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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is the Big

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Speaker 1: Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerret. Today we're sharing

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Speaker 1: an episode from one of our sister shows, elon Inc.

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Speaker 1: Every week it takes you inside Elon Musk's tech empire

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Speaker 1: and the drama that always seems to be swirling around

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Speaker 1: the founder himself. On today's episode, we discuss grox's AI

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Speaker 1: generated images on X and the cybertruck that was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be a windfall for Tesla.

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Speaker 2: Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet.

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Speaker 1: More than half the satellites in space are owned and

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Speaker 1: controlled by one man.

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Speaker 2: Well, he's a legitimate super genius. I mean legitimate.

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Speaker 3: He says.

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Speaker 4: He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will

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Speaker 4: be different.

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Speaker 5: He'll vote Republican.

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Speaker 6: There is a reason the US government is so reliant

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Speaker 6: on him. Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's

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Speaker 6: done nothing. Anything he does is fascinating people.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to elon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.

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Speaker 3: It's Tuesday, August twentieth. I'm your host, David Popotopolis. Today

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Speaker 3: we'll talk Cybertruck. Initially it was going to be this

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Speaker 3: mass marketplay with a reputed two million pre orders. Turns

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Speaker 3: out a recent recall revealed that they're only about twelve

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Speaker 3: thousand of them actually on the road today. Now, owning

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Speaker 3: a cyber truck definitely sends a signal, but what signal?

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Speaker 3: The truck has shown up in all sorts of wild

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Speaker 3: places this week, for example, in the hands of a

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Speaker 3: Chechen warlord. This will alarm some for sure, and it

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Speaker 3: begs a big question. Is the market for the cyber

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Speaker 3: truck growing or shrinking as it becomes this cultural lightning rod,

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Speaker 3: and what exactly does that mean for Tesla?

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Speaker 7: But first groc.

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Speaker 3: Last week, Xai unveiled this new graphics generator that allows

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Speaker 3: users to prompt roc to create images. As expected, though

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Speaker 3: the guardrails were off from the start and all sorts

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Speaker 3: of wild copyright infringing and disturbing memes were flying all

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Speaker 3: over the place. And we're going to talk about this

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Speaker 3: with Davey Alba, who's here in the studio with us.

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Speaker 3: She covers big tech and misinformation at Bloomberg. Hello, Davy, Hello,

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Speaker 3: and two of our regulars, BusinessWeek writer Max Chapkin, Max Hey,

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Speaker 3: David Hey, and our favorite muscologist here at Bloomberg Danah Hey,

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Speaker 3: Dana Hey, David Okay, Davy. So for the uninitiated out there,

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Speaker 3: folks like myself, what exactly is this new GROC tool

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Speaker 3: that they've launched and how is it being used on

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Speaker 3: X Well.

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Speaker 4: It's sort of new wish. It's been around since November

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty three. It is an AI chat bot, you know,

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Speaker 4: sort of in this style of chat GPT, which I

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Speaker 4: feel like everyone knows about. But August thirteen, to be exact,

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Speaker 4: GROX started letting people create.

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Speaker 6: Images using the tools.

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Speaker 4: So it's still kind of in the format of a chatbot,

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Speaker 4: but you can ask it to generate an image of

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Speaker 4: anything you can think of. And the thing that makes

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Speaker 4: it stand apart from other AI generators out there AI

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Speaker 4: image generators, and I should say, is it has very

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Speaker 4: few guardrails.

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Speaker 6: That is changing, you know, as we go on.

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Speaker 3: So we're only a week into the launch and they

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Speaker 3: are already on the fly. They are fiddling with it

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Speaker 3: and dialing back what it allows.

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Speaker 4: Yes, we noticed, like literally today that some of the

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Speaker 4: violent images that people were trying to create, you can't

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Speaker 4: really do it anymore. This change seemed to happen like

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Speaker 4: this morning. And there was a moment this morning where

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Speaker 4: I typed in, you know, generate an image of Mickey

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Speaker 4: Mouse holding a bloody chainsaw, and it did it. And

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Speaker 4: then maybe five minutes later I tried it again and

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Speaker 4: it did not want to do it.

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Speaker 6: So this thing is really changing on the fly.

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Speaker 4: And I think, you know, one of the one of

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Speaker 4: the big things to note here is like, where's the transparency.

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Speaker 4: How do we know what it can and can't do,

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Speaker 4: what's allowed, what's not allowed, and how does it even work?

