Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm bridget Tad and this
Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. We all
Speaker 1: knew this day was going to come eventually when most
Speaker 1: of us saw that Elon Musk was working with Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I think we were all thinking, it's only a matter
Speaker 1: of time until these two split, and when it happens,
Speaker 1: it is going to be messy. We waited, and we waited,
Speaker 1: and it seems the day has come. So today's Thursday,
Speaker 1: June fifth, twenty twenty five. It's about ten o'clock PM
Speaker 1: Eastern time, and Donald Trump and Elon Musk have spent
Speaker 1: most of today tearing each other apart on their respective
Speaker 1: social media platforms, Elon posting on X of course and
Speaker 1: Trump on True Social So setting aside that these two
Speaker 1: billionaires are ridiculously posting at each other sniping on platforms
Speaker 1: that they both prive we own, it has truly been
Speaker 1: like one of those days. To be perfectly transparent. We
Speaker 1: had started working on our typical news roundup. We had,
Speaker 1: you know, written out all the stories, all of that.
Speaker 1: Then my producer Mike and I were talking and we're
Speaker 1: both like are you seeing this? This is wild. We
Speaker 1: decided to scrap our regular news round up and just
Speaker 1: talk about this, So I'm joined by producer Mike. We
Speaker 1: sort of watched this go down in conversation, you and I.
Speaker 2: Yeah, h bridge it it was. It has been quite
Speaker 2: a day and it was like one thing after another
Speaker 2: with these guys. Like I kind of spent the first
Speaker 2: part of the day working on some other stuff, so
Speaker 2: it was pretty heads down and not really paying attention
Speaker 2: to social media. And then somebody messaged me and was like, Hey,
Speaker 2: are you seeing this? And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Wow he said that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I will say, I mean I most folks know
Speaker 1: I kind of gave up on Twitter, even though I
Speaker 1: do still have a platform, and I actually dust it
Speaker 1: off mild Twitter account just to see what was happening
Speaker 1: on that side of the digital woods. And I will say,
Speaker 1: I don't think that we have had a day like
Speaker 1: that on social media in a long time. But those
Speaker 1: days where everybody's getting in on the jokes, everybody is
Speaker 1: talking about it, that was that in the older iteration
Speaker 1: of Twitter, there was no better time to be plugged
Speaker 1: into black Twitter than these days where something was happening,
Speaker 1: and nobody was getting any work done. Everybody was on Twitter, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing,
Speaker 1: making jokes. The only the two days that come to
Speaker 1: mind were, I think most recently, when the Queen died.
Speaker 1: That was a day that I remember, a lot of
Speaker 1: people had a lot to say. And then this one,
Speaker 1: this one is like if you really are an og
Speaker 1: the N word navy. That's a pretty good That's a
Speaker 1: pretty good day on social media for me. But we
Speaker 1: haven't had a day like this in a while. And
Speaker 1: it's very funny to me that when we do get
Speaker 1: a day like this for the first time on on
Speaker 1: X because it's a terrible platform, it is about Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: I find that to be so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good observation because I also signed into
Speaker 2: X for the first time in what has to have
Speaker 2: been months. I don't know, I don't go there at all.
Speaker 2: I wonder how many other people signed in, And also,
Speaker 2: somewhat ironically what I signed in. The first thing I
Speaker 2: did was search for Elon Musk because I wanted to
Speaker 2: see what he had been tweeting. And it's funny because
Speaker 2: the last time I was there, the platform was aggressively
Speaker 2: trying to get me to follow him. It was like
Speaker 2: recommending accounts that you might want to follow, its like
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, Steve Badden, and I was like, no, I
Speaker 2: obviously I have no interest in following these. But the
Speaker 2: thing that brought me back was wanting to see what
Speaker 2: Elon had to say about his erstwhile buddy Trump.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. I have to give a
Speaker 1: really big caveapp before we do, though it goes without
Speaker 1: saying that we're talking about the report behavior of two liars.
Speaker 1: I almost didn't want to make this episode because everybody
Speaker 1: knows that you cannot take the behavior of two messy
Speaker 1: stunt queens at face value, especially during a bad breakup
Speaker 1: like that is just understanding the world one oh one, right,
Speaker 1: especially when they're doing these big dramatic things that I think,
Speaker 1: especially Elon, are meant to get people talking. You know,
Speaker 1: I almost get kind of paranoid where I'm thinking, oh
Speaker 1: my god, they want us to be talking about this drama.
Speaker 1: Trump is a classic reality television show guy. That's where
Speaker 1: he got his start. So this is classic Real Housewives
Speaker 1: on Bravo villain behavior. I would say Trump is really
Speaker 1: giving us Kenya Moore, right now, if you know, you
Speaker 1: know where It's like I'm going to do something very
Speaker 1: big and over the top, and everybody is going to
Speaker 1: be talking about it is Trump.
Speaker 2: The Kenya hearers elon.
Speaker 1: Don't even get me started, because I will go all day. Okay,
Speaker 1: but I I'll just add this and we can move on.
Speaker 1: This is going to be like that interview where the
Speaker 1: filmmaker David Lynch is being interviewed saying that Eraserhead is
Speaker 1: his most spiritual film, and the interviewer says, oh, elaborate
Speaker 1: on that, and David Lynch just goes, no, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is the White House's Kenny Ohmore. I will not be elaborating,
Speaker 1: no questions.
Speaker 2: Okay, there we have it.
Speaker 1: So I almost, like I said, I almost didn't want
Speaker 1: to get into this, however, and this is gonna sound
Speaker 1: like it sounds, but I truly have so little in
Speaker 1: my life right now that I deserve it. I just
Speaker 1: I deserve to have a little key key about this breakup.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I felt the same way. It's it's been rough,
Speaker 2: and uh yeah, these guys are liars. I share your
Speaker 2: concern that this is all some sort of elaborate con
Speaker 2: that they're pulling on us. Uh.
Speaker 1: But because they're con men, because they are gone men.
Speaker 2: That's what they do. They've both become enormously wealthy through conning.
Speaker 2: So uh but I don't know. I'm with you. It's
Speaker 2: just it's too good. It was really fun putting this together,
Speaker 2: working on this script with you. You know, like, isn't it
Speaker 2: It's just nice to hate on two people who are
Speaker 2: pretty contemptible at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were telling me about that Russian expression.
