Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome back to voter Nomics,
Speaker 1: where politics and markets collide. This year, voters around the
Speaker 1: world have the ability to affect markets, countries, and economies
Speaker 1: like never before, so we've created this series to help
Speaker 1: you make sense of it all. I'm Alegri Stratton.
Speaker 2: And I'm Stephanie Flanders, So Steph.
Speaker 1: This week are tackling an issue that I think we
Speaker 1: all think goes to the heart of what voteronomics is
Speaker 1: all about, which is basically boardrooms colliding with election results.
Speaker 1: And the reason it's particularly acute this week is probably
Speaker 1: there's two examples of it. One is what happened at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post over their decision not to endure well,
Speaker 1: their decision not to endorse a candidates at all, and
Speaker 1: whether or not that was complicated by their proprietors business interests.
Speaker 1: And then the second is Elon Musk and his appearance
Speaker 1: not just once on stage for Trump.
Speaker 3: And we had one president who couldn't climb a flight
Speaker 3: of stairs.
Speaker 4: And another who was this pumping.
Speaker 5: After getting shot, fight fight fight.
Speaker 1: Many times over the last last few months. Now, his
Speaker 1: metamorphosis to sort of want to be politician continues to pace.
Speaker 5: Your money is being wasted, and the Apartment of Government
Speaker 5: Divisions is going to fix that make the margin of
Speaker 5: victory so big that you know what can't happen.
Speaker 1: So it's really quite acute this week, isn't it. Steph.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean we're used to there being lots of big
Speaker 2: corporate money involved in US elections, particularly since twenty ten,
Speaker 2: where there was a sort of big legal ruling that
Speaker 2: made it easier for that to happen, and for just
Speaker 2: asked amounts to go into these campaigns over the years.
Speaker 2: It always makes anyone outside the US there's sort of
Speaker 2: head spin that the billions involved. But I think what
Speaker 2: is obviously distinctive about this season is, on the one hand,
Speaker 2: you have, as you say, the boardroom sort of chief
Speaker 2: executive level people very nervous of engaging even to say
Speaker 2: they support a peaceful transfer of power, which you would
Speaker 2: have thought would not be controversial. And at the same
Speaker 2: time a number of very high prive four billionaires being
Speaker 2: quite you know, quite closely associated with the Trump campaign.
Speaker 2: And we should say there's also been money going on
Speaker 2: the other side, our own founder of Michael Bloomberg and
Speaker 2: also Bill Gates. It turns out very quietly have given
Speaker 2: up to fifty million dollars to Kamala Harris campaign in
Speaker 2: the last in recent weeks. But you know that's sort
Speaker 2: of that's been quite low key in their very large amounts.
Speaker 2: And then you have, as you say, Elon Musk, very
Speaker 2: publicly not just supporting Donald Trump and amplifying some of
Speaker 2: the rhetoric and misinformation that is associated with the Trump campaign,
Speaker 2: but I think also seeming to specifically have corporate interest
Speaker 2: in Trump winning and potentially a future role in a
Speaker 2: Trump administration. I think that is a whole new ball game.
Speaker 1: It does feel like something's changed. Warren Buffett back to
Speaker 1: Barbara in eight twelve and twelve and then Clinton in
Speaker 1: sixteen and this time staying out of the race. There's
Speaker 1: more examples of that that we could cherry pick, but
Speaker 1: that feels a particularly striking one. I think the question
Speaker 1: for later in the podcast is has something changed or
Speaker 1: is this a reversion to what should be normal? In
Speaker 1: a moment, you'll hear our conversation with Charles Elson. He's
Speaker 1: a leading authority on corporate governance issues and the founding
Speaker 1: director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance.
Speaker 1: But before we hear from Charles, we're going to chat
Speaker 1: about one CEO who has zero qualms about sharing his
Speaker 1: thoughts and feelings. Elon Musk, our colleague that the podcast
Speaker 1: eat On Inc. Have created a special series about, you know,
Speaker 1: Musk's meddling in politics. It is called Citizen Elon, and
Speaker 1: we are not going to speak with the host, Max Chafkin. Max,
Speaker 1: did you see this coming, the role that Musk is
Speaker 1: playing in politics?
