Speaker 1: Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 1: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 1: controlled by one man, starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a legitimate, super genius. Legitimate, he says.
Speaker 3: He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
Speaker 3: be different. He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 4: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 4: on him.
Speaker 3: Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 2: Anything he does is fascinating the people. Welcome to Elon Inc.
Speaker 2: Where we discuss Elon Musk's vast corporate empire, his latest
Speaker 2: gambits and antics, and how to make sense of it all.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Joel Webber, sitting in for David Papa Duplass.
Speaker 2: It's been the talk of the town, so to speak,
Speaker 2: for these last few days. On Saturday night, The Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal dropped his story detailing Elon musk alleged drug
Speaker 2: use over the past few years and discussed how it
Speaker 2: has or hasn't impacted his businesses.
Speaker 5: After a report from The Wall Street Journal claimed legal
Speaker 5: drug use was the cause of some of Elon Musk's
Speaker 5: questionable behavior and executives are concerned about the impact on
Speaker 5: his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.
Speaker 2: Musk has admitted to drug use before, and of course
Speaker 2: smoked weed with Joe Rogan that one time during a
Speaker 2: taping of Rogan's podcast, so this wasn't exactly news, but
Speaker 2: the anecdotes raise important questions like could this impact Musk's
Speaker 2: status as a federal contractor, especially given how much business
Speaker 2: SpaceX does with the US government. And we'll dig into
Speaker 2: another headache for Musk and SpaceX. Last week, the National
Speaker 2: Labor Relations Board issued a complaint over the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two firings of SpaceX employees who were critical of Musk's tweeting.
Speaker 2: SpaceX has since sued the NLRB in an attempt to
Speaker 2: halt the case. To discuss this and more, will convene
Speaker 2: Lauren gret Us, Bloomberg's expert on all things SpaceX.
Speaker 4: Hi, Lauren, Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Dana Hole, the world's most tenacious Tesla reporter. Hi, Dana,
Speaker 2: good morning. And Max Chafkin, senior reporter at Bloomberg Business Week. Hello. Okay, Lauren,
Speaker 2: I'm going to start with you. What did this article
Speaker 2: say and was there anything newsworthy in here? For you.
Speaker 6: I would say the biggest things that stood out to
Speaker 6: me having covered SpaceX and this saga for some time
Speaker 6: was an all hands meeting that occurred in twenty seventeen
Speaker 6: in which some executives were concerned about Elon's behavior. Apparently
Speaker 6: he was slurring, and about fifteen minutes into the all
Speaker 6: hands Gwynn shot well, the president of SpaceX supposedly had
Speaker 6: to step in and take over the all hands meeting,
Speaker 6: and then I think most of the article referred to
Speaker 6: or reference the twenty eighteen Rogan podcast incident, which I
Speaker 6: think a lot of people are familiar with, in which
Speaker 6: Elon Musk, you know, openly smoked something on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Speaker 6: It's thought to be marijuana, And that was a little
Speaker 6: more direct and that we all saw that happen, but
Speaker 6: that one was well documented at the time. There was
Speaker 6: a lot of fallout from that. SpaceX or NASA, you know,
Speaker 6: got concerned. They did an audit of SpaceX and Boeing's
Speaker 6: safety cultures in the wake of that incident.
Speaker 2: Okay, you mentioned what happened on the Rogan podcast. We're
Speaker 2: just going to play that episode so that everybody can
Speaker 2: hear it went down.
Speaker 1: So is that a joint or is it a siga?
Speaker 6: It's no, okay, it's marijuana inside of tobacco.
Speaker 4: Okay, so it's like plot tobacco.
Speaker 2: You never had that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I tried one once.
Speaker 2: Come on, man, you probably can't because stockholders.
Speaker 4: Right, I mean it's legal, right.
Speaker 2: I think we call that a blunt Dana. So, Dana,
Speaker 2: how do you feel like Wall Street journal reporting and
Speaker 2: story compares to the incident that Elon waded through when
Speaker 2: he was on that Rugan podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the timing of this is very interesting to me.
Speaker 3: You know, twenty eighteen, Elon's companies were in a very
Speaker 3: precarious position. SpaceX had not yet flown astronauts to the
Speaker 3: space station. Tesla was struggling to ramp up the Model three,
Speaker 3: and the guy was like exhausted trying to keep both
Speaker 3: businesses afloat. It was like a really precarious time. And
Speaker 3: then the Joe Rogan thing was just like the stupidest
Speaker 3: thing he could have done. Five years later, he's like
Speaker 3: the richest man in the world. Both companies are doing great.
