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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: Let me tell you we have a new star.

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Speaker 3: A star is born Elon puns up On Mars Youth

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Speaker 3: and Kennemy.

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Speaker 1: He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.

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Speaker 2: Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.

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Speaker 2: I feel for the guy. I would say ninety eight

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Speaker 2: percent really appreciate what he does. But those two percent

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Speaker 2: that are nasty, they are update in four folds. We

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Speaker 2: were meant for great things in the United States of America,

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Speaker 2: and Elon reminds us of that we don't have a

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Speaker 2: fourth branch of governments called Elon Musk. Welcome to Elon,

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Speaker 2: a Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, February eighteenth.

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Speaker 2: I'm your host, David Papatoppos, sitting here in the studio

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Speaker 2: in New York with stalwart of the podcast, an intrepid

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Speaker 2: Elon Musk reporter Dana Hull. Dana, Welcome to New York. David.

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Speaker 1: Great to see you in person.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, great to have you here. But what the hell

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Speaker 2: did you leave sixty degrees in a light breeze in

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Speaker 2: San Francisco for this godforsaken Polar Vortex for.

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Speaker 1: Well, David. We are doing a live taping of Elon Inc.

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Speaker 1: This Thursday at the on Air Fest. It's this big

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Speaker 1: festival of like audio, storytelling and podcasting and Elon Inc.

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Speaker 1: Is doing a live taping Thursday afternoon, two thirty Thursday,

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Speaker 1: Brooklyn at the Wife Hotel.

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Speaker 2: Be there or b Square yep. So it's Dana, Me,

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Speaker 2: Max Chafkin, and a special guest from Wired Magazine McKenna Kelly.

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Speaker 2: Come join us in the afternoon. If you're in the neighborhood, Dana,

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Speaker 2: we'll be signing autographs, at least one for me. Okay, Dani.

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Speaker 2: So we're going to keep it tight today. You've been

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Speaker 2: busier than ever cranking out story after story on Musk's

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Speaker 2: band of Doge costcutters. I'm just going to hit you

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Speaker 2: with some storylines on Doze or other related Musk topics,

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Speaker 2: and you're gonna give me the skinny in the Dana

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Speaker 2: Hall take rapid fire Lightning rounde. So Doge Musk those

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Speaker 2: team indeed has been added fast and furious. Tell me

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Speaker 2: for starters about layoffs. I believe there's been some layoffs

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Speaker 2: of probationary employees, some layoffs at the DOE, the Department.

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Speaker 1: They have been layoffs everywhere, so does appears to be

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Speaker 1: starting with what's called probationary employees, which are either people

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Speaker 1: that are relatively new to the agency and have been

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Speaker 1: there for less than a year. But if you change the.

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Speaker 2: Job, that's the definition of a probationary.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just performance. It has nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with performance. It's if you're

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Speaker 1: if you're relatively new at an agency, or if you

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Speaker 1: have switched positions within an agency, your probationary clock kind

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Speaker 1: of restarts. Scores of people have been sacked at Department

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Speaker 1: of Energy, the EPA, like HHS.

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Speaker 2: It's widespread.

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Speaker 1: It's like every agency is getting hit park rangers for a.

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Speaker 2: Success and the reason why they're going after these people

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Speaker 2: but was so little tenures Because it's easier.

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Speaker 1: I imagine that it's easier. I'm not entirely sure what

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Speaker 1: the federal union protections are, but at any company, usually

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Speaker 1: the people that are the newest are the easiest to

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Speaker 1: get rid of.

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Speaker 2: I see. Also, we have a final number, it appears

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Speaker 2: on how many federal employees took the DOGE buyout offer.

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Speaker 2: What was that final number?

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Speaker 1: The last i've read was roughly seventy five thousand, which

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Speaker 1: is really low. I mean, I think that the vast

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Speaker 1: majority of federal workers have dug in and are not

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Speaker 1: taking quote unquote the fork in the road because they

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Speaker 1: don't trust it. They don't trust that they're going to

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Speaker 1: get paid through September. They don't see a reason to

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Speaker 1: take it. They've been advised in many cases by their

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Speaker 1: unions not to take it. So the number of people

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Speaker 1: who took the quote unquote buyout is low. Now they

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Speaker 1: are getting rid of a lot of probationary employees and

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Speaker 1: then the next phase will just be like a reduction

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Speaker 1: in force.

