WEBVTT - 12/22/25: Silicon Valley's Dark Quest For Techno Fascism 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.640 Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.240 and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:08.559 ways we can up our game for this critical election. 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:11.680 We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:15.920 the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent coverage. 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:16.200 That is possible. 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.239 If you like what we're all about, it just means 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:19.960 the absolute world to have your support. 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:21.840 But enough with that, let's get to the show. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.919 Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well. I have a 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.200 fantastic interview I want to share with you that I 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.360 think is extraordinarly important given the way that tech oligarchs 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.760 have effectively taken over our government and are operating it 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.000 for their own ends. So you guys know me, Saga, Ryan, Emily, 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.600 the whole team. We've been covering AI, we've been covering Crypto. 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:44.599 We've been covering both the near term and the long 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.560 term effects. So everything from the immediate electricity price hikes 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:50.919 because of the data center build out, the way our 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.800 whole economy is apparently now just one big bet on AI, 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.800 the stripping up back of all regulations to rein in 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.400 or have any sort of democrat check on what these 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.000 tech oligarchs ultimately want, and then also the more dire, 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:10.120 longer term consequences of potentially shredding the social contract, eliminating 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.760 the need for all or most human labor, and ultimately 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:19.279 an actual existential threat to humanity itself. So my guest 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:23.080 is Jacob Silverman. He wrote an incredible book about how 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.000 this cast of characters has come to effectively stage a 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.080 coup of our democratic government and are getting everything they 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.120 want in Trump two point zero. His name is Jacob Silverman. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.440 His book is Gilded Rage, Elon Musk and the Radicalization 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.360 of Silicon Valley. Elon Musk is in the title, and 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.640 Elon Musk is definitely in the book. But this is 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.479 really about everyone from Peter Teel, Sam Altman, Mark Andresen 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.480 David Sachs and how they made this. I guess you'd 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.960 call it a right wing turn, although their politics in 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.760 terms of economics have always been very self serving and 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.360 very libertarian. So in any case, if you have to 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.840 read one book over the holiday season to understand how 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.680 we got where we are now with regard to you know, crypto, 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.160 with regard to the wild wild West of AI development, 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.000 just off to the races with that I really recommend 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.079 this particular book. And with that being said, let's bring 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.160 in the guests, all right, guys, So it is my 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.760 pleasure to be joined today by Jacob Silverman, who is 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.640 author of a fantastic new book called Gilded Rage, Elon 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.440 Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley. He's an independent 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.200 journalist and also has a limited what four episode series 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:34.880 at the CBC was at ced DC that is called 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.600 The Making of Musk and focuses on some of the 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.440 topics in the book, but really hones in on Elon 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.919 Musk himself. So great to have you, Jacob, Welcome. 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:45.480 Thank you, glad to be here. 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.600 Yeah, of course. So I wanted to start with this 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.560 image actually from Trump's inauguration, which is when it really 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.720 set in for me that oh boy, we have a problem. 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.040 So this was the some of the billionaires and some 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.120 of the specifically tech billionaires who were lined up behind 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.079 Trump at his inauguration. Not lawmakers, you know, there were 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.600 some of those, but further back, these were the guys 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.320 that were in the front row. And so I'm curious 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.200 as someone who has been writing on the tech world 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.760 for about the tech world for quite a while and 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:17.800 really had your eye on the ball in terms of 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.240 what these guys have been up to. I'm curious what 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.240 you thought when you saw this lineup at Trump's inauguration. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.600 Well, it's clarifying in some ways to see these guys 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:30.880 all line up together. I mean, this is the oligarchy 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.280 or the new oligarchy, out in the open, and I 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.000 don't think it's necessarily surprising anymore. I mean, I divide 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.040 some of these tech elites into kind of opportunistic group 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.400 and then some into the more died in the world 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.160 ideological people. But they're all kind of moving in the 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.320 same direction and seek the same favors from the Trump administration. 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.560 And if any of them ever had liberal politics, all 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.160 war them pretty thinly. So you know, I think that 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.920 it's a powerful image and also a good one for 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.120 the public to see in a way, because the people 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.840 who may have been powerful behind the scenes are now 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.680 very much to the fore, you know, going to the inauguration, 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.800 going to Trump's oval office and presenting him with gold gifts. 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.080 So you know, I consider it as a possible. 