WEBVTT - Bonus: The Real Reason Elon Musk Bought Twitter (Maybe) 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.720 Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.039 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:15.280 controlled by one man. Well, he's a legitimate, super genius, legitimate. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.119 He says, He's always voted for Democrats, but this year 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.520 it will be different. He'll vote Republican. There is a 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.840 reason the US government is so reliant on ed Elon. 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.680 Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.240 Anything he does, he's fascinating to people. 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.880 Hi, everybody, Max Schafkin here with another episode of Elon Inc. 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.839 We have something special for you today. It is an 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.120 interview with Kurt Wagner. Kurt is a social media reporter 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.120 at Bloomberg. You heard him on this podcast before, and 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.479 he has a new book. It's called Battle for the Bird, 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.680 Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and the forty four billion dollar 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.760 Fight for Twitter Soul. Kurt is one of my favorite 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:02.520 writers at bloom and he really is the go to 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.280 journalist on this topic. And I think it's gonna be 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.839 really great to just go deep on this one specific 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.880 part of Elon Musk's empire. I've sort of imagined this 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:13.600 conversation in three parts. The first part is going to 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.480 be essentially the man crush that set this whole thing off. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.280 The second part is going to be we're gonna get conspiratorial. 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.120 We're gonna talk about why this happened, and there's some 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.679 really kind of crazy things. And the last part is 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.440 gonna be some really smart analysis on where this is going. 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.360 Kurt is here with me now, Kurt Wagner, Welcome to 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:31.840 Elon Inc. 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.800 Hi'm Max. I am thrilled to be here. Thanks for 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:35.640 doing this. It's fun. 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:37.000 It's nice to see you. 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.920 Okay, So the book, you Know, is in large part 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.480 focused on this relationship between Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:49.120 the founder of Twitter. But before we get there, I 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.040 just want to talk about why it matters. Like, like 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:54.480 we sort of spend a lot of time in this 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.040 podcast and outside in the media you see a lot 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.320 of people sort of making fun of the ways that 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.200 Twitter has kind of gone downhill, But like, why does 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:03.240 a site still matter? 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:04.440 Like why is it important? 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:05.320 In your mind? 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.400 I think when Twitter was at its best, it was 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:13.440 the go to place for literally all breaking news, right Like, 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.960 if something happens on the streets of New York, the 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.760 first thing you do, literally is pull out Twitter. And 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.120 try and figure out like what's going on right here, 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:27.520 and that ultimately attracted like every journalist in the world. Essentially, 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.280 it attracted celebrities, that attracted politicians. And even though we've 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:35.519 seen Twitter change under Elon, I think that a lot 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.280 of the kernels of that are still the case, right, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:43.120 And like Twitter is a place where news sort of happens. 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.160 It's like one of the rare places online where like 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.639 literally if someone tweets something, it becomes like a global headline. 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.120 And we saw that very clearly for four straight years 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.560 with the President Donald Trump, as you remember. So I 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.880 just feel like this this service is unique in that way, 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.680 and that it's like a newsmaker's service. And even under Elon, 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.480 I feel like that's still happens. You know, quite a bit. 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.720 You talked about just this thing being like where the 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:13.240 news happens. It's not quite that anymore, right, It's something 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:15.920 like it's like that, but more right wing. 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.200 It's like that. But with Alex Jones, how do you 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:18.960 see that evolution? 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.800 The biggest change for me has been the lack of 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.519 Like Twitter was very a quick way to get the news, 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.680 and now I feel like it's not quick anymore because 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.519 you don't really know who anybody is. Right, Like before 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.480 with the verification system, you could like open it up, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.000 you'd immediately see like, Okay, these people, these blue check 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.440 people are talking in my feed, and I can sort 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.240 of believe with some level of confidence these are people 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:46.800 who I at the very least might want to hear from, right, 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.160 Like they're real people, they probably have a position of 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.600 some authority, and that has changed. 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:53.880 Right. 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.560 Basically, if you have eight dollars, you're a blue check 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.840 person now. And so when you open the feed in 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.600 like a breaking news environment and you're surrounded by like 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.360 all these blue checks who are spouting off, you have 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.240 no idea who they are. You have to pause and 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:08.920 do your own research. And so for me, the biggest 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.800 difference is, like it is not nearly as reliable as 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.960 a news service as it was two years ago. And 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.800 considering that was what Twitter was best at, like that 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.919 was the thing that Twitter was, that's a huge problem. 