November 14, 2025 • 52 mins
Christmas has come early for Bridget, because Joyce Carol Oates is beefing with Elon Musk on Twitter. Bridget explains to Producer Mike what it's about, why Joyce Carol Oates is one of her all-time problematic faves, and why Elon is now performatively demonstrating his commitment to literacy with insightful takes like "great movie" and ads declaring that he likes to read.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this
is there are No Girls on the Internet. Christmas has
come early for me because Joyce Carol Oates. Yes that
Joyce Carol Oa is beefing with Elon Musk on Twitter. Mike,
(00:27):
I have a real thing with Joyce Carol Oates. Did
you know this about me?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I didn't actually merry Christmas? And what's up with your
saying with Joyce Carol Oates? How do you know her?
Why do you like her?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes? Mary, Happy Joyce Carol Oates beefing with Elon Musk
on Twitter to all that celebrate. So yeah, I took
a survey of Joyce Carol Oates's fiction when I was
in grad school. I also, independently from that, have followed
her pretty closely on social media for some time. So
her beefing with Elon Musk, it feels like this is
(01:00):
truly my time to shine. So let's back up a
little bit because we did a whole episode about another
one of my favorite Elon Musk beefs, Elon Musk's beef
with rapper Azalea Banks. That was probably my favorite celebrity
feud up until this point, other than perhaps the rapper
Iced Tea and Amy Mann, the folk singer. They had
(01:21):
a little bit of a Twitter beef that I love,
but I think the Elon Musk of it all kind
of illustrates what happens when somebody like Elon Musk comes
up against somebody that he is just inarguably outmatched by.
The Azalea Banks thing was a perfect example of what
I mean. Elon Musk is an unreliable narrator. Azalea Banks
(01:41):
is somebody who will literally say anything about anyone or anything.
Elon Musk thinks he's funny, loves to make it seem
like everybody thinks he's so funny. Haha. Azalia Banks, even
though she is who she is, she is actually funny
and can actually destroy somebody with words and can come
up with an insight like nobody's business, like she really is.
(02:03):
She's she's a lyricist at the end of the day.
So you know, Mike, you know me. You know that
I am not somebody who is prone to taking a
victory lap when I say something that's proven to be
one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Whatever you say, Boss, we're recording.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I can see your face as we're recording, and when
I was saying that, I got the sense that maybe
you didn't totally agree. But let's just say that's the
case for now.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Sure we can say that for the case of argument.
I mean it's uh, I guess yeah, we can say that.
You don't often like to take a victory let but
it has happened.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Oh I'll take it every now and then. And I'm
taking one right now because over a year ago, we
were doing an episode about a good read scandal in
the literary world, and in that episode, I said, this,
Joyce Carol o two, I have to say, is kind
of my like forever problematic shave. She's like the Avail
(03:00):
Banks of the book industry. Like nine times out of
ten she's super wrong, but when she is right, she
is so right. That's how I would describe her. I
cannot quit Joyce Carol Oates. She is my forever problematic fab.
I simply cannot believe how prescient that turned out to be.
Now that Joyce Carol Oates is also beefing with Elon
(03:21):
Musk on Twitter, just like Azalia Banks was.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It is a little uncanny. I mean, did you call
it or did you conjure this? Did you manifest this beef?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I willed this beef into existence. So as I said
that in that quote, I am like an og follower
of Joyce Carol Oates. Everybody's talking about Joyce Carol Oats
on social media now, but it's like that Bane quote,
you merely adopted Joyce Carol Oates's Twitter presence. I was
born in it, molded by it. Right. I have been
following this woman on Twitter for a very long time.
(03:54):
People might not realize how prolific of a Twitter history
Joyce Carol Oates actually has. She's been saying wild shit
on Twitter four years. Again, not unlike Azalea Banks, Joyce
Carol Oates is actually one of my favorite people to
follow on Twitter. Even though yes, she is very problematic.
I will get to that in a moment. She's also
kind of irreverent personality on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So I have to admit that I am not familiar
with her body of work on Twitter. How important is
it for me to understand what she's like on Twitter,
what she talks about there, to really appreciate this thing
that she's got going on with Elon It.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Is so important. It is key to understanding what's going
on here. So let's talk a bit about how Joyce
Carol Oates show has showed up on Twitter. She joined
Twitter back in twenty twelve at the urging of her
book publisher, and has been a prolific tweeter since then.
Some things that folks might have missed if they were
not following her as closely on Twitter as I was.
