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1:01

Apply in minutes at mercury.com. One

1:12

of the biggest complaints we get here on Pivot

1:14

is we don't talk enough about Elon Musk. Just

1:16

kidding. But with all of

1:18

his recent big moves in AI, brain

1:21

science, geopolitics, he's not going to stop

1:23

making headlines anytime soon. And

1:25

while Pivot is off for the Memorial

1:27

Day holiday, Elon is still probably in

1:29

some undisclosed location plotting his next move.

1:31

So I've assembled a panel of experts

1:33

for this episode of On with Kara

1:35

Swisher, where we discuss what's influencing Elon's

1:37

state of mind these days. I hope

1:39

you'll enjoy it. And Pivot is back

1:42

on Friday. Hi

1:55

everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox

1:57

Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara

1:59

Swisher. and I'm Kara Swisher. Today we're going

2:02

to do a deep dive into Elon Musk.

2:04

I know, I know, not because

2:06

Enrios wants to spend more time thinking about

2:08

Elon, but because I'm sorry to tell you

2:10

he's very influential and it's impossible to ignore

2:13

him just for that. So I've

2:15

rounded up three of the smartest reporters

2:17

covering Elon for a conversation. I promise it

2:19

will be substantive about his businesses and where

2:21

they're going. Kirsten Grind is a tech

2:23

investigations reporter for the New York Times. She

2:26

was at the Wall Street Journal until recently

2:28

where she has done investigations into Elon's

2:30

drug use and how he parties

2:32

with his company's board members who

2:35

have benefited immensely for being so

2:37

acquiescent. I would say lapdogs.

2:39

Tim Higgins is the author of Power

2:41

Play, Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet

2:43

of the Century and a columnist at

2:46

the Wall Street Journal and his weekly

2:48

column is quote mostly but not entirely

2:50

about Elon Musk and it is very

2:52

funny. And Becky Peterson covers

2:54

Tesla, SpaceX, and all things Elon

2:57

for the information. Our

2:59

expert question comes from a billionaire who's

3:02

been infected apparently with

3:04

the woke mind virus. Elon Musk has

3:06

called him a moron and that

3:08

would be... So

3:22

I brought to all three together not to talk

3:24

about Scarlett Johansson but to help us understand where

3:26

we are in the Elon Musk story and what

3:28

it all means for his companies. He's been up

3:30

to a lot lately it seems like even though

3:33

he sucks all the oxygen out of the room

3:35

he seems to be particularly sucking these days. But

3:38

let's start with Tesla, the most valuable of the

3:40

companies in Elon's orbit and also of course

3:42

the iconic company that sort of made him

3:44

the personality he is today I think. So

3:47

I'd love to know how each of you

3:49

all assess it overall.

3:52

Tim, then Kirsten, then Becky.

3:54

Yeah I think Tesla has long been

3:57

Elon Musk's spicy

3:59

mistress right? SpaceX has been his

4:01

first love, his wife,

4:03

but Tesla's that drama that just keeps

4:06

getting his attention. But you almost get

4:08

the sense in recent years that

4:10

maybe he's been a little bit bored with it, right? Model

4:13

3, once it was successful, was

4:15

successful, and there

4:18

are all these other things that were kind of getting his attention. Clearly,

4:22

Tesla as an electric car maker has

4:24

really been a game changer for the

4:27

world, right? It's a huge number

4:29

of good regulators and rivals that

4:31

an electric car could be cool, could

4:33

be profitable, could be desirable

4:35

and has helped move the world towards the

4:37

EV. That said,

4:40

they're a little bit of a precipice. Where

4:42

are they going next? It is

4:44

a little unclear. Is it an electric car company

4:46

or is it a robot company,

4:48

which is the way that Elon is now

4:50

talking about it? All right, Kirstie, you

4:52

don't have to stick with the mistress

4:55

board, Ivanka. I'm feeling very Melania here.

4:58

He seems bored, but go ahead. What are your thoughts on

5:00

the company right now? I do like that analogy,

5:02

though. I mean, it really kind of

5:04

seems like it's some kind of crisis

5:06

point at this stage, right? It's sort

5:08

of in this transformation, as Tim said.

5:11

Elon, I agree, does seem bored. But

5:13

on the other hand, it would be

5:15

super painful for both him and Tesla

5:18

if he left. A lot of

5:20

high-level senior executives, including those close

5:23

to him, have left recently. They're

5:25

obviously in this fight

5:27

over his pay package. So I don't

5:29

know. It's a really interesting juncture.

5:32

Becky? Yeah, I think

5:34

there's always this question of whether Tesla is

5:36

a car company or a tech company.

5:38

And Elon is once again jumping into

5:40

the debate arguing it's an

5:43

AI company and we shouldn't be paying attention

5:45

to the cars. And

5:47

the slowing of car sales, though, are driving

5:49

all of these dramatic cuts and a lot

5:51

of the concern about the stock price. So

5:54

I don't think that we

5:56

can say definitively that it's either,

5:58

but he's definitely trying to convince

6:00

people that the car part of

6:02

the journey is over. Yeah, he's a

6:05

big hand-waver, obviously. But as Kirsten

6:07

mentioned, last month three top executives resigned during

6:09

a two-week span. They were long-time executives. Drew

6:11

Baglino is the Senior Vice President of Power,

6:13

Train, and Energy. He's been around a long

6:15

time. I think it's Martin Vicha,

6:18

the Vice President of Investor Relations, and

6:20

Rohan Patel, the Vice President of Policy

6:23

and Business Development, are all gone. Kirsten,

6:25

this is normal. I know I have covered

6:27

tech companies for years and you have covered

6:30

many companies. People change at the start of

6:32

this. People get rich and they move on.

6:35

Many companies, this has happened. But this is an

6:37

unusual group of people to have

6:40

left and important people at this

6:42

moment. This seems unusual, yes. I

6:44

mean, even for Tesla, where executives

6:46

are either being pushed out or

6:48

fired or leaving because they can't

6:50

handle the workload or Elon or

6:52

whatever it is. This seems like

6:54

a moment in time where a

6:56

lot of people are leaving at

6:59

once and important people. It

7:01

reminds me of other periods of dramatic

7:03

upheaval that we've seen over the course

7:05

of Tesla's limited

7:07

history. This is a company that's about

7:10

20 years old. We seem to see

7:12

these huge swings where, in

7:14

a lot of ways, Elon kind of reinvents

7:16

the company. First, it was when

7:18

he took over as CEO after the company had been around

7:20

for a few years and kind of

7:23

evolving it into the next

7:26

realm, going to the Model S. Then

7:28

we saw it again, the painful

7:30

birthing of the Model 3 and the 17-2018 period. Now, you kind

7:32

of get the same impression

7:38

that the precipice is something.

7:40

We're not quite sure. But it

7:42

is a brutal place. It can be a

7:44

brutal place to work. We have seen a

7:46

lot of key leaders over the time leave.

7:49

Part of that is, in a

7:51

lot of ways, Elon seems to act as

7:55

if he doesn't have the luxury of keeping

7:57

people around in some kind of emeritus role.