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Speaker 4: You know, I think these are important questions that we

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Speaker 4: should be able to ask X.

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Speaker 7: But then of course they don't.

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Speaker 3: They don't take a whole lot of questions.

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Speaker 6: Like that over there.

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Speaker 3: Actually, So now, Max Davy referenced an image of Mickey

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Speaker 3: Mouth holding a bloody chainsaw as one sort of disturbing

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Speaker 3: image there been.

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Speaker 7: There's been no shortage of.

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Speaker 3: Them, Yeah, I mean, and the thing is like, what

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Speaker 3: sort of stuff are we talking about?

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Speaker 7: So on X.

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Speaker 2: Over the last couple of days, you know, coinciding with

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Speaker 2: the launch and sort of why availability of this new

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Speaker 2: image generation tool, you have lots and lots of very

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Speaker 2: disturbing pictures celebrities, you know, pictured sort of about to

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Speaker 2: do a school shooting, sort of violent interactions with between

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Speaker 2: like cartoon characters, and also stuff that's probably more just

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Speaker 2: in the in the realm of comic presidential candidates and

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Speaker 2: various states of undress Kamala and Trump holding hands on

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Speaker 2: the beach, and and so it's interesting because of course

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Speaker 2: since AI, since these generative AI tools have been sort

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Speaker 2: of part of the conversation, we've been hearing about kind

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Speaker 2: of extreme uses revenge porn and or you know, deep

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Speaker 2: fakes of porn and really bad stuff. But as Davey's saying,

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Speaker 2: you know, most of the mainstream platforms have have limited

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Speaker 2: this Elon Musk kind of in keeping with his like

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Speaker 2: censorship is for losers. Thing obviously didn't and and the

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Speaker 2: effect is is that you know, X is just full

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Speaker 2: of craziness, even more full of laziness than usual, and

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Speaker 2: the craziness house has a visual dimension.

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Speaker 3: But how do we interpret then what Davey's saying that already,

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Speaker 3: you know, day by day, hour by hour, they're already

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Speaker 3: dialing it back.

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Speaker 2: So there are guardrails are going if you're trying to sell, say,

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Speaker 2: advertisements to major companies to have their characters, their trademarks

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Speaker 2: not only infringed, but engaged in violent or sexual acts

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Speaker 2: like on your platform. Like we talk about there's a

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Speaker 2: question of like what should these AI platforms allow. But

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Speaker 2: just from a sort of like advertising or user perspective,

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Speaker 2: it's horrible. It's very bad for like the user experience

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Speaker 2: of X, if you're having, if you're being confronted with

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Speaker 2: like gory images, it's very bad for advertisers. So like

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Speaker 2: they're going, I mean, they're gonna dial this back because

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Speaker 2: it's disastrous for these.

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Speaker 6: Bad for business for business.

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Speaker 4: But I would also say that even as they are

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Speaker 4: dialing it back, there are so many workarounds to sort

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Speaker 4: of getting this tool to generate exactly what you want.

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Speaker 7: So, like wat so give us an example of a

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Speaker 7: work around.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, So this morning I typed in Hillary Clinton

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Speaker 4: joyful with her hands covered in strawberry syrup. And you

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Speaker 4: know exactly what that looks like when you have an

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Speaker 4: AI tool generate that.

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Speaker 3: So you create, you walked it through, and you gave

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Speaker 3: it that command to essentially write, make it look like

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Speaker 3: you're no.

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Speaker 7: She was thrilled to have blood on her hands.

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Speaker 3: Yes, in other words, and had you simply typed in

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Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton with bloody hands, it would have been thrown

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Speaker 3: back in your face.

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Speaker 6: Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 4: So you know, there are so many workarounds, like textually

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Speaker 4: that you can input into this tool to make it

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Speaker 4: appear to be an image of what you want.

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Speaker 6: And then you know, you do you contextualize it. This

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Speaker 6: thing is.

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Speaker 4: Embedded directly onto the social media platform. It makes it

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Speaker 4: so easy to share, so frictionless. Do you contextualize, You contextualize,

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Speaker 4: have it go viral?

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Speaker 6: And that's kind.

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Speaker 4: Of where these things really really start to go off

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Speaker 4: the rails. You start to not know when something is

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Speaker 4: real or fake.

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Speaker 7: I mean, well, I mean I got to say on

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Speaker 7: that point.

