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Elon really put into perspective just how insanely massive the Sun is compared to Earth The Sun contains ~99.86% of all the mass in the entire Solar System Earth is basically a rounding error We live on this tiny rock next to an object so massive that almost everything... show more

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6,494,965 views • 8 days ago •via X (Twitter)

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35 Comments

Alfred8 days ago

Nah bro, not a rounding error. That’s God’s design. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. — Genesis 1:1

🇺🇸AMC 68k Bagholder🇺🇸8 days ago

and somehow the left thinks humans affect climate change.

The10XMind 💎8 days ago

and yet Uranus is 99.86% of the jokes about our solar system

Gabriele Spata8 days ago

a fact everyone already knew, delivered like it was discovered five minutes ago

🌋🌋 Deep₿lueCrypto 🌋🌋8 days ago

Very very true

John Furgerson III8 days ago

Time to figure out a way to harness that energy. Not like windmills or solar panels, but s technology that could harness enough to cover all of our energy needs. Governments probably won't be able to do it. But Musk and his team could.

Tyler8 days ago

I dont understand why so many people dislike elon, he genuinely has good intentions for our planet and the human race as a whole. The world is a much better place with him in it. We dont have many wealthy people with the same ambitions as he. So on behalf of humanity. Thank you

🌋🌋 Deep₿lueCrypto 🌋🌋8 days ago

Truth

MAGAWIN8 days ago

Can I buy stock in the Sun? 🌞

DCB8 days ago

It’s wild how small Earth is in the cosmic scale, we’re literally living on a tiny speck orbiting a giant fusion reactor

Krisztina Angel of X8 days ago

Earth isn't an error. However God painted you an excellent visual how we are compered to Him :) better believe it

Ramjet8 days ago

Only idiots didn’t already know this, so yeah Elon is really smart to stupid people.

Jambo8 days ago

Poor old Jupiter... I thought he was a big boy.

Westie8 days ago

It really comes down to asking the right questions as always. How can we we harness all that power without depleting our own planet's natural resources and beauty. I know a solution can be created...we shall see!

Pnutdad8 days ago

Anyone raised before 1990 knows this (or damn well should)...snyone surprised is a victim of dumbed down education system since. Glad Elon is sharing rudimentary info to help the masses

Synoptical Viewer8 days ago

It sounded like he said "Pluto and France"

Kayo🇺🇲Nyc🗽8 days ago

and yet Uranus is 99.86% of the jokes about our solar system

Mark Graybill8 days ago

Paraphrasing Carolyn Porco: "The solar system is the Sun, Jupiter, and a bunch of leftover crumbs."

Tina ♡ 💫8 days ago

The sun is everything ☀️ 🌎

Jinx8 days ago

If an Elon fan, but the ball-washing on here for his attention can be nauseating. If you literally had NO CLUE about the size of the sun until Elon said something, you really are pretty stupid.

Suyash Verma8 days ago

The Sun is our only ticket to becoming Kardashev 2.

Tommy Fleurq8 days ago

I hate the fact that Elon has reached the point - and really that we as the human species have reached the point to allow - this level of crazy talk, saying things like: "not enough atoms in our solar system" (outside of the Sun, he means). I am not an Elon basher - I like his rude autistic truth bombs that make church ladies feel uncomfortable. But "not enough atoms" is next-level crazy talk. It's like saying "there is too much water in the sea" - or "trees dont have enough leaves". It proves a deeply warped perception of reality. I dont blame him, he has a few sales pitches to make. But "harnessing the power of the Sun" is what cosmic villains of fantasy comic books talk about.

LaserEyeRobot7 days ago

Can we all stop saying "rounding error"? 😜

welt8 days ago

pretty sure my 1st grade science book did this but let’s attribute another thing to Elon for a retweet

itdontmatter8 days ago

All fake and ghey outer space fantasy. Our earth realm is the biggest, and sun moon stars, planets we see, are luminary lights not physical objects we landing on lmao

Thomas Larsen8 days ago

are you sure the model is not like the UN logo?

