WEBVTT - An Incomplete Guide to Elon’s Feuds 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:11.120 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.120 Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.319 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.160 controlled by one man. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:24.640 Well, he's a legitimate super genius. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:26.279 I mean legitimate. He says. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.920 He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:29.400 be different. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:30.400 He'll vote Republican. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.159 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.720 on him. Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.680 done nothing. Anything he does, he's fascinating people. 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.040 Welcome to Elon, Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.360 It's Tuesday, September twenty fourth. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.000 Now regular list ers might know that this show, like 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.720 Elon Musk himself, loves a feud, and this week has 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.600 been all about the feuds. Elon lost one battly in Brazil, 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.680 he seems to have started another one with the warlord 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.679 of Chechnya, and he even made a couple of enemies 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.040 in a battle over land rights. Yes, says Elon has 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.920 been rubbing elbows and yucking it up with his new pals, 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.679 Javier Milay and Georgia Maloney. In New York for the 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.839 UN General Assembly. The conflicts have been coming in fast 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.400 from all directions. Dana Hall will join us to talk 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:37.560 about that Chechenan warlord Ramsen Kataroff and his beloved cyber truck, 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.760 and we'll get into those land rights bats. But before that, 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.480 we're going to start in Brazil, where Elon just caved 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:48.040 to Judge Aleishandri jumurais bringing an end to a high 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.600 profile battle that led to X being banned. There to 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.560 discuss this, Max Chapkin has joined me here in the studio. Hey, Max, Hey, 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.360 David and from salpowl Will were beaming. And Julia Leche, 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.120 who run are Emerging Markets coverage in Latin America. 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.080 Julia, welcome, Hey David, thanks for having me. 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.800 Okay, Julia. So, when we last visited the topic of 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:15.320 Musk versus the Sovereign Republic of Brazil, Musk was still 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:17.720 refusing to do the things at the Supreme Court wanted 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.600 there remove accounts spreading disinformation on X, a point a 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:26.959 representative in the country, and X was still banned. All 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.040 that change late last week. Walk us through what exactly happened. 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:33.640 So a little less than a month after Twitter went down, 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.440 Musk decided to back down. Indeed, so he named a 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.080 legal representative. He blocked the accounts that the judge had 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.880 ordered them too, and paid fines that had been incurring 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.120 for a while and that he had been refusing to pay. 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.760 Now at the beginning you said it was over right, 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:56.720 it's not quite yet. You cannot access Twitter here yet. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:57.960 We tried a bit earlier. 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.280 So when you try to call up the app, it'll 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.600 get what do you get? What does it show? 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.360 It just keeps loading, keeps a. 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.600 Load and just looks, you know, no tweets, no nothing, 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.600 just you know, the little what is it called it the. 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:11.520 Beach Ball of doom. 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.560 It's the beach Ball of Doom. Okay, Max. So you 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.640 still can't access it as we speak. And that's been 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:21.600 the case, as you said, what for going over a 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:22.600 month now, right. 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.359 Yeah, I think it was August thirty or thirty first 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:26.480 that it first went down. 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:31.560 Okay, So the better part essentially all of September, Musk 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.320 has said he's done these things, he's shut down these 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.360 accounts that the Supreme Court wanted to shut down, and 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.000 he's now got a legal representative in the country. But 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.400 for Gimo and ies I guess that's just not quite 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:43.960 enough yet, is that right? 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.760 Yeah, that's right. So he gave the company until Friday 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:52.640 to file additional paperwork, which is essentially proof that he 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:57.880 hired legal representation, wants things to be notarized and you know, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.880 just full proof that yes, this is the legal representative. 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.280 They can be held accountable. And he also asked the 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:08.440 regulatory bodies on NATHEL to ensure that they've paid all 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.120 the fines that they owe from previous rulings before he 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.080 allows it to before he'll decide. 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:16.800 It's like a million bucks, right, it's like three and 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:18.760 a half million dollars, okay, But basically this guy's not 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.280 messing around. I mean he's like, you may say these things, 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.600 all right, show me the money and show me bring 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.640 me your counsel. I want to speak with this person. 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.600 All the paperwork, all the bureaucracy, I want it, and 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:32.000 then all decide. 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.560 And X is a pretty big deal there in Brazil. Right, 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.160 as far as social media giants go, it's. 