WEBVTT - Elon Musk Made 2023 All About Him 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.720 Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.000 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:12.080 controlled by one man. 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.160 Starting his own artificial intelligence company. 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.400 Well, he's a legitimate super genius. I mean legitimate. 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:18.919 He says. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.560 He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:23.000 be different. He'll vote Republican. 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.760 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:26.160 on him. 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.040 Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.320 Anything he does is fascinating the people. 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:43.440 Welcome to Elon Inc. 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.040 The show where we analyze the latest from Elon Musk's 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.600 business empire. I'm Max Chafkin, sitting in for our normal host, 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.880 David Popotopolis, who is off for the holidays, probably driving 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.080 his Chevy Colorado around somewhere upstate. 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.960 So in instead we plan something special. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.760 We're gonna look back at the year in Elon Musk 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.720 and look forward to all that's to come in twenty 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.400 twenty four. We're talking about the biggest stories, the weirdest stories, 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.759 the funniest stories, all of it. And full disclosure, we're 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.080 recording this episode on December thirteenth, so if between now 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.240 and when it airs, you hear of the name of 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:20.399 Elon Musk's university or some other strange thing happens, you'll 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.080 know why we didn't cover it. Okay, to do this, 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.119 we've got a special guest, PJ Vote. He's a host 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.200 of the search Engine podcast, which answers a burning question 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.000 each week, and earlier this year, search Engine did a 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.639 great episode trying to understand what had happened to Elon Musk. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:37.399 You should check it out if you haven't listened to it. 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.800 And we're so happy to have PJ here with us today. PJ, 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:40.920 Welcome to Elon, Inc. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:42.160 Thank you for having me. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:47.039 We're also joined by Sarah Fryar, Bloomberg's Big Tech editor. Hey, Sarah, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:51.040 always the pleasure, and Rayhan Harmansi, who regular listeners will 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:52.600 know as an editor on this show. 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:54.120 Rayhon, thank you for being here. 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:54.680 Thanks. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.320 Okay, So this was clearly a huge year for Elon Musk. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.120 We had some ups and downs for Tesla, many many 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.720 rocket launches, We had brain chips and advertiser boycotts, and 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:08.280 a very curious obsession with the letter X that I'm 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.079 sure we'll talk about. And so we're here to look 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:13.639 back on all of that and hopefully take stock of it. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.560 And I want to start by asking everyone on our 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.880 panel to give me a one word verdict on how 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.480 twenty twenty three was for Elon Musk. Sarah Fryar, give 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:24.680 me an adjective. 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:29.359 Oh my goodness, explosive, PJ, hysterical. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:31.760 Yeah, I was gonna say unstable. 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.639 Okay, So Magnus, our producer, asked me like a week 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.320 ago what I thought, and without really thinking I said great. 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:43.920 I'm not sure if that was just like a normal 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:45.639 like if someone asks you how you're doing, you say great, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.800 even if you're doing very poorly. But I've been thinking 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.000 about defending that idea, and I think if I were 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:52.480 going to defend that Elon had a great year, I 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.880 would say number one, Tesla stock doubled, Number two, Elon 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.560 became a lot more famous than he'd been, and number 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.760 three he got the Walter Isaacson Biographer of Genius treatment. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:05.960 So by those standards, I think it was a really, 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.480 really good year. But what I want to do today 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.639 is talk about what each of us thought was the biggest, 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.360 the most important story of twenty twenty three in Elon 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.000 Musk's world. And let's start with you, Raehan. What did 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.200 you think was the biggest story of the year for Elon. 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.240 I think the biggest story, and I'm going to be 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.440 borrowing from our colleague Dana Hall, who is not. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:27.120 With us today. 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.760 I think it's Tesla's price cuts. I mean, starting in January, 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.240 I think maybe as much as half a dozen times 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:38.120 this year, Elon cut the price of Tesla. And you know, 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.040 it had some moments where it seemed like the stocks 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.520 were going to be very affected by this, but as 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.840 of now, Tesla's share prices have rebounded and his market 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:49.400 share is still over sixty percent. 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:50.000 Yeah. 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.400 Elon talked about these price cuts in detail during an 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.480 earnings call in early January, and let's like just listen 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:58.200 to a little bit of that tape just to get 0:03:58.240 --> 0:03:59.200 a sense of what was going on. 