WEBVTT - Episode 5: The Dogefather 0:00:15.436 --> 0:00:23.276 Pushkin. The COVID nineteen pandemic was a boom time for 0:00:23.356 --> 0:00:27.556 the world's billionaires, who gained nearly two trillion dollars of 0:00:27.596 --> 0:00:31.956 wealth in twenty twenty alone. As CNBC reported at the 0:00:31.996 --> 0:00:35.236 height of the pandemic, one of those billionaires was fast 0:00:35.276 --> 0:00:38.076 climbing the list of the world's richest people. 0:00:38.316 --> 0:00:42.036 Ewon Musk just past Bill Gates become the second richest 0:00:42.076 --> 0:00:44.436 man in the world, with a fortune of over one 0:00:44.556 --> 0:00:46.596 hundred and twenty eight billion dollars. 0:00:46.796 --> 0:00:49.756 For a while, he jockeyed for the top place with 0:00:49.836 --> 0:00:50.756 other tech giants. 0:00:51.036 --> 0:00:53.796 Altogether, the worth of those on the list is thirteen 0:00:53.836 --> 0:00:58.156 point one trillion dollars, up from eight trillion last year, 0:00:58.476 --> 0:01:01.356 the rise occurring as most the world was shut down 0:01:01.636 --> 0:01:02.756 during the pandemic. 0:01:03.236 --> 0:01:05.916 By the end of that year, Elon Musk had become 0:01:06.316 --> 0:01:08.956 the richest man in the world. It was also during 0:01:08.996 --> 0:01:13.076 the pandemic that Musk underwent a political conversion, moving to 0:01:13.116 --> 0:01:15.796 the right. By twenty twenty four, he'd become one of 0:01:15.836 --> 0:01:17.476 Donald Trump's closest advisors. 0:01:17.916 --> 0:01:21.956 Take Over Elaid, Yes, take Elon Musk is taking over 0:01:22.396 --> 0:01:25.516 with an Act to government spending in a newly created 0:01:25.556 --> 0:01:29.836 Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is also the 0:01:29.916 --> 0:01:33.156 name of a cryptocurrency inspired by a dog meme. 0:01:33.756 --> 0:01:38.116 Doge the Department of Government Efficiency, staffed by Silicon Valley 0:01:38.276 --> 0:01:42.356 entrepreneurs and engineers hoping to make use of artificial intelligence 0:01:42.796 --> 0:01:48.556 to reinvent American government. Welcome to x Men. The Elon 0:01:48.676 --> 0:01:53.076 Musk origin Story. I'm Jill Lapour. I'm a historian professor 0:01:53.116 --> 0:01:55.916 at Harvard. This episode is the fifth in a series 0:01:55.956 --> 0:01:59.596 I've been hosting about a new kind of capitalism called Muskism. 0:01:59.876 --> 0:02:06.636 Extravagant extreme capitalism, extraterrestrial capitalism, a form of capitalism influenced 0:02:06.756 --> 0:02:10.676 by fantasies that come from science fiction. It's all bound 0:02:10.756 --> 0:02:13.796 up with a tech bro vibe, comic books and superheroes, 0:02:14.156 --> 0:02:18.996 fantasy and video games. The tech overlords as the Lords 0:02:19.116 --> 0:02:23.116 of the Rings. This episode is called The Doge Father. 0:02:23.596 --> 0:02:28.596 Elon Musk, Money, cryptocurrency, and the rise of techno Libertarianism. 0:02:32.676 --> 0:02:36.836 As Donald Trump took office in twenty seventeen, Elon Musk 0:02:36.876 --> 0:02:41.476 had achieved phenomenal really almost unbelievable success, especially with Tesla 0:02:41.796 --> 0:02:45.876 and SpaceX, both of which were headquartered in California. He 0:02:46.036 --> 0:02:48.676 was then a darling of the press it seemed as 0:02:48.676 --> 0:02:51.676 though anytime Musk did anything at all, even just tweeting, 0:02:51.956 --> 0:02:55.236 newsroom phones lit up. He was a golden boy with 0:02:55.356 --> 0:02:58.516 super fans who adored him as a real life Tony 0:02:58.516 --> 0:03:04.716 Stark iron Man. Then came COVID the coronavirus. Panic is dumb, 0:03:05.076 --> 0:03:09.276 Musk tweeted on March sixth, twenty Twenty days later, the 0:03:09.316 --> 0:03:12.596 governor of California announced that the state would shut down, 0:03:13.036 --> 0:03:17.036 that we direct a statewide order for people to stay 0:03:17.076 --> 0:03:20.596 at home. Musk was furious, and we are confident that 0:03:20.636 --> 0:03:23.596 the people of the state of California will abide by it. 0:03:23.796 --> 0:03:26.356 They'll do the right thing. Musk vowed to keep his 0:03:26.436 --> 0:03:31.556 Tesla