Speaker 1: Cook. I'm Robert Evans, host Behind the Bastards, and my
Speaker 1: producer Sophie right before we started recording, called Elon Musk
Speaker 1: a cuck. So Elon, if you're listening, you have been
Speaker 1: accused of being a Yeah, what's cuking my my lib
Speaker 1: tards or whatever. I don't know. I just I hate
Speaker 1: cook is an insult um. But I also really enjoy
Speaker 1: saying cook, and I that's the thing I have to
Speaker 1: hide because people who say cook on the internet are
Speaker 1: all the worst people in Nate Silver, who is one
Speaker 1: of the worst people, and I choose not to put
Speaker 1: myself in that category. But it is fun to say cook.
Speaker 1: But you can reclaim it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You can reclaim it. Yeah, But I don't want to
Speaker 1: claim it in the context of Elon Musk because he's no,
Speaker 1: I don't like him. I've been seeing Robert smile that
Speaker 1: big in a really long time. He likes it when
Speaker 1: I come on and make him lush and then and
Speaker 1: also talk about cooks. Yeah, He's like, we have Alexandra here,
Speaker 1: you live, Yeah, Sophia, Alexandra, how you doing, Sophia. I'm
Speaker 1: you know, surviving in a current hell Yeah, I'm lying.
Speaker 1: I'm spiraling. How about your Albert? I'm also spiraling. I'm
Speaker 1: having such a bad day, Sophia. It sounds like you
Speaker 1: are too. I'm so not happy to hear that. You
Speaker 1: know what will make this day better? Um? Are you
Speaker 1: gonna tell me about a bastard that I have been
Speaker 1: dying to hear about? Yeah? I think we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about Elon Musk for like two and a half hours. Yes,
Speaker 1: are you suing on board for this ship? Tessed with
Speaker 1: him and his inability to be a good father and
Speaker 1: just all of these other things, and his his relationship
Speaker 1: with Grimes. There aren't things that I won't read about
Speaker 1: Elon Musk because I find the whole thing fascinating. Also, Slee,
Speaker 1: he's terrible, Yeah, he is. And I don't know. There
Speaker 1: won't be as much about his kids in here, just
Speaker 1: because I don't like talking about people's kids and I
Speaker 1: haven't heard allegations of like abuse or anything like that. Um,
Speaker 1: So I just mean his attitude on fatherhood, Like he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'll be gone forever, yes, yes, yes, yeah, we will
Speaker 1: be talking about that. We will be talking about We'll
Speaker 1: be talking about super much about Grimes just because that's
Speaker 1: all kind of new. But we'll be talking about his
Speaker 1: relationships with women. We will be talking about a lot
Speaker 1: of we will be talking too much. But I wrote
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand words about Elon musk We're going to be
Speaker 1: talking too much about him. He is the James Cameron
Speaker 1: of science. Okay, we're like, he that that should be
Speaker 1: James Cameron, right, And it's not sadly but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: just you know from the way that he commits to
Speaker 1: his movies and how little time he commits to his
Speaker 1: relationships compared to his movies, that he was like, for
Speaker 1: sure a terrible father, uh and husband. And that's why
Speaker 1: I like and fucking what's her face? Big Beelow When
Speaker 1: and had to make her locker, She's like, this is
Speaker 1: less traumatic than my marriage anyway, Sorry, the same to me.
Speaker 1: It's the same to me, speaking as a career obsessed
Speaker 1: man who has had a lot of relationship issues for
Speaker 1: years as a result of being a career obsessed man,
Speaker 1: we're bad people to be in relationships with. Dude, I'm
Speaker 1: here to workaholic. Yeah, I mean you do live in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Um, so does Elon Musk. Um, and he
Speaker 1: always will all that ship about moving to Texas his
Speaker 1: horse ship, and in fact, someone just released evidence that
Speaker 1: the day that he was like talking about maybe moving
Speaker 1: his plant to Texas, he applied for a bunch of
Speaker 1: expansions of the factory in California. Like he was always
Speaker 1: just full of ship and lying. Um, he's great. He
Speaker 1: loves lying, he does. And I'm gonna tell you right now,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe you'll feel differently the first ep
Speaker 1: aisode of this, you're gonna wind up kind of sympathetic
Speaker 1: about him because there are reasons to be sympathetic about him.
Speaker 1: And I do think, do you know me? Yeah, we'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll see, we'll see. He's he's an abuse victim. Um.
Speaker 1: So like that's lame. Um, Like it's not lame to
Speaker 1: be sure. Hitler had a tough for a while with
Speaker 1: his art. Like I don't know what are we doing here.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's Hitler's mom's cancer that really gets tugged
Speaker 1: you at the heart strings. But yeah, I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing, just saying things that are normal
Speaker 1: that have happened to bad people, not normal, but bad
Speaker 1: things that have happened to bad people. What I want
Speaker 1: is for people to hate bad people for the right reasons.
Speaker 1: And I do think some of the reasons Elon Musk
Speaker 1: gets shipped um are the wrong reasons, and there are
Speaker 1: so many really good things to give him shit about
Speaker 1: that I want to make sure everyone is giving him
Speaker 1: ship for the proper reason. You want to direct the hate.
Speaker 1: I want to direct the hate towards things that that
Speaker 1: deserve your hate and in the within the same person,
Speaker 1: which maybe is being too picky, um, but this is
Speaker 1: what I do for some reason, for some reason, nobody
Speaker 1: asked asked me to do this, but I do it.
Speaker 1: I just want to tell you that I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I hate him for all of the quote un right reasons,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of those so pretty fucking petty,
Speaker 1: So there's some ship in there that I do not
Speaker 1: need to hate him. Well, this will be good because
Speaker 1: I will try to be scrupulously fair as I outline
Speaker 1: why he's a piece of shit, and you will not
Speaker 1: give a funk about that and just and that will
Speaker 1: that will please both of the segments of people that
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast. UM. I love coming on because
Speaker 1: every time I connect with some of your listeners who
Speaker 1: I love and then other people on Reddit are like,
Speaker 1: I wish she would just kill herself, eat her heart.
Speaker 1: I would say Reddit's Reddit's part of the nine of
Speaker 1: the Internet or so that we never should have made.
Speaker 1: But speaking about things that never should have been made,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about Elon musk Yeah. So I did
Speaker 1: not want to do an episode about Elon Musk um,
Speaker 1: and I still kind of don't, um, although I changed
Speaker 1: my mind on that over the course of the episode,
Speaker 1: and my attitude on him from most of the time
Speaker 1: I've known about him has been it's bad to be
Speaker 1: a billionaire. Uh. And I know that he did some
Speaker 1: messed up stuff to get where he has has gotten.
Speaker 1: But also his businesses are things that I broadly support,
Speaker 1: like electric cars are are good. Space travel I think
Speaker 1: is good and should be easier. Um and I do
Speaker 1: think actually people will disagree about this. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: this a little bit. And I think there are things
Speaker 1: that are positive about SpaceX um. So like it was
Speaker 1: one of those things that was like, of all the
Speaker 1: people in the world, like, yeah, I think he's shitty
Speaker 1: in Lane, but like, why am I going to go
Speaker 1: after him in particular? And having spent an entire week
Speaker 1: reading everything I can about Elon Musk, I now feel
Speaker 1: very comfortable talking about out him for three hours. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I just didn't want to do this for
Speaker 1: a long time, and I get what. What finally pushed
Speaker 1: me over the edge was his reaction to the coronavirus
Speaker 1: um And it was like after weeks. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've been following Elon on Twitter during this,
Speaker 1: but for weeks he called fears over the coronavirus dumb. Um.
Speaker 1: He initially when it first hit predicted that like the
Speaker 1: panic was stupid and it was going to be like
Speaker 1: a nothing burger. And then obviously it's shut down the
Speaker 1: entire world, so he was wrong on that prediction. Then
Speaker 1: he predicted that we would be at no new cases
Speaker 1: by the end of April. By the end of April,
Speaker 1: like a couple of thousand people a day, we're dying
Speaker 1: in the United States, so we're not not not He
Speaker 1: was not right on that either, um. And then he
Speaker 1: went like kind of straight up into maga on Twitter
Speaker 1: with like tweeting free America now in all caps and
Speaker 1: like very studiously reopening his Alameda County Tesla factory, which
Speaker 1: by the way, is considered one of the most dangerous
Speaker 1: factories in the United States. Um and a number of
Speaker 1: his workers protested and said, like he should be in
Speaker 1: prison for the safety standards here. Yeah. Uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty great that you know, we've been talking about how
Speaker 1: we are spiraling, but like, honestly, compared to that, are
Speaker 1: we Robert, No, we're doing great. I've never been so
Speaker 1: freaked out by reality that I abandoned it in favor
Speaker 1: of something insane like MAGA. Yeah. It's like it's slogans
Speaker 1: like free America that you cannot relate to the complex
Speaker 1: realities of a virus or a pandemic. It's remarkable to
Speaker 1: me how weak a person you have to be to
Speaker 1: not be able to handle this as a billionaire, Like
Speaker 1: it's it's really just get on your yacht with like
Speaker 1: eight to Tony Robbins is on it. That can set
Speaker 1: you right, Like what's going on? Yeah, like it's this
Speaker 1: should be fine, Um, but no, it's not. For Elon
Speaker 1: the same month that he tweeted all of that stupid bullshit,
Speaker 1: he tweeted that Tesla stock price was too high, which
Speaker 1: instaly cut fourteen billion dollars from the company's value In
Speaker 1: a matter of minutes because the stock market totally makes sense.
Speaker 1: This really piste off a lot of his most loyal followers,
Speaker 1: who were all like his his his mentions for days
Speaker 1: where people being like, you just tanked the value of
Speaker 1: my portfolio with the Alley law. And there are suspicions.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's possible to confirm this, but people
Speaker 1: have suspected that he did this because essentially the way
Speaker 1: that like fucking stocks work, he was about to have
Speaker 1: like temporarily taking the value of Tesla reduced his tax burden.