7:59

These are the tools that he has in his

8:01

toolbox, and he's going to deploy them in the

8:03

way he wants to do for the current crisis,

8:06

right? Right. No rest and best.

8:08

Right. Exactly. The one big thing

8:10

here, I think, is Drew's departure, I think, was very

8:13

jarring to longtime observers. Here

8:15

was a guy who really had been around

8:17

since the beginning, who in a lot of

8:19

ways kind of was the carryover

8:22

from J.B. Strouble's

8:25

departure. He'd been considered one of the founders

8:27

and had been a close ally of J.B.

8:29

And his departure really, I think, shocked a lot of

8:31

people because he was kind of one of

8:33

the holdbacks to the original crew that was there. Becky?

8:37

Yeah, Drew had a lot of support

8:39

from employees. And I think him, along

8:41

with Zach Kirkhorn, the CFO, leaving last

8:43

year, there is a lot of

8:47

pressure on Tesla to refill the

8:49

executive bench again. There

8:51

was a big effort to convince people that

8:53

it wasn't just Elon at the top. There's

8:56

all these lovable people who are running

8:58

different products and who employees love and

9:01

investors can look up to. And

9:03

now a handful of them are gone. And

9:06

that affects both employees and investors. It also reminds

9:08

me, he likes to be at the center of

9:11

everything. Even though,

9:13

many years ago, Steve Jobs said to me, I'm not Willy

9:15

Wonka and they're not Oompa Loompas because there's lots of

9:17

people here. But

9:19

he actually did think that he didn't, even though

9:21

he called attention to himself because he knew who

9:24

could sell phones, I don't think he relished it.

9:26

I think Elon really, totally relishes that idea of

9:28

the saver complex. But in February, he

9:30

did scrap plans for the Tesla Model 2, the

9:32

$25,000 electric car he'd been

9:35

promising for years, even though it was

9:37

almost ready for production. He

9:40

first had favored and focused a lot

9:42

of attention on the glitch-prone Cybertruck, which

9:44

has been a bust. And

9:47

now he's focused on robotaxes and its AI

9:49

efforts, especially around full self-driving. Tim,

9:53

what's going on here with this? Because this

9:55

was something that everybody thought he should do

9:57

in order to really solidify its huge model.

10:00

market share, which has been declining. He

10:02

seems to be telling the world that

10:04

robot cars are the future, or that AI is the future.

10:07

In a lot of ways, though, it seems as if he's

10:10

acting as if the Chinese automakers have already

10:12

won this great race to

10:14

the bottom to take out costs to

10:16

make EVs affordable, or as affordable, or

10:19

even cheaper, if you will, than gas-powered

10:21

cars. This

10:23

had been the goal for so long. The

10:26

way he's acting now, the idea that the

10:29

cheaper battery-powered car

10:31

is not the future, but

10:33

it is just a step

10:35

towards robot taxis,

10:38

is sending a message to some on Wall

10:40

Street that that's where he's

10:42

taken. That's where he sees the profitability,

10:44

the high margins, is in this next

10:47

leap forward in technology. The

10:49

challenge here is that Tesla doesn't have a

10:51

robot vehicle on the roads that we know

10:53

of at this point. They have not demonstrated

10:55

the ability like Waymo has in the streets

10:57

of San Francisco, where on a regular basis,

11:00

I see cars go by without people in

11:02

them at all. Tesla hasn't

11:04

shown that ability. That's one of

11:06

the big challenges here, is that he's painting a

11:08

future of Tesla being a

11:11

software company that generates money from these

11:13

robot taxis and AI and humanoid robots,

11:16

and not so much caring about

11:18

the metal-bashing business of making cars.

11:23

Right now, though, most of the revenues come from selling those

11:25

cars. Becky, when you're doing this, he's put

11:27

a lot of focus on the cyberhook, which I think is

11:29

just a stunt. I

11:31

honestly think it's a stunt. One

11:34

of the areas that he was doing very well on

11:36

was the supercharger area. He

11:38

fired the supercharger team, even though the charging network

11:40

has been touted by him as a huge competitive

11:43

advantage, and he had struck a deal with other

11:45

automakers to share it. Now

11:47

he's rehired some of them, though not

11:49

Rebecca Tanucci, another well-regarded executive

11:52

there who had resisted cuts. Becky, what

11:54

is happening here? What was supercharger?

11:56

Yeah, the supercharger network was considered one of

11:58

the best things. Tesla has done. It was

12:01

a huge accomplishment for them. And it was

12:03

a huge selling point to customers who were

12:05

wondering if they could take their Teslas on

12:07

long road trips, drive them across the country.

12:10

The Biden administration has bet that

12:12

Tesla's supercharging network will convince non-Tesla

12:15

drivers to drive EVs because

12:17

they can charge them on the network.

12:20

So firing the whole team is

12:22

really confusing for people who are

12:24

on the team, for people who

12:26

are building the superchargers and have

12:28

contracts, have land

12:31

reserves that they were expecting

12:33

to become a supercharger. I

12:36

don't think we really know what

12:38

is happening, but people are

12:40

coming back. Maybe he's realized his mistake, but

12:42

I think there's still a question about how

12:45

small of a team Tesla

12:47

can have running this huge network. What

12:49

guided the decision-making process as far as

12:51

you can tell? It seems

12:53

like he might have gotten

12:56

upset that Rebecca Tanucci had not laid

12:58

off enough people on her team and

13:00

tried to make an example of her.

13:02

Really? Anyone else? Tim? Well, we've

13:04

seen kind of these dramatic

13:08

decisions that he makes and announces the great fanfare

13:10

and then pulls back or readjusts

13:13

in the past. I think about 2019 when

13:16

he announced that he was basically getting rid of all the

13:18

stores, right? And that had been a long time dream for

13:20

Tesla to sell cars just directly on the

13:22

internet. And then lo and

13:24

behold, there was all these contracts on

13:26

his leases on these facilities around the

13:28

world. And by the way,

13:30

stores are very important for selling cars,

13:33

right? People need to be convinced sometimes

13:35

to get over the line to buy those vehicles. And

13:37

so in a lot of ways, it feels like kind

13:40

of classic Elon in that

13:42

he likes to shoot and then

13:44

think about it later. Once maybe

13:46

the decision is maybe not

13:49

as... Didn't play out the way he wanted, right?

13:51

But it kind of gets a little bit of the way he kind

13:54

of operates as a manager in which he kind

13:56

of believes in this power of momentum and the

13:58

idea that... But why would this be a momentum.

