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Speaker 1: All Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome to bear offline. I'm at Zetron. Since twenty twenty,

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Speaker 2: Elon Musk has seeded his charitable foundation in innovatively called

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Speaker 2: the Musk Foundation, with billions of dollars of test the stock,

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Speaker 2: which has neted him a multi billion dollar tax break.

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Speaker 2: Yet a massive New York Times investigation by reporters Ryan

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Speaker 2: Mack and Dave vid Farenthald has found that the Musk

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Speaker 2: Foundation has failed to donate the minimum amount of money

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Speaker 2: required by law to get that tax break. The investigation

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Speaker 2: found that Musk had not hired any staff for the

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Speaker 2: foundation and that its board was made up of Musk

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Speaker 2: and two volunteers, one of whom The Times reports works

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Speaker 2: an average of six minutes a week on a charitable

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Speaker 2: operation with billions of dollars of dry powder, and Musk's

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Speaker 2: donations regularly benefited causes related to his own interests, like

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Speaker 2: a school insert, a SpaceX compound, and a UN program

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Speaker 2: to help countries find internet for rural schools, where two

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Speaker 2: of them became Starlink customers. And Starlink is, of course,

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Speaker 2: Musk's wireless internet company. And while Elon Musk initially promised

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Speaker 2: to help and I quote fund fixing the water in

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Speaker 2: any house in Flint, Michigan that has water contamination above

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Speaker 2: FDA levels. He would only end up donating about a

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Speaker 2: million dollars to local schools, installing water filters and buying

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Speaker 2: laptops for students. While this is unquestionably a good thing,

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Speaker 2: he failed to do much more than that. All he

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Speaker 2: did was send the tes Lagoon down there to offer

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Speaker 2: and I'm not kidding rides around the parking lot in

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Speaker 2: his car. Since the middle of twenty nineteen, The Times

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Speaker 2: reports that Musk has done little more for Flint than that.

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Speaker 2: According to The Times, in twenty twenty one, the Musk

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Speaker 2: Foundation fell forty one million dollars short of the minimum

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Speaker 2: required donation, and in twenty twenty two missed it by

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Speaker 2: an astonishing two hundred and thirty four million dollars. That year,

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Speaker 2: Musk's foundation only gave away the two point twenty five

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Speaker 2: percent of the five percent it was required to from

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Speaker 2: its seven billion dollars in assets. Today, I'm joined by

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Speaker 2: New York Times investigative report to David Tarenthald, who won

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Speaker 2: a Pulitzer Price for his work at The Washington Post

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Speaker 2: investigating our big Web President Donald J. Trump and his

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Speaker 2: dodgy charitable deals. David, thank you so much for joining me.

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Speaker 1: Hey, it's great to be here.

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Speaker 2: So, on a very basic level, what makes this Elon

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Speaker 2: Musk charity story so remarkable? What's so different about it?

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Speaker 1: Well, there's two things that really stand out about the

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Speaker 1: Musk Foundation. One is how big it is. So the

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Speaker 1: Musk Foundation is more than five billion dollars in assets,

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Speaker 1: mostly Tesla stock. That makes it one of the twenty

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Speaker 1: largest foundations in the United States. But the second thing

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Speaker 1: is how small it is in its actions. It's big

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Speaker 1: in its resources and small in its actions. So the

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Speaker 1: Musk Foundation has repeatedly failed to give away just the

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Speaker 1: bare minimum it's required to by law. And it also

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Speaker 1: when it does give its money away, the money doesn't

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Speaker 1: go very far. By that, I mean often mister Musk

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Speaker 1: uses the money in his foundation to help himself or

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Speaker 1: to help his businesses.

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Speaker 2: So can you give me example of some of the

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Speaker 2: ways he's using it to help himself.

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Speaker 1: Well, one of the biggest ones was in twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 1: There's a guy named Jared Isaacman who's a billionaire in Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: He charters a rocket from SpaceX to go up into space,

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Speaker 1: and as a way of sort of celebrating or ennobling

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Speaker 1: what he's doing, he says, you know, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: raise two hundred million dollars with this spaceflight for Saint

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Speaker 1: Jude's Children's Research Hospital. He goes up into space, he

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Speaker 1: comes back down and he hasn't raised two hundred million dollars.

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Speaker 1: They're still short, and so Elon Musk then jumps in

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Speaker 1: to save his customer from failing on this charitable pledge

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Speaker 1: and says, I'll give fifty million dollars. Eventually gives fifty

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Speaker 1: five million dollars, not from his own pocket but from

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Speaker 1: the Musk Foundation. A few weeks later, the same billionaire says,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to order three more flights

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Speaker 1: from SpaceX. So he goes from being a good SpaceX

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Speaker 1: customer to a really good SpaceX customer, and part of

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Speaker 1: that process was the Musk Foundation. Another example was the

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Speaker 1: Musk Foundation had never given any money to Cameron County, Texas.

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Speaker 1: That's an area of the very very southern tip of

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Speaker 1: Texas where Musk has the SpaceX launch site. He never

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Speaker 1: had never given any money down there until March twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one SpaceX rocket explodes there and rains metal down

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Speaker 1: all over this area, an area, by the way, where

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Speaker 1: he needs lots of regulatory approvals, goodwill, all kinds of

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Speaker 1: help from the people who were the politicians down there.

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Speaker 1: About an hour after the rocket explodes, the Musk Foundation

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Speaker 1: starts giving to schools to downtown beautification. And the third

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Speaker 1: example I'll bring up are these two schools that mister

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Speaker 1: Musk has started and supported with the Musk Foundation. On paper,

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Speaker 1: these are supposed to be, like every charity, to serve

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Speaker 1: the public. Right, that's the point of the charity. It's

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Speaker 1: not your it's not to serve you. It's not a

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Speaker 1: even if it's got your name on it, it doesn't serve

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Speaker 1: your interest. It serves the public. So there's a school

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Speaker 1: called ad Astra mister Musk started. There's another school called

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Speaker 1: the Foundation. That's its legal name, the foundation that mister

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Speaker 1: Muskus give it a bunch of money to from the

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Speaker 1: Musk Foundation. So we went to look, Okay, where are

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Speaker 1: these schools, who are they serving how are they serving

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Speaker 1: the public? The answer is that one of them is

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Speaker 1: behind the locked gates of a SpaceX compound in Boca Chica, Texas.

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Speaker 1: You can only get in if you were a SpaceX employee.

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Speaker 1: And the other one the foundation, it's bought a school

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Speaker 1: a property to turn into a Montessori school that happens

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Speaker 1: to be two minutes away from a huge subdivision mister

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Speaker 1: Musk is building for his own employees outside Basstrop, Texas.

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Speaker 2: So and which employees for SPICEX for.

