Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you we have a new star.
Speaker 3: A star is born Elon On mars Juson Kennedy. He
Speaker 3: is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 2: Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
Speaker 2: I feel for the guy. I would say ninety eight
Speaker 2: percent really appreciate what he does. But those two percent
Speaker 2: that are nasty, they are. I'll be in four post.
Speaker 2: We are meant for great things in the United States
Speaker 2: of America, and Elon reminds us.
Speaker 4: Of that we don't have a fourth branch of governments
Speaker 4: called Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Elanik Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 2: March fourth. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. So as Elon
Speaker 2: has been exploring his new life as a government worker
Speaker 2: at the share price of his publicly traded company, Tesla
Speaker 2: has been on a wild ride. The stock skyrocketed after
Speaker 2: Trump's selection, but recently it's been in freefall and Elon
Speaker 2: is become increasingly the target for Democrat protesters. Every weekend,
Speaker 2: more people have showed up at Tesla dealerships across the
Speaker 2: US marching, chanting, vandalizing, and overseas it might even be worse.
Speaker 2: Tesla sales have collapsed in Europe. Could the Trump trade
Speaker 2: be a bad deal for Elon and his investors? And
Speaker 2: then we'll look at some new feuds. Finally, some new
Speaker 2: feuds appearing on the horizon. For Elon. It's no longer
Speaker 2: the tech CEOs that he's beefing with, they've pretty much
Speaker 2: all fallen in line behind him and Trump, but instead
Speaker 2: its entire international alliances. And lastly we hear some truly
Speaker 2: wild state of the Union Elon predictions. So to discuss
Speaker 2: all things Tesla, we are joined by the Bloomberg Global
Speaker 2: Autos are in London, Craig Trudell. Craig Hello there, sir, Hello,
Speaker 2: and we have our regulars of course, as always with
Speaker 2: us here Max Chafkin in the studio with me. Max, Hey, David,
Speaker 2: and Dana Hall beaming in from California. Dana, Hello, Hey, David. Okay,
Speaker 2: So for all of you some numbers first, to get
Speaker 2: a bit of a perspective about just how crazy this
Speaker 2: ride has been. From the run up to the election
Speaker 2: back in the summer to the post election peak. The
Speaker 2: Tesla stock price almost tripled just it was in an
Speaker 2: absolute tear. Since that peak, it's been pretty darn ugly
Speaker 2: down over two hundred dollars per share, a drop of
Speaker 2: nearly fifty percent, much of it coming since the inauguration,
Speaker 2: and the stock is now essentially back at the level
Speaker 2: it was on election Day. It's plummeting again today, down
Speaker 2: roughly seven percent or so this morning, as we're recording
Speaker 2: part of a broader route across markets here in the
Speaker 2: wake of the Trump tariffs. But also there were some
Speaker 2: really bad sales numbers for Tesla out of China overnight. Now, Craig,
Speaker 2: you've seen a lot of wild gyrations during your time
Speaker 2: covering Kesla, but even by those standards, this is pretty dramatic.
Speaker 2: What the hell is going on here?
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing a dramatic rethinking of whether it's
Speaker 1: such a good thing that Elon Musk has so emphatically
Speaker 1: thrown his dark Maga hat in with President Trump.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I remember, again at the very beginning, Craig,
Speaker 2: the market was adamant that it was a brilliant idea.
Speaker 2: The market bid the stock up furiously in the first
Speaker 2: couple of weeks after the election.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I think the instant analysis, the sort of knee
Speaker 5: jerk reaction to this was, how can it possibly be
Speaker 5: a bad thing to be incredibly close to the most
Speaker 5: powerful person in the world, to essentially, you know, be
Speaker 5: his first buddy, to be his cabinet mate. I think everybody,
Speaker 5: I'm sure was clear eyed months ago that you know,
Speaker 5: Trump was not necessarily, you know, wildly popular. He's very polarizing.
Speaker 5: But I think if you told people in October or
Speaker 5: early November that Trump and Musk were going to do
Speaker 5: some of the things they've done in the first I
Speaker 5: think we're six weeks in now of this presidency, you know,
Speaker 5: people would have said, you know, you've got Trump derangement syndrome.
Speaker 5: I think they've been really really aggressive, very sort of
Speaker 5: stick it in your face, and I think we are seeing,
Speaker 5: you know, you can't really sort of take it out
Speaker 5: on SpaceX, right. I suppose you can leave X or Twitter.