14:00

You think money? Right. The

14:02

idea that people weren't moving fast enough, change

14:05

wasn't occurring at the pace that he wanted, and

14:08

so he's just going to start burning it all down. We saw this at

14:10

Twitter turned X. He

14:13

likes to... It's like chaos theory. One of

14:15

the folks that I've talked to over the

14:17

years talks about chaos. He thrives in this

14:20

chaos and sees what shakes out at the

14:22

end. It doesn't always work out, but he

14:24

does like the appearance of movement. Kirsten,

14:26

but at the same time, there is reality. Tesla's

14:29

under multiple federal investigations, including

14:31

a criminal probe by the DOJ, a

14:33

civil probe by the SEC. Talk

14:36

a little bit about them and how concerned

14:38

should Tesla investors be or shouldn't about these

14:40

probes, and what's the role of the board here

14:43

in these probes? Ah, well, that's my

14:45

favorite subject, the Tesla board. One thing

14:47

that is extremely surprising about

14:53

Tesla to me, just to get

14:55

to your first point, is how

14:57

little the investors seem to care

14:59

as well as the directors about

15:01

Elon's antics or really

15:04

anything surrounding his personal

15:07

life or these government probes

15:09

or anything like this. I

15:12

guess as a human citizen, I

15:14

would say you should care. They

15:17

never seem to really care. As

15:20

you know over the years, the

15:22

government has tried various ways to

15:25

look into Tesla and to go

15:27

after them, and nothing really ever

15:30

seems to pan out or get

15:32

traction. The latest we wrote about

15:34

at the Wall Street Journal when

15:37

I was there was about this

15:39

glass house he was building. Elon

15:41

was allegedly using Tesla

15:45

resources to build this

15:47

glass house in Texas.

15:50

Whether or not he was using the resources

15:52

is kind of the point of contention, but

15:55

there was a secret team working on this

15:57

house at Tesla. The whole issue

15:59

was ... was Tesla and

16:01

its employees being used for something

16:03

personal. And you know that nothing's

16:06

come of that yet, these things

16:08

are slow moving. So it's hard

16:10

to say whatever

16:12

comes of any of this. You can talk about

16:15

the board's role here because they really don't

16:17

have a role it seems. They've always to

16:19

me been, I don't even count them, they're

16:21

sort of lapdogs to Elon. Yeah

16:23

several of them over here. And then you say, for people

16:25

who don't know, a Delaware judge voided Elon's

16:27

$56 billion pay package.

16:29

The board is currently campaigning to get it reinstated,

16:32

especially the chairperson Robin

16:34

Denholm. Explain what's

16:37

happening here and the role the board plays.

16:39

You know there's a couple ways to look at the board, right? As

16:42

an investor you might be kind

16:45

of happy with the board given the results of the

16:47

stock over the past 10 years,

16:49

right? Another way of looking

16:51

at it is, you

16:53

know, are they really keeping him totally engaged

16:55

as CEO of Tesla, right? The idea of

16:58

that giant pay package

17:00

in 2018 was concerned

17:02

that he has all these other things

17:04

to occupy his time, that he has

17:07

a wandering eye for entrepreneurialism and activities

17:09

and was supposed to really get him

17:11

to kind of be nailed down there and

17:13

be fully engaged. And in a lot of ways

17:15

it did help in the interim. He brought out

17:18

the Model 3, shares

17:20

went to the moon, became the world's

17:22

most valuable automaker and in turn made

17:24

him among the world's richest men. But

17:27

you know he also became kind of busy

17:29

with Twitter and all these other things and

17:31

now the question I think in some investors

17:34

minds is they being asked to reauthorize

17:36

that pay package is, is he

17:38

really engaged? Are they really

17:41

getting, you know, fully full-time Elon and

17:43

Elon's people would say, well yes he's

17:45

very committed and he works very hard

17:47

and whatnot. But it's obvious that, undeniable

17:50

that his calendar is just so much more

17:52

busy than in 2018. He has X, he

17:55

has his startup for AI, a

17:57

company called XAI. He has a threatened

18:00

to take AI and robotics

18:02

ideas that he has at Tesla elsewhere

18:05

if he's not given a 25% control

18:08

of the company, which raises the

18:10

kind of question of is he got one

18:12

foot out the door or not, especially as

18:14

he's trying to frame the company as an

18:16

AI company. What's happening with this board then?

18:19

So I have to say I

18:21

think this board is unlike any

18:23

board I've ever seen in covering

18:26

business. So just talking about the

18:28

pay package when it was approved,

18:30

the chair of the board or

18:33

the chair of the compensation committee,

18:35

Ira Aaron Price, to

18:37

approve that pay package, longtime friend

18:39

of Elon, has invested in many

18:41

of his companies more than 70

18:44

million we found in Elon's

18:47

companies, has made more

18:49

than 200 million in stock

18:51

on Tesla, has literally

18:53

like said he loves Elon,

18:55

right? Also still on the

18:57

Tesla board. His brother, another

18:59

so-called like independent board member

19:01

at the time that pay

19:03

package was approved, was someone

19:06

who sees literally done drugs

19:08

with over the years Antonio

19:10

Gracias, also invested in all

19:12

of Elon's companies, partied with

19:14

him, vacationed with him, the

19:16

list kind of just goes

19:18

on and on. Even

19:20

Robin Denholm, the chair of the

19:22

Tesla board, who her

19:25

credit I guess does not party with

19:27

Elon, has still made an enormous amount

19:29

of money from being a board chair,

19:31

more than 200 almost 300 million we

19:34

found. It's

19:38

unprecedented and I have to

19:40

say I was shocked when

19:42

I saw her recent very

19:44

rare interview in the FT

19:47

about what she sees her role

19:49

as at the company and she

19:52

literally said well I

19:54

don't think it's my role to kind of

19:56

like and I'm I'm not reading from it

19:58

so I'm paraphrasing here but She said

20:00

something like, I don't think it's

20:02

my role to like police Elon's

20:05

antics. Well, actually, that's exactly

20:07

what her role is. And in

20:09

fact, there's an SEC settlement from

20:12

2018, where she is literally supposed

20:14

to be policing his tweets. Right.

20:17

Right. So it's just completely

20:19

hands off this board, in my opinion. Yeah,

20:21

absolutely. She also said till the Financial Times

20:23

will get it later, if I had a

20:26

magic wand, Twitter wouldn't exist. Yeah. But

20:28

it's a huge headache. It's like

20:30

her headache, right? That's her job.

20:32

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23:30

art of simplified finances. For

23:36

each episode, we have an expert send us a question. This

23:38

one is no different. This one comes from my

23:41

favorite NBA team owner, Mark Cuban. Let's

23:43

hear it. Hi, my name

23:46

is Mark Cuban, and I'm the

23:48

co-founder of costplusdrugs.com. I have

23:50

a mini Australian shepherd whose name is Tux. I

23:52

can take Tux anywhere, put him

23:55

in any situation, and without telling him anything,

23:57

he'll be able to figure out what's safe

23:59

and what's not. He

24:01

is smarter than any artificial intelligence

24:03

out there today, which makes

24:05

me wonder if artificial intelligence is not

24:08

as smart as Tux, how are we

24:10

going to get full-service driving? Thanks. Oh,

24:14

I like a good dunk. Who wants to

24:16

take this one first? How about that? I'll

24:19

take it. Becky? Okay,

24:21

well, I live in New York City. I don't drive a car.

