Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: we have a new star.
Speaker 2: A star is born elan' up on Mars Juthan Kennemy.
Speaker 3: He is the.
Speaker 4: Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 3: Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
Speaker 3: I feel for the guy.
Speaker 2: I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
Speaker 1: But those two percent.
Speaker 3: That are nasty, they are our pay in full, Fols.
Speaker 1: We were meant for great things in the United States
Speaker 1: of America, and Elon reminds us of that.
Speaker 3: I'm very disappointed in Elon.
Speaker 4: I've helped Elon a lot.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Elon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcasts about Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: It's Tuesday, July fifteenth. I'm Max Chafkin in for David Popadopolis.
Speaker 2: Later this episode, we have the first of a series
Speaker 2: of interviews that we're going to run this summer with
Speaker 2: some of our favorite reporters who cover Elon who do
Speaker 2: not work at Bloomberg. These are people who wrote stories
Speaker 2: that we read, you know, over the last six months
Speaker 2: or so and thought, oh, I wish I had written that.
Speaker 2: And for the first one, we've got an interview that
Speaker 2: Kurt Wagner did with New York Times reporter Teddy Schliffer.
Speaker 2: Teddy covers money in politics, billionaires in politics. He was
Speaker 2: really all over this kind of moment in December and
Speaker 2: January when Trump and Musk were coming together, and the
Speaker 2: conversation is great. But before we get to that, Kurt
Speaker 2: is here with me. Now we're gonna have a quick
Speaker 2: conversation about some of the news that happened this week. Kurt,
Speaker 2: how you doing.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm good, Max, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: And Elon inkstalwart Dana Hall is here as well. Dana,
Speaker 2: how are you?
Speaker 4: I'm great?
Speaker 2: All right. So the big news, as far as I
Speaker 2: can tell since we last potted is XAI. A bunch
Speaker 2: of stuff has happened with XAI. This is Elon Musk's
Speaker 2: you know AI chatbox company. It also owns x And
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna run through some of the hits. First
Speaker 2: of all, Elon did a demo for something called Grock four.
Speaker 2: This is the latest rock. He said it was going
Speaker 2: to be so smart.
Speaker 3: I would expect Grok to yeah, literally discover new technologies
Speaker 3: that are actually useful. No later than next year and
Speaker 3: maybe end of this year, and it might discover new
Speaker 3: physics next year.
Speaker 2: Like I guess, like better than relativity or strength theory
Speaker 2: or whatever. Also the same Grock seems to have gone
Speaker 2: a little Nazi. And also in addition to physics, we
Speaker 2: have this other sort of seemingly unrelated product that Elon
Speaker 2: Musk also debuted, also having to do with Groc. I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna play a little clip for both of you.
Speaker 3: Golden Light was apping to this lively sue at sunrise.
Speaker 3: Golden Light hitting the enclosures, parrots chattering like they're gossiping,
Speaker 3: and a lazy tiger stretching in the morning. I'm rocking
Speaker 3: my black dress partytail's bouncing as I pull you towards.
Speaker 2: I think that's enough.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're going to get a call from
Speaker 1: HR like any second now, Like what's going on here?
Speaker 2: It's like, Kurt, what is going on here?
Speaker 4: Is that the companion?
Speaker 3: This is the companion, Dana?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, Elon did tease this, you know, Grock companion.
Speaker 1: You just heard the companion's voice. It's an anime, I
Speaker 1: suppose or cartoon woman in a you know, revealing black dress.
Speaker 1: And I think the title or like the name of
Speaker 1: the product sort of says it all like this is
Speaker 1: meant to be an emotional companion to people, and to
Speaker 1: your point, Max, like slightly different direction, right, Like on
Speaker 1: the one hand, it's like Xai worth hundreds of billions
Speaker 1: of dollars and going to change the world of physics,
Speaker 1: and on the other hand, like building a sort of
Speaker 1: an emotional support girlfriend for people online.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 1: And so I don't know how popular this will be
Speaker 1: or how much of a core use case this will be,
Speaker 1: but it clearly taps into the wants and desires of
Speaker 1: a certain audience on and Elon seems quite excited about it.
Speaker 1: He was tweeting about it when was this just yesterday?