Speaker 5: A lot of people have already done that. If you
Speaker 5: really want to stick it to elon you, you stick
Speaker 5: it to his most valuable company that has cars all
Speaker 5: over the place. And we're seeing that, We're seeing, you know,
Speaker 5: dozens of protests across the US. I think we're also
Speaker 5: seeing you know, even some of of Tesla's own customers
Speaker 5: putting different companies' badges onto their cars so that people
Speaker 5: think they're driving them Mazda or a BMW instead of
Speaker 5: a Model three.
Speaker 2: It's it's wait, wait a minute, wait a minute, tell
Speaker 2: me more about that. How does that? A? How exactly
Speaker 2: does that work? And B does it work? Is someone like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's a nice Mazda. And by the way, who wants
Speaker 2: a nice Maza? Hey, don maza clugged my Mazda. You
Speaker 2: just wait a minute. So you turned your Tesla into
Speaker 2: a Masa? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, sir.
Speaker 5: But but I mean, I think it's a pretty simple
Speaker 5: deal of of you sort of you know, chip off
Speaker 5: your your t dcal off of the back of your vehicle.
Speaker 1: You put on a different badge.
Speaker 5: Those you know, you can buy those in the aftermarket
Speaker 5: pretty cheaply, and you just hope people don't notice.
Speaker 2: But that they're not thrown by the by the body
Speaker 2: type of the car.
Speaker 4: There is a cyber truck that is around here around
Speaker 4: our office in New York.
Speaker 2: You thought it was a four F one.
Speaker 4: No, it has a old school Toyota logo of a tailgate.
Speaker 4: And I don't think they're trying to trick anybody, but
Speaker 4: I do think it looks kind of cool.
Speaker 2: That is that is there you go, Max on Craig's
Speaker 2: point that he made at the beginning, you know, when
Speaker 2: we had that wild run up in November and into
Speaker 2: early December, I actually believe if you pull the tape
Speaker 2: on this show, we said, this seems like a fine
Speaker 2: idea in the abstract, like is a very you know,
Speaker 2: an investing thesis, like you know, yeah, his first buddy
Speaker 2: super close to power as an abstract investing thesis. It
Speaker 2: sort of seemed like it worked, but we did keep saying, well,
Speaker 2: what the hell does that look like in the nitty gritty.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent? And I've made this point before, but like,
Speaker 4: the main rationale for the run up in the price
Speaker 4: was that somehow Donald Trump was going to be good
Speaker 4: for Elon Musk's robotaxi ambitions, but it was not at
Speaker 4: all clear how he would be good. Like if Donald
Speaker 4: Trump like waves a magic wand and legalizes like cyber
Speaker 4: trucks for cybercabs, yeah, you still got to produce, you
Speaker 4: gotta make one, and they still haven't done that, and
Speaker 4: so that's a problem. And then I do think what
Speaker 4: Craig is saying is true. Right, the sort of volume
Speaker 4: of and sort of the energy from Musk is more
Speaker 4: aggressive than we would have expected, maybe more polarizing than
Speaker 4: we expected. I also think that what Musk is doing
Speaker 4: is cutting against his own brand in ways that are
Speaker 4: very harmful. Not just not just because Tesla has a
Speaker 4: lot of left wing customers and those customers are now
Speaker 4: very mad and they want to protest or cover up
Speaker 4: the Tesla logos, but also because Musk's personal brand and
Speaker 4: like what made him appealing was like inventing stuff and
Speaker 4: coming up with And now obviously there are you can
Speaker 4: debate just how much inventing he actually did or whatever,
Speaker 4: But this is a guy who's made his thing creating
Speaker 4: new products, and all of a sudden he's sort of
Speaker 4: couse playing as one of the consultants from office Space.
Speaker 4: I mean to the point where he's like literally wearing
Speaker 4: it as a slogan, almost forgetting that those guys were
Speaker 4: not cool in office space, like people do not necessarily.
