Speaker 1: Welcome to Elon Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: I'm your host David Popatoppolos, and we are live at
Speaker 1: south By Southwest. For the uninitiated, Elon Inc. Is the
Speaker 1: show where we discuss Elon Musk's corporate empire and how
Speaker 1: to make sense of his NonStop gambits and antics. Well,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 2: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 2: controlled by one man.
Speaker 3: Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
Speaker 4: I mean legitimate.
Speaker 5: He says.
Speaker 1: He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
Speaker 1: be different.
Speaker 6: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 3: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 3: on him.
Speaker 4: Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 7: Anything he does is fascinating to people.
Speaker 1: Being here in Austin today, will dig into all things
Speaker 1: Elon in Texas. I'll let the man himself have the
Speaker 1: first word. This is Elon speaking back in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: We built the factory here in less time than it
Speaker 3: would have taken to get deep permits in California. I
Speaker 3: loved living in California, but the problem is you cannot
Speaker 3: get things done. Ask anyone and anyone who's done a
Speaker 3: large project in California, how long would it take you
Speaker 3: to get the approval to proceed?
Speaker 5: Two years? And you're doing well.
Speaker 3: And like I said, we've got this book in eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Since moving to Texas a few years ago, Elon has
Speaker 1: bought up swats of land, built new factories and facilities
Speaker 1: for his companies, even weighed in on a local election.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into all of that. But Texas has
Speaker 1: had an impact on Elon two and that is evident.
Speaker 1: Here we have him wearing a cowboy hat, maybe backwards.
Speaker 1: More on that hat later, but let me introduce our panel. Now.
Speaker 1: I'll start with one of our true regulars, Max Chafkin,
Speaker 1: senior reporter and editor at BusinessWeek, and a man who
Speaker 1: is to this show what norm is to cheers, Hey, David.
Speaker 1: And then we have two special guests. We brought in
Speaker 1: Rachel Monroe, Texas in Southwest correspondent for The New Yorker,
Speaker 1: Hello Rachel, Hello, And Sewell Chan, editor in chief at
Speaker 1: the Texas Tribute. Hi, David. Hello, all right, So a
Speaker 1: nice breaker to get things started. I want all of you,
Speaker 1: and I want you to think hard about this. I
Speaker 1: needed to rate Elon's Texan hood on a scale of
Speaker 1: one to ten, with one being a total utter impostor
Speaker 1: and ten being a modern day Sam Houston. Now, sewell,
Speaker 1: you are a student of the history of Texas. We
Speaker 1: will start with you, and I'm writing down these answers.
Speaker 2: By the way, Well, it's a loaded question, but I'd
Speaker 2: have to say ten. And here's why ten. You know,
Speaker 2: Texas is a state where people have often come to
Speaker 2: reimagine themselves, and Texas is often a canvas upon which
Speaker 2: people project their desires, their dreams, or their nightmares about
Speaker 2: what America is and should be. So, in one sense,
Speaker 2: the richest person in the world moving here, buying a
Speaker 2: giant's loss of land, buying up at State Park, building
Speaker 2: a giant factory in Austin, and proclaiming himself a Texan
Speaker 2: is the most Texan thing he could do.
Speaker 1: All right, very good tool. We're gonna jump more into
Speaker 1: that in one second. But we're gonna get Rachel's number. Now, Rachel, I'll.
Speaker 7: Give him an eight.
Speaker 8: Honestly, Texas loves a businessman, Texas loves a huckster, Texas
Speaker 8: loves a billionaire with like unhinged political opinions. I'll ding
Speaker 8: him a couple points because of the hat.
Speaker 1: But okay, so we have a ten, I mean eight,
Speaker 1: Max five, A five.
Speaker 4: Do I explain?
Speaker 1: No, No, they're cheating. I mean no, you will. You
Speaker 1: will explain during the course of the show. But we
Speaker 1: will then turn to you Max, okay, and I will
Speaker 1: ask you how did Elon, a native South African become
Speaker 1: a Californian first, and a very proud one at that,
Speaker 1: and then a couple decades later a Texan.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean that clip is funny for me to
Speaker 9: watch as somebody who's covered him for a long time,
Speaker 9: because of course, like ten fifteen years ago, as he
Speaker 9: said he was a proud Californian. It was like central
Speaker 9: to his identity. It was in a lot of ways
Speaker 9: his identity. He would I remember, like the one of
Speaker 9: the first things he ever said to me, like in
Speaker 9: like two thousand and six or seven, when he was
Speaker 9: sort of talking up Tesla, was I'm a Silicon Valley guy.
Speaker 9: I think people in Silicon Valley can do anything. And
Speaker 9: the central premise was like Silicon Valley's good at software
Speaker 9: but doesn't build hardware. I'm gonna be the one to
Speaker 9: fix that, and of course he had this kind of
Speaker 9: change of heart around twenty twenty during COVID, like many
Speaker 9: tech guys I think, who simultaneously had huge capital gains
Speaker 9: windfall and were I think looking for ways to lower
Speaker 9: their tech liability and also was very frustrated with lockdowns,
Speaker 9: and then began this kind of evolution that saw him
Speaker 9: move to Texas, and I think, you know, changed kind
Speaker 9: of his whole persona.
