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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: Let me tell you we have a new star. A

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Speaker 2: star is born hounded up on Mars Juthan Kennemy.

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Speaker 3: He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.

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Speaker 2: Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.

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Speaker 3: I feel for the guy.

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Speaker 2: I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.

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Speaker 2: But those two percent that are nasty, they I'll pay

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Speaker 2: in four.

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Speaker 1: Folks, we are meant for great things in the United

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Speaker 1: States of America, and Elon reminds.

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Speaker 4: Us of that we don't have a fourth branch of

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Speaker 4: governments called Elon Musk.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Elon, Inc.

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Speaker 4: Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, May twenty seventh.

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Speaker 4: I'm Max Chafkin, sitting here with Bloomberg's Elon Musk reporter

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Speaker 4: Dana Hall. Hey, Dana Hey, Max, and Bloomberg Social media reporter,

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Speaker 4: our favorite high school quarterback, Kurt Wagner.

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Speaker 2: Kurt, how are you? How is your Memorial Day?

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Speaker 1: Hi?

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Speaker 2: Max?

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Speaker 1: It was wonderful.

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Speaker 2: How was yours? It was good? It was good. So

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Speaker 2: we have a lot to talk about.

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Speaker 4: Even though I'd say Elon has been maybe a little

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Speaker 4: bit quieter than usual over the last week. Maybe it

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Speaker 4: was the Memorial Day holiday. So today I want to

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Speaker 4: unpack some of the things that we talked about on

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Speaker 4: our last episode last week. As you'll remember if you

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Speaker 4: listen to podcast, David Popadoppolis and I reacted kind of

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Speaker 4: in real time to Elon Musk's comments in Qatar to

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Speaker 4: Bloomberg's Michal Hussein saying essentially he was going to spend

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Speaker 4: less money in political contributions.

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Speaker 2: We're getting more indications here.

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Speaker 4: We're getting a little bit of news, including some news

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Speaker 4: from Elon about what's happening, what he has planned. And

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Speaker 4: then the other thing I want to do is I

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Speaker 4: want to talk about X money, the big.

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Speaker 2: New Twitter X credit card.

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Speaker 4: This is the everything app. And we'll get into that

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Speaker 4: next from Kurt. But before we do that, so Elon's

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Speaker 4: future plans, Dana, I feel like we need a new

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Speaker 4: term for this. We need to say, what is this

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Speaker 4: a sleeping arrangement update? Because Elon went on X and

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Speaker 4: he essentially said that after having spent the last few

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Speaker 4: months sleeping on the floors of the White House or whatever,

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Speaker 4: he's got a new location that he plans to take

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Speaker 4: his rest.

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Speaker 3: Well, he said, he's like laser focused on his companies, right,

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Speaker 3: and he's I mean today he's in Brownsville, Texas where

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Speaker 3: SpaceX is about to launch Starship yet again. But maybe

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Speaker 3: I missed this over the long holiday weekend. Did he

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Speaker 3: give like a bedroom?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? May twenty fourth.

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Speaker 4: In response to and we'll get to this with Kurt

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Speaker 4: to some news out of X fire at one of

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Speaker 4: the data centers, he said, back to spending twenty four

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Speaker 4: to seven at work sleeping in conference server factory rooms.

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Speaker 4: So apparently sleeping in the server room since it sounds

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Speaker 4: kind of loud. But in any case, he said, I

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Speaker 4: must be super focused on x XAI and Tesla plus

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Speaker 4: Starship launched next week. As we have critical technologies rolling

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Speaker 4: out as evidenced by X uptime issues this week, major

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Speaker 4: operational improvemcy to be made. Kurt, there was a fire, right,

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Speaker 4: that's what prompted this.

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Speaker 1: There was so there was a fire at one of

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Speaker 1: X's data centers near Portland. There was an outage on

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Speaker 1: Saturday for a few hours for a lot of users.

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Speaker 1: I didn't personally experience it, but others did. And it's

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Speaker 1: not entirely clear if the fire and the outage were linked,

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Speaker 1: but the timing is certainly interesting. And then you have,

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Speaker 1: as you pointed out, Max, the comments from Elon basically saying, hey, look,

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Speaker 1: I need to start spending more time here. There's been

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Speaker 1: a lot of technical issues that I have to deal with.

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Speaker 1: You said, there should have been like a failure redundancy

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Speaker 1: that should have happened. What that means is that when

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Speaker 1: one of the data centers went down, the other one

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Speaker 1: should have picked up the slack and consumers should not

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Speaker 1: have noticed there was an issue. But that didn't work.

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Speaker 1: And so the fact that he's sitting here saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: look I need to get back to spending twenty four

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Speaker 1: to seven on the tech of these companies that I run,

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Speaker 1: I think is a signal that, you know, the fire

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Speaker 1: or the data centers, all of this stuff are sort

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Speaker 1: of intertwined.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, was this a particularly bad one, Kurt? I mean

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Speaker 4: I did on Friday notice people complaining about it. Maybe

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Speaker 4: my ex usage isn't as sort of fanatical as it

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Speaker 4: once was, so I actually didn't personally notice this.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was bad enough that people notice for

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Speaker 1: extended period of time, which is sort of rare. You know,

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Speaker 1: I cover all these big platforms and max as you know,

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Speaker 1: and like, it's not uncommon for there to be hey,

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Speaker 1: thirty minutes people are having trouble on Instagram or TikTok

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Speaker 1: or x or whatever. What it extends beyond an hour

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Speaker 1: or two is when you start to scratch your head

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Speaker 1: and say, Okay, something meaningful happened here. I think Elon's

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Speaker 1: again his responses acknowledging that you know, that backup plan

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Speaker 1: that they had in place essentially did not work, I

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Speaker 1: think to me as a sign that this was you know,

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Speaker 1: it was it was worse than average. It wasn't like

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Speaker 1: the X was down for the whole day or something

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Speaker 1: like that, but it was a just a blip.

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Speaker 4: I would say, yeah, and Dana, there's been a few

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Speaker 4: of these data points. I mean, you brought up the

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Speaker 4: fact that there's a starship launch. He's going to have

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Speaker 4: an event a live stream later today, I believe, noon

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Speaker 4: Texas time talking about Mars. He sort of seems to

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Speaker 4: be trying to focus publicly on the companies, maybe more

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Speaker 4: than the past. Also twenty third, just to point you

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Speaker 4: to a couple of other posts, I have come to

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Speaker 4: the perhaps obvious conclusion that accelerating GDP growth is essential.

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Speaker 4: Doge has and will do great work to postpone the

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Speaker 4: day of bankruptcy in America, but the proflicacy of government

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Speaker 4: means that only radical improvements in productivity can save the country.

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Speaker 2: It almost sounds like he's.

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Speaker 4: Declaring what like failure right, Like he's sort of saying,

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Speaker 4: you know, it turns out, actually, Doge.

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Speaker 2: Didn't do that much. I need to focus on my

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Speaker 2: companies for the good of the country.

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Speaker 3: I guess I'm very cynical about this messaging because I

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Speaker 3: feel like it's a very convenient narrative for a lot

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Speaker 3: of reporters in Washington to be like Musk is distancing himself.

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Speaker 2: You know, Musk is.

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Speaker 3: Giving up and going home and taking his ball and

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Speaker 3: like focusing back in his companies, and like everyone is

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Speaker 3: parenting the message that Musk himself wants to get out.

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Speaker 3: And the reason why he is trying to get this

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Speaker 3: message out is because he really wants Tesla's board to

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Speaker 3: give him a pay package. And you know, for better

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Speaker 3: or worse, Like Musk has that kind of messiah complex

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Speaker 3: of I alone can fix it. So now he's like,

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Speaker 3: I've got to deal with this data center issue at

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Speaker 3: X and like we're gonna roll out this ROBOTAXI in

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Speaker 3: Austin and we're going to go to Mars, And like

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Speaker 3: he's trying to signal to investors that he is focused,

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Speaker 3: because the big complaint of investors has been that he

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Speaker 3: was spending too much time on Washington. So so I

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Speaker 3: feel like this is a lot for his audience of

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Speaker 3: investors and board members. I mean, he's always kind of

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Speaker 3: micro focused and multitasks in a way that is sort

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Speaker 3: of unique in corporate America. But is he really giving

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Speaker 3: up like on the DOGE ambitions.

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 3: He's got all of his people still there. It's like,

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Speaker 3: is Steve Davis still the COO of Doge? Is Antonio

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Speaker 3: Grassia still at the Social Security Agency? He's got CIOs

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Speaker 3: in place, Like it's hard for me to imagine him

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Speaker 3: really sort of working so hard in Washington and just

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Speaker 3: like abandoning ship. I feel like this is optics more

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Speaker 3: than a real change.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I tend to agree with you. I do think.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's like two things could be true.

