Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 3: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 3: controlled by one man.
Speaker 2: Well, he's a legitimate super genius, I mean legitimate.
Speaker 3: He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year
Speaker 3: it will be different. He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 1: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 1: on him. Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's
Speaker 1: done nothing. Anything he does, he's fascinating people.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Elon Ing, Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
Speaker 4: It's Tuesday, September third. I'm your host, David Papadopolis. Welcome
Speaker 4: back from Labor Day. This week it's all about X.
Speaker 3: We'll start with the ban of X in Brazil.
Speaker 4: And then we're gonna hit Elon's latest election antics on
Speaker 4: you guessed it X, and then we're gonna wrap up
Speaker 4: by discussing his vision and dreams for X TV. Joining
Speaker 4: us to talk about that are some familiar faces. Max Chafkin, Hey,
Speaker 4: what's going on?
Speaker 3: Max? How are you?
Speaker 5: Happy? Belated Labor Day?
Speaker 4: Happy blated Labor Day, and to you Kurt Wagner aka
Speaker 4: Number eight and a social media reporter for us here
Speaker 4: at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Kurt, Hey, David, how are you good? All right, Kurt,
Speaker 3: We're gonna start with you.
Speaker 4: Just give us an overview for those of us out
Speaker 4: there who were just at the beach, soaking up the rays,
Speaker 4: sipping summer martinis. And we're not following the ins and
Speaker 4: outs of Elon Muskin X versus the Brazilian Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: What is transpired and where do things stand there now?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So I believe it was Friday, so a lot of
Speaker 6: people may have already been checked out for the long weekend,
Speaker 6: at least here in the US. A Brazilian judge basically
Speaker 6: cut off X or banned X for the entire country.
Speaker 6: And this had been the end result of a long
Speaker 6: saga that has played out over the last several months.
Speaker 6: The short version is that this judge he wanted X
Speaker 6: to take action on certain accounts on the platform for
Speaker 6: sharing misinformation or anti democratic content. X and Elon, of course,
Speaker 6: you know, saying well free speech absolutism, said no, we're
Speaker 6: not going to do that. As things sort of got
Speaker 6: more intense than judge said, well, I'm going to arrest
Speaker 6: the person or attempt to arrest the person who is
Speaker 6: representing X and country.
Speaker 3: That was weeks ago, the threat to arrest them, right.
Speaker 6: That's right that we talked about that, because then Elon's
Speaker 6: response to that was, well, we're going to leave the
Speaker 6: country entirely. We're going to you know, stay operational, that
Speaker 6: you'll be able to use the app in Brazil, but
Speaker 6: we're not going to have employees there. There's not going
Speaker 6: to be anyone to arrest. And the judge then said, well,
Speaker 6: in order to operate here, you need someone here to
Speaker 6: basically answer questions for the company and you know, receive
Speaker 6: in this case, our complaints.
Speaker 1: You don't have any entire.
Speaker 4: X Brazilian staff cannot be working from home in the Bahamas.
Speaker 6: Yeah, in Brazil, they need someone physically there to handle
Speaker 6: an issue like this. And so he says, you need
Speaker 6: to appoint a legal representative otherwise I'm going to ban you.
Speaker 6: Elon says, you know, more or less, shove off. I'm
Speaker 6: not going to appoint anybody, and kind of I don't
Speaker 6: know if he was attempting to call his bluff or
Speaker 6: just simply said, you know, we'll we'll be happy to
Speaker 6: be banned. I don't care, but the judge did follow
Speaker 6: through and band X on Friday. I believe it's officially
Speaker 6: no longer working for people in Brazil, and it's a
Speaker 6: fine if you use a VPN to access it. It's
Speaker 6: a way to sort of redirect your Internet traffic to
Speaker 6: maybe a server that's in another country, right, so you
Speaker 6: would first go to a server in a country where
Speaker 6: X is allowed, and then it sort of redirects it
Speaker 6: and that way you get around the ban that way.
Speaker 6: But again there's a fine for people who do that.
