Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome back to voter Nomics,
Speaker 1: where politics and markets collide. This year, voters around the
Speaker 1: world have the ability to affect markets, countries, and economies
Speaker 1: like never before, so we've created this series to help
Speaker 1: you make sense of it all.
Speaker 2: I'm Alegri Stratton.
Speaker 3: And I'm Stephanie Flanders, So Steph.
Speaker 1: This week are tackling an issue that I think we
Speaker 1: all think goes to the heart of what voteronomics is
Speaker 1: all about, which is basically boardrooms colliding with election results.
Speaker 1: And the reason it's particularly acute this week is probably
Speaker 1: there's two examples of it. One is what happened at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post over their decision not to endure well,
Speaker 1: their decision not to endorse a candidates at all, and
Speaker 1: whether or not that was complicated by their proprietors business interests.
Speaker 1: And then the second is Elon Musk and his appearance
Speaker 1: not just once on stage for Trump.
Speaker 4: And we had one president who couldn't climb a flight
Speaker 4: of stairs.
Speaker 5: And another who was fist pumping after getting shot, fight
Speaker 5: fight fight.
Speaker 1: Many times over the last last few months. Now, his
Speaker 1: metamorphosis to sort of want to be politician continues to pace.
Speaker 4: Your money is being wasted, and the Apartment of Government
Speaker 4: Divisions is going to fix that make the margin of
Speaker 4: victory so big.
Speaker 5: That you know what can't happen.
Speaker 2: So it's really quite acute this week, isn't it. Steph.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean we're used to there being lots of big
Speaker 3: corporate money involved in US elections, particularly since twenty ten,
Speaker 3: where there was a sort of big legal ruling that
Speaker 3: made it easier for that to happen, and for just
Speaker 3: asked amounts to go into these campaigns over the years.
Speaker 3: It always makes anyone outside the US there's sort of
Speaker 3: head spin that the billions involved. But I think what
Speaker 3: is obviously distinctive about this season is, on the one hand,
Speaker 3: you have, as you say, the boardroom sort of chief
Speaker 3: executive level people very nervous of engaging even to say
Speaker 3: they support a peaceful transfer of power, which you would
Speaker 3: have thought would not be controversial, and at the same
Speaker 3: time a number of very high prive four billionaires being
Speaker 3: quite you know, quite closely associated with the Trump campaign.
Speaker 3: And we should say there's also been money going on
Speaker 3: the other side, our own founder of Michael Bloomberg and
Speaker 3: also Bill Gates, it turns out, very quietly have given
Speaker 3: up to fifty million dollars to Kamala Harris campaign in
Speaker 3: the last recent weeks. But you know that's sort of
Speaker 3: that's been quite low key in their very large amounts.
Speaker 3: And then you have, as you say, Elon Must very
Speaker 3: publicly not just supporting Donald Trump and amplifying some of
Speaker 3: the rhetoric and misinformation that is associated with the Trump campaign,
Speaker 3: but I think also seeming to specifically have corporate interest
Speaker 3: in Trump winning and potentially a future role in a
Speaker 3: Trump administration. I think that is a whole new ball game.
Speaker 2: It does feel like something's changed.
Speaker 1: Warren Buffett back to Barbara in eight, twelve and twelve
Speaker 1: and then Clinton in sixteen and this time staying out
Speaker 1: of the race. There's more examples of that that we
Speaker 1: could cherry pick, but that feels a particularly striking one.
Speaker 1: I think the question for later in the podcast is
Speaker 1: has something changed or is this a reversion to what
Speaker 1: should be normal? In a moment, you'll hear our conversation
Speaker 1: with Charles Elson. He's a leading authority on corporate governance
Speaker 1: issues and the founding director of the John L. Weinberg
Speaker 1: Center for Corporate Governance. But before we hear from Charles,
Speaker 1: we're going to chat about one CEO who has zero
Speaker 1: qualms about sharing his thoughts and feelings. Elon Musk, our
Speaker 1: colleague exit the podcast eat On Inc. Have created a
Speaker 1: special series about, you know, Musk's meddling in politics. It
Speaker 1: is called Citizen Elon, and we are not going to
Speaker 1: speak with the host, Max Chafkin. Max, did you see
Speaker 1: this coming, the role that Musk is playing in politics?
Speaker 5: Kind of yeah?
