Speaker 1: Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 2: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 2: controlled by one man.
Speaker 1: Starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a legitimate, super genius.
Speaker 1: Legitimate, he says.
Speaker 3: He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
Speaker 3: be different.
Speaker 2: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 3: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 3: on him.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 1: Anything he does is fascinating.
Speaker 2: People. Welcome to Elon Ink, where we discuss Elon Musk's
Speaker 2: vast corporate empire, his latest gambits and antics, and how
Speaker 2: to make sense of it all. I'm your host, David Papadopolis.
Speaker 2: This week, we'll discuss some of the fallout from Musk's
Speaker 2: dramatic appearance at the New York Times deal Book Conference.
Speaker 2: One of many noteworthy moment, which is when Elon began
Speaker 2: talking politics.
Speaker 4: I let's say I'll vote for Trump, but I mean,
Speaker 4: this is definitely a difficult choice here.
Speaker 2: It's not news that Elon has been moving to the
Speaker 2: right in the past few years, but it's been a
Speaker 2: complicated turn. It doesn't fit neatly with his leadership on
Speaker 2: electrifying vehicles to address climate change. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: he's taken an anti woke stance in his post on
Speaker 2: X among other moves like moving some of his manufacturing
Speaker 2: to Texas. Oh, and he also told advertisers to go
Speaker 2: fuck themselves. We'll come back to that to figure out
Speaker 2: what Elon's role could be in American politics as we
Speaker 2: enter a presidential election year. We have Sarah Fryar, who
Speaker 2: leads our big tech team here at Bloomberg. Hello, Sarah, Hello,
Speaker 2: Dana Hull, who covers Tesla among other musk projects, Dana
Speaker 2: Hey Hey, and Max Chafkin, senior reporter at Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 2: Okay, So a moment ago, we played a bit of
Speaker 2: musk discussing that we would vote for next year with
Speaker 2: Aaron Ross Sorkin at the New York Times Deal Book Conference.
Speaker 2: Here's that full exchange.
Speaker 3: Could you see yourself voting for President Biden if it's
Speaker 3: IF's a Biden Trump election, for example.
Speaker 4: I think I would not vote for Biden.
Speaker 3: You'd vote for Trump.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying I'd vote for Trump, but I mean
Speaker 4: this is definitely a difficult choice. Yeah, you know, would
Speaker 4: you vote.
Speaker 3: For Nicki Haley. Nicki Haley, by the way, wants all
Speaker 3: social media names to be exposed.
Speaker 4: As you know, No, I think that's outrageous. Yeah, no,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to vote for some pros and censorship candidate.
Speaker 2: Okay, Dan, So let's start with just a primer on
Speaker 2: Elon's political leanings.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I think, as we've all said, they're complicated.
Speaker 5: He does not neatly fit into a box. And I
Speaker 5: think he's really a political chameleon who kind of waxes
Speaker 5: and waynes depending on how it impacts his businesses and
Speaker 5: personal all fortune. So, when Tesla was a young company
Speaker 5: that was really struggling for survival and President Obama was
Speaker 5: elected and the Recovery Act poured millions of dollars into
Speaker 5: Silicon Valley companies that were investing into clean tech, Tesla
Speaker 5: was a big beneficiary of that, and you know, Musk
Speaker 5: was widely viewed as kind of like a left leaning
Speaker 5: climate change champion. And then we you know, fast forward,
Speaker 5: Trump is elected in twenty sixteen, we have the pandemic,
Speaker 5: and Musk kind of more publicly moved towards the right.
Speaker 5: I think the clip that you just heard really speaks
Speaker 5: to this long standing beef that Musk has had with
Speaker 5: President Biden that goes way back to like August of
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one, when Biden invited Detroit automakers to the
Speaker 5: White House to kind of celebrate electric vehicles and Tesla
Speaker 5: was notably not invited. And that is like this snub
Speaker 5: that still eats away at him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it still sticks in his cross And we're gonna
Speaker 2: we're gonna dive in depth into that. And second, but
Speaker 2: before we do, Max, chameleon is a term I've heard
Speaker 2: you also use a lot for Musk and his political
Speaker 2: and he's politics.
