WEBVTT - How the State Created Elon Musk 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.960 Cal Zone Media. 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:07.360 Welcome, Dick. It app to hear a podcast about things 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:09.280 falling apart and how to put them back together again. 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.160 I am your host Mia Wong. With me is James Stout. 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:14.640 Hi may happy to be here again? 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.400 Yeah, I am. I don't know. I have mixed emotions 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:23.400 about this one. So today we are talking about how 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.080 the American state, particularly the sort of neoliberal American state 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.440 of the last about fifty years, created Elon Musk and 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.960 how it is destroying itself. And we'll start with the 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:35.600 fun part of this, which is that Tesla stock is 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.760 down twenty five percent in the last month. Yay, it's 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.720 extremely funny. The protests are working. People are like lighting 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:43.800 them on cars on fire literally all over the world, 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.080 Like there was just a big ration in France the 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.600 day we're recording this. The pressure is working. He's having 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:51.920 a bad time. Twenty five percent is just the start 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:53.760 we can get the other seventy five percent. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.200 Yeah, I mean, And like for people who I guess 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.319 don't know, the value of Tesla stock is directly tied 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.800 to Elon Musk's net worth, Like obviously he's diversified, he 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.120 doesn't have all of his wealth and netstocks but like 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.759 when Tesla Stock goes down, Elon Musk gets poorer. 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:13.080 Yep, it's great, it's great love. We love making Elon 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:13.720 Musk poorer. 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.200 Yeah, it's the one line we like to see. 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:18.600 However, Comma, So we've talked a lot on this show 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:20.720 about the things that Elon Musk is doing to the 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.720 American state and about all of the people who he 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:25.920 is harming in the lives is showing the people who 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.920 are dead because of his actions, and I think it's 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:33.000 worth actually getting into how he was produced and how 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.600 it came to be that. You know, at the beginning 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.640 of the Communist Manifesto, Marx famously wrote that the bourgeoisie 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:40.960 produced their own grave diggers. Yep. And you know, his 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.320 his promised like inevitable victory of the proletariat has thus 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:49.240 far failed to materialize. But neoliberalism and like this specific 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.240 state seems to have produced their own gravediggers, partially in 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.440 the form of Trump, but partially in the form of 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.840 Elon Musk. And it's worth actually going into the story 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.920 of how specifically this happened. And also I think what 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.360 neoliberalism is, because this is an important aspect of I 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.440 think people are kind of aware of the broad outlines 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.840 of the story of the extent to which you know, 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.640 Tesla and space Ax were built by American subsidies, but 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:21.120 it's worth going into some of the more structural elements 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.359 of how this happened. Why So, one of the problems 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.320 that we have here, and I say we have here 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.799 because this is a problem that Elon Musk has, which 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.640 is that he simply does not understand what neoliberalism is 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:34.720 or how it operates. 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:36.480 Yeah, I mean, he says a lot of things he 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:37.520 doesn't understand. 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.040 Via Yeah, and unfortunately he has inherited like the greatest 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.960 of all neoliberal states. So the issue here is that 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.120 Elon Musk thinks that what his own ideology is supposed 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.079 to be, what neoliberalism is, what is sort of weird libertarianism, 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.560 whatever you call his sort of ideology, you know, is 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.239 supposed to be and you know, like he is just 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.839 sort of a fascist. But on the other hand, he's 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.040 a product of this wing of that movement that was 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.520 created out of out of the neoliberal thing about like ah, 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:06.320 you must like decrease the size of the state. You 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:08.600 gotta you gotta eliminate all regulations, you have to you know, 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:10.720 you keep decreasing the size of the state, keep fire 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.480 like you know, fire all government employees, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:15.760 and again this is I think largely what a lot 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.760 of people think neoliberalism is, right. They think it's like, okay, 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.080 neoliberalisms where the state gets smaller, And this has always 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.160 been a fucking joke. Like to the entiretyoliberal period, the 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.440 size of the state bureaucracy keeps increasing, and this has 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.800 always allowed a kind of like controlled capitalist opposition to 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.600 emerge to you know, when two thousand and eight happens, right, Yeah, 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.000 the economy, entire economy collapses, and then out of the 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.400 woodwork come all of these like rand pall sort of 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:40.560 like quote unquote libertarians who have a lot of sudden 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:42.800 interesting ties to a bunch of fascist groups and like 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.160 all of these all of these sort of fascist perilitaries. 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:47.720 But you know, they can come out of the woodwork 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.320 and say, oh, the reason that the two thousand and 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.520 eight collapse happened was because there is too much government regulation. 