Elon Musk: 70 percent chance I'll move to Mars

Elon Musk reckons there's a 70 percent chance he'll go to Mars, and he wants to do it even though there's a good chance he'll die there.

"I'm talking about moving there," the SpaceX and Tesla CEO said in an interview with Axios on HBO. "We've recently made a number of breakthroughs that I'm just really fired up about."

Anyone keen to join him on the SpaceX Starship to Mars would be looking at a ticket price of "couple of hundred thousand dollars".

But despite that price, going to be Mars would be no "escape hatch for rich people" because of the dangers involved.

"Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than Earth. Really, the ad for going to Mars would be like the Shackleton's ad for going to Antarctic," he said.

"It's going to be hard, there's a good chance of death, going on a little can through deep space."

Even if you do land safely on Mars, life's going to be pretty tough and will involve "working non-stop" to build a base on the planet.

"So there's not much time for leisure," said Musk. "It's a very harsh environment, so there's a good chance of you dying there. We think you can come back, but we're not sure. Now does that sound like an escape hatch for rich people?"

Despite the risks, Musk says he would go to Mars anyway, comparing it to the dangers people take when climbing Mount Everest.

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Musk also talked about Neuralink, the company he launched last year to build brain-enhancing implants.

"The long-term aspiration of Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence," said Musk.

"If we have billions of people with a high-bandwidth link to an AI extension of themselves, it would actually make everyone hyper-smart."

Musk also revealed that Tesla had been "single-digit weeks" away from death, with the company "bleeding" cash as it ramped up Model 3 production.

Musk said he was worried about imploding and that the stress of working seven days a week and sleeping at the Tesla factory was "very painful".

"It hurts my brain and my heart," said a weary-looking Musk.

Elon Musk: "Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than Earth." Source: Axios/HBO/YouTube

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