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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Max Chafkin here. The other day, Dana and I,

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Speaker 1: along with our colleague Ashley Vance, were guests on Bloomberg's

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Speaker 1: Odd Lots podcast for a special episode. It was all

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Speaker 1: about Elon Musk. We had a great chat with Joe

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Speaker 1: and Tracy, the host of Odd Lots, and we wanted

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Speaker 1: to share it with you right here. Enjoy it, and

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Speaker 1: after you do, you should check out the Odd Loots

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Speaker 1: podcast in general. It's a great, idiosyncratic, nerdy, weird, offbeat

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Speaker 1: and incredibly smart take on finance and markets and economics.

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Speaker 1: And as for Elon Inc. We will be back on Tuesday,

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Speaker 1: just like we are every week. The vote is happening

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Speaker 1: right now. It looks like Elon Musk is going to

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Speaker 1: come out ahead, but we'll have the full report on Tuesday.

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Speaker 1: We'll tell you all about what it means for Musk's

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Speaker 1: empire and where we go from here. And until then,

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Speaker 1: thank you and see us soon.

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.

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Speaker 3: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. We're very excited

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Speaker 3: about this recording. It's a crossover episode with Bloomberg's weekly

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Speaker 3: Elon Inc. Podcast. So we're all about Elon today. And

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Speaker 3: to get into that, Tracy, do you remember our interview

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Speaker 3: with the Ukraine post CEO.

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Speaker 4: Yes, I do, Igor Smolensky. That was a really interesting

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Speaker 4: episode for a variety of reasons. One because I just

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Speaker 4: really enjoy talking about logistics. But secondly, one of the

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Speaker 4: things that stood out to both of us, I think

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Speaker 4: from that conversation was when he was talking about how

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Speaker 4: they're using Starlink in Ukraine and also the idea that

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Speaker 4: you know, if they were ever to redesign the postal

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Speaker 4: service from scratch, they would avoid traditional internet and just

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Speaker 4: use all starlink.

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Speaker 3: No, that was like a very eye opening moment for me,

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Speaker 3: and I feel like when it comes to Elon Musk,

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Speaker 3: obviously it feels like, I don't know, forty percent of

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Speaker 3: the attention on him is related to Tesla, another forty

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Speaker 3: percent is Twitter or x, and then we're aware that

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Speaker 3: there's like a bunch of all these other companies like

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Speaker 3: Neuralink and Grock and SpaceX, but SpaceX and Starlink. That's

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Speaker 3: a huge deal because my understanding or my sense is

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Speaker 3: that like he is just dominating the skies.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's kind of the cool business as well. Right,

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Speaker 4: it's really cool business, like rockets that can be reused.

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Speaker 4: If you ever see the satellites launching into the sky,

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Speaker 4: the Starlink ones, they're really beautiful. Satellite internet is really

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Speaker 4: interesting to me, partly because of when I was in

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Speaker 4: Hong Kong. Yeah, and you know, they had the really

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Speaker 4: strict COVID rules and they would basically send you to

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Speaker 4: a government facility that was extremely limited. If you came

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Speaker 4: down with COVID, you had to have satellite Internet in

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Speaker 4: there because there was no government internet. So you had

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Speaker 4: to get a little box and bring it with you

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Speaker 4: if you were spending like three or four.

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Speaker 3: You get it.

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Speaker 1: Wait, you didn't.

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Speaker 3: You never had to go.

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Speaker 1: I didn't.

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Speaker 4: I know a lot of people who did.

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Speaker 3: And they had to bring their own box.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, because otherwise there was either no internet or it

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Speaker 4: was so poor. The effectively there was no internet.

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Speaker 3: I had not realized that element. But it is pretty wild. Like, Okay,

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Speaker 3: here's one company and it just totally dominates satellite communication.

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Speaker 3: I know, it dominates rocket launches. And historically space was

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Speaker 3: the domain of governments, right, space was the domain of

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Speaker 3: the military of any government and or NASA or the

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Speaker 3: NASA equivalent, And now we're in this world where there's

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Speaker 3: one individual and basically one company that is just completely

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Speaker 3: dominating space. And like I said, you know, I think

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Speaker 3: people talk about Tesla and they talk about Twitter, but

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Speaker 3: I feel like SpaceX deserves more attention, and I want

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Speaker 3: to learn more about SpaceX.

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Speaker 5: No.

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Speaker 4: Absolutely, this is something I hadn't really I guess, internalized

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Speaker 4: until recently. But the degree to which NASA basically opened

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Speaker 4: up space to private companies is kind of remarkable compared

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Speaker 4: to the way it was in the past. So absolutely,

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Speaker 4: I think this is something we should talk about.

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Speaker 3: Right, So, we've wanted to do a space slash SpaceX

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Speaker 3: slash Starlink episode for a while to like really understand

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Speaker 3: this company and how it fits into the broader Elon

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Speaker 3: Musk Empire. So I'm very excited to say today we

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Speaker 3: have a bunch of perfect guests. They are all our

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Speaker 3: colleagues at Bloomberg. But first up, we're going to be

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Speaker 3: speaking with Ashley Vance, who reports on all kinds of

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Speaker 3: cool tech stuff for us here at Bloomberg, sort of

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Speaker 3: like the future cutting edge pieces. Every time Ashley writes

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Speaker 3: an article it's just about some crazy, mad scientist, usually

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Speaker 3: out in the Bay Area doing anything wild. He's written

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Speaker 3: a biography of Elon Musk, and his more recent book

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Speaker 3: is called When the Heavens Went on Sale. The Misfits

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Speaker 3: and Geniuses racing to put space within reach. So the

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Speaker 3: perfect guest to talk space. So Ashley Vance, thank you

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Speaker 3: so much for coming on.

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Speaker 5: Oud, locks, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 3: I'm aware that SpaceX exists, that it's in the business

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Speaker 3: of private rockets and satellites and all that stuff, But like,

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Speaker 3: how big is SpaceX or maybe how far ahead is

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Speaker 3: SpaceX versus the competition?

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Speaker 5: Well, yeah, quite far, you know. I always think of

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Speaker 5: this as one of the most unlikely business stories there is.

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Speaker 5: SpaceX started roughly twenty years ago. Nobody, you know, had

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Speaker 5: really proven anything out as far as being a commercial

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Speaker 5: rocket company or satellite company in a meaningful way. Before

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Speaker 5: it was all governments, that a handful of governments that

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Speaker 5: dominated this business. And if you fast forward now twenty

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Speaker 5: years later, SpaceX last year, for example, they put up

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Speaker 5: about fifty percent of the world's rockets and probably close

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Speaker 5: to around eighty percent of the world satellites. So that's

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Speaker 5: SpaceX versus the entire world. That's SpaceX versus China, Russia, India,

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Speaker 5: et cetera. And if you look at this year so far,

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Speaker 5: they've put up about ninety percent of the out of

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Speaker 5: stuff that's gone into space this year has been put

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Speaker 5: up by SpaceX. So they basically revived the United States

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Speaker 5: space program. We'd fallen behind a number of countries that

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Speaker 5: looked like China was going to take this thing over,

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Speaker 5: and now SpaceX is the clear winner of the space

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Speaker 5: economy so far.