She went super viral in twenty twenty for posting a
(04:53):
picture of her foot covered in poison ivy that went viral.
She also hilariously replied to a picture of the director
Steven Spielberg posing next to a dead dinosaur from the
film Jurassic Park. She tweeted that picture and wrote so
barbaric that this should still be allowed, no conservation laws
and effect wherever this is. I loved this. There was
(05:15):
a whole flurry of questions about whether or not she
was kidding. Joanna Rothkopp over at Salon broke it down,
saying there are only three possibilities. One Oates was making
a joke five percent chance. Two Oates didn't click on
the photo and thought it was a picture of a
slaughtered elephant. Eighty percent chance or three. Oates thinks that
tricera top was murdered fifteen percent chance.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
That is delightful.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I honestly hope it's the last one. I hope that.
Oates was like, we have to save our triceratopsis.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I'm just glad that this somebody is finally speaking up
for the triceratopsins. There are so few of them left.
We need to stop this senseless triceratops murder.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You and Joyce Carol Oates are on the same page
about that one. She also made headlines pretty recently for
tweeting about how she thinks that Trump faked getting shot
in Butler, Pennsylvania. So she's really like got her finger
on the pull sometimes. Interestingly enough, when asked about it
in an interview, she said that showing up on Twitter,
she doesn't even do it to get more readers. When
asked about whether she was trying to reach new audiences
(06:17):
with potential readers on social media, she bluntly said, I
don't think of this at all.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Wow, So like what is she what she doing it for?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Then she's doing it for the love of the game, baby,
Like you gotta respect that. So the main comparison that
I see between Azalea Banks and Joyce Carol Oates is
that they are both women whose work and artistry I
have enjoyed. But there are also people who say things
that I deeply disagree with the majority of the time. However,
they are the kind of people who when they're right,
(06:47):
they're right like a broken clock. When they stumble upon
a truth, they really hit that truth and they do
not miss. And I had no idea how prescient that
comparison would become, because now a year after I made it,
Joyce Carol Oates is following in Azalea basis footsteps in
this beef with Elon Musk, and you know what, I
(07:08):
am here for it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah. But you know a lot of people have gotten
into Twitter spats with Elon Musk lately, or ex spats
or whatever we want to call them. What is it
about Joyce Carol Oates that like really pulls you in,
even though in your words you disagree with what she
says the majority of the time.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Oh, she is my problematic save as I said, Uh,
First of all, Joyce Carol Oates, like Azelia Banks, can
write her ass off. I read her short story which
I would say. It's probably one of her more famous works,
Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? When I
was young and it really made an impression on me.
It's this kind of slow burned gothic horror. It's I
(07:53):
recommend it for anybody who likes kind of creepy short stories.
And so as we'll get to in a moment. Elon
Musk keeps sort of insulting Joyce Carol Oates. But Joyce
Carol Oates is like the Michael Jordan of literature. Like
you cannot insult her, you cannot like like the numbers
are there, the stats are there. She wrote her first
book in nineteen sixty three, when she was twenty six,
and since then she's written almost sixty novels. She does novels, novella's, plays,
(08:17):
you name it. She's also kind of known for the
sheer amount of writing that she does. She talks about
this a lot. How from eight am to one pm
every day she writes in she hand writes in cursive
every day, then again for two or three hours in
the evening. Like I can't express to you how much
Homegirl has a storied literary career. I'll put it to
(08:38):
you like this From nineteen ninety two to twenty fourteen,
Joyce Carol Oates published four books, and all four of
them were nominated for the Pulitzer. Like, this is a
woman who is about that written word.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
It's funny she It kind of sounds similar to Stephen King,
like another very prolific writer who is partly known for
just the sheer volume of stuff that he writes, and
also is used to be on Twitter a lot. But
I don't think he ever won a Pulitzer.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I love Stephen King as well. Can I tell you
a non sequard or fun fact about Stephen King that
blows my mind? Sure?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I would love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Stephen King was once so obsessed with Lou Bega's Mambo
Number five that his wife threatened to divorce him over it.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, I'm like running ba as a timeline in my mind.
I'm wondering if that was before or after he got sober?
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh what do you think?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, mom will number five it's still out there in culture,
tearing couples apart. Okay, so, but she's not Stephen King.
We're back to Joyce Carol Oates. She's written a ton,
sounds like she is very celebrated as a writer, So
what makes her problematic.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Let's just say that she doesn't always have great opinions
about everything, especially when it comes to topics like race.
And I wanted to mention this because I see a
lot of people sort of celebrating her. And to be clear,
I absolutely think that she should be celebrated for her
writing in the way that her command over the written word.
