WEBVTT - Elon Goes 'Thermonuclear' 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.400 I know your commitment to free speech. I respect that 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:04.920 because I think it's a integral it's the foundational thing 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:09.160 of democracies really, But I also know your opposition to 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.200 anti semitism. You've spoken about it and tweeted about it. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.800 That was Israelly, Prime Minister, bb NET and Yahoo talking 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.600 to Elon Musk at a Tesla factory two months ago. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.960 A lot has happened since then, and much of it 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.799 has been fairly disastrous for Elon's social media platform of 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.840 choice X. The fallout continues for Elo Musk after the 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:31.800 billionaire and Dawson anti semitic. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.800 Post scrative advertisers like Disney, Apple, and IBM have pulled 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.159 their ads from the social media site X. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.960 Yesterday, Musk and I claims he's anti Semitic. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.400 He also threatened a Thermo nuclear lawsuit against a media 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.559 watchdog company, Bill. 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.159 Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.479 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.720 controlled by one man. 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.600 Starting his own artificial intelligence company. 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.360 Well, he's a legitimate, super genius and legitimate. He says 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.959 He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:05.440 be different. 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:06.440 He'll vote Republican. 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.200 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:09.600 on him. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.200 Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:16.760 Anything he does, He's fascinating people. 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.360 Welcome to Elan, Inc. Where we discuss Elon Musk's vast 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.600 corporate empire, his latest gambits and antics, and how to 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:36.039 make sense of it all. I'm your host, David Papodopolis. 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:41.600 Last Thursday night, we released an emergency podcast after Musk 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.800 went further in amplifying and agreeing with anti Semitic ideas 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.280 than he ever had before. The fallout from those posts 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.720 is ongoing. Musk has rejected accusations of bigotry, but advertisers 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:57.280 are still fleeing the site, and his CEO, Linda Yakarino, 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.840 is feeling the heat. Here with the Today to discuss 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:04.200 the latest in all things acts and another wild development 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.880 in the tech world, the power Struggle. At OpenAI. Are 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:12.880 our regular muscologists, Sarah Friar, who oversees our coverage of 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.840 Silicon Valley's biggest companies. Hello, Max Chafkin, senior reporter at 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:23.919 Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Hey, Hey Max. And Danahull, who covers Tesla 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.720 and has also been writing about the reaction to Elon's 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:27.880 controversial comments. 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:29.040 Always a pleasure. 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:33.080 Okay, So, Sarah, the past few days have been action packed. 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.560 Give us a bit of a refresher on what Elon 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.120 said last week that people found so objectionable. 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:47.079 Well, he was responding to a tweet that espoused of 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:53.600 a very racist theory about Jewish people that was actually 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:55.679 tied to I'm not going to repeat it again. You 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.440 can listen to our emergency episode. But he said that 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:02.119 is the actual truth, and then it caused this, this 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:08.040 backlash and really shock from all of his his supporters 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:12.919 and also his advertisers. Even the White House put out 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.280 of statement saying that this wasn't something that they were 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:22.320 aligned with. And furthermore, Linda Yakarino, who is the CEO 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.960 of X and who is supposed to be in this 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:30.720 job to bring back advertisers to the platform, basically had 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:32.920 to ignore it. Had to ignore what he said and 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:37.200 change the subjects to retaliation against a research group. So 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:38.960 that's where we are today, all. 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.760 Right, Max, So in the last few days now, what 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.400 has Elon's response been. Well, so, the. 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.760 Most interesting thing about this to me is that Elon 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.560 Musk typically in these situations. Somebody says a racist thing, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.400 they apologize, and Elon Musk has not apologized, which is 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.520 very much in character for Elon Musk. He's very much 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.520 a you know, never back down kind of fellow. What 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:07.280 he's done is, as Sarah said, denied the sort of 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.800 central allegation. He's deny that he's anti Semitic, and he's 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.240 had some sort of help from some of his buddies. 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:15.240 But what he's largely tried to do is sort of 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.839 changed the subject. He's attacked Media Matters. 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.200 And what has Media Matters done here? 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.719 Media Matters, before this tweet, had put out a report 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.760 alleging that X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, was 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:34.120 showing ads next to anti Semitic content, and then Elon 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:39.240 Musk tweets this thing, which really I would say reinforces 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.400 the problem that Media Matters is counting out because it's 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.640 not just like as Media Matters saying there were some 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.160 anti Semites on this platform. The call is coming from 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.279 inside the house, So that totally reinforces the problem with 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.600 Media Matters is report and I think is part of 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:57.560 what kind of kicked off the cascade of essentially advertiser boycott. 