Speaker 7: I mean I've been paying very close attention to Elon's
Speaker 7: political evolution over the last couple of years, and with
Speaker 7: the purchase of Twitter now x, he has been trending
Speaker 7: in this direction. I think the surprise to me anyway,
Speaker 7: is just the amount of money that he's spending. You know,
Speaker 7: the latest filings, you know, it's above one hundred and
Speaker 7: thirty million, when when you sort of look at like
Speaker 7: what his pack has spent, the fact that there have
Speaker 7: been some dark money spending as well, that there's other
Speaker 7: potential races, and that there's still time between the last
Speaker 7: filing and election day.
Speaker 5: You know, we're looking at probably.
Speaker 7: Close to two hundred million dollars and that is an
Speaker 7: enormous amount of money. He's going to be one of
Speaker 7: the biggest all time political contributors. And I haven't even
Speaker 7: mentioned the fact that he spent forty four billion dollars
Speaker 7: to buy Twitter now X and that he has essentially
Speaker 7: turned that into a right leaning a sort of campaign
Speaker 7: mechanism for Foreign President Trump.
Speaker 1: Even with those numbers, when you consider the stakes for Tesla,
Speaker 1: for SpaceX and so on, people have called this the
Speaker 1: business opportunity of the century for him.
Speaker 5: That is business, yes, for sure.
Speaker 7: And we've seen this with Foreign President Trump, you know,
Speaker 7: kind of the last go around, like various CEOs attempting
Speaker 7: to kind of leverage the fact that Trump is sort
Speaker 7: of ideologically pretty flexible and that he seems to like
Speaker 7: these sort of CEO types. But you're right, I mean,
Speaker 7: Elon Musk is kind of unique in his position to
Speaker 7: sort of benefit from an association with the former president,
Speaker 7: but also the risks that he faces in terms of regulation,
Speaker 7: you know, from a potential Harris administration. Right he is
Speaker 7: a major defense contractor in SpaceX. He would very much
Speaker 7: like some additional contracts to launch rockets and perhaps develop
Speaker 7: weapons systems or whatever. You have have potential security concerns
Speaker 7: that have been raised at various times. I'm sure he
Speaker 7: would very much like those to go away. You also
Speaker 7: have just like a host of regulatory agencies over the
Speaker 7: last five or so years that have opened investigations or
Speaker 7: have have had investigations, who have been looking into various
Speaker 7: parts of Musk's empire. He would of course like to
Speaker 7: continue to ignore those. And then Tesla, his car company,
Speaker 7: which is, you know, the biggest source of his wealth,
Speaker 7: is very much dependent on regulatory structure that of course
Speaker 7: could change, and is also vuying to launch robotaxis, you know,
Speaker 7: autonomous vehicles, and is hoping to have friendly regulations there.
Speaker 7: So there are all sorts of ways that he's already
Speaker 7: the world's richest person, but that he could become even
Speaker 7: richer if Donald Trump wins in a week.
Speaker 3: Do you think he's expecting a concrete role in the administration?
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously that the President Trump has talked about
Speaker 3: him leading a group to find efficiencies in government, and
Speaker 3: this potential conflict of interests all over that, given the
Speaker 3: amount of contracts he has with the government. But you
Speaker 3: think he's actually expecting to have a role in the government.
Speaker 3: For this is more of a defensive position.
Speaker 7: It's hard to imagine Elon Musk is like a civil servant,
Speaker 7: right Like, I don't know that this is going to
Speaker 7: be a five days a week.
Speaker 3: You can say the saying about Donald Trump being here.
Speaker 7: I don't know that he's going to be you know,
Speaker 7: I don't know if he's gonna.
Speaker 5: Get a badge and show up every day to work.
Speaker 7: But I do think that this role that he has
Speaker 7: announced for himself and that Donald Trump has repeatedly on
Speaker 7: the stump. I was at Madison Square Garden on Sunday
Speaker 7: in New York where Trump had this massive rally. Elon
Speaker 7: played a big role. They were both talking about it.
Speaker 7: Other people were talking about it was getting.
Speaker 5: Huge applause lines.
Speaker 7: The way I interpret this is that Elon Musk will
Speaker 7: have a big voice in how Donald Trump seeks to
Speaker 7: reform the executive branch. He's made that a huge part
Speaker 7: of house, of his campaign and his kind of political project.
Speaker 7: So I don't know that we should expect Elon to
Speaker 7: have cabinet post or something like that. I think it's
Speaker 7: much more likely that he will be effectively a senior advisor,
Speaker 7: maybe the most important senior advisor to the former president.