Speaker 6: So you know, we're at this point now where X
Speaker 6: is banned. The Supreme Court, the rest of the Supreme
Speaker 6: Court upheld the original judge's decision, so X can still appeal,
Speaker 6: but you know, we're kind of at this stage where
Speaker 6: things are looking like X is just gone unless Elon
Speaker 6: is willing to concede to some of these demands.
Speaker 2: You know, a year ago, Elon Musk was asked by
Speaker 2: the government of Turkey to ban a bunch of accounts
Speaker 2: and he went through with it under court order. And
Speaker 2: the explanation at the time offered was, you know, yes,
Speaker 2: I'm a free speech absolutist, but the question is either
Speaker 2: you know, lose access to a handful of accounts in Turkey,
Speaker 2: or lose access to the service altogether. And he argued,
Speaker 2: you know, it's better to better to preserve X and Turkey,
Speaker 2: you know, making the making a different calculation here. Not
Speaker 2: entirely clear why, although I suppose Musk would argue that
Speaker 2: there was less transparency, like one of the big reasons
Speaker 2: he offered at the time for opposing this order was
Speaker 2: that the judge was was limiting what X could.
Speaker 5: Say about it.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's significant enough to put the
Speaker 2: entire operations in the country at risk, but but of
Speaker 2: course Elon Musk saw it that way. But what I
Speaker 2: think is actually going on here is you have Brazilian politics,
Speaker 2: which Elon Musk has already sort of entered the fray right.
Speaker 2: He's attempted to cozy up to Bolsonnaro, former.
Speaker 4: President, sort of far right president of Brazil, who I believe,
Speaker 4: Max correct me if I'm wrong, who is closely allied
Speaker 4: with many of the accounts right on X that the
Speaker 4: Brazilian Supreme Court wanted to shut down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we know that because Twitter released a sort of
Speaker 2: sequel to the Twitter Files called the Alexander Files.
Speaker 5: That's the first name of the Brazilian justice who ordered.
Speaker 4: This banims right and thank you and and so so right.
Speaker 2: It was it looked like seven accounts. These are all
Speaker 2: sort of far right aligne. It really feels like, you know,
Speaker 2: Elon musk Is, in inserting himself into Brazilian politics, has
Speaker 2: now you know, decided to make this a thing, just
Speaker 2: as he's made you know, his engagement in American politics
Speaker 2: a thing. He's you know, posting memes, he's you know,
Speaker 2: he's he's going to war over this, and you know,
Speaker 2: you can debate whether that makes sense as a principal
Speaker 2: stand I think for X it's not great news because
Speaker 2: Brazil is a pretty substantial market for social media.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a big market for them from a user
Speaker 6: base standpoint, significantly less, you know, important from a financial standpoint.
Speaker 6: But we don't know exactly how many users because they
Speaker 6: don't they've never broken those out. We've seen some estimates,
Speaker 6: I believe E Marketer said it was around forty million
Speaker 6: monthly active accounts, which would put Brazil probably in the
Speaker 6: top five, maybe even in the top three, behind the
Speaker 6: United States and Japan in terms of total size. For
Speaker 6: X but revenue wise, again, they've never broken it out.
Speaker 6: I was texting with a source over the weekend and
Speaker 6: he told me that, you know, it used to be
Speaker 6: that Brazil was around two percent of global revenue for them,
Speaker 6: So you know, those numbers obviously could could be adjusted
Speaker 6: slightly since Elon has taken over. But point being is
Speaker 6: that it's a small, very small market for them. From
Speaker 6: a business standpoint, It's it's possible that Elon is making
Speaker 6: a calculation here saying that, you know, taking this stand
Speaker 6: does not hurt them very much financially, but the you know,
Speaker 6: the benefits of being of looking or appearing to be
Speaker 6: the ultimate free speech guy on a global scale far
Speaker 6: outweigh what he's losing in actual Yes, And to.
