WEBVTT - Live from SXSW: Elon Goes to Texas 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:05.240 Welcome to Elon Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.559 I'm your host David Popatoppolos, and we are live at 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.960 south By Southwest. For the uninitiated, Elon Inc. Is the 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.239 show where we discuss Elon Musk's corporate empire and how 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:21.800 to make sense of his NonStop gambits and antics. Well, 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.560 Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.720 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:29.560 controlled by one man. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.000 Well, he's a legitimate super genius. 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:33.120 I mean legitimate. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:33.680 He says. 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.279 He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:36.760 be different. 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:37.760 He'll vote Republican. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.479 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:41.080 on him. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.720 Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.080 Anything he does is fascinating to people. 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.320 Being here in Austin today, will dig into all things 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.480 Elon in Texas. I'll let the man himself have the 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.520 first word. This is Elon speaking back in twenty twenty two. 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.600 We built the factory here in less time than it 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.600 would have taken to get deep permits in California. I 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:13.720 loved living in California, but the problem is you cannot 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.520 get things done. Ask anyone and anyone who's done a 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.120 large project in California, how long would it take you 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:21.040 to get the approval to proceed? 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:22.399 Two years? And you're doing well. 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:24.399 And like I said, we've got this book in eighteen months. 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.120 Since moving to Texas a few years ago, Elon has 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.920 bought up swats of land, built new factories and facilities 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.640 for his companies, even weighed in on a local election. 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.200 And we'll get into all of that. But Texas has 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.280 had an impact on Elon two and that is evident. 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:46.400 Here we have him wearing a cowboy hat, maybe backwards. 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.600 More on that hat later, but let me introduce our panel. Now. 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.840 I'll start with one of our true regulars, Max Chafkin, 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.320 senior reporter and editor at BusinessWeek, and a man who 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.520 is to this show what norm is to cheers, Hey, David. 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.680 And then we have two special guests. We brought in 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.440 Rachel Monroe, Texas in Southwest correspondent for The New Yorker, 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:11.680 Hello Rachel, Hello, And Sewell Chan, editor in chief at 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.079 the Texas Tribute. Hi, David. Hello, all right, So a 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.000 nice breaker to get things started. I want all of you, 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.600 and I want you to think hard about this. I 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.360 needed to rate Elon's Texan hood on a scale of 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.720 one to ten, with one being a total utter impostor 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:34.799 and ten being a modern day Sam Houston. Now, sewell, 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.640 you are a student of the history of Texas. We 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.079 will start with you, and I'm writing down these answers. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.000 By the way, Well, it's a loaded question, but I'd 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.320 have to say ten. And here's why ten. You know, 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.200 Texas is a state where people have often come to 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:51.079 reimagine themselves, and Texas is often a canvas upon which 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.880 people project their desires, their dreams, or their nightmares about 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.760 what America is and should be. So, in one sense, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.440 the richest person in the world moving here, buying a 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.480 giant's loss of land, buying up at State Park, building 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.440 a giant factory in Austin, and proclaiming himself a Texan 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.080 is the most Texan thing he could do. 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.200 All right, very good tool. We're gonna jump more into 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:15.400 that in one second. But we're gonna get Rachel's number. Now, Rachel, I'll. 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:15.919 Give him an eight. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:21.880 Honestly, Texas loves a businessman, Texas loves a huckster, Texas 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:26.560 loves a billionaire with like unhinged political opinions. I'll ding 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:28.079 him a couple points because of the hat. 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:30.359 But okay, so we have a ten, I mean eight, 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:32.880 Max five, A five. 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:33.520 Do I explain? 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:36.880 No, No, they're cheating. I mean no, you will. You 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.360 will explain during the course of the show. But we 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:42.560 will then turn to you Max, okay, and I will 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:47.680 ask you how did Elon, a native South African become 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.440 a Californian first, and a very proud one at that, 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.080 and then a couple decades later a Texan. 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.440 Yeah, I mean that clip is funny for me to 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.920 watch as somebody who's covered him for a long time, 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.200 because of course, like ten fifteen years ago, as he 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:07.160 said he was a proud Californian. It was like central 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.720 to his identity. It was in a lot of ways 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.280 his identity. He would I remember, like the one of 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.080 the first things he ever said to me, like in 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.039 like two thousand and six or seven, when he was 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.640 sort of talking up Tesla, was I'm a Silicon Valley guy. 