WEBVTT - Elon Tests Limits of Free Speech while SpaceX Racks Up the Wins 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:11.120 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.120 Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.319 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.160 controlled by one man. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:24.640 Well, he's a legitimate super genius. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:25.759 I mean legitimate. 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.600 He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:29.400 it will be different. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:30.400 He'll vote Republican. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.159 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:33.560 on him. 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.760 Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.680 Anything he does, he's fascinating people. 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.520 Welcome to elan Ing, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:59.600 It's Tuesday, September seventeenth. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Now 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.680 following Elon can be a lot. One day he'll ekes 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.880 out a wild conspiracy theory or offer to give Taylor 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.520 Swift a child, and the next he's inking some multi 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.880 billion dollar government contractor meeting with a powerful world leader. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.520 You just never know what you're gonna get when you 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:21.000 open the newspaper. Will it be doctor Elon or will 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.279 it be mister Musk. Sometimes it's a little of both, 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.640 as was the case his past week. In recent days, 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.120 Elon somehow inserted himself in the center of some of 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.200 the most controversial and ugly moments of a presidential campaign 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:39.200 season that has been frankly nothing but controversial and ugly. Meanwhile, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.720 his company, SpaceX made history one day and then landed 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:48.160 a seriously good contract the other. To cure the spinning 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.200 in my head, I'm joined in the studio by our 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:56.400 regulars Elon Musk, reporter Dana Hall there, Dana Hey, BusinessWeek 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:00.480 writer Max Chafkin, Max Hey, David, and Sarah, a friar 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:02.400 who runs our Big Tech coverboard. 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:04.120 Sarah, Hello, thank you for having me. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.040 Okay, so, and then later on we're going to be 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.359 joined by Eric Johnson, our Space editor, to talk SpaceX. 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:15.679 But Sarah, let's start with the e sing. So, as 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.520 far as I could tell, and I was doing my 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.880 darnness not to pay too much attention, but mostly failing, 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.119 I've seen Elon on some kind of role. He did 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:30.639 his best to spread the rumor that Haitian immigrants are 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:35.280 consuming cats and dogs. He did, indeed tell Taylor Swift 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.880 that he would give her a child, and then, in 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.919 the wake of what appears to be a second assassination 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:46.400 attempt on the former president Donald Trump. He wondered in 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:50.160 an ex why no one is taking a crack at 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.240 Kamala Harris and Joe Biden Sarah. He would go on 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:57.680 to delete that ex but the damage was done. 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.320 H The deleting was probably the most surprising part of that, 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.800 the fact that he you know, backed down and took 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:08.640 it back. I think we are just seeing Musk go 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:13.920 on an absolute power trip over these conspiracies that I 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:18.320 think are very popular in the Trump dvance world, but 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.160 of course have have little connection or no connection in 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:26.400 the case of the Haitian conspiracy to reality. And I 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.000 think that it doesn't matter for Musk. When he took 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.320 over Twitter, if you remember, he said, like, you know, 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.320 humor is allowed on the Internet. Again, those aren't his 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.400 exact words, but he sees this as like as like 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:42.920 playing online trolling and posting, and am I allowed to 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:43.640 say posting? 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:44.280 You just did? 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.000 I just did that is I think the technical term 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.400 for like just going absolutely wild on the internet against 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:54.520 your rivals and then saying it was. 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.360 All a joke, which is what he said about. 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.440 That Kamala Biden. You know, why have and they've been 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.480 assassinated to get comment. Of course, these things that he 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:08.920 does do not exist in some you know X group 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.800 chat vacuum that he has. They have real world implications. 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.880 There have been bomb threats on schools in Springfield, where 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.200 one of the cities that has been a target of 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:25.919 those anti immigrant rumors, and coming out and adding fuel 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:31.440 to that fire has real world danger. And it really 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.160 doesn't seem to resonate with Musk that that's something that 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.360 he is control of, or maybe if he does sense 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.279 that he has power over it, he doesn't care. 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:43.080 You know what's weird to me about this is that 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.320 Musk is someone who is deeply paranoid about his own security, right. 