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 3: Starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a legitimate super genius. I mean legitimate.
Speaker 4: He says.
Speaker 2: He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
Speaker 2: be different.
Speaker 5: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 2: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 2: on him.
Speaker 6: Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.
Speaker 4: Anything he does is fascinating the people.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Elon Inc. Where we discuss Elon Musk's vast
Speaker 2: corporate empire, his latest gambits and antics, and how to
Speaker 2: make sense of it all. I'm your host, David Poppadopolis.
Speaker 2: Tesla has been hit for the first time in its
Speaker 2: history with the strike. The company's mechanics in Sweden put
Speaker 2: down their tools October. Now the action is spread across
Speaker 2: other Nordic countries, with workers involved in Tesla deliveries in Denmark,
Speaker 2: Finland and Norway jumping in and supporting their striking Swedish counterparts.
Speaker 2: The showdown could have serious implications for Musk, especially as
Speaker 2: the United Auto Workers Union sets its sites on Tesla's
Speaker 2: factories here in the US. Meanwhile, Musk is focused on
Speaker 2: bringing Alex Jones back to X. No, that's not a joke.
Speaker 2: More on that later. But to discuss the strike in Europe,
Speaker 2: we'll talk to Dana Hall, longtime Tesla reporter. Hello, Dana,
Speaker 2: good morning. And Craig Trudell, our global auto industry editor
Speaker 2: in London. Thinking then our regulars Max Chafkin, Sarah Fryer
Speaker 2: and Dana. We'll talk about the latest happenings on X
Speaker 2: and they'll also give you a very special gift guide
Speaker 2: made up entirely of ads found on X. Very important. Okay, so, Craig,
Speaker 2: we're going to start with you. And in Sweden and
Speaker 2: now Elon and Tesla don't have a factory there, but
Speaker 2: tell us exactly who is striking and why.
Speaker 4: The union we're talking about here is if mattal So.
Speaker 4: This is Sweden's industrial workers union, and it's really old.
Speaker 4: It's been around for one hundred and thirty five years.
Speaker 4: This is a country that, ironically, you know, it has
Speaker 4: a lot of consumers that you would think would be
Speaker 4: quite fond of a brand like Tesla, a lot of
Speaker 4: sort of eco conscious, you know, sustainability minded consumers, and
Speaker 4: this is a union that has been around an awfully
Speaker 4: long time.
Speaker 2: It's a consumer base that is indeed, you know, environmentally focused,
Speaker 2: and it's a wealthy consumer base, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think you know, Dannon will know this well.
Speaker 4: I mean this, this is a region that has been
Speaker 4: really important to Tesla's history. You know, Norway is you know,
Speaker 4: very close by, maybe the first country in the world
Speaker 4: to go electric in terms of new car sales. Sweden,
Speaker 4: you know, is a relatively small market in the grand
Speaker 4: scheme of things, but it is Tesla's fifth biggest market
Speaker 4: in Europe, and so it is not an insignificant market
Speaker 4: for them, at least in this region.
Speaker 2: It is the first strike ever anywhere in the world
Speaker 2: against Tesla, but it's not a whole lot of workers, right,
Speaker 2: We're talking about mechanics at a bunch of shops across
Speaker 2: the country, is that right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is really small. We're talking about seven repair
Speaker 4: shops in the country, roughly one hundred and thirty people.
Speaker 4: And so when we talk about this being the first
Speaker 4: ever strike at Tesla, I think it's really a function
Speaker 4: of that more so than anything, the fact that you
Speaker 4: have this union that itself is pretty big and has
Speaker 4: been around a long time, but you know this sort
Speaker 4: of you know, people involved is quite small. It's also
Speaker 4: a country with really strong protections for organized labor and
Speaker 4: for unions, where you know, Tesla can't tell workers, sorry,
Speaker 4: you can't join a union if you want to work here.