Scott R. Leimroth7 days ago

Yeah no one knew before. Thank God for Elon lol

suqitah8 days ago

cool fact, doesn't need a slide with dramatic lighting to be true though

Maker Burns8 days ago

This clip is demonstrating volume, not mass.

elian8 days ago

elon discovers mass distribution, news at 11

Roma8 days ago

Is it really only Elon who made you think about this, and only “now”? Absurd.. Or is this an idealization of Elon..

Darren7 days ago

Thank you, Elon!

Make It Memeingful8 days ago

We learn that in elementary school. You don’t need to suck up to Elon all the time.

Mark Gehri7 days ago

And all of this stuff was created spontaneously from nothing based on random chance operating over infinity, right?

Jared8 days ago

There is so much we do not know.

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SOLAR IS BY FAR THE BIGGEST SOURCE OF ENERGY Even on Earth, but certainly beyond Earth, the sun rounds up to 100% of all energy This is an important thing to consider. So the sun is 99.8% of the mass of the solar system. Jupiter is about 0.1%, and everything else is miscellaneous Now, even if you were to burn Jupiter in a thermonuclear reactor, the amount of energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100% If you teleported three more Jupiters into our solar system and burned three more Jupiters and everything else in the solar system, the sun's energy would still round up to 100% So it's really all about the sun H/t: X Freeze

SOLAR IS BY FAR THE BIGGEST SOURCE OF ENERGY Even on Earth, but certainly beyond Earth, the sun rounds up to 100% of all energy This is an important thing to consider. So the sun is 99.8% of the mass of the solar system. Jupiter is about 0.1%, and everything else is miscellaneous Now, even if you were to burn Jupiter in a thermonuclear reactor, the amount of energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100% If you teleported three more Jupiters into our solar system and burned three more Jupiters and everything else in the solar system, the sun's energy would still round up to 100% So it's really all about the sun H/t: X Freeze

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Elon Musk: "The real massive energy source in our solar system, overwhelmingly, is the Sun. The Sun converts roughly 4.5 million tons of mass to energy every second."

Elon Musk: "The real massive energy source in our solar system, overwhelmingly, is the Sun. The Sun converts roughly 4.5 million tons of mass to energy every second."

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Elon Musk. People just don't understand that solar is everything. “People just don't understand that solar is everything. Compared to the sun, all other energy sources are like cavemen throwing some twigs into a fire. The sun is over 99.8% of all mass in the solar system. Jupiter is around 0.1% of the mass. So, even if you burnt Jupiter, the energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100%. And then if you teleported three more Jupiters into our solar system and burnt them too, the sun still rounds up to 100% of energy.” From: Discussion with Peter Diamandis and Dave Blundin, January 6, 2026

Elon Musk. People just don't understand that solar is everything. “People just don't understand that solar is everything. Compared to the sun, all other energy sources are like cavemen throwing some twigs into a fire. The sun is over 99.8% of all mass in the solar system. Jupiter is around 0.1% of the mass. So, even if you burnt Jupiter, the energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100%. And then if you teleported three more Jupiters into our solar system and burnt them too, the sun still rounds up to 100% of energy.” From: Discussion with Peter Diamandis and Dave Blundin, January 6, 2026

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Elon Musk reveals why, measured against the sun's energy, human civilization barely registers as existing at all: "Right now we're very low on the Kardashev one scale. If you say what proportion of our planet's power are we harnessing, it's a very, very tiny number. And we're harnessing almost nothing of our star's power. The sun is truly an immense thing. It's difficult with words to characterize just how immense the sun is" "The sun is about 99.86% of all mass in the solar system. Most of the remaining 0.14% is Jupiter. The entire mass of Earth is in the tiny miscellaneous category. Earth is a tiny dust mote compared to the sun" "We currently use much less than a trillionth of the power output of the sun, and a trillion is a million times a million. So basically we're practically nowhere on the Kardashev two scale. On the Kardashev scale, we're still non-existent. We're not registering"

