Musk's Craziest Claims on the 'Joe Rogan Experience' Podcast

Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast Thursday where he made a number of outlandish claims and comments — here are some of the best.

During the course of his interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a number of outlandish claims while smoking weed and drinking whiskey with the host. Throughout the podcast, Musk dodged uncomfortable questions about the operating status of Tesla’s solar roofing panels, claimed that humans shouldn’t kick robots because they have a “long memory” and stated that The Boring Company started out as a joke and that there is a good chance the company’s LA tunnel project will fail.

“I have this, it’s sort of a hobby company, called the Boring Company, which started out as a joke. And we decided to make it real, and dig a tunnel under LA. And then other people asked us to build tunnels so we said yes in a few cases,” said Musk discussing the Boring Company. Mentioning the tunnel that the Boring Company is supposed to be building underneath Los Angeles to the Dodgers Stadium, Musk stated: “We’ve dug about a mile. It’s quite long. It takes a long time to walk it,” he continued “I’m not saying it’s going to be successful. It’s not, like, asserting it’s going to be successful. But so far I’ve lived in LA for 16 years and the traffic has always been terrible. And so I don’t see any other ideas for improving the traffic.”

Musk continued: “So in desperation, we are going to build a tunnel, and maybe that tunnel will be successful. And maybe it won’t. I’m not trying to convince you it’s going to work. Or anyone.” Musk also clarified why he chose to dig the tunnel in LA: “It’s in LA because I mostly live in LA. That’s the reason. It’s a terrible place to dig tunnels.” Twitter users picked out some of Musk’s claims and took issue with them.

During another exchange, Rogan asked Musk about Tesla’s solar roof capabilties, Musk referred to digitally redenred CGI pictures of houses with the technology and stated that the houses do in fact work — except the houses aren’t real.

When asked by Rogan if the houses are available now for purchase, Musk made an odd noise indiciated that they would be but didn’t fully answer:

Discussing the number of lawsuits and investigations brought against Tesla for car malfunctions, Musk claimed that most of the lawsuits were frivolous and that people would have died if they had similar accidents in other makes of car: “The S, X, and 3 have the lowest probability of injury of any cars ever tested by the U.S. government,” said Musk. “Yeah. But it’s pretty funny, pretty crazy — people still sue us. Like, they’ll have, like, some accident at 60 miles an hour where they’ve, like, twisted an ankle. And they — like, they would be dead in another car, but they still sue us.”

In another candid moment, Musk told Rogan that China has an advantage on the U.S. because their politicians are better at science. “You know, I wish politicians were better at science. That would help a lot,” Musk said when asked about the issues holding back innovation. “Actually, they’re pretty good at science in China, I have to say,” Musk said, adding, “The mayor of Beijing has, I believe, an environmental engineering degree, and the deputy mayor has a physics degree. I met them.”

Musk also warned that people shouldn’t kick or abuse robots — because they have a long memory. Rogan joked during the podcast about PETA putting out a statement that “robotic dogs” should not be abused, referencing the machines created by groups such as Boston Dynamics. One of the tests that engineers put these robots under is a kick test to ensure that the robots do not fall and are well made. “It’s probably not wise,” said Musk discussing kicking a robot. “Their memory is very good.”

Discussing the future of Tesla vehicles, Musk stated that the next version of the Tesla Roaster will have rockets — he then clarifies that these will be compresses air jets. Then he states that flying cars would never work because they’re too loud — after claiming that he will be putting very loud compressed air jets in his future car.

At one point in the conversation, Musk — who called the British cave rescuer Vern Unsworth a pedophile via Twitter — lamented that people should be nicer to each other on the social media platform:

And of course, Musk began smoking weed which resulted in him receiving a number of text messages — most likely from onlookers worried about the public image of the Tesla CEO drinking and doing drugs on a podcast: