WEBVTT - An Insider’s View on What Ails Tesla 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:07.000 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:09.520 Let me tell you we have a new star. 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:14.680 A star is born Elon mars Juson Kennemy. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.440 He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age. 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.040 Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.200 I feel for the guy. I would say ninety eight 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.360 percent really appreciate what he does. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.440 But those two percent that are nasty, they are I'll 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:29.840 pay in full post. 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:32.280 We are meant for great things in the United States 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:34.560 of America, and Elon reminds. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.760 Us of that we don't have a fourth branch of 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.159 governments called Elon Musk. 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.400 Welcome to Elon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.080 It's Tuesday, May thirteenth. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:55.640 I'm Max Chafkin, and I'm sitting here with Bloomberg's Elon 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:56.920 Musk reporter Dana Hall. 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.920 Hey, Dana, Hey, Max. All right, so today's show's going 0:00:59.960 --> 0:01:01.000 to be a little different. 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.600 You and I have an interview with Matt Lebrot, who 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.720 is a former manager in Tesla's sales operation who made 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.880 quite the splash last week. Dana, can you just give 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.440 us a sense of what happened, why we're talking to Matt. 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.120 Yeah, so Matt is kind of it's kind of a 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.560 crazy story. In late April, he posted an anonymous letter 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.840 Tesla employees against Elon in which he basically said that 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.959 it was time to say the quiet part out loud 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.840 and talked a lot about the brand destruction because of 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.880 Elon's behavior. Two days later, he was fired, and now 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.240 he has kind of gone wide. Business Insider did a 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.440 profile of him, he has posted on LinkedIn, and he 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.600 has a really interesting story to tell. I mean, is 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.679 it is rare for someone who worked for Tesla for 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:48.200 as long as he did to kind of go so 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:50.760 publicly against the CEO of the company. 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:51.559 Yeah. 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.800 And this letter, which was originally posted on website Matt 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.280 made Tesla employees against Elon dot Com. 0:01:58.760 --> 0:01:59.960 It's gone everywhere. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.480 And I'm really excited about this conversation because we've been 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.120 talking really for months about the potential brand damage that 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.680 Elon Musk's you know, political activities have caused, and Matt, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.720 I think has a unique perspective. We're gonna hear new things, 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.480 things that I think are going to be somewhat revelatory 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.280 for listeners in that conversation. But before we get there, 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.720 Dana We got to run through some of the Elon 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.000 Musk news this week because there's a lot going on. 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.680 As we pod on Tuesday morning, He's in Saudi Arabia. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.160 Remember our friend of Pod, Kurt Wagner, predicted a boy's trip. 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.440 It appears that the boy's trip it's on. 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.320 It's on, and I believe that Sam Malton is on 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.280 this trip as well, So it's kind of like a 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.680 strange bedfellows trip in the in the Saudi Arabian desert. 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.080 I have not been able to keep up with what 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.360 exactly Elon is saying, but I saw something cross the 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.359 transom about Optimists possibly being displayed or like a demo 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.840 of Optimists to Trump and NBS. So the other thing 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.480 worth noting is that this is Elon Musk's for trip 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.480 abroad since inauguration, So you know, he's going on this 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.200 kind of tour of the Middle East with Trump, the 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.000 first time he's kind of stepped away from the US 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:09.840 since an inauguration. 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.240 Well, an optimist would make a certain sense. I mean, 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.160 it seems like part of the reason for Elon Musk 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.480 doing this beyond just getting to hang out with with 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.240 his pals and perhaps you know, squashed the beat with 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.120 Sam Altman is money because you know Xai is trying 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.360 to raise money. MBS, of course is good for it. 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.200 He is a is a major tech investor, and there 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.320 have been a lot of Saudi backed investments in Ai. 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.640 Let's go all the way back to April. 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:41.760 Twenty second, the Tesla earnings call Dana, because there's a moment. 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:43.840 We didn't touch on this, I think at all in 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.640 our earning conversation. But there was a little good news 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:47.360 in that call. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:49.560 And let's let's first listen to the clip. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.320 Let's he was respected energy. The energy business is doing 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:57.040 very well. The Mega pack is that nables Tony companies 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.680 to output far more total energy then would otherwise. 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.839 Good case the Mega Pack now that we we learned 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.240 during the earnings call that the sales are are up. 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.320 You've been talking about this as long as I can. 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:11.800 I love I love the I love the Mega Pack 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:12.520 as a product. 