5 Takeaways from Elon Musk being Interviewed on Joe Rogan's Podcast
Serial entrepreneur and innovative engineer, Elon Musk, appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast in the late evening on Thursday, September 6th. Joe Rogan’s Podcast, titled the Joe Rogan Experience, is a well known podcast recognized for its off the cuff interviews with entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, actors and other notable public figures.
In this interview with Mr. Musk—the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Company—Joe Rogan spends 2 hours and 37 minutes discussing the intricacies of each one of Elon’s ventures, learning about them in detail while cracking jokes along the way.
Here are a few key takeaways that our team got from Elon’s time on air:
Elon’s curiosity was out in full force – he decided to blaze up with Joe Rogan
Joe Rogan lit up and smoked a tobacco and marijuana cigarette, and Musk curiously took a puff when Rogan offered it to him.
Pot is legal in California now, but it isn’t exactly common place to smoke a joint in public, especially live on the air. As always, the stock market over-reacted which lead to Tesla share prices falling about 6% on Friday, down to $264.40 per share. Making Tesla short-sellers temporarily happy.
It’s kind of funny that Elon had previously discussed taking Tesla private at $420 per share, as “420” is code for marijuana. Elon ended up clarifying why he chose the $420 price, “It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419. But I was not on weed, to be clear. Weed is not helpful for productivity. There’s a reason for the word ‘stoned.’ You just sit there like a stone on weed.”
He has an appreciation for awesome artifacts
Joe passed Elon his authentic Japanese samurai sword that was made hundreds of years ago, something Elon carefully examined and admired the workmanship of. It appears that Elon has an appreciation for well made things – from Rockets to cars and to even ancient weapons.
He’s a “Business Magnet” not a “Magnate”
Musk took a moment to clarify what he actually does on a daily basis.
“I think people, like, don’t totally understand what I do with my time,” Musk said. “They think, like, I’m a business guy, or something like that. My Wikipedia page says business magnate.”
Rogan then asked Musk what he would call himself, if not a magnate running Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Company, and who, by Musk’s own account, has “a million ideas.”
“A business magnet,” replied Musk.
Musk also discussed that he spends most of his time working on hardcore engineering – electrical, mechanical and software—which is, you know, super cool!
Tesla is only the second American auto manufacturer to not go bankrupt
Tesla and Ford are the only two vehicle manufacturers that have not gone bankrupt – and Elon intends to keep things that way. Tesla delivered more than 40,000 of its Model 3, Model X and Model S cars during the second quarter of this year. The company continues to ramp up the manufacturing numbers and Elon noted that the Tesla Model 3 is now the best selling car in the US. He also expressed his relief that Tesla was able to survive financial struggles in 2008 and noted that the company was very, very close to shutting down.
Elon has tons of ideas…literally
Musk told Rogan that he’s got thousands of ideas, but just doesn’t have the time to execute on everything – which makes sense. One of his side hustles (note: side hustle for Musk is more than a full time job for the average human), the Boring Company, sold 50,000 baseball hats ($1,000,000) and 20,000 Not-A-Flamethrowers ($10,000,000), proving that he can sell just about anything. Oh and the Boring Company started off as a joke...
Elon emphasized that the burning of fossil fuels is “the dumbest experiment in human history”
He’s mentioned it many times before and he’s right – human beings need to transition to sustainable energy creation, storage and transportation as soon as possible – otherwise we’re all doomed.
All in all, Elon’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience was incredibly entertaining, eye opening and educational. It’s definitely worth your time. Here’s the link to the full video or watch below.