factory open, tweeting Free America Now, Elon Musk is 0:03:31.676 --> 0:03:35.076 escalating his fight with a California county, restarting a Tesla 0:03:35.116 --> 0:03:38.556 factory in Fremont despite a stay at home order there. Then, 0:03:38.716 --> 0:03:42.476 in protest of California's strict regulations, Musk announced that he 0:03:42.556 --> 0:03:45.996 was moving to lightly regulated Texas and had decided to 0:03:45.996 --> 0:03:50.396 build Tesla's gigafactory there too. We approached both Tesla and 0:03:50.436 --> 0:03:53.316 SpaceX for a response on several points in the series, 0:03:53.796 --> 0:03:55.676 but at the time of the recording, we had not 0:03:55.716 --> 0:03:59.196 received a reply, one way or another. Musk had become 0:03:59.396 --> 0:04:04.876 a culture warrior, tweeting and tweeting and getting richer and richer. Meanwhile, 0:04:04.956 --> 0:04:07.636 during the pandemic, the contrast between the suffering of the 0:04:07.676 --> 0:04:10.436 masses and the vasting increase of wealth among a very 0:04:10.476 --> 0:04:15.036 few provoked a backlash. In the US, Senator Bernard Sanders 0:04:15.076 --> 0:04:19.356 proposed the Make Billionaires Pay Act, a one time tax 0:04:19.356 --> 0:04:22.236 on American billionaires to help cover the out of pocket 0:04:22.276 --> 0:04:27.396 medical expenses of ordinary Americans for one year. Musk then 0:04:27.436 --> 0:04:30.596 got into a Twitter war with Sanders. Sanders claimed Musk's 0:04:30.596 --> 0:04:33.156 wealth had been made possible by billions of dollars in 0:04:33.196 --> 0:04:37.756 government subsidies for his corporations. Musk suggested that Sanders should 0:04:37.796 --> 0:04:41.996 leave him alone because Tesla is saving the planet. Musk 0:04:42.036 --> 0:04:44.276 may not have been saving the planet, but his influence, 0:04:44.476 --> 0:04:48.316 especially on markets, kept growing. Like a lot of people, 0:04:48.396 --> 0:04:53.036 during the pandemic, Musk spent more time than ever online. 0:04:53.156 --> 0:04:57.476 The number of his Twitter followers skyrocketed. As CNBC reported 0:04:57.516 --> 0:05:00.396 in twenty twenty one, markets seem to hang on his 0:05:00.516 --> 0:05:01.156 every word. 0:05:01.716 --> 0:05:04.636 One thing we've learned lately is that when Elon Musk tweets. 0:05:04.916 --> 0:05:07.236 The news cycle follows him, and in fact he does 0:05:07.276 --> 0:05:09.196 have a series of tweets in the past few minutes 0:05:09.516 --> 0:05:13.596 says I'm selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house, 0:05:14.076 --> 0:05:18.436 says Tesla. Stock price is too high im in my opinion, 0:05:18.916 --> 0:05:22.036 and now give people back their freedom. It's going to 0:05:22.036 --> 0:05:24.436 get attention. Stock now down almost seven percent. 0:05:24.996 --> 0:05:29.436 This became a signature feature of Muskism long before a 0:05:29.516 --> 0:05:32.796 Musk bought Twitter. A single tweet by a single person, 0:05:33.476 --> 0:05:36.476 not an announcement from a central bank, could drive a 0:05:36.516 --> 0:05:40.836 stock price or hobble a currency market. In January twenty 0:05:40.836 --> 0:05:44.756 twenty one, after the insurrection at the US capital Twitter 0:05:44.876 --> 0:05:49.836 band Trump with Trump Gone, Musk became the loudest voice 0:05:49.836 --> 0:05:53.196 in the room. The Love Hate Twitter account to follow. 0:05:53.796 --> 0:05:57.916 He started tweeting about cryptocurrency Bitcoin and a joke coin 0:05:58.036 --> 0:06:04.476 called dogecoin. If Trump's tweets destabilized American politics, Musk's tweets 0:06:04.676 --> 0:06:08.556 seemed to be destabilizing financial markets. A lot of headlines 0:06:08.556 --> 0:06:11.876 had to do with the fictive quality of money. After all, 0:06:12.116 --> 0:06:15.316 all forms of currency are acts of imagination. As Douglas 0:06:15.356 --> 0:06:18.196 Adams pointed out so well in the Hitchhiker's Guide to 0:06:18.236 --> 0:06:18.836 the Galaxy. 