Speaker 1: Basically like he did that to save some money on taxes,
Speaker 1: which is like illegal but also the kind of illegal
Speaker 1: that like nobody ever really gets in trouble for um,
Speaker 1: but also the kind of selfish that is so remarkable
Speaker 1: that you would rather hurt every single investor in your company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then then to just fucking take it on the chin
Speaker 1: and pay taxes. When billionaires paying taxes is good for
Speaker 1: the world, It's it's cool. And again, those are suspe
Speaker 1: missions that people have voiced and not something that we
Speaker 1: can prove. Because Elon Musk has many lawyers, I want
Speaker 1: to be clear when we when we state other people's suspicions.
Speaker 1: We are not stating an objective fact um. No one
Speaker 1: knows why he tweeted that dumb thing that tanked the
Speaker 1: value of his stock. That is one suspicion um. He
Speaker 1: also tweeted quote, I am selling almost all physical possessions.
Speaker 1: Will own no house, and he quickly followed up by
Speaker 1: noting that his girlfriend Grimes was mad at him for this,
Speaker 1: and then he did list all of his mansions. So
Speaker 1: and it's like he talks about is that like a
Speaker 1: weird flex? What is that supposed to be? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a thing. I read this book about Elon Musk that
Speaker 1: we'll talk about a little bit more later, like a
Speaker 1: biography about him that was publish this and in it,
Speaker 1: like the biographer Ashley Vance, notes that like he travels
Speaker 1: around all the time, Like he'll spend like two days
Speaker 1: in l A, two days in San Francisco, and like
Speaker 1: when he goes to San Francisco, he usually will just
Speaker 1: crash at a friend's house on their couch. And like
Speaker 1: the way it's related is that like he's just this
Speaker 1: kind of obsessive accoholic who doesn't care about material things.
Speaker 1: But it's like, no, the friend that you're crashing at
Speaker 1: is like the founder of Google. Like like like like
Speaker 1: you're not like chilling in like your buddies, like studio apartment,
Speaker 1: Like the couch is your own guest mansion. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: like or if it is a couch, it is a
Speaker 1: seventy thousand dollar couch, Like it is a couch with
Speaker 1: that that is worth more than some cities like um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: several days after tweeting that he was selling all of
Speaker 1: his earthly possessions his I think still girlfriend, Grimes gave
Speaker 1: birth to the couple's first child together, and like Musk
Speaker 1: six or seventh kid, um, he went viral again when
Speaker 1: he announced that the boy's name would be x A
Speaker 1: E A twelve and that is not how he says
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be pronounced. I don't care. It's a
Speaker 1: dumb name for a baby. The state of California agrees
Speaker 1: it's a dumb name for a baby, and they have
Speaker 1: signaled that it is not an acceptable name under state
Speaker 1: health codes. Um, so that's cool. We'll see how that
Speaker 1: works out. I'm sure he'll find a way to get
Speaker 1: his his stupid way on this. Um. Although he says
Speaker 1: it was grimes decision, which maybe it was I don't
Speaker 1: think she makes great decisions either. I mean she is
Speaker 1: having his baby. Yeah, clearly not the best decision making process. Again,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, already has like a billion kids he
Speaker 1: doesn't care about. Yeah, I don't know. So the thing
Speaker 1: that like really set me off, Like, all of this
Speaker 1: is very silly, and it's silly in general that a
Speaker 1: man with this much wealth spends any time at all
Speaker 1: on Twitter, because you shouldn't, like you just shouldn't, like
Speaker 1: none of us should, but you especially shouldn't if you
Speaker 1: can buy a yacht. Um. And before anybody who follows
Speaker 1: Musk had any chance to really digest all of this
Speaker 1: ship or stop laughing about it, uh, Musk dropped another
Speaker 1: bombshell when he tweeted take the red Pill alongside a
Speaker 1: red rose emoji. Now, at various points in time on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Musk has identified himself as a socialist without really explaining
Speaker 1: what he means by that. So this might have been
Speaker 1: him talking about democratic socialism, but it probably wasn't. Um.
Speaker 1: I think anyone listening knows like what red pill means
Speaker 1: on the far right. Uh. And Musk was immediately embraced
Speaker 1: by the worst people on the Internet, including Ivanka Trump,
Speaker 1: who quote tweeted him uh Lily Wachowski, one half of
Speaker 1: the duo responsible for coming up with the term red pill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I told them both to go funk themselves. So all
Speaker 1: of this made me go, Okay, I gotta fucking right
Speaker 1: about Elon Musk, Like, we gotta, we gotta do this.
Speaker 1: I've been watching the while it out too, and I've
Speaker 1: been like, just it's reminding me of kind of the
Speaker 1: Kanye breakdown. Yeah, We're like the line between eccentricity and
Speaker 1: just like becoming a bad person has becoming a little
Speaker 1: like more blurred for them than it ever has been,
Speaker 1: and people are trying to there's very few stands were
Speaker 1: still around. We're like no, no, no, acent probably still
Speaker 1: means good in the background, but it's it's telling that
Speaker 1: when people like Ivanka Trump retweet you and support you
Speaker 1: and you don't say anything like and you don't say
Speaker 1: no fuck you, Like yeah, on you. You know, if
Speaker 1: people misinterpreted it, that's on you to set it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to be like no, not these people. Um yeah, And
Speaker 1: I I can't say if Ellen's in the process of
Speaker 1: I don't know, embracing the alt right or like going
Speaker 1: full maga or if he's just ship posting because he
Speaker 1: does that all of the time. Um. Yeah. In a
Speaker 1: Business Insider interview that came out today, which is actually
Speaker 1: written by the woman who wrote the biography that will
Speaker 1: refer to regularly in this episode, he stated that he
Speaker 1: makes a lot of stupid tweets. He did, he did
Speaker 1: own that, but he didn't specify which tweets were stupid,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like the most cowardly way to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that you tweet a bunch of dumb shit. Um.
Speaker 1: He also stated that Twitter was a valuable way for
Speaker 1: him to engage with his fans without a filter, which
Speaker 1: is not true of anyone who has ever had fans. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no value in Twitter. Everyone should exactly what Trump
Speaker 1: says to to justify his Twitter presence. Yeah. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: when it comes to analyzing whether or not Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is a bastard, um, and that doesn't Like, obviously, I
Speaker 1: think it's unethical to be a billionaire, But I don't
Speaker 1: think like every billionaire doesn't deserve to have a behind
Speaker 1: the bastards because most of them, like I still don't
Speaker 1: even know if I'm gonna write one about bezos because
Speaker 1: it would just wind up being like a list of
Speaker 1: bad Amazon practices. But I think he's pretty boring. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Maybe I will one day. Um But like
Speaker 1: you have, there has to be like you have to
Speaker 1: be interestingly shitty to qualify for this show. UM and
Speaker 1: I do think Ellen qualifies now now that I understand
Speaker 1: him better. Now I should start by noting that most
Speaker 1: of our information on him comes from Elon himself or
Speaker 1: his close family members, most of whom have financial ties
Speaker 1: to Elon. So there is a dearth of objective information,
Speaker 1: particularly about his early life. UM. And the other chunk
Speaker 1: of information we have from his early adults On comes
Speaker 1: from people who dislike him for one reason or another.
Speaker 1: So it's hard to get objective sources about this guy.
Speaker 1: And as a result, there are two competing Elons that
Speaker 1: appear if you study his life story. And so the
Speaker 1: Elon that his fans tend to see is the awkward
Speaker 1: genius driven manically to save the world and so obsessed
Speaker 1: with this goal that he fails to understand the needs
Speaker 1: or cater to the feelings of normal people. UM. And
Speaker 1: it's usually sort of like, but it's okay because he's
Speaker 1: really try Yes, big bang theory. No one has benefited.
Speaker 1: I will say no human being has benefited more from
Speaker 1: our Hollywood induced misunderstanding of autism than Elon Musk. Um
Speaker 1: like he he has been the primary beneficiary of that.
Speaker 1: It's cool, Um, it's not. Uh yeah uh so just
Speaker 1: and so the other view of him is that he's
Speaker 1: just another sociopathic billionaire asshole who treats human beings that
Speaker 1: make his wealth possible like a fifteen year old boy
Speaker 1: treats kleenex. Um. That's what I think. Yeah. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: main source for this episode is a book titled Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX,
Speaker 1: and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashley Vance.
Speaker 1: It was published in two US in fifteen, so this
Speaker 1: was before Musk's social media presence made him problematic to
Speaker 1: a lot of people who had either liked him or
Speaker 1: tolerated him quietly before. Uh. It is a broadly positive book,
Speaker 1: and it verges on fawning when it talks about Tesla
Speaker 1: and SpaceX technology. Um, but it's not entirely positive, and
Speaker 1: its evaluation of Elon himself and is very critical about
Speaker 1: him at a number of points. Um. When the book
Speaker 1: was published, Musk took to Twitter to complain about stories
Speaker 1: other people had told about him that he disagreed with.
Speaker 1: Um But he also continued to do interviews with Ashley Vance,
Speaker 1: So he's obviously not that angry. Um Elon did cooperate
Speaker 1: with the book, and the story behind how that came
Speaker 1: to be is deeply revealing about his personality. UM. So
Speaker 1: he learned that Vance was working on his biography early
Speaker 1: in the process, and UM, I'm just gonna quote Ashley
Speaker 1: now writing about how that inner introduction went. I had
Speaker 1: informed him of my plans to write a bo about him,
Speaker 1: and he did informed me if his plans not to cooperate.
Speaker 1: His rejections stung but thrust me into dogged reporter mode.
