All language subtitles for Eclipsing_Power_Musk_Bezos_and_the_New_Space_Race_2026[_34861]

[theme music]

Greetings, Bill Nye here.

Like everyone you've ever
met, I am native to the Earth.

We'll represent the Earth
with this blue circle.

Another object you're
familiar with, the Sun.

Closer to us than the
Sun is the Earth's Moon.

The Moon right here, Moon.

Rays of sunlight, they're
streaming through the blackness

of space.

And once in a while, the
Moon casts a dark shadow

on the Earth.

So if you're in the path of
this shadow, you see an eclipse.

An eclipse is something that
has engendered curiosity

in personkind
throughout history.

Seeing the sky go dark, the
crickets chirping in the middle

of the day.

It creates a spectacular
phenomenon here on the Earth.

The solar eclipse
happening in August 2026,

is going to have
a path of totality

that people will travel across
the world to be able to catch

a glimpse of.

The fact is that the Moon has
a very romantic and seductive

quality when it
comes to our lore.

And that's the moon that
we get to now go to.

We're going back to
the freaking Moon!

The space race,
heating up once again.

China launching its latest
mission to the Moon.

[rocket roaring]

The Chinese will land their
Taikonauts on the Moon.

The question is,
do we return first?

It's the US and its
billionaires against China.

For better or for worse, the
American chance at getting back

to the Moon depends
on Elon Musk.

He's an immensely
complicated, immensely

accomplished, immensely
problematic figure.

And Jeff Bezos is trying to
muscle in on that territory.

With Blue Origin or SpaceX,
you've placed the entire lunar

return effort on two people.

That's a huge risk.

And it's troubling
to a lot of people

that they might increase their
power by leveraging space to get

more of what they want on Earth.

My first rocket launch was
watching the Curiosity Rover

launch to Mars.

And I was sitting with the
entire scientific team who had

worked, in some cases,
for decades, planning,

designing, building.

And so you had the collective
dreams and efforts and blood

and sweat and tears of
hundreds of people, all

depending on that one
rocket not blowing up.

Main engine start, 0 and liftoff
of the Atlas V with Curiosity.

[cheering on radio]

And then when you
see it take off,

it is brighter than
you can imagine.

It is louder than
you can imagine.

And then the crowd itself
reacts, screaming, watching it

going up into space,
never to return.

The vision of all of NASA is
that rocket launches become

routine, right?

[rocket roaring]

SpaceX has revolutionized
the launch industry.

And liftoff of the
Falcon 9 rocket.

Go SpaceX.

Go NASA crew 10.

These days, SpaceX launches at
least a couple of times a week.

About 90% of the
US space program

is being carried by SpaceX.

They really have far exceeded
anyone's expectations.

Holy [bleep] You did it.

[cheers, applause]

Oh, my god.

Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002
and it was very much a

passion project.

He'd been a young kid
reading Hitchhiker's Guide

to the Galaxy, and he just
dreamed of getting our country

back into space
and going to Mars.

I've always been
interested in space,

but I didn't think that there
was anything that I could do

as a single individual.

I thought space was really
the arena of government.

He's driving back from Long
Island with some friends,

and they were trying to figure
out how is NASA going to get us

to Mars.

Sort of started looking into it.

And I went to NASA website
to find out when we're going

to Mars, because it seems
like, obviously, that is

the next thing after the Moon.

And I couldn't find anything.

So I was like, wow,
this seems very strange.

And so he says, I'm
going to start a company.

All of his friends
think he's nuts.

And so they made a highlights
reel of rockets blowing up--

[explosion]

--hoping that would
talk him out of it.

And he said, no, man, that
just strengthened my resolve.

Elon Musk very much saw himself
as someone that could invest

his own money into
reinvigorating these very bold,

outlandish ambitions.

He's very entrepreneurial.

He did a Yellow Pages company,
putting the Yellow Pages online.

And then he moved into a
payments company called x.com.

Big X.

Exactly, x.com.

I think x.com could absolutely
be a multibillion

dollar bonanza.

It had a big rival and they end
up merging, calling it PayPal.

When I met Elon Musk years ago,
he was introduced as Elon Musk,

founder of PayPal.