0:06:19.316 --> 0:06:22.396 In fact, there are three freely convertible currencies in the universe, 0:06:22.476 --> 0:06:26.116 but the Alterian dollar has recently collapsed, the Flanian pobble 0:06:26.156 --> 0:06:29.116 bead is only exchangeable for other Flanian pobble beads, and 0:06:29.156 --> 0:06:33.196 the trigantic pew doesn't really count as money. Its exchange 0:06:33.236 --> 0:06:35.636 rate of six ningyas to one pew is simple, but 0:06:35.796 --> 0:06:38.996 since a ninga is a triangular rubber coin eight hundred 0:06:38.996 --> 0:06:41.316 miles long each side, no one has ever collected enough 0:06:41.356 --> 0:06:44.276 to own one pew. Ning is a not negotiable currency 0:06:44.356 --> 0:06:48.076 because the galactic banks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. 0:06:48.156 --> 0:06:50.876 From this basic premise, it's very simple to prove that 0:06:50.956 --> 0:06:54.476 the Galectic banks are also the products of a deranged imagination. 0:06:56.636 --> 0:06:58.916 I've spent a lot of time in this investigation of 0:06:59.036 --> 0:07:02.436 Musk with Hitchhiker's Guide, because Musk read it as a 0:07:02.516 --> 0:07:05.356 kid growing up in South Africa, and he cites it 0:07:05.396 --> 0:07:09.036 all the time. But Hitchhiker's Guide is a strange influence 0:07:09.236 --> 0:07:12.996 for Muscuism, partly because Adams was so brutally gut wrenchingly 0:07:13.036 --> 0:07:16.156 funny about the arbitrariness of money and the follies of 0:07:16.236 --> 0:07:19.076 financial schemers and assorted idiot executives. 0:07:19.636 --> 0:07:21.356 If we could, for a moment move on to the 0:07:21.356 --> 0:07:23.116 subject of fiscal policy. 0:07:22.916 --> 0:07:25.836 School policy, How can you have money if none of 0:07:25.836 --> 0:07:27.316 you actually produce anything? 0:07:27.476 --> 0:07:29.316 It doesn't grow on tree? 0:07:29.516 --> 0:07:32.356 And Adams was particularly devastating on the subject of the 0:07:32.436 --> 0:07:36.676 damage done to the natural world by advanced extractive capitalism. 0:07:36.836 --> 0:07:39.276 Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt leaves 0:07:39.276 --> 0:07:42.756 as legal tender, we have, of course, or become immensely rich. 0:07:45.356 --> 0:07:48.476 We have also run into a small instation problem on 0:07:48.476 --> 0:07:50.956 account of the high level of leaf availability, which means 0:07:50.956 --> 0:07:54.076 that I gather the current going rate has something like 0:07:54.156 --> 0:07:58.516 three major deciduous forests buying one ship's peanuts. So in 0:07:58.636 --> 0:08:01.476 order to obviate this problem and defectively revalue the leaf, 0:08:01.836 --> 0:08:04.716 we are about to embark on an extensive defiliation campaign 0:08:04.796 --> 0:08:08.476 and burn down all the forests. I think that's a 0:08:08.516 --> 0:08:11.596 sensible movie economic time. 0:08:15.716 --> 0:08:18.996 If you've been following the story of cryptocurrency, this scene 0:08:19.036 --> 0:08:22.036 from Hitchhiker's Guide might sound a little too on the nose. 0:08:22.596 --> 0:08:25.676 In twenty twenty one, Musk announced that Tesla was buying 0:08:25.716 --> 0:08:28.276 millions of dollars of bitcoin and that you could buy 0:08:28.316 --> 0:08:32.076 a Tesla with bitcoin, until he changed his mind, citing 0:08:32.076 --> 0:08:34.796 the sort of environmental concerns that I looked into in 0:08:34.836 --> 0:08:37.956 an earlier episode of this series. It turns out that 0:08:37.996 --> 0:08:41.676 mining bitcoin really is burning down the forests. But you 0:08:41.796 --> 0:08:46.076 can buy Tesla merchandise with doge coin, and maybe you 0:08:46.156 --> 0:08:53.676 can sway a presidential election. In the twenty twenty four 0:08:53.876 --> 0:08:58.396 US presidential election, nearly half of all corporate spending came 0:08:58.516 --> 0:09:02.836 from the cryptocurrency industry. Some of that money went to Democrats, 0:09:03.156 --> 0:09:07.116 but most of it went to Republicans. Among the billionaires 0:09:07.156 --> 0:09:10.476 celebrating the announcement of doge that Apartment of government efficiency 0:09:10.996 --> 0:09:16.236 was the CEO of the cryptocurrency company Coinbase. Cryptocurrency is 0:09:16.356 --> 0:09:22.356 essentially money without government, a libertarian's dream. Doge's mandate is 0:09:22.396 --> 0:09:26.796 to reduce government spending and to eliminate government regulations. The 0:09:26.836 --> 0:09:29.276 second of these is a lot easier than the first. 