During an interview at a global conference this week, Elon Musk talked about a wide range of themes, from space travel and artificial intelligence (AI), to birth rates, and more.
The Milken Institute think tank is holding its annual global conference in Santa Monica, California, this week, and Musk was interviewed by the group’s Chairman, Michael Milken, on Monday. During the interview, Milken presented several of Musk’s past quotes as prompts, to which Musk could respond and sometimes expand on things he has discussed in the past.
Like many of his interviews, the topics were somewhat wide-ranging, though they included many of the things he has been outspoken about in the past: his thoughts on humanity, education, SpaceX and Starlink, the need to make humans multi-planetary, aliens, merit-based economy, AI, birth rates, and still more.
Elon Musk thinks we’ll have AI smarter than any one human by next year
The interview begins with Milken saying that the original title of the panel discussion was “How To Save The Human Race, and Other Light Topics.”
He then dives into an 11-year-old clip of Musk talking about the things he thought would have the biggest impact on humanity, to which the billionaire listed many of the things his companies cover today: the internet, sustainable energy including solar power and electric vehicles (EVs), and humanity becoming multi-planetary.
“Life cannot be about solving one thing or another. There have to be things that move your heart and make you excited to wake up in the morning,” Musk said, expanding on his prior quote. “And I think becoming a spacefaring civilization is one of those things.”
“If you ask kids anywhere in the world, like ‘what are some of the most inspiring things,’ like a five-year-old, six-year-old anywhere in the world, they’re going to gonna say space exploration is one of those things,” Musk added.
Notably, Musk also said that SpaceX uses nearly no AI in its operations, while he also later clarified some of his reasoning for why he wants humanity to become multi-planetary:
“Well, if you don’t become a multi-planet civilization, then you’re then you’re simply waiting around until you die from a self-inflicted wound or from some natural disaster like the dinosaurs got hit by a meteorite or something,” Musk said.
“Eventually, something like that is going to happen if you wait around long enough, the sun will expand to Earth and will be incinerated so that for sure is gonna happen.”
Along with discussing themes like editing the human genome (which he doesn’t necessarily suggest humanity does), and concerns surrounding the world’s falling birth rate, Musk also discussed AI—a topic he’s familiar with through both his work at Tesla and his newest company, xAI.
Regarding AI, he reiterated themes he recently spoke about at the Breakthrough Prize awards on making these systems as truthful as possible, even at the risk of being politically incorrect.
“I’ve thought about AI safety for a very long time, and I think you want to have a maximum truth-seeking AI. This is very important,” Musk explained. “They should not be taught to lie. It should not be taught to say things that are not true. Even if those things are politically incorrect, it should still say those what it believes to be true.”
He then compared the technology to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, saying that (spoiler), part of the movie’s point was that HAL 9000 ended the astronauts’ lives because it had been forced to lie.
You can watch the full interview with Musk below.
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Tesla Full Self-Driving is set to receive improvements to address its two biggest issues, according to a company engineer.
Director of Engineering at Tesla AI, Phil Duan, revealed in a post on X that improvements to both pothole avoidance and navigation “are coming,’ something we have heard many times in the past. However, there are a few things that seem to hint that things might be different this time around.
Improvements on both are coming.
— Phil Duan (@pduan) October 1, 2026
Pothole avoidance, navigation, speed control, and left lane camping are some of the most prevalent and frequently mentioned shortcomings of the Full Self-Driving suite. These are a few of the biggest issues that have kept Tesla Full Self-Driving as a Supervised suite, meaning drivers must remain attentive during operation.
Pothole Avoidance
Pothole avoidance was first mentioned as an “Upcoming Improvement” with the Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3 update back in early April of this year. It was listed alongside “Expand reasoning to all behaviors beyond destination handling.”
It’s been six months since we first saw pothole avoidance explicitly mentioned, and it has not moved beyond that and joined the main release notes yet.
Tesla has not shed any light on why pothole avoidance has been such an issue for it to solve, but it also has issues identifying large bumps much of the time, so its modeling of sudden changes in road conditions is likely pretty weak at this particular point. I’ve had more issues with large bumps than potholes, personally, but both are issues that need to be resolved.
This is that big bounce that I mentioned in the quoted post.
It’s just a tad too drastic to take at the speed FSD wants to go over it. You can see me quickly swipe down into Sloth, but I intervened. https://t.co/K20PK9ysBg pic.twitter.com/81Oc82ZJcZ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
It makes sense that things might be pretty close to being released to the public, as we are going on such an extensive period of time between it being mentioned and it actually being deployed.
Navigation
Navigation is likely the most painful part of using Full Self-Driving, as it routinely takes strange routes, has trouble with local rules (like Except Right Turn Stop Signs in Pennsylvania), and sometimes does not realize that maneuvers it is suggesting are against the law. Turning out of my neighborhood, you cannot turn left, yet my Model Y still suggests it roughly 70 percent of the time when I’m leaving.
However, Tesla might be close to a breakthrough on this. With the Summer Update, Tesla added “Preferred Routes” alongside “Automatic Navigation.”
Preferred Routes prioritized roads that the driver had actually taken before, instead of always defaulting to what the vehicle believes is the most efficient path. This has already solved many of my issues. Formerly, I would turn off the Online Routing setting, and that would eliminate most of my complaints with routing, but then you lose out later on the Live Traffic Visualization.