24:23

And, but

24:25

people get hit by cars in the city all the time. I think

24:28

that the dream is that all the cars

24:30

are talking to each other, and they don't

24:32

have to be perfect because the system works

24:34

better than human drivers. That's

24:37

not the world we live in. In San

24:39

Francisco, we see actual autonomous vehicles

24:41

like Waymo getting stuck behind fire

24:44

trucks, getting stuck behind plastic bags

24:46

blowing in the wind. The

24:49

products are getting better. They're

24:52

being developed, but they right now

24:54

are only able to work really well in really

24:57

specific environments. I

24:59

think it's going to be slow. And I think,

25:02

I mean, that's probably one reason why the Robo taxi

25:04

is such a big bet because it's hard to see

25:06

who's going to be buying them and how soon they're

25:08

going to be buying them. I think it's nonsense. I

25:10

think it's hand waving nonsense. It's a great dream. So,

25:12

you know, I'd like to fly with my wings too,

25:14

but that's the way it goes. I

25:17

listen to one from Tesla and talk about SpaceX speaking of

25:19

flying, which seems like a bright

25:21

spot for Musk. Right now, no one can compete

25:23

with the Starlink service. There are competitors coming, as

25:25

always. And as a recent journal article put it,

25:28

SpaceX is one of the investing world's most exclusive

25:30

clubs. Everybody wants to get in on this IPO

25:32

when it goes public. It's COO,

25:34

Gwynne Shotwell is perhaps the most

25:37

stable executive working with Musk, has

25:39

good relationships with the government, et cetera. Kirsten,

25:43

I want you to take this on. How does

25:45

SpaceX seemingly avoid some of the management drama that

25:47

affects Tesla and X? Well, they might not be

25:49

avoiding it. We just don't know

25:51

because they're a private company, right?

25:53

So they're able to really keep

25:56

a lot of things under wraps,

25:58

especially like how the overstating. site

26:00

is working both on the government and some

26:02

of that is at least public, but still

26:05

extremely hard to penetrate understanding

26:07

their relationships with the various

26:09

government contractors. And then of

26:11

course, again, with their boards,

26:14

it's hard to tell who even is

26:16

on the board there at any given

26:18

time. It's a private company. So there

26:20

could definitely be drama, but it does

26:22

also seem like Elon kind of

26:25

treats SpaceX as like a safe

26:27

haven where he moves executives who

26:29

aren't doing so well at other

26:32

companies. He moved his buddy Steve

26:34

Jurvitsen off the Tesla board. He's

26:36

still on the SpaceX board, for

26:38

example. So he does kind of

26:40

shuffle things around SpaceX. But

26:42

it's going to go public, presumably. Yeah,

26:44

the IPO is like people are so

26:46

excited about it. People are talking about

26:49

it all the time. And Elon and

26:51

Glenn have both said that it's far

26:53

away. I don't think that

26:55

they are doing the process right now. I

26:57

don't think they are filing an S1 anytime

26:59

soon. But everyone wants them

27:02

to go public. There's just this complication that

27:04

they have Starlink and that it's this

27:06

giant company. They have government contracts that

27:09

they don't necessarily want to have

27:11

under the scrutiny of the SEC

27:13

or the public markets. So there's

27:15

some questions about how it would even

27:18

be structured. But it

27:20

really impacts how people interact with Musk. Like

27:22

with the XAI fundraising, I talked to people

27:24

who said basically they have

27:27

no choice but

27:29

to like participate because they want

27:31

access. They want to maintain

27:33

access. And the SpaceX IPO is

27:35

the ultimate access. That's correct. Yeah,

27:38

it's a great carrot. But Tim, you

27:40

had an article about Moscow Musk,

27:42

which I love, as some critics have called

27:44

him. I may have done that. They

27:47

say he's a Putin apologist or even

27:49

more shilling for Russia. Musk says his

27:51

companies have, quote, probably done more to

27:53

undermine Russia than anything, end quote. Explain

27:55

the controversy and then weigh in. He certainly

27:58

does like to sidle up to Dick. That's

28:00

one of his favorite moves. It's

28:02

the Musk Doctrine. I will get to

28:04

that. First

28:07

of all, Starlink has been

28:10

helpful in the Ukraine side of the

28:12

war. And Elon was

28:14

kind of cheered on as a

28:16

hero for allowing that and helping

28:18

that. But then he really surprised a lot of

28:20

folks when he wouldn't

28:22

enable that satellite internet

28:24

service in a part of Crimea where

28:27

the Ukrainians wanted to attack the Russians.

28:29

And he was worried it would kind

28:31

of trigger a nuclear war or really just elevate

28:33

things to an 11. And he

28:36

said that he just wouldn't do it because of that. And

28:38

it put him really in this kind of

28:40

interesting position where he is kind of this

28:42

citizen of the world, is

28:44

making decisions that affect wars and

28:46

really elevated the kind of the

28:48

power that he has over kind

28:50

of world events now in

28:52

a very unique way that

28:55

has kind of concerned people. And

28:57

so in his comments that have followed

28:59

regarding Putin and the

29:01

Russians kind of pushing for

29:04

peace talks and raising ideas for how

29:06

that would work, just to

29:08

a lot of experts, a lot of close

29:10

observers of foreign affairs, just

29:13

smacks of kind of influence from the

29:15

Russian side. Now, Musk would say that

29:17

he hasn't talked to Putin and that

29:19

sort of thing. He does

29:21

seem to be favoring the party line,

29:23

which then when you put into

29:26

consideration kind of the role that SpaceX

29:28

is playing and global affairs, worries some

29:30

people. Yeah, worries a lot of people,

29:32

I can tell you. They sidle up to me at Washington

29:34

parties all the time. But Tesla also does

29:37

a lot of business in China. SpaceX is

29:39

a U.S. military contractor,

29:41

as you just noted. In February,

29:43

former Congressman Mike Gallagher said that Star

29:45

Shield, which is a military version of

29:47

Starlink, wasn't working for American troops in

29:50

and around Taiwan. SpaceX denied the allegations.

29:52

Becky, what's happened since February in stepping

29:54

back? How is the Pentagon

29:56

managing Elon's seemingly split

29:58

allegiances in China? He just

30:01

recently was there striking a deal

30:03

to be able to sell more of those cars

30:05

there. Talk a little bit about that

30:08

complication for him and for the

30:10

U.S. I think the federal

30:12

government is in the same position as a

30:14

lot of Musk investors where they have to

30:17

sort of balance access

30:20

and getting their own needs met. In the

30:22

case of national security interests, they probably have

30:24

a lot more leverage. I'm not really

30:26

sure what's happening on the inside with that. Everybody

30:29

else on China where he is because he's made

30:31

some statements that were pretty pro-Chinese. Absolutely. It's

30:33

interesting, right? If you look at the

30:35

revenues that come from China for Tesla, huge

30:38

important part of the business really helped

30:40

Tesla get to where

30:42

it is in large part by allowing

30:45

Tesla to be the first Western automaker

30:47

to open up a factory without a

30:49

joint venture in the country, allowing it

30:51

to fuel massive rapid growth during the

30:54

pandemic, allowing it to really

30:56

kind of be where it is now. So

30:58

you put that in the back of your mind

31:00

and then you see these pro-China comments that he's

31:02

often making and siding

31:05

with China and the debate over where Taiwan

31:07

fits into that

31:10

scenario. It

31:12

worries people. It gets back to the issue of

31:14

Russia. It worries people, right? I

31:16

kind of alluded to it. I think of it

31:19

as the Musk Doctrine where he has business in

31:22

countries where maybe

31:24

there are more tougher ruling

31:28

leaders that have a stronger grasp of

31:31

things. He seems

31:33

very deferential, but in

31:35

other countries such as the US, he's very quick

31:37

to go after every level of

31:39

power and uses that in some

31:41

ways, that defiance as part

31:44

of his power that he gains in places like the

31:46

US. You don't want to be a government official in

31:48

the US being attacked by Elon Musk. It's

31:51

not just him. It's his echo

31:53

verse of followers on X who

31:55

then amplify every criticism and

31:57

every attack to the point where it's very difficult.