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:18.039 Book cover, Yeah, it would, it would be good. The 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.640 book cover you chose is also great, But it is 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.440 a powerful image. I mean, for me, it was really 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.240 striking because obviously there's been a lot to focus on 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:26.640 in Trump two point Oh, there was a lot to 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.960 focus on going into Trump two point zero. But you know, 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.240 you probably have understood this the whole time, even as 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.360 there is a lot happening. I feel like the tech 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.920 takeover is actually the central project of what is going 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.760 on here. You know, from the beginning, you've had executive 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:50.960 orders to roll back any Biden era regulation of AI development. 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.960 Obviously Trump going all in on crypto for his own 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:58.919 personal wealth and corrupt purposes, you know, Elon Musk with 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.880 Doge and the extraordinary and I think criminal acts that 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.240 occurred there. You know, just we were just covering on 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.039 breaking points that Trump just signed a new executive order 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.720 banning states from regulating AI at all for ten years. 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.960 So I wonder how you see this project in Trump 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.560 two point zero and how central you see it as being. 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.360 Well, I think there's been a total and in some 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:29.040 cases mutually very profitable alignment between the tech industry and 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.880 MAGA and Trump to a degree that I think a 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.599 lot of people didn't anticipate. You know, some people have 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.200 asked me, do you think that they sort of bit 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.320 off more than they could chew the tech industry or 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.640 they have any regrets. But so far, I think it's 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.719 working out very well for both sides. I mean, even 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.479 someone like Elon Musk, there hasn't been a lot of 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.960 blowback towards him. He still has his government contracts, there's 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.960 still that mutual dependency, especially through SpaceX and he's getting 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.279 new contracts through XAI. So, you know, the kind of 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:03.679 high tech corporate represented by Silicon Valley and their rhetoric 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.039 that somehow they can introduce efficiency and innovate the future 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.680 seems to be actually really amenable to the kind of 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.320 Trump authoritarianism and the things that they want to do. 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.920 And you know, more specifically, the Trump administration doesn't really 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.719 have an industrial policy or a way to bring back 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:21.840 manufacturing or the other things that they sort of vaguely 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.560 talk about. So just kind of handing it all over 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.800 to the tech industry and saying we'll invest in AI 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.200 data centers is a kind of a solution to that 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.800 and is exactly what the tech industry wants right now. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.200 You write in the book that these guys are always 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.719 looking for an exit, and right now the exit and 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.960 this has been actually years in the making right now, 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:46.000 the exit they're looking for is basically from society overall. 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.279 And I mean most extreme example of this is Elon 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.680 Musk with his Mars fantasies. But I'd love for you 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.640 to elaborate on that concept and explain to people what 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:55.799 is it that these guys actually want. 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.719 Yeah, exit is a specific word that you'll hear sometimes 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.360 from people on the tech right, especially people who might 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.800 style themselves as libertarian, like Peter tel for example. We'll 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.240 talk about there's an interview with him from a podcast 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.360 about how it's increasingly harder to exit, and he specifically 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.120 cites getting your money out of the US into Switzerland. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.440 But it's a broader idea that you know, they are 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:19.920 very fed up with mainstream society. They don't want to 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:21.280 live with the rest of us. I mean, I talk 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.120 about this in more specific sense about Silica, about San 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:26.600 Francisco and the social problems there and how tech elites 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.640 reacted to it and really kind of gave up on 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:34.600 San Francisco as this failed city. But it also influences 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.160 things like charter cities or these initiatives to build these 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.680 kind of corporate fiefdoms, these little city states. And very 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.200 relevantly right now, there's one in Honduras on an island 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.680 called Roatan. The settlement itself is called Prospera. This is 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.559 funded by Peter Tile and Mark and Dreesen, other pretty 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.640 well known tech elites. It's basically a startup that under 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.000 a previous right wing government Honduras, not Joh, i believe, 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:02.000 but a different one allied with him, basically purchase a 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.480 small piece of this island from Honduras and then the 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.440 subsequent left wing governments challenge that in court and want 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.920 to take it back quite understandably, and Prospero is suing 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.600 the government of Honduras for more than the GDP of Honduras, 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:22.000 and someone like Joho and his party would probably be 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.880 much more minimal to preserving that relationship. So like that 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.640 is probably the most advance of these charter cities or 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:30.840 city states. But you really see that exit in all 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.560 kinds of forms. You know, it can be more metaphorical 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.640 or sort of figurative, with like a bureaucratic or legal exit, 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:38.400 like let's find out how to move fast and break 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.480 things and break the law. But it is also a 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.760 very specific idea that, as you said, extends to everything 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.920 from you know, founding new cities to going to Mars. 