On Thursday, Elon Musk appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience where the two discussed aliens, interplanetary travel, and SpaceX over an over three-hour podcast. Many consider Musk, the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, to be one of the most trustworthy voices on space travel and electric vehicles. On the podcast, Joe Rogan took the opportunity to ask Musk his true opinion on alien life, which he didn’t necessarily hold back on.
Joe Rogan starts by detailing an article from the New York Times about the search for information on aliens and asks Musk if he’s read it, to which he says he hasn’t. Musk then tells Rogan, “Honestly, I think I would know if there were aliens,” to which Rogan replies, “I would hope so.”
Rogan then asks Musk if he thinks that aliens would want us to know they were there, or if they would just be silent observers. Elon laughs, saying “they sure are subtle,” before saying that he never actually thinks about whether there are aliens among us, despite wanting to pursue interplanetary travel.
“If they show up, I’m like ‘great, okay, now this is new information,’” says Elon of his stance on alien life. He says there is currently no evidence that aliens have interacted with us on earth, essentially denying that aliens exist, due to this fact. Musk comes across as very nonchalant about the whole thing, confident that it’s a “waste of time” to pursue the search for aliens, because thus far, we haven't found anything.
Elsewhere in the podcast, Musk discussed colonizing Mars and beyond, the new Tesla Roadster-- which he says he wants to have the ability to hover --, the Cybertruck, as well as SpaceX goals-- of which he says they're about “two years away” from making regular SpaceX flights.
Listen to the full podcast below.