32:00

It harder to be a politician in

32:02

the country and be under attack like

32:04

that. So the South About Twitter x

32:06

Families Now fully and officially x that

32:08

times. But and and he is

32:10

not Ceo but the cel that he

32:12

every knows kind of recently was a

32:14

punchline at the Network of Friends and

32:16

everywhere she goes to show that she

32:18

she created with tell mom and pull

32:20

up and. Interface.

32:23

And because a lot being upset about it. Let's

32:26

talk about the business. Of. X right

32:28

now backing. Yeah, we we

32:30

don't have a lot of insight

32:32

into how well ad sales are

32:34

doing. Think it's still pretty much

32:36

an odd run business. The subscription

32:38

business is not very popular. I

32:41

personally and subscribing right now because I

32:43

wanted to try graft and see how

32:45

it works. I don't have any sort

32:48

of daily Sawyer. says. Like

32:50

kind of sarcastic new summary. But.

32:53

There are people who are paying for

32:55

it. I think it's still mostly sort

32:57

of like that. Ilan Stand Universe are

32:59

people who are trying to become influences

33:01

on the platform. And tim

33:03

yeah is it is an ad business doesn't

33:05

seem to. it's clearly not what it wants

33:08

was decline writers but. If

33:10

you think about it is something

33:12

else. It's really an extension of

33:14

his power. As soft power, it's

33:16

definitely having influence right? A He's

33:18

been embraced by a lot of

33:20

people. It's expanded his recent a

33:22

certain areas. It's definitely given him

33:24

a bigger voice and month global

33:26

affairs and a way that you

33:28

don't typically see with most Ceos

33:30

So it in that regard it

33:32

as an interesting Tunis toolbox re

33:34

he goes from the guy who

33:36

had the probably the biggest reach

33:38

says a user. Or least among the

33:40

biggest reach as user to now Nobody can take

33:42

him off of it right in a gives him

33:44

carte blanche to do kind of whatever he wants

33:46

and as long as people are continue to go

33:49

to it and people seem to keeps engaging on

33:51

that gives him a lot of power with a

33:53

flag he does have a he was just the

33:55

car guy before and now. He says south

33:57

at times. Recently published in Investigation Deal

33:59

on. who was right-wing leaders like Javier

34:02

Malle of Argentina, Jair

34:04

Bolsonaro in Brazil, a Neurondra

34:07

Modi in India, and they basically concluded that he's

34:09

lavished them with public praise usually on Twitter and then

34:11

got in favor of treatment for his companies from

34:13

them. Kirsten, talk about

34:15

this Twitter diplomacy. When he was buying

34:17

Twitter, everyone was sort of perplexed, but

34:20

a very sharp availability nurse told me he

34:23

bought the company for international influence for his

34:25

other businesses more than anything else, and I

34:27

think that's borne itself out. Yeah,

34:29

definitely. I mean, it's interesting because

34:32

the Twitter thing is kind of two

34:34

separate trends coming together, right? So, immediately

34:37

after he bought Twitter, he kind of

34:39

rearranged all the systems and the algorithm

34:41

to make sure it was preferential

34:44

to him, right? And you can even just

34:46

see that going on there now. And so

34:48

now this has spread into his

34:51

other, you know, job

34:53

that he wishes to have, which I guess

34:55

is one of a diplomat because he really

34:57

wants to be involved in all these international

35:00

affairs, and much like he was

35:02

doing at Twitter, he's now kind

35:04

of like leaning on these world

35:06

leaders he's buddies with to

35:08

get stuff done. Yeah. And

35:11

is that effective? Is that worth the price

35:13

of the money he's paid for? I think

35:15

in some cases it is effective. As

35:17

you pointed out, my colleagues wrote

35:19

about recently, it is effective sometimes.

35:21

I personally think it's so funny,

35:24

this bromance he has with like

35:26

Argentinian's Malay, right? I mean, all

35:28

the pictures and the fun they're

35:30

having, and it definitely, you know,

35:32

I'm sure he's not just doing

35:34

that for the heck of it,

35:36

right? Mm-hmm. So.

35:40

Yeah. So, Tim, when you, one of the things that

35:42

Twitter acquisition and the tsunami of mostly negative press has

35:44

followed him since he got there,

35:46

and it seems to have taken his toll.

35:48

How much time of mental space would

35:50

you say X occupies for Elon, and

35:53

what is the price? Well, he

35:55

would argue, if he was here, he would probably argue that it

35:57

doesn't take that much time, right? That he's, you

35:59

know, just. one of many children that he loves. But

36:02

clearly it has taken a toll on his businesses,

36:05

right? And if you look

36:07

at recent consumer data at the end of

36:09

last year when he was being very outspoken

36:11

on very contentious issues, you

36:13

saw the share of car buyers who

36:15

identify as Democrats buying

36:19

Tesla drop dramatically, a sign

36:22

that maybe they couldn't stomach where he was

36:24

going politically. That was really the first time

36:26

we've seen this. And it's a bad sign

36:30

for a carmaker, an EV carmaker, because

36:32

in the US, the biggest

36:34

cohort of buyers for electric cars

36:36

are Democrats. Now,

36:38

he has brought Republicans in to the

36:40

Tesla tent, which is very important for

36:43

growing that technology to be

36:45

mainstream. But he definitely needs Democrats. And if

36:47

they're turned off by his issues

36:50

and his antics, that's troubling for the company.

36:53

And Twitter has debt. Nobody has sold the debt.

36:55

It does have a heavy debt load. He obviously

36:57

has rich friends that want to

36:59

get into the SpaceX IPO.

37:02

Why have these banks not come after him? Is

37:04

it just like a rich guy owning a yacht?

37:07

This is his version of a yacht. There's a

37:09

lot of people that think XAI and Grok are

37:11

going to be the key to turning the

37:14

Twitter acquisition around. There's

37:16

people who think he's going to pull

37:18

a rabbit out of a hat, and

37:20

he's going to use Tesla data to

37:22

train these models. And it's going to

37:24

be the smartest AI on

37:27

the planet. And then they'll have been

37:29

in early. He's not having any trouble

37:31

fundraising for XAI. Yeah,

37:34

let's talk about that. So he's already raising $6

37:36

billion to create a competitive to open AI and

37:38

others in which he played a major role in

37:40

the early days and then broke from. $6

37:43

billion is nowhere near enough money to compete

37:45

with open AI, Microsoft, and Google. So

37:47

you're talking a rabbit out of a hat.