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Speaker 1: Well, he's got a whole complex there that includes SpaceX,

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Speaker 1: but it's mainly boring company employees.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Both these places are rural areas. He's trying to bring

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Speaker 1: these highly talented, sought after people to a pretty rural

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Speaker 1: area of Texas. You can imagine one of the questions

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Speaker 1: people would ask is, well, where are my kids going

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Speaker 1: to go to school? Right? And so these two charities

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Speaker 1: are helping Musk recruit by building schools to serve his employees.

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Speaker 2: So, taking a step back on a very basic level,

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Speaker 2: how does it actually work? So has he he's put

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Speaker 2: this stock in escrow?

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Speaker 1: ISU, what happened was in twenty twenty one, he's facing

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Speaker 1: this giant tax bill. Is he he exercised a bunch

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Speaker 1: of Tesla stock options and he says he owed eleven

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Speaker 1: billion dollars in taxes. He takes five billion dollars of

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Speaker 1: Tesla stock. Now, this is that's not what he paid

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Speaker 1: for the stock. That's what it's appreciated too. He donates

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Speaker 1: it to charity. And now the tax law allows you

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Speaker 1: to take a deduction based on the appreciated value of

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Speaker 1: the stock. So the deduction to him could have been

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Speaker 1: worth as much as two billion dollars off of his

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Speaker 1: tax bill. Right, he gives that stock to the Musk Foundation.

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Speaker 1: Now it's confusing because it's got his he's in charge

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Speaker 1: of the Musk Foundation. It's got his name on it.

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Speaker 1: But again, the Musk Foundation is by law, a separate

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Speaker 1: entity with its own strictly charitable goals. Even though it

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Speaker 1: sounds like something that he's you know, that's like another

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Speaker 1: sort of pocket of his wallet. It's a separate thing.

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Speaker 1: So once the money go, once the shares go into

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Speaker 1: the to the Musk Foundation. Now he's given himself a responsibility,

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Speaker 1: he's given himself a job, and that is the IRIS

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Speaker 1: requires foundations to give away five percent of their assets

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Speaker 1: every year. You can imagine why. It's to keep people

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Speaker 1: from just dumping money into their foundation, getting a tax

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Speaker 1: break and never actually helping the world. You have to

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Speaker 1: send five percent of your money out the door to

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Speaker 1: the real world every year, and he hasn't. He has

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Speaker 1: didn't in twenty twenty one, he didn't in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 1: In fact, by the end of twenty twenty two, he

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Speaker 1: was two hundred and thirty four million dollars behind the

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Speaker 1: minimum for what this foundation was supposed to have given away.

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Speaker 2: Right, but as far as the stalt goes, does it

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Speaker 2: sit separate to musk is in a separate holding?

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Speaker 1: It is legally the property of this foundation now, which

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Speaker 1: means he's still in control of it, but it belongs

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Speaker 1: to the foundation.

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Speaker 2: Does it have any liquid funds in there?

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Speaker 1: There's some I think they've sold a few sids. There's

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Speaker 1: a small amount of liquid cash. I think mostly what

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Speaker 1: he does is it sells stock in order to make donations.

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Speaker 2: When it does so, how does the tax break actually work?

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Speaker 2: How much does he get off of his tax bill

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Speaker 2: as a result of this?

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Speaker 1: So this is complicated. But what we were told was

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Speaker 1: that in that year they expected that the five billion.

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Speaker 1: So he gives five billion dollars worth of Tesla stock

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Speaker 1: to his charity. The folks we talked to said that

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Speaker 1: they thought the actual break from that, the actual production

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Speaker 1: in his taxes would be thirty seven percent of five

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Speaker 1: billion dollars, which is about two billion dollars. So there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of other math involved in involving his income

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Speaker 1: and other things, but that was the guess, was two

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Speaker 1: billion dollars off his taxes?

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Speaker 2: And who gave you this estimate? Just to a cliar.

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Speaker 1: We talked to a couple of professors of tax law.

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Speaker 2: Right, So what he gets out of this is just

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Speaker 2: a tax break, but he's not donating enough money, right,

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Speaker 2: actually giving away what he's meant to.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's confusing to think about him and his foundation

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Speaker 1: has separate entities. But in this case, he gives his

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Speaker 1: foundation the five billion dollar. Enough. If he'd taken this

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Speaker 1: five billion dollars worth of Tesla stock and given it

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Speaker 1: to Saint Jude's or UNICEF or some other charity that

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Speaker 1: he didn't control, that would have been the end of

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Speaker 1: the story for him. He's given all the money, he's

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Speaker 1: given these shares away. He takes the tax break, UNICEF

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Speaker 1: or whoever's then uses the shares for whatever. Right, So

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Speaker 1: now he's like taking off his hat as donor and

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Speaker 1: putting on the hat as the guy who runs the

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Speaker 1: Musk Foundation, and now he has this responsibility, is the

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Speaker 1: head of the Musk Foundation, to start giving this newfound

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Speaker 1: money away. And that's when the five percent minimum matters

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Speaker 1: to him. He has to give five percent of the

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Speaker 1: foundation's assets away to other charities out to actually do

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Speaker 1: good in the world every year.

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Speaker 2: And he isn't doing this enough.

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Speaker 1: No, he missed it in twenty twenty one by forty

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Speaker 1: one million dollars, and then in twenty twenty two he

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Speaker 1: missed it by two hundred and thirty four million.

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Speaker 2: And so what's meant to happen to a regular person? Well, actually,

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Speaker 2: one one quick question. Does he get this tax break

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Speaker 2: every year for holding it? Or is it just the

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Speaker 2: one off? He got a one off?

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Speaker 1: You know, he gets it based on what he's donated

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Speaker 1: to the foundation in that year.

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Speaker 2: Okay, and how much is in there right now? Just

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Speaker 2: a week clip, because I know there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: numbers going on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it depends on It's depended so much on

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Speaker 1: the rise and fall of Tesla stock. But the last

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Speaker 1: time we got a snapshot was at the end of

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and it was a little bit more

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Speaker 1: than five billion at that point.

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Speaker 2: So what is meant to happen to him and who

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Speaker 2: is meant to exact justice here?

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Speaker 1: Well, there's two primary regulators of nonprofits. One is the IRS,

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Speaker 1: the Internal Revenue Service. They're the ones who Okay, so

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Speaker 1: we said at the end of twenty twenty two, he

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Speaker 1: was this foundation was two hundred and thirty four million

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Speaker 1: dollars behind. He has a one year grace period twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three to give that money away in addition to

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Speaker 1: the five percent again for twenty twenty three. If he

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Speaker 1: doesn't give a doesn't give the money away after that

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Speaker 1: one year grace period, the foundation faces a thirty percent

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Speaker 1: penalty tax, and if it still doesn't pay then then

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Speaker 1: it faces one hundred percent penalty tax. So it would

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Speaker 1: basically the IRS would confiscate all the money that they

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Speaker 1: were supposed to give A but they did not, So

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Speaker 1: that's what would happen. That's the IRS. The problem with

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Speaker 1: that for me as a reporter is that the IRS

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Speaker 1: all of that enforcement is private hidden. We can't see

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Speaker 1: it unless somebody sues in tax court or federal court

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Speaker 1: to stop it. So if it happened at the end

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, we don't know about it. The

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Speaker 1: other regulator in most states is the estate attorney general.

