Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 3: controlled by one man.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a legitimate super genius.
Speaker 3: I mean legitimate.
Speaker 4: He says. He's always voted for Democrats, but this year
Speaker 4: it will be different.
Speaker 2: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 4: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 4: on him.
Speaker 5: Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 6: Anything he does, he's fascinating people.
Speaker 3: Welcome Delon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 3: October eighth. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. The moment we've
Speaker 3: been waiting for is almost he here, the grand unveiling
Speaker 3: of Elon's Robotaxi, the self driving droid card that is
Speaker 3: supposed to push Tesla far into the future and make it,
Speaker 3: according to Elon, a multi trillion dollar company. Now, a
Speaker 3: launch like this would normally dominate the show, perhaps it'd
Speaker 3: be the only thing we talk about. But over the weekend,
Speaker 3: Elon jumped and jumped and jumped onto stage with Donald
Speaker 3: Trump lashing himself ever more tightly to the Trump train
Speaker 3: as the election approaches, and so we just gotta get
Speaker 3: into that. And to help us, we're going to bring
Speaker 3: in a special guest, Jacob Silverman, an independent journalist who
Speaker 3: covers the tech industry. But we will start with that
Speaker 3: Robotaxi launch to talk about what we can expect from
Speaker 3: the big event Thursday night. We have our regulars, Dana
Speaker 3: Hall and Max Chafkin.
Speaker 1: Hey there, Hey, hey, good to be here.
Speaker 3: Hi David, and we also are beaming in from London
Speaker 3: our Global Autos editor, a very busy man, Craig Trudell. Craig,
Speaker 3: how you doing Robotaxi week? Happyt rowboat Taxi week to you, sir? Okay, So, Craig,
Speaker 3: we are just a couple of days away. I can
Speaker 3: sense the excitement in your voice. By the way, all
Speaker 3: the way across the pond, I can just feel it.
Speaker 3: No jumping around though in the studio over there, our
Speaker 3: studio can't take that. What do we know? Remind us,
Speaker 3: what do we know so far about this robotaxi the
Speaker 3: cyber cab as Elon calls it, and what's he been
Speaker 3: promising and what are the general expectations for it?
Speaker 6: Well? I think about you know, this time of year,
Speaker 6: everyone talks about you know, debates and playing the quote
Speaker 6: unquote expectations game, right where you try to you know,
Speaker 6: under promise and then over deliver.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: I think Governor Walls his people were talking about he's
Speaker 6: not such a great debater, He's very nervous. Elon isn't
Speaker 6: playing that game. He is posting on x about this
Speaker 6: being you know, one for the history books and agreeing
Speaker 6: with one of his super fans that you know, this
Speaker 6: is going to be the most significant moment for Tesla
Speaker 6: since the unveiling of the Model three that was a
Speaker 6: super important moment in the history of Tesla's So you know,
Speaker 6: he is is you know, setting expectations awfully high here.
Speaker 3: He's in full, full on hype mode.
Speaker 6: He's in hype mode, he's in in salesmanship mode. And
Speaker 6: you know, honestly, you guys have been talking about on
Speaker 6: the podcast about the idea that it's been quite effective, right,
Speaker 6: It's been driving the stock price up for months now,
Speaker 6: and so you know, the the expectations going into this event,
Speaker 6: I would say are hugely elevated. There are some analysts
Speaker 6: maybe who are starting to come out with notes to
Speaker 6: kind of you know, maybe maybe temper things a bit
Speaker 6: so that they can sort of, you know, declare what
Speaker 6: a what a surprise everything was. But I think you know,
Speaker 6: you look at what Elon has been saying and hosting.
Speaker 6: It's been anything but you know, lowering expectations.
Speaker 3: Now, Dana remind us he's been promising the Robotaxi the
Speaker 3: cyber Cap. I don't know, by the way, when he
Speaker 3: changed from Robotaxi to cybercap, but he's been promising it
Speaker 3: for a long time. When we're according to his initial
Speaker 3: predictions way back when where we going to get the
Speaker 3: cyber cap.
Speaker 1: I mean, he made a big pitch to Wall Street
Speaker 1: investors that twenty twenty was going to be the year
Speaker 1: of the Robotaxi. Here it is, you know, late twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, and we're gonna have this unveiling Thursday night.
Speaker 1: But I just wanted to make sure that everyone understands
Speaker 1: that it's not just the Romotaxi event. People, it's called
Speaker 1: we robot And so I predict that we're going to
Speaker 1: see a Robotaxi, we're going to hear about the fleet,
Speaker 1: We're going to see optimists do something like they are.
Speaker 1: This is like sort of beyond just the robotaxi. They're
Speaker 1: they're really pitching this is like the big event that's
Speaker 1: gonna kind of explain to, you know, the plebes, why
Speaker 1: Tesla has this huge advantage. And there it's there. They're
Speaker 1: calling the event our official unveiling of the future of autonomy.