Speaker 3: SpaceX is the dominant launch provider, Tesla is like the
Speaker 3: best selling ev maker in the world. Next to BYD.
Speaker 3: From where I sit, like Musk amplifying anti Semitism had
Speaker 3: a far more severe market impact in terms of like
Speaker 3: stockholders being upset, pension funds writing letters, the stock actually moving. Then,
Speaker 3: Like this story about drug use, and I mean, I
Speaker 3: hate to be to break it to like the school
Speaker 3: arms and the audience, but a lot of people in
Speaker 3: tech and finance do drugs like a lot. It is
Speaker 3: a thing like and it's and I'm not trying to
Speaker 3: excuse the behavior, but you know, like Steve Jobs openly
Speaker 3: talked about how doing LSD like helps him become this
Speaker 3: creative genius. And I think that for Musk's fans, the
Speaker 3: fact that he is running all these companies while potentially
Speaker 3: being on drugs is like another sign of how he's
Speaker 3: this like incredible genius and blah blah blah, and it
Speaker 3: just sort of feeds into his aura.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's you know, things that he've used before
Speaker 2: that had been known the ambience, the cannabis, but max LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, ketamine,
Speaker 2: some of which are you know, keine in particular, he
Speaker 2: seems to have a prescription to help him do his
Speaker 2: thing with but aren't those isn't that a different nature
Speaker 2: of drug use when we were going into some illegal
Speaker 2: territory there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think kind of what Dan is getting at, like,
Speaker 1: none of this is outside of the norm in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: And if the Texas as described by the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: which is a handful of isolated incidents, a Rogan he
Speaker 1: smoked a doobie on the Rogan podcast, he like takes
Speaker 1: some ketamine. There was a party at Art Basel, It
Speaker 1: isn't that much. And I think they're really like two
Speaker 1: possibilities here. One is Elon Musk is doing a lot
Speaker 1: of weird stuff online and we talk about it all
Speaker 1: the time, and some of this stuff is damaging, and
Speaker 1: one way to talk about that if you are a
Speaker 1: Tesla board member, a SpaceX board member, or a critic,
Speaker 1: is to blame something like drug use. The other possibility
Speaker 1: is maybe there's more to this story that was unreported,
Speaker 1: and like that's kind of what Dana is hinting at. Like,
Speaker 1: I guess that's the other possibility, but as it exists now,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't seem all that damning.
Speaker 2: I'm going to bring up his response, which he posted
Speaker 2: on X on Monday, whatever I'm doing, I should obviously
Speaker 2: keep doing it. And then he responded to himself a
Speaker 2: little bit later or actually just another user, and said,
Speaker 2: if drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time,
Speaker 2: I would definitely take them. So let's see, he is
Speaker 2: a drug user and is using them a lot. How
Speaker 2: does this go over with his people? I mean, the
Speaker 2: way you read that's funny.
Speaker 1: It sounds like he said as he took a long
Speaker 1: drag from a healthy joint.
Speaker 2: It's hard to say.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think he's we should also proviso like
Speaker 1: it is not good to violate federal contracting rules if
Speaker 1: you are a federal contractor. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to see the US government taking any
Speaker 1: kind of serious corrective action because, of course, as we've
Speaker 1: talked about many times, they need SpaceX and and people
Speaker 1: are not necessarily calling into question rockets. And also, newsflash,
Speaker 1: not a huge surprise that Elon Musk is not respecting laws, norms,
Speaker 1: or regulations.
Speaker 2: Dan, do you think there's any version of key man
Speaker 2: risk here? Key man risk being a term that we
Speaker 2: talk about in corporations a lot around corporations, right, if
Speaker 2: if there is a CEO who can no longer or
Speaker 2: do his job or her job, perhaps the company that
Speaker 2: puts the company at risk. Do you think that there's
Speaker 2: any version of this that key man risk plays out
Speaker 2: over this scenario.