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Speaker 1: They also can regulate people who bilate tax laws. I mean,

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Speaker 1: one example that just ended was the New York Attorney

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Speaker 1: General and the National Rifle Association. She had the right

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Speaker 1: to regulate and sue the NRA because it was a

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Speaker 1: New York nonprofit. The Musk Foundation is a Texas nonprofit.

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Speaker 1: So the authority lands with Ken Paxton, an Attorney General

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Speaker 1: of Texas. Not to say it won't happen, but he's

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Speaker 1: a very political actor and a very political actor who's

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Speaker 1: very friendly to Musk.

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Speaker 2: Wasn't he also threatening media matters when Musk suit them

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Speaker 2: as well? He seems very much in his pocket. So

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Speaker 2: let's go back to this ad Astra school. What exactly

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Speaker 2: happened there, because it's very bizarre. There is a school

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Speaker 2: inside SpaceX.

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Speaker 1: Yes, so it began as a school basically for Musk's children.

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Speaker 1: He started it back in California when he and SpaceX

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Speaker 1: were both there.

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Speaker 2: And it's a nonprofit.

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Speaker 1: Right, it's a nonprofit. So again from the beginning, it

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Speaker 1: faced this requirement to serve the public and not the

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Speaker 1: private good of its leader. The first class fourteen students,

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Speaker 1: five of whom were Musk's owned children. Later it moves

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Speaker 1: from his house to the SpaceX campus in Hawthorne, California,

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Speaker 1: so it's within the gates of SpaceX. There. We talked

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Speaker 1: to the guy who was the headmaster. He said about

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Speaker 1: half the students were related to SpaceX employees, and Musk's

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Speaker 1: owned children also went there for a long time. Then

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, Musk starts to shift his own residency,

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Speaker 1: his own company center of Gravity, to Texas. So then

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Speaker 1: the Astro school picks up from California, moves to Texas,

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Speaker 1: and from what we can tell, this sort of small

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Speaker 1: amount of openness they had, you know, the fifty percent

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Speaker 1: of students they had who were not employees of SpaceX.

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Speaker 1: They seem to have changed their model where now they're

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Speaker 1: behind this security gate. I went down there. If you

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Speaker 1: could picture, if you've ever seen pictures of where the

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Speaker 1: SpaceX rocket launch site is in South Texas, it's a

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Speaker 1: very remote area close to the Gulf of Mexico. There's

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Speaker 1: nothing around there, there's no people, there's no other schools,

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Speaker 1: and as you drive down there, there's a little fence

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Speaker 1: on the side of the highway and you see you

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Speaker 1: could see behind it, there's a building, there's some basketball courts.

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Speaker 1: You can see what looks like a school, but there's

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Speaker 1: no sign for a school. There's nothing that tells you

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Speaker 1: there's a school there. Certainly nothing tells you there's a

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Speaker 1: school there that you might go to if you're a

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Speaker 1: member of the public. The only signs say, you know,

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Speaker 1: keep out, no trespassing, and there's a security guard who

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Speaker 1: you know if you stop for ten seconds, sieted come

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Speaker 1: over and ask what you're doing.

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Speaker 2: So, do you know how one sends one's kids?

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Speaker 1: There?

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Speaker 2: Is it a private school?

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Speaker 1: Like it is private? It does not have a website,

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Speaker 1: which it used to in California, but it does not

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Speaker 1: now in Texas. We asked Musk and the people who

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Speaker 1: run the other people who are the directors of that school? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: how you get in? Who chooses it? What's the criteria?

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Speaker 1: Can you go if you're not a SpaceX employee? And

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Speaker 1: we did not get answers to any of those questions.

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Speaker 2: Does it seem to flown any nonprofit guidelines you've seen

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Speaker 2: or is it just classic craven capitalism?

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Speaker 1: It is a nonprofit that it remains legally a nonprofit.

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Speaker 1: The IRS is given a tax exem status, so if

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Speaker 1: you donate money to it, you can get a tax

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Speaker 1: break for it. But you know, that's the question here is,

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Speaker 1: you know, if this is really a nonprofit, it's truly

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Speaker 1: serving the public and not the private benefit of mister

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Speaker 1: Musk or the private benefit of SpaceX. You know, where's

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Speaker 1: the evidence of that? And that's what we asked them

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Speaker 1: for and didn't get a response.

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Speaker 2: So in this other school, the foundation, what is that?

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Speaker 2: This feels? See this is the thing with things like this.

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Speaker 2: When people talk about conspiracy theories and the rich doing

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Speaker 2: weird things, they always point to made up stuff versus this.

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Speaker 2: So this other secret school that Musk gave what one

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Speaker 2: hundred million dollars do what if you found there?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really surprising. So the Musk Foundation, despite

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Speaker 1: the fact that it's very big, doesn't give very many

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Speaker 1: really large donations. And then the exception, one of the exceptions,

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Speaker 1: was this thing called the Foundation and they first the

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Speaker 1: Musk Foundation gave it money in twenty twenty two. You

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Speaker 1: can pull the IRS documents for the foundation to see

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Speaker 1: what it is and what they told the IRS they

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Speaker 1: were going to do when they got tax exempt status

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Speaker 1: and you can see that it's very very closely tied

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Speaker 1: to Elon Musk. So he's not on the board of directors,

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Speaker 1: but the head of it is his money manager. The

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Speaker 1: two other directors are his accountants. So there are people

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Speaker 1: who are very close to him. And if you look

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Speaker 1: at the what they told the irs they were going

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Speaker 1: to do, and this got some attention at the time

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Speaker 1: last year, it sounds grand. We're going to start a school,

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Speaker 1: We're going to start a secondary school, We're going to

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Speaker 1: start a university in Austin, Texas. And a lot of

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Speaker 1: people cover that at the time and said, ooh, you knows,

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Speaker 1: mister Musk is he's starting sort of a competitor or

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Speaker 1: the University of Austin is you know, what would an

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk university be like? Is this where he's going

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Speaker 1: to combat you know, the forces of wokeness or you

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Speaker 1: know the other things he talks about a lot. And

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Speaker 1: so my question was just you know, where is this school?

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Speaker 1: Does it exist? Does it has it done anything? Because

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have a web presence, it doesn't have you know,

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Speaker 1: there's no evidence. You know, if you if you or

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Speaker 1: I said, you know, I want to go to the

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Speaker 1: University of Elon Musk or you know, whatever this is

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Speaker 1: going to be. There's there's no way to find information

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Speaker 1: about it, and so it took a lot of sleuth thing.