Speaker 2: Lots of tweets and responses to tweets of this character
Speaker 2: in various sexualized situations. Also, I guess there's also like
Speaker 2: an animal one that it's like a fox that's mean
Speaker 2: to you. I'm not totally sure what that's about, Danna,
Speaker 2: Do you think this is like a serious product or
Speaker 2: is Elon just cracking dirty jokes? I mean, I feel
Speaker 2: like I have to say. He also spent basically half
Speaker 2: of yesterday as we're recording this on Tuesday, tweeting about
Speaker 2: this girlfriend. The other half was tweeting about the newly
Speaker 2: expanded area that the Robotaxi travels. This is Tesla's you
Speaker 2: know AI product, and that is shaped like a penis,
Speaker 2: or it's more than a penis now I think about,
Speaker 2: but in any case, it is a explicit shape. He
Speaker 2: seemed to be very amused with himself. There is this
Speaker 2: just a bit what is happening?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the way to think about Elon
Speaker 4: is that fundamentally he has like the emotional already have
Speaker 4: like a thirteen year old boy, And I say, this
Speaker 4: is like the parent of a son. So you know,
Speaker 4: no disrespect to men out there, but like he's juvenile
Speaker 4: in his emotions, in his like view of the world.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's an incredible industrialist, and he's you know,
Speaker 4: hyper aggressive, and he's a financial engineer and all these
Speaker 4: things and all the great things about him that people
Speaker 4: already know, but like, fundamentally, like from a psychological perspective,
Speaker 4: like he's just very juvenile. And so yeah, he does
Speaker 4: these things to amuse himself. And then you look at
Speaker 4: the photographs of the coders at XAI that are on
Speaker 4: LinkedIn or wherever, and it's like young dudes grinding all
Speaker 4: night like to ship this thing, and I'm sure that
Speaker 4: they're very proud of it. And how popular it will be,
Speaker 4: I don't know, but like I mean, I think there
Speaker 4: is this like loneliness factor in his life and in
Speaker 4: like the culture as a whole that this could fill.
Speaker 4: And a lot of times, I mean optimists, the robot
Speaker 4: that Tesla is making, they talk about that as being
Speaker 4: a companion, like options going to be your face, your kids,
Speaker 4: It's gonna be your friend, and so this whole kind
Speaker 4: of merging of machine and human and filling this void
Speaker 4: that I guess a lot of people have in their lives.
Speaker 4: I mean, I find it very sad personally, but I
Speaker 4: do think that like online culture is a wash with
Speaker 4: lonely people falling in love with chat, GBT and whatever.
Speaker 4: Like I mean, I think that there is like a
Speaker 4: niche for this.
Speaker 2: For sure, we'll get to how good a business I
Speaker 2: mean overall Xai is. But here I'm glad you brought
Speaker 2: this up because in certain ways, Kurt, I feel like
Speaker 2: Dana is right, like this is more realistic as a
Speaker 2: business than the new physics thing. Like I have more
Speaker 2: confidence in this as a path to like potential profits
Speaker 2: than the idea that like we're going to put rock
Speaker 2: to work solving humanity's biggest problems. It seems like it
Speaker 2: could actually be like a thing for people who are
Speaker 2: lonely or kind of yeah, you know, anime kinks or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's the kind of thing that, you know,
Speaker 1: to your point, could actually sell subscriptions, right like, if
Speaker 1: this becomes some type of a subscription product for X
Speaker 1: or built into the X premium thing, that makes actually
Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me. There's a cliche. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get it wrong, but it's something about, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the best way to build a business online is to
Speaker 1: base it around pornography, right like that porn is the
Speaker 1: real underbelly of this entire Internet that we all use,
Speaker 1: and this I think sort of plays into an element
Speaker 1: of that. And so I don't think it's like crazy
Speaker 1: as a business. Where it stands out to me is
Speaker 1: that to Dana's point, like Elon Is has a long
Speaker 1: history of telling.
Speaker 3: Off color jokes, silly jokes, sexual jokes.
Speaker 1: I remember when he took over Twitter, he was, you know,
Speaker 1: day one, he was like, advertisers, we are a safe
Speaker 1: space for you. In day two is like, here are
Speaker 1: four masturbation jokes that I just thought of, and it
Speaker 1: just like the rub does not always make sense, Like
Speaker 1: it is too much in conflict, Like he tries to
Speaker 1: be very serious on one hand and then he comes
Speaker 1: out and does things that are very unseerious on the other.
Speaker 1: And to me, that is the issue, you know, more
Speaker 1: so than like whether this is a good or bad business,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, it's just the what it reflects I
Speaker 1: think about him and sort of what he's trying to build.
Speaker 1: In some cases, I think, can you know, push people
Speaker 1: away or let the real serious things he's doing sort
Speaker 1: of be undermined by the fact that he's very unserious
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: Part of what makes us funny is this, like you know,
Speaker 2: sexy anime talking like an ASMR thing is like wildly expensive.
Speaker 2: They are just like burning huge amounts of electricity, you know,
Speaker 2: huge amounts of like GPU capacity to make these things work.