Speaker 4: That's just the way things work in the country. And
Speaker 4: I think that's kind of where where you know, we're
Speaker 4: seeing issues here is you know, the way that Sweden
Speaker 4: works is just very different from the US, where you know,
Speaker 4: Musk is used to the UAW sort of striking up
Speaker 4: an advers adversarial relationship between workers and management. He doesn't
Speaker 4: want that, but I think he misunderstands really how Sweden works.
Speaker 4: This is a country that doesn't have a you know,
Speaker 4: minimum wage. You know, this is something that the government
Speaker 4: sort of leaves up to management and workers to work
Speaker 4: out for themselves through the collective bargaining process.
Speaker 2: So Dana, let's pause there for a second and flesh
Speaker 2: that that his thinking out there a little bit more
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 7: I mean, Elon is not a union guy, and Tesla
Speaker 7: has never had a union. And what's interesting is that
Speaker 7: if you look at the history of the Tesla plant
Speaker 7: in Fremont, California. It did used to be union when
Speaker 7: it was owned by New me which was this kind
Speaker 7: of rare, very unique joint venture between General Motors and Toyota,
Speaker 7: so back in the eighties and then in the nineties,
Speaker 7: like knew me was a union plant. Then it went bankrupt,
Speaker 7: all the workers were let go. It was like this
Speaker 7: sort of desolate crater of a factory. Tesla bought it
Speaker 7: in twenty ten, and some of the workers that are
Speaker 7: there at Tesla came.
Speaker 1: From nu Mei.
Speaker 7: So there's always been like a very small faction within
Speaker 7: the plant that worked for you know, there were UAW
Speaker 7: members who wanted to see the UAW come back, and
Speaker 7: in twenty eighteen, when Tesla was ramping the Model three,
Speaker 7: there was a really strong effort to try to unionize
Speaker 7: that plant that ultimately kind of petered out and went nowhere.
Speaker 2: We do know that he has a pretty dim view
Speaker 2: on unions. It's the libertarian in him. Here's what he
Speaker 2: had to say about unions a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 2: with the Deal Book conference in New York.
Speaker 5: I disagree with the idea of unions. I think the
Speaker 5: unions naturally try to create negativity in a company and
Speaker 5: create a sort of lords and peasants situation. There are
Speaker 5: many people at Tesla who have gone from working on
Speaker 5: the line to being in senior management. There is no
Speaker 5: laws and peasants.
Speaker 2: And so when he talks about the things and the
Speaker 2: reasons he's against unions, I mean one of the things,
Speaker 2: and I believe that actually comes up in the Deal
Speaker 2: book interview. He says things like, listen, I've got workers
Speaker 2: who work for me on the line who have become
Speaker 2: millionaires just working the line and from their stock options, right,
Speaker 2: stock options that he says they would never get if
Speaker 2: they were unionized. Yeah.
Speaker 7: No, that's a huge part of Musk's thinking that everyone
Speaker 7: at Tesla has equity in the company, and that if
Speaker 7: you're in a union, you pay union dues to this
Speaker 7: sort of parallel management structure that he thinks is basically corrupt.
Speaker 7: And you know, to his credit, I mean, you know,
Speaker 7: he's not exactly wrong on some levels. I mean, the
Speaker 7: former UAW president did go to federal prison, like for
Speaker 7: embezzling funds from the membership. The whole thing about millionaires,
Speaker 7: I mean, there are a lot of early Tesla pa
Speaker 7: who made a lot of money. If there's like actual millionaires,
Speaker 7: I have not seen any of them come forward, but
Speaker 7: they do exist. I mean if you got in at
Speaker 7: a certain time and and and held on to your
Speaker 7: options and your RSUs and time to the market, right,
Speaker 7: I mean, that's definitely true. I mean that's that's and
Speaker 7: there's lore around that within the plant for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and something that he definitely sells and and articulates
Speaker 2: publicly quite a bit. But let's go back to scan
Speaker 2: Dainavia Craig tell us what exactly do these striking mechanics want?