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Speaker 1: But here's what we found. The foundation, the entity that

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Speaker 1: the startup charity that is run by Musk's associates. It

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Speaker 1: has a shell company. The shell company last year bought

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Speaker 1: a former horse farm in Bastrop, Texas a forty acre

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Speaker 1: horse farm. Okay, so maybe that's the college, maybe that's

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Speaker 1: the University of Elon Musk. When you go look at

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Speaker 1: that property, you can see that it actually matches well.

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Speaker 1: You can see two things about it. One is that

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Speaker 1: it's right around the corner from this company town essentially

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Speaker 1: that Musk wants to build for his employees outside Bastrop.

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Speaker 1: Bastrop is is an extra of a Austin, But where

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Speaker 1: he's building is kind of in the middle of nowhere.

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Speaker 1: There's no schools or development. But he's put a boring

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Speaker 1: company installation, a giant SpaceX warehouse, he's got a there's

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Speaker 1: like a live music venue and a store, and he's

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Speaker 1: putting in one hundred and ten home subdivision. He's going

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Speaker 1: to call it Snailbrook, just sort of like an inside joke.

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Speaker 1: I guess in the world of the boring Company, Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess, the boring company moves as fast as a snail.

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Speaker 1: So this is Snailbrook. So but the one thing that

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Speaker 1: he's trying to convince people to move from Austin San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: where you know, wherever people who have choices about what

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Speaker 1: they're going to live, he's going to say, move to

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Speaker 1: this rural part of central Texas. And the thing that

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Speaker 1: that subdivision did not have was a school. And so

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Speaker 1: the foundation, again nominally independent, not supposed to be serving

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Speaker 1: mister Musk's interest, is just supposed to be doing its

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Speaker 1: own charitable thing. The place they've selected for their first

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Speaker 1: campus is right around the corner from this place where

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk's company needs a school. And if you look,

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Speaker 1: you can find job listings on the internet for another

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Speaker 1: ad Astra school that's being opened, and if you compare it,

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Speaker 1: it's the same place. So they're going to open another

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Speaker 1: ad Astra school in this building. And that's what really

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Speaker 1: struck me was the huge contrast between what these folks

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Speaker 1: told the irs they were going to be university for Austin,

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Speaker 1: Texas and all they've done so far, which is it

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Speaker 1: looks like build a monassory school for Elon Musk's employees.

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Speaker 2: So let's talk about the Musk Foundation itself. So by

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Speaker 2: the sounds of it, it's what three people including Elon Musk.

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Speaker 2: Can you just break down the vast corporate structure here?

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Speaker 2: Is this? This bit drove me a little insane.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really different too. So you know the

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Speaker 1: you remember the company that they keep right and we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the top twenty largest foundations in the United States.

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Speaker 1: That's you know, the Gates Foundation, that's the you know,

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Speaker 1: the George Soros's group, the Walton.

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Speaker 2: How big of them? How big are those organizations by comparison?

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Speaker 1: So the most foundation is I mean, the Gates Foundation

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Speaker 1: is a lot bigger. It's in the hundreds of hundreds

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Speaker 1: of billions. But these other groups are it's around the

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Speaker 1: size of other groups like the Walton Family Foundation, things

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Speaker 1: like that. It's in the same ballpark.

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Speaker 2: And the Walton Families, the Walmart the Walmart.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so they and they support charter schools and other things.

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Speaker 1: It's common, although not always, but most of these places

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Speaker 1: have pay roles in the you know, dozens or hundreds

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Speaker 1: of millions of dollars. They have lots of employees figuring

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Speaker 1: out where they should give their money. By contrast, the

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Speaker 1: Musk Foundation, as you said, has no paid employees at all.

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Speaker 1: It's never had paid employees. It has three directors, all

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Speaker 1: of whom are volunteers. There's Elon Musk who says he

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Speaker 1: works for an hour a week on it. This guy,

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Speaker 1: Jared birch Hall, who is Musk's longtime sort of money

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Speaker 1: manager consiglieri, he also works for an hour a week.

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Speaker 1: And then a woman named Matilda Simon who works for

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Speaker 1: the money manager, and this part was striking. She says

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Speaker 1: she works forer point one hours a week, which is

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Speaker 1: six minutes.

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Speaker 2: Are they compensated at all?

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Speaker 1: No, they work for free. So yes, there's no And

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Speaker 1: you know we've asked them, do you have board meetings?

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Speaker 1: You know? What do you you know? How you have

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Speaker 1: this huge responsibility now you have to give out three

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars a year. How are you

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Speaker 1: handling that? We know, how much time do you spend

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Speaker 1: on that? We didn't get answers about that.

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Speaker 2: Did they not answer at all?

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Speaker 1: They didn't answer it at all?

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Speaker 2: Okay, but in practice though.

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Speaker 1: Well, and what we've found was that in some cases

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Speaker 1: when there was something that complicated that needed to be done.

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Speaker 1: I mean, so for instance, I talked about how after

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Speaker 1: the rocket exploded in South Texas, Musk says, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to give thirty million dollars to all these different groups

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Speaker 1: in the area where the rocket exploded. Okay, So now

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Speaker 1: he's made a that's he's taken on sort of a

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Speaker 1: task that either is too complicated for these three volunteers.

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Speaker 1: He needs somebody to find the school districts in the area,

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Speaker 1: listen to their project ideas, decide how much money each

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Speaker 1: one of them should get. So he deputizes this guy

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Speaker 1: named Igor Kirganov, who, as far as I can tell,

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Speaker 1: was never an employee of the foundation, but he was

434
00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:53,160
Speaker 1: seeming to act in its stead. So he was He's

435
00:20:53,200 --> 00:20:56,000
Speaker 1: a professional poker player or a former professional poker player,

436
00:20:56,280 --> 00:20:59,720
Speaker 1: friend of Musks. So now he's in charge and you

437
00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:02,680
Speaker 1: can see him. It was really funny because we got

438
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:04,639
Speaker 1: a lot of emails back and forth between him and

439
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:07,480
Speaker 1: the school districts that he's giving the Musks Foundations money to.

440
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:11,399
Speaker 1: And it's fascinating to see this guy supposedly has you know,

441
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:13,959
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars to give away. But he

442
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:17,880
Speaker 1: was extremely detail oriented and like pressing these these schools

443
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:20,760
Speaker 1: and the city of Brownsville on the smallest details of

444
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:22,200
Speaker 1: the things they were going to use and the smallest

445
00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:25,240
Speaker 1: dollar figures. Just to give one example, the city of

446
00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:27,000
Speaker 1: Brownsville says, Hey, we want to use some of the

447
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:29,320
Speaker 1: money that the Musk Foundations giving us to put up

448
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 1: Christmas lights for a Christmas We're gonna have a big

449
00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:35,199
Speaker 1: display in downtown Bronswelle with children. Yeah, and here's the

450
00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:37,639
Speaker 1: here's the estimate we got from the contractor. You know,

451
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:39,359
Speaker 1: this is how much it'll cost to put those lights up.

