The wildest stuff Elon Musk said at Tesla’s shareholder meeting

Tesla shareholder meetings are like no other. Where else does a man, just awarded a $1 trillion pay package, come onstage to dancing robots? CEO Elon Musk said as much himself:

“Other shareholder meetings are like snoozefests,” Musk told shareholders at his Texas Gigafactory Thursday. “This is sick. We get this cyberpunk nightclub here with real robots just standing there and milling around and dancing.”

The potential future trillionaire went on enumerate all the progress the company is making as well as a number of product timelines (to be taken with a grain of salt). That included announcing that the Optimus robot, Semi Truck, and Cybercab would go into production in 2026, and that Tesla’s Robotaxi service would next roll out in Miami, Dallas, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. But it also included a lot of wild comments from Musk.

“I’m going to say a bunch of things that probably I shouldn’t say, but that’s what keeps it interesting,” Musk warned.

Here are some of our favorite Musk comments, slightly edited, from the call.

On Optimus robots:

“Optimus will ultimately be better than the best human surgeon with a level of precision that is impossible, that is beyond human.”

“People always talked about eliminating poverty, but actually, Optimus will actually eliminate poverty.”

“I think we might maybe able to give people — if somebody committed crime — a more humane form of containment of future crime. You say, ‘You now get a free Optimus and it’s going to follow you around and stop you from doing crime.’ But other than that, you get to do anything... You don’t have to put people in prisons and stuff.”

“Things do get kind of wild from an economic standpoint because at a certain point with AI and robotics, you can actually increase the global economy by a factor of 10 or maybe 100. There’s not an obvious limit. Optimus is kind of like an infinite money glitch.”

On cartoon characters and how Teslas look:

“Apart from the Cybertruck, our cars look pretty normal... Let’s say you’ve got a cat and it’s just sitting there on the couch, and you try to tell people that the cat is actually Puss in Boots and it can put on boots and a hat and swashbuckle and sing and dance... We’ve got millions of Tesla cars out there that are the kind of like Puss in Boots. They’re intelligent, but people don’t know that they’re intelligent... You can either have a cat that’s a normal cat, or you can have Puss in Boots. And Puss in Boots is very cool.”

On full self-driving milestones:

“We’re actually getting to the point where we almost feel comfortable allowing people to text and drive, which is kind of a killer app because that’s really what people want to do and do do. And actually right now, the car’s a little strict about keeping your eyes on the road.  But I’m confident that in the next month or two, we’re going to look closely at the safety statistics, but we will allow you to text and drive essentially.”

“ I think [software version] 14.3 is when we’ll really be at the point where you can just pretty much fall asleep and wake up at your destination.”

On AI chips:

“ I’m super hardcore on chips right now, as you may be able to tell. I’ve got chips on the brain. I dream about chips, literally.”

“When we extrapolate the best-case scenario for chip production from our suppliers, it’s still not enough. So I think we may have to do a Tesla tera fab. It’s like giga, but way bigger. I can’t see any other way to get to the volume of chips that we’re looking for, so I think we’re probably going to have to build a gigantic chip fab.”

Not to be outdone, some shareholders and shareholder advocates who read their proposals aloud at the start of the meeting also had some fun things to say.

John Chevedden:

“Annual election of each Tesla director will tend to keep Tesla directors away from their current status as being lapdog enablers for Mr. Musk and Mr. Musk’s outrageous executive pay and Mr. Musk’s outrageous distractions from Tesla.”

James McRitchie:

“ Tesla’s Musk premium, once a source of strength, is fading along with his global reputation. Remember, Tesla is his only publicly traded company. It’s the liquid piggy bank that fuels his other ventures. Yes, Elon Musk is brilliant, but no company should depend on a single personality. Either he stays long enough to keep using your capital elsewhere, or he moves on when the tap runs dry.”