Speaker 2: And we've talked about this on the podcast a bunch
Speaker 2: of times. But like Xai is bleeding money. There was
Speaker 2: a couple weeks back we talked about the report they're
Speaker 2: bleeding maybe a billion dollars per month. There has been
Speaker 2: this fundraising going on, I think we have to understand
Speaker 2: this launch event and the wild claims about new physics
Speaker 2: in that context. And to that point, we got a
Speaker 2: port in the Wall Street Journal, which Bloomberg has also
Speaker 2: confirmed that SpaceX is going to be one of the
Speaker 2: investors in this massive equity round. SpaceX is going to
Speaker 2: put two billion dollars into XAI. Dana, You're always talking
Speaker 2: about how Elon Musk's sort of empire. They have the
Speaker 2: separate business, but they really operate as one business. What
Speaker 2: is the rationale here? Like why does a rocket company
Speaker 2: want to invest in the AI girlfriend company?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think you know, as Ed Ludlow and
Speaker 4: I reported, like Elon really wants to have this kind
Speaker 4: of like vertically integrated AI infrastructure stack. And you can
Speaker 4: imagine that groc or some other part of XAI could
Speaker 4: be the back end customer service for Starlink customers. So
Speaker 4: say you buy like a Starlink satellite dish, and you're
Speaker 4: in your RV and like the internet speed is low,
Speaker 4: and you want to complain to somebody like maybe a
Speaker 4: groc chetbot like helps you troubleshoot your problem. So like
Speaker 4: I can see ways that it could also, I mean,
Speaker 4: GROC has this incredible computing power, but is it gonna
Speaker 4: need to rely on space based satellites for some of that?
Speaker 4: So by investing, you know SpaceX will have dibbs. I mean,
Speaker 4: at some point XAI is going to have to grow
Speaker 4: a real board. I would imagine, like they don't really
Speaker 4: have a board right now. It's Elon and Jared Burchell
Speaker 4: and maybe one other person.
Speaker 2: But why in the world would you need to own
Speaker 2: two billion dollars of SpaceX equity? Like I understand what
Speaker 2: you're saying, Like you could imagine I think you kind
Speaker 2: of have to squint to be frank, but you could
Speaker 2: imagine some synergies between SpaceX and XAI. But again, does
Speaker 2: that explain why the investment needs to happen beyond just
Speaker 2: the fact that the CEO is the same guy.
Speaker 4: No, not at all. I mean that's the thing. It's
Speaker 4: like Elon always like Robs Peter to save Paul right
Speaker 4: from all of his other companies. And we saw this
Speaker 4: in Solar City back in twenty sixteen, where like Solar
Speaker 4: City was struggling, so Tesla acquired them, and everyone was like, oh,
Speaker 4: Tesla is acquiring a solar company. And it's like no,
Speaker 4: you guys like Elon is the chair of the board
Speaker 4: Solar City, like this is a bailout and so I
Speaker 4: mean the cost of going to Mars is huge, So
Speaker 4: I think two billion is like not, that's like a
Speaker 4: significant I think it's SpaceX's largest outside investment, Like I
Speaker 4: don't think they've ever invested in another entity quite like this.
Speaker 4: But then on the on the other hand, the other
Speaker 4: thing that's happening is that Tesla is going to invest
Speaker 4: in XAI, and Musk said he's going to have to
Speaker 4: bring it to a shareholder vote, but you know that'll
Speaker 4: probably be like five billion dollars. That's what he's been
Speaker 4: floating for over.
Speaker 2: A year now. Yeah, he brought that up on Twitter,
Speaker 2: the idea five billion. I think it was last year, right,
Speaker 2: he did a Twitter poll. And separately, kind of to
Speaker 2: your point about synergy or apparent s energy or attempted synergy,
Speaker 2: you can now use rock inside of your Tesla car whatever,
Speaker 2: So I guess you could talk to your AI girlfriend
Speaker 2: or ask it about physics or whatever. I mean, Kurt,
Speaker 2: are we am I wrong to look at these reports
Speaker 2: about you know, Elon Musk trying to move money from
Speaker 2: his more successful companies to his startup, as well as
Speaker 2: reports from Bloomberg and other about difficulty closing debt rounds
Speaker 2: about you know what really feels like a scramble to
Speaker 2: bring money and say, how is this not like another bailout?
Speaker 2: Like you have a massive money losing company and then
Speaker 2: you have a guy taking money from another company he controls,
Speaker 2: you know, and putting in there. Is that totally off
Speaker 2: base or do you think there's an element of that here?
Speaker 1: It feels like the world's largest conflict of interest right?
Speaker 1: It is exactly as you describe Max. There is the
Speaker 1: one guy who runs all these things. He's taking money
Speaker 1: from pocket A into pocket B. And the problem is,
Speaker 1: I don't see that outside of like retail Tesla investors.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like there's really anybody willing to come
Speaker 1: and say, hey, should this happen to push back on Elon.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to be cut out from the business of
Speaker 1: Elon Musk and so as a result, no one is
Speaker 1: willing to say, is this the best use of two
Speaker 1: billion dollars or five billion dollars? Should you be propping
Speaker 1: up your AI business with monies from you know, the
Speaker 1: private space exploration company who wants to raise their hand
Speaker 1: and complain about that and then be cut out from
Speaker 1: the next big thing that Elon does because invest in
Speaker 1: Elon Musk historically has been a very good business for
Speaker 1: venture capitalists who can get in early enough. And I
Speaker 1: just don't see people willing to call him out on
Speaker 1: this because as big as two billion is, it's also
Speaker 1: not huge, right, Like, it's big, but it's not so
Speaker 1: big that you're willing to burn your relationship with Elon
Speaker 1: over it.