But I do think it's important to mention this because
she is a human and she's an almost ninety year
(10:12):
old woman, so's it should be kind of unsurprising that
not every take is a banger. Much like Azalia Banks,
you know, she's someone who is often wrong. She's often
tweeting things that are just flat out incorrect and not accurate,
but again broken clock. When she's right, she's right. In
that episode that I played a little bit from where
we first mentioned her, we were talking about the racial
(10:36):
climate in the literary world and this false attitude that
people of color are the sort of golden child of
publishing right now. In that episode, we talked about how
the thriller novelist James Patterson said that basically white men
cannot get writing jobs right now and Joyce Carol Oates
actually backed him up. She said, a friend who was
a literary agent told me that he cannot even get
(10:56):
editors to read first novels by young, white male writer,
no matter how good. They are, just not interested. This
is heartbreaking for writers who may in fact be brilliant
and critical of their own quote privilege. In an episode,
we talked about how just the facts and the stats
don't back up what she's saying. Publishing is still overwhelmingly
white and male. But I also wanted to include that because, like,
(11:19):
isn't that just the way it goes? Sometimes? Like Joyce
Carol Oates gets it so right when she is calling
out narcissistic men like Elon Musk or Donald Trump, who
she calls out a lot on Twitter. But I wouldn't
count on her for nuanced, thoughtful analysis of things like
race all the time, right, So I want to acknowledge that.
But also, the woman has a way with words, like
(11:41):
when she gets it right, she gets it so right.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
So this whole thing with Elon Musk, let's get into it.
How did that get started?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Well, it starts with Joyce Carol Oates. Joyce Carol Oates
in on X On November ninth, she tweeted quote, so
curious that such a wealthy man never pos anything that
indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what
virtually everyone appreciates scenes from nature, pet dog or cat,
(12:10):
praise for a movie, music, a book, parentheses, But doubt
he reads pride and of friends or relatives, accomplishment condolences
for someone who has died, pleasure in sports, acclaim for
a favorite team, references to history. In fact, he seems
totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have
(12:30):
access to more beauty and meaning in life than the
most wealthy person in the world. Now, come on, that
is some cold spot on shit to say about somebody.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, and she's really wielding punctuation in their like fucking
daggers and weapons. Yes, she's got a parenthetical, she's got
some stuffed quotes, she's got just devastating list item after
list items separated by semi colon.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Wow, it's like a goddamn ee commings poem as but
it also an insult. And I also think why it
works is because it's it leads with curiosity and also pity.
It's not a mean tweet. It's a true tweet. And
that's even worse.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah, I mean it's like a little mean like it's
it is curious, what is curious about this shell of
a person who is like so othered and lessered. But
it is phrased as as curiosity. It is a devastating
(13:41):
couple of words.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
This is basically Kenja Klamar saying Drake is not like us.
Like we take pleasure and sports, film, books, family, friends, nature,
even children understand and talk about and partake in these
simple pleasures that seemingly just accompany what it means to
be a full human. We talk about things that fill
us up. Elon Musk does seem like weirdly devoid of
(14:03):
these things. Even Donald Trump talks about how much he
likes Pavaratti.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
He loves Pavarotti.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
He loves Pavarotti. He really loves Pavarotti.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That's true. Yeah, it's like she's accusing Musk of being
something less than human, like a singular person who has
failed to appreciate the things that make all of the
rest of us human.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yes, and imagine being that kind of person against a
reality where you're also the world's wealthiest person. You have
access to every pleasure in the world at your fingertips,
and you're still so miserable. And I think that she's
absolutely right. You know, if what Musk spends his time
talking about and tweeting and amplifying on social media is
any indication, Joyce carolos is right. He is a supremely
(14:51):
joyless person because when you go to social media feeds,
it's all grievances and point scoring and dick swinging. He
treats his own daughter, Vivi, and who, by the way,
Joyce Carol Oates said, seems like a very nice girl,
very cruelly. His ex partners have all been very vocal
about his cruelness towards them. He does not seem like
a happy, full person. And I think that is the
(15:13):
thing that eviscerates Trump here. I always but if you
hear me say Trump, because in my mind they're the
same guy.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
No, they are a little bit different. Though. Trump likes Pavaratti.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Trump likes Pavaratti. Uh, let's see, I don't think Trump reads. Uh,
but yeah, Trump likes Pavaratti.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
You know, having done a fair bit of reading about Musk.