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.600 I know everyone is like, oh god, Dana and her 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.240 Mega packs, but the Mega pack is cool, Like we. 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.280 Can you explain what it is before. 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:21.839 I'm all for the love letter, but first let's like 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.440 give us a little context and try to if you 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.400 wouldn't mind, like just translating what Elon Musk just said into. 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.080 Sure, I mean, frankly kind of looks like a big, 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.600 big refrigerator or like a steel box. But it's basically 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.800 you know, so, Tesla has two business units. There's the 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.919 car division and there's Energy. And the Energy division includes 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.760 you know, the solar roof, the power wall, which is 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.200 like the home battery that you put in your house 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.080 in case there's like a hurricane or a power outage 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.479 or whatever. And then there's the Mega pack, which is 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:55.760 Tesla's utility scale offering to utilities, and these things are 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.680 huge and banks of them are installed all over the 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.320 world North America, Europe, Australia, and they really are like 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.039 keyed to helping renewables come on to the grid. So, 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.120 you know, the sun doesn't always shine, it's not always windy, 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.320 but if you want to be able to store energy 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.360 and then be able to dispatch it back to the 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.600 grid during peak demand times, storage is key. And there 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:20.760 are a lot of big players in the energy storage 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.520 market and Tesla is one of them. But as I 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.480 reported recently, what was missing from that Ernie's call was 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.599 the fact that one of the big customers of the 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:34.279 Megapack is Xai, Elon's Ai company, and so Xai has 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.600 this supercomputer called Colossus good name, yeah, good name, big 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.960 data center in Memphis, Tennessee. That's gotten under a lot 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.560 of fire from environmental and racial justice groups because at 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.960 the moment they were using like gas fired generators to 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:50.760 kind of keep this plant up and running. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:52.480 And now what's happening. 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:57.640 Is they are adding megapacks to this installation, which is 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.600 more energy efficient, and then they can kind of get 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.839 rid of the gas generators. But it's just another example 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:07.040 of you know, all of Elon's companies overlap, and one 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.640 company sells a product to another. And this was the 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.120 first time that I had seen, you know, in a filing, 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.640 like any notice of Xai buying megapas as a customer 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.080 to the tude of like two hundred and thirty million 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:18.799 dollars worth. 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.599 How much of the total megapax sales is that? I mean? 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.640 Is this like, is is the whole megapac thing basically 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.880 like a sham? It's just Elon musk moving money from 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:28.920 one company to another. 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:31.640 No, because they actually do sell megapacks to a lot 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.719 of utilities around the world, like Pgene Southern California Edison. 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.400 I mean, they have a robust pipeline of sales. 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.359 Okay, let's move on to the next story that I 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.839 wanted to bring up, which is the news uh in 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:49.320 the New York Times that the Federal Railroad Administration, this 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.839 is the part of the government that handles the nation's 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.520 rail infrastructure, is meeting with the boring company, Elon Musk's 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:02.480 tunneling venture about a possible bl eight point five billion 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.160 dollar tunnel. You know, Dan, I was interested in this 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.960 because there's been this narrative of Elon Musk kind of 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:11.960 withdrawing from Washington. 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:13.640 He's back to his companies. 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.880 Right and and I think there there may be some 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.080 truth to that, but as we've discussed, he's obviously still 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:20.720 spending a lot of time with Donald Trump. I mean, 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.320 they're in Saudi Arabia right now. But also I think 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.480 the next phase of this, as we as maybe doge 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:29.960 becomes less in the sort of center of the news 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.200 and and they're less focused on cutting or whatever, is 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.239 that they're gonna be contracts and this, and that Elon 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.720 Musk is going to be trying to get talk the 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.080 US government out of billions and billions of dollars, and 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.600 this Boring Company thing is is probably just you know, 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.280 the first of several of reports like this that we're 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:48.720 gonna hear. 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:51.400 Yeah, it's interesting because of all of the companies at 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:56.200 Elon's empire, the Boring Company is like the least successful company. 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:57.880 I think that's bareness. 0:07:57.480 --> 0:07:58.520 To say that. 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.240 The two or three or four, I'm not sure how 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.920 many miles of tunnels in Las Vegas that you can 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.760 drive a car through are not an impressive monument to 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:09.400 you know, technological innovation. 