Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you we have a new star.
Speaker 3: A star is born Elan mars Juthan Kennemy.
Speaker 4: He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 2: Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
Speaker 2: I feel for the guys. I would say ninety eight
Speaker 2: percent really appreciate what he does.
Speaker 5: But those two percent.
Speaker 2: That are nasty, they are out pay in four post.
Speaker 6: We were meant for great things in the United States
Speaker 6: of America, and Elon reminds.
Speaker 3: Us of that.
Speaker 2: I'm very disappointed in Elan.
Speaker 7: I've helped Elan a lot.
Speaker 2: Okay, Elan, in listeners, our time together has come to
Speaker 2: an end. You know, we woke up the other day
Speaker 2: and realized that Musk had, for a few minutes at
Speaker 2: the least, lost his claim the world's richest person, and
Speaker 2: just all the hell with it. We don't do no
Speaker 2: shows around here about no second rate billionaires. What do
Speaker 2: you think this is? It's numeral uno or nada. We're done. Okay,
Speaker 2: So the actual story here is a little different than that,
Speaker 2: and Elon inc to be clear, isn't totally going away.
Speaker 2: It's just getting folded into our fantastic brand new show here,
Speaker 2: Everybody's Business, co hosted by Elon Inc's very own Max Chafkin. Now, Max,
Speaker 2: tell them how it's gonna work.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, just as Tesla acquired Solar City and in
Speaker 3: doing so incorporated the mission of Solar City and bailed
Speaker 3: it out Everybody's Business we were in Solar City, we
Speaker 3: have this new show, Everybody's Business, that, like you said, David,
Speaker 3: I'm co hosting and try to bring a lot of
Speaker 3: the same spirit that we had in Elon Inc. In
Speaker 3: terms of both like journalistic rigor as well as like
Speaker 3: real talk, like talking about the business world has it
Speaker 3: actually is with some of the sparts people we know,
Speaker 3: and you know, all of our elon Ink panelists, including
Speaker 3: the ones we are going to be on the show today,
Speaker 3: are are on Everybody's Business. We're going to keep talking
Speaker 3: about these issues. And I really hope that the Elon Inc.
Speaker 3: Nation this, the listeners of this show who have been
Speaker 3: so enthusiastic and loyal through our you know, capers and
Speaker 3: and and some of the silliness that we made up
Speaker 3: with you will We'll come on over and join us
Speaker 3: over at the Everybody's Business feed and keep talking to
Speaker 3: us keep sending and others involved in the show emails.
Speaker 2: It's going to be amazing. And of course Bloomberg readers
Speaker 2: will continue to get all the great coverage that our
Speaker 2: ACE journalists delivered day in and day out, Max, Dana Hull,
Speaker 2: Kurt Wagner, Sarah Fryer and many more. And for our
Speaker 2: final show, we've assembled those stars. We get the whole
Speaker 2: band together here, Dana, Kurt, Sarah, Max, Welcome to you all.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us. David, thank you, Kurt say, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna thank you, I think, thank you.
Speaker 2: It's my turn.
Speaker 6: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna miss hanging out with you guys every Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Boring, yes we are as well, but that's why we're
Speaker 2: going out with the bang here, Dan and So, Okay,
Speaker 2: what we're gonna do is a little bit of a
Speaker 2: look back at the wildest moments in Elon during these
Speaker 2: past two years we've been airing the show. And then
Speaker 2: I look forward full of brilliant and I highlight brilliant
Speaker 2: zany predictions to give you all a bit of a
Speaker 2: north star to guide you in lieu of this steady
Speaker 2: weekly fix. Okay, So looking back, Okay, looking back, it's
Speaker 2: been Max, it's been like, like get just about two
Speaker 2: years twenty two months, there's been a lot of wild stuff.
Speaker 2: What is your wildest moment in the land of Elon
Speaker 2: past two years?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: My god.
Speaker 3: I think it was when he imploded in his role
Speaker 3: in the Trump administration, the exit from Doge, the going
Speaker 3: out with a bang, the decision not only to leave,
Speaker 3: but to leave by calling for the impeachment of the
Speaker 3: President of the United States, accusing him the President of
Speaker 3: the United States again of unspeakable crimes after just a
Speaker 3: couple months earlier, wearing a hat that said Trump was
Speaker 3: right about everything.
Speaker 2: It was amazing that had she had just simply been
Speaker 2: like Trump was right about open priends mostly.
Speaker 3: I mean it just as far as like political feuds.
Speaker 3: We've had a feud watch on this show many times.
Speaker 3: That was obviously the Elon feud to end all feuds.
Speaker 3: I think it remains the Elon feud to.
Speaker 2: End all feuds.
Speaker 3: We could talk about that when we go look forward,
Speaker 3: but maybe of all feuds in all of history, that's
Speaker 3: pretty high up, well, at.
Speaker 2: Least in that short span of time. As far as
Speaker 2: social media, Yeah, drag him out, sock them out. You
Speaker 2: af you I'm going to kill you. No, I'm going
Speaker 2: to kill you. Yeah, that would rank pretty high before
Speaker 2: I turned it over to the rest of our star
Speaker 2: studied cast. Here we actually also we got from some
Speaker 2: friends of the show. We had them send in their
Speaker 2: recollections of the wildest moments of the past few years.
