Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Well, Jlon muskis now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 3: controlled by one.
Speaker 2: Man, starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 1: Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
Speaker 4: I mean legitimate.
Speaker 1: He says.
Speaker 5: He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
Speaker 5: be different.
Speaker 6: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 1: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 1: on him. Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's
Speaker 1: done nothing.
Speaker 6: Anything he does he is fascinating the people.
Speaker 5: Welcome to elan Ak, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk, Thursday,
Speaker 5: January second. I'm your host, David Papadoppolis. We are coming
Speaker 5: to you today because there has been so much news
Speaker 5: in the Musk universe that we decided it couldn't wait
Speaker 5: until Tuesday. Let's begin with the most grave news. Yesterday
Speaker 5: in Las Vegas, a cyber truck seemingly packed with explosives
Speaker 5: detonated outside of a Trump Hotel property. Then this morning,
Speaker 5: surprising Tesla sales numbers came out and they sent the
Speaker 5: stock sharply downward. But before all of this, there was
Speaker 5: a disturbance in the MAGA world, a spat over a
Speaker 5: certain kind of American work visa I brought Elon Musk
Speaker 5: to the brink of a cage match with Trump acolytes
Speaker 5: like Steve Bannon and Laura Lumer. Expletives were exchanged, ex
Speaker 5: accounts were demonetized, and Trump himself had the weigh in,
Speaker 5: which oddly hasn't really stopped the fighting. So to discuss
Speaker 5: all this, I'm joined by our regulars, Max Chafkin and
Speaker 5: Dana Hallt.
Speaker 4: Max and Dana. Happy twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Happy New Year, David, Happy New Year, Dana.
Speaker 1: Great to be here.
Speaker 4: Okay, So now we're recording around noon.
Speaker 5: New York time, and this is a fluid story. New
Speaker 5: developments keep emerging. But Dana Hella, at this point, what
Speaker 5: exactly do we know about the cyber truck that exploded
Speaker 5: outside that Trump property.
Speaker 7: So the latest is that a man packed this cyber
Speaker 7: truck with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters and was
Speaker 7: driving up and down in Las Vegas and then parked
Speaker 7: the car in front of this Trump hotel and then
Speaker 7: the car exploded and he died in the process, and
Speaker 7: other people were injured. Thankfully, no one severely injured, and
Speaker 7: the FBI is kind of widening its probe to see
Speaker 7: if there are any potential links between this incident and
Speaker 7: the horrible attack that happened in New Orleans also on
Speaker 7: New Year's Day. Elon Musk has kind of jumped in
Speaker 7: and is working very closely with the authorities. And the
Speaker 7: thing to remember about Tesla vehicles is that Tesla has
Speaker 7: a lot of data about the vehicles where they like,
Speaker 7: for where they were charged, for example, So Tesla can
Speaker 7: go back and see this guy's route from Colorado to
Speaker 7: Las Vegas and they will know where which superchargers he use.
Speaker 7: So I think my sense is that Tesla's working very
Speaker 7: closely with the Las Vegas authorities. And you know, Musk
Speaker 7: has kind of made the most of this moment, you know,
Speaker 7: arguing that the damage would have been much worse, that
Speaker 7: the cyber truck is so strong that it contained the
Speaker 7: blast and helped save lives, and you know, the cyber
Speaker 7: truck is kind of this tank from the future, and
Speaker 7: so in some ways, like you know, they are kind
Speaker 7: I mean, I don't want to go so far as
Speaker 7: to say that Musk is using this as a marketing scheme,
Speaker 7: but he is kind of making the most of the
Speaker 7: fact that only the driver of the truck died in
Speaker 7: this whole event.