Speaker 6: Absolutely yeah, And and I mean Dana didn't mention, but
Speaker 6: of course George W. Bush was president, you know, during
Speaker 6: the early days of SpaceX and during Musk's early engagement
Speaker 6: with Tesla, and and there was sort of an even
Speaker 6: earlier era of Musk talking about Tesla and his old
Speaker 6: his whole empire and kind of vaguely libertarian terms. I mean,
Speaker 6: people think of him as this environmentalist, but early on,
Speaker 6: the whole pitch from Tesla was that it was a
Speaker 6: better sports car than a Porsche. Elon was a Porsche driver,
Speaker 6: and he was like, I'm gonna make I'm gonna make
Speaker 6: a car that's even better than this. And and I
Speaker 6: think that was kind of, you know, pitch to appeal
Speaker 6: to the kind of George W. Bush, you know, compassionate conservatism.
Speaker 6: So he's he's moved over the years. And and I
Speaker 6: think what's what's sort of notable about the Biden beef
Speaker 6: that that Dan is bringing up here is sort of
Speaker 6: just how wrong footed Elon Musk has been.
Speaker 1: He he is.
Speaker 6: This is like the first time since the Bush administration
Speaker 6: where he hasn't been able to find a way to
Speaker 6: get on good terms with the person who's in the
Speaker 6: White House.
Speaker 2: Everyone wants to talk about the snubs, so let's go
Speaker 2: into it. Elon at deal Book spoke at length about
Speaker 2: it and sort of spoke about it in kind of
Speaker 2: somewhat raw terms. It's clearly still very personal to him.
Speaker 4: I mean, without any doing nothing to provoke the wide administration.
Speaker 4: They held an electric vehicle summit at the White House
Speaker 4: and specifically refused to let Tesla attend. This is in
Speaker 4: the first six months of the administration, and we inquired, like,
Speaker 4: we literally make more electric cars than everyone else combined.
Speaker 4: Why are we not allowed? Why are you only letting
Speaker 4: you for GM, Chrysler and UAW and you're specifically just
Speaker 4: allowing us from the EV summit at the White House.
Speaker 4: We've done nothing to provoke them. Then Biden went on
Speaker 4: to add insult injury and publicly said that GM was
Speaker 4: leading the electric car revolution. This was in the same
Speaker 4: quarter that Tesla made three hundred thousand electric cars and
Speaker 4: GM made twenty six. Does that seem fair to you?
Speaker 2: So, Dana, can you indeed can hear in his voice
Speaker 2: how it still really bothers him. I mean, the truth
Speaker 2: of the matter is he's got something of a point here.
Speaker 2: It would be a little bit like talking about the
Speaker 2: Professional Football League in commaning a conference with it and
Speaker 2: not inviting the NFL.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, I think it's beyond that. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: not just the emission of Tesla. It's that Biden went
Speaker 5: sort of above and beyond to heap praise onto General
Speaker 5: Motors and Mary Bara and you know, I mean, Biden
Speaker 5: visited this GM factory in Detroit, and he took a
Speaker 5: spin in an electric comer and he said, Detroit's leading
Speaker 5: the leading the world in electric vehicles, and he sort of,
Speaker 5: you know, praised Mary barras like leading the revolution. I mean,
Speaker 5: that is really not fair. Any history of the ev
Speaker 5: industry knows that GM really fought tooth and nail against
Speaker 5: Tesla's ability to sell to consumers directly. They had the
Speaker 5: EV one pro that they shuddered. So it's not just
Speaker 5: that Tesla is like omitted from all these like pomp
Speaker 5: and circumstance shows at the White House lawn. It's that
Speaker 5: like Biden is like keeping praise on GM and and
Speaker 5: like barely mentioned Tesla at all until we called him
Speaker 5: out on it. And that's what feels very personal form Musk.
Speaker 5: And that's why going into the selection cycle, like he
Speaker 5: is not inclined to vote for a man who he
Speaker 5: has publicly called a damp sock puppet.
Speaker 7: He's extrapolating beyond Biden to in the last midterm he said,
Speaker 7: don't vote for Democrats.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, he has indeed gone from Biden to the
Speaker 2: whole Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: It might not be fair, but it's it's politics.
Speaker 6: It's not surprising that Joe Biden, a kind of Democrat
Speaker 6: who ran on on pro union, you know, bring the
Speaker 6: jobs back to Detroit type credentials, would go around celebrating
Speaker 6: union auto shops, especially given you know, Elon Musk's history
Speaker 6: with unions, which we've talked about on.