I don't even think that Elon Musk would disagree that
he is a supremely lonely person. He has said that explicitly.
He is described in interviews and to biographers the feelings
that he used to have as a child, kind of
staying up all night alone, and how even as an
(16:11):
adult now he hates the feeling of being in battalone.
He hates not having somebody to share a bed with
as an adult. Case in point, what do you think
that Elon Musk was doing the day before Joyce Carol
Oates tweeted all of this?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Any guesses maybe he was penning an apology to his
daughter and servying the landscape of philanthropies or charities that
could really use some support in these difficult economic times,
so that he could boost his fellow man and make
(16:44):
amends with those that he has harmed. Maybe that's what
he was doing.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Absolutely not. At four point thirty in the morning Musk time,
Elon Musk was up using groc to generate an AI
video of a beautiful woman making eye contact with him
and saying, oh, I will always love you. That's right.
He was using AI to make a lady say that
she will always love Elon like, I'm sorry, this is
(17:09):
some grim shit, even for Elon Musk. I actually debated
whether or not to put this in the episode because
I was like, this is just very sad, and I
almost feel sad bringing it up that when the day
before he was called out for being this miserable, joyless fuck.
He was up at four point thirty in the morning
using AI to imagine a woman saying I love you
(17:29):
because he doesn't have it in real life. That is
I'm sorry, that is very grim.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
It is very grim. But like, we only know that
he did that because he tweeted it. He wanted the
world to know that this simulated woman loves him.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You're absolutely right, he doesn't see how sad and pathetic
that makes him look, which is a whole other set
of questions I have about how he shows up. But also,
Joyce Carol Oates just really has his number as to
why he is the way that he is, and so
her post about him just like struck through the noise
and hit a nerve and went viral very quickly. As
(18:07):
of me writing this, it had five million views. So
I note, Joyce Carol Oates is verified with the blue
check mark. So I wonder if she's gonna get a
payout from X for generating engagement on the platform.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
What do you think, Oh, that's a good question. I mean,
I wouldn't count on it. I wouldn't count on it.
We know he doesn't like to pay in general. I
don't think she's going to get a check for this one.
But you know, maybe he liked it. I don't know
how did he respond on X after she posted this.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Not well, but it was in that classic Elon Musk
way where it's you know that meme. Don't print in
the newspaper that I got mad because I'm not mad.
I've not met. He called her tweet quote demonstrably false,
saying everything she's des inn or post about me can
be shown to be demonstrably false with a simple search.
(19:04):
He calls her lazy and a liar and an abuser
of Semi Collins, and goes on to say Oates is
a liar who delights in being mean, not a good human,
And then he has eating a bag of sawdust would
be vastly more enjoyable than reading the laboriously pretentious drivel
of Oats. I will say this. The Pulitzer Prize people
(19:25):
disagree on that one, so I don't know. I might
let them be the judge. Also, him saying that Joyce
Carol Oates's work is pretentious is a tell to me
that he has not read any of Joyce Carol Oates's work.
Because you could say a lot of things about Joyce
Carol Oates's writing style, no one would ever call it pretentious.
Her writing stylist would have meant to be very accessible
(19:47):
and tends to be pretty realistic for the most part. Like,
if you were trying to criticize Joyce Carol Oates's writing style,
you might say, if anything, you might say it's too mundane.
You would not say it's too pretentious. Anybody who says
that has not meant to any time reading Joyce Carol Oas.
You can not conduct me he's actually read any one
of her novels or short stories.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
No, I mean that's not shocking. He doesn't seem like
a big reader in general. He's probably not reading a
woman author for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yes, So where I come from, we have that phrase
A hit dog will holler you.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Do you know that phrase, Mike, I've heard it. I
don't approve of animal violence, but like I've heard it.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Unless it's a Trice seratops.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, kill them all like God stored out those dinos.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So Joyce Carol Oates basically said, a girl a hit
dog will holler. She's like, you know, it's funny. I
never said explicitly that I was talking about Elon Musk.
So she did quote tweet a tweet that was like
referencing him, But she is read that she never spelled
out that she was talking about Elon Musk. So funny
that he would have such a big reaction, because yeah,
(20:49):
hit dogs do holler. Joyce Carol Oates just really seems
to have Elon Musk's number. Here's what she said in
speculating about the wealthiest man in the world. I did
not actually stake any name. I was thinking of the emblematic,
the type of being that great wealth can make possible.
