'A lot of science': Elon Musk takes private tour of Los Alamos National Laboratory

May 23—A day before expounding on a global stage his fears about artificial intelligence — at least where the competition is concerned — Elon Musk got a peek at AI development at one of the most advanced research facilities in the country: Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The lightning rod tech magnate popped by the secret city Wednesday for a private tour with lab Director Thom Mason, a spokeswoman confirmed.

"Elon Musk visited Los Alamos National Laboratory for several hours to learn more about our AI research and the Lab's role in space exploration and science," she wrote in a text message. "He toured some of our research facilities with Lab Director Thom Mason and interacted with scientists who are experts in those fields."

Musk — whom Forbes has pegged as the third-richest person in the world, trailing luxury magnate Bernard Arnault and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — posted about the tour on the social media platform X Wednesday evening but didn't elaborate on what he saw.

"Interesting visit to @LosAlamosNatLab today," he wrote, adding he "discussed a lot of science" during the visit.

Questions about the visit sent to press emails at SpaceX and X, formerly known as Twitter, were not answered Thursday.

AI is in use by "effectively all of Los Alamos' missions," according to the lab.

"Artificial Intelligence is a national-scale problem that Los Alamos National Laboratory, with its deep computing and AI capabilities and central role in national security, is uniquely positioned to help solve," the lab wrote in a statement. "The Laboratory has the supercomputers, algorithms, unmatched trove of big data and skilled scientific workforce needed to make sense of the AI revolution, its implications, and its utilization for scientific discovery and national security."

Just last month, the facility unveiled a new supercomputer called "Venado," which leaders said will link the lab's various research programs into a centralized, data-sharing hub, and use AI to help scientists analyze large amounts of data.

Musk, who last year launched his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, spoke Thursday via video call to attendees at the VivaTech 2024 conference in Paris.

Musk criticized competitors' AI projects during the event, saying the problem with projects like Google Gemini and OpenAI is they're "pandering to political correctness."

"They're being trained, basically, to lie," he said. "I think it's very dangerous to train super intelligence to be deceptive."

Musk, who during the question-and-answer-style session told one journalist a question about Tesla's ability to bring a low-cost electric vehicle to market was not of interest to the audience, said his own company's AI research will focus on honesty. He cast himself as a reluctant developer.

"It's either participate and try to build the best possible AI, the one that will be hopefully most beneficial to humanity, or watch others do it and be concerned about how it's being built," Musk said. "Because I don't think it's being built correctly."

The lab's most high-profile space exploration work, meanwhile, involves high-tech camera systems on both the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars.

In addition to xAI, social media platform X and Tesla, Musk is the owner of private space exploration company SpaceX.

Wednesday wasn't Musk's first time in New Mexico to visit a high-profile facility. Back in 2021, Musk was on the ground at Spaceport America when Virgin Galactic's Sir Richard Branson made his successful flight to the edge of space aboard his passenger rocket ship, VSS Unity.