Tesla’s Navigation has improved tremendously thanks to the Preferred Routes release with the Summer Update, but it still could use some polishing, as it still suggests strange routes from time to time, and it also has a lot of issues getting out of a parking lot. I find that those truly confuse FSD sometimes.
News
SpaceX’s midnight spy satellite launch quietly set a new record
Falcon Heavy launched its first NRO mission while SpaceX landed four boosters in one day.
SpaceX closed out one of its busiest days ever with a midnight Falcon Heavy launch from Florida, and the rocket’s two side boosters came home to finish off a landing record the company had never set before.
Falcon Heavy lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 11:54 p.m. ET Thursday carrying NROL-97, a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. It was the first time the NRO has flown on Falcon Heavy after 22 missions on Falcon 9, and the first NRO mission bought through the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 contract awarded in 2025, according to Spaceflight Now.
Falcon Heavy lifts off from pad 39A in Florida for the 14th time! pic.twitter.com/uuZLKNTdD7
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 2, 2026
Roughly eight minutes after liftoff, side boosters B1104 and B1072 touched down at Landing Zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, setting off double sonic booms across Brevard County. B1104 was flying for the second time and B1072 for the fourth. Both last flew on August 30 on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, making NROL-97 the quickest turnaround between Falcon Heavy missions to date. The brand new center core, B1106, was expended in the Atlantic so the payload could reach its high energy orbit, and SpaceX’s mission page noted the fairing had previously flown on the NROL-95 mission in July.
The two landings capped a record for SpaceX. Earlier Thursday, Falcon 9 booster B1101 returned to Landing Zone 40 after sending the Crew-13 astronauts to the International Space Station, and another Falcon 9 launched the Transporter-18 rideshare with 130 payloads from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Spaceflight Now reported it was the first time SpaceX has landed four boosters in a single day, wrapping up the triple header Teslarati previewed on Wednesday.
Falcon Heavy’s side boosters land on LZ-1 and LZ-2 pic.twitter.com/dBPcNeggFx
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 2, 2026
The mission also brought Landing Zone 1 back for what may be its final landing. SpaceX first landed an orbital class booster there in December 2015, but its lease on the former Launch Complex 13 site ended in 2025 as the company moved Florida landings to new pads at its own launch complexes. With LZ-40 already holding the Crew-13 booster, SpaceX brought LZ-1 back into service for one more night. Launch tracker Next Spaceflight listed NROL-97 as the final expected landing at the site.
NROL-97 adds to a fast growing stack of national security work for SpaceX. The company has flown four Space Force missions from Vandenberg since mid August, several believed to carry Starshield satellites, pushing its Pentagon contract total for 2026 past $8 billion. Elon Musk was also named this week to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare.
The Florida doubleheader stood out for another reason. The Space Coast saw only one launch in all of September as SpaceX shifts more of its East Coast infrastructure toward Starship, which reached orbit for the first time on Flight 14 just three days earlier.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported strong delivery figures that beat Wall Street guesses, and they were revealed alongside the company’s second-best quarter in terms of energy deployments ever.
Tesla announced this morning that it delivered 486,532 cars in Q3, while producing 464,391, exceeding analyst consensus, which sat around 462,000 units.
Meanwhile, Tesla reported 13.7 GWh of energy storage deployed for the quarter. That’s the second-best quarter Tesla has ever reported on that side of things.
🚨 Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in Q3, beating expectations at 464,391.
Big Q from the Tesla team, also 13.7 GWh of energy was deployed. pic.twitter.com/olioLWgG7a
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 2, 2026
Vehicle Deliveries
Deliveries were strong, and it was another quarter when Tesla had the opportunity to outshine the Wall Street pundits who are quick to criticize and slow to give credit. Tesla saw a slight decrease in deliveries compared to Q3 2025, but Tesla still had the $7,500 EV Tax Credit to use to help incentivize consumers to pick an EV.
A small decrease of 2.1 percent is pretty telling because it shows Tesla does not need massive federal credits to convince consumers to purchase its vehicles.
It was also the company’s third-best performance all-time in terms of deliveries, trailing that of Q3 2025 with 497,099 deliveries and Q4 2024, when the company handed over 495,570 cars.
We reported several days ago that Tesla Showrooms across the United States were completely bare of inventory or unclaimed units. Many locations also removed Demo Drive units, which had been bought by customers looking to take delivery sooner.
Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong
Energy Generation
Tesla’s Energy Generation performance in Q3 was also very strong, as the company deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage over the past three months. The only quarter when Tesla reported stronger energy deployment figures was Q4 2025, when 14.2 GWh of energy storage was deployed.
Tesla’s Q3 performance in energy generation has continued to grow each quarter, with the company increasing its deployments by ten-fold since Q3 2021, when just 1.3 GWh was deployed.
It is also nearly double what it was in Q3 2024, when the company reported 6.9 GWh. This is one of Tesla’s quickest-growing divisions, and it flies under the radar with fans and analysts, as many are focused on self-driving or the vehicles themselves.
Tesla Stock
Shares rose 5.07 percent to $372.06 at just after 10 a.m. on the East Coast. This is a rarity for Tesla after a strong delivery report, as positive news usually brings the stock down. Many quarters with extremely robust delivery reports have not been as kind to the Teslanaires of the world.
Tesla says fixes on Full Self-Driving’s two biggest issues are on the way
SpaceX’s midnight spy satellite launch quietly set a new record