Speaker 1: So it goes beyond just this robotaxi. It's like it's
Speaker 1: much it's much bigger in their minds.
Speaker 3: So they're going to flex max all their technological prowess,
Speaker 3: the technical prowess that the market says makes the company
Speaker 3: infinitely more valuable than it's all old school peers. And
Speaker 3: I guess we'll see.
Speaker 2: Can you unveil the future?
Speaker 3: I don't think you can.
Speaker 2: And I think that that language, you know right there,
Speaker 2: kind of hints at one of the problems. This is
Speaker 2: not a product launch because there is no product, like
Speaker 2: they can say that they are launching a cyber cab.
Speaker 2: But there's a reason this event is being held on
Speaker 2: a Hollywood sound stage, and I'm sure it's going to
Speaker 2: be very impressive. I'm sure we're going to see something
Speaker 2: that looks very much like a taxi driving around streets
Speaker 2: that look very much like streets, but of course you
Speaker 2: can't just do this in the real world because in
Speaker 2: the real world it is not legal. And leave aside
Speaker 2: the questions about whether Tesla can come anywhere to achieving
Speaker 2: this on it from a technological basis, which I think
Speaker 2: are big questions. You know, we tend to like think
Speaker 2: about the really successful Elon Musk launches, the Model three launch.
Speaker 2: Dana brought up the cyber truck launch also, I think
Speaker 2: a very successful launch, notwithstanding.
Speaker 3: The broken glass.
Speaker 2: But of course there have been times when things have disappointed,
Speaker 2: and in particular around autonomy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now, Max, let me through for a second, because
Speaker 3: we have curated over the years some Musk highlights from
Speaker 3: some of these events. Let's listen to them now.
Speaker 5: The car can do almost anything. You can pick your
Speaker 5: favorite color, and it looks like a beautiful sculpture on
Speaker 5: the wall. We expect to have the first operating robotaxis
Speaker 5: next year. The goal is to make have electric you know,
Speaker 5: solar roofs that look better than normal roof The new
Speaker 5: Tesla Roadster will be the fastest car production car ever
Speaker 5: made period.
Speaker 3: Man. Listen to that stuff makes me want to jump
Speaker 3: around here now. But Craig, so you've gone back and
Speaker 3: look through.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I think you were there for
Speaker 3: many of them, for many of these events, and you
Speaker 3: recall some of the greatest hits and the biggest crash
Speaker 3: and burns. Like, what do you typically get concretely out
Speaker 3: of these events and how does the market tend to
Speaker 3: react to them?
Speaker 6: I mean, musk. You can say what you will about
Speaker 6: his political leanings of late or his you know, sense
Speaker 6: of humor. Sometime it can be you know, everyone's cup
Speaker 6: of tea. But he is a showman. I think you
Speaker 6: guys have talked about this on the podcast in the past.
Speaker 6: Well boast about, you know, being able to deliver a
Speaker 6: car in you know, rapid fashion did so with the
Speaker 6: Model X and twenty twelve that that launched a couple
Speaker 6: of years late, the Model three handover in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 6: I just remember him talking about, you know, warning of production. Hell,
Speaker 6: I guess he was. He was right there. But I
Speaker 6: think he both is able to hype up the product
Speaker 6: that he is springing to market and also, you know,
Speaker 6: really get people excited about what's coming.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: I think back to twenty seventeen, when you know, toward
Speaker 6: the end of the year they were showing the Semi
Speaker 6: and surprise everybody by showing the next generation roadster that
Speaker 6: was their first vehicle ever. He said on stage, you know,
Speaker 6: people have asked us for a long time, when are
Speaker 6: you going to make a new roadster. We are making
Speaker 6: it now. He's still not making that roadster. He's not
Speaker 6: even really making that Semi either, that that is in
Speaker 6: pilot production. So he will make a lot of big pronouncements,
Speaker 6: big statements, big predictions. I mentioned his sense of humor.
Speaker 6: I do want to give him credit that he has
Speaker 6: said that Tesla specializes in making the impossible merely late.
Speaker 6: I think that's a pretty good line.
Speaker 1: I just want to note that, like you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think for the stock, there's a question of if
Speaker 1: do people like sell on the news because the news
Speaker 1: could be like less hypey than when then what people
Speaker 1: are anticipating. But like if you actually go to the event,
Speaker 1: people are super into it. Like these diehard fans, they
Speaker 1: are flying in from all over the country. They're begging
Speaker 1: for plus ones. Like to be clear, Tesla's inviting Wall
Speaker 1: Street analysts, big investors, and they're like chosen influencers plus
Speaker 1: some randos to like go to this thing. So all
Speaker 1: the influencers who are part of the like Musk single
Speaker 1: phantic echo chamber are all going to be there and
Speaker 1: to be in the room with this guy who some
Speaker 1: people think is like the i'mas Edison of our time,
Speaker 1: like it is, it is enthralling for people. They are like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Like I got to see Elon Musk
Speaker 1: in person, and that's like what they live for.