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Speaker 4: Like one is, he could have less influence in Trump's

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Speaker 4: White House today than he did I don't know a

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Speaker 4: month ago. And also he could be more focused on

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Speaker 4: his companies, like on a day to day basis, and

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Speaker 4: also hardly moving away from politics. You know, he's still

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Speaker 4: very much focused on, you know, on his influence in Washington.

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Speaker 4: The other thing is, and I brought this up last week,

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Speaker 4: he's going to this Bloomberg event in Qatar or dialing

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Speaker 4: into the event and saying he's he's sort of spending

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Speaker 4: less time on less money on politics, but at this

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Speaker 4: in the same breath saying he's going to the White House.

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Speaker 4: Like that week we saw him at the White House

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Speaker 4: with the South African President Kurt. You know, X was

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Speaker 4: kind of in the favored position before it was Doge.

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Speaker 2: Has X suffered like.

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Speaker 4: You kind of see it going, you know, one of

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Speaker 4: two ways, but like, how have things worked at the

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Speaker 4: company as Elon Musk Musk's attention sort of turned away

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Speaker 4: from it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean my understanding is that he's been quite absent,

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Speaker 1: which makes a lot a lot of sense. Right as

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Speaker 1: we've talked about he's he not only has four other businesses,

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Speaker 1: but that he's also you know, full time, halftime, part

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Speaker 1: time whatever in DC. I look at the Doge thing

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Speaker 1: and Elon and X more as a what does this

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Speaker 1: mean for the business of the company, not so much

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Speaker 1: even his time, his personal time, which is that I

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Speaker 1: think in January and February, when he's tweeting constantly, when

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Speaker 1: he's hanging out with Trump, when he's literally sort of

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Speaker 1: dictating US policy via his Twitter account or his ex account,

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Speaker 1: I think that gave X this continued influence. Right, you

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Speaker 1: kind of had to pay attention to it still because

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Speaker 1: it was still driving literal US policy decisions via his

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Speaker 1: X account. As Elon has the last month or two,

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Speaker 1: he has stopped tweeting as much about politics. He's obviously

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Speaker 1: saying he's going to step away from politics. And so

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Speaker 1: what I wrote last week in our newsletter was sort

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Speaker 1: of like what happens to X if Elon truly follows

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Speaker 1: through and steps away from politics, because he spent the

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Speaker 1: last year turning this thing into a political machine. Like

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Speaker 1: it the purpose of X for the most part was

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Speaker 1: to get Donald Trump elected and then to support his

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Speaker 1: agenda and possibly push his agenda in the ways that

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Speaker 1: Elon wants it to. And if that's not what he's

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Speaker 1: going to do anymore, like what is X, right, it's

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Speaker 1: not really a place for breaking news, It's not really

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Speaker 1: a place for the global conversation like it has historically

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Speaker 1: been because Elon pivoted so aggressively into politics a year ago,

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Speaker 1: and so I don't know, I'm sort of kind of

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Speaker 1: sitting around wondering, like, what does this platform become if

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Speaker 1: it's not a Donald Trump Elon Musk politics machine. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if either what I mean, you two have

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Speaker 1: both been on it for years as well. I'm curious

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Speaker 1: if you have thoughts on that, But like, what's the

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Speaker 1: identity of this thing now? It keeps morphine and I

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Speaker 1: think the political identity that he's created is sort of

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Speaker 1: crumbling as we're as we're standing here.

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I don't really use x anymore. I lurk on it,

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Speaker 3: but like I locked my account and I don't have

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Speaker 3: it on my phone and I kind of like check

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Speaker 3: in like every once in a while, but like, I

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Speaker 3: don't use it. It is it is not the platform

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Speaker 3: that I joined over a decade ago.

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Speaker 4: Well, I from when I'm still addicted. Although Kurt, to

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Speaker 4: your point, you know, I do think it loses some

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Speaker 4: of its vitality. We will in the second segment talk

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Speaker 4: a little bit about, you know, possible future identity for

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Speaker 4: x as A as a bank before we get there.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there is a swirl of things, right.