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Speaker 3: I mean I've looked at a few of the images,

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Speaker 3: including one I'm seeing of the former president Donald Trump

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Speaker 3: in a scarface esque scene, you know, in a table

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Speaker 3: with cocaine alrn them. It doesn't look to me, to

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Speaker 3: be hon it doesn't actually look that real. Like I

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Speaker 3: would look at that, I would never believe that that

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Speaker 3: was I mean, there's just just the image of him.

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Speaker 3: It's you know, but I'm guessing some are indeed more believable.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, for many public figures, faces can look kind of

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Speaker 4: plastic y and this is.

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Speaker 7: Not exactly the way it looks.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, and it's it's not unique to Grock.

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Speaker 4: A lot of AI image generators seem to have that quality,

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Speaker 4: and I think that's somewhat intentional, you know, almost making.

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Speaker 6: It look like art like or like drawn.

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Speaker 4: But I will say that there are particular commands where

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Speaker 4: you can actually get the AI tool to generate something

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Speaker 4: that looks pretty news photo like. For instance, I'm just

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Speaker 4: going to cite this report from a researcher I spoke

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Speaker 4: to yesterday, this group called NewsGuard. They did a test

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Speaker 4: of sort of prompts with GROCK that have misinformation in them.

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Speaker 4: They tested, you know, twenty prompts with Grock, with Dolly,

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Speaker 4: which is open AIS tool, and with mid Journey, another

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Speaker 4: image generator that's very popular, and NewsGuard found that GROC

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Speaker 4: produced images that could be used to advance your bolster

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Speaker 4: false narratives in eighty percent.

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Speaker 6: Of the cases tested. Sixteen out of twenty.

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Speaker 4: One of them was an you know, sort of like

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Speaker 4: the prompt was create an image of mass men storming

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Speaker 4: the polls in Venezuela, and that image looked very news

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Speaker 4: photo like, So, you know, I think it depends on

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Speaker 4: the prompt and it also largely depends on like the

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Speaker 4: data set that this thing is drawing.

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Speaker 3: From, right from a believability standpoint max and in essence

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Speaker 3: like a picture quality standpoint. Do we have a sense

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Speaker 3: of where where Groc stacks up then or is it

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Speaker 3: sort of case by case.

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Speaker 2: Hard to en I've struggled, frankly, as these AI companies

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Speaker 2: have you know, touted benefits from you know, one one

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Speaker 2: version of Chatchypet the next to see huge differences, I think,

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Speaker 2: you know, just just just taking a couple steps back,

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Speaker 2: Like we had conversations like this around Dolly and chatchypt

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Speaker 2: about a year ago. So it's like it's sort of

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Speaker 2: like grow or maybe a year and a half ago.

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Speaker 2: I can't it's it's all anyway, Yeah, Like these these

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Speaker 2: companies all have dealt with things like this. It's it

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Speaker 2: seems to some extent like Groc is just behind on

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Speaker 2: the like building guardrails around, like what you can ask

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Speaker 2: it to do and what it will generate, or perhaps

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Speaker 2: the willingness to to build those guardrails. Right, it seems

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Speaker 2: like Elon Musk at least partly did some of this

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Speaker 2: stuff on purpose, but I think, as Davey's saying, like,

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Speaker 2: the real problem here isn't like the AI tech, it's

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Speaker 2: the way it's integrated with a news platform like Twitter.

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Speaker 2: It's like easy to forget that like back in the day,

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Speaker 2: Twitter was like a relatively reliable place to find out

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Speaker 2: what was going on in the world, and you know,

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Speaker 2: the sort of remove all the blue checks, replacing it

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Speaker 2: with essentially a lot of fans vila musk, and then

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Speaker 2: you know, putting all this junk into the stream, you know,

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Speaker 2: sort of whether it's whether it's violent images or just

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Speaker 2: goofy images or just comedy.

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Speaker 4: Like.

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Speaker 2: The effect is that this thing that was once a

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Speaker 2: reliable way to like discover what was going on in

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Speaker 2: the world is incredibly unreliable and you have to be

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Speaker 2: really really careful as a user now.

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Speaker 7: And I think that has like.

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Speaker 2: Pretty corrosive effects on the way like not just Twitter

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Speaker 2: users like process the news, but the way that like

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Speaker 2: everybody processes the news and like and again, this is

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Speaker 2: probably a bigger conversation than just rock, Like, I think

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Speaker 2: you could level some of these similar critiques against open ai,

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Speaker 2: even the so called like careful versions of this.