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.280 Basically, price really matters. I think there's the vast number 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:07.200 of people that wanted to buy a Tesla car but 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.800 can't afford it, and so these price changes really make 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.280 a difference for the average consumer, and sometimes for those 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.000 people who are well, you know, have a lot of money, 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.760 they sort of forget about how important affordability is. 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.640 Wow, that feels like a long time ago, at least 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:24.600 to me. You know where the big issue was like 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.039 how many teslas are people going to buy? And we 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.960 hadn't really gotten into all these allegations of bad behavior 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.359 and craziness on social media. But Sarah just catch us 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.760 up a little bit and remind us what was going 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.800 on back then. How did Elon Musk start twenty twenty three. 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:45.800 I mean, I think that Musk was in this position 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:47.920 of feeling like he was on top of the world, 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.960 like he's the new king of the playground, or however 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:58.719 Walter Isaacson calls it in his book Owning X being 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:03.159 in charge of the discourse as you will, And it's 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.040 all gotten a lot more complicated. 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:07.760 And it's like super popular too. 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.440 I mean, because there's later in that Earnings call someone 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.200 brought up because even back then, right, Elon Musk has 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.599 got a little crazier in the last couple of months 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.040 in terms of his Twitter presence, But even then was 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.679 he was doing some pretty edgy things and somebody said, hey, Elon, 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.600 don't you think this might be hurting your reputation? 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.880 Of these might hurt demand? And here's what he said. 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:29.560 Let me check my Twitter account. So I've got one 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.960 hundred and twenty seven million followers, and it continues to 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:38.279 grow very rapidly. That suggests that I'm reasonably popular, and 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.520 I might not be popular by with some people, but 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:46.200 for the vast majority of people, the follow account speaks 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.440 for itself on most interactive accounts social social media account 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.839 I think maybe in the world, certainly on Twitter, and 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.520 that's actually predated the Twitter acquisition, So I think Twitter 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.679 is actually incredibly powerful tool for driving demand for Tesla. 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.680 So PJ, that's how popularity works, right. 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:07.360 Yeah, it's a discrete number. There's no other numbers. It's 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.559 not how people feel about you. It's just that many 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.640 people are theoretically paying attention to you on the social 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.080 media website which you have purchased and driven into the ground. 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.880 I find his worldview it's weird. He's forced himself into 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.720 our imaginations and into our conversations in such a The 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.559 only sort of public figure who has done this before 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.760 is Trump, where every conversation sort of pulls towards him, 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:33.320 whether you want it to or not. I still find 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.359 him psychologically very interesting, and this is one of the 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.480 facets where he really both doesn't seem to distinguish often 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:44.080 between good attention and bad attention, and Also he's someone 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.880 who you know, we all are aware that social media 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:49.480 pulls on our minds in ways that we might not 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:54.240 always particularly like this is the most extreme case of it. 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:56.760 And the person who is most badly affected by the product, 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.839 or most publicly badly affected by the product, decided he 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.960 wants to down and run the product is such a 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:04.560 crazy thing. 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.640 This is really just an engineer mindset. It's the number 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.560 went up. Yes, how could I be failing? 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:11.040 Yeah? 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.400 You know, one hundred and sixty six million is what 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.000 it's at now, based on that Elon Musk has had, 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.760 as Max puts it, a great year. 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.200 I can't believe we're now we're settling on this. I 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.520 thought I might take it be controversial. The thing for 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.160 me in this is the tone, right, it's like the weird, 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.240 especially comparing those two clips, like the first one where 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.440 it's like very the affect is like very sort of 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.640 laid back. He can barely get a word out, and 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:38.360 this is this like extremely like swaggering. 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:39.920 Let me check my Twitter account. 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:44.320 It's so like you said, PJ, just like psychologically kind 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.600 of wild. And also he's up to like one hundred 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.040 and sixty six million since then, It keeps going up. 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.680 I mean, the number does keep going up. But it's 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.440 interesting though, because, like you know, I mean, Max, you 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.720 wrote about this, a lot of people were thinking that 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:04.800 because of increasingly strange public postings, Tesla would take a hit. 