452
00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:43,239
Speaker 1: Will you pay for it? And Kirganov says, you know,

453
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the color the temperature of

454
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:49,280
Speaker 1: the lights that you've chosen. You've chosen cool white, and

455
00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 1: I don't believe cool white is appropriate. I think it

456
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,440
Speaker 1: should be a warmer color. So then they scramble around

457
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:57,080
Speaker 1: and find some warmer lights. So it's funny. It was

458
00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:59,600
Speaker 1: a huge contrast between the sort of general what seemed

459
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 1: to be kind of hands off approach that the Foundation

460
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:03,840
Speaker 1: normally runs on, and then all of a sudden there

461
00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 1: was this guy who was extremely hands on in a

462
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 1: way that I think people found sort of hard to

463
00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:08,440
Speaker 1: deal with.

464
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:13,560
Speaker 2: So do you think the reason they're not investing comes

465
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:17,480
Speaker 2: down to like mismanagement or is there something else going

466
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 2: on here?

467
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:22,919
Speaker 1: You know, it's difficult to tell that. The thing I

468
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:24,439
Speaker 1: think you can it's hard to mean to know what

469
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:27,040
Speaker 1: his motivations are. The two things I would say is

470
00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 1: number one, he mister Musk has always said philanthropy is

471
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: a mistake. You know, he has always said publicly philanthropy

472
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,040
Speaker 1: is not the way to save the world. My companies

473
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:38,920
Speaker 1: do that for me, you know, Tesla, SpaceX, they make

474
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:40,880
Speaker 1: a difference in the world is far greater than any

475
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:45,960
Speaker 1: philanthropic effort could. He's mocked Bill Gates for believing that

476
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:48,480
Speaker 1: philanthropy is a way to change the world. I mean,

477
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:51,160
Speaker 1: that's a fine attitude to have. It's a weird attitude

478
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 1: to square with a guy who now has given him,

479
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:55,919
Speaker 1: you know, set up a five billion dollar charity. And

480
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:58,639
Speaker 1: the other thing is talking to people. My co co

481
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 1: reporter Ryan Mack talk to some people who knew mister

482
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 1: Musk well from Tesla and SpaceX and other places, and

483
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 1: what they said was just that like this is not

484
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 1: something he talks about or thinks about. He's got a

485
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:10,000
Speaker 1: lot going on, He's got a lot of a lot

486
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:11,439
Speaker 1: of balls in the air, and this was just not

487
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,200
Speaker 1: something they ever heard him thinking about or really considering.

488
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 2: So could it also be that he just wanted to

489
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 2: park some Tesla stock without it being sold, just to

490
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 2: be clear, to invest money from that stock, you would

491
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:27,080
Speaker 2: have to liquidate shortly or can charities donate stock directly?

492
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: Like they can donate stock directly too.

493
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 2: That's so it's so interesting because if he's not talking

494
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:35,879
Speaker 2: about it, this feels like just a basic tax dotch

495
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 2: just a the lowest possible hanging through because three people

496
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:42,680
Speaker 2: does not feel including one of them being in musk,

497
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 2: that doesn't feel like enough people to run a small

498
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:46,879
Speaker 2: business let alone.

499
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, three people who work a total of two hours

500
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 1: and six minutes a week. Yeah, it is something that,

501
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 1: you know, way he's doing it is not the way

502
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 1: a lot of other people do it, either, other people

503
00:23:57,440 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: of his size of his with charities of his size

504
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 1: either higher a big staff, or they just choose one

505
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 1: cause and give all their money to that, you know. So,

506
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 1: but he's kind of got them in between where he's

507
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,919
Speaker 1: not hasn't chosen one cause to sort of, you know,

508
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 1: focus all his giving around, and he also hasn't picked

509
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,000
Speaker 1: out any staff to handle a diffuse kind of giving.

510
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: So he's sort of in the middle.

511
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 2: So if regulators wake up and go, hey, this is

512
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 2: very obviously bad, what would be the process that worked

513
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 2: against Musk? What would happen?

514
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: I think the thing that would happen would be in

515
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 1: an audit from the IRS. The IRS would start setting

516
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: him letters and say, look, we think that you're you know,

517
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 1: we have questions about the way you're operating these charities,

518
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: either the Musk Foundation or one of the schools. You know,

519
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: we've we believe you doing this that you know there's

520
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 1: a rules to get in the tax code against using

521
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,959
Speaker 1: your nonprofit for private benefit. We think maybe you're violating that.

522
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: Tell us more, and in the end they could shut

523
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 1: it down. They could make him pay you know, back,

524
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 1: payback basically the tax benefits he got. Those remedies are

525
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: pretty rare. The IRS is a pretty weak regulator of

526
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: this space, but that would be how it would work.

527
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 2: Is there any historical regulation of people who have messed

528
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:02,479
Speaker 2: up at this scale?

529
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 1: There are not that many foundations of this scale. I

530
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: actually it's a good point. I'm not aware of the

531
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 1: IRS coming down on anybody who is a foundation this big.

532
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 2: It feels like stuff like this just incentivizes more activity

533
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 2: like this because this is in public, like this is

534
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 2: out there. This is very obvious.

535
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 1: One of the real I mean. So I read a

536
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: lot about Donald Trump's foundation back in the day, and

537
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: that is a lot was a lot smaller than this,

538
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 1: that he had much much less less money than the

539
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: Musk Foundation does, but it operated in sort of in

540
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 1: a similar way. In that case in the New York

541
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 1: Attorney General came down on them. It wasn't the IRS

542
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,439
Speaker 1: as far as we know. I think the IRS has

543
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:42,439
Speaker 1: always been understaffed, and you have to think you have

544
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 1: to remember about them. I've always been told this by

545
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: IRS veterans is the point of the IRS is not

546
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 1: to police. The point of the IRS is to collect money,

547
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: and so they prioritize the things that bring in the

548
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: most money, and in nonprofit law often is not that.

549
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: So they do it, they regulate it, but it's not

550
00:25:58,240 --> 00:25:59,880
Speaker 1: something they put a lot of energy into. And they've

551
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: obviously shied away in recent years from fights with rich

552
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 1: people and fights with people who are politically conservative. They've

553
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: been burned by that in the past, so they would

554
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 1: really have to be to gird their loins before taking

555
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,479
Speaker 1: on somebody like Elon Musk who was obviously both rich

556
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: and now very conservative.

557
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,919
Speaker 2: And would such an effort be, I'm guessing be quite expensive.

558
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that would last a long time. You know.

559
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 1: They also have to consider sort of cost benefit. You know,

560
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 1: how much money in time would you have to spend

561
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 1: on this and how much money would you get back?

562
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 2: So how does this compare You mentioned mister Donald Trump,

563
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 2: how does it compare to his situation? How agregious is

564
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 2: it in comparison?

