WEBVTT - Has DOGE Gone Underground? 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:08.560 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Let me tell you 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:09.520 we have a new star. 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.640 A star is born Elon pumped up on Mars Juson Kennemy. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.520 He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age. 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.040 Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:21.800 I feel for the guy. 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.320 I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.480 But those two percent that are nasty, they are I'll 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.040 be in four fos. 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:32.320 We are meant for great things in the United States 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:36.400 of America, and Elon reminds us of that we don't 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:45.479 have a fourth branch of governments called Elon Musk. Welcome 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:50.040 to Elon, Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.240 April fifteenth. I'm your host, Joel Webber, sitting in for 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.680 David Papadopolos. It's tax day in the US, when the 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.480 federal government is supposed to collect its money, and maybe 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.080 it still came. But of course DIRS has been gutted 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.800 alongside many other federal agencies thanks to Elon and DOGE. 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:08.680 But the news stories about DOGE seems to have been 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.520 slowing down a little bit. What exactly is Elon and 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.319 his young team up to these days, We've got lots 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.280 to discuss, so we'll talk about that, and then we're 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.840 gonna dig back into the roller coaster of Tesla's share 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:25.000 price as investors await next week's earnings call. Okay, let's 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.040 start with doche and to unpack the leaders. We're joined 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.880 by Elon Inc. Regular Dana Hole, Hi, Dana, Hey, Joel, 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.840 and a special guest and now friend of the podcast, 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.960 McKenna Kelly from Wired Magazine. Hello, McKenna, it's good to 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:39.319 be back. 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:39.600 Hey. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.960 Okay, I'm gonna start with a clip from October twenty 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.840 twenty four at Maniston's Quare Garden, where Elon is on 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.480 stage with Howard Luttnik out of Trump rally. 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:50.560 Oh, I got one question for it that I'm getting 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:50.960 out of here. 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.000 This is your stage. But we set up doge. Yes, 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.280 how much do you think we can rip out of 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:04.400 this wasted six two point five trillion dollar Harris Biden budget? Well, 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:09.040 I think we could do at least two trillion. Yeah, yes, 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.840 two trillion. And now here's Elon just a few days 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:15.120 ago with a new number. 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.240 I'm excited to announce that we anticipate savings in FY 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.840 twenty six from reduction of waste and broad by one 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:23.400 hundred and fifty billion dollars. 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.920 McKennon, we had two trillion. Now it's one hundred and 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:31.760 fifty billion, dramatically smaller. How realistic is even that number? 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.280 Yeah, I mean when you look at the kinds of 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.360 areas that Dough just targeting right now, one of the 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.760 biggest cost savings I think you can argue is all 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.760 of these layoffs and riffs that have been happening across 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.799 the federal government. But at a lot of agencies, the 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.760 workforce is one of the cheapest parts of these agencies, right, 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:56.320 And so again it's like it's hard to predict, right, 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.959 if one hundred and fifty billion will actually be the number, 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.000 or if it'll be even less. It's hard to even 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:05.720 just trust Elon's goals here because even when we go 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.000 to like doache dot gov, where all of these savings 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:09.720 are supposed to be listed, a lot of these end 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.160 up being incorrect and even removed from the website. So 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.560 even if he claims to have met one hundred and 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.480 fifty billions, say like six months from now, I have 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.080 a hard time believing that number would even be accurate. 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.320 And Dana how Active, I know this is an ongoing 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:30.079 current on the show. How Active is. DOZE currently feels 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:31.400 like it's winded down a little bit. 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.480 I think I'm going to push back on that. I 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.280 think that people think it's winded down because everyone is 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.320 focused on tariffs and what tariffs are doing to the economy. 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.200 But DOZE is still very much embedded in all of 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.280 these agencies. You know, Antonio Gracias, one of Elon's best 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.680 friends who's on the board of SpaceX, is like at 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.680 the Social Security Administration, They're doing all this stuff with 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:58.080 Social Security and immigration and putting people on these dead lists. 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.920 And I just think that just because there's not maybe 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.120 the wall to wall media coverage that there was in 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:05.800 dozes early these days, does not mean that DOGE is 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.520 winding down. Elon's time as a special government employee will 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.600 sunset after the one hundred and thirty day mark. But like, 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.040 DOGE is very much embedded in all of these agencies. 