Speaker 1: If I had to do this book without him, so
Speaker 1: be it. Plenty of people had left Musk's companies, Tesla
Speaker 1: Motors and SpaceX and would talk, and I already knew
Speaker 1: a lot of his friends. The interviews followed, one after another,
Speaker 1: month after month, and two or so people into the process,
Speaker 1: I heard from Musk once again. He called me at
Speaker 1: home and declared that things could go one of two ways.
Speaker 1: He could make my life very difficult, or he could
Speaker 1: help with the project. After all, he'd be willing to
Speaker 1: cooperate if he could read the book before it went
Speaker 1: to publication and could add footnotes throughout it. Wow, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: only I five total approval of everything you say about me?
Speaker 1: Would that be cool with you? Artistically? Integrity wise, as
Speaker 1: a writer, as a journalist, what do you think? It's
Speaker 1: even more frustrating than that. Uh, he would not meddle
Speaker 1: with my text, but wanted the chance to set the
Speaker 1: record straight and spots he deemed f actually inaccurate, So
Speaker 1: he wanted He didn't want to just he didn't want
Speaker 1: to have to be able to approve her text. He
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to basically write his own biography
Speaker 1: alongside her biography that are argued with it such an
Speaker 1: I can't even He's like a reply guy to the
Speaker 1: million degree, Like it's one of those things. I entered
Speaker 1: this project being like I don't know if this guy's
Speaker 1: going to be really interesting enough to do an episode about.
Speaker 1: And once I read that part of the introduction, I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, yeah, I'm doing the right thing, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: because that kind of says everything about him as a
Speaker 1: human being really, um so yeah, being a journalist, VANCE
Speaker 1: said no, and this is partly because she feared that
Speaker 1: he'd write dozens of pages of footnotes that would create
Speaker 1: out the actual biography itself, which is almost certainly true,
Speaker 1: and partly because, in her words quote, Musk has his
Speaker 1: version of the truth and it's not always the version
Speaker 1: of the truth that the rest of the world shares. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: to Ellen's credit, when Vance stood her ground and agreed
Speaker 1: to he agreed to cooperate with the book anyway. Ashley
Speaker 1: says that he's the kind of person who respects it
Speaker 1: and people around him set strong boundaries and hold firm
Speaker 1: in their convictions. Um. Of course, when the book came
Speaker 1: out and it included anecdotes about Elon that he did
Speaker 1: not like, he took to Twitter to provide his own footnotes.
Speaker 1: So he is absolutely the guy that um he you
Speaker 1: think he is. We're gonna get into Musk's early life
Speaker 1: in a second, but before we do, I want to
Speaker 1: read run more segment from Ashley's introduction. This moment comes
Speaker 1: during the first dinner she and Elon shared after he
Speaker 1: agreed to cooperate with her project. Quote. Two and a
Speaker 1: half hours after he started, must put his hands on
Speaker 1: the table, made a move to get up and then paused,
Speaker 1: locked eyes with me, and busted out that incredible question,
Speaker 1: do you think I'm insane? The oddity of the moment
Speaker 1: left me speechless for a beat, with my every synapse
Speaker 1: fired trying to figure out if this was some sort
Speaker 1: of riddle, and if so, how should it be answered artfully?
Speaker 1: It was only after I spent lots of time with
Speaker 1: that is just so terrifying. If I was interviewing a
Speaker 1: man he said that to me, I would be terrified, Sophie, terrifying, horrifying.
Speaker 1: You have a real responsibility just as like a dude,
Speaker 1: and also as a as a dude who has any
Speaker 1: kind of prominence. And I don't have the same kind
Speaker 1: of prominence that Musk does, but I I do regularly
Speaker 1: wind up in situations where like I'm well known by
Speaker 1: a lot of the people there. You have like a
Speaker 1: real responsibility to not creep people out. Um, like a
Speaker 1: moral responsibility, especially if you're like clearly have more power
Speaker 1: in the situation than the other person. Um. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that is definitely a creepy way to react or way
Speaker 1: to act. It would make me feel so unsafe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I want to read the rest of what
Speaker 1: Ashley says here because it's telling. It was only after
Speaker 1: I spent lots of time with Musk that I realized
Speaker 1: the question was more for him than me. Nothing I
Speaker 1: said would have mattered. Musk was stopping one last time
Speaker 1: and wondering a lot if I could be trusted, and
Speaker 1: then looking into my eyes and make and to make
Speaker 1: his judgment. And it's weird because she clearly likes the guy,
Speaker 1: but also like the question was more for him than me.
Speaker 1: Nothing I said would have mattered. I kind of wonder
Speaker 1: about Vance, because like, that's not the thing you write
Speaker 1: about someone that you think is a good person. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing I said would have added to him? Cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what a guy putting people through tests is definitely like
Speaker 1: a thing. Yeah, I mean I do that a lot um,
Speaker 1: mainly by lying about the band Hanson. So that's you know, none,
Speaker 1: none of us are perfect. Uh yeah. So let's go
Speaker 1: back in time and talk about Elon's ancestors. His great
Speaker 1: grandfather and his namesake was John Elon Holdeman, who was
Speaker 1: born in Illinois in eighteen seventy two. Haldeman got hitched
Speaker 1: and started a life in Minnesota. He gave birth to
Speaker 1: Elon's grandfather, Joshua Norman Holdeman in nineteen o two. John
Speaker 1: kicked the bucket early in nineteen o seven after the
Speaker 1: family moved to Canada, and so Elon's grandfather grew up
Speaker 1: a citizen of that much better country. Joshua was an
Speaker 1: adventurous lad into horseback riding, wrestling, and a lot of
Speaker 1: good stuff. And he's a big inspiration to Elon because
Speaker 1: of what like an adventurous cool guy he was. He
Speaker 1: started his career breaking horses for farmers and competing in rodeos,
Speaker 1: and then he moved to Iowa to get a degree
Speaker 1: from D. D. Palmer School of Chira Practic who we
Speaker 1: did an episode about. Um. Yeah, he went back home
Speaker 1: afterwards and became a farmer. He didn't start working as
Speaker 1: a chiropractor immediately, but then the depression hit and his
Speaker 1: land was seized, and this convinced him that banks could
Speaker 1: not be trusted. Uh. Joshua had a rough few years,
Speaker 1: but eventually started working as a chiropractor and he made
Speaker 1: a lot of money. He married a dance instructor named Winifred,
Speaker 1: and he bought his own plane, which he used to
Speaker 1: take his growing family on adventurous vacations in nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: Joshua sold everything his family owned and moved to South Africa. Now,
Speaker 1: I have not heard from anyone a really satisfying explanation
Speaker 1: of why he did this. And everybody talks about Joshua
Speaker 1: as if he was an awesome person and he is
Speaker 1: a big inspiration to Elon Musk. But there is something
Speaker 1: shady about this guy. Um Ashley Vance notes that he
Speaker 1: was quote a man who forbade swearing, smoking Coca cola
Speaker 1: and refined flower, and that he moved to South Africa
Speaker 1: because quote, he felt that the moral character of Canada
Speaker 1: had started to decline. So no one says anything about
Speaker 1: what Joshua believed ari race. He thought Canada was too
Speaker 1: immoral in nineteen fifty and moved to South Africa. Put
Speaker 1: some do some math. He's like, what I'm totally cool
Speaker 1: with is systematic oppression and racism. What I am doubtful
Speaker 1: about is how much ankle these ladies in Canada are showing. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: he spent all this time in Africa taking constant plane
Speaker 1: trips with his family. He would take all of his
Speaker 1: kids on these like very adventurous rides across the continents
Speaker 1: and to other continents. And stuff, and um, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of he wrote a book about it. There's he
Speaker 1: was like he's he's like the family's famous, like patron
Speaker 1: of the family. UM, and Ellen never knew him. He
Speaker 1: died when Ellen was like a baby, UM in a
Speaker 1: plane crash because he hit some ship because he was
Speaker 1: flying like an asshole, I guess, um. But so like
Speaker 1: you could like Ellen grew up never knowing the guy,
Speaker 1: but worshiping him because everyone in his family was always
Speaker 1: telling stories about how cool he was. Um. That's obviously
Speaker 1: like he's he was Elon's namesake, so this is like
Speaker 1: a really important thing to him. But also Elon never
Speaker 1: knew the guy. UM, so that's interesting. So Uh, May
Speaker 1: Musk Elon's mother and obviously that um that cool probably
Speaker 1: a gigantic racist plane Dude's daughter. Um is noted as
Speaker 1: having been a nerdy, beautiful woman. She worked as a model.
Speaker 1: She still actually works as a model. Um, and she
Speaker 1: was a finalist from Miss South Africa. Uh. Elon's father.
Speaker 1: The man she married, was Errol Musk, and he grew
Speaker 1: up near may H. The two dated off and on
Speaker 1: for a while, and May pushed off constant request by
Speaker 1: Errol that she married him. Eventually, she says he broke
Speaker 1: her will. Quote he just never stopped proposing. So that
Speaker 1: is so romantic. Oh my god. He wore her down persistently.
Speaker 1: I just want someone to ignore my wishes over and
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over and over again
Speaker 1: until I just succum. I mean that's Is there any
Speaker 1: other way to make it with a woman but hitting
Speaker 1: on her relentlessly until you break her. I want her
Speaker 1: will and her spirit to be broken. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: I want a locket that says will and a locket
Speaker 1: that says spirit, and them both to have bones. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know what won't break your will
Speaker 1: in spirit, Sophia? Is it these goods and services? These
Speaker 1: goods and services, respect consent. We're back, Uh yeah so
Speaker 1: um yeah. Obviously some red flags at the start of
Speaker 1: Elon's parents marriage. Uh, this is something I think even
Speaker 1: Ellen would agree with. Um. But the first few years
Speaker 1: of the marriage were fine enough. The couple got pregnant immediately.
