700 million. You reverse the situation in everything you do. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. Everyone is investing in technology, and we’re investing in the world’s top engineers. Thank you very much. Now the question is, did you target these data from the very beginning when you acquired X (formerly Twitter)? Did you have all these ideas in mind at that time?

Elon Musk: That’s not the case. I acquired Twitter because I thought it had a negative impact on civilization. It was somehow controlled by the far – left forces – they may not think so themselves, but it was controlled by a group of people deeply entrenched in the extremely left – leaning political beliefs of San Francisco and Berkeley, which is probably the most left – wing ideology in the United States. This led to it no longer being a healthy platform for debate because they banned many right – wing people, including the current president – you may remember, that was an unprecedented event.

I think we need a real public square where everyone enjoys freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of democracy. Without it, people cannot make wise voting choices; without wise voting, there is no real democracy. The purpose of acquiring Twitter was to bring it back to a neutral position. We didn’t ban or suppress any left – wing voices, but we tried to ensure that the voices of all parties across the country were treated equally, making it a public town square where people can freely exchange ideas without causing violence.

05. The Origin of the Disagreement with OpenAI: xAI’s Starting Advantage and the Vision of Physical – Digital Connection

Ron Baron: You are one of the co – founders of OpenAI. It was initially founded as a non – profit organization, which was your idea, aiming to ensure that AI development focuses on freedom of speech and elements crucial for a good life on Earth, such as safety and many other aspects. However, another founder managed to take control of the situation, even though most of the funds came from you. He pleaded with you to stay, but you said you didn’t want to be involved. Then, he offered you a partial ownership stake, and you refused.

Just like that, you left resolutely, giving up the ownership of ChatGPT, which is now worth $500 billion. This clearly shows that everything you do is not just for money. Although money is not unimportant to you, if it were just for money, you would never have easily given up such a huge fortune. Now, you’re building this new entity, Grok, to realize your original vision for ChatGPT. What advantages do you think we have? Is it because of the data, the computing power, or other factors? What is your ultimate goal? You talked about connecting the physical world and the digital world. What exactly does that mean?

Elon Musk: Let’s go back to the origin of OpenAI. I founded OpenAI because of a conversation with Larry Page. He used to be my close friend, but he didn’t seem to pay enough attention to the potential risks of AI. This reached a peak at my birthday party when he called me a “speciesist” in front of everyone because I favored humans over computers. This made me feel uneasy. I asked him, “Larry, which side are you on? It sounds like you’re on the side of computers, but you really should be on the side of humans.”

After that, I thought we needed some force to balance Google because Larry seemed indifferent to the survival of humanity. So, what is the opposite of Google? It’s an open – source non – profit organization. The “Open” in OpenAI means open – source. I provided all the initial funds, from Series A, B to C, and recruited key talents like Ilya Sutskever, and taught them everything I knew. Moreover, I even facilitated their cooperation with Microsoft, which was initially led by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and I convinced him to donate some Azure computing resources.

I never sought any financial return for what I did. I refused the share offer because I thought, what’s the point? At least as far as I know, non – profit organizations shouldn’t issue shares. It shouldn’t be a tool for personal enrichment. That’s why I refused because it was morally and legally unacceptable.

As for xAI, we started relatively late, about two and a half years ago. So, to some extent, we’re in a catching – up position. But technically, we’re doing quite well. I’m quite proficient in technology myself, and we’re moving forward at a faster pace than any other AI company. I believe that in the technology race, the ultimate winner will be the one who moves the fastest. We’re optimizing the best technology and exploring some directions that are very different from other companies. Others are confined to the digital world, while we start from the physical world, incorporating the element of movement, which no one can match.

In addition, we also have real – time data. So, what does this mean? Why can we outperform others? Why are we destined to win? Why can we at least stand out and build a very powerful business? First of all, I’m not too worried about building a powerful business because even as a successful “small player” in AI, its value will be extremely huge. It can inject a huge amount of productivity into the economy. This is actually quite easy to achieve, although it’s not an easy task, and many companies can maintain a value of tens of billions of dollars.

So, how to achieve leadership? It boils down to three points: Can we attract top – notch talents? Can we deploy the most AI hardware? Can we deploy GPUs faster than anyone else? We’ve proven that we can do this. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said himself that he was extremely shocked by the construction speed of xAI’s Colossus data center. He said bluntly, “There’s only one person on Earth who can do this, and that’s you.” Thank you very much for his affirmation. This makes me wonder, do you really think I’m human? I’ve always told people I’m an alien, but no one believes me. Seriously, when I got my green card, it said “Alien Registration Card” (an early name for the green card, and “Alien” here means a foreigner. Musk often jokes that he’s an alien). This is the government’s proof, and I had to register. Let’s just say that in the United States right now, I have some scarce skills, especially in terms of hardware acquisition and construction achievements. If we look back at the biggest manufacturing successes in the United States since World War II, Tesla and SpaceX are far ahead.

06. The Breakthrough of Grok 5: 6 – Trillion – Parameter Multimodal AGI and the Open – Source Legacy of Galactica

Let’s talk about