Speaker 2: Let's listen to a couple of them.
Speaker 8: I think the most noteworthy Elon's story stems from his
Speaker 8: support of President Trump, his role in getting President Trump
Speaker 8: re elected as President of the United States of America.
Speaker 8: That bromance parlaying into Doge.
Speaker 9: The craziest Elon moment wasn't even a real Elon moment.
Speaker 9: It was an Elon inc moment when someone pitched the
Speaker 9: idea that X was being used for pornography.
Speaker 5: I think it still has to be the Nazi salute.
Speaker 10: I've got to go back to the very first month
Speaker 10: of this podcast. November three, Elon sat down with Andrew
Speaker 10: Ross Sorkin at the New York Times Deal Book Summit.
Speaker 10: When he brings up Bob Eiger, Musk snapped he literally
Speaker 10: with his chests. I hope they stop, don't advertise, and
Speaker 10: Musk defiantly says GFY. This is a family show after all.
Speaker 2: Okay, so those were in order. Joel Weber, Brendan Newnham,
Speaker 2: Raihan Harmansi, who, by the way, back when she was
Speaker 2: an employee here had the idea for this very show,
Speaker 2: and Craig Trudell. Now we should note that there's been
Speaker 2: much debate about the stiff Musk arm rais and whether
Speaker 2: it was truly a Nazi salute or just an awkward
Speaker 2: gesture from an awkward guy. Musk, for his part, dismisses
Speaker 2: the criticism as absurd. Dan, you'll give us your highlight
Speaker 2: or two over the past couple of years, but before
Speaker 2: you do, give us your thoughts on what we just
Speaker 2: heard from our friends there.
Speaker 4: Well, these are all great examples, and I think one
Speaker 4: thing to remember is that Elon Musk speaks more than
Speaker 4: any other c and corporate America. I mean, the guy
Speaker 4: is super overexposed. I'm kind of surprised that nobody mentioned
Speaker 4: him wielding a chainsaw on stage at Seapack. That was
Speaker 4: another moment. But but to Max's point, like the whole
Speaker 4: narrative arc of his politics from barnstorming across the state
Speaker 4: of Pennsylvania to Inauguration day to then like exiting the
Speaker 4: White House with a black eye. I mean it's like
Speaker 4: so cinematic almost, and it's very Shakespearean, and I mean
Speaker 4: we could just go on.
Speaker 3: And on and on.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny Max listening to what our friends
Speaker 2: had to say. Brendan Newnham was number two. Brendan's remembering
Speaker 2: a very funny.
Speaker 3: That he acted like that didn't happen in real life,
Speaker 3: Like that that was a real okay, that happened in
Speaker 3: the world. People. There's a lot of porn on ends.
Speaker 2: That Rayhan was full of.
Speaker 3: Does he really he does?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have an expert here on said platform, Sarah Friar.
Speaker 2: Actually we have two, both Sarah and Kurt. Is porn
Speaker 2: a huge thing on x or, as Brendan says, was
Speaker 2: it wildly overstated by our good friend Rayana Harmanci.
Speaker 6: I mean, didn't Elon just basically roll out a chatbot
Speaker 6: that will talk dirty to people? I mean this is
Speaker 6: I feel like this is pretty widely understood that if
Speaker 6: you want to find porn on x it is not
Speaker 6: hard to find. I think is maybe the short, short version.
Speaker 3: I see you guys, Sarah and kurtin I'm sure Dan,
Speaker 3: I have had the experience of, like maybe a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago when there was when it was really
Speaker 3: out of control where you'd be like looking for some
Speaker 3: Elon tweet at the office and then it is and
Speaker 3: then just be confronted or with something horrible just to see.
Speaker 7: It not just porn, it's like blatant racism, images from
Speaker 7: lynchings that like, it just it's gotten.
Speaker 2: Really dark on X Sarah, what was your biggest surprise,
Speaker 2: your biggest or your wildest moment these past two years?
Speaker 7: I mean Max to the took the best one, but
Speaker 7: that was just such a vivid memory for me because
Speaker 7: we were having our our tech conference, so we had
Speaker 7: all of these executives that were giving these really you know,
Speaker 7: brilliant interviews on stage and I just couldn't stop looking
Speaker 7: at my phone. I feel bad about that, but like
Speaker 7: you know, Kurt and I were sitting next to each
Speaker 7: other and.
Speaker 11: We were just like, did he just say he's going
Speaker 11: to cancel those all the contracts with SpaceX? Like did
Speaker 11: he just say that he's that Trump's name is in
Speaker 11: the Epstein files. We were just like, what is going on?
Speaker 11: Like these guys were tight and now the blow up
Speaker 11: is aligned with their their way of behaving on it.
Speaker 11: I mean they're very similar Trump and Musk, and that
Speaker 11: they do a lot of their their grievances out in
Speaker 11: the open, and that's how they get things done.
Speaker 7: And to see that happen actually way later than a
Speaker 7: lot of us predicted it would.
Speaker 2: Right, It just it just took a while to to fester.
Speaker 2: I believe we have more audio clips from friends of
Speaker 2: the show giving us their highlights these past two years.