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.080 He was too distracted. But their strategy of cutting price, 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.240 I mean, it cut into their profit margins, but it 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.320 seems to be working. And so you're left with this 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.920 feeling of like Elon's publicly doing one thing on one hand, 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:22.600 and then on another hand, it's not a total failure, 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:25.120 and I think that's what is confusing. Over and over 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:25.760 and over again. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:28.800 Well, people thought that X would die or Twitter would 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.200 die in his hands, and in some ways it has. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.679 It's just not the same platform people were used to, 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:36.679 but people are still going there if they're still talking 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:42.400 about the happenings of the day, and it's definitely a 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.440 bit more depressing, but it's not making as much money. 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.400 He was like, not the most full throated. 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:57.720 I'm just saying it didn't die. I'm consistently surprised that 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:03.040 it is hung on and continued to stay marginally relevant. 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:07.240 Maybe we'll see it's death in twenty twenty four. It 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.480 is surprising how after the Twitter acquisition, all these insiders 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.800 were telling me, telling our colleagues Kurt and Ed, like, 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.920 this is gonna all break, Like you can't just lay 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.200 off or accept the resignation of seventy five percent of 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:26.600 the staff and expect Twitter to still operate. It's held 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:28.839 together with duct tape and it's going to die. And 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:30.200 it hasn't died. 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.480 So, PJ, you're a user, right, I assume. 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.439 I actually retired from Twitter about a month ago. 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:39.640 Okay, So, but I was. 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.240 A very very very very very very enthusiastic user up 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.280 until that point. And really my feeling was there have 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:48.520 probably been things I didn't love about the site that 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.280 I noticed less pre Elon, and that he just sort 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.080 of like turned all the knobs all the way to 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.520 the right, Like you know, it's like a social media 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.559 website that's built for conflict. It's built for like the 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:03.000 collapse of context. You notice that less when it's not 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.240 being set to fight mode, but desires. It's interesting, Like 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.199 I do think one of the things that's confounding about 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.000 Elon is that you kind of never know. And I 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:12.640 feel like this happened a few times this year where 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.160 he will do something that is counter to the conventional 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.280 wisdom of how a CEO should behave, how a human 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.240 being should behave, how an Internet user should behave, And 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.760 maybe eight times out of ten you could say, I 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:25.120 know how this is gonna go. 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:26.800 This is terrible, this is obvious. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.000 I not at all. A billionaire could tell you not 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:30.640 to do that, and eight times out of ten you'll 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:32.600 be right, and then two times out of ten you'll 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.280 be wrong, And it's very confusing. 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:35.040 One of the things. 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.960 I'm not a software engineer, but I remember people saying, 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.440 if you destroy the headcount of this company, the service 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:46.319 itself will break. The service shook. It was rickety. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:47.280 If you'd made me. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.319 Make a money bet when you cut that many engineers, 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:54.200 will the website even load? I wouldn't think the actual like, 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.960 let alone the user experience. The fact that the website 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.640 is running at all right now is not what I 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:01.680 predict and I was relatively certain. 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:03.280 So why did it survive though? 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.199 Is it just because we just don't we overestimate the 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:08.720 like how many software engineers are required. 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.280 It was definitely an overstaffed company. I think it was 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.440 a place where a lot of things didn't happen because 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.920 people were indecisive about how to make them happen. That 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.600 was partially Jack Dorsey's leadership. The culture that he instilled 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:27.440 was a more philosophical leadership, and they just weren't that efficient. 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.160 At Twitter. It was more about like, how do we 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:35.320 remain good stewards of this site that is so powerful 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.640 that we don't even know what to do with it? 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:39.160 And now it's different. 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.480 So clearly, Sarah, for you, I'm guessing Twitter X this 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:49.360 is maybe the story of the year. I want to 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.560 drill down on that a little bit and talk about 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.840 one of my favorite characters of the year, Linda Yakarino. 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.200 First all, let's listen to at a little Linda. I 0:11:57.200 --> 0:11:59.760 feel like she's been one of one of the kind 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:01.079 of the bright spots. 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:01.600 In the year of Elon. 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:02.679 It's a comic relief. 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:04.960 Well that's one way of looking at it. 