Elon Musk reveals why, measured against the sun's energy, human civilization barely registers as existing at all: "Right now we're very low on the Kardashev one scale. If you say what proportion of our planet's power are we harnessing, it's a very, very tiny number. And we're harnessing almost nothing of our star's power. The sun is truly an immense thing. It's difficult with words to characterize just how immense the sun is" "The sun is about 99.86% of all mass in the solar system. Most of the remaining 0.14% is Jupiter. The entire mass of Earth is in the tiny miscellaneous category. Earth is a tiny dust mote compared to the sun" "We currently use much less than a trillionth of the power output of the sun, and a trillion is a million times a million. So basically we're practically nowhere on the Kardashev two scale. On the Kardashev scale, we're still non-existent. We're not registering"

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"The Earth only receives about half a billionth of the Sun’s energy. The Sun is 99.8% of all mass in the solar system… Earth is in the miscellaneous category. Earth is like a tiny dust mote in a vast darkness. The way to actually scale civilization is to scale power in space." Elon Musk

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Elon Musk on how ridiculously small we are compared to the Sun: “We are like a dust mote compared to the Sun All of human civilization currently uses much less than a trillionth of the power emitted by the Sun Even if we increased our energy use by a million times, we would still be much less than a millionth of the Sun’s energy The Sun is 99.8% of the mass in the solar system. If you burned every single other planet and added two more Jupiters, the Sun would still round up to 100% of the energy in the solar system Everything is just extremely tiny compared to the Sun”

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X Freeze

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Elon Musk: The sun provides basically 100% of the energy in the solar system. “One way to look at civilization is progress on the Kardashev scale. Kardashev scale 1 means you've harnessed all the power of a planet. I think we've probably harnessed less than 1% of the power of Earth. Kardashev scale 2 is you've harnessed all the power of your sun. The sun is overwhelmingly the largest source of energy in the solar system. Everything else maybe amounts to about a trillionth of the energy in the solar system, compared to the sun. So, it rounds up to 100%. That's how much of the energy in the future will be solar, when you view things from a Kardashev standpoint.” Future Investment Initiative Conference, October 29, 2024

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ELON MUSK: The Sun produces an enormous amount of energy every second. Even taking a tiny slice of that energy would be thousands of times more than all the power humans generate on Earth today. It shows how small our current energy use is compared to what exists in space.

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Elon Musk: Solar energy exceeds all other energy by a factor of a trillion. “The real massive energy source in our solar system, overwhelmingly, is the Sun. The Sun converts roughly 4.5 million tons of mass to energy every second. It's very reliable and requires no maintenance and no servicing. It's pretty great. No service for all that energy! Long term, by far, the most amount of energy we'll get is from the Sun. Solar energy exceeds all other energy by a factor of a trillion, literally. It's not an exaggeration.” Source: Pittsburgh, October 20, 2024

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Elon Musk explains why solar is the path to energy abundance “Solar is by far the biggest source of energy. On earth and beyond earth, the sun rounds up to 100% of all energy. This is an important thing to consider. The sun is 99.8% of the mass of the solar system. Jupiter is about 0.1% and everything else is miscellaneous. Even if you were to burn Jupiter in a thermonuclear reactor, the amount of energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100%… So it’s really all about the sun.” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink asks Elon what it would take to electrify the United States with solar power. Elon replies: “The rough way to think about it is: 100 miles x 100 miles of solar is enough to power the entire United States. You could basically take a small corner of Utah or Nevada or New Mexico — obviously you wouldn’t want it all in one place — but it’s a very small percentage of the area of the U.S. to generate all of the electricity the U.S. uses.” He continues: “The same is true for Europe. You could take relatively small, unpopulated areas of Spain and Sicily and generate all of the electricity power that Europe needs.” Source: CNBC (Jan 2026)