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Speaker 4: It's not just the fact that Doge hasn't cut as

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Speaker 4: much maybe as promised. It's not just the fact that

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Speaker 4: there are fires breaking out in Twitter data centers and

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Speaker 4: Twitter is going down. It is also, of course, you know,

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Speaker 4: Tesla and the fact that the sales are are still

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Speaker 4: despite Elon Musk's comments. You know, Elon Musk said last week,

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Speaker 4: yet you're bad for us, but it's bad for everyone.

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Speaker 4: Although as a report today essentially showing that Tesla sales

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Speaker 4: are way down, down by more than fifty percent, while

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Speaker 4: overall EV sales in the region are up twenty eight percent. Dana,

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Speaker 4: one thing I've wondered about. We've talked about the demand thing,

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Speaker 4: but if you look in that one big beautiful bill

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Speaker 4: that the Trump budget bill, it is not a great

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Speaker 4: bill for Tesla. And like the combination of Tesla's sales

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Speaker 4: and this kind of potential hit to the revenue in

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Speaker 4: the form of this budget build which takes away or

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Speaker 4: would take away EV tax credits, do you think that

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Speaker 4: could be pushing him away?

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I mean, Elon has always sort of said that he

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Speaker 3: doesn't think there should be any subsidies whatsoever, whether it's

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Speaker 3: for evs or oil and gas. So I don't know

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Speaker 3: if that alone is enough to make him angry or

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Speaker 3: cause some kind of rift with Trump. I think that

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Speaker 3: tariffs are not good for Tesla, but like, fundamentally, like

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Speaker 3: he what he cares the most about is SpaceX and

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Speaker 3: he wants funding for a Mars mission, So I don't

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Speaker 3: know if he's willing to jennison one for the other.

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Speaker 3: But the any thing I pointed out about the European

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Speaker 3: sales is that like Tesla has a factory in Germany

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Speaker 3: that makes the model, why if these sales in Europe

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Speaker 3: continue to crater, there's gonna be real questions about like

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Speaker 3: do they keep this factory open or like do they

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Speaker 3: start scaling back production, Like you don't keep making cars

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Speaker 3: for a market that does not need them. And everyone

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Speaker 3: always sees the problems in Europe as like, oh, Elon

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Speaker 3: being so close to Trump, but it's really like it

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Speaker 3: was really Elon Musk supporting the AfD in Germany that

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Speaker 3: has caused this huge backlash in Europe. Like European consumers

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Speaker 3: are very concerned about what Elon is doing with Visa

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Speaker 3: v European politics.

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Speaker 2: Trump aside, last thing, this SpaceX launch, Dana, what are

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Speaker 2: you going to be looking for here? Like he's saying

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Speaker 2: that twenty twenty six, right, He's that that's the goal

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Speaker 2: for like some kind of Mars demonstration mission.

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Speaker 4: Do you have any sense of how far away we

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Speaker 4: are from that in terms of milestones that have to

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Speaker 4: be hit? To me from the outside, it seems like

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Speaker 4: a lot.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's a very ambitious, very aggressive timeline, and

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Speaker 3: Musk's plan is that like, not only will Starship launch

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Speaker 3: to Mars in twenty twenty six, but Optimist is going

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Speaker 3: to be on board. So he has a lot of

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Speaker 3: a lot writing on this and we'll hear from him

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Speaker 3: later today when he gives this, you know speech about Mars.

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Speaker 3: I mean, you know, he's always talked about going to Mars,

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Speaker 3: but now Starship does exist. They've had a couple of

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Speaker 3: launches that have haven't totally gone well, and so like

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Speaker 3: there's a lot riding on this one going better. I

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Speaker 3: think obviously he wants to show to Trump and a

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Speaker 3: NASA that like this vehicle is ready and that like

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Speaker 3: it can do all the things that it's supposed to do,

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Speaker 3: but you know, they're constantly tweaking with the heat shield,

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Speaker 3: and you know, there's all kinds of issues that they

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Speaker 3: that they still work out. And I think in the

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Speaker 3: world of space, you know, everyone will say space is hard,

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Speaker 3: and you learn by doing and you iterate, and like

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Speaker 3: what we might see as quote unquote failure is actually

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Speaker 3: just part of the design, iteration, engineering learning process. So

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Speaker 3: you know, SpaceX has always been very good at that.

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Speaker 3: But I mean, you know, the window to go to Mars,

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Speaker 3: it doesn't come around very often. So that's like a

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Speaker 3: big reason why he is pushing for this twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: six Dad.