And as I like to joke, it was as
though it was all one word, Elon

Musk, founder of PayPal,
I'd like you to meet Bill.

Hi, Elon Musk,
founder of PayPal.

Now, he gets eased out because
he's a difficult person to work

with, but he takes the
buyout from PayPal.

So he does SpaceX
and then Tesla,

and then he keeps
inventing new things.

It wasn't as though I thought
of what are all the businesses

that one could do, and then
which is going to be the easiest

one to make the most
amount of money?

It wasn't anything like that.

It was really from the
standpoint of, what are the most

important problems in the
world that need to get solved?

And let me try to
help solve those.

I remember him talking
about rockets early

and he was compelling.

His vision was compelling.

The goal of SpaceX is
to revolutionize space

transportation by dramatically
improving the cost

and the reliability, and by
building rockets that are

large enough and capable
enough to go to other planets,

really, Mars in particular.

So basically, the rockets we use
to send astronauts to the Moon,

that was a disposable rocket.

The entire concept of SpaceX was
develop a rocket that doesn't

just fly once, it can
fly multiple times.

[tools whirring]

[upbeat rock music]

They start building hardware
right away, making mistakes,

blowing things up.

[explosion]

It's this interesting
transference of Silicon

Valley, right?

It's called you fail fast.

And in a way, that could
only happen because it wasn't

a government agency.

NASA blows up one rocket,
it's in the news for a month.

Look at the failure of NASA.

Elon blows up a rocket and
people are like, look at him,

he's really pushing the
discovery of space exploration.

You'd watch Musk walk around and
he'd get really angry, even late

at night, if there weren't
enough people building something

or getting the launch pad ready.

And you'd say, why
are you doing this?

The real motivation, my real
motivation, the motivation

people at SpaceX and the
reason they work so, so hard

is because we want to see
an exciting future in

space exploration.

If we're not on a path to get
there, we'll never get there.

Musk was forthright back
in the early days of SpaceX

about how uncertain he
was that SpaceX would ever

be a profitable or
sustainable business at all.

But after some trial and
error, they did figure it out.

SpaceX in 2015 caught a
booster for the first time,

refurbished it, flew it again.

[cheers, applause]

And this marked the time at
which SpaceX really morphed

from this underdog into
a dominant space power.

[upbeat rock music]

Elon pretty much self-funded
SpaceX in the beginning,

but along the way, he found
things that would be very

commercially successful, most
notably putting satellites

into low Earth orbit.

When he started talking
about that at the time,

I thought it was brilliant.

I continue to think
it's brilliant.

[rocket roaring]

A giant leap for SpaceX, the
company launching a rocket

full of 60 satellites overnight.

Starlink is SpaceX's
biggest moneymaker.

It's a large constellation
of satellites that basically

reflect and provide internet
access across the world

to anybody, anywhere.

They've launched over
10,000 satellites.

It's more than any other
company in the world.

It's more than any other
country in the world.

Musk controls a great
deal of access to space.

And so the more reliant we get
on SpaceX, one future could be,

the more reliant we are on Musk.

NASA has chosen SpaceX
to return us to the Moon.

We are in a great competition
with a rival that has the will

and the means to challenge
American exceptionalism

across multiple domains,
including in the high ground

of space.

The Trump administration
has made it absolutely clear

that its top priority in space
now is to beat China back

to the Moon.

China is saying it wants
to get to the Moon by 2030.

So every step has to fall
exactly right into place

if the United States is
going to get there before.

SpaceX is using its massive,
gargantuan Starship rocket

for this purpose.

I mean, Starship is just big.

It's really, really big.

It's almost like going back
to Bugs Bunny cartoons from

the 1940s and how they
represent spaceships--

[whooshing, dramatic music]

--is kind of what
Starship is like.

[intriguing music]

SpaceX wants this rocket to
work not just to get astronauts

to the Moon, but
also to get to Mars.

And so far, they've done test
flights with varying degrees

of success.

[rocket roaring]

It is hard to describe
how much of a step

Starship would be
if it succeeds.

And that's the
operative word is "if."

Late 2025, there started
to be rumblings in NASA

that, oh, my god, if we
continue to depend on Musk,

we're going to lose
the space race.