Speaker 2: Yes, a friend told me about this Russian saying that
Speaker 2: describes the situation where you have two equally unsympathetic forces
Speaker 2: who are engaged in some kind of rivalry or you know,
Speaker 2: contest that you hope damages both of them because they're
Speaker 2: both so unsympathetic and contemptible. You can say, and my
Speaker 2: Russian is awful yebela jaba god yuku, which means the
Speaker 2: toad fucked the viper.
Speaker 1: Wait, so if Trump is the ken Yo moore of
Speaker 1: the situation, who which one is the toad and which
Speaker 1: one is the viper? Actually, don't answer that. I can
Speaker 1: see your gears turning. You would be like, actually, I
Speaker 1: I've thought about this and here's why. Here's my very
Speaker 1: analytical breakdown as to why Elon Musk is the toad
Speaker 1: in this situation and not the viper.
Speaker 2: I think they both think they're the toad. Oh good,
Speaker 2: call just two toads fucking each other.
Speaker 1: So let's take a little bit of a flashback back
Speaker 1: to rosier times between these two. If this was a
Speaker 1: Lifetime movie, there would be like a flowery song playing
Speaker 1: right now while we reminisce on better days. So in
Speaker 1: July twenty twenty two, Trump claimed that Elon Musk was
Speaker 1: quote desperate to meet with him and said that Musk
Speaker 1: had come to the White House during Trump's first term
Speaker 1: asking for assistance with subsidized projects. And Trump was really
Speaker 1: gloating about how much Elon Musk essentially humiliated himself at
Speaker 1: the feet of Donald Trump. He even bragged that if
Speaker 1: Musk had been asked to beg on his hands and knees,
Speaker 1: he would have done it. So on July thirteenth, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: you might remember, during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: Trump was allegedly shot at. That is what pushed Muk
Speaker 1: to formally endorse him. He said, I fully endorse President
Speaker 1: Trump and hope for his rapid recovery. In the weeks
Speaker 1: that followed, Musk became a top Trump donor. The Post
Speaker 1: reported that he spent two hundred and eighty eight million
Speaker 1: on Trump and other Republicans ahead of the November election.
Speaker 1: Musk also went on the campaign trail for him, rallying
Speaker 1: for him and being the very public base of the
Speaker 1: campaign in battleground states like Pennsylvania that Trump would go
Speaker 1: on to win. There is a very memorable image of
Speaker 1: this event where Elon is on the stage next to
Speaker 1: Trump and he's doing this leap in the air and
Speaker 1: his shirt's coming up and you can see his stomach
Speaker 1: and his legs are kind of bent behind him, and
Speaker 1: he he. I guess I just feel like, when a
Speaker 1: man has you leaping into the air with glee, you
Speaker 1: got it. You are down bad, but you got it bad.
Speaker 2: I would believe it. I am trying to think back
Speaker 2: to the last time I leapt with glee. It's been
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 1: I don't think that a man has, nor ever could
Speaker 1: have me out here being photographed navel out leaping with glee.
Speaker 1: I just don't see it. I just don't see it.
Speaker 1: So I will say I mean, like, I think Elon
Speaker 1: was experiencing a passion that I have yet to experience, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I like that image of him. He is a jubilation, I.
Speaker 2: Think, so. I mean, I do wonder if he was
Speaker 2: experiencing like true joy for the first time, or if
Speaker 2: he was just like doing a Nathan Fielder style performance
Speaker 2: of what he thought joy is supposed to look like,
Speaker 2: or if he was.
Speaker 1: Just hi out of his mind, out of his car.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been there, okay, So I want you
Speaker 1: to have that image in your head. And you know,
Speaker 1: on each true Hollywood story where the happy picture suddenly
Speaker 1: turns black and white because the good times are over,
Speaker 1: and then the music gets into a minor key, do
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Totally.
Speaker 1: They were friends, dude, until they weren't. So that is
Speaker 1: why I want you to be thinking when we pivot
Speaker 1: to this next part, like Elon frozen in midair midleap,
Speaker 1: as the scene fades to black and there is like
Speaker 1: a minor key piano note, very gloomy playing because May thirtieth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five rolls around and Musk resigns from his
Speaker 1: role at DOGE after one hundred and fourteen days, signing
Speaker 1: a need to focus on his failing businesses. His position
Speaker 1: was in the White House was sort of always meant
Speaker 1: to come to an end after a while because special
Speaker 1: government employees are a class of temporary workers that Musk was,
Speaker 1: and they can only typically work one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: days in a calendar year, though that time could be
Speaker 1: split up, so it is possible that Musk could have
Speaker 1: worked another couple of weeks if Trump had wanted him to. Also, like,
Speaker 1: who knows, because neither of them really care much about
Speaker 1: following the law, but that's what the law says, one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty days. So the White House first publicly
Speaker 1: acknowledged Musk's role on February third, so he's probably winding
Speaker 1: down the clock on that one hundred and thirty days.
Speaker 1: So him leaving around this time in and of itself
Speaker 1: is not particularly juicy. At this point, Musk also starts
Speaker 1: saying that he is done with politics, saying that I
Speaker 1: think I've done enough. Just last week, on May twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: he said that he was stepping back from politics, saying,
Speaker 1: I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do a lot less in the future. I think I've
Speaker 1: done enough. The White House held this very weird farewell event.
Speaker 1: I watched part of it. It was sort of just weird,
Speaker 1: and somber Trump said that Musk is not really leaving
Speaker 1: because he's always going to be my advisor and we're
Speaker 1: always going to be friends.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So the event itself was pretty tame, but there was
Speaker 1: tons of drama behind the scenes, like, for instance, Elon
Speaker 1: Musk showed up to this farewell event a black eye.
Speaker 1: By the way, I I initially was referring to this
Speaker 1: as a shiner, but I was on a call with
Speaker 1: a bunch of gen Z folks and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: just he had a shiner, and everybody was like, what's
Speaker 1: a shiner? And I was surprised to learn that shiner
Speaker 1: is sort of old timey slang for a black eye.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You you brought this up to me, and I've
Speaker 2: been thinking about it. You grew up in a household
Speaker 2: where boxing was like a pretty important sport, right, Like,
Speaker 2: your dad was a boxer, your brother box You boxed,
Speaker 2: so you were probably getting black eyes all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, giving a shiner and getting a shiner were not
Speaker 1: unusual things on my household. And they were. It was
Speaker 1: like a common topic of conversation that was not unusual. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: a black eye is so cumbersome and happened, you got
Speaker 1: to just like shorten it to shiner.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess for most of us that wasn't a
Speaker 2: real issue. You know, I don't want to like prompt
Speaker 2: any critical reevaluations of your childhood, but uh, yeah, for
Speaker 2: most of us didn't come up that often.