Speaker 1: All right, and Suell explain for us a little bit.
Speaker 1: He the allure of Texas, a place that's long attracted
Speaker 1: libertarians and sorts like that.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it's important to remember that Texas
Speaker 2: has always been conservative, but Texas has not always been Republican,
Speaker 2: and indeed, across the twentieth century, California was largely Republican
Speaker 2: and Texas was largely Democratic. There were different parties back then,
Speaker 2: of course, but Texas, especially in the twentieth century an
Speaker 2: important thing. The majority of the population lives east of
Speaker 2: I thirty five, the easternmost third of the state, and
Speaker 2: the Texas Triangle Houston, Dallas, Austin.
Speaker 4: Has the vast majority of the population.
Speaker 2: So Texas is actually a pretty urbanized state, but the
Speaker 2: rural image and that frontier image, the cowboy, the rugged
Speaker 2: individualist that became kind of Texas's defining identity in the
Speaker 2: twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Along those lines, Rachel, is this move to Texas for
Speaker 1: Elon is this largely? Is this a branding thing or
Speaker 1: is there more to it than that?
Speaker 7: Well, you could.
Speaker 8: You might also want to state the lack of a
Speaker 8: state income tax. It's a pretty huge and Texas likes
Speaker 8: to think of itself as a very business friendly state.
Speaker 8: And I mean, I think you've seen that in his
Speaker 8: experience here and the clip that you all played in
Speaker 8: terms of the regulation. I mean, what's been able to
Speaker 8: happen with SpaceX here has happened really quickly, sort of
Speaker 8: alarmingly quickly. But I think that and then I think
Speaker 8: there's something fun about there's a certain kind of performative
Speaker 8: masculinity and the cowboy image. I mean, Elon's not the
Speaker 8: only guy that we're seeing that put on the hat
Speaker 8: and the boots.
Speaker 9: It's also, you know, he's good at a few different things.
Speaker 9: You know, he's a really good, you know, manager of engineers,
Speaker 9: he's a good marketer. He's also very good at getting
Speaker 9: municipalities local governments and even national governments to write him
Speaker 9: gigantic checks or to you know, cut him enormous tax breaks.
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's similar to the way he
Speaker 1: does it with investors, right, I mean, investors have been
Speaker 1: handing him lots of money for years.
Speaker 9: And it's really good if you're if you want to,
Speaker 9: you know, extract a tax break out of a governor
Speaker 9: or a mayor or whatever, to be a little flexible
Speaker 9: about your identity, to be willing essentially to embrace a
Speaker 9: new identity. You know, when he was a proud Californian,
Speaker 9: of course, part of what he was doing was reviving
Speaker 9: the new ME factory. This is the main Tesla factory
Speaker 9: in Fremont, California that he got for very little money
Speaker 9: that essentially took over this GM Toyota joint venture. And
Speaker 9: you know, coming to Texas, he's been able to extract
Speaker 9: some I believe some pretty significant tax breaks. And he's
Speaker 9: done this all over the world, right in China, in Germany.
Speaker 9: It's like a big part of what he does is
Speaker 9: like find a way to sort of fit himself into
Speaker 9: policymakers agenda and get paid for it.
Speaker 1: We're going to get into that in a minute. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you this though, because I do know, I believe,
Speaker 1: and you were very excited. You saw your first cyber
Speaker 1: truck ever yesterday I did, and.
Speaker 9: It looked it sort of fit in you know, right,
Speaker 9: they're so big, but you know, maybe the scale you
Speaker 9: know here is a little a little more forgiving.
Speaker 1: Rachel. You've talked a little bit with me before about
Speaker 1: Elon's star power, in the star power that he brings
Speaker 1: to Texas. What does that look like and does that
Speaker 1: star power? Does it matter in any meaningful way.
Speaker 8: I talked to a person that I know the other
Speaker 8: day who is the only person I know who's friends
Speaker 8: with Elon, and I was just sort of asking him.
Speaker 8: I was like, what's the deal, Like does this work
Speaker 8: out there in the scene? And he was like, oh yes.
Speaker 8: You would think that once you were billinaire you would
Speaker 8: get over this. But people are still like, oh yeah,
Speaker 8: no I went with e to this. There's still a
Speaker 8: lot of swooning. There's still a lot of deference. There's
Speaker 8: still a lot of like laughing, laughing at his jokes
Speaker 8: even when they aren't funny.
Speaker 7: So I guess it, you know.
Speaker 8: But this is like within a cohort that I think
Speaker 8: is like his cohort that has come to Texas with him.
Speaker 8: Whether that travels kind of outside that bubble, I think
Speaker 8: is it's less clear.
Speaker 2: So that includes like members of the PayPal mafia, the
Speaker 2: people who've settled in West Austin.
Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly, the sort of new Austin, tex scene.
Speaker 9: I was just wondering, like, who is the because when
Speaker 9: he lived in California, you know, he's sort of hanging
Speaker 9: with the Hollywood scene.
Speaker 4: You know, he married twice, actually.
Speaker 9: Married an actress, kind of a Hollywood starlet. He sort
Speaker 9: of enjoyed that part of his identity. What is the
Speaker 9: Austin equivalent of that? Is it Joe Rogan or like.