Speaker 12: The craziest most noteworthy thing Elon did, at least in
Speaker 12: my world of Washington, d C. Was last summer when
Speaker 12: he got into a physical altercation with Scott Bessett, the
Speaker 12: Treasury Secretary of all people.
Speaker 1: Remember like a year or two ago, when Elon kept
Speaker 1: promoting all these picturesque images and artwork own X, maybe
Speaker 1: with landscapes, maybe a beautiful bed, some flowers. To me,
Speaker 1: it was just such a stark reminder that among all
Speaker 1: these global stakes, there's a human inside this story.
Speaker 5: One day, Elon was going on a tirade on X
Speaker 5: and then basically said we need to get rid of
Speaker 5: the International Space Station, and that had a lot of
Speaker 5: reverberations throughout the space on the street. So yeah, those
Speaker 5: were some big unexpected moments.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that was in order. Josh Green fellow con
Speaker 2: College alone Magnus Henrickson, our supervising producer, making his on
Speaker 2: air debut on the last show, Max Deep cut there
Speaker 2: from Man and that I went on and on and
Speaker 2: notice how Man I remember it didn't cut back his own.
Speaker 3: Vividly and super fans of the show will remember on
Speaker 3: our second end of the Year special, it might have
Speaker 3: been the second episode of the second end of the
Speaker 3: year special, says you remember, David, you were not making these.
Speaker 3: You were on vacations, enjoying your holidays. But the rest
Speaker 3: of us here were Those were two parts. Anyway, we
Speaker 3: had some fun talking about these, like beautiful I guess
Speaker 3: maybe possibly AI generated or AI slop type room scapes
Speaker 3: or whatever. We're like, Eli.
Speaker 2: It seemed to make an to really have an impact
Speaker 2: on Max.
Speaker 3: Elon would like spend like three hundred and and sixty
Speaker 3: three days out of the year just posting the most
Speaker 3: provocative stuff you could possibly imagine on X and like
Speaker 3: two days out of the year, would say to himself,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, wait a minute, like have I gone
Speaker 3: too far? Maybe I should just put a like beautiful
Speaker 3: room here and encourage people to post more nice things.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, Yeah, it was very funny. I
Speaker 3: agree that that was.
Speaker 2: A good one, and it's all Magnus seems to have remembered,
Speaker 2: so apparently mister musket worked. The other person we heard
Speaker 2: from there in the end talking about space and SpaceX
Speaker 2: was Lauren Grush Kurt Wagner. What say you your wildest
Speaker 2: favoritestest moment these past two years?
Speaker 6: Well, since I'm going like twentieth on the list, my
Speaker 6: top two and they go in order. The breakup was
Speaker 6: number one, Max is correct. The GFY on stage in
Speaker 6: New York, I think was number two. But I'm shocked
Speaker 6: no one has said the third most surprising, which is
Speaker 6: Everything's computer. Do you remember when the White House was
Speaker 6: turned into a Tesla showroom and the President of the
Speaker 6: United States like was selling America Tesla's from the lawn
Speaker 6: of the White House. That was a pretty crazy moment.
Speaker 6: And I think what made it so like interesting was
Speaker 6: also just the visual of it, Like it wasn't just
Speaker 6: he said or tweeted something. It was like we saw
Speaker 6: them standing there with the cars on the White House lawn,
Speaker 6: and I think, you know, I had to go to
Speaker 6: number three on my list because you know, someone didn't
Speaker 6: call me in time.
Speaker 2: But I knew, I was confident. You're a resourceful sort,
Speaker 2: and I knew you'd have you know, many many possibles.
Speaker 2: I will go dead last. And I will also, without
Speaker 2: pouting about it, Kurt, I will piggyback on others, especially Dana,
Speaker 2: and say, yeah, just his stage presence in general. Not
Speaker 2: only was the chainsaw one in the screaming of chain
Speaker 2: saw chainsaw as he as he swung the chainsaw around,
Speaker 2: but then the jumping around. Remember there was that Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: dance he did little I just didn't know what to
Speaker 2: do with. I still don't know what to do with that.
Speaker 3: I took the most obvious one. And and and I
Speaker 3: kind of because you know, there so much has happened
Speaker 3: over the last year, and I was thinking, as I
Speaker 3: was listening to everybody else, give there is like one
Speaker 3: thing that made this show sort of hard to make
Speaker 3: and and maybe interesting is that maybe maybe Elon for
Speaker 3: most of his career was very very successful and the
Speaker 3: last two years have not been the most successful time
Speaker 3: of Elon's career. I mean, besides the election of Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: It's been actually pretty hard to find like real, I
Speaker 3: don't know, like I guess.
Speaker 2: We've had from beyond from a monetary.
Speaker 3: No even monetarily, the stock is flat basic. I mean,
Speaker 3: the stock hasn't gone up that much, Like I don't know,
Speaker 3: like you go back to it's like basically a stock
Speaker 3: price today as we record, this is about where it
Speaker 3: was what at the end of Dani will know better
Speaker 3: than me, but like end of twenty one or early
Speaker 3: twenty two, Like it's a long We've had a long
Speaker 3: period between drinks between yeah, and and like I guess
Speaker 3: he did like put a chip in someone's brain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I want to say, you is Max
Speaker 2: right about this? Is he in a funk over there?