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:11.040 You've been to the one in Las Vegas. 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:12.800 I have not, But I mean of all of the 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.960 companies like the Boring Company, to me, I always thought 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.600 that the whole conceit of boring was let's figure out 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.760 how to perfect tunneling so that we can eventually like 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.120 settle Mars, where you're gonna need tunnels because there's no atmosphere. 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.200 And there's been a lot of news reports about boring, 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:30.840 like bidding or talking about building tunnels and all kinds 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.680 of crazy places, But the Las Vegas one is the 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.560 only one that actually exists that I'm aware of. 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.240 I've done a lot of reporting on the Boring Company, 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.560 and I think you're probably right that there's some truth 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:44.800 and like in the back of Elon Musk's mind, yeah, sure, 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:49.120 mars whatever. But like, really the genesis the Boring Company was, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.560 I want to get some infrastructure contracts out of Donald Trump. 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.640 And the Boring Company was founded, you know, just at 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.560 the beginning of the Trump administration, back when Steve Bannon 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.040 was talking about you know, infrastructure and so on, and 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.000 it was at the time, like as I understood it, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.160 I mean, like a pretty transparent play to kind of 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.200 get in on that. Of course, Elon Musk is really 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.480 good at that. He's good at figuring out sort of 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.240 next generation solutions to problems that the government has, such 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.720 as rocket launches. But as you say, like the the 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:22.720 track record. 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:23.360 Isn't great, I mean we're not. 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.000 We're talking about you can go from the Westgate in 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.600 Las Vegas to the Convention Center. That's that's a trip 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.280 you can also make on foot, but of course you 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.040 can get in a tunnel. And this would be on 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.520 like a whole other level if they if they were 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:36.400 to win this contract. 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.360 Amtrak has been a target of the Trump administration for 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.200 quite a while. I mean, Musk has also taken put 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.640 shots at Amtrak. I think all of us who take 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.320 Amtrak could agree that, like, there are some inefficiencies in 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:50.840 the system, but it's not clear to me this you 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.719 know what exactly this contract would be for and and 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.079 they don't actually have it. And there it sounds like 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:57.840 they're talking to a lot of potential vendors. 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.040 Yeah, this sounds like a very preliminary conversation. I will say, also, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.160 there will be conversations about conflict of interest. Steve Davis, 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:05.920 who I think has been described Dana, Am I right, 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.160 COO of Doze or does he is also. 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:11.440 COO of the boring company? 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.800 So you're gonna have conversations about is this a conflict 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:19.760 of interest? Particularly you have Doge in the Department of Transportation. Meanwhile, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.640 Doge is also sort of or somebody involved with Dose 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.040 is also potentially benefiting financially. That'll be something I think 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.720 for us to keep an eye on. All Right, last 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.199 thing here, Dana, and this will feed into the next conversation. 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.280 But Bill Gates has been on sort of a media tour. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.520 He's making the decisions about his philanthropy. I guess he's 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.280 The plan is for him to give away all of 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.320 the philanthropy's money over the next twenty years, and in 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.640 the course of interviews about this, he's made a bunch 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.640 of comments about Elon Musk, and during an interview with 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:58.440 The Financial Times, he said that that Musks cuts to 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:03.040 USAID DOZES cuts USIID will lead to millions of deaths 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:07.040 and said the picture of the world's richest man killing 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.120 the world's poorest children is not a pretty one. He 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:15.800 brought up specifically Musk's comments about Doze cutting funding for 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.440 HIV prevention in Mozambique. Remember this was the These are 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.960 the cuts that Musk described as condoms to Gaza, falsely 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.120 because there is a province in Mozambique also called Gaza. 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.679 Turns out this funding was for HIV prevention. Gates is 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.000 saying that it's going to kill children. And we've talked 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.160 about brand damage a lot, but something about this, something 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:42.520 about Gates. This like very successful capitalist accusing Elon Musk 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.200 of being responsible for millions of deaths of children, Like 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:47.959 it just it feels significant. 