0:09:29.436 --> 0:09:32.876 What dismantling regulations might mean for money is a story, 0:09:32.876 --> 0:09:35.756 though that goes back to the beginning of those regulations. 0:09:40.276 --> 0:09:44.156 The kerfuffle over bitcoin really dates to eighteen forty eight 0:09:44.436 --> 0:09:47.556 and the discovery of gold in California. A flood of 0:09:47.596 --> 0:09:50.556 gold retavoc on the US dollar, and so as the 0:09:50.596 --> 0:09:54.196 federal government took on new powers, it adopted a gold standard, 0:09:54.276 --> 0:09:56.716 which set a rate for the price of paper currency. 0:09:57.436 --> 0:10:00.476 Europe then did the same thing. This ushered in a 0:10:00.516 --> 0:10:04.716 new era of global trade, and not incidentally, the grotesque 0:10:04.716 --> 0:10:08.636 economic inequality of the Gilded Age. Farmers and factory workers 0:10:08.716 --> 0:10:12.156 argued for a silver standard, but the US formally established 0:10:12.196 --> 0:10:16.196 the gold standard in the year nineteen hundred. That same year, 0:10:16.476 --> 0:10:19.756 a science fiction writer named Garrett P. Servis imagined a 0:10:19.756 --> 0:10:23.916 different outcome in a novel called Moon Metal, in which 0:10:23.956 --> 0:10:26.836 gold is discovered at the South Pole, setting off a 0:10:26.876 --> 0:10:27.836 second gold rush. 0:10:29.236 --> 0:10:33.036 Gold is going to be as plentiful as ire. If 0:10:33.036 --> 0:10:35.636 there were not such a flood of it, we might manage. 0:10:35.676 --> 0:10:38.396 But when they begin to make trouser buttons out of 0:10:38.436 --> 0:10:40.996 the same metal that is now locked and guarded in 0:10:41.116 --> 0:10:44.276 steel vaults wound, where will be our standard of worth? 0:10:45.276 --> 0:10:48.156 My dear fellow, I would as willingly face the end 0:10:48.316 --> 0:10:50.636 of the world as this that's coming. 0:10:51.476 --> 0:10:55.396 Just then, a sinister scientist discovers a mysterious new metal 0:10:55.436 --> 0:10:57.756 on the Moon which he can beam to Earth by 0:10:57.796 --> 0:11:00.756 way of a particle ray and introduces a new and 0:11:00.836 --> 0:11:02.676 more precious form of currency. 0:11:03.236 --> 0:11:07.116 I can produce it in the pure form abundantly enough 0:11:07.116 --> 0:11:11.516 to replace gold, giving the same relative value and the 0:11:11.676 --> 0:11:16.356 gold possessed when it was the universal stand. 0:11:15.516 --> 0:11:19.596 But that will make you the richest man who ever lived. Undoubtedly, 0:11:20.156 --> 0:11:23.596 why you will become the financial dictator of the whole earth. 0:11:24.236 --> 0:11:30.076 Undoubtedly, currency is always a worry. Its value is so contrived, 0:11:30.116 --> 0:11:34.076 so imaginary, but also so important. After the stock market 0:11:34.156 --> 0:11:36.916 crash of nineteen twenty nine, people took their money out 0:11:36.956 --> 0:11:39.796 of the banks and turned in their paper dollars for gold. 0:11:40.316 --> 0:11:43.236 In the nineteen thirties, the US abandoned the gold standard, 0:11:43.396 --> 0:11:46.516 at least for the duration of the depression, and prohibited 0:11:46.556 --> 0:11:49.676 the private ownership of gold. If you've been listening to 0:11:49.836 --> 0:11:52.556 x Men for the last few episodes, you'll remember that 0:11:52.636 --> 0:11:55.916 it was during this era that in Canada, Elon Musk's 0:11:55.956 --> 0:12:00.236 grandfather joined and became a leader of the technocracy movement, 0:12:00.996 --> 0:12:04.756 founded on the belief that engineers could solve all political, 0:12:04.876 --> 0:12:09.396 social and economic problems. Technocrats did not believe in price. 0:12:10.356 --> 0:12:14.676 By price system is not meant merely the capitalistic system, 0:12:14.716 --> 0:12:18.556 which is only one variety of the species. It means 0:12:18.596 --> 0:12:22.876 the collapse and complete obsolescence of the entire method of 0:12:23.036 --> 0:12:27.276 distributing goods and services by means of a price. 