Speaker 4: So I mentioned before that this is a case of
Speaker 4: a country where there's no way for TESLA to get
Speaker 4: in the way of these workers unionizing. This is a
Speaker 4: matter of what that really means, and collective bargaining is
Speaker 4: the key here. You want to be able to, you know,
Speaker 4: come together as a group of workers and hammer out
Speaker 4: an agreement with your employer as to you know, what
Speaker 4: sort of working conditions are set, you know, minimum wages,
Speaker 4: hours that are worked, those sorts of things. I think
Speaker 4: you know when you talk about repair workers, there of
Speaker 4: course safety implications there. Working on batteries can be a
Speaker 4: dangerous thing. When you're working on a car, that maybe
Speaker 4: has been banged up and has a big hunk of
Speaker 4: rare earth and volatile materials within batteries, and so, you know,
Speaker 4: this is a case of workers wanting a collective bargaining
Speaker 4: agreement and TESLA refusing, and not just lately. This is
Speaker 4: something that goes back to twenty seventeen. This is something
Speaker 4: that the union has been pushing for for years at
Speaker 4: this point, Craig.
Speaker 2: At some point recently you said to me this struck
Speaker 2: you as a little bit of a case of Elon
Speaker 2: being stubborn in the sense that Elon the disruptor, wants
Speaker 2: to disrupt everything is against unions. And even though the
Speaker 2: fact that this is the way it's been in Sweden
Speaker 2: for many, many years and the vast bulk of workers work,
Speaker 2: you know, under these kind of agreements, he can't get
Speaker 2: himself to to accept it. And it almost feels like
Speaker 2: he's he's creating something of a tempest in a teapot here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I do think that you know, of course,
Speaker 4: some people are going to say that well, if you
Speaker 4: you know, agree to a collective bargaining you know, deal
Speaker 4: with workers in Sweden, well this this sets a precedent,
Speaker 4: and you know, sort of slippery slope situation. I don't
Speaker 4: think that that's what actually is at stake here. When
Speaker 4: you know, you talk about a collective collective agreement for
Speaker 4: one hundred and thirty workers, is that really going to
Speaker 4: make a difference in this really difficult, you know fight
Speaker 4: that unions in the US and Germany are going to
Speaker 4: try and wage to organize thousands of workers. I don't
Speaker 4: think it really makes any any difference.
Speaker 2: I just want to ask you this, Craig. This strike
Speaker 2: is spreading to a certain degree, right, other unions sympathetic
Speaker 2: to the cause of these mechanics have also started taking part.
Speaker 2: What does that look like exactly? And what's the impact
Speaker 2: of that, Craig on Tesla's business.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just because of the role that unions play in Sweden,
Speaker 4: the protections for them and sort of the ability for
Speaker 4: them to maneuver is really sort of open, and so
Speaker 4: there's an ability, you know, legally for there to be
Speaker 4: sympathy actions across unions. So we're talking about an industrial
Speaker 4: workers union that has taken action against Tesla. But as
Speaker 4: a result of them taking action and striking Tesla, you've
Speaker 4: seen this, you know, one after another, other unions within
Speaker 4: Sweden and in some neighboring countries that have similar systems
Speaker 4: also you know, sort of taking up the cause. And
Speaker 4: so you have postal workers in Sweden that won't hand
Speaker 4: over license plates to Tesla and are sort of holding
Speaker 4: up the delivery of those, which of course is going
Speaker 4: to complicate Tesla's effort to get new cars registered. You
Speaker 4: have dock workers that are refusing to you know, unload
Speaker 4: Tesla's from ships, and you have you know, Finland and
Speaker 4: Norway and Denmark, these other unions and neighboring countries that
Speaker 4: are saying, uh, you know, we're not going to help you, Tesla,
Speaker 4: and getting around the fact that these dock workers in
Speaker 4: Sweden are trying to you know, sympathize with you know,
Speaker 4: their their compatriots in the Industrial Workers Union.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I even understand right that the garbage pickup isn't
Speaker 2: happening because of one of these unions acting in sympathies
Speaker 2: that things are getting smelly there around these repair shops. Okay, so, Dana,
Speaker 2: that's the scene in Scandinavia and in Germany. Indeed, as
Speaker 2: Craig was saying here in the US, Shawn Fame, the
Speaker 2: leader of the UAW, is now targeting Tessel among other automakers,
Speaker 2: as the place he wants to unionize workers. Those unionization
Speaker 2: drives I believe Dana are now underway. What's the status
Speaker 2: at this early stage.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so the I mean, the UAW is trying to
Speaker 7: organize everywhere, and they've had some announcements recently that they've
Speaker 7: gotten lots of signatures on union cards at different plants.