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$Elon Musk: We use only a tiny fraction of the energy we receive from the sun. “The Earth is almost entirely solar-powered today. The only reason we're not a frozen ice ball at three kelvins is because of the sun. And the sun is responsible for all precipitation. It's responsible for the vast majority of the ecosystem, apart from chemotrophs, at the bottom of the ocean. There's just a tiny amount of energy that people consume to power civilization. It's actually a very tiny amount of energy relative to the amount of energy that the sun sends in our general direction.” Interview at the Computer History Museum, 2013$

Elon Musk: We use only a tiny fraction of the energy we receive from the sun. “The Earth is almost entirely solar-powered today. The only reason we're not a frozen ice ball at three kelvins is because of the sun. And the sun is responsible for all precipitation. It's responsible for the vast majority of the ecosystem, apart from chemotrophs, at the bottom of the ocean. There's just a tiny amount of energy that people consume to power civilization. It's actually a very tiny amount of energy relative to the amount of energy that the sun sends in our general direction.” Interview at the Computer History Museum, 2013

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$ELON MUSK: Earth is Tiny. The Future is Space. Human civilization uses only a tiny fraction of the Sun’s energy. Even if humanity used a million times more energy, it would still be extremely small compared to the Sun’s power. The Sun dominates the solar system, holding around 99.8% of its total mass. Everything outside the Sun is almost insignificant when measured against the Sun’s scale and energy. Earth-based civilization has a natural limit because our planet’s resources are small compared to what exists in space. To grow civilization in a truly meaningful way, humanity has to expand beyond Earth. Space is not optional for long-term growth — it is the next step for civilization.$

ELON MUSK: Earth is Tiny. The Future is Space. Human civilization uses only a tiny fraction of the Sun’s energy. Even if humanity used a million times more energy, it would still be extremely small compared to the Sun’s power. The Sun dominates the solar system, holding around 99.8% of its total mass. Everything outside the Sun is almost insignificant when measured against the Sun’s scale and energy. Earth-based civilization has a natural limit because our planet’s resources are small compared to what exists in space. To grow civilization in a truly meaningful way, humanity has to expand beyond Earth. Space is not optional for long-term growth — it is the next step for civilization.

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Elon Musk: We're currently harnessing less than 1% of the Sun's energy available on Earth. “One way to look at civilization is progress on the Kardashev scale. Kardashev scale 1 means you've harnessed all the power of a planet. I think we've probably harnessed less than 1% of the power of Earth. Kardashev scale 2 is you've harnessed all the power of your sun. The Sun is overwhelmingly the largest source of energy in the solar system. Everything else maybe amounts to about a trillionth of the energy in the solar system, compared to the Sun. So, it rounds up to 100%. That's how much of the energy in the future will be solar, when you view things from a Kardashev standpoint.” Future Investment Initiative Conference, October 29, 2024

Elon Musk: We're currently harnessing less than 1% of the Sun's energy available on Earth. “One way to look at civilization is progress on the Kardashev scale. Kardashev scale 1 means you've harnessed all the power of a planet. I think we've probably harnessed less than 1% of the power of Earth. Kardashev scale 2 is you've harnessed all the power of your sun. The Sun is overwhelmingly the largest source of energy in the solar system. Everything else maybe amounts to about a trillionth of the energy in the solar system, compared to the Sun. So, it rounds up to 100%. That's how much of the energy in the future will be solar, when you view things from a Kardashev standpoint.” Future Investment Initiative Conference, October 29, 2024

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1,067,519 views • 1 year ago

Elon Musk in 2013: I'm confident solar will beat everything hands down. “I'm quite confident that the primary means of power generation will be solar. Indirect fusion is what it is. We've got this giant fusion generator in the sky called the sun, and we just need to tap a little bit of that energy for purposes of human civilization. What most people know, but don't realize they know is that the world is almost entirely solar-powered already. If the sun wasn't there, we'd be a frozen ice ball at 3 degrees Kelvin and the sun powers the entire system of precipitation. I'm confident that solar will beat everything hands down, including natural gas.” From: TED Conversation 2013 March 19, 2013