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.039 I think people in Silicon Valley can do anything. And 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.560 the central premise was like Silicon Valley's good at software 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.320 but doesn't build hardware. I'm gonna be the one to 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.800 fix that, and of course he had this kind of 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.839 change of heart around twenty twenty during COVID, like many 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:41.719 tech guys I think, who simultaneously had huge capital gains 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:45.360 windfall and were I think looking for ways to lower 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.960 their tech liability and also was very frustrated with lockdowns, 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.000 and then began this kind of evolution that saw him 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.160 move to Texas, and I think, you know, changed kind 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:56.360 of his whole persona. 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.840 All right, and Suell explain for us a little bit. 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:05.520 He the allure of Texas, a place that's long attracted 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:08.000 libertarians and sorts like that. 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.040 Well, first of all, it's important to remember that Texas 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.240 has always been conservative, but Texas has not always been Republican, 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.680 and indeed, across the twentieth century, California was largely Republican 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.200 and Texas was largely Democratic. There were different parties back then, 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.680 of course, but Texas, especially in the twentieth century an 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.599 important thing. The majority of the population lives east of 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.839 I thirty five, the easternmost third of the state, and 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.000 the Texas Triangle Houston, Dallas, Austin. 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.200 Has the vast majority of the population. 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.200 So Texas is actually a pretty urbanized state, but the 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.039 rural image and that frontier image, the cowboy, the rugged 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.760 individualist that became kind of Texas's defining identity in the 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:46.599 twentieth century. 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:51.440 Along those lines, Rachel, is this move to Texas for 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.400 Elon is this largely? Is this a branding thing or 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:55.680 is there more to it than that? 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:56.520 Well, you could. 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:58.240 You might also want to state the lack of a 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:02.640 state income tax. It's a pretty huge and Texas likes 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.480 to think of itself as a very business friendly state. 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:07.760 And I mean, I think you've seen that in his 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:09.920 experience here and the clip that you all played in 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.800 terms of the regulation. I mean, what's been able to 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.480 happen with SpaceX here has happened really quickly, sort of 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.520 alarmingly quickly. But I think that and then I think 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.480 there's something fun about there's a certain kind of performative 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.160 masculinity and the cowboy image. I mean, Elon's not the 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:28.279 only guy that we're seeing that put on the hat 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:28.880 and the boots. 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.200 It's also, you know, he's good at a few different things. 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.360 You know, he's a really good, you know, manager of engineers, 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.200 he's a good marketer. He's also very good at getting 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:42.480 municipalities local governments and even national governments to write him 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.040 gigantic checks or to you know, cut him enormous tax breaks. 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:48.640 And by the way, it's similar to the way he 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:50.520 does it with investors, right, I mean, investors have been 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:52.000 handing him lots of money for years. 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.120 And it's really good if you're if you want to, 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.760 you know, extract a tax break out of a governor 0:06:57.960 --> 0:06:59.760 or a mayor or whatever, to be a little flexible 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.159 about your identity, to be willing essentially to embrace a 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.000 new identity. You know, when he was a proud Californian, 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.240 of course, part of what he was doing was reviving 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.440 the new ME factory. This is the main Tesla factory 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.000 in Fremont, California that he got for very little money 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.560 that essentially took over this GM Toyota joint venture. And 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.480 you know, coming to Texas, he's been able to extract 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:24.240 some I believe some pretty significant tax breaks. And he's 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:28.240 done this all over the world, right in China, in Germany. 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.040 It's like a big part of what he does is 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.520 like find a way to sort of fit himself into 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.200 policymakers agenda and get paid for it. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:39.000 We're going to get into that in a minute. Let 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.040 me ask you this though, because I do know, I believe, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.360 and you were very excited. You saw your first cyber 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:46.320 truck ever yesterday I did, and. 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.440 It looked it sort of fit in you know, right, 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.560 they're so big, but you know, maybe the scale you 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:55.760 know here is a little a little more forgiving. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.720 Rachel. You've talked a little bit with me before about 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.520 Elon's star power, in the star power that he brings 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.560 to Texas. What does that look like and does that 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.080 star power? Does it matter in any meaningful way. 