But such wealth must seem unreal or ironic. It is
(21:11):
impressive that Elon Musk allows critical commentary of himself on
X that is not usually a magnanimy of spirit commiserate
with the extreme type of non empathetic person. So basically
she's saying, well, I never said Elon Musk by name,
but it's I guess it's nice that he allows criticism
of himself on his platform, I should say. After she
(21:31):
pointed this out, lots of people jumped in to say, no,
Elon Musk actually does punish people who are critical of
him on X. There are critical complaints that he shadow
bands people who post things that are critical of him.
In a piece in The New York Times called they
criticized Musk on X, then their reach collapsed. Musk told
The New York Times that he might have kicked off
(21:52):
some critical users out of x's premium program, which boost
the visibility of paying subscribers. Doing so what effectively curtailed
their reach and prevent them from making any money on X.
We also already know that he has absolutely no problem
using X to publicly attack just regular people who are
critical of him on the platform. And I mean, this
just absolutely tracks what you know about Elon Musk. He
(22:15):
punishes people who are critical of him. He has no
problem amplifying the names of real just regular people who
talk about him, and those people get dog piled and
attacked and threatened. That is definitely his IMO. When this
was pointed out, Joyce Carol Oates said, now some observers
are commenting that X rated Twitter is actually censored to
a degree. My perspective is obviously limited for years half
(22:38):
hoping that my account would just vanish, and the time
spent drifting about the shoals of Twitter like frothy flotsam
might be freed for better use. Even that is poetic.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
But the woman can write, yes, that's some great pros. Absolutely. Yeah,
before this episode, you and I were talking a little
bit about how I was surprised that this was even
able to take off on Twitter because or excuse me,
on X because of his history of censoring his critics.
But you pointed out that her initial tweet did not
(23:10):
use his name, and I really have to wonder if
that was part of what allowed it to gain traction before,
and is you know some kind of like censorious intervention
could be put into effect.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I absolutely believe that had she used Elon Musk's name explicitly,
we would not even be making this episode. I believe that.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, I totally do too, But she didn't, either through
luck or design. And so here she is just lobbing
high level pros at him as like devastating insults. So
what else is she saying? About him.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
So there was this banger about how Musk has lived
a bunch of different places South Africa, Canada, and now
the United States. Wherever he goes he wants to leave.
That's because when he gets there, he has his own
self along and whatever club he's invited to join has
been devalued by the invitation. Eh.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Eh, demastating, devastating.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean that one is is like on like a
philosophical level, like a like he does all this traveling
because he's trying to escape himself and he cannot. So
everywhere he goes he has he has brought himself there
and so that experience is automatically devalued because he is
there because he is him.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Oh, she's really casting his life as like a Greek tragedy.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
But it is like, like, she's not wrong in pointing
this out that if money is commiserate with happiness, he
should be happy, he should be full, he should be nourished.
How does he spend his time up at four point
thirty in the morning using AI to invent women to
say I love you? Right? Like, she's not wrong. This
is something out of a Greek tragedy which elon Musk
(24:57):
wouldn't even fucking know because he's not gonna read it.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah yeah, And other than the companies that he owns,
I'm kind of struggling to think of any sort of
group or association or community that he is part of.
I'm really coming up with nothing now.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So along those lines, she makes another really great point
about Elon Musk after her initial tweet. Truly, it was
out of curiosity why a person with unlimited resources exhibit
so little appreciation or even awareness of the things that
most people value as giving meeting to life. Just minimally
well to do people donate to charities, local museums and
libraries and alike. They support the commonwealth, and unlike the
(25:39):
very wealthy, these people pay high income taxes, because he
won't pay a lot of taxes. Now, this is something
that I have often wondered about too. People truly need
to understand how wealthy Elon Musk is. When folks say
things like, oh, there's no ethical billionaires, the reason why
they say that is because if you have a billion dollars,
you could meaningfully use your money to solve so many
(26:01):
of the world's most pressing and threatening issues that we
face as a as a people without ever really feeling
any kind of meaningful personal financial loss. So the fact
that that you do have a billion dollars and you're
not doing that, it kind of means you're an asshole.