Elon Musk in 2013: I'm confident solar will beat everything hands down. “I'm quite confident that the primary means of power generation will be solar. Indirect fusion is what it is. We've got this giant fusion generator in the sky called the sun, and we just need to tap a little bit of that energy for purposes of human civilization. What most people know, but don't realize they know is that the world is almost entirely solar-powered already. If the sun wasn't there, we'd be a frozen ice ball at 3 degrees Kelvin and the sun powers the entire system of precipitation. I'm confident that solar will beat everything hands down, including natural gas.” From: TED Conversation 2013 March 19, 2013

ELON CLIPS

15,204 views • 1 year ago

Elon Musk: Everything is solar power. The rest is noise. “The sun is about 99.8% of the mass of the solar system. Jupiter's about 0.1% and everything else is in the remaining 0.1%, and we are much less than 0.1%. So, if you burnt all of the mass of the solar system, then the total energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100%. If you just burnt Earth, the whole planet, and burnt Jupiter, which is very big and quite challenging to burn, turn Jupiter into a thermonuclear reactor, the sun is 99.8% of the mass of the solar system and everything else is in the miscellaneous category. Basically, no matter what you do, total energy produced in our solar system rounds up to 100% from the sun. You could even throw another Jupiter in, so we're going to snag a Jupiter from somewhere else, you could teleport two more Jupiters into our solar system, burn them, and the sun would still round up to 100%. As long as you're at 99.6%, you're still rounding up to 100%. Maybe that gives some perspective of why solar is really the thing that matters. And, as soon as you start thinking about things at a grander scale, like Kardashev Scale 2 civilizations, it becomes very, very obvious. I'm not saying anything that's new, by the way. Anyone who studies physics has known this for a very long time. In fact, Kardashev, a Russian physicist who came up with this idea, I think, in the 1960s, just as a way to classify civilizations, where Kardashev Scale 1 would be, you've harnessed most of the energy of the planet, Kardashev Scale 2, you've harnessed most of the energy of your sun, Kardashev 3, you've harnessed most of the energy of a galaxy. Now we're only about 1% or a few percent of Kardashev Scale 1 right now, optimistically. But as soon as you go to Kardashev Scale 2, where you're talking about the power of the sun, then you're really just saying everything is solar power and the rest is in the noise. Like, the sun produces about a billion times, or call it well over a billion times more energy than everything on Earth combined.” All-In Podcast, October 31, 2025

Elon Musk: Everything is solar power. The rest is noise. “The sun is about 99.8% of the mass of the solar system. Jupiter's about 0.1% and everything else is in the remaining 0.1%, and we are much less than 0.1%. So, if you burnt all of the mass of the solar system, then the total energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100%. If you just burnt Earth, the whole planet, and burnt Jupiter, which is very big and quite challenging to burn, turn Jupiter into a thermonuclear reactor, the sun is 99.8% of the mass of the solar system and everything else is in the miscellaneous category. Basically, no matter what you do, total energy produced in our solar system rounds up to 100% from the sun. You could even throw another Jupiter in, so we're going to snag a Jupiter from somewhere else, you could teleport two more Jupiters into our solar system, burn them, and the sun would still round up to 100%. As long as you're at 99.6%, you're still rounding up to 100%. Maybe that gives some perspective of why solar is really the thing that matters. And, as soon as you start thinking about things at a grander scale, like Kardashev Scale 2 civilizations, it becomes very, very obvious. I'm not saying anything that's new, by the way. Anyone who studies physics has known this for a very long time. In fact, Kardashev, a Russian physicist who came up with this idea, I think, in the 1960s, just as a way to classify civilizations, where Kardashev Scale 1 would be, you've harnessed most of the energy of the planet, Kardashev Scale 2, you've harnessed most of the energy of your sun, Kardashev 3, you've harnessed most of the energy of a galaxy. Now we're only about 1% or a few percent of Kardashev Scale 1 right now, optimistically. But as soon as you go to Kardashev Scale 2, where you're talking about the power of the sun, then you're really just saying everything is solar power and the rest is in the noise. Like, the sun produces about a billion times, or call it well over a billion times more energy than everything on Earth combined.” All-In Podcast, October 31, 2025