Speaker 3: Well, so you know Tesla and their regulatory filings always
Speaker 3: talk about key man risk. I mean they always say
Speaker 3: we are highly dependent on the services of Elon Musk,
Speaker 3: who was not our full time CEO and runs several
Speaker 3: other companies. And so yeah, I will like roll over
Speaker 3: if like the next you know ten if the ten
Speaker 3: K says and like our CEO is a drug addict
Speaker 3: and there's a key man risk that he might go
Speaker 3: to rehab and we'd be without like a CEO. I
Speaker 3: mean that would be amazing. Elon is just not a
Speaker 3: typical CEO, And I think that the trap that a
Speaker 3: lot of journalists frankly fall into is like we're trying
Speaker 3: to like establish these norms for him when he has
Speaker 3: broken all the norms and been wildly successful at it,
Speaker 3: and investors care about one thing and that is the
Speaker 3: return on their money. Like since he smoked pot on
Speaker 3: the Joe Rogan Show, which we all know was like
Speaker 3: a big deal, that really like hurt his reputation hurt
Speaker 3: his standing with NASA caused this big fear, Like the
Speaker 3: stock has returned I didn't even check. I don't know,
Speaker 3: like what like twelve hundred percent. I mean so like
Speaker 3: fundamentally his the investors are like they are used to
Speaker 3: him being a weird guy.
Speaker 1: I love that Dana is a four twenty friendly money manager.
Speaker 2: Over here saying.
Speaker 1: Ever since he started smoking weed, is the performance has improved?
Speaker 3: You know, that's not to say that the I mean, clearly,
Speaker 3: it seems like the board has concerns. So you know,
Speaker 3: I would love to know more about, like what exactly
Speaker 3: were the concerns. But I mean, obviously I'm not trying
Speaker 3: to be like, do drugs. Drugs are great, But I'm
Speaker 3: just saying that, like a lot of people in power
Speaker 3: use drugs, and a lot of people in power also
Speaker 3: use alcoholic as though.
Speaker 1: If the financial performance turns around, then the story changes completely.
Speaker 1: And Danna Strander wrote a story about this the other
Speaker 1: day and made the point that like this is going
Speaker 1: to wind up in shareholder lawsuits and Andy by going
Speaker 1: around talking about how fun it is to mix red
Speaker 1: wine and ambient, you're essentially giving ammunition to critics. If
Speaker 1: the stock ever takes a dive. Right now, We've got
Speaker 1: a great Now, anyone who wants to explain why companies
Speaker 1: aren't performing well, if they stop performing well, has a
Speaker 1: great story to tell.
Speaker 3: I mean, you'd have to really prove that it was
Speaker 3: because of the drug use. You'd have to like prove that,
Speaker 3: like he made a critical decision that was bad for
Speaker 3: the company because he was on drugs at the time.
Speaker 2: Laurena, I want to bring it back to you because
Speaker 2: if there were one company that seemed like it might
Speaker 2: have to deal with this a little bit more than
Speaker 2: anybody else, it would probably be SpaceX because of the
Speaker 2: federal contracts the company has. And one thing that's different
Speaker 2: now than in the broken episode was that, as I
Speaker 2: think Dani alluded to earlier, this is how the US
Speaker 2: gets astronauts to the International Space Station. So what might
Speaker 2: happen and unfold at SpaceX or between SpaceX and you know,
Speaker 2: any sort of drug testing that might have to go down.
Speaker 6: Well, I think you kind of pointed out there's two
Speaker 6: key things that I want to bring attention to, and
Speaker 6: why it's different now and why I think the response
Speaker 6: will be different. Back in twenty eighteen, SpaceX hadn't launched people.
Speaker 4: Yet, so there was still concern about whether.
Speaker 6: Or not this was a good idea using commercial companies
Speaker 6: to actually launch astronauts in the International Space Station. And
Speaker 6: so when he took that drag, you know, they were thinking, Okay,
Speaker 6: maybe we do one last gut check in terms of
Speaker 6: this space the safety culture at these companies, and so
Speaker 6: that was really what prompted it. Now SpaceX has proven
Speaker 6: that it can safely deliver astronauts to and from the
Speaker 6: International Space Station on a routine basis, so giving up
Speaker 6: that capability is going to be extremely difficult.
Speaker 4: The other thing that I think is different is.
Speaker 6: That we saw him take the hit on the Joe
Speaker 6: Rogan podcast, like we had direct evidence that he did that,
Speaker 6: Whereas with this Wall Street Journal story, they're referencing that
Speaker 6: twenty seventeen all hands meeting and they even said in
Speaker 6: the story it could.
