WEBVTT - Elon Becomes the First Friend 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:07.440 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.320 Worst case scenario if our planet falls apart, we can 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.680 all go to Mars with the other man that we 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:16.440 love and trust. 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:22.720 Elon Musk, You are right, check it out, Doc Mega. 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:29.720 Yeah, but seriously, I run the country now, and it's 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:32.280 gonna be like one of my rockheads. You know, that's 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:36.600 super cool and super fun. But this slideshads a good 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.200 blow up and everybody dies. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.320 Ha ha, I'm Doc Mega. See in the White House, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:49.360 US say, us say, well. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.879 Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.240 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:55.320 --> 0:01:01.160 controlled by one man. Well, he's a legitimate, super genius, legitimate. 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:01.200 He says. 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.840 He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:04.280 be different. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:05.280 He'll vote Republican. 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.039 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:08.440 on him. 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.240 Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.640 I think anything he does, he's fascinating the people. 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.240 Welcome to Elon Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.959 That was from Saturday Night Live, sending up Elon Musk's 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:35.039 big week in politics. Today is Tuesday, November twelve. I'm 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.440 your host, Max Chafkin, standing in for David Papadopoulos. It's 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.880 hard to believe that the election was only a week ago. 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.680 It feels to me anyway like Elon Musk has been 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.319 vice president for years, which is only slightly a joke, 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:52.520 because Musk's role in this election has been staggering. Today, 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.400 we're going to break that down in multiple ways. We 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.000 are joined by our regulars, Sarah fryar head a Big 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:02.680 Tech coverage Hello, Sarah, Hello, Dana Hull are one and 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.240 only Elon Musk reporter, Hey, Dana. 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:07.520 Elon belongs to all of us, Hey, Hey. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.720 And then later on we'll be joined by a new guest, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.520 Tom Maloney, a member of Bloomberg's wealth team, who will 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.400 come and talk to us about Musk's money before we 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.560 get there. Just to catch people up if you weren't 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.040 following this on Twitter or on the news or wherever else. 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.840 Elon has basically been camped out in mar A Lago 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:31.400 for the week. He went there for the victory party 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.760 and Dan I think he actually did leave briefly to 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.959 go to Texas, but more or less, he's with Trump 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.880 now right. He's at the right hand of the soon 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:42.320 to be president of the United States. 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:44.560 Yeah, I think he briefly went home to Austin, but 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.359 then he went back and there's all these photographs of him, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.320 like sitting around with Trump at the golf course and 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.720 hanging out with the whole extended Trump clan, and he 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.480 posted something about how like it was a great first 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.200 day of the transition team, Like he is totally camped 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.600 out there and like talking to foreign leaders. 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:06.400 Sarah, what is going on with this aspect of kind 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.480 of like the Elon Musk transition era or whatever, Like 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.160 these family photos. There was a family photo on election night, 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:17.080 I believe, posted by Kai Trump, who's Trump's granddaughter, where 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.520 like all the Trump's are there, but there's no Millenia 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.200 and no JD Vance And then there's Elon Musk. 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.480 Is Elon trying to what do we take away from this? 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:28.760 He's getting his money's worth. I mean, I think we've 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.560 always known that Donald Trump is a bit of a 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.920 favor operated president, and Elon Musk just gave him the 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:40.240 biggest favor of all, helping him score the presidency and 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:44.760 giving him the full support of a media organization in 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:50.120 x And that is loyalty that Trump recognizes, and it 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.760 is going to be very powerful. It's going to make 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:56.480 that whole forty four billion Twitter acquisition worth it if 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.800 he can maintain the relationship. So now it's really important 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.800 that Musk, I guess, continued to show up for Trump 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.760 and continue to stay on his side because there's a 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.760 lot at stake. There's the government contracts, there's influence over 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:15.360 over future policy, there's influence over foreign policy. He may 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.080 have a hand in picking the Senate majority leader. This 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.120 is this is a key moment for Elon Muskin and 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:22.200 honestly for Donald Trump. 