Fresh off the birth of his and Grimes' new baby boy, tentatively named X Æ A-12, Elon Musk has made his return to Joe Rogan's podcast for a two-hour interview that notably arrives a little less than two years after his previous weed-assisted appearance.
From the jump, Rogan and Musk traded anecdotes about bringing new life into the world, particularly during what is an inarguably bizarre time in modern history.
"First of all, my partner is the one that actually mostly came up with the name," Musk said. "She's great at names." Asked about the pronunciation, Musk broke it down as follows: "It's just X, the letter X, and then the Æ is pronounced 'Ash' and then A-12 is my contribution. Archangel 12, the precursor to the SR-71. Coolest plane ever. It's true."
Asked about how it feels to have a baby during this current era, Musk expressed positivity from the perspective of having a kid at his age.
"Actually, I think it's better being older and having a kid," he said. "I appreciate it more. Babies are awesome."
About six minutes into the discussion, Musk elaborated on his recent claims of detaching himself from material possessions, telling Rogan he plans to rent a place once he gets rid of "almost everything" that doesn't have sentimental value of some sort.
"I think possessions kinda weigh you down," he said. "They're kind of an attack vector. People say 'Hey billionaire, you got all this stuff!' Now it's like, welp, now I don't have stuff. What are you gonna do?"
Much later on in the interview, Musk—who's been very vocal regarding his personal assessment of COVID-19 containment measures—lamented what he characterized as a possible forfeiture of civil liberties.
"We should be concerned about anything that's a massive infringement on our civil liberties," he said around an hour and fifteen minutes in. "It's like, you got to put a lot of weight on that. A lot of people died to win independence with the country and fight for the democracy that we have. We should treasure that and not give up our liberties too easily. And I think we probably did that, actually."
Arrests and other enforcement measures related to social distancing and stay-at-home orders, in Musk's opinion, is "fundamentally a violation of the constitution."
If you must, feel free to peep the full two-hour Musk x Rogan reunion up top.