Speaker 4: I mean, so the Model Why was the best selling
Speaker 4: car in the world in twenty twenty three, sold over
Speaker 4: like one point two million units. That was like the
Speaker 4: peak of Tesla as a car company. But since then, yeah,
Speaker 4: like they're losing market share byd is taking over the world.
Speaker 4: The stock is down from its peak right before the election.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that, Like the other sub narrative
Speaker 4: is like Elon is bored of making cars and he's
Speaker 4: completely pivoted his entire company, which has factories on three continents,
Speaker 4: from making cars to making robots and being an AI company.
Speaker 4: Like that's like a huge narrative shift that the communication
Speaker 4: has been super weird about and that investors seem to
Speaker 4: be buying, but like this is fundamentally a different company now.
Speaker 7: I mean, another really weird thing that happened this year
Speaker 7: is he found a way to pay off all his
Speaker 7: dat holders for buying Twitter. Like I didn't think that
Speaker 7: would happen. I didn't think he would actually make them
Speaker 7: whole in a short enough period of time. But he
Speaker 7: found a way for XAI to swallow x and turn
Speaker 7: it into something that was valued highly, so that, you know,
Speaker 7: to his credit worked out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the evaluation of his private companies continues skywreck at.
Speaker 4: I mean, SpaceX is a highly valuable company, and so
Speaker 4: I see your point, Max, But I still think that,
Speaker 4: you know, he's still the richest person in the world.
Speaker 4: He's still incredibly powerful. His empire is expanding. I mean,
Speaker 4: they've got this data center in Memphis. They're going to
Speaker 4: build stuff in Houston. Like his tentacles are continuing to
Speaker 4: spread throughout the energy infrastructure of the United state dates
Speaker 4: and as AI becomes a bigger thing, you're gonna see
Speaker 4: Tesla selling its megapax to AI companies. I mean the
Speaker 4: whole thesis of the show, which is that it's not
Speaker 4: just Tesla or X or SpaceX, it's it's Elon Inc.
Speaker 4: Is still very valid and stronger than ever.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is good because we're starting Dana is
Speaker 2: starting to tip us into the future, into what's to
Speaker 2: come here, So why don't we across the board here
Speaker 2: all tell our listeners what what you guys think are
Speaker 2: the biggest or the biggest Elon's story event slash storyline
Speaker 2: that you will be following going forward. In other words,
Speaker 2: I guess if you had to think about it, it would
Speaker 2: be as goes X, not the company X. Sorry, as
Speaker 2: goes fill in the blank, Comma, so too goes Elon Inc.
Speaker 2: Max will start with you no, no, no, no way,
Speaker 2: and we're not gonna start with Matt Yeah, Kurt exactly.
Speaker 6: I don't know how far the future we're allowed to go,
Speaker 6: and I don't know how cheesy we're allowed to be.
Speaker 6: Genuine great, My genuine answer is sending a human to Mars,
Speaker 6: like we've been talking about it for you know whatever,
Speaker 6: a decade plus, probably more than that.
Speaker 2: For for Elon, you've got a year, Wagner.
Speaker 3: What's your Yeah, give us a date on that one.
Speaker 2: Oh, what is it?
Speaker 6: It is twenty twenty five? Checking, it's like the oldest
Speaker 6: that was, like the old man thing.
Speaker 2: I just did what.
Speaker 6: I think we're another seven years away, No, ten years away.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna say twenty thirty five, okay.
Speaker 2: And I would say if that happens, yes, the Elonian Empire,
Speaker 2: wouldn't that be crazy?
Speaker 6: I mean we've been talking about it forever, and and
Speaker 6: part of why I like it is it's one of
Speaker 6: the very few things Elon touches that I think people
Speaker 6: a broad spectrum of people are interested in and excited about,
Speaker 6: which is the idea of doing something in space that
Speaker 6: has never been done before. It is not controversial in
Speaker 6: the way almost everything else he does is. And so
Speaker 6: for me, I think that will be a fun moment
Speaker 6: if it actually happens, because I think people who don't
Speaker 6: like Elon will be rallied behind the effort.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 7: I feel like I disagree that it's not controversial though,
Speaker 7: Like people are really pissed off. Yeah, they're like they're like,
Speaker 7: you're spending all these natural resources on sending us to
Speaker 7: Mars when like, there's so much to fix about our
Speaker 7: current planet.
Speaker 2: Don't give up on this planet yet. Stick with this planet,
Speaker 2: invest in it before you are ready to hop scotch
Speaker 2: over to another.
Speaker 7: The idea of being a multiplanetary species, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So that's me there you go, all right?
Speaker 2: So Sarah Fryar, what say you?
Speaker 7: I mean, the thing I'm really just thinking is going
Speaker 7: to drive so much in the next few years is
Speaker 7: this rivalry with Sam Almon and open Ai and the
Speaker 7: idea that Musk is just going to do whatever he
Speaker 7: can to capture that success for himself and exceed it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: So he's got the lawsuit, he's got the data centers,
Speaker 7: he's got the plan for Tesla to invest in XAI,
Speaker 7: he's got all of these irons in the fire that
Speaker 7: are aimed at overtaking. He's got Grock. So I think
Speaker 7: that that's going to be like a driving force for him,
Speaker 7: and we've seen it already affect so much of his behavior.
