WEBVTT - Is Elon Really Quitting Politics... for Banking? 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:07.240 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:10.559 Let me tell you we have a new star. A 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.680 star is born hounded up on Mars Juthan Kennemy. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.480 He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age. 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.040 Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:21.800 I feel for the guy. 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.319 I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.720 But those two percent that are nasty, they I'll pay 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:29.319 in four. 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.000 Folks, we are meant for great things in the United 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.560 States of America, and Elon reminds. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.760 Us of that we don't have a fourth branch of 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.159 governments called Elon Musk. 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:47.559 Welcome to Elon, Inc. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:53.080 Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, May twenty seventh. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.480 I'm Max Chafkin, sitting here with Bloomberg's Elon Musk reporter 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:02.120 Dana Hall. Hey, Dana Hey, Max, and Bloomberg Social media reporter, 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:04.600 our favorite high school quarterback, Kurt Wagner. 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:06.480 Kurt, how are you? How is your Memorial Day? 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:06.920 Hi? 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:07.319 Max? 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:07.920 It was wonderful. 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.360 How was yours? It was good? It was good. So 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:12.600 we have a lot to talk about. 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.160 Even though I'd say Elon has been maybe a little 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.399 bit quieter than usual over the last week. Maybe it 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.560 was the Memorial Day holiday. So today I want to 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:23.320 unpack some of the things that we talked about on 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:25.640 our last episode last week. As you'll remember if you 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.600 listen to podcast, David Popadoppolis and I reacted kind of 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.679 in real time to Elon Musk's comments in Qatar to 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.800 Bloomberg's Michal Hussein saying essentially he was going to spend 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.319 less money in political contributions. 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.840 We're getting more indications here. 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:43.960 We're getting a little bit of news, including some news 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:48.000 from Elon about what's happening, what he has planned. And 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:49.360 then the other thing I want to do is I 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.080 want to talk about X money, the big. 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.600 New Twitter X credit card. 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:57.360 This is the everything app. And we'll get into that 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.760 next from Kurt. But before we do that, so Elon's 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.960 future plans, Dana, I feel like we need a new 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:06.720 term for this. We need to say, what is this 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.480 a sleeping arrangement update? Because Elon went on X and 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.800 he essentially said that after having spent the last few 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.840 months sleeping on the floors of the White House or whatever, 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.920 he's got a new location that he plans to take 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:22.480 his rest. 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.120 Well, he said, he's like laser focused on his companies, right, 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:29.440 and he's I mean today he's in Brownsville, Texas where 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.400 SpaceX is about to launch Starship yet again. But maybe 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:35.320 I missed this over the long holiday weekend. Did he 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:36.560 give like a bedroom? 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:38.640 Yeah? May twenty fourth. 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.359 In response to and we'll get to this with Kurt 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.200 to some news out of X fire at one of 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.799 the data centers, he said, back to spending twenty four 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.160 to seven at work sleeping in conference server factory rooms. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.000 So apparently sleeping in the server room since it sounds 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.320 kind of loud. But in any case, he said, I 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.160 must be super focused on x XAI and Tesla plus 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.560 Starship launched next week. As we have critical technologies rolling 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.040 out as evidenced by X uptime issues this week, major 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.359 operational improvemcy to be made. Kurt, there was a fire, right, 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:11.560 that's what prompted this. 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.440 There was so there was a fire at one of 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.639 X's data centers near Portland. There was an outage on 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.919 Saturday for a few hours for a lot of users. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.359 I didn't personally experience it, but others did. And it's 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.200 not entirely clear if the fire and the outage were linked, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.040 but the timing is certainly interesting. And then you have, 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:35.240 as you pointed out, Max, the comments from Elon basically saying, hey, look, 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.280 I need to start spending more time here. There's been 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:40.880 a lot of technical issues that I have to deal with. 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.520 You said, there should have been like a failure redundancy 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.800 that should have happened. What that means is that when 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.800 one of the data centers went down, the other one 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.720 should have picked up the slack and consumers should not 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.080 have noticed there was an issue. But that didn't work. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:55.960 And so the fact that he's sitting here saying, hey, 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:57.520 look I need to get back to spending twenty four 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.520 to seven on the tech of these companies that I run, 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.120 I think is a signal that, you know, the fire 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.119 or the data centers, all of this stuff are sort 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:05.800 of intertwined. 