Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Oh, let me tell you we have a new star.
Speaker 2: A star is born. Eylan Now he is Now, he's
Speaker 2: an amazing guy.
Speaker 3: Well, Jlon Muski is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 2: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 2: controlled by one.
Speaker 3: Man starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a legitimate super genius. I mean legitimate.
Speaker 3: He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year
Speaker 3: it will be different.
Speaker 1: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 3: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 3: on him.
Speaker 2: Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 4: Anything he does is fascinating people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, welcome to Elon Ink, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, November sixth.
Speaker 3: You are hearing a little snippet from Donald Trump's victory
Speaker 3: speech very early this morning, in which he thanked his
Speaker 3: main backer, who also happens to be the subject of
Speaker 3: this podcast. I'm Max Chafkin, sitting in for David Popadopolis
Speaker 3: and joining me from San Francisco, where I think she's
Speaker 3: been up for most of the early morning is Dana Hall. Hey.
Speaker 3: Dana Hey, you sound so energized, you sound.
Speaker 2: Ready to ready to go. How late did you stay up?
Speaker 2: I stayed up.
Speaker 1: Until after midnight and then went to bed when it
Speaker 1: seemed pretty clear that the race was called and the
Speaker 1: brute blue wall was crumbling. And then I just didn't
Speaker 1: really sleep very well and just woke up this morning
Speaker 1: and I'm still just kind of like processing mentally what
Speaker 1: this all means. I mean, we've been doing this podcast
Speaker 1: for a year, and when we started it, I think
Speaker 1: it was because we knew that Musk's you know, influence
Speaker 1: in business, technology and all the different industries that he's
Speaker 1: disrupted was only growing more strong. I did not think
Speaker 1: a year ago that we would be sitting here, you know,
Speaker 1: right after a blowout election with Musk being a main player.
Speaker 3: The Department of Government Efficiency was spinning up to start
Speaker 3: cutting vast swats of the federal bureaucracy, or at least
Speaker 3: that's what Donald Trump and Elon Musk have suggested. I mean,
Speaker 3: do you think it's fair to say that Elon won
Speaker 3: this election for Trump?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: How much credit should we give him?
Speaker 3: He was Trump's biggest financial backer, I'd say his most
Speaker 3: important media backer. Obviously a huge ally but like, what's
Speaker 3: your just like quick reaction to what this means for
Speaker 3: Elon or for Trump or for the country.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I think that. Well, it's tricky. If
Speaker 1: it had been narrower, like if Trump had won Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: but lost in a lot of other states, then we
Speaker 1: could say that absolutely this was all Musk's influence, because
Speaker 1: Musk really focused on Pennsylvania, but Trump gained everywhere. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's so it's hard to quantify what Musk's
Speaker 1: influence was, but there's no doubt that Musk kind of
Speaker 1: created a permission structure for people who maybe would never
Speaker 1: have looked at Donald Trump to look at him among
Speaker 1: Tesla owners and SpaceX fans and tech people and other
Speaker 1: CEOs and people like Jeff Bezos, and he sort of
Speaker 1: like opened the window to be like listen, like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like all in on being mega. And he
Speaker 1: did so many things, going to the Butler rally, speaking
Speaker 1: at Madison Square Garden using X which he bought during
Speaker 1: the midterms in twenty twenty two, to like really you know,
Speaker 1: kind of ally with the Trump talking points, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to quantify what the impact was,
Speaker 1: but it was enormous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I just think at the top line,
Speaker 3: it was just a huge win for a guy who
Speaker 3: obviously has had a lot of success in other domains
Speaker 3: but not in politics. And and you know, you just
Speaker 3: have to sort of appreciate how sort of brazen this was,
Speaker 3: and how how bold you know in a way that
Speaker 3: like I guess Elon Musk has has made his kind
Speaker 3: of signature. I mean, he he went in bigger for
Speaker 3: Donald Trump than I think anybody probably outside of like
Speaker 3: this podcast.
Speaker 2: Would have expected.
Speaker 3: He went harder to the right then I think almost
Speaker 3: anyone who's backed him or has you know, journalists who've
Speaker 3: covered him expected, and it looked very dangerous. And and
Speaker 3: now I mean he's he's sitting pretty you know how
Speaker 3: much influence he had, you put that aside.