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.480 And I feel like AI is a version of that 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.160 exit as well. I mean they, I think believe, Well, 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.280 you can tell me, what do they think that the 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.360 AI future is going to look like and what sort 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.760 of power do you they expect to consolidate in their 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.480 own hands if their company is the one that wins 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:05.920 the race to superintelligence. 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:10.040 I think the tech industry has been operating on this assumption, 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.880 or at least article of faith, that if they keep 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:19.120 pouring resources into AI and into the basically the current 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:24.480 methods largely focused around LMS, that super intelligence or AGI 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:26.000 or whatever else they might want to call it will 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.520 somehow emerge. And there has been some admission even from 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.079 the industry recently that may not happen, that this may 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.400 not be the proper path for that. What we're more 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:41.120 likely to see is some sort of big bubble bursts 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.440 in the next year, perhaps or eighteen months, as these 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.280 enormous bets start being called in by perhaps some of 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.480 the lenders who are putting a lot of money into 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.560 data centers, or as a company like open ai can't 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:59.320 fulfill its promises and it's huge spending promises, so you 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.960 know it. For some reason, the tech industry has aside, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.760 this is the only game in town, and right now 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:07.720 with a lot of money coming in from Middle Eastern 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.079 sovereign wealth funds and a lot of support from the 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.240 Trump administration and from Oracle and Larry Ellison, who you 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.560 know is probably the top Trump ally actually in the 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.160 tech world. In some ways this we're still going to 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.160 go down this path, and they're still going to spend 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:23.199 tens or hundreds of billions of dollars or as much 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.319 as they can over the next few years until it 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.960 kind of all blows up, and maybe Microsoft and Google 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.040 will be able to vacuum up the pieces. But that 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.360 is kind of how I see it going. And I think, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.440 of course, when it does blow up, it's going to 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.040 affect the rest of us, even if you don't own 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:38.840 tech stocks. It's going to hurt the market, it's going 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.400 to hurt people's retirement accounts, and they'll be knock on 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.160 effects to the economy. But this is the kind of 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.040 alliance and bet that they're willing to make on almost 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:49.160 pretty much all our behalfs. 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.920 Right now, let's back up a little bit and talk 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:54.440 about some of the subject matter or the book, which 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:56.520 really tracks kind of how we got to this place, 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.400 and use Elon Musk as like, you know, a central 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:05.920 character to explain this reactionary radicalization and shift. Elon really, 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.640 you know, sort of comes into his own as this 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:12.080 big time entrepreneur with a lot of help from Barack Obama, 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.560 and they were close, and he was you know, sort 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:19.240 of seen as a liberal democratic type of ally. Then 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.599 he shifts his politics over the years. Although one of 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:24.840 the questions I have for you is like how much 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.160 are these guys really changing their politics and how much 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.800 are they just moving with the wins and exploiting opportunities 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:31.800 as they see them. But let's just start with Elon 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.080 Musk and what his trajectory has been from you know, 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.400 close with Barack Obama to doge and you know, wielding 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.960 the chainsaw and being besties with Trump. 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:44.640 Yeah, as we could talk about. I think there are 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.600 people who in this group that were very political from 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.480 the start, but someone like Musk obviously did change. I mean, 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.240 you can even watch an interview with him on YouTube 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.680 from ten years ago or fifteen years ago and just 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.560 see a different disposition and different interests and a different 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.360 kind of psychological mind state, if you really want to 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.520 get deep about it, he doesn't seem like the same guy, 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:10.240 But specifically he was mostly a kind of centrist liberal. 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.960 He didn't donate heavily in the twenty sixteen election. He 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.440 didn't come out strongly for anyone. And I think there 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.240 are things both in the broader culture which I talk 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:22.880 about in the book, but also personally to him that 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:24.720 some of which he's acknowledged, and I think we have 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.040 to pay attention to as much as we are sort 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:31.959 of armchair psychologizing that change. And for one thing, he 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.360 started having more conflicts. A lot of this started, of 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.360 course during COVID, when there were these massive or rapid 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:41.040 upheavals in the culture and politics around social issues like 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:45.280 Black Lives Matter, or around quarantine and health care. And 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.000 some of these issues really were and also me too, 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.880 and some of these issues were not handled well. None 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.120 of them are really handled well by Silicon Valley elites. 