WEBVTT - Elon Just Got His Very Own Town 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:07.080 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:09.520 Let me tell you we have a new star. 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.640 A star is born Elon On mars Juson Kennedy. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.520 He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age. 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.040 Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.200 I feel for the guys. I would say ninety eight 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.319 percent really appreciate what he does. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:26.920 But those two percent. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.840 That are nasty, they are all pay in four folks. 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:32.280 We were meant for great things in the United States 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:34.560 of America, and Elon reminds. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.760 Us of that we don't have a fourth branch of 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:39.959 governments called Elon. 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.280 Musk mock mus. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:50.400 Welcome to Elon and Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon muskets Tuesday, 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.720 May sixth. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Now Elon may 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.120 be preparing to wind down his time in Washington, but 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.960 Doge certainly isn't done yet. Just last week, it's stepped 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.280 up at scrutiny of the Securities in Exchange Commission, and 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.800 Elon's relationship with the powerful financial regulator has been shall 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:09.800 we say tens. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:12.000 The two sides have squared. 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.600 Off again and again over the years, and he stands 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:19.480 to benefit enormously from a smaller and perhaps more lenient SEC. 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.959 Meanwhile, Elon is on his way to founding. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:27.000 His own brand spanking new city down along the Mexican border. 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:29.080 Madlin Meckleberg will. 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.479 Join us later to talk about the birth of Starbase Texas, 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.080 but we'll start with Doge and the SEC. 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:36.040 And to do that, I'm. 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:40.480 Here with our regulars, BusinessWeek's Max Chafkin and Ace Elon 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.640 reporter Dana Hall. Max, Dana, welcome to you both. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:45.280 Hey David, Hey David. 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:46.440 And from Washington, DC. 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.160 We're joined by Nicola White, Bloomberg's SEC reporter Nicola, Hello, 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:52.000 welcome to the show. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:52.800 Hi there. 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.880 Okay, so Doze stepping up a bit. It's scrutiny the SEC. 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.840 Let's go back to the r archives and remember what 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.600 Musk said about the SEC years ago. 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.120 I want to be clear, I do not respect the SEC. 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:09.680 I do not respect them. 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.920 Dana Hull tell us a little bit more about those 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.679 comments for Musk and help us set the stage here 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.360 for Doge's incursion into the SEC. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:21.959 Now, So, Elon. 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.760 Musk has had a long standing feud with the SEC, 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.760 stretching back years. Probably the highlight was in twenty eighteen. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.680 As you all may remember, in August, he attempted to 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.760 take Tesla private. He tweeted out that he was, you know, 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.240 considering taking tesl private at four twenty a share. That 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.919 got him into huge trouble with the SEC. That the 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:46.160 SEC ultimately fined him twenty million dollars and he couldn't 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:49.200 be chair of the company for at least three years. 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.480 And he's just always been super angry at the SEC, 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.560 particularly the office in San Francisco, and you know, at 0:02:55.600 --> 0:03:00.200 times has called them the short sellar Enrichment Commission. And 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:02.760 this is a guy who's not particularly fond of regulation. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.080 He sees it as holding back you know, industry and 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.520 all of his enterprises. And now that he's a very 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.200 powerful figure in the Trump administration, I think that he, 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.240 you know, of all the agencies where Doge could really 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.160 make it smark, I would think that the SEC would 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.120 be the one that would have among the most importance 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.560 to Musk and his companies. And the SEC has also 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.160 investigated Musk's companies with Tesla and the way that it 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.040 marketed Autopilot. Nikola knows better than I do, but there 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.200 are various probes that have been launched and then it's 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:35.960 not really clear what the status is if they are 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.680 still under active investigation, if they've died on the line, 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.240 if they've been referred to DOJ or AG offices like. 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.280 There are a lot of questions about what happened to 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:49.720 those SEC investigations and where the people leading those investigations 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.119 are they still even at the agency. 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:56.400 Yeah, and there's also a lawsuit against Musk for the 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:00.640 way he just or didn't disclose his amassing of Twitter 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.120 shares before he basically did a takeover bid, and that's 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.440 that was filed days before Trump's inauguration, So it was 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.440 like the they squeaked it in right before the administrative change. 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.159 And as Dana was just alluding to, do we have 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.240 a sense of where that one is. 