Speaker 7: But the idea that he like left open AI and
Speaker 7: then it became so successful, I think really eats at him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess that's right. I mean, Max, if
Speaker 2: you think about the whole way he is in tipping
Speaker 2: Tesla to the direction he's tipping it is indeed, part
Speaker 2: of it feels like at some level in part fueled
Speaker 2: by this beef with Altman.
Speaker 3: I mean, I wonder how when the Ai bubble bursts,
Speaker 3: whether it's a bubble, or whether this kind of period
Speaker 3: of exuberance just sort of fizzles a little bit, Like
Speaker 3: how that is going to impact Elon's empire because he
Speaker 3: is really really Sarah's hinting at it right, like he
Speaker 3: is really heavily met on this, on this thing continuing,
Speaker 3: and so because and you could see it in the
Speaker 3: valuation of x Ai, you can see it in the
Speaker 3: valuation of Tesla, and the way he's he's sort of
Speaker 3: pivoting Tesla, and in the and in this sort of
Speaker 3: echo that that happens on the stock market where like
Speaker 3: Tesla's you know, wildly overvalued relative to its business, Like
Speaker 3: that has been a thing that we have sort of
Speaker 3: talked about over and over again on this podcast. And
Speaker 3: if if for some reason that changed then, or even
Speaker 3: if it even if it were valued a little bit differently,
Speaker 3: that would be kind of like a catastrophic thing for
Speaker 3: to happen to Elon, Like it wouldn't. It's not like
Speaker 3: it would bankrupt him. It's not like it would take
Speaker 3: away the car sales. It's not like it would take
Speaker 3: away any of these achievements. But it would put him
Speaker 3: in a very very different position.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would certainly make the pivot to AI going
Speaker 2: all in on AI feel like.
Speaker 7: You can certainly be less rich than Larry Ellison at
Speaker 7: that point.
Speaker 3: But Larry Ellison's well, wood fall too would fall too, right.
Speaker 7: Well, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: Who does that? Then? That brings up I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know that whoever that person is that goes
Speaker 2: to number one, that's that'll be the next show that
Speaker 2: the Walton's coming back Walmart Inc. Dana guide us. What's
Speaker 2: your thought?
Speaker 4: I mean, the next decade of ELIN is going to
Speaker 4: be super interesting because now you know, Tesla's board has
Speaker 4: proposed this incredible you know, mars shot pay package to
Speaker 4: keep him focused on hitting all of these like sort
Speaker 4: of AI goals and making it an eight point five
Speaker 4: trillion dollar company. And ten years from now, Elon Musk
Speaker 4: will be like sixty four sixty five, like like we
Speaker 4: have to sort of like think about the secession plan
Speaker 4: for his companies whenever he decides to hand over the reins.
Speaker 4: So I think that's like a super interesting storyline. And
Speaker 4: then like his personal life, I think is still an
Speaker 4: endless source of decination. Like one of the big reveals
Speaker 4: of the past year was that Ashley Saint Clair revealed
Speaker 4: that she had also had a child with Elon Musk.
Speaker 4: So that makes fourteen that we know of. And you know,
Speaker 4: between his businesses, his involvement in national politics, and also
Speaker 4: his sort of like obsession with declining birth rates and fertility,
Speaker 4: Like I still am just super interested in that, Like
Speaker 4: what is he doing on that from a business perspective?
Speaker 4: Like is he investing in fertility startups or IVF centers?
Speaker 4: Like he's got to be doing something beyond just per
Speaker 4: creating himself. That's my suspicion, all.
Speaker 3: Right, Dana, And you don't have to answer this if
Speaker 3: you don't want to, But I'm curious what you think
Speaker 3: the real number is. So, like we know of fourteen,
Speaker 3: do you is it double? Is it triple? Is it?
Speaker 3: Do we need a third digit to express that number?
Speaker 4: Is he like an anonymous sperm donor like there was
Speaker 4: something about a Japanese pop star at some point.
Speaker 7: I really don't know.
Speaker 2: That's right. It's your turn, mister Chaffkin. What you got.
Speaker 3: Can I react to something Kurt said first before I
Speaker 3: give mine yes, which is committed? I agree, like a
Speaker 3: person going to Mars would be an amazing achievement. And
Speaker 3: I think and when Kurt first said it, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: come on bike, Because Elon has said we're going to
Speaker 3: send somebody like in two years or something. He's given
Speaker 3: these ridiculously optimistic goals, and I think ten years is
Speaker 3: probably like a more plausible suggestion, maybe even a little longer.
Speaker 3: But I want to just say, like, that's not going
Speaker 3: to be just Elon Musk's achievement. Like Elon Musk may
Speaker 3: play a role in that story, and if that story happens,
Speaker 3: he will likely play a role, but he won't be
Speaker 3: the only player in that story. It's going to be
Speaker 3: an achievement for the United States and for humanity. And
Speaker 3: I think people sometimes make mistakes when they give Elon
Speaker 3: credit for things that aren't totally his doing, right, like
Speaker 3: this is and I think this has come up a
Speaker 3: lot in the SpaceX story. There's a lot to talk
Speaker 3: about how SpaceX is the only like it's like SpaceX
Speaker 3: versus NASA, which kind of alides the fact that SpaceX
Speaker 3: is a NASA contractor that some NASA administrator was like, Hey,
Speaker 3: it would be a really good idea to fund this
Speaker 3: company to provide commercial transport, and it also alides all
Speaker 3: the other players in this value chain, and so just
Speaker 3: wanted to put that out there. I just feel like
Speaker 3: sometimes we buy into this narrative like Elon is like
Speaker 3: the sole actor moving us to Mars, and it's like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: The other thing I want to say is I.