Speaker 4: Kind of yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I've been paying very close attention to Elon's
Speaker 3: political evolution over the last couple of years, and with
Speaker 3: the purchase of Twitter now x, he has been trending
Speaker 3: in this direction. I think the surprise to me anyway,
Speaker 3: is just the amount of money that he's spending. You know,
Speaker 3: the latest filings, you know, it's above one hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty million, when when you sort of look at like
Speaker 3: what his pack has spent, the fact that there have
Speaker 3: been some dark money spending as well, that there's other
Speaker 3: potential races, and that there's still time between the last
Speaker 3: filing and election day.
Speaker 4: You know, we're looking at probably.
Speaker 3: Close to two hundred million dollars and that is an
Speaker 3: enormous amount of money. He's going to be one of
Speaker 3: the biggest all time political contributors. And I haven't even
Speaker 3: mentioned the fact that he spent forty four billion dollars
Speaker 3: to buy Twitter now X and that he has essentially
Speaker 3: turned that into a right leaning a sort of campaign
Speaker 3: mechanism for Foreign President Trump.
Speaker 1: Even with those numbers, when you consider the stakes for Tesla,
Speaker 1: for SpaceX and so on, people have called this the
Speaker 1: business opportunity of the century for him.
Speaker 4: That is business, yes, for sure.
Speaker 3: And we've seen this with Foreign President Trump, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of the last go around, like various CEOs attempting
Speaker 3: to kind of leverage the fact that Trump is sort
Speaker 3: of ideologically pretty flexible and that he seems to like
Speaker 3: these sort of CEO types. But you're right, I mean,
Speaker 3: Elon Musk is kind of unique in his position to
Speaker 3: sort of benefit from an association with the former president,
Speaker 3: but also the risks that he faces in terms of regulation,
Speaker 3: you know, from a potential Harris administration. Right he is
Speaker 3: a major defense contractor in SpaceX. He would very much
Speaker 3: like some additional contracts to launch rockets and perhaps develop
Speaker 3: weapons systems or whatever. You have have potential security concerns
Speaker 3: that have been raised at various times. I'm sure he
Speaker 3: would very much like those to go away. You also
Speaker 3: have just like a host of regulatory agencies over the
Speaker 3: last five or so years that have opened investigations or
Speaker 3: have have had investigations, who have been looking into various
Speaker 3: parts of Musk's empire.
Speaker 4: He would of course like to continue to ignore those.
Speaker 4: And then Tesla, his car company.
Speaker 3: Which is, you know, the biggest source of his wealth,
Speaker 3: is very much dependent on regulatory structure that of course
Speaker 3: could change, and is also vuying to launch robotaxis, you know,
Speaker 3: autonomous vehicles, and is hoping to have friendly regulations there.
Speaker 3: So there are all sorts of ways that he's already
Speaker 3: the world's richest person, but that he could become even
Speaker 3: richer if Donald Trump wins in a week.
Speaker 2: Do you think he's expecting a concrete role in the administration?
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously that the President Trump has talked about
Speaker 2: him leading a group to find efficiencies in government, and
Speaker 2: this potential conflict of interests all over that, given the
Speaker 2: amount of contracts he has with the government. But you
Speaker 2: think he's actually expecting to have a role in the government.
Speaker 2: For this is more of a defensive position.
Speaker 3: It's hard to imagine Elon Musk is like a civil servant,
Speaker 3: right Like, I don't know that this is going to
Speaker 3: be a five days a week.
Speaker 2: You can say the saying about Donald Trump being here.
Speaker 3: I don't know that he's gonna be you know. I
Speaker 3: don't know if he's gonna get a badge and show
Speaker 3: up every day to work. But I do think that
Speaker 3: this role that he has announced for himself and that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump has repeatedly on the stump. I was at
Speaker 3: Madison Square Garden on Sunday in New York where Trump
Speaker 3: had this massive rally. Elon played a big role. They
Speaker 3: were both talking about it. Other people were talking about
Speaker 3: it was getting.
Speaker 4: Huge applause lines.
Speaker 3: The way I interpret this is that Elon Musk will
Speaker 3: have a big voice in how Donald Trump seeks to
Speaker 3: reform the executive branch. He's made that a huge part
Speaker 3: of house, of his campaign and his kind of political project.
Speaker 3: So I don't know that we should expect Elon to
Speaker 3: have cabinet post or something like that. I think it's
Speaker 3: much more likely that he will be effectively a senior advisor,
Speaker 3: maybe the most important senior advisor to the former president.