Speaker 4: That point, it is my understanding that for not only
Speaker 4: the far right in Brazil and other places, but also
Speaker 4: in just some more mainstream conservative circles, this has become
Speaker 4: a bit of a cause celeb in Brazil. I get
Speaker 4: the sense that there are a lot of factions who
Speaker 4: feel like this is a bit of overreach by the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court there, and then in some ways they are
Speaker 4: perhaps exacerbating the problem. It feels to me, though, Max
Speaker 4: like at this point though each side Gimo Eyes, the
Speaker 4: judge and Elon Musk really just have their backs up
Speaker 4: and our and our loath to back down at this point.
Speaker 5: Right, what's sort of most extreme about this order.
Speaker 2: It's not the you know, ordering X to suspend certain accounts,
Speaker 2: which is, as we said, has happened in other countries
Speaker 2: and X has complied to argue whether that how significant
Speaker 2: the question of transparency really is. But this idea of
Speaker 2: putting a fine on on VPN users like that is
Speaker 2: a pretty.
Speaker 3: Nine thousand dollars a day, don't and I don't know.
Speaker 5: That it's enforceable.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of authoritarian countries have really struggled to
Speaker 2: including China, have really struggled to crack down on if
Speaker 2: you can't use But like.
Speaker 3: In Brazil, to be clear, is not an authoritarian country.
Speaker 2: I mean, Elon Musk is now saying this is you know,
Speaker 2: this is evidence, you know, but it is not. No,
Speaker 2: what I'm saying is there's a real question about whether
Speaker 2: this can be enforced even but regardless of so that,
Speaker 2: it's like threatening people with a fine, a significant fine
Speaker 2: for just for attempting to consume this content like that
Speaker 2: is pretty that's pretty out there, right, that's pretty far
Speaker 2: away from what most countries have done in these situations,
Speaker 2: most democratic countries have done in these situations.
Speaker 4: It is something that I learned as a young reporter
Speaker 4: in Brazil in the late nineteen nineties that the Brazilian
Speaker 4: Supreme Court likes to exercise its influence. It will not
Speaker 4: be cowed or bullied by anyone, and certainly not by
Speaker 4: Elon Musk. And to this point it actually almost seems
Speaker 4: to have gotten into a bit of a tit for
Speaker 4: tat sort of personal thing with him that from Afar
Speaker 4: seems a bit odd.
Speaker 3: Now Kurt tell us this.
Speaker 4: It seems that another key business of Mosques, SpaceX's starling unit,
Speaker 4: has gotten ensnared in this whole conflict.
Speaker 3: What's the situation there, Well, so, as part.
Speaker 6: Of the penalty that the judge is imposing on X
Speaker 6: includes some financial fines, financial penalties, and X is not
Speaker 6: paying those fines. But Starlink is in Brazil and prominent
Speaker 6: in Brazil and has bank accounts in Brazil, and so
Speaker 6: the judge instead is saying, well, Elon, you know, if
Speaker 6: your one company is not going to pay the fines
Speaker 6: that are owed, we will just get the money from
Speaker 6: your other company, So I believe they froze the bank
Speaker 6: accounts from Starlink in order to pay these fines. I
Speaker 6: think this is such an interesting element of this whole
Speaker 6: thing because we've talked at length on this pod of course,
Speaker 6: about sort of the constellation of Elon's companies, right, and
Speaker 6: the benefits at times of him pulling resources from Tesla
Speaker 6: to benefit others or vice versa. And here we're seeing
Speaker 6: the real negative of this, you know, Elon connection, because
Speaker 6: now he's being sort of threatened with one company by another.
Speaker 6: And this was a huge concern. You have to remember
Speaker 6: when Elon bought Twitter in late twenty twenty two, this
Speaker 6: is one of the biggest concerns was like, hey, you
Speaker 6: have all these other companies where governments could apply leverage
Speaker 6: on you, you know, in China and India and other places.