37:49

Is it really a rabbit or is it

37:51

a dead rabbit? And

37:54

is it OK to use this other company's data to

37:56

do it? That's another thing. Whether

38:00

a flat a how how ownership of

38:02

that data works I think I will

38:04

be a big issue of in the

38:06

next few months sexy come up when

38:09

I have talked to people about the

38:11

compensation package like if you on his

38:13

disengage that he's still Ceo is he

38:15

gonna use his those resources as a

38:17

smokes make X Ai into this giant

38:20

A I. Company. And

38:22

leave Tesla behind. The herbs.

38:24

or think that's one of. The concerns from

38:26

the people who are concerns. In

38:29

a I say is I haven't really seen very

38:31

much traction. Forgot I talk to people who say

38:33

it's just not very practical. The build on got.

38:36

I'm. I don't think is

38:38

considered. Really? Extraordinary compared

38:40

to the competitors five. Six.

38:43

Billion Dollars is a lot of money,

38:45

and it's money that other companies can't

38:47

necessarily raise. And there's the argument that

38:49

he'll be able to buy enough hardware

38:51

that he in train models to be

38:53

smarter than any other models out there.

38:55

So maybe the money will transform this,

38:57

but there's a lot of competition and

38:59

airspace or it now. and they're pretty

39:01

behind me. Amazon to Steam, Anthropic for

39:03

the him thing. Just like not enough

39:05

money is seems like a sides it

39:07

seems to me I don't else. At

39:09

thoughts: Temur Searchers, Ton. Of

39:11

images you ask why in or why don't

39:14

people upset or why investors go along with

39:16

his? Well if you will get some of

39:18

the long arc of his career, he's taken

39:20

on a lot of things that didn't make

39:22

sense does it first blush that look like

39:24

they were going to fail and his peers

39:26

pulled off these kind of rabbits if you

39:28

will with whether it's the success of Spacex

39:30

or Tussaud's success rate. So. that

39:32

those successes give him credibility his in

39:34

investors are a lot of time are

39:36

willing to kind of hold their nose

39:38

and in that the current drama current

39:40

dramas because they're they're making a long

39:43

term better over time i'm ultimately that

39:45

will be successful that as part of

39:47

the drama around you on mosque and

39:49

why your tracks supporters and detractors as

39:51

he don't know if he's gonna pull

39:53

it off ray is that the time

39:55

it is gonna trip and fall in

39:57

his face or is he going to

39:59

yet again kind of impress everybody

40:01

with some daring feat. Right, in

40:04

that regard, Neuralink, which they recently published a

40:06

livestream video that showed the first patient to

40:08

get the company's brain chip implant, move a

40:10

cursor with his mind, it's now got some

40:12

problems. They're still working on it. They're gonna

40:14

implant another person, but apparently the little strings

40:17

came out of the brain or something like

40:19

that. He and I have

40:21

talked about this a lot, but it's way far

40:23

away, this idea. And there are other companies, again,

40:25

there are other competitors, and that nobody gets written

40:27

about that aren't just his thing. How

40:30

much progress has Neuralink made towards its very heady

40:32

goals, and is it a flash in the pan

40:35

or a real company? I did some research into

40:37

Neuralink. You know, I don't think

40:39

it's a flash in the pan. I think it's a legit

40:41

company. I actually don't think he's

40:43

very involved with it at all.

40:45

It's just, you know, Neuralink

40:47

and the boring company seem to me as

40:50

sort of like, ah, kind of

40:52

like the fun, tiny things he does on

40:54

the side sometimes. But it does

40:56

seem like it has been on track

40:58

to help people with

41:00

disabilities. But this goal of

41:02

all of us using Neuralink

41:04

as a society seems

41:07

many, many years, if not decades

41:09

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41:15

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Clean! Term Supply. Well,

41:58

when was the last time you noticed a federal? You

42:02

know the type. Federal government is passing a

42:04

law or changing a rule and they want to

42:06

hear what you think about it. Well,

42:08

one of those comment periods just kicked off

42:11

and runs for the next two months and

42:13

it's a big one. The

42:16

federal government wants to know what

42:19

you think about their plan to

42:21

reschedule marijuana. Not what

42:23

time you take your smoke breaks, Vicali. Sorry,

42:25

I'm late. It's just like this

42:28

new schedule is totally confusing. The

42:30

federal government is basically trying to

42:32

recategorize weed and it could happen

42:34

as soon as election day. The

42:37

president says it's a big deal. This

42:39

is monumental. But we reached

42:41

out to a cannabis policy reporter at

42:43

Politico to ask if she thought it

42:45

was monumental and she said

42:48

yes, but also no. Our

42:52

conversation is waiting for you at Today Explained.

42:59

So let's talk about his state of mind. He

43:01

is a restless mind. And of

43:03

course, he's gotten more involved in politics. Kirsten,

43:05

you broke the huge story about England's

43:07

recreational drug use, which everybody knew about,

43:10

to tell you, including, thankfully, someone wrote it.

43:12

And yet it took us a year to

43:14

get that story. I get that. I

43:16

understand that, but I'm saying everyone knew

43:18

about it. Everyone knows that you wrote

43:20

about using LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms,

43:22

ketamine. Talk about

43:24

his party and the drug use and what role,

43:26

if at all, it plays in his decision making.

43:28

What's changed since you reported on that? And I

43:30

have to say the most important thing about that

43:32

story was the money the board was getting to

43:34

me. That, to me, was

43:36

at the dead center of it. But go

43:39

ahead. Definitely. To be honest, I

43:41

don't think much has changed. I

43:43

mean, I think, again, this comes

43:45

back to the Tesla board especially.

43:47

So something like this, when a

43:51

high level executive, maybe not even

43:53

the CEO, is using recreational

43:55

drugs at a normal company, that

43:57

would warrant a fair minimum. an

43:59

internal investigation. And maybe it could

44:01

be like, you know, a check

44:03

the box is internal investigation. We

44:06

hire an outside law firm. Think

44:08

about if this was like Pfizer

44:10

or Morgan Stanley CEO. None

44:13

of that has happened in this case. The

44:15

government contractors seem not to care

44:17

what kind of drugs he is

44:19

doing or not doing, even though

44:21

it's a clear violation of his

44:23

government contracts. So I think it's

44:25

kind of just the status quo,

44:27

to be honest. Yeah, so

44:29

nothing happened. Nothing. Nothing. Not

44:32

the government, not losing his

44:34

security. To our knowledge, right?

44:36

So I mean, there could be something

44:38

going on. But you know, in that

44:41

Financial Times interview, Robin Denholm even said

44:43

she wasn't aware that he was using

44:45

drugs, I believe, which is just sort

44:48

of unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, so nothing

44:51

at all. Just these taking drugs. That's it. Yeah,

44:53

the executive would have been fired. But you know,

44:56

Tim, I think brought up a really

44:58

good point, which is always super

45:00

important to remember when writing about

45:02

Elon Musk is Tesla has done

45:04

insanely well. SpaceX has done well,

45:06

right? So if you're an investor

45:09

in these companies, why do you

45:11

actually care if he's like doing

45:13

Coke or whatever he's doing, right?