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.920 Pretty widely used. It's not like when it went down. 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.480 It was not the chaos of when what'sapp went down 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.680 in twenty sixteen, also because of a court order that 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.279 was chaos, but this was weird. I think the latest 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.440 numbers that we have are about twenty million active users, 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.440 which is pretty hefty. It's not it doesn't compare to 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.839 What's app or YouTube, but it's still pretty widely used. 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.680 I think the survey one survey that we had was 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.640 about a third of smartphone users had it installed. 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:10.520 That is indeed a pretty big number. Nine Max. I mean, 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.960 here's the thing. We had the sense on this show 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.160 a few weeks ago, you and Kurt Wagner as well, 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.080 that as big a market as Brazil is for X 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.160 in some ways twenty million users and so on and 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.560 so forth, that ultimately, in terms of the nickels and 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.240 dimes that generated for the company, it wasn't enough for 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.880 Musk really to worry about it. And because the whole 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.360 thing had been come in in this pitched battle over 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:40.760 free speech with the Brazilian Supreme Court judge it and 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:42.760 he had kind of become a cause celeb, and so 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.159 it was a good fight to fight. But the way 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:50.960 he suddenly just absolutely caved, bang bang bang and acquiesced 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.240 everything Jim what Ies was asking for. I guess he 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.600 didn't need the money in the end, you know, there are. 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:58.920 Some memes are not worth the cost. 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:00.880 And you know, when you Elon Musk walked into the 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:02.920 Twitter headquarters with the sink, like I assume he had 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:04.799 to send an intern to home depot. 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.200 That costs the interns. 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:08.919 Labor and the you know, one hundred and fifty bucks 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:10.800 for that sink, And maybe that was worth it. 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:12.560 But here we're talking. 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:16.400 About a bunch of costs and I think what probably 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:18.240 happened over the course of this month is that they 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.560 started to add up in his mind. So so yes, 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.440 it's true that revenue in terms of advertising revenue from 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:26.840 Brazil is not significant, but as Kurt pointed out when 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.159 we talked about this, as far as a number of users, 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.440 it's actually one of the bigger markets. And you know, 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.840 if we've learned anything over the last couple of years 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.640 of Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter, now x he doesn't 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.440 care that much about advertising revenue, but he really cares 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.000 about engagement. And if you just like pull out a 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.520 bunch of users like that is going to show up, 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:47.880 and then. 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:53.279 Why do you care about engagement without the revenue? I mean, ultimately, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:54.400 at the end of the day. 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:56.960 He's building a new model. 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.480 David he is. He is charging people a subscription fee. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:05.000 He's also interested in influence. So like advertising revenue, right, 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.520 it's it's been devalued in his mind. So but what 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.200 hasn't been devalued, I don't think is number of users. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.920 He constantly is bragging about how many users are in 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:15.120 X and also. 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.960 From the style right, Well, I don't think it's just 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.040 about look at the size of my crowd. 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.200 It's not just about his ego though, I mean, part 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.640 of what makes this thing worth it in his mind, 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.120 I think is number one, like influence, which is about 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:30.960 number of users. And number two he is trying to 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.040 build a subscription model and having a lot of users, 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:35.400 you know, is the way to do that. 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:37.320 So those are things that I think hurt him. The 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:38.120 other thing is like. 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.600 There are a lot of like very active accounts in Brazil, 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.480 some of which Elon Musk you know follows and others 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.000 that are just like they're you know. One of the 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.040 funny things about this band was that you had like 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.480 random fan accounts, random meme accounts, just just these big 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.120 X accounts that happen to be run by Brazilians that 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:56.680 were went offline. 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:57.600 So I think that's one. 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:59.720 Thing and the last thing is like Brazil has ways 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.640 to hurt at Elon Musk outside of x You know, 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.240 we talked about the potential for freezing assets, you know, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.160 for attacking his other businesses, Like you don't really want 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.720 to pick a fight with a large country if you 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:11.240 can help it. 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.080 And I think in that sense this was inevitable. 