Speaker 3: And so I think that's what we're seeing here. But
Speaker 3: it is a conflict of interest.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any way to frame it otherwise,
Speaker 1: like could there be things that work about an investment, Absolutely,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that it's not a conflict.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like the best case for this is
Speaker 2: just that the shareholders of all these companies feel like
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is the most important element of all of
Speaker 2: these companies and he wants to do it, and so
Speaker 2: they're going to say, sure, go ahead. You know what
Speaker 2: else are we going to say?
Speaker 3: I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1: I think if you boil it to this guy has
Speaker 1: all the say and the power, even if he technically
Speaker 1: doesn't have the voting control, he has the actual power
Speaker 1: and sway and you know, to stand in front of
Speaker 1: that freight train is not something that people have become
Speaker 1: willing to do yet.
Speaker 2: Okay, Dana, we're gonna let you go and get to
Speaker 2: Kurt's interview. Thanks for coming. Hope to see you next week.
Speaker 3: Sasian.
Speaker 2: All right, Kurt, stick around. We're gonna hear your interview
Speaker 2: with Teddy Schleifer. I'm sure we'll get to talk all
Speaker 2: about whether or not Grock is a Nazi, or whether
Speaker 2: Grock could be your girlfriend, or whether Grock could invent
Speaker 2: some new physics in the waste come.
Speaker 1: Sounds great, looking forward to it. Hey, Teddy, welcome to
Speaker 1: Elon Inc.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Yes, absolutely, Uh.
Speaker 1: You have covered Elon in a lot of ways over
Speaker 1: the last six months, but even before that. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring us back because the story I was
Speaker 1: very jealous of at the time and I think still
Speaker 1: sort of stands the test of time is one that
Speaker 1: you wrote way back in December of last year. The
Speaker 1: title is the Silicon Valley Billionaires Steering Trump's Transition, And
Speaker 1: there's been so much news between now and then six
Speaker 1: months ago. Feels like, you know, five years ago. But
Speaker 1: I think what I loved about this story is that
Speaker 1: you took the Trump Musk relationship from the campaign trail
Speaker 1: and sort of introduced the fact that this thing was
Speaker 1: going to last into the administration, that it wasn't just
Speaker 1: going to be Elon, but it was also going to
Speaker 1: be like all of the people who orbit Elon going
Speaker 1: into that administration as well. I think it was like
Speaker 1: a perfect table setter for ultimately what we ended up experiencing,
Speaker 1: you know, for those first three, four or five months
Speaker 1: of the administration. So walk me through, like, how does
Speaker 1: a story like this come together? You're on the byline
Speaker 1: with some you know, powerhouse journalists at the Times, Maggie
Speaker 1: Haberman and Jonathan's One. How does this, you know materialize
Speaker 1: for you? Like how did you start to kind of
Speaker 1: get a sense that Elon was going to be much
Speaker 1: larger than just a campaign donor to President Trump.
Speaker 5: Sure, So, as of mid December, it was public or
Speaker 5: had been well reported, that Elon Musk was at mar
Speaker 5: A Lago since election Day a month prior. What was
Speaker 5: not well known was the fact that Musk had kind
Speaker 5: of brought in ten to twenty of his homies to
Speaker 5: basically quasi run the transition alongside him. You know, Musk
Speaker 5: technically didn't have any role in the presidential transition. It
Speaker 5: was run by Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, two people
Speaker 5: that Trump has known for a long time, and they
Speaker 5: both kind of divided up the transition into certain areas
Speaker 5: responsibility dating back to I think August. Then Trump's elected
Speaker 5: in November, Elon flies to mar A Lago for the
Speaker 5: election night party and then never leaves. And so what
Speaker 5: happened in November and December is there's kind of the
Speaker 5: official transition process being run by the people who are
Speaker 5: ahead of the transition, and then these other people. And
Speaker 5: the reason it was an interesting story to us is
Speaker 5: because the other people were never announced. You know, it
Speaker 5: was never announced that Sean McGuire or Mark Injuriesin or
Speaker 5: kind of Musk's personal family office aides were running this
Speaker 5: alongside them. And the way we heard about it should
Speaker 5: be rather obvious is that people were going in for
Speaker 5: these meetings at mar A Lago to be you know,
Speaker 5: secretary of state or deputy secretary of state or whatever,
Speaker 5: and were you know, they weren't like surprised to walk
Speaker 5: into the room and see people didn't expect but they
Speaker 5: kind of were like they were showing up and were
Speaker 5: surprised by the extent to which they had to deal
Speaker 5: with these kind of unofficial you know, DOGE or quasi
Speaker 5: doge representatives who had no public billing and sometimes no
Speaker 5: public profile. Like I even learned names of peace people
Speaker 5: that I had never heard of doing this story, because
Speaker 5: suddenly they were, you know, interviewing the next head of
Speaker 5: the Pentagon, even though you google them and you have
Speaker 5: no idea who they were. Yeah, and you start with
Speaker 5: this awesome scene of Trump sort of sitting around with
Speaker 5: a lot of his advisors and I'm going to quote
Speaker 5: from the story, but he says, you know, Larry Elson
Speaker 5: is there, the co founder of Oracle, chairman of Oracle,
Speaker 5: Elon Musk is there, and he says, I brought the
Speaker 5: two richest people in the world today, What did you bring?
