CNBC / David Faber (2025)
NextCode Conference (2016)- Interviewer/venue: David Faber, on CNBC’s Power Lunch, recorded in the lobby of the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.
- Format: Live televised sit-down. This page covers the first of two same-day segments; the second, after he stepped away to take a call and came back, is tracked separately.
- Date: May 20, 2025.
- Trust tier: verified (Tier 1): CNBC’s own published transcript.
- Quotes: from the CNBC transcript on cnbc.com, Musk’s words only (Faber is the interviewer and is never quoted), each linked to its spot on the page. The note on the “Nazi gesture” exchange near the end is an editorial aside, not a quote.
Summary
This is the first long interview Musk gave as he started winding down his Washington role, the “DOGE” (Department of Government Efficiency) effort. Faber spends it pushing on the two things that matter most for reading Musk: how he reasons, and where his head is. The answers fall into three groups.
On autonomy, he compresses his entire product philosophy into a few lines. Robotaxis scale “slowly but then all at once,” he says. The road system “is designed for AI” and eyes, which is why he wants cameras and not lidar. The goal is “the platonic ideal of the perfect product,” reached by not thinking about competitors. Asked what actually matters for Tesla over the long run, he names two things: “autonomy and Optimus.”
On government and politics, he defends his free-speech stance unrepentantly (“free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”). The reputational cost of his government work brings “some pros and cons,” he allows. And he argues that the savings are real but constitutionally bounded: “we are advisors… we’re not kings.” That cost-cutting reasoning is worked out in detail on Government efficiency, and the political mood feeds Elon Musk.
On state of mind in 2025, the interview catches a man in transition, heading back to Tesla and still nursing his legacy-media grievance. He puts the legacy-media complaint plainly (“legacy media propaganda is very effective at making people believe things that aren’t true”) and bets that a CEO’s politics barely register with customers.
Some of this is contested political ground: his account of the “Nazi gesture” coverage, his DOGE savings figure, the merits of particular budget cuts. Where Faber pushed back, his pushback is kept.
Key quotes
On autonomy and the robotaxi rollout
His usual intuition about timing, that progress is nonlinear, reaching for Peter Thiel’s Zero to One as the reference:
“these things happen slowly but then all at once” ↗
Why he intends to start small (10 cars, then 20, 30, 40) rather than flood the streets — a rare note of deliberate caution:
“we want to deliberately take it slow” ↗
The first-principles argument for cameras over lidar — the road was built for biological vision, so machine vision is the right fit:
“the way that the road system is designed is for AI” ↗
What he says actually determines Tesla’s future — not this quarter’s car sales:
“the only things that matter in long term are autonomy and Optimus” ↗
On product and competitors
The design target he sets himself is an absolute ideal, not a benchmark against anyone else:
“the platonic ideal of the perfect product” ↗
And, asked repeatedly about BYD and Waymo, the disposition that follows from it:
“I don’t really think about competitors. I just think about making the product as perfect as possible.” ↗
On free speech
Asked whether he regrets his outspokenness given the cost to Tesla’s brand, he answers with the principle, not a walk-back:
“free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy. That’s why it’s the First Amendment.” ↗
On DOGE and stepping back from government
He concedes the reputational trade-off without retreating from it:
“It has some pros and cons.” ↗
His grievance against the press — the engine, in his telling, of the hostility he draws:
“legacy media propaganda is very effective at making people believe things that aren’t true” ↗
The defense of the DOGE savings figure, with the limit he places on his own power:
“16% of the way towards a trillion in five months.” ↗
“we are advisors, we are not – we’re not kings, here.” ↗
His stated approach to the budget — breadth over the politically easy targets:
“We’re trying to go after every part of the budget.” ↗
On whether his politics hurt the business
His central bet about buyers is that a CEO’s politics barely register when someone is actually deciding what to drive:
“how much do you care about the political views of the CEO? Or do even know what they are?” ↗
ℹ️ On the “Nazi gesture” exchange: asked for an example of media “propaganda,” Musk reached for the coverage that read a rally hand gesture as a deliberate Nazi salute, which he rejected (“all I said was that my heart goes out to you, and I was talking about space travel”; “I’ve never harmed a single person”). What follows here is his characterization of that coverage and his state of mind about it, nothing more. The disputed sentence is not block-quoted as a clean factual claim. On air, Faber pointed out that he had not raised the subject and that people close to Musk dismissed the Nazi charge.
Connections (pages touched)
- Government efficiency — created here: his rationale for the DOGE cost-cutting drive (the FY25→FY26 “delta” accounting, the advisors-not-kings constitutional limit, “go after every part of the budget”) and the waste-and-fraud framing.
- Elon Musk — extended with a “CNBC / David Faber (2025): political-economic reasoning under skeptical fire” section on his 2025 political-economic views and state of mind.
- Free-speech absolutism — extended: the 2025 “bedrock of a functioning democracy / First Amendment” statement and the “within reasonable bounds” caveat, his clearest civic (not comedy) framing among these sources.
- Autonomous driving — extended: the 2025 robotaxi rollout reasoning (“slowly but then all at once,” the start-small caution) and the “road system is designed for AI” case for cameras over lidar.
- Tesla — extended: the “autonomy and Optimus” line about what he thinks matters long-term, and the “platonic ideal of the perfect product” design target.
- First principles — linked: the camera-vision and “perfect product” arguments as two more instances of the habit.
- Woke mind virus — linked: the “legacy media propaganda” grievance as the 2025 continuation of his media-and-culture thread.