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.760 Yeah. And I also believe it was inevitable because on 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.840 Brazil being a large country. This is a very important 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.080 point here. I mean, it seems to me that when 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.400 he got initially locked in this battle with them, he 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:31.400 some way, somehow convinced himself that Jimurai's in the Supreme 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.320 Court of Brazil were going to capitulate. That was never 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.360 going to happen. I mean, you should just call up 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.120 Brazil in a map. Okay is geographically a very very 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.440 large place, larger than the continental United States, and like 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.640 the US, it's it suffers a bit from big country itis. 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.880 It carries itself that way in international forms. And there 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.720 was no way in hell alischandri Jimurais was going to say, 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.920 you know what, Elon Musk, You're right, let me rever 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.360 all these orders I made, and I'm gonna let you 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.120 operate here in the country without striking down those accounts 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.720 and without having a legal representative here, that was a 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.480 losing hand, and perhaps he came to realize that. 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.520 It is also the problem of the precedent right. So 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.120 part of the part of the problem here with making 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.720 taking a stand in Brazil is that there are other countries, 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.199 countries with politics that Elon Musk might find even more objectionable, 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.520 that have also asked X to throw out accounts and 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.240 or have bandexed altogether. And Elon Musk had attempted to 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.080 kind of walk this line, saying that he believed, as 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.600 you're saying, David, that the actions of the Supreme Court, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.320 that the application of the law was somehow unlawful, like 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.840 basically attempting to say, like, well, this is just a 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.439 dispute over the reading of the law. As if, as 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.000 you say that that that the Justice would bret back down, 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.320 which of course didn't happen. If he had, if he 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.080 had sort of tried to play this out, it would 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.360 create all sorts of problems in other countries, In Turkey, 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:59.120 in China, you know, anywhere where you have countries attempting 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.720 to restrict speech, which is a lot of countries. 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.560 Julia leto let me ask you this on the topic 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.680 of losing engagement and losing numbers there there has been 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:13.480 some migration from X users to other platforms there in Brazil. 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:14.200 Has there not been? 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.959 Yeah, there has been. They were losing active users even 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.440 before this, as I think globally is the case as well. 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.520 Correct me if I'm wrong, But we did see. I 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.439 think the main ones were Threads, which is owned by Meta, 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.240 and Blue Sky, which was founded by Jack Dorsey. Both 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.839 look very similar to Twitter and both saw a big 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.240 inflow in the lead up and right before Twitter went down, 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.280 politicians and celebrities and influencers started tweeting their handles in 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.120 these platforms so they wouldn't lose the following. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.679 Now, did you yourself go over to believe hire threats? 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.200 I did not go into Blue Sky? I did. 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:54.000 I did. 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:55.679 I did go into Threads. 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:56.400 I did. 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.360 And now okay, now, but now that X is coming back, Julia, 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.880 are you going to shut Threads down? You're right back 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.800 on X or no, you're sold on Threads. I will. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.839 I will keep it open, I see, but I will if, if, if, 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.400 and when it's restored, I will go back. 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.000 To people sending you like you were trying to watch 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.440 the debate, the US debate, the Kamala Harris Donald Trump debate. 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:21.280 You know, that was the kind of thing you to 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.880 typically would have followed on X. Unable to use simply 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.640 what we're like send screenshots by people outside of the 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:29.199 country pretty much. 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:33.280 Yeah, both, And it was we are having local elections 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.440 here as well, which is also playing into this dynamic 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.480 of Musk and the Supreme Court. But watching a political 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.319 debate without Twitter or without. 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:43.000 X is very different. 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.720 I'm curious, like it's an interesting, sort of like natural 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.600 experiment to have a country, just a large country with 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.040 a big Twitter following, where you know there's a lot 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.040 of very healthy political discourse, suddenly have no Twitter, Julia 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.200 did has Does Brazil seem just like a less vibrant 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.320 place over the last month without this town Square, this 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.560 amazing app that we're all addicted to a little bit. 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.000 I think it's harder to find stuff right, and it's 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.800 harder to find common ground through these conversations because they're 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.240 all Some are on Blue Sky and some are on threads, 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.599 and some are on WhatsApp group. So you just have 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:16.640 to get screenshots sent to you. 