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.719 Elon's foreign policy, as far as I could tell ahead 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.479 of the election, is sort of twofold. He's he's a peacenick, 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.000 I guess like he's He has made comments about not 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.200 wanting to have too many wars happen, and he's also 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.720 very much in favor of maximizing the contracts that are 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.120 given to his companies. Dana, were you surprised by this 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:46.360 call with Zelenski, the president of Ukraine, especially given Musk's 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.760 all separate relationship with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:51.760 Not really, I mean the sense that I got was that, 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.120 like Trump and Elon were probably just like hanging out 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.560 and world leaders recalling and like, so Trump put them 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.360 on speaker and sort of let them know that Elon 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.320 was there in the room. That could be wrong, but 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.680 that's like, that's my assumption, And no, I think it's 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.880 like very very normal Elon. I mean, Elon is like 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.720 a transnational actor, right, he has relationships with foreign governments 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.080 on his own, independent of our State Department, and he 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:19.160 talks to foreign leaders all the time. So like these 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.800 are people that Musk also knows. I think it's just 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:27.200 where it's unprecedented for government to sort of operate this way. 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.159 I mean, we've never had a corporate CEO or a 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.560 billionaire like literally right there like side by side with 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.960 the President elect, helping to shape the transition team and 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.479 like taking all these calls with foreign leaders in such 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:43.880 a stark way before. So that's what's really striking. But 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.800 it doesn't surprise me that the Trump patched Elon in 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:47.680 or that Elon. 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.400 Is doing this. Yeah, I believe we've also seen reports 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.960 of calls with the leader of Turkey as well as 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.400 I think, Dana, you sent me a news story this 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:02.479 morning about a Serbia right kind of a near East portfolio, 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:07.880 I guess for now, Sarah. You mentioned also domestic politics, 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.520 Elon sort of created a poll, I guess, to see 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.040 who should be the Senate majority leader. 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:17.200 We're talking about a man who sees no boundaries between 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:21.240 his companies. He mix and matches talent where he needs 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.080 it to go, whether that's a SpaceX or boring or X. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.720 He has certain people that he really trusts, and certain 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:30.480 people who are as allies and certain people who are 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:35.720 as enemies, and he doesn't really see the silos of like, 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.920 this is the team for boring companies. So I'm you know, 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.039 cannibalizing that if I take them to neuralink, whatever thing 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.240 is on fire, he turns his attention to. And so 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.720 this is a moment for him to just go into 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.479 launch mode really with the US government. 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.000 Okay, so in the next couple of months, there's going 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.600 to be this jockeying among all these people who who 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:01.760 want to have influence in the White House, and I 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.320 feel like we're maybe already seeing a little bit of that. 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:05.800 Jocking. 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:10.680 Howard Lutnik went on CNN and he described Musk's role 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.560 in the you know, in the new administration in what 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.960 I would say are kind of narrow terms. He said, Oh, 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.360 he's going to write some software and then give us 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.320 that software. He's gonna he's not going to be part 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:24.800 of the government. He's not going to be making decisions. 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.120 What do you make of that? Like, and do you 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.600 think is that how Elon understands it? Is that actually 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.120 what he's going to do what's happening right now? 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:36.360 Also, it just is so imagine you could just write 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.920 software and give it to the government and say here 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.200 you go, Now your government's fixed. Like, that's just not 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.120 how the government works, and that's not how Elon works. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.400 What I imagine might happen is We've talked about this before, 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:53.160 but the Department of Government Efficiency, the DOGE leadership type 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.280 of job that Trump is thinking of giving Musk would 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.600 really allow him to be in charge of slash and 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.280 burn the way he was at X. I imagine him 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.440 going into these agencies and saying, who are your most 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.320 productive people? Who can you afford to lose? Send me 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.480 a list of your accomplishments this week and every week. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.080 You know, how many lines of code have you written? 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.280 Like that sort of thing that he did it X 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.840 and replicating it for the US government to the extent 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:25.120 that the law allows him to. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:27.880 I think one question I have is just about the 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.080 epics of it all. Like today, John Paulson, who a 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.640 lot of people had been floating to be Treasury Secretary, 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.600 basically came out and he said, like, I'm ecstatic that 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:40.200 Trump is in office, but my complex financial obligations would 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.720 prevent me from holding an official position and President Trump's 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.560 administration at this time. So Paulson is basically a no 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:47.880 for Treasury secretary. 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:52.960 So I love that. Imagine having such complex financial arrangements. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.199 No one has more complex financial arrangements than Elon Musk. 