Speaker 1: Well, So Musk said that his shiner was given to
Speaker 1: him by his four year old son. Some people watching
Speaker 1: had some questions like, how does a four year old
Speaker 1: toddler give a grown man a shiner? Or is this
Speaker 1: liar perhaps lying about how he got this black eye?
Speaker 1: So one explanation comes from Steve Bannon, who I should
Speaker 1: note is a longtime enemy of Elon Musk's and again
Speaker 1: himself is a liar and a criminal. So Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: was a chief strategist during Trump's first term in office.
Speaker 1: He told The Daily Mail that Musk's turbulent time in
Speaker 1: the White House took a dramatic turn when he allegedly
Speaker 1: shoved sixty two year old Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant during
Speaker 1: a heated exchange. Now, according to Bannon, again known liar.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. That's going to be a theme,
Speaker 1: is that everybody who comes up in this is a liar.
Speaker 1: So you just don't know what's going on. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: they lie, he lied, They're all liars. I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on. So Bannon said that bessn't confronted Musk
Speaker 1: over his sweeping but yet unfulfilled promises to deliver one
Speaker 1: trillion dollars in budget cuts. Scott Bessont called him out
Speaker 1: and said, you promised us a trillion dollars in cuts
Speaker 1: and now you're at like one hundred billion. Nobody can
Speaker 1: find any savings. What are you doing? Bannon recounted, and
Speaker 1: that's when Elon got physical. It's a source subject with him.
Speaker 1: Bannon said, it wasn't an argument, it was a physical confrontation.
Speaker 1: Elon basically shoved him.
Speaker 2: So one thing I do want to interject here to
Speaker 2: this story is that according to Steve Bannon, here Scott Besson,
Speaker 2: the Treasury Secretary is mad at Elon Musk because Elon
Speaker 2: Musk like didn't find enough fraud and waste and cuts.
Speaker 2: But like Scott Bessett is the Treasury secretary, right, Like,
Speaker 2: shouldn't that be his deal, like his job, shouldn't he
Speaker 2: know more about the budget and like the Treasury then
Speaker 2: Elon Musk. Not that I'm trying to defend Musk here
Speaker 2: or anything, but like, I don't even want to say
Speaker 2: this story doesn't make sense because in Trump world maybe
Speaker 2: this is how it works, but like, it sounds stupid.
Speaker 1: It sounds stupid, and something about it doesn't sound right
Speaker 1: to me. And also the fact that it's Steve Bannon,
Speaker 1: longtime Elon Musk enemy, running to the Daily Mail to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, she shoved him. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Something doesn't sound something in the butter milk's not clean
Speaker 1: on this one. I don't know exactly what happened, but
Speaker 1: I agree it doesn't sound quite right to me. Also,
Speaker 1: if you want to get really messy, like what the
Speaker 1: realty is according to rumors, This is not me saying this.
Speaker 1: This has been reported in places like The Gray Lady,
Speaker 1: The New York Times. Stephen Miller and his wife Katie
Speaker 1: are allegedly Again, I am not saying this. This is
Speaker 1: what I have read from reporting in some kind of
Speaker 1: a throuple with Elon Musk. Question Mark obviously I'm not there.
Speaker 1: I could not say whether this is true or not.
Speaker 1: I've not seen any evidence myself. However, Katie Miller is
Speaker 1: leaving the White House to go work from USK personally.
Speaker 1: Apparently her job has something to do with communications from
Speaker 1: USK Percy and she might be helping to arrange interviews
Speaker 1: for him. I know if I were married to Stephen Miller,
Speaker 1: I'd also be looking to hitch my wag into somebody
Speaker 1: who could get me off the planet and sidebar. I
Speaker 1: hate to give Elon Musk any credit here, like me
Speaker 1: and him have be forever. However, I have to give
Speaker 1: him credit on this one. Stephen Miller to Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: I hate to say it is an upgrade, right.
Speaker 2: It's amazing how every character in this story just gets
Speaker 2: worse and worse, like Stephen Miller is. I do believe
Speaker 2: he is of the undead. I don't think he is
Speaker 2: of the living. I think he feeds on the misery
Speaker 2: of the living. That is what sustains him.
Speaker 1: I once saw somebody on Twitter say he looks like
Speaker 1: he drinks the milk right from the utter. Do you
Speaker 1: know what a like piece of shit you have to
Speaker 1: be to have your wife leave you for Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and have everybody agree, like, well, kind of an upgrade,
Speaker 1: like you you like, really there is nothing lower.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I look forward to some point in the future,
Speaker 2: assuming any of us are still alive, and like writing
Speaker 2: books to like the retrospective documentary about Steven Miller, just
Speaker 2: to understand, like what is going on with him, because
Speaker 2: he he just seems to like hate everyone.
Speaker 1: You know, back in college, he was writing op eds
Speaker 1: about how the other students shouldn't be nice to the
Speaker 1: janitorial staff because that's what they're paid to clean up
Speaker 1: after us. Like that was his whole thing. Like he
Speaker 1: has been a hateful son of a bitch his whole life,
Speaker 1: even when he was youthful. Go back and look up
Speaker 1: pictures of him in college. In college, I feel like
Speaker 1: most people in college, even a horrible people. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can see he's like bright, eye, full of life,
Speaker 1: like he has a lot going for hi, YadA, YadA YadA.
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller somehow looks worse back then. He somehow looks
Speaker 1: more hate filled than he does now, just in a
Speaker 1: different way, like a permanent sneer, as like a college
Speaker 1: student an undergrad. I'm not kidding, Like, look up a
Speaker 1: picture of him. If you've not seen it.
Speaker 2: I would say that we would post it in the
Speaker 2: show notes. But we're not going to do that to
Speaker 2: our listeners.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1: Okay, So back to Musk. So over the weekend, after
Speaker 1: Musk officially left his position within the administration late last week,
Speaker 1: things already started to unravel. Trump announced that he was
Speaker 1: pulling the nomination of Musk ally Jared Isaacman to lead NASA,
Speaker 1: a nomination that Trump had been glowingly talking about back
Speaker 1: in December and was already approved by the said at
Speaker 1: subcommittee sidebar. It's totally fine to have Elon Musk hiring
Speaker 1: and promoting people to run NASA, you know, the government
Speaker 1: organization that he has so many contracts with. That's totally fine.