Speaker 1: He was born like nine months in a couple of
Speaker 1: days after they got married. Um, so they did not
Speaker 1: waste any time. May gave birth to Elon on June
Speaker 1: ninety one, nine months in two days after the wedding. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Vance notes that Errol quote worked as a mechanical and
Speaker 1: electrical engineer and handled large projects such as office buildings,
Speaker 1: retail complexes, residential subdivisions in an air force space. Will
Speaker 1: may set up a practice as a dietitian. This is
Speaker 1: not an accurate but it is weirdly incomplete. She does
Speaker 1: not talk enough about Errol. There's some good reasons why
Speaker 1: you wouldn't, but also it leaves out, I think a
Speaker 1: very important aspect of the story that she she doesn't deny,
Speaker 1: but she also does not talk about nearly enough to
Speaker 1: the level of importance I think it has. The Musks
Speaker 1: were extremely wealthy. Uh. Not only was May's family very comfortable,
Speaker 1: but Errol owned a half share, a half share in
Speaker 1: a fucking emerald mine. Um. And how he came to
Speaker 1: own half of an emerald mine is really interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: He later told an interviewer, quote, we were very wealthy.
Speaker 1: We had so much money at times that we couldn't
Speaker 1: even close our safe. One person we have to shove
Speaker 1: the money in, and the other would slam the door shut,
Speaker 1: and then there'd still be all these notes sticking out,
Speaker 1: and we'd sort of put them out and into our pockets.
Speaker 1: They're just like us. Yeah. Now, the story of how
Speaker 1: Errol came to own that emerald mine is real fucking shady,
Speaker 1: he claims, because I've read his claims, and also he
Speaker 1: is not a reliable narrator, so it's possible that all
Speaker 1: of this is a lie, which I do think is
Speaker 1: part of why Ashley Vance didn't include a lot that
Speaker 1: he said in there. Um. But he says that he
Speaker 1: and a friend were on a trip, flying their own
Speaker 1: plane too, and in they landed in Djibouti, and like,
Speaker 1: when they were walking around, they met who he met.
Speaker 1: They met who he describes as quote a group of
Speaker 1: Italians who just wanted to buy a plane, and they
Speaker 1: paid eighty thousand pounds in cash. And while they were paying,
Speaker 1: Errol says, one of them was just like, hey, you
Speaker 1: want to buy half of an emerald mine in Zambia,
Speaker 1: And so he says, quote, I said, oh, all right,
Speaker 1: So I became half owner of the mine and we
Speaker 1: got emeralds for the next six years. And regular rich
Speaker 1: people should just regular ship just chill ass rich people
Speaker 1: condos say you want half this emerald mine? Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is something you'll see brought up a lot, particularly by
Speaker 1: kind of like left wing critics of Musk on Twitter.
Speaker 1: They'll say that Elon Musk's dad, like this is one quote,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's dad stolen Emerald Mind and Zambia and exploded
Speaker 1: the natives for cheap labor, which might be true, probably
Speaker 1: is true, but there just actually aren't any details about
Speaker 1: the Mind, about its conditions, about how he came to
Speaker 1: really own it, about like, like, we just don't know
Speaker 1: fucking anything really about that mine other than his claim
Speaker 1: that a group of Italians randomly asked if he wanted
Speaker 1: to buy into it with his plane money. Um So
Speaker 1: I do have to say, does sound like a villain origins? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like almost almost certainly a really shady story there, but
Speaker 1: we really know very little about it. Um. I would
Speaker 1: love to see a deep dive into what the funk
Speaker 1: happened with that Emerald Mind, but I have not run
Speaker 1: into any hard evidence about it. Um. Now, we do
Speaker 1: know that Errol Musk was a millionaire before the age
Speaker 1: of thirty, and that his wealth allowed him to move
Speaker 1: the family to a very nice house in an exclude
Speaker 1: of whites only neighborhood in Pretoria. As a toddler, Ellen
Speaker 1: was precocious. His mom felt that he was unusually intelligent,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure most moms feel. It's also probably true,
Speaker 1: Vance writes quote. The perplexing thing was that Ellen seemed
Speaker 1: to drift off into a transit. Times people spoke to him,
Speaker 1: but nothing got through when he had a certain distant
Speaker 1: look in his eyes. This happened so often that Elon's
Speaker 1: parents and and doctors thought that he might be deaf.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he just didn't hear you said, May. Doctors ran
Speaker 1: a series of tests on Elon and elected to remove
Speaker 1: his adnnoyed glance, which can improve hearing in children. Will
Speaker 1: he did get too, Yeah, they like Elon musk. I
Speaker 1: also hate I'm just I'm not gonna go. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: is one of those things where like, yeah, you're a mom,
Speaker 1: your mom talking about how smart you are is always weird,
Speaker 1: but like it's always like who knows how credible that is?
Speaker 1: But also something was clearly like he's clearly not like
Speaker 1: wasn't a normal kid, Like you don't just have to
Speaker 1: give your kid surgery because they space out, because they're
Speaker 1: just like a normal Like he was definitely like you know,
Speaker 1: like different, um and that that seems to be not
Speaker 1: just like myth building, right. Um, so I mean I
Speaker 1: had him removed because I have had constant ear infections.
Speaker 1: Maybe that just wasn't like a sexy and origin story.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were like, yeah, he's we don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about all the ear infections he got. Let's make
Speaker 1: this something my Maybe they're all lying. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but he um, yeah, I don't. And
Speaker 1: the women, like his ex wife, says that he would
Speaker 1: also do this like this is like he just kind
Speaker 1: of like blanks out and gets lost inside himself all
Speaker 1: the time. Um, I don't know, it's just a thing
Speaker 1: he does. Uh. May claims that she eventually realized Elon
Speaker 1: was just going into his own little world and you know,
Speaker 1: again her anglish, like he's just so brilliant that he's
Speaker 1: thinking so hard about things. Um. It's definitely true that
Speaker 1: it did not make him popular among his classmates. Quote,
Speaker 1: you could do jumping Jack's right next right beside musker
Speaker 1: yell at him and he would not even notice. He
Speaker 1: kept right on thinking, and those around him judge that
Speaker 1: he was either rude or really weird. I do think
Speaker 1: Ellen was always a little different but in a nerdy way.
Speaker 1: May said it didn't endear him to his peers. And
Speaker 1: this is another running thing in Elon's childhood that he
Speaker 1: had like no friends. Um. He later had close relationships
Speaker 1: with like his brother and sister and his cousins, but
Speaker 1: they didn't even really like him all that much when
Speaker 1: he was a kid because he was just like weird. Um.
Speaker 1: He was bad at um. You know, you feel for
Speaker 1: the kid actually, like when you read enough about him,
Speaker 1: because he was clearly like often his own little world
Speaker 1: and he took a lot of ship for it, um,
Speaker 1: which I identify with because so was I. Um. He
Speaker 1: spent every spare moment of his childhood reading books, sometimes
Speaker 1: two in a single day, and he would like ignore
Speaker 1: other people to read books. Yeah, I did that too,
Speaker 1: like a lot of what like I and I got
Speaker 1: shipped for it, like I was always reading books and
Speaker 1: stuck in my own little world and like until I
Speaker 1: was bigger than everybody else, Like I got like like
Speaker 1: like punched and stuff as a kid for that ship.
Speaker 1: And Ellen did too, And it sucked. And I sympathize
Speaker 1: with him for that. That's a lame thing to have
Speaker 1: to deal with. Uh. He went through fantasy class like
Speaker 1: The Lord of the Rings, but soon gravitated towards science fiction.
Speaker 1: He lists the libertarian epic The Moon Is a Harsh
Speaker 1: Mistress and The Great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as
Speaker 1: influential books, which I also same. Yeah, yep, yeah, he
Speaker 1: also just read a lot of encyclopedias. Um. This made
Speaker 1: Elon into a know it all, uh, the kind of
Speaker 1: kid who kind of felt the need to compulsively inform
Speaker 1: everyone around him that he thought they were wrong about
Speaker 1: specific facts. And he was unable or unwilling to not
Speaker 1: do this even when it cost him shit. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from Ashley Vance's book Now. As a youngster,
Speaker 1: Elon's constant yearning to correct people in his abrasive manner
Speaker 1: would put off other kids and added his feelings of isolation.
Speaker 1: Elan genuinely thought that people would be happy to hear
Speaker 1: about the flaws in their thinking. Kids don't like answers
Speaker 1: like that, said may They would say, Ellen, we are
Speaker 1: not playing with you anymore. I felt very sad as
Speaker 1: a mother, because I think he wanted friends. Kimball and Tosca.
Speaker 1: His brother and sister would bring home friends and Elan
Speaker 1: wouldn't and he would want to play with them, but
Speaker 1: he was awkward. You know. May urged Kimball and Tosca
Speaker 1: to include Elon. They responded, as kids will, but Mom,
Speaker 1: he's not fun. Yeah, fun too for quite a bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's like, it's like, if you're thinking about it
Speaker 1: in the context of, like he grew into this problematic adult,
Speaker 1: it's funny. But if you think about like just as
Speaker 1: a little kid, like, yeah, that sucks, and like he
Speaker 1: hadn't done anything bad at that point. He was a
Speaker 1: little kid, and I'm not laughing at him. I'm just
Speaker 1: laughing at how cruel it is to be a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It sucks. Like being a kid is the
Speaker 1: worst thing you can be. Dude, I got bullied heavy.
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm out sympathizing with the bullies. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying I think we all know that feeling when
Speaker 1: people will not funk with you. Yeah, it sucks. It sucks,
Speaker 1: um And you know, it got worse for Elon when
Speaker 1: he was still a boy. His parents divorced, and his
Speaker 1: mother moved across the country to the family's holiday home
Speaker 1: on the East Coast. Uh The cause appears to have
Speaker 1: been infidelity by Errol, who years later told interviewers, I
Speaker 1: had a very pretty wife, but there were always prettier
Speaker 1: younger girls. I really loved May, but I screwed up.