And it was the ex-acting
NASA administrator Sean Duffy

last year, who said that if
SpaceX doesn't have Starship,

its lunar lander, ready for our
use, then we'll use Blue Origin.

And it was a very overt way of
saying, if SpaceX doesn't focus,

we'll go with the competitor,
and really teeing up

this billionaire space race.

[rocket rumbling]

[intriguing music]

It's kind of underappreciated
that Blue Origin was founded

a couple of years before SpaceX.

Bezos started the company
in 2000 when he became

a billionaire with Amazon.

He had the funds to pour money
into starting to make space

exploration technology that was
cheaper than we had seen it.

And the company really operated
in stealth mode for a long time,

and that was by design.

They famously have a tortoise as
a mascot, and they have a Latin

motto, "Gradatim Ferociter,"
which means "Step by

Step, Ferociously."

SpaceX has always
been, you fail fast.

Blue Origin, which is infinitely
well capitalized by Jeff Bezos'

Amazon money, has only launched
two of its larger rockets

into space.

[triumphant music]

Bezos has said for a long time
that the tortoise beats the hare

and that he's going to go
slow and steady and careful,

but in the end, he's going to
win this kind of like battle

of the billionaires.

Welcome back to
Earth, First Step.

Congratulations to all of you.

Their first major project was
building the new Shepard rocket,

which is very different
than the Falcon rockets

that SpaceX flies
because it's suborbital.

Suborbital rockets
require far less power,

and they just go up and down.

You might remember that he
sent up a rocket that brought

his then girlfriend, Lauren
Sanchez and Katy Perry

up in the near orbit.

[laughs]

I think a lot of people thought
it was kind of a cheap

publicity stunt.

Is it a PR stunt?

Who cares?

It brings attention
to space travel.

At the end of the day, I think
their ambitions are much bigger

than tourism.

If we move out into
the solar system,

for all practical purposes,
we have unlimited resources.

One of the things that Musk and
Bezos have in common is as kids,

they loved science fiction.

Some town resident had donated
his entire science fiction

collection to the
Cotulla Public Library.

Just teensy, probably half
the library was these science

fiction books.

And I read, over
several Summers,

I read through that
collection of science fiction,

and that added to my interest
in space travel and science

and the future.

Jeff Bezos loves to talk about
how when he was at Princeton,

he met Gerard O'Neill, who is a
very famous astrophysicist who

conceptualized this idea of
O'Neill Colonies, which are

these giant orbiting
laboratories that spin to

create gravity.

These are very large
structures, miles on end,

and they hold a million
people or more each.

We get to preserve this
unique gem of a planet which

is completely irreplaceable.

There is no plan B. We
have to save this planet.

He said explicitly his goal is
to save planet Earth by moving

industry off the
planet into space.

We were given a gift, this
nearby body called the Moon.

[cheers, applause]

This is Blue Moon.

We've been working on this
lander for three years.

Jeff Bezos has definitely
talked about becoming the Amazon

of space.

How he is building
the transportation

services so that hundreds
of other space companies

can start doing economic
activity in space.

In 1994, I started Amazon.

All of the heavy-lifting
infrastructure needed for Amazon

to exist was already in place.

We did not have to build a
transportation system to

deliver packages.

It was there.

Infrastructure lets
entrepreneurs do amazing things.

So the kids here
and your children

and their grandchildren, they're
going to build those

O'Neill colonies.

This generation's job,
my generation's job,

is to build the infrastructure
so that you'll be able to.

Jeff Bezos is a really
great entrepreneur,

there's no question.

What he did at Amazon was
astonishing, and a lot of people

didn't think he
could pull it off.

He would not allow the
company to make money.

He was like, no, we're not done.

Scale is what it's about now.

So we're actually going to
own the pipes of the internet

and be the arbiter of who
can sell on the internet.

I mean, it's evil,
but it's genius.

[chuckles]

[soft dramatic music]

I'm taking my Amazon
lottery winnings,

and I'm converting them into
reusable rocket vehicles

so that we can lower the
cost of access to space.

There's an enthusiasm to him,
an enthusiasm that pushes things

like crazy.

He's a visionary.

This vision sounds
very big, and it is.

None of this is easy.

All of it is hard.

We choose to go to the Moon.