0:04:57.640 --> 0:04:59.680 This cuts it just before we go through the media 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.479 matter Lawsuitdan give us the exact lineup in the exact 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.960 rundown who has broken now and called off advertising with 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:08.400 X Well, I just want. 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.239 To back up for one moment and make the point 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.000 that Musk is blaming this on the media, that you know, 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:17.520 media matters, this research group and journalists like us have 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:19.760 made this into a Maelstrom. But I want to be 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.920 very clear that pretty quickly after Musk did this tweet, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.040 the American Jewish community came out with a very strong 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.119 statement that said elon Musk's agreement agreement with the user 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.360 promoting elements of the Great Replacement theory isn't the truth. 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:37.080 It is the deadliest anti Semitic conspiracy theory in modern 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.880 US history and motivated the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Like he 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.960 was called out by pretty significant organizations, then the media 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.880 wrote about it, Then the advertiser boycott started happening, and 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.840 so that's where we are today. But I just think 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.880 it's disingenuous to sort of blame this on reporters when 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:58.400 you have some pretty large and significant organizations calling him 0:05:58.400 --> 0:05:59.799 out for the tweet in the first place. 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.599 One other thing, which is that he one way he 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.480 tried to cover up the damage, or to do a 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.480 little bit of damage control was by sort of redirecting 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.679 this to the Israeli Palestinian crisis. So he's essentially trying 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:14.920 to say I could not be an anti Semite because 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:19.000 I'm incredibly pro Israel, which just to say that is 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:23.039 not those two things are not necessarily are not necessarily 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:23.839 mutually exclusives. 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.560 And also we haven't seen him enforced that. And also 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.000 it was this moment where you saw a lot of 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:36.400 Jewish leaders who normally would probably have criticized him, say hey, 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:38.640 that's great that you're doing that, and they sort of 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:44.040 seem to prioritize Elon Must's power and influence over the conversation, 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:49.560 over any personal anti Semitism or racism he may be espousing. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.839 And that just goes to show how much control this 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.960 man has and how it's very difficult for people to 0:06:58.320 --> 0:06:59.720 make an enemy of him. 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:01.040 For all. 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.680 Right, but Dan, can you give me that rundown of 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.200 companies that have pulled advertising for Max Pause? 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.280 This is what I believe they're calling it. Sarah backed 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:14.920 me up here. I believe it's Apple, Disney, IBM are 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:15.440 the big three. 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.880 Those are the big ones. There are a few banks, 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:24.960 a few communications companies, a lot of companies that already 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.200 had a pause in place that are just continuing that pause. 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:33.720 The sixty percent drop in advertising revenue that Musk has 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:40.240 talked about, it doesn't seem to be reversing, all right. 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.200 So now let's get into this. You know, must describe 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.920 that I believe as a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters. 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:48.760 It that the lawsuit has dropped Max. 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:54.520 And it says what the lawsuit says that Media Matters 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:56.040 report was contrived. 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.920 It doesn't stipulated. 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:03.400 Yeah, It doesn't say that Media Matters made up these adjacencies. 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.960 It says that Media Matters refreshed their Twitter feeds. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:08.440 So many times. 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.160 They are they cherry they cherry picked? Yeah, And I'm 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:13.880 not sure. Look, I'm not a legal scholar. I don't 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.080 know if this is gonna hold up in court or not. 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:19.920 But I would say that the goal here, I don't 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:24.120 think is to extract a settlement from Media Matters. It's 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:29.440 to basically respond to this general swirl of allegations in 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:33.480 the most aggressive way possible. And also, you know, I think, unfortunately, 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:35.880 to kind of create a chilling effect, to make it 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:38.640 more difficult for nonprofits and yes, journalists. 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.120 By the way, the Center for Countering Digital Hate was 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:45.400 already facing legal complaints from X earlier this year. This 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.480 is a pattern. He said he would go after the 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.679 ADL of the Anti Defamation League as well. They ended 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:54.160 up having a somewhat of a truce. And this is 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:59.679 just a company that has made their API, which researchers 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.400 used to that's an application programming interface. But what it 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.880 means is that the way that researchers used to look 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.160 at the content on X to figure out if there 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.280 was misinformation spreading ahead of an election, to figure out 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.439 what was going viral, what was happening in global conversation, 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.640 Now that costs at a minimum forty two thousand dollars 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.480 a month, which is incredibly unaffordable for any nonprofit to 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.560 even hold X accountable in the way that they used to. 