Speaker 8: Joe Rogan and Alex Jones. Is that the best that
Speaker 8: we've got it? I don't think so. I don't like
Speaker 8: to think that that's true. But I mean, from what
Speaker 8: I hear, this is just like a lot of sort
Speaker 8: of like private enclaves. That's sort of the scene that's
Speaker 8: happening here. It's not a lot of like cross pollination
Speaker 8: with the kind of broader Austin community.
Speaker 1: What actually is Elon's ideology nowadays? If we have any sense,
Speaker 1: is he a libertarian? Is he more right wing sort
Speaker 1: of law and order guy. He likes to say that
Speaker 1: he's pretty much a centrist. And ever, no one else
Speaker 1: has moved left any sense of where he stands, and
Speaker 1: at this current time, I.
Speaker 2: Think, like a lot of people who've moved rightward. You know,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is fundamentally annoyed by what thirty years ago
Speaker 2: was called political correctness or now wokeism. Whether you agree
Speaker 2: with that critique or not, I think it's one that
Speaker 2: he's really glommed onto. He's obviously become a free speech absolutist.
Speaker 2: I would say his orientation is mostly libertarian. He tends
Speaker 2: to talk more about speech issues than about low tax
Speaker 2: law regulation, low government services, which is really the Texas
Speaker 2: economic model mega.
Speaker 9: I mean, his ideology is the ideology of Donald Trump.
Speaker 9: I think partly because Maganism or whatever you want to
Speaker 9: call it, has is politically salient and is popular with
Speaker 9: a large portion of the United States.
Speaker 4: Also.
Speaker 9: I mean, of course, like Donald Trump and Elon Musk
Speaker 9: have a lot in common, right, They're both kind of
Speaker 9: like libertarian inclined businessmen who are really interested in as
Speaker 9: souls as you know, saying what they want when they
Speaker 9: want and there's even you know, I think psychically some
Speaker 9: kind of connection. They're both given to these like, you know,
Speaker 9: kind of grand pronouncements. They both have this feeling that
Speaker 9: they can kind of speak something into existence just by
Speaker 9: saying it very forcefully.
Speaker 4: So I mean, I think it's that simple. I think
Speaker 4: his ideology is the ideology of the Trump movement.
Speaker 8: It's interesting to me that he seems to really think
Speaker 8: of himself as a as a contrarian and as a
Speaker 8: maverick of sometimes. But when you look at you know,
Speaker 8: particularly the recent things that he's been saying about immigration,
Speaker 8: which is we have some.
Speaker 1: Tape of them at the border speaking on this very topic.
Speaker 6: At Eagle Pass, and we're going to be being with
Speaker 6: the sort of major the major officials and law enforcement
Speaker 6: responsible for the order.
Speaker 3: The reality is that if this is an open order
Speaker 3: for all of Earth and just you know, so there's
Speaker 3: roughly a three hundred fifty million people in the US,
Speaker 3: but there's eight billion people on Earth.
Speaker 5: Yes, this is an open border too, eight billion people.
Speaker 2: So can I ask a question though, I mean, at
Speaker 2: one point does elon the capitalists run up against elon
Speaker 2: social media personality? I mean, someone running a global company
Speaker 2: wants a stable, large base of consumers.
Speaker 4: I think it's arguably happening. He feels he gets that
Speaker 4: under Trump.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think he's like Tesla. There are big
Speaker 9: questions about why is there not more demand? You know,
Speaker 9: why do is demand seemed to slow down?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 9: One explanation is that he's turned people off. I also
Speaker 9: think that Musk is on Twitter all day, every day,
Speaker 9: and it feels intuitively, rightly or wrongly, that there's something
Speaker 9: behind this and that's what he's attacking. But of course
Speaker 9: they're you know, large and very sophisticated investors who would
Speaker 9: disagree with that.
Speaker 4: He think he's making a huge mistake.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's just it's just interesting to me as
Speaker 8: a person who's been to Ego pass many times. Yeah,
Speaker 8: I mean, first like important to say how divorced this
Speaker 8: is from reality? But again it's like these aren't These
Speaker 8: aren't sort of like edgy contrarian opinions. This is like
Speaker 8: very standard, kind of like Fox News Divorced Dad talking
Speaker 8: points like this is you know what you could And
Speaker 8: it's interesting to me hearing you talk about him in California.
Speaker 8: I wonder if he's actually just much more of like
Speaker 8: a permeable person to his environment than he thinks his
Speaker 8: idea of himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've talked about this in the past, but there's
Speaker 1: a certain chameleon sort of aspect to him now.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well absolutely. I mean he during the Bush years,
Speaker 9: the George W. Bush hears, when he was just getting started,
Speaker 9: he kind of framed the companies in libertarian terms. During
Speaker 9: the Obama years, he was a green capitalist. He presented
Speaker 9: as a centrist kind of somebody very much in line
Speaker 9: with Obama. I think he actually personally likes Obama quite
Speaker 9: a lot. And then during Trump, you know, he shifted again.
Speaker 9: So I think he's somebody who, yeah, who's pretty chameleonic politically,
Speaker 9: and also, as Suwell said, you know, Silicon Valley is
Speaker 9: not has not historically been a liberal enclave like Ulicon
Speaker 9: Valley is, like Defense Department military.
Speaker 4: It was like a right of center place.