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.640 Yeah, was this a particularly bad one, Kurt? I mean 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.640 I did on Friday notice people complaining about it. Maybe 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.320 my ex usage isn't as sort of fanatical as it 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.280 once was, so I actually didn't personally notice this. 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.080 I mean, it was bad enough that people notice for 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:27.600 extended period of time, which is sort of rare. You know, 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.080 I cover all these big platforms and max as you know, 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.360 and like, it's not uncommon for there to be hey, 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.560 thirty minutes people are having trouble on Instagram or TikTok 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.000 or x or whatever. What it extends beyond an hour 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.440 or two is when you start to scratch your head 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.600 and say, Okay, something meaningful happened here. I think Elon's 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:49.120 again his responses acknowledging that you know, that backup plan 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:51.800 that they had in place essentially did not work, I 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:53.800 think to me as a sign that this was you know, 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.560 it was it was worse than average. It wasn't like 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:58.400 the X was down for the whole day or something 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.800 like that, but it was a just a blip. 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.200 I would say, yeah, and Dana, there's been a few 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.080 of these data points. I mean, you brought up the 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.039 fact that there's a starship launch. He's going to have 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.280 an event a live stream later today, I believe, noon 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:18.039 Texas time talking about Mars. He sort of seems to 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.680 be trying to focus publicly on the companies, maybe more 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.680 than the past. Also twenty third, just to point you 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.440 to a couple of other posts, I have come to 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.800 the perhaps obvious conclusion that accelerating GDP growth is essential. 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.920 Doge has and will do great work to postpone the 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.880 day of bankruptcy in America, but the proflicacy of government 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.760 means that only radical improvements in productivity can save the country. 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:43.320 It almost sounds like he's. 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.599 Declaring what like failure right, Like he's sort of saying, 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.920 you know, it turns out, actually, Doge. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:51.400 Didn't do that much. I need to focus on my 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:52.880 companies for the good of the country. 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.640 I guess I'm very cynical about this messaging because I 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.039 feel like it's a very convenient narrative for a lot 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:02.880 of reporters in Washington to be like Musk is distancing himself. 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:03.720 You know, Musk is. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.280 Giving up and going home and taking his ball and 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.200 like focusing back in his companies, and like everyone is 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.800 parenting the message that Musk himself wants to get out. 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:13.680 And the reason why he is trying to get this 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.720 message out is because he really wants Tesla's board to 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.000 give him a pay package. And you know, for better 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.440 or worse, Like Musk has that kind of messiah complex 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.320 of I alone can fix it. So now he's like, 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.840 I've got to deal with this data center issue at 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.840 X and like we're gonna roll out this ROBOTAXI in 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:35.719 Austin and we're going to go to Mars, And like 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.359 he's trying to signal to investors that he is focused, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.440 because the big complaint of investors has been that he 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:44.360 was spending too much time on Washington. So so I 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.280 feel like this is a lot for his audience of 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.920 investors and board members. I mean, he's always kind of 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:56.479 micro focused and multitasks in a way that is sort 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.599 of unique in corporate America. But is he really giving 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.719 up like on the DOGE ambitions. 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:02.600 I don't know. 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:04.680 He's got all of his people still there. It's like, 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.480 is Steve Davis still the COO of Doge? Is Antonio 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.520 Grassia still at the Social Security Agency? He's got CIOs 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.520 in place, Like it's hard for me to imagine him 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:20.560 really sort of working so hard in Washington and just 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.920 like abandoning ship. I feel like this is optics more 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:25.680 than a real change. 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.320 Yeah. I tend to agree with you. I do think. 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:31.440 You know, it's like two things could be true. 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.040 Like one is, he could have less influence in Trump's 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.000 White House today than he did I don't know a 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:42.400 month ago. And also he could be more focused on 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.240 his companies, like on a day to day basis, and 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.760 also hardly moving away from politics. You know, he's still 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:53.360 very much focused on, you know, on his influence in Washington. 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.880 The other thing is, and I brought this up last week, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.200 he's going to this Bloomberg event in Qatar or dialing 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.280 into the event and saying he's he's sort of spending 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.680 less time on less money on politics, but at this 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.600 in the same breath saying he's going to the White House. 