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:54.120 And this is like sort of what bitcoin is, right, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.760 It's like, ah, the evils of capitalism are happening because like. 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:58.000 Not enough capitalism. 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.200 Yeah, well, it's because like the but like bifically, the 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:02.480 evil and s trench interests have taken over the state 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:04.480 and you don't have the power to access the things 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:06.800 that they do, which is obviously you know, like it 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.080 is obviously true that these people have control of the 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.280 state and you don't. But this sort of controlled opposition 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:14.240 of if you put us in power, will eliminate parts 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.080 of the state, will get rid of all this regulation 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.520 that you can suddenly be in power. This has always 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.800 been a controlled opposition thing, you know. And this is 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.200 disappears in the form sort of libertarianism or like on 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.120 the most extreme mention arco capitalism. Yeah, and this is 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.960 something that the Montpellier society, which is like the people 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:33.360 who basically invented neoliberalism and where all like their academics 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.200 come from they slill of conferences, they've always had a 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:37.760 problem with this, where there's always been a branch of 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:39.680 an arcro capitalist there who think the only thing that 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.760 the state should do is enforced contracts or just that 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:47.880 it shouldn't exist. Everything should just yeah, and the neoliberals 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.359 are like, okay, that you guys are fucking ridiculous. And 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:52.480 the reason they think this is that the actual thing 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.240 that these people believe. And this is this is something 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.479 that if you read more Hiak than just like the 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:58.160 road to serve him, right, that's like the stuff for 0:04:58.160 --> 0:04:59.840 public consumption. If you read the stuff that you actual 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:02.560 pub consumption, if you read sort of like rope Key, 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.880 and you read all of the sort of theorists who 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.279 develop what becomes the IMF, and you know, you go 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:13.120 through all the different schools what they actually believe. Contrary 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.360 the things that they say were like, oh, markets naturally 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.200 emerge and the state just like exists to control them. 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.039 What they believe is that you have to use the 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.600 state specifically to create markets, and you have to use 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.960 the state to discipline workers through just pure violence until 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.240 they become sort of like good neo liberal market subjects. 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:31.960 You go to work, go home, buy things, and do 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.920 nothing else. And the product of this is the nineteen eighties, right, 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.599 is the replacement of the welfare state, you know, which 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.039 is the sort of carrots of this system with just 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.800 the pure stake of the police, baton and the prison system. 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.039 Yeah, it's the end of like the post Second World 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:51.000 War welfare state order, right, that we saw certainly in 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.279 the US. But mostly in New Europe. 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.400 Right, yeah, yeah, but and this is very important. This 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.400 never actually decreased the size of the state, because what 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:02.200 the state, you know, what it was was. It was 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.040 a shifting of sort of recourses and allocation away from 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:10.039 like the state giving you things towards the states, you know, 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:11.800 like beating you over the head with a hammer, and 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.760 also insofar as it gives you things, making you go 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.960 through all of these unbelievable bureaucratic hurdles to access whatever 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.800 sort of like scant welfare policies still exist. 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.400 Yeah, the states surveying you both for violence reasons and 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:26.839 for withdrawing your benefits reasons. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.480 Yeah, and this and this is always something that all 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:35.040 of these people have supported. Right now. The other important 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.159 part for our purposes is is the thing I said 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.680 earlier about the state creating markets, And that's that's kind 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:43.240 of like an abstract thing, right. There are sort of 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:45.720 historical examples you can go through to look at what 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.080 this looks like in a place where there aren't markets. 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.960 But this is something that's very important because a huge 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.560 amount of what TESLA is is a direct result of 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:56.640 you know, pure neoliberalism and action, which is the state 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:58.880 stepping into create a market as its way of doing 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.960 regulation and with the way interact with the world. And 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.239 so here we need to get to carbon credits. Now 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.760 selling off carbon credits, they're also called regulatory credits. In 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.840 twenty twenty four the selling of carbon credits was forty 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:18.200 three percent of Tesla's net income. Forty three percent. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:20.680 Yeah, so we should explain what a carbon credit is 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:21.679 if people I'm familiar. 