Elon Musk: Without Reform, Accumulating Laws Make Everything Illegal

Elon Musk: If you let laws and regulations accumulate, eventually everything becomes illegal.

"Laws and regulations accumulate, and if there's not some forcing function, like a war, to clean up the accumulation of laws and regulations, eventually everything becomes illegal. That's like the hardening of the arteries.

Or a way to think of it is like being tied down by a million little strings, like Gulliver, you can't move. It's not like any one of those strings is the issue. It's got a million of them.

So, there has to be a garbage collection for laws and regulations so that you don't keep accumulating laws and regulations to the point where you can't do anything.

This is why we can't build a high-speed rail in America. It's illegal. That's the issue. It's illegal six ways to Sunday to build high-speed rail in America."

Interview with Lex Fridman, August 2, 2024