Speaker 2: Unlike many business people, part of His sort of demeanor
Speaker 2: has often been that you get the sense that these
Speaker 2: companies are like train sets for them, toys, you know,
Speaker 2: that he gets to play with. He kind of has
Speaker 2: that air about him, And I just wondered, does he
Speaker 2: think the US government is now going to just be
Speaker 2: another train set for him to play with? Now that
Speaker 2: he's bought his brought his way in with this support
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump and this particular candidate, he might have
Speaker 2: the scope to do that in a way he wouldn't
Speaker 2: with another candidate.
Speaker 3: It seems like he definitely sees it that way now.
Speaker 3: Almost ten years ago or so, SpaceX began selling this
Speaker 3: flamethrower as a kind of a marketing stunt. They and
Speaker 3: when it became clear that you're not supposed to sell
Speaker 3: a flamethrower, he changed the name to not a Flamethrower.
Speaker 4: Was a sort of jab at regulators.
Speaker 3: When people brought up recently that, you know, him being
Speaker 3: the CEO of Tesla and directing federal policy might be
Speaker 3: a conflict of interest, he said, Oh, don't worry, We'll
Speaker 3: just change the name of the Department of Government Efficiency
Speaker 3: to not the Department of Government Efficiency. He clearly thinks
Speaker 3: that he can essentially approach government the same way that
Speaker 3: he's approached business, which is by the seat of his pants,
Speaker 3: ignoring norms and regulations and like being very productive. And
Speaker 3: I think that is the optimistic story that you would tell.
Speaker 3: Like that is part of why Donald Trump is excited about.
Speaker 3: Why the voters and why that the crowds at Madison
Speaker 3: Square Garden and other Trump rallies have given him huge
Speaker 3: rounds of plause.
Speaker 4: That's what they're excited about.
Speaker 3: They think he's gonna bring that kind of crazy Elon Musk,
Speaker 3: you know, super productive, super weird out their business sense
Speaker 3: to politics.
Speaker 2: Going back to sort of boring policy substance for a
Speaker 2: minute and stripping out some of the more colorful aspects
Speaker 2: of this. One of the reasons why a few years
Speaker 2: ago you would have said that this was an unlikely
Speaker 2: combination was that the one thing that Elon was kind
Speaker 2: of politically identified with was action to combat climate change,
Speaker 2: and indeed is put that into action with Tesla with
Speaker 2: a huge investment in electric card That is one of
Speaker 2: the things that one would both the support for electric
Speaker 2: vehicles and the entire stance towards climate change would be
Speaker 2: one of the big changes under a Trump administration that
Speaker 2: we'd expect. How does that work? How is he bridging
Speaker 2: that gulf?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, as somebody who's followed Elon Musk for a
Speaker 3: long time, and you know, I first met him in
Speaker 3: two thousand and six. The thing that's weirdest about this
Speaker 3: is watching Donald Trump get on the stump and essentially
Speaker 3: deny that climate change is a real problem, and then
Speaker 3: watching Elon Musk agree with it, Because for such a
Speaker 3: long time that was impossible to imagine. Elon has been
Speaker 3: very closely defined with like sort of green capitalism and
Speaker 3: so on, but he's been pretty ideologically flexible. And that
Speaker 3: definition of Elon as this green capitalist it really started
Speaker 3: during the Obama years, right. He kind of embraced it
Speaker 3: when it was most politically advantageous and has been walking
Speaker 3: away from it as it has become sort of maybe
Speaker 3: less politically advantageous.
Speaker 4: The other thing is Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: At this point has a dominant position in electric vehicles.
Speaker 3: So if Trump were to sort of get rid of
Speaker 3: all subsidies for evs, which would be a problem for Tesla,
Speaker 3: and make no mistake, it would arguably hurt Tesla a
Speaker 3: lot less than a lot of these other automakers who
Speaker 3: are not selling tons of electric cars right now.
Speaker 5: Max.
Speaker 1: The other thing that you, as you've known, been following
Speaker 1: him since twenty or six, then you will have the
Speaker 1: buy below or certainly the kind of almanac on his
Speaker 1: flip flops and his change in positions. For instance, Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: In the Wilter Isaacson biography, it's very clear that when
Speaker 1: Musk first meets him, he doesn't think much of him.
Speaker 1: And now we have the possibility of him having a
Speaker 1: role in a possible Trump second presidency, and there's a
Speaker 1: host of other issues aren't there where he just changes
Speaker 1: his mind, either the facts so different or he's sort
Speaker 1: of evolved. If he were to have a role in government,
Speaker 1: it might be a bit dismal constraining, and he might think, actually,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this again. But also he
Speaker 1: might decide, actually President Trump isn't doing quite what I won't,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna go.