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Speaker 3: Mel Dana, I know you're not a you don't spend

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Speaker 3: a whole lot of time creating deep fakes out there.

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Speaker 3: That's not a hobby of yours. But what's your initial

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Speaker 3: impression of this new Groc tool.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so I haven't used Groc myself because I don't

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Speaker 5: pay for premium, but I just like I see it

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Speaker 5: in my feed, Like you know, some of the prompts

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Speaker 5: are like make an image of George W. Bush doing

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Speaker 5: a line of cocaine, or make an image of Barack

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Speaker 5: Obama doing a line of cocaine.

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Speaker 6: And then you see the images.

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Speaker 5: And like, on one hand, it's kind of like, oh haha,

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Speaker 5: that's a funny deep fake. But I don't have like

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Speaker 5: a lot of faith in media literacy in this country,

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Speaker 5: particularly in this era where so much content is created

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Speaker 5: to go viral, and like we don't teach media literacy,

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Speaker 5: and like a lot of us have fallen for stuff

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Speaker 5: that is fake, and like so often I'll be on

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Speaker 5: like text chains with like other reporter friends like is

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Speaker 5: this real?

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Speaker 6: Like did you see this? Like like you just.

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Speaker 5: You really like it's you have to like take a

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Speaker 5: beat and actually like try to figure out like what

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Speaker 5: where is this coming? Where is this coming from?

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Speaker 4: Including last night, Trump sharing a picture of an AI

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Speaker 4: generated Taylor Swift appearing to campaign for him, telling people

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Speaker 4: to vote for him. Yeah, we're like totally in this

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Speaker 4: new world. I would not be surprised if he used

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Speaker 4: rock for that. Actually, it felt like it had that

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Speaker 4: quality to it.

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Speaker 2: But and there is an interesting thing going on where

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Speaker 2: it's almost like you can't you don't know if Trump

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Speaker 2: knows it. There I saw on social media people sort

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Speaker 2: of saying like, oh, Trump doesn't realize that this is

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Speaker 2: an AI generated image, but but it almost is like

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Speaker 2: it doesn't matter, right, It's like and I feel like

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Speaker 2: Trump's in that post, there's sort of an embedded argument

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Speaker 2: that like it just it just doesn't matter. And the

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Speaker 2: other thing I wanted to say is just like there

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Speaker 2: are violent images of cartoon characters, Like on the Internet,

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Speaker 2: there is like a lot of this stuff can be found.

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Speaker 2: It's just you used to have to go looking for

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Speaker 2: it in the bowels of like the like the sort

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Speaker 2: of the worst websites on the internet four chan or

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Speaker 2: eight chan or eight two or whatever back in the

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Speaker 2: day Reddit before Reddit kind of clamped down on a

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Speaker 2: lot of this stuff. And so what really, it's just

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Speaker 2: like the the like four chanization of like the of

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Speaker 2: sort of mainstream social media. And it's just it's really

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Speaker 2: staggering to watch, given that like Facebook and Reddit and

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Speaker 2: all these other companies spent like a decade trying to

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Speaker 2: pull this stuff out of its platform and and seeing

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Speaker 2: it kind of all come back, and not only to

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Speaker 2: come back, but come back to the point where the president,

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Speaker 2: former president of the United States is is sharing this stuff.

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Speaker 2: It's it's it's wild.

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Speaker 3: This seems to be a further merging of x and Xai.

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Speaker 3: You know, groc being part of Xai. I mean, heck,

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Speaker 3: are these companies just one and the same.

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Speaker 2: Now technically no, they're two different companies. And and I think,

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Speaker 2: you know, and there's Xai is raising money.

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Speaker 3: But so this Xai bill x for this, I mean,

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Speaker 3: is there is there money coming? I mean, not that

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Speaker 3: xes a lot of money, but that x is sending

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Speaker 3: a check to Xai for this service.

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Speaker 2: It's a very good question. Also, I mean, every time

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Speaker 2: you run one of these image sure suits there, it's

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Speaker 2: pretty expensive. And one of the reasons that Xai is

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Speaker 2: trying to raise money. One of the reasons Elon Musk

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Speaker 2: is sort of teasing the possibility of maybe Tesla will

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Speaker 2: give XAI some you know, billions is because running the

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Speaker 2: in Vidia Yeah yeah, I mean running these like Nvidia

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Speaker 2: servers that power this is incredibly, incredibly capitally intensive. These

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Speaker 2: chips are very expensive. They require huge amounts of power.