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.000 Like that week we saw him at the White House 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.800 with the South African President Kurt. You know, X was 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.920 kind of in the favored position before it was Doge. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.800 Has X suffered like. 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:22.640 You kind of see it going, you know, one of 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.280 two ways, but like, how have things worked at the 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.840 company as Elon Musk Musk's attention sort of turned away 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:30.120 from it. 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:34.439 Yeah, I mean my understanding is that he's been quite absent, 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.800 which makes a lot a lot of sense. Right as 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.440 we've talked about he's he not only has four other businesses, 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.640 but that he's also you know, full time, halftime, part 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:49.040 time whatever in DC. I look at the Doge thing 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.760 and Elon and X more as a what does this 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.040 mean for the business of the company, not so much 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.320 even his time, his personal time, which is that I 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.000 think in January and February, when he's tweeting constantly, when 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.880 he's hanging out with Trump, when he's literally sort of 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:10.199 dictating US policy via his Twitter account or his ex account, 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.440 I think that gave X this continued influence. Right, you 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.800 kind of had to pay attention to it still because 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.560 it was still driving literal US policy decisions via his 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.440 X account. As Elon has the last month or two, 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.240 he has stopped tweeting as much about politics. He's obviously 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.800 saying he's going to step away from politics. And so 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:32.760 what I wrote last week in our newsletter was sort 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.840 of like what happens to X if Elon truly follows 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.240 through and steps away from politics, because he spent the 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.840 last year turning this thing into a political machine. Like 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.280 it the purpose of X for the most part was 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.240 to get Donald Trump elected and then to support his 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.960 agenda and possibly push his agenda in the ways that 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.640 Elon wants it to. And if that's not what he's 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.120 going to do anymore, like what is X, right, it's 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.360 not really a place for breaking news, It's not really 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.760 a place for the global conversation like it has historically 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.920 been because Elon pivoted so aggressively into politics a year ago, 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.439 and so I don't know, I'm sort of kind of 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.480 sitting around wondering, like, what does this platform become if 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.599 it's not a Donald Trump Elon Musk politics machine. I 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:18.520 don't know if either what I mean, you two have 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.400 both been on it for years as well. I'm curious 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:22.480 if you have thoughts on that, But like, what's the 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.960 identity of this thing now? It keeps morphine and I 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.720 think the political identity that he's created is sort of 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:29.720 crumbling as we're as we're standing here. 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:30.160 I don't know. 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.120 I don't really use x anymore. I lurk on it, 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.560 but like I locked my account and I don't have 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.040 it on my phone and I kind of like check 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.640 in like every once in a while, but like, I 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.559 don't use it. It is it is not the platform 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.480 that I joined over a decade ago. 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.160 Well, I from when I'm still addicted. Although Kurt, to 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.360 your point, you know, I do think it loses some 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.360 of its vitality. We will in the second segment talk 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.000 a little bit about, you know, possible future identity for 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:04.640 x as A as a bank before we get there. 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.040 I mean, there is a swirl of things, right. 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.040 It's not just the fact that Doge hasn't cut as 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.000 much maybe as promised. It's not just the fact that 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.240 there are fires breaking out in Twitter data centers and 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:21.320 Twitter is going down. It is also, of course, you know, 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.120 Tesla and the fact that the sales are are still 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.040 despite Elon Musk's comments. You know, Elon Musk said last week, 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.280 yet you're bad for us, but it's bad for everyone. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.520 Although as a report today essentially showing that Tesla sales 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:36.720 are way down, down by more than fifty percent, while 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.160 overall EV sales in the region are up twenty eight percent. Dana, 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.880 one thing I've wondered about. We've talked about the demand thing, 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.480 but if you look in that one big beautiful bill 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.240 that the Trump budget bill, it is not a great 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:55.480 bill for Tesla. And like the combination of Tesla's sales 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.360 and this kind of potential hit to the revenue in 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:00.760 the form of this budget build which takes away or 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.160 would take away EV tax credits, do you think that 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:04.720 could be pushing him away? 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:05.360 I don't know. 