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.559 I think another way, and maybe the way I was 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:09.200 thinking about when I was getting ready for this show 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.000 was Linda as Elon's most important defender, which I think 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:14.920 really comes out in the clip we're about to listen to, 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:17.800 which was from the Code conference in September. 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:19.160 And who's kidding who? 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.040 I don't care what the structure is at Meta, But 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:27.160 who wouldn't want Elon Musk sitting by their side running product? 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:29.080 Rayhon's making a face. 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.800 I guess if you want a job, you probably don't 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.680 want Elon bust sitting by your side running product. I 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.480 mean Linda has emerged though in a really Trump like way, 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.679 like I think I was talking to Maxwell this before, 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:46.559 like the way that like when sort of respected figures 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.880 have entered Trump's orbit or his cabinet, there's a moment 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.400 where you're like, are they going to you know, stand 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:55.520 up to him? And then you very quickly realized like, 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.719 oh no, no, no, no, you didn't go here to stand up 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.360 to him. You came here to be a supplicant. And 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.240 then there's often a break after that. And I think 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.400 we just don't really know what Linda's breaking point is. 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:10.640 Well, I think we assumed right that it was going 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:12.360 to be like a mooch kind of situation. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.000 I mean, yeah, like forty days. 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:16.840 I don't know, right, Sarah, I mean, did you think 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:17.560 she'd make it this for? 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.600 I think I said six weeks when we were talking 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.920 about it when she joined, and really, you know, that 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.520 wasn't any indication of how I thought about her character 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:31.120 or her skills or anything. It was literally just looking 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:36.920 at at the history of Musk and top executives at Twitter, 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.000 where some of them seem to last like a matter 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.319 of days, a matter of hours. It was really quite 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:47.079 a tumultuous time. And she has also exceeded my expectations 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.200 in standing by him. And the comic relief part is 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.960 just honestly, her Twitter feed, it is the most basic 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.720 and almost like has this like sense of obliviousness over 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:02.920 her owner's actions. She talks about you know, yay football 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:08.440 and Jay Pumpkins, spice lattes, and just everything that is 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:15.480 generically acceptable to say, she says it, and with emoji fanfair. 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:20.080 She's tweeting from an alternate reality, which Twitter is a 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:24.200 normal social media company that posts like Ana Dyne sort 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:28.480 of ten people in a copywriting room wrote something they 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.560 thought would appeal to a very bland, millennial copy like like, 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.800 there's some alternate reality where Twitter is even more normal 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.400 than it was pre acquisition, and she's in that reality. 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.400 She just happens to also be in our reality where 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.840 Twitter's becoming whatever Twitter's becoming. 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.000 It's like it's like six red high heeled emojis like 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.600 fashion week, and then a new kind of Twitter ad 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.520 which really is giving like Spencer's gifts kind of like 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:54.920 it's like. 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:55.800 You didn't see the one. 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.080 I don't even know if something that's okay to talk about. 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.040 There was one. It's probably not okay. Yeah, okay, let 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:02.840 me see if I could. 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:07.040 Do this, like in a family friendly there is a 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.560 Twitter ad. No machine could have predicted that this is 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.520 where this ends, which is like not that I'm on Twitter, 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:14.120 but let's say that I jump back on every once 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.080 in a while and you just listen and don't talk. 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:18.320 It was seeing this ad for a device that you 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:22.000 could use after your sexual partner and fall asleep to 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:27.520 extract semen from their contracept device in the trash and 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.360 impregnate yourself. This was what the ad was saying the 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:34.400 device was for. If I had more time and more lives, 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.040 I would find out what is actually going on with 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.720 that company, because I don't think that that's a business model, 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.240 like non consensual pregnancy is not really a business model. 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:43.920 Like they are doing a good job of jitting up 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.320 attention for what reason I don't know, but those are 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.640 the advertisers they're working for or that they're working with. 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.400 And meanwhile in it's like. 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.560 It's all that's what our tweets are like next to 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.600 and it's I mean that, and of course lots and 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:03.840 lots and lots of other things, but I have to say, 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:05.960 and I don't want to be a bummer at all, 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:06.320 but like. 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.040 I feel like my enjoyment of Linda's tweets took a 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:15.920 real dive when Elon went further into like anti Semitic amplification. 