As Elon Musk prepared to make a less than triumphant exit from Washington, he told the Fox News host Jesse Watters earlier this month that his rampage through the bureaucracy had made “significant progress” in cutting waste and fraud. But there was no hiding that the man whose rockets can gracefully return to earth standing tall on their launchpads had made a bit of a crash landing.
His projected cut of $2 trillion from the federal budget had shrunk on paper, at that point, to $165 billion. Tesla stock took a nosedive along with his personal wealth and popularity. And, as he rewrote Silicon Valley’s mantra into “move fast, break things and get out of town,” no one was urging him to stay.
Prompted by Watters, Musk shifted the interview seamlessly from eradicating waste to another obsession: the looming eradication of life on earth. “The sun is gradually expanding, so we do at some point need to be a multiplanetary civilization because earth will be incinerated,” Musk said.
“I’m hearing this for the first time,” Watters said, bemused.
“We have several hundred million years, so don’t hold your breath,” Musk assured him.
Say what you will about Elon Musk, the man thinks ahead.
Over the past couple of decades, Musk has devoted himself to three grand engineering projects, all with the long-term mission of sustaining humanity far into the future. The goal of his rocket company SpaceX is to establish a city on Mars. Tesla is accelerating the transition to sustainable energy, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. Neuralink aims to eventually wire artificial intelligence into human brains so people can keep pace with machines.