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.120 I talked to a person that I know the other 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.679 day who is the only person I know who's friends 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.960 with Elon, and I was just sort of asking him. 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.600 I was like, what's the deal, Like does this work 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:22.920 out there in the scene? And he was like, oh yes. 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:25.280 You would think that once you were billinaire you would 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.000 get over this. But people are still like, oh yeah, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:28.880 no I went with e to this. There's still a 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:33.680 lot of swooning. There's still a lot of deference. There's 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.200 still a lot of like laughing, laughing at his jokes 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:37.160 even when they aren't funny. 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:39.360 So I guess it, you know. 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.280 But this is like within a cohort that I think 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.560 is like his cohort that has come to Texas with him. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.719 Whether that travels kind of outside that bubble, I think 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:52.200 is it's less clear. 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.680 So that includes like members of the PayPal mafia, the 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:56.520 people who've settled in West Austin. 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.960 Yeah, exactly, the sort of new Austin, tex scene. 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.839 I was just wondering, like, who is the because when 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.920 he lived in California, you know, he's sort of hanging 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:07.320 with the Hollywood scene. 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.120 You know, he married twice, actually. 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:14.440 Married an actress, kind of a Hollywood starlet. He sort 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.719 of enjoyed that part of his identity. What is the 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.960 Austin equivalent of that? Is it Joe Rogan or like. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:24.800 Joe Rogan and Alex Jones. Is that the best that 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.520 we've got it? I don't think so. I don't like 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.120 to think that that's true. But I mean, from what 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:32.920 I hear, this is just like a lot of sort 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.720 of like private enclaves. That's sort of the scene that's 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.079 happening here. It's not a lot of like cross pollination 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.199 with the kind of broader Austin community. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:51.280 What actually is Elon's ideology nowadays? If we have any sense, 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.240 is he a libertarian? Is he more right wing sort 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.320 of law and order guy. He likes to say that 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.520 he's pretty much a centrist. And ever, no one else 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.599 has moved left any sense of where he stands, and 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:07.199 at this current time, I. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.960 Think, like a lot of people who've moved rightward. You know, 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.840 Elon Musk is fundamentally annoyed by what thirty years ago 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.880 was called political correctness or now wokeism. Whether you agree 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:19.400 with that critique or not, I think it's one that 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.760 he's really glommed onto. He's obviously become a free speech absolutist. 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.200 I would say his orientation is mostly libertarian. He tends 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.520 to talk more about speech issues than about low tax 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.560 law regulation, low government services, which is really the Texas 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:34.600 economic model mega. 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.720 I mean, his ideology is the ideology of Donald Trump. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.599 I think partly because Maganism or whatever you want to 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.280 call it, has is politically salient and is popular with 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:47.760 a large portion of the United States. 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:48.360 Also. 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.760 I mean, of course, like Donald Trump and Elon Musk 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:52.880 have a lot in common, right, They're both kind of 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:59.600 like libertarian inclined businessmen who are really interested in as 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.199 souls as you know, saying what they want when they 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.800 want and there's even you know, I think psychically some 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.320 kind of connection. They're both given to these like, you know, 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.800 kind of grand pronouncements. They both have this feeling that 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.800 they can kind of speak something into existence just by 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:16.040 saying it very forcefully. 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:18.360 So I mean, I think it's that simple. I think 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.080 his ideology is the ideology of the Trump movement. 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.600 It's interesting to me that he seems to really think 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.720 of himself as a as a contrarian and as a 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.560 maverick of sometimes. But when you look at you know, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.400 particularly the recent things that he's been saying about immigration, 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:33.439 which is we have some. 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.280 Tape of them at the border speaking on this very topic. 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.080 At Eagle Pass, and we're going to be being with 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:47.080 the sort of major the major officials and law enforcement 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:48.320 responsible for the order. 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:50.959 The reality is that if this is an open order 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.199 for all of Earth and just you know, so there's 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.560 roughly a three hundred fifty million people in the US, 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:58.200 but there's eight billion people on Earth. 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.360 Yes, this is an open border too, eight billion people. 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:03.760 So can I ask a question though, I mean, at 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.800 one point does elon the capitalists run up against elon 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.440 social media personality? I mean, someone running a global company 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.600 wants a stable, large base of consumers. 