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Speaker 4: So in our first segment, you know, Kurt talked about

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Speaker 4: kind of like what x becomes, and I think that

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Speaker 4: is a big question.

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Speaker 2: That's an open question. Of course.

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Speaker 4: Last week we talked about Xai and this potential deal

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Speaker 4: that it had with Calshi, which is a predictions company.

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Speaker 4: You know, hours after we recorded that episode, Calshie actually

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Speaker 4: did a one eighty pulled the announcement on the Xai deal,

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Speaker 4: essentially saying that that x had not confirmed the announcement

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Speaker 4: or something like that. So it sounds like some sort

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Speaker 4: of either miscommunication or sort of a one eighty that

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Speaker 4: business is up in the air. But Kurt, the business

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Speaker 4: that I think feels actually a little bit easier to

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Speaker 4: get your arms around, if not necessarily, I don't know.

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Speaker 4: The most promising is money, right, the idea that Elon

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Speaker 4: Musk has talked about for years that he's going to

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Speaker 4: turn x Twitter into a bank.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and he has been talking about this. I was

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Speaker 1: thinking about this just last night as I was preparing

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Speaker 1: to chat about it. It was October of twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: two that he first, you know, took over Twitter and

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Speaker 1: was like, We're going to turn this thing into a bank.

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Speaker 1: He was telling employees that from the get go, almost

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Speaker 1: three years max. Where you know, we're summer of twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five. Now, I think we can say after a

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Speaker 1: Memorial Day and we still haven't seen anything other than

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Speaker 1: sort of a some hints, some teases that something might

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Speaker 1: be coming. And the idea here, I think, to your point,

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Speaker 1: is easy enough to wrap your head around. I think

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Speaker 1: the execution is another thing. And then the adoption is actually,

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Speaker 1: in my opinion, probably the toughest hurdle for them to

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Speaker 1: get over. But let's talk just briefly about what this

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Speaker 1: looks like I mean, imagine opening your X account and

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Speaker 1: having a balance there right like essentially your your your

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Speaker 1: debit card, your your account, your debit account right there,

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Speaker 1: linked to your X account. Now, if I want to

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Speaker 1: send you money, Max, I could. I could shoot you money,

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Speaker 1: similar to Venmo. If I'm scrolling through my X feed

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Speaker 1: and I see an ad for something I want to buy,

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Speaker 1: I could click and I could buy it right there.

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Speaker 1: You know, he had talked about having a really high

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Speaker 1: interest yield on this, on the money that's in these accounts,

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Speaker 1: so you'd be incentivized to essentially use this as like

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Speaker 1: a safe account because you'd be making who knows how much,

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Speaker 1: but we'll say three, four or five percent on that money.

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Speaker 1: So that is the idea is like your X account

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Speaker 1: and your financial accounts are linked together, and what would

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Speaker 1: that do for you? Now, as we're now learning, it's

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Speaker 1: been almost three years they haven't launched anything. So technologically

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Speaker 1: this is clearly harder than they anticipated. I think they're

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Speaker 1: running into some regulatory issues. They're trying to get licensed

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Speaker 1: for payments in all fifty states. I believe they're in

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Speaker 1: forty one states. But you don't want to roll out

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Speaker 1: a product. When you know, if someone in New York,

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Speaker 1: for example, where they're not licensed, can't send money to

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Speaker 1: someone in California, like it just it doesn't really work

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Speaker 1: all that well if you don't have all fifty states.

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Speaker 1: And then the last thing is just adoption. Is the

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Speaker 1: average X user going to actually move their money from

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Speaker 1: a Chase or a Bank of America or something like

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Speaker 1: that and store it in X And I think that's

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Speaker 1: just an incredibly, incredibly high bar for a consumer to do.

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Speaker 4: Dude, I don't trust X with my jokes, let alone

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Speaker 4: my you know, let alone my life savings. But that said,

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Speaker 4: there will be people, and I should just say the

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Speaker 4: reason we're talking about this, so you know, Elon Musk

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Speaker 4: as often, is kind of driving this with his with

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Speaker 4: posting on X. A Tesla owners group tweeted that X

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Speaker 4: money was launching soon. X Money being this you know,

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Speaker 4: financial service offered by the company formerly known as Twitter.