Speaker 2: I mean, Musk is doing what he always does, which
Speaker 2: is take whatever is going on in the news and
Speaker 2: comment on it. You know, He's he sort of has
Speaker 2: this instinctive ability to like pick up on what the
Speaker 2: big story is. This is, you know, unfortunately along with
Speaker 2: the attack in New Orleans. It's a big story, and
Speaker 2: he is, as Dana said, like kind of commenting on
Speaker 2: some of this stuff in what I think most people
Speaker 2: see a sort of poor taste, like sort of again
Speaker 2: promoting the cyber truck as like the best deterrent to
Speaker 2: this kind of attack because it's so strong and powerful,
Speaker 2: which maybe is getting a little ahead of the story,
Speaker 2: although it is, Hey, it's great that you know, nobody
Speaker 2: was seriously hurt in Las Vegas, so.
Speaker 5: Max, it doesn't theme like a random thing that this truck,
Speaker 5: this cyber truck was used outside of Trump property, given
Speaker 5: the strong link between the two men at this point.
Speaker 5: But we do not actually know that at this point,
Speaker 5: at this point, that it was chosen on purpose.
Speaker 2: Correct, No, we don't, and we don't really know anything
Speaker 2: about this attack. And I mean, that's that's you know,
Speaker 2: beyond what's been reported and basically what Dana has has outlined.
Speaker 2: Of course, you know, Elon Musk he has become a visible,
Speaker 2: you know, sign of the new administration, and this cyber
Speaker 2: truck is the probably the most you know visible of
Speaker 2: the cars, like it sort of looks the most distinctive
Speaker 2: by design, so it's it's not hard to imagine that
Speaker 2: that there was some sort of connection here. He's also
Speaker 2: been complaining about media reporting, essentially using this as like
Speaker 2: another you know case in his very extensive, you know
Speaker 2: file against the media, claiming that because some news outlets
Speaker 2: put cyber truck in the headline of this car bombing attack,
Speaker 2: that was somehow evidence of unfairness or or that you know,
Speaker 2: they're trying to imply that there was something wrong with
Speaker 2: the cyber truck, which is again I think that's part
Speaker 2: of the reason he was sort of going out of
Speaker 2: his way to like talk up the I guess like
Speaker 2: bomb smothering capabilities of this vehicle.
Speaker 5: I suppose it's germane or seen as Germane, because the
Speaker 5: cyber truck, as you're saying, is a symbol of Tassel
Speaker 5: and Elon Musk and and that is a Trump property.
Speaker 5: And I guess just people are just trying, you know,
Speaker 5: reading a link between the two. I would suppose that's
Speaker 5: why it's remaining in the head line.
Speaker 7: To Max's point, Tesla crashes and fires always get headlines,
Speaker 7: whereas like, you know, like there are car crashes every
Speaker 7: day and we and you don't hear about them. And
Speaker 7: so Elon's point is that this is media clickbait, just
Speaker 7: using Tesla as an egregious reason. You know that the
Speaker 7: New Orleans attack wasn't you know, Ford pickup truck used
Speaker 7: in you know, New Orleans attack. I mean, we don't care.
Speaker 7: Like so, I think that Tesla does have a beef
Speaker 7: to grind, which is that, you know, like their vehicles
Speaker 7: are always in the headline whenever there's an accident, whenever
Speaker 7: there's a fire, whenever someone dies in a car, and
Speaker 7: we don't see that with other vehicles so much.
Speaker 4: That's interesting.
Speaker 5: But is that a reaction to Pethla It felf the
Speaker 5: branded THELF or is that fear of the electric battery
Speaker 5: in general?
Speaker 1: It's both. It's both. It's both.
Speaker 7: Lithium ion batteries when they catch on fire, tend to
Speaker 7: burn for a very long time, and so like the NTSP,
Speaker 7: it has always been very interested in.
Speaker 1: Lithium ion battery fires.