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.240 I think it's arguably happening. He feels he gets that 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:16.880 under Trump. 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:21.360 I mean, I think he's like Tesla. There are big 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.800 questions about why is there not more demand? You know, 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:26.400 why do is demand seemed to slow down? 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:26.800 You know? 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.040 One explanation is that he's turned people off. I also 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.960 think that Musk is on Twitter all day, every day, 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:39.440 and it feels intuitively, rightly or wrongly, that there's something 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.520 behind this and that's what he's attacking. But of course 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.000 they're you know, large and very sophisticated investors who would 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:46.560 disagree with that. 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:48.319 He think he's making a huge mistake. 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.880 I mean, it's just it's just interesting to me as 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.360 a person who's been to Ego pass many times. Yeah, 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.760 I mean, first like important to say how divorced this 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.680 is from reality? But again it's like these aren't These 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.040 aren't sort of like edgy contrarian opinions. This is like 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:08.040 very standard, kind of like Fox News Divorced Dad talking 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:09.800 points like this is you know what you could And 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.640 it's interesting to me hearing you talk about him in California. 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:14.200 I wonder if he's actually just much more of like 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.000 a permeable person to his environment than he thinks his 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:17.760 idea of himself. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.800 Yeah, we've talked about this in the past, but there's 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.439 a certain chameleon sort of aspect to him now. 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.320 Yeah, well absolutely. I mean he during the Bush years, 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.480 the George W. Bush hears, when he was just getting started, 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.080 he kind of framed the companies in libertarian terms. During 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:38.320 the Obama years, he was a green capitalist. He presented 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.080 as a centrist kind of somebody very much in line 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.320 with Obama. I think he actually personally likes Obama quite 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.439 a lot. And then during Trump, you know, he shifted again. 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.959 So I think he's somebody who, yeah, who's pretty chameleonic politically, 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.520 and also, as Suwell said, you know, Silicon Valley is 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:00.319 not has not historically been a liberal enclave like Ulicon 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.560 Valley is, like Defense Department military. 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.840 It was like a right of center place. 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.480 So I think you could and I think there is 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.120 some quality of some of the tech guys who moved 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.800 who sort of missed the like, you know, a Silicon 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.120 Valley of the seventies and eighties, and I you know, 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:18.720 maybe Elon has part of that, even if they were 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:20.880 kind of very small during that time. But they at 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:22.640 least miss it on some psychological level. 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.560 Back to the border and back to his fixation on 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:32.880 immigration in these topics. What has his impact been school 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:34.240 on local politics? 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.520 Well, let me start with the state level. So you know, 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.360 immigration is the biggest issue for Texans, and it's one 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.560 reason why the state Republican Party continues to exert such 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:45.800 a dominant hold on the state. But a lot of 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.040 the local issues here that have been the most divisive 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.320 actually are less about the border and more about things 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.960 like privatization of the school system or very local issues 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.600 like our attorney general who is under indictment and was 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.080 impeached by the Texas House. And so there's kind of 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.320 a civil war going on within the Republican Party that 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.680 I don't think Elon is really part of. He did, however, recently, 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.840 take a position against Austin's district attorney, who is a 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.320 Democrat who was running for reelection, and he urged people 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.240 to vote for the primary challenger, who was more centrist, 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.080 and he kind of portrayed the DA as kind of 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.080 Soros backed prosecutor. But it was an intervention that came 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:22.880 in way too late. 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.160 Is that what went wrong here that he just simply 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.160 jumped in too late. That you can't rush in at 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.040 the eleventh hour and and try to tip an election. 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:31.800 Well it's that. 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:33.600 And simply he also doesn't have much of a huge 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.480 political voice here yet, right, I mean, as his workforce 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:37.760 here grows, that might change. 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.200 He I was just also remembering that a few years 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.720 earlier that Austin had a thing on the ballot, Proposition A, 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:47.800 which was just sort of like a boosting police, you know, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.840 law and order kind of ballot that he tweeted in 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:52.720 favor of. This was right after he had moved here. 