ELON CLIPS

15,113,253 views • 10 months ago

$Elon Musk just exposed the most catastrophic energy blindspot in the entire AI arms race. The West is still debating which twigs to burn. China is capturing the sun. Musk: “People just don’t understand how solar is everything. Compared to the sun, all other energy sources are like cavemen throwing some twigs into a fire.” Every natural gas plant. Every nuclear reactor. Every experimental fusion project being debated in Washington right now. Twigs. Musk: “We have a giant free fusion reactor that shows up every day. It’s farcical for us to create little fusion reactors.” And then he gave the most clarifying statistic in the entire energy debate. Musk: “The sun is over 99.8% of all mass in the solar system. Jupiter is around 0.1%. So even if you burnt Jupiter, the energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100%.” Musk: “And then if you teleported three more Jupiters into our solar system and burnt them too, it would still round up.” The sun is not an energy source. It is the only energy source. Everything else is rounding error. China already knows this. While American tech executives beg for permits to build natural gas plants, China crossed 1,000 gigawatts of installed solar capacity in 2025. More than the rest of the world combined. They are not holding summits about it. They are not commissioning reports about it. They are building it. Harvesting the free fusion reactor that arrives every morning at zero cost and feeding it directly into their AI data centers. The AI race is not an algorithm race. It is an electro-industrial race. You cannot build superintelligence without infinite compute. You cannot have infinite compute without infinite energy. And right now, the United States is losing the energy war while holding committee meetings about which twigs to burn next. China built the energy-compute flywheel. Cheap, scalable, infinite solar power feeding AI models at a fraction of the cost. Compounding every single day. The nation that captures the sun’s output will hold a permanent monopoly on global intelligence. The nation that doesn’t will spend the next decade trying to understand how it lost. Everyone else gets left holding the twigs.$

Elon Musk just exposed the most catastrophic energy blindspot in the entire AI arms race. The West is still debating which twigs to burn. China is capturing the sun. Musk: “People just don’t understand how solar is everything. Compared to the sun, all other energy sources are like cavemen throwing some twigs into a fire.” Every natural gas plant. Every nuclear reactor. Every experimental fusion project being debated in Washington right now. Twigs. Musk: “We have a giant free fusion reactor that shows up every day. It’s farcical for us to create little fusion reactors.” And then he gave the most clarifying statistic in the entire energy debate. Musk: “The sun is over 99.8% of all mass in the solar system. Jupiter is around 0.1%. So even if you burnt Jupiter, the energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100%.” Musk: “And then if you teleported three more Jupiters into our solar system and burnt them too, it would still round up.” The sun is not an energy source. It is the only energy source. Everything else is rounding error. China already knows this. While American tech executives beg for permits to build natural gas plants, China crossed 1,000 gigawatts of installed solar capacity in 2025. More than the rest of the world combined. They are not holding summits about it. They are not commissioning reports about it. They are building it. Harvesting the free fusion reactor that arrives every morning at zero cost and feeding it directly into their AI data centers. The AI race is not an algorithm race. It is an electro-industrial race. You cannot build superintelligence without infinite compute. You cannot have infinite compute without infinite energy. And right now, the United States is losing the energy war while holding committee meetings about which twigs to burn next. China built the energy-compute flywheel. Cheap, scalable, infinite solar power feeding AI models at a fraction of the cost. Compounding every single day. The nation that captures the sun’s output will hold a permanent monopoly on global intelligence. The nation that doesn’t will spend the next decade trying to understand how it lost. Everyone else gets left holding the twigs.

Dustin

47,084 views • 6 months ago