Speaker 7: Tesla has the most electric cars on the road, so
Speaker 7: you know, just just by virtue of their market size,
Speaker 7: you're going to hear more about those accidents. And then
Speaker 7: similarly with autopilot, there have been several crashes involving autopilot
Speaker 7: that NITZA has also looked at. So it's like this
Speaker 7: never ending loop where because regulatory agencies are interested in
Speaker 7: these crashes, they make headlines. But then also because the
Speaker 7: headlines get traffic, a lot of news organizations do focus
Speaker 7: on the crashes and the name and model and make
Speaker 7: of the car when they don't in other instances with
Speaker 7: other automakers, and that's been an issue that Tesla has
Speaker 7: been really pissed off about for quite some time.
Speaker 1: That said, the.
Speaker 7: Fact that it was a cyber truck and Trump tower,
Speaker 7: it's like it's very newsy.
Speaker 1: You've got some keywords there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well we will.
Speaker 5: I'm sure come back to this next week as as
Speaker 5: new developments.
Speaker 4: Warrant.
Speaker 5: Now, Dana, you are actually on vacation today, but you're
Speaker 5: so dedicated to the story and to the news including
Speaker 5: didn't miss.
Speaker 1: An emergency episode.
Speaker 5: Couldn't miss an emergency episode, and we thank you for that,
Speaker 5: as do our listeners. Now, there was also this morning
Speaker 5: there were fourth quarter sales.
Speaker 4: They came out.
Speaker 5: It looks like the fourth quarter numbers were kind of good,
Speaker 5: but overall, indeed we have had a drop year over year.
Speaker 4: Give us a little bit of the detail there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Tesla had a record quarter.
Speaker 7: They delivered like four hundred and ninety five thousand plus cars,
Speaker 7: but like they missed. It was the first year over
Speaker 7: year decline in like over a decade. So you know,
Speaker 7: Tesla had warned investors earlier this year that they were
Speaker 7: in between two growth waves, and we're seeing that, like, yeah,
Speaker 7: they're not growing. I mean, this is and this is
Speaker 7: a big problem for Tesla because their lineup is very
Speaker 7: old and their newest model is the cyber Truck. But
Speaker 7: the cyber Truck they don't even break out how many
Speaker 7: cars they sold. It's still like lumped in with the
Speaker 7: S and the X under other models, which is like
Speaker 7: less than five percent of their sales. So they are
Speaker 7: not growing and they don't have another car coming in
Speaker 7: their lineup. I mean, at some point we'll probably see
Speaker 7: the model why refresh, And they've hinted at like a
Speaker 7: sort of cheaper car, but everyone thinks that that's just
Speaker 7: going to be like a de contented three or y like, So.
Speaker 1: The lineup is old.
Speaker 7: Elon is bored of making cars, as I've said before,
Speaker 7: and like the future of the company is really about
Speaker 7: the robotaxi and autonomy and AI and kind of pivoting
Speaker 7: away from big volume and toward you know, this robotaxi idea.
Speaker 7: But you know, you're just this is just it's a
Speaker 7: big deal for Tesla. This is the first year in
Speaker 7: like a decade that they've not shown growth.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Now, Max, if I were to give you two statements,
Speaker 5: you know the part of the year, I think you
Speaker 5: would have told me I was crazy at the start
Speaker 5: of last year. Statement number one, Tesla's sales growth will
Speaker 5: sputter so badly, worse than the company thought, worse than
Speaker 5: analysts on Wall Street thought, so badly that it actually
Speaker 5: posted decline in sales for the first time. As Dana
Speaker 5: said in a decade one. Two, the stock will slump
Speaker 5: early in the year and then absolutely skyrocket some two
Speaker 5: at one point to smash record high.
Speaker 2: No, I mean You're right, it's it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, on the other hand, what you had, what
Speaker 2: you left out of that story is the election of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and the way that that has kind of
Speaker 2: impacted the stock price. You have a lot of people
Speaker 2: making some sort of Trump trade. We've talked about this
Speaker 2: a lot where doesn't feel based in any kind of reality.