Speaker 7: But I'm going to pound this over and over again,
Speaker 7: like they are gonna they are gonna focus.
Speaker 1: On the South.
Speaker 7: They are not going to focus on Freemond.
Speaker 2: When you say the South, right, we are not talking
Speaker 2: about Tesla.
Speaker 7: We're talking about like the volksbag plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
Speaker 7: and other auto plants in the South where the UAW
Speaker 7: has tried to unionize before and actually had votes before.
Speaker 7: Like you guys, it just doesn't make sense to like
Speaker 7: go guns blazing at Tesla where they've never even gotten
Speaker 7: to a vote. They've got They've laid a lot more
Speaker 7: groundwork at these other plants, and so I just get
Speaker 7: frustrated personally when it's like like every I get it,
Speaker 7: everyone wants a shit.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep asking this question.
Speaker 7: Everyone wants the Shawan Fain, Elon Musk cage man.
Speaker 2: But if you are Seawan Fain and you you have
Speaker 2: the views you do, and Shawn Fain is a new
Speaker 2: kind of labor leader in this country, and he's not
Speaker 2: messing around, and he's kind of got it out for
Speaker 2: the billionaire class. And you look at Elon Musk, the
Speaker 2: richest person in the world. Is he not a juicy
Speaker 2: target to go after?
Speaker 7: He's totally a juicy target. But if you're if you're
Speaker 7: a union strategist and you've just won these historic contracts
Speaker 7: in Detroit and you want to keep the momentum going
Speaker 7: and grow your membership, then you pick the next easiest target,
Speaker 7: which is not Tesla. You pick where you're going to win.
Speaker 7: Like that's just like sort of basic organizing one on one.
Speaker 7: And I think you've seen from the recent UAW commentary
Speaker 7: that like they're focused. They're not focusing on Fremont, They're
Speaker 7: focusing on other plants that are largely in the South.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm and I'm absolutely with Dana in the sense
Speaker 4: that the UAW has already sort of made big efforts
Speaker 4: at other factories, whether Volkswagen or Nissan down down in
Speaker 4: the South in the US and you know, made it
Speaker 4: to a vote with those companies. It's it's tried and failed,
Speaker 4: but at least gotten somewhat close. It hasn't come anywhere
Speaker 4: close with Tesla, but I do think with Tesla, you know,
Speaker 4: just on the last earnings call, these guys were talking
Speaker 4: about even taking you know, stickers off of parts uh
Speaker 4: and doing that to save you know, literally pennies per vehicle. UH.
Speaker 4: The the sort of you know emphasis that they're putting
Speaker 4: on cost cutting as their growth has slowed down dramatically.
Speaker 4: This absolutely poses a threat for them when they're having
Speaker 4: to you know, whether they like it or not, you know,
Speaker 4: pivot to a significant degree from you know, being a
Speaker 4: growth story to sales are slowing down. So you know,
Speaker 4: you have this situation of slower growth, falling prices uh,
Speaker 4: and some cost pressures on the part of this union momentum,
Speaker 4: whether it's really small cases in Sweden, a more powerful
Speaker 4: union in Germany, and a UAW that is, you know,
Speaker 4: for all its weaknesses and long history of issues in
Speaker 4: the US, is you know, at least at the for
Speaker 4: the moment looking resurgent in Detroit.