Speaker 3: If Kamala Harris wins next week and and becomes a president,
Speaker 3: there are a host of these investigations, various, you know,
Speaker 3: like issues around his security clearance. Like I would expect
Speaker 3: all of those to continue, maybe to even intensify, you know,
Speaker 3: it would be it would be sort of natural to
Speaker 3: think that a new administration is gonna ask some hard
Speaker 3: questions about do we really want one of our largest
Speaker 3: defense contractors to be in regular touch with Latim rip Putin?
Speaker 3: Do we really want one of our largest defense contractors
Speaker 3: smoking pot on the Joe Rogan Show, you know, as
Speaker 3: Elon Musk has done. Now on the other side, Right,
Speaker 3: there's the upside for Elon Musk with Trump is obvious. Right,
Speaker 3: Trump has said on the stump, We're just gonna order
Speaker 3: up some rockets and take him to Mars. Right, He's
Speaker 3: He's essentially like said, we're gonna have like I'm gonna
Speaker 3: give Elon Musk a multi billion dollar contract for for
Speaker 3: a Mars program that doesn't really exist at this point.
Speaker 3: He suggested that he's going to let Elon Musk take
Speaker 3: a red pen to the government, which of course can
Speaker 3: help him. Now, the thing is, though Tesla's customer base
Speaker 3: is largely progressive is liberal, they are on the left,
Speaker 3: and I don't think the customer base has fully processed
Speaker 3: what is happening. And so if Trump is elected, there
Speaker 3: is going to be a lot of talk politically about
Speaker 3: the role that Elon Musk played this historic amount of
Speaker 3: money and support he played, and that I think is
Speaker 3: going to lead to a backlash that is going to
Speaker 3: put Tesla under pressure. There are going to be a
Speaker 3: lot of people who own Tesla's who are I think
Speaker 3: they're already not feeling awesome about them, but are going
Speaker 3: to have to think, you know, is this the political
Speaker 3: statement I want to make? And we've seen this happen
Speaker 3: with the former president before. He is a cultural force
Speaker 3: and it works in both directions and really help companies,
Speaker 3: but it can also create a lot of pressures that
Speaker 3: could put Elon Musk in an uncomfortable position, could make
Speaker 3: him want to walk away. Now, if Trump loses, I
Speaker 3: don't think Elon Musk is going to do a one
Speaker 3: to eighty. I think he is pretty committed to this
Speaker 3: this kind of like.
Speaker 4: You know, right wing positioning.
Speaker 3: If Trump were to lose very badly, like a like
Speaker 3: a sort of humiliating defeat, which doesn't seem likely based
Speaker 3: on the polls, then I don't know. Elan is a
Speaker 3: is a adaptable guy, and I would now be surprised
Speaker 3: if if he evolved again.
Speaker 2: Well, we can certainly expect to see a lot of
Speaker 2: played out on X Twitter, You're gonna be so busy.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Yeah, that was great, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Now we welcome Charles Elson. Charles is the founding director
Speaker 1: of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance and a leading
Speaker 1: authority on corporate governance issues. Charles, I mean this is
Speaker 1: real issues, right, This is corporate governance issues. This is
Speaker 1: CEO is trying to navigate what is a very finely
Speaker 1: balanced to your selection.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, this is sort of governance one oh one, and
Speaker 5: it's frankly bord oversight of CEO's one oh one. And
Speaker 5: it's from a CEO standpoint, it's politics one one. It's
Speaker 5: a combo of everything rankly this year.
Speaker 1: So Charles tell us, Okay, what is different this time
Speaker 1: round compared to others. Has something changed in this balance?
Speaker 5: Well, I think when had happened. Traditionally CEO stayed out
Speaker 5: of elections. It just wasn't considered a good idea. You
Speaker 5: alienated too many people by doing it. And the role
Speaker 5: of the CEO is run the company, not to be
Speaker 5: a political figure. That changed a couple of years ago,
Speaker 5: I think really basically during the Trump administration, when there
Speaker 5: was significant opposition to him in parts of the business community.
Speaker 5: And with the two thousand election, which was considered such
Speaker 5: a choice, if you will, between two dramatically ways of
Speaker 5: looking at things, and combined with the summer of George Floyd,
Speaker 5: companies became much more politically active than they had been.