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.599 I mean, he travels with a phalanx of bodyguards, he 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.880 has young kids. There are all kinds of like fans 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.400 and stalkers who are trying to like climb over the 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.800 SpaceX fence to get to him. And there was actually 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:03.360 like a disgruntled Tesla employee who drove to Austin from 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.520 Minnesota after threatening to kill both Joe Biden and Elon. Fortunately, 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.600 like the cops got wind of bit ahead of time 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.400 and they arrested this guy. But like Musk knows that, 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.320 like there are serious attempts, you know, on all political 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.880 leaders and on himself. And so for someone who is 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:20.720 so paranoid about his own security to kind of make 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:25.600 this flippant, quote unquote joke about the current president. I mean, 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:27.800 I just sort of wonder legally if it if it's 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.800 incitement of violence, because that's certainly what critics are saying. 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.240 And I wonder, like, you know, he left it up 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.520 for hours, it got forty million impressions. Did he take 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:38.120 it down because he got a phone call from the 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.240 FBI or the Secret Service? Or was there just like 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:43.839 enough of a backlash among his employees, Like I mean, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.400 that tweet was up for quite a long time, and 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:48.680 now he's just sort of back at it again today. 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.200 Yeah, well, Max, you looked into the legality question, what 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:52.800 would you find? 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:58.640 So in the United States famously has very expansive, very 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.320 expansive view of free speech, whu more expansive than in 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.200 other countries. You know, what Musk did is probably legal. 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.120 The Supreme Court has held that it needs to be 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.840 a true threat. In other words, if you're joking, if 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.000 you're just spouting off, if you're engaging in political speech. 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.680 I think all of those are potential explanations for what 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:22.400 Musk was doing, and of course he offered the joking explanation. 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.320 You're allowed to get you know, you're allowed to use 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.360 violent metaphors and so on, so it's unlikely that it's illegal. 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.320 But I do think Dan is probably right that that 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.240 somebody in a position of authority may have complained, because 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.120 of course Musk isn't just a regular guy. He's got 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.719 a huge following, and these the words that he is 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:49.000 saying have consequences, consequences for real people. And Sarah brought 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.400 up what's happened in Springfield, where Springfield, Ohio, where schools 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:57.640 have closed, where people are suffering because of these lies 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:02.080 that are being you know, transmitted, generated by Elon Musk 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.040 and others on his platform, and and like, you know, 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.120 we're seeing another version of it. You know, he took 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.160 it down and offered kind of a lame explanation that 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.040 doesn't make sense because I don't think it was funny. 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.040 But of course he's saying it was a joke, so 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.280 hopefully he won't suggest that any other public figures need 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:20.520 to be assassinated in the future. 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.760 It's just so so frequently the response to this kind 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.480 of thing, this kind of thing is that, you know, 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.440 outrage from liberals is kind of the goal. Like when 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.040 this kind of thing happens, it's it's like, oh my god, 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.040 we made them freak out again, Like how do they 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.760 not understand our humor? Like why are they such you know, 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.840 I remember the term snowflakes in the earlier Trump administration. Right, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:48.000 this is almost a means to to provoke, to to 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.120 get a reaction, to troll to troll. And I think 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.840 that the Kamala Harris campaign their strategy is to kind 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:59.480 of like point and laugh when when Republicans do that, 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:03.200 instead kind of leaning into the oh my gosh, we're 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.840 so horrified, this is so scary Sarah. 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.800 Which is what she did so effectively during the debate 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.640 when Trump launched into his hole in Springfield. They're eating 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:17.240 the cats, they're eating the dogs. She did break out 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.920 into laughter. I guess the other question I have, though, Max, 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.320 is when he took it down and before he did, 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.880 I wonder if the government had particular leverage on him, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.480 given the nature the contracts that he's got with the 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:36.000 Defense Department, with NASAU, with with other departments across the 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:37.040 across the government. 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.760 I mean, I have to think it didn't get that far. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.960 I mean, it does there is like something strange and 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:50.840 potentially interesting about about a major defense contractor first of all, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:55.720 major defense hunter getting so involved in the political processes 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.679 as Elon Musk has, but also you know, obviously like 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.640 going more towards a tiptoeing the line towards incitement like 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.560 that seems like the kind of thing that the Defense 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.200 Department and others probably consider problematic. But my guess is 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:12.080 like FBI, somebody in a position of authority gave him 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:14.960 a friendly call and suggested that what he was doing 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.240 was dangerous without having to exert any extra pressure. 