45:16

The company is doing well. So it is.

45:18

There are two sides to this, for sure.

45:20

Well, Tim, last August, you did have a

45:22

column with the headline, Elon Musk's latest antics

45:24

have some asking, is he out of touch?

45:26

According to some of the supporters, he has

45:28

quote, ensconced and distorted reality is warping his

45:31

perspective and threatening his businesses. You've

45:33

had about 10 months to consider a

45:35

question. Is he out of

45:37

touch with reality? He seems to live

45:39

in a bubble, that's for sure, right? A bubble of,

45:42

you know, we've seen over the years, you go back

45:44

to the early days of Tesla, let's just use Tesla

45:46

example, early days, there were people around him who told

45:48

him hard truths. They didn't maybe last long, but

45:51

they did that. And, you know, for

45:53

the betterment of the company, it's

45:55

hard to say that there are people around

45:57

him now who are giving him the same.

45:59

same kind of hard truth. We don't

46:02

know that to be the case. I don't know that to be the case.

46:04

And it's hard to see anybody there tempering some

46:07

of his excursions, right?

46:09

And so that's it. By

46:11

its very nature, you've got a lot of

46:13

people around him who are either hanger-oners

46:15

or kind of supporters or people that kind

46:18

of encourage him to be in that

46:20

bubble-like environment. Then, but I'll

46:22

put that aside, then he's on Twitter

46:24

and he's hearing. He's taking in all

46:26

the negative feedback and seeing it all.

46:28

But then he's also being

46:30

reinforced by this new kind of

46:32

lesion of echoes that kind of,

46:35

whatever he does, support him. And that kind of

46:37

feeds him even more. So it's an interesting dynamic

46:39

where he kind of

46:42

is a guy in his own little world

46:44

where he hears everything he says is just

46:46

great. Yeah, that's certainly true. I've heard from

46:48

a lot of people close to him that are disturbed,

46:50

I would say. They're

46:53

all like, Carrie, you want to talk about it? I'm like, no,

46:55

you should get him some help. That's my feeling. You

46:58

should get him into therapy if you're really worried about

47:00

him, actually. It's not my business.

47:03

But Becky, to Tim's point, do

47:06

people around him who can tell him no push back

47:08

on his bad ideas? Is that a

47:10

problematic thing? Has he lost perspective because he's surrounded

47:12

himself with yes men who slavishly lick him up

47:14

and down all day? How does that

47:16

impact his situation? That's what it is. I'm

47:19

sorry. I've heard from lots of people. I

47:22

think we saw with the Tesla layoffs that

47:24

people who don't do exactly what

47:26

he wants don't last very

47:28

long at the companies. People

47:31

get really scared when they have to

47:33

directly report to him. It's so much better

47:35

to have a manager in between

47:37

because if you're directly reporting to him and

47:39

he's observing everything you're doing, there's

47:42

no way he's not going to find something wrong

47:44

with what you're doing. So

47:46

I don't think there's a lot of space for pushback

47:48

at Tesla or SpaceX.

47:52

So where is pushback? Does it exist? I

47:55

haven't found any pushback. I haven't either.

47:58

Yeah. It's interesting. I talked

48:00

to him about this years ago and I said, you know, there

48:02

was something that happened. I said, well, I've talked to a bunch

48:04

of people that said they told you this was a dumb idea.

48:07

And he says, well, people all the time tell

48:09

me I've got dumb ideas, right? You know, but I

48:11

said I was never going to be able to land

48:13

a rocket and I've done that and, you know, done

48:15

this EV thing. And

48:17

that kind of, you see that clouding some of

48:19

his thinking, right? It's almost as

48:22

if he wants to prove somebody wrong if

48:24

they're saying, telling him no or that's not

48:26

possible, right? And we've gotten to the point

48:28

now where it's just it's like feeding itself,

48:30

right? Yeah, it's a nonsense. Mark Zuckerberg does that.

48:32

They all do that. I was right about this, but

48:34

they don't tell you the times people were right and

48:36

pushed him in the right direction. He never remembers

48:39

that part. I think

48:41

it's a real blind spot. He used to listen to

48:43

a lot of people. I know people think he's kind

48:45

of a troll right now, but he did used to.

48:47

He had a lot of people around him who pushed

48:49

back on him. And now I think there's almost nobody.

48:52

And speaking people who do influence

48:54

him, Tim, you wrote a piece

48:56

about Elon's infatuation with God

48:58

Saad, a Canadian marketing professor, author,

49:00

and cultural warrior who rails against

49:02

the quote unquote, like mine virus.

49:05

It's just one of the right wing thinkers whom

49:07

Elon seems to have glomped onto. I

49:10

feel that COVID lockdowns radicalized

49:12

him more. He was

49:14

upset. The Biden administration ignored Tesla, his

49:16

words. Is there any

49:18

clue to help us understand his obsession

49:21

with sort of strafing immigrants, Jews,

49:23

trans people, black people, gay people?

49:27

And are there any other right wing thinkers

49:29

he's engaging with online besides

49:32

Saad? It's definitely, you

49:34

definitely see, and he's even talked, Elon's talked

49:36

about 2019. He starts to

49:38

see the world a little bit different, but

49:40

then COVID happens and we really start to

49:43

see it differently through his public stances. Right?

49:46

And one of the things that makes it challenging

49:48

to write and to kind of follow him is that

49:51

sometimes he is on the forefront of

49:53

kind of having his fingers

49:55

on the pulse of where society is on

49:57

some of these contentious issues, right? It's not

49:59

that. I don't, you know, immigration

50:01

is definitely contentious. I don't think a

50:03

lot of people would say they support

50:05

illegal immigration, right? But it's the tone.

50:08

It's the tone. It is the things that

50:10

he's saying that goes a little too far

50:12

in a lot of people's minds. It's a

50:14

cruelness to it, right? And

50:17

you know, that is some of the challenge

50:19

of like trying to kind of balance as

50:21

you watch him as a man and as

50:23

a leader. And I

50:25

think Walter Isaacson talks about demon mode, where

50:27

sometimes it just something clicks. And

50:29

I've talked to people over the years who say you

50:31

can almost tell the red mist had come over

50:33

his eyes of just anger and, you know,

50:36

seeing things in a certain way. And

50:38

you know, I guess it's the flip side of

50:40

his ability to be so right on so

50:43

many issues that to think that EVs could be

50:45

a thing or rockets could be a thing. And

50:47

then some of these other social

50:49

issues, he seems to be out of touch with

50:51

a lot of people that are very, very hurtful

50:54

to some people. What do you think

50:56

about that demon mode? I think it's nonsense. But go ahead. Well,

50:59

I think the real issue and

51:01

this speaks to the demon mode is and

51:03

this is not just Elon. This

51:05

has been a problem with other

51:08

executives is you don't know when

51:10

they actually have an actual mental

51:12

health issue versus their drug use.