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.000 And in the specific case of Musk, he really did 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:02.320 not like lockdowns. He did not like being not invited 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:07.760 to this EV summit at the Biden White House. He's 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:09.719 actually made a really big deal about that over the years, 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.480 and so his allies have. We should also note that 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.280 this is someone who during the first Trump administration resigned 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.080 from a Trump advisory board, you know, one of these 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.440 kind of meaningless advisory boards. But because Trump pulled out 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.520 of the Paris Climate Treaty, I mean this, there was 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:24.880 somewhat of an authent. 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.000 Them all today have that reaction. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.040 Yeah, yeah, there was an authentic like belief in climate 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.640 change at least there. And you know, then you cut 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:34.719 to the twenty twenty four cycle and he basically was 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:39.200 doing climate change denial on of Twitter spaces or x spaces. 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.360 Event during the twenty twenty four campaign cycle, we'll talking 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.120 to Trump and so you start seeing things like the 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.960 fight over his factory in Fremont, California, one of his 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:52.920 most important factories, when the government of Alameda County wanted 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.320 him to at least partially shut it down during the 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.200 height of COVID, and that this is when Mosque is 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.439 going on Twitter, which he didn't yet and was saying 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:03.680 that COVID was gonna be gone by the end of 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.199 April twenty twenty. You know, this was speaking of delusion 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.040 perhaps but also self interests. And it just kind of 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.400 goes from there and what happens also around this time 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.199 is that his child, Vivian Wilson, she comes out as 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.160 a trans woman, and she changes her name and in 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.880 her name change applications, says I no longer wish to 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.800 be associated with my father. Over the year, summer reporting 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.240 has emerged and she's since sort of come out also 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.840 as her own media figure person, willing to give interviews 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:31.840 to say that, you know, this guy bullied her for 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:36.760 being queer, and that I think really did break something 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.320 or change something in Musk. You know, he became very 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:44.360 openly transphobic after that. It became one basically his main 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:49.200 cultural issue into like lane cultural lane, into maga reactionarysm 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.920 It's something that he shares, I think with sort of 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.320 the broad sweep of maga people. Trump is amenable to it, 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.480 and he's talked about specifically, especially in that interview he 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.000 did with Geordan Peterson I think summer of twenty twenty four, 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.120 he said that the woke mind virus killed my son, 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.080 referring to his trans daughter. And so the idea of 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.760 this woke mind virus, which of course seems is very 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.280 silly and is silly in some ways, but is also 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.920 very real to him I think did come out of 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.560 his daughter coming out as trans and the broken relationship there. 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.080 So you know, that's why I talk about the political issues. 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.200 Of course, the broader trends in the culture, but also 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:32.400 some of these guys will go personal on themselves. You see. 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.600 It also even to a degree with someone like Bill 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.560 Ackman who says that Harvard turned his daughter into a communist. 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.600 I believe she wrote her thesis on something about Marxism. 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.840 Like that is actually something I think to listen to, 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.040 to pay attention. These people even think. 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.640 As sort of silly as it sounds, Yeah. 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.840 They think that that America's institutions, and especially it's liberal institutions, 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.760 have turned their kids into you know, lefty trans radicals. 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.440 Moscas said some things about la private schools where Vivian 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:07.480 went to school. So that's the mix I'm kind of 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:09.320 bringing here to the analysis. 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:13.000 Interesting. So there's you know, one part economic self interest, 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.440 there's one part some sort of you know, personal experience 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.560 or kind of like you know, what is experience as 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.040 a personal trauma. With Musk, you know, how much of 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.640 his radical I have a bunch of Musk questions, but 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.760 how much of his radicalization occurs after he buys Twitter, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.760 and is you know, sort of I mean, Twitter has 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:36.280 now become its own radicalization machine, because it seemed like he, 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:38.600 you know what, had already made this shift. Of course 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.080 by the time he buys Twitter, but it also seems 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.120 like once he was swimming in the pools of all 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.640 this like constant great replacement theory, Nazi content, that he 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.120 just goes deeper and deeper and deeper in that direction. 