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.279 His purchase of Twitter shares before you launched a bid. 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:25.600 That is a question on everyone's mind. I think I 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.400 know several people who have alerts set up for the 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.640 docket for that case. Any movement in that case would 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.360 be of high interest to anybody watching the SEC, anybody 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.960 who's into following what's happening with Elon Musk. We don't 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.440 have any update on that yet, and there's a lot 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.960 of eyes on what happens to that case. The SEC 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:46.000 is in like a weird position. If they dropped the 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.919 case wouldn't look good. If they go full throttle, and like, 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.159 you know, try to sue Musk for hundreds of millions 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.920 of dollars that also might not look good. So they're 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.039 in a very weird, uncomfortable position. 0:04:58.400 --> 0:04:59.599 I want to go back for second. 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:04.159 Next, what Dana was saying and calling the SEC and 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.200 saying it doesn't stand for the Securities in Exchange Commission 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:10.760 Musk that it stands for the short Seller Enrichment Commission. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:13.480 There was also a vulgar one that he not going 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:15.159 to bring up on this podcast, but well you just 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:17.840 did show it's all right. 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:19.760 But anyway, and as we. 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.680 Know, there is no group of humans in the world 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.880 who Elon Musks hates more than the short sellars. And 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:28.520 in his mind, the SEC was just doing the bidding 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:29.320 of the shorts. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.320 He also is called the SEC at one point or 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:34.960 he eeked or tweeted. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.720 About him, called them shameless puppets of Wall Street. Has 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.120 there ever been a human who has been more at 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.880 odds and feuded more with the SEC than Elon Musk. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.240 Well, not that I'm aware of I mean, the way 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:55.040 Elon Musk runs his companies is sort of like totally 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.359 opposed to everything that the SEC stands for. Like Elon 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:03.520 Musk's empire is a web of conflicts of interest, lots 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:08.480 of self dealing, weird shared ownership stakes, like Musk is. 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:09.799 A sort of weird midnight tweets. 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.240 Yeah yeah, right, And it's just like a whole bunch 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.720 of things that like are not in keeping with the 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.840 way the sort of conventional wisdom. 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.800 About how public company. 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.279 CEOs are supposed to act. 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.120 Now, the one thing I'll say is, this is not 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.920 like a secret and that's what kind of always made 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.880 this these these disputes with the SEC kind of funny. 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:36.640 It's not like, you know, most Tesla investors and most 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.919 of the investors who are in Musk companies understand this 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.720 about him, understand that he's different, and that's why they 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.279 like him. And so it is this kind of weird 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.520 thing where where Musk like seems to continually either violate 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.120 securities law or walk right up to the line where 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.680 where I don't know, like a neutral observer. 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:56.839 Would probably think he was violating Security's law. 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.360 And the SEC has really struggled to and a glove 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:02.520 on him effectively. 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.400 In other words, they've find him, they've found. 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.480 Him twenty million dollars, but he hasn't ever changed his behavior. 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:09.520 He just goes from one. 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.080 It's like it's like somebody, it's like a rich guy 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.800 who gets caught speeding in his Lamborghini. Right, It's like 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.400 he pays a ticket and he and he keeps on driving. 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.800 But wasn't he also forced to step down his chair 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.280 of Tesla coming out of one of these lawsuits. 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.080 Yeah, well, yeah he was forced. But so what, David, 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.600 He's still on the board. I mean it's still his board. 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.000 He's still the largest chareholder. 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:31.080 So yeah, he was. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.360 He stepped down his chair. Now Robin Denholm is the chair, 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:35.960 but he's still on the board. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.880 It sounds like a big deal, but it actually doesn't 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:39.600 mean anything. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.280 He had a Twitter sitter, remember, like made him get 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.520 a guy, and we always wondered who, Like, who's the 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.080 guy who's gotta like vet Elon Musk's tweet this guy, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.400 And you know, for a while it seemed like maybe 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.520 it was possible that this was actually happening. I don't know, 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.160 it doesn't let me just say, it doesn't seem like 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:01.120 the Twitter sitter was empowered the right to do a 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:01.600 lot of city. 