Speaker 1: And then when he's saying he's screwed up, he's dogging her.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, but she was kind of ugly. They
Speaker 1: were better looking people. I should also note that, um,
Speaker 1: that interview I found was written about him after he
Speaker 1: married his stepdaughter, who was I think twenty two, when
Speaker 1: he was sixty something and had a baby with her.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a gross gut. He is a terrible person.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk hates his dad and is emphatic that he
Speaker 1: is a terrible person. Um. And I think he's really
Speaker 1: telling the truth about that. I think he hates his
Speaker 1: dad for a very good reason, because his dad is
Speaker 1: a gigantic piece of shit. Um. Yeah, Elon went with
Speaker 1: his mom at first, but he soon decided to move
Speaker 1: back in with his father. And he says that this
Speaker 1: is because he felt bad for his dad because his
Speaker 1: dad was alone. UM. Elon's ex wife, Justine feels differently.
Speaker 1: She says that she thinks this is because he quote
Speaker 1: identified more with the alpha male of the house and
Speaker 1: wasn't he if. She also notes that he wasn't close
Speaker 1: to either of his parents, that they were a very
Speaker 1: cold family, and that there wasn't a lot of like
Speaker 1: emotional warmth between anyone in the family. That's Justine's claim
Speaker 1: as his ex wife. Again, I don't know any of
Speaker 1: these people. Um. Yeah, either way, Elon claims that he
Speaker 1: immediately regretted moving in with his father. Now, Uh, Errol
Speaker 1: was I think, by all accounts a brilliant engineer. Nobody
Speaker 1: really disagrees with that, and he taught young Ellen a
Speaker 1: lot of his first lessons about engineering and science. But
Speaker 1: this was not a pleasant process. Errol had a habit
Speaker 1: of sitting Elon and his brother down and lecturing them
Speaker 1: to three or for three or four hours at a stretch.
Speaker 1: He did not take questions and did not react well
Speaker 1: when either boys spoke up, even to ask questions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's a piece of ship press conference. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of unanswered questions about Errol Musk and
Speaker 1: one can't study Elon's background without walking away convinced that
Speaker 1: the way Errol treated Elon during the years they lived
Speaker 1: together had a powerful and a negative impact on the
Speaker 1: future billionaire, but parsing out the extent of that impact
Speaker 1: is hard. For example, we know that Errol Musk killed
Speaker 1: three men who broke into his house. Um. We know
Speaker 1: that some people have said that this was just a
Speaker 1: straight up murder. It was. He was acquitted and the
Speaker 1: case was ruled self defense. And I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I think they were black. I don't know, though I
Speaker 1: do not know. It is hard to find. I have
Speaker 1: not found details. If you know to fucking search up
Speaker 1: old South African murder cases, look it up. But while
Speaker 1: Ellen and his sister were like living with him, Errol
Speaker 1: Musk fucking killed three dudes. That's such a chill childhood, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's also possible that that was like he's a
Speaker 1: piece of ship. But also this was totally legitimate self
Speaker 1: defense because South Africa's really has a lot of fucking
Speaker 1: problems with home invasions that turned violent. Like what, I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened, um. Elon does not like to
Speaker 1: talk about it, and I understand that. Um, And you
Speaker 1: get the feeling he is terrified of his dad, and
Speaker 1: also you get the feeling that he fucking should be like, uh,
Speaker 1: Errol susks a real problematic dude. UM. Now yeah, I
Speaker 1: just don't know much about that case. Uh yeah. So uh,
Speaker 1: while he did grow up in apartheid South Africa and
Speaker 1: he absolutely benefited from that racist state. He absolutely, like
Speaker 1: his family was very wealthy. Um. And they were wealthy
Speaker 1: at least in part due to apartheid, and Ellen benefited
Speaker 1: from that. I do not think there is any blame
Speaker 1: you can throw on him for that because he was
Speaker 1: number one hated living in South Africa. Um. This is
Speaker 1: a very consistent aspect of his backstory. Everyone who knew
Speaker 1: him points out that he was deeply connected to his
Speaker 1: American roots and for his entire childhood wanted to get
Speaker 1: the funk out of South Africa and moved to the
Speaker 1: United States. He repeatedly tried to convince his father to
Speaker 1: move to the US. At one point, Errol got frustrated
Speaker 1: enough by this that he sent all of the housekeepers
Speaker 1: home and made Elon do all of their chores so
Speaker 1: that he would know what it was like. To quote
Speaker 1: play American, Um, which tells you what Errol Musk thought
Speaker 1: it meant to be an American. It means that you
Speaker 1: can't have any black people working for you. Uh um Oh,
Speaker 1: the horror having to do your own law carey is
Speaker 1: what he was trying to teach him. He's like, imagine
Speaker 1: what it would be like if you were just a person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the Elon musk like, again, it's very worthwhile to
Speaker 1: point out that he benefited financially from apartheid, but also
Speaker 1: like he fucking hated it there um And that's really
Speaker 1: consistent in every story about his background. Uh. For his part,
Speaker 1: Errol claims Elon's upbringing was opulent and thoroughly positive. Quote.
Speaker 1: I drove them to school in a convertible rules Royce Corniche.
Speaker 1: They had thoroughbred horses to ride and motorbikes at the
Speaker 1: age of fourteen. They were spoiled. I suppose maybe that's
Speaker 1: why Ellen is acting like a spoiled child now. And
Speaker 1: this was been they were having a big public fight
Speaker 1: in the press. Um now. Ashley Vance's book all but
Speaker 1: ignores Errol in his side of events, which conflict regularly
Speaker 1: with Elon's own recollections. For example, Elon claims that his
Speaker 1: youthful interest in computers clashed with his father, who thought
Speaker 1: studying computers was a waste of time. Errol disagrees with that.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna quote now from an interview in the
Speaker 1: New Zealand Herald. Uh, this is Errol Elon has repeatedly
Speaker 1: told a story of me telling him that computers were
Speaker 1: a waste of time. That's untrue. Recounting early signs of
Speaker 1: his son's intellect with genuine pride, he continues, Elon has
Speaker 1: been generous enough to admit that he inherited his scientific
Speaker 1: genius from me. When he was eleven, he pestered me
Speaker 1: to pay a huge sum to let him attend to
Speaker 1: computer course where the first with the first IBM PC
Speaker 1: with mouse and keyboard was to be presented for the
Speaker 1: first time, groundbreaking stuff. I told him to be quiet
Speaker 1: and well behaved, to give up his seat to someone
Speaker 1: if necessary. It had set on the step at the
Speaker 1: side of the stage. When I came back after two
Speaker 1: hours to collect him, I found most people had left,
Speaker 1: but a group had gathered at the foot of the stage,
Speaker 1: and the center was my small son. His sleeves rolled up,
Speaker 1: talking earnestly. A professor listening to him turned to me
Speaker 1: and said, this boy needs to get one of these computers.
Speaker 1: I think Elan is probably closer to telling the truth
Speaker 1: and that his dad was a dick about this, but
Speaker 1: also now that his son has being very successful, Errol
Speaker 1: wants everyone to think that Elan is a genius because
Speaker 1: of how it reflects on Errol. That's the feeling I
Speaker 1: get reading a lot of both men. That's how I
Speaker 1: interpret all this. You are really a done fighting really
Speaker 1: strongly with Ellen and I it's I've never seen you
Speaker 1: like this about any bastard, are you in life? No?
Speaker 1: I just as a kid number one. He and I
Speaker 1: like this. I think he's blushing look at him. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you gotta give that. You gotta be fair. I've seen
Speaker 1: him like this. You know, somebody one thing but in love,
Speaker 1: but you know, somebody's super funwed up. When Robert does
Speaker 1: that weird giggle thing where he's like, yeah, he's like
Speaker 1: and then he did that yeah, and you're like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: that's that's some dark shit. And yeah, I mean he's he's, he's,
Speaker 1: he's he's setting the stage for what's it's happened, don't worry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he's going to he's not going to deserve
Speaker 1: any of this sympathy. But also like he had a
Speaker 1: fucked up childhood, and he gets some sympathy as a
Speaker 1: result of that. Um, I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying I've never seen you like this. Yeah, most
Speaker 1: of them don't have Most of the Bachards don't have
Speaker 1: this sympathetic a back story. You know, they're not all
Speaker 1: like Saddam Hussein, who was like a perfect flower child. Um,
Speaker 1: and he you really root for as a little kid
Speaker 1: when he's holding his teachers up at gunpoint. Um or
Speaker 1: j Stall, I love little kids, Stalin. He was. He
Speaker 1: was a good one too. Like, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: hardy not to read about kids in general and not
Speaker 1: be sympathetic. Like they all reach a point where they
Speaker 1: stop earning your sympathy, but like they all at some point,
Speaker 1: we're just like fucking trying to figure out the world.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like, uh, the only way
Speaker 1: we can live in this world as if we think
Speaker 1: that people are capable of change, whether it's little kids
Speaker 1: or adults. And with little kids there's a sense that
Speaker 1: there's more potential for change than at any other time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, And I also do feel that if you're
Speaker 1: going to properly condemn someone for the bad things they've done.
Speaker 1: You have to be very fair about their life and
Speaker 1: about like what they actually are. Um. And at this
Speaker 1: point in the story, Ellen's like a little kid with
Speaker 1: a crazy abuse of lent dad, and he's a rich kid.
Speaker 1: But like, fuck, that's not easy still, um now obviously,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, Errol paints himself as generally available in a
Speaker 1: supportive dad who would worst over and indulged his children.
Speaker 1: Ellen and his brother Kimball both tell very different stories.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna quote from the Ashley Vance's biography again.
Speaker 1: While Elon and Kimball declined to provide an exact accounting,
Speaker 1: they clearly experienced something awful and profound during those years
Speaker 1: with their father. They both talked about having to endure
Speaker 1: some form of psychological torture. He definitely has serious chemical stuff,
Speaker 1: said Kimball, which I am sure Ellen and I have inherited.