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.960 Yeah, I think that that's correct. I think you could 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.600 see him trending that way. I meant in tech, you know, 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.760 he's surrounded by people who are sort of tep at 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:03.360 social liberals, you know, billionaire philanthropic types, but you know, 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.640 mostly also care about the bottom line and their taxes. 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.199 So it's not like he was ever very steeped in 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.239 liberal much less lefty culture or anything like that. And 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.280 then when he starts to spending more and more time 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:16.760 online as a lot of us did. I mean, one 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.080 comparison I make is that we all know people in 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:23.240 our lives whose politics change, perhaps our own politics change 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.720 during COVID to one degree or another. And sometimes it's 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:31.040 your friend or your eccentric cousin who becomes kind of conspiratorial, 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.919 right ring radical and sometimes it is the richest man 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:36.760 in the world because he's online, as you said in 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.359 this same radioactive stew that a lot of us are 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.280 either in or trying to avoid, and you could see 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:44.720 it happening. You see who he's interacting with. There's been 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:47.600 some studies of this, perhaps not enough, but you know 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.520 that he's actually talking to Nazis and talking about the 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:55.200 great replacement theory, or at least amplifying it. So you know, 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.000 that is one thing in a way that's kind of 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.639 useful for analyzing what happened here to to Musk and 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.120 some of his peers, is that you can watch their 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.560 posts and watch how their online relationships played out, watch 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.320 how often he posted and with whom and we do have, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.919 of course some understanding of that now. And really this 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.000 is you know, the black pilling of Elon Musk, the 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.600 same way it would be of anyone else on a 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:18.760 four chan like environment. But you know, of course it's 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.359 very different because of who he is, and because he 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.280 eventually does buy that platform and basically amplify all those 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.200 tendencies and features we're talking about, brings back the Nazis. 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.880 Tilts Twitter slash x to be an overtly right wing, 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:39.199 pro Trump platform, which of course has electoral implications, but 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.600 it's something that we can see happening right there. 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:43.719 You know, as someone on the left, you know, I 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.120 always I can't say maybe always, but for a long 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.639 time have seen these guys not as being you know, 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.520 really liberals or on the left. Obviously when it came 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.120 to economics, none of them ever were really I mean, 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.640 they're capitalists, like that's their thing, tech oligarchs, that's who 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:05.800 they are. But they wore a lot of social liberalism, which, 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.719 you know, given how much of our politics focuses on 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:13.359 culture war fights, gave them the semblance of being you know, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.399 on the left or you know, an ally of the 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:17.199 Democratic Party, at least for some of them. Some of 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:18.960 these guys have always been you know, Peter Thiel has 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.879 always been like a very ideological libertarian at least in 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:27.159 a certain sense. But so how much of it is 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.880 for which of these guys? Is it that they are 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:36.000 just sort of cynically exploiting the fact that like they 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.520 can get what they want out of Trump and he's 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.320 the guy in power right now, and so they're going 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:43.600 to come with their gold bars and they're gonna you know, 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.159 Mark Zuckerberg caught on a hot mic saying like, oh, 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.080 I hope I said the right number of how much 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.600 we're investing in the US, et cetera, Like how much 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.960 of it is just opportunistic And the next time there's 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.360 a Democratic president in the White House, they're suddenly going 0:19:57.400 --> 0:19:58.960 to you know, oh my gosh, I was so wrong 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.480 about all these things. Turns out Trump was so awful. 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:06.000 And you know, President AOC, we're here to serve you. 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:08.320 What can we do for the country under your leadership? 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.360 Yeah? I think, you know, I divide them and sort 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.359 of into a few tranches, and I think the opportunistic 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:18.840 ones are more like leaders of Microsoft, Apple, Google, you know, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.000 meta like Zuckerberg, Like you said, he likes to sort 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.280 of blow with the winds or go where the winds 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.359 are blowing and reinvent himself a little bit every few years. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:30.480 Or yeah, at that moment when he showed up on 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.480 Rogan with like his like chain and his after he's 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:35.159 doing this heavy T shirts. 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.240 Oh my god, So I'm wearing sort of a heavy sweasher. 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:40.840 So who am I to talk? But you know, he 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.439 is very and we heard it very well and very 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.320 vividly on that hot mic when he said to Trump, 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:46.960 I don't know what number you wanted me to say 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.720 about his data center investment, like how many hundreds of 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.680