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.960 So all of this to say, X would prefer that 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.640 the only data that we believe about that company comes 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:34.640 from the company itself. 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.200 So we believe that this attempt to essentially enforce them 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.840 or have something of a chilling effect on the media 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:43.200 will be successful. 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:44.320 Max. 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:48.880 I think the way that media chilling effects worth it's 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:50.400 not like a one to one thing. No, I don't 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.160 think it's going to be successful because in certain ways, 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.040 the lawsuit actually confirms certain aspects of the Media Matters port. 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:57.680 I mean, he doesn't. 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.559 The lawsuit doesn't dispute that these were real so greenshots. 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.400 It doesn't dispute that there were, you know, anti Semites 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.880 on this platform. It disputes that Media Matters was overstating 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.840 the likelihood that you would see an anti Semitic ad 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:12.880 next to that. And I don't think it's going to 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.400 have an immediate chilling effect. But when you see like 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.640 a cascade of things like this, you know it doesn't. 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:23.200 It doesn't make people more anxious to call out discrimination 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.839 and so on. And honestly, I think it's it's kind 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.960 of a clever way for him to respond to these 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:33.040 allegations without apologizing for them, because he almost can't apologize 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.720 for them because this is sort of important to his 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.000 like right wing persona, like a lot of his fans 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:42.000 would be really disappointed if he said, no, I totally misspoke. 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.120 I need a moment of reflection. He doesn't want to 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.199 do that, so this is a way to kind of zig. 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.840 What strikes me is that it's kind of like with politics, 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.280 you know how, like the politician does something bad and 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.960 then the surrogates rally to the defense. You're seeing that 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.440 play at now, Like so Elon creates this horrific news 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.600 cycle last week, never apologizes, the board doesn't apologize, and 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.040 believe me, like they had ample opportunity to. No one 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.280 puts out a statement. But then you see like Bill 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.680 Eckman ride to the rescue over the weekend, and then 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.600 yesterday Sam Teller, elunch chief former chief of staff, puts 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.600 out a tweet. I spent nearly five years as Elunch 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:17.920 chief of staff, and that time I never observed a 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.800 trace of anti Semitism. He goes on, and then, like 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.640 you know, Elon responds thanks Sam with a heart emoji. 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.720 This is all a distraction from what's actually happening at 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.800 this company, which is that they've really reduced their content 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.640 moderation rules because Elon Musk says he wants anyone to 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:38.000 speak freely, and in order to fix it, they're relying 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.600 on this community notes. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:45.000 Tool, which citizen journalists basically thousands. 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.280 Of people who just rate tweets and explain why they're 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:52.400 wrong or add context where needed and Bloomberg actually has 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:58.080 an investigation out today showing that this system is incredibly slow. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.760 It can take hours for viral misinformation to get a 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:07.040 label put on it because it's this voting process that 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.000 takes place. And then it's also really inconsistent, and it 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:15.440 allows for repeat offenders who would have been banned under 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:21.360 the prior Twitter regime to continue to post at their pleasure. 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.960 Okay, Sarah, So earlier on you reminded us that X's revenue, 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.880 its advertising revenue is down roughly sixty percent since Elon 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.400 took over the company. We've had additional advertisers pull out. 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.360 Now you know how much damage has been done and 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.600 how existential is this? I mean listen, Elon himself in 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.880 the recent past has thrown out the word bankruptcy. Those 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:48.960 are his words. And how does Linda Yakarino turn this around? 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.200 Well, a lot of damage has been done to the 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:58.720 revenue model. That said, they think that they can eventually 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.720 replace it with the subscription business of paying for ex 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:09.440 premium that is still not reaching even a fraction of 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.160 the users that they would need for it to reach, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.760 or to replace the revenues that they've lost from advertisers. 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.200 Linda Yakarino. Oh my goodness, I don't know where where 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:23.319 I start. I thought that she would last a few weeks, 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:24.960 maybe before she realized. 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.200 Oh wrong, Sarah, I was so wrong. 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:29.200 She's in it to win it. She's in it for 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.160 the long haul. I am. I'm actually, you know, impressed 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.320 with her ability to withstand, you know, all the pressures 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.600 of this job and still survive in the role. Her 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:42.680 main goal seems to be to not get fired. She's 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:48.720 she is incredibly devoted to espousing whatever Musk wants her to. 