Speaker 2: Well, was it Craig terrific to have you on.
Speaker 4: Thanks guys like looking forward to listening.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're back and joining me and Dana is Max
Speaker 2: lately Max and Sarah Hello, So Sarah as we talk
Speaker 2: X and Alex Jones and those things, I want to
Speaker 2: ask you because I'm going to be honest. Over the weekend,
Speaker 2: I did my best not to pay that much attention
Speaker 2: to this just a little bit. So for those like me,
Speaker 2: what exactly do we need to know about what's transpired
Speaker 2: in the last forty eight to seventy two hours.
Speaker 6: Alex Jones, who owes a lot of money to the
Speaker 6: victims of the Sandy Hook shooting because he denied that
Speaker 6: it occurred for many years, is restored to X. And
Speaker 6: I think what happens occasionally on the platform is Elon
Speaker 6: Musk will try to prove that he has created the
Speaker 6: network for free speech. He's done this before. He's outsourced
Speaker 6: controversial decisions to users via via polls, and that's what
Speaker 6: he did in this case. So he tweeted out, let's
Speaker 6: see the will of the people, should Alex Jones come back?
Speaker 6: Same thing he did for Donald Trump, by the way,
Speaker 6: and a good portion of people of solid majority said yes,
Speaker 6: And so Alex Jones was restored. Not only that, Elon
Speaker 6: Musk did a Spaces which is that live audio with
Speaker 6: Alex Jones and sort of even gave him more of
Speaker 6: a platform than just restoring him to X.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, now, Max, I know that you see to
Speaker 2: a certain degree some sort of tie in between that
Speaker 2: between this kind of thing and the stuff we were
Speaker 2: just talking about about unionization efforts at Tesla Factors.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, so I listened to this two hours
Speaker 3: and four and Opaces appearance, and you know it's it's
Speaker 3: Elon Musk talking to Alex Jones, the famous Sandy Hook
Speaker 3: denier Harasser of the parents of dead school children and
Speaker 3: so on. Join by Andrew Tait, who is currently under
Speaker 3: indictment for human trafficking, is a men's rights activist, and
Speaker 3: Vek Ramaswami, you know, the third or fourth place Republican
Speaker 3: presidential candidate, all kind of browing down about the awesomeness
Speaker 3: of free speech. And when you listen to this, it's
Speaker 3: just very niche. It's like it's like a thing that
Speaker 3: you would not care about unless you are deep, deep, deep,
Speaker 3: deep deep down the right wing rabbit hole. And that
Speaker 3: I think has worked for Musk, But of course it's polarizing.
Speaker 2: When you say it's worked for him, How has it
Speaker 2: worked for him?
Speaker 3: I mean, when you listen to this this appearance, right,
Speaker 3: it's just constant praise.
Speaker 1: It's a bunch of guys talking about how amazing it is.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has saved the world.
Speaker 3: He's built himself a a like credible media following in
Speaker 3: the same way that Alex Jones is a credible medio following.
Speaker 1: But of course it's also created all of this polarization.
Speaker 3: And when you see these you know, union actions going on,
Speaker 3: you know in Nordic countries, and of course the threat
Speaker 3: of union actions in the United States, having Elon Musk
Speaker 3: out there doing hard right signaling is working against him.
Speaker 2: Makes it more of a target.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, These you know organizing efforts, right are partly about
Speaker 3: like person to person contact, but they're also partly about
Speaker 3: political context and cultural context. And he's doing himself no favors, right,
Speaker 3: He's like, most of these union activists are not going
Speaker 3: to be big men's rights you know, Alex Jones fanatics
Speaker 3: to say the least, and we're not even talking about
Speaker 3: the customers.
Speaker 6: Well, well, let me also make just one one quick
Speaker 6: point about polling, which is that it is not the
Speaker 6: will of the people. If you run a poll on
Speaker 6: x it doesn't say super scientific. I don't know if
Speaker 6: this needs to be said, but in case it does.