[applause]

We choose to go to the
Moon in this decade

and do the other things,
not because they are easy,

but because they are hard.

[rocket roaring]

The space race with US and
the Soviet Union in the past

was really all about proving
that our system of government

and our system of economics
could beat the Soviet model.

If we could beat
them to the Moon,

then it was a demonstration that
our entire system was better

than the Soviet system.

[rocket rumbling]

On October 4, 1957, a
world-stirring event took place.

Sputnik was the first spacecraft
that orbited the Earth.

It was launched by
the Soviet Union.

Now, imagine if we were
living back at a time

where nothing had ever orbited
the Earth before, and suddenly

those Communists over there
in Russia with nuclear bombs

that they want to
rain down on us,

they are flying over
our country in space.

The ultimate high ground.

If you could have
weapons in space,

man, you'd really be in charge.

With two Sputniks orbiting
the Earth simultaneously,

the whole world began to
speak about the triumph

of Soviet science.

The Soviet Union also launched
the first human in space,

Yuri Gagarin.

The space pilot whom the
Russians have deified as the man

of the century, arrives at
the airport outside of Moscow

for his first public appearance.

And so that created
this crash program

to catch up to the Soviet
Union and to beat them.

[dramatic music]

I certainly remember
watching Apollo 11.

So I was on my knees,
black and white television.

OK, Neil, we can see you
coming down the ladder now.

One in every five people
was watching this thing.

That's one small step for man--

And we see that humans have
finally escaped this gravity.

--one giant leap for mankind.

And it changed my life.

I became a mechanical engineer.

I became an aerospace
engineer because of Apollo.

Come on, man.

Hugely affected by it, hugely.

I think it sent a message to the
world what the United States was

capable of doing.

If you can set out and
achieve the near-impossible,

send astronauts to the Moon and
bring them back home safely,

I wonder what else the
nation is capable of doing?

And maybe I'll think
twice as an adversary

before I encroach
or do something that

could be perceived as hostile.

In a sense, that was the
pinnacle of American power.

[soft dramatic music]

Every mission
subsequently from that

started to gain
confidence and ambition.

But by the time that
Apollo 15 launched,

the program had
functionally ended.

It became clear the Soviet
Union was kind of going out

of business.

There was this feeling
that, OK, we've had our fun

and we don't have the
wherewithal, resources, or money

to do this anymore.

That was a correct
read of public opinion.

It no longer seemed that urgent
to keep going back to the Moon.

[tense music]

[the prisoners, "going back"]

During the 1970s, during the
Apollo program, Richard Nixon

made the decision to cancel
the rest of the program

because there was
political backlash.

People didn't see
the value of it.

You also have to look at the
cultural background of what was

happening in America
at this time.

The Vietnam War was becoming
an increasingly big part

of the American psyche.

Free our brothers!

And there were more
protests and demonstrations

that made space
exploration, by comparison,

seem sort of frivolous.

Your marginal cost of an
Apollo mission was not cheap.

And so people wondered why
were we spending so much money

on this when we've got poverty,
we've got riots in the US,

we've got energy problems
with the Middle East.

In that environment, they made
the political decision to

cancel it.

After retiring the
Apollo program,

NASA understood
the cost problem.

Every Apollo rocket
had to be thrown away.

That's why it went into
developing a different type

of vehicle.

[upbeat rock music]

If you can reuse it, we'll
start bringing down the cost,

and then NASA can go achieve all
those exploration and science

dreams without needing to pull
too much out of public coffers.

NASA has been extra cautious in
making sure the first launch is

textbook perfect.

So we moved on into
the space shuttle era.

There's a lot on the line.

Nixon himself decided to go
with the Space Shuttle Program

in order to win votes
in Southern California.

Unfortunately, the space shuttle
never really became exactly what

NASA envisioned.

The goal was to launch the space
shuttle dozens of times a year,

but the most NASA ever
achieved was roughly, I think,

eight or nine launches
in a single year.

And then Challenger happened.

Major catastrophe in
America's space program.

Challenger, only seconds
after leaving the launch pad,

according to NASA, has
exploded in mid-air.

We do not have any
more information

than is being provided to
the public at this time.

And then the Columbia
disaster in 2003.

You are looking at what is
the final moments of the Space

Shuttle Columbia.