Speaker 4: And it's a little bit.
Speaker 1: Like a tent revival situation where just being in the
Speaker 1: same room with him and hearing him and being able
Speaker 1: to scream his name, it's like very religious almost, And
Speaker 1: I don't think you can sort of negate that. Like
Speaker 1: when the Model three was unveiled, Like I was there
Speaker 1: when he did that along with you know, like Mary Nichols,
Speaker 1: the head of the California Air Resources Board, and like
Speaker 1: there was electricity in the room because people really felt
Speaker 1: like you were seeing the needle move. And I can
Speaker 1: imagine that they will there will be a similar vibe,
Speaker 1: you know, at this AI event, except Elon. I don't
Speaker 1: get the sense that Elon is like preparing for his
Speaker 1: you know, preparing for his remarks that much. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's like on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, Right, so,
Speaker 1: like in terms of showmanship, like, I don't think he's
Speaker 1: like practice his pattern, Like I don't think the sense
Speaker 1: that he's like hunkered down doing like product launch prep
Speaker 1: way that most CEOs do. And so if he just
Speaker 1: sort of like rolls in late and is off the
Speaker 1: cuff and like shambles around and makes some jokes about
Speaker 1: how the future is autonomy, like I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think Wall Street's gonna be super keen on that.
Speaker 2: One thing we haven't mentioned yet is that this event
Speaker 2: is at seven pm Pacific time, so that's ten pm
Speaker 2: Eastern time.
Speaker 3: This is a late event, and that.
Speaker 2: This is how Elon Musk likes it, right, he likes
Speaker 2: these things as Danna and Craig are hinting as to
Speaker 2: feel like parties.
Speaker 3: But it isn't.
Speaker 2: It's unlikely to me that this is going to have
Speaker 2: a big media impact even no matter what he does,
Speaker 2: because of how they've decided to kind of do the
Speaker 2: theater of it. And I've been sitting here trying to
Speaker 2: think about, well, what could Elon announce that would be perceived?
Speaker 3: What does a positive what does success at the event
Speaker 3: look like?
Speaker 2: So I think, okay, success would look like awesome design.
Speaker 2: Does does does this thing somehow just blow you away?
Speaker 2: That would be one thing Number two, and this is
Speaker 2: more important, some sort of indication that they have a
Speaker 2: deal in place with some municipality anywhere in the world
Speaker 2: to deploy this thing in any kind of time front
Speaker 2: frame that is like soon ish, you know, Like but
Speaker 2: if we end this with just like here's a cool product,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't there's no plan for deployment, I think
Speaker 2: the reaction is going to be poor because I think
Speaker 2: Elon has done so much to make it seem like
Speaker 2: this is happening like right now that if the truth
Speaker 2: is it's happening three four, five, six years from now,
Speaker 2: that's going to be processed as a big disappointment.
Speaker 3: Craig first, and then Dana the same question to you,
Speaker 3: What does success look like for you?
Speaker 6: Craig, Yeah, I mean I would agree with Max. I
Speaker 6: think hard and fast plans for deployment to me is
Speaker 6: a must. And I think that's where this gets really tricky,
Speaker 6: right because we've heard him literally year after year say
Speaker 6: that you know, his robotaxis are just around the corner,
Speaker 6: and even you know, as Dani alluded to earlier, back
Speaker 6: in twenty nineteen, he was telling everybody that their Tesla,
Speaker 6: the Tesla that you know was in their driveway, that
Speaker 6: they had already bought, was on the verge of being
Speaker 6: a Robotaxi. We know that there is no Tesla robotaxi
Speaker 6: on the road. What is going to be shown in
Speaker 6: La Thursday night is going to be, you know, prototypes.
Speaker 6: I do think that, you know, Dana, you know, scooped
Speaker 6: a few months back that you know, this event after
Speaker 6: all got delayed because he wanted to make a design change.
Speaker 6: I think that speaks to this idea that this thing
Speaker 6: is not baked, and you know, I think the question
Speaker 6: will be, does this guy end up having any credibility
Speaker 6: with Wall Street when you know, in twenty nineteen, as
Speaker 6: Dana alluded to, he said, you know, we expect to
Speaker 6: have the first operating robotaxis next year, and then has
Speaker 6: proceeded to predict that over and over again at nauseum.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he's got credibility with Wall Street
Speaker 3: or Wall Street analysts per se, but clearly, judging from
Speaker 3: the reaction in the stock market of the last few
Speaker 3: months when he made his grand pivot to the Robotaxi.
Speaker 5: I e.
Speaker 3: The stock has popped fifty percent. I guess he seems
Speaker 3: to have still that credit in the bank with the
Speaker 3: broader investor base out there, Dana, what does success looklick
Speaker 3: for you?