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:17.240 Yeah, and it. 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.040 Really was made me mad because I had been had 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.080 been such a consistent source of joy to see the 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:27.040 like twenty football emojis, you know, like next to the 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.320 semen ad. I don't know, but I mean it does 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.520 seem like at this point like she is in it 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:34.000 to win it. 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.320 She did, by the way, tweets saying that she wishes 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.320 that groc the Ai chat bought was around to explain 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.800 the birds and bees to her kids. She said that, yeah, 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.360 that is one of her top cringe tweets. That is 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:52.640 just so indicative of her company cheerleading combined with let's 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:53.520 call it optimism. 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.200 All right, PJ, your biggest story of the year, my 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.200 biggest So the editor of your show was like, hey, 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:01.680 you're gonna have to come up with the biggest story. 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.800 Please don't pick something recent. And I was trying to 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.800 challenge myself to not pick something social media based, because 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:09.639 I feel like sometimes with Elon, social media as a 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.960 distraction relative to not that it's. 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:14.480 Not a big deal, but a lot of other things happened. 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:16.959 So he sad in thought, and I was like, I 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.000 think it's both recent and social media based. 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.600 I feel like inviting. 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.960 Alex Jones back on Twitter was when all the Elon 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:27.520 news from this year burns off of my memory to 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.280 replace be replaced by thirty other things he does in December. 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.879 I think I'm gonna remember that, Sarah, what do you think. 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.520 I would forget that? I mean, I feel like it's harsh. Well, 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.480 I just think it's probably the most predictable thing he's 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.920 done this year, because he every once in a while 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.920 he needs to inject a dose of hey everyone, please 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.280 remember that I am mister free speech. And he brings 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.160 back all of the people that were banned before. And 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.280 there's got to be a list of the top names 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.600 that have ever been banned from social media, and he's 0:17:57.640 --> 0:17:59.960 just gonna check off all those boxes based on who 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.480 tells him to act. I was very unsurprised, and you know, 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:08.720 it was as disappointing as you would as you would 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:09.439 expect it to be. 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:11.680 All Right, Well, I think Pj's kind of onto something 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.360 because it was last year when Elon Musk was sort 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:18.680 of hanging out with Kanye West and seeming to kind 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.280 of accommodate Kanye's over anti semitism, and he got into 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.639 exchange with Alex Jones where he said, I'm not going 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.320 to let Alex Jones back because of what he did 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:29.320 to those parents. 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:30.560 You know, I lost a child. 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.280 Elon Musk lost a child, a young kid, and he empathized, 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.960 and I think that was a moment where he really 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.359 seemed human, and it seemed like a human reaction. It 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.040 seemed almost not exactly a bright spot for Elon Musk's 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.160 relationship with X, but at least a human one. 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:46.720 Yeah. 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:48.760 And to Sera's point, it wasn't as if I was like, 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.560 oh my god, Eli, like this is so out of 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:53.119 step with where you've been going. I think it was 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.320 a combination of that. It had been a line that 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.000 he'd drawn that hadn't seemed about pleasing whatever strange audience, 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.000 and he's trying to please at any given moment, and 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.280 also that when he said he would never let Jones 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.320 back on the platform, the other thing he said was 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.359 that he had had a child who died, and that 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.119 he related to the idea that victimizing parents who had 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:16.919 lost children was just like even in his sort of 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.320 very selective understanding of the free speech he wants to 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:25.479 defend and very enthusiastic love of provocation, that there were 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.520 places he wouldn't go, the idea that eventually, of course, 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:29.280 he goes to those places. 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:30.000 I guess you're right. 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.240 It does feel. It just felt like, okay, this is 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.879 really you can fully call it at this point, like 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.400 we know what website, this is always going to be, 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:41.800 we know who is going to be here, we know 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:43.560 what kind of conversations are going to happen, and also 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.720 like whatever the next stage is the problem with being 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.359 edgy all the time is you have to go further, 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.560 Like you can't just flirt with anti semitism. People get 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:55.879 used to it, So then you have to be baldly 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.000 anti semitic and like in the urge to just like 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.760