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.640 I forgot about that that the SEC made somebody walk 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.200 around with his phone as if like you know that 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.920 with a person carrying the codes to the nuclear you know, 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.920 nuclear warheads that the president has or something. But Nicola, 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.480 I want to go back now to the arrival of 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.840 Doge at the SEC as it's happened in recent months, 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.080 like in you know, branches of government across Washington. 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:27.200 Any sort of sense. 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.559 That you have of what the feeling, what the mood 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.640 was like there as this long time nemesis of the 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.000 SEC now had all this influence over it. 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.840 Yeah, so I think that there was a lot of 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:43.440 briefing for impact and everybody was freaked out about the 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.120 arrival of DOGE and what it would mean, just given 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:52.320 Elon Musk's extremely public, extremely you know, it's out there. 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.840 He does not like the SEC, and the fact that 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:59.400 he's active litigation with the with the agency, and I 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:04.560 feel like there was a lot more anxiety versus like 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:05.760 what has actually. 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.280 Transpired A transpired. 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:12.360 So Doze arrived later than any other like it seemed 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.760 like any other agency, like you know, at the beginning, 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.800 like USAID got gutted, The CFPB got gutted. There has 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.240 been headline after headline about drama at the IRS and 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:26.760 privacy and records and things like that. And the Doge 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.160 arrived at the SEC with like much much less fanfare. 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.680 It was like initially one guy and the leadership at 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.000 the SEC was like, hey, guys, dog is in the building. 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.640 Like it wasn't so much cloak and dagger. Like an 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.520 email went out staff wide and it said, you know, 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:47.280 there is a liaison or there's liaisons in the agency 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:48.600 with the DOGE person. 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.200 You know, proceed, Remind me who is the DOGE person. 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.600 I've kind of lost track. We have this like spreadsheet 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.280 of all the DOGE people and like how they're tied 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.920 to Elon and I'm blanking on is it? 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:02.319 Uh No? 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.720 So this is someone His name is Ellie Mashori and 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.800 he is a former CFTC attorney and CFTC is another 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:16.679 DC financial regulator that regulates derivatives. And he most recently 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:22.440 was at Kalshi, which is an online trading I don't 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.880 want to call it, yeah. 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.640 Like a Silicon Valley act startup. 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.400 Yes, So he was in there, and you know, there's 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.319 was like we're looking for efficiencies, but like there has 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.080 not been the like the crazy headlines of you know, 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.240 people you know going in and ripping things up or 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.920 walking out with file boxes and things like that. I 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.480 think that's, you know, by design in a lot of ways, 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.280 because we all knew that, Like Musk has well known 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:53.240 beef with the SEC. 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:55.319 So hold on, just to pause there for a second. 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.160 So you're saying it's it's by design. It's known that 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.920 Musk has feuded quite a bit with them, So you're saying, 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.520 what because it would be such a bad look that 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.280 they opted to not go that route. 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:07.880 Yeah. 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.200 And the other thing too, is that the leadership at 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:13.600 the SEC. So now we have a permanent chair, but 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:14.720 there was an interim chair. 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:15.920 Remind us of who that is. 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.240 So the new chair is Paul Atkins, and the interim 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.000 chair was Mark YadA, and he kind of did a 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:28.640 lot of restructuring before Doge arrived, and there were voluntary 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.120 buyouts and then there was like this more unusual one 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:36.000 time fifty thousand dollars you know, resign early kind of 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.559 payout dangle to SEC employees. And the other thing to 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.520 remember is that the SEC has an awful lot of power, 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.040 but it's a pretty small agency. It's only five thousand 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:49.439 employees and more than five hundred employees, so more than 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:54.000 ten percent have taken these voluntary buyouts, So like, how 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:56.880 much more can you kind of cut? You know, And 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:57.840 then also. 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.360 Mark ask Musky, they came, I know five important. 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.800 Yeah, you also got to keep in mind that, like 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:10.400 the SEC is Wall Street's main regulator. Who likes chaos 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.559 in the markets. We've seen that Trump does not like that. 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:15.839 You know, if you cut the SEC down to the 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.400 bare bones and there's chaos, that doesn't look good. So 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.600 I think there's been a little bit of like, let's 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:24.440 take a lighter touch at the SEC. 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:26.680 I mean that's to be seen right. 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.880 From Yeah, but as you were saying it, initially there 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.040 was just one person from DOGE there, and then I 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.280 think a second was added. And I saw some reporting 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.360 last week that we're now up to a third person 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:37.920 from DOGE at the SEC. 