Speaker 4: So in addition to all the polarization, you also so
Speaker 4: just have this kind of like brand confusion and all along.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure Dan is about to say this, but
Speaker 4: Tesla's actual sales, the actual numbers that are coming out
Speaker 4: of this company have been bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and to Max's point, he's sort of,
Speaker 3: you know, flinging around a chainsaw and really embracing this
Speaker 3: role as this destroyer of the federal government and like
Speaker 3: moving fast and breaking things and firing people. And let
Speaker 3: me tell you, people do not buy cars when they're
Speaker 3: worried about the economy, when they're worried about losing their job,
Speaker 3: when they are worried about interest rates, when they're worried
Speaker 3: about their four oh one k going up in smoke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a pretty brutal sell off, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: And to be clear, and Craig knows as well, the
Speaker 3: first quarter is always like the worst for car sales typically, right, Like,
Speaker 3: you know, there's a lot of incentives to clear out
Speaker 3: inventory at the end of the year, so the fourth
Speaker 3: quarter is typically very strong. The first quarter is typically
Speaker 3: very slow. But what you're seeing out of the Tesla
Speaker 3: numbers now is like despite all of these incentives, free
Speaker 3: supercharging and YadA YadA, like they are not moving metal
Speaker 3: and their lineup is really old and the cyber truck
Speaker 3: sales are very weak. And it's not just in the
Speaker 3: United States where musk is very polarizing, it's in Europe
Speaker 3: and it's in China. Like those are the big three markets.
Speaker 3: So the first quarter is going to be super ugly.
Speaker 2: If we can go back also, and I hate to
Speaker 2: talk up myself here, but if you go to the
Speaker 2: year end clips max, Okay, when everybody may prediction, no,
Speaker 2: I made a lot of bad, bad predictions, including my
Speaker 2: Kentucky Derby pick, which isn't looking good at all. But
Speaker 2: I did predict a convergence in the valuations of Tesla
Speaker 2: and SpaceX, and man, if you would put that trade on,
Speaker 2: if you'd gone short Tesla long SpaceX, holy smokes, you'd
Speaker 2: be retiring. It's looking good.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think we're there's still quite a gap
Speaker 4: between the you know, reported valuation of SpaceX and the
Speaker 4: current valuation of Tesla. You know, nearly four hundred billion
Speaker 4: for SpaceX, a little more than eight hundred billion for
Speaker 4: Tesla last I checked. But still they've that gap has closed.
Speaker 4: And I think the issue is, you know, Craig brought
Speaker 4: this up, but like being the first buddy is great
Speaker 4: and I think it really impressed investor. But the problem
Speaker 4: is that is an unpaid position, and and to monetize
Speaker 4: that position, Elon Musk has limited options, Like there are
Speaker 4: ways that SpaceX SpaceX can monetize Musk's access. Tesla has
Speaker 4: really struggled. And there was this, like, you know, this
Speaker 4: weird story that we talked about weeks ago on the
Speaker 4: podcast about the State Department maybe putting an item in
Speaker 4: a spreadsheet saying was gonna buy four hundred million dollars
Speaker 4: worth of cyber trucks and.
Speaker 2: That'll but even so, that ain't much, number one, That's
Speaker 2: not much, and we're and that is sort of turning
Speaker 2: into like a mini scandal.
Speaker 4: Earlier today or yesterday, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal sent a
Speaker 4: letter basically saying, we need.
Speaker 2: To explain this.
Speaker 4: You see, like it's gonna be hard for Musk to
Speaker 4: to monetize this without creating even more.
Speaker 2: From the Tesla side.
Speaker 4: From the Tesla side, but you know, I think even
Speaker 4: from the SpaceX side, frankly, I think, but I think
Speaker 4: it's easier from the space SpaceX has a much easier
Speaker 4: so hard.
Speaker 2: To monetize there. But but dan As Craig was alluding
Speaker 2: to earlier It's really easy because Tesla is such a
Speaker 2: you know, a is a is a consumer product for
Speaker 2: consumers to take it out on the brand in a
Speaker 2: way that you know, SpaceX is largely shielded from that, right,
Speaker 2: you cannot punish it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I suppose you, if you were really angry,
Speaker 3: you could like show up at the beach in Boca
Speaker 3: Chica and try to like swing by in your boat
Speaker 3: with a protest sign or fly a bunch of drones
Speaker 3: or something. But but yeah, I mean the thing about
Speaker 3: Tesla showrooms is that they are in visible locations in
Speaker 3: congressional districts all across the country. And you know this
Speaker 3: whole quote unquote Tesla takedown protests. It's like a very
Speaker 3: easy way for like the average citizen to participate in
Speaker 3: something visible and the anchor is really about Doge. I mean,
Speaker 3: I went to the one in Berkeley a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago, and you know, it's all these people. Some
Speaker 3: of them owned Teslas, some of them didn't, but they're
Speaker 3: very upset about what Trump and Musk are doing Visa
Speaker 3: VI Doge. And you can like go to the showroom
Speaker 3: and then you can go out to lunch like this
Speaker 3: is like the way that a lot of people are participating.