Speaker 2: So, Kurt, that was laying man, That's what Max is
Speaker 2: telling you.
Speaker 7: It was a question the opposite.
Speaker 6: I thought he was just validating my wonderful preception.
Speaker 2: So thank you, Max. What do you got? What are
Speaker 2: you expecting? What are you closely watching? With baited breath?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 3: Politics and Elon's continued political engagement. I think, Uh, this
Speaker 3: is a huge question. There's a line in the Tesla
Speaker 3: proxy that says he's going to wind down his political activities.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg TV just had an interview with Robin Denholm, where
Speaker 3: our colleague and friend of the podcast ed Ludlow asked,
Speaker 3: or maybe it was Caroline Hyde, Ed's co host, what
Speaker 3: do you mean by wind down? And she just didn't
Speaker 3: answer the question because and effectively indicated that they consider
Speaker 3: donating talking about politics, maybe even engaging in like a
Speaker 3: political party, to be his personal political activities. I would
Speaker 3: guess that his personal political activities will be like the
Speaker 3: defining story of not just Elon world, but of all
Speaker 3: of Republican politics and maybe all of national politics.
Speaker 2: If it goes, if it goes sideways on him, does
Speaker 2: it threaten to derail the empire, the Musk Empire?
Speaker 3: No, I mean, what do you mean derail the musket.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like sink it, you know, sink its
Speaker 2: value towards zero.
Speaker 3: Well, he's got a lot of money to spend it
Speaker 3: on politics, So like, I'm not really sure like.
Speaker 2: What I'm getting. Like, So, for instance, right now, when
Speaker 2: you guys talk about the lapse in the fundamentals of Tesla,
Speaker 2: one of the big drivers of the collapse of the
Speaker 2: fundamentals in Tesla is he is now alienated. Oh, I
Speaker 2: don't know, with his politics, he's alienated maybe sixty or
Speaker 2: seventy percent of his potential buyer base.
Speaker 3: Or I think, like Dana has said a bunch of times,
Speaker 3: he's moving on from the car business. So yes, he's
Speaker 3: he's alienated his basically customers.
Speaker 2: He needs political modes, he needs become a business that
Speaker 2: have still as a meme stock.
Speaker 3: Now, So like when we talk about the value of Tesla,
Speaker 3: we're saying, like, at what point were these shareholders decide
Speaker 3: that they don't like it anymore? And I feel very
Speaker 3: I would not feel confident predicting that the stock's that's cool,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Well, that's.
Speaker 2: Cool, but like it is worth near it is worth
Speaker 2: more than a trillion dollars, And I would just say
Speaker 2: that at some point it's possible that if the financials
Speaker 2: in the short term collapse to an extent that like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you know we're cash flow negative again.
Speaker 2: I know, you could get a holy crap moment. I'm
Speaker 2: not predicting all.
Speaker 3: Of the thing is, I think Elon has enough juice
Speaker 3: within the conservative movement and enough money that he's not
Speaker 3: going to be on an island by himself. He has
Speaker 3: an important ally in Vice President j. D. Vance, he
Speaker 3: has important allies in the Republican Party. It's true that
Speaker 3: he and Trump don't have a good relationship, but I
Speaker 3: would be really, really, really surprised if he is not
Speaker 3: a factor in Republican politics in the midterm and in
Speaker 3: the next presidential election.
Speaker 4: I think the mistake that people make about Elon is
Speaker 4: time and again people think, Okay, this is it, this
Speaker 4: is going to be the downfall of Elon Musk. But
Speaker 4: he is too big to fail. He has a wide
Speaker 4: ranging empire, with installations in several congressional districts. He has
Speaker 4: lucrative government contracts. He is deeply embedded in several different industries,
Speaker 4: and the car business is only one of them. I mean,
Speaker 4: for all of the consternation about his involvement in politics,
Speaker 4: like the company is still worth over trillion dollars, like
Speaker 4: it does it, Like yes, it has impacted sales, but
Speaker 4: it has not impacted him in the eyes of investors.
Speaker 4: And there is a sloop of you know, Wall Street
Speaker 4: investment banks and analysts and Musk, and like time it again,
Speaker 4: they will make fees working with this guy, and he
Speaker 4: is brilliant at raising money, and like people want to
Speaker 4: invest in him, like they will invest in whatever he
Speaker 4: wants to do.
Speaker 2: I would say, Dana, that absolutely you were ahead of
Speaker 2: that and saying this guy, it's less like, it's far
Speaker 2: less likely that he will he will blow up years ago,
Speaker 2: when many others were saying he would. My issue is,
Speaker 2: I think nobody's saying that now. And maybe that's right.
Speaker 2: Maybe he is too big, and maybe that is right.