Speaker 3: Unlike many business people, part of His sort of demeanor
Speaker 3: has often been that you get the sense that these
Speaker 3: companies are like train sets for them, toys, you know,
Speaker 3: that he gets to play with. He kind of has
Speaker 3: that air about him, And I just wondered, does he
Speaker 3: think the US government is now going to just be
Speaker 3: another train set for him to play with? Now that
Speaker 3: he's bought his brought his way in with this support
Speaker 3: for Donald Trump and this particular candidate, he might have
Speaker 3: the scope to do that in a way he wouldn't
Speaker 3: with another candidate.
Speaker 7: It seems like he definitely sees it that way now.
Speaker 7: Almost ten years ago or so, SpaceX began selling this
Speaker 7: flamethrower as a kind of a marketing stunt. They and
Speaker 7: when it became clear that you're not supposed to sell
Speaker 7: a flamethrower, he changed the name to not a Flamethrower.
Speaker 5: Was a sort of jab at regulators.
Speaker 7: When people brought up recently that, you know, him being
Speaker 7: the CEO of Tesla and directing federal policy might be
Speaker 7: a conflict of interest, he said, Oh, don't worry, We'll
Speaker 7: just change the name of the Department of Government Efficiency
Speaker 7: to not the Department of Government Efficiency.
Speaker 5: He clearly thinks that.
Speaker 7: He can essentially approach government the same way that he's
Speaker 7: approached business, which is by the seat of his pants,
Speaker 7: ignoring norms and regulations and like being very productive. And
Speaker 7: I think that is the optimistic story that you would tell.
Speaker 7: Like that is part of why Donald Trump is excited
Speaker 7: about it, Why the voters, and why that the crowds
Speaker 7: at Madison Square Garden and other Trump rallies have given
Speaker 7: him huge rounds of plause.
Speaker 5: That's what they're excited about.
Speaker 7: They think he's gonna bring that kind of crazy Elon Musk,
Speaker 7: you know, super productive, super weird out their business sense
Speaker 7: to politics.
Speaker 3: Going back to sort of boring policy substance for a
Speaker 3: minute and stripping out some of the more colorful aspects
Speaker 3: of this. One of the reasons why a few years
Speaker 3: ago you would have said that this was an unlikely
Speaker 3: combination was that the one thing that Elon was kind
Speaker 3: of politically identified with was action to combat climate change,
Speaker 3: and indeed is put that into action with Tesla with
Speaker 3: a huge investment in electric card That is one of
Speaker 3: the things that one would both the support for electric
Speaker 3: vehicles and the entire stance towards climate change would be
Speaker 3: one of the big changes under a Trump administration that
Speaker 3: we'd expect. How does that work? How is he bridging
Speaker 3: that gulf?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I mean, as somebody who's followed Elon Musk for a
Speaker 7: long time, and you know, I first met him in
Speaker 7: two thousand and six. The thing that's weirdest about this
Speaker 7: is watching Donald Trump get on the stump and essentially
Speaker 7: deny that climate change is a real problem, and then
Speaker 7: watching Elon Musk agree with it, Because for such a
Speaker 7: long time that was impossible to imagine. Elon has been
Speaker 7: very closely defined with like sort of green capitalism and
Speaker 7: so on, but he's been pretty ideologically flexible. And that
Speaker 7: definition of Elon as this green capitalist it really started
Speaker 7: during the Obama years, right. He kind of embraced it
Speaker 7: when it was most politically advantageous and has been walking
Speaker 7: away from it as it has become sort of maybe
Speaker 7: less politically advantageous. The other thing is Elon Musk at
Speaker 7: this point has a dominant position in electric vehicles. So
Speaker 7: if Trump were to sort of get rid of all
Speaker 7: subsidies for evs, which would be a problem for Tesla,
Speaker 7: and make no mistake, it would arguably hurt Tesla a
Speaker 7: lot less than a lot of these other automakers who
Speaker 7: are not selling tons of electric cars right now.
Speaker 2: Max.
Speaker 1: The other thing that you, as you've known, been following
Speaker 1: him since twenty or six, then you will have the
Speaker 1: Bui bel or certainly the kind of almanac on his
Speaker 1: flip flops and his change in positions. For instance, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump in the Wilter Isaacson biography, it's very clear that
Speaker 1: when Musk first meets him, he doesn't think much of him.
Speaker 1: And now we have the possibility of him having a
Speaker 1: role in a possible Trump second presidency, and there's a
Speaker 1: host of other issues aren't there where he just changes
Speaker 1: his mind, either the facts so different or he's sort
Speaker 1: of evolved. If he were to have a role in government,
Speaker 1: it might be a bit dismal constraining, and he might think, act,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this again. But also he
Speaker 1: might decide, actually, President Trump isn't doing quite what I won't,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna go.