Speaker 1: It was a very emotionally challenging upbringing it, but it
Speaker 1: made us who we are today. May bristled when the
Speaker 1: subject of Errol came up. Nobody gets along with him,
Speaker 1: she said, he is not nice to anyone. I don't
Speaker 1: want to tell stories because they are horrendous. You know,
Speaker 1: you just don't talk about it. There are kids and
Speaker 1: grandkids involved, and Justine, his ex wife, notes that like
Speaker 1: they agreed very early on that none of their kids
Speaker 1: were going to know their grandpa. Um. So like that's
Speaker 1: the guy we're dealing with here. Um, but there's all
Speaker 1: that's the laugh. So when Ashley Vance told Ellen that
Speaker 1: she had emailed his father, his answer to her was
Speaker 1: very telling. Quote, it would certainly be accurate to say
Speaker 1: that I did not have a good childhood. It may
Speaker 1: sound good, it was not absent of good, but it
Speaker 1: was not a happy childhood. It was like misery. He's
Speaker 1: good at making life miserable, that's for sure. He can
Speaker 1: take any situation, no matter how good it is, and
Speaker 1: make it bad. He is not a happy man. I
Speaker 1: think that could probably be true of Actually Ellen musk himself, honestly,
Speaker 1: but um, that is what happens. Child abuse will suck
Speaker 1: you up for life. Yep, yep. You know what won't
Speaker 1: suck you up for life, Sophia goods and services. These
Speaker 1: products and services will not abuse your children and turn
Speaker 1: them into billionaires who are emotionally distant and start fucking
Speaker 1: nonsense ship on Twitter for no good reason. We're back.
Speaker 1: Also of your best work. I have to say thank you. So. Um,
Speaker 1: now you've heard the emeralds story, right, you've heard it
Speaker 1: vaguely mentioned something about Elon Musk and emeralds in his pockets. Yes, again,
Speaker 1: it's just such a stuff. I love it. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: if you you you you hear this a lot that
Speaker 1: like Elon's family was so in like his dad owned
Speaker 1: half of an emerald mine. Um, people like the Frasier
Speaker 1: usually hears that he like walked down with emeralds in
Speaker 1: his pockets. And then anecdote is based on a Business
Speaker 1: Insider article that interviewed Errol Musk. It opens with the
Speaker 1: line quote, a teenage Elon Musk once walked the streets
Speaker 1: of New York with emeralds in his pocket. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the story Erald tells that does seem to be true
Speaker 1: is that during a visit to New York City when
Speaker 1: Ellen was sixteen, he and his brother Uh stole a
Speaker 1: couple of the emeralds that his dad just like casually
Speaker 1: had with him all the time. Uh. And they walked
Speaker 1: into a Tiffany and Company on Fifth Avenue and asked
Speaker 1: if the employees wanted to buy emeralds. And apparently you
Speaker 1: can do that apparently if you walk into Tiffany's but
Speaker 1: just like a fucking emerald, they'll they'll buy it from
Speaker 1: you from like some sixteen year olds. Wait wait, wait,
Speaker 1: like now you still do that? Or is this like
Speaker 1: old school fucking mobb dub Tiffany's. Like what this is
Speaker 1: like the late eighties? I guess, so maybe it's mobbed
Speaker 1: up Tiffanies. It does seem like legally you shouldn't buy
Speaker 1: emeralds from sixteen year old to walk it off the street.
Speaker 1: I mean, on the other hand, there won't be any paperwork. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the sixteen year old gonna do? Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know the standards in this industry. That seems shady to me.
Speaker 1: We're like, yeah, what what's what are the ethics and
Speaker 1: the and the complexities and the realities of selling a
Speaker 1: loose emerald you just brought with you from your dad's mind.
Speaker 1: What are any of the words that are coming out
Speaker 1: of my mouth right now? Yeah? Like it's simultaneously highlights
Speaker 1: how rich this kid was, but also is like, honestly,
Speaker 1: when you understand his background with his dad, one of
Speaker 1: the more emotionally understandable things that he did because he
Speaker 1: was just like, fuck you, dad, I'm gonna take your
Speaker 1: emeralds and I'm gonna like probably buy fucking drugs or
Speaker 1: whatever with my brother and like steal from you. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. They sold them for two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: A few days later, they returned to see the eight
Speaker 1: hundred dollar emerald. They sold set into a ring for
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand dollars, and Errol claims that this was
Speaker 1: a key lesson for Elon on how retail works. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the lesson Elon took out
Speaker 1: of it, but it's a wild thing to have in
Speaker 1: your childhood. I mean, my mom taught me the same
Speaker 1: lesson about money one time because like, um, it was
Speaker 1: like it was in Odessa and I had like a
Speaker 1: broken arm, and she was like, hey, you should go
Speaker 1: and stand in line for chickens and maybe they'll let
Speaker 1: you go to the front to get a chicken, because, um,
Speaker 1: your arm's broken. It's totally the same thing, right, It's
Speaker 1: the same story is as this emerald story, right, just
Speaker 1: like a cool valuable lesson where you realize you just
Speaker 1: let go of an emerald that was like accidentally worth
Speaker 1: over two dollars. Pretty similar, I think still learning about
Speaker 1: value of money, right, still learning. I mean we all
Speaker 1: have a version of that lesson. Right for most of us,
Speaker 1: it's not Emeralds. It's like we actually the car and
Speaker 1: the most unrelatable person of all time. Other than the abuse,
Speaker 1: I mean, just the rich parts are hilarious sounding. The
Speaker 1: emerald parts are just driving me. I mean, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just like it's just a rich kid's story. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: elon Musk. Um, Yeah, it's weird because like he both
Speaker 1: definitely benefited from all this financial security. He also like
Speaker 1: pretty regularly you can find a lot of interviews where
Speaker 1: he is like either at tears or at the point
Speaker 1: of tears talking about his dad, Like he's clearly really
Speaker 1: fucked up about his issues with his dad, and you
Speaker 1: you get the feeling that it makes sense, like fucking
Speaker 1: killed three people, Like who the funk knows what was
Speaker 1: going on in that house? Um. He also endured a
Speaker 1: lot of physical abuse at the hands of his classmates.
Speaker 1: Musk spent eighth ninth grade at Branston High School, UH,
Speaker 1: where one particular set of bullies decided to go after him.
Speaker 1: He later recalled quote, I was basically hiding from this
Speaker 1: gang that was fucking hunting me down for god knows
Speaker 1: fucking why. I think I accidentally bumped this guy at
Speaker 1: assembly that morning and he'd take and some huge offense
Speaker 1: at that Later that day, while Ellen was eating lunch,
Speaker 1: this kid snuck up on him and kicked him in
Speaker 1: the head and then shoved him down the stairs. When
Speaker 1: Ellen reached the bottom, a bunch of boys gathered around
Speaker 1: him and started kicking him while the first bully slammed
Speaker 1: his head into the ground. He eventually blacked out. Ellen
Speaker 1: had to go to the hospital and he was out
Speaker 1: of school for a week. He had to get a
Speaker 1: nose job as an adult to correct the damage done
Speaker 1: to him during this beating. That's fucked up, Like, that's
Speaker 1: beyond normal bullying. I'd say, yeah, that's real fuck up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the beatings continued. Um. A few years later, must
Speaker 1: claims that the same group of boys found out that
Speaker 1: Ellen had finally made a friend, which was not a
Speaker 1: normal thing for Ellen to have, uh, and they beat
Speaker 1: this kid up until he agreed to stop being Elon's friend. Um.
Speaker 1: He also claimed that they got this kid, who he
Speaker 1: describes as my best fucking friend to quote lure me
Speaker 1: out of hiding so they could beat me up and
Speaker 1: that fucking hurt, which obviously it did. That's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: I also really feel bad for that kid. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you're being nice and then someone's like, no good deed
Speaker 1: goes and punish. Yeah, you're fucking dead, not dead, but
Speaker 1: you know that's that's that's really a lot that's punishing
Speaker 1: kindness on like either and a lot of harm was
Speaker 1: done to the world as a result of these bullies. Um,
Speaker 1: how old is He's like fucking fifteen, sixteen at this point,
Speaker 1: so he's already in high school. Yeah. Yeah, And things
Speaker 1: got a little better for him when he was like sixteen.
Speaker 1: He started going to Pretoria Boys School, which is a
Speaker 1: ludicrously expensive, all white prep school. Um, and he spent
Speaker 1: the last bit of his high school there. He didn't
Speaker 1: really shine academically. He wasn't a great student, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't bad. Um. He distinguished himself with his extra curricular activities,
Speaker 1: which were primarily building very dangerous homemade rockets out of
Speaker 1: explosives that he gathered himself. Uh. He still regards the
Speaker 1: fact that he didn't lose any fingers as something of
Speaker 1: a miracle. The relatively few classmates Elon was friendly with
Speaker 1: do recall him being obsessed with space travel and solar
Speaker 1: power from an early age. Both of those stances were
Speaker 1: odd in South Africa. He talked a lot about the
Speaker 1: need for human nity to colonize other planets and the
Speaker 1: fundamental stupidity of fossil fuels. While Elon did not have
Speaker 1: great grades, his talent with computers was enough to get
Speaker 1: him into a special programming class where in nineteen eight
Speaker 1: four he programmed a video game was based around defending
Speaker 1: the Earth from powerful aliens. Elon graduated at age seventeen.