Speaker 1: I love that because it speaks to sort of Trump
Speaker 1: what he values a little bit right. He values that wealth,
Speaker 1: that power, but he also loves to flaunt that he
Speaker 1: knows these guys and that he can get them to
Speaker 1: show up on his behalf. How did you view the
Speaker 1: relationship between the richest man in the world Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: and the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: Because there are two alphas who I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people thought this will never even get off the ground,
Speaker 1: and yet it it obviously has. You know, it's had
Speaker 1: a lot of speed bumps, which we can get to.
Speaker 1: But I think it worked better for a lot longer
Speaker 1: than a lot of people would have thought.
Speaker 5: Sure, I mean for a long time it was like
Speaker 5: a contrariant opinion to think that this was going to
Speaker 5: last at all. The betting markets were so weighted toward
Speaker 5: the idea that this was going to collapse imminently. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, Trump clearly enjoyed having Elon around until it
Speaker 5: all blew up. I do not think that there was
Speaker 5: some secret hatred from Trump toward Musk, you know, from
Speaker 5: Trump advisors I talked to, Like, the sense I got
Speaker 5: was that he found musks jokes a little weird, and
Speaker 5: you know, they're obviously very different kind of sensibilities and
Speaker 5: different industries.
Speaker 3: But Trump liked.
Speaker 5: Having the adelation and yes manness of Musk around him.
Speaker 5: Elon certainly got away with a lot of things that
Speaker 5: would never be tolerated from any other advisor. Like around
Speaker 5: the same time of this story, we had, you know,
Speaker 5: Elon Musk publicly supporting candidates for like Treasury secretary. In
Speaker 5: all way, that would never be true if like Susie
Speaker 5: Wiles just decided to tweet her opinions about who should be,
Speaker 5: you know, getting these jobs. You know, Trump liked the
Speaker 5: richness of kind of the guy around him, and he
Speaker 5: liked the wealth of Larry Ellison, and he kind of
Speaker 5: is impressed with himself to some extent that he can
Speaker 5: get these people to spend time at his club and
Speaker 5: suck up to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like the story again because it sets the table
Speaker 1: for what was to come. At what point did you realize, Okay,
Speaker 1: Elon is not just sort of bankrolling this guy's campaign.
Speaker 1: He's actually going to have a meaningful role in this administration.
Speaker 1: I imagine at this point in early December, as you're
Speaker 1: writing the story that has become obvious to you. Were
Speaker 1: you surprised by that? Did you already sort of know
Speaker 1: that going into this story, or was this story the
Speaker 1: moment where you're like, oh my god, like this is
Speaker 1: taking on perhaps another level that people didn't quite appreciate.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I was surprised for sure.
Speaker 5: You know, I remember Maggie and I did a story
Speaker 5: on election Day that Musk was going to be attending
Speaker 5: the election party at mar A Lago. I remember us
Speaker 5: being kind of on the fence privately about like whether
Speaker 5: or not this is even a story. You know, it's like, well, like,
Speaker 5: you know, who cares if he's showing up at the party.
Speaker 5: But as I mentioned earlier, he never left after the party,
Speaker 5: or I think he left one very briefly, right he
Speaker 5: basically that was the beginning of this role, of this
Speaker 5: kind of next chapter in the story where he went
Speaker 5: from just being you know, a big mega donor to actually,
Speaker 5: you know, almost running parts of the federal government on
Speaker 5: Trump's behalf. So that was surprising even I think it
Speaker 5: was even surprising in December. I think, honestly, it was
Speaker 5: even surprising until after December, Like I mean the fact
Speaker 5: that we knew that Musk was going to be leading DOGE.
Speaker 5: But a lot of the people mentioned in the story
Speaker 5: have played roles in the federal government even after January twentieth.
Speaker 5: I feel like, honestly, I'm still surprised even as we're
Speaker 5: recording this that you know, these people are sticking around
Speaker 5: to some extent, and you have David Sachs and Joe
Speaker 5: Gebbia and all these kind of Elon friends who are
Speaker 5: in these very senior roles. It was not foreseen that
Speaker 5: this would happen. You know the fact that Elon Musk
Speaker 5: ended up taking You know, he probably want admit this,
Speaker 5: but he basically took months off of his own companies,
Speaker 5: basically full time to be leading this kind of nascent
Speaker 5: effort inside the public sector.