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.800 And what McKenna has written about a lot is and 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.080 what we've seen too is like, you know, it's not 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.080 just this like band of kids that like got a 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.480 lot of publicity in the early days. People are now 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:32.560 in CIO roles, people have access to wide swaths of information, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.000 and so I just think it's incorrect to sort of 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:38.719 act like DOGE is sort of on the way out. 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.320 It is not like they have more access to more 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.760 databases and more agency functions than ever, and there's like, 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.679 you know, easily I don't know. I think our internal 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.960 list is over eighty people, but there are people like 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.640 at every agency accessing all kinds of data, and they're 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.040 still doing a lot of work, like hand in hand 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:00.920 with omb the Trump administration. 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.200 I also think part of what's happening here too, and 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:05.800 a lot from my reporting and the reporting that you 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.760 guys have been doing at Bloomberg, is that at the beginning, 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.200 there are these stories of these teenage strike forces of 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.000 engineers descending on these agencies, and then also, I mean, 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.599 it was every single agency. And now I mean, the 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:21.240 way that I've been describing this to folks that I've 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.560 been speaking with recently is that we've kind of we're 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.919 kind of exiting the stage one of DOGE right and 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.679 entering what I've been kind of calling stage two, although 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.920 I don't have a proper definition for it yet because 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.279 I don't think we're in it all the way, but 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.760 a lot of what's happening at agencies specifically, I'm thinking 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.680 about the IRS. It's tax day. There's a lot of 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.920 very technical things happening. Groups of engineers you know at 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.800 the IRS, and groups of doge folks and palenteer coming 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.880 in and trying to build these like unified API layers. 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.560 That doesn't really make a great headline. And then you 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:55.320 have to also have to think like does your audience, 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.440 you know, even understand fully what all of this means. 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.400 And so there's a lot going on, right, but it's 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:07.520 not this like headline grabbing, attention grabbing teenagers storming through 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:12.320 the State Department right Instead, they're sitting at computers at hackathons. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.800 I feel like we've gone from like feeding a USAID 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.880 into the wood chipper on a Saturday to like, let's 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.880 remake like technical infrastructure of how this agency actually operates 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.800 and like strip out all of the legacy software contracts 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.560 and make a new database that is run by like 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:32.480 private enterprise. 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.400 And McKennon, tell us more about your reporting on this, 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.760 because you have written about specifically at the IRS and 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.920 this API that you mentioned ANDEER Palenteer, of course, private 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.200 company that's legendary for being able to like create layers 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.640 of software that can kind of reach across databases. What 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:51.960 is the end goal here and what could this end 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:52.599 up looking like? 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:54.599 Yeah, I mean it's really hard to predict what the 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.440 end goal is. But what's happening at the IRS specifically 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.760 is that doge specifically the doge lead at IRS, his 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.160 name is Sam forcos, he wants to build this unified 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:10.360 API layer across all of the IRS systems, basically creating 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:14.640 one kind of one cloud platform using Palentti your foundry 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.280 software right to be able to create different apps to 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.040 run LLLMS over IRS data. And he thinks he can 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.920 do this in thirty days. This is happening at other 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.160 agencies as well. A couple of weeks ago, I reported 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.320 that at the SOID Security Administration, for example, there were 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.640 doge folks who wanted to completely rebuild the SSA code base. 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.040 And again they think that they can do this in 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.920 like thirty days or a month, completely build it up 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.320 from the ground up and removing all of this legacy code, 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:47.640 whether that is assembly or coball, and get it ready 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:52.280 for whatever. You know, This next phase of doges and Danna. 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:54.800 When you think about what that looks like and how 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.800 it's currently used in tech, like, what do you think 0:07:57.840 --> 0:07:59.160 it could end up looking like? 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.440 Well, there's just like a lot of great privacy concerns 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.679 because the federal government always had like really strict rules 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.920 about who had access to what, and the inability to 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:11.320 kind of cross agencies was sort of by design, right, 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.680 because the federal government took very seriously the privacy of 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.680 American citizens. But if databases can talk to each other, 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.720 there's nothing that's stopping dose from like using IRS data 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.360 to coordinate with like it, you know, with ICE or 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:28.520 the student loan program, and like that is the big 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.240 fear of a lot of civil rights experts and student groups. 