Speaker 3: But I think you know, the other thing to just
Speaker 3: remember about Tesla and sales is that Elon's politics aside,
Speaker 3: the company has a really stale lineup. The cyber truck
Speaker 3: is not doing well, so that is like the main thing.
Speaker 3: Like there are a lot of other electric vehicles on
Speaker 3: the market now and if you care about climate and
Speaker 3: want to buy an EV Tesla is no longer the
Speaker 3: game and talent.
Speaker 4: Well guess because Musk kind of bet on this idea
Speaker 4: that he didn't need to refresh the lineup, like he
Speaker 4: thought that cars were essentially like software, you could just
Speaker 4: update him the iPhone pretty much looks the same as
Speaker 4: it's always you know, it's always looked, and that, you know,
Speaker 4: basically the halo around the company was going to lift
Speaker 4: it and make it possible to basically have an iPhone
Speaker 4: of cars. Like if you look way back before we
Speaker 4: started hearing the Robotaxi story, that was the extreme bowl
Speaker 4: case for Tesla. It was that it was going to
Speaker 4: change the paradigm of the car business.
Speaker 2: The hardware didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was a
Speaker 2: solid That.
Speaker 4: Story was like really dependent on the Elon Musk brand
Speaker 4: on Elon Musk as this innovator, as this as this
Speaker 4: guy who was bringing the world to this world of
Speaker 4: abundance and cleaner technology and all those things, and now
Speaker 4: he stands, you know, for something else. And it seems
Speaker 4: like Elon Musk is trying, at least to some extent,
Speaker 4: to address this.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: He went on Joe Rogan's podcast again, over three hours long. Again,
Speaker 4: it's kind of my day on Friday was just sort
Speaker 4: of waiting for the guillotine to fall, you know, I
Speaker 4: have to drop everything and listen to this. But anyway,
Speaker 4: it really seemed like the point of the interview. They talked,
Speaker 4: they talked, they hit all the usual Rogan topics. They
Speaker 4: talked about flying saucers, they talked about is there a
Speaker 4: secret repulsion system. I can't remember if they hit ancient
Speaker 4: aliens or not, but I would be just absolutely shocked
Speaker 4: if they didn't somehow. But it seemed like the real
Speaker 4: point of the appearance was essentially to deny that he
Speaker 4: had made a Nazi salute at the inauguration. Rogan kind
Speaker 4: of backed him up on that. They moved on from
Speaker 4: it very quickly. It didn't it wasn't didn't feel super
Speaker 4: enthusiastic on Rogan's part, but they sort of got through it,
Speaker 4: and it really seemed like an effort to address some
Speaker 4: of these slogans that are being chanted by protesters, as
Speaker 4: well as the ad campaign we talked about the other day,
Speaker 4: you know, where people were putting up these posters say
Speaker 4: calling the Tesla a swastikar, in reference, of course to
Speaker 4: Elon Musk's gesture at the inauguration, which he said was
Speaker 4: not a Nazi salute.
Speaker 2: For the record, right now, Craig, back to you. Give
Speaker 2: us the latest update on sales numbers out of Europe.
Speaker 2: I know they were starting to look gram they're really Graham.
Speaker 3: We have.
Speaker 2: Have we had any fresh reports in recent days?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I do want to just quickly, you know,
Speaker 5: go back to when Dana was talking about how the
Speaker 5: first quarter is always seasonally really slow for Tesla but
Speaker 5: also for the industry. Last year, the first quarter was
Speaker 5: really crummy for Tesla. So not only are the numbers
Speaker 5: I'm about to share not good, but they're sort of,
Speaker 5: you know, off of an already depressing level. And so
Speaker 5: you know, in January we saw a forty five percent
Speaker 5: drop across Europe just for that month, some of the
Speaker 5: biggest markets in Europe, you know, down sixty three percent
Speaker 5: in France, down fifty nine percent in Germany. In February,
Speaker 5: we are just starting to get reports for a couple
Speaker 5: of the biggest markets in France down twenty six percent,
Speaker 5: So I guess that's you know, you know, incrementally some improvement,
Speaker 5: but that's still you know, year to date is a
Speaker 5: pretty ugly figure. They're down dramatically in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
Speaker 5: And we'll get some figures from Germany and the UK
Speaker 5: on Wednesday. And then I think we mentioned already in China.