The two shuttle
disasters in total

killed 14 different astronauts.

The tragedies were becoming
so politically unpopular.

So the Shuttle Program
was starting to wind down.

But this was a problem because
the shuttle was the only vehicle

that the United States had that
was capable of taking astronauts

to and from the
International Space Station.

When the space
shuttle was ending,

the Obama White House proposed a
dramatic reconfiguration of NASA

to rely on commercial providers
to send individuals to the

Space Station.

In order to reach
the Space Station,

we will work with a growing
array of private companies

competing to make getting
to space easier and

more affordable.

[applause]

This goes back to the
original conceptions of space.

You think about 2001--

A Space Odyssey, it's Pan
Am as running the flights up

to their space
station in that movie,

like a commercial aviation
company at the time.

[JOHANN STRAUSS II, "THE BLUE
DANUBE WALTZ"]

So the Obama administration
put a lot of political capital

to championing this commercial
capability, which primarily was

a SpaceX capability at the time.

[upbeat funk music]

What I think we're
beginning to see

is the dawn of a new era
of space exploration,

but one that is driven by
commercial companies as much,

if not more, than by government.

NASA awarded SpaceX a contract
for, I think it was about

$1.6 billion.

NASA has awarded us the
contract to provide the majority

of the cargo to
the Space Station,

and to return cargo to Earth.

The thing we're really hoping
will occur this year is

that NASA will ask us to do
astronaut transport as well.

Back in 2010, Elon Musk was
giving President Obama a tour

of his facilities and
showing him the progress

that SpaceX was
making at the time.

This is the most advanced
rocket in the world.

And this was a demonstration
that the Obama administration

was putting a lot
of political effort

to supporting a
commercial approach.

NASA has always relied on
commercial companies, always.

But what is different
is civil servants

used to design the rocket.

Now that's being
designed by civilians

working for corporations, not
working for the government.

The way that NASA works
with SpaceX and Blue Origin

is that NASA relies on them
to basically do most of it.

And then if it doesn't
happen, NASA is not

on the hook to pay extra.

But at the same time, they don't
have the ability to really get

down into the weeds and
understand what's going on.

There is definitely going
to be a new industry.

It's going to be stronger.

It's going to be more
powerful, more capable,

and it's going to ensure that we
take things to a whole new level

in terms of spaceflight.

[tense music]

Then in 2017, Trump signed
the Space Policy Directive 1.

[applause]

The directive I'm signing today
will refocus America's space

program on human
exploration and discovery.

[dramatic music]

President Trump created
the Artemis Program.

He made it clear that we
are returning to the Moon

to stay, to build a base.

And you want to be able
to keep astronauts alive,

potentially six
months at a time.

So as a result, we
need affordability.

And liftoff.

Right now, you have two
companies, SpaceX and Blue

Origin, that are
working on vehicles that

will be able to bring our
astronauts to the surface

of the Moon.

And thus begins a very long
battle between Elon Musk's

SpaceX and Jeff
Bezos's Blue Origin,

to be the first company to
produce that lunar lander

that NASA is asking for.

And liftoff of Artemis I.

The Artemis program right now
kind of envisions a series

of test flights.

Artemis I was a test flight
with no astronauts on it.

Artemis II was four crew
going around the Moon.

Artemis III will be a
demonstration mission in Earth

orbit to show that their crew
capsule can dock with one

of these commercially
provided lunar landers.

Artemis IV is scheduled to
be the first lunar landing,

sometime before 2030.

Artemis V starts to frankly,
get a little hazy after that.

The goal now is to build
out a permanent lunar base.

Why do you want to have
people on the Moon?

The Moon is a great
place for resources,

and so if you want to build
big structures in space,

you want to go get
materials from the Moon.

What resources would
be on the Moon?

There's a couple of things
that are fascinating.

We know with absolute certainty
that there's water on the Moon.

Water on the Moon is
fuel, like oil on Earth.

So now China, private
corporations, the US, all trying

to get to the Moon
to get to that water.

Because if you separate the
H2O, now you have hydrogen

and oxygen. You can
bring them back together.

It creates [puffs air]
boom, out into space.

You do that from the Moon,
you save a lot of money.