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.680 And danis So I guess this has got me just 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:31.560 thinking that the whole thing, especially this ratitat that rapid fire, 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.400 you know, him inserting himself into one of these you know, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.960 big issues after another and really throwing himself into the 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.440 political sphere is just a window into the extreme politization 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:44.840 of Elon Musk. 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.120 Well the way that I think of it as twofold. So, 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.360 you know, on the one hand, Musk is using his money. 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.760 He created a super pack called America Pack. They are 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.880 not just funding, you know, helping to fund the Trump campaign, 0:09:57.920 --> 0:09:59.640 but they are now going down ballot, like we have 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.120 a stor out this morning based on an FC filing 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:03.800 that I spotted really late last night. They are now 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:07.559 funding like over fifteen house races and key districts in Maine, 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.559 in Nebraska, California, Ohio, New Jersey, New York. Like he 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.079 is all in. He's like the new Sheldon Nagelsen right 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:17.440 in terms of just like funding not just Trump but 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.120 you know, but very key congressional races in an attempt 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:25.960 to keep the House. But separately, the way that he 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.880 behaves on X, the platform that he owns, is like 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.600 an in kind contribution to the Trump campaign because Trump 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.559 and Vans are running on immigration and fear, and Elon 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.839 Musk is all about amplifying those fears and amplifying all 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.880 this nonsense about you know, immigration and crime, and like 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.000 he so it's like it's like a tacit. 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:46.680 You know. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:48.760 I don't know if the campaigns are coordinating, but like 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.240 that is the main message of the Trump Vans campaign, 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.720 and those are the main messages that Musk is amplifying 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:55.040 on the platform that he owns. 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.120 No, that's absolutely right. And I guess the question I 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:01.440 have for you guys is, you know, to me, as 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.120 I watched the way it played out two days later 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.960 at the debate. It comes out of Trump's mouth and 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.680 that ramble. It comes off to me watching it from apart, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.160 as patently absurd and a losing hand for the Republicans 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:16.440 and for their candidate. 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:16.959 It's not a. 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.200 Losing hand because it's all anyone is talking about. It's 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.800 like it is a strategy, because all of a sudden, 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:27.520 everyone is talking about cats and dogs and Haiti and 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:32.840 immigration and not the economy and abortion rights, and it 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:33.840 is a strategy. 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.880 There's a difference though, between saying it's a good strategy 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.040 and it's a strategy. I think Dan is right. It 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:44.160 is a strategy, and depending on what happens, we can 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.720 conclude that it was good or bad. But it does not, 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.720 on its face a good strategy. I think most people 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:52.760 when you look at the polling of that debate, the 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.640 polling was very much in Harris's favor. We've talked about 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.240 the ways that Elon Musk has sort of red pilled 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.800 himself into the fringe and how that is bad for business. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.840 I think it's also bad for Donald Trump. The fringe 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:07.400 is not a majority, but. 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.240 If you watch the debate, sure, but people aren't getting 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:15.040 their information from the events as they happen anymore, they're 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:21.479 getting the information as it's recycled and remixed by online commentators, 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.360 and so in that world, this doesn't actually matter if 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.360 something is true. It just matters if one of the 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:31.120 people you follow, who you admire says it's good for 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:31.760 Trump process. 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.760 That's definitely a fair point, and you know, all shall 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.080 be revealed when they cast the votes in early November. 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:40.959 But Sarah, I would say that a a lot of 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.280 people actually did watch that debate. I don't remember the 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.560 exact number, but it was a significant chunk of the population. 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.200 And b again, I get how everyone's talking about it, 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.520 but you know, when Hillary Clinton made that big mistake 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:57.160 of uttering the words, you know, calling a large chunk 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.520 of the Trump supporters or was it a basket of 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.079 the poor plorable, everybody was talking about that as well, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.760 and that was an unmitigated disaster for her campaign. But 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:08.680 you know, Dana, you've been doing a lot of reporting 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.480 on the activity of Musk's pack. I believe you guys 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:14.760 are reported recently that they've we've seen some of the 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:16.959 numbers in terms of the kind of money they've actually 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.240 been spending in the last couple months. 