Elon Musk Drops Massive Hint About Upcoming SpaceX IPO at Mobility Summit

Image: Tesla

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a late-night virtual appearance at the 9th International Samson Smart Mobility Summit in Israel (May 17-18), dropping a massive hint about a potential public offering for his aerospace firm. Speaking remotely from Austin, Texas, at 2:30 AM local time on the final day, Musk immediately caught the audience by surprise when explaining his absence.

“I would be there in person, but we gotta get this SpaceX IPO going pretty soon,” Musk said, according to a transcript shared by What’s Up Tesla.

The virtual session quickly pivoted to the future of transportation and artificial intelligence. When questioned about the primary hurdles of scaling autonomous technology globally, Musk doubled down on Tesla’s controversial decision to rely solely on cameras rather than sensor tech like radar and LIDAR. He argued that digital networks can easily replicate how humans navigate roads.

“The Tesla Full Self-Driving software, which is really just AI and cameras, we don’t use radars or LIDAR or anything like that,” Musk stated. “It’s really trying to drive the car in the same way that a human drives the car, which humans primarily drive the car with vision and with a biological neural net.”

Musk expressed immense confidence in this approach, claiming that vision-only automation will eventually become “at least an order of magnitude safer than humans driving.” He noted that Tesla is already operating vehicles without people inside or safety monitors across three cities in Texas, adding that he expects widespread deployment in the United States by the end of the year.

According to Musk, the software is evolving to a point where the vehicle feels less like a machine and more like a living entity.

“It is quite magical, because the car feels like it is sentient,” Musk explained. “It actually feels like it’s alive. And you can actually, as we improve the software, you can feel the sentience growing in the car.”

Looking further down the road, Musk predicted that driving yourself will become a rare hobby. He estimated that within five to ten years, roughly 90% of all distance driven will be handled by artificial intelligence.

The conversation also touched on broader robotics and the economic shift Musk foresees. He reiterated that Tesla vehicles are essentially “four-wheeled robots” that pave the way for humanoid robots like Optimus. Instead of a future defined by Universal Basic Income, Musk believes the sheer productivity of intelligent robots will trigger an era of “universal high income” and expand the global economy by 10 to 100 times its current size.

Before wrapping up the late-night broadcast, Musk praised Israel for its technological contributions, noting that it stands at the top of global innovation.

“Honestly, I’m a huge admirer of the innovation coming out of Israel,” Musk said. “I think it is objectively true that Israel punches far above its weight for population. I think, probably number one My hat is off to Israel for how much incredible innovation per capita. Israel must be number one by far in the world!”