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:06.959 I mean, Elon has always sort of said that he 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.000 doesn't think there should be any subsidies whatsoever, whether it's 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.559 for evs or oil and gas. So I don't know 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:17.280 if that alone is enough to make him angry or 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.200 cause some kind of rift with Trump. I think that 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:23.400 tariffs are not good for Tesla, but like, fundamentally, like 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.000 he what he cares the most about is SpaceX and 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.680 he wants funding for a Mars mission, So I don't 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.360 know if he's willing to jennison one for the other. 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.000 But the any thing I pointed out about the European 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:38.160 sales is that like Tesla has a factory in Germany 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.640 that makes the model, why if these sales in Europe 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.520 continue to crater, there's gonna be real questions about like 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:45.800 do they keep this factory open or like do they 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.640 start scaling back production, Like you don't keep making cars 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.920 for a market that does not need them. And everyone 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.120 always sees the problems in Europe as like, oh, Elon 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.880 being so close to Trump, but it's really like it 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.240 was really Elon Musk supporting the AfD in Germany that 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.360 has caused this huge backlash in Europe. Like European consumers 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.120 are very concerned about what Elon is doing with Visa 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:12.560 v European politics. 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:17.880 Trump aside, last thing, this SpaceX launch, Dana, what are 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.240 you going to be looking for here? Like he's saying 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.160 that twenty twenty six, right, He's that that's the goal 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:25.760 for like some kind of Mars demonstration mission. 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.800 Do you have any sense of how far away we 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.200 are from that in terms of milestones that have to 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.520 be hit? To me from the outside, it seems like 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:35.439 a lot. 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:36.439 Yeah. 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.120 I mean, that's a very ambitious, very aggressive timeline, and 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.720 Musk's plan is that like, not only will Starship launch 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:45.120 to Mars in twenty twenty six, but Optimist is going 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.520 to be on board. So he has a lot of 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:49.679 a lot writing on this and we'll hear from him 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.160 later today when he gives this, you know speech about Mars. 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.600 I mean, you know, he's always talked about going to Mars, 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:57.959 but now Starship does exist. They've had a couple of 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.160 launches that have haven't totally gone well, and so like 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.840 there's a lot riding on this one going better. I 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.120 think obviously he wants to show to Trump and a 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.920 NASA that like this vehicle is ready and that like 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.600 it can do all the things that it's supposed to do, 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.120 but you know, they're constantly tweaking with the heat shield, 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.439 and you know, there's all kinds of issues that they 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.000 that they still work out. And I think in the 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.720 world of space, you know, everyone will say space is hard, 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.760 and you learn by doing and you iterate, and like 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.520 what we might see as quote unquote failure is actually 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:31.000 just part of the design, iteration, engineering learning process. So 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:33.840 you know, SpaceX has always been very good at that. 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:37.400 But I mean, you know, the window to go to Mars, 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:39.480 it doesn't come around very often. So that's like a 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.480 big reason why he is pushing for this twenty twenty 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:42.960 six Dad. 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.720 So in our first segment, you know, Kurt talked about 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.680 kind of like what x becomes, and I think that 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:56.600 is a big question. 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:58.640 That's an open question. Of course. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:03.160 Last week we talked about Xai and this potential deal 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.360 that it had with Calshi, which is a predictions company. 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:11.360 You know, hours after we recorded that episode, Calshie actually 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.120 did a one eighty pulled the announcement on the Xai deal, 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:20.800 essentially saying that that x had not confirmed the announcement 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.320 or something like that. So it sounds like some sort 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.600 of either miscommunication or sort of a one eighty that 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.680 business is up in the air. But Kurt, the business 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.480 that I think feels actually a little bit easier to 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.960 get your arms around, if not necessarily, I don't know. 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.400 The most promising is money, right, the idea that Elon 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.960 Musk has talked about for years that he's going to 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.120 turn x Twitter into a bank. 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:45.880 Yeah, and he has been talking about this. I was 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.680 thinking about this just last night as I was preparing 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.400 to chat about it. It was October of twenty twenty 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:54.640 two that he first, you know, took over Twitter and 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:56.440 was like, We're going to turn this thing into a bank. 