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Speaker 4: I have a embarrassing question, but what's the difference between

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Speaker 4: SpaceX and Starlink.

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Speaker 5: Oh yeah, well, okay, so there's different pieces here. Traditionally,

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Speaker 5: most companies you've sort of divided either you were a

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Speaker 5: rocket company or you were a satellite company. SpaceX has

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Speaker 5: become the dominant player in both and Starlink fits into

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Speaker 5: that picture. So Starlink is a satellite communications service. SpaceX

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Speaker 5: puts up thousands of satellites around the Earth. They're always

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Speaker 5: surrounding the Earth. They're beaming down high speed internet and

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Speaker 5: so it's really designed for places where like half the

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Speaker 5: world today cannot be reached by fiber optic cables because

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Speaker 5: it's it's too hard or expensive to put them in

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Speaker 5: the ground. That's a lot of people. That's four billion

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Speaker 5: people that cannot get high speed internet today. And if

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Speaker 5: you buy a SpaceX antenna, it's like a little basketball

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Speaker 5: sized thing and you stick it at your house. You

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Speaker 5: then pull down this high speed Internet delivered from space.

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Speaker 5: And so SpaceX is dominant in rockets that it is

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Speaker 5: really dominant in satellites. If I could give you one

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Speaker 5: more data point just to like put this in perspective.

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Speaker 5: So from like nineteen fifty until about twenty twenty, all

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Speaker 5: of the world we had two thousand, five hundred satellites

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Speaker 5: surrounding the Earth. That's what we've done in all those decades,

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Speaker 5: from twenty twenty to today, that we've gone from two thousand,

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Speaker 5: five hundred satellites to about twelve thousand surrounding the Earth,

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Speaker 5: and the vast majority of those now are SpaceX satellites.

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Speaker 5: That's why there's that huge jump.

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Speaker 4: Wow. I feel like it dominates the night sky amateur

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Speaker 4: like photography community as well. Do you ever see that

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Speaker 4: online people talking about like, what's this light in this sky?

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Speaker 4: I can't figure it out? And the answer is always starlink.

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Speaker 4: It's always starlink. Launching new things.

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Speaker 5: Well, I mean it's funny. So you know, when they

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Speaker 5: do a Starlink launch, each rocket is filled with dozens

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Speaker 5: and dozens of satellites, and yeah, it's just cool phenomenon.

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Speaker 5: I mean, when they first come out of the rocket,

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Speaker 5: they're all kind of clumped together, and then over the

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Speaker 5: course of weeks they sort of slowly spread out, and

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Speaker 5: so now you can see that in the night sky.

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Speaker 5: It used to be a pretty rare thing, but over

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Speaker 5: the last two three years, people see this now all

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Speaker 5: the time.

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Speaker 3: So I used to do a little bit of on

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Speaker 3: air reporting for Bloomberg Rocketry, like when they would fire

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Speaker 3: up some of those SpaceX trials and then the rocket

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Speaker 3: would go up and then come down, and like, I'm

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Speaker 3: still pretty blown away when I see those relandings, Like

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Speaker 3: it still doesn't seem like that should be physically possible.

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Speaker 3: I know there are other competitors. You wrote a whole

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Speaker 3: book about them. Jeff Bezos has one. Some of the

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Speaker 3: people who used to work for SpaceX have launched their

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Speaker 3: own Sitting aside the new miracle gap, what is this

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Speaker 3: sort of technological gap right now between SpaceX and how

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Speaker 3: good it is with its reusable rockets and so forth,

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Speaker 3: and where the competition is technologically.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that's pretty dramatic too. So there used

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Speaker 5: to be there was a handful of government programs that

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Speaker 5: dominated space since the space race began. And none of

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Speaker 5: the government players do reusable rockets at all. So nothing

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Speaker 5: from Europe, nothing from Russia, India, Japan, any of that,

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Speaker 5: and so you have to kind of turn to the

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Speaker 5: commercial players that have popped up over the last ten

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Speaker 5: fifteen years and so so SpaceX has this dialed in

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Speaker 5: as we all know. You know, they've reused one rocket

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Speaker 5: I think as many as twenty times. And I wrote

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Speaker 5: a biography on Elon you know that came out a

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Speaker 5: few years ago. When I was researching that book, all

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Speaker 5: the traditional players said this was going to be impossible

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Speaker 5: and it was wasted time and the math would never

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Speaker 5: pencil out. But clearly it has. After SpaceX, the second

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Speaker 5: most successful rocket company is rocket Lab. It was started

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Speaker 5: in New Zealand. It's headquartered now in the United States.

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Speaker 5: So AX has flown hundreds and hundreds of rockets. Rocket

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Speaker 5: Labs flown about fifty and they have a much smaller,

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Speaker 5: cheaper rocket and they have started to move towards parts

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Speaker 5: of reasonable rocket, and they are building now a larger,

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Speaker 5: fully reusable rocket that they're hoping to fly next year.

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Speaker 5: So they really are the only current real rocket competitor

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Speaker 5: to SpaceX, and they're doing very well. They're starting to

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Speaker 5: launch once every couple of weeks. You know. The next

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Speaker 5: step is the sort of last great hope to really

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Speaker 5: challenge SpaceX is Blue Origin, which has been sort of

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Speaker 5: like a sad tale for it was started almost the

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Speaker 5: same year as SpaceX and really hasn't done that much.

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Speaker 5: They do have a reasonable rocket for the tourism flights

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Speaker 5: where you go to space for about six minutes. Blue

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Speaker 5: Origin has never sent a satellite up. It's just not

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Speaker 5: been involved in sort of the commercial end of the business.

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Speaker 5: This year they think will be the first time they

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Speaker 5: send up their much larger rocket that can take satellites.

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Speaker 5: And Blue Origin is also focused on reusable rockets.

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Speaker 4: Wait, I have another basic question, which is how do

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Speaker 4: reusable rockets actually work? And why did SpaceX decide to

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Speaker 4: go down that route, because, as you said, a lot

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Speaker 4: of people thought it was mathematically or physically impossible.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's this thought that there was sort

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Speaker 5: of a waste of time because the rockets they go

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Speaker 5: through so much damage and pressure and violence during a

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Speaker 5: rocket launch that the idea of bringing this huge tube

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Speaker 5: back and it's still being usable again, that seemed a

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Speaker 5: bit far fetched. And you have to deal with the

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Speaker 5: whole process of actually getting that toobe back instead of

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Speaker 5: falling into the ocean or burning up in the atmosphere.

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Speaker 5: And so SpaceX, you know, they developed this technique where

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Speaker 5: they have these landing legs actually on the big base

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Speaker 5: part of the rocket, and it comes back towards Earth

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Speaker 5: and it's sort of free falling, and then all of

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Speaker 5: a sudden, the engines kick back on again and they

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Speaker 5: slow it down and just lands right back on the

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Speaker 5: pad where it took off from. There's a big trade

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Speaker 5: off in this, so the physics nobody has a great

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Speaker 5: advantage on the physics of rockets, and the physics of

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Speaker 5: rockets aren't that great. When you have this giant tube

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Speaker 5: full of fuel, you know, it's a few percent of

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Speaker 5: the total weight of that rocket is the stuff that

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Speaker 5: you actually get to take to space. The vast majority

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Speaker 5: of it is fuel, and you have to use some

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Speaker 5: of your fuel to land the rocket. And so people

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Speaker 5: also thought that was a bad trade off to make

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Speaker 5: it's better just to take more stuff.