Speaker 1: Nothing to see there. Let's just move on. So Trump
Speaker 1: pulling this nomination at the eleventh hour was a shock
Speaker 1: to all parties, and it seems like it was a
Speaker 1: pretty transparent retaliatory move against Elon Musk. Trump confirmed today
Speaker 1: that this was a point of contention with Musk as
Speaker 1: part of today's big Tea spilling. Now, of course, because
Speaker 1: it's Trump, he could be lying. It's hard to know
Speaker 1: what these two because they both constantly lie and grandstand
Speaker 1: about everything. But this is some good drama. I don't care.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about it. Okay, So fast forward to June. First,
Speaker 1: Elon starts his first public attacks against Trump's big, beautiful
Speaker 1: budget bill. But don't get too excited. He is against
Speaker 1: this bill because even though this bill deeply guts the
Speaker 1: public safety Net, it does not gut the public safety
Speaker 1: net enough for Elon Musk's liking. And also, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: does not personally benefit enough from this bill, so he
Speaker 1: doesn't like it. Musk calls the bill, which is horrible
Speaker 1: for all the reasons that we've talked about on the podcast.
Speaker 1: He calls it a disgusting abomination due to its massive
Speaker 1: spending and cuts to electric vehicle initiatives. He tweeted, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but I can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork
Speaker 1: filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on
Speaker 1: those who voted for it. You know you did wrong.
Speaker 1: You know it. Also, these tweets are like a little much.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's tweeting like somebody out of a Shakespeare play.
Speaker 1: One of the wildest things to see from this was
Speaker 1: a lot of Democrats were low key praising Elon Musk
Speaker 1: for this take, which was interesting. Representative Rocana from California,
Speaker 1: who represents Silicon Valley and it's known Musk. They're they're
Speaker 1: really friendly, they've been friends for a decade, said that
Speaker 1: Democrats should be in a dialogue with Musk given their
Speaker 1: shared opposition to this bill. He said, we should ultimately
Speaker 1: be trying to convince him that the Democratic Party has
Speaker 1: more of the values he agrees with, a commitment to
Speaker 1: science funding, a commitment to clean technology, a commitment to
Speaker 1: seeing international students like him. I will say, like not
Speaker 1: to give him a pass, but he represents Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: he's friendly with Musk. I feel like he would like
Speaker 1: he would say this. This is not surprising to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely do not give him a pass for this.
Speaker 2: I can't believe these efforts to like immediately try to
Speaker 2: woo Musk as like a democratic ally or something like
Speaker 2: all those things that Rokana listed their there were like
Speaker 2: areas of policy agreement, not values agreement. You know, democratic
Speaker 2: values are things like Nazis are bad which is something
Speaker 2: that Musk clearly disagrees with. He supports science funding when
Speaker 2: it's going directly into his own pocket. He's committed to
Speaker 2: clean technology when it means massive subsidies for Tesla. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: he's installed dozens of small and efficient gas generators in
Speaker 2: a Tennessee neighborhood to power his data center there. And
Speaker 2: his commitment to international students is making sure they keep
Speaker 2: working eighty hours a week at his companies on the cheap,
Speaker 2: because they'll lose their visas and have to go home
Speaker 2: if they don't. So maybe there are some policy areas
Speaker 2: where Representative Kana might be able to work with Musk,
Speaker 2: And if so, that's fine, That's how politics works. But
Speaker 2: I really resent the effort to sell the public and
Speaker 2: Democratic Party members democratic voters on the idea that mister
Speaker 2: Nazi salute himself is suddenly aligned with the values of
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party. Have some self respect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dog shit take from Representative Khanna here, I have
Speaker 1: to say, like, you really sum it up well, Okay,
Speaker 1: So what is your take on Representative Richie Torres from
Speaker 1: New York. He says, I'm a believer in redemption and
Speaker 1: Musk is telling the truth about the legislation, but he added,
Speaker 1: Musk has done an enormous amount of damage and that
Speaker 1: there are Democrats who would see his decimation of the
Speaker 1: federal workforce of the federal government as an unforgivable sin.
Speaker 1: Richie torres Elon Musk is not telling the truth about
Speaker 1: this bill. What he is saying is the bills draconian
Speaker 1: cuts to social spending do not go far enough. He
Speaker 1: wants to cut more. So, No, Mitchie torrez Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is not telling the truth about like have some nuance.
Speaker 2: It's like a debasement of the idea of truth. You know,
Speaker 2: like him saying this bill is bad. That's not enough
Speaker 2: to count as truth, right, Like, the truth is that
Speaker 2: this bill aims to kick millions of people off Medicaid
Speaker 2: and other forms of assistance. It aims to decimate research
Speaker 2: and a ton of areas that matter to all of us.
Speaker 2: It's trying to decimate climate funding. Also that they can
Speaker 2: cut taxes for the rich keep subsidizing the fossil fuel industry.
Speaker 2: So no, he's not telling the truth about this legislation.
Speaker 2: He's opposing it for reasons that are entirely self serving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone saying that something that you don't like is
Speaker 1: bad for the worst reasons. Doesn't does not mean that
Speaker 1: they're right. Like, just because he doesn't like it and
Speaker 1: you don't like it for completely different reasons, does not
Speaker 1: mean that you are in agreement, like they're just I
Speaker 1: cannot sometimes I can't. I mean, I will talk all
Speaker 1: day sometimes I cannot believe that these are the people
Speaker 1: that have been elected to represent us. So up until
Speaker 1: this point, Trump had been publicly but vaguely praising Musk's
Speaker 1: time at the White House, even as all this drama
Speaker 1: swirled behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: Vaguely is the only way Trump talks about anything.
Speaker 1: Oh have you seen any of how he would talk
Speaker 1: about Elon Musk before this afternoon. He would say things like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, he's been great. He's just we just think
Speaker 1: so he's so good, and you know it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's up there with beautiful gowns, beautiful gowns, like
Speaker 1: so vague, dude, I don't know if you get that reference.
Speaker 1: When the late Aretha Franklin God Rest her Soul was
Speaker 1: asked about all these different female artists if they were
Speaker 1: good singers, it would be like, oh, what do you
Speaker 1: think of lady Gagash. She be a beautiful sick, great range,
Speaker 1: great vocals. What do you think of Riah Carey, beautiful singer,
Speaker 1: real song stress, well songstressed, Taylor Swift, great downs, beautiful gowns. Really,
Speaker 1: her gowns are great. Like the way that he would
Speaker 1: just be like, oh, Elon Musk has done a great job.