Speaker 1: The show all the time.
Speaker 6: And and of course Elon Musk is not used to this,
Speaker 6: He's not used to to dealing with this kind of
Speaker 6: politician in Joe Biden, and and it again, it's it's
Speaker 6: surprising to me that he hasn't tried to find a
Speaker 6: way to embrace Bidenomics or whatever you want to call
Speaker 6: Joe Biden's politics.
Speaker 1: Because of course he could. He has a very.
Speaker 6: Compelling pitch to offer Democrats if he wanted to.
Speaker 2: Right, So you're you're basically saying that the chameleonic Musk
Speaker 2: of years past would have gotten over the hurt feelings
Speaker 2: or whatever, and we just rolled with this.
Speaker 1: That's what I would have expected.
Speaker 6: What may be going on here is just that Elon
Speaker 6: Musk is a lot bigger than he was earlier. So
Speaker 6: in the old days, you know, any president is going
Speaker 6: to sing single out a uh, you know, American job creator,
Speaker 6: startup from Silicon Valley that's doing pretty well. Suddenly we
Speaker 6: have this guy who is the world's richest man, who
Speaker 6: is you know, has a political has spoken out against
Speaker 6: unions in the past, and that makes him harder perhaps
Speaker 6: for somebody like Biden, or really any presidential candidate to
Speaker 6: just fully embrace.
Speaker 7: Especially with the backdrop of income inequality, inflation, people not
Speaker 7: being able to you know, afford basic things in their minds,
Speaker 7: even if it's improved. I think he really wants to
Speaker 7: speak to the working class in America and being really
Speaker 7: close with the world's richest man is not a good look.
Speaker 5: And let's be honest, Michigan is critically important to Biden's
Speaker 5: re election campaign. The Detroit Automakers are based in Michigan.
Speaker 5: There is no real value add to coosing up to
Speaker 5: a billionaire who has moved to Texas.
Speaker 2: Yeah so he' right, he's got plants in California, foregone
Speaker 2: conclusion in elections and Texas foregone conclusions in election. Michigan. Yeah,
Speaker 2: always you know, up for grabs, which again comes back
Speaker 2: to Max's point about chameleonic Musk in the past would
Speaker 2: have just sort of seen it for what it is.
Speaker 2: But let me throw this at you, Dan, I mean,
Speaker 2: is it also possible that his ability to roll with
Speaker 2: Biden and find a way to become sympathical with him
Speaker 2: also just perhaps reflects how the pandemic actually really affected
Speaker 2: him and sort of by him meaning Elon and just
Speaker 2: kind of drove him ideologically further to the right.
Speaker 7: That's part of it.
Speaker 5: I think what's weird about this is that Biden's Inflation
Speaker 5: Reduction Act keeps billions of dollars onto climate change efforts
Speaker 5: through everything from like a manufacturing text credit, which Tesla
Speaker 5: really benefits from, to funding for electric vehicle chargers all
Speaker 5: over the United States, to like, you know, a ten
Speaker 5: percent credit for refining raw minerals in the US, which
Speaker 5: is why Tesla now has this lithium refinery in Corpus Christy. So,
Speaker 5: you know, Musk, as much as he likes to sort
Speaker 5: of portray himself as being a self made man, really
Speaker 5: does benefit from government programs, government programs designed to combat
Speaker 5: climate change. Would think that there would be some kind
Speaker 5: of detente where they could put the personal grudge aside
Speaker 5: and just sort of, you know, move forward and talk
Speaker 5: about the benefits of the IRA. But that's that's not happening.
Speaker 5: And I think what's so so wild about this these
Speaker 5: clips that we just heard from Deal Book is Musk
Speaker 5: is saying he's not inclined to vote for Biden, but
Speaker 5: he's not. He hasn't yet endorsed a Republican candidate either,
Speaker 5: and that Republican field is really narrowing, and it's like,
Speaker 5: what is his game here? Like he sort of, you know,
Speaker 5: did the speak show of coming out with DeSantis, then
Speaker 5: he sort of was flirting with Vivek, and but now
Speaker 5: he's saying he won't he's not inclined to vote for
Speaker 5: Nicki Haley. So like, who's left? Like, is Musk gonna
Speaker 5: get behind Chris Christie?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Well, well, Max, you describe it like he's basically getting
Speaker 2: behind a handful of Rump candidates.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean that's the thing in that clip that to
Speaker 6: me is most surprising his refusal or hesitancy to say
Speaker 6: that he would vote for Donald Trump, who is, you know,
Speaker 6: way way ahead in the in the Republican primaries, is
Speaker 6: the presumptive nominee.