Speaker 9: So I think you could and I think there is
Speaker 9: some quality of some of the tech guys who moved
Speaker 9: who sort of missed the like, you know, a Silicon
Speaker 9: Valley of the seventies and eighties, and I you know,
Speaker 9: maybe Elon has part of that, even if they were
Speaker 9: kind of very small during that time. But they at
Speaker 9: least miss it on some psychological level.
Speaker 1: Back to the border and back to his fixation on
Speaker 1: immigration in these topics. What has his impact been school
Speaker 1: on local politics?
Speaker 2: Well, let me start with the state level. So you know,
Speaker 2: immigration is the biggest issue for Texans, and it's one
Speaker 2: reason why the state Republican Party continues to exert such
Speaker 2: a dominant hold on the state. But a lot of
Speaker 2: the local issues here that have been the most divisive
Speaker 2: actually are less about the border and more about things
Speaker 2: like privatization of the school system or very local issues
Speaker 2: like our attorney general who is under indictment and was
Speaker 2: impeached by the Texas House. And so there's kind of
Speaker 2: a civil war going on within the Republican Party that
Speaker 2: I don't think Elon is really part of. He did, however, recently,
Speaker 2: take a position against Austin's district attorney, who is a
Speaker 2: Democrat who was running for reelection, and he urged people
Speaker 2: to vote for the primary challenger, who was more centrist,
Speaker 2: and he kind of portrayed the DA as kind of
Speaker 2: Soros backed prosecutor. But it was an intervention that came
Speaker 2: in way too late.
Speaker 1: Is that what went wrong here that he just simply
Speaker 1: jumped in too late. That you can't rush in at
Speaker 1: the eleventh hour and and try to tip an election.
Speaker 1: Well it's that.
Speaker 2: And simply he also doesn't have much of a huge
Speaker 2: political voice here yet, right, I mean, as his workforce
Speaker 2: here grows, that might change.
Speaker 8: He I was just also remembering that a few years
Speaker 8: earlier that Austin had a thing on the ballot, Proposition A,
Speaker 8: which was just sort of like a boosting police, you know,
Speaker 8: law and order kind of ballot that he tweeted in
Speaker 8: favor of. This was right after he had moved here.
Speaker 8: That also was like soundly defeated Travis County. Austin has
Speaker 8: been votes pretty liberal, votes pretty progressive, and whatever sway
Speaker 8: he has isn't nearly enough to I mean the progressive
Speaker 8: incumbent that you're talking about school like one by you know,
Speaker 8: an enormous march.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so right for someone who's leaving California and woke
Speaker 1: California for Texas. I mean, in some ways Austin is
Speaker 1: indeed sort of an odd choice.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Within Texas well, they all love.
Speaker 8: Living here because they want the culture of a thriving
Speaker 8: you know metropolis, like diverse place with good culture where
Speaker 8: you know, people who make interesting things live, so you know,
Speaker 8: that's but they also like think that, oh, you can
Speaker 8: come here and not pay the taxes but get the
Speaker 8: kind of cultural capital of a place like this.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: And Austin is sometimes described as like the border city
Speaker 2: between Blue and Red America because you only have to
Speaker 2: go like ten minutes outside the city and you can
Speaker 2: hit drum country really fast. And a lot of the
Speaker 2: people who've come here, like like Musk, they stay in
Speaker 2: these gated communities that are actually pretty. They're kind of
Speaker 2: on the west toward the lakes, and they're a little
Speaker 2: bit kind of out side the kind of downtown vibe
Speaker 2: that you're getting here at south By.
Speaker 9: You can look at his the elon Jet account, which
Speaker 9: is this account that you know, much to his dismay,
Speaker 9: like tracks his travel and I mean you can see
Speaker 9: he spends a lot he spends time here. I mean
Speaker 9: he he's a guy who's sort of everywhere and nowhere
Speaker 9: like many rich people, but he is spending quite a
Speaker 9: lot of time I think in Bocachica, which is you know,
Speaker 9: on the border or close to the border, near the
Speaker 9: SpaceX factory.
Speaker 4: And then and then here in Austin, Okay.
Speaker 1: So if so far it looks like he's not having
Speaker 1: a huge impact on local politics. His arrival in Texas
Speaker 1: and is more of his takeover of Twitter, turning it
Speaker 1: into into X. His his constant presence there, is he
Speaker 1: his seeming embrace of Donald Trump? Now is he having
Speaker 1: or do we expect him to have a meaningful impact
Speaker 1: on national politics in this election year twenty twenty four.
Speaker 9: So people may be aware that there was this meeting,
Speaker 9: you know, in Palm Beach between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
Speaker 9: There's some suggest question. I guess that Musk might invent,
Speaker 9: you know, donate money to Trump's campaign, which could really.
Speaker 4: Use the money.
Speaker 9: And then there, you know, then there is his sort
Speaker 9: of power as a as a media figure, as like
Speaker 9: essentially like a new age Fox News or a or
Speaker 9: a Fox News on steroids, right, I mean Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 9: His main distribution platform right now is ex Tucker still,
Speaker 9: even though he's not on Fox, still has a big
Speaker 9: fan base.
Speaker 4: So I think there's some potential there.