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Speaker 3: Didn't. At one point, some people thought that rockets themselves

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Speaker 3: would be inherently impossible for that exact reason that just

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Speaker 3: like so much of the weight would be the fuel.

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Speaker 3: And so some people just theorized that the idea of

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Speaker 3: rocket true would be inherently impossible.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, going way back, you know, the first rocket pioneers

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Speaker 5: were sort of like in the nineteen tens and twenties.

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Speaker 5: This guy, Robert Goddard was the American pioneer in this field,

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Speaker 5: and he there's a pretty famous moment where he writes

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Speaker 5: a op ed for the New York Times talking about

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Speaker 5: flying a rocket to the moon, and he was just

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Speaker 5: pilloried as this wacko, you know, and that none of

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Speaker 5: this whatever happened, and the physics don't make sense at all,

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Speaker 5: and so it took a while to sort of get

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Speaker 5: people to believe that these days. The way the basically

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Speaker 5: works is like the bigger you can make a rocket,

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Speaker 5: you start to get these advantages, and so that's kind

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Speaker 5: of what you want to do. But the bigger you

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Speaker 5: make a rocket, the more complicated it is, the more

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Speaker 5: engines it needs, it gets harder and harder, and SpaceX

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Speaker 5: is really the only one that has dialed all this in,

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Speaker 5: has the manufacturing processes to make all this this math work.

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Speaker 5: If you look at the government programs, they don't really

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Speaker 5: have an answer to what SpaceX is doing. And these

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Speaker 5: things take ten twenty thirty years to figure out.

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Speaker 4: How did we end up with a system where we

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Speaker 4: have you know, the government has a space program, NASA exists,

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Speaker 4: and then we have these private companies who are doing

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Speaker 4: or providing very important services for entities like NASA. It

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Speaker 4: seems like a weird kind of pseudo government private commercial

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Speaker 4: system that we ended up in.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, if I could riff for a second,

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Speaker 5: I've thought about this a lot. You know, there's an

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Speaker 5: economist named Alex McDonald. He works for NASA. He wrote

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Speaker 5: a really interesting book kind of on this topic. You know,

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Speaker 5: we were talking about these rocket pioneers in the nineteen

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Speaker 5: tens and twenties. The US had Robert Goddard. There was

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Speaker 5: a similar figure in Germany and Russia, and they were

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Speaker 5: all pursuing these kind of liquid fueled rockets very similar

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Speaker 5: to what we use today. They were essentially startups. These

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Speaker 5: were researchers who got private money. Back in the day,

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Speaker 5: if you were really rich, the cool thing to do

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Speaker 5: was to build a giant telescope. That that's what like

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Speaker 5: rich guys used to used to put their money towards philanthropically,

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Speaker 5: and they started to do that to rockets. It was

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Speaker 5: kind of like everyone was interested in space and wanted

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Speaker 5: to prove this out, and so it looked like we

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Speaker 5: were kind of heading on this commercial path. I think

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Speaker 5: World War Two spilling into the Cold War, where space

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Speaker 5: turned into this national sort of achievement, this point of pride,

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Speaker 5: this way to show your scientific prowess, you know, it

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Speaker 5: turned into a government effort. And the result of that

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Speaker 5: was that the rockets could not fail. We got on

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Speaker 5: this race obviously to send humans into space, and so

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Speaker 5: you have to build very expensive, infallible rockets, and this

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Speaker 5: is it was sort of like history that pushed us there.

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Speaker 5: But then we got stuck. You know. Literally, rockets really

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Speaker 5: did not change from the nineteen sixties until SpaceX came along,

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Speaker 5: and so everybody got fixated that these rockets had to

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Speaker 5: be huge, costly expensive. They couldn't fail. It was embarrassing

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Speaker 5: if they did, and that was the ethos, and so

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Speaker 5: SpaceX came along, they were able to take more risk

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Speaker 5: to make the rockets cheaper, to use modern technology, modern software,

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Speaker 5: and so they changed that equation. And it's only now

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Speaker 5: that we're in this weird world between government and commercial space.

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Speaker 5: I think, you know, we are leaving that era of

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Speaker 5: government space. I wrote my hope, my new book was

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Speaker 5: called When the Heavens Went on Sale because I think

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Speaker 5: this is completely becoming a commercial enterprise now.

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Speaker 3: It's so fascinating, this sort of like path dependency and

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Speaker 3: right like it's the sort of military over engineered. It's

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Speaker 3: about carrying people. It's about that triumphalism and then the

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Speaker 3: idea that okay, that's what people think a rocket is.

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Speaker 3: And then SpaceX comes along and just rethinks it from

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Speaker 3: the ground up and sounds like I'm curious about the business. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, Tracy and I had a conversation on on

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Speaker 3: Lots several months ago, and we were actually talking to

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Speaker 3: the guy who runs the Ukrainian postal service and he

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Speaker 3: was talking about how, you know, thanks to Starlink, specifically,

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Speaker 3: if Ukraine were able to retake a village, they wouldn't

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Speaker 3: rebuild the old internet infrastructure. They could get internet going

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Speaker 3: in a day with satellite, And it's sort of like

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Speaker 3: very jarring because you realize, you know, just what an

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Speaker 3: incredible asset Elon is building up. And so between SpaceX

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Speaker 3: and starlink, I you know, I know that like SpaceX

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Speaker 3: will charge you or an individual if you want to

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Speaker 3: like get some space on one of his rockets to

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Speaker 3: fire up your own satellite. Obviously Starlink subscribers pay I

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Speaker 3: guess presumably some monthly fee. But you know, where's this

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Speaker 3: going in terms of the monetization and business to have

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Speaker 3: both the launching infrastructure and the satellite infrastructure together, and

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Speaker 3: what can be done with so much physical material out

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Speaker 3: in space owned by one company?

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Speaker 5: Yeah? Well, look, I mean this has been SpaceX's huge advantage.

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Speaker 5: It has rivals trying to build this space internet. There's

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Speaker 5: one web which which started as a sort of quasi

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Speaker 5: US and European venture. It's gone through bankruptcy in many

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Speaker 5: twists and turns. But it has tons of satellites, but

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Speaker 5: it lacks rockets, and it was actually hoping to fly

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Speaker 5: on a ton of Russian rockets. And when the Ukrainian

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Speaker 5: War broke out, they don't have access to these Russian

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Speaker 5: rockets anymore, and so they got sort of stock in

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Speaker 5: SpaceX was able to race ahead. Amazon is looking to

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Speaker 5: build a giant constellation. Jeff clearly has a rocket company,

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Speaker 5: but he doesn't have the rockets right now that can

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Speaker 5: can send all these satellites up. And so SpaceX is

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Speaker 5: in this unique position. There's trade offs, right. You can

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Speaker 5: think of starlink. I think of it as a it's

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Speaker 5: really like the first global internet slash communications provider. As

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Speaker 5: we all know, telecoms tends to be a sort of

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Speaker 5: nationalized thing. If you're in the US, you're on whatever

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Speaker 5: at and T or Verizon. When you go to Europe

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Speaker 5: you have to switch to something else. You know. Being

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Speaker 5: in space you get past all of that, and so

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Speaker 5: you become this global force. And that is how they

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Speaker 5: make their money is on these monthly subscriptions. I have

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Speaker 5: Starlink at a house in Mexico. I think it's about

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Speaker 5: sixty or seventy dollars a month to get the service.