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.960 Yeah, Actuos has numbers on this. Their numbers are that 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.120 since twenty fourteen, thirty four percent of the total profits 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.240 of Tesla are are from selling these carbon credits. So 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.520 the way the system works is that the EPA sets 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.760 standards for how much This is like you know, read 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.679 the acxios thing too, but like the EPA set standards 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.200 for how much like CO two per mile all of 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.560 the cars and trucks combined that a a car company 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:53.440 makes can can admit. And you know, instead of doing 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.160 the thing where you're like, okay, hey, there's just going 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.240 to be like a firm cap on these emissions, they're 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:58.760 like no, no, no, you know this this is when 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:00.280 I say, when I say, they create a mar So 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.920 if what happens if you go over the cap isn't 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.200 that like you know, like people get hauled off to 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.200 jail or whatever. What happens is that you have to 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.720 buy someone else's carbon credits, and if you're below the cap, 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.040 it gives you credits you can sell to other companies. 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.920 So what this allows is because Tesla only makes electric cars, right, 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.960 their cars produced like zero basically like. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.400 They don't have any fossil fuel use at all within 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:23.040 their line. 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.640 Yeah. Yeah, Now obviously like whereas you know, you can 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:27.960 ask the question where is that electricity coming from? But 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.239 you know, like, but that's that's what doesn't get factored 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.040 into it, which is part of the sort of problem 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.439 with trying to use the state like this to solve. 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.480 Right, it doesn't look at life cyclists. Yeah, yeah, it 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.920 just looks at driving the car emissions. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:40.319 You know. This is this is the problem with trying 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.160 to use a regulatory state like this to solve the 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.920 problem with climate change by creating a market. And so 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.880 Tesla makes and again this is this last year, this 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.880 was forty three percent of its NEAT income came not 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.920 from selling cars, but from selling these carbon credits. So 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.480 what they're doing is making it so that other companies 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.199 can produce more cars that are less fuel efficients can 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.840 produce less electric cars and produce less like hybrids. 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.160 It's why you couldn't get a plug in hybrid EV 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.280 pickup truck, like I think they may be plug in 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:15.360 hybrid Mavericks now, but like the reason that no US 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.280 manufacturer bothered to make an electric pickup truck like the 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.040 that form fifty lightning that they have now, it is 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.520 because they could just trade with companies like Tesla instead. 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.920 Yeah, and this is a fucking disaster for climate policy 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.640 because instead of having all of the car companies just 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:34.760 like dramatically lowering their emissions, what you have is one 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:36.760 car company that makes electric cars and then all the 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:38.800 rest of the car companies increasing the amount of like 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.640 SEO tuper like biles, et cetera, et cetera. And the 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.480 secondary problem, and this is the problem that we're experiencing now, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.080 is that, you know, neoliberals have like this very sort 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.960 of in a lot of ways, like romantic notion of 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:52.679 what a market is, right with the explain it. So 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:54.120 it's like, ah, there's all this, there's gonna be all 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:55.960 this like competition in the market. The competition is going 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:57.640 to create the best product and what actually happens, and 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.160 the neoliberals in their private doctor understand this is that 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.920 when the state creates a market like this, what he's 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.679 doing is handing like a person, like a single individual, 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.200 a giant monopoly. And that's what happens. And that monopoly 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:15.200 is one Elon Musk, Yeah, who has now been handed 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.720 the title of the richest man in human history by 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.320 the state's regulatory apparatus. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.080 Because they've given him basically complete control every I mean, 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.679 there are other ev only companies, but they're minute, right, 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.920 Rivan or something like that, And he's got this scarce 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.800 resource that the entire automotive industry now needs. 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:34.880 Yeah. And again this is, you know, going back to 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.800 the market creation part of this. None off this shit existed, right, 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.880 Like carbon caps are not something the market would ever 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:43.720 produce by itself or whatever. 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:43.960 Like. 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.640 This is a direct neilbal intervention into the market, which 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.319 is what neolibilism is, right. It's the nailable state coming 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.760 into create markets, and the product of it is Elon Musk. 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:56.240 Yeah, it's a monopoly. 