Speaker 1: Well, he has to give people rides. I mean, he
Speaker 1: can't just like stand on the stage and like pull
Speaker 1: the sheet off of this you know, two seat robotaxi
Speaker 1: like people. He actually has to give investors like rides.
Speaker 1: They have to be able to and I think they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to show like the app, the Tesla app,
Speaker 1: and people are gonna have to like experience hailing it
Speaker 1: and then like riding around in it. I mean that said,
Speaker 1: you know, they are doing this on this kind of
Speaker 1: closed course, and there's a lot of questions about whether
Speaker 1: they pre mapped the route or whatever.
Speaker 3: But you have to have.
Speaker 1: People actually experience it. Because Tesla's try to sort of
Speaker 1: do two things at once. They have sold current tesl
Speaker 1: owners on the idea that eventually, with the flip of
Speaker 1: a switch, your car will be self driving. And then
Speaker 1: simultaneously they are now unveiling dedicated, purpose built robotaxi that
Speaker 1: Tesla's gonna run itself. And you know, the whole idea
Speaker 1: is that it's gonna be this combination of Uber and Airbnb,
Speaker 1: where like you can drive your car yourself, or like
Speaker 1: if you're on vacation or asleep, you can like lend
Speaker 1: your car to this Tesla fleet and it'll make money
Speaker 1: for you when you're not around. And so they kind
Speaker 1: of have to differentiate and explain to people how this
Speaker 1: is actually gonna work. But I think that it's not
Speaker 1: a success unless, like the big investors actually get to
Speaker 1: ride in this thing.
Speaker 2: Just to note a caution, getting a ride in a
Speaker 2: quote unquote robotaxi on a closed course at a demo
Speaker 2: is not anywhere near the same thing as a robotaxi
Speaker 2: being deployed in public. So, like, I think Dan is
Speaker 2: right if they give If they don't give anyone rides,
Speaker 2: that that will be a disappointment. But even if they
Speaker 2: do give rides, everyone needs to watch that with a
Speaker 2: you know, with a big granult.
Speaker 3: Google has been.
Speaker 2: Doing this for like fifteen years. Other companies, me and
Speaker 2: Craig and Dana, we've all sat through demos on real
Speaker 2: roads with robotaxis before. Like this has been going on
Speaker 2: for a very long time. It is not novel to
Speaker 2: be able to have a robotaxi demo on a close
Speaker 2: of course, even though I am sure so certain that
Speaker 2: Elon Musk will make it seem novel when he announces
Speaker 2: it on the teenth.
Speaker 1: Wait, the point is that Tesla does not have a
Speaker 1: permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to deploy
Speaker 1: any kind of robotaxi on public roads in California, full stop.
Speaker 1: Like they do not have a pump permit. So the
Speaker 1: only way that they can demonstrate this is to do
Speaker 1: it on private land at the discretion of the owner.
Speaker 1: And they're doing it at the Warner Brothers studio in Burbank.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of reasons for that. I mean,
Speaker 1: Musk has done demos at Hollywood studios before. He like
Speaker 1: famously unveiled the solar roof on like the set of
Speaker 1: you know, Hollywood, what was it called, Desperate Housewives. So
Speaker 1: that just the fact that it's happening on private you know,
Speaker 1: on a private lot where you know they can control
Speaker 1: the variables of what is in the built environment, is
Speaker 1: really telling.
Speaker 3: Now, Craig, this big event is late here East Coast time.
Speaker 3: It's either super late London time or super early, depending
Speaker 3: on the way you look at it. Three in the morning,
Speaker 3: I'm guessing you're setting your alarm for two fifty five.
Speaker 3: You're gonna pound a couple cups of espresso, and then, Craig,
Speaker 3: you shall play Tesla cyber car cyber what what is
Speaker 3: this thing again? To cyber cab launch bingo? Are you
Speaker 3: not gonna play bingo? And to play bingo? Craig Dana
Speaker 3: seems to have a card ready for us well.
Speaker 1: So to back up for a bit. Listeners of the
Speaker 1: you know, regular listeners of the pod know that we
Speaker 1: often make an earnings call bingo, and this time around,
Speaker 1: instead of earnings called bingo, we're doing Robotaxi edition Bingo.
Speaker 1: And you know, like Musk uses a lot of stock
Speaker 1: phrases over and over again. So we've got the big
Speaker 1: O card and you'll be able to download it at
Speaker 1: some point. But I bet Craig and Max and David
Speaker 1: you can probably guess some of the words.
Speaker 2: Come on, I'm Max, Tesla is an AI company.
Speaker 3: I think you say that. There we go, Craig, what
Speaker 3: here is this square?
Speaker 1: There is a square called that that very simply just
Speaker 1: says AI.
Speaker 6: I got a feature complete March of the nines.
Speaker 1: Oh those are good. Gosh, they're not on the card though.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Regulatory approval, We do have regulators. Regulators.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not not optimistic en up for approval.
Speaker 1: We have some other phrases are scalable, cost per mile,
Speaker 1: compute bus ticket end to end. We also have horse max.
