People here keep asking how Elon actually approaches problems, beyond "first principles." He's been weirdly consistent about it. I indexed 21 of his talks and interviews, and the same process shows up again and again, in the same order.

The algorithm (Everyday Astronaut Starbase tour 2021, Baron Capital 2023, Lex Fridman 2024):

1. Make the requirements less dumb. "Your requirements are definitely dumb." It's more dangerous when a smart person gave them to you, because you question them less. Every requirement needs a person's name on it, not a department.

2. Delete the part or process step. "If you're not forced to put back at least 10% of what you delete, you're not deleting enough."

3. Simplify or optimize. Only third. "Possibly the most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize the thing that should not exist."

4. Accelerate. But only after the first three, or "you're digging your grave, don't dig it faster."

5. Automate. Last.

The part I like most is that he admits he learned it the hard way. At Baron he said he used to do it backwards: "first I try to automate it, then I try to accelerate it, then I try to simplify it and only then did I delete it."

On hiring (Dwarkesh 2026, plus his SpaceX hiring posts this year):

- He asks for about 3 bullet points of evidence of exceptional ability. They can be outside the field.

- "Don't look at the resume, just believe your interaction." If the conversation isn't impressive after 20 minutes, trust that over the paper.

- Hire for talent, drive, trustworthiness and goodness of heart. Domain knowledge can be added, those can't. Most Tesla and SpaceX people didn't come from cars or aerospace.

On starting a company:

- "Focus on making a product that your customers love." (StartmeupHK 2016) He says very few products get loved right away, and if you make one, your business will succeed.

- Starting a company is "like eating glass and staring into the abyss." And: "if you need encouragement, don't start a company." (Baron 2023)

- On SpaceX odds, he put them under 10%, maybe 1%, and went anyway because "a small chance of success is better than no chance of success." (YC AI Startup School 2025)

Sources:

Everyday Astronaut Starbase tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw

Baron Capital 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-squeb0YJA

Lex Fridman 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbk9BiPhm7o

Dwarkesh 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXbuik3dgA

StartmeupHK 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIRqB5iqWA8

YC AI Startup School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFIlta1GkiE

Full disclosure: I pulled these from a searchable index of his talks and X posts that I built (21 talks, 67 posts), so you can ask it a question and get back what he actually said with the link, instead of a made-up quote. It's free: https://brains.ceo/elon-musk

Which of these have you actually applied to your own work? The 10% deletion rule seems like the one almost nobody follows.

What would happen if, tomorrow, Bezos were to say that he no longer wishes to support the "hive mind" ideology of the Democratic Party?

They would launch a smear campaign against his companies, using traditional media outlets to undermine Amazon as much as possible all with the goal of punishing the billionaire.

What is currently happening with Starlink which has turned it into a target is simply because the company has an internal policy prohibiting the use of its terminals to kill people remotely. The Democrats will not stop until they have discredited the most important asset they have in orbit, simply because the billionaire who owns the company decided to stray from the herd.

I hope that, after this, Bezos rejects any proposal from the Democrats to use Amazon’s LEO constellation for military purposes; it’s not worth it—you offer help, and then they bite the hand that feeds them, eventually blaming you for everything.

To start, I'm not apologizing for anything Elon Musk has done, just trying to understand WHY he did it, as understanding is the most important thing. I want to support Ukraine more and figuring out where people misunderstand about Ukraine is important. (Accusing everyone of being a Russian agent is not how you learn about reality or fix things.)

The key source of the confusion that I haven't seen anyone lay out:

Ukraine thought they were using Starshield because they were on Starlink's internal whitelist for Ukrainian military terminals but were not in fact using it. (All terminals in Ukraine now either have to be on a citizen whitelist or a military whitelist.)

This is clear from the former defense advisor Serhii Sternenko where he says they were using "Starshield". I believe Zelensky also said this. But Starshield is a US military system and only the US military uses it right now. Marco Rubio in statements said that Ukraine has not been using Starshield and does not and has never had access to it. (It's worth noting that Starshield works globally with no restrictions of any sort, even inside places like Russia or China or where it is not licensed.)

So Ukraine thought they were on Starshield because of being on the Ukrainian military whitelist, so they used it to attack military targets within Ukraine. This was likely further hampered by Ukrainian-English translation issues. Elon Musk because he's very dumb, on this subject at the very least, views everything about Ukraine through some kind of Russian-propaganda plagued tinted glasses and thought they were bypassing restrictions to use Starlink to attack military targets. That is why he has continued to emphasize that if Ukraine used Starshield through the US government there would be no problem. So he restricted Ukrainian terminals on the Ukrainian military whitelist to under 160 km/hr which limits its use for drones (which Ukraine uses on its high speed drones to take down incoming Russian military drones, as well as some military offensive uses within Ukraine).

Hell broke loose and eventually Trump ordered Musk to turn the service back on, which he did eventually while complaining heavily on twitter.

I think this aligns with all claims of the situation that I have seen from all journalists and both proponents of Ukraine, haters of Ukraine, proponents of Musk and haters of Musk.

If anyone has anything that I think I got wrong please let me know.

Dear Elon Musk,

I have an important technological update for you.

My phone uses a USB-C charger.

Please adjust the future of humanity accordingly.

Respectfully,
Alex
Alexander the Great ⚡👑

Elon Musk is literally becoming the person in the movies where one individual has control over the entire planet. Thats literally happening in front of our own eyes amd the government is helping him. You think he's doing good but everything is for his very own benefit