Speaker 6: You know, Elon Musk, he he is the most followed
Speaker 6: person on the platform. But you know, we've found in
Speaker 6: reporting supported by a nonprofit digital rights group, Accountable Tech,
Speaker 6: that with less than one hundred dollars you can buy
Speaker 6: tens of thousands of votes for a Twitter poll easily.
Speaker 2: So wow, well that's tempting.
Speaker 6: It was, you know, of course, as it always is
Speaker 6: with with Musk over a weekend. You know, when that
Speaker 6: that fan base is maybe online and most people are not.
Speaker 6: And I think that we just need to be careful
Speaker 6: about you know, when Musk says I did this because
Speaker 6: it was the will of the people. I did this
Speaker 6: because this is what people voted for. You know, these
Speaker 6: things are not at all democratic.
Speaker 2: Right right.
Speaker 3: I want to say one other thing, which is that
Speaker 3: during this space is the k Ramaswami audibly peeded, like as.
Speaker 2: A way to make a statement or not just accidental
Speaker 2: like in the Naked Gun.
Speaker 1: Okay, it was just an It was just like the
Speaker 1: like it was.
Speaker 2: The Highlight Now Max, there is some chatter out there
Speaker 2: in some circles that Apple, like it briefly banned Parlor
Speaker 2: from the App Store for similarly lax content moderation after
Speaker 2: the Gen sixth insurrection, that there's cheddar that that that
Speaker 2: they could perhaps do the same to X now thoughts.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, Musk himself has kind of driven that chatter, right.
Speaker 3: He earlier talked about the prospect that Apple would you know,
Speaker 3: would ban him from the App Store. There was this
Speaker 3: kind of summit between Tim Cook and Musk. I think
Speaker 3: that's an extremely unrealistic possibility. It definitely serves the interests
Speaker 3: of the kind of right who like the narrative of
Speaker 3: prosecution by big tech is really important. But the truth
Speaker 3: is Alex Jones being on X that he's not. That's
Speaker 3: not the only platform that has allowed Alex Jones. Right now,
Speaker 3: you can go to the app store and download Rumble,
Speaker 3: which is the main platform for you know, Jones and
Speaker 3: Russell brand. The other thing is when when Apple banned
Speaker 3: Parlor in twenty twenty one, the context was very different.
Speaker 3: It was right after January sixth. You had Jones, you know,
Speaker 3: involved into some extent at least in the you know,
Speaker 3: attempted insurrection, but that is not what's going on right now.
Speaker 3: The context is very different, and you know, I don't
Speaker 3: think Apple is going to take action anytime soon, and
Speaker 3: really that that conversation is mostly happening kind of in
Speaker 3: right wing corners media.
Speaker 2: You know, none of this seems like a great way
Speaker 2: to lun back advertisers, you know, with Disney and IBM
Speaker 2: and NBC among others pulling their ads, you know, which
Speaker 2: leads us to our final little bonus part of the show,
Speaker 2: where we use the scrappy gang of smaller advertisers that
Speaker 2: have remained on X. Using them, We've created a challenge
Speaker 2: for our vaunted muscologists, using only the ads you see
Speaker 2: there on the platform. You have to select holiday gifts
Speaker 2: for the other panelists, and Sarah Fryar, you are up first.
Speaker 6: So my top gift, and you know, caveat that. I
Speaker 6: just remember which ads get served to me the most.
Speaker 6: And for the last month it has been over and
Speaker 6: over and over those heart shaped pans that Paris Hill
Speaker 6: is selling. Now unfortunately she has.
Speaker 2: Also I'm sorry they're heart shaped?
Speaker 6: What pans for cooking? You know, Paris Hilton, maybe she's
Speaker 6: a great pancakes.
Speaker 1: What do you heart their heart shaped?
Speaker 2: Wow? And you can you can hunt? And and what
Speaker 2: what does one fry or cook anything? Anyway?