Speaker 4: Not be determined if the reason for his slurring was.
Speaker 6: Drugs, And SpaceX did post what appears to be the
Speaker 6: all hands that was referenced in the Wall Street Journal article.
Speaker 6: And having covered Elon for a long time, I watched
Speaker 6: that video and it seemed pretty standard awkward public speaking
Speaker 6: Elon to me, But I you know, I can't determine
Speaker 6: what was going on before he took the stage in
Speaker 6: that video.
Speaker 4: But point being, I don't think we have a direct.
Speaker 6: Piece of evidence as we did with the Joe Rogan
Speaker 6: podcast to prompt another substantial audit like NASA did back
Speaker 6: in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Is it clear if Elon has ever taken a drug
Speaker 2: test and or passed or failed a drug test? Max
Speaker 2: they've said he has.
Speaker 1: I think our assumption is that he has and he's passed.
Speaker 1: If I'm wrong, please correct me.
Speaker 2: Jenna.
Speaker 3: He tweeted that he has right. He tweeted that he
Speaker 3: like was tested randomly tweeted or x X I'm sorry
Speaker 3: X that he's okay, okay, randomly drug tested at SpaceX
Speaker 3: for three years and always passed with flying colors. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know how. I don't know when
Speaker 3: the most recent test was. I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now we're going to focus on SpaceX and some
Speaker 2: dueling stories that involve the National Labor Relations Board. The
Speaker 2: NLRB issued a complaint about SpaceX and a labor situation there,
Speaker 2: and is scheduled to hear that case in March. SpaceX
Speaker 2: has since sued the NLRB, saying the agency is unconstitutional
Speaker 2: and the suit should be dismissed. All of this relates
Speaker 2: to a story that Lauren Grush broke for The Verge
Speaker 2: before she joined Bloomberg. So Lauren, we're going to start
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So that was a very intense week back in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty two. Basically I was going home for the day,
Speaker 6: which is when you get your best tips, you know,
Speaker 6: and someone leaked to me that there was an internal
Speaker 6: letter going around within SpaceX and it was a letter
Speaker 6: posted to their Microsoft Teams channels, and that it was
Speaker 6: pretty critical of Elon and they were saying, you know,
Speaker 6: I think the line that I kept pulling for stories
Speaker 6: was that he was a frequent source of embarrassment for
Speaker 6: the company and that they were calling on SpaceX to
Speaker 6: distance itself from his public comments that they should be
Speaker 6: better about sexual harassment.
Speaker 2: How did the company respond.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So it was the letter was up for about
Speaker 6: a day and a half before they pulled it down
Speaker 6: from the team's channels. And then after we published our report,
Speaker 6: I started to hear that a bunch of the people
Speaker 6: associated with the letter were getting fired. And then Gwynn
Speaker 6: Shotwell sent out an email to the company. Really really
Speaker 6: cule your email, in my opinion, because it was basically
Speaker 6: saying that these rogue employees. I don't remember the exact text,
Speaker 6: but it was like these rogue employees were distracting all
Speaker 6: of their coworkers and harassing them by telling them to
Speaker 6: sign on to this this letter. You know, it is
Speaker 6: a really very aggressive email painting a negative picture of
Speaker 6: the employees.
Speaker 4: And so it was a saga that ended.
Speaker 6: Very quickly because they swiftly fired the employees.
Speaker 4: And then after that we I spoke with some.
Speaker 6: Of the employees who were involved and they told me,
Speaker 6: you know, how many people actually signed on to the
Speaker 6: letter before it was taken down. It was hundreds of employees.
Speaker 6: But then yeah, after they were fired, they were discussing,
Speaker 6: you know, whether that was actually a lawful move for
Speaker 6: them to be terminated because they were simply expressing concerns
Speaker 6: about their workplace conditions.
Speaker 2: And shotwell, chief operating officer for SpaceX, what is the
Speaker 2: most recent news then that's come out, because that was
Speaker 2: everything that went down. There was twenty twenty two. So
Speaker 2: here we are now twenty twenty four. National Labor Relations
Speaker 2: Board files this complaint which is technically its first move.