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Speaker 5: And so you've got consumers paying for that, You've got

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Speaker 5: some businesses paying for that, and yeah, so there's this

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Speaker 5: idea maybe you could avoid building a lot of infrastructure

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Speaker 5: on the ground. There is a trade off, Like space

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Speaker 5: Internet is almost definitely never going to be as fast

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Speaker 5: as fiber. And so if you're you know, if you're

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Speaker 5: in a country like the United States, where we have

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Speaker 5: this huge land mass and we have the money to

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Speaker 5: lay all this fiber, you know that is still going

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Speaker 5: to be in the backbone that most people use. But

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Speaker 5: in all these other circumstances, planes, cars, boats also like

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Speaker 5: this idea. This is what I think about the most,

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Speaker 5: is this unified fabric of the Internet blanketing the earth,

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Speaker 5: so that no matter where you are, there's Internet service.

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Speaker 5: All of our modern devices are working, things like autonomous

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Speaker 5: cars and drones and all this stuff that need to

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Speaker 5: be connected all the time. You know, I think I

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Speaker 5: think SpaceX right now is in the pole position to

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Speaker 5: be that sort of future backbone of all that.

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Speaker 4: You said something interesting earlier, you said our last hope

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Speaker 4: for competition to SpaceX was Blue Origin, And that.

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Speaker 5: Might have been dramatic, but they are the biggest of

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Speaker 5: just because Jeff has so much money to.

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Speaker 4: Actually right, well point taken. But I do get the

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Speaker 4: sense that there is a desire to have more than

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Speaker 4: one company that's doing this, And I guess my question

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Speaker 4: is why is that important? Because when I think of

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Speaker 4: natural monopolies, Like, it's usually something pretty important like infrastructure

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Speaker 4: or rockets. In this case, couldn't we have a world

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Speaker 4: where one company is very very good at building these

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Speaker 4: and dominates Like, what's the trade off here?

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Speaker 5: Well, we do have a world like that at the moment,

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Speaker 5: and you know we've already seen subtradeouts. I think there's

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Speaker 5: a bunch of reasons you would want multiple rocket companies,

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Speaker 5: particularly if you're the United States or Russia. Clearly for political, military,

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Speaker 5: strategic reasons. You don't want to be dependent on one

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Speaker 5: company for all kinds of reasons. Something could go wrong,

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Speaker 5: their rocket could stop working, they could go out of business.

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Speaker 5: You know, you want these other paths to space. We've

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Speaker 5: talked about how many satellites are going up. I mean

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Speaker 5: this is the next I think of it as the

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Speaker 5: you know, we spent the last thirty years building out

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Speaker 5: this internet infrastructure on Earth. We are now doing the

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Speaker 5: exact same thing in space. It is going to be

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Speaker 5: the next spot where we build out our computing infrastructure,

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Speaker 5: and you want lots of access to that and ways

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Speaker 5: to put these satellites up, replace them. And look, if

404
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Speaker 5: we look at Ukraine, there's a pretty good case you

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Speaker 5: could make that Ukraine would have fallen to Russia quite

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Speaker 5: quickly without SpaceX. In the early days of the war,

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Speaker 5: all of these satellites were providing tons of imagery that

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Speaker 5: aided the Ukrainian military. After that, SpaceX Starlink became this

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Speaker 5: central part of the Ukrainian military's infrastructure. It really undermined

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Speaker 5: Russia's plans for attack. But you know, we saw these

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Speaker 5: situations where Elon can turn Starlink on and off at

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Speaker 5: his whims and so, you know, do you want one

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Speaker 5: person with the power of a nation state when things

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Speaker 5: like this happen, And do you want that one person

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Speaker 5: to be someone as material as Elon? Probably not. You

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Speaker 5: probably want a couple options in this race. And definitely

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Speaker 5: nations like China, Europe, Russia going to want their own space,

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Speaker 5: internet and rockets.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I imagine that pricing is pretty low down on

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Speaker 4: the priority list when it comes to rockets. But Joe,

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Speaker 4: weren't you looking at the cross for some of.

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Speaker 3: These Yeah, it was fun. I looked and see what

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Speaker 3: the cost of putting a satellite into space, and I

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Speaker 3: was pretty annoyed because I thought I could get a

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Speaker 3: fifty kilogram satellite into space for six hundred and ninety

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Speaker 3: thousand dollars. But then I clicked to the next page

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Speaker 3: and there were all there's like fuel surcharge and all

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Speaker 3: this stuff junk went up to like one point five million.

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Speaker 3: So I was like, I was not happy. I felt

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Speaker 3: like an Airbnb person.

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Speaker 5: That's still pretty good, though. You know, if you go back,

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Speaker 5: if you go back a few if you go back

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Speaker 5: a few years, you're you basically have to pay three

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00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 5: hundred million dollars and buy an entire rocket.

435
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:17,160
Speaker 3: And okay, right, I'll book the one point five million. Wait.

436
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 4: So prices happened coming down like dramatically.

437
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 5: So there's there's a couple of ways prices have gone down.

438
00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 5: So SpaceX's major competitor in the United States is this

439
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:29,639
Speaker 5: company called United Launch Alliance. It's a combination of Boeing

440
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 5: and Lockeed, and they're going rate for rocket launch is

441
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:36,919
Speaker 5: usually about three hundred million dollars. That's for the entire rocket.

442
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:40,960
Speaker 5: SpaceX charges about sixty million dollars for the equivalent rocket.

443
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 5: So already SpaceX pulled the price down, and then there's

444
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 5: a new model that's emerged where you don't have to

445
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:50,640
Speaker 5: buy the entire rockets because the satellites used to all

446
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:52,919
Speaker 5: be the size of a school bus and cost billions

447
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:54,960
Speaker 5: of dollars, and you wanted your own rocket. Now there's

448
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,199
Speaker 5: tiny satellites like the size of a shoe box, and

449
00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 5: so you buy space on a SpaceX.

450
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 3: I think that's what I was looking at. I was

451
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 3: looking at that. They called it like the ride share program, right, yeah,

452
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 3: the SpaceX riodehair Well.

453
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 5: Just one last thing on the price, and then you

454
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 5: know there are tons now of these small rocket companies

455
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 5: that have merged. So like with rocket Lab, you don't

456
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,400
Speaker 5: get the giant rocket of SpaceX, but you can get

457
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:22,159
Speaker 5: an entire rocket for about eight million dollars whatever you

458
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:24,199
Speaker 5: like to space. So it's it's part. This is what

459
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:27,680
Speaker 5: has opened up the opportunity for all these satellite startups.