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.319 And you're seeing in a lot of the lawsuits that 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.400 have been filed great concern about the lack of privacy 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.920 controls that are going into these new systems. And you know, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.720 Musk is very focused on immigration and they you know, 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.640 they are talking a lot about social security and what 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.240 they're doing with social security and how so many immigrants 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.680 have Social Security numbers, and so I think that there's 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.480 just great concern about the lack of privacy controls as 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.360 these new databases are being built and like cross reference 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.520 across the government, you can argue that doing that is 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.800 more efficient and will help find waste and fraud. But 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.439 on the flip side, like the government now has unfettered 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.600 more and more access to everyone's information than it ever 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:16.200 had before. 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.600 Mc kenneth, where else has your reporting on DOGE taking 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.320 you here? We've got the IRS stuff, We've got HHS, 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.760 the Palanteer stuff is really interesting, Like what's the signal 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.280 through all of this, especially as you know, we start 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.439 to look forward to perhaps Elon maybe stepping back a 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:39.240 little bit at the end of his one hundred and 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.440 thirty days as a special government employee. 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.240 Yeah, to piggyback off of what Dana was saying. I mean, 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.480 that's the fear right now, is that one of the 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.840 administration's biggest goals right now is immigration and immigration reform, 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.520 if that's what you want to call disappearing people immigration reform. 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.480 But if you look at the agencies that DOGE has targeted. 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.800 You mentioned AJHS, which has a database of unac companied minors. 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.000 You look at IRS. Despite as much as what Elon 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:08.320 wants to say, immigrants in our country do pay taxes. 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.079 In a variety of ways billions and billions of dollars 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.960 every year, and then ssay as well, they end up 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.200 paying into Social Security as well. And so when you 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.600 look at the agencies that DOT has targeted, with the 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:24.479 priority of the administration being immigration, by building these APIs 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.120 and modernizing these systems, allowing them to talk would make 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.680 it a lot easier. And what sources that I've been 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.080 speaking to the fears, you know, building this gigantic migrant 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.280 surveillance system. And the scariest part of this to me 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:39.600 is the idea that you can do this in thirty days. 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.160 I mean, just identifying where all the databases are, what 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.360 they do, who accesses them, and for what purpose would 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.560 take longer than thirty days, you know, according to everyone 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.760 that I've spoken to. And so even if you want 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.720 to even beyond that thirty day limit, is there even 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.000 time to test how these were built? Are things going 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.719 to go wrong? I think you know. The big thing too, 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:01.679 is like who is going to get trapped in this? 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.000 We had over the weekend an immigration lawyer in Massachusetts 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.240 right who received an email saying that she needed to 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.080 self deport immediately. That was a mistake. There's just so 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.439 many mistakes that could happen, and when the administration is 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.120 sending so many of these folks down to the seacop 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.600 prison in Al Salvador and not really fighting to bring 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.640 them back when mistakes are made. That adds another layer 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.120 to this, all right, because maybe they don't even care 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.280 if you know, the system is one hundred percent perfect 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.240 and doesn't make these horrible mistakes. 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.400 Dana, that is all kind of scary. We're starting to 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.600 think about, you know, what a complete kind of surveillance 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.000 state might look like here in the US. It's also 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.760 I'm curious, you know, I mentioned how Elon could be 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:49.800 stepping away here At the end of a one hundred 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.920 and thirty day period, he will have this special government 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.880 employee status that will sort of supposedly end. Is he 0:11:57.960 --> 0:11:58.800 actually going to leave? 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:02.360 So has discretion in terms of how the one hundred 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.959 and thirty days are counted. Like if if you think 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.480 if the inauguration on January twentieth was day one, then 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.679 the one hundred and thirty days brings you till roughly 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:12.960 the end of May. I mean, there have definitely been 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.679 signals that Elon is going to like sort of step back. 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.599 Trump has said basically at some point, Elon's going to 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.280 have to leave. Elon talked very publicly at that Wisconsin 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.760 rally about the sort of hit that he's taking in 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.400 terms of the backlash against Tesla and how that's impacted 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.120 his stock and the stock of everyone who owns Tesla frankly, 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:35.439 and so there is a sense that, like he might 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.120 pull back, but I think that he has unfettered access 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.840 to the Trump administration. And we have to remind everyone 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.600 he bankrolled this electoral comeback. He spent more than two 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.240 hundred and fifty million dollars to get Trump reelected. He 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.240 campaigned for Trump all across Pennsylvania. And he's not just 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:53.800 going to like take his ball and go back to 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:58.600 Tesla like he He funded this campaign for a reason. 