Speaker 1: You want to explain the why why horse often comes
Speaker 1: up on our Bingo cards?
Speaker 3: Do you remember the bastery like Elon?
Speaker 2: There have been a few horse related incidents, I believe,
Speaker 2: But I think what this refers to is the fact
Speaker 2: that Elon has said that buying a car without this
Speaker 2: technology would be like buying a horse.
Speaker 6: Can I throw one one other animal one other animal
Speaker 6: related card? How about boy boy who cried FSD instead
Speaker 6: of boy who cried wolf? Because Elon has called himself
Speaker 6: the boy who cried full self driving and was wrong.
Speaker 3: This is why you're not part of the committee that
Speaker 3: creates the Bingo card. You're demanding squares that are just
Speaker 3: too hard. No one's gonna get Bingo America and the
Speaker 3: world more broadly, they want to get Bingo. They want
Speaker 3: to say Bingo. All right, listen, this is what we're
Speaker 3: gonna do. First thing Friday morning, Craig, we're gonna have
Speaker 3: you back on. You're gonna give us your impressions of
Speaker 3: the grand unveiling of the cyber Cab, and perhaps we'll
Speaker 3: hear a little bit from Max and Dan as well.
Speaker 3: So Craig, we say goodbye to you, sir, Thank you
Speaker 3: for joining us, Thanks for having me. Okay, now, the
Speaker 3: cyber Cab launch should have been the biggest news story
Speaker 3: of the week for Elon. But then then Elon showed
Speaker 3: up with Trump and Butler Pennsylvania and it got a
Speaker 3: little wacky. Let's actually listen to the tape when Trump
Speaker 3: introduces him on stage. His name is Elon Musk. Saved
Speaker 3: free speech. He created so many different great things. Where
Speaker 3: is he? Come on up here, ey lot.
Speaker 2: He created the first major American car company, and generations
Speaker 2: in his rocket company is the only reason we can
Speaker 2: now send American astronauts into space.
Speaker 3: Come here, take overy, Lot, Yes, take over.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone.
Speaker 5: As you can see, I'm not just Maga, I'm dark
Speaker 5: Mega Jacob.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show. We appreciate having you on. You
Speaker 3: are an independent journalist and currently writing a book about
Speaker 3: the tech industry and right wing politics for Bloomsberry, which
Speaker 3: is all perfect for this segment. Did you watch this
Speaker 3: either live or subsequently Jacob on Saturday?
Speaker 4: Yes, I did. I caught it later. I wasn't able
Speaker 4: to watch it live.
Speaker 3: And your thought as you are watching this scene, well.
Speaker 7: Of course, I think the screenshotted images, the still images
Speaker 7: of Musk flying the air and awkwardly with minimal vertical
Speaker 7: leap and his belly showing might be the one that
Speaker 7: lingers most. Or maybe him leaning forward kind of leering
Speaker 7: at Trump with this sinister handshake. I think those are
Speaker 7: the things that a lot of people will take away
Speaker 7: rather than anything that he said. I mean, he later said,
Speaker 7: I believe on Tucker Carlson that he claimed to have
Speaker 7: improvised most of that, and perhaps it showed. The biggest
Speaker 7: takeaway for me is just the scene and the setting
Speaker 7: that this is a fairly big event for Trump. He's
Speaker 7: coming back to the horrifying event for him of the
Speaker 7: tempted assassination, and right there next to him is the
Speaker 7: richest man in the world, who just a few months
Speaker 7: ago was a little bit restrained in his support, at
Speaker 7: least not totally open and opening the floodgates of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now, Max, why the jumping well, the jumping that
Speaker 2: I cannot answer, and like Jacob is saying, the memes
Speaker 2: have been fierce around, like these gestures and the jump
Speaker 2: and everything. My reaction here was just like, wow, he
Speaker 2: is all in. You know, this is a guy who
Speaker 2: is you know, really putting everything, his entire identity and
Speaker 2: a lot of his money behind this very very polarizing
Speaker 2: reelection effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Dana, I will admit I didn't watch it.
Speaker 3: It was Saturday afternoon. I was busy gambling, so you
Speaker 3: will forgive me, but you know I did in catching
Speaker 3: up afterwards, I had this sort of the same thought.
Speaker 3: I believe there is a moment or two in the book,
Speaker 3: in the Walter Isaacson biography of Musk, in which you know,
Speaker 3: there's either Musk says it directly or Isaacson very much
Speaker 3: gets the sense that at some point periodically I just
Speaker 3: say fit and I just put ey. Musk just put
Speaker 3: all my chips in the table and it was gonna
Speaker 3: let it ride. Kind of seems what's going on here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that. Okay, So it's one
Speaker 1: thing to start a pack to support President Trump. It's
Speaker 1: another thing to sort of publicly endorse Trump. And then
Speaker 1: it's like a third thing to like campaign with him.