Speaker 7: If Kamala Harris wins next week and and becomes a president,
Speaker 7: there are a host of these investigations, various, you know,
Speaker 7: like issues around his security clearance. Like I would expect
Speaker 7: all of those to continue, maybe to even intensify, you know,
Speaker 7: it would be it would be sort of natural to
Speaker 7: think that a new administration is gonna ask some hard
Speaker 7: questions about do we really want one of our largest
Speaker 7: defense contractors to be in regular touch with Latim Ripputin?
Speaker 7: Do we really want one of our largest defense contractors
Speaker 7: smoking pot on the Joe Rogan Show, you know, as
Speaker 7: Elon Musk has done. Now on the other side, Right,
Speaker 7: there's the upside for Elon Musk with Trump is obvious. Right,
Speaker 7: Trump has said on the stump, We're just gonna order
Speaker 7: up some rockets and take him to Mars. Right, He's
Speaker 7: He's essentially like said, we're gonna have like I'm gonna
Speaker 7: give Elon Musk a multi billion dollar contract for for
Speaker 7: a Mars program that doesn't really exist at this point.
Speaker 7: He suggested that he's going to let Elon Musk take
Speaker 7: a red pen to the government, which of course can
Speaker 7: help him. Now, the thing is, though Tesla's customer base
Speaker 7: is largely progressive is liberal, they are on the left,
Speaker 7: and I don't think the customer base has fully processed
Speaker 7: what is happening. And so if Trump is elected, there
Speaker 7: is going to be a lot of talk politically about
Speaker 7: the role that Elon Musk played this historic amount of
Speaker 7: money and support he played, and that I think is
Speaker 7: going to lead to a backlash that is going to
Speaker 7: put Tesla under pressure. There are going to be a
Speaker 7: lot of people who own Tesla's who are I think
Speaker 7: they're already not feeling awesome about them, but are going
Speaker 7: to have to think, you know, is this the political
Speaker 7: statement I want to make? And we've seen this happen
Speaker 7: with the former president before. He is a cultural force
Speaker 7: and it works in both directions and really help companies,
Speaker 7: but it can also create a lot of pressures that
Speaker 7: could put Elon Musk in a uncomfortable position, could make
Speaker 7: him want to walk away. Now, if Trump loses, I
Speaker 7: don't think Elon Musk is going to do a one
Speaker 7: to eighty. I think he is pretty committed to this
Speaker 7: this kind of like.
Speaker 5: You know, right wing positioning.
Speaker 7: If Trump were to lose very badly, like a like
Speaker 7: a sort of humiliating defeat, which doesn't seem likely based
Speaker 7: on the polls, then I don't know. Elan is a
Speaker 7: is a adaptable guy, and I would now be surprised
Speaker 7: if if he evolved again.
Speaker 3: Well, we can certainly expect to see a lot of
Speaker 3: plaid out on x Twitter.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be so busy.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, yeah, that was great, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Now we welcome Charles Elson. Charles is the founding director
Speaker 1: of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance and a leading
Speaker 1: authority on corporate governance issues. Charles, I mean this is
Speaker 1: real issues, right, This is corporate governance issues. This is
Speaker 1: CEO is trying to navigate what is a very finely
Speaker 1: balanced to your selection.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, this is sort of governance one oh one, and
Speaker 6: it's frankly bord oversight of CEO's one oh one. And
Speaker 6: it's from a CEO standpoint, it's politics one one. It's
Speaker 6: a combo of everything rankly this year.
Speaker 1: So Charles tell us, Okay, what is different this time
Speaker 1: round compared to others. Has something changed in this balance?
Speaker 6: Well, I think when had happened. Traditionally CEO stayed out
Speaker 6: of elections. It just wasn't considered a good idea. You
Speaker 6: alienated too many people by doing it. And the role
Speaker 6: of the CEO is run the company, not to be
Speaker 6: a political figure. That changed a couple of years ago,
Speaker 6: I think really basically during the Trump administration, when there
Speaker 6: was significant opposition to him in parts of the business community.
Speaker 6: And with the two thousand election, which was considered such
Speaker 6: a choice, if you will, between two dramatically ways of
Speaker 6: looking at things, and combined with the summer of George Floyd,
Speaker 6: companies became much more politically active than they had been.
