• Elon Musk championed dogecoin over bitcoin and defended his colorful tweets.
• The Tesla and SpaceX CEO crowed about his abilities and shared his vision for a Mars colony.
• The world’s richest person praised Warren Buffett’s investing skills and value to the economy.

Elon Musk trumpeted his own abilities, touted dogecoin over bitcoin, and defended his controversial Twitter habit in interviews with Time and the Financial Times, which both named him as their “Person of the Year” this week.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO – the world’s richest person, with an estimated $250 billion fortune – also outlined his vision for a Mars colony and unexpectedly praised Warren Buffett.

Here are Musk’s 15 best tweets from the two interviews, lightly edited and condensed for clarity:

1. “How have Tesla and SpaceX succeeded when other companies have far more resources and money than I do? The problem is they can’t hire me.”

2. “I am very good at technology and engineering. Everyone’s got their talents, that’s one of mine. I can’t sing or dance, but I can do that.”

3. “I don’t think there’s a lot of people who would actually want to trade places.” – noting that he works 80-to-90 hours a week and doesn’t own a house or boat or take any vacations.

4. “No one has ever made a fully reusable orbital rocket of any kind whatsoever. We just live on a planet where this is an extremely difficult job. If this was a video game, the setting is on ‘maximum’ but not ‘impossible.'”

5. “The next really big thing is to build a self-sustaining city on Mars and bring the animals and creatures of Earth there. Sort of like a futuristic Noah’s ark. We’ll bring more than two, though-it’s a little weird if there’s only two.”

6. “I’ll be surprised if we’re not landing on Mars within five years.”

7. “We did Tesla essentially out of desperation – not because we thought it would be lucrative, but just to show that it could be done.”

8. “Bitcoin may be a store of value, but it is not a good substitute for transactional currency. Even though it was created as a silly joke, dogecoin is better suited for transactions.” – Musk noted dogecoin allows more transactions per day, and its built-in inflation encourages people not to hoard it.

9. “You want those who are managing capital to be good stewards of capital. And I think the government is inherently not a good steward of capital.” – justifying his resistance to taxing billionaires’ wealth.

10. “I’m not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan, frankly. But he’s not engaged in insane, conspicuous consumption. So you have to say, ‘Sure, he’s got a high net worth, but he’s doing a useful job for the economy, and he’s very skilled at it and should probably keep doing it.'”

11. “I don’t really think about brand optimization to be frank. That’s obvious from my tweets, which are often self-inflicted wounds.”

12. “I mean, are you not entertained? I’m not saying I don’t make foolish tweets, of course I do. There are times when I shoot myself in the foot. But on balance, it’s entertaining and interesting, informative, whatever.”

13. “The markets move themselves all the time. Tesla stock has seen some very big changes in value from one day to the next, based on nothing as far as I can tell.” – Musk downplaying the impact of his tweets on asset prices.

14. “This place is basically a technology monastery. There are some women here, but not many, and it’s remote, and we do technology, so this is a technomonastery.” – joking about why he doesn’t have a girlfriend.

15. “I’m just trying to get people to Mars, enable freedom of information with Starlink, accelerate sustainable technology with Tesla, and free people from the drudgery of driving. It’s certainly possible that the road to hell to some degree is paved with good intentions – but the road to hell is mostly paved with bad intentions.”

Read more: ‘We are clearly in a bubble right now’: A Wharton blockchain and digital assets professor breaks down why the metaverse and web 3.0 are still ‘too early to be real’ – and why investors should expect a crypto shakeout in the year ahead

• Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin opened up to his followers over a Twitter Q&A this week and joked with Tesla boss Elon Musk.
• He answered questions about love, regrets, dogecoin and where ethereum and crypto generally are heading.
• The ethereum network’s ether token has comfortably outperformed larger crypto rival bitcoin this year.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.

Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of the ethereum network, took part in a question and answer session on Twitter this week, in which he discussed the outlook for the ether token, uses for the network’s code, the downsides of fame and what his biggest regrets are.

Buterin is used to the limelight in the crypto world. He recently featured on a crypto-based show called stoner cats and regularly discusses the market.

The ethereum network’s ether token has been one of the biggest outperformers in the crypto space this year, having gained more than 400% so far, versus a 72% gain in bitcoin. Buterin’s Q&A followed the ethereum network’s recent London hard fork upgrade in August that set ether on a course that has seen it hit four-month highs this week.

In the Twitter session on Wednesday, Buterin opened up about love, regrets, dogecoin and where ethereum and crypto more broadly are heading.

Here are the 10 best quotes, lightly edited for clarity:

1. “I hope so! Though I think in general crypto switching to proof of stake will only be a small part of the solution; ultimately we also need lots of very smart people contributing to longer-term fixes (solar power? fusion? carbon capture? sprinkling dust into the atmosphere?),” he said, answering if ethereum is part of the solution to climate problems.
2. “Ethereum will move to proof of stake (PoS) within one to two years,” he said in response to ‘what’s something you had an insane amount of confidence in, only to have it turn out you were dead wrong?’.
3. “Account abstraction, statelessness, sharding, ” he said, answering ‘what protocol upgrades would you consider to be high priority after the merge is on the mainnet ?’
4. 10. “X AE A-12 don’t hurt me,” he said, referring to Elon Musk’s youngest child, in a play on the lyrics of a 1990’s pop hit, after the Tesla boss asked him ‘what is love?’ and posted a photo of his son.
5. “The whole “8 cofounders” thing (and choosing them so quickly and non discriminately),” he said in response to being asked what his biggest regrets in ethereum’s journey were.
6. “I hope that doge can switch to PoS soon, perhaps using ethereum code,” he said in response to being asked about ethereum and dogecoin ‘cooperation’.
7. “10 years ago I thought that the market of resources, property rights, and trade were the most important processes in the world. Today I think much more about the ecosystem of discussion and spread of memes / culture / ideas. The latter follows quite different laws from the former,” he said in response to ‘what’s the most recent thing you’ve changed your mind about?’
8. “The path I’m attempting right now is basically hoping that the transition to crypto is a big enough change of context that some of the usual resistance to new ideas disappears and we can add better mechanisms,” he said, when asked ‘many people including you can understand many of our institutions are broken, and how to outline better alternatives. But where is the audience or customers who want to buy and use this product?’
9. “I am planning to keep wearing a mask long after covid stops being a problem. There are definitely disadvantages,” Vitalik said, when asked if he enjoys being famous or if he’d prefer to be less well known.
10. “Monkeys,” he said, posting a photo of a monkey after being asked ‘cats or dogs?’