460
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 3: We gotta check the CPI index for satellite rocket and

461
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 3: see the disinflation happening there. I just have one last question,

462
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 3: and you already did sort of hit on it, but

463
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 3: the national security element, and I'm curious about it, both

464
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 3: in the US and maybe China and Europe, like it

465
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,639
Speaker 3: is pretty wild that you know, in a war, a

466
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:51,479
Speaker 3: lot may depend on the whims of one individual. Elon

467
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 3: Musk and whether you know, it's his company, he can

468
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 3: do whatever he wants, and theory, et cetera. But like,

469
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:01,440
Speaker 3: how are governments around the world thinking about the key

470
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 3: man risk of the geopolitical risk and this is it

471
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,120
Speaker 3: is an American company, and et cetera, and the sort

472
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 3: of you know, the potential for yeah, the fact that

473
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 3: if he wants to turn it off for one country

474
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 3: and not for another country, he can really impair change

475
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 3: the course of a war. Like, how are they thinking

476
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:18,400
Speaker 3: about this risk?

477
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 5: Well, in the United States, I mean, we do have

478
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 5: backup plans. You know, there is United Launch Alliance is

479
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 5: always there with a rocket. They just they haven't been

480
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 5: able to do things like send humans to space. SpaceX

481
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 5: has been the only one that could send humans to

482
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 5: space since the Shuttle stopped. But the US has been

483
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 5: funding all these startups. Rocket Lab got some military funding.

484
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 5: There's tons of these small rocket companies that have received

485
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 5: funding from DARPA, et cetera. And so so they're trying

486
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 5: to put all these backup plans in place. China has

487
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 5: a weird mix of government backed and private rocket companies.

488
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 5: If you look elsewhere, the list gets much smaller. It's

489
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 5: usually one government program and maybe a rocket startup. And

490
00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 5: so this is like a very expensive, hard to do thing.

491
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 5: The US was in a pretty bad spot twenty years ago.

492
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 5: The government programs had slowed down. The US is an

493
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 5: amazing spot now. We have more rocket startups and satellite

494
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 5: startups than anywhere on Earth by many, many times. Russia's

495
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:15,719
Speaker 5: space program is cratering. I think people should pay attention

496
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 5: to this. SpaceX had already undermined their entire business. The

497
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 5: war in Ukraine has cut off a lot of customers.

498
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 5: They are the wild card in all this space is

499
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 5: a point of national pride going back many decades. Corruption

500
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 5: plus their declining business has eroded their space program. They've

501
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 5: already done things like sent a missile up from the

502
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 5: Earth to destroy one of their own satellites, just to

503
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 5: remind everybody that they have this capability. And so you know,

504
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 5: you'll also notice that the Space Force formed over the

505
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 5: last few years, and so so this is how people

506
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,400
Speaker 5: are thinking about this space is going to be an

507
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,360
Speaker 5: area of military combat almost definitely.

508
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 3: Ashley Vance, that was so fantastic, So great to have

509
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 3: you on onlines like I know a little bit more.

510
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 5: Now, Thanks thanks for having.

511
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 3: That was our conversation with Ashley Vance. And now we're

512
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 3: going to turn to two other of our Bloomberg colleagues,

513
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 3: two of the hosts of the excellent Elon Inc. Podcast,

514
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:33,120
Speaker 3: which covers the sort of weekly or daily goings on

515
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 3: of Elon Musk and his universe. They're going to help

516
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 3: us understand how SpaceX and Starlink fit more directly into

517
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 3: the broader Elon Musk empire. We're going to be speaking

518
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 3: with Dana Hall and Max Chafkins. So, Dana and Max,

519
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 3: thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots. So, Dana,

520
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 3: I'll start with you, like, how would you describe that

521
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 3: specific role in the various assets that Elon has? What

522
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 3: is SpaceX and I guess Starlink, Like, what does it

523
00:27:58,119 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 3: serve together?

524
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 6: Well, I guess I would say first and foremost that

525
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 6: SpaceX is Elon's first love. I mean, this is the

526
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 6: company that Elon founded after he made his millions from PayPal,

527
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 6: and it's really the company that he began first and

528
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 6: foremost before anything else. I mean, I feel like in

529
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 6: the public perception he's known as the CEO of Tesla

530
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 6: because Tesla is publicly traded and it makes a consumer

531
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 6: facing product. But Tesla's the company that Musk invested in

532
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 6: early on and then took over. But SpaceX is really

533
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 6: the company that he founded, and it's really his first love.

534
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 6: I mean, this guy's whole thing is about going to Mars,

535
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 6: and all the other aspects of his company are really

536
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 6: sort of building towards that, like a penultimate goal that

537
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 6: has been his goal for like decades now.

538
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: Just from a like logistics standpoint. Also picking up what

539
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: Dana saying, like Elon Musk has long lived very close

540
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: to SpaceX, like it's been where he sort of located

541
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: his person and then he's flown, you know, a couple

542
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: of days out of the week to Tesla and sort

543
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: of manage that as like a side gig. And the

544
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: other thing that Dana didn't mention this pretty important is

545
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 1: it's not just his first love. It's also kind of

546
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: key to his brand. And like the way that he's

547
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: managed to sort of create a lot of momentum in

548
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: other businesses I think draws at least to some extent

549
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: from the success he's had at SpaceX.

550
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 4: Yes, everyone knows that Tesla's are in fact just earth rockets.

551
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 4: That was terrible, Max. I was gonna ask you you

552
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 4: mentioned you mentioned time management there. This was going to

553
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 4: be my next question, But when I think about Elon's empire,

554
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 4: I can't even remember everything he has now. But obviously

555
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 4: there's Tesla, there's SpaceX, there's the boring company?

556
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: Is that it?

557
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 4: And like Neuralinkrock Grock x X AI. Yeah, Twitter, Where

558
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 4: where does he find time to tweet? That's the important thing.

559
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if you talk to shareholders Tesla

560
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: and even in some of Elon Musk's friends, I think

561
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 1: would say, you know, he's spending too much time tweeting.

562
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: And I do think that one of the things that's

563
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: been so difficult about this X acquisition, the acquisition of

564
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 1: Twitter renaming it ex, and then Elon Musk's like increased

565
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: engagement on X has been that it has like taken

566
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: him away from these companies that are potentially more lucrative,

567
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: more valuable, and also like more ultimately probably more important

568
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: in sort of achieving the goals as Elon Musk has

569
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: laid them out.

570
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 6: Dan, Yeah, I was gonna say, I think he tweets

571
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 6: a lot when he is on a plane or on

572
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 6: the toilet. Frankly, I mean I think he's even said

573
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 6: as much and he tweets a lot, and he doesn't

574
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,239
Speaker 6: sleep very much, so you know he's when he's in

575
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 6: between meetings or even if he's in a meeting. I

576
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 6: think he's just sort of glued to that phone NonStop.

577
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 3: I can't relate. Like Tracy immediately turns her head to

578
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 3: me when you said that, but I can't relate to that.

579
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 5: So keep going.

580
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 4: You and Evon would have a lot to talk about,

581
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 4: I feel like.

582
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 3: Or it would just be distracted the entire time and

583
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 3: not have it a lot to talk about.