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Speaker 2: Gotcha? Okay? Moving on, DOGE is inside the Social Security Administration?

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Speaker 2: What do we know there?

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Speaker 1: Okay, So to be clear, DOGE is everywhere, Like I think.

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Speaker 2: That they're everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that there's this perception that DOGE is

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Speaker 1: going agency by agency, and the truth is that they

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Speaker 1: will eventually be everywhere.

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Speaker 2: They're everywhere all the time. But are there not like

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Speaker 2: specific focal points where they're really bearing down on.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think so they have gone to the Department

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Speaker 1: of Energy, the EPA, They're apparently they're going into the

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Speaker 1: SEC we're keeping an eye out today for NASA. The

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Speaker 1: Social Security Administration and the I R S and the

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Speaker 1: Treasury have been key agencies. Obviously, SSA is a big

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Speaker 1: concern because it's like everyone has a Social Security number, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, And there was some reporting out of the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post over the weekend about how the Commissioner of

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Speaker 1: the Social Security Administration either fired or was resigned, and so, yes,

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Speaker 1: Doge appears to be very active there this week.

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Speaker 2: And Musk, indeed, there's been a lot of commentary and

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Speaker 2: pushback on the push into the Social Security Administration. My

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Speaker 2: understanding is that he's saying a couple of things. One, well, heck,

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Speaker 2: if it was just about me rummaging around and taking

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Speaker 2: your information, I could have done that years ago at PayPal, okay.

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Speaker 2: And Then b I think he's saying, well, listen, there

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Speaker 2: are all sorts of people still receiving quote unquote social

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Speaker 2: Security who are one hundred and eighty years old. We're

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Speaker 2: just trying to scrub them from the system.

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Speaker 1: And I worry about people amplifying what Musk is saying

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Speaker 1: because there's no proof that what Musk is saying is real.

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Speaker 2: So and he.

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Speaker 1: Has like, you know, two hundred or two hundred million followers,

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Speaker 1: but like it could be a coding thing that we

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Speaker 1: can't take what he's saying at face value.

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Speaker 2: He has pledged radical transparency on all of this and

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Speaker 2: all their endeavors that transparency was lacking initially, any further

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Speaker 2: greater transparency into what they're doing.

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Speaker 1: There is zero transparency. And here's why. First of all,

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Speaker 1: there is there's no website that shows you who is

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Speaker 1: working for DOGE. We have been able to piece together

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Speaker 1: which people from DOGE are working with each agency thanks

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Speaker 1: to reporting by wireds screenshots, legal declarations, legal filings, but

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Speaker 1: like it has been this massive effort just to figure

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Speaker 1: out who works with DOGE, who's running DOGE, who is

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Speaker 1: embedded at which agency. Like, if you want to start

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Speaker 1: with transparency, you'd start with the actual people. And the

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Speaker 1: other bit is Musk's financial disclosures with the White House.

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Speaker 1: Like I filed a FOYA to try to get a

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Speaker 1: copy of it, it was denied. Like we have zero

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Speaker 1: transparency around the conflicx of interest.

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Speaker 2: The denying of the FOYA is because Mosque is technically

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Speaker 2: part of.

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Speaker 1: The White House, the White House and a special government employee.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I see, And as a result, those are in

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Speaker 2: all cases off limits.

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Speaker 1: Well they're saying that they're off limits. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: we can keep pushing the effort, but I mean this,

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Speaker 1: so DOGE has a website, they're claiming to be transparent,

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Speaker 1: but you have to start with the basics, which is

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Speaker 1: Musk's financial disclosures and the conflicts of interest and releasing

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Speaker 1: that which the White House is not seem inclined to do,

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Speaker 1: and then be who are the people Like at the

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Speaker 1: Department of Education, for example, there are six people that

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Speaker 1: are affiliated with DOGE embedded at the department. To our

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Speaker 1: kind of Department of Education employees for are detail to

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Speaker 1: the agency. We don't know who those six people are.

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Speaker 1: We know one of them because he's filed several legal declarations,

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Speaker 1: but there's no transparency about the others, and we've had

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Speaker 1: to spend an enormous amount of time just piecing that together.

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Speaker 2: You said there's a DOGE website. I actually didn't realize that.

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Speaker 2: What appears on.