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.960 So she was also part of this weekend spin of 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.920 turning this anti semitic tweet backlash into a backlash over 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:00.000 the media matters and bogus reports from journalist. 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.160 What I love about this, though, is honestly she is trying. 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.240 Her plan as far as I can tell, which Sarah 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.400 was alluding to, is that they're going to just tack right. 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.040 They see twenty twenty four election is coming. You got 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.720 a nice size conservative audience on X right now. I 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.040 mean you know that we can we could have a 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.800 debate about how big the audience is overall and what 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.280 engagement is like, but it's definitely clear that you've got 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:23.760 a lot of right wingers are spending a lot of 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.640 time there, and so her plan seems to be to 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.520 use this and to and to sell advertisements to you know, 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:35.240 political action committees and I guess candidates and nonprofits. Again, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.640 this is not a huge market, and Apple and these 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.000 advertisers that are pulling out are huge advertisers, and it 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.880 seems exceedingly unlikely that you would actually you would actually 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:47.880 be able to make up the difference. On the other hand, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.760 maybe they don't need to because it's a much smaller company. 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:52.360 They've laid off, you know, a huge amount of the 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.600 staff costs the lower and you know you have this 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.360 like trickle of the debt of subscribers. I'm just trying 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.120 to give you the Linda, you know, the best case 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:02.840 scenario from Linda's pot of view. 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.080 Andrew Tate is going to like is going to advertise 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.920 right like these right wing influencers are offering to sort 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:08.560 of pay money. 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.480 Okay, but two things right wing influencers hate being on 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.280 a platform where there are no left wing woke people 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.360 to troll, and if there aren't any then they'll be bored. 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.440 And the other thing is all of these advertisers who 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.920 are pulling out and making this big statement of you know, 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.880 we don't endorse anti Semitism. It's not that big of 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.600 a deal for their balance sheets to pull out of 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.360 Twitter advertising. It's not that effective. They have Meta, they 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.200 have Google, they have these other places to advertise. They 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.000 don't need to be on Twitter. They were on Twitter 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.840 because of the relationships and where it counts for Elon 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.920 Musk in his government contracts, in his relationships with bankers. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:53.680 People aren't pulling up. 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.920 Okay, welcome back. So somehow X isn't even the biggest 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.360 news story in the tech world right now. Open Ai 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.640 a company that Elon started with Sam Altman before he 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.560 would leave in a twenty eighteen power struggle Max, what 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.560 exactly has it been facing? For the love of god, 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:15.800 what is going on here? 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.440 Open ai is pretty much the hottest thing, or was 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.480 until a few days ago, pretty much the hottest. 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:22.920 Thing in tech. 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.720 Open Ai created chat GPT, the the chatbot that that 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:28.760 many people are very excited about, many companies are very 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.600 excited about. And Microsoft, you know, one of the world's 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.480 largest companies, has essentially put at the center of its 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:36.600 of an entire like. 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.360 Corporate overhaul effort. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:40.800 We should say, first of all, open Ai was co 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.920 founded by Elon Musk or Elon Musk played a key 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.680 role in the creation of the of this startup, was 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.840 the main funder early on, and for years open AI's 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.880 CEO Sam Altman, who was kind of Musk's partner in 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.720 the in the creation of the of the entity, was 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.640 going around saying this technology is so amazing, it could 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.880 end the world, Like we really need to be careful 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.440 here because Ai could take over and the robots could 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.080 somehow decide to annihilate the human race. And Elon Musk 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.440 actually played a big role in kind of pumping. 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:14.080 Up this idea. 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.199 Now, I don't think that open AI's senior management, I 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.919 don't think Microsoft, I don't think Sam Altman ever really 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.080 took seriously the idea that open Ai was its little 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.760 chatbot that can write an email for you, was going 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:27.960 to turn around and annihilate the whole human race. 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.240 But that is the very argument that they apparently made here. 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:37.280 But crucially, unfortunately for Sam Altman, some open ai board members, 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.359 I think, do really buy into that idea. And we 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:45.639 had this amazingly sudden coup that happened on Friday where 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.399 a number of open ai board members. Open ai was 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.680 governed by a nonprofit. It's kind of a weird structure. 