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Speaker 4: Elon wrote on May twenty fifth, so I believe that

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Speaker 4: was on Sunday. This will be a very limited access

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Speaker 4: beta at first. When people's savings are involved, extreme care

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Speaker 4: must be taken.

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Speaker 3: I don't want my bank account to be in beta,

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Speaker 3: like sorry, like I just told like, I just would

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Speaker 3: never want my personal finances to be in beta mode

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Speaker 3: at an Elon Musk company like that. I mean, there's

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Speaker 3: already enough problems as it is with just like security

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Speaker 3: of data in this new world of you know, hackers

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Speaker 3: and the Internet and like online banking in general. Like

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Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm just I'm very I'm very like

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Speaker 3: old school with my banking and would not willfully share

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Speaker 3: my banking contacts with the social media platform, particularly one

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Speaker 3: that's like AI based and trying to use information to

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Speaker 3: train their algorithms.

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Speaker 4: We're joking about this because of course the failwell and Twitter.

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Speaker 4: As Kurt knows well. He wrote a book about Elon's

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Speaker 4: takeover of Twitter, Battle for the Bird. This is a

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Speaker 4: company that has like has sort of for its entire history,

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Speaker 4: had technical problems even dating back to Elon. It definitely

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Speaker 4: doesn't convey like trusted secure. It's more like free wheeling.

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Speaker 4: Anything could happen. It's pretty much all the things you

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Speaker 4: don't associate with a bank. On the other hand, Kurt,

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Speaker 4: I mean you talked about the regulatory progress that they've made.

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Speaker 4: There was also this report that I believe you wrote

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Speaker 4: about back in January Musk essentially striking a deal with

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Speaker 4: Visa that would make Visa a payments partner X. I mean,

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Speaker 4: what is in place right now outside of the sort

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Speaker 4: of regulatory issue that you talked about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I believe they have licenses secured in forty

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Speaker 1: one states. So again that's just sort of bare bones.

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Speaker 1: You need that in order to operate in those states

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Speaker 1: to send money to other people or to businesses. So

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Speaker 1: they're working their way through that. The Visa thing, My

404
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Speaker 1: understanding of that is, you know, you would have some

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Speaker 1: type of card that is linked to your accounts SOL,

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Speaker 1: like a debit card for example, that you could literally

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Speaker 1: go out into the real world and walk into a

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Speaker 1: store and buy something with this card. And so in

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Speaker 1: order to do something like that, Max, you need partners

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Speaker 1: who do debit cards or credit cards, and Visa would

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Speaker 1: make sense. They're they're gonna need banking partners, right, They're

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Speaker 1: gonna need We know some of them, which of course

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Speaker 1: I can't call at the top of my head, but

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Speaker 1: we know some of them via their payments applications documents

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Speaker 1: that we've gotten from some of these states. We've done

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Speaker 1: Foyer requests to try and get those applications to get

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Speaker 1: a better sense of what it is that they're doing.

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Speaker 1: This will only if they are partnering with other financial

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Speaker 1: services providers, Visa being one, and then once you get

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Speaker 1: all of that stuff in place, you need to convince

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Speaker 1: actual people to do this, and we've talked about how

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Speaker 1: that's going to be a problem. But you know, a

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Speaker 1: Visa that's a well known name, that's a household name.

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Speaker 1: That's a good sign for them that they have partnered

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Speaker 1: with someone that people are familiar with and who know.

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Speaker 1: But I think that's sort of table stakes when it

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Speaker 1: comes to your money, right, Like You're not gonna sit

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Speaker 1: there and be like, wow, Visa, this is incredible. You're

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Speaker 1: gonna be like, yeah, that's what I expect. Like if

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Speaker 1: I'm going to be giving you my money, I expect

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Speaker 1: to have household names involved. And so they are, to

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Speaker 1: their credit kind of getting that. But I think that

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Speaker 1: that again is sort of the bare minimum at this point.

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Speaker 3: What is the model for this? Is this what Weibo does,

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Speaker 3: Like is there payments on some of the apps in China?

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Speaker 3: Because I feel like Musk is very aware of what

437
00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:56,040
Speaker 3: consumer behavior is in China and there must be like

438
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:58,639
Speaker 3: even though this might be going back to the early

439
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:01,080
Speaker 3: PayPal days. Like this idea of making X the everything

440
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:04,120
Speaker 3: app is that modeled on something that already exists elsewhere

441
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:04,600
Speaker 3: in the world.