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:27.839 So Twitter's founder, I guess, co founder Jack Dorsey, he 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.760 was a He's he was running the company at the 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.640 time this all went down. YEA. One reason I think 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.720 this book is really interesting and relevant to this podcast 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.840 is because in certain ways, it's like the story of 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.760 it's just partly the story of Jack's sort of obsession 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.320 relationship with Elon Musk, and and also the way maybe 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.440 all of us put things on this person name Nelon 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:50.120 Bus And I just want to. 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.960 Let's just like talk about how did his like, when 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.200 did he get so into Elon? Like, like, when did 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:56.400 he become this? 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.919 When did Elon become a source of interest to Jack Dorsey, 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.520 you know, famous Silicon Valley entrepreneur. 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:05.240 I'm not sure if I could pinpoint the moment the 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.279 admiration kicked in, but we know that it was several 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:12.239 years before Elon took over because Jack used to refer 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.720 to Elon as his favorite tweeter quite regularly. 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:14.960 Right. 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.240 There's several interviews where people say who do you love 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.240 to follow, and he'd be like Elon Musk, he really 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.280 pushes the envelope, right, And it's like one way of describing, 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.400 you know, getting yourself into legal disputes with the SEC. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.440 But like, I think that, but wait, what is it 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:30.320 about those tweets? 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:30.560 Though? 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.960 I think he thought that Elon like was unfiltered, right, 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.200 And I think there's I think if you ask Jack 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.520 like you've heard him perhaps talk about Twitter as this 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.800 global consciousness, right, Like Twitter is the global consciousness, It's 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:47.200 it's the collective way that people think. And for Elon 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:51.119 it was a very unfiltered thought process. As we've learned, 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.400 it's just sort of like what comes into his brain 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.320 shows up on his Twitter feed. And to Jack Dorsey, 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.200 I think he like wished that everyone would be that 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.560 free with their thoughts on Twitter, and so he saw 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.280 Elon as sort of this like famous example of what 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.920 he wanted everyone else to be doing on Twitter. 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:09.720 Yeah, it's weird. 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.640 It's funny how there are certain people. Elon must be 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.000 one of them who are just like intuitively understand this 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.839 thing and maybe understand the nature of celebrity when twenty 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:21.560 twenty four or whatever. 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.560 So you talk about this kind of like Jack has 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:25.520 this is on this quest. 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.240 Essentially he's still running the company, but he's got he's 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.200 got this Elon specific quest, which is like essentially what 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.520 to get Elon to show up and give a talk 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:34.679 to the company, right. 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.760 Yeah, So this happens first in twenty eighteen. He tries 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.800 to get Elon to come to what's called one Team, 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.000 which was like Twitter's like company wide off site and 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.880 at the last minute, Elon bails because he's like literally 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.040 sleeping on the factory floor building. I believe it's the 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.000 Tesla three at the time, the Model three. So he 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.159 doesn't show up, and everyone's like, oh bumber, you know, 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.520 would have loved to hear from from Elon. Now fast 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.440 forward two years, it's twenty twenty and Jack get him 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.080 show up. He shows up on FaceTime in front of 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.600 the whole company, and it's just like really interesting exchange. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.800 You know, imagine five thousand employees sitting in this convention hall. 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.360 They're like looking up at the stage. Jack Dorsey's standing 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.400 up there literally holding his iPad, and on the screen 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.520 he is face timing with Elon Musk, who shows up 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.120 in his Occupy Mars T shirt. I believe he's like 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.080 at SpaceX's facility and they have this conversation and like 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.320 Jack you can tell, is like he very much likes 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.560 Elon and he wants to flatter Elon, and he makes 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:31.680 some joke about hey, like would you love to run 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:33.640 the company someday? Like ha ha haa, and everyone sort 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.440 of chuckles, and Elon spends his brief moment in front 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.760 of the whole company just complaining about bots, and he's like, yeah, 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.080 how do you know who's like what's a botnet versus 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.360 what isn't? Are these like short sellers or are these 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.480 like real people? Blah blah blah. And he complains and 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.320 about bots, and then Jack Dorsey ends the thing and 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.280 he's like, we love you, we love what you're doing. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.240 And it ends right, and like in the moment, it's like, Okay, 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.800 if you're a Twitter employee, maybe that's like kind of fun. 0:07:58.920 --> 0:07:59.840 Doune done done. 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.680 Yeah, but it's like a movie level like foreshadowing, right, 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:06.760 because you fast forward two years and it's like, oh, 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:08.440 like Jack was like, hey do you want to run 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.240 the company? Guess what he's asking Elon? Like, hey do 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.000 you want to run the company? What's Elon complaining about? 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.520 He's complaining about bots? Right, Like these things came back around, 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.200 which is one of the reasons I put in the book. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.200 I just thought it was like such a remarkable scene 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:21.160 two years ahead of the acquisition. 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.280 All right, so let's move on to the takeover, which 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.800 it is just so weird in retrospect. I want to 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.000 walk through this acquisition and talk about, you know, kind 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:36.800 of what you learned in reporting. The book but I 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.920 think just to kind of set the scene here, I 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.320 want to take everyone back to April twenty twenty two 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:48.280 the Ted Conference. Elon Musk, innovator, World's richest man is asked, 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.160 you know what he's doing, and this is what he says. So, Elon, 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:58.080 a few hours ago, you made an offer to buy Twitter. 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:08.319 Why how do you know? 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:12.800 Little bird tweeted in my ear or something? 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:14.840 I don't know. By the way, have you seen the 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:15.920 movie Ted about the bear? 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:17.920 I have? 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:19.839 I have? Why make that off? 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.559 So well? 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.800 I think it's very important for that it'll be an 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.880 inclusive arena for free. 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.240 Speech where all. 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:38.640 So yeah, Twitter has become kind of the de facto 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:45.160 town square. So it's just really important that people have 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:50.840 the both the reality and the perception that they are 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.439 able to speak freely within the bounds of the low. 0:09:53.800 --> 0:10:00.000 So yeah, super super interesting, totally very mature, totally normal. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.520 This is great timing, right, Kurt Elon Musk, he's a genius. 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.560 He's got an intuitive sense of business timing right. This 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.079 was perfect April twenty twenty two for this moment. 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.559 If you're gonna overpay for a social network, April twenty 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.480 twenty two was the best time to ever do that. No, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.439 his timing, of course, as we know now was was disastrous. 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:21.679 Right. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.120 I mean, like he comes in, he essentially forces the 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.160 board into this deal, right, he gives them this incredible offer. 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.920 What he may or may not know behind the scenes 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.600 is like the company has set these very lofty targets 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:36.960 around user growth and revenue that they're not coming close 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.720 to hitting. They're thinking about doing a second or a 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.520 very large round of layoffs, like the business is not 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:44.720 in a good shape. And here comes Elon the White night, 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.000 like completely overpaying for Twitter. And so the board jumps 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:50.560 at this, right, and they're like, wow, this is an 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.680 incredible exit for this company. That kind of solves a 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.160 bunch of these problems that we're that were predicting or 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.760 preparing to deal with. And then and shortly after that, 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.080 you know, inflation goes through the roof, and you know, 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.440 there's a war going on in Europe that starts to 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.480 just spook a bunch of people and spook sort of 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.880 just the financial market markets globally, and his own net 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.800 worth takes this huge hit. Like within weeks, we're talking 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.000 tens of billions of dollars of Elon's own net worth 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:22.120 that are just disappearing. And so you fast forward, you 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.920 start kind of mid April, and you fast forward one month, 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.600 and his whole mindset around this acquisition is already changing 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.320 because he's now walked into this really overpriced thing and 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.679 he's realizing, oh, my timing was absolutely terrible. 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.520 Maybe that we joke acquisition price was not as funny 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:40.880 as I thought it was at the time. 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.120 Fifty four to twenty didn't slit past a lot of people. 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:44.800 All right. 