Speaker 6: Are you prepared to deal with the fact that like
Speaker 6: Tesla could be used as a bargaining chip to get
Speaker 6: to X and the speech related issues at X. And
Speaker 6: it's been talked about, but this is the first time
Speaker 6: I think we've really seen it actually play out in
Speaker 6: a negative way for Elon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is that's a really great point, Like this
Speaker 2: could be a Canarian coal mine situation where we could
Speaker 2: see other countries, probably not like the US, but but
Speaker 2: but other countries you know at tempt the same kind
Speaker 2: of thing. And you know, Elon Musk's SpaceX's response has
Speaker 2: been like, you can't. This is totally ridiculous. You're conflating,
Speaker 2: you know, Elon Musk with SpaceX. But it's a little
Speaker 2: hard to make that argument when you're when you're CEO
Speaker 2: goes around acting like they're one and the same.
Speaker 3: And because he not only.
Speaker 4: Not only is the CEO like he is also of
Speaker 4: Tesla and other companies, but in the case of both
Speaker 4: SpaceX and of X, he is also majority shareholders.
Speaker 3: He not does he not have a majority stake in SpaceX.
Speaker 2: I think he definitely is. He's majority control. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure that he has.
Speaker 4: But if you are the majority, you have majority control
Speaker 4: over company, which again would not be the case with Tesla.
Speaker 4: I mean you can almost sort of see it right
Speaker 4: the link. It's it's not crazy, Hey, you own this.
Speaker 4: You also own that they're all essentially, you know, units of.
Speaker 2: A big And again, when you have a guy who
Speaker 2: goes around saying all these rules are bs, you know,
Speaker 2: just like, let's just go.
Speaker 5: You know, I don't pay attention to the the.
Speaker 2: Ins and outs of securities laws like I think it's
Speaker 2: much easier for regulators say, come on, man, you are
Speaker 2: SpaceX like and anyone who's looking like, yeah you can.
Speaker 2: You can talk about the bylaws or whatever or the
Speaker 2: cap table. But everybody knows, including people who work at SpaceX,
Speaker 2: that Elon Musk controls SpaceX. He that these companies effectively
Speaker 2: operate like one conglomerate.
Speaker 5: So is it really surprising when.
Speaker 2: A judge and you know, in Brazil or anywhere else,
Speaker 2: treats them as such?
Speaker 3: Okay, Max.
Speaker 4: So Musk has been eching up a storm about US
Speaker 4: politics and election, the upcoming election in recent days, including
Speaker 4: by the way, saying that Kamala Harris supports the banning
Speaker 4: of X there in Brazil KEX by EKEX.
Speaker 2: What's it looked like flipping on X yesterday and seeing,
Speaker 2: I think, in particular, a post from Elon Musk saying
Speaker 2: that you know, Kamala Harris has promised to govern as
Speaker 2: a communist from day one, and then this kind of
Speaker 2: like AI generated picture of Kamala and a communist outfit
Speaker 2: that goes beyond just like a campaign ad where you're
Speaker 2: saying these policies are communists like or or some of
Speaker 2: the attacks you've seen from Trump and to something that
Speaker 2: more feels like what we would associate with, right, like
Speaker 2: disinformation type accounts like It's It. And the other thing
Speaker 2: he did yesterday that was also quite strange, I thought,
Speaker 2: is he kind of boosted an in cell adjacent post
Speaker 2: or a post that was arguing that the world would
Speaker 2: better off if only high status males were in charge.
Speaker 2: So again we're really it's really crossing into kind of
Speaker 2: you know, far right posting twenty four to seven.
Speaker 5: I think this is just the consequence of.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, you know, getting involved in the presidential race
Speaker 2: and is a he's effectively part of Donald Trump's campaign,
Speaker 2: and so he's posting that way at this point, although
Speaker 2: posting in his kind of idiosyncratic, extra provocative way.
Speaker 4: Now, Kurt, I suppose his argument is going to be that, well,
Speaker 4: everyone's going to know that my post of Kamala there
Speaker 4: is just a parody, I will say, having taken a
Speaker 4: very quick glance at the post. Yeah, it doesn't seem
Speaker 4: to be anything particularly real about it, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean that would be the argument humor. Right,
Speaker 6: He's used this sort of humor defense repeatedly since taking
Speaker 6: over that like, hey, as long as it's funny or
Speaker 6: it's intended to be funny, you know, it should be fine.