0:12:28.076 --> 0:12:30.796 Technocrats didn't believe in prices because they didn't believe in 0:12:30.876 --> 0:12:34.156 any system not run by engineers. They wanted to get 0:12:34.236 --> 0:12:36.356 rid of both governments and banks. 0:12:36.956 --> 0:12:41.236 There will be no place for politics or politicians, finance 0:12:41.356 --> 0:12:45.476 or financiers. Rackets are racketeers. 0:12:45.356 --> 0:12:49.116 In place of prices and money. Technocrats wanted to reimagine 0:12:49.156 --> 0:12:52.916 the entire economic system with a new currency, a unit 0:12:52.956 --> 0:12:57.596 of energy, an erg whose stability would eradicate the volatility 0:12:57.596 --> 0:12:58.236 of finance. 0:12:58.756 --> 0:13:02.596 A dollar may be worth in buying power so much 0:13:02.716 --> 0:13:07.516 today and moral less tomorrow, but a unit of work 0:13:07.796 --> 0:13:12.316 or heat is the same in nineteen hundred, nineteen twenty nine, 0:13:12.916 --> 0:13:16.516 nineteen thirty three, all the year two thousand. 0:13:17.476 --> 0:13:20.116 The URG never did replace the dollar, and the US 0:13:20.276 --> 0:13:24.036 formally abandoned the gold standard in nineteen seventy six, But 0:13:24.156 --> 0:13:26.796 starting in two thousand and nine, people who want to 0:13:26.796 --> 0:13:30.356 trade in units other than dollars can buy bitcoins. Bitcoin 0:13:30.436 --> 0:13:34.076 a cryptocurrency isn't based on anything of value, Although not 0:13:34.196 --> 0:13:37.476 unlike the URG, it has some relationship to energy, the 0:13:37.596 --> 0:13:41.116 energy it takes to produce it. After Trump's election in 0:13:41.156 --> 0:13:45.036 twenty sixteen, the price of bitcoin skyrocketed higher than it 0:13:45.036 --> 0:13:48.636 had ever been before, and Trump withdrew the US from 0:13:48.636 --> 0:13:52.636 the Paris Climate Accords. But bitcoin's value, like the value 0:13:52.676 --> 0:13:55.956 of other money, only exists if you believe it exists. 0:13:56.476 --> 0:13:59.756 JP Morgan once suggested that bitcoin was poised to become 0:13:59.876 --> 0:14:01.396 the new gold standard. 0:14:01.756 --> 0:14:07.356 Cryptocurrencies were designed to make payments without a trusted third party, 0:14:07.476 --> 0:14:10.436 such as a government or a financial institution involved. 0:14:11.236 --> 0:14:14.476 Ishuar Prasad is an economist at Cornell University and a 0:14:14.476 --> 0:14:18.116 fellow at the Brookings Institute. He believes cryptocurrency has set 0:14:18.156 --> 0:14:21.836 off a revolution, a foundational change in finance, but that 0:14:21.916 --> 0:14:24.396 bitcoin itself has not met its objectives. 0:14:24.676 --> 0:14:27.596 Bitcoin has really ended up failing in what it was 0:14:27.636 --> 0:14:32.116 supposed to provide, which is a cheap, trustless medium of exchange. 0:14:32.236 --> 0:14:35.156 It turns out it is not anonymous, it turns out 0:14:35.196 --> 0:14:37.796 it is not cheap, and it is not very efficient. 0:14:37.956 --> 0:14:42.236 So Bitcoin has centered up becoming a pure speculative asset. 0:14:42.836 --> 0:14:47.196 The technology underlying cryptocurrencies, Prosad argues, well, have all kinds 0:14:47.196 --> 0:14:50.236 of effects on finance. It really is the future. But 0:14:50.316 --> 0:14:54.516 he's not persuaded that, as some advocates claim, cryptocurrencies will 0:14:54.556 --> 0:14:55.996 democratize finance. 0:14:56.436 --> 0:15:00.916 They've made it possible for people with very low incomes, 0:15:01.036 --> 0:15:04.236 very low levels of wealth, to get relatively easy access 0:15:04.396 --> 0:15:09.316 to digital payments and also to basic banking products. The 0:15:09.396 --> 0:15:14.116 problem is that digital access is unequal and financial literacy 0:15:14.156 --> 0:15:17.356 is unequal. So you might give people easy access to 0:15:17.396 --> 0:15:20.076 a lot of products, but if you don't teach them 0:15:20.316 --> 0:15:23.236 the risks emburied in those products, then you might end 0:15:23.316 --> 0:15:27.156 up with the relatively less well off taking on much 0:15:27.196 --> 0:15:30.436 more risks than they realize that they're taking on, and 0:15:30.596 --> 