Speaker 1: And and to me.
Speaker 6: It just shows how politically marooned Musk is. So in
Speaker 6: certain ways, right, Okay, he's got he's got some beef
Speaker 6: with the Democrats. Fine, that kind of makes sense, but
Speaker 6: he also has beef with Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Trump has responded, how has he responded?
Speaker 6: Trump has responded by insulting him back, you know, on
Speaker 6: the campaign trail, and it's it's not that surprising because Trump,
Speaker 6: like Biden, also wants to win over these autoworkers, right,
Speaker 6: they're they're they're.
Speaker 7: But I don't think that Musk really works in alliances.
Speaker 7: I think he works in enemies, and I think that
Speaker 7: the you know, deciding that Biden the Democrats are enemies
Speaker 7: is more important to him than deciding which Republican he
Speaker 7: wants to align with and support, because he needs all
Speaker 7: of them right now, like he needs the state based
Speaker 7: politicians for launching, launching his rockets, selling his cars. You know,
Speaker 7: all of those regulations around car sales are very state oriented.
Speaker 7: So what's what's the benefit to him of making any
Speaker 7: any like choices.
Speaker 2: He's got a lot of to Sarah's point, business interest
Speaker 2: in Florida, Right, I mean, let's start back at the beginning, right.
Speaker 2: Didn't this whole this election cycle start for him with
Speaker 2: the with the Ron DeSantis X launch that went oddly? Max?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, he Uh, Ron DeSantis launched his presidential candidacy
Speaker 6: on X. Elon had actually praised DeSantis before. I think
Speaker 6: I believe he in fact said he was, you know,
Speaker 6: inclined to support DeSantis in twenty twenty four. Then Elon
Speaker 6: sort of shifted to the vek Ramaswami as as Dana
Speaker 6: is saying, and he's at times expressed, uh, you know,
Speaker 6: a little maybe a little curiosity about RFK, who's you know,
Speaker 6: was running as a Democrat. He hosted him on a
Speaker 6: yeah yeah, now running as he yes, he hosted him
Speaker 6: on x uh and and RFK of course now running
Speaker 6: as an independent.
Speaker 1: And I think in all these.
Speaker 6: Candidates you can see why there's appeal to for somebody
Speaker 6: like Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Now, Dana tell us how historically involved has he been
Speaker 2: as a donor and activist. Does he punk down a
Speaker 2: lot of money in these elections?
Speaker 5: Traditional?
Speaker 4: Not at all.
Speaker 5: I mean that's the big thing. Musk is a loud voice,
Speaker 5: but he is not a big donor. He doesn't have
Speaker 5: a pack that we know of. He's always like donated
Speaker 5: very small to both sides of the aisle, but never
Speaker 5: been a big player in presidential campaigns. He's not like
Speaker 5: a budler. I mean, there are a lot of big
Speaker 5: money donors on both sides, you know, who typically give
Speaker 5: a lot to presidential campaigns, and Musk has never been
Speaker 5: that way. So That's what's sort of curious to me
Speaker 5: as we head into twenty twenty four. What does an
Speaker 5: endorsement from Musk even mean? Does he give you money
Speaker 5: or does he just sort of like platform you on
Speaker 5: his platt Well.
Speaker 2: Right, but Sarah, so he that is a pretty big platform, right.
Speaker 7: Well, this will be this will be the first election
Speaker 7: where he owns X. There was obviously the midterms where
Speaker 7: he put his finger on the scale saying, don't vote
Speaker 7: for Democrats, vote for Republicans. And this presidential election is
Speaker 7: going to have obviously much bigger consequences, and he can
Speaker 7: really shape the narrative however he wants. He's shown us
Speaker 7: that that he will promote his own tweets. He will,
Speaker 7: you know, decide what content stays and goes, decide when
Speaker 7: to ban people and how to ban them if at all,
Speaker 7: and keep them keep them posting. So, even though X
Speaker 7: has declined in advertiser revenue in some of its cloud,
Speaker 7: it still has this this outsized impact on the political
Speaker 7: conversation because it is the real time network. And so
Speaker 7: if he if he is open about who he's supporting,
Speaker 7: you can imagine that we'd want to know a little
Speaker 7: bit more about how X is treating that decision, if
Speaker 7: at all, in its algorithm, in its moderation choices, in
Speaker 7: its advertising choices, it could have a big impact.