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.400 That also was like soundly defeated Travis County. Austin has 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:01.440 been votes pretty liberal, votes pretty progressive, and whatever sway 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:06.880 he has isn't nearly enough to I mean the progressive 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.960 incumbent that you're talking about school like one by you know, 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:11.520 an enormous march. 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.680 Yeah, so right for someone who's leaving California and woke 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.760 California for Texas. I mean, in some ways Austin is 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:20.520 indeed sort of an odd choice. 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:20.680 No. 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:23.280 Within Texas well, they all love. 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.560 Living here because they want the culture of a thriving 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.320 you know metropolis, like diverse place with good culture where 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.560 you know, people who make interesting things live, so you know, 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:36.760 that's but they also like think that, oh, you can 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:38.600 come here and not pay the taxes but get the 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:40.720 kind of cultural capital of a place like this. 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:41.480 That's right. 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.440 And Austin is sometimes described as like the border city 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:46.960 between Blue and Red America because you only have to 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:48.840 go like ten minutes outside the city and you can 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.560 hit drum country really fast. And a lot of the 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.080 people who've come here, like like Musk, they stay in 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.200 these gated communities that are actually pretty. They're kind of 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.320 on the west toward the lakes, and they're a little 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.280 bit kind of out side the kind of downtown vibe 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:03.560 that you're getting here at south By. 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.440 You can look at his the elon Jet account, which 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:08.720 is this account that you know, much to his dismay, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.000 like tracks his travel and I mean you can see 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:13.840 he spends a lot he spends time here. I mean 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.120 he he's a guy who's sort of everywhere and nowhere 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.639 like many rich people, but he is spending quite a 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.359 lot of time I think in Bocachica, which is you know, 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.800 on the border or close to the border, near the 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:25.440 SpaceX factory. 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.480 And then and then here in Austin, Okay. 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.080 So if so far it looks like he's not having 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:35.000 a huge impact on local politics. His arrival in Texas 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.600 and is more of his takeover of Twitter, turning it 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.960 into into X. His his constant presence there, is he 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.280 his seeming embrace of Donald Trump? Now is he having 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.159 or do we expect him to have a meaningful impact 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.240 on national politics in this election year twenty twenty four. 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:54.840 So people may be aware that there was this meeting, 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.160 you know, in Palm Beach between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:02.520 There's some suggest question. I guess that Musk might invent, 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.520 you know, donate money to Trump's campaign, which could really. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:06.000 Use the money. 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:08.200 And then there, you know, then there is his sort 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.439 of power as a as a media figure, as like 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.639 essentially like a new age Fox News or a or 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.360 a Fox News on steroids, right, I mean Tucker Carlson. 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.439 His main distribution platform right now is ex Tucker still, 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:22.480 even though he's not on Fox, still has a big 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:22.960 fan base. 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:24.600 So I think there's some potential there. 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.520 I do think there's this problem for Musk, which is 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:29.880 that you know, Twitter, and people in this room will 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.199 be aware of this. Twitter is not real life and 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.280 I think those of us who spend time in digital 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.880 spaces are continually reminded of that. And and I think, 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.000 you know, this endorsement that didn't go that well is 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.119 yet another instance of that, Like you can be tricked 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.320 by social media into thinking that you are more popular 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.080 than you really are. And I think if you're going 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.040 to critique Elon Musk, that would be you know, a critique. 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:53.640 Got it. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:55.840 I mean, I think it's true that Twitter is not 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.280 real life, thank god. But also I do think that 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.600 it's a particularly with the issues of immigration and the border. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.280 So many people do not live anywhere near the border. 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.639 I you know, I live like seventy miles from the border. 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:14.360 So he's playing into this idea of creating an image 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.240 in people's mind of what happens at the border, which 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:21.520 becomes this hugely salient national issue that isn't actually impacting 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.760 most people in any way, or is it maybe impacting 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:26.960 them in like positive economic ways that they don't see, 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.199 But he can sort of feed this idea of the chaos. 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.159 Far more undocumented immigrants are people who flew into this 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.800 country and overstayed their visas than cross the border. But 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.320