Speaker 2: What does that complaint say and how has SpaceX responded?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so essentially it confirms what the employees were thinking
Speaker 6: is that they were illegally fired for voicing concerns about
Speaker 6: their workplace conditions. And given the fact that Elon Musk
Speaker 6: is the CEO of the company, you know, what he
Speaker 6: says and does can be considered, you know, affecting people's
Speaker 6: workplace and how they performed that job. And then not
Speaker 6: very long after the complaint was issued, SpaceX sued the
Speaker 6: And this is the part where it gets a little wonky,
Speaker 6: but essentially they were saying that the way that the
Speaker 6: NLRB is structured is unconstitutional, and so they're trying to
Speaker 6: basically get out of it. But what was really interesting
Speaker 6: about that lawsuit is SpaceX alleges that, you know, the
Speaker 6: letter was a source of distraction for SpaceX employees, and
Speaker 6: that the employees who were fired were fired for violating
Speaker 6: various company policies. They didn't go into detail about it,
Speaker 6: but that's that is their defense. That's the biggest defense
Speaker 6: I've seen from SpaceX since this whole thing went down.
Speaker 2: Louren, as best as you can tell, what's the vibe
Speaker 2: within SpaceX right now.
Speaker 6: I think the vibe, to be honest, is that everybody's
Speaker 6: kind of putting their heads down and working. You know,
Speaker 6: this was probably the first time I had seen employees
Speaker 6: within the company openly speaking about Elon, and it sadly
Speaker 6: confirmed a lot of their fears, which is that if
Speaker 6: you do that, you'll get fired. And so I think
Speaker 6: the vibe within the company is that they're just.
Speaker 4: Not going to do that anymore.
Speaker 6: You know, if they do, I will be surprised, will
Speaker 6: happily report on it. But yeah, I think it confirmed
Speaker 6: most people's suspicions that, you know, you can't speak up
Speaker 6: against the boss, You'll you'll be in trouble.
Speaker 3: The reaction is also just sort of classic in that
Speaker 3: now SpaceX is suing the NLRB basically saying that what
Speaker 3: they're doing is like unconstitutional overreach and really going like
Speaker 3: guns blazing at the agency itself, which is, you know,
Speaker 3: another another sort of tactic that Elon has never shied
Speaker 3: away from using. He thinks that regulation is run amok
Speaker 3: and there's too many rules, and they're going to really
Speaker 3: go all out after this agency.
Speaker 1: And I gotta say, I do think talking about these
Speaker 1: two stories kind of in tanem is instructive. You mean
Speaker 1: the drug use plus this one hundred percent, yeah, Because
Speaker 1: on one hand, you know, there's this kind of like divide
Speaker 1: where where there's like the weird stuff Elon tweets and
Speaker 1: the stuff weird stuff, he says, and then the stuff
Speaker 1: he actually does. And I really think we spend probably
Speaker 1: and not just us, but investors and everybody spend probably
Speaker 1: too much time talking about this, says versus the and
Speaker 1: he you know, here we have some like legitimately bad behavior, right,
Speaker 1: we have credible allegations of sexual harassment. There was also
Speaker 1: an earlier allegation made by some SpaceX interns of sexual
Speaker 1: harassment at the company. Yes, and the response yeah, and
Speaker 1: the response was, you know, basically to shut it down
Speaker 1: to dictatorial. It's it's basically the opposite of what Elon
Speaker 1: Musk says. He is, you know, you had you had
Speaker 1: employees who seem to be and maybe I'm maybe I'm
Speaker 1: putting too much on them, but and Lauren can correct me,
Speaker 1: but seem to be raising number one legitimate questions in
Speaker 1: a way that doesn't doesn't seem from the outside to
Speaker 1: be not constructive. It seems like they were attempting to
Speaker 1: address this real issue. And yeah, and they were and
Speaker 1: they were squashed, right, And that's concerning. And I'd say
Speaker 1: I'd argue more concerning from like a perspective of safety
Speaker 1: and all the things, the other reasons you might be
Speaker 1: worried about Elon must drug use. This should concern you
Speaker 1: because like what happens if there's a legitimate if there's
Speaker 1: a door faull not to you know, make the Bonweing comparison,
Speaker 1: but right there's the doors falling off of these Boeing jets.
Speaker 1: You know what happens if there's a similar safety problem
Speaker 1: you have employees calling attention to it. You want to
Speaker 1: have reporting mechanisms. You don't want to have a company
Speaker 1: that just shuts down any descent. It's really bad at
Speaker 1: any company, and it seems especially bad at a company
Speaker 1: like SpaceX and DAN.