Speaker 5: You know, the wholesales figures out of China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, now explain those numbers. So those are different
Speaker 2: than the numbers you were just describing out of Europe,
Speaker 2: is that right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5: So in Europe we're talking about registrations, so that's actually
Speaker 5: you know, cars being registered and handed over to consumers.
Speaker 5: In terms of in China, these wholesales, this is basically
Speaker 5: shipments from the factory that Tesla has in Shanghai. So
Speaker 5: this is more akin to production than it is retail sales.
Speaker 5: And so I do think one point that we absolutely
Speaker 5: have to mention is that there is this real question
Speaker 5: of how much of this is elon sort of self
Speaker 5: owning and how much of this is.
Speaker 1: A model why issue?
Speaker 5: And we should note that as stale as the lineup
Speaker 5: is that the company is giving a facelift to the
Speaker 5: Model Y that is far and away their most important vehicle,
Speaker 5: and you know, having a multi week shutdown of the
Speaker 5: Model Y was a big factor in why wholesales were
Speaker 5: down forty nine percent in February. The question, of course
Speaker 5: is how much of that is you know, disruption and
Speaker 5: the time it takes to rent back up from that disruption,
Speaker 5: and how much of it is also you know, not
Speaker 5: feeling the need to crank out as many Model threes
Speaker 5: because that hasn't been in strong demand.
Speaker 2: That production is both for sale in China and then
Speaker 2: for export to some of their export markets, including Europe,
Speaker 2: including Europe, right I see now, Dan, So while all
Speaker 2: this is happening, while the stock is giving it up
Speaker 2: in a big way, Must came out in recent days
Speaker 2: and eked a not a forecast, but in ambition they
Speaker 2: hope and aspiration that the stock would rise to seven
Speaker 2: hundred dollars over in coming years a rally of one
Speaker 2: thousand percent Dana Hall, and I'm like, hmm, this seems
Speaker 2: like the old Carnival Barker at work here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean he's sort of said this before. I
Speaker 3: mean he said multiple times that, like, Tesla has the
Speaker 3: potential to be the most valuable company in the world,
Speaker 3: and it's going to pend depend on strong it's execution,
Speaker 3: but he's optimistic that there's a path to get there.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah. I mean, it's all about Tesla as
Speaker 3: an AI company. And I think the truth is Elon
Speaker 3: Busk is bored of cars, like he is bored of
Speaker 3: building cars. The future of the company is all about
Speaker 3: the Robotaxi. We reported last week exclusively that Tesla has
Speaker 3: applied for a permit to kind of get into the
Speaker 3: right hailing business in California. They have not They have
Speaker 3: not talked at all about really their future product lineup.
Speaker 3: Like they're supposed to be coming out with a more
Speaker 3: affordable version. People think it's like a decontented Model Y,
Speaker 3: or maybe it's a cheaper car, or maybe it's just
Speaker 3: the robotaxi. But there hasn't been a lot of visibility
Speaker 3: into like what their product pipeline is they showed off
Speaker 3: like a van at some point we have heard anything
Speaker 3: else about the van. So just this whole idea that
Speaker 3: this is a car company with like a whole product
Speaker 3: cycle of cars. They're not talking about that. Elon is
Speaker 3: only talking about AI and Grock and Doge. And he's
Speaker 3: been in Washington, d C. Basically since the election. He's
Speaker 3: been in DC or Texas or mar Alago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, he indeed is acting, as you said,
Speaker 2: like a board car maker. And you know, Max, it
Speaker 2: reminds me of an old Gabrielle Garcia Marquez line, which
Speaker 2: is a board writer makes for a board reader. And
Speaker 2: in this case, yea, I would say a board car
Speaker 2: maker makes for a board car driver. You know, it
Speaker 2: seems like between the you know, the political pushback against
Speaker 2: him and the fact that he doesn't really seem to
Speaker 2: much care about cars right now, is not a great mix.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent. And even I think part of
Speaker 4: the problem here with the stock is that, in addition
Speaker 4: to the sales problems that we've been talking about, in
Speaker 4: addition to the challenges with the lineup that you're kind
Speaker 4: of bringing up, they're behind on robotaxis. So even if
Speaker 4: Elon Musk hits this very ambitious goal of launching a
Speaker 4: robotaxi service in Austin, Texas in June, he's behind today
Speaker 4: or yesterday. This week, you know, Uber and Weimo announced
Speaker 4: that they've they've been testing Weimo's been testing in Austin
Speaker 4: for some time. They are going to open Weaimo up
Speaker 4: to customers shortly so, so they've gotten beat to that market.