Speaker 6: I think more than anything, I think what this weekend
Speaker 6: has just reinforced for me is just the you know,
Speaker 6: the way in which he is no longer even pretending
Speaker 6: to keep his thumb off the scale of politics.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: You remember when he first took over Acts, it was
Speaker 6: very much like, hey, I'm I'm not gonna, you know,
Speaker 6: turn this into a political.
Speaker 1: The I'm just neutral, yeah, right exactly.
Speaker 6: And it's just like the we've come so so so
Speaker 6: far from that kind of initial takeover and initial pledge
Speaker 6: or promise or or at least framing.
Speaker 1: It's just striking right.
Speaker 2: Part of the problem here is with Musk's like philosophy
Speaker 2: of free speech, like this idea that the platforms shouldn't
Speaker 2: make any decisions, should be all up to the government,
Speaker 2: and platforms should just be like crazy free for alls
Speaker 2: and then and then let the government step in number one.
Speaker 2: It creates the standoffs right where like we're talking about
Speaker 2: in Brazil, but it also creates you know, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, like Elon Musk, the CEO of one of
Speaker 2: these major companies is acting like you know, any old poster.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like it it it it's just further
Speaker 2: eroding trusted and it's almost like daring governments to step
Speaker 2: in and try to make rules.
Speaker 5: And and so I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I think there are critiques from
Speaker 2: both the left and the right over how like Facebook
Speaker 2: managed misinformation and disinformation, But you know, it doesn't it's
Speaker 2: not clear to me that this is like an improvement,
Speaker 2: you know, in any metric.
Speaker 6: To Max's point, whatever's legally allowed as fair game. If
Speaker 6: it's not legal, you know, we're going to take it down.
Speaker 6: That's not exactly how he does it anyway. Right like this,
Speaker 6: he when he wants something removed, the account that's following
Speaker 6: his private plane, if he wants to take what is it?
Speaker 1: The word cis.
Speaker 6: Right is now like considered a slur in the US
Speaker 6: if you're if you're on.
Speaker 1: X or something like that.
Speaker 6: I mean, the point being is that he's very much like, Hey,
Speaker 6: anything goes as long as it's legal, and with a
Speaker 6: major caveat being that also if I'm okay with that
Speaker 6: thing being on X because if not personally, I will
Speaker 6: make a change as well. And I think that's the
Speaker 6: big issue is he's not truly free speech absolutist within
Speaker 6: the law. He says that, but then he makes his
Speaker 6: own decisions when they suit him, and I think that's
Speaker 6: where people get frustrated.
Speaker 3: He puts his own spin on it.
Speaker 4: He also, max, I believe, continues to ex about his
Speaker 4: potential future role in a Donald Trump administration.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean he's.
Speaker 2: Disputed a lot of the reporting, you know, including reporting
Speaker 2: it's based on the actual filings and so on. But
Speaker 2: in terms of his support of Donald Trump and kind
Speaker 2: of attempted to play it down in various ways. But
Speaker 2: this is one thing he's genuinely seems excited about. He's
Speaker 2: he's ready to serve if called upon. It's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know what the opposite of a sherman esque denial is,
Speaker 2: but that's what it is. He's basically raised his hand
Speaker 2: and said I want to be the you know, efficiency czar,
Speaker 2: which you know, given Elon Musk has some pretty out
Speaker 2: there views on the government, you know, it's hard to
Speaker 2: imagine any of this actually coming to pass. Like, I
Speaker 2: don't think that Elon Musk will be giving broad leeway
Speaker 2: to like ru you know, closed federal agencies, but he
Speaker 2: definitely has that appetite.
Speaker 4: All right, we're gonna move on to the launch of
Speaker 4: the beta version of x TV for Android.
Speaker 3: Man, I've been waiting.
Speaker 5: For this, man, you know, I'm sure feels the same way.
Speaker 1: But like, I'm gonna pivot.
Speaker 4: Remind me of what exactly x TV is. This is
Speaker 4: where we go to watch porn.