Speaker 6: I just to push back a little bit on what
Speaker 6: Sarah was saying, Like, I think there's always been real
Speaker 6: questions about how influential Twitter is actually has actually been
Speaker 6: on the political pop process it had. It definitely gets
Speaker 6: things in front of journalists. So insofar as there are
Speaker 6: journalists still on X, which they are to some extent
Speaker 6: but not as much as they used to be, there's
Speaker 6: potential for influence there. But just you know, counterpoint is
Speaker 6: the vik Ramaswami did really well on X. He was
Speaker 6: embraced by Musk, platform by Musks, and he has gone
Speaker 6: absolutely nowhere in the Republican president Like he's you know,
Speaker 6: he's at like something like five percent in you know,
Speaker 6: polls in Ohio, Iowa, and New Hampshire. So I don't
Speaker 6: know how big the impact really is going to be.
Speaker 7: You don't just have to think about what he does,
Speaker 7: but what he chooses to not do. I think about
Speaker 7: like what Twitter did after the January sixth insurrection. They
Speaker 7: banned Trump, they started fact checking people, They sort of
Speaker 7: tamped down the radicalization that was happening, not entirely, but
Speaker 7: enough alongside Meta there was like this united front by
Speaker 7: the platforms that they that they needed to do. You know, frankly,
Speaker 7: too little, too late, but I think as a lot
Speaker 7: of people thought of it that way. But I think
Speaker 7: that that shows, you know, if you have a platform
Speaker 7: with fewer rules around political speech. As Musk says, he
Speaker 7: cares deeply about how quickly are people going to radicalize
Speaker 7: in a situation where they disagree with the outcome?
Speaker 2: All right, we do indeed need to talk sports, so
Speaker 2: we'll we'll segue to there. Okay, welcome back. So, as
Speaker 2: we've talked about in the past, advertisers have been fleeing
Speaker 2: X in drobes. This topic came up in the deal
Speaker 2: Book interview and it was the most explosive moment by far.
Speaker 4: If somebody's going to try to blackmail me with advertising,
Speaker 4: blackmailing with money, go for yourself, but go fuck yourself.
Speaker 4: Is that clear? I hope it is? Hey, Bob sharing
Speaker 4: the audience.
Speaker 2: Okay, Sarah. So that's the landscape out there right now.
Speaker 2: That's the tone right now between Elon Musk and X
Speaker 2: versus or Visa VI its corporate clients, but one, curiously
Speaker 2: one remains and remains pretty close to X and that
Speaker 2: is the National Football League the NFL.
Speaker 7: Why there's a lot of history there. Twitter had a
Speaker 7: CFO who was the former CFO of the NFL, Anthony Noto,
Speaker 7: and back around the twenty sixteen twenty seventeen era, he
Speaker 7: created a lot of deals, including a deal Forday Night
Speaker 7: football to be streamed on X Sorry Twitter, which is
Speaker 7: what it was called back then.
Speaker 2: And it trained you too well, Sarah, you know it's
Speaker 2: actually I know, I.
Speaker 7: Just spent too much time covering this company, But that
Speaker 7: was that was a big deal because Twitter has a
Speaker 7: much smaller audience, but at the time it was considered
Speaker 7: the only place where those kind of real time conversations occur.
Speaker 7: If somebody has an amazing touchdown or if somebody gets injured,
Speaker 7: you are going to see people just posting about it,
Speaker 7: even you know, out of context, assuming that everyone else
Speaker 7: on Twitter that they follow or that there is in
Speaker 7: their community is also watching the game. And that made
Speaker 7: sports more fun, and it made it something that was like,
Speaker 7: you know, the shared experience. Even if you weren't watching
Speaker 7: the game with friends, you could feel like that that
Speaker 7: you know, excitement.
Speaker 2: And that community remains that community.