Speaker 1: He attended the University of Pretoria for five months before
Speaker 1: fucking off from South Africa forever to take advantage of
Speaker 1: his family history and moved to Canada. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if we're going to talk about take a look at
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's privilege, the fact that his grandfather was a
Speaker 1: Canadian citizen, uh and how that benefited him is actually
Speaker 1: more meaningful um than the apartheid stuff. And in fact,
Speaker 1: it very likely. It's very likely that Musk left South
Speaker 1: Africa in part to avoid his mandatory conscription in period
Speaker 1: of service in the South African military. There was no
Speaker 1: other reason for him to go to the University of
Speaker 1: Pretoria for five months, but to avoid getting drafted and
Speaker 1: spending time in the military, which is like a good thing.
Speaker 1: Avoiding serving in an apartheid military is like a like
Speaker 1: it that's what you want people who might get drafted
Speaker 1: by an apartheid military to do. Is not right, I
Speaker 1: mean not just apartheive military, but especially Yeah, my cousin
Speaker 1: um in Ukraine, like my aunt wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that her and him moved out um before he was
Speaker 1: of age to get drafted in the army. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's a real concern. People don't. Yeah, I've had some
Speaker 1: Israeli friends who did the same thing. And in fact,
Speaker 1: one guy who I hung out with a lot in
Speaker 1: India who like can never go back because he like
Speaker 1: skipped out on the draft. Uh yeah, yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: a good thing to do. It's a good thing that
Speaker 1: he did. Uh, so good on you, Ellen for not
Speaker 1: serving in an apartheid military. But the bad thing he did,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that at the end of this this
Speaker 1: first part here. Um. So, he arrived in Canada in
Speaker 1: June and when he landed he had a handful of
Speaker 1: phone numbers from family members he'd never met. He called
Speaker 1: people in eventually found a second cousin in a small
Speaker 1: town miles from where he landed who was willing to
Speaker 1: put Elon up for a while. So he took a
Speaker 1: bus and he hitched a ride to that guy's house.
Speaker 1: This is a big part of Elon's preferred version of
Speaker 1: his story, that he landed penniless in Canada and hitchhiked
Speaker 1: around with a backpack until he managed to put together
Speaker 1: enough odd work to keep himself fed and develop the
Speaker 1: idea for his first business. Parts of that are true,
Speaker 1: but what Elon always neglects to mention, and what his
Speaker 1: biographer allows him to neglect to mention, is the financial
Speaker 1: privilege he enjoyed. One gets the feeling reading Errol's interviews
Speaker 1: that Elon had access to the cash that he needed
Speaker 1: if his efforts collapsed um and he was privileged enough
Speaker 1: to afford the plane ticket and enough cash to survive
Speaker 1: for at least the first few months that he was
Speaker 1: in Canada, albeit frugally. Errol absolutely would have bailed his
Speaker 1: son out if Elon had needed it. And while that
Speaker 1: would have, you know, enacted a psychological price on Elon,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to discount that psychological price. It
Speaker 1: was not the kind of bohemian period he really depicts
Speaker 1: it at he had a safety net. More people should
Speaker 1: be honest about that kind of stuff because building that
Speaker 1: myth of like, oh, as an artist, this is how
Speaker 1: I did it. I didn't have anything special. I just
Speaker 1: went out and risk my dreams. Like so frequently find
Speaker 1: out we find out that these people either have either
Speaker 1: had connections or a financial like security net. It's a
Speaker 1: totally different thing to go out on your own and
Speaker 1: pursue something when you know that if you fail, you
Speaker 1: might go on the street. It's not to say that
Speaker 1: there's no risk involved, period, but I think we should
Speaker 1: we should stop making mythologizing this kind of stuff because
Speaker 1: then I think all the really uh crazy things that
Speaker 1: have to come together for someone to make it, to
Speaker 1: make their dreams come true. It doesn't just have to
Speaker 1: do with talent. It's like a million other things. And
Speaker 1: people that are born into privilege have like such a
Speaker 1: leg up. Yeah, and what we will be talking about
Speaker 1: that more, particularly in part two when it gets even
Speaker 1: more relevant. Ellen spent a brief period of time after
Speaker 1: this doing working class gigs. The Worrist of which was
Speaker 1: probably cleaning out the boiler room of a lumber mill.
Speaker 1: He took this job because required him to wear a
Speaker 1: hazmat suited was the iighest paid entry level job. Around
Speaker 1: thirty people started with him at the beginning of his
Speaker 1: first week. By the end of it, he was one
Speaker 1: of three who remained. For the next few months, Elon
Speaker 1: bummed around Canada, taking odd gigs, saving money, staying with family,
Speaker 1: and figuring out what the funk to do with his life.
Speaker 1: His brother Kimball eventually followed him over. Ellen enrolled at
Speaker 1: the Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in late nineteen nine,
Speaker 1: a university that he had picked out because it had
Speaker 1: more hot chicks than the other school he was considering. Nose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was eighteen, and that's pretty normal. Decision
Speaker 1: making doesn't make it good, but it isn't weird. I
Speaker 1: think what's really weird is the idea that, like, a
Speaker 1: particular area has hotter people than another area and making
Speaker 1: her decisions based on that as if like that's some
Speaker 1: kind of it's not good, but it is male. Like
Speaker 1: it's not what science is just like dick science, you
Speaker 1: know what, like doesn't make any sense. But when you're hard,
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, no that saw the send. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: you go with school with all the hot chicks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm gonna fucking follow this chub owner. Saw
Speaker 1: you do it? Yeah it is yeah. Uh so. According
Speaker 1: to Musk's biography quote, outside of his studies, Ellen wouldn't
Speaker 1: read the newspaper alongside Kimball, and the two of them
Speaker 1: would identify interesting people that they would like to meet.
Speaker 1: They then took turns cold calling these people to ask
Speaker 1: if they were available to have lunch. Among the harassed
Speaker 1: was the head of marketing for the Toronto Blue Jays
Speaker 1: baseball team, a business writer for the Globe and Mail,
Speaker 1: and a top executive at the Bank of Nova Scotia,
Speaker 1: Peter Nicholson. Nicholson remembered the boys call well, I was
Speaker 1: not in the habit of getting out of the blue requests,
Speaker 1: he said, I was perfectly prepared to have lunch with
Speaker 1: a couple of kids that had that kind of gumption.
Speaker 1: It took six months to get on Nicholson's calendar, but
Speaker 1: sure enough, the Musk brothers made the three hour train
Speaker 1: ride and showed up on time. Nicholson's first exposure to
Speaker 1: the Musk Brothers left him with an impression many would share.
Speaker 1: Both presented themselves well and we're polite. Elon, though clearly
Speaker 1: came off as the geeky er, more awkward counterpoint to
Speaker 1: the charismatic, personable Kimball. I became more impressed and fascinated
Speaker 1: as I talked to them. Nicholson said, they were so determined.
Speaker 1: Nicholson ended up offering Elon a summer internship at a
Speaker 1: at the bank and became his trusted advisor. Keep that
Speaker 1: in mind too, because he launched it talks this guy later,
Speaker 1: uh for no good reason. Um, but yeah, uh that's Nate.
Speaker 1: I guess like it does like and this actually kind
Speaker 1: of guess what you're saying that kibbles the charismatic one.
Speaker 1: He definitely is, uh not a high bar. But um,
Speaker 1: this does get to like another thing in talking about
Speaker 1: like the nature of privilege, because I'm sure Ellen thinks
Speaker 1: about that as an example of like how he went
Speaker 1: out and seized life and didn't benefit from privilege. But
Speaker 1: like there's a privilege in knowing how to talk to rich,
Speaker 1: fancy business people because you grew up in that world
Speaker 1: and you do understand what they expect. And are impressed
Speaker 1: by um. Like it's a kind of privilege that not
Speaker 1: everybody grows up getting, like the fact, like, and that's
Speaker 1: the thing that like, even though his dad didn't make
Speaker 1: that connection for him, his background and upbringing helped him
Speaker 1: make that connection. And that is kind of an and
Speaker 1: a level of privilege we don't talk about as much
Speaker 1: as we ought to because it is a little bit
Speaker 1: less obvious. Um. Yeah, I think any kind of I
Speaker 1: think it's very easy for someone that's grown up around
Speaker 1: a certain way of being to not understand that other
Speaker 1: people don't have don't have that access. It's like that
Speaker 1: whole thing with you know, um fish not noticing that
Speaker 1: they're in water or whatever. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: It's um. It's that like common UM metaphor that people
Speaker 1: use about how privilege, uh, how it is to grow
Speaker 1: up in privilege that someone needs to point out to
Speaker 1: you what it is that you have that you've always
Speaker 1: just taken for granted, like air like you like you
Speaker 1: just don't you don't process it as being anything that
Speaker 1: UM is unique. You think everybody has this as opposed
Speaker 1: to Oh, actually, I'm in a very small percentage of
Speaker 1: people that have this security or this access or this whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got it right, yep. Uh. So, during his time
Speaker 1: at Queen's, Elon met a young woman named Justine Wilson.
Speaker 1: They would later end up marrying, but at the time,
Speaker 1: Ellen was interested in another young woman, Christie, who recalls
Speaker 1: that when they met, quote, I believe the second sentence
Speaker 1: out of his mouth was I think a lot about
Speaker 1: electric cars, um, which gives you an idea about this
Speaker 1: guy's game. Um. He also told her that he, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was frustrated by the fact that he needs he
Speaker 1: needed to eat. He didn't like that he had to
Speaker 1: eat food, and if possible, he would prefer to get
Speaker 1: his nutrients without wasting time. Um, which is very much
Speaker 1: a prediction of soilent culture. So thank you for that, Elon. Um. Now, well,
Speaker 1: things didn't work out with Christie. Must wound up building
Speaker 1: something of a relationship with Justine. He considered her quote
Speaker 1: the hot chicken campus, and he hit on her relentlessly
Speaker 1: after his justice his father had done with his mother.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. She initially agreed to an ice cream date,
Speaker 1: but broke the plans off with him via post it note,
Speaker 1: which dudes should wreck a nice as a sign that
Speaker 1: sh it ain't happening, but Ellen did not do that. Uh. Instead,
Speaker 1: he found Justine's best friend to talk to her to
Speaker 1: figure out where Justine usually studied and what her favorite
Speaker 1: ice cream flavor was, and then he showed up there
Speaker 1: later with ice cream to force the date into happening. Um.