Speaker 3: That was not foreseen. I don't think he was even
Speaker 3: foreseen in December.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you have a unique perspective because you
Speaker 1: your job is to cover billionaires, right. I cover Elon
Speaker 1: sort of through the lens often of x or was
Speaker 1: known as Twitter. But you cover people like him at
Speaker 1: all different industries and walks of life and things. I
Speaker 1: get the sense from my experience he is different than
Speaker 1: anybody else I've ever covered. How does he sort of
Speaker 1: compare to you? Like, is a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: he does common among billionaires and maybe we just don't
Speaker 1: always see that? Or is he truly this sort of
Speaker 1: like unicorn guy to write about and cover.
Speaker 3: It's a good question.
Speaker 5: I mean, to some extent, he is doing everything that
Speaker 5: everyone else is doing just more of it. Right, he
Speaker 5: exemplified and exaggerates the trends we see of other people.
Speaker 5: You know, Kurt, You've written about this a little bit,
Speaker 5: like to the extent to which he is become like
Speaker 5: a person of envy for other tech billionaires in the
Speaker 5: months since, right where you have people like Zuckerberg or
Speaker 5: Sam Altman, even enemies of Musk who like have seen
Speaker 5: what he's been able to do in the public sector
Speaker 5: and with his public profile and thought to themselves like, damn,
Speaker 5: I should do the same thing, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, so I think he's always been one of one.
Speaker 5: Though I'm amazed even now, and it's not like I've
Speaker 5: covered him for twenty years. I've covered him for like five,
Speaker 5: But I'm amazed still by like the gravitational pull that
Speaker 5: he has where you have all these like friends and
Speaker 5: investors and you know, people who are just in his
Speaker 5: social circle who like then this is not a chart
Speaker 5: of way to put it, but like seem to have
Speaker 5: their entire life dedicated to like serving him, Like that
Speaker 5: would never be true of like any other like portfolio
Speaker 5: company founder. For some of these vcs right where their
Speaker 5: entire energy and like's per seems to be revolving around him, and.
Speaker 3: To some extense, it's easy to make fun of it,
Speaker 3: but I guess it works, right, like where where you.
Speaker 5: Suddenly get access to Xai because you are like helping
Speaker 5: Elong with his superpack, and then Xai ends up really valuable,
Speaker 5: and you know, these things kind of create this like gravity,
Speaker 5: and there's a there's a circularness to revolving around Musk
Speaker 5: that I do think is very unique where maybe people
Speaker 5: say think of the same things about like Peter Thiel
Speaker 5: to some extent, but like I do feel like it's
Speaker 5: it's unique to Musk that every single person who even
Speaker 5: who want who knows him like sees profit and and
Speaker 5: access and power out of just continuing to be around him,
Speaker 5: which then itself creates that like that power and money
Speaker 5: is been seeking in the first place.
Speaker 1: Well, the same names keep showing up everywhere he goes, right,
Speaker 1: you see, like Jared Birchell and Steve Davis and you know,
Speaker 1: certainly his lawyer Alex Spiro, and like some of that
Speaker 1: is just like if you're his lawyer, yes you're gonna
Speaker 1: you know, you're going to show up where he gets
Speaker 1: into legal hot water, which appears to be everywhere with him.
Speaker 1: But you do see to your point, like the orbit
Speaker 1: moves with him. It's not as if these people you know,
Speaker 1: stay put and he parachutes in. It's like it all
Speaker 1: moves as a as a team. I'm wondering what he's
Speaker 1: like to report on. He sort of famously doesn't have
Speaker 1: PR people, or at least not a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a PR machine in the way that
Speaker 1: a lot of other billionaires do. I have found that
Speaker 1: people closest to him, you know, incredibly loyal, therefore hard
Speaker 1: to get to. They can be aggressive or to push
Speaker 1: back on stories like just what's what's he like to
Speaker 1: cover compared to other billionaires in that regard? Is he
Speaker 1: harder to get access to his world because he's so big?
Speaker 3: Is it easier? Like what's your experience been? Sure?
Speaker 5: I mean, I've found his circle to be definitely loyal,
Speaker 5: and I haven't. Maybe I'm being too soft. I haven't
Speaker 5: had any like great public blow ups with any of them.
Speaker 5: Behind the scenes. I try to take him at like
Speaker 5: face value, I think, maybe more than other reporters do.
Speaker 5: I feel I'm helped in part by not having baggage,
Speaker 5: Like I feel like this is kind of my approach
Speaker 5: with some tech billionaires. I just feel like I'm just
Speaker 5: trying to write about them in the current context, which
Speaker 5: I think helps. The one thing I think is unique
Speaker 5: about Musk, and I know you've thought about this too,
Speaker 5: is like behind the scenes, there's not a lot there
Speaker 5: that's not public. Yeah, you know, I mean, I think
Speaker 5: there are things that Musk keeps secret tactically that like,
Speaker 5: you know, people should report and scoop and go for it,
Speaker 5: but like there's not there's some different texture that he
Speaker 5: says privately. But I feel like if I were on
Speaker 5: some of these group chats, you know, like I must
Speaker 5: talks about like the budget bill in Congress, like he's
Speaker 5: saying the same things privately that he's saying publicly. I
Speaker 5: have yet to find like a super interesting storyline about
Speaker 5: what Elon is saying privately.