Speaker 9: I do think there's this problem for Musk, which is
Speaker 9: that you know, Twitter, and people in this room will
Speaker 9: be aware of this. Twitter is not real life and
Speaker 9: I think those of us who spend time in digital
Speaker 9: spaces are continually reminded of that. And and I think,
Speaker 9: you know, this endorsement that didn't go that well is
Speaker 9: yet another instance of that, Like you can be tricked
Speaker 9: by social media into thinking that you are more popular
Speaker 9: than you really are. And I think if you're going
Speaker 9: to critique Elon Musk, that would be you know, a critique.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think it's true that Twitter is not
Speaker 8: real life, thank god. But also I do think that
Speaker 8: it's a particularly with the issues of immigration and the border.
Speaker 8: So many people do not live anywhere near the border.
Speaker 8: I you know, I live like seventy miles from the border.
Speaker 8: So he's playing into this idea of creating an image
Speaker 8: in people's mind of what happens at the border, which
Speaker 8: becomes this hugely salient national issue that isn't actually impacting
Speaker 8: most people in any way, or is it maybe impacting
Speaker 8: them in like positive economic ways that they don't see,
Speaker 8: But he can sort of feed this idea of the chaos.
Speaker 2: Far more undocumented immigrants are people who flew into this
Speaker 2: country and overstayed their visas than cross the border. But
Speaker 2: you wouldn't knowing that listening to his rhetoric that said,
Speaker 2: does he affect swing voters in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Speaker 4: I doubt it.
Speaker 1: We shall see. I want to stay though on along
Speaker 1: the border for second. At this point, Musk between SpaceX,
Speaker 1: between Tesla between boring Musk has a large Musk inc
Speaker 1: has a large, fairly large presence here in Texas. In
Speaker 1: Boca Chica along the border with Mexico is perhaps one
Speaker 1: of the biggest spots, or maybe the biggest spot where
Speaker 1: they have their spaceport. You've reported on this, you've been there,
Speaker 1: give us a little bit of a sense, So what
Speaker 1: life is like there in Boca chick and how it's
Speaker 1: been affected by Elon Musk and SpaceX's arrival.
Speaker 8: So, Boca Chica is a very tiny little community outside Brownsville,
Speaker 8: right kind of on the beach where the Rio grand
Speaker 8: flows into the Gulf of Mexico, so the very tip
Speaker 8: of Texas. And when I first went down there in
Speaker 8: twenty nineteen, it's sort of like beach bungalow style, like
Speaker 8: retirees on fixed incomes, like there was seashell art kind
Speaker 8: of type of Grandma scene. And Elon Musk went down
Speaker 8: there to sort of build these facilities for SpaceX. I mean,
Speaker 8: it's interesting because I live in West Texas. Where I live,
Speaker 8: it's very relatively close to where Blue Origin is, So
Speaker 8: Jeff Bezos build buys hundreds of thousands of acres of land.
Speaker 8: Right you can't see anything that he's doing. Sometimes we
Speaker 8: would drive out and watch the launches and they're just like.
Speaker 1: A little but you're right on top of it.
Speaker 8: It's like it was crazy to go down there. They
Speaker 8: built the rockets before they built any buildings to build
Speaker 8: the rockets in, so you were just watched, I mean
Speaker 8: with the sea air and sometimes the road was like
Speaker 8: washing out when the tides went a certain way. I mean,
Speaker 8: it was crazy to me that they were doing it,
Speaker 8: and people there were just would just kind of come
Speaker 8: out and stare and watch, and you could watch these
Speaker 8: rockets being built.
Speaker 7: And so for a little.
Speaker 8: While, it's I think it felt like a paradise for
Speaker 8: people out there because this thing was happening. I mean,
Speaker 8: a paradise and a.
Speaker 1: Hell several years later, what do they make of it?
Speaker 8: So all those houses were sort of he got kind
Speaker 8: of a sneaky deal that was able to get possession
Speaker 8: of those houses through eminent domain, which you know, of course,
Speaker 8: is supposed to be for things that are like for
Speaker 8: the public good, like power lines.
Speaker 1: It's going to Mars, not for the public good, Rachel, I.
Speaker 8: Guess it is what is going to save humanity, So
Speaker 8: I can think of no higher cause.
Speaker 1: And it's them domained out.
Speaker 8: They were eminent domained out, you know there the beaches
Speaker 8: closed down. The houses is one thing, but it's it's
Speaker 8: we're going to talk about the beach there. This is
Speaker 8: a poor area of Texas. This is like one of
Speaker 8: the poorest metro areas in the United States. This beach
Speaker 8: was it's one of the last undeveloped beaches in Texas.
Speaker 8: People described it to me with a lot of pride
Speaker 8: and affection as the poor people's beach. You know, you
Speaker 8: don't have to pay for parking. You go out there
Speaker 8: with your grandma and you fish. They've got. Texas has
Speaker 8: an open beaches law, like we are sort of proud
Speaker 8: of our beaches and our access to our beaches. It's
Speaker 8: not like California in that way. However, SpaceX has this
Speaker 8: like special grandfathered in situation that they've worked out with
Speaker 8: the county there so they can close the beach, and
Speaker 8: so now this is it's just sort of become a
Speaker 8: private enclave.
Speaker 7: It's also right narrow this you know.