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.360 He was telling employees that from the get go, almost 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.080 three years max. Where you know, we're summer of twenty 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:04.920 twenty five. Now, I think we can say after a 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.560 Memorial Day and we still haven't seen anything other than 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:12.600 sort of a some hints, some teases that something might 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.800 be coming. And the idea here, I think, to your point, 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:18.760 is easy enough to wrap your head around. I think 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:23.040 the execution is another thing. And then the adoption is actually, 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.360 in my opinion, probably the toughest hurdle for them to 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.000 get over. But let's talk just briefly about what this 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.200 looks like I mean, imagine opening your X account and 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.400 having a balance there right like essentially your your your 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.360 debit card, your your account, your debit account right there, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.000 linked to your X account. Now, if I want to 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.600 send you money, Max, I could. I could shoot you money, 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.840 similar to Venmo. If I'm scrolling through my X feed 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:48.680 and I see an ad for something I want to buy, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.400 I could click and I could buy it right there. 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.600 You know, he had talked about having a really high 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.800 interest yield on this, on the money that's in these accounts, 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.600 so you'd be incentivized to essentially use this as like 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.480 a safe account because you'd be making who knows how much, 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.760 but we'll say three, four or five percent on that money. 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.080 So that is the idea is like your X account 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:13.480 and your financial accounts are linked together, and what would 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.360 that do for you? Now, as we're now learning, it's 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.400 been almost three years they haven't launched anything. So technologically 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.720 this is clearly harder than they anticipated. I think they're 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.399 running into some regulatory issues. They're trying to get licensed 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.959 for payments in all fifty states. I believe they're in 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.879 forty one states. But you don't want to roll out 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.560 a product. When you know, if someone in New York, 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.119 for example, where they're not licensed, can't send money to 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.240 someone in California, like it just it doesn't really work 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.560 all that well if you don't have all fifty states. 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:46.000 And then the last thing is just adoption. Is the 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.360 average X user going to actually move their money from 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:52.800 a Chase or a Bank of America or something like 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.120 that and store it in X And I think that's 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:59.919 just an incredibly, incredibly high bar for a consumer to do. 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.879 Dude, I don't trust X with my jokes, let alone 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.960 my you know, let alone my life savings. But that said, 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.159 there will be people, and I should just say the 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.720 reason we're talking about this, so you know, Elon Musk 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:13.840 as often, is kind of driving this with his with 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.679 posting on X. A Tesla owners group tweeted that X 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.760 money was launching soon. X Money being this you know, 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.240 financial service offered by the company formerly known as Twitter. 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.639 Elon wrote on May twenty fifth, so I believe that 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.880 was on Sunday. This will be a very limited access 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.760 beta at first. When people's savings are involved, extreme care 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:36.560 must be taken. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.040 I don't want my bank account to be in beta, 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.399 like sorry, like I just told like, I just would 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:45.720 never want my personal finances to be in beta mode 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.080 at an Elon Musk company like that. I mean, there's 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.800 already enough problems as it is with just like security 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.879 of data in this new world of you know, hackers 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.679 and the Internet and like online banking in general. Like 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:01.639 I don't know, I'm just I'm very I'm very like 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:07.359 old school with my banking and would not willfully share 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.880 my banking contacts with the social media platform, particularly one 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.199 that's like AI based and trying to use information to 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:15.280 train their algorithms. 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.840 We're joking about this because of course the failwell and Twitter. 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.199 As Kurt knows well. He wrote a book about Elon's 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.159 takeover of Twitter, Battle for the Bird. This is a 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.840 company that has like has sort of for its entire history, 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.760 had technical problems even dating back to Elon. It definitely 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:38.639 doesn't convey like trusted secure. It's more like free wheeling. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.840 Anything could happen. It's pretty much all the things you 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.320 don't associate with a bank. On the other hand, Kurt, 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:49.160 I mean you talked about the regulatory progress that they've made. 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.320 There was also this report that I believe you wrote 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.119 about back in January Musk essentially striking a deal with 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:01.200 Visa that would make Visa a payments partner X. I mean, 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.080 what is in place right now outside of the sort 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.520 of regulatory issue that you talked about. 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:10.399 Yeah, so I believe they have licenses secured in forty 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:12.879 one states. So again that's just sort of bare bones. 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.679