Speaker 1: We like him. He is great, never mentioning a single
Speaker 1: specific thing. That's how you kind of knew even before
Speaker 1: this afternoon that something was up, because Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: like a verbose person often, and so when he really
Speaker 1: has something to say about something, he like really says it.
Speaker 1: Do you remember back in the early days of COVID
Speaker 1: when the COVID test was awful and it was that
Speaker 1: like really long swab that went deep into your brain. Clearly,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump hated that COVID test because whenever he was
Speaker 1: asked about COVID testing, he'd be like, the current iteration
Speaker 1: is not too nice, Like he would really talk about
Speaker 1: it in specifics. So when he has something to say,
Speaker 1: he really is quite like descript dip about it. And
Speaker 1: so when asked about Elon Musk, where he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: great guy, great guy, nothing to add you really knew
Speaker 1: he was holding back and something was up. So that
Speaker 1: brings us to today when the s hits the f
Speaker 1: During a meeting on June fifth, twenty twenty five, the
Speaker 1: day that we're recording this, So, during a meeting in
Speaker 1: the Oval Office with newly elected German Chancellor Frederick Mahers,
Speaker 1: Trump started to express some some due disappointment in Musk's criticism. Now,
Speaker 1: according to various news articles, Trump was genuinely shocked that
Speaker 1: Musk would attack his big, beautiful bill, while the German
Speaker 1: chancer just sort of did the kind of Homer Simpson
Speaker 1: retreating into the green grass bush. She's like, Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna stay out of this and probably thinking, like
Speaker 1: what the heck is going on. I'm here in the
Speaker 1: White House and like Trump is crashing out over Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: What's going on? So? Trump suggested that Musk's objections were
Speaker 1: self serving and that the only reason that he didn't
Speaker 1: like the bill was because it eliminated subsidies for electric cars,
Speaker 1: a move that would directly hurt Musk's company, Tesla. Trump
Speaker 1: said that Musk knew all along with these subsidies would
Speaker 1: be eliminated even before the text of the bill was
Speaker 1: public in like Dwight Shreut style, Musk hits back false.
Speaker 1: This bill was never shown to me even once, and
Speaker 1: was passed in the dead of night, so fast that
Speaker 1: almost no one in Congress could even read it. I
Speaker 1: will say this about that, which is that One of
Speaker 1: the stories I was going to talk about in the
Speaker 1: News Roundup this week was how Marjorie Taylor Green was
Speaker 1: saying that she voted for this bill not knowing about
Speaker 1: the provision in the bill where states could not enforce
Speaker 1: laws around AI for ten years. And she was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't read the bill. I missed that part.
Speaker 1: I'm a big states rights person, so I would never
Speaker 1: have have voted for this if I had known that
Speaker 1: was in there. And I remember thinking, like a girl,
Speaker 1: you had to read the bill, like what what? Like what?
Speaker 1: That's a kind of your like the main part of
Speaker 1: your job. Then I watched a longer interview that she
Speaker 1: did on News Nation where she essentially says the same
Speaker 1: thing that Musk is saying.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: Again both liars, so who the fuck knows? But she
Speaker 1: said that they gave her the full text of the
Speaker 1: bill so close to the vote and at night that
Speaker 1: she didn't have time to read it. Again, she is
Speaker 1: also a liar, so I'm not taking her at her word,
Speaker 1: but just some context there that I was sort of
Speaker 1: ready to drag her for not having read this bill,
Speaker 1: and that both Musk and Green are saying they gave
Speaker 1: it to us so close to the vote that we
Speaker 1: didn't have time to read it. So who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, but we can break down a little bit
Speaker 2: of which of these lying liars is lying about this
Speaker 2: particular thing. So, like we do know that, like it's
Speaker 2: true that the final text of the bill wasn't available
Speaker 2: until like hours before they were forced to vote on it.
Speaker 2: So so Marjorie Taylor Green is not lying about that.
Speaker 2: How she should still be dragged because it's just inexcusable
Speaker 2: to vote to make something a law when you don't
Speaker 2: even know what you're voting for. I mean, I guess
Speaker 2: that's the kind of bootlicking subservience to authority that the
Speaker 2: Republican House is like into these days. But like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I believe that she didn't know the text of the bill,
Speaker 2: and I guess I would believe that, you know, Elon
Speaker 2: didn't get a chance to read the bill before it
Speaker 2: was passed. Either. However, it also is not any surprise
Speaker 2: to anyone that electric vehicle subsidies were eliminated. I mean
Speaker 2: Trump said that over and over again on the campaign trail,
Speaker 2: and it was also just like patently obvious to anyone
Speaker 2: who was even remotely paying attention that the Republican Congress
Speaker 2: was gonna cut anything in everything related to green energy
Speaker 2: or trying to deal with climate change. So of course
Speaker 2: that was going to be cut. So for Musk to
Speaker 2: act all shocked about it, I think he's lying.
Speaker 1: Well. One quick thing about Marjorie Taylor Green is that
Speaker 1: in that News Nation interview, I do like that she says,
Speaker 1: don't I get some credit for admitting I didn't read it.
Speaker 1: I just thought that was really funny. Like, okay, So,
Speaker 1: but with the electric vehicle subsidies, Trump, when he was
Speaker 1: hitting back on truth Social he basically was like, you
Speaker 1: knew Elon knew that I was removing those the provisions
Speaker 1: that forced people to buy garbage electric vehicles that nobody wants.
Speaker 1: So it's not just like Elon or removing this provision.
Speaker 1: It's your cars are garbage and nobody wants them. And
Speaker 1: you know this like it's so high school, like this,
Speaker 1: This just reminds me of a lot of the drama
Speaker 1: that I had when I was growing up of there's
Speaker 1: a way to say this where it's just here's the facts.
Speaker 1: You knew this, You were aware of this. Da da
Speaker 1: da da as you said, that's not what Trump said.
Speaker 1: Trump said your cars are garbage and don't nobody want them,
Speaker 1: and you know this, and that's why you're upset.
Speaker 2: But also he has been saying that same shit for
Speaker 2: ten years. You know, maybe Elon was like dissociating to
Speaker 2: be like, oh, this is my buddy when he says
Speaker 2: that he hates electric cars and he's going to end
Speaker 2: the subsidies, what he means is some other thing.
Speaker 1: Babe, have you ever been in a relationship before Elon
Speaker 1: can fix him? He's like, I can fix him. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've I've been this girl in a relationship of like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't mean this stuff that he says constantly and does.