Speaker 2: If there is one thing that sort of linked thematically
Speaker 2: some of Elon's company, it would seem to be labor
Speaker 2: relations and sort of the poor state of them. There's
Speaker 2: SpaceX and X obviously when it went through the transition
Speaker 2: from Twitter Tesla, we've had multiple in the LRB stories there.
Speaker 2: What about the other ones in his universe, you know,
Speaker 2: the Neuralink and the Boring. Is there anything else out there?
Speaker 3: Well, I guess I would just say that I think
Speaker 3: that fundamentally, a lot of employees really take pride in
Speaker 3: their work, particularly engineers. I mean, these are mission driven companies.
Speaker 2: That have within Elon's companies.
Speaker 3: In Elons companies, yeah, I mean, these are mission driven
Speaker 3: companies and people are really drawn to the mission, and
Speaker 3: people really like working there in general, and they where
Speaker 3: the SpaceX jackets and the Tesla ball caps, and like
Speaker 3: there's just like an enormous amount of pride. I think
Speaker 3: you have to separate out like working for the company
Speaker 3: and working for Elon. But yeah, I mean these are
Speaker 3: not unionized workforces, and like any effort to unionize or
Speaker 3: criticize your leader is like completely shut down, like almost instantly,
Speaker 3: which is what we've seen at all of his companies.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't speak to Neural Lincoln Boring, but
Speaker 3: like you can't criticize the boss basically.
Speaker 6: I also think the through line through these two stories
Speaker 6: is kind of like the double standard of when Elon's antics.
Speaker 4: Are a problem and then when they aren't. You know,
Speaker 4: when he smoked pot.
Speaker 6: You know, everyone was very upset because there is a
Speaker 6: very clear clause in NASA contracts that stays that you're
Speaker 6: supposed to have a drug free workforce.
Speaker 4: But I think what.
Speaker 6: SpaceX tried to do after that was say, oh, you know,
Speaker 6: this wasn't a big deal. You know, look, see we
Speaker 6: have a totally drug free workforce.
Speaker 4: It's totally fine.
Speaker 6: But then when you call out behavior about sexual harassment
Speaker 6: and making light of sexual harassment, then they say, oh,
Speaker 6: you can't do that. You know, Elon is SpaceX and
Speaker 6: SpaceX is Elon. That was something that one of the
Speaker 6: vice presidents said. So it's like there's the moving goalpost
Speaker 6: of when we are allowed to be upset about Elon's
Speaker 6: behavior and when you can't criticize him at all.
Speaker 2: Now for our final segment of the week, Feud of
Speaker 2: the Week, Max Chapkin, do you know who the feud
Speaker 2: with between Elon and Oh Man?
Speaker 1: It's my favorite other billionaire slash professional wrestler who's not
Speaker 1: named Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Cuban, who's kind of like the
Speaker 1: original in some ways, like a pioneer of the trolling,
Speaker 1: you know, billionaire category.
Speaker 2: But I think Elon took that to new heights. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So what is the feud with Mark Cuban.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, so Elon Musk has been, you know, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason. We can debate, you know, going.
Speaker 2: On and on and on and on and on.
Speaker 1: And on about you know, the woke mind virus and
Speaker 1: the and the evils of diversity in the workplace. Again,
Speaker 1: this is probably a potential problem for some companies arounds,
Speaker 1: but let's leave that aside. Mark Cuban chimed in and
Speaker 1: offered what was really like just a kind of bland
Speaker 1: i'd say, kind of conventional wisdom y defense of diversity,
Speaker 1: equity and inclusion in companies. Mark Cuban saying essentially, hey,
Speaker 1: like this allows us to you know, overcome some of
Speaker 1: our biases to hire from more verse pools of people
Speaker 1: get considered new perspectives. It also should say, Mark Cuban
Speaker 1: a big time libertarian, right, you know, too much for
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, and he's basically essentially spent the next few days,
Speaker 1: you know, calling Mark Cuban a racist cringe, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially using Mark Cuban as a punchline for his conservative followers, which,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, it's not that hard to do that
Speaker 1: with Mark Cuban. I mean, there is a lot that
Speaker 1: is obnoxious and cringe and so on about Mark Cuban.
Speaker 1: So so it's kind of like easy pickens. And we
Speaker 1: have what essentially is like a professional wrestling match between
Speaker 1: two billionaires.