Speaker 2: He backed the right horse.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you look at Tesla stock today is
Speaker 1: like skyrocketing. And Musk was at mar A Lago last night.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what surprised me was that, you know,
Speaker 1: you and I had been kind of like wargaming, like
Speaker 1: the scenarios, and yesterday it was this really funny day
Speaker 1: where Musk was supposed to have a town hall at
Speaker 1: noon that like came and went and there was like
Speaker 1: no sign of the town hall, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's going on? And then all of a sudden, he's
Speaker 1: like doing the town hall from his plane as he's
Speaker 1: flying from you know, Texas where he voted to tomorrow Algo,
Speaker 1: And I mean you and I were listening to that together,
Speaker 1: Like he was sounding kind of cautious. He's like, well, like,
Speaker 1: I'm optimistic that will prevail in Pennsylvania if like men
Speaker 1: get out and vote, and like we're giving rides to
Speaker 1: the Amish to make sure that they have transportation to
Speaker 1: the polls because they're not allowed to drive themselves. And
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, this doesn't sound this doesn't sound
Speaker 1: so great. Like I felt like he was sort of
Speaker 1: spinning it as like not a potential loss, but like
Speaker 1: he wasn't. I don't know he was being caught. He
Speaker 1: was sort of being cautious.
Speaker 3: For protecting confidence in any sense, right, it sounded he
Speaker 3: was dower elon there on the flight tomorrow a Lago.
Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah, I felt like he was being like
Speaker 1: cautiously optimistic. And I think that this is the thing
Speaker 1: about that that Tesla fans will say, like don't bet
Speaker 1: against Elon, Like he will put all of his chips
Speaker 1: on the table. When he has like conviction, he will
Speaker 1: make a decision and stick to it and nothing will
Speaker 1: sway him. And it might seem crazy from the outside,
Speaker 1: but like he has veiled in business and technology and
Speaker 1: capitalism and now basically being like an oligarch because he
Speaker 1: does have this like conviction that is kind of fearless
Speaker 1: in the in the business world, and it's like just
Speaker 1: this fearlessness that he is right. And I think that
Speaker 1: you know, what I would like people who listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast to take away is that he bought Twitter
Speaker 1: and then he basically had a massive influence on the election,
Speaker 1: and the two go hand in hand obviously, And like
Speaker 1: we live in a very increasingly fractured media environment and
Speaker 1: you can't overstate the impact of Musk owning Twitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the thing I was thinking of, there's
Speaker 3: so much to talk about, and I'm sure we will
Speaker 3: get to all of it, you know, on the coming
Speaker 3: episodes and in the next episode of Citizen Elon and
Speaker 3: probably for the next four years.
Speaker 2: But like for me, you know, people have.
Speaker 3: Been talking about the sort of money and politics. Basically
Speaker 3: my entire life, and I feel like this is the
Speaker 3: most It's like, this is like the most extreme version.
Speaker 2: We have never seen anything like this.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of people during Trump's first presidency
Speaker 3: became much more powerful. You know, Jared Kushner became more powerful,
Speaker 3: Peter Tiel became more powerful.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk before.
Speaker 3: This was more powerful than any of those guys. And
Speaker 3: now you know, he's vaulted to a level of influence
Speaker 3: that I think you're right. I think we have to
Speaker 3: sort of think about it in the in the oligarch terms.
Speaker 3: He's both a state actor and a very very wealthy
Speaker 3: capitalist and that's something that you know, Trump is going
Speaker 3: to have to contend with, Democrats are going to have
Speaker 3: to contend with, and you know, citizens of the United
Speaker 3: States and the world will contend with over the next
Speaker 3: four years. Well.
Speaker 1: And he's really like a trans national or trans state actor,
Speaker 1: Like he has incredible you know ties to China with
Speaker 1: Starlink operates in one hundred and over one hundred countries.