Speaker 3: Behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, other than you know, all the children that we
Speaker 1: maybe don't know, the unknown children.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he kind of talks about that publicly too.
Speaker 5: I mean, I mean, I mean, you know, he doesn't
Speaker 5: talk about it in detail, but like the fact that
Speaker 5: sure like he discloses so much voluntarily.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really does.
Speaker 5: And like replies to random people in a way that
Speaker 5: neuters some of the journalism about him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is a very competitive beat obviously as well.
Speaker 1: I want to move forward a little bit to the
Speaker 1: Trump Musk relationship in general. It has been rocky. They
Speaker 1: obviously have already had a relatively big public spat in
Speaker 1: I guess it was the beginning of June. What do
Speaker 1: you make of that, Like, is this truly the you
Speaker 1: know that they're they're never going to work together again?
Speaker 3: This is they're sort of.
Speaker 1: Gone their separate ways, or do you envision that at
Speaker 1: some point maybe these two are going to be rekindled, Like,
Speaker 1: I guess, I'm just curious what you think of that
Speaker 1: relationship today compared to when you wrote this story six
Speaker 1: months ago.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, as I said, like to some extent
Speaker 5: surprising it didn't happen earlier, and people were kept expecting
Speaker 5: this to happen. You know, I think the reasons it
Speaker 5: happened are pretty interesting. I mean, it is, you know,
Speaker 5: from talking to people around him, like, Musk definitely has
Speaker 5: legitimate or deeply felt beliefs about the bill, the budget
Speaker 5: bill that you know has caused such a rupture between
Speaker 5: him and Trump. But the real story is that he
Speaker 5: feels kind of embarrassed by a number of things that
Speaker 5: concluded his tenure, including you know, the ouster of a
Speaker 5: Musk friend to be the head of NASA, Jared Isaacman.
Speaker 5: Like he feels what he feels about the budget bill,
Speaker 5: but the reason he's being so public about it has
Speaker 5: to do with a lot of other things. And that's
Speaker 5: the quote unquote real story. I also concede that, like,
Speaker 5: I think there's still things we're trying to learn right
Speaker 5: now about the real story, but the fact that it
Speaker 5: blew up was less interesting to me and sort of
Speaker 5: like the why and also the how, Like I think
Speaker 5: like the fact that like, you know, during that day
Speaker 5: when he was tweeting about Jeffrey Epstein, like he clearly
Speaker 5: is just like vibing. I have not detected any serious
Speaker 5: moves that Musk is making behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: To actually form a third party.
Speaker 5: I have not detected any serious moves he's making to
Speaker 5: launch primary challengers against Republicans, as he's threatening to do,
Speaker 5: at least as of this recording. So he is a
Speaker 5: guy with a phone r like we all are, or
Speaker 5: you know, we're all just guys with phones, and he
Speaker 5: is tapping out messages and sending it to his two
Speaker 5: hundred twenty million followers, and then abouta bingbata bang gets
Speaker 5: on the internet. Right, I mean that's sort of sort
Speaker 5: of as simple as that. I think's what's unique about
Speaker 5: him is he has so much power, and that also
Speaker 5: he seems to have no guardrails, so he can do
Speaker 5: whatever he wants and he is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's been his strategy and style for
Speaker 1: years now, right, So it's not really surprising. I think
Speaker 1: it is perhaps unsettling to some people because it's happening
Speaker 1: at such a stage in a scale now. When he
Speaker 1: did this stuff, when he would just sort of, to
Speaker 1: your point, be a guy with a phone at Tesla
Speaker 1: six seven, eight years ago, it was like, Okay, he's
Speaker 1: harming himself in one company. Now, the sort of implications
Speaker 1: of guy with phone, I think are just at a
Speaker 1: larger scale than perhaps.
Speaker 3: They've ever been. Yeah, for sure. Do you have any
Speaker 3: sense that Elon himself might never get into politics or
Speaker 3: is there no value in him being the politician when
Speaker 3: he can simply sort of puppetmaster from the private sector.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the most interesting
Speaker 5: things I've reported in the last couple of months, which
Speaker 5: we just stuck in the middle of a story and
Speaker 5: never really highlighted until now, was like the legacy of
Speaker 5: the Wisconsin race and sort of shaping Musk psyche. So,
Speaker 5: you know, as people may remember, in April, Musk you know,
Speaker 5: spent about twenty five to thirty million dollars on this
Speaker 5: Supreme Court race in the state of Wisconsin. Elon seemed
Speaker 5: to go out of his way to make himself the
Speaker 5: public face of that campaign. You know, he went did
Speaker 5: a big rally the night before, starring himself. You know,
Speaker 5: Trump advisors stayed away from the race. Trump did not
Speaker 5: go to Wisconsin. The guy loses, and Musk basically you know,
Speaker 5: tug his tail or, you know, and never speaks of
Speaker 5: the race ever again. But in private conversations, Elon has
Speaker 5: indicated that he knows that he sort of made a
Speaker 5: mistake making himself the public figure of that campaign, or
Speaker 5: at least that's the takeaway of people who have talked
Speaker 5: to him. And so, yes, I think that race kind
Speaker 5: of shaped his view of his own powers, you know.