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.880 The whole time. Okay, well, Julia, you know you're gonna 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.400 have to let us know as soon as your account 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.040 is working again, to great fanfare, we shall announce it 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.920 here on this show. Thank you for joining us, and 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:30.160 we'll have you on again too. 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:30.720 Thank you. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.880 Now we say hello to Dana Hall. Hello, Dana, hey, hey, 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.600 and we're going to talk all about the Chechen world 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:51.760 ROMs and Cadaroff and his cybertrock and how Elon Kadaroff 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:56.080 alleges has disabled it. What exactly is going on here 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.040 and how did Kadaroff get his hands on one of 0:12:58.080 --> 0:12:59.920 these things again in the first place. Remind us. 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.520 So this story is a little bit problematic for me 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.360 because we have no way to actually verify if anything 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.920 that this Chechnian warlord is saying is true. Right now, 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.840 the cyber truck is only sold in North America. That said, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.920 some people in Europe and elsewhere have gotten their hands 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:20.040 on them. They're importing them via third parties. So apparently 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.080 he got his hands on a cyber truck, outfitted it 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.520 with a machine gun, drove it to the front lines 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.199 or used it, you know, in the war in Ukraine, 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.600 and then alleged that Elon Musk had disabled it remotely. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.640 I mean, I can't verify if that that's true. Tesla 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.199 does not have a comms team, so it's like we're 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:43.720 sort of taking his you know, the whole news cycle 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:48.840 around this was basically taking this Chechnian warlord at face value. 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.560 And the people are like, you know, and I get it, like, oh, 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:55.720 Tesla cybertruck warlord. That's like easy clicks for the news media. 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.080 But I just have a problem with it because I 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.640 really have no idea what is true and what is 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:03.160 just sort of like a fake thing. 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:06.760 We also Musk denied that he gave the original claim 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.079 is that Musk gave him this truck. Musk denied it, 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.440 you know, right immediately, and like I, like Dan, I 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:14.600 think we should wait. 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.960 But are we doubting that this guy actually has his 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.280 hands on a truck and has fitted it with a 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.120 machine gun, or were we saying we think that those 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:23.320 are deep fakes. 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:27.040 Or were I think it's very possible, as Dana says, 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:28.000 that he managed to. 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:29.720 Acquire one through a third party. 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.680 That happens all the time in countries that are subject 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.840 to sanctions, so totally possible that it happened here. I 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.240 don't know what the You know, I'm not an expert 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.640 on cyber truck authenticity or whatever, but I do think, 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.640 like Dana is saying, we should regard these posts as 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.640 having motivations that might not be might not be as 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.680 explicit as just saying as just complaining elon Musk or 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.080 thanking him or whatever. This very much, to me has 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:58.360 felt like efforts by somebody who's very close to Vladimir 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.680 Putin to get messaging out into the Western media, which 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:04.680 has effectively here we are, we're talking about it, and. 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:06.680 We are indeed talking about it. Now, let me at 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.000 least ask you this part of it, though Dana he 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.960 cut her off, alleges that indeed that Musk disabled it, 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:15.840 and I need to ask you this is this a 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.360 thing so you can all of a sudden, like I 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.880 could be driving a cyber truck down the highway at 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.640 seventy two miles an hour or abiding the law, so 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.080 at fifty five and all of a sudden, you know, 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.960 big brother turns it off on me and I lose momentum, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:30.320 Like is that is that possible? 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.560 That's the other thing, like it could have just broken 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.080 down right, Like I mean, the cyber truck is still 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.480 in fairly early production, so it could have just been 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.280 broken down and he's claiming that Musk himself disabled it. Yeah, 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.880 that said, like Tesla is very much a software based company. 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:47.960 You know a lot of people always talk about how 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.800 the vehicles are iPhones on wheels. I'm sure that like 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.080 if Elon and his like it and security team really 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.520 wanted to, they could like go deep into the bowels 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.760 of their security infrastructure and like low hate the vehicle 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:05.120 via the vinn and somehow like send some software to 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.360 you know to stop it. But I'm not under the 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.160 impression that this is something that like Tesla actively does. 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:14.640 I think a more plausible explanation is that it just 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:15.240 broke down. 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.200 Well, especially was on the bet so third party actor. 