584
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 4: Okay, right, here's the serious question. Are there synergies between

585
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 4: a company like space X and say a Tesla or

586
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 4: a boring company or neuralink or something like that.

587
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: I mean Elon Musk would say yeah, absolutely. I mean,

588
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: first of all, like the general thing that he did

589
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: with SpaceX, like if you go back to the beginning,

590
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: is sort of take essentially like pre existing technology that

591
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 1: was more or less already out there, and find ways

592
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: to make it more efficient, cheaper, and to sell it

593
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: in a super effective way. Originally to the government of course,

594
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: now to private enterprises. And I think in certain ways

595
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: he's followed that playbook with almost every company except maybe

596
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: arguably actually more than maybe with X.

597
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think that like all of his companies

598
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 6: still serve this larger purpose. So for example, the Boring Company,

599
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 6: which we think of as this like weird tunneling startup,

600
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 6: that's like building tunnels under Las Vegas. Like if he

601
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 6: does like colonize Mars, you're going to need to build

602
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 6: tunnels on Mars because there's not an atmosphere on Mars,

603
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 6: so you have to like tear a form the planet first.

604
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 6: So like all of his companies have a role in

605
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 6: like the bigger project, which is the Mars colony, and

606
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 6: in the way that you know he's using X to

607
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 6: train the X dot AI and just the fact that

608
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 6: so many investors and executives and people are all related

609
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 6: to each other. It's like it's one big, kind of

610
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 6: massive elon universe. And I can't think of any other

611
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 6: executive who has run so many companies simultaneously, and he

612
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 6: just keeps expanding. I mean, that's what's so, that's what's

613
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 6: so wild, Like you would think that SpaceX and Tesla

614
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 6: would be enough, and now he's got six companies.

615
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 3: So Dan, it just to be clear on this when

616
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 3: you talk about Mars and the vision is to get

617
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 3: to Mond Like should we take that literally? Like, oh,

618
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 3: should we take it literally or seriously? Like is really

619
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 3: like the way to understand the constellation of companies as

620
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 3: a combined project. That's a Mars project and we should

621
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 3: take it literally. That that's what the project is.

622
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 6: I mean, that's how I take it. Yeah, because I

623
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 6: think that, like, you know, okay, is does Tesla have

624
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 6: a relationship to Mars? Not really, but like Musk's wealth

625
00:32:57,360 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 6: is key. Like if you think about Musk needing wealth

626
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 6: and the amount of money that will be needed to

627
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 6: go to Mars, Tesla plays a role on that. You're

628
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 6: gonna need internet service on Mars. You're gonna need like

629
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 6: if human beings are living on Mars, they are gonna

630
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 6: need to communicate somehow. So yeah, I think of Mars

631
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 6: as being the guiding principle behind a lot of what

632
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 6: this guy does. And it does seem like fanciful and

633
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 6: pie in the sky, But then you think about how

634
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 6: many decisions he's made. It's all kind of with Mars

635
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 6: still at the apex of like what is driving him?

636
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: I mean you can see though, some of that starting

637
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: to stretch, right, I mean, like you don't need electric

638
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: cars on Mars. I mean you might need good batteries.

639
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: I guess I think he. I think it's like seriously

640
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: not literally, like Elon Musk believes that it would be

641
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: great if we had a Mars colony, and I think

642
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: he does actually, like with his own being, want to

643
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: visit Mars, and he's been able to use that as

644
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: a sort of animating force behind this business that in

645
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: a lot of ways has like nothing to do with

646
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: I mean, SpaceX has something to do with going in

647
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: to Mars in the sense that like, oh well, eventually

648
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: the rockets will get big enough and so on. But

649
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: for many years, right it had nothing to do with

650
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,479
Speaker 1: going to Mars. It was sending stuff to lower Urbit.

651
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: But he's been able to use that belief as like

652
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: the kind of guiding light for SpaceX and amazingly for

653
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: all of these other companies. Like he's people think of

654
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: him as this amazing engineer, but he's also an amazing marketer,

655
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: somebody who's really good at sort of turning something that

656
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: can feel pretty pedestrian, like, hey, right now, the boring

657
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: company is digging a tunnel between like you know, one

658
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: end of the Las Vegas convention Center and the Virgin Hotel,

659
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: which is like very close if you've been to Vegas

660
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 1: and coming up with a story that somehow spins that

661
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,839
Speaker 1: as like this is all about our plan to colonize Mars. Right.

662
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a Steve Jobs level exaggeration slash marketing.

663
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: It's what makes him really successful. But it's also what

664
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 1: you know, brings on critics and short sellers and so on.

665
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 4: Why hasn't he started an agriculture technology business Because I

666
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 4: feel like you're gonna have to grow potatoes on Mars.

667
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 4: That's one thing I've learned from Hollywood, and that could

668
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 4: solve an Earth problem too. Right.

669
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 6: Well, Kimball, his brother, Kimball, kind of does that, right.

670
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 6: I mean, Kimball is like the chef who's got this

671
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 6: kitchen communities and he's growing organic food and teaching kids

672
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 6: how to be like cook and he's got restaurants. I

673
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 6: sort of feel like Kimball plays that role.

674
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 1: I mean the most extreme version of this kind of

675
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: like weird flight of fancy thing that is the woke

676
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: mind virus, right where when he took over Twitter. From

677
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: the outside, you're looking at this, You're like, Okay, this

678
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,760
Speaker 1: is the guy who really likes this social media app.

679
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: He really likes posting on it. He also has amazing

680
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: access to great investors. He's got some ideas, and after

681
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:40,720
Speaker 1: buying it, you know, or I guess in the process

682
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: of buying it, he sort of concocted this idea that

683
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: Twitter would be the key to saving civilization from collapse. Like,

684
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 1: because if the woke mind virus is Elon Musk describes it,

685
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 1: were to take over, then our Martian colity would be

686
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: irrelevant because we'd all society would collapse. So I don't know,

687
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: it's like he's he's got an endless capacity to like

688
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: ditched these new companies into that pre existing narrative.

689
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 3: Wait, Max, you said something I want to follow up on.

690
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 3: People think of Elon as a great engineer. Is he

691
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 3: a great engineer or is he a great product manager,

692
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 3: product dev who has done an objectively phenomenal job of

693
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 3: bringing engineers together. I mean, there's no question he's built

694
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,240
Speaker 3: what he's built, and SpaceX is SpaceX, and et cetera.

695
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 3: Is he himself considered to have great engineering jobs or

696
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 3: is he just like a great like sort of manager type?

697
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: He ask Elon, Right, he's gonna he will insist he's

698
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: a great engineer. In fact, he's like put it in

699
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 1: his titles. You know, his like official title at SpaceX

700
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: has long been like chief rocket Designer. He like really

701
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 1: embraces the idea that he is involved in the engineering

702
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 1: for better or worse, you know, the cyber truck, as

703
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: recounted in the Walter Asacson book, Like the cyber truck

704
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways seems like a miss. And

705
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,879
Speaker 1: one of the reasons is that Elon insisted on all

706
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,840
Speaker 1: these things. Now, is that engineering? Is that product management? Like,

707
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, I'm I don't He's not.