Another one that's talked
about is going to be AI.

Within a few years, data centers
are going to start appearing

in space.

The value of having a
data center in space

as opposed to the Earth, is that
you have ready access to energy

through the Sun.

People don't like living
next to data centers

and so well, if you
put them in the space,

all that stuff goes away.

This is about establishing
an outpost on the Moon

for scientific operations.

And then obviously there is
just a lot of inspiration that's

going to come out of having
humankind's first outpost

on another world.

I have no doubt we're going
to launch Artemis III in 2027.

So SpaceX and Blue Origin are
both racing to bring their lunar

landers to fruition, and both
are in very different stages.

Blue Origin had this
spectacular failure recently.

The moment a Blue Origin
rocket exploded overnight.

And SpaceX, which has
had a couple issues.

What in the heck?

And of course, the head of
SpaceX is a controversial guy.

Now we see space moving
from a collective effort

into an individualized
capability that is represented

by a person.

NASA is running a risk of not
owning the hardware that's

required for it to succeed,
but also the reputation itself,

to a large part, is defined
by Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

NASA is saving some money,
but it's introducing a host

of other risks that they've
never had to deal with before.

[dramatic music]

[rocket roars]

Right now, most space activity
is being conducted by a few very

wealthy companies and
wealthy individuals.

Elon!

Elon, right here!

Jeff!

Jeff!

On the left!

Jeff!

And I think that space industry
is going to create more

concentration of wealth than
anything the world has

seen before.

One of the most highly
anticipated IPOs in years, Elon

Musk, rang the opening bell
in celebration of its IPO

on NASDAQ.

We've got these billionaires
playing larger and larger roles

in our lives.

We have never seen a company
firing on all 12,000 cylinders

like we're seeing Amazon.

They control what we
see, what we read.

Jeff Bezos, the founder
and CEO of amazon.com,

is buying The Washington Post.

They have ownership over
seemingly everything.

And it can make us numb.

But this is next Level, like
literally in orbit and in space.

Today, Elon Musk broke
history, becoming the world's

first trillionaire.

He's not motivated
by money, but I

think he's motivated by becoming
the world's first trillionaire.

He almost feels like he's an
avatar in his own video game,

and he's racking up the points.

And let me tell you,
if people had told me

this was going to
happen, I was like,

man, you must be smoking
some really good crack.

[laughter]

Because I think this
company's going to fail.

He's powerful in a
negative way, I would say.

He's imperious.

I don't know if Elon Musk
has become what he's become

or if he was always what he is

[tense electronic music]

I think we all have drives.

For Elon, his drives are
partly shaped by his demons,

those dark fears he
had as a lonely child.

When he was a kid, Elon was
incredibly socially awkward.

He had no friends.

And he got beaten up, bullied.

He's been able to harness that.

And that leads to these drives
where he has to prove himself.

Elon changed over time, but
he is a variable person.

Sometimes he's in
engineering mode.

Other times he's dark, in
what one of his girlfriends

calls demon mode.

And it meant his face
would take on a blank stare

and he would just get angry
and start telling people

that they were
messing things up.

I think Elon Musk's
perception of the world

has been drastically
morphed over the years.

Well, the debate over
when business can reopen

is heating up between
California and Tesla.

The COVID regulations
shut down his plants,

and he felt that politicians
didn't understand the nature

of risk-taking and
building things.

And so he goes further
and further down what

I call a rabbit hole.

The expansion of the
shelter-in-place or, frankly, I

would call it forcibly
imprisoning people

in their homes against all
their constitutional rights,

in my opinion, and breaking
people's freedoms in ways

that are horrible and wrong and
not why people came to America

or built this country.

What the [bleep].

Excuse me.

He has a deep paranoia
about politics

and worried that the woke
mind virus was destroying

civilization, and he felt only
by doing things like buying

Twitter and blowing up the
polite political correctness,

could he be successful.

Elon Musk now owns one of
the world's most influential

social media platforms.

The world's richest man is
going to effectively control one

of the most
influential platforms.

He said all kinds
of crazy things.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has
apologized to a Thai cave

rescuer for calling
him a pedo or pedophile

in an unfounded claim.

He's made all kinds
of crazy accusations

that he's later
had to walk back.