Speaker 2: It feels like a vibes thing or whatever. And you're
Speaker 2: sort of seeing the limits of that, or the beginnings
Speaker 2: of the limits of that, we don't know. So you
Speaker 2: have two things going on. One is that, as Dana said,
Speaker 2: Tesla's you know sort of car business has been sort
Speaker 2: of stagnating and stagnating, you know, still very large, but
Speaker 2: not growing in the way that Elon Musk, you know,
Speaker 2: just going back till not too long ago, I was
Speaker 2: talking about we're going to see, you know, roughly fifty
Speaker 2: percent growth every year as far as I can see.
Speaker 2: So you have this kind of stagnating car business where
Speaker 2: he where Elon Musk, despite the cyber truck, despite efforts
Speaker 2: to kind of refresh the Model three and you know
Speaker 2: eventually other models, it hasn't it isn't appealing enough to
Speaker 2: customers keep up these growth rates. And then you have
Speaker 2: the question of what Elon musk support is doing with
Speaker 2: car buyers. Dan and I have been writing about this
Speaker 2: and talking about this for a long time. But the
Speaker 2: possibility that having this kind of trolling, you know, magnified,
Speaker 2: you know, constantly waiting into every single crisis he can
Speaker 2: find on Twitter, that that could be turning some people off,
Speaker 2: and I suspect it is. Although it's it's very hard
Speaker 2: to know how much that's affecting people, Mack, can.
Speaker 5: I ask you it is indeed difficult to know exactly
Speaker 5: how much. But we're going to keep driving at that
Speaker 5: question over the course of the year.
Speaker 4: But let me ask you this question.
Speaker 5: Safe to say that right now, Tesla and the Broader
Speaker 5: muth Empire is the most politicized major company in the
Speaker 5: country right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't imagine another's Trump Trump Inc.
Speaker 1: Or whatever.
Speaker 2: Maybe the only other one.
Speaker 1: I mean, my pillow or something.
Speaker 5: Okay, but is my pillow I'm not sure Max, is
Speaker 5: my pillow qualifies a major US company? I guess it
Speaker 5: depends on how we define major.
Speaker 6: Because my next question then would be this, like in
Speaker 6: recent history, can we think of any example of a
Speaker 6: company of its size one of the largest companies in
Speaker 6: this country that.
Speaker 5: Is so affiliated with a certain president and a certain party.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's an obvious one, which is you know,
Speaker 2: News Corporation slash twenty first Century Fox. You know Rupert
Speaker 2: Murdoch his media pile.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know.
Speaker 2: Where where he has at times, you know, and and
Speaker 2: that that empire has been sort of divided up, and
Speaker 2: you know, the movie studio is no longer part of
Speaker 2: the company. But you know where where where Rupert mroc
Speaker 2: is very closely allied with one political party and nonetheless
Speaker 2: has managed to have a successful, kind of growing company.
Speaker 2: And and so that and I think that sort of
Speaker 2: works when you're talking about something like X, where where
Speaker 2: we've sort of seen X actually in some in some
Speaker 2: ways thrive under Musk's ownership, and of course in some
Speaker 2: way stagnate. But when you're talking about car company, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that that's where it's it's much harder to think of
Speaker 2: a parallel.
Speaker 5: Well, I guess, I guess the the issue is that
Speaker 5: they're indeed under that model pursued by Murdoch. There were
Speaker 5: enough eyeballs and ears from the conservative from Conservative America
Speaker 5: to make that go. Are there enough as you're saying, though,
Speaker 5: Max uh drivers conservative drives to make it go uh
Speaker 5: for for mosque, And.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there was a there was hope. I
Speaker 2: think when Elon among sort of like Tesla bulls, and
Speaker 2: people were trying to see a strategy behind you know,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk shift to the right rather than that than
Speaker 2: just like he is ideologically the right, he's expressing his views,
Speaker 2: you know, via his money, or that there was some
Speaker 2: kind of larger strategy here. The thought was, Okay, maybe
Speaker 2: he's trying to get sort of people in red states
Speaker 2: who have not hitherto embraced electric vehicles to embrace them.