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:38.440 Is that right? 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.160 Yeah, I've seen that reporting also. But again there has 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:46.760 been much less kind of like people freaking out and chatter. 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.760 I think just just to step back, like one thing 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.040 that has happened during the first few months of the 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.240 Trump administration that I don't think Elon Musk anticipated and 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:01.760 I don't think Tesla investors anticipated, is that Trump has 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:07.200 hesitated to like directly expose himself in ways that would 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.320 be politically damaging. So like he hasn't handed Musk a 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:17.320 bunch of cash, he hasn't directly dropped cases against must companies. 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.640 It does feel like there's hesitancy to do things that 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.880 would look like we are just paying back a guy 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:25.719 who bought, you know, who helped us. 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.679 Win this election, who who put up you know, three. 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:32.320 Hundred million or so dollars in contributions related to the election, 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.360 and here's the payback. They don't want to do that, 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.640 And of course it's reasonable why they wouldn't want to 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.280 do that, because that would be a very very bad look. 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.240 It be a very bad look to cut the regulator 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.520 of Wall Street at a time where there's tons of 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:48.000 anger on both sides because the world's richest man wanted 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.280 them to. And so I think when you're seeing, if 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.400 we're seeing restraint, the restraint that we're seeing has to 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:54.959 do with the politics of this. 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.080 Yep, Nicola, thank you very much for joining us, and 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:06.480 we will see again down Thanks for having me. Now 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.400 we're joined by Madelin Mecklberg, our Texas legal reporter, Madlin. 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:11.160 Welcome to the show. 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:12.560 Thanks for having me now. 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.320 Madeline, tell us all about the formation of this place, 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.160 star Base, and about the vote that happened last week, 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.200 and then give us like a super abbreviated history of 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:23.440 what led to it. 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.920 Try to be abbreviated, but I could talk about this forever. 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.400 I'm so excited to have the opportunity to do it today. 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:34.640 It is incredibly fascinating. But basically, the idea for Starbase 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.200 started in Texas more than a decade ago, when SpaceX 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.440 first started buying land in the very southern tip of 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.040 the state along the Gulf of Mexico slash America. 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.880 And it really started building in Ernest in twenty eighteen, 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:55.040 and they've created this community of a giant rocket manufacturing facility, 0:14:55.400 --> 0:15:00.560 a testing site, and a launch site for SpaceX's Starship rocket. 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.960 And essentially what you have there is this huge futuristic 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.760 production facility and then dozens of tiny houses and airstream 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:15.080 trailers where employees of SpaceX live with their families, their partners. 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.320 It used to be a really quiet retirement community kind 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:21.960 of in the middle of nowhere in Texas. It's really 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:26.640 far out there. But over this past decade period, SpaceX 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.200 has been building, They've been growing, and all that growth 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:33.880 culminated in a vote this past weekend where residents overwhelmingly 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.600 supported an initiative to create their own city and local government. 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:41.040 Elon won on an election, Max, you finally got it. 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.920 Well, you know, when you fail in Wisconsin to southern Texas, 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:45.400 there you go. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.400 I will say, I believe almost all the voters work 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:50.280 for Elon Musk. 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:51.840 Is that right? All of them? 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:53.240 Like ninety percent? 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.880 I don't know, Madeline, that's correct, Yes, that is exactly right. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.840 They all either work for Elon or have a loved 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:00.960 one who works for Elon. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.800 For the most part, Madelin did find the one guy. 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.920 I mean, there are a handful of holdouts in this community. 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:07.920 Yeah, but they're. 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.400 Essentially like the Homer Papa, right, Yeah, he is a 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:12.200 great character. 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.080 Tell us about him for a second, Madeline. 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:14.960 That's right. 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.720 Homer represents the old guard and what this community used 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.720 to be, which was, like I mentioned, a retirement community, 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:23.760 but also a place for people who just wanted to 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.720 get away from everybody else. It's like a twenty mile 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.880 drive from the closest city, which is Brownsville, which is 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.040 to call it a city, you know, a reserve judgment 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.200 or that in air quotes in air quotes exactly. But 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.760 basically Homer has lived there since the seventies and as 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.360 he told us, he used to be able to walk 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.560 naked down the beach, down the road. He was totally 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.360 by himself down there in this nature preserve. And so 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.320 he is part of this really small group, this dwindling 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.720 group of landowners who have been there since before SpaceX 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.360 and who are who have refused to turn their property 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.640 over to Elon and their aff's basically, so they kind 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.080 of represent this last resistance to the star base vote. 