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Speaker 1: The like a lot of graphics that purport to show

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Speaker 1: cost savings and a live stream from X and now

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Speaker 1: the DOGE teams that all these different departments have their

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Speaker 1: own X feeds, So it's kind of like a hybrid

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Speaker 1: of like an X feed and a website.

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Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to move on from Doge in a second.

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Speaker 2: Anything else in the Doge push though, that we should

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Speaker 2: know about before we do.

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Speaker 1: I think one point that I just want to keep

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Speaker 1: him ring for our listeners is that I've read a

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Speaker 1: lot of reporting that you know, Trump has tapped Musk

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Speaker 1: to lead this government efficiency effort, and to just remind

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Speaker 1: everyone that this was Musk's idea. Musk pitched this idea

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Speaker 1: to Trump in August when he hosted Trump on X

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Speaker 1: for that long two hour plus spaces and he has

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Speaker 1: had a real plan to do this, and it's not

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Speaker 1: so much about efficiency as it is about really gutting

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Speaker 1: a lot of these agencies, getting rid of DEI efforts.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we have to remind everyone that Musk's

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Speaker 1: companies have a lot of regulatory investigative stuff happening at

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Speaker 1: the agencies that he's now gutting.

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Speaker 2: Now you have at the real lease stand and drilled

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Speaker 2: it into my head. I'm going around saying Trump didn't

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Speaker 2: tap Musk for this position, but as you say, Musk

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Speaker 2: effectively tap Musk for this position. And Donald Trump said,

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Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea, and off to the

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Speaker 2: race as they are. Okay, moving on to a very

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Speaker 2: nice piece, an in depth piece of reporting that Business

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Speaker 2: Week had on Musk's factories in Texas and how they

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Speaker 2: are employing undocumented workers. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this was a wonderful feature by our colleague Julia Love,

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Speaker 1: who's based in San Francisco. Julia is fluent in Spanish,

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Speaker 1: spent an enormous amount of time in Texas interviewing undocumented

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Speaker 1: workers who helped build the gigafactory in Austin. And to

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Speaker 1: be clear, so far, it shows that most of the

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Speaker 1: workers were not employed directly by Tesla. They were construction

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Speaker 1: workers that were employed by contractors and subcontractors, and that

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Speaker 1: is like widespread in the United States. If you want

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Speaker 1: to look at the undocumented workforce, they are in construction, meatpacking, agriculture,

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Speaker 1: and the gigafactory was a massive project and one of

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Speaker 1: the largest buildings in the world, and it's not a

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Speaker 1: surprise that undocumented workers were part of those contractors and

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Speaker 1: sub contractors that helped to build that factory.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, more than it being oh my god, look

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Speaker 2: at all the undocumented workers that these Musk companies or

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Speaker 2: these companies that worked with Musk, companies hired. It's sort

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Speaker 2: of an emblematic of the world we live in here

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Speaker 2: in the US, but it does it's certainly a little uncomfortable,

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Speaker 2: one would say, for Elon Musk as he pushes hard

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Speaker 2: to drive these people out of the country.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that the contrast between the

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Speaker 1: fact that you know, so many people worked on building

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Speaker 1: these massive industrial projects for him and his rhetoric around immigration.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is a CEO who has live streamed

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Speaker 1: from the border and has used X to amplify a

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Speaker 1: lot of anti immigrant rhetoric, and he's you know, always

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Speaker 1: drawn a line between h one B visas and not.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, the truth is that, I mean, the undocumented

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Speaker 1: workforce is a key part of the labor market in

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Speaker 1: the United States, and multiple industries, including construction his empire

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Speaker 1: has benefited from their labor. I think it's interesting that

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Speaker 1: Musk went super anti immigrant after the factory was already finished.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, Julia's piece is well worth reading.

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Speaker 2: That is a that is a good point. Okay, Now

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Speaker 2: tipping back a little bit towards Doge or some of

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Speaker 2: the ripple effects from the Doge Committee and all the

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Speaker 2: cost cutting it's been doing inside the government. There were

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Speaker 2: protests this weekend outside Tesla's store rooms. Danna, you were

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Speaker 2: at one of them. Tell us about that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I went to the showroom in Berkeley, California.

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Speaker 1: And you know, Berkeley is like ground zero for people

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Speaker 1: who care deeply about climate change and science. It is

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Speaker 1: a university town. It is an older, fairly wealthy community.

