Elon Musk says SpaceX and Tesla are aiming to produce 200 gigawatts of solar per year and take it to space, where "it's essentially always sunny."

He says the U.S. has to scale power dramatically to compete with China, which he says has about three times America's electricity production. He also bets that every 1% increase in U.S. power usage will bring roughly a 1% increase in GDP.

"SpaceX is aiming together with Tesla to do 200 gigawatts of solar production per year. And if brought to space, you get the nameplate or better on the solar power, whereas if it's on the ground, you're going to get somewhere between a fifth and an eighth of the solar power generation, and you need enormous batteries."

"You've got to scale energy; you've got to scale chip production. I think we're winning on software, on anything intellectual or digital. But in the long run, we need to be able to generate enough power to compete with — I think essentially China is the biggest competitor. And China has about three times the electricity production of the United States."

"The average power consumption in the United States is about 500 gigawatts. So, every 5 gigawatts of incremental steady-state production is a 1% increase in the power used... I would bet anyone that a 1% increase in power usage corresponds to roughly a 1% increase in GDP. Because the intelligence per watt keeps increasing."