Speaker 1: He is, you know, getting lithium from from countries all
Speaker 1: over the world, and he has an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: power and leverage. And if you believe that Trump is transaction.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very clear that the two of them
Speaker 1: are going to work together. I mean this and I
Speaker 1: know we you know, people have joked about this whole
Speaker 1: Department of Government efficiency and the cost cutting, but I
Speaker 1: think it's very real. I mean, I think that Elon
Speaker 1: is gonna really reshape the federal government and he's going
Speaker 1: to have carte blanche to do so. The Republicans also
Speaker 1: won the Senate. It looks like they might hang onto
Speaker 1: the house like this is a guy who you know
Speaker 1: is not shy about you know, walk. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the way that he has fired or let go of
Speaker 1: people at his companies is could very be very similar
Speaker 1: to the to the kind of way that he approaches
Speaker 1: the federal government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute. And I
Speaker 2: think we need to.
Speaker 3: It's really going to be more today a day, you know,
Speaker 3: less than twelve hours after the election was called. We're
Speaker 3: more just like starting to think about what questions are
Speaker 3: going to be asked. We don't know that much. I
Speaker 3: think the people who are on Trump's transition team don't
Speaker 3: know that much. Right this the this is this stuff is.
Speaker 2: Beginning right now.
Speaker 3: Dan during the that that Twitter spaces that X space
Speaker 3: is on the flight tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Lago. So Elon Musk started the day in Texas.
Speaker 3: He voted in South Texas where he has his little house,
Speaker 3: you know, where SpaceX's launch facility is. He got on
Speaker 3: the plane, he had this spaces They talked a lot
Speaker 3: about the election and how it was going. There was
Speaker 3: this moment I wanted to just put focus on for
Speaker 3: a minute when Elon Musk talked about the America Pack
Speaker 3: going forward.
Speaker 2: Let's just listen to that tape.
Speaker 4: So America Pack is is going to keep going to
Speaker 4: out the selection and pre preparing for the mid terms
Speaker 4: and any intermediate elections, as well as looking at elections
Speaker 4: at the district attorney level and you know, basically a
Speaker 4: judicial sort of level, because I think something needs to
Speaker 4: be done to kind of counter the damage that Stars
Speaker 4: is done to the American system.
Speaker 3: Dana we called this, I mean right, this is the
Speaker 3: America Pack is going to be a big political force
Speaker 3: going forward.
Speaker 2: That's what I take away from this, Uh this clip.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this this was not a one off. And
Speaker 1: when he's talking about Soros, he's he's obviously referring to
Speaker 1: George Soros, the financier who has funded several campaigns, including
Speaker 1: many progressive district attorneys and cities across the country, including
Speaker 1: the one in Philadelphia that tried to kind of stop
Speaker 1: the pack from giving the million dollar giveaways. So so
Speaker 1: I think that what Musk is basically saying is, look,
Speaker 1: money has always existed in politics. George Soros has funded
Speaker 1: a lot of campaigns on the left. Musk sees himself
Speaker 1: as like a countervailing uh point to that, Like, and
Speaker 1: now he's it, He's in it. He's going to be
Speaker 1: he's going to be eyeing the midterms. He's going to
Speaker 1: be involved in local races. You know, I'm curious to
Speaker 1: see if any people who work at as current companies
Speaker 1: are now going to be dispatched to work at his pack.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's he going to pick the best of
Speaker 1: the brightest and be like you do the data analysis
Speaker 1: on this on this precinct, Like, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: working for Elon means that you have to be willing
Speaker 1: to kind of go wherever he wants you to go.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like he started a seventh company.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And you know it's on one hand, you might say,
Speaker 3: is he really going to spend you know, one hundred
Speaker 3: plus million dollars every two years on politics, which is
Speaker 3: kind of what you know, he's indicated he wants to
Speaker 3: be the anti Soros. This this, this comment here suggests
Speaker 3: to be a major donor. You might say, oh, like
Speaker 3: Elon Musk is not gonna want to throw away that
Speaker 3: much money. But you know, you look at the price
Speaker 3: of Tesla's stock this morning, and as we're recording, it's
Speaker 3: up thirteen and a half percent. Roughly he has he
Speaker 3: has made his net worth has gone up by I
Speaker 3: don't know, somewhere between ten and fifteen billion dollars just
Speaker 3: in terms of his Tesla stock ownership as well. If
Speaker 3: you just look at this as like a pure return
Speaker 3: on investment, one hundred and eighty five million for fifteen billion, like,
Speaker 3: it looks pretty good.