Speaker 1: This is a surprise to me to find this out,
Speaker 1: and I am hurt, even though he's been saying the
Speaker 1: same thing for many years, very clearly in both his
Speaker 1: words and behavior.
Speaker 2: You know, that just makes that just reminds me of
Speaker 2: a friend of mine who described this whole thing that
Speaker 2: went down today as the messiest breakup to happen in
Speaker 2: Pride month.
Speaker 1: Yet it's still early, Okay. So this afternoon, Trump was
Speaker 1: asked about Elon, and you can kind of tell something's up.
Speaker 1: He says, Oh, well, he hasn't said anything bad about
Speaker 1: me personally yet, but I'm sure that will be next.
Speaker 1: I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped him a lot.
Speaker 1: Trump kind of suggested that maybe Elon was having a
Speaker 1: big reaction because he was missing all the glamour of
Speaker 1: working in the White House. Glamour is the direct the
Speaker 1: actual word that he uses. He says, some people who
Speaker 1: leave my White House administration miss it so badly, the
Speaker 1: glamour of working with me, they actually become hostile. Must
Speaker 1: responds on social media accuse Trump of being ungrateful and
Speaker 1: says that the only reason why Trump was elected in
Speaker 1: the first place is because of him. He tweeted, without me,
Speaker 1: Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House,
Speaker 1: and the Republicans would be fifty one to forty nine
Speaker 1: in the Senate. Such ingratitude. So my understanding is that
Speaker 1: this was really the thing that set Trump over the edge.
Speaker 1: We know that Trump cares a lot about being considered popular.
Speaker 1: He's obsessed with things like crowd size. Ever since its
Speaker 1: failed the election bit in twenty twenty, he's been screaming
Speaker 1: about this non existent fraud and how the election was
Speaker 1: rigged against him because he simply cannot accept the idea
Speaker 1: that he lost fair and square. So I think in
Speaker 1: making this claim, Musk is basically saying that Trump would
Speaker 1: have been a loser without his help. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's stung like this is my understanding is that this
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that hits Trump where it hurts,
Speaker 1: like we're gonna get into it. But later Musk essentially
Speaker 1: accuses him of being a sex offender, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't give a talk about that. Just don't say
Speaker 1: that I'm a loser who would not have won the
Speaker 1: election without you. Also, this is how we know that
Speaker 1: we've all sort of been waiting for this moment, because
Speaker 1: the New York Times sent out multiple breaking news alerts
Speaker 1: about it. It was like breaking news, trouble in Paradise,
Speaker 1: couple on the skids, Like it was really like, this
Speaker 1: is how I know. It's like we've all been waiting
Speaker 1: for this moment The New York Times is like, we
Speaker 1: are gonna capitalize on this. Everybody. We've all been waiting for.
Speaker 2: This trouble in Paradise, America's sweethearts calling it quit.
Speaker 1: So Trump hit back, responding on truth Social threatening to
Speaker 1: terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts. We will come back
Speaker 1: to this bit about canceling Musk's federal contracts later on
Speaker 1: the episode, but for now, let's just clock this and
Speaker 1: understand this as a big f you to Elon and
Speaker 1: keep going with this play by play because this is
Speaker 1: too good to stuff, okay. So Musk then further escalates
Speaker 1: this feud by alleging without evidence, that Trump's name appears
Speaker 1: in the own released Jeffrey Epstein files, implying a cover up.
Speaker 1: As we remember, Jeffrey Epstein was a wealthy financier and
Speaker 1: donor who died by suicide after being exposed to being
Speaker 1: a ringleader of a sex trafficking and child sex abuse ring.
Speaker 1: So Musk tweeted, time to drop the really big bomb.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That's the real
Speaker 1: reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT,
Speaker 1: so I will say we did sort of know some
Speaker 1: of this already, flight records have shown that Trump flew
Speaker 1: six or seven times on Epstein's plane between nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: three and nineteen ninety seven. But what Musk is saying
Speaker 1: is that Trump is all over the not public logs
Speaker 1: of what happened with Epstein, which reminded me. Do you
Speaker 1: remember back in February when the White House did this
Speaker 1: terrible stunt where they invited all of these conspiracy theorists
Speaker 1: and like influencers to the White House and they did
Speaker 1: this whole photo op where they gave each of them
Speaker 1: this massive binder that said Epstein files like stamped on
Speaker 1: the front of it, and it was this big photo op.
Speaker 1: But then later when they got home, they opened the
Speaker 1: binders and there was like no new information about Epstein
Speaker 1: in these binders. It was just south that was already public.
Speaker 2: I do remember that, and I think, you know, for
Speaker 2: for people like us, that was just like a weird
Speaker 2: thing that happened with some like shitty nutbags who got
Speaker 2: invited to the White House. But I think for a
Speaker 2: lot of people who voted for Trump, at least a
Speaker 2: large number of very vocal people who voted for him,
Speaker 2: that was like a major thing of his appeal. During
Speaker 2: his campaign, he was talking about how he was going
Speaker 2: to release the Epstein files and like making all these
Speaker 2: QAnon winks and nods that those Epstein files were going
Speaker 2: to come out and all the Democrats were going to
Speaker 2: be in there, and he was gonna drain the swamp
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, and he just like ditched those people
Speaker 2: people so fast.
Speaker 1: I would almost be like some of those influencers were
Speaker 1: angry about that stunt when they got home and poured
Speaker 1: over these these binders and was like, oh, this is nothing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, promises made promises I don't know, vaguely referenced
Speaker 1: to in a stunt and that never referenced again. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet they were angry, and they probably still are,
Speaker 2: but we don't know about it because once Trump stopped
Speaker 2: amplifying the voices of these QAnon people, they just kind
Speaker 2: of disappeared because they were no longer of use to him.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the connections between Trump and Epstein are there
Speaker 2: are like fact based evidence for for less connections. Later
Speaker 2: in the afternoon today, Musk retweeted a video of Trump
Speaker 2: dancing at a party in nineteen ninety two. There was
Speaker 2: hosted by Jeffrey Epstein. The video is a clip from MSNBC,
Speaker 2: and it not only shows Trump dancing having a good time,
Speaker 2: but it also shows him huddling with Epstein whispering a
Speaker 2: joke into his ear or whispering something in his ear.