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.520 He runs six companies. SpaceX is an annoy ormous government contractor, 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.960 Tesla is a huge beneficiary of the Inflation Reduction Act. 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.319 So like, that's my big question, Like is this doge 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.480 thing just an advisory role that allows him to keep 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.000 all of his companies, And in that sense, if it's 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.760 only advisory, like what is the actual remit or does 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.120 he actually have like a job job in the government, 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.240 And in which case does he have to abide by 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.480 ethical rules or are those ethical rules about to go 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:27.080 out the window. 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.840 I mean, my take is that he's definitely not going 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.559 to join the administration. I feel like Trump has said it. 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.440 Lutnick said it the other day. You know, Trump has 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.920 said repeatedly on the on the stump during the campaign, 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.000 like he doesn't have enough time to do this. And 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.720 I think you're right, Dan, and like it's not just 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.880 because it would be complicated in the John Paulson sense, 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.440 although who knows what's behind that complication. It's that Elon 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.760 Musk doesn't want to right the whole point. And I 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.200 think he's made as clear of like joining the administration 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.040 or taking on an advisory role is so it can 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.400 help his companies. It's not like he doesn't want to 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.319 give that the That's the whole point of this is 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.320 my reading. But I do think it makes you wonder 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.319 how long could this last? And like should we already 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:17.320 be on Like, you know, Elon Musk Trump feud watch. 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.440 I think you're gonna see some real tests of Musk's 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.000 power this week, right, Like who is the Senate majority 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.360 leader going to be? Like Musk has thrown his weight 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.920 behind Scott, who's like not particularly popular among the Senate. 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.600 So like is the non Maga wing of the Republican 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:33.000 Party going to try to be like a check and 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.120 balance to that and similarly, like a least stephonic right, 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.760 like Musk was saying, Oh, she's great, but she should 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.360 really stay in the house, But she's not staying in 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.120 the house, like she's just been nominated to be the 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.720 delegate to the un So like Musk isn't getting everything 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.120 that he wants, even though he's being very public about 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.160 what he wants. And so it'll just be interesting to see, 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.079 like behind the scenes within the Republican Party, like what 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.440 efforts are ma to kind of be a check on 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:02.959 what seems to be his unbridled power right now. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.840 It would be hard if you're a politician and you 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:12.000 have to be feeling the whiplash of Trump's leadership already, 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:16.320 right he changes his mind based on who he talked 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.920 to last, he tweets about it or posts about it, 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.800 and then the whole government has to shift to be 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.800 loyal to something like that and then simultaneously be loyal 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:32.719 to Elon Musk, who has similar behavioral characteristics of you know, 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.640 being very strong minded about what he thinks is the 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.720 best way to do things that seems very difficult. And 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.760 also the idea that Musk is is very much in 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:47.240 the spotlight you know, on stage pictured with Trump. For 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.360 how long is Trump going to be able to seed 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.200 the spotlight to Elon Musk? 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.520 Okay, So huge week for Elon in politics and there's 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.800 gonna be lots for us to talk about in the 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:04.480 weeks to come. 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:05.240 But it was. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:09.240 Also a huge week for Elon's bank account. And to 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:11.720 break that down, we have the perfect guest, Tom Maloney, 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.920 a member of Bloomberg's wealth team who has been crunching 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.440 the numbers on Elon Musk's wealth and is coming to 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:18.040 talk about it. 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.760 Tom, Thanks for being on Eloni. Thanks bys Tom. How 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:23.320 wealthy is Elon Musk? 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.520 He's worth more than three hundred and thirty billion, so 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.360 he's very near he's wealthiest ever, which was about three 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.800 hundred and forty billion. About two thirds of that comes 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.400 from Tesla stock and options, and then a big chunk 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:38.360 of that comes from SpaceX that's valued about two hundred 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.080 and ten billion earns forty two percent of that then XII, Twitter, 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.600 Neuralink boring company kind of around the rest of that album. 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.560 So were you on the well team, were you guys 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.240 like preparing for what happened last week? I mean, and 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.319 if people don't know the Tesla stock went up like crazy. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.640 I think was around forty up to forty percent as 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.880 of yesterday, I believe as a Monday, and that sent 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:05.160 Musk's wealth up, I don't know, from the election night 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:06.680 to now, what's the game been. 