Speaker 1: Trump's win was a decisive victory. I mean, there's no
Speaker 1: split Like he won the popular vote, he won the
Speaker 1: electoral college. There's no race that's still being contested. It
Speaker 1: was a decisive win for Trump. He won across all
Speaker 1: demographic groups except for black women. And you know that's like,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty striking, and that's that's that's something that
Speaker 1: I don't think, you know, any of the pundit class
Speaker 1: saw and and I think that this is also just
Speaker 1: a win for X, like because Musk is really going
Speaker 1: to position X as the leading platform for news. Now. Granted,
Speaker 1: you know, we've written a lot here at Bloomberg about
Speaker 1: the disinformation on that platform, but it is a hugely
Speaker 1: influential platform, and it's like a win. It's just a
Speaker 1: huge win for Elon that the platform exists, that he
Speaker 1: was able to buy it, even though advertisers have left
Speaker 1: and a lot of high value users have left. It
Speaker 1: is now going to be driving the conversation in Trump World,
Speaker 1: and it's almost kind of become what Truth's social never
Speaker 1: quite fully realized.
Speaker 3: So, Dana, what do we think is actually going to happen,
Speaker 3: you know now? Like like, I mean, obviously Elon Musk,
Speaker 3: Donald Trump does not become present till early next year,
Speaker 3: you know, I assume Elon Musk doesn't start his job
Speaker 3: or it's not even clear if he has a job
Speaker 3: within the Trump White House yet. I mean, what are
Speaker 3: you going to be looking for over the next month
Speaker 3: or so to try to figure out what he's planning
Speaker 3: on doing and how his sort of promises are actually
Speaker 3: going to translate into I guess policy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So at the when we were at Madison Square Garden together,
Speaker 1: I was kind of struck by the fact that Howard Lutnik,
Speaker 1: who is the chair of the Transition Team, introduced Musk
Speaker 1: as his DOGE co chair. So I think that Lutnik
Speaker 1: and Musk together are going to kind of chair this commission.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be a cabinet level thing, because
Speaker 1: Musk doesn't want to have to unwind his investments in
Speaker 1: all of his companies. But it's so it's not like
Speaker 1: a center, it's not like a cabinet level. But I
Speaker 1: think they're going to co chair this thing, and they're
Speaker 1: going to take a look at the more than four
Speaker 1: hundred federal agencies and the overlap between them, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna cut I mean, they're talking about cutting two trillion
Speaker 1: from the budget. That is an enormous that is it.
Speaker 1: That is an enormous cut. So you know how that
Speaker 1: will work a practice, I don't really know. I'm sort
Speaker 1: of starting to think about which agencies might come under musks,
Speaker 1: you know, might come under fire. I think that the
Speaker 1: Department of Education is one that Musk is going to
Speaker 1: look at pretty carefully. I think that he probably has
Speaker 1: some thoughts about Nitze and the securities in Exchange Commission
Speaker 1: and the FTC and the FCC and the Fish and
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service and the FAA. I mean, he's he's openly
Speaker 1: said that he thinks.
Speaker 3: You're naming agencies that he has tangled with in the past,
Speaker 3: which is it's a long list to be fair, I mean,
Speaker 3: if you cut all those agencies that have had a
Speaker 3: beef with Musk, you you wouldn't have much of an
Speaker 3: executive branch.
Speaker 2: I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Think so so so I just two points and two things,
Speaker 3: like I am watching. One is like this stuff, especially
Speaker 3: the kinds of things you're talking about, like oh, cutting
Speaker 3: the Department of Education or cutting two trillion dollars from
Speaker 3: the federal budget, that's like going to be incredibly unpopular
Speaker 3: and also like difficult to ex if you even could
Speaker 3: do it. That's not to say like some of this
Speaker 3: stuff couldn't happen. I mean, I think one thing we
Speaker 3: learned over this election is that Elon Musk and Donald
Speaker 3: Trump are really good at taking unpopular positions and finding
Speaker 3: a constituency and like if you have a passionate but
Speaker 3: small constituency for some position, they managed to transform that,
Speaker 3: you know, into a successful presidential campaign.