Speaker 4: They're not going to be the first one of that market.
Speaker 4: And even the kind of novelty of the robotaxi we're
Speaker 4: seeing in China bid giving away, it's basically equivalent of
Speaker 4: Tesla FSD, the so called full self driving system for
Speaker 4: free right, Like, it's not clear that these technologies that
Speaker 4: he has said are going to be worth you know,
Speaker 4: thirty trillion dollars or something crazy, are actually going to
Speaker 4: be worth that that they're going to be worth that
Speaker 4: to consumers. It isn't working out that way for the
Speaker 4: companies that are already in these markets.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're gonna wrap it up there with you, Craig.
Speaker 2: I would just say a couple of final thoughts. One is,
Speaker 2: as my son has often pointed out to us, we
Speaker 2: are a contrarian indicator here. So every time we talk
Speaker 2: about the stock collapsing in a big way, it immediately rebounds.
Speaker 2: Everybody should brace for the rebound. But Craig, we want
Speaker 2: you back on when you convert your Mazda to a Tesla.
Speaker 2: Take a picture of it, okay, and send it over
Speaker 2: and then and then we'll get you on and we'll
Speaker 2: interview about that.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna convert my Honda Odyssey to a cyber truck
Speaker 4: just to be I like it.
Speaker 5: I changed over my Masta because I knew Elon was crazy.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it, Craig, talk soon.
Speaker 4: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Okay, mister Chaffkin. You have some feuds to report, but
Speaker 2: kind of weird feuds. It's big, high concept feuds.
Speaker 4: Well, Elon Musk, I haven't actually checked the data, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure we will do this at some point, but
Speaker 4: he seems like he's been more active on X than ever,
Speaker 4: or as active as ever, and and yet it's it's
Speaker 4: so many feuds that it's easy to even lose them.
Speaker 2: The first one I want to start with, I feel
Speaker 2: like we went from a dearth of feud we had
Speaker 2: a few drought to all of a sudden, you feel
Speaker 2: like they're all over the place. Again you see feuds everywhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're everywhere, and so many feuds in fact that
Speaker 4: he is feuding with abstract concepts.
Speaker 2: So this, so this is and this is.
Speaker 4: The most important feud I think going on right now.
Speaker 4: It is not just because Elon has been exing about
Speaker 4: it and so on, but because it it you know,
Speaker 4: it affects all of us. It is Elon Musk and GDP,
Speaker 4: the the the concept of gross domestic.
Speaker 2: Place wrestling with gross domestic product.
Speaker 4: He has said, I think more than once that he
Speaker 4: thinks it's a like a not a good statistic because
Speaker 4: it it includes government spending. If you better if it
Speaker 4: didn't include government spending. We've seen others in the Trump world,
Speaker 4: including Howard Lutnek, the Commerce Secretary, pick up on this idea.
Speaker 4: And of course what's behind this is that the Atlanta
Speaker 4: Federal Reserve said that it thinks there's going to be
Speaker 4: a recession, that that GDP is falling.
Speaker 2: Well, or if not an outright recession, at least sees
Speaker 2: one really bad sorry, yes, a pretty bad economic contraction
Speaker 2: coming up.
Speaker 4: And of course, you know, first of all, it's not
Speaker 4: surprising that people would be thinking about this, and as
Speaker 4: Elon Musk well knows, because he's you know, enacting this
Speaker 4: personal austerity measure in the in the federal government and
Speaker 4: with many federal contractors there there, there is going to
Speaker 4: be at least some economic pain, at least by design.
Speaker 3: He's basically saying it's going to be like short term
Speaker 3: pain for long term gain. Right. Yes, people are going
Speaker 3: to be fired and lose their jobs, but like eventually,
Speaker 3: like interest rates will come down and we'll get we'll
Speaker 3: stop you know, this deficit spending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now, and listen, if they managed to pull that off,
Speaker 2: that would be something I mean economic you know, adjustments,
Speaker 2: fiscal adjustments. Fiscal austerity is a tried in true formula
Speaker 2: and game plan implemented by leaders throughout the world, certainly
Speaker 2: in the developing world. I mean when you mentioned that
Speaker 2: chainsaw earlier, Dana, that that Musk was wielding the other day,
Speaker 2: that was a chainsaw handed to him right now by
Speaker 2: the greatest practitioner of this model, Javier Malay, an ally
Speaker 2: of Musks in Argentina and Melay has done this. He
Speaker 2: did radically got government spending in a country that has
Speaker 2: a bad history of overspending and there was a lot
Speaker 2: of lot of real short term pain, but there's a
Speaker 2: place where they are actually seeing the fruits of it now.