Speaker 2: I assume it was a joke because Epstein then doubles
Speaker 2: over in laughter, and like, so these two buddies are
Speaker 2: just having a good old time in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: Yuck.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In the ongoing effort to figure out which of
Speaker 2: these lying liars is lying about what seems like there's
Speaker 2: a lot of evidence to think that Elon's claim here,
Speaker 2: maybe there's something to it that you know, we know
Speaker 2: that Trump and Epstein were they at least attended a
Speaker 2: party together and had a nice time together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just don't think that Elon Musk saying I
Speaker 1: was willing to overlook what I knew about you potentially
Speaker 1: being a child sex criminal because a business arrangement that
Speaker 1: we had together was working out for me. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the flex he thinks it is and not producting.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has also been accused of sexual misconduct and
Speaker 1: sexual abuse. So they're all liars. They're all creeps. They
Speaker 1: all have allegations. Like when I saw this, truly, I
Speaker 1: was like, it's not this, but this is what I
Speaker 1: was thinking. Like you were on Epstein's Island. I saw
Speaker 1: you there. I was like, Oh, what were you doing there?
Speaker 1: Like that? Like that's the vibe I kind of got.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe they were there together. Who knows these guys.
Speaker 3: More after a quick break, let's get right back into.
Speaker 4: It working every day on the.
Speaker 1: Son. Elon further escalates by posting Trump's own tweets from
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen in which Trump categorically rejects the idea of
Speaker 1: raising the debt ceiling and condemns any Republicans or voting
Speaker 1: for it. This is kind of ironic because today Trump
Speaker 1: is saying the exact opposite and demanding that Republicans do
Speaker 1: raise the debt ceiling, which is very convenient. So Musk
Speaker 1: is resurfacing these posts that Trump once made and said,
Speaker 1: where is the man who wrote these words? Was he
Speaker 1: replaced by a body double? Again? I feel like, where
Speaker 1: is the man who wrote these words? That is a
Speaker 1: text that I have written during a breakup, Like you
Speaker 1: said you loved me.
Speaker 2: It's so dramatic. It is like, yeah, it's like Shakespearean.
Speaker 2: Where is the man who wrote these words? When'sforth has
Speaker 2: he gone?
Speaker 1: I know this is some light Mary J. Blige, Like
Speaker 1: if you ever listened to the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack,
Speaker 1: this is some like I was your lover and your secretary,
Speaker 1: working every day of the week, like just some jilted lover,
Speaker 1: just some good jilted lover words. So Musk then endorses
Speaker 1: the idea of Trump being impeached and replaced by Vice
Speaker 1: President JD. Dance, which to makes complete sense to me
Speaker 1: because the Dance was sort of always the tech billionaire
Speaker 1: in Guy Plant. Trump then hits back on truth social
Speaker 1: writing Elon was wearing thin. I asked him to leave.
Speaker 1: I took away his EV mandate that forced everybody to
Speaker 1: buy electric cars that nobody wanted, that he knew for
Speaker 1: months I was going to do, and he just went
Speaker 1: crazy again. I'm taken back to being like she knew
Speaker 1: I was going to beach week with my friends and
Speaker 1: that I didn't have my phone charger with me. I
Speaker 1: don't know why she's acting crazy and telling all of
Speaker 1: her friends that she didn't know after the fact, but
Speaker 1: I know that she did because I texted her like
Speaker 1: it it's really a lot. So I will say the
Speaker 1: idea that Elon was sort of wearing out his welcome
Speaker 1: in the White House. There has been a ton of
Speaker 1: reporting to support this. Did you read that kind of
Speaker 1: bombshell New York Times piece on Musk's drug use while
Speaker 1: in the administration?
Speaker 2: I did, and it was like so perfectly timed with
Speaker 2: his exit from the White House. It was like the
Speaker 2: I think it was the day after he left the
Speaker 2: White House and both just like I don't know. It
Speaker 2: was just such a hit piece. I also believe a
Speaker 2: lot of it is probably true, and so again just
Speaker 2: so messy, like it's it seems like deliberate smear campaign
Speaker 2: but using true facts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I will say the authors of that New
Speaker 1: York Times piece have been writing about Musk's drug use
Speaker 1: for a while, but I think that maybe people are
Speaker 1: giving more information about it from within the White House
Speaker 1: because it's like, oh God, we can't stand this guy.
Speaker 1: There was also lots of pieces about how cabinet members
Speaker 1: were reportedly getting really tired of Musk, especially his attempts
Speaker 1: to be funny and his deep seated belief that he
Speaker 1: is smarter than everybody else. A senior official told a reporter,
Speaker 1: I have been in the same room with Elon and
Speaker 1: he always tries to be funny, and he's not funny
Speaker 1: like at all. He makes these jokes and little asides
Speaker 1: and smiles, and it almost looks hurt if you don't
Speaker 1: lap up his humor. I keep using the word annoying.
Speaker 1: A lot of people who have to deal with him do,
Speaker 1: but the word doesn't do the situation justice. Evon just
Speaker 1: thinks he's smarter than everyone else in the room and
Speaker 1: acts like it, even when it's clear he doesn't know
Speaker 1: what he's talking about. The official then described Musk as
Speaker 1: the most irritating person they have ever dealt with, saying
Speaker 1: talking to the guy is sometimes like listening to really
Speaker 1: rusty nails on a chalkboard. He is the most irritating
Speaker 1: person I've ever had to deal with, and that is
Speaker 1: saying something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the people giving these quotes are political operatives
Speaker 2: in the Trump White House. I bet they deal with
Speaker 2: some highly irritating people.
Speaker 1: The piece ends with this line, Musk has not at
Speaker 1: the patience of an array of high ranking administration officials
Speaker 1: to the point that, according to this official and to
Speaker 1: others Trump lieutenants have walked out of meetings and earnestly
Speaker 1: asked one another if they thought Musk was high, said so.
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon actually told a New York Times reporter that
Speaker 1: he advised Trump to investigate Musk's drug use in the
Speaker 1: White House and also maybe deport him. There has been
Speaker 1: no love lost between these two since the beginning of
Speaker 1: the administration. Bannon has been a frequent critic of Musk,
Speaker 1: accusing him of self dealing, failing to find all of
Speaker 1: this so called fraud he made big promises about, and also,
Speaker 1: according to Bannon, being an illegal immigrant. Bannon's really nativist
Speaker 1: ideology has always been this like noxious foundation of Trump's
Speaker 1: most hardcore supporters, while Musk appealed to a totally different
Speaker 1: set of like racist shitheads. So you really kind of
Speaker 1: have these two coming to a head now. That thought
Speaker 1: line in the Maga universe between Musk and Bannon and
Speaker 1: their particular strains of like toxic racist ideology has cleaved
Speaker 1: all the way through and the grand prolition has been sundered.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the big picture and what this
Speaker 1: all means, especially given Trump's threat to cancel all of
Speaker 1: Elon's company's federal contracts. So Eric Berger of Ours Technica
Speaker 1: really shed some light onto what this would actually mean.