Speaker 2: And I think that kind of made sense as a
Speaker 2: thought because again, Musk's main customer base has not been
Speaker 2: you know, among people in rural areas, people were Trump voters.
Speaker 2: But we're just not seeing I don't think we're seeing
Speaker 2: yet that that kind of shift, like like the cyber truck,
Speaker 2: as Dana has said, has not taken off in the
Speaker 2: way that I think Elon Musk hoped, and like some
Speaker 2: of that I think has to do with the difficulty
Speaker 2: in manufacturing it. They haven't been able prices maybe as
Speaker 2: you know, much as they would have liked, and as
Speaker 2: a result, you have this very expensive luxury vehicle, but
Speaker 2: also just because that's not what a lot of consumers want,
Speaker 2: and Musk has sort of pivoted the company away from
Speaker 2: his own customer base.
Speaker 4: But Dan, I just wanted to go back to you.
Speaker 5: I mean that point I was raising with Max about
Speaker 5: how much the sales for Tesla have sputtered and how much.
Speaker 4: The stock is up.
Speaker 5: Even though the stock has given up some of those
Speaker 5: gains over the last week or so and it's a
Speaker 5: down again on this.
Speaker 4: Sales report, it still just strikes.
Speaker 5: Me, though, that you have a very very large gap
Speaker 5: right now between expectations of what those Trump ties can
Speaker 5: deliver for the company and what the reality on the
Speaker 5: ground is for this company.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but I think, I mean, I'll just say this,
Speaker 7: the reality on the ground is still that Tesla is
Speaker 7: the market leader when it comes to selling ev.
Speaker 1: In the United States.
Speaker 7: Tesla is still in a really good position. And the
Speaker 7: other thing to notice about their release today is that
Speaker 7: they have a line in there about their energy storage products.
Speaker 7: And I keep saying this over and over again, great,
Speaker 7: great quarter, Like they have installed a lot of their
Speaker 7: batteries and you know, the future is AI.
Speaker 1: There's going to be enormous electricity demands.
Speaker 7: Energy storage is a key way that utilities are going
Speaker 7: to be able to give us more electricity. And like
Speaker 7: Elon has said over and over again that like the
Speaker 7: growth and energy storage is going to eclipse that of
Speaker 7: the car business. And so I just would really try
Speaker 7: to encourage everyone to expand their understanding of Tesla. It
Speaker 7: is not just a car company. It is a battery
Speaker 7: company that makes cars and makes standalone energy storage products.
Speaker 7: And in twenty twenty five, you're just going to see
Speaker 7: them really focus on storage because it's just key to
Speaker 7: the whole future of AI and these enormous electricity demands
Speaker 7: that the United States has. And so you know, Elon
Speaker 7: has said that like the company is in between two
Speaker 7: growth waves. So on the one hand, like you would
Speaker 7: think that the fact that they have year year sales
Speaker 7: decline would be this atrocious thing for the stock, But
Speaker 7: look at the stock today. I mean it's down a
Speaker 7: little bit, It's not like it's not like down ten percent,
Speaker 7: Like it just doesn't move on fundamentals.
Speaker 1: It moves on vibes.
Speaker 7: And like the vibe is that like inauguration is in
Speaker 7: nineteen days, and like, I'm sure Elon will be there,
Speaker 7: and like I wouldn't be surprised if like Trump rolls
Speaker 7: through the inauguration in the cyber truck. You know, like
Speaker 7: we're just gonna see some crazy things going forward.
Speaker 5: We need to talk about one more thing in our
Speaker 5: emergency pod here and Max as usual on such subjects.
Speaker 4: I know absolutely nothing.
Speaker 5: Because I was on vacation for a while and I
Speaker 5: was trying to tune out as best I can. But
Speaker 5: I do understand that there's been a disturbance in the
Speaker 5: Elon magaverse.