Speaker 8: Protected wildlife land, and it's it was just this area
Speaker 8: that they kind of moved into, had a little spot,
Speaker 8: and then have just grown to.
Speaker 7: Take it over.
Speaker 1: And along those lines, so well, you guys at the
Speaker 1: Texas Tribune have reported some on a proposed land swap
Speaker 1: between SpaceX and the state that would allow SpaceX to
Speaker 1: both hand over some land for protection elsewhere and take
Speaker 1: on right more land there right Inchica.
Speaker 2: So basically under this land swap, SpaceX would acquire basically
Speaker 2: what's currently a state park and that pretty much shows you.
Speaker 2: And it's actually abuts a National Wildlife Refuge, so it's
Speaker 2: an ecologically sensitive area, a lot of biodiversity, and the
Speaker 2: fact that this deal is kind of moving forward actually
Speaker 2: says something I think powerful about how eager Texas governments
Speaker 2: are to kind of accommodate his wishes.
Speaker 1: And you guys have encountered a similar sort of sense
Speaker 1: of hey, we're being essentially we the local community, oh,
Speaker 1: in part in a Hispanic community, we're being bigfooted.
Speaker 2: Out absolutely, and you're also seeing that in one other
Speaker 2: big area in Texas, which is Bastrop County right near Austin,
Speaker 2: where Musk is. The Wall Street Journal reported is kind
Speaker 2: of acquiring these huge, huge swaps of land. And now,
Speaker 2: of course he's talking about building a private university, and
Speaker 2: even a few weeks ago it was reported potentially a
Speaker 2: new private Montossouri style school system.
Speaker 9: I do think while Sue was talking, I was thinking
Speaker 9: about it's not just the Texas government. It's not just
Speaker 9: you know, I guess like Republican politicians right now are
Speaker 9: eager to please Musk. I mean, he he has power
Speaker 9: even over Democrats, right, like even Joe Biden. Musk is
Speaker 9: really mad at Joe Biden because like Joe Biden like
Speaker 9: with snubbed him at an event, and he's got like.
Speaker 1: Some I mean, Biden held an evy convention, didn't bite.
Speaker 9: Musk is like, you know, even under Biden, even under
Speaker 9: the guy that he despises and his you know, insults,
Speaker 9: I'll called him a sock puppet. You know, he's maintained
Speaker 9: his contracts, He's even gotten more contracts. And when you
Speaker 9: look at like what the federal government, even the federal
Speaker 9: government under Democrats have done to Musk, it's not a
Speaker 9: whole lot.
Speaker 4: It's like it's like some.
Speaker 9: Enforcement actions and so on, but the contracts, the stuff
Speaker 9: that really matters, has stayed because and I think the
Speaker 9: argument that some policymakers make is essentially that, you know,
Speaker 9: the US government needs this guy like he is.
Speaker 4: He is the leading industrials better or worse? Is he
Speaker 4: too big to fail? Well?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean that's the that's the essence of it,
Speaker 9: right that with this country needs him too much, that
Speaker 9: he's too big to you know, whatever, to push around.
Speaker 9: I think there are questions about that, right, I mean,
Speaker 9: maybe the companies are too big to fail. You could
Speaker 9: imagine a situation where the federal government went after Musk
Speaker 9: personally in a big way. But again, it's it's very
Speaker 9: hard to separate Musk from his companies.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask that along those lines and
Speaker 1: his economic might, in the economic might he's bringing to Texas,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering how much it matters. I mean, world
Speaker 1: leaders turn in Turkey, India, everybody, you know, France, you know,
Speaker 1: try to try to woo his business. And I wonder
Speaker 1: just how big a deal it is for Texas, a
Speaker 1: state that produces almost six million barrels of oil a day.
Speaker 1: That's almost four hundred million dollars every single day that
Speaker 1: comes out of the ground. Does Musk matter, Does his
Speaker 1: arrival matter much to Texas as an economic engine or
Speaker 1: is it?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's important to also remember that Texas
Speaker 2: is the number one producer of wind in the United
Speaker 2: States and the number two producer of solar. So there
Speaker 2: is an energy revolution happening, and there is an acceleration
Speaker 2: of the energy transition happening here, even though the state
Speaker 2: government remains really dominated by petrochemical and kind of fossil
Speaker 2: fuel companies. But I actually do think, Look, the myth
Speaker 2: of Texas is an untamed frontier is just that it's
Speaker 2: a myth. Yes, there's a lot of land, but there's
Speaker 2: also a lot of Texas that's pretty densely populated and
Speaker 2: pretty urbanized. As I said, but I do think that
Speaker 2: the ev revolution speaks to this energy transition, even if
Speaker 2: it's one that's not explicitly supported by the state.
Speaker 1: But Rachel, I do know in chatting with you that
Speaker 1: you know some of Elon's lieutenants who came here to
Speaker 1: Texas with him from California as part as Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go change Texas and we're going to enjoy
Speaker 1: the you know, the libertarian streak in Texas they have,
Speaker 1: some of them have since moved on, is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 8: And I don't know specifically if these are Elons lieutenants specifically,
Speaker 8: but I think, you know, just this this sort of
Speaker 8: tech world that came in twenty twenty came to Texas
Speaker 8: sort of seeing it as this low tax, low regulation paradise.