Speaker 2: Yes, now you can watch porn on your on the
Speaker 2: big screen at home. It is essentially the idea of
Speaker 2: video being a big thing on x and that what
Speaker 2: Elon Musk has wanted pretty much since he got to
Speaker 2: the company was to have some sort of app on
Speaker 2: your TV to make it easier to stream these shows
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson or Elon Musk interviewing Trump or or whatever else.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a weird and confused set of ideas
Speaker 2: that feels like at once kind of caught up in
Speaker 2: the past, like, hey, it's not real unless it's on
Speaker 2: the big screen in your living room and also sort
Speaker 2: of out of touch with like the realities of how
Speaker 2: videos consumed. But anyway, Yeah, there's a on Android TV
Speaker 2: which is like one of the platform, one of the
Speaker 2: operating systems for TVs. It has modest market share. I
Speaker 2: saw figures around six percent market share, so not a
Speaker 2: huge amount. But you can download, you can get this
Speaker 2: x TV app and you know, watch that Tucker, that
Speaker 2: great hard hitting Tucker interview or whatever else you know,
Speaker 2: in the comfort of your home on the big screen.
Speaker 3: Kurt expectations from you for XTV.
Speaker 6: I think it's a huge waste of time and resources
Speaker 6: for the company, to be honest with you, I mean,
Speaker 6: I think Max sort of flicked at it right, like
Speaker 6: this isn't what. I don't know anybody who's clamoring to
Speaker 6: bring the x videos they see scrolling through their phone
Speaker 6: and blast them onto the sixty inch TV in their
Speaker 6: living room.
Speaker 1: So I just think, like, well, can.
Speaker 4: I just say for one second, car hold on, let
Speaker 4: me just say everyone age as.
Speaker 3: I as being the old man in the room here,
Speaker 3: as I will have to say, as I watch my.
Speaker 4: Daughter or my nephews and nieces and they watch everything,
Speaker 4: games and everything just on their phones, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: as the I'm like it is slightly unsatisfying to me,
Speaker 4: Like I need I need a big come on, give
Speaker 4: me a big screen or something. So I'm all over
Speaker 4: X David.
Speaker 1: This is what I was going to say.
Speaker 6: This would make sense if there was a huge library
Speaker 6: of high quality videos that were worthy of being on
Speaker 6: your TV. Right, Like, let's pretend this whole Don Lemon,
Speaker 6: Tucker Carlson, WWE whatever, the big push into premium video
Speaker 6: that they announced earlier this year. Like, let's pretend that
Speaker 6: worked and they had thirty different shows.
Speaker 1: Okay, Like, sure.
Speaker 6: You want to watch your Tucker Carlson show on the
Speaker 6: big TV, Like, David, you go for that and you can.
Speaker 3: Keep that popcorn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like two shows. There's like two shows.
Speaker 6: So I'm just saying my When I said it, I
Speaker 6: thought it was a waste of time and resources. It's
Speaker 6: because they don't have the content that really merits going
Speaker 6: on a live TV to to spend the time on this,
Speaker 6: in my opinion, and.
Speaker 4: They will not be acquiring content elsewhere, Like they can't
Speaker 4: flick Style.
Speaker 6: They'd like to, but it's it's easy to want to
Speaker 6: do that stuff. I mean, this stuff is incredibly expensive.
Speaker 6: This is not a company that has a lot of
Speaker 6: extra cash. It's competitive, right like Amazon, Fit, Amazon, Apple,
Speaker 6: all these other companies they want the high quality stuff too.
Speaker 1: They're not just gonna let X have it.
Speaker 6: So I just think it's you know, I don't know
Speaker 6: in the universe of things they could do.
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's a good space.
Speaker 3: You got me Card, you convinced me. You convinced me. Max.
Speaker 3: We never sort of brought it up.
Speaker 5: You and David you put it.
Speaker 3: You you brought made a good.
Speaker 2: Point, which is like with the porn joke, which is
Speaker 2: that if anyone has like tried to like search, like
Speaker 2: look at X, like at A on a workplace computer,
Speaker 2: you are aware of the dangers of looking at X
Speaker 2: on a large screen.
Speaker 5: Like It's just it is.