Speaker 1: He wrote on Twitter, this would both end the International
Speaker 1: Space Station and simultaneously provide no way to safely deorbit it.
Speaker 1: Musk then retweeted this saying, go ahead, make my day.
Speaker 1: And this really gets at the heart of why I
Speaker 1: think this is an important thing for us to talk about,
Speaker 1: not just all the over the top emotional late night
Speaker 1: crash out tweets, But this, I think is really the
Speaker 1: heart of it, and that is the fact that Elon
Speaker 1: Musk a private person who is messy, chaotic. When they're
Speaker 1: doing profiles of him, they like to use the word mercurial,
Speaker 1: which I think is maybe just like polite white guy
Speaker 1: way to say, like, oh, this person uses a lot
Speaker 1: of drugs and like does things when he's under the
Speaker 1: influence of them. But we have allowed this one chaotic
Speaker 1: person to take over so much of our public infrastructure
Speaker 1: to the point that we find ourselves in this situation
Speaker 1: where in this crash out with Trump, he could personally
Speaker 1: end at the International Space Station and leave it with
Speaker 1: no way for us to get it back from space.
Speaker 1: So it is not just SpaceX. Starlink, for one, is
Speaker 1: widely used by the military and the militaries of our allies.
Speaker 1: Remember that Ukraine was deeply reliant on Starlink run by
Speaker 1: Elon Musk during the first few months of Russian's invasion,
Speaker 1: and Musk even briefly turned off their access to starlink
Speaker 1: over a payment dispute, which caused deaths and tactical losses
Speaker 1: on the battlefield. He's also involved in things like energy research,
Speaker 1: defense research, space, hello, communications AI, transportation, infrastructure. This is
Speaker 1: not really like my personal area of expertise, so I'm
Speaker 1: not going to exhaustively list all of the many deep
Speaker 1: ways in which Musk's companies are like deeply entangled with
Speaker 1: the federal government. But trust me when I say they
Speaker 1: are deeply entangled with the federal government. So when we
Speaker 1: talk about Musk's role in government, the biggest issue is
Speaker 1: that the government, not just Trump like this was happening
Speaker 1: under Biden too, the government has allowed this one chaotic,
Speaker 1: messy private person to essentially, in my opinion, become more
Speaker 1: powerful than the government itself because Musk's companies provide too
Speaker 1: much essential infrastructure that really should be coming from the government,
Speaker 1: not from him and not from any private individual or person.
Speaker 1: Governments are really at his mercy. There was this really
Speaker 1: really well done Rodan Pharaoh long read in The New
Speaker 1: Yorker a couple of years ago about this we'll link
Speaker 1: to in the show notes. But he really out the
Speaker 1: scope of this, the scale of this, and what is
Speaker 1: at stake from the moods of this one mercurial person
Speaker 1: who has a documented history of unpredictable chaotic behavior. It
Speaker 1: describes the many ways that Musk has not only accumulated power,
Speaker 1: but done so in a way that makes them literally
Speaker 1: irreplaceable because no one, not even the United States government,
Speaker 1: is currently capable of providing the services that he provides.
Speaker 1: The government just becomes reliant on him, as this private
Speaker 1: person to provide all of these services. But this phenomena
Speaker 1: is not unique to just Musk, Like look at how
Speaker 1: in some parts of the world at the Global South,
Speaker 1: Facebook and WhatsApp basically are the Internet, right, and so
Speaker 1: the entire population of a country should not be forced
Speaker 1: to rely on the whims of one private dipshit for
Speaker 1: their entire Internet infrastructure. So Elon Musk is really the
Speaker 1: worst case scenario of what happens when countries rely so
Speaker 1: much on one person privately for infrastructure that really should
Speaker 1: be public. He is like one massively inflamed, throbbing symptom
Speaker 1: of a much larger and deeper problem.
Speaker 2: This is the natural result. This is what they wanted,
Speaker 2: like one uber, wealthy, rich guy who is yeah, like
Speaker 2: you said, almost like a peer to the government itself
Speaker 2: in terms of power. This is these things that he
Speaker 2: does of providing internet to the military, providing critical infrastructure,
Speaker 2: these are things that the government should do. These shouldn't
Speaker 2: be at the whims of one mercurial dipshit. You're absolutely right,
Speaker 2: he elon Musk is the result of the past forty
Speaker 2: years of government policy of just addocating its responsibilities to
Speaker 2: the private market. And and here we are, and so
Speaker 2: it's bad.
Speaker 1: It's bad. And even though it is the girls are fighting,
Speaker 1: Trump and Musk are fighting, it is us for whom
Speaker 1: this will be bad for like it is us, the
Speaker 1: regular citizens who are caught in the crosshairs of this.
Speaker 1: And it is us who will pay the price. And
Speaker 1: don't forget that all of this is happening against the
Speaker 1: backdrop of the setup potentially passing this bill, which would
Speaker 1: gut reproductive healthcare, would kick millions off of Medicaid, would
Speaker 1: prevent states from making laws that curtail AI for ten years,
Speaker 1: would extend deep tax cuts for the wealthy, and certainly
Speaker 1: do a bunch of other awful things they don't even
Speaker 1: know half of because the House passed it in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night without even bothering to read it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's bad. I think that we should be
Speaker 1: talking about this feud, but not talking about it in
Speaker 1: a way that obscures the fact that there are very
Speaker 1: real stakes for all of us and we are in
Speaker 1: the crossairs. But whatever happens when the dust has all
Speaker 1: set up from Elon's tweets and Trump's rants, I hope
Speaker 1: we can all remember the wise words of Bravos Andy Cohen,
Speaker 1: who tweeted, let me host the reunion. Andy, your messyth
Speaker 1: has got the job if it's up to me. If
Speaker 1: you're looking for ways to support the show, check out
Speaker 1: our merch store at tangodi dot com slash store. Got
Speaker 1: a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just
Speaker 1: want to say hi, You can reach us at Hello
Speaker 1: at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for
Speaker 1: today's episode at Tengody dot com There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet was created by me Bridget Toad. It's
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by Joey
Speaker 1: pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is
Speaker 1: our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our contributing producer.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Bridget Toad. If you want to help
Speaker 1: us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: MHM