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:58.360 Yeah. And when we come back from ADS, we'll go 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.520 into a little bit of why specifically it was Elon 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.360 Musk and not all of these other companies that became 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.200 the sort of single guy and how and how else 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:21.080 he's benefited from the state. We are back, so the 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.760 other aspect, you know. So, so we've gone into how 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.920 how how Tesla is built on these on this carbon 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:32.240 credit trading. The other aspect of it is that Tesla 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:38.000 has received unbelievable amounts of money from government contracts. The 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:42.480 Washington Post in probably the last like expose they're ever 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.160 going to do like this now that Bezos has been 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.080 like we are free market capitalists, like tried to go 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.080 through and find all of the money in government contracts 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.400 that they've gotten. They totaled it well, I think I 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:55.880 think they're also including like tax credits and stuff like that. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.240 But they totald it at thirty eight billion dollars. And 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.880 that's just the ones that are unclassified, which is very 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.520 important because a bunch of what SpaceX does SpaceX's you know, 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.560 most other company is a bunch of contracts for classified 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.960 like the deployment of Spice satellites. So it's definitely way 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.559 more than that, right, Yeah, But this comes to the 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.319 other sort of aspect of how Tesla functions and how 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:19.640 tech companies work in general, which is that tech companies, 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:22.760 like in general, do not make money, right. They hemorrhage 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.200 money for basically their entire existence until they can find 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.000 a bunch of government contracts that can make them money. 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.560 And Tesla in particular was like really sort of eating 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.680 shit after two thousand and eight, and you know, WAPA 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.040 talks about this. They got a four hundred and sixty 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.720 five million dollars low interest loan for the Department of 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.240 Energy in twenty ten that basically saved the company from 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:44.160 the brink of collapse. 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.280 Good thing, there's nothing else to spend the money on 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.920 in twenty ten. No one else needed low Interestla into 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:49.719 any think it was. 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.600 Fine, No, no, there was no attempt to build like 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:54.960 a giant American high speed rail system that Elon Musk 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.600 also killed. Yep, you know not, nothing else was happening. 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.560 I wasn't living in my car at that time. It 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.160 was fine. Yeah, thank you Obama. 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:04.320 And so and so. As this goes on, right, the 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.280 goal of you as a tech company, there's two things 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:07.960 you want to do. If you're a smaller tech company, 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:09.920 you're trying to get bought by a bigger tech company 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.240 so you can retire on your pile of money, or 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.120 if you're a larger tech company, you are trying to 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.640 amass enough US contracts, like US government contracts, to like 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.880 get you to sort of stability. And this is what 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:26.240 happens with SpaceX. SpaceX now has gotten eighteen billion dollars 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.560 of contracts with NASA, And this is sort of a 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.960 part of like, I mean, NASA has always used government contractors, 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:36.840 but like this is different, Like this is just straight 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.120 up there using Tesla's rockets to do things. And this 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:42.520 is also part of why like Tesla and Boeing fucking 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:44.000 this up, is part of why a bunch of astronauts 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.199 are fucking stranded on the space station right now because 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.920 these things do not work. But there's there's been an 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.480 enormous amount of money here. And the other thing, you know, 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:54.280 this is one of the other sort of like great 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.960 neoliberal things, is that a lot of the factories that 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.160 Elon Musk sort of builds, you know, the ones that 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.800 are in the US, are there because they get unbelievable 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.800 amounts of tax breaks and tax incentives from from local 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.720 states themselves. All of this brings us to you know, 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.760 one of the other really core aspects of sort of 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.560 the profitability of Tesla in terms of selling in terms 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.400 of selling cars. But we should also mention this is 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:22.960 something Axios talks about that like, if they weren't able 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.320 to sell carbon credits, this company would literally never make money. 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah, this has been the case. I write 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.520 about this, like I think two years ago. 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.080 Yeah, I remember writing about this before Ela Musk had 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.760 gone full fucking evil villain, I guess. But that's what 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.080 they are. They're a carbon credit company that makes cars. 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.840 Yeah, but even their car sales are enormously bolstered by 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:47.160 a seven five hundred dollars tax credit for electric cars. 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.440 Oh yeah, I got some tax credit information on electric cars. 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:51.840 It's now the time. 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:53.800 Yeah yeah. Do you want to talk about the other 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.080 one that's driving these unhinged sales? 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.400 Yes, I do, because I have been driving around San 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:03.040 Diego and I have seen an obscene number of cyber 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:07.360 trucks wrapped in people's business livery, and it occurs to 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:09.520 me that they're not businesses that need a pickup truck, 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.320 nor the people who need a pickup truck for work 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.400 by cyber trucks because they suck at being trucks. 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.480 And so I did some digging, and I discovered that. 