Elon Musk: A lot of regulations are like

Elon Musk: A lot of regulations are like invisible taxes that hinder human development in many areas. SpaceX, for example, was fined for simply releasing safe drinking water. At this rate, we won’t be able to go to Mars.

“The U.S. and many countries, especially the EU, are bound to be worse if you think they’re tied to so many small strings like Gulliver.

One regulation is not that bad, but there are actually millions or millions of regulations.

Then you end up not being able to do anything.

And this is a huge tax on consumers and the people.

However, consumers just don’t realize that huge taxes are being imposed in the form of unreasonable regulations.

Let me give you a recent case of nonsense.

SpaceX was fined $140,000 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for dumping drinking water into the ground.

This is Starbase, and this is a tropical stormy area. It’s always raining down from the sky.

It was just water to cool down the launch pad during the launch. And there is no damage. They agree: Yes, there is no damage at all.

We’re like, ‘So you want me to pay a $140,000 fine when there’s no harm? Yes, we don’t have permission.

Okay I didn’t know you needed permission to drop harmless freshwater to the ground where freshwater always falls from the sky.

Sometimes it rains so much that the roads are flooded.

So we asked if this makes sense.

Then they said they would no longer process the Starship launch application unless they paid $140,000.

They asked for a ransom, so we paid $140,000.

But this won’t work. At this rate, you’ll never be able to go to Mars.”