708
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: I don't think he's as hands on as as many

709
00:36:57,120 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: people work for him, although I will say he's definitely

710
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:03,760
Speaker 1: like a more hands on than your average Silicon Valley CEO,

711
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: and he prides himself on that, and you know, for

712
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: better or worse, that's that's who he is.

713
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 4: So going back to SpaceX for a second, where does

714
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 4: the money actually come from? Because this must be massively expensive.

715
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 4: We got the sense from Ashley that you know, clearly

716
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 4: the business is exploding, but even with that revenue coming in,

717
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 4: you're still talking about billions and billions of dollars of

718
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:29,720
Speaker 4: upfront investment for something like rocket technology. Who's funding that, well, NASA.

719
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 6: I mean the company has sort of developed hand in

720
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 6: glove with NASA, which very early on, you know, after

721
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 6: the Space Shuttle program ended, NASA wanted commercial companies to

722
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 6: kind of take the mantle and basically lead to charge

723
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 6: in terms of privatizing space, and NASA sort of put

724
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 6: out bids for private companies to kind of bid on

725
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 6: the right to ferry not just cargo but humans to

726
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 6: the International Space Station. Two companies one SpaceX and Boeing.

727
00:37:56,719 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 6: SpaceX beat Boeing by years. I mean SpaceX has been

728
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,239
Speaker 6: bringing astronauts to and from the Space station now for

729
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 6: a while Boig has yet to fly. Like, so NASA

730
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,239
Speaker 6: was a huge and very early kind of supporter of SpaceX.

731
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 6: And then beyond NASA, Like if you think of the

732
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 6: launch market as like a three legged stool, there's NASA,

733
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 6: there's the US military, and then there's like other satellite companies.

734
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 6: So I mean the military is also huge. Like, if

735
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,399
Speaker 6: you've got an NRO satellite going up there, you want

736
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 6: it to go up on an American rocket. So Elon

737
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 6: has a lot of defense contracts as well.

738
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny because you often hear stories that are

739
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: like Elon Musk beat NASA, right, as if they're in competition,

740
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: And in certain ways, I suppose that's true, because SpaceX

741
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: is a privately held company and it develops things in

742
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 1: a somewhat different way than NASA has in the past.

743
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: But you could tell a story about SpaceX where the

744
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: hero is not Elon Musk, it's some like George W. Bush,

745
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: era administrator, who had the sort of brilliant idea to

746
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: give contracts to these private companies for what had become

747
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: essentially a routine mission, Like we don't need to spend

748
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,400
Speaker 1: all this money on the shuttle, we should let the

749
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: likes of Elon Musk do it. And it's to NASA's

750
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 1: credit that they went for that, but also, of course,

751
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 1: to Elon Musk credit that he, you know, followed through

752
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: on it and achieved it.

753
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 4: Oh, just on that note, do you get the sense

754
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 4: that SpaceX is particularly adept at bidding for government contracts?

755
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 4: Is it that they're like especially efficient at providing the

756
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 4: best cost benefit, or is it that they're the only

757
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 4: ones that have this technology or the only ones able

758
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 4: to do this at a certain scale?

759
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: I mean, he's an amazing he's amazing at it, Dan,

760
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:31,839
Speaker 1: go ahead.

761
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I mean that's the other thing that's sort

762
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 6: of a wild part of the backstory is SpaceX actually

763
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 6: sued the Air Force for the right to compete on

764
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 6: these national security missions. And everyone thought at the time, like,

765
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 6: why would you sue the Air Force if you're trying

766
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 6: to bid on these contracts. But they sued and they won,

767
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,400
Speaker 6: and then they started bidding and they absolutely win a

768
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 6: lot of the bidz because they are more cost effective.

769
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:56,280
Speaker 6: It's not a cost plus contract, it's just like it's cheaper.

770
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 6: And like the Air Force and the Pentagon love Elon Musk.

771
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 6: I mean, whenever he speaks at any of their like

772
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 6: military installations, he's like wildly applauded by all of the

773
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 6: folks there. And then in turn, like SpaceX has been

774
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 6: very shrewd about hiring former military people to come work

775
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 6: at SpaceX, so the whole revolving door thing. They have

776
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 6: an incredible lobbying team in Washington, d C. And so

777
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 6: when SpaceX started, it was on the outside of the

778
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 6: military industrial complex, and he very shrewdly kind of wormed

779
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 6: his way into it. And now he is very much

780
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 6: a part of it and like a big, big benefactor

781
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 6: of it.

782
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: We shall also say, like one thing that makes SpaceX

783
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: kind of unique in Elon world is this woman Gwen Shotwell,

784
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,800
Speaker 1: who is the COO and who has been the person

785
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: who has sort of led this push to like sell

786
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: these rockets to the military, as Dan and I talk

787
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:46,439
Speaker 1: about all the time on the podcast, and we've spent

788
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: time with Gwen as well, Like they have a unique relationship.

789
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: She is like uniquely able to manage Elon musk to

790
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:54,800
Speaker 1: get kind of does.

791
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 3: That not exist at the other seven or eight companies,

792
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:00,040
Speaker 3: that sort of person who can manage him the same way? No,

793
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:00,840
Speaker 3: it doesn't.

794
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:03,319
Speaker 1: I don't think it exists at any of them.

795
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 6: Yeah, because she's like the longest tenured person and she's

796
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 6: the only person who's like the clear number two, Like

797
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,399
Speaker 6: Tesla doesn't have a clear number two whatever. There's been

798
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 6: someone who seemed like the number two. They either get

799
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:17,799
Speaker 6: fired or they quit. So she's got staying power and

800
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:20,919
Speaker 6: like this level of eq that is sort of unparalleled

801
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 6: at any of his other companies.

802
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 3: Is SpaceX profitable? Could we get a scent? What are

803
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 3: some of the numbers that we know about it revenue profitabilities.

804
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 3: Are we going to see an IPO? What are the

805
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 3: years are we talking about? Give us a talk talk

806
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 3: business for a second.

807
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: So probably not, but I don't think we totally know.

808
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,760
Speaker 1: And Elon Musk has sort of indicated in all sorts

809
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: of ways that he's not going to take SpaceX public.

810
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,759
Speaker 1: What's sort of come out via reporting and like little

811
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: dribs and drabs of what he said is that he'd

812
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:51,919
Speaker 1: very much like to take starlink public, but that would

813
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,880
Speaker 1: leave SpaceX, the defense contractor, to continue to be his domain.

814
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: That kind of makes sense because in theory, again the

815
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: real challenges with starlink business that I'm not sure everyone

816
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: totally appreciates, but in theory that could be a very

817
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: profitable business, lots of customers, it's like easy to model

818
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,280
Speaker 1: out and so on, and in theory could be separate

819
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: from SpaceX. The other thing is Starlink would create lots

820
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: and lots of demand for SpaceX launches, because like if

821
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: you're launching all these little satellites in the space and

822
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: you have to do it continuously because they follow the sky, eventually,

823
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 1: that's going to create lots of demand that SpaceX could use,

824
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 1: like long run to keep the rocket program developing and

825
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: you know, eventually get to Mars. Yeah.