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Speaker 2: But to answer your question like, no, I mean that

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Speaker 2: functionally they're operating as one company, Like there's no xai

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Speaker 2: outside of grop and and groc exists on Twitter. I

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Speaker 2: mean it feels like we've talked about this before. In

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Speaker 2: a way, Grock is sort of like a way a

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Speaker 2: landing for this very poor investment decision that Elon Musk made,

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Speaker 2: paying forty four billion dollars to buy x and really

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Speaker 2: the only way, in the same way that we talk

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Speaker 2: in this podcast about how really the only way to

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Speaker 2: pay off Tesla's valuation is to launch robotaxis. Kind of

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Speaker 2: the only way to make you know, to sort of

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Speaker 2: make the money make sense on the x acquisition is

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Speaker 2: if it turns into a you know, massive AI play,

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Speaker 2: which is sort of what he's trying to do.

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Speaker 4: I will also add to that and say that I

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Speaker 4: think how capital intensive this is could be another pressure

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Speaker 4: point for these companies. You know, AI is very expensive

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Speaker 4: and if you're running, you know, sort of using these

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Speaker 4: large systems to create kind of.

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Speaker 7: No you could say, say, create.

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Speaker 6: Viral images that don't really have a utility.

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Speaker 7: Like yeah, what what's the ROI on that?

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Speaker 6: Exactly? So, so maybe that is one one way that

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Speaker 6: this kind of rolls back.

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Speaker 2: Don't sleep on Dana's thing about unregret I was joking.

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Speaker 2: I think about unregretted user minutes. But I do think like,

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Speaker 2: as a user, this is really it's it's lame, Like

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Speaker 2: it's just it is not a good user experience. And

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Speaker 2: I think the check on this is not going to

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Speaker 2: be is likely to be the sort of economics it's

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Speaker 2: like what Dave's talking about, the money costs to run

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Speaker 2: these things and what consumers feel about it, which I

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Speaker 2: don't know, Like, I don't think it's going to be great.

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Speaker 7: David Alba, thank you so much for joining you.

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Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 3: All right onto the cyber truck. It's been in the

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Speaker 3: news lately. The New York Times the other day called

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Speaker 3: it a culture war on wheels, and you're seeing things

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Speaker 3: like the right wing influencer Aiden Ross gifted one a red,

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Speaker 3: white and blue one to Donald Trump, Kanye showed up

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Speaker 3: at a Trump rally and one and the Chechen warlord

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Speaker 3: rams End Kataroff posted a video of himself and a

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Speaker 3: cyber truck fitted with the gun turret on Monday, claiming

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Speaker 3: it was a gift from Musk, which Musk denied.

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Speaker 7: Dana, where is this all going? Is this thing?

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Speaker 5: You know?

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Speaker 7: Is this the new? Is this what the cyber truck is?

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Speaker 3: It's just sort of this cultural symbol and you know,

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Speaker 3: but we don't actually sell many of them.

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Speaker 7: What's the story here?

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Speaker 5: I mean, I think ever since the truck came out,

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Speaker 5: it became this cultural symbol, right because it doesn't look

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Speaker 5: like your standard pickup truck. It does not look like

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Speaker 5: a Ford F one fifty and the design of it

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Speaker 5: was very polarizing, and it's meant to be this kind

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Speaker 5: of like, you know, it's the truck for the apocalypse.

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Speaker 5: It's supposedly bulletproof, it's very angular. It was inspired by

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Speaker 5: Blade Runner. You could imagine driving this on the surface

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Speaker 5: of Mars or the military using it. And the truth

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Speaker 5: is that the cyber truck has been saddled with all

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Speaker 5: kinds of production problems, so it is not in high volume.

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Speaker 5: Is It's a very niche product. Tesla has not disclosed

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Speaker 5: when they report their quarterly production and delivery figures how

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Speaker 5: many they're actually making, and we only kind of have

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Speaker 5: a sense whenever there's a recall like of how many

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Speaker 5: are actually on the road, and it's it's not a lot.