Speaker 8: I know that at least some of them are getting
Speaker 8: fed up. I think the you know, not having the
Speaker 8: political sway that they wanted. Housing prices are actually like
Speaker 8: extremely high here. I mean, I think if you're sort
Speaker 8: of fantasizing about your your cheap paradise, it's it's not
Speaker 8: quite that. And I'm sure they're seeing the downstream effect,
Speaker 8: you know, from their employees.
Speaker 7: Yeah, members are brutal.
Speaker 8: People are leaving for Miami, people are going back to California.
Speaker 8: You know, people bought these enormous houses and now they're
Speaker 8: selling their enormous houses. So you know, it's not you're
Speaker 8: a lesson. We could all learn your your problems follow
Speaker 8: you wherever you are. You know, you don't get to
Speaker 8: solve all your problems by just moving to Austin.
Speaker 9: So the problem is not the the the like world movers,
Speaker 9: like they have private jets, private jet, no problem, it's there.
Speaker 4: It's their entourage that does not have a private jet.
Speaker 9: Yeah, would very much like to buy a house, send
Speaker 9: their kids to school, and so on, and and like
Speaker 9: when you're talking about these elon musk right, potentially trying
Speaker 9: to high hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of people, Like,
Speaker 9: those costs start to add up and you start to
Speaker 9: there's like a trade off between this like gigantic workforce
Speaker 9: tech WorkFirst in Silicon Valley and high costs and that
Speaker 9: gigantic workforce that's still in California I think is an
Speaker 9: important attraction.
Speaker 2: There are a couple of things that could threaten the
Speaker 2: Texas economic boom right. One is the energy usage. We
Speaker 2: had a near was fatal, hundreds of people died, but
Speaker 2: a near complete, almost state blackout almost three years ago,
Speaker 2: about three years ago. And then second, I actually think
Speaker 2: the social legislation is going to start having an impact
Speaker 2: on the ability to attract and retain human capital. You know,
Speaker 2: this is a state where abortions now criminal, with no
Speaker 2: exceptions including rape or incest. Obviously, all the stuff around
Speaker 2: transgender care being prohibited for minors, and I think it's starting,
Speaker 2: not right away, but it's starting to have an impact
Speaker 2: on Texas's ability to retain highly skilled employees who are
Speaker 2: going to be necessary to work for these companies.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go to our last segment, Max, We're gonna
Speaker 1: have fun in this last segment, whether you like it
Speaker 1: or not, and we're gonna put up either some photos
Speaker 1: for you guys to look at, or we're gonna play
Speaker 1: some audio. And then, you know, I need you guys
Speaker 1: to to judge and rate the you know, the the
Speaker 1: whether this constitute Texas behavior, textan behavior or not. So
Speaker 1: let's get the first picture up. Oh, we're back to
Speaker 1: the hat. Okay, the hat. So my question is for
Speaker 1: all of you, and then the audience is gonna chime
Speaker 1: into it. Max, is the hat on the right way?
Speaker 9: So okay, First of all, I don't know, because I'm
Speaker 9: from New York and.
Speaker 1: I've ever wore a cowboy hat in your life.
Speaker 9: I went down a rab a Reddit rabbit hole on this,
Speaker 9: and there are there are diverging views. Some people argue
Speaker 9: I think and I'm summarizing, and there are probably people
Speaker 9: in the audience who may know better than me that
Speaker 9: that is actually a style that that Yeah, it looked
Speaker 9: like a hat that just came out of a box
Speaker 9: and was put on backwards.
Speaker 4: In fact, it is a hat that just came out
Speaker 4: of the box, but was put on there.
Speaker 1: He knew exactly what he was doing.
Speaker 7: He looks like that on purpose.
Speaker 4: That's the argument. Okay, kind of worse.
Speaker 1: It's a way mine you until you seem to buy
Speaker 1: that you're going with it. It's on the right I
Speaker 1: think it's on the right way. It just looks like
Speaker 1: he hasn't worn it a whole lot.
Speaker 2: I would say a wider brim and a more tan
Speaker 2: color is what you more typically see. But again, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of self fashioning going on here.
Speaker 1: So from the audience, I need to hear it from you.
Speaker 1: If you think the hat is on the right way, okay,
Speaker 1: so is it on the wrong way? Okay? All right,
Speaker 1: so he's Ozero for one. Okay, next up.
Speaker 8: We say all hat and no cattle is a good way.
Speaker 8: That's kind of like all cattle and hat.
Speaker 9: I just I feel the need to say, because you
Speaker 9: know this is under the aegis of Bloomberg, that Elon
Speaker 9: Musk actually responded to this critique on Twitter, said he'd
Speaker 9: own the hat for ten years. Is not a new
Speaker 9: hat he's maintaining. There's no way that this is all.
Speaker 9: He knows exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 7: He's just never gone outside in the hat.
Speaker 4: Then, all right, so it's okay to disagree on this one.
Speaker 1: So then the boots he's got these cowboy can you
Speaker 1: see the cowboy boots on? He's got the cowboy boots
Speaker 1: on as he sits down with India's mody here. I
Speaker 1: don't know is this Texas behavior or not? When you
Speaker 1: sit down with the with the leader of India. Those
Speaker 1: those the cowboy boots you wear.