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Speaker 1: When you know, the Model three came out, or when

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Speaker 1: Tesla came out with the solar roof and the power wall, like,

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Speaker 1: these are the consumers that buy Tesla products. And so

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Speaker 1: it was super interesting to just be there at this

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Speaker 1: rally where you had, you know, well over one hundred

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Speaker 1: people screaming all kinds of things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and actually, Dana, you recorded some of that, right,

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Speaker 2: So let's give it a listen.

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Speaker 3: Hey home, Elon lass Hey, Hey, hell Home, Elon last

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Speaker 3: tss hey ho home Ela las Hey.

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Speaker 2: Now I saw the ft report kind of a similar

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Speaker 2: scene in Portland and in Chicago.

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Speaker 1: They were at showrooms all across the United States, for sure.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it's interesting because it's the first time

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Speaker 1: that we've really seen people who are frustrated about Musk's

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Speaker 1: role in the Trump administration take their anger out on

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Speaker 1: Tesla's show rooms. When I was there, you know, I

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Speaker 1: had a lot of conversations with people that they're very

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Speaker 1: upset about Musk and Doge, and there were flyers being

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Speaker 1: handed out really urging people to do two things. One

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Speaker 1: is to call on Tesla's board to fire Musk as

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Speaker 1: the Cudio as the CEO of doesn't that seems unlikely.

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Speaker 1: The other is to pressure CalPERS, which is the huge

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Speaker 1: Californi pension fund, to divest from Tesla. CalPERS is a

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Speaker 1: huge shareholder billions of dollars for sure, So that's an

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Speaker 1: interesting pressure point. They're a big shareholder and always happen.

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Speaker 1: And then I you know, interviewed a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's one woman she bought a Tesla during

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Speaker 1: the pandemic. As soon as the election happened, she and

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Speaker 1: her partner decided to sell it. It took them a

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Speaker 1: while to actually sell it. They ultimately sold it on Kriigslist,

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Speaker 1: and she was holding up the side.

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Speaker 2: Why why is that? Why was there no demand for it?

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Speaker 1: I just think that, especially particularly in California, like I

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Speaker 1: don't think that there is a huge demand for use

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Speaker 1: Tesla's now and also just in general, like electric cars,

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Speaker 1: like people tend to want to buy them new. You

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Speaker 1: don't know what the battery degradation is. So just took

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Speaker 1: her longer to sell than she had thought.

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Speaker 2: So on those things, on the pressure points that they

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Speaker 2: can put on musk and you said you heard, or

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Speaker 2: you know, the flyers that were hanging out said, hey

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Speaker 2: the board, pressure the board to sack Elon. Tricky, Hey

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Speaker 2: CalPERS sell all your Tesla shares. Maybe that could happen.

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Speaker 2: I saw in an FT report that up in Portland,

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Speaker 2: one of the leaders there at the protest was saying,

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Speaker 2: the greatest leverage we have on him is indeed to

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Speaker 2: simply boycott Tesla cars, do not buy them. Every sale

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Speaker 2: that we block is a small dent on his wealth.

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Speaker 2: We shall see. Well, I don't really.

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Speaker 1: Agree with that. I mean, so his wealth is based

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Speaker 1: on the stock price, right, so if you want to

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Speaker 1: have leverage over Elon, it's really driving down the share price.

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Speaker 1: And you know, sales are a big part of Tesla's revenue,

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Speaker 1: but like forty percent of the sales come from China.

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Speaker 1: So even though people in the United States, particularly in

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Speaker 1: left leaning places like Berkeley and Portland, are very upset,

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Speaker 1: Like you have to kind of realize that we live

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Speaker 1: in a global auto market and there are still customers.

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Speaker 2: I guess just the argument is this, I mean, you're

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Speaker 2: absolutely right. At the end of the day, Elon derives

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Speaker 2: his well from the stock, not from sales. But it's

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Speaker 2: this thing that we've been talking about for a while,

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Speaker 2: and we're going to continue to talk on this show

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Speaker 2: for weeks and weeks, which is is, at some point,

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Speaker 2: if there is a the divergence between the underlying fundamentals

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Speaker 2: of the company and the stock price keep growing and growing,

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Speaker 2: something's got to give. And so I think that is

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Speaker 2: the argument, and we shall see. But okay, So in

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Speaker 2: another corner of the Musk universe, Xai his Ai company

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Speaker 2: is seeking a fresh round of funding ten billion dollars

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Speaker 2: that would value it at seventy five billion dollars. At

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Speaker 2: last blush Dawn of the company's worth fifty one billion.