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.160 So one of the things again, this was like it's 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.000 it's sort of hard to overstate. I mean, Elon stands 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.200 and even even those of us covered have gotten used 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:55.880 to the idea that has happened. So it was sort 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.000 of like hard to imagine why this happened. Why does 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.160 this guy who who has basically dedicated his life, by 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:07.080 his own account, to you know, making humanity a multiplanetary species, 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.200 to saving the Earth from global warming? Like, why does 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:15.080 he suddenly start worrying about is Twitter going to ban 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.559 Scott Adams or something, or like like is cat turn 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.560 being demonetized? Anyway, he gets really into this and the 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.800 book offers a variety of theories and they're all so 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.160 fun So I just wanted to sort of go through 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.120 a couple of them with you right now, starting with 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.600 I think what is like the Elon Musk fficial version 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.439 of the story, which is essentially he had too much 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:36.840 money in his bank account and he needs somewhere to 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:37.160 put it. 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.040 That's right. This is the theory that was sort of 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.920 outlined in Walter Isaacson's recent book about Elon Musk was 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.720 that he, you know, like like all of us rich 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.280 guys are max you and I know, when you just 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.080 have too much money, we got to go spend it 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.959 on something frivolous, right, And so this would be the 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.199 equivalent of maybe a less rich person going and buying 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:01.080 like a vacation home or a yacht or but for Elon, 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.440 it was Twitter, right. And so this is what Walter 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.280 sort of says in his book is that he just 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.079 didn't want his money to sit in a bank account. 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:10.320 He wanted to do something with it, and Twitter was 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:12.720 like his favorite thing to use, and so that became 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:13.719 the target for him. 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.600 Yeah, and I guess it's also that he really liked it. 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.120 I get sort of related to the Jack Dorsey thing, like, hey, 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.960 this is like my favorite you know, wait to spend 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.640 my time. So do what you love, as they say. 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.320 Yeah, I think this for him was like a personal 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.960 like favorite product that he very much loved to use, 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.000 and so the idea of owning it, I guess sounded 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.000 really cool when you have more money than you know 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:37.480 what to do with. 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:38.880 And the next thing, the next one I want to 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.440 talk about, is this text message that he gets from 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.920 Tallula Riley, who is his two times ex wife. Elon 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:49.199 does everything bigger than most people, so they've actually been 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.800 married and divorced twice, and she sort of makes us 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.840 a suggestion to him with respect to Twitter. 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:57.040 Yes she does. 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:57.240 So. 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.520 The super quick backstory here is that Twitter had spended 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:05.320 account from the Babylon Bee, which is like a satire site. 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.440 I guess that was making jokes about trans people quite frankly, 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.600 and you know they're they're off color jokes that not 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:14.520 a lot of people find very funny, but there are 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:16.840 people who do, and Tulula Riley, I guess is one 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.320 of those people. And she was upset that the account 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.920 had been suspended, and so she texts her ex husband 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:24.120 and says, you know, and I'm looking at this now. 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.480 She says, can you buy Twitter? And then delete it please. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.480 America is going insane. And then a few minutes later 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:31.560 she goes, or can you buy Twitter and make it 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:32.280 radically free? 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.880 S be fair, we've all had that Twitter. 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.480 Yeah, we all want Elon to buy Twitter or our 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.320 ex spouses to buy Twitter. But you know, here she 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:41.720 is basically saying, can you buy this and make it 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.680 radically free speech? In a few minutes after that, Elon 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.240 texts back and says, maybe buy it and change it 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:49.680 to properly support free speech. Now you'd think this is 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.960 maybe just the kind of like fun banter between two 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.800 people who used to have a relationship, but you know, 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.480 in the world of Elon, this leads to like less 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.800 than twenty four hours, him tweeting to all of his 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.520 followers saying like, does there need to be a new platform? 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:06.680 And when people say yes, then a day after that 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:11.000 it's well, now he's suddenly gonna buy shares and try 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.200 and join the board of Twitter. Right, And so you 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.320 can see how this one like kernel of a conversation 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.800 perhaps led Elon down this path towards, you know, wanting 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.440 to turn Twitter into this free speech place. And it 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:24.800 all maybe starts with like the Babylon b which I 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:27.480 find to be quite interesting and sort of hilarious. 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.720 Yeah, there's a back, There's a whole interesting kind of 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:33.720 side alley we could go down around Elon and comedy. 