442
00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 1: I think everyone always points to we Chat in China,

443
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:13,240
Speaker 1: this idea of you know, having entertainment, banking, social networking,

444
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:19,640
Speaker 1: all shopping all in one location. The issue and why

445
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: I'm pretty skeptical that this is going to work, is

446
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:25,480
Speaker 1: that several companies, including Meta and Mark Zuckerberg, have attempted

447
00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 1: to do this already in the US without success. And

448
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:32,240
Speaker 1: I think sort of the conclusion that I've come to

449
00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: from having spoken with people about this over the years

450
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 1: is that the US market is just so fragmented already

451
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:40,600
Speaker 1: that the idea of sort of putting it all back

452
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 1: together feels almost impossible. Right Like you go to Uber

453
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:46,719
Speaker 1: when you want a ride, and you go to your

454
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,399
Speaker 1: banking app when you want a bank, and you go

455
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,359
Speaker 1: to X or Meta or TikTok or whatever when you

456
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,920
Speaker 1: want a social network. And I think the consumer behavior

457
00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 1: is just so different in the US than it was

458
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 1: in China, and in China it's controlled more, right, like

459
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 1: the government can basically control which companies, you know, get

460
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 1: get market share, or can sprout up and so it's

461
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,720
Speaker 1: just not the case here. And so I'm pretty skeptical

462
00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:12,399
Speaker 1: this is gonna happen, in part because this is an

463
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 1: idea I've probably been writing about for like ten years

464
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,719
Speaker 1: in the US specifically, and it just hasn't come to fruition.

465
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 4: Facebook is way way bigger than X like, so, so

466
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:27,679
Speaker 4: you're starting with a much smaller base of users, a

467
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,159
Speaker 4: base of users that are not as addicted to it

468
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 4: as as people are of Facebook.

469
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 2: Like, it's just it's just a much weaker position.

470
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:37,880
Speaker 4: In addition to like all the market challenges we talked

471
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 4: about as well as the political challenges, there is one

472
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:43,879
Speaker 4: little wrinkle. I've seen a couple of reports suggesting that

473
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 4: when Elon Musk creates this X credit card, you will

474
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 4: be able to print your Twitter user.

475
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 2: Name on it. Wow. Okay, I think that could change everything, Kurt,

476
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 2: because you know, throw.

477
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: Out everything I've said to this point and let's let's

478
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 1: start from zero. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, that sounds

479
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: like something that would happen, you know. I feel like

480
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:08,960
Speaker 1: that's that's like the ex premium subscriber perk, right that

481
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:11,640
Speaker 1: lures people into their eight dollars a month.

482
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 2: I'm picturing you taking the team out to.

483
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,640
Speaker 1: The local you know, Buffalo wild Wings after a taping

484
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: and throwing down that visa card.

485
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 4: Okay, so we just got through Memorial Day, you know,

486
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, or two to a third of the

487
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 4: way through a little more than that.

488
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 2: But I wanted to look ahead to next year, and.

489
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 4: We've been talking about all of these things that Elon

490
00:24:40,359 --> 00:24:42,400
Speaker 4: Musk is trying to do, the reasons why he wants

491
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 4: to sleep on the floor, sleep in the factory or whatever.

492
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 4: And what I'd like, Kurt and Dana, what I'd like

493
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 4: you both to do is sort of rank these from

494
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,400
Speaker 4: most likely to succeed to least likely to succeed by

495
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 4: the end of twenty twenty six. So by the end

496
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 4: of next year, so the list goes a functioning flea

497
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 4: of robotaxis Tesla's trying to do that x money, surpassing

498
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 4: one of the big mobile payment apps in usage by

499
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 4: the end of twenty twenty six. Or third Optimist that's

500
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 4: Tesla's humanoid robot heading on a starship rocket to Mars

501
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,679
Speaker 4: by the end of next year. Kurt Wagner, what's the

502
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 4: most likely of those?

503
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:22,439
Speaker 1: Oh man, I know you're going to pick me.

504
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 2: First.

505
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: Least likely is probably a full functioning fleet of robotaxis,

506
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: just because now I think that's actually the most likely

507
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 1: of those, like long term probably, but twenty twenty six,

508
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: I'm just not sold. I'll say the second least likely

509
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: is X payments. As we've talked about, I've already shared

510
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: why I'm pretty skeptical that that's going to take off.