Speaker 4: Tell me all about it.
Speaker 2: Well, you just use those two turns kind of almost
Speaker 2: as synonymous Elon magaversus, as if they're won. But what
Speaker 2: we learned over the Christmas holiday is that they very
Speaker 2: much aren't. And if you're thinking about kind of threats
Speaker 2: to Elon Musk and Elon Musk's empire from the left,
Speaker 2: you know, because people who don't like Donald Trump are mad,
Speaker 2: and you know they're they're gonna buy a Hyundai instead
Speaker 2: of a Tesla, you need to also start thinking about
Speaker 2: threats to Musk and his empire from the right. So
Speaker 2: what happened is that Laura Lumer who's a kind of
Speaker 2: a far right activist. She's sort of been around Maga
Speaker 2: world for almost a decade. Has you know, immigration is
Speaker 2: a big issue for her. She's been banned on Twitter.
Speaker 2: She's one of the people that Elon Musk brought back.
Speaker 2: She posted a message on x criticizing one of Trump's
Speaker 2: kind of like tech adjacent appointees. This guy, Swiram Krishnan,
Speaker 2: who is a venture capitalist, was part of the kind
Speaker 2: of Elon Musk kitchen cabinet during the Twitter you know,
Speaker 2: when he took over Twitter, and she based said that, like,
Speaker 2: this is a career leftist who and is part of
Speaker 2: this tech takeover of Trump World. Now that's that's not
Speaker 2: entirely true. Chrishnan isn't isn't really a career leftist, but
Speaker 2: but she was kind of right that you've you've had
Speaker 2: a bunch of these sort of Elon adjacent figures with
Speaker 2: very few connections to to the magavers who are now
Speaker 2: in positions of influence. And this kicked off an enormous
Speaker 2: Twitter war between Musk and Laura Lumer and Steve Bannon
Speaker 2: and a bunch of other figures on the on the
Speaker 2: kind of far right, the kind of kind of og
Speaker 2: magas over this person who they see as a as
Speaker 2: a pretender. And so that's where we are today. They're
Speaker 2: still fighting and.
Speaker 5: Is this person has is Trump uh wavered at all
Speaker 5: in the nomination of this person?
Speaker 2: No Trump, And in fact Trump has kind of in
Speaker 2: various ways posted some signs of agreement with Musk. He
Speaker 2: he called up reporter from the New York Post and
Speaker 2: mentioned his support over the H one B visa program,
Speaker 2: which is which was which kind of became the core
Speaker 2: of the argument.
Speaker 5: Max remind us ver a second, what exactly the H
Speaker 5: one B visa is?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 2: So, the H one B visa is a way that
Speaker 2: tech companies and other companies bring in skilled workers on
Speaker 2: a temporary basis from outside of the US. It's a
Speaker 2: temporary visa program. It's really popular among tech companies. Facebook, Google,
Speaker 2: and Tesla make a lot of use of this. Elon
Speaker 2: Musk is a big fan. And this became kind of
Speaker 2: like the focal point of the disagreement because in the
Speaker 2: past Donald Trump had been like a big critic of
Speaker 2: H one B visas. Elon Musk is apparently a big fan,
Speaker 2: and he kind of went nuclear in defense of this thing.
Speaker 2: You know, basically just going just doing what he does,
Speaker 2: which is like post a lot of inflammatory stuff, essentially
Speaker 2: calling anyone who posed him you know, some slur you know.
Speaker 1: Should I read it?
Speaker 7: Should I read out the read out the tweet?
Speaker 4: You better do it, Dan, hate us with it? Dan?
Speaker 7: Okay, this is Elon's tweet from over the holidays. The
Speaker 7: reason I'm in America, along with so many critical people
Speaker 7: who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that
Speaker 7: made America strong is because of h one. B take
Speaker 7: a big step back and yourself in the face. I
Speaker 7: will go to war on this issue.