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Speaker 2: So it's up, up, up and up for Xai Deep

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Speaker 2: Seek be damned right.

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Speaker 1: So and last night Xai like released a new and

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Speaker 1: improved version of groc and Elon says it's great and

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Speaker 1: like they're coming for chat GBC and deep Seek and

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Speaker 1: like they really want to be a player in this space.

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Speaker 1: And the valuation continues to climb, so obviously there's a

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Speaker 1: crew of investors that believe it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that continuing climb and valuation. Of course, we

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Speaker 2: do need to see if they indeed get that ten

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Speaker 2: billion dollars in well.

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Speaker 1: They were, I mean, come on, Elon does not have

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Speaker 1: trouble too money.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Then I want to move on to a story

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Speaker 2: that kind of popped up mysteriously last week and then

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Speaker 2: it was up and then it went down, which is

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Speaker 2: that the government had plans to buy armored Tesla's. The

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Speaker 2: story said what became of this?

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Speaker 1: So this was Yeah, this was like a weird news cycle.

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Speaker 1: Like there's so many Elon stories every day. So that

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Speaker 1: the State Department has a procurement website with a spreadsheet

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Speaker 1: that's regularly updated, and like the spreadsheet was updated in December,

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Speaker 1: after the election, but before Trump's inauguration, and there was

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Speaker 1: like a line item on the spreadsheet that said armored

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Speaker 1: Tesla vehicles four hundred million dollars, And it seemed like

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Speaker 1: there was an idea that the State Department was going

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Speaker 1: to buy armored Tesla vehicles. Now I'm assuming that that's

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Speaker 1: a cyber truck, but maybe it was an armored plated

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Speaker 1: model Y. I have no idea. Obviously, the State Department

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Speaker 1: and the Foreign Service, there's a lot of diplomats and

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Speaker 1: foreign countries that use armored vehicles, and there were also

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Speaker 1: other vehicles listed, like you know, BMW was on there,

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Speaker 1: and this was just sort of like a forecast for

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Speaker 1: what they were planning to spend. So I downloaded the spreadsheet,

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Speaker 1: put it on my to do list. By the time

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Speaker 1: I went to sit and write about it, Tesla was gone,

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Speaker 1: and thank god I'd save the spreadsheet. So the name

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Speaker 1: TESLA was removed, and now it just says like armored

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Speaker 1: electric vehicles, And you could look at the spreadsheet you

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Speaker 1: could see that they changed it the same day that

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Speaker 1: a lot of this reporting came out. Then the story is, well,

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Speaker 1: why did they remove it? Like is this thing going

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Speaker 1: forward or not? Eventually I got like a very bland

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Speaker 1: statement from an unnamed State Department person that was like,

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Speaker 1: we're not this is not going forward. But it begs

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Speaker 1: the question as to why it was there in the

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Speaker 1: first place, because Trump was not in office yet, and

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Speaker 1: so it's just a reminder that you know, when we

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Speaker 1: think of government contracts. We think of SpaceX, but Tesla

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Speaker 1: itself also has government contracts for fleet vehicles with the government,

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Speaker 1: and that's something to keep an eye on.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, listen, Dana, bundle up, it's brutally cold

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Speaker 2: out there. Get yourself to Brooklyn on Thursday. I will

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Speaker 2: be there as well. The on air fest in the

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Speaker 2: afternoon me Dana, Max Chafkin and McKenna Kelly from Wired

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Speaker 2: and it's going to be a hoop. I'll see you there, Dana,

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Speaker 2: can't wait. This episode was produced by Stacy Wang. Anna

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Speaker 2: Maserakas is our editor, and Rayhan Harmanci our senior editor.

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Speaker 2: Blake Maples handles engineering, and Dave Purcell fact checks. Our

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Speaker 2: supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson. The elon Ink theme is

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Speaker 2: written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiira. Brendan

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Speaker 2: Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is

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Speaker 2: the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks as always

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Speaker 2: to our supporters Joel Weber and Brad Stone. I am

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Speaker 2: David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and review

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Speaker 2: our show, it'll help other listeners find us see you

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Speaker 2: Thursday in Brooklyn, f