Speaker 7: It doesn't have anywhere to go. I mean, I think
Speaker 7: it's kind of a default. You're on Twitter because like
Speaker 7: that's where your people are. I will say I've seen
Speaker 7: the NFL start to embrace other platforms more they are
Speaker 7: they're you know, not really finding It doesn't seem like
Speaker 7: they're finding an alternative either. They have to be on
Speaker 7: X and there's not many brands that that can say
Speaker 7: that they have to be there.
Speaker 5: Still.
Speaker 2: Now, the NFL is the most dominant sports league in
Speaker 2: this country, and frankly, in terms of all entertainment, it
Speaker 2: pretty much dominates the US landscape. You look at the
Speaker 2: top eight most watch shows all of last year, one
Speaker 2: through eight are all NFL football games. You look at
Speaker 2: the top twenty most valuable sports franchises in the US
Speaker 2: fifteen of the twenty. Does this relationship with the NFL
Speaker 2: at a time when so much is going wrong for
Speaker 2: X Sarah? Is it actually a road to financial viability?
Speaker 2: Is it something is it a model that can work
Speaker 2: off of or is it ultimately still just too small
Speaker 2: and in scale to add up?
Speaker 7: Well, I think it's a legacy thing. I don't think
Speaker 7: it's something that they're building. That's just the default behavior
Speaker 7: from the years of work that Twitter did before. And
Speaker 7: in fact, what we are seeing is the algorithm is
Speaker 7: changing on Twitter to be more about entertainment less about
Speaker 7: real time, and we've seen Musk embrace memes and posts
Speaker 7: that are maybe a little older, posts from people you
Speaker 7: may not be following. And so it doesn't seem to
Speaker 7: me like Twitter being the place where you go to
Speaker 7: see what's happening in the moment is really the thing anymore.
Speaker 7: You know, see what he has done with news links,
Speaker 7: He's down ranked them. I think that is that used
Speaker 7: to be the soul and heartbeat of Twitter. If it's
Speaker 7: still got that, it's because nobody else has figured it out.
Speaker 2: So that point that tweak to the to the algo
Speaker 2: seems very important. Right if in the past, you know, indeed,
Speaker 2: you wanted to know which wide receiver to start in
Speaker 2: your fantasy league, and so tweets on who was injured
Speaker 2: and who was going to play were enormously important. You
Speaker 2: needed that information immediately. If that's being downplayed to as
Speaker 2: as the app becomes more of an entertainment, so that
Speaker 2: does indeed seem like a problem, especially Max at a
Speaker 2: time when gambling is exploding the US And I was
Speaker 2: at a game earlier this year and the guys behind
Speaker 2: me had made we're making all these in game bets, right,
Speaker 2: and so like you need that real time information, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, I'm like what Sarah is saying is is right.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's the platform. It's not as useful for
Speaker 6: sports as it used to be. Like I use it
Speaker 6: all the time to like look, no, not to gamble,
Speaker 6: but to look at, you know, who's starting in the NFL,
Speaker 6: to look at soccer transfer news to figure out if
Speaker 6: the Mets, which scrub you know, Pitcher, the Mets.
Speaker 1: Are going to sign bring next that's up here. And
Speaker 1: you have to kind of work at it, you know,
Speaker 1: because because.
Speaker 2: Like because of the tweaks to the algo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because of the tweaks the algo. But you can
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 6: And and the sports influencers, as Sarah's saying, they haven't left,
Speaker 6: They're still there. And the thing about sports that is
Speaker 6: really good for Twitter.
Speaker 1: Sports is just.
Speaker 6: Like an avalanche of developments of ups and downs and
Speaker 6: funny stuff you want to react to.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of perfect for that. And and I.
Speaker 6: Think the gambling thing actually is a huge gift to
Speaker 6: Elon Musk because of course they're having huge problems with
Speaker 6: all these brand advertisers. We've seen some announcements about efforts
Speaker 6: to you know, go after small businesses. I mean sports,
Speaker 6: gambling websites. There's a lot of money there. Those are
Speaker 6: companies like he wants X to be the everything app. Right,
Speaker 6: He's gonna ask for your credit card information and he
Speaker 6: wants you to do payments. So if you can gamble
Speaker 6: on X, that would be perfect for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6: And so it definitely seems like this is something they
Speaker 6: can work, they can build on. I also don't think
Speaker 6: it's something that's gonna go away anytime soon for all
Speaker 6: the reasons Sarah is saying, like there isn't another REDS
Speaker 6: isn't better for this.