Speaker 2: I just don't know that just given the nature of
Speaker 2: how divisive he is and how given how many plates
Speaker 2: he's got in the air and this and that, I
Speaker 2: just think it's still an open ending question. And given
Speaker 2: how he has alienated a huge part of his of
Speaker 2: his customer base. And maybe you're right, Max, maybe all
Speaker 2: of his future businesses are totally shielded from this. Maybe
Speaker 2: his future your businesses. Whether or not he's alienated a
Speaker 2: customer base, maybe that doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Maybe, I mean, you obviously become bias based on what
Speaker 3: you've seen and having seen as we have Elon survive
Speaker 3: scandal after scandal after scandal, what's going to do him?
Speaker 3: So like, obviously Elon's empire could go and decline. It
Speaker 3: maybe already is in decline. I think there's a chance
Speaker 3: you look at you.
Speaker 2: You were sort of arguing that yourself.
Speaker 3: You look back, I think there's a chance, like we
Speaker 3: look back twenty years from now and we say, yep,
Speaker 3: this was the moment when when he started.
Speaker 7: I think that's a good question, Like has Elon peaked?
Speaker 7: I think we were like looking at this, you know,
Speaker 7: this podcast ending and it's like, well, this was the
Speaker 7: year that Elon was the quote unquote shadow president, right.
Speaker 7: He he got as close to geopolitical peak of power
Speaker 7: as you can get without actually being president. And that's over.
Speaker 7: So has his influence peaked? I guess maybe not like
Speaker 7: his I think his businesses have lots of second lives.
Speaker 7: But has his influence on the geopolitical order peaked? Maybe
Speaker 7: it has, Maybe it's just the beginning. Maybe Elon Musk
Speaker 7: continues internationally, makes big change in Europe. We don't know.
Speaker 2: Before we go to the more concrete predictions part of
Speaker 2: the show, I will just say one thing looking back,
Speaker 2: I will pivot back. Now we would not be talking
Speaker 2: about Elon Mustard. He would be a nobody if interest
Speaker 2: rates in this country weren't zero for the better part
Speaker 2: of the past twenty years. That is also an enormous
Speaker 2: thing that helped him survive that whole time. If interest
Speaker 2: rates weren't zero in money, an insane amounts of money
Speaker 2: weren't slashing around the global economy and in the US
Speaker 2: economy and the US financial system, he wouldn't have gotten
Speaker 2: those much needed injections of cash, and he and his
Speaker 2: companies were like razor close to going under. That's my
Speaker 2: hot all right. We have from our good friends. We
Speaker 2: have some concrete, tangible predictions here. They are let's listen.
Speaker 8: As much as he wants to stay away from politics,
Speaker 8: I think it is like a moth to a flame.
Speaker 8: They don't think he's totally done with politics.
Speaker 5: There's this big push for NASA to beat the Chinese
Speaker 5: government to the moon, and so is there going to
Speaker 5: be some kind of I guess division between NASA and
Speaker 5: SpaceX if it's taking too long. So how will that
Speaker 5: affect the NASA and SpaceX relationship going forward?
Speaker 1: In the next five years, el and the grandfather will
Speaker 1: be kind of a reminder of him growing older. So
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if we see, you know, Elan
Speaker 1: and inconvertible.
Speaker 2: That's what I think is going to happen.
Speaker 9: I think in the next couple of years, Elon is
Speaker 9: going to become Christian. I'm using air quotes. He keeps
Speaker 9: tracking far right. JD Vance, late blooming Catholic Russell Brand
Speaker 9: got baptized. But that's my prediction.
Speaker 4: Elon Musk Christian I have a feeling that the craziest
Speaker 4: thing that will happen to Elon's future is on the
Speaker 4: social media platform he owns.
Speaker 3: I think he's going to start to lose followers.
Speaker 12: I think the natural thing for Elon is that he's
Speaker 12: going to have to pick a fight with a new
Speaker 12: high profile nemesis. And the guy that seems most obvious
Speaker 12: to me would be Sam Altman. This is the Elon
Speaker 12: story that will keep us all riveted and watching and
Speaker 12: reading and podcasting about Elon in the year ahead.
Speaker 10: I think we're in for another X post that causes
Speaker 10: a you have said the actual truth level uproar or worse.
Speaker 10: Elon has just been getting darker and darker on X
Speaker 10: of late, and I can see Musk in his words,
Speaker 10: uttering something that is a new, worst and dumbest post
Speaker 10: that he's ever done.
Speaker 2: Okay, that was in order again. Joel Weber, Lauren Grush,
Speaker 2: the Great Magnus Henrickson, Brendan Newnham, Rayjan Harmanci, Josh Green,
Speaker 2: Craig Trudell Sarah, Josh, there was on your Sam Altman feud.
Speaker 2: Everyone's getting hyped up about this. This is gonna happen,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 7: It is happening. It's happening right now.
Speaker 2: It is happening the actual cage match Man Max in
Speaker 2: an actual cage match. Alan doesn't matter. He's a small guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. The one thing I'll say is he is.
Speaker 3: He does seem to have some agility, so that could
Speaker 3: give him.
Speaker 2: He's nimble, he's nimble. It would give him an advantage.
Speaker 2: He could run circles around around Musk. Before I press
Speaker 2: you guys for predictions on a couple specific things, any
Speaker 2: other reactions to our Those are some lame predictions.
Speaker 3: That's my reaction.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, well, you don't like Magnus's prediction.