826
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 6: I also think that Elon doesn't really like being a

827
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 6: public company CEO. I mean, he tried to take Tesla

828
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 6: private in twenty eighteen, was forced to basically, you know,

829
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 6: go back on that idea and keep it public. But

830
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 6: he kind of hates it. Like he hates the disclosures,

831
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 6: he hates the rigamarole of earnings calls, he hates Delaware law.

832
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 6: You know, like there's a lot more scrutiny on you

833
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 6: when you are a publicly traded company. And so I

834
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:55,720
Speaker 6: kind of think going public is like a last resort

835
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 6: for him. I mean, you go public when you are

836
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:00,479
Speaker 6: trying to raise money, but if you can raise money

837
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 6: without it, I think he would prefer to stay private

838
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 6: for as long as possible.

839
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: I mean, there's also like a tension here because he

840
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: doesn't want to go public. He hates the idea of

841
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 1: giving up control is terrible. On the other hand, he's

842
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,720
Speaker 1: so good at dealing with Wall Street and like really,

843
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: and I guess that's the line he's trying to walk

844
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: with Starlink. You know, you're able to like break off

845
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: this piece of the business that maybe he doesn't care

846
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 1: that much about, which allows him to tap capital markets

847
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: get his investors some kind of return while also keeping

848
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: his first love his own.

849
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:30,319
Speaker 3: Danna and Max, thank you so much for coming on

850
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:31,799
Speaker 3: odd lots, really appreciate it.

851
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 5: Great to be here.

852
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having us.

853
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 3: Tracy, I'm really glad we had those conversations because well,

854
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 3: I just want to understand more. But now I like

855
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 3: more even fully appreciate what an extraordinary sort of I

856
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 3: guess moment it is that one private individual has such

857
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 3: a stranglehold I guess so to speak on space right now.

858
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:04,760
Speaker 4: I'm kind of reusable rocket pills.

859
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, very exactly.

860
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, that was fascinating. There was so much to

861
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 4: pick out of that conversation. One thing I thought was

862
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:15,279
Speaker 4: really interesting was when Ashley was talking about NASA and

863
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 4: the sort of headline risk it felt around rockets and

864
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,720
Speaker 4: various space launches that ended up being a limiting factor

865
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 4: in developing the technology. And we kind of see that

866
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 4: time and time again with government projects, right.

867
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 5: Yeah.

868
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 4: So, on the one hand, the government can be incredibly

869
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 4: influential when it comes to, you know, promoting or designing

870
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 4: new technology. But on the other hand, it can end

871
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:39,319
Speaker 4: up being very, very conservative because if something fails, it's

872
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 4: a waste of tax payer money, and you got all

873
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:42,760
Speaker 4: these negative headlines.

874
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 3: Totally. I had not thought about that at all, but

875
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 3: it makes so much sense that, like we just come

876
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 3: to think about, like we know what a rocket is, right,

877
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 3: It's this extremely expensive, one time thing. It has to

878
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 3: be so reliable that we could put human life in it,

879
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 3: and you know, that was a whole purpose, and you know,

880
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 3: Ashley talked about this sort of the rocket is the

881
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 3: sort of representation of a nation scientific achievements, particularly during

882
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 3: the Cold War, but that doesn't necessarily lend itself to

883
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 3: great commercial operations because it's so expensive. And then you

884
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 3: can sort of understand how a company can say, like, wait,

885
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:19,319
Speaker 3: maybe we can rethink this.

886
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:19,840
Speaker 5: Yeah.

887
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 4: The other thing I would say is it feels like

888
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 4: a lot of this kind of happened in the background,

889
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 4: like the slow growth of SpaceX and Elon's Empire and

890
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:34,320
Speaker 4: the dominance of things like Starlink. But now with Ukraine

891
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 4: and Russia and various other things, it's kind of bursting

892
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 4: into the public consciousness. And I wonder if there's going

893
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 4: to be more awareness, let's say, of that dominance.

894
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I just don't see how any government anywhere

895
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 3: could not be incredibly anxious about that. I mean, it

896
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 3: seems to be the advantage of the US government that

897
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 3: it is an American company that is so dominant, et cetera.

898
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 3: But obviously Elon is ELI and so I don't know

899
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 3: how much like any government wants to like sort of

900
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 3: depend on that. And then for if you're China or

901
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,560
Speaker 3: if you're Japan, or if you're Europe, SpaceX is not

902
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 3: one of your companies. And I know it feels like

903
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 3: the sort of national security implications everywhere. I just imagine

904
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 3: militaries and space agencies around the world must be like

905
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,280
Speaker 3: sitting off all kinds of alarm buddles, the alarm bells.

906
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 4: What did Danna say? It's Elon's universe.

907
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 3: It literally is also like the idea like it really

908
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 3: is about Mars is like I find to be like

909
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 3: a really like fascinating idea that like you put all

910
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 3: these things together, boring tunnels, batteries, space, internet, satellite like

911
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 3: the unifying idea here.

912
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 4: Where does the flamethrower fit in?

913
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 3: You got any how are you going to fight the martians?

914
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 3: I mean, isn't that obvious, like the Martians aren't going

915
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 3: to fight themselves, You're gonna have to Like.

916
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 4: The Martians aren't going to fight themselves.

917
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 3: You got to bring the flame throwers.

918
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 4: No, that was kind of an eye opening way, I

919
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 4: guess of making sense of what it first seems like

920
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 4: a very disparate universe of companies. So yeah, I thought

921
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,359
Speaker 4: that was incredibly interesting and definitely going to be watching

922
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 4: what SpaceX does next.

923
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 3: Likewise, shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there,

924
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 3: and a big thank you to Ashley, Max and Dana,

925
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,080
Speaker 3: and make sure you check out the Elon Inc. Podcast.

926
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:19,400
Speaker 3: You can find and subscribe to that in all the

927
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:20,280
Speaker 3: regular places.

928
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 4: This has been another episode of the Odd Thoughts Podcast.

929
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 4: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

930
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 3: And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart.

931
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 3: Follow Ashley Vance He's at Ashley Vance. Follow Dana Hall,

932
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 3: She's at Dana Hall. And follow Max Chafkin He's at Chafkin,

933
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 3: and follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carman Arman Dash,

934
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 3: Ob Bennett at Dashbot and Cal Brooks at cal Brooks.

935
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 3: And thank you to our special producer Elon Inc. Producer

936
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 3: Magnus Hendrickson, who used to be years ago the Reunited

937
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 3: with Magnus. Thank you to our producer Moses on them

938
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 3: from our odd Laws content, go to Bloomberg dot com

939
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 3: slash odd Lots, where you have transcripts, a blog, and

940
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 3: a newsletter and you can chat about all of these

941
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,879
Speaker 3: topics twenty four to seven in the discord discord dot

942
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 3: gg slash odd Lots.

943
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 4: And if you enjoy odd Lots, if you like it

944
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 4: when we talk about reusable rockets and satellites falling out

945
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,720
Speaker 4: of the air, then please leave us a positive review

946
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 4: on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are

947
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 4: a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our

948
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:24,080
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949
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:27,799
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950
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 4: do that, just find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts.

951
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:31,880
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.