Speaker 2: It is not associated with the kind of content that
Speaker 2: Kurt is talking about. So you're you're not just talking
Speaker 2: about like the technical challenge of like building apps for
Speaker 2: all these platforms Set top Box. That market is really
Speaker 2: really fractured. They're all these players. You're gonna have to
Speaker 2: build all these different apps, you have to work on
Speaker 2: all these different business deals, and you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: change the fact that most people don't see X the
Speaker 2: way that Elon Musk wants us to see it.
Speaker 3: There we are, We're gonna we're gonna end this episode.
Speaker 5: Uh, I don't gonna pitch pitch my show here?
Speaker 3: Well what is your show?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 2: So I well, I was just trying to think about
Speaker 2: what content that might work. Kurt's talking about, you know
Speaker 2: the fact that we don't have Tullsia's you know that
Speaker 2: we you know, the cut in offerings right now are limited,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to think, like, okay, what what is realistic?
Speaker 2: Because Elon Musk doesn't have zasloft dollars. He's not going
Speaker 2: to spend huge amounts of money to buy content. He's
Speaker 2: not gonna he's not gonna pay Oprah zillion dollars. But
Speaker 2: and the you have the brand problem. So what works
Speaker 2: in next is Elon Musk? Right, we all agree like
Speaker 2: Elon Musk content so basically keeping up with the Kardashians.
Speaker 2: But Elon Musk's various complicated family arrangements like just call
Speaker 2: it like repopulating the earth or something, and you know,
Speaker 2: just just like go full reality. He already kind of
Speaker 2: wants to be a kardash and let's like let's do it.
Speaker 2: I think it'd be a huge hit.
Speaker 3: It actually would be a huge hit.
Speaker 1: It will be Yeah, that's as crazy as that would be.
Speaker 4: If if any if Linda Yakarino or anyone else from
Speaker 4: Max is listening, Max Schinda, call me exactly all right,
Speaker 4: and so you don't like my cage match? I didn't
Speaker 4: you would do? You would start with the cage match?
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, no, actually scraped that. You would need
Speaker 4: to build to the cage match Musk versus Zucker, but
Speaker 4: you'd build slowly building.
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought, honestly to be you know, maybe it's
Speaker 2: just like labor day brain I was. I hadn't considered
Speaker 2: the cage match. But that is also a really good idea.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, that would put that would put
Speaker 6: this app on a must download list for me if
Speaker 6: we were getting to watch elon Zuck.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, let me paint a
Speaker 1: picture for you, David, just real quick.
Speaker 6: Max Scott his show we've you know, lightheartedly mocked my
Speaker 6: high school football career, But imagine kicking back on the
Speaker 6: couch of the bowl of popcorn and pulling those highlights
Speaker 6: up and watching those on the big screen. I don't know,
Speaker 6: I mean, it's hard for me to picture a better
Speaker 6: way to spend a holiday weekend.
Speaker 3: Whoa, whoa, my understanding.
Speaker 5: Nothing high school football clips.
Speaker 3: He was eighteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, Yeah seventeen, thought all yeah.
Speaker 4: No, Kurt, we're gonna, we're gonna Max and I are
Speaker 4: gonna consider that one. We're gonna get back to you,
Speaker 4: never on it. Thank you for pitching, Max, Kurt, thanks
Speaker 4: for joining.
Speaker 5: Great to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: This episode was produced by Stacy Wong. Naomi Shaven and
Speaker 4: Rayhan Harmanci are senior editors. The idea for this very
Speaker 4: show also came from Rayhan. Blake Maples handles engineering, and
Speaker 4: we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott, our supervising
Speaker 4: producers Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 3: The Elon Inc. Theme is written and performed.
Speaker 4: By Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiira. Brendan Francis Newnham is
Speaker 4: our executive producer in Sage Bauman is the head of
Speaker 4: Bloomberg Podcasts. A big thanks as always to our supporter
Speaker 4: Joel Weber. I'm David Papadopolis. If you have a minute,
Speaker 4: rate and review our show, it'll help other listeners find us.
Speaker 3: See you next week.