Speaker 2: Which you know, we've we've seen this unfold before. How
Speaker 2: has Cuban responded so far?
Speaker 1: He's continue to offer sensible And I can't believe I'm
Speaker 1: saying this because again, like this is a guy who
Speaker 1: you know, is famous for getting fined by the NBA,
Speaker 1: and is you know, a shark tank judge. Like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be careful, but it has not always behaved like
Speaker 1: the most serious figure, but has generally attempted to like
Speaker 1: defend DEI in libertarian friendly ways and is essentially just
Speaker 1: getting shouted down by you know, Elon and his his buddies.
Speaker 1: And it seems like both are kind of riding the
Speaker 1: engagement wave on this.
Speaker 2: Okay, Dana, I'm gonna ask for an impartial view of
Speaker 2: feud of the weeks. How does this one rink compared
Speaker 2: to other feuds of the week that Elon Musk has had.
Speaker 3: I would call it a mid level feud.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, like a simmering five, Like, is it
Speaker 2: like rolling boil yet? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think what's interesting to me is that, Okay, you
Speaker 3: have to remember that Tesla is currently being sued by
Speaker 3: the EEOC and the State of California for anti black
Speaker 3: racism at its factory in California. And you know, Tesla
Speaker 3: has an incredibly diverse workplace, and the company releases first
Speaker 3: ever DEI report in twenty twenty. Now, the DEI stuff
Speaker 3: is always part of the annual impact report. So you
Speaker 3: have this company that has made in enormous strides in
Speaker 3: terms of DEI as a corporation, and now the CEO
Speaker 3: is basically crapping all over DEI saying that it's reverse racism.
Speaker 3: So I just really wonder, like, is Tesla going to
Speaker 3: have a DEI report for twenty twenty three or not?
Speaker 3: Like is that work being dismantled? Like what exactly are
Speaker 3: they doing at the company level here?
Speaker 2: It's easy to sort of laugh at this.
Speaker 1: It's like two you know, billionaires barking at each other loudly.
Speaker 2: Texas billionaires.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you're if you are like a person
Speaker 1: of color at one of these companies, like it would
Speaker 1: feel pretty bad to have to like have, you know,
Speaker 1: basically a very pretty sensible explanation of like why it
Speaker 1: makes sense to not hire an exclusively white male workforce,
Speaker 1: and to just have that kind of laughed off, Like
Speaker 1: this kind of thing is like it isn't good for
Speaker 1: sort of regulatory reasons, but also just for like morale
Speaker 1: reasons and so on.
Speaker 2: It strikes me as not great.
Speaker 6: I also want to point that, if you know, given
Speaker 6: my experience with SpaceX and when I know about SpaceX,
Speaker 6: it does fly in the face of at least past experience,
Speaker 6: because they do have dei efforts, They have women's groups
Speaker 6: within the company that they celebrate. You know, Gwynn has
Speaker 6: also spoken publicly about trying to do better in terms
Speaker 6: of boosting diversity within the company. So I don't know
Speaker 6: if that's going to change, but I at least know
Speaker 6: past efforts that SpaceX have tried to, you know, make
Speaker 6: that a priority.
Speaker 1: Som Branding to this feud of the way, I will say,
Speaker 1: I think it's like Dan is right, it's like a
Speaker 1: mid tier feud. This is not like, this is not
Speaker 1: your like you know, Michelin Star eleven course tasting menu
Speaker 1: a feuds. This is like, I mean, the solid right
Speaker 1: I mean like solid midweek date night.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like a farm to table restaurant.
Speaker 1: It's like pretty good, but like not, you know, nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing out of the ordinary.
Speaker 2: Max Chafkin, Lauren Grush, Dana Hole, thanks so much for
Speaker 2: joining us on Elon Inc.
Speaker 3: Always a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Great to be here.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Naomi Shaven and
Speaker 2: Rayhan Harmanci are our senior editors. The idea for this
Speaker 2: very show also came from Rayhan Blake Maple's Handles Engineering,
Speaker 2: and we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott. Our
Speaker 2: supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson. That Elon Inc. Theme is
Speaker 2: written and perform by Taka Yazazawa and Alex Segura. Saige
Speaker 2: Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast and our executive producer.
Speaker 2: I'm Joel Webber. David Pappadopolis will finally be back next week.
Speaker 2: If you have a minute, please rate and review our show.
Speaker 2: We'll help other listeners find us. See you next week.