Speaker 6: You saw all kinds of statements where companies were opposing
Speaker 6: changes to the voting rights laws in certain states. You
Speaker 6: heard all kinds of demands for companies to make statements
Speaker 6: on political issues, and a lot of CEOs did and
Speaker 6: felt that it was their role their obligation to do so.
Speaker 6: Some did, I think based on personal conviction. Others did
Speaker 6: it I think because they felt they were getting enormous
Speaker 6: pressure from their employees. You had the huge controversy at
Speaker 6: Disney where Disney announced it was not taking a position
Speaker 6: on a particular law that it was. The CEO ultimately left,
Speaker 6: and this really started a debate in this country as
Speaker 6: to whether or not the CEOs should really be that
Speaker 6: involved in the political process. They always kind of were,
Speaker 6: because companies did, through packs and whatnot, made contributions well
Speaker 6: through their packs, i should say, to candidates. And there
Speaker 6: were CEOs who personally contributed on both sides of the
Speaker 6: aisle to candidates. Companies are always accused traditionally of being
Speaker 6: very pro Republican, and a case that came out of
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court that basically allowed corporations to make direct
Speaker 6: political effectively make political contributions, not to campaigns, but to
Speaker 6: make their enough views known on political issues Citizens United,
Speaker 6: if you recall, it came out during the Obama administration,
Speaker 6: and people on the left at least decried it, saying
Speaker 6: this is going to increase corporate influence over the elections.
Speaker 6: Problem is, it didn't work out that way. It turns
Speaker 6: out that most large corporations ended up supporting democratic causes
Speaker 6: as opposed to Republican causes, and it was the other
Speaker 6: party who got upset about the ruling. So that where
Speaker 6: That's kind of where we were until now. That sets
Speaker 6: up for now.
Speaker 3: It's very interesting you say that there's obviously been big
Speaker 3: money flowing into politics on both sides thanks to Citizens United.
Speaker 3: That decision, I guess that was in twenty ten. But
Speaker 3: that doesn't put a lot of money on both sides
Speaker 3: of the political argument in the US in a way
Speaker 3: that certainly in the UK and in Europe we would
Speaker 3: find is against our sort of culture of political contributions.
Speaker 3: But the thing that striking this time, I would have
Speaker 3: thought was that even stating that you're in favor of
Speaker 3: free and fair elections has become something that chief executives
Speaker 3: are nervous of doing. And that seems like that takes
Speaker 3: things to a whole different level.
Speaker 6: Oh, I think it does, because what happened was, after
Speaker 6: the significant corporate involvement, it created a blowback. It was
Speaker 6: felt that a number of companies in the stands they
Speaker 6: were taking were very I guess sort of left of
Speaker 6: center as opposed to right of center, and the particularly
Speaker 6: following the abortion ruling of Roe v. Wade, and a
Speaker 6: lot of folks on the right of the divide, felt
Speaker 6: that corporations had become a captive to the left the divide.
Speaker 6: So they threatened, boycott's attacked, and CEOs for speaking out,
Speaker 6: employees got angry, and you created a mess. And the mess, frankly,
Speaker 6: could have been avoided had the CEOs not jumped into
Speaker 6: this thing to begin with, which happened, as I said,
Speaker 6: during the Trump era and after the two thousand elections,
Speaker 6: that's what really blew it up. And a lot of people,
Speaker 6: including me, said, look, you need to stay out of
Speaker 6: this completely because it divides people, and companies only work
Speaker 6: if there's unanimity within the company on corporate purpose despite
Speaker 6: your politics. Now that being said, the democracy point I
Speaker 6: think you make a good one is why is it
Speaker 6: so terrible to support democracy? Because it became a politicized term.
Speaker 6: Trump was viewed as anti democratic or complaining about the
Speaker 6: results of the election. He was a threat to democracy,
Speaker 6: so that term became rather than we all are supported democracy,
Speaker 6: the term became loaded and that it was well supporting
Speaker 6: quote democracy means opposing Trump, support you know, Joe Biden
Speaker 6: or Kambella Harris. That's the issue now.
Speaker 2: So Charles, can we just be clear.
Speaker 1: Do you think what we're seeing right now, which is
Speaker 1: essentially it looks like the sort of pedging by CEO
Speaker 1: sitting on the fence, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: do you think that that is because of the very
Speaker 1: real possibility of retribution by a second president Trump or
Speaker 1: do you think that this is a backlash or you know,
Speaker 1: a swing back to the norm.
Speaker 6: Oh, I think it's a return to the tradition. I
Speaker 6: don't think it's based on you know, fear of retribution.