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.720 More than seventy billion. And just to put that in context, 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.120 seventy billion is the net worth of Charles Koch, who's 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.440 the twenty second richest person on the planet, and Musk 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:16.480 has out of that in a week. 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.160 Yeah. I found this really interesting just because, like before 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.560 the election, and you know, we've been telling this story 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.840 over several years of all the problems at Twitter. He's 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.040 possibly lost I don't know, twenty or thirty billion dollars 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.280 Sarah right on on the acquisition of Twitter. But it's 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.800 like he made it all back in three days. 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.280 It's wild And this is what we were talking about 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.920 when he acquired Twitter, right, Like, this is really not 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.319 about the money now. 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:46.640 Right. 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.280 If you look at Twitter and you look at what 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.520 it makes and what it does and how big it 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.880 is and how it's shrinking, there's no way that's worth 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.839 forty four billion, And that's exactly what financial analysts looking 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.280 at as But you know, our colleague Kurt Wagner how 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.000 to call him this week, forty four billion looks cheap 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.160 if you're Elon Musk and you have as much money 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.920 as he does to gain this level of influence over 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.400 the US government and the future of policy. 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.280 Yeah, I think we need to start. I mean, and 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.280 I feel like if you've been listening to this podcast 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.720 for a year, you are not going to be surprised. 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.920 But like, there aren't like what six companies, and I 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.400 guess now a seventh company with America Pack. There's like 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:29.320 one Elon Musk conglomerate. And Twitter is the media arm 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:31.520 of the Elon Musk conglomerate, right, Dana. 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.600 Oh yeah, absolutely, one hundred percent. And like we need 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.200 to stop kind of thinking of it as like this 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.440 failing business that has alienated advertisers and is losing users 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.760 left and right. Like it has served it is serving 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.800 its purpose as a megaphone for Musk his politics for 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.560 now the Trump administration, I mean, for every you know, 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:55.200 journalists and epidemiologists and climate scientists who's like leaving X 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.440 to go join Blue Sky. A lot of Republicans are 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:00.640 now using it because it really it is like the 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.720 media arm of the Republican Party, and it's kind of 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.480 become what truth Social set out to be a while ago. 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.640 And so yeah, I think your framing is totally right. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:10.000 Max. 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.880 This is the media wing of ELIN Inc. 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.440 Tom, have you started thinking about or is it worth 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.760 starting to think about an exit for Twitter? And when 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.120 you guys are thinking about valuation of Twitter, like, how 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.000 much is it worth if Tesla's valuation goes up forty 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.480 percent just based on kind of like the magic of 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.800 having President elec Donald Trump, Like, what does that do 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:33.800 to Twitter's valuation? 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.000 How does that affect his net worth? Yeah? 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.480 Look, that's a good question. Could he tenant into a mainstalk? 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.520 I mean you look at Trump media and technology, right, 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.400 It's got truth Social, which is made like a million 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.480 dollars lost quota. It's financially it's terrible, and yet it's 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:51.640 valued at something like seven or eight billion dollars. So Twitter, 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.360 by that comparison should be with multiple multiple times of that. 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.560 One of the things that Elon said right up right 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.320 before the election, and he reiterated it in a tweet 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.640 this morning was the idea that America pack is going 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.320 to continue putting money into politics. And I think part 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.840 of why he's doing that is because it's a way 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.640 to you know, create some leverage over what's happening in 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.920 the White House right now. Tom, Like, can he just 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.840 spend a couple hundred million dollars every couple of years 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.760 without without incident or like, at what point do those 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:28.920 liquidity problems that we've talked about with Elon Musk, the 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.320 fact that like most of his net worth is in 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.960 Tesla stock and options, when does that start to become 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:34.280 a problem. 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.280 Like, I think a couple hundred million is pretty easy 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:39.360 for him to come up with. I mean, he ran 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:41.680 into problems when he bought Twitter, and that's when he 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:43.600 had to sell a bunch of Tesla shes. There were 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.320 margin calls, there were problems with his margin loan that 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:49.640 was you know, forty four billion dollars and that was 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.360 a big purchase, right and that was a struggle for him. 