Speaker 5: You saw all kinds of statements where companies were opposing
Speaker 5: changes to the voting rights laws in certain states. You
Speaker 5: heard all kinds of demands for companies to make statements
Speaker 5: on political issues, and a lot of CEOs did and
Speaker 5: felt that it was their role their obligation to do so.
Speaker 5: Some did, I think, based on personal conviction. Others did
Speaker 5: it I think because they felt they were getting enormous
Speaker 5: pressure from their employees. You had the huge controversy at
Speaker 5: Disney where Disney announced it was not taking a position
Speaker 5: on a particular law that it was. The CEO ultimately left,
Speaker 5: and this really started a debate in this country as
Speaker 5: to whether or not the CEOs should really be that
Speaker 5: involved in the political process. They always kind of were,
Speaker 5: because companies did, through packs and whatnot, made contributions well
Speaker 5: through their packs, i should say, to candidates, and there
Speaker 5: were CEOs who personally contributed on both sides of the
Speaker 5: aisle to candidates companies are always accused traditionally of being
Speaker 5: very pro Republican, and a case that came out of
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court that basically allowed corporations to make direct
Speaker 5: political effectively make political contributions, not to campaigns, but to
Speaker 5: make their views known on political issues Citizens United, if
Speaker 5: you recall, it came out during the Obama administration, and
Speaker 5: people on the left at least decried it, saying this
Speaker 5: is going to increase corporate influence over the elections. Problem is,
Speaker 5: it didn't work out that way. It turns out that
Speaker 5: most large corporations ended up supporting democratic causes as opposed
Speaker 5: to Republican causes, and it was the other party who
Speaker 5: got upset about the ruling. So that's where That's kind
Speaker 5: of where we were until now that sets up for now.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting you say that there's obviously been big
Speaker 2: money flowing into politics on both sides thanks to Citizens United.
Speaker 2: That decision, I guess that was in twenty ten. But
Speaker 2: that doesn't put a lot of money on both sides
Speaker 2: of the political argument in the US in a way
Speaker 2: that certainly in the UK and in Europe we would
Speaker 2: find is against our sort of culture of political contributions.
Speaker 2: But the thing that striking this time, I would have
Speaker 2: thought was that even stating that you're in favor of
Speaker 2: free and fair elections has become something that chief executives
Speaker 2: are nervous of doing, and that seems like that takes
Speaker 2: things to a whole different level.
Speaker 5: Oh, I think it does, because what happened was because
Speaker 5: after the significant corporate involvement, it created a blowback. It
Speaker 5: was felt that a number of companies in the stands
Speaker 5: they were taking were very I guess sort of left
Speaker 5: of center as opposed to right of center, and the
Speaker 5: particularly following the abortion ruling of Roe v. Wade, and
Speaker 5: a lot of folks on the right of the divide,
Speaker 5: felt that corporations had become a captive to the left
Speaker 5: the divide. So they threatened, boycott's attacked, and CEOs for
Speaker 5: speaking out, employees got angry, and you created a mess.
Speaker 5: And the mess, frankly, could have been avoided had the
Speaker 5: CEOs not jumped into this thing to begin with, which happened,
Speaker 5: as I said, during the Trump era and after the
Speaker 5: two thousand elections, that's what really blew it up. And
Speaker 5: a lot of people, including me, said, look, you need
Speaker 5: to stay out of this completely because it divides people,
Speaker 5: and companies only work if there's unanimity within the company
Speaker 5: on corporate purpose despite your politics. Now that being said,
Speaker 5: the democracy point I think you make a good one
Speaker 5: is why is it so terrible to support democracy? Because
Speaker 5: it became a politicized term. Trump was viewed as anti
Speaker 5: democratic or complaining about the results of the election. He
Speaker 5: was a threat to democracy, so that term became rather
Speaker 5: than we all are supported democracy, the term became loaded
Speaker 5: and that it was well supporting quote democracy means opposing Trump,
Speaker 5: supporting you know, Joe Biden or Kambella Harris. That's the
Speaker 5: issue now, So.
Speaker 1: Charles, can we just be clear. Do you think what
Speaker 1: we're seeing right now, which is essentially it looks like
Speaker 1: the sort of pedging by CEO sitting on the fence,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, do you think that
Speaker 1: that is because of the very real possibility of retribution
Speaker 1: by a second president Trump or do you think that
Speaker 1: this is a backlash or you know, a swing back
Speaker 1: to the norm.
Speaker 5: Oh, I think it's a return to the tradition. I
Speaker 5: don't think it's based on you know, fear of retribution.