Speaker 1: I mean, no other CEO does that because you know,
Speaker 1: people like hedge their bets and they don't want to
Speaker 1: be on the wrong side if your side loses. But
Speaker 1: I think that Elon Musk has made the calculation that
Speaker 1: this is a very close race. He's already poured millions
Speaker 1: of dollars into this campaign. He's now very focused on
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania as a UPenn graduate, you know, he's like, I
Speaker 1: know the state. He's like campaigning with Trump. He's gonna
Speaker 1: do more events with Trump. And I think for him,
Speaker 1: it's like he wants his you know, he wants his
Speaker 1: guy to win, and he somehow thinks that he is
Speaker 1: value add But I think what was most disturbing to
Speaker 1: me was this whole dark Maga thing. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like a dark vision of the future, and Musk is
Speaker 1: becoming very dark, like saying, if you don't if Trump
Speaker 1: doesn't win, this will be the last election that we
Speaker 1: ever have. I think that it just really solidifies Musk's
Speaker 1: reputation going forward, like people will people will will not
Speaker 1: remember him as the guy who was trying to help
Speaker 1: solve the climate crisis with electric cars. They will remember
Speaker 1: him as the guy as the richest person in the
Speaker 1: world who threw in all of his chits with Trump
Speaker 1: and still on stage with him wearing like a dark maga.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and to that point, he actually I've now seen
Speaker 3: appears in ads for Kamala Harris as someone that they
Speaker 3: wanted very much linked to Trump. Jacob Dana mentioned just
Speaker 3: now how unusual it is for a business executive of
Speaker 3: his rank to campaign with the presidential candidate. And I
Speaker 3: actually checked in with our DC crew and they don't
Speaker 3: have any recollection of having seen it in recent history.
Speaker 3: I suspect it's a fairly risky gambit, is it not.
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 7: I think, you know, there is some precedent here. Even
Speaker 7: at that event. One thing I did notice was that
Speaker 7: I believe John Paulson, the Hedge funder, warmed up the
Speaker 7: crowd or spoke briefly.
Speaker 3: That must have been That must have been a barn
Speaker 3: burner of a speech.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think there's a reason why it hasn't been
Speaker 7: circulating on social media. But you know that that is
Speaker 7: representative sort of the plutocracy that is part and parcel
Speaker 7: of Trump and the backdrop behind him. But on the
Speaker 7: other hand, You're exactly right. There there's been no one
Speaker 7: of this media ubiquity, of this level of power and
Speaker 7: wealth and influence, and must seems to understand, or at
Speaker 7: least it has been joking about with Tucker Carlson that
Speaker 7: there is some risk here. He's a major government contractor.
Speaker 7: This has been brought up by numerous people, including Tucker Carlson,
Speaker 7: and there are I think questions about some of the
Speaker 7: donations and any campaign finance issues here, or even the
Speaker 7: data collection that's been conducted by America Pack that's being investigated,
Speaker 7: I believe by some state election officials. So there are
Speaker 7: all kinds of potential exposure for someone like him.
Speaker 3: We actually have that clip right now. Let's let's listen
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 4: Loses, man, what You're fucked dude.
Speaker 3: If it does.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think he's joking, but also
Speaker 2: not joking, right, I mean, there are a swirl of
Speaker 2: federal investigations, and I think these comments do speak to
Speaker 2: the fact that he's bought in. Jacob mentioned a couple
Speaker 2: of things that also happened alongside this appearance, one of
Speaker 2: which was the Carlson interview. The other is that Elon
Speaker 2: announced this kind of big pushed collect names for a
Speaker 2: mailing list. He's going to pay forty seven dollars per
Speaker 2: person per registered voter in a swing state that you
Speaker 2: refer and this is significant. People have asked sort of
Speaker 2: questions about, well, what you know, does this potentially violate
Speaker 2: you know, election laws and stuff. I seriously doubt it does.
Speaker 2: But I think what it does signal to me is
Speaker 2: that Elon Musk has ambitions to be a political player,
Speaker 2: maybe in the long term. I mean, you know, one
Speaker 2: one of the things that one of the things about
Speaker 2: showing up at this thing, at a Trump event is
Speaker 2: there's sort of no going back from it, right, It's
Speaker 2: going to be very difficult for Elon Musk to sort
Speaker 2: of like departisan himself if this.
Speaker 3: Were sort of a more run of the mill John
Speaker 3: McCain kind of you know candidate perhaps, But if someone
Speaker 3: of this il Donald Trump and the polarizing effect he
Speaker 3: has in the place, yeah, we've seen it happen.
Speaker 2: But like the combination of showing up at the events,
Speaker 2: putting all this money, but the fact that he's spending
Speaker 2: potentially a substantial amount of money building this mailing list.