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:21.920 Yeah, I mean it's so it's the filings tick up 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.520 every you know, like there's basically like a filing every 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.480 night that looks at their expenditures and the total spent 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:29.400 by the pack is fifty million. And this is on 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:33.319 everything's from text messages to mailers to hiring door knockers 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.679 and key states like North Carolina and Michigan. But Musk 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.000 is also going down ballot and in this filing last night, 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.760 you're seeing them spend it's like roughly two million dollars 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.439 on like fifteen different house races and that that might 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.079 not sound like a lot of money, but like we're 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.520 going to continue to see spending between now and November, 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:52.720 and just the fact that they are now targeting the 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.760 house just shows that, like Musk is going for the 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.400 trifecta and you know these are these are key races 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.880 that could that could swing you know, they're just gonna 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:02.600 be very important. 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.160 Yeah, we've got actually one of the ads here that 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.800 has been produced by his pack. Let's listen to it. 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:09.000 Now. 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.200 If you sit the selection out, Kamala and the Crazies 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.280 will win. That means you'll be stuck with igher costs 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.600 and more illegals invading our country. Now Trump is the 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.440 American badass. Will stop this nonsense, vote for Trump and 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:23.760 save America. 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.240 You know what, this whole thing strikes me as as 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:32.160 a lifelong gambler who knows what it's like as you're 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.720 getting towards the end of the end of the day 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.440 at the races and your down money max is, you know, 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:40.880 you start doubling and tripling down to try to get 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.200 out and try to get back to even or up money. 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.520 I get the sense that when he, you know, launched 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:49.160 in and threw his support behind Trump, things were looking 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.360 rosy and pretty darn good, and now that they're looking 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:57.080 a little less good, you know, he's like I get 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.440 a little bit of this double and triple down sense. 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.480 I mean, I think that Dana and Sarah are both 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:05.080 hinting at this in various ways. But like, you know, 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.000 turning out your base is like one part part of 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.240 how you win an election, and like I think you 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.840 could kind of you can, you know, interpret this ad 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.120 in that way as like this is a way to 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:19.560 increase turnout among people who are likely to support President Trump. 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.200 On the other hand, it does feel just like the 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.520 kind like just not something that is gonna like sway 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.360 a swing voter. I just taken a couple steps back. 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.040 One thing that has struck me listening to Dana and 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.120 reading her reporting is just when Elon Musk first started 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.840 talking about these donations, right there was all of this 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.200 question like is he really gonna do it? He kind 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.840 of created all this uncertainty. He's like, I'm not supporting Trump, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.880 I'm I'm just creating a meritocratic pack or whatever, and 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.640 like that's all out the window right this. And it's 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:50.160 not only out the window in the sense that he 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:52.200 is all in for Trump, as you're saying, as we're 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.400 all saying, but also in the sense that he's spending 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.240 real money, Like we're fifty three million dollars. That's that's 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.480 where it is. I just looked according to Open secrets 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:02.640 dot Com. Could be a day or something late, but 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.240 like that's fairly up to date in terms of how 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.360 much money they spent. That's a big number. That makes 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.160 it one of the biggest independent committees this cycle to date, 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.520 and there's it's going to go up from there, Like 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:15.640 he We're going to look back on this as being 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.960 an election where Elon Musk put a significant amount of 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.520 money to work. Comparing Micheldon Adelson I think is the 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:23.640 correct comparison. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.560 And for the uninitiated, Sheldon Aedelson. 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:31.000 Was a prominent, a very wealthy Republican donor who donated 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.440 to conservative causes and was Trump's main backer. 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:34.800 You know. 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:39.040 Elon Musk. His rationale for like supporting Trump was he 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:44.040 watched the assassination attempt, the first assassination attempt, and thought 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.240 like wow, like this guy is really tough. And that 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.200 that was like how he explained his rationale of support. 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:53.960 We need to say goodbye to Sarah, but Max and 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.600 Dana don't go anywhere, Sarah. We will see you soon. 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:57.800 Thank you, thank you. 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:06.240 Okay, so we're now done with politics and conspiracy theories. 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.439 We're done with mister Musk. We shall now move on 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:15.280 to doctor Elon and his business empire, which up in 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:21.240 space is doing quite quite well. Last week, his space company, SpaceX, 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.959 pulled off the first commercial spacewalk in history, and then 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:30.080 a day or so later, a unit of SpaceX, Starlink, 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:35.440 signed a big deal to provide the Internet to United Airlines. 