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Elon Musk talks AI, free speech with Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Monday in a live-streamed conversation on subjects like artificial intelligence (AI), free speech, and more. Most prominently, the two parties discussed the emerging landscape of AI and how to mitigate potential risks from the technology.
Netanyahu live-streamed the roughly 40-minute conversation, which took place in San Francisco, California, on X on Monday morning. The meeting was a part of a series of discussions Netanyahu plans to have with world AI leaders.
During the conversation, Netanyahu asked Musk how he thought the global rewards of AI could be maximized while minimizing its potential risks.
“I’ve actually met with a number of world leaders to talk about AI risk, because I think for a lot of people, unless you’re really invested in the technology, you don’t know just how significant the risk can be,” Musk responded.
Elon Musk: AI poses a ‘civilizational risk’ if not regulated
-->Musk and Netanyahu also discussed various applications of AI, including potential uses like senior care and precision agriculture. Additionally, Musk noted that AI might look different than some people imagine, highlighting the massive, heat-producing data centers required to power artificial general intelligence (AGI) systems.
“If you see a movie like, say, Terminator, the intelligence appears to be in the robot,” Musk said. “But actually, the intelligence is in large data centers, large server centers. And you see some of these data centers, you just see computers, like, you can practically see the curvature of the Earth. That’s how long the corridors are.”
Musk described the “gigantic, massive warehouses” that are needed to house these kinds of servers, saying that, in some cases, these buildings could hold hundreds of thousands of computers. He went on to explain that this is what would be needed for “extreme digital superintelligence.”
Hundreds of protestors also gathered outside the San Francisco meeting, criticizing Netanyahu’s recent judicial overhaul plan, which seeks to cancel a key “reasonableness standard” in the country. When the meeting was first announced, Musk said he got “the most amount of negative pushback from people at Tesla about this interview than anything else” he has done in the past.
In the meeting, Netanyahu also asked Musk to condemn anti-semitism within the confines of free speech, commenting that free speech was a “foundational” part of democracy. The question came after the Tesla CEO threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League in recent weeks over a study claiming that X has seen a rise in hate speech since Musk took over.
-->“I hope you find within the confines of the First Amendment, the ability to stop not only anti-semitism, or roll it back as best you can, but any collective hatred of a people that anti-semitism represents,” Netanyahu said. “And I know you’re committed to that, and I hope you succeed in it. It’s not an easy task, but I encourage you and urge you to find the balance — it’s a tough one.”
“I’m sort of against attacking any group,” Musk responded. “Doesn’t matter who it is, I’m in favor of that which furthers civilization and which ultimately leads us to become a space-faring civilization, where we understand the nature of the universe.”
“We can’t do that if there’s a lot of infighting and hatred and negativity, so obviously I’m against antisemitism,” Musk added.
Following the one-on-one meeting, Netanyahu and Musk also had an AI roundtable discussion with OpenAI President Greg Brockman and MIT physicist Max Tegmark, which was also streamed on X.
You can watch the full conversation between Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Tesla CEO Elon Musk below on X, or watch the roundtable discussion on AI here.
-->LIVE: Speaking with @elonmusk about how we can harness the opportunities and mitigate the risks of AI for the good of civilization. https://t.co/XiAQwOXzcP
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) September 18, 2023
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Tesla sees sharp November rebound in China as Model Y demand surges
New data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) shows a 9.95% year-on-year increase and a 40.98% jump month-over-month.
Tesla’s sales momentum in China strengthened in November, with wholesale volumes rising to 86,700 units, reversing a slowdown seen in October.
New data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) shows a 9.95% year-on-year increase and a 40.98% jump month-over-month. This was partly driven by tightened delivery windows, targeted marketing, and buyers moving to secure vehicles before changes to national purchase tax incentives take effect.
Tesla’s November rebound coincided with a noticeable spike in Model Y interest across China. Delivery wait times extended multiple times over the month, jumping from an initial 2–5 weeks to estimated handovers in January and February 2026 for most five-seat variants. Only the six-seat Model Y L kept its 4–8 week estimated delivery timeframe.