Speaker 5: It's fear of retribution from your customers. That's the problems,
Speaker 5: and that's really what happened. I think they learn the
Speaker 5: lesson that, look, by taking a stance, half the country
Speaker 5: will love you, the other half will hate you, and
Speaker 5: that's terrible way to run a business.
Speaker 2: People would be surprised to hear you say it's sort
Speaker 2: of back to the previous datus quote, because obviously in
Speaker 2: the old days, there wasn't a sort of majority of
Speaker 2: American voters expecting potentially violence on either side of election day,
Speaker 2: and we hadn't had a presidential candidate refused to concede
Speaker 2: an election result. So it does feel like the stakes
Speaker 2: are quite high.
Speaker 5: I think the danger when you get jumped into this,
Speaker 5: whether you're pro or anti Trump or pro or Annie Harris,
Speaker 5: it's that because we're so divided as a country, no
Speaker 5: matter what you do in a political stance, you're going
Speaker 5: to offend half your audience, half your employees.
Speaker 2: But it shouldn't be political, though, right. I guess that's
Speaker 2: the issue. I think that's what concerns people is and
Speaker 2: you pointed it out yourself that what has become political
Speaker 2: is actually supporting the constitution, right.
Speaker 5: I don't think the Republican Party or the Democratic Party
Speaker 5: frankly at their core support violence. I don't believe that,
Speaker 5: and I think that in the end, if something does
Speaker 5: come up, I would be shocked if either party condoned
Speaker 5: it either way. I just don't think that's part of
Speaker 5: the There's a lot of heated rhetoric. But I think
Speaker 5: when push comes to shove, ultimately the rhetoric disappears and
Speaker 5: you come together as a country. But I just don't
Speaker 5: I don't see that happening clearly.
Speaker 1: January the sixth slightly slightly complicates that assertion. I think
Speaker 1: we'd all like to agree that you're right, but I mean,
Speaker 1: it was it was it was a it was an uprising,
Speaker 1: and it was an uprising that had that did have
Speaker 1: some support from the then that then booted out President.
Speaker 5: Well, he made a terrible mistake, and I think that,
Speaker 5: you know, frankly, his rhetoric was improper. I agree, And
Speaker 5: that's the problem with heated rhetoric on either side us.
Speaker 5: You know, his rhetoric or the rhetoric of you know,
Speaker 5: using fascists, this, that and the other. It's that it's
Speaker 5: really a bad thing to do. It insides violence on
Speaker 5: both sides. Trump, you know, he's a strange figure he's
Speaker 5: a populist and populist listen, Andrew Jackson was a populous
Speaker 5: I mean, I can go back in history. I mean
Speaker 5: I can think of Gosh, wave back, Lofolette was a populist.
Speaker 5: I mean, they all use that kind of rhetoric.
Speaker 2: It's a much longer tradition in the US than it
Speaker 2: is in other places. And you certainly have populis on
Speaker 2: both sides going back into the nineteenth century, and we've
Speaker 2: had in the early nineties and two thousand sort of precursors.
Speaker 2: Patrick Buchanan, all those people. I think you're describing what
Speaker 2: and you talk about the boardroom, you describe what many
Speaker 2: chief executives certainly the approach they would like to take
Speaker 2: if they feel, you know, if they're able to, if
Speaker 2: the situation doesn't become so polarized that they're really forced
Speaker 2: to sort of stand up for something. I guess many
Speaker 2: people would say the action is elsewhere. Actually in these
Speaker 2: in the billionaire donors to it with very kind of
Speaker 2: personal support for candidates, and you know, in the case
Speaker 2: of Elon Musk, for example, we'd talk elsewhere in the
Speaker 2: program about, you know, the very public role he's taking.
Speaker 2: I just wonder do you think that.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, mister Musk and I have had our
Speaker 5: disagreements on his pay issues. You know, look, I think
Speaker 5: a normal CEO, a normal CEO, and a normal board
Speaker 5: would never have been allowed to do what mister Musk
Speaker 5: has done in this situation. I think that what he's
Speaker 5: done is expressed as dramatic support for one candidate, and
Speaker 5: it's polarizing. I'm sure that people who work for him
Speaker 5: probably are just as divided as the rest of the country.
Speaker 5: And taking a position like that is a real problem
Speaker 5: in your organization. And I think that that gets to
Speaker 5: the heart of the issues with Tesla and the board.