Speaker 5: I have a question about advertising on X. What's the
Speaker 5: NBA doing Because the NBA is so player driven versus
Speaker 5: owner driven. You have really big names like Lebron James
Speaker 5: who used to have huge followings, like is he still
Speaker 5: on X? And is the NBA doing anything around their
Speaker 5: advertising or are they still on it as well? Because
Speaker 5: if we're talking about sort of cultural war politics, the
Speaker 5: NFL and the NBA are just very different, and I'm
Speaker 5: just sort of curious about that.
Speaker 7: I haven't seen any recent statements from them, but I
Speaker 7: will say that I thought it was really funny when
Speaker 7: Musk started this kind of premium verification product that you
Speaker 7: wanted people to buy that actually didn't have anything to
Speaker 7: do with whether you were who you say you are.
Speaker 7: He doled it out to some celebrities who were kind
Speaker 7: of surprised by it and confused about why they got
Speaker 7: blue checks without paying, sort of to create the impression
Speaker 7: that theseelebrities, we're paying, and that it was a cool
Speaker 7: hit product that you needed to buy.
Speaker 2: Sarah last thing before we move on here, Ex's CEO
Speaker 2: Linda Yakarino. She keeps xing about tweeting, xing posting. I
Speaker 2: guess musk stead post is the word he wants us
Speaker 2: to use. Keeps posting about the NFL football, But she
Speaker 2: she's doing so in a sort of odd way. She'll
Speaker 2: just post right like football heart right, Like what what
Speaker 2: do we make of the Linda Yakarino football tweets posts?
Speaker 2: I should say, oh, to.
Speaker 7: Get inside her head. I mean, I think that that
Speaker 7: she is in a tough position, right now because she
Speaker 7: needs to create the impression that Twitter is a place
Speaker 7: where advertisers want to put their money and the are
Speaker 7: excited about hanging out and building their communities. And at
Speaker 7: the same time, she is dealing with an owner and
Speaker 7: CTO who is doing everything in his power to alienate
Speaker 7: some advertisers, including telling some of them at the deal
Speaker 7: Book conference to go f themselves, and you know, specifically
Speaker 7: calling out Bob Eiger, who is the CEO of Disney,
Speaker 7: which was a very major advertiser for Twitter for a
Speaker 7: long time. So yeah, she's got to take what she
Speaker 7: can get.
Speaker 2: We've got to talk cyber Truck again. The launch was
Speaker 2: last week. We spent the fair amount of time talking
Speaker 2: about it last weekend and they launched two days later.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go around the room here and i want
Speaker 2: everyone to hit me with one thought they had. We'll
Speaker 2: start with our Tesla expert Dana Hall.
Speaker 5: Why was Elon standing in the dark on stage? It
Speaker 5: was a very very weird, underwhelming short presentation.
Speaker 2: Okay, and do we have a theory Dan as to
Speaker 2: why he was standing in the dark on stage?
Speaker 5: To be fair, I have not been invited to a
Speaker 5: Tesla event in a while. But I have been to
Speaker 5: them in the past and they were like showstoppers. They
Speaker 5: were like these very highly orchestrated LA high production value,
Speaker 5: incredible events like the Model three launch, the semi truck launch.
Speaker 1: They were awesome.
Speaker 5: And then watching this on the live stream, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is very underwhelming. The big thing people want to
Speaker 5: know are price and range. Elon must did not talk
Speaker 5: about either during his twenty minute presentation. It was all
Speaker 5: it was like showing video clips of performance, but nothing
Speaker 5: about the key.
Speaker 2: Maybe because the price is maybe because the price is
Speaker 2: higher than they had indicated would be and the.
Speaker 5: Range is louder.
Speaker 2: There were yeah, right, so those are probably too all right,
Speaker 2: Sarah Fryar.
Speaker 7: I mean, this thing just doesn't seem that safe, Like
Speaker 7: maybe for the driver, but if you're on the road
Speaker 7: and the cyber truck's coming at you, I just wouldn't
Speaker 7: want to be.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, as I look at that thing, the
Speaker 2: epiphany I had over the weekend. This thing is all
Speaker 2: stainless steel and it's built like a missile. Now, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be it's gonna be pretty dangerous.