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.760 Voted Sam Altman off the island, fired him, and they 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.320 were able to do so, strangely, without consulting any of 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.200 the venture capitalists who I invested in this thing, and 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.560 without consulting with Microsoft, which had put thirteen billion dollars 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:05.160 into this thing. 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.439 You know, it's funny because I grew up journalistically in 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.600 Latin America and I witnessed a lot of coups. Some worked, 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.000 some didn't. This has got to be the worst coup 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.879 I've seen since the two thousand and two attempt to 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.480 ousto Goo jobs. It's been pretty bad. And right now 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:25.800 as we speak, Sarah Friar, there's a mutiny going on 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.680 inside open a open ai correct. 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:36.000 Yes, About ninety percent or above of the existing employees 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.920 that open ai have signed a petition, by the way, 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.400 including the chief scientist who is on the board, pushing 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:46.760 out Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. These people have all 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:51.040 signed this memo saying that if they aren't reinstated, they're 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.919 out of there. Which is it? It's wild? Right? 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:55.240 Are all? 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.480 Is Microsoft going to end up acquiring open ai for 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:02.480 like zero dollars, and you know the rest of this 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.600 is in their hands. Are these leaders who were ousted 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.760 going to come back and try to say businesses running 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:10.320 as usual? 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:12.280 It is. 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.040 One of the craziest, Like people have compared it to 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.480 like Steve Jobs getting kicked out of Apple and brought back, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.359 or Jack Dorsy is getting kicked out of Twitter and 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.520 brought back. Those two situations happened over a matter of years. 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.320 This is happening in a matter of days. So we're 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:31.720 all not sleeping that much. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.800 But I do think he played some role, right, which 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:36.439 is what I want to get at, because you know, 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.160 we don't ultimately know all should be revealed at some point, 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.760 but you know, to a certain degree, Yeah, it is 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.080 interesting without really knowing anything. 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.040 God, it seems like his fingerprints would be all over this. 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.320 I mean, you told us the other day, Max that 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.760 they Musk that Elon Musk Samultman rivalry was a top 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.160 twenty Musk rub I had it. I think I. 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.760 Underrated it, right, I mean, clearly this was a bigger, 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:01.080 more consequential rivalry than I had even at Yeah, last 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.480 week we talked about Elon Musk going on the Lex 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.520 Friedman podcast and he said a few things that kind 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.399 of anticipated this. He brought up ilias suit Skiver, the 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.520 chief scientist uh and and basically took credit for hiring him, 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:18.119 and heaped a lot of praise on him, and and 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.520 also made a kind of complaint about Sam Altman open AI. 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:23.480 He said, open a I was supposed to be open source, 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.280 and now it's profitable. He's been complaining for years that 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.800 this is like a startup worth billions of dollars that 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.600 he founded as a nonprofit. And what we saw with 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.280 the board, right was this effort to take this startup, 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:39.639 take this thing that Microsoft is so excited about, that 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.480 venture capitalists are so excited about, and wrestle it back 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.800 to its nonprofit roots, which you know, does two things 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.159 for for Elon Musk. One is it validates this thing 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.119 that he's been saying he can he can claim to 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.159 be right, which he loves to do. And also it 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.159 kind of does him a favor because Elon Musk just 0:20:54.240 --> 0:21:00.800 launched this kind of haphazard chant of Rock. Yes, I'm saying, 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.560 and I regret to say, I know that Grock has 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.640 its defenders and everything like that, but basically this thing 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.280 Rock was assembled in a matter of months, there's Yeah, 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:12.480 I'd say there's a little excitement among Elon's fans, but 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.720 I don't think it's exactly caught fire. But now all 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.879 of a sudden you have this utter crisis at the 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:20.480 leading player. I mean, I think that could only help 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.119 Elon Musk, either in terms of recruiting or just in 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.200 terms of getting people to try a different chatbox. 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:28.600 Right now, one other thing on this, Sarah, do we 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.640 have any sense right because indeed, as maxis said here, 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.000 Elon played a role in the founding of open Ai. 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.359 He was the co founder. He put one hundred million 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:41.160 of his own money into it. He tried to take 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:45.040 full control at some point and that didn't work out. 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:51.520 But he was very passionate about trying to prevent AI 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:55.480 from getting out of control. And of course this narrative 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:57.840 of like, we've got to prevent AI from taking over 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.400