Speaker 6: It's fear of retribution from your customers. That's the problems,
Speaker 6: and that's really what happened. I think they would learn
Speaker 6: the lesson that. Look, by taking a stance, half the
Speaker 6: country will love you, the other half will hate you,
Speaker 6: and that's terrible way to run a business.
Speaker 3: People will be surprised to hear you say it's sort
Speaker 3: of back to the previous datus quote, because obviously in
Speaker 3: the old days, there wasn't a sort of majority of
Speaker 3: American voters expecting potentially violence on either side of election day,
Speaker 3: and we hadn't had a presidential candidate refused to concede
Speaker 3: an election result. So it does feel like the stakes
Speaker 3: are quite high.
Speaker 6: I think the danger when you get jumped into this,
Speaker 6: whether you're pro or anti Trump, or pro or Annie Harris,
Speaker 6: it's that because we're so divided as a country, no
Speaker 6: matter what you do in a political stance, you're going
Speaker 6: to offend half your audience, half your employees.
Speaker 3: But it shouldn't be political, though, right. I guess that's
Speaker 3: the issue. I think that's what concerns people is. And
Speaker 3: you pointed it out yourself that what has become political
Speaker 3: is actually supporting the constitution, right.
Speaker 6: I don't think the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, frankly,
Speaker 6: at their core support violence. I don't believe that, and
Speaker 6: I think that in the end, if something does come up,
Speaker 6: I would be shocked if either party condoned it either way.
Speaker 6: I just don't think that's part of this. There's a
Speaker 6: lot of heated rhetoric, but I think when push comes
Speaker 6: to shove, ultimately the rhetoric disappears and you come together
Speaker 6: as a country. But I just don't I don't see
Speaker 6: that happening clearly.
Speaker 1: January the sixth slightly slightly complicates that assertion. I think
Speaker 1: we'd all like to agree that you're right, but I mean,
Speaker 1: it was it was it was a it was an uprising,
Speaker 1: and it was an uprising that had that did have
Speaker 1: some support from the then that then booted out President.
Speaker 6: Well, he made a terrible mistake, and I think that,
Speaker 6: you know, frankly, his rhetoric was improper. I agree, And
Speaker 6: that's the problem with heated rhetoric on either side us.
Speaker 6: You know, his rhetoric or the rhetoric of you know,
Speaker 6: using fascists, this, that, and the other. It's that it's
Speaker 6: really a bad thing to do. It insides violence on
Speaker 6: both sides. Trump, you know, he's a strange figure. He's
Speaker 6: a populist and populist Listen, Andrew Jackson was a populous
Speaker 6: I mean, I can go back in history. I mean
Speaker 6: I can think of Gosh, wave back, Lofolette was a populist.
Speaker 6: I mean, they all use that kind of rhetoric.
Speaker 3: It's a much longer tradition in the US than it
Speaker 3: is in other places. And you certainly have populis on
Speaker 3: both sides going back into the nineteenth century, and we've
Speaker 3: had in the early nineties and two thousand sort of precursors.
Speaker 3: Patrick Buchanan, all those people. I think you're describing what
Speaker 3: and you talk about the boardroom, you describe what many
Speaker 3: chief executives certainly the approach they would like to take
Speaker 3: if they feel, you know, if they're able to if
Speaker 3: the situation doesn't become so polarized that they're really forced
Speaker 3: to sort of stand up for something. I guess many
Speaker 3: people would say the action is elsewhere. Actually in these
Speaker 3: in the billionaire donors to it with very kind of
Speaker 3: personal support for candidates, and you know, in the case
Speaker 3: of Elon Musk, for example, we'd talk elsewhere in the
Speaker 3: program about, you know, the very public role he's taking
Speaker 3: I just wonder what do you.
Speaker 6: Think back, Well, you know, mister Musk and I have
Speaker 6: had our disagreements on his pay issues. You know, look,
Speaker 6: I think a normal CEO, a normal CEO, and a
Speaker 6: normal board would never have been allowed to do what
Speaker 6: mister Musk has done in this situation. I think that
Speaker 6: what he's done is expressed as dramatic support for one candidate,
Speaker 6: and it's polarizing. I'm sure that people who work for
Speaker 6: him probably are just as divided as the rest of
Speaker 6: the country. And taking a position like that is a
Speaker 6: real problem in your organization. And I think that that
Speaker 6: gets to the heart of the issues with Tesla and
Speaker 6: the board. This was the criticism that the judge had
Speaker 6: that the board was not independent she found of mister Musk,
Speaker 6: and I think that this what's happened today kind of
Speaker 6: demonstrates that because any normal board would say stay out
Speaker 6: of this, this is not your area.