Now he's this awful creature
who espouses white supremacist

feelings or at
least promotes them.

People say that you're a racist.

There's all kinds of
things said about you,

which I'm sure you
would disagree with.

But I just don't understand,
what is the motivation for

doing that?

Are you fomenting this?

My partner, she's
half Indian, my wife,

and I have four
children with her.

One of them was named after
a famous Indian physicist.

So I would say I'm not racist.

And also, if you look at
the people that are employed

at my companies, we have
senior executives of all races.

Whether he's doing
it to stir the pot

or because he actually
believes it, who knows?

It doesn't even matter.

I'm not just MAGA,
I'm dark, gothic MAGA.

Elon Musk made a late-life
conversion to a MAGA version

of republicanism, became a key
Trump ally, donated hundreds

of millions of dollars
to his campaign.

And then Trump installed Musk
as the head of this Department

of Governmental Efficiency.

I have created the brand
new Department of

Government Efficiency.

[cheers, applause]

Does anybody remember DOGE?

Did DOGE ever save us a dime?

The chainsaw for bureaucracy.

Did he have to run
around with a chainsaw?

Did he have to stand in the
Oval office with his kid?

No.

To be as effective?

No, but he desperately
needs attention, so.

Yes!

It's been unfair because
DOGE became the whipping boy

for everything.

So if there was some
cut, real or imagined,

everyone would blame DOGE.

[cannon fires]

When the war in Ukraine began,
Elon Musk's superhero instincts

kicked in.

He wanted to put on the
cape, and he did help

Ukraine enormously.

At a certain point, as the
war's been going on for a while,

Ukraine wanted to do a
sneak attack on Crimea.

And they wanted to use
Starlink to guide that.

Now, Musk became rightly worried
that, OK, this now could lead

to a nuclear war.

And the question
was, was he going

to allow it to work in Crimea?

And he decided no,
which ends up thwarting

this secret sneak attack.

He says he received an emergency
request from Ukraine's leaders

to activate Starlink all
the way to Sevastopol.

If I had agreed
to their request,

then SpaceX would be explicitly
complicit in a major act of war

and conflict escalation.

One of the dangers of
someone grabbing a kind

of pseudo-monopoly over
satellite internet communication

is it gives that person a
lot of geopolitical power.

We forget that by
handing over that control

to a single individual and
granting them, in a sense, kind

of godlike powers, you
are giving away a lot.

I'm not sure that it's a
great idea for a Mercurial man

with very particular
interests to have that power.

[soft dramatic music]

SpaceX has done amazing things
that further enable

NASA's mission.

Elon is one person within that,
but there is no doubt he has

the vision, and he
has the engineering

and entrepreneurial
chops to take the vision

and bring it to reality.

[upbeat dance music]

But I think it's interesting
that we try to understand

these people, for good and
for bad, who are moving us

into a new era of technology.

We no longer
worship, I would say,

at the altar of
kindness and character,

but of billionaire innovators.

They're the new protected class.

I think Musk and Bezos
are similar in that they

both disrupted big,
important industries

and done it through
force of will

and through thinking
out of the box.

But they've also done it
sometimes by running roughshod.

Amazon firing back against a
damning account of what it's

like to work for the
world's largest retailer.

Our CNN Money Team sums up
Amazon's corporate culture

as "five big no's."

There was a lot of very
good reporting on the way

workers were treated.

Jeff Bezos responded to his more
than 100,000 employees, writing,

"I don't recognize this Amazon,"
adding "Amazon would not

tolerate callous
workplace behavior."

It's striking how much politics
can play a part in this.

Jeff Bezos coming under harsh
criticism for his management,

or you might say, mismanagement
of The Washington Post.

When he's trying to compete for
these big new rocket contracts,

he's really taken The
Post in another direction.

Journalists at The Post are
questioning his motives,

wondering if he's trying to
curry favor with

President Trump.

These days, there's two groups
of people that get to access

space, right?

There's the billionaire class.

In fact, the current
administrator of NASA,

Jared Isaacman, is somebody
who paid hundreds of millions

of dollars to do a
private space mission.

And then there are the
astronauts, the people that are

supposed to be representative
of a country or of all people.