0:15:34.156 the rich ending up being able to use these technologies 0:15:34.316 --> 0:15:37.356 much more to their advantage, so they become even better 0:15:37.396 --> 0:15:38.516 off than they are right now. 0:15:39.356 --> 0:15:43.316 Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on nothing except a meme about 0:15:43.356 --> 0:15:46.796 a dog, was started by a software engineer named Jackson 0:15:46.836 --> 0:15:50.316 Palmer as a joke. Palmer later wrote an article called 0:15:50.796 --> 0:15:54.716 my joke, Cryptocurrency hit two billion dollars and something is 0:15:54.916 --> 0:15:58.476 Very wrong, in which he said that cryptocurrency, for all 0:15:58.516 --> 0:16:02.636 its promise, had become nothing more than an unregulated penny 0:16:02.676 --> 0:16:07.476 stock market. In twenty nineteen, after people started tweeting that 0:16:07.676 --> 0:16:10.956 Musk should be the CEO of dogecoin, he said it 0:16:11.036 --> 0:16:16.876 was his favorite cryptocurrency. Doge coin's value skyrocketed, Musk kept 0:16:16.916 --> 0:16:20.476 tweeting about it, and up when its price he started 0:16:20.476 --> 0:16:24.596 calling himself the doge Father. Musk talked about doge coin 0:16:24.716 --> 0:16:28.236 on Clubhouse, an online chat room that was briefly popular 0:16:28.276 --> 0:16:29.276 with Silicon. 0:16:28.916 --> 0:16:31.956 Valley occasionally make jokes about dogecoin that are really just 0:16:31.996 --> 0:16:33.836 meant to be joked, but dose coin was made as 0:16:33.876 --> 0:16:37.036 a joke to make fun of cryptocurrencies. Obviously, but fate 0:16:37.116 --> 0:16:40.396 loves irony, and as part of my says that the 0:16:40.396 --> 0:16:42.956 most ironic outcome is most likely, or I say the 0:16:42.996 --> 0:16:47.476 most entertaining outcome is often most likely and arguably the 0:16:47.476 --> 0:16:50.636 most entertaining outcome, and the most ironic outcome would be 0:16:50.676 --> 0:16:53.836 that dogecoin becomes the currency of Earth in the future. 0:16:57.876 --> 0:17:01.516 In twenty twenty one, Musk tweeted the single word doge 0:17:01.956 --> 0:17:04.516 under a picture of a SpaceX rocket in front of 0:17:04.556 --> 0:17:08.276 the moon. Doge to the Moon became a rallying cry. 0:17:09.196 --> 0:17:12.876 On April Fool's Day that year, Musk tweeted, SpaceX is 0:17:12.916 --> 0:17:15.356 going to put a literal doge coin on the literal 0:17:15.436 --> 0:17:19.676 moon a joke, but also not a joke, Musk said 0:17:19.676 --> 0:17:23.436 that SpaceX will be accepting doge coin as payment. Was 0:17:23.636 --> 0:17:28.636 Musk a comic? The next month, Musk hosted NBC's Saturday 0:17:28.716 --> 0:17:32.116 Night Live. He appeared in nearly every sketch as the 0:17:32.236 --> 0:17:36.036 Nintendo villain Warrio on trial for murdering Mario. He explained, 0:17:36.396 --> 0:17:40.036 I'm not evil, I'm just misunderstood. In a skit set 0:17:40.076 --> 0:17:42.956 in the Old West, he played a bandit named Leron. 0:17:43.476 --> 0:17:44.956 What had instead of panning for gold? 0:17:45.116 --> 0:17:47.996 We just created our own cardsy currency. 0:17:49.316 --> 0:17:51.436 Yeah, and what the heck would it be based on? 0:17:52.236 --> 0:17:52.996 Whatever we say? 0:17:53.036 --> 0:17:54.636 It's based on that. 0:17:54.956 --> 0:17:56.676 Hey, how money works. 0:17:57.796 --> 0:18:00.196 Money ain't a golden rock that we dig out of 0:18:00.236 --> 0:18:03.156 the ground. Then we hope no one kills. 0:18:02.956 --> 0:18:05.516 Us before we train it for pieces of green paper. 0:18:05.836 --> 0:18:07.796 It's a perfect system. 0:18:08.476 --> 0:18:11.756 It's a weird thing about being a historian. Everything reminds 0:18:11.756 --> 0:18:15.516 you of something else. Watching Elon Musk play Leron dressed 0:18:15.556 --> 0:18:18.836 like a cowboy, he looked exactly like an old photograph 0:18:18.836 --> 0:18:22.276 of his grandfather, the technocrat, who worked as a cowboy 0:18:22.316 --> 0:18:26.516 and performed at rodeos doing rope tricks. The family likeness 0:18:26.636 --> 0:18:30.396 is uncanny. Musk is also named after that cowboy's father, 0:18:30.876 --> 0:18:36.436 his great grandfather, Elon muscism asks us to picture always 0:18:36.476 --> 0:18:39.196 the future, but I find it hard not to keep 0:18:39.196 --> 0:18:47.356 picturing the past. Yanked back lassoed by likenesses on SNL, 0:18:47.476 --> 0:18:51.116 Musk appeared too on the show's newscast as a cryptocurrency 0:18:51.196 --> 0:18:53.076 expert who can't give a straight answer. 