Speaker 1: You say, normal bullet, But we're talking about Ela Musk,
Speaker 1: can We're talking about Tesla, I'm talking about space X.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a company the Reverse park and Rocket,
Speaker 1: you know, ten days ago, two weeks ago.
Speaker 2: It's not a normal company.
Speaker 1: Where does this end with this, as you say, this
Speaker 1: very abnormal relationship between a billionaire an entrepreneur that's being
Speaker 1: offered a job in government. Right, we know if Trump wins,
Speaker 1: he's going into government.
Speaker 2: Where does this end?
Speaker 6: Well, I think the question is does he actually end
Speaker 6: up with a job and A does Trump win? B
Speaker 6: does he actually end up with a job in government?
Speaker 6: And see what has that due to the rest of
Speaker 6: his companies. You got to remember too, he's got a
Speaker 6: lot of stock in Tesla, and he leaves Tesla as
Speaker 6: what he threatened to do, the stock in Tesla falls
Speaker 6: and his worth falls. That's the crux of this whole
Speaker 6: compensation dispute, which has to do with giving him an
Speaker 6: extra twenty percent of the company, which you remember, or
Speaker 6: fifteen percent, which if you remember to begin with that
Speaker 6: he had a lot of twenty five percent. He sold
Speaker 6: some of it to buy x now, and so is
Speaker 6: ownership position came down. He wants this compensation to bring
Speaker 6: his position up. But if he leaves Tesla, theoretically, so
Speaker 6: it's argued, the value collapses. That's the hell of the
Speaker 6: whole thing. It's a strange situation. But the question is
Speaker 6: why in the world would a board let someone put
Speaker 6: themselves in this particular situation. Remember, they did just stockholders
Speaker 6: of Teeslas. They did, and that suggests to me, or
Speaker 6: at least it backs up the judges view that they
Speaker 6: weren't independent of him. That's all she said in the opinion.
Speaker 6: They weren't. They were paid so much money that they
Speaker 6: be on that board that they were not going to
Speaker 6: be independent.
Speaker 3: I think there's any downside for company executives or for
Speaker 3: companies to have sat this one out to the extent
Speaker 3: that they've managed to do that. I'm just wondering when
Speaker 3: things like in the sort of the heat of Black
Speaker 3: Lives Matter, I think there were a lot of companies
Speaker 3: that just felt, due to the nature of their customer base,
Speaker 3: they couldn't afford to stay out of it. They had
Speaker 3: to have a carefully modulated but a sort of sympathetic statement.
Speaker 3: And obviously the statement black lives matter also should not
Speaker 3: be controversial, even though it came to signify many things,
Speaker 3: but both in terms of their relationship with their employees
Speaker 3: and particularly certain generations, younger generations, but in the sort
Speaker 3: of broader customer base. I just wonder whether you think
Speaker 3: there's any companies that at least are a little bit
Speaker 3: nervous about the flip side. You know, they may be
Speaker 3: worried now about retribution by future president Trump, but what
Speaker 3: about five or ten years time if they've not been
Speaker 3: vocal at key moments.
Speaker 6: I just think you make a mistake when you mix
Speaker 6: politics and business, politics and economics. I think you make
Speaker 6: a mistake because an economic venture is, oddly enough, one
Speaker 6: of the few places still around where everyone can agree
Speaker 6: and that we all want to produce a good product
Speaker 6: and a fair price and make a profit and get paid. Well,
Speaker 6: that's everyone can agree to. That, that's universal, and that's
Speaker 6: what's so nice a head of business that you check
Speaker 6: your politics at the door, you check your clients at
Speaker 6: the door. In the end, you need to separate the two.
Speaker 6: You know that. That's why you never talk about politics
Speaker 6: at Thanksgiving, which is coming up here in a couple
Speaker 6: of weeks, because it always ends up in a terrible
Speaker 6: argument and it's sort of pointless. Just think of it
Speaker 6: this way. If the only people saying crazy things are
Speaker 6: the politicians, then the rest of the world stays sane.
Speaker 6: Everyone else.
Speaker 3: If it's true that Jeff Bezos prevented them from declaring
Speaker 3: a choice in the presidential election, as they always have
Speaker 3: in an editorial. Do you think that was a good
Speaker 3: judgment by Jeff Bezos about the rest of his company.
