Elon Musk is once again thinking far beyond Earth. In a new, nearly three-hour interview on the Dwarkesh Podcast with host Dwarkesh Patel and Stripe co-founder John Collison, Musk covered everything from orbital AI data centers and humanoid robots to China, xAI’s future, and lessons learned from running SpaceX.
One of the most striking takeaways was Musk’s conviction that AI compute is heading off-planet. “Mark my words, in 36 months, probably closer to 30 months, the most economically compelling place to put AI will be in space,” Musk said, arguing that constraints around power generation and cooling on Earth will increasingly push large-scale compute into orbit.
According to Musk, those focused purely on software are “about to have a hard lesson in hardware,” as physical limits become the dominant bottleneck. The discussion comes just days after SpaceX and xAI officially merged, a move that could dramatically accelerate Musk’s ambitions around orbital AI infrastructure by pairing launch capability with in-house AI models and hardware expertise.
Power generation was another recurring theme. Musk revealed that both Tesla and SpaceX now have a mandate to reach 100 gigawatts per year of solar production, underscoring just how central energy has become to his long-term plans across transportation, robotics, and AI. In space, solar remains the most scalable option, especially for the kind of massive orbital data centers Musk believes are inevitable.
On the robotics front, Musk offered new insight into how Tesla plans to scale Optimus. He explained that Tesla is building what he described as an “Optimus Academy,” where tens of thousands of humanoid robots will learn through real-world self-play. “We’re gonna have at least 10,000 Optimus robots, maybe 20,000 or 30,000,” Musk said, paired with millions more running inside Tesla’s physics-accurate simulation environment to close the gap between simulation and reality.
He also stressed that Optimus’ human-like hand remains a key differentiator, noting that Tesla had to design custom actuators, motors, gears, power electronics, and sensors to achieve the necessary degrees of freedom.
The wide-ranging interview also touched on xAI’s business plans, AI alignment, China’s manufacturing advantage, DOGE, and Musk’s evolving management philosophy. Taken together, the conversation paints a picture of a Musk ecosystem that is becoming more vertically integrated than ever — from energy and robotics to AI models and, eventually, data centers in orbit.
For the full, wide-ranging discussion — including much more from Musk on orbital AI, Optimus, and xAI — be sure to check out the complete podcast episode.