Speaker 5: This was the criticism that the judge had that the
Speaker 5: board was not independent she found of mister Musk, and
Speaker 5: I think that this what's happened today kind of demonstrates
Speaker 5: that because any normal board would say stay out of this,
Speaker 5: this is not your area.
Speaker 1: You say, normal bullet, But we're talking about Ela Musk
Speaker 1: and we're talking about Tesla. I'm talking about space X.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a company the reverse park to rocket,
Speaker 1: you know, ten days ago, two weeks ago. It's not
Speaker 1: a normal company. Where does this end with this? As
Speaker 1: you say this very abnormal relationship between a billionaire an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur that's being offered a job in government. Right, we know,
Speaker 1: if Trump wins, he's going into government. Where does this end?
Speaker 5: Well, I think the question is does he actually end
Speaker 5: up with a job and A does Trump win? B
Speaker 5: does he actually end up with a job in government?
Speaker 5: And see what has that due to the rest of
Speaker 5: his companies. You got to remember too, He's got a
Speaker 5: lot of stock in Tesla, and he leaves Tesla as
Speaker 5: what he threatened to do, the stock in Tesla falls
Speaker 5: and his worth falls. That's the crux of this whole
Speaker 5: compensation dispute, which has to do with giving him an
Speaker 5: extra twenty percent of the company, which you remember, or
Speaker 5: fifteen percent, which if you remember to begin with that
Speaker 5: he had a lot of twenty five percent. He sold
Speaker 5: some of it to buy x now, and so is
Speaker 5: ownership position came down. He wants this compensation to bring
Speaker 5: his position up. But if he leaves Tesla, theoretically so
Speaker 5: it's argued, the value collapses. That's the hell of the
Speaker 5: whole thing. It's a strange situation. But the question is
Speaker 5: why in the world would a board let someone put
Speaker 5: themselves in this particular situation. Remember, they did just stockholders
Speaker 5: of Teeslas. They did, and that suggests to me, or
Speaker 5: at least it backs up the judges view that they
Speaker 5: weren't independent of him. That's all she said in the opinion.
Speaker 5: They weren't. They were paid so much money that they
Speaker 5: be on that board that they were not going to
Speaker 5: be independent.
Speaker 2: So I think there's any downside for company executives or
Speaker 2: for companies to have sat this one out to the
Speaker 2: extent that they've managed to do that. I'm just wondering
Speaker 2: when things like in the sort of the heat of
Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter, I think there were a lot of
Speaker 2: companies that just felt, due to the nature of their
Speaker 2: customer base, they couldn't afford to stay out of it.
Speaker 2: They had to have a carefully modulated but a sort
Speaker 2: of sympathetic statement. And obviously the statement black lives matter
Speaker 2: also should not be controversial, even though it came to
Speaker 2: signify many things, but both in terms of their relationship
Speaker 2: with their employees and particularly certain generations, younger generations, but
Speaker 2: in the sort of broader customer base. I just wonder
Speaker 2: whether you think there's any companies that at least are
Speaker 2: a little bit nervous about the flip side. You know,
Speaker 2: they may be worried now about retribution by future president Trump,
Speaker 2: but what about five or ten years time if they've
Speaker 2: not been vocal at key moments.
Speaker 5: I just think you make a mistake when you mix
Speaker 5: politics and business, politics and economics. I think you make
Speaker 5: a mistake because an economic venture is oddly enough, one
Speaker 5: of the few places still around where everyone can agree
Speaker 5: and that we all want to produce a good product
Speaker 5: and a fair price and make a profit and get paid. Well,
Speaker 5: that's everyone can agree to. That, that's universal, and that's
Speaker 5: what's so nice ahead of business that you check your
Speaker 5: politics at the door, you check your clients at the door.
Speaker 5: In the end, you need to separate the two. You
Speaker 5: know that. That's why you never talk about politics at Thanksgiving,
Speaker 5: which is coming up here in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 5: because it always ends up in a terrible argument and
Speaker 5: it's sort of pointless. Just think of it this way.
Speaker 5: If the only people saying crazy things are the politicians,
Speaker 5: then the rest of the world stays sane. Everyone else.
Speaker 2: If it's true that Jeff Bezos prevented them from declaring
Speaker 2: a choice in the presidential election, as they always have
Speaker 2: in an editorial. Do you think that was a good
Speaker 2: judgment by Jeff Bezos about the rest of his company.