Speaker 1: It's the sort of story that, like, different groups of
Speaker 1: people will either see as romantic or a big old
Speaker 1: Pilo red flags, Uh, depending on who does the telling
Speaker 1: and who does the listening. Um. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: feel like, uh, we've all heard the story where that
Speaker 1: ends really well, but we've also heard way more stories
Speaker 1: where that does not end very well. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: definitely like obviously they get divorced and it was not
Speaker 1: a pleasant divorce, so it doesn't end well. So Ashley Vance,
Speaker 1: his biographer, seems to think that, like view this as
Speaker 1: kind of romantic. Um, but her right up is still
Speaker 1: pretty unsettling. Quote. Wilson had dreamed of having a torrid
Speaker 1: romance with a writer. I wanted to be Sylvia and Ted.
Speaker 1: She said what she fell for instead was a relentless
Speaker 1: ambitious geek. The pair attended the same abnormal psychology class
Speaker 1: and compared their grades Following an exam, Justine knocked Musk.
Speaker 1: He went back to the professor and talked his way
Speaker 1: into the two points he lost and got a hundred.
Speaker 1: Justine said, it felt like we were always competing. Musk
Speaker 1: had a romantic side as well. One time he sent
Speaker 1: Wilson a dozen roses, each with its own note. He
Speaker 1: also gifted Wilson a copy of The Prophet filled with
Speaker 1: handwritten romantic musings. He can sweep you off your feet,
Speaker 1: Justine said, the Prophet thing does not sound romantic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's like a writer. It was to her.
Speaker 1: I guess, like, I don't know. It all sounds kind
Speaker 1: of weird to me too, but it clearly eventually worked. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't understand what that means with romantic musing notes
Speaker 1: music notes in the margins, What does that even mean.
Speaker 1: I think it means that he like wrote romantic stuff
Speaker 1: about how the poems in the or the how the
Speaker 1: Prophet made him think of her and stuff. I'm guessing
Speaker 1: like a little asterisk and this reminds me of your pussy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably I'm sure that's what was each of the notes.
Speaker 1: It was just a book filled with marginalia that was like,
Speaker 1: this line reminds me of your pussy, just lie, also
Speaker 1: reminds me of your now I gotta he is charming.
Speaker 1: Yeah it worked. Um. Yeah, the two data on and
Speaker 1: off throughout college. Justine had a lot of options for
Speaker 1: guys to pursue, and she didn't really seem to feel
Speaker 1: the need to just stick with just Elon. Meanwhile, Elon
Speaker 1: was somewhat fanatic about pursuing here to stay in her orbit.
Speaker 1: Justine later recalled quote he would call very insistently. You
Speaker 1: always knew it was Elon because the phone would never
Speaker 1: stop ringing. The man does not take no for an answer.
Speaker 1: You can't blow him off. I do think of him
Speaker 1: as the terminator. He locks his gaze onto something and
Speaker 1: says it shall be mine. Bit by bit he won
Speaker 1: me over. Oh my god, that is so greevy. It's
Speaker 1: not it's it doesn't sound great. And again though, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's weird because like it's like, what is that a
Speaker 1: description of your favorite husband or your favorite rapists? Like
Speaker 1: what He's definitely not her favorite husband. Um, but it
Speaker 1: also worked on her at some point. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's it's not a great story. It
Speaker 1: definitely hints at a guy who, um, isn't going to
Speaker 1: be great at having a healthy relationship, which he wasn't. Also,
Speaker 1: it just sounds like love bombing. Yes, this is what
Speaker 1: he does to get you. It just blinds you and
Speaker 1: bludgeends you with his love. And then once he has you,
Speaker 1: he's like, all right, now that this is on lockdown,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna ignore you later. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: lot of things. Ellen was well known during this period
Speaker 1: for being the kind of dude who didn't really drink
Speaker 1: or party. He mostly focused on academic studied business, competed
Speaker 1: in speech and debate, and pined after a hot girl
Speaker 1: who was only vaguely interested in him. After two years
Speaker 1: at Queen's, Ellen achieved his dream of shimmying into the
Speaker 1: United States by transferring to the University of Pennsylvania on
Speaker 1: a scholarship. His goal was to get a dual degree
Speaker 1: in economics from the Wharton School and a bachelor's in physics.
Speaker 1: Must did well at pen and made some of his
Speaker 1: first real friends based on shared interests. He was happy
Speaker 1: during this period of time. You might think that this
Speaker 1: would have instilled in him a deep sympathy for non
Speaker 1: US citizens attempting to move to this country to start
Speaker 1: a life. The truth is less clear and a lot uglier.
Speaker 1: In two thousand seventeen, the newly installed Trump administration formed
Speaker 1: an Economic Advisory Council. Elon Musk was invited to join,
Speaker 1: and he chose to do so. The Trump administration then
Speaker 1: went on to push for push for substantial and vicious
Speaker 1: restrictions on immigration, including immigration from countries undergoing severe domestic strife,
Speaker 1: which blocked out students who, like Musk, might have sought
Speaker 1: an escape from serving in their nation's repressive military by
Speaker 1: seeking a foreign education. Thanks to Stephen Miller, Trump senior advisor,
Speaker 1: the White House actually spent months attempting to stop students
Speaker 1: in the US illegally from even attending public schools. The
Speaker 1: administration also attempted to restrict the issuance of h one B. VISs,
Speaker 1: and Musk was silent during this period. He remained on
Speaker 1: the council. When Trump attempted to pass his immigration ban
Speaker 1: on people from Muslim majority nations, Elon did tweet this
Speaker 1: at the time. Regarding government policy, there are often things
Speaker 1: that happen that many people don't agree with. This is
Speaker 1: normal for a functioning democracy. The Muslim immigration ban is
Speaker 1: not right. They rarely warrant a public statement. However, the
Speaker 1: ban on Muslim immigrants from certain companies countries rises to
Speaker 1: this level. It is not right. The Muslim immigration ban
Speaker 1: is not right, which is a very unequivocal uh public statement. However,
Speaker 1: he deleted those tweets almost immediately uh and replaced them
Speaker 1: with the more milk toast statement the blanket entry ban
Speaker 1: on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the
Speaker 1: best way to address the country's challenges, which is kind
Speaker 1: of shitty. Uh yeah. Must remain on the Economic Advisory
Speaker 1: Council until in June seventeen, the President withdrew the United
Speaker 1: States from the Paris Climate Accords. This prompted Musk's very
Speaker 1: public withdrawal from the Council. It is interesting where he
Speaker 1: chose to draw the line with President Trump and our
Speaker 1: current fascist adjacent administration. And that's where we're gonna end
Speaker 1: for part one. Boy, I think that um, probably that
Speaker 1: elon Musk lovers are going to come from me. Huh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's weird. I wonder if they're gonna, like, by all rights,
Speaker 1: they should come for me, mostly because I wrote the
Speaker 1: giant thing about him, So she'll get it. She'll get
Speaker 1: it word, but not just that. They're not going to
Speaker 1: think that I'm just like out here just saying whatever
Speaker 1: is a comedian. They're going to be like Robert was
Speaker 1: trying to be objective and that bitch wouldn't have it.
Speaker 1: I mean you wouldn't. Yeah, that part is lame. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know Elon Musk more like Elon I have a
Speaker 1: great transition before you should just malfunction all the way.
Speaker 1: So my album, my stand up album, Father's Day, comes
Speaker 1: out on ju which is Father's Day. And if you've
Speaker 1: been like she seems like she doesn't have a dad,
Speaker 1: she's realed down and Eilon for being a bad dad.
Speaker 1: You are right, I don't have a dad. So if
Speaker 1: you want to hear more about that, you will love
Speaker 1: my album Father's Day. And if you want to stop
Speaker 1: having a dad, that's also an option if you choose to.
Speaker 1: I don't know where you're going with that one. I
Speaker 1: I don't know whither. Yeah, that was like like a
Speaker 1: start to like what like, are you going to tell
Speaker 1: me how to divorce my parents? Where's this going? I mean,
Speaker 1: I I am law, you're adjacent, um and I do
Speaker 1: helping children divorced from their parents. Yes, I do that,
Speaker 1: but that is my job now, this is not that
Speaker 1: is not your job, not your no h And you
Speaker 1: can also listen to Sophia's podcasts. Can Sophia's podcast. I
Speaker 1: have a podcast about ninety de fiance with Miles Gray
Speaker 1: from The Daily Say guys, it's called four Defiance. It's
Speaker 1: really how And I also have a podcast about love
Speaker 1: and sex around the world called Private Parts Unknown with Kosak,
Speaker 1: So check that out. Man, it's wild that you do
Speaker 1: a pot podcast and don't like Elon Musk because he
Speaker 1: totally smoked that blunt on Joe Rogan Show, even though
Speaker 1: he has denied people workers compensation claims because they tested
Speaker 1: positive or his companies have denied people claims because they
Speaker 1: tested positive for marijuana. Right, but he looked like he did.
Speaker 1: Don't you like smoke weed? And he definitely didn't inhale. No,
Speaker 1: he looked so cool with his blunt with he looked
Speaker 1: so cool doing the thing that he will fire and
Speaker 1: deny people compensation due to them for indulging in even
Speaker 1: though it's fine for him. You know, it shouldn't be anyways,
Speaker 1: different rules for billionaires, you know, it's just a different
Speaker 1: world for them. Yeah, he was pretty cool to Joe
Speaker 1: two relatable hundred million dollar worth Joe. Anyway, the episode
Speaker 1: that was really fun, Find Me the Sophia so F
Speaker 1: by way by Yeah,