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:09.000 But obviously that resistance is really tiny in number. 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.320 Regular listeners will know. We've talked about this a couple 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.359 times on the podcast. Like Madlin's saying was this, it 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:18.560 was kind of, I think served as sort of like 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.240 the working man's beach for Brownsville, Like it was a 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:25.159 place where anyone goes, open to the public, and there 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.000 was also full of these kind of like you know, 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.920 sort of hippy, dippy ish older folks who moved to 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.960 the beach, and like this guy that Madeline is describing, 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.240 you know, sort of living on off the grid bohemian 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:39.320 lifestyle and. 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.080 All of a sudden life we all aspire to, Yeah, 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:42.679 and all of. 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.880 A sudden, like these gigantic rockets are going off there 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.160 all the time, and the ground is literally shaking. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.399 Right, and it's suddenly become like almost the most futuristic 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:55.760 or one of the most futuristic places on earth. So 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.480 Madeline until this weekend, or perhaps even including now, I 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.240 don't know how things work postpote. This whole area was 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.480 just unincorporated. If someone's home burned down or was burning down, 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:13.239 there was no fire department, there's no blank or did 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.480 they lean on Brownsville for that sort of thing. 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.520 Yeah, they were unincorporated, but it wasn't like they were 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.600 totally off by themselves. Basically how it works in Texas 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.720 is if you're not a city, the local government authority 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.359 that is over all those things is the county. So 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.760 in this case that's Cameron County, and they've kind of 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.840 reached an equilibrium with them as far as offering public services. 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.000 They do have fire service out there, they do have 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.639 electricity and utilities and water and all those things that 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:45.479 make it pleasant to live in house. But right, they 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.320 have not had a local city government up to this point. 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.160 Madland, you see this effort bye you on to create 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.760 his own city as part of like this larger push there. 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:56.880 You know, there's a lot of talk about freedom cities 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.680 and like the network state, Like what is his grand 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.600 and is it just that like they wanted it to 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.600 be easier to build housing for their employees, or is 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.639 he going to start like building schools and creating his 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.520 own like star based police force. Like how grand of 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:12.840 a scheme is this? 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.879 That is the question. Basically, you'll you and your listeners 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.280 will be unsurprised to know that we got basically no 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.600 information from SpaceX about this, no information from the candidates 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.760 running for public office about what their big vision is. 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.080 But you talked about housing and building, and I think 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:35.040 that is really the primary and immediate thing that we're 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.600 going to see happen in this case. What they have 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:39.760 said is that they want to be able to control 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.320 the pace of their own growth and development in the region. 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:45.760 At this point, if they want to build anything new, 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.119 they have to get permission from Cameron County. 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.880 And has Cameron County pushed back or slowed them down? 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.399 Well, we know that about a month before they requested 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.359 this election, Cameron County rejected a proposal by SpaceX to 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.119 build moremultiple townhouses on a few different lots, and so 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.040 at that time, an engineer for SpaceX basically said, you know, 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.000 we have hundreds of people on a wait list who 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:10.520 are dying to come live. 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.639 Out here in our little community, we promise, and we 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.000 really need to be able to build as much housing 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.000 as we can. And so they haven't come out and 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.800 said explicitly, you know, we're frustrated by the pace of 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.000 approvals and the rejection we're getting from Cameron County. But 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.880 that's kind of the unspoken idea here of what initiated 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:29.520 this effort. 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.119 So who is the mayor? Like, the city now has 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.320 like three elected officials, right, So who exactly is the mayor? 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:36.360 Again? That's right. 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.480 So they've created it's a city commission technically, and it's 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.840