Speaker 5: I mean, our former colleague Sean Okaine had a great point,
Speaker 5: this is like ev for Doomers. I mean, they made
Speaker 5: this kind of feeling during the whole presentation that this
Speaker 5: is a vehicle that you can drive on Mars or
Speaker 5: other planets. This is the vehicle for escaping the apocalypse.
Speaker 5: It's like, you know, when when everything goes to hell
Speaker 5: in a hand basket, this is the vehicle that you
Speaker 5: want to be in.
Speaker 7: But what in your car turns into the weapon that
Speaker 7: will smash the zombies out of your way?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was definitely the vibe.
Speaker 7: That's but that's like not good for reality. That's there
Speaker 7: are you know, kids playing on the street and stuff.
Speaker 2: So I'm Sarah, you and I are aligned here, so Max,
Speaker 2: that leaves you.
Speaker 6: So I was just gonna say, like, I am very
Speaker 6: conflicted on this because like I'm a cyclist and a
Speaker 6: runner and on the other hand, like a truck that
Speaker 6: smashes zombies like it doesn't I see the appeal. And
Speaker 6: but anyway, the thing that the thing that I was
Speaker 6: surprised by, which is actually related to this, is that
Speaker 6: this truck is not going to be legal street legal
Speaker 6: in Europe because European regulators, for safety reasons require trucks
Speaker 6: to have rounded.
Speaker 1: Edges like totally and so like they can't.
Speaker 6: You can't even sell this thing in Europe, which I
Speaker 6: hate to say, it kind of increases the appeal for me.
Speaker 2: Uh you know.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that I find just head scratching
Speaker 1: is the steering.
Speaker 6: Thing Like a rede a review top there's a top
Speaker 6: Gear review of the of the truck. It's largely positive,
Speaker 6: but it really doesn't like the steering. This drive by
Speaker 6: wire system where you can't turn the wheel. You know,
Speaker 6: you're you're turning the wheel sort of very small distances
Speaker 6: to get it to to to turn and which is
Speaker 6: a feature in high end sports cars, but which the
Speaker 6: top Gear testers said.
Speaker 1: Was weird, especially at slow speeds.
Speaker 2: So they're out there, people are driving them, are dan
Speaker 2: Is that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 5: I mean Tesla turned over what like twelve of them
Speaker 5: to the first customers last Thursday night. You know, we'll
Speaker 5: see in January how many they actually deliver in December.
Speaker 5: But yeah, people have them. You know, some automotive journalists
Speaker 5: got early access to them, some influencers were able to
Speaker 5: drive them. The other thing that's really interesting is there's
Speaker 5: this whole product called the Range Extender which you can
Speaker 5: buy for sixteen thousand dollars that will add vehicle range
Speaker 5: to the battery, But they didn't talk about that during
Speaker 5: the presentation either. And that's like a big thing for
Speaker 5: a company that's kind of known for making the best
Speaker 5: range batteries in the business to come out with a
Speaker 5: product that, you know, if you really want the range
Speaker 5: that was promised four years ago, you've got to buy
Speaker 5: this sixteen thousand dollars like thing that gets it gets
Speaker 5: embedded into the back of your cab. People are bummed
Speaker 5: out about that.
Speaker 2: It seems on Tesla like so all right, well, we'll see,
Speaker 2: we'll see how this cyber truck dot. Thanks for listening
Speaker 2: to Elon, Inc. And thanks to our panel Sarah Dana Max.
Speaker 1: Great to be here, see you next week.
Speaker 7: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Stacey Wong. Naomi Shaven and
Speaker 2: Rayhan Harmanci are our senior editors. The idea for this
Speaker 2: very show also came from Rayhan Blake Maple's Handles Engineering,
Speaker 2: and we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott. Our
Speaker 2: supervising producers Magnus Henrickson. Thanks a bunch of BusinessWeek editor
Speaker 2: Joel Weber. The Elon Inc. Theme is written and performed
Speaker 2: by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugijira. Sage Bauman is the
Speaker 2: head of Bloomberg Podcast and our executive producer. I am
Speaker 2: David Papadopolis. If you have a minute, wait and review
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Speaker 1: See you next week.
Speaker 4: The Stop staff