0:18:53.316 --> 0:18:54.316 What is dose coin? 0:18:54.916 --> 0:18:56.956 Well, it actually started as a joke based on an 0:18:56.996 --> 0:18:57.636 Internet meme. 0:18:58.796 --> 0:19:00.836 Okay, but what is dose coin? 0:19:01.716 --> 0:19:03.276 Finally he admits the truth. 0:19:03.396 --> 0:19:06.116 I keep telling you it's a cryptocurrency you can trade 0:19:06.436 --> 0:19:11.276 for conventional money. Oh so the hustle, Yeah, that's uses. 0:19:14.156 --> 0:19:15.796 Everybody to the. 0:19:17.716 --> 0:19:21.236 That night, dogecoin lost a third of its value. Me 0:19:21.476 --> 0:19:23.516 I was left thinking about the ending to that old 0:19:23.556 --> 0:19:27.436 science fiction story Moon Metal from the year nineteen hundred. 0:19:27.916 --> 0:19:32.036 The looting of the Moon brought disaster to the rubber planet. 0:19:33.236 --> 0:19:36.276 So mad were the efforts to get the precious metal 0:19:36.876 --> 0:19:40.836 that the surface of our globe was fairly showered with it. 0:19:41.756 --> 0:19:47.756 The air was filled with shining dust, until finally famine 0:19:47.836 --> 0:19:53.956 and pestilence joined hands with financial disaster to punish the 0:19:53.996 --> 0:19:55.836 grasping world. 0:19:56.716 --> 0:19:59.996 At the end of moon, metal markets collapse until an 0:20:00.036 --> 0:20:04.996 international agreement leads to government control of currency. That is 0:20:05.036 --> 0:20:08.636 what governments do in the US through the Federal Reserve 0:20:09.156 --> 0:20:13.076 and through the Securities in Exchange Commission. The Biden administration 0:20:13.236 --> 0:20:17.516 prosecuted crypto companies for securities violations under rules that the 0:20:17.516 --> 0:20:22.516 crypto industry complained were unclear and misguided. The second Trump 0:20:22.596 --> 0:20:25.836 administration is considering freezing much of that litigation. 0:20:26.356 --> 0:20:27.516 How much do you. 0:20:27.556 --> 0:20:31.516 Think we can rip out of this wasted six point 0:20:31.596 --> 0:20:34.716 five trillion dollar Paris Biden budget? 0:20:35.436 --> 0:20:37.476 Well, I think we could do at least two trillion. 0:20:37.956 --> 0:20:38.236 Yeah. 0:20:39.476 --> 0:20:41.836 At a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden in New 0:20:41.916 --> 0:20:45.556 York just before the election, Musk made some predictions about 0:20:45.556 --> 0:20:47.316 the Department of Government deficiency. 0:20:47.756 --> 0:20:50.196 We're going to get the government off your back and 0:20:50.356 --> 0:20:57.196 out of your pocketbook. America's does not not It's just 0:20:57.196 --> 0:20:59.436 going to be great. America is going to reach heights 0:20:59.716 --> 0:21:01.196 that it has never seen before. 0:21:05.876 --> 0:21:08.076 There is arguably a great deal of waste in the 0:21:08.196 --> 0:21:11.316 US federal budget, though exactly where is the subject of 0:21:11.396 --> 0:21:16.156 rather heated dispute, and many argued there's an excess of regulation. 0:21:16.996 --> 0:21:18.916 Musk says that it takes longer to fill out the 0:21:18.916 --> 0:21:21.236 paperwork to build a rocket than it takes to actually 0:21:21.236 --> 0:21:26.116 build the rocket. Excessive regulations tie up all kinds of projects, 0:21:26.116 --> 0:21:30.196 including housing and parks, projects that benefit all kinds of people. 0:21:30.796 --> 0:21:34.276 So I'd be only too happy if something great, something wonderful, 0:21:34.276 --> 0:21:36.956 were to come out of DOGE. But it strikes me 0:21:37.116 --> 0:21:39.676 that a lot of what animates Musk in playing a 0:21:39.756 --> 0:21:44.116 role in the American federal government concerns not taxing and spending, 0:21:44.636 --> 0:21:49.196 but regulation of cryptocurrency. After all, the cryptocurrency industry helped 0:21:49.196 --> 0:21:53.556 get Trump elected, and it expected results. As CNBC reported 0:21:53.916 --> 0:21:55.876 just after the twenty twenty four election. 