Speaker 2: Inflation is coming down rapidly. Argentines are happy with me.
Speaker 5: Lay.
Speaker 2: I don't know, though, Max, at this point that team
Speaker 2: Musk and team Doge have actually cut enough to truly
Speaker 2: drive the economy. My sense is what's driving the economy
Speaker 2: and sentiment. And again the fact that the not just
Speaker 2: Tesla is crashing today but the broader market is crashing
Speaker 2: is just the sense that the wh Trump package, certainly
Speaker 2: with the terrorists and everything, is just spoiling consumer sentiment.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I think that's right. Although they are laying
Speaker 4: off a substantial number of government employees, and I don't
Speaker 4: think it would show it be showing up just yet.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know that it's enough at
Speaker 2: this point to have a to have a critical mass there.
Speaker 2: But in any of it, he's grappling with mister Gross
Speaker 2: and mister Product. Does mister Product have anything to say
Speaker 2: in return? He's got no comment?
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, I will say, uh Axios did a pre
Speaker 4: good piece on this yesterday basically pointing out that this
Speaker 4: this has been a question It's not like economists are
Speaker 4: unaware of the issues with GDP. The you know there
Speaker 4: people talk about this all the time. In fact, the
Speaker 4: GDP statistics are frequently shown in different, you know, different ways.
Speaker 4: The problem is it's pretty hard to remove. If you
Speaker 4: remove government spending, you arguably remove you know, a bunch
Speaker 4: of the economy. The government spends money, and then it's
Speaker 4: sort of the people who are working at those jobs
Speaker 4: and money elsewhere. Like it's it's hard to untangle.
Speaker 2: As a former economics reporter, I have heard this debate
Speaker 2: many times, I will just say that at this point
Speaker 2: in the US, where where government spending is indeed a
Speaker 2: real driving force in this economy, and because it's just
Speaker 2: grown in recent years, it is indeed incredibly difficult to
Speaker 2: disentangle the two.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 4: The awkwardness is that Trump did not run on this program.
Speaker 4: Really he yeah, taught, yes, Like he brought up Elon
Speaker 4: and said Elon was going to make things more efficient,
Speaker 4: but he didn't. But he didn't quite say the thing
Speaker 4: that Elon has said, which is we're going to have
Speaker 4: you know, a couple of years of unpleasantness for a
Speaker 4: you know, great future. And and it's hard to know
Speaker 4: how you know how the politics are going to play.
Speaker 4: You know, my suspicion is that a lot of Trump voters,
Speaker 4: not to mention democrats, are are going to be upset.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's your next feud?
Speaker 4: Okay, next feud? This is kind of a similar thing.
Speaker 4: This is elon against global alliances. So NATO, like UH,
Speaker 4: NATO and the United Nations. So so he a you know,
Speaker 4: roughly we've been using this measure for about eighty years.
Speaker 4: The UN was the UN founded about seventy seventy five
Speaker 4: years ago. He responded to a blue check tweet saying
Speaker 4: it's time to leave NATO and the UN, saying I agree,
Speaker 4: So so strike one for leaving the UN. Okay, no
Speaker 4: response from the UN, as know just yet.
Speaker 2: The Secretary General didn't decide to chime in. Okay, So
Speaker 2: he's taking on GDP, NATO, the UN. He also seems
Speaker 2: to be Now this is a much more or do
Speaker 2: you have any more? Because I actually have him in
Speaker 2: there a zillion fail. Can I give you to give
Speaker 2: you the two most geopolitically high concept Can I give
Speaker 2: you one that's just sort of more of an old
Speaker 2: school brawl. Yes, But the other side hasn't taken the
Speaker 2: pit yet, and it is Elon Musk versus Mike Myers. Now,
Speaker 2: did anybody or did everybody see the Saturday Night Live skit?
Speaker 2: They saw the Mic Myer Mike Myers doing Elon. We
Speaker 2: have a we have an audio clip, and I don't
Speaker 2: actually see it. All right, magnus hit us with the clip.
Speaker 3: I've watched it.
Speaker 2: I really enjoy everything you're doing with dough Gelong. They're
Speaker 2: saying I'm firing people with no cools, but I do
Speaker 2: have caols. It's cools. I feel like glitch now. I
Speaker 2: myself thought it was pretty damn funny. Elon did not.
