Cathie Wood Talks Elon Musk at Milken

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Radio.

**Joe Mathieu** (0:14)
We welcome everybody on Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg TV, across Bloomberg platforms. Yes, indeed, Carol Massar, Joe Mathieu here at the Milken Institute Global Conference. We have a special guest, and I feel like reading in this morning, the headlines were made, it's like they knew Cathie was gonna join us. Cathie Wood, CEO, CIO, and of course, the founder of Ark Invest.
It's so nice to talk with you again. Thanks a lot.

**Cathie Wood** (0:33)
Delighted to be here. You gave me my big break in 2015

**Joe Mathieu** (0:37)
I'll never forget that. Well, it's so funny because I want to talk Elon, because you put him for me on the radar, and I just feel like it was a time when so many people questioned what he was up to. Now, everybody is so excited about the SpaceX IPO.
We see increasingly how he's melding his universe together. Tell us about that bet, and even today we have that he's building a chip factory, at least 55 billion in investment, maybe as much as almost 120, and he's doing this chip factory SpaceX with Tesla. How are you looking at Elon right now and what his next era is?

**Cathie Wood** (1:14)
This is why I founded Ark Invest. We knew that the seeds that were planted in the 20 years that ended in the bubble, they've been germinating for 20, 25 years, and now they're flourishing.
What we're seeing is 15 different technologies evolving, and they're all converging. Elon, about six months ago, and we've been using the word convergence for a long time, he said, you know what? I think my companies are converging more than even I understood. So we're seeing, of course, SpaceX, XAI, rumors about Tesla, and really, he believes that in the new world, or to create the new world, a company has to be vertically integrated, and so that's what's happening here. He is moving into incredible vertical integration as he moves data centers into space.

**Joe Mathieu** (2:13)
Is it all about our Bloomberg intelligence, George Ferguson, covers space, covers defense, he said, it's all about Elon controlling the supply chain. Cathie, but I do feel like globally, we're seeing countries, companies really thinking about their supply chain. Is that part of his strategy?

**Cathie Wood** (2:28)
Absolutely, absolutely. And also when a company is breaking new ground, literally in this case, and really inventing something, the supply chain doesn't exist very often, or not all parts of it exist.
And I think also, as he's discussing where he's going and how he's going to do it, he is getting the supply chain ready. He always sets the time frame much sooner than most people expect. But it's to get his employees and the supply chain focused, because when he moves, he moves fast.

**Carol Massar** (3:08)
You've really helped to define people's perception of Elon Musk and the company Tesla, largely as one that is not about making cars, but one that's about autonomy and robotics. When you walk out the Hilton here, different than where I live in Washington, DC, driverless Waymos are picking people up and driving away with them all day long. The mainstreaming of autonomous vehicles is just about here. I'd like to know if you see that actually fulfilling itself in the next year, and if this is a zero-sum game, or you're going to have Uber, Waymo, Tesla, all involved.

**Cathie Wood** (3:44)
Okay. This is where vertical integration comes back into the conversation.
In the RoboTaxi world, Tesla's vertically integrated and has created the platform upon which others will build their companies. So I credit our team, so Tasha, Daniel, Brett Winton.
We have been focused on this from day one, 2014 when I founded ARK. And yes, slowly, slowly, then all at once. So vertical integration for Tesla means it will have the lowest cost structure by far. Now it's going to use Uber's umbrella here, $3 plus per mile. But if our analysis is correct, those costs as RoboTaxi scale, are going to drop to $0.25 per mile. Think about it. The cost of transportation is going to collapse here. And no one, Waymo's cost structure, according to our estimates in 2030, will be 50% higher than Tesla's because they're dependent on other auto manufacturers and others in the supply chain that Tesla is not.

**Joe Mathieu** (5:00)
How are you thinking about the SpaceX IPO, Cathie? Do you anticipate, there's so much enthusiasm going into it, massive size, massive interest. But do you think there'll be a drop off initially after, you know, once it makes its public debut and then ultimately kind of play out like Tesla did that eventually it goes up again? Like how do you see the trajectory?