Speaker 2: So if you do the math, forty seven. He's saying
Speaker 2: he wants a million names times forty seven dollars. That's
Speaker 2: forty seven million dollars buying a forty seven million dollar
Speaker 2: email list. Obviously, that would be useful to the Trump
Speaker 2: campaign to potentially turn out voters. It could be an
Speaker 2: asset going forward, right like having a massive mailing list
Speaker 2: of Trump aligned registered voters in swing states would give
Speaker 2: Elon potentially be a power worker going forward, no matter
Speaker 2: who wins or loses this life.
Speaker 3: All right, we're gonna move on to the main topic.
Speaker 3: You know, Jacob again, way back when when we first
Speaker 3: thought we'd have you on, we were gonna have you
Speaker 3: on just to talk about X and how you managed
Speaker 3: very impressively to get a judge to unseal the names
Speaker 3: of all the investors who bought the company alongside Elon.
Speaker 3: Tell us what you found.
Speaker 7: Sure, So, thanks to the help of our CFP or
Speaker 7: Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, I filed
Speaker 7: a motion to intervene in one of the many lawsuits
Speaker 7: that Elon, Musk and X are facing since the acquisition.
Speaker 7: And in one of these lawsuits this is related to
Speaker 7: employment issues and basically people suing the company who were
Speaker 7: let go. They had to file a list of shareholders
Speaker 7: X did, and they chose to do.
Speaker 4: So under sealed. They want to keep it secret.
Speaker 7: Now, these kinds of things happen all the time, and
Speaker 7: so do with these kinds of emotions to intervene. But
Speaker 7: this was something that I had been looking for and
Speaker 7: wondering about, was who was actually the money behind must
Speaker 7: taken over the company. We had some sense there were
Speaker 7: SEC filings and public statements that gave us some idea,
Speaker 7: but nothing with the sort of force of illegal filing
Speaker 7: like this, and it actually worked rather quickly, within about
Speaker 7: a month or the summer, a judge ruled in our favor.
Speaker 7: You know, I think there are some surprises there, and
Speaker 7: I think it gives a good sense of who Musk
Speaker 7: is turning to for money. And also the difference is
Speaker 7: actually between what he says to some people and in
Speaker 7: both in public and private, and then actually how this
Speaker 7: played out.
Speaker 1: And the list is pretty wild, because I remember when
Speaker 1: it came out, we were all like, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, like Jacob.
Speaker 3: Got the list.
Speaker 1: I mean, but it's like this rogues gallery of like
Speaker 1: foreign money, but then like Fidelity, and but then like
Speaker 1: Sean Comb so Jacob jan maybe like run through the
Speaker 1: highlights of like who who actually the investors are sure?
Speaker 7: I mean, and some of these were mentioned in passing before,
Speaker 7: like Shawn Combs, the you know recently indicted P Diddy
Speaker 7: is definitely on there. We don't necessarily know for what amount,
Speaker 7: but he has a company called Shawn Combs Capital, which
Speaker 7: is maybe a reminder that so many of these celebrities
Speaker 7: are now investors there are you know. One thing that
Speaker 7: I really noticed was the difference between those texts that
Speaker 7: were released as part of the Delaware court proceedings that
Speaker 7: kind of convinced must to go through with the proceedings.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 7: But in those texts he was telling David Sachs said
Speaker 7: he was in, but he's not on the actual list.
Speaker 7: Unless there are a few companies that can't identify their owners.
Speaker 7: Maybe one of those is his. Some other close Musk
Speaker 7: associates aren't on there. In the text he Musk was
Speaker 7: constantly telling people that the deal was oversubscribed. You know,
Speaker 7: Larry Elson would say, oh, I'm in for two billion
Speaker 7: if you want. But then we you know he was in,
Speaker 7: but it doesn't seem to be oversubscribed because he has
Speaker 7: people like this guy Andrea Stroppa, who's kind of a
Speaker 7: semi obscure Italian cybersecurity researcher and just seems like a
Speaker 7: guy must talks to on X. That's sort of this
Speaker 7: category that I called the inexplicably rich. And then there
Speaker 7: are also companies like Fidelity, which is a huge financial
Speaker 7: firm invested in more than two dozen funds. But then
Speaker 7: also you have kind of lower tier financial firms, I
Speaker 7: would say, you know, and also even venture capitalists who
Speaker 7: you know, through no fault of their own, but typically
Speaker 7: do smaller deals like less than five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 7: You just wouldn't expect that kind of more obscure, smaller
Speaker 7: money to be part of this, especially when Musk was
Speaker 7: telling his billionaire friends, hey, this is oversubscribed, but all.
Speaker 3: So obviously he was having to work a lot harder
Speaker 3: to stump to get people to put up the cash,
Speaker 3: and he was intimating now they're also there was a
Speaker 3: list of a few prominent or at least one prominent
Speaker 3: Saudi name.
Speaker 7: One of the largest or the largest outside shareholder of
Speaker 7: Twitter when it was a public company was a Prince
Speaker 7: al Willi bin Tallal from Saudi Arabia. He's listed three
Speaker 7: separate times in the official ownership list as Kingdom Holding
Speaker 7: Company and then under his own name, Prince Ali bin Tallal.