51:14

And so is demon mode just like

51:17

actually when he's like taken too much

51:19

ketamine? Is it actually because he has

51:21

a diagnosis that we don't

51:23

know about, even though we've spoken about

51:25

other mental health issues? So I think

51:28

it does, I agree, sound a little

51:30

bit sort of like apologetic to him.

51:32

But I think it really more than that speaks

51:34

to the fact that we just don't know and

51:36

won't know and won't know probably.

51:38

Yes. Becky, when you

51:40

talk to people, I think a lot of executives kind

51:42

of want to behave like him and then don't in

51:45

some ways. But do you get

51:47

worries from those who are there at the company

51:49

about that? Or are they just going along for

51:51

the ride? It's totally mixed. There's

51:53

still a lot of people who really look up

51:55

to him, even when I talk to people working

51:58

at the factories. surprises me. They'll

52:01

describe conditions that are unsafe,

52:03

they'll describe bullying, they'll describe

52:05

ways in which just

52:07

the HR has failed them, and

52:10

they'll always say, I don't think Elon

52:12

would let this remain if

52:14

he knew about it. They often

52:16

think that Elon, they see

52:18

him as sort of like a flawed hero, but

52:21

who would not let the conditions of the

52:23

factory slide if he was like there on

52:26

a day-to-day basis. It really surprises

52:28

me because I see it as being a little

52:30

bit more of a trickle down. I think that

52:32

like very high level managers do have an impact

52:34

on what things are like on the floor and

52:37

that they are responsible for what things are like

52:39

on the floor. But no,

52:41

they're still a bit of a

52:43

hero dynamic. He's often not

52:45

blamed. Yeah, it's a little Trumpy. And

52:48

speaking of that, Musk met with former President

52:50

Donald Trump in March. He said he doesn't

52:52

support Trump. I think he's lying. He

52:54

also said he might endorse a candidate closer to

52:57

the election. What's their

52:59

relationship like? Or is RFK Jr. more of

53:01

an attraction to him, Tim? He's been clear that

53:03

who he's not going to support, and that's Joe

53:05

Biden, right? And he

53:08

definitely has embraced the

53:10

Trump populism, the billionaire populism, if

53:13

you will. And

53:15

that can be helpful to the Trump campaign.

53:19

It can help elevate the message. It can

53:21

help kind of amplify that

53:23

message as we get closer to the

53:25

election day in November. And that's beneficial

53:27

to Trump, having Elon

53:30

out there attacking Biden on a regular

53:32

basis and kind of

53:34

amplifying discontent about the

53:36

president. And you definitely want

53:38

that if you are Trump. You don't want it

53:40

the other way, right? Sure.

53:43

So I'd like to end on this idea. Tim,

53:45

one of your recent columns was

53:48

called with Elon Musk as the bad outweigh

53:50

the good. So let's hear from all three

53:52

of you when factoring in everything does the

53:55

bad outweigh the good or vice versa. Are

53:57

we in the Howard Hughes portion of this?

54:00

story. You had a passage I

54:02

want to read, Tim. It was also

54:04

talking about the pay package, but also

54:06

what he was like as

54:08

an entrepreneur many years ago, which is when I

54:11

spent most of my time with him. It was

54:13

also another era for an entrepreneur, one

54:15

before Musk pulled off one of the most

54:17

remarkable corporate turnarounds in a generation and became in

54:19

the process one of the world's richest men. It was

54:22

the era of Elon as the underdog, the

54:24

guy with a chip on his shoulder trying

54:26

to prove Motor City and Bigelow wrong, as

54:29

well as all of those short sellers betting,

54:31

no rooting against him, hungry Elon sleeping on

54:33

the floor, factory Elon staring into the abyss,

54:35

chewing glass, Elon. That

54:39

factory floor thing is so nonsensical. In any

54:41

case, each of you, let's start with you,

54:43

Tim, since you wrote that, then Becky, and

54:45

then Kirsten, you get the last word. People

54:47

always want to know, is he the hero or

54:49

the villain? And I think it depends on the

54:51

day, sometimes it depends within the

54:54

day, right? There's just a lot of gray.

54:56

And I think the long arc of time

54:58

will kind of weigh that. The challenge with

55:00

judging or kind of making an opinion on

55:02

Elon and today is that there's so much

55:04

change. We don't know what Elon we're going

55:06

to get tomorrow or the next week or

55:08

a month or a year from now, right?

55:10

And what do you think it will be?

55:12

That's the drama of it all. You're not

55:14

going to guess. Think about what he has

55:16

already accomplished though. It would then 20 years ago, who

55:19

let the dog out? My dog. 20 years ago,

55:21

it would have been hard to imagine the

55:27

idea that electric cars could be true,

55:29

not even competing, but eating lunches of

55:32

the established car makers. So that in a lot of

55:34

ways is some of his legacy, what

55:36

he's done with space is some of his legacy.

55:38

But now kind of as we get into this

55:40

later part of his life, that will definitely be

55:42

part of that kind of legacy that he leads.

55:44

Becky? I think we're entering

55:47

the era where Elon has competition in

55:49

EVs, competition in reusable rockets,

55:53

and we'll find that his early

55:55

advancements in those two

55:57

areas are some of the best things that he's done. I

56:00

think that the market is just gonna get a lot

56:02

more difficult for him. He's not gonna be the only

56:04

one doing it anymore. The question

56:06

of what he does next, he has so

56:08

many supporters. Like I said earlier, he

56:10

can raise so much money. He's never

56:12

going to be the underdog ever again. But

56:15

will he have the same impact? I

56:18

am open to having my mind changed, but

56:20

I suspect that the best work is behind

56:22

him. Yeah, I would agree with that. Although

56:24

someone asked me if it was ever gonna be... When

56:27

is he gonna get gotten? Like, never?

56:30

He's really rich. Never.

56:32

Never. Kirsten, you get the last word.

56:34

Well, that's kind. I mean, I agree

56:36

with Becky. I think his fan base

56:38

is still completely enormous. But I do

56:41

think Twitter really hurt him. And

56:43

I do think that just from

56:45

what I've seen and even just from the

56:48

willingness of people to talk about him,

56:51

even on background or off the

56:53

record, I think the sentiment is

56:56

changing against him for the

56:58

first time in a way that it

57:00

hasn't in the past. You can even

57:02

see it in San Francisco with all

57:04

the people with the bumper stickers on their

57:06

Tesla saying like, I bought this before I

57:08

knew Elon was crazy. So I do think

57:10

there has been an effect. Yeah, he's a

57:12

butt of a joke now in a lot of ways,

57:14

which I think was unfortunate because he didn't have to

57:16

be that way. In any case, we

57:19

will see what happens. Who knows? Maybe

57:21

he'll go to Mars and stay there. Lincoln Hope.

57:24

Anyway, thank you so much. We

57:26

love your reporting. You'll have plenty of

57:28

material. And if

57:30

you ever run out, you can go over to

57:32

OpenAI and then there's plenty of material there. Anyway,

57:34

thank you so much, all three of you. Thank

57:37

you. Thank you. Thank

57:39

you. The

57:49

special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Andrea

57:52

Lopez-Crizado and Kate Furby. Our

57:54

engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda

57:56

and our theme music is by Trackademics.

57:59

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