The company amplified these delivery updates across its Chinese social media channels, urging buyers to lock in orders early to secure 2025 delivery slots and preserve eligibility for current purchase tax incentives, as noted in a CNEV Post report. Tesla also highlighted that new inventory-built Model Y units were available for customers seeking guaranteed handovers before December 31.
This combination of urgency marketing and genuine supply-demand pressure seemed to have helped boost November’s volumes, stabilizing what had been a year marked by several months of year-over-year declines.
-->For the January–November period, Tesla China recorded 754,561 wholesale units, an 8.30% decline compared to the same period last year. The company’s Shanghai Gigafactory continues to operate as both a domestic production base and a major global export hub, building the Model 3 and Model Y for markets across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, among other territories.
Tesla bear Michael Burry got blunt with his beliefs over the company’s valuation, which he called “ridiculously overvalued” in a newsletter to subscribers this past weekend.
“Tesla’s market capitalization is ridiculously overvalued today and has been for a good long time,” Burry, who was the inspiration for the movie The Big Short, and was portrayed by Christian Bale.
Burry went on to say, “As an aside, the Elon cult was all-in on electric cars until competition showed up, then all-in on autonomous driving until competition showed up, and now is all-in on robots — until competition shows up.”
Tesla bear Michael Burry ditches bet against $TSLA, says ‘media inflated’ the situation
For a long time, Burry has been skeptical of Tesla, its stock, and its CEO, Elon Musk, even placing a $530 million bet against shares several years ago. Eventually, Burry’s short position extended to other supporters of the company, including ARK Invest.
Tesla has long drawn skepticism from investors and more traditional analysts, who believe its valuation is overblown. However, the company is not traded as a traditional stock, something that other Wall Street firms have recognized.
While many believe the company has some serious pull as an automaker, an identity that helped it reach the valuation it has, Tesla has more than transformed into a robotics, AI, and self-driving play, pulling itself into the realm of some of the most recognizable stocks in tech.
Burry’s Scion Asset Management has put its money where its mouth is against Tesla stock on several occasions, but the firm has not yielded positive results, as shares have increased in value since 2020 by over 115 percent. The firm closed in May.
In 2020, it launched its short position, but by October 2021, it had ditched that position.
Tesla has had a tumultuous year on Wall Street, dipping significantly to around the $220 mark at one point. However, it rebounded significantly in September, climbing back up to the $400 region, as it currently trades at around $430.
It closed at $430.14 on Monday.
Tesla appears to be making a change to its exterior side repeater cameras, which are used for the company’s Full Self-Driving suite, and other features, like Sentry Mode.
The change appears to be a potential upgrade in preparation for the AI5 suite, which CEO Elon Musk said will be present on a handful of vehicles next year, but will not be widely implemented until 2027.
Currently, Tesla uses a Sony sensor lens with the model number IMX963, a 5-megapixel camera with better dynamic range and low-light performance over the past iteration in Hardware 3 vehicles. Cameras in HW3 cars were only 1.2 megapixels.
However, Tesla is looking to upgrade, it appears, as Tesla hacker greentheonly has spotted a new sensor model in its firmware code, with the model number IMX00N being explicitly mentioned:
Looks like Tesla is changing (upgrading?) cameras in (some?) new cars produced.
Where as HW4 to date used exterior cameras with IMX963, now they (might potentially) have something called IMX00N— green (@greentheonly) December 1, 2025
Sony has not announced any formal specifications for the IMX00N model, and although IMX963 has been used in AI4/HW4 vehicles, it only makes sense that Tesla would prepare to upgrade these external cameras once again in preparation for what it believes to be the second hardware iteration capable of fully autonomous self-driving.
Tesla has maintained that AI4/HW4 vehicles are capable of self-driving operation, but AI5 will likely help the company make significant strides, especially in terms of overall performance and data collection.
Tesla last updated its exterior cameras on its vehicles back in early 2023, as it transitioned to the 5-megapixel IMX963. It also added additional cameras to its vehicles in January with the new Model Y, which featured an additional lens on the front bumper to help with Full Self-Driving.
Tesla’s new self-driving computer (HW4): more cameras, radar, and more
Tesla sees sharp November rebound in China as Model Y demand surges
Tesla bear gets blunt with beliefs over company valuation