Speaker 5: And I do not think Elon Musk will actually I
Speaker 5: render politics himself, in part because he seems more like
Speaker 5: self aware of his divisiveness. Famous last words on that, probably,
Speaker 5: but I do not get the sense that he will
Speaker 5: ever do anything more serious. And you know, I certainly,
Speaker 5: at least as of this summer. I'm wondering what he
Speaker 5: has in plans for the next couple of years, because
Speaker 5: it's such a topsy turvy, like if you just listen
Speaker 5: to what he says publicly, like he contradicts himself all
Speaker 5: the time, Like at the time of this recording, you know,
Speaker 5: a month ago, he said he's gonna send a lot
Speaker 5: less money in politics, and then like suddenly he's saying
Speaker 5: a couple weeks later, quote like I'm in a primary
Speaker 5: every Republican member of Congress, you know. Like, see, he
Speaker 5: can't take anything you're saying too seriously?
Speaker 1: Right, last prediction here, if you're comfortable, we'll say, you know,
Speaker 1: a year from when you wrote this story. I think
Speaker 1: it was December sixth of last year. So let's go
Speaker 1: December sixth of twenty twenty five, fast forward six months
Speaker 1: or so from now.
Speaker 3: Are we going to see Musk involved in politics still?
Speaker 1: Is he going to be completely back into spacexxai tesla
Speaker 1: or is he still going to be doing that? You know,
Speaker 1: as he said when he was going to leave, I'll
Speaker 1: be there, you know, two days a week or two
Speaker 1: three days a week, whatever he said. Is there any
Speaker 1: world in which we're still talking about him as a
Speaker 1: political figure in six months, or are we back to
Speaker 1: Musk the innovator?
Speaker 5: I'll predict that he is not that involved at all.
Speaker 5: I think he will ultimately not be a big part
Speaker 5: of the twenty twenty six minut terms. He might support
Speaker 5: you know, Thomas Massy or someone like that, who you know, uh,
Speaker 5: the one House Republican or two House Republicans that have
Speaker 5: opposed the budget bill. I do not think he will
Speaker 5: spend a significant amount of time on Doe's related effort.
Speaker 5: I don't even know if Doge is giving it an
Speaker 5: even really exist. I mean, it's already sort of been
Speaker 5: somewhat more in battled since Musk left. I could see,
Speaker 5: you know, Musk getting involved in the twenty twenty eight
Speaker 5: presidential campaign. It's going to be an open Republican primary.
Speaker 5: You know, Musk feels like he swung the election for Trump,
Speaker 5: even though that claim remains entirely unverified. Even though the
Speaker 5: myth has taken hold that like Musk won Trump Pennsylvania,
Speaker 5: even though no one's ever system and systematically assessed that question.
Speaker 3: But I could see like.
Speaker 5: Him feeling compelled to get involved in the presidential race
Speaker 5: because maybe he can kind of recreate the magic. But
Speaker 5: I'll predict that ultimately he will be not that involved
Speaker 5: in public and political life, though he does appear extraordinarily
Speaker 5: sensitive to this perception. I find pretty interesting current like
Speaker 5: he's always like now that he's withdrawing from doge and
Speaker 5: and political giving, like he wants us to know a
Speaker 5: little bit too much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we're prepared to hold this prediction above your
Speaker 1: head for the next six months and you know, constantly
Speaker 1: bring it up to let you know how he did.
Speaker 3: So. I predicted on a Puck podcast.
Speaker 5: In mid twenty twenty four that Elon Musk would not
Speaker 5: get involved the election.
Speaker 1: Okay, well you have a great track record, then we'll
Speaker 1: hold that against you, Teddy. We really value your journalism
Speaker 1: in your reporting, and thank you for coming on to
Speaker 1: make our of our listener smarter.
Speaker 3: So thank you, you bet.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Stacy Wong and edited by
Speaker 2: Anna Masarakus, Blake Maple's Handles engineering, and Dave Percell. Fact checks.
Speaker 2: Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson. The Elanning theme is
Speaker 2: written and performed by Taka Yazuzawa and Alex Saguiera. Sage
Speaker 2: Bauman is a head of Bloomberg Podcast. Big thanks to
Speaker 2: our supporters Joel Webber and Brad Stone. I'm Max Chafkin.
Speaker 2: If you have a minute, rate and review our show,
Speaker 2: it'll help other listeners find it us and we'll see
Speaker 2: you next week
Speaker 1: Mhm.