And the dichotomy
between these people

that have worked their ass off
for decades to get to this point

and then these folks
who can buy their way,

I think it's really striking.

I know people can be dismissive
of people like Bezos and Musk

making space into a
billionaire boy's hobby.

But we have to remember that
if you didn't have SpaceX

and you didn't have the
other private companies,

we'd still be grounded.

We live in divided times.

And if it's convenient to
beat up the billionaires,

then so be it.

I would just say the reason
why NASA's budget is 1/4%

of the discretionary budget
is because you have some

of the wealthiest individuals in
the world that are not choosing

to put their resources
into sports teams,

but instead putting it into
the capabilities that not only

benefit your nation, but
honestly, all of humankind.

So the question is, would you
feel better if you paid a lot

more out of your paycheck every
week for NASA's capabilities?

Or are you happy that
somebody else is chipping in?

OK, I'm ready.

OK, go ahead.

[dramatic music]

It's been more than 50 years
since anyone walked on the Moon.

Whenever there's an
actual return to the Moon

and it's in 4K, not in
grainy black and white,

I think it's going to be a huge
moment for the planet, huge.

From my perspective,
we return to the Moon

first and foremost, because
we have been gifted a proving

ground four days away for
eventually going to Mars, which

is the next step on
the grand journey.

It is our destiny
in the long term

to venture out among
the stars, I think,

for the good of humankind.

[dramatic music]

Houston, you're looking good.

Musk always talks about
needing to make humans

an interplanetary species
because if something happens

to Earth, it'll guarantee
the survival of humans.

And Bezos has also talked
about taking that next step

into people living
in the cosmos.

So for them, really, the
expenditure on spaceflight

is very much tied into their
vision of what philanthropy is.

There may have been
two different visions,

but in some ways,
Musk and Bezos are

doing a lot of the same things,
creating a new space economy.

Billionaires are motivated
by nothing but money.

Listen, I don't
like billionaires.

I think it's a
terrible, awful concept.

But I think the byproduct
of the exploration

that these billionaires
are conducting

will be we all benefit.

Someday we'll all
be going to space.

We'll all take rides up there.

There's going to be a
lot of space tourism.

I think there will
be hotels in orbit.

There will be people
playing golf on the Moon.

There's going to be
a lot of adventure

and a lot of spectacular
vacations in space.

I believe we're going to have
large space colonies, colonies

on Mars.

All of these things
are going to take

tremendous industrial
development in space,

but we're expecting
that to happen

over the next several decades.

What do you think
of this right here?

It's kind of translucent.

Yeah, it's translucent.

The original space program
brought all kinds of really

cool developments.

Your cell phone, this stupid
device that we're all stuck to,

the camera inside your cell
phone, the cameras that are

filming me right now.

What's up?

I mean, navigation around
the world, from your cars

to your airplanes.

We all rely on space assets.

But the really astonishing
discoveries are yet to be made

on planets beyond the Moon.

We know so little about our
solar system, let alone the two

trillion other galaxies.

We have to keep going.

We can't slow down.

We as a species, as far
as space is concerned,

we're just still warming up.

We have not even begun.

We're going to be out there
among the stars, making science

fiction no longer fiction.

[applause]

You got to get up close to
the eyepiece of the telescope.

Space is inspiring.

[indistinct chatter]

And I think that the
reason it's so inspiring,

it gets back to humans
looking up at the sky

and seeing the eclipses.

It's the wonder of
that open-ended cosmos.

I do think everyone should go to
space, because I think everyone

needs a cosmic perspective, and
that's the easiest way to get

one without any explanation.

You see it and
you're like, [gasps]

damn, look how small
and fragile it is.

And that's where we all live.

And all the borders and
everything disappears.

And there is no race
and there is no nothing.

It's just one little spaceship
hurtling through space

at an incredible speed.

4, 3, 2, 1!

Seeing my first
rocket launch, that

wasn't a rational experience.

That was an experience almost
akin to a religious experience.

The confrontation with the
infinite, to your own ego,

and watching yourself
disappear against that.

It's a rare thing that something
so exciting and scientifically

relevant and
geopolitically relevant

also gets to provide us a
neutral way to access something

very profound.

We humble ourselves
before the cosmos.

We are lucky to be
able to witness it.