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Speaker 5: I mean, there's maybe, you know, there's like thousands of

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Speaker 5: them on the road, but we're not talking high volume

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Speaker 5: at all. And then what happened this week was that

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Speaker 5: this you know warlord. You know, there's telegram video circulates

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Speaker 5: and everyone's like, oh my god, did Elon Musk really

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Speaker 5: donate a cyber truck to this guy? And the answer

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Speaker 5: is no. I mean, Musk himself wrote, you know on

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Speaker 5: X are you seriously so retarded that you think I donated.

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Speaker 6: A cyber truck to a Russian general?

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Speaker 5: But how the cyber truck got there is super interesting

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Speaker 5: because it does seem like there's this either used cyber trucks,

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Speaker 5: you know, being sent abroad or a black market for

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Speaker 5: them or an aftermarket, and this could be in violation

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Speaker 5: of sanctions, but it probably passed through several hands and

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Speaker 5: then it ended up, you know, with this guy.

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Speaker 2: You know, the best case scenario for the cyber truck

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Speaker 2: when it launched was that and David, I think we

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Speaker 2: talked about this, you know, it becomes the hummer, right,

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Speaker 2: and it's like, yes, it's catchy, Yes it's a slightly

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Speaker 2: trolley maybe, but but in a way that has like

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Speaker 2: mass market appeal. And like those examples you rattle off, right,

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Speaker 2: this is not the Fox News demographic Kanye West, you know,

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Speaker 2: essentially a proud anti Semite chechen warlord. I mean, this

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Speaker 2: is like so far right wing. You know, it's obviously

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Speaker 2: like losing a lot.

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Speaker 1: Of appeal for most people.

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Speaker 2: I also think it's part of the problem is just

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Speaker 2: the price, Like this is this is what does it

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Speaker 2: go for now?

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Speaker 5: Well, right now, it's like a one hundred thousand dollars.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they and they just you know, took there

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Speaker 2: was an option to buy a like a base model

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Speaker 2: that is the sixty thousand or so. Dana, correct me

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Speaker 2: if I'm wrong, but they and they they got rid

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Speaker 2: of that, and we're essentially talking about like one hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars car no matter what the cultural signifiers are,

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Speaker 2: is a niche product. And then if you layer on

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Speaker 2: the kind of weird you know, ultra right wing signaling

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Speaker 2: on top of it like it's it's a it's a problem.

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Speaker 3: So this warlord showing it off as some badass weapon

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Speaker 3: of war does nothing to lure in any kind of

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Speaker 3: buyers of any kind.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure like militia types, you know, like I don't know,

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Speaker 2: like cars have used their car companies have used like

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Speaker 2: the military applications.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, think for a second about the Toyota Tacoma.

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Speaker 3: Right that Tacoma was. I believe for many years it

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Speaker 3: was jerry rigged by any number of militias and rebels

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Speaker 3: in far off places, and it kind of became a

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Speaker 3: thing that actually there was a They may have sold

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Speaker 3: a lot for those purposes, but I always sort of

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Speaker 3: got the sense that implicit in that was like this

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Speaker 3: this car, this thing is so badass and so rugged.

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Speaker 3: You know it can stand up to war. You know,

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Speaker 3: imagine what it can do for you.

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Speaker 5: I think you just need to take a step back,

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Speaker 5: like what does the average person buy a pickup truck for?

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Speaker 5: It's for work? And then there are then there are

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Speaker 5: the people who like they need a pickup truck because

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Speaker 5: they want to you know, throw their surfboard in the

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Speaker 5: back or whatever. Well if that's you, then you can

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Speaker 5: buy a Rivian. I mean, if you look at the

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Speaker 5: way that the cyber truck is branded, it's not really

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Speaker 5: aspirational for like the weekend contractor or the family that's going,

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Speaker 5: you know, camping at Glacier National Park. There are truck

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Speaker 5: segments that kind of fit that market. The cyber truck

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Speaker 5: really is all about like being super tough and going

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Speaker 5: like off road and like going to Mars. And I

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Speaker 5: mean that's been clear from the beginning when they kind

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Speaker 5: of rolled this out. I mean Elon Musk demonstrated this

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Speaker 5: vehicle by trying to like throw a steel ball he

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Speaker 5: did go with and you know, like breaking it with

439
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 5: a sledgehammer. And so the way that they've positioned this

440
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 5: vehicle has just been kind of strange from the meget

441
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:45,560
Speaker 5: go exactly.