Speaker 1: The likes of which you cannot imagine.
Speaker 7: So yeah, I mean he put a stake in the
Speaker 7: ground and that that's like a real rift with the
Speaker 7: original MAGA people who are all like America first, we
Speaker 7: don't we want no immigration whatsoever.
Speaker 5: So I want to understand this here, I'm to take
Speaker 5: a well it's not me, but if I were to
Speaker 5: you push you take a big state back, big step back,
Speaker 5: and then you yourself.
Speaker 2: In the face, Yes, world's richest man.
Speaker 5: Well but okay, so you know you Max earlier, you
Speaker 5: said Bannon jumped into the fray coming to the support
Speaker 5: of Laura Lumer.
Speaker 4: I think we have some tape from him. Let's listen
Speaker 4: to it. Now.
Speaker 3: This is central to how they gut it the middle
Speaker 3: class in this country. And we haven't fought these battles
Speaker 3: over years and years and years to allow American citizens
Speaker 3: of every race, ethnicity, religion be gutted by the sociopathic
Speaker 3: overlords in Silicon Valley. So no, David Sachs and Vivek
Speaker 3: Ramaswami and Elon musk nor your complete collapse and you're thinking, oh, we're.
Speaker 4: Just trying to reform it. We're just trying to have
Speaker 4: a conversation. We're on it from it.
Speaker 3: No, there's no reformation, no reform. We want it gone.
Speaker 3: We demand that it's gone, and we're going to fight
Speaker 3: for this and not just gone. I've got another alternative.
Speaker 3: We want reparations for the tech workers that you stole
Speaker 3: their lives.
Speaker 5: I mean, this sounds pretty sporty. I suspect this is
Speaker 5: going to be a storyline throughout twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: I don't know that H one B specifically is the storyline,
Speaker 2: despite Bennet's promise, right, But I think what this is
Speaker 2: is one of many issues where they are going to
Speaker 2: be big device. I mean, the thing that's going on
Speaker 2: here is Elon Musk and Donald Trump are like not
Speaker 2: natural allies, and yet Elon Musk has extremely close access,
Speaker 2: you know, to the President elect, and like those two
Speaker 2: things are creating problems with people who also want influence
Speaker 2: and access and do not necessarily favor policies that you know,
Speaker 2: tech companies favor.
Speaker 1: So we could be talking we're.
Speaker 2: Talking about you know, H one B, which is a
Speaker 2: thing that tech companies like that Elon Musk likes. We
Speaker 2: could be talking about crypto rules or AI rules or
Speaker 2: Elon Musk's defense contracts. And what's so interesting about this
Speaker 2: dispute to me anyway, is that Bannon and Lumer and
Speaker 2: some of these other folks are actually keying in to
Speaker 2: this kind of like larger question.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the one of the tweets during this back
Speaker 2: and forth uh with Laura Lumer, she called Elon Musk
Speaker 2: a stage five clinger.
Speaker 4: Helped me out, helped me out, Max. What's the stage five?
Speaker 2: I think the implication is he's spending too much time
Speaker 2: at mar A Lago and so and and so, like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like they've gotten a few zingers and
Speaker 2: they've they've pointed out a few things that are sort
Speaker 2: of you know, obviously true, like Elon Musk does not
Speaker 2: see one to eye with the kind of traditional magabase
Speaker 2: in so many ways. So like this is I don't
Speaker 2: know if H one B is the thing, but this
Speaker 2: is going to be a thing for sure.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And they see him as like a Johnny cum Litley.
Speaker 7: I mean, the people that were with you know, Trump
Speaker 7: early on and during his first campaign, like they don't
Speaker 7: really like the fact that like Musk and like the
Speaker 7: Silicon Valley guys are now interlopers in the in their scene.