Speaker 2: You know, we did an.
Speaker 3: Episode of this podcast, I don't know eight months ago
Speaker 3: talking about how unpopular Elon Musk was with with with
Speaker 3: the electorate. And you can look at Donald Trump's polling
Speaker 3: numbers and they weren't super great going into this election.
Speaker 3: So so I think, you know, it's possible that the
Speaker 3: sort of marketing genius of these two men will turn
Speaker 3: things around.
Speaker 2: But I think the thing that I am more focused on.
Speaker 3: Is sort of the last part of what you said, Like,
Speaker 3: there are going to be questions about who should run
Speaker 3: the SEC, who should run the FTC, should those should
Speaker 3: those policies be more favorable to business to tech businesses,
Speaker 3: and in particular to one tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk, And
Speaker 3: I think we should expect Elon to exercise a real
Speaker 3: influence there. He has already said, you know, he's already
Speaker 3: talked about trying to push Lena Khan, the chair of
Speaker 3: the FTC, out, I think there's an expectation he would
Speaker 3: definitely go after Gary Gensler, the head of the SEC.
Speaker 3: So so that I think that is kind of like
Speaker 3: the more immediate thing. And then you know, who knows
Speaker 3: I mean, this guy has tried crazy stuff in the past,
Speaker 3: stuff that that I think a lot of people didn't
Speaker 3: expect and and and that could certainly happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he's also called for the for the
Speaker 1: head of the FAA to resign. I mean, he's got
Speaker 1: you know, and I think what's I guess what concerns
Speaker 1: me as a citizen is that Muskin Trump hold grudges.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are men who will never forget the
Speaker 1: snubs and the slights that they have endured throughout their
Speaker 1: careers when they were doubted and as you have have
Speaker 1: you know, spoken so eloquently on on citizen Elon, you know,
Speaker 1: the snub with Biden not inviting him to the EV
Speaker 1: summit like that, that kind of helped to kick off
Speaker 1: this whole thing. And so I just think that there's
Speaker 1: gonna be some retribution involved in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: which agencies have been the biggest thorn in Elon's side
Speaker 1: and back to the Department of Education. This is another
Speaker 1: kind of trove that we need to need to get
Speaker 1: into more. But if you look at food donated to
Speaker 1: Musk's pack, most of the money came from Musk himself
Speaker 1: and then other friends from Silicon Valley, like Sham Maguire,
Speaker 1: Doug Leone from Sequoia. Antonio Gracias also donated, but like
Speaker 1: Betsy Devas donated to the America Pack like she's the
Speaker 1: former Secretary of Education. So there's there's some very interesting
Speaker 1: bedfellows happening. And I think it's going to take an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of journalism and investigative reporting to really figure
Speaker 1: out what's going on now.
Speaker 2: And podcasting, and we will and will be there. We
Speaker 2: will be every Tuesday to catalog it and to interpret it.
Speaker 3: You know, I think there are going to be tons
Speaker 3: of questions both for the businesses, for the stock market,
Speaker 3: and of course for the government in the in the
Speaker 3: weeks and months that follow.
Speaker 2: Dana, thanks thanks for joining us. Hope you can get
Speaker 2: some sleep.
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure.
Speaker 3: I'll see you on Slack in five minutes. This episode
Speaker 3: was produced by Stacy Wong. Anna Maserakis is our editor
Speaker 3: and Rayhan Harmanci our senior editor. The idea for this
Speaker 3: very show also came from Rayhan Blake Maple's Handles Engineering
Speaker 3: and Emma Sanchez fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson.
Speaker 3: The Elani theme is written and performed by Taka Yazuzawa
Speaker 3: and Alex Sigierra. Brendan Francis, Neonham is our executive producer,
Speaker 3: and Sage Bauman is the head.
Speaker 2: Of pinwik Podcasts. A big thanks to our supporters Joel
Speaker 2: Webber and Bradstone. I'm Max Chafkin.
Speaker 3: If you have a minute, rate and review our show,
Speaker 3: it'll help other listeners find us. We'll see you next week.