565
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: They're different in a couple of ways. As I said,

566
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 1: the Musk Foundation is much bigger than the Trump Foundation

567
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,439
Speaker 1: ever was. Trump foundation was like two million dollars at

568
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: the most. They were similar in that they often use

569
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: the money. If you look hard enough, they're charitable get ways,

570
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: you'd realize that they were spending money in ways that

571
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 1: helped themselves. Trump was a little more direct about it,

572
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:06,959
Speaker 1: and that's what got him into trouble. He would use

573
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:08,920
Speaker 1: it to He would use his foundation to do things

574
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 1: like buy a portrait of himself and then hanging on

575
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: the wall of his golf club. He would use it

576
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 1: to pay off legal settlements for his businesses. He would

577
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: use it to, you know, buy an autographed football helmet

578
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:20,399
Speaker 1: for himself. He was using it in a way that

579
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: was like directly benefiting himself, not and mister Musk is

580
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: doing it in a way that's a little more oblique.

581
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: And I think that matters under the law. It certainly

582
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: would matter to the irs. They if they want to

583
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: take on an open and shutcase, the Musk Foundation may

584
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: not be it. But the thing that I kept so

585
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: striking to me is the same way that when I

586
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: was covering the Trump Foundation, you would find things that

587
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: looked innocuous or donations that looked just like regular charity,

588
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: and if you pulled on the string hard enough, you'd realize,

589
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: actually there was a story underneath where it was Trump

590
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: helping himself. Then the Musk the same way. I mean,

591
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: just to give you another example, he gave five million

592
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,439
Speaker 1: dollars to UNICEF, who you know, the sort of like

593
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:02,640
Speaker 1: buy word for an unimpeachable charity, classic charity. Yeah, right,

594
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 1: when you when you pull on that a little bit,

595
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: you realize that he was giving money to a UNISF

596
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: program that helped countries around the world identify schools that

597
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,959
Speaker 1: need connection to the internet. So let's find a schools

598
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 1: in Rwanda or Kazakhstand or whatever that aren't connected to

599
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: the internet, and then help those countries find ways to

600
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: connect those schools. So effectively, he was investing in a

601
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: program that created customers for Starlink, his satellite service. So

602
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 1: at least two cases the countries that the UNSEF helped,

603
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: then once they realized where their schools needed connections, they

604
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: paid mister Musk's company to connect them. So you know,

605
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: even there, even in the UNISF, there's there's a line

606
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: that goes back to his own interests.

607
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 2: That's it's genuinely despicable. But here's another Did you find

608
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 2: anything or much about open ai, which is of course

609
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 2: the nonprofit wing of the company that makes chat GPT.

610
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, Musk has had always said that he'd given one

611
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to open up to get started. Obviously

612
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: he was on the original board. He was one of

613
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: the co founders of open ai when it was a

614
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: nonprofit or when it started as a nonprofit. What we

615
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: found was that he gave about ten million dollars from

616
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,479
Speaker 1: the Musk Foundation to open Ai at the start, and

617
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: then he and open Ai agree that he gave about

618
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: thirty four milk more million dollars out of his own pocket.

619
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: So he gave forty four million dollars between September twenty

620
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: sixteen or six twenty sixteen and twenty twenty apart from

621
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: the foundation, apart from his own pocket. So that's a lot,

622
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: but it's a lot less than he had gone around

623
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: saying for years that he gave.

624
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 2: And that kind of seems to be the theme with

625
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 2: a lot of his maybe good donations. He says he'll

626
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 2: do one thing and then he does another. Let's talk

627
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 2: about Flint, Michigan, where what he promised there in what

628
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 2: he actually did.

629
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: So there was a period in the Musk Foundation when

630
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: it had a lot of money, but not billions of

631
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 1: dollars in which he this is like twenty sixteen, seventeen,

632
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,959
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen. It seemed like the motivator behind a lot

633
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,239
Speaker 1: of his giving was Twitter, Like he was doing it

634
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: in response to people who kind of called him out

635
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: on Twitter. He was becoming more of a Twitter celebrity,

636
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: and so like mister Beast would say, hey, I'm raising

637
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: money to plant trees. You know, Elon, will you give

638
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 1: you money? And Elan will say yes, I'll give you

639
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: a million dollars to plant a million trees. That came

640
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: from the Musk Foundation. Dave Portnoy, the guy from Barstool Sports,

641
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: was raising money to help small businesses during COVID. You know,

642
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: he pushes Musk and Musk responds with the million dollars

643
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: from the Musk Foundation. One of the more unusual sort

644
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: of instances of that was there was a girl in Flint, Michigan.

645
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: I think she was ten at the time, little Miss Flint,

646
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: Mariy Copeney, and she had tweeted at Musk like, hey,

647
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: you know he was thinking of buying Twitter. This is

648
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: an earlier iteration of him thinking of buying Twitter. You

649
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: know you have that much money, why don't you use

650
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: it to buy, you know, supplies for Flint, Michigan where

651
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: we have this horrible water crisis. And he responds and says,

652
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 1: I will pay to fix every home in Flint that

653
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: has too much lead in the water. This is at

654
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: a time, obviously, when they had been this huge epondemic

655
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 1: of lead and water pipes and water supply and still

656
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: kind of a problem today as well. Yes, and so

657
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: the mayor reaches out to him. The mayor says, actually,

658
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 1: you know what we need right now is helping the schools.

659
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: You know, the schools they need help. You know, the water,

660
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: you know, water and houses is being handled by the state.

661
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: And so he gives about a million dollars in the

662
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: Musk Foundation to schools in Flint, both to put water

663
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: filters in the school and to buy laptops for middle schoolers.

664
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: He also gives a little bit more to the to

665
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: a back charity that was sort of associated with little

666
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: Miss Flint now Flint. People that you know, the mayor

667
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: and other people in the city of Flint see how

668
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: rich he is and see that he cares about Flint,

669
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: and they want more. They ask for more, they said,

670
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: you know, they sent him this letter that said, you know,

671
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: you've you know, you have the potential to make such

672
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 1: a huge difference in Flint. Can you give us more

673
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: to do things like replace large scale water infrastructure too.

674
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 2: I mean, just just the one thing, the exact thing

675
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 2: that Musk said, and quoting both the article in the

676
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 2: Eland Musk himself, he will fund fixing the water in

677
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 2: any house in Flint that has water contamination above FDA levels.

678
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 2: So just to be clear, he promised the world they

679
00:31:57,800 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 2: were not asking him for too much. This is just

680
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 2: what city do.

681
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 1: I think He's followed up by saying like no kidding

682
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: or something. So yeah, so they ask, okay, you know,

683
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: we also want can you invest in this fund to

684
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: help us build small businesses here? Will you move one

685
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: of your own businesses here? And it seems like out

686
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 1: of that came only one, you know, beyond the things

687
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: I already mentioned. The only additional thing they did was

688
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: send a guy from Tesla. He came sort of a

689
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: guy from Tesla who was thinking about setting up like

690
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: an operation there, some sort of Tesla building or operation.

691
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 1: And so he came and sort of met people at

692
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: the city hall, gave rides in the Tesla around the

693
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: city hall parking lot, and that was it. Nothing more

694
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: came of it, just.