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:20.760 Like you know, first of all, there have been accounts 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.320 of other vehicles, non Tesla vehicles that have been remotely 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.040 accessed by hackers. Like Tesla isn't alone in having a 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.880 car that is connected to the internet that like they're 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.960 like this stuff has come up with other vehicle makes 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.640 where hackers have have reported exploits that they say have 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.560 been able to disable vehicles. There are also third parties 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.960 probably involved. There's like a chain of software providers and 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.320 so on, and if he really did acquire this cyber truck, 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.320 he acquired it through a broker, so so some other 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:53.880 third party who could have put something in the in 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.280 the like, It's just it just seems like there are 0:16:56.320 --> 0:17:00.480 so many unknowns here that it's almost impossible to say 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:05.600 anything definitive or useful about this, except that, like the 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:10.359 cyber truck is a meme, and that meme has reached Russia. 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.720 And the cyber truck is a vehicle that I think 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:17.159 Musk would clearly love for the military to think of 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:21.879 as a procurement option. It's this apocalyptic car designed for 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.960 you know, zombies and life on Mars and apparently war, 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.760 and so I think that there's like some upside to 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.800 this being out there. But I'm just sort of frustrated that, 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.199 like we went through a whole news cycle of like 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.959 credulidity based on like what a Russian warlord wrote on telegram, 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.840 and I just think that, you know, in this era 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:46.159 of disinformation and deep fakes, like I would prefer that 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.160 people just exercise a little bit more caution before believing 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.119 that there's any validity to this whatsoever. 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.200 So, you know, by the way he does counter off 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.399 again forever much we want to believe him. Here he 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.920 said that the cyber truck Max was performed its combat 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.879 tasks beautifully. Now I'm just trying to guess what we 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.320 think these tasks were. You know, was it actually in 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.840 the front line or was it like making dunkin donut 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:11.760 runs for the generals or something. 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.000 I have a hard like Dan, I have a hard 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.080 time believing any part of the story, including that part 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.439 of the story. The cyber truck has gotten kind of 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:24.800 middling reviews from car reviewers. I don't expect that military 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.639 reviewers are going to offer anything other than that. Although again, 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.040 it does have the look, and if you care about 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.639 the look, maybe, but I just don't. There's there's just like, 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.200 very little evidence that this is even a good way 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.720 to like haul wood, let alone move around your move 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:41.960 along a battlefield. 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.240 Yeah, what's the charging infrastructure there? That's my other question. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.320 Yeah, I don't know. That's you know, that's it. That 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.280 is a very good question. But Max, to someone who's 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.440 hold a lot of wood in my life, yes, no, 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.840 I don't think that that's a wood hauling vehicle. 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:55.360 Dan. 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:57.920 I'm sorry to obsess on this point though, but on 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:01.080 the disabling of this thing. I'm just worried if all 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:02.679 of a sudden, my you know, my truck, you know, 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:04.240 as I'm driving down the road, is going to turn 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.920 off on me. What you're telling me is it's not 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.080 necessarily if this technology exists, in this ability to exist, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.280 that big brother can do this to you. It's not 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.800 about whether your vehicle is an EV or a combustion 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.680 engine vehicle. It's about just how connected you ultimately are 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:23.760 to the Internet and how much you know, how much 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.399 of a smart vehicle it is. That's what would make 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:27.000 it to separate. 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.680 I mean, Chessa just has a lot of data about 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.800 its vehicles. Like there was a there was an incident 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.840 like years ago where certain vehicle owners, instead of charging 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.320 their Teslas at home, would go to like the local 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.680 supercharger and charge and they were kind of like using 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.200 the superchargers more than they were supposed to, and they 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.920 were like supercharger scoff laws, and like Tesla knew who 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.760 they were because they have the data analytics about like 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.960 charging use and they sent letters to some owners that 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.199 was like, hey, you should really charge at home, and 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.160 so they just know a lot about your vehicle there's 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.240 you know, so this is just the way that vehicles 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.320 are going to be going forward, Like especially if you 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.600 have a vehicle, this very software to find and Tesla 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.520 doesn't use third parties they do, you know, they buy 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.080 and large do all their software in house, so they 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.560 have a lot of information about you. Whether they're actively 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:16.040 disabling vehicles, I have no. 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.359