Speaker 4: I think it's cool. I don't know.
Speaker 7: You can wear a formal boot, for sure, I authorize it.
Speaker 2: It's hard to see the leather work from here, but
Speaker 2: for sure it's it's business appropriate.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're gonna go right to the next clip.
Speaker 5: It's like that pizza restaurant, that that pizza chain, that's
Speaker 5: they got the best ice cream Sunday that I've ever seen,
Speaker 5: giant one out here. Oh yeah, if they've got a
Speaker 5: gigantic ice cream Sunday.
Speaker 4: Everything they have is Gigantica.
Speaker 5: It's amazing.
Speaker 7: Oh bro, they have that rigatoni, that rigatoni with the
Speaker 7: meat sauce, and oh my god.
Speaker 5: Is great.
Speaker 4: It's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's very reasonably priced for the amount of
Speaker 2: food you get.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, Rachel, is this the way two Texans talk
Speaker 1: about food? Because you know, Texans are very you know,
Speaker 1: proud of their food and there's a strong food culture.
Speaker 1: Here is this the way two Texans?
Speaker 7: I mean, maybe it's actually really savvy.
Speaker 8: He's not waiting into the Austin versus San Antonio breakfast
Speaker 8: taco debate. He's not taking a side Buka to Beppo.
Speaker 8: Nobody's gonna get excited. Nobody's going to get that mess.
Speaker 1: It's safe.
Speaker 7: So it's it's the safe you know.
Speaker 1: It also shows like in every and every man's sort
Speaker 1: of quality, right, you know, I go to Buka the
Speaker 1: Peppo's right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's weird, so I like it.
Speaker 1: It's weird, so you like it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 9: On this podcast, I don't know other people may have listened,
Speaker 9: but Rogan talks, you know, at great length and with
Speaker 9: some authority, i'd say, about the food scene in Austin.
Speaker 9: And this is what Elon offers, which I mean, I
Speaker 9: think it suggests that he hasn't gotten out a whole lot.
Speaker 1: Well, wasn't it during his early days, like at what
Speaker 1: would be PayPal and all that? Didn't they basically seat
Speaker 1: the same thing some iteration of soilent day in and
Speaker 1: day out.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean when you're building the future, right, and
Speaker 9: when you're working, you're working in this extremely hardcore way.
Speaker 9: You know, you things fall by the wayside and you
Speaker 9: need a gigantic face size portion of Spagettian meatballs.
Speaker 1: All right, we got one more that's going to play
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 6: When you stay awhile, well you say, got.
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 1: This is really winning. So that was Elon and his
Speaker 1: brother Kimball right here at south By Southwest six years ago. Max.
Speaker 1: When you hear that, When you hear that, does that
Speaker 1: sound like Texas do oh bro? By the way, he
Speaker 1: was still a Californian at the time. That's the issue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think this kind of makes soul. He went
Speaker 4: for him.
Speaker 1: I would sing it way better.
Speaker 4: This is this is a cover from the of the
Speaker 4: Three Amigos.
Speaker 1: I believe anybody in the audience.
Speaker 4: I think I think that's what this is.
Speaker 9: That's Elon's brother Kimball, Right, you know, props for putting
Speaker 9: himself out there.
Speaker 1: Does any of either you want to touch that?
Speaker 7: You know, it's it's a music town and so he should.
Speaker 2: Probably the classic phrase for people who are newly arrived
Speaker 2: in Texas's I'm not from here, but I got here
Speaker 2: as fast as I could. And there's this phenomenon of
Speaker 2: people moving to Texas who then see themselves and project
Speaker 2: themselves as being more Texan than Texas. You might be
Speaker 2: seeing some of that here in a premonition kind of way.
Speaker 1: So so to wrap up, I want to go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning, and at the very beginning, so will
Speaker 1: you assigned musk e ten? Basically he's essentially as Texan
Speaker 1: is Sam Houston to you? And then and then you
Speaker 1: gave him an eight, and then Max, who's that who's
Speaker 1: a tough SB gave him a five. Do any of
Speaker 1: you want to change your your votes, your your raise?
Speaker 2: It's either a ten or a one, right, there's not
Speaker 2: much in between.
Speaker 1: I say it's one of those, but you're you're staying
Speaker 1: with ten. You're not changing the one. Everyone else is good.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna ask the audience. You know, You're gonna
Speaker 1: get two options here. The first option is five or lower.
Speaker 1: So I need to hear if you're gonna give Musk
Speaker 1: a five or lower. As a Texan, I need to
Speaker 1: hear from you. And and then well the other will
Speaker 1: be six and up. So who says five or lower?
Speaker 5: Guy?
Speaker 1: All right? Solid, all right, solid, tougher crowd than up here.
Speaker 1: How about a six or more? It's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's pretty even draw, which actually does happen to be
Speaker 1: the right answer, because the right answer is four point seven.
Speaker 1: This was terrific, So let's end it there. A big
Speaker 1: thanks to our panelists Max Rachel Seoul mhmm, and to
Speaker 1: the audience and to the audience for joining us. Thank
Speaker 1: you all for joining us for the special episode of
Speaker 1: Elon Inc. At south By Southwest. Keep listening in each
Speaker 1: and every week.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you,