Speaker 2: I believe Elon's ekes was. Uh. Humor fails when it lies, you.
Speaker 4: Know, I gotta I guess I have to add my
Speaker 4: abstract feud list to Elon Musk Versus Humor. Now, just
Speaker 4: to critique the Myers performance for a minute.
Speaker 2: Oh, so you're with Musk. It's match Chapion and Elon
Speaker 2: Musk versus Mike Myers.
Speaker 4: I think the accent needs a little work probably, I
Speaker 4: thought were strong, and the kind of the way he
Speaker 4: sort of presented Musks kind of manic, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: pinballing from like joking, not joking, that whole thing like
Speaker 4: that felt very true. And then the kind of dynamic
Speaker 4: between Musk and Trump was was was quite funny.
Speaker 2: No, it was, it was brilliant, and they turned it
Speaker 2: around really quickly. Although no Max disapproves of the accent.
Speaker 2: I will note Max one final point on Mike Myers.
Speaker 2: He being Canadian and all, he had a T shirt
Speaker 2: on which I had not realized initially that red Canada
Speaker 2: is not for sale. Okay, so State of the Union
Speaker 2: is just a few hours from now. For those listening
Speaker 2: immediately once the pod, it's what should be about, sorry,
Speaker 2: State of the Union? Trump will address Congress. Musk almost certainly.
Speaker 2: I mean the first buddy's got to be there. What's
Speaker 2: he wearing, Max Chafkin.
Speaker 4: Oh man, I mean, he's clearly gonna wear his kind
Speaker 4: of weird like Oval office get up, the you got
Speaker 4: the dark maga.
Speaker 2: He's not gonna go dressed up as Zelenski.
Speaker 4: The sports coat, the text support or other novelty.
Speaker 2: T shirt, dopacle, dressed down dark trouser.
Speaker 4: The question is how many Musk children?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: That's so you're your ex is definitely there. The question
Speaker 2: is who which of Ex's siblings joins?
Speaker 4: If X is not there, I would be shocked.
Speaker 2: You're turning it off. No X, I'm not watching. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's what you got there.
Speaker 3: I'm super curious to see who Musk sits with, Like
Speaker 3: is he sitting with the cabinet? Is he sitting with
Speaker 3: his mom? Is he sitting with like Republican members of Congress? Like?
Speaker 3: I want the seating chart of like the chamber.
Speaker 4: I mean, the thing we really should be looking at,
Speaker 4: especially for people who are interested in kind of Musk's
Speaker 4: future here within the Trump administration is how Trump talks
Speaker 4: about it. How enthusiastic does Trump praise Elon? How big
Speaker 4: on Doge is he? Did you see any efforts to
Speaker 4: Hedge or anything like that? You know, though, those are
Speaker 4: going to be questions for me, although based on the
Speaker 4: body language and everything we've seen recently, I would you know.
Speaker 4: It seems like Trump will probably tout it as one
Speaker 4: of his ears.
Speaker 2: My out of the out of the box guess is
Speaker 2: that Hedge is so great that he keeps Elon out
Speaker 2: of the room.
Speaker 3: What what did you say, keeps him out of the west?
Speaker 2: Oh? Take them? You know, Elon doesn't show up out
Speaker 2: of the room.
Speaker 4: Room.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: David Elon is addressing Republican members of Congress before the
Speaker 3: State of the.
Speaker 2: Union like this is this is this is about as
Speaker 2: good as my Kentucky Derby is uh m, what's his
Speaker 2: name again? Your mcpatrick by the way, he's hurt, right mcpatrick,
Speaker 2: But he's he runs this Saturday. He's back off the
Speaker 2: bench this Saturday. Tampa Bay Downs. It's five o'clock. I'll
Speaker 2: be watching right, okay, Max, Danna, thank you as always.
Speaker 4: Great to be here.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Anna Maserakas is
Speaker 2: our editor, and Rayhan Harmanci our senior editor. Blake Maples
Speaker 2: handles engineering, and Dave Procell fact checks. Our supervising producer
Speaker 2: is Magnus Henrickson. The Elon Inc. Theme is written and
Speaker 2: performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugi Eira. Brendan Francis
Speaker 2: Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is the
Speaker 2: head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks as always to
Speaker 2: our supporters Joel Weber and Brad Stone. I'm David Papadopolis.
Speaker 2: If you have a minute, rate and review our show.
Speaker 2: It'll help other listeners find us, see you next week.