Speaker 7: The important thing there, I think is one he was
Speaker 7: always close, of course to the Saudi regime. But a
Speaker 7: few years ago MBS, the notoriously violent Crown Prince of
Speaker 7: Saudi Arabia, imprisoned a few hundred notables, including this prince,
Speaker 7: and had a lot of them tortured and forced to
Speaker 7: turn over their assets. This was part of what was
Speaker 7: called an anti corruption purge. So I think that kind
Speaker 7: of relationship with an authoritarian nation state is a big
Speaker 7: part of the X story right now.
Speaker 2: People should read the piece that Jacob wrote about this
Speaker 2: in The Baffler because it's really funny. It's got a
Speaker 2: lot of jokes and kind of like Dana kind of
Speaker 2: hinted as breaks these people into categories, and but when
Speaker 2: you take it into totality, I mean, it's just it
Speaker 2: is like a weird collection of supporters and enablers which
Speaker 2: we have known about, but which kind of encompasses a
Speaker 2: lot of sketch, a lot of foreign money, a lot
Speaker 2: of people who we don't quite know where their money comes.
Speaker 2: From Binance, which you know was founder was pled guilty
Speaker 2: and just got out of prison, is a major investor,
Speaker 2: and fine, you know, that's kind of how capitalism works.
Speaker 2: But like, this is a company that is playing a
Speaker 2: very significant political role. It's not just a like, you know,
Speaker 2: social media site. It's it's a major way that like,
Speaker 2: especially people on the writer are consuming their news. And
Speaker 2: like we've had these discussions so many times over the
Speaker 2: last ten years or so that it's almost like trite
Speaker 2: or cliched to bring it up, but like it definitely
Speaker 2: seems like a lot of people you wouldn't necess necessarily
Speaker 2: want to have like super close to to like election
Speaker 2: advertising or or messaging about voting, or telling people that
Speaker 2: the vote is rigged, as we're seeing over and over
Speaker 2: again on X, So like its just something to keep
Speaker 2: an eye on.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, this is probably not.
Speaker 2: The right place to say this, but this whole story
Speaker 2: about Elon and politics, the thing that I've found most
Speaker 2: amusing and fun is that Politico reported that that Elon
Speaker 2: is planning on doing more events with Trump, having even
Speaker 2: more political engagement Trump, and it mentioned that he went
Speaker 2: to a Steelers game over the weekend.
Speaker 3: That that big to be clear that I did walk
Speaker 3: he's a big football fan.
Speaker 2: He was waiving a I think it's terrible, but this
Speaker 2: political story sourced to I don't even know who with
Speaker 2: some some somebody familiar or whatever, said that he's also
Speaker 2: a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, So he's he's for
Speaker 2: all the teams he's going to. He's going to be
Speaker 2: extremely relatable to Pennsylvanians over the next a month.
Speaker 1: Late, I've been joking around like, so we can we
Speaker 1: confirm that Musk is gonna do more events? And I've
Speaker 1: been joking around like what is the what is the
Speaker 1: next campaign event? Is Musk gonna go to a sheets
Speaker 1: or a wah wah, Like, is he gonna yeens around
Speaker 1: and like drink rolling rock beer? Like what is the
Speaker 1: penaltimate like Pennsylvania campaign event to do?
Speaker 3: He's gonna go to the old vet the link that
Speaker 3: he's gonna watch the Eagles hilariously.
Speaker 2: It seemed like the chief point of evidence here is
Speaker 2: that he attended the Super Bowl game featuring the Eagles
Speaker 2: in Rupert Murdoch's owner's box like all great Eagles fans.
Speaker 3: Of course, he has been in the owner's box with
Speaker 3: all all I'll say this is having known now, knowing
Speaker 3: that he was at the game and having bet and
Speaker 3: lost on the Steelers, I needed him to waive that
Speaker 3: towel and shout and holler a little bit more loudly
Speaker 3: to get the Steelers home. Listen, Jacob, We're gonna wrap
Speaker 3: it up there. When your book is out, sir, please
Speaker 3: let us know and we will absolutely have you back on.
Speaker 4: That'd be great And thanks for this. It was fun.
Speaker 3: Max Dana thinks as well as always grease to be here.
Speaker 1: Of course, nice, don't you, Jacob.
Speaker 3: This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Naomi Shaven and
Speaker 3: Rayhan harmanci Are are senior editors. The idea for this very
Speaker 3: show also came from Rayhan. Blake Maples handles engineering, and
Speaker 3: Dave Purcell fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 3: The Elaning theme is written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa
Speaker 3: and Alex sugi Ura. Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer,
Speaker 3: and Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A
Speaker 3: big thanks as always to our supporter Joel Weber. I'm
Speaker 3: David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and review
Speaker 3: our show, it'll help other listeners find us. See you
Speaker 3: next time.