Speaker 5: I think it was a very bold decision of William
Speaker 5: Lewis's part. He and I are old friends, and I'm
Speaker 5: curious as to what whether it came from Bezos or
Speaker 5: it came from from William. But it was an interesting
Speaker 5: stand and in a way it was smart, I think,
Speaker 5: and suggesting in this partisan year, we are going to
Speaker 5: report and let you decide. We're not going to try
Speaker 5: to influence you one way or the other, because once
Speaker 5: you start to take a position, it affects the way
Speaker 5: you present the facts. And I think that's the argument here. Again,
Speaker 5: I don't know what their reasoning was or not, but
Speaker 5: at least when I saw it, I took it that way.
Speaker 1: And it's complicated by the fact that three of the
Speaker 1: editorial board have resigned over it. I think that there's
Speaker 1: some suggestion that they had written an editorial for Kamana
Speaker 1: Harris one. And I think the other complicating fact has
Speaker 1: to be you know, I think we have to agree
Speaker 1: that that Bezos having such financial interest both in his
Speaker 1: Blue Origin company but also in aws in federal government
Speaker 1: contracts does make it a complex picture.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of sympathy reading his quote saying listen, actually,
Speaker 1: newspaper endorsements don't really matter anymore. I think we can
Speaker 1: all agree that there's some evidence of that one. And
Speaker 1: also to your point just then is powerful, which is
Speaker 1: it just creates a sense of bias that irritates fifty
Speaker 1: percent of our readership. That's one hand, But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, he is his companies make a lot from
Speaker 1: the federal government.
Speaker 5: You know, that's that's a fair point. Again, I don't
Speaker 5: know where that came into is thinking or not.
Speaker 1: It insists not.
Speaker 5: It is fascinating that this is the first time I
Speaker 5: can remember where a paper actually said actually the two
Speaker 5: papers that are saying, you know, they're not going to
Speaker 5: endorse anyone.
Speaker 2: That was quite clear as well. The publishers in LA
Speaker 2: Times they've prevented it.
Speaker 5: La Times, Yeah, which I thought was really But I
Speaker 5: get they have an interesting point, But do people really
Speaker 5: support the endorsements and when you endorse?
Speaker 2: But why have they not had this point before? I
Speaker 2: guess that's what we're going back to the uniqueness of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, aren't we Because why is it that businesses
Speaker 2: felt more nervous about this than in the past.
Speaker 1: And I think, and I think, to just back up
Speaker 1: your points, Steph might view, you know, Charles, earlier you
Speaker 1: were saying this is a healthy corrective to the kind
Speaker 1: of over in elligence of CEOs, thinking people cared about
Speaker 1: their opinion esg and all of that. But I suppose
Speaker 1: my kind of head scratch on this is why why
Speaker 1: is it at one minute to midnight? Why is it
Speaker 1: sort of ten days to go? Why did we not
Speaker 1: see this repositioning earlier in the year when they say, look, okay,
Speaker 1: we're approaching this election year and we're going to have
Speaker 1: a different approach. We're not going to be endorsing, and
Speaker 1: we're going to sit back and watch.
Speaker 5: I think the rhetoric. I think the rhetoric got too hot.
Speaker 5: I think the I think the assassination attempt, the two
Speaker 5: attempts on Trump. I think that the language that you
Speaker 5: began to see, you know, the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 5: particularly the use of the term nazi fascist, really turned
Speaker 5: up the heat so significantly that people became frightened. There's
Speaker 5: nothing more divisive than this within families that happens, you know,
Speaker 5: I would constantly get into a debate with my dad
Speaker 5: at Thanksgiving, and finally I realized he's not going to
Speaker 5: change my mind and I'm not going to change his.
Speaker 5: What's the point you enjoyed it?
Speaker 2: That's you have raised a good point. There's many things
Speaker 2: that people are sort of raising themselves and potentially dreading
Speaker 2: about the next few weeks and Thanksgiving dinner with the
Speaker 2: rest of the family.
Speaker 5: I'm going to be in England for the election, so
Speaker 5: you come.
Speaker 1: To the safe. That's fantastic. Charles Elson, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for joining us. Thanks for listening to this week's
Speaker 1: voting nomics from Bloomberg. This episode was hosted by me
Speaker 1: Alecri Stratton with Stephanie Flanders. It was produced by Sumersadi,
Speaker 1: production support from Isabella Ward, sound designed by Moses, and
Speaker 1: special thanks to Max Chafkin and Charles Elson. Please subscribe, rate,
Speaker 1: and review wherever you listen to podcasts.