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.080 And to talk about that, we've got Eric Johnson, our 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:43.120 crack Space editor. Hey there, Eric, good to be here, Okay, Eric, 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:50.080 So it's my understanding here that with this SpaceX commercial 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.359 spacewalk they pulled off that there are a few records 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.800 and firsts achieved hit us with them. 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:57.480 That's right. 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.800 So is a big week for SpaceX. You saw four 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:06.520 crew civilians, relatively untrained astronauts go up and perform the 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.400 world's first commercial space Let. 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.040 Me interrupt you for a second and say, by the way, 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:16.560 while when we say space walk throughout the show here, 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:18.680 our listeners won't see it, but we're gonna do air 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.639 quotes around walk. Okay, space walk. 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:24.560 I was waiting for you to jump in on that. 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.640 So just to be clear, they didn't actually walk anywhere, right, 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.520 This wasn't like the Apollo era moon landings. But they 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:34.040 did go fourteen hundred kilometers up, which is the furthest 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.960 that humans have gone since the moon landings, and so 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:38.800 that was an incredible milestone. 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:39.840 Another thing that. 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.880 They achieved was actually depressurizing the capsule in the middle 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.199 Lovelus to set up the walk, and so they actually 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.040 opened the hatch and expose the entire interior to the 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.480 vacuum of space. And so two of them, billionaire Jared 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:57.720 Eisaman and SpaceX is Sarah Gillis, an engineer, actually took 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:03.119 turns and for a few minutes halfway out of the capsule, roughly. 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.119 They were so frits popping out of like a hole 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:07.320 or something is what. 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:09.359 Or like a turtle put his head out and then 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:10.159 sucking it back in. 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.120 But you know, to be fair, they were hurtling around 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.600 the Earth at you know, seventeen thousand miles per hour. 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.960 It's dangerous, precarious, and and so they they emerged from 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.840 the capsule, they did some maneuvers with a relatively sleek 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:28.720 and skinnier spacesuit that SpaceX designed and test the mobility 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.800 of it, and then went back in, returned pressure to 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.480 the cabin and came home, you know, just for people 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:38.399 to understand, I mean, they were higher up than the 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.800 International Space Station, and so you know, everybody knows that 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.280 spacewalks are relatively common. I mean we've seen them, of course, 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.080 you know in Hollywood, but we see the astronauts and 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.880 their huge bulky spacesuits go out the ISS and they 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.639 do repairs and different fixes on the station. But this 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:57.600 was the first. This is different than that in that 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.040 they were in their own spacecraft separate from anything else 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.639 and exposed to the vacuum of space for the direction. 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.520 Now I get the sense here that a lot of 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:12.560 this mission was about those super cool, sleek space suits 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.440 and testing them out. Was that the I mean, and 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:17.920 I guess in addition to charging this billionaire money to 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.760 give them this space walk or space walk, was it 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:23.399 all about testing out these suits? 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.879 That was a major mission parameter is you know, we 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.840 don't exactly know what SpaceX intends to do with these suits, 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.880 but visually, at least esthetically, I mean, you know, SpaceX 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.439 elon Musk they love aesthetics. So if you compare the 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.600 suits they were wearing to the traditional suits, they were 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:46.040 you know, thinner and usually like skinny go skinny jeans, skinny, 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:48.919 and so when they came out of the capsule, you 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.440 saw them moving their arms around. You know, they still 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.960 didn't have total mobility. But the idea, presumably is that 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:57.760 there's space actual have an iterative approach to these suits, 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.639 so they will be used in some form for future missions. 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.800 They'll be upgraded and then you know, when they go 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:08.320 people go to Mars at some point, maybe some futuristic 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:09.280 version of this suit. 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.160 Will be used everyone's going to be wearing skinny jeans 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.200 and skinny suits up on Mark. What I mean, Dana, 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.680 when you just did that whole Mars interview last week, 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.040 did the I can't remember, did the space suits come up? 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.320 We didn't really talk about the spacesuits. Kirsen and I 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:24.720 were talking more about like how people are going to 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.199 eat on Mars and what their protein source is going 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.080 to be. But I do have a question for Eric, 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.960 Like I barely paid attention to this mission. All I 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.119 knew was that like a billionaire and was one of 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:38.919 the people on Polaris John, So did he fund this 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:39.560 whole thing? 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:39.840 Like? 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.560 How did this whole how did this whole like sort 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.720