Speaker 6: I think it was a very bold decision of William
Speaker 6: Lewis's part. He and I are old friends, and I'm
Speaker 6: curious as to what whether it came from Bezos or
Speaker 6: it came from from William. But it was an interesting
Speaker 6: state and in a way it was smart, I think,
Speaker 6: and suggesting in this partisan year, we are going to
Speaker 6: report and let you decide. We're not going to try
Speaker 6: to influence you one way or the other, because once
Speaker 6: you start to take a position, it affects the way
Speaker 6: you present the facts. And I think that's the argument here. Again,
Speaker 6: I don't know what their reasoning was or not, but
Speaker 6: at least what I saw it, I took it that way.
Speaker 1: And it's complicated by the fact that three of the
Speaker 1: editorial board have resigned over it. I think that there's
Speaker 1: some suggestion that they had written an editorial for Kamana
Speaker 1: Harris one. And I think the other complicating fact has
Speaker 1: to be, you know, I think we have to agree
Speaker 1: that that Bezos having such financial interest both in his
Speaker 1: Blue Origin company but also in aws in federal government
Speaker 1: contracts does make it a complex picture.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of sympathy reading his quote saying listen, actually,
Speaker 1: newspaper endorsements don't really matter anymore. I think we can
Speaker 1: all agree that there's some evidence of that one. And
Speaker 1: also to your point just then is powerful, which is
Speaker 1: it just creates a sense of bias that irritates fifty
Speaker 1: percent of our readership. That's one hand, But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, he is his companies make a lot from
Speaker 1: the federal government.
Speaker 6: You know, that's that's a fair point. Again, I don't
Speaker 6: know where that came into, is thinking or not.
Speaker 2: It insists not.
Speaker 6: It is fascinating that this is the first time I
Speaker 6: can remember where a paper actually said, actually, there are
Speaker 6: two papers that are saying, you know, they're not going
Speaker 6: to endorse anyone.
Speaker 3: That was quite clear as well. The publishers in La
Speaker 3: Times they've prevented it.
Speaker 6: La Times, Yeah, which I thought was really But I
Speaker 6: get they have an interesting point, But do people really
Speaker 6: support the endorsements and when you endorse?
Speaker 3: But why have they not had this point before? I
Speaker 3: guess that's what we're going back to the uniqueness of
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. Aren't because why is it that businesses felt
Speaker 3: more nervous about this than in the past.
Speaker 1: And I think, and I think to just back up
Speaker 1: your points, Steph my view. You know, Charles, earlier you
Speaker 1: were saying this is a healthy corrective to the kind
Speaker 1: of over indulgence of CEOs, thinking people cared about their
Speaker 1: opinion esg and all of that. But I suppose my
Speaker 1: kind of head scratch on this is why is it
Speaker 1: at one minute to midnight?
Speaker 2: Why is it sort of ten days to go?
Speaker 1: Why did we not see this repositioning earlier in the
Speaker 1: year when they say, look, Okay, we're approaching this election
Speaker 1: year and we're going to have a different approach. We're
Speaker 1: not going to be endorsing, and we're going to sit
Speaker 1: back and watch.
Speaker 6: I think the rhetoric. I think the rhetoric got too hot.
Speaker 6: I think the I think the assassination attempt, the two
Speaker 6: attempts on Trump. I think that the language that you
Speaker 6: began to see, you know, the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 6: particularly the use of the term Nazi fascist, really turned
Speaker 6: up the heat so significantly that people became frightened. There's
Speaker 6: nothing more divisive than this within families. That happens you
Speaker 6: know I would constantly get into a debate with my
Speaker 6: dad at Thanksgiving, and finally I realized, he's not going
Speaker 6: to change my mind and I'm not going to change his.
Speaker 6: What's the point?
Speaker 2: You enjoyed it? That's why.
Speaker 3: You have raised a good point. There's many things that
Speaker 3: people are sort of raising themselves and potentially dreading about
Speaker 3: the next few weeks and Thanksgiving dinner with the rest
Speaker 3: of the family.
Speaker 6: I'm going to be in England for the election, so
Speaker 6: you come.
Speaker 1: To the safe That's fantastic, Charles Elson, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for joining us. Thanks for listening to this week's
Speaker 1: Vota Nomics from Bloomberg. This episode was hosted by me
Speaker 1: Alecri Stratton with Stephanie Flanders. It was produced by Sersadi,
Speaker 1: production support from Isabella Ward, sound designed by Moses, and
Speaker 1: special thanks to Max Chafkin and Charles Elson. Please subscribe, rate,
Speaker 1: and review wherever you listen to podcasts.