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:35.920 He you know, the Babylon B is kind of a 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.440 competitor to the Onion. He at one point had tried 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.600 to take over the Onion. He got worried it was 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.920 too woke. And so it does seem like somewhat plausible 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.240 that he could have been feeling very sympathetic to the 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.040 Babylon B and wanted to commit this forty four billion 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.040 dollar act to resolve it. I want to come back 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.560 to the suggestion that he was trying to kill Twitter 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.720 in a second. In a second, but before we get there, 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.120 the third theory, yeah, is that Elon Musk bought Twitter. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.680 And this is new. This is this is breaking news, folks. 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:09.400 This is in Kurt's book that he did this, Because. 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.240 Now I'm reading a little bit into Kurt's book here, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:16.520 But what kurtz book reports is that before buying Twitter, 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:21.240 Elon Musk was sending complaints privately to Jack Dorsey and 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.560 Paragua Argerwall. We talked about one of those complaints just now, 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:29.080 but also complaining about this Twitter account that's following his plane. 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.840 Yeah, so at Elon Jet you may be familiar with 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.760 if you followed the World of Elon. It's literally an 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.160 account that tracks the whereabouts of his private plane, when 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.400 it takes off, when it lands, where it takes off, 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.080 where it lands. And Elon was very unhappy with this 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.960 for you know, I guess obvious reasons. He didn't like 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.880 the idea of his location being out there publicly, and 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.600 so he complained to Perogue in January of twenty twenty two, 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:56.440 asking it for the account to be removed, and Parogue 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.680 essentially ignored him right or certainly didn't take his complaints 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.960 and do anything with it. And so what was interesting 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.399 about that timing is that at the very end of 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.840 January twenty twenty two was when Elon Musk started buying 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:15.160 shares of Twitter. And you could imagine, and I don't 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.639 think this is that huge of a stretch that you know, 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.960 he wants this account removed. They're not doing it for him. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.160 What could you do if you had more money than 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:24.760 you knew what to do with, Well, you could become 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:26.719 a shareholder in that company and try and use your 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.040 position as a shareholder to sort of pressure them to 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.080 take this account down or whatever. And there are people 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:35.439 involved in the deal that I've spoken to believed that 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.119 this was a real motivation for him. Now, whether he 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.040 intended for it to snowball in the way that it did, 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.520 I don't know, but there are people who definitely thought 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:47.240 elon Jet was sort of the genesis of this stock 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:48.800 purchase that he started to do. 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.720 Well. I do think it's believable because as we know 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:56.680 later on, he takes action, right he bans the He 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.240 bans the creator of elon Jet for a time, and 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.480 in fact bans anyone who anyone who speaks of elon jet. 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:07.359 If you link to outside, you know, instances of this account, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.320 you would also get banned, and including he banned a 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.840 New York Times journalists, So it's. 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:12.800 Clear this was a fixation. 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.600 Yeah, he did. And he created an entire new policy 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:21.520 at Twitter on a whim about like doxing someone's real 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:26.000 time location and how elon Jet basically violated that policy. 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.680 And now elon Jet does exist, but it's like a 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:30.960 twenty four hour delay, so basically you can find out 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.120 where Elon flew yesterday versus like where Elon is flying 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:38.359 right now. So this became a thing that he changed 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.439 and took action on once he took over. So to 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.560 your point, Max, I do think it's like, it's not 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:44.840 that crazy of an idea that this all started with 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:46.080 the Elon jet account. 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.280 All right, well, I want to fly the business jet 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.960 that is this podcast to talk about the actual process 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.600 of reporting this book. You've been covering Twitter for how long? 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.040 I mean, like fifteen years? How long has it been, Kurt? 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.520 Yeah, eleven or twelve years? Yeah, it's been a very 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:03.080 long time. 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:05.800 You have all these sources. 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:10.760 I'm thinking, like, how did they process all this craziness 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.240 that's happening, Like world's richest man is like going to 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.480 take over their company and save Western civilization or something 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:18.120 in the process. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.440 I think when Elon first showed up, there was actually 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.600 this feeling that, you know, this is cool, this is good. 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.440 The richest man in the world, who has more money 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:30.240 than he knows what to do with, could do anything 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.000 he wants, and what he wants to do is work 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.400 on Twitter, And to a lot of people who worked there, 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.880 that was sort of encouraging in the very least, validating 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:41.920 to what they were doing and building. I think it 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.679 didn't take very long for them to realize that Elon 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.760