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.840 But coming up with half a billion dollars a year 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.200 at this point, that's that's pretty straightforward. We don't know 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.560 much about liquidity at this point. He's margin loan with 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.720 Tesla stock has come down a lot. They limited that 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:06.920 to three and a half billion after the Twitter fiasco. 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.240 He could probably borrow against SpaceX. That's a private company, 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.480 so it's a little bit trickier in terms of liquidity, 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.240 but for private companies, it's probably the most liquid one 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.159 in the world, or at least right up there. So 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.520 he has ways of raising money, and certainly coming up 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:24.359 with that sort of money I think is very easy 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:29.240 for him. 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.520 How do you think about what SpaceX is worth and 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.479 how much what this stuff that we've heard about and 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:37.600 talked about and that Dana and I on the on 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.280 the Citizen Elon podcast which is all about the election 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:42.840 that we've talked about, like, how do you figure out 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:44.680 how that's going to be how much that's going to 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:45.520 be worth to Elon? 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.640 I mean, from a perspective evaluation, we only care about 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.280 what it's worth now. But if you're asking what is 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.560 going to drive his wealth in the future, I mean 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.040 you've got to think SpaceX and XAI is where the 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:01.480 most potential is, especially with Tesla. But it's worth versus 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.320 you know what its revenue is and how many cars 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:07.360 it's selling. It's it's hard to imagine the trajectory it's 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.120 on now kind of continuing indefinitely, and it's come down 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.080 a lot in the past. I mean, Mosca is the 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:14.960 only person in the world who's lost more than two 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.920 hundred billion at some point as well. So he's always 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.880 had a volatile fortune and that's because of Tesla SpaceX though, 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:23.920 So that's a company that is a huge amount of 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.960 potential and XAI, even if that was worth as much 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.280 as open Ai, then that would boost his fortune by multiples, 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.840 you know, he would add another one hundred billion or 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:35.679 something to his fortune. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.200 Did SpaceX's value also go up overnight when Trump got elected? 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:41.720 No, well we don't. We look at when it was 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.399 last valued, So that was back in June when it 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.040 did a fundraising at two hundred and ten billion. Do 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:48.639 I think it's worth that now, No, I think it's 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:49.640 probably worth substing. 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.359 But in terms of the Bloomberg model, which is what 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.560 you're citing exactly, the big appreciation is just. 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.479 In his Tesla shares. 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.760 I'm guessing most of it he's added about the seventy 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:01.960 bills that he's added in the last week comes from 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.560 his Tesla sches. This year he's added about one hundred billion, 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.280 and I think the rest of that comes from XII 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:08.240 and SPICEX. 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:14.280 Sarah, just stepping back a minute from Elon Musk and 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.960 just looking at the world of Silicon Valley, how do 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.159 you think this is going to be processed by like 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.399 the other you know, want to be oligarchs in the 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:25.680 tech industry, the people who you know, there are a 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.120 lot of people who really look up to Elon, Like 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.520 are people just seeing this as like, oh my god, 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:32.919 this his bet paid off, Like now I need to 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.360 somehow either get close to Trump or get get into politics, 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:38.639 or like how is this playing kind of in the 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:40.800 wider world of Silicon Valley. 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:43.880 I think there's sort of two camps that I see. 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.480 There's the the people who are now going very silent 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:52.080 because they don't want to ruffle Elon's feathers or Truan's 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.199 feathers or you know, try to make any waves and 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.480 they want to stay in good graces just for being technologists. 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.440 And then then there are people that are clearly trying 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:06.440 to angle to to have to think about like how 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:08.360 Elon got what he got, and I'm sure that we'll 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.719 see a lot more trying to replicate that success for 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.320 their businesses. I do think that there might be a 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.720 backlash to all this culturally, Like I think that there 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.119 was already you know, and I think you and I 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.960 were talking about this yesterday, Max, like the era of 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:32.760 like tech optimism about growth and designing the future, and 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.000 we were just seeing a lot of like cultural backlash 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:39.600 to the idea of Musks so close to the government 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:41.440 and like what that might mean for all of us. 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.600 And then there are people that hope that his proximity 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.959 to Trump means that Trump's climate policies won't be as 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:48.840 much of a disaster. 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.080