Speaker 3: And they've already they've all, like all, every single one
Speaker 3: of them have already happened. I thinks is a Christian
Speaker 3: Elon sells or I mean he has sold in the
Speaker 3: past a convertible. I'm sure he owns their must.
Speaker 2: Becoming a Christian.
Speaker 3: I don't know. He tweets about Christianity all the time.
Speaker 3: Sam Almon feud is going on right now like I
Speaker 3: want some real predictions from this crew. Actually, Rayhon had
Speaker 3: a good bold one, which was that he would lose
Speaker 3: Twitter followers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, the rest of you, guys, Weber, Rush, Hendricks
Speaker 2: and Nunam Hermansi, Green Trudell, you all suck, says Mac.
Speaker 2: Last question here, last question that you'll ever be asked
Speaker 2: on the Elon Show as Elon goes away. But Elon himself,
Speaker 2: of course, until he may leave this earth, keeps doing
Speaker 2: his thing. So my question for all of you is,
Speaker 2: tell me what the next company is that he found. Kurt,
Speaker 2: start with you, give us, give me your best answer,
Speaker 2: don't think too much about it. And Kirk, because you're
Speaker 2: always crying that we go to you last night, we'll
Speaker 2: go to you first again. Let's go if and when
Speaker 2: Musk dials up a new company, what is it? What's
Speaker 2: the new company? What's the business?
Speaker 6: Come on, I'm gonna piggyback on Dana and say something
Speaker 6: to do with fertility and birth rates. So I don't
Speaker 6: know if it'll be science based or what, but it'll
Speaker 6: have to do with more people having more kids.
Speaker 3: It's like a birth control pill that doesn't work is
Speaker 3: gonna be I've got one.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's always talked about how candy bar suck,
Speaker 4: Like why isn't there a new candy bar? Like why
Speaker 4: are we suck with Snickers? You know, Snickers and movie way, Like,
Speaker 4: He's often intimated that there should be like a new
Speaker 4: a new kind of candy.
Speaker 2: Do we think that's right? Do we think Snicker sucks?
Speaker 3: No, Snickers is like undeniably the best candy bar.
Speaker 6: Right, He's the new Willy Wantka.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, these are not crap that that that our
Speaker 2: friends send us. Okay, so we've got we've got a
Speaker 2: sex fertility robot.
Speaker 3: Fertility.
Speaker 2: I think I feel like there's gonna be a robot
Speaker 2: that's gonna make this happen. We've got a candy bar, Sarah,
Speaker 2: what do you got?
Speaker 7: I'm gonna I'm gonna piggyback on what Kurt said and
Speaker 7: say that he's going to try to make the Optimist
Speaker 7: robots be able to carry children.
Speaker 4: What if there's an Optimist neural link kind of tie
Speaker 4: in and like there's some kind of way to program
Speaker 4: it to breed, right, all right?
Speaker 6: I thought I had a pretty reasonable like fertility thing
Speaker 6: which is now quickly turned into sex robots. So I
Speaker 6: just want to point out that my original prediction.
Speaker 7: He's very into like outsourcing the creation of children.
Speaker 3: Elon is pretty much said he's going to develop sex robots, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's he's.
Speaker 2: Like everything everybody says. Max's answers, she's already said that,
Speaker 2: he's already done. What do you got.
Speaker 3: My prediction is that in uh January twenty thirty one,
Speaker 3: Elon Musk will be inaugurated as the next governor of Texas.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a that's not a come. It's a gotta company.
Speaker 2: But it's all right, we'll it, We'll let it go.
Speaker 2: And and he is, of course legally allowed to run.
Speaker 3: Right And I think, I mean so obviously when you
Speaker 3: get somebody like Elon Musk, rich guy, loves to be
Speaker 3: in politics, likes to be at the center of things,
Speaker 3: there's often speculation about a run for president. I guess
Speaker 3: never discount it, right, He's he's attempted crazy year things
Speaker 3: in the past. Maybe, But I kind of think being
Speaker 3: governor is fun. It's probably more fun than being president.
Speaker 3: He lives in Texas, it's a conservative state. He's one
Speaker 3: of the most famous people like it in the worldly.
Speaker 3: I guarantee you there are political consultants who have contemplated
Speaker 3: this already. I don't know, I could kind of see
Speaker 3: it like like Schwarzenegger basically.
Speaker 2: But but Elon right, very good. We are adjourned for
Speaker 2: the last time, and let's get this right. As I
Speaker 2: say goodbye to everybody, Sarah, Dana, Kurt, Max, it's been
Speaker 2: a pleasure, great to be here.
Speaker 6: It's been a ride.
Speaker 4: Thanks guys, see you on everybody's business.
Speaker 7: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to check on those predictions, yes, in
Speaker 3: a few years.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Stacy Wang and edited by Annamasarrakas.
Speaker 2: Our supervising producer, as always, was Magnus Hendrickson. The Elon Inc.
Speaker 2: Theme was written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex
Speaker 2: Sugiurra Blake Maple's handled engineering, and Dave Purcell fact checked.
Speaker 2: And I want to extend a big, big thanks to
Speaker 2: all of them and everyone else who worked hard behind
Speaker 2: the scenes to make the show go these past two years.
Speaker 2: Elon Inc. Out tasty, ste