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Notes from the Galaxy

1% More Power ≈ 1% More GDP

· 1 min read

Elon on power and GDP, with the Agints CTO take (~3 min).

Elon dropped a frame so simple it almost feels unfair.

Somebody asked him how the US keeps winning. His answer wasn’t a model. It wasn’t a chatbot.

It was power.

Scale energy. Scale chip production. He thinks we’re already winning on software, on anything digital. The long game is whether we can generate enough electricity, and build enough logic and memory chips here, or somewhere safe.

Then he dropped the math.

The US runs on about 500 gigawatts on average. Add 5 gigawatts of steady new power and you’ve grown it by about 1%.

And that 1% more power turns into roughly 1% more GDP.

Why? Because intelligence per watt keeps going up. Jensen’s GPUs squeeze out more compute per watt every generation. The algorithms get smarter. The harnesses and the software get better too. You’re stacking efficiencies on efficiencies.

That’s pretty badass.

It isn’t a law of physics. It’s a wager on a curve that hasn’t stopped bending yet.

Elon’s rule of thumb: 500 GW of US average load, plus 5 GW, is about 1% more power and about 1% of GDP
Fig 1. Elon’s rule of thumb: 500 GW → +5 GW ≈ 1% more power ≈ 1% of GDP, if intelligence per watt keeps rising. 10 GW ≈ 2%.

Run it forward and 10 gigawatts is about 2% of GDP. SpaceX has talked publicly about bringing on that kind of power. And Elon said he’d bet anyone on the 1% rule.

Here’s the part that keeps me up a little.

China has about three times the electricity production of the United States.

That’s Elon’s number. And if intelligence scales with watts, that’s the real race.

Electricity production, Elon’s framing: United States 1×, China about 3×
Fig 2. Electricity production in Elon’s framing: China at roughly 3× the United States.

My takeaway?

I wouldn’t bet against Elon, the US, and our ability to get electricity.

And the same rule works at a smaller scale. Most businesses aren’t short on smart tools. They’re short on the power to run them every day: the setup, the hookups, the follow-through.

Want that kind of productivity without the tech headache?

Talk to Gini at agints.com/free. She’ll map your best path. If we’re the right fit, she’ll say so. Easy.

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P.S. A lot of billionaires are doing this.