0:21:56.036 --> 0:21:59.516 Bitcoin briefly surging to a new record high as investors 0:21:59.556 --> 0:22:02.676 bet that Donald Trump will deliver on his pro crypto promises. 0:22:02.996 --> 0:22:06.636 Just before he was inaugurated, Trump launched his own cryptocurrency 0:22:07.196 --> 0:22:10.996 dollar sign Trump. By the day of the inauguration, its 0:22:11.036 --> 0:22:15.356 market value had soared to ten billion dollars. To understand 0:22:15.356 --> 0:22:18.756 all this, there's no better explainer than Mark Andreesen, a 0:22:18.836 --> 0:22:23.316 venture capitalist whose company Andresen Horowitz has described itself as 0:22:23.356 --> 0:22:28.236 the world's biggest investor in cryptocurrency. The Biden administration cracked 0:22:28.236 --> 0:22:31.836 down on crypto scams. And Reeson says the Biden administration 0:22:31.956 --> 0:22:34.756 also put pressure on banks not to work with crypto 0:22:34.796 --> 0:22:39.036 companies in a deliberate bid to stifle the industry. Silicon 0:22:39.116 --> 0:22:42.916 Valley had long supported Democratic political candidates and in general 0:22:43.156 --> 0:22:47.516 leaned left, but Andreesen was outraged by the Biden administration's 0:22:47.556 --> 0:22:52.236 interest in regulating both cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. As he 0:22:52.316 --> 0:22:55.436 said on his podcast The Mark and Ben Show in 0:22:55.516 --> 0:22:57.316 July twenty twenty four, it. 0:22:57.316 --> 0:22:59.196 Has been a brutal assault in an ascent industry that 0:22:59.236 --> 0:23:02.436 I've never experienced before. I'm in total shock that has happened. 0:23:02.436 --> 0:23:05.196 It's done intensely frustrating that it's been impossible to make 0:23:05.196 --> 0:23:06.396 progress in this with the White House. 0:23:06.756 --> 0:23:10.116 That summer, Musk announced his support for Trump, as Andreason 0:23:10.196 --> 0:23:14.156 described on another podcast called Honestly from the Free. 0:23:13.916 --> 0:23:17.036 Press, Elon right. Then Elon stepped up and said, yep, 0:23:17.076 --> 0:23:19.436 I'm for him. That was the big moment in our 0:23:19.476 --> 0:23:23.676 industry where the most important iconic figure in tech by far, 0:23:23.956 --> 0:23:25.396 you know, did that in that moment, and so that 0:23:25.916 --> 0:23:26.676 was the real shift. 0:23:26.876 --> 0:23:31.236 And Reason speculated that Musk's endorsement was likely partly pragmatic. 0:23:31.596 --> 0:23:33.676 I'm not speaking for Elon, but Elon decided that he 0:23:33.756 --> 0:23:35.396 had to do this because if not, he wasn't going 0:23:35.436 --> 0:23:36.396 to be able to launch rockets. 0:23:36.956 --> 0:23:39.836 Andreeson himself ranks pretty high on the list of the 0:23:39.916 --> 0:23:43.196 highest donors to the Trump campaign. He soon became a 0:23:43.236 --> 0:23:47.156 Trump intimate, recruiting people from Silicon Valley to work or 0:23:47.196 --> 0:23:52.276 to volunteer for the incoming administration. With Doge and within 0:23:52.316 --> 0:23:56.676 the Trump administration, Musk and Andreeson are achieving what the 0:23:56.756 --> 0:24:01.396 technocrats of the nineteen thirties could only dream of the technocracy. 0:24:05.076 --> 0:24:08.596 Andreson is also the author of an excellent distillation of Muskism. 0:24:09.196 --> 0:24:13.636 It is called the Techno Optimist Manifesto, though it could 0:24:13.636 --> 0:24:17.476 equally have been called the Manifesto of Muscism. It consists 0:24:17.516 --> 0:24:20.476 of a list of statements, we can advance to a 0:24:20.516 --> 0:24:23.396 far superior way of living and of being. We have 0:24:23.476 --> 0:24:26.716 the tools, the systems, the ideas, we have the will. 0:24:27.236 --> 0:24:29.516 We believe this is why our descendants will live in 0:24:29.556 --> 0:24:32.316 the stars. If only we place our faith in the 0:24:32.356 --> 0:24:37.556 techno capital machine and recent promises, we will become technological superman. 0:24:38.156 --> 0:24:42.116