Speaker 6: Well, you just you just have to to, you know,
Speaker 6: use the pan and say that's so hot, because it
Speaker 6: literally is hot.
Speaker 2: I get it. Okay, so get it, Matt, Max gets it.
Speaker 6: You know, maybe you're not as available through X anymore,
Speaker 6: but I certainly am aware of them because of X.
Speaker 3: Wait, Sarah, you Bury the lead though Paris Hilton is
Speaker 3: no longer working like she's part of the.
Speaker 1: Part of the boycott waiting what what?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 2: What? Wait? So you can't get this on X?
Speaker 6: So is it is this violating the rules?
Speaker 2: Well you already broke the rude. We were thirty seconds
Speaker 2: into the gift section. They just show you. But what's
Speaker 2: the track here? You know you we'll go with this
Speaker 2: era just because we all like you. Who are you
Speaker 2: going to give this pan to?
Speaker 6: I mean, it was going to be a housewarming gift
Speaker 6: for Max.
Speaker 1: Thank you, very thoughtful.
Speaker 2: Next moving it to a new apartment.
Speaker 1: Can I have a gift for you, David?
Speaker 2: Okay? Max? Hit me with it?
Speaker 3: Okay, So I know you're you know you're big horse
Speaker 3: racing guy, you're into the ponies.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know one of my favorite ads.
Speaker 3: You know, you see a lot of ads for products
Speaker 3: that seem of questionable value, a lot of junkie kind
Speaker 3: of I see it on TV type stuff.
Speaker 1: But there are also a lot of T shirts.
Speaker 3: And and one of my faves that I've seen advertise
Speaker 3: on Twitter is a T shirt that says sorry, period
Speaker 3: can't period. Horses period by period. And I think I
Speaker 3: think it would look well, I think, really it's a
Speaker 3: woman's shirt, but it looks to me. Check checking it out,
Speaker 3: and you know, for thirty seven dollars, it looks like
Speaker 3: you can get you know, unisex sizes, so I think
Speaker 3: it's a possibility.
Speaker 2: Well, that's very that's very nice of you. I would
Speaker 2: gladly receive the horses T shirt. That's brilliant, Dana Hall,
Speaker 2: what do you have for our fellow panelists?
Speaker 7: So my algorithm is very strange. I just get a
Speaker 7: lot of very strange ads. My favorite is this ad
Speaker 7: for a company called Plushy Dreadfuls and it's like stuffed animals.
Speaker 2: That's a favorite of all.
Speaker 7: I got one A great cuddle buddy when you're off
Speaker 7: with the fairies, and it's a it's a it's like
Speaker 7: a stuffed animal that looks like a like a psychedelic mushroom.
Speaker 3: And I don't know.
Speaker 7: I mean, this could be a gift for Elon Musk
Speaker 7: himself and his friends.
Speaker 1: It could be this is what you hold while you're
Speaker 1: on mushrooms, ron Kennedy.
Speaker 7: Maybe maybe it's like an emotional support stuffy. It's kind
Speaker 7: of a disturbing looking stuffed animal that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we barely scratched the service of the like
Speaker 3: super questionable advertisements that are like on Twitter, what's wrong.
Speaker 7: X?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 6: My favorite was there was this there's this one that
Speaker 6: was a drain cleaner filam that I got served many times,
Speaker 6: and it actually had a community note on it saying
Speaker 6: that it doesn't actually clean drains. Community notes being the
Speaker 6: crowdsourced platform fact checker.
Speaker 1: Just to give you a sense of how bad it gets.
Speaker 3: Four or four Media, which is like a tech website,
Speaker 3: ran a story yesterday headline Twitter is just running ads
Speaker 3: for stealing semen now. And you look at that headline
Speaker 3: and you think that could not be true, That could
Speaker 3: not reflect an actual.
Speaker 2: What you're saying.
Speaker 3: It is it is there is a company out there
Speaker 3: that specializes in non consensual sperm collection kits for artificial insemination.