695
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 2: Just around the parking lot.

696
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: I don't know why, just around the parking line, but

697
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: just around the parking lot.

698
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 2: Very bizarre.

699
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: And so the mayor said, you know, look, we were

700
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: happy he gave something. You know, I didn't have to

701
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: give anything. She said that this was a time when

702
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: you know, that twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen was a time

703
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: when they were hearing from sort of a lot of celebrities,

704
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: you know, well meeting celebrities, but they were sort of

705
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: being innundated by offers from various celebrit But he said,

706
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: become Flint had become that much of a cause celebrity people.

707
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 1: All these people wanted to help, and so Elon was

708
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: one of them, and he gave. You know, it sounds

709
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: like he gave about a million dollars. They definitely wanted more,

710
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: but they were happy with what they got.

711
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 2: It's weird because a situation like that, it's good. He

712
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 2: gave like money for water filters and laptops of kids,

713
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 2: like unquestionably be good. But also he didn't actually fix

714
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 2: the problem, didn't actually fix Flint's water problem, and it

715
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 2: sounds like that was a problem with celebrities in general.

716
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: Then yeah, I mean, I think his problem was his

717
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: promise to fix the water in the houses was more specific,

718
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: and he also probably had the capacity to do it

719
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: more than a lot of the other celebrities that offered.

720
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: But yes, that is the striking thing is Yes, the

721
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: city steered him into schools and the mayor said we

722
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: steered him into schools first, thinking that, you know, we

723
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: let the state try to fix the houses and if

724
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:55,479
Speaker 1: that didn't work, then Elon could fix those two. So

725
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 1: he didn't do the thing that he was going to

726
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: he said he was going to do in this tweet.

727
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 2: So on a large scale, it seems like a lot

728
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 2: of tech people outside of maybe Bill Gates, seem very

729
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 2: bad at the philanthropy thing, Like Mark Zuckerberg is the one.

730
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of his one hundred million dollars to what's

731
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 2: New York schools systems? Why is it the this is

732
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 2: a very dumb guy question of it is why is

733
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 2: it just having a lot of money doesn't help? How

734
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 2: is it that? Is it an organized Is it actually

735
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 2: quite difficult to deploy this capital?

736
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 1: I think it is. The answer is yes, that it.

737
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: It is a very it's hard to give this much

738
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 1: money away. You can do it in one of two ways.

739
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: You can do it the Mackenzie Bezos way. I mean

740
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 1: that she's an example of somebody who has a lot

741
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: of money and has given away a lot of money.

742
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 1: But she's not you know, it's she is like dropping

743
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: it from heaven. You know, there's she's not trying to

744
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: sort of come in and help you manage your organization.

745
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: She doesn't want a grand proposal. She just shows up

746
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:48,840
Speaker 1: and gives you a lot of money and then leaves.

747
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: Other folks who have tried to sort of invest in

748
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: something over the longer term. You mentioned Mark Zuckerberg. You know,

749
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 1: I think it also is just a matter of time,

750
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: Like it's really really hard to give money away effect,

751
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: especially for trying to like have a specific outcome in

752
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: the world. And maybe these guys are too busy. I mean,

753
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: the one of the other sort of people who have

754
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: a foundation about as big as Elons is Larry Page,

755
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 1: the guy from Google, and his foundation both fails to

756
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 1: make its minimum payouts but also gives its money, all

757
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: of its money into something called the donor Advised Fund,

758
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: which is basically like a warehouse for money, and it

759
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: disappears into there. We don't know where it when or

760
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: if any of it actually went out into the world.

761
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: So it does seem like maybe these folks don't have

762
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: the time or the you know, the bandwidth to put

763
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 1: money into the to like put the attention commensurate with

764
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: the money they're putting in.

765
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: So but just to be clear, Larry Page, co founder

766
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 2: for Google. He has he is doing a similar thing.

767
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 1: He is doing a similar well, it's not similar in

768
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: that I don't have any proof that he's doing things

769
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 1: that benefit himself. But he is a huge amount of money.

770
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: He's failed to meet that goal or that minimum of

771
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: five percent payout, And what he's doing with his money

772
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: in some ways is you know, he basically is giving

773
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: it to a middleman, and then there's no sense of

774
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: a charitable middleman, the special sort of class of charitable middleman,

775
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: and we don't know what happens to it after that.

776
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 1: So he is what he's doing is less transparent than

777
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 1: what Musk is doing.

778
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 2: Are the other tech people doing similar maybe not saying size,

779
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 2: but there are other other philanthropic efforts failing to invest.

780
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: And no if you look at the people who were

781
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: above Musk. So the shortfall that Musk had at the

782
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty two where he was his foundation

783
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: was two hundred and thirty four million dollars under what

784
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: it should have given away. There are only three foundations

785
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: that were worse than that had a bigger shortfall that year,

786
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 1: Larry Page's one, the Hewlett Foundation was another, and then

787
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: the Lily Foundation, tied to the drugmaker ELI. Lilly was

788
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: the first. So there are not that many. Out of

789
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 1: the hundreds and hundreds of foundations in the US, those

790
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: four had the biggest shortfalls.

791
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 2: But they still managed to get billions of dollars in

792
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 2: tax breaks out of this.

793
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a field that is not that well policed,

794
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 1: as I said, by the IRS or anybody else.

795
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 2: And is it just that expensive and time consumed? Would

796
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 2: there be a massive legal fight to try and actually

797
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 2: get this thing done?

798
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 1: I mean, Congress could change the laws, or they could

799
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: give the IRS more money to go after it. I

800
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: think the Yeah, this has suffered from a sense of

801
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 1: neglect and also the IRS is general weakness that they're

802
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 1: going to use political capital. They're going to use it

803
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 1: on collecting taxes, not fighting nonprofits.

804
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 2: So where do you think this goes from here? Do

805
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 2: you think it just continues doing nothing or doing less

806
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 2: than the bare minimum?

807
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: Well, we will not know the reporting, you know, the

808
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:32,720
Speaker 1: filing deadlines are so slow that we won't know until

809
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: this November whether the Musk Foundation made its goals for

810
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,439
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, unless they choose to tell us first.

811
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: The actual required deadline for them to release something publicly

812
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: is not till November, and we may know then if

813
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: the IRS has taken some action against them, but we

814
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 1: may never know if they take an action against them.

815
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 1: So we're going to keep watching it and see what

816
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 1: else it's done. But there's no expectation that I have

817
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: that we're going to see any changes anytime soon.

818
00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 2: I am with a personal question, does any of this

819
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 2: work kind of depress you make you a little cynical

820
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 2: because you see these people just getting these massive benefits.

821
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I mean, the reason I so

822
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: I cover nonprofits, That's that's what I do all the time.