511
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to say the most likely is

512
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 1: the sending Optimists to Mars. And it's purely because of

513
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: the window that Anna mentioned earlier, how there's sort of

514
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 1: like limited windows that you can you can send these

515
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,400
Speaker 1: ships on their way to Mars, And so I think,

516
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 1: you know, Elon will Again. I don't think any of

517
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: these things are very likely, but I guess of the three,

518
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: I would say maybe that one's most likely simply because

519
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: it has that time pressure built in of trying to

520
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 1: hit that window. So don't play this tape again at

521
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 1: the end of twenty twenty six. Let's let's burn this

522
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: one after this.

523
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 3: I agree because I think also of all of the

524
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:31,919
Speaker 3: things Elon cares the most about, Mars, like Mars has

525
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 3: been the animating force of his life for over two decades,

526
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 3: and like, you know, for whatever criticism you might have

527
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 3: of Elon, he's like what do they call it, like

528
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 3: a forcing function, Like he will bring the full force

529
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 3: of his personality and his ambition and he will drive

530
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 3: his team to meet that deadline because it is a

531
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:56,199
Speaker 3: window and like Optimus is exists and is like walking

532
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 3: around and you know, like who knows if it's tele

533
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 3: operated or not. But like, I don't think there's anything

534
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 3: stopping them from putting an Optimist a couple of Optimist

535
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 3: robots on a ship and trying to send it to Mars.

536
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 3: Whether they get to Mars remains to be seen, but like,

537
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 3: I think that they will do everything in their power

538
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 3: to meet that deadline. And as we've talked about before,

539
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,199
Speaker 3: President Trump mentioned it in his inauguration speech, and I

540
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 3: think that that is really the main thing that Elon

541
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 3: has always cared about.

542
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 2: Okay, you guys are wrong.

543
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 4: The most likely is the payment thing, because that's the

544
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 4: only one of the.

545
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,919
Speaker 2: Three that could conceivably happen.

546
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 4: And like I don't again, like I don't know that

547
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 4: ex money can really take on Venmo or Zell or.

548
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 2: Apple pay or Square.

549
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 4: But to me, like you never know it like there

550
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,919
Speaker 4: are no like technological barriers to that one. Succeeding that

551
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,199
Speaker 4: one is just purely about perceptions about Elon Musk And

552
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 4: maybe I mean, I feel like it's a comment on

553
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 4: how difficult he like his position has gotten politically, that

554
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 4: that we have trouble picturing it, because I do agree

555
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 4: it's hard to imagine. I would say that the second

556
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 4: most likely is the Robotaxi fleet only because I think

557
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 4: like there's a lot of squishiness in that in that term,

558
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 4: and I could see defining it in a way where

559
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 4: Elon would allow himself to declare victory. I don't I

560
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 4: don't buy Optimist getting to Mars by twenty twenty six.

561
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 2: Guys.

562
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,640
Speaker 4: I feel like it's it's gonna be tough. They got

563
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 4: to refuel the thing. They're like eight zillion steps there.

564
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 4: And like Danna does, does optimists actually work or we've

565
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 4: seen some videos? Like again, like, I don't know, I

566
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 4: don't know if I've seen enough optimists here to trust

567
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 4: him on another planet.

568
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 3: Oh, come on, Optimist is gonna be babysitting your kid

569
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 3: and doing ballet and playing the piano.

570
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 2: Come on?

571
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 1: Well, new nickname for Max the contrarian.

572
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 2: Name.

573
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 4: Listen, I'm gonna sign up for X money right now,

574
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 4: get that credit card out, start and start buy you

575
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 4: guys things, and before you know it, ts.

576
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: Up handedly push your prediction over the finish line. I

577
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: think that's a good idea.

578
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 2: Kurt Dana, thanks for being here as always.

579
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: Thank you Max.

580
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 4: This episode was produced by Stacey Wong. Annam Maserakis is

581
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 4: our editor, Blake Maple's handles engineering, and Dave Purcell factchecks.

582
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 4: Our supervising producer is Magnus Henrickson. The Eloni theme is

583
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 4: written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sagiera. Brendan

584
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 4: Francis Newtam is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is

585
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 4: ahead of Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks to our supporters

586
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 4: Joel Weber and Brad Stone.

587
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 2: I'm Max Chafkin.

588
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 4: If you have a minute, rate and review our show,

589
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 4: it'll help other listeners find us and we will see

590
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 4: you next week.