Speaker 1: They are advertising on Twitter.
Speaker 3: I looks on X excuse me, and it's something like
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty nine dollars for the kit. I
Speaker 3: tried to keep track of the costs here because I think.
Speaker 1: Feel like, no, I see it for a gift guide.
Speaker 1: You want to know, like how much.
Speaker 2: You do want to know? And I will to wrap
Speaker 2: it up the gifts, the gift section of this of
Speaker 2: this show. I've got gifts for all of you. I'm
Speaker 2: a big spender like that because at four ninety nine each,
Speaker 2: I mean, whatever, easy come, easy, go for Max. I
Speaker 2: got the fly and I read I'm just reading the
Speaker 2: ad textually here I'm so I flying ball boomerang with
Speaker 2: lead lights, fly spinning ball throwaway and it comes back
Speaker 2: to you. I could just see you and the kids out.
Speaker 1: I have actually got it last year.
Speaker 2: Okay, So now you got another one coming for Sarah
Speaker 2: and the January baby you're waiting for. I've got the
Speaker 2: Getnay's shark socks. Now, Sarah, these socks, I mean, you're
Speaker 2: in San Francisco, Shark great right, Shark Capital the United
Speaker 2: States of America, I'm a little shark obsessed myself. There
Speaker 2: are socks that actually look like the shark is eating
Speaker 2: the baby's legs. So you know, these are these are
Speaker 2: pretty good. And then for Dana, I know you don't
Speaker 2: have a car. I figure at some point you'll get
Speaker 2: a car. Maybe you're a husband a car.
Speaker 7: I do have a car, it's just an old subru.
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe you could use it for the superw I'm
Speaker 2: getting you State Farm auto insurance. There's the thing. They
Speaker 2: just wore me down. They just kept coming with you,
Speaker 2: and they kept coming into the ad, you know, with
Speaker 2: the ad in Spanish, and if there's I am, if nothing,
Speaker 2: a sucker for auto insurance ads in Spanish.
Speaker 7: What I love the most about x ads is that
Speaker 7: if you you keep deleting them, like I don't like
Speaker 7: this ad, and then they say, we'll try to make
Speaker 7: your timeline better, and then the ads just get worse
Speaker 7: and worse and worse.
Speaker 2: But Dana, what's wrong with the gifts I just got you? Guys?
Speaker 2: I mean these are like the fly you don't like
Speaker 2: the flying ball boomerang. For Max, it's a great gift.
Speaker 2: He's actually what he has.
Speaker 3: I mean, I should say you know the Cheech and
Speaker 3: Chong goings we have not talked about, but that they
Speaker 3: are been. They've been one of the big advertise of
Speaker 3: the year. But I haven't seen their ads for a while,
Speaker 3: and I sent a request for comment to Cheach and
Speaker 3: Chong to ask if they're still advertising. They have not
Speaker 3: responded to my request for comment.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I'll get back.
Speaker 2: When when there's an update. When there's a comment from
Speaker 2: Cheech or Chong, you will let us know. Okay, enough
Speaker 2: of the silly holiday year. Let's call it quits. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening to Elon Inc. And thanks to our panel Dana,
Speaker 2: Max and Sarah.
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure, great to be here.
Speaker 6: Thank you as always.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Stacey Wong, Naomi Shaven and
Speaker 2: Rayhan Harmansi are senior editors. The idea for this very
Speaker 2: show also came from Rayhan Blake Maples handles engineering, and
Speaker 2: we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott. Our supervising
Speaker 2: producer is Magnus Hendrickson, thanks a bunch of BusinessWeek editor
Speaker 2: Joel Weber. The Elon Aim theme is written and performed
Speaker 2: by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Ubiira. Sage Bauman is the
Speaker 2: head of Bloomberg Podcast and our executive producer. I am
Speaker 2: David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and review
Speaker 2: our show, it'll help other listeners find us. See you
Speaker 2: next week.