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.319 I think he is very proud of what Doge has accomplished, 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.640 but frustrated that the public isn't giving him accolades like 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.040 he is. He is frustrated by the backlash his companies 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.440 are in. I mean, Tesla at least is in trouble, 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.400 like they have a stale lineup byd is eating their 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.400 starting to eat their lunch. Globally, the cyber truck is 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.080 a disaster. In terms of sales, So like at some 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.160 point he's going to have to reckon with like what 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.880 is his company? But I don't think he's gonna like 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:26.880 not be in touch with Trump. I mean, the two 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:28.400 of them text each other all the time. 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:30.520 The thing I would add to that too is that 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:34.839 he owns x Twitter. I mean, his formal role is 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.360 as a senior advisor. I think maybe you can just 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.080 do that by competing. Unfortunately as well, because it's very unclear. 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:45.680 You know that the administration Republican influencers everyone in this ecosystem, 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.840 this Trump administration ecosystem is on there and probably you know, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.960 gets push notifications like we all do when Elon Musk tweets, 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:54.200 whether we turn them on or not. 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.520 Mcinnay. You know, that's an interesting idea and it does 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.800 speak to maybe what the future it looks like. But 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.280 like back just in the present, since he's still in DOGE, 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.560 how involved is he on a day to day basis 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.760 Based on what you've learned through your reporting. 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:11.760 Yeah, I mean it sounds like the way that he 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:13.520 operates with a ton of his companies, right, he has 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.559 these grand ideas or whatever, and he builds a group 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:21.040 of people who he knows can execute. Steve Davis seems 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.000 to be heavily involved, who you know, is now the 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.000 president of the Waring Company. He was brought in for 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.280 the Twitter acquisition and did a lot of the cost 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:30.800 cutting there. It seems like it's the same playbook, right, 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.240 and then it gives Elan a lot of time to go, 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.040 you know, do some of his company stuff. Played Diablo 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.960 four at three o'clock in the morning to test his 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.640 starlink or whatever. But yeah, I think it's still you know, 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.400 him operating as this like philosopher King more than this 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.600 everyday roll of like getting his hands dirty with firings 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:51.840 or you know, doing specific stuffs. 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.080 When I thought it was super interesting that Musk and 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.400 a bunch of Doge people went on Fox News with 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:58.760 Brett Baher to kind of talk about their work, and 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.040 Steve Davis was sitting right next to Elon and he 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.880 was introduced by the Fox host as the COO. 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:05.840 Of Doge of Doge. 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.320 Yeah, so did A McKenna's point, like it is Elon's philosophy, 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:11.840 but he has kind of deputized some of his most 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.240 loyal lieutenants to actually carry out the work. But Musk 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.040 is still very much in DC. I mean, he was 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.000 with Trump in Florida over the weekend at the UFC fight. 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:26.440 Like he is not in Fremont, he's still very much 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:27.320 in the nation's capital. 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.120 So when he's not there, let's say, after these one 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:32.400 hundred and thirty days or whatever, who are some of 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.320 the key people you mentioned Steve Davis, who are some 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.400 of the key people in DOGE that will be kind 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.800 of primary reporting targets as you kind of look ahead, Dana, 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:43.600 I'm gonna start with you. 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:44.520 Yeah, I think I. 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:46.400 Think it's super interesting to look at who's taken on 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.400 the CIO roles so. At Social Security, for instance, the 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.760 sort of interim CIO was this guy Mike Russo, but 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.520 now it's Scott Colter, who's like a young kind of 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.000 private equity VC kind of person and who is now 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.800 like in that job. And so that's that's like one 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.320 example of like an agency person that I would look 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.960 closely at. I think it's super interesting to see how 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.800 long Antonio Gracias, who's on the board of SpaceX, and 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.320 Joe Gebia who's on the board of Tesla, stay involved 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:19.240 in DOGE. They have both been very active Antonio at 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.520 Social Security and Gebia's like at oh PM looking at 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.000 the retirement system. You know, some of these people kind 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.160 of cycled through and have cycled back to their companies already, 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.520 Like some of the young like engineers who worked at 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.240 Tesla and SpaceX, are already sort of done with their 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:35.440 with their work and are now back at the companies. 