823
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 1: And the reason I got into this is because there

824
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: is such a like obviously, the find nonrofit sector does

825
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: such amazing work. There's so many incredible things that nonprofits too,

826
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:23,919
Speaker 1: but it also is a shield. You know, we give

827
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: nonprofits legal rights, we give them text breaks, and we

828
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:29,879
Speaker 1: also give them this sort of you know, veneer of

829
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: do gooderism that makes people both in government and outside

830
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: government and not want to look any closer. And so

831
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:39,399
Speaker 1: some people use that, you know, they use that good will,

832
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: they use that those privileges as kind of a shield

833
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 1: to hide self dealing, to hide, you know, you know,

834
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: foreign influence, to hide enrichment, embezzlmoun all kinds of things.

835
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: And so that's the sort of stuff that I do

836
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: every day, is to try to find out what people

837
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 1: are doing beyond behind that kind of screen of of

838
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 1: philanthropy or screen of sort of good will. So it

839
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: doesn't depress me. It's just that's what I do every day,

840
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 1: and I think it makes it for it makes a

841
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: fascinating beat, this contrast of like the great potential and

842
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 1: the great trust and the reality of these of these groups.

843
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 2: Sometimes, David, thank you for joining me.

844
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: Thank you.

845
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 2: So what's remarkable about this story to me is that

846
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 2: Musk has, for all intents and purposes, received a multi

847
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:30,959
Speaker 2: billion dollar tax break in exchange for about a quarter

848
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 2: of a billion dollars. That which he has spent has

849
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 2: mostly gone to things that directly benefit him, and the

850
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 2: few times he's actually spent it well on people that

851
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 2: need it, he's gone the Musk row of over promising

852
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 2: and under delivering. It's genuinely despicable to watch him send

853
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars to an barely incorporated school in Texas.

854
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 2: Now campus exists. They own some land, and it's very

855
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 2: clearly lining up with the other companies. And that's about

856
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:01,800
Speaker 2: one hundred times more than they provided to Flint, Michigan,

857
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 2: a place where he promised and he received a ton

858
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 2: of positive press for fixing their contaminated water system. He

859
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 2: didn't do it. He did some stuff, and it's good

860
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 2: that he did something. But you can see how much

861
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,919
Speaker 2: money this man deploys, and you see how little he's

862
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 2: actually done with it. And it's also sickening to watch

863
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 2: this unfathomably rich man, this ultra rich ghoul, receive a

864
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 2: massive massive return for doing very little and actively conning

865
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 2: the nonprofit system. And as David kind of hinted at,

866
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 2: there just isn't the regulatory framework or action or political

867
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 2: capital to actually fight a man like Elon Musk. As

868
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 2: I've said before, the US government just and Queezer society

869
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:47,399
Speaker 2: are just not capable of dealing with billionaires. But there

870
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 2: is another side of this story. Musk doesn't want this

871
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 2: money spent. Most of this they have a terribly small

872
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 2: amount of money, less than a hundred thousand dollars. I

873
00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 2: believe he doesn't want this money spent anywhere because he

874
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 2: wants to hoard that Tesla stock as much as he can.

875
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 2: Putting any downward pressure on Tesla would be a bad idea,

876
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 2: and almost all the money that this foundation has is

877
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 2: Tesla stock. But this is still a very important story

878
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 2: even if nothing changes, because it's another way of showing

879
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 2: how empty the legend of Elon Musk really is. He

880
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 2: got so much positive press around this foundation. He promised

881
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 2: to fix Flint, Michigan's water system. He got tons of

882
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 2: press in twenty eighteen, and he's given away what a

883
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 2: million dollars for him, that is something he finds in

884
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 2: his pockets or between the couch cushions, probably has more there.

885
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:42,760
Speaker 2: He got another bunch of press for giving away eleven

886
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 2: point six million Tesla shares to charity, and that's kind

887
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 2: of close to what the Wall Street Journal actually wrote.

888
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 2: He didn't give away anything, by the way. He put

889
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 2: it in a charity literally with his name on it,

890
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 2: or a nonprofit in this case, and as we've heard,

891
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:58,839
Speaker 2: he hasn't really spent it. And he even at one

892
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 2: point tweeted that he sent this to the UN saying

893
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 2: he would spend six billion dollars to fight world hunger,

894
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 2: but only only if they tell him how they'd spend it,

895
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 2: which I don't know. There's always a condition with this man,

896
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 2: there's always a trick, and I just think it's because

897
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 2: he doesn't really care that much, and he'll continue to

898
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 2: do stuff like this as long as the media is

899
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 2: unable or unwilling to call him out, and indeed, as

900
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:27,760
Speaker 2: long as they're willing to buy his bullshit. This man

901
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:31,240
Speaker 2: is a liar, He's a billionaire con artist. He's mastered

902
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 2: exploiting the law and society and the media to get

903
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:39,280
Speaker 2: even richer. Yet I'm not freaking out too much because

904
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,760
Speaker 2: every farrenh Old he's won a Pulitzer for work exactly

905
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:45,319
Speaker 2: like this with Donald Trump. There is more to this

906
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 2: story that I'm sure David will bring out, and his

907
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 2: colleague Grime Mack, who worked on the story with him,

908
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 2: is one of the most industrious Elon Musk reporters out there.

909
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 2: The media is turning on this man, and this work

910
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 2: is deep, it's dangerous, and it's going up against the

911
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 2: man who has proven to a hostile relationship to the

912
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 2: press and to society. But these stories are so important

913
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:09,880
Speaker 2: and as they accumulate, most reality distortion field will fall apart.

914
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,879
Speaker 2: More it's already going. And I'm not saying this man

915
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 2: can be brought down. I don't think there's anything that

916
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 2: could truly, quote unquote stop Elon Musk, but we can

917
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 2: close the wound that he's opened in society where he's

918
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 2: just drinking money from the blood of others. And I

919
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:28,239
Speaker 2: really want you to read David's work, and I put

920
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 2: a link to it in the show notes of this episode.

921
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 2: It's important you read this. It's important you try and

922
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 2: understand exactly how little Elon Musk is done for the world,

923
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 2: because it's time to turn on this man. It's time

924
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 2: to stop calling him an inventor. He didn't invent anything.

925
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 2: It's time to even stop calling him a philanthropist. At

926
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 2: the scale he's done things here, it's barely done anything.

927
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 2: You should check out David's story. You can find him

928
00:43:53,719 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 2: on Twitter at farenthal that's fahr e nt hold. He's

929
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 2: a great guy. Thank you for listening, Thank you for

930
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 2: listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the

931
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 2: Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. You can check out

932
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 2: more of his music and audio projects at Matasowski dot com.

933
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 2: M A T T O S O w s Ki

934
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,240
Speaker 2: dot com. You can email me at easy at better

935
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:31,839
Speaker 2: offline dot com or check out better offline dot com

936
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 2: to find my newsletter and more links to this podcast.

937
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a

938
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 2: production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media,

939
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:44,319
Speaker 2: visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us

940
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,279
Speaker 2: out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

941
00:44:47,360 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.