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.440 The IRS was a special tax deduction for vehicles which 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.800 are rated over six thousand pounds gross vehicle weight. The 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.120 gross vehicle weight rating, if you're not familiar, that's not 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:29.760 like the mass of the vehicle if you drove it 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:33.520 like off the dealer lot onto a scale. That's the 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.880 maximum operating weight of the vehicles as specified by the manufacturer. 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.720 So like it's your tesla with I mean, they are 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.480 very funny videos of guy cycloading one bag of composts 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:45.360 into the back of the Tesla and being it's a 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.080 great truck for truck stuff. 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:49.560 The other really funny one is when they try to 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:51.200 attach like a winch to it and try to use 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.040 it to pull the pull heavy things in the back 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:55.800 of the truck comes off because it's just like made 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.760 of like it's like glue a unibody. 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:01.600 Yeah, it might not be a body on frame, Like 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:03.480 it might not be a proper truck. I actually don't 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.200 know now how I will look into that afterwards. I 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:08.240 bet it's I bet most of the electric or like 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.920 high minage pickup trucks are not so yeah, not a 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.240 good truck. Actually under it's called section one seventy nine. 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.560 Under Section one seventy nine, a vehicle with a gross 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.680 vehicle weight rating over six thousand pounds, you can deduct 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.600 up to thirty one thousand in the first year rather 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.160 than deducting the depreciation of the capital good over time. Right, 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.880 So instead of instead of deducting the depreciation of your 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.240 vehicle that you purchase your business over time and not 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.040 paying tax on that amount, you cannot pay tax on 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.920 thirty one thousand in the first year of your vehicle 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:43.800 if it's over six thousand pounds. 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:44.080 Right. 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.560 There are some exemptions for luxury vehicles, like if you've 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:49.760 got a may Bark or something really fucking heavy, So 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:51.560 that would even cover the Model X, right, the Tesla 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:55.000 Model X have a GBWR above that. With a truck, 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.000 there are exemptions for work vehicles, and they have to 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.440 have a separate cargo compared apartment that is not the 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.919 driver's compartment, that is six feet or more in length. 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:07.919 So the cyber truck just happened to have a six 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.240 foot bed. Yeah, so you can deduct one hundred percent 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.440 of value in the first year of what I understand 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.000 for these vehicles which have a six foot bed. 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.119 At least this was the case when I was looking. 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:21.640 I became aware of the exact nature of this when 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:23.840 I went on the cyber Truck Owners Club forum and 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.880 looked what a tax deductant people were doing, right, and 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:28.680 then I worked back from there, and it does seem 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.080 that people are doing this. I think it might be changing, 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.600 so you can only deduct a certain percentage. Soon it 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:35.919 will shock listeners to hear that I'm not giving you 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.560 tax advice, nor am I qualified to do so. I'm 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:42.560 not an accountant. This is not accounting advice. On top 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.840 of that, Mia mentioned the IRS Commercial Clean Vehicle credit, right, 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.000 that's a credit, not a deduction. So the deduction would 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.600 discount the amount of your income that you pay tax 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.760 on versus the credit, which is just great credit. So 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.639 potentially the person could deduct the cost of the cyber 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:02.440 truck plus the cost of wrapping the fucking cyber truck, 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.480 right to prove it's a business vehicle, and then if 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:07.760 you're wrapping it. From what I understand, like these deductions 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.760 somewhat depend on the percentage of the vehicle's use that 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.320 is business. I guess this could be like the equivalent 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.119 of a fringes on the flag tax theory people claiming 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.640 that when they're driving their their cyber truck to go 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:25.240 to Whole Foods, but it's wrapped, they're advertising a business, 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.440 so it's a business use. I don't understand how how 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.840 like viable that is as a claim, but well, you know. 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.320 But part of this is, like it's very easy, like 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.359 especially right now when the irs is being gutted, Like 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.960 it's very easy to do this kind of bullshit and 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:41.320 people are not getting all it did. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.399 Yeah, yeah, so they can take a seven five hundred 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.359 commercial vehicle clean vehicle credit in addition to deducting that much. 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:53.720 And like you would struggle to persuade me that that 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:55.560 is not why a lot of people are buying cyber 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:57.760 trucks right, Like it's got the weight rating, it's got 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.959 the bedside. Like it's a lot of people who wouldn't 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.600 necessarily like not all trucks have six footbeds. 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:05.520 Now, I will never buy a new drug because. 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.359 I can't find a truck that has like a decent 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.880