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:52.160 Yeah, and a successful billionaire whose own foundation has done 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:54.720 an enormous amount of work in the field of public 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.480 health and vaccines around the world. Right, So, I mean 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.280 the Gates Foundation is one of the big funders of 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.760 like global health and so to have Gates come out 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:07.520 and say this at a time when Gate is kind 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.080 of like exiting the stage and winding, you know, like 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.000 sort of signaling that like his philanthropy is going to 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.400 end the next stage to see ages, it's like a 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.800 parting shot to the world that like, you know, all 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.200 of these cuts are Elon's fault. And I think the 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.560 fact that Elon sort of gleefully posted on x that 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.280 he had spent the weekend feeding USA ed into the 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.360 wood shipperd he sort of goes hand in hand. I mean, 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.360 Elon himself very much acknowledged that Doge was was key 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:37.240 with that whole operation, and you're really seeing the fallout 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:38.120 now around the world. 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.040 I want to say, for the record, Elon dismissed Gates 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.520 as a quote huge liar. The two have a long 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:49.079 history of beef. Dan I believe Gates sold some Tesla. 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.320 Stock at some point and was sure there was there 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.200 was a theory that he was shortening Tesla stock. 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.199 At some point Elon tweeted a me meme about Gates. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.680 So there's been a lot of a lot of back 0:12:58.720 --> 0:12:59.280 and forth. 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.600 It's one of the original feuds right, well. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:08.960 Yeah, exactly, Okay, Dana. 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:13.040 I am so happy that we have Matt Lebrot here, 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.080 the author of this letter about Tesla and Elon Musk, 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:21.040 longtime Tesla employee, Matt joining us from the Bay Area. 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:22.320 Thank you for being here. 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.040 Absolutely happy to be here. Thank you so much. 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:25.680 So. 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.439 You worked at Tesla for I believe almost six years. 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.280 Tell us, just to create some context, what were you 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:33.040 doing at the company? 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:33.800 What was your role there? 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:37.359 Sure? Absolutely. I started in the field in southern California 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.720 as an assistant manager they call them customer experience managers 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.680 back then, and then was promoted to general manager of 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:46.760 another sales and delivery location in the Bay Area. That's 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.240 when I moved up here to Colma, South San Francisco area, 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.319 and then from there transitioned into some corporate roles where 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.719 I supported the least return team and then eventually made 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:02.280 my way over to customer education and internal training for 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.360 our sales and delivery teams. So when I left or 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:10.120 got asked to leave, however, we want to phrase that. 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:12.760 You know, my most recent role, I was creating sales 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.760 and delivery content for North America for the twenty five 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.320 hundred ish leaders and sales and delivery associates. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:22.960 So to back up for a second for people who 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.720 might not be aware of the sequence of events. I 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.240 got this anonymous letter in my inbox Tesla employees against Elon. 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.080 Tesla is ready to move forward. And the letter is 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.200 extraordinary and it says our products are not the problem, 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.520 our engineering, service and delivery teams are not the problem. 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.880 The problem is demand. The problem is Elon. And so 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:44.840 I get this letter and I'm like, oh my god, 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.640 who wrote this? And I started emailing with Matt, who 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.400 was anonymous at the time, and I was like, do 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.200 you work in sales? Like when can we meet? And like, 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.400 because we have very high barber publication at Bloomberg, I 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.120 couldn't write about it until I could verify his employment, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.320 and like, so this letter comes out. I think every 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.320 journalist who covers Tesla was probably like dming you and 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.560 trying to meet with you. You ultimately talked to Business Insider, 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.880 but you got fired, Like two days later. Do you 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.480 want to talk about the sequence? Like the letter goes. 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.640 Up, start with why you wrote the letter in the 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:17.160 first place. 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.040 Sure, First of all, I was the only person to 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.239 write and publish the letter. There were no other employees 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.960 that were fully aware of me doing that. However, the letter, 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.360 you know, I appreciate the feedback I've gotten for it 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.080 being a well written letter. It's not all my ideas. 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.200 This is a compilation of conversations that I've had with 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:41.400 countless employees across North America over the last six months. 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.920 So that's where all of this information, and you know, 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:51.040 the idea really came from. And after increasing frustrations month 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.200 over month and you know, expecting Tesla to make some moves. 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.880 You know, we can of course go into deep about 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.400 the timeline of frustrations, but you know, really, once I 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.120 decided it was time to publish this, I did everything 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.800 I could to stay anonymous. The plan was to stay anonymous. 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.360 I am as relatively tech savvy as I think I 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:13.880 could be, so you know, I took these necessary steps. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.040 I bought a new computer, I used my home Wi 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.360 Fi network to purchase the domain and build the website, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:23.320 all these things that I thought I did to keep anonymous. 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.360 But within forty eight hours, I received a phone call 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.320 from a very polite HR associate, you know, shout out 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:32.720 to them, they're not the one who did this, right, 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.360 So she was very nice but you know, when she 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:37.480 let me know I was terminated, you know, she very 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.960 specifically said for using company resources. And again she's not 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:43.760 the one who did the investigation. I can't fight with 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.080 this person on it. But I very specifically didn't do that. 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.440 I took these steps appropriately to actively not do that. 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:53.840 As far as how I was found out. Again, we 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.640 can dig in more if we want, but info, Yeah, 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:58.040 Infosec's a big thing. 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:00.400 Could you talk a little bit about the cyber truck 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:02.640 and and the fact that you own one and what 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.440 you did with your cyber truck as well? 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.800 Yeah? Absolutely, Uh, you know, I did buy a cyber truck. 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.280 I will throw out there that I do not love 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.760 the way that it looks on the outside, but when 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:13.399 I drive it, I don't have to look at it, 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.399 and it's really great on the inside, So that sits 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:18.320 really well for me. My wife and I didn't even 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.560 have a ton of arguments about buying it. It was 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:22.919 it was kind of okay because I bought mine right 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.560 when it came out. I think by mid February I 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.680 had mine, and it was really through the lens of 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.800 we did need a truck. It would be pretty absurd 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.000 of me as a Tesla employee to buy a Rivian, 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:36.800 and I wanted to continue to support the company that 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.160 I worked for, So all those things added up to great. 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.480 Get a cyber truck. And then after I published my letter, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.600 you know, this huge weight gets lifted. This tension that 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.119 I've been feeling about this for a long time was lifted. 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.680 And then the ideas start to flow, and I come 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.480 up with the idea of turning this cyber truck, which 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.119 has been communicated many times as being such a great billboard, 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.680 and it's like, great, let me billboard this thing up. 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.720 And I ran to home depot, grabbed some spray paint 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.560 and some stencils, and in my garage in the middle 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:08.840 of the night, spray painted this message that I wanted 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.639 to get across, and and that message is, you know, 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:17.040 pro clean energy, pro renewable resources, pro EV and pro Tesla, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.240 all of those things can be true while still then 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.640 being anti elon. So spray painted that on the side 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.840 and I decided to park it next to the demo 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.360 drive fleet that they have in the parking structure, which 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.280 at least guaranteed anybody who's going to take a demo 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.160 drive they're they're gonna see this thing. 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.320 Matt, why and maybe this this can get us into 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.440 kind of talking about what's happened as Elon has has 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.960 gotten more political, but like why that message specifically, I 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.679 mean pro EV, you know, pro clean energy, but against Elon? 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:49.919 Why why against Elon? 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.479 Yeah, the letter is not as political as the Business 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.639 Insider article you know went in that direction, but you 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:02.040 know the message was really the for Elon by our 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.199 primary customer base has changed and the reason for that 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.320 is a scattering and it started with him being more 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.359 active on Twitter and eventually turning into the acquisition of Twitter. 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.960 We started to see that transition happen. But as that 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.800 transition was happening, we were still seeing such an influx 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.120 of first time EV buyers. So, you know, twenty twenty two, 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.880 end of twenty twenty two, we're still seeing first time 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.560 EV buyers like we've never seen before. So the first 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:35.639 wave of people that were abandoning Tesla because of Elon 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.200 kind of were able to be hidden. And then that 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.560 took a huge skyrocket forward when he started to get 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.600 more political and specifically in a direction where again for 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.439 whatever reason, a lot of our customers disagree with. 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.879 So, like your understanding of like maybe this is in 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.159 every Tesla customer, but this is a big part of 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.880 your customer base kind of like a left of center 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:05.280 kind of suburban type who's like interested in the environmental mission, 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.440 not necessarily like some kind of hardcore leftist, but certainly 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:14.080 not a Maga Republican sure, and that as Elon is 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:19.520 doing this, he is essentially alienating this huge constituency which 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.440 had been not necessarily buying all of Tesla's products, because 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:25.760