Elon Musk says 'patents are for the weak' as he talks Starship rocket, tours SpaceX Starbase with Jay Leno
The 51-year-old entrepreneur recently appeared on CNBC's "Jay Leno's Garage" to give the former "Tonight Show" host a tour around the SpaceX Starbase facility in Texas.
During the tour, Leno asked if SpaceX had a patent on the material used to build its ships. Musk replied that his spacecraft manufacturer "[doesn't] really patent things."
In Musk's opinion, patents are "generally used as a blocking technique" that are designed to prevent others from innovating.
"They're used like landmines in warfare," he says. "They don't actually help advance things; they just stop others from following you."
It's not the first time Musk has spoken out against patents. In a 2014 memo to Tesla employees, Musk said that it was his company's ability "to attract and motivate the world's most talented engineers," not its patents, that would make it a success.
"[Patents] serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors," he wrote at the time.