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.600 But to McKenna's point, like as we enter sort of 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.720 DOGE two point zero or like the second phase, I 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:44.760 think it's going to be some of the less lesser 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.720 known names that will actually have the most influence. And 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:49.920 they're lesser known by design. I mean a lot of 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:51.920 what we know of the about these people is based 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:56.880 on court filings and tros and declarations from the government 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.320 in these various lawsuits. A lot of these people have 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.440 scrubbed their social media. They don't have a LinkedIn page, 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.919 like they are being very low key on purpose and 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:06.680 worth mentioning. 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.600 Dana, you work with Sophie Alexander and our graphics team 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.919 here at Bloomberg to sort of map out what that 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.120 universe of people really look like. That will be kind 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.920 of leading DOGE potentially forward after elon the steps aside, Yeah, 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:22.439 for sure, any particular names that we haven't mentioned yet 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:23.520 that are of interest to you. 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.560 Yeah, The people that I'm most interested in are the 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:32.680 DOGE people who are within that USDs system, which was 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.320 formerly of course called the US Digital Services created under 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.119 Obama to resolve the whole healthcare dot gov debacle, now 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.840 called the US Doage Services, seemingly led by a woman 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.800 named Amy Gleason, who you don't hear a lot from. 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.760 So I'm definitely interested in seeing what Amy's role evolves into. 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:54.120 Does she end up making more decisions, does she take 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.200 the reins on a lot of this. I have my doubts, 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.440 of course, but definitely the leadership there and at GSA 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.640 as well, because the General Services Administration to me has 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.080 kind of seemed with all the layoffs happening and getting 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.000 rid of so many folks at these agencies, it seems 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.520 like they're building like this group of technologists that they 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.440 can then just like deploy anywhere to you know, quote 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:17.680 unquote like fix issues or do things. 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:19.960 All Right, McKenna, we're going to have you back on 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.840 the pod. Thanks for joining us today. Really appreciate you 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:23.440 in your time. 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:24.760 Great great to be here. 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:32.600 Oh right now we're going to talk about the other 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.280 most exciting thing in the world, which is Tesla as 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.520 a stock. And we're going to be joined by Esha Day, 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.320 a Bloomberg Stock reporter. Esha, thanks for joining us. Thank 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.560 you for having me, Dana, you're still here, of course, Escha. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.200 What is going on with this stock right now? 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:49.600 Well, that's an interesting question. 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.520 As always, it's very volatile and it's mostly going down now. 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:56.119 You would say that about the US stock market as 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:57.480 better right now and. 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.960 For numbers like about seven and a half percent down, 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:01.520 And I. 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:03.840 Just want to set up like you know, yes, Tesla 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.520 is moving a lot like the US stock market, which 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:08.800 itself is moving like a memestock these days. 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.600 But I want to tell you, like how much wilder 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:12.159 Tesla is. 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.440 For example, Tesla shares are down last I checked, about 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.439 thirty eight percent this year. Sm P five hundred is 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.200 down about eight percent of over that time. The NaSTA 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.960 one hundred, which is I would say usually a little 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.480 more volatile than sm P five hundred index because it's 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.000 so technology heavy, is down about ten percent. 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:31.800 So you know that's a comparison. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.880 Now since April second, when this recent tariff turmoil really started, 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.919 and by many accounts, some people would say that Tesla 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.520 is relatively insulated maybe from some of the tariffs. Yet 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:48.600 Tesla shares are down about eleven person since April seconds close. 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.480 Sembly five hundred is down about four point five percent 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.119 over that time, NaSTA one hundred down four persons. So 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.719 you know, by whichever way you look at this, Tesla 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:58.000 chees are doing very badly. 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.760 Okay, there's this thing called the death crow that's come 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.840 up a little bit and Tesla seems to be maybe 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:08.240 flirting with it. How significant is this death cross? 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.240 Yeah, it's significant for sure. 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.480 It's a death cross is basically a chart pattern, but 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.719 it's one of the more prominent ones out there, something 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.760 that technical analysts and chart analysts kind of look at 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.040 very closely. Now, any chart pattern we would not look 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.000 at them in isolation. We usually want to see what 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.119 else is happening with the stock at the same point. 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:34.440 But overall, what this death cross is is it's basically 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.159 is giving you a sense of what the momentum of 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:39.240