Speaker 7: And so there's this like sort of old guard new
Speaker 7: guard like battle for power, like Lumer got kicked off
Speaker 7: the campaign trail and where it whereas like Elon was
Speaker 7: like campaigning for Trump, you know, both at Butler and
Speaker 7: at Madison Square Garden and so so it's just you know,
Speaker 7: the battle for proximity and access, but also like who's
Speaker 7: the real og. I mean, I think that people that
Speaker 7: were with Trump from early on are really resentful of
Speaker 7: these guys and their and their power.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I think these are This is related to the other
Speaker 2: two stories we just talked about, Like Elon Musk has
Speaker 2: made a choice when he endorsed Donald Trump, and when
Speaker 2: he went all in on the on doing so, and
Speaker 2: you know, giving you know, hundreds of billions of dollars,
Speaker 2: becoming his biggest donor, putting the Maga hat on, and
Speaker 2: like we are seeing kind of with all three of
Speaker 2: these stories, some of the consequences of that choice, like
Speaker 2: the cyber truck now is has become a symbol of Trump,
Speaker 2: who is a controvers controversial symbol. We're seeing potentially left
Speaker 2: wing buyers not want to buy Tesla's and now on
Speaker 2: the right we're seeing buyers like it. In a way,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is, he's never been more powerful. He's at
Speaker 2: the arm of the future president of the United States.
Speaker 2: Tesla Stock, as you said, is way way the heck up.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, he really feels like he's in
Speaker 2: an ever smaller political box where you have the left
Speaker 2: on one side and the kind of far right on
Speaker 2: the other.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So, I mean it is a great point that
Speaker 5: you know, this gamble he's made on Trump has worked
Speaker 5: out in me anyways spectacularly well so far. But it
Speaker 5: absolutely is simultaneously an incredible blessing for him and also
Speaker 5: a curse that brings its risks and its potential downsides. Mac,
Speaker 5: Can I give you a small assignment before we get
Speaker 5: back on next week?
Speaker 4: Can I?
Speaker 5: Can I ask you to try to walk, you know,
Speaker 5: work through and understand the mechanics of that that taking
Speaker 5: a big step back and.
Speaker 4: Then putting yourself in the face and then report back to.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'll come equips with white boys.
Speaker 1: Mac.
Speaker 5: The mail keeps coming in, uh to elon incot Bloomberg
Speaker 5: dot end.
Speaker 2: That's right, I've been really enjoying. Are we going to
Speaker 2: read those now? We're gonna wait till We're not going to.
Speaker 4: Read them now.
Speaker 5: This is just a teas to say that they keep
Speaker 5: coming in, keep sending them in thoughts, ideas, things you love,
Speaker 5: things you hate, bumper sticker ideas, feud ideas and so
Speaker 5: on and so forth. And we will dig into the mailbox,
Speaker 5: uh next week, or I should say we will dig
Speaker 5: into the mail bag. We're calling it a mail bag
Speaker 5: or a mail box.
Speaker 1: What's the email address?
Speaker 4: Again? The mail bag?
Speaker 2: What is it you want to ink at? Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 4: Danna, thank you so much for joining us. Now go
Speaker 4: enjoy the rest of your day off.
Speaker 1: I will thank you.
Speaker 5: This episode was produced by Stacey Wong. Anna Masarrakas is
Speaker 5: our editor and Rayhan Harmanski our senior editor. The idea
Speaker 5: for this very show also came from Rayhan. Blake Maples
Speaker 5: handles engineering, and David Purcell fact checks. Our supervising producer
Speaker 5: is Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 4: The Elon Inc.
Speaker 5: Theme is written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiera.
Speaker 5: Brendan Francis Nunham is our executive producer, and Stage Bauman
Speaker 5: is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks as
Speaker 5: always to our supporters Joel Weber and Bradstone. I'm David Papadopolis.
Speaker 5: If you have a minute, rate and review our show,
Speaker 5: it'll help other listeners find us.
Speaker 4: See you next week.