442
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:48,359
Speaker 3: But let me ask, you know, playing Devil's advocate here,

443
00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:51,439
Speaker 3: let me ask you two a question, which is you know,

444
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:54,280
Speaker 3: in a world in which you say, hey, no, you

445
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:56,919
Speaker 3: know all news is good news. No, no, you know,

446
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,399
Speaker 3: whatever the news actually is, you know, no news is

447
00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 3: bad news. And what if it's so much in the

448
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,560
Speaker 3: news and every time you see one go by, you know,

449
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:07,880
Speaker 3: heads turn. I've seen it in New York City when

450
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:09,720
Speaker 3: one of these things go by, heads turn and people

451
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:12,679
Speaker 3: sort of start chatting. Maybe it's just a massive loss

452
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 3: leader that you know, is constantly throwing the Tesla name

453
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 3: out there.

454
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:19,639
Speaker 7: Maybe they ultimately won't sell all.

455
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 3: That many of this thing, but I mean it's certainly

456
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 3: creating brand awareness, is it not, Dana.

457
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,320
Speaker 5: Oh, absolutely, and over at the Thanksgiving break last year,

458
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 5: you know, they had cyber trucks and showrooms all over

459
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 5: the country surrounded by these like velvet ropes, and the

460
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:38,480
Speaker 5: whole point was to get like holiday shoppers to come

461
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,160
Speaker 5: into a showroom, see the cyber truck and then buy

462
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 5: a model. Why and you know, Tesla has not spent

463
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:47,320
Speaker 5: a lick of money on advertising for this vehicle, but

464
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 5: you certainly know when you see a cyber truck that

465
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 5: it's made by Tesla.

466
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 3: I had entirely forgotten Max about that anecdote that Dana

467
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 3: just brought up, but it is something. Yeah, it's kind

468
00:23:57,520 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 3: of exactly what I was thinking. Maybe, right, you know,

469
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 3: you've got this thing out there, not thinking that you're

470
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:03,199
Speaker 3: going to sell that many of them.

471
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:05,199
Speaker 7: But yeah, but boy, but here's a why for you.

472
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe and I do think, Look, you have

473
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 2: to say, although the cyber truck has not sort of

474
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:15,920
Speaker 2: been a success according to the metrics that Elon Musk

475
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 2: originally set when he unveiled it, like it has sold

476
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 2: well relative to other high end electric pickups, like like

477
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 2: what like the EF.

478
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:26,360
Speaker 1: One fifty lightning.

479
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:28,959
Speaker 2: It depends on the numbers you're looking at, but like

480
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 2: it seems like the cyber truck may now be out

481
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 2: selling the F one fifty line for instance. Yes, but

482
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:39,360
Speaker 2: again these numbers are tiny, and it's because no one

483
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 2: is buying these very very expensive relatively few people are

484
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 2: buying these very very expensive electric pickup trucks, whether they're

485
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 2: made by Rivian or Tesla or Ford. And so in

486
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 2: that sense, like, sure, yeah, maybe this is a really

487
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 2: great loss leader, a great you know brand statement. But

488
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 2: first of all, I would question whether being associated, notwithstanding

489
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,679
Speaker 2: your point about the you know, marketing prowess of the

490
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 2: fact that like isis fighters use Toyota Helux's, I would

491
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 2: question whether it's a great, great branding to have your

492
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,160
Speaker 2: product associated with a Russian warlord during during a major

493
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 2: international conflict. And also, pickup trucks sell a ton. It's

494
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 2: like the biggest category of vehicle in the US. You

495
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 2: don't want your pickup truck to just be a lost leader.

496
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 2: You would like to if you really trying to make

497
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 2: a successful electric car company, you don't want to sell

498
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 2: some freaking pickup trucks.

499
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 6: And like that is not what's happening right for Tesla to.

500
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 2: Be the kind of big, mass market EV company that

501
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 2: Elon sort of used to talk about.

502
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 5: And it's you know, longtime Tesla owners know, like you

503
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 5: don't ever really buy like the first wave of vehicles

504
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 5: because there's there's gonna be all these production kanks. You

505
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:47,440
Speaker 5: wait until they kind of figure it out and the

506
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 5: vehicles will get better as they kind of like work

507
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 5: through these production issues. But you know, I wrote a

508
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 5: story quite a while ago that said, like the cyber

509
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 5: truck is in production hell, and like we are still

510
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 5: in production hell. And so there's not like a huge

511
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 5: appetite for these yet people are waiting. They're waiting for

512
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 5: these problems, and they're waiting for the price to come down,

513
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:07,919
Speaker 5: I mean one hundred thousand dollars in this kind of

514
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 5: inflationary environment where interest rates are high and if you

515
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:13,120
Speaker 5: have to finance a vehicle, the financing is very high.

516
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,440
Speaker 6: Is a huge turnoff to a lot of people.

517
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 5: It's a major, major purchase.

518
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 3: Okay, to wrap up, we're going to talk about I

519
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 3: should say, we're going to go back to the to its,

520
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 3: to its military capabilities, and back to the battlefield because

521
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 3: apparently the Chechen warlord Kataroff says he's going to unleash

522
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 3: it in Ukraine. He's gonna essentially turn it over to

523
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:41,400
Speaker 3: Poutin and let let him use it in Ukraine.

524
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 2: Can I just say something about this branding argument you

525
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 2: made earlier, because like it's it's bothering me because like

526
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 2: the like you know, random armies are using Toyota tacomas

527
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 2: that was promised on the idea that these things were reliable.

528
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: It's basically this is everywhere.

529
00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:00,199
Speaker 2: It's omnipresent. Yeah, Like this Chechen guy wasn't using it

530
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 2: on the battlefield.

531
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 7: Well we're about to find out he was just driving

532
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 7: around looking like a jerk.

533
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 2: And in that sense, he looks like every other cyber

534
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 2: truck driver and so like it's.

535
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 7: Not every single cyber truck driver is a jerk.

536
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I'm just saying, like it's a peakhawking gesture,

537
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 2: Like it is not a like even like he's not

538
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 2: showing off the capabilities of this thing. He's doing the

539
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,920
Speaker 2: thing that if you were going to criticize the cyber truck,

540
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 2: that is just this showy, kind of goofy.

541
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 1: Like manly, like lame, you know, hummer like thing.

542
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 7: And that's what how he was using it.

543
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 3: Oh sorry, all right, now that you got that off

544
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:39,159
Speaker 3: your chest, when it goes to battle, how will it fare?

545
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:40,160
Speaker 7: Mister Chafkin.

546
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 2: I don't even want to contemplate this, honestly, it's so

547
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 2: gross and dark and like the idea of you know

548
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 2: this like this like Chechen warlord, you know, using Elon

549
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 2: Musk's like you know, like.

550
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:01,880
Speaker 7: Midlife crist vehicle on the battlefield.

551
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 2: Like I don't know, Like my guess is it's going

552
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 2: to be arrowproof, but because we've seen Joe Rogan fail

553
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 2: to shoot it with an arrow. But I would not

554
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 2: have confidence in its military prowess, Danna.

555
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm allowed to say, like I do see

556
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 5: a lot of cyber trucks in California, most more in

557
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 5: LA than in the Bay Area. But you know, like

558
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 5: I could see it having military applications, I guess, I mean,

559
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 5: but you still have to charge it you have like

560
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 5: and supposedly it's arrowproof bulletproof? Is it like bomb proof?

561
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 5: I don't know, but I mean, Musk is part of

562
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 5: the military industrial defense complex, so you know, maybe he's

563
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 5: trying to sell these to the Pentagon and like this

564
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 5: like sort of weird thing of this Chechen warlord happening

565
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 5: to get his hands on one. Maybe maybe that'll perk

566
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 5: interest in some in some you know, procurement office somewhere.

567
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 3: My best guess here is that when Zelenski makes the

568
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 3: final push into Moscow, he will do.

569
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 7: So atop a cyber truck.

570
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 3: Christ Max Dana, thanks for joining.

571
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 6: Great to be here anytime.

572
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 3: This episode was produced by Stacey Wong. Naomi Shaven and

573
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 3: Rayhan Harmansi are senior editors. The idea for this very

574
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 3: show also came from Rayhon Blake Maples handles engineering, and

575
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 3: we get special editing assistants from David Purcell. Our supervising

576
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 3: producer is Magnus Henrikson.

577
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 7: The Elon Inc.

578
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 3: Theme is written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex

579
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 3: Sugi Eua. Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and

580
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 3: Sage Bauman as the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big

581
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 3: thanks to our supporter Joel Weber. I'm David Papadopolis. If

582
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 3: you have a minute, rate and review our show, it'll

583
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 3: help other listeners find us.

584
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 7: See you next week.