And Elon Musk has five hundred billion dollars. Compare that
to somebody like Mackenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos's ex wife, who
(26:23):
has been steady given away nineteen billion of her thirty
five billion dollar net worth to HBCUs, shout out to
my mom's alma mater, Virginia State University, who she gave
money to recently, and cultural and advocacy organizations like the
African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, And according to Fortune,
she still has barely made a dent in her overall
(26:44):
network because of her Amazon shares. So for as much
money as she's given away, and she's given away nineteen
billion dollars of it already, it's basically a drop in
the bucket because she has so much money left. If
you're going to a billionaire, that's how you billionaire. You
foster culture, education and do what you can to use
some of that massive, massive, probably unethical wealth to make
(27:08):
the world betters for others, because you have already made
it yourself. You have won it, capitalism, You're done. Sledge
John's on Twitter put it really well. You can tell
Elon doesn't read or have any sense of his place
in history. If he did, he'd be competing with Carnegie, Rockefeller,
and Vanderbilt to slap his name on music halls, universities,
and libraries, among other public goods. But he doesn't.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
It's a good point. Yeah, he doesn't do that. And
those guys like Carnegie Rockefeller, these are not heroes of
the working class.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, I mean, Rockefeller was commissioning the muralist Diego Rivera
to paint a mural and Rockefeller Center. Now he did
end up canceling this mural because it included a portrait
of Lenin, so it didn't you know, He's still like
Rockefeller got a Rockefeller. But they he was using money
to contribute to the cultural conversation, like even the Sacklers,
(28:05):
you know, the people who gave us the opioid epidemic
to enrich themselves. These people are ghoules who should be
in prison, even they are propping up the art world
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, everything Elon does is just to enhance his own glory,
I mean exit at this point is just like a
pr hype machine for him personally, grockism machine to repeat
his worldview, where they've censored the output and readjusted it.
(28:36):
It's training to make sure that it is more right
wing and also producing the sorts of women that Elon
likes to see tell him that they love him. It's
not really these things are not benefiting society at large.
They're benefiting him as a person who owns them.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It's absolutely true. Where a lot of wealthy people, even horrible, despicable,
ghoulish wealthy people, still donate to cultural preservation. Elon Musk
his charitable spending mostly just goes back to you guess
did himself. When I was thinking about this episode, I
thought to myself, maybe it's possible that Elon Musk is
(29:16):
funding a lot of charitable causes and we just don't
hear much about them, right, Maybe he's doing this in secret,
doesn't want the acclaim. So I looked into it, and
it turns out that Elon Musk does donate via the
Musk Foundation, but per The New York Times, much of
the foundation's donations have gone to organizations linked back to Musk.
Himself or his businesses, and that the foundation has for
(29:37):
several years fallen short of the minimum required to give
away annually, potentially incurring tax penalties. So yeah, sorry, Joyce,
Carol Oates is right again. And I don't know, it's
just so obvious that Elon Musk clearly wants to be
loved by people. He wants people to think that he
is cool and funny and like in the culture, with
(29:59):
the culture. And I would think, you know, he probably
is somebody who could buy his way into being like
if he gave his money away to good causes, but
he doesn't. We were talking about this off Mike, that
you know, that story about how he tried to get
into that very exclusive, very famous nightclub in Berlin, Bernheim.
I always have to add this. I bring it up
(30:21):
just to have the ability to say that when we
were in Berlin, Mike, we didn't have any trouble getting
into Bernheim.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
No, we got right in. We waited in line. That
same bouncer who allegedly told Elon to take a hike
just let us right in, no problem.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
You know, my claim to fame is that everybody told us, oh,
you have to wear all black to get in there.
If you're not wearing all black, they won't let you in.
And I got in wearing a head to toe Crimson
and just sales right in. That is my favorite claim
to fame. I also love how Elon Musk spun not
getting in. He says, Oh, well, the reason why I
didn't get in is because I looked in and they
had a sign inside that said and I didn't like that.
(31:02):
And I told the bouncer that I hated that, and
we had a disagreement, and that's why I didn't even
want to go in. Yeah, right, buddy, Yeah, you stood
in line for an hour at a nightclub that you
didn't want to get into because when you got to
the front of the line, you saw that they had
a sign hanging inside that said peace. Sure. And I
feel like if he truly wanted to become the kind
of people that welcome him in at their nightclub, he could.
(31:25):
He could just do good things that people like. He
has the money, he has the resources to do so
many good things, and honestly, people like me, his biggest
critics would probably sort of begrudgingly like him if he
was actually using money to do good things for people
and culture. And not just enrich himself. But he doesn't. Instead,
(31:46):
it's like he does the opposite. For instance, in twenty twenty,
the UN told Elon must if they needed six billion
dollars to help forty two million people that they said
were literally going to die if they did not get help.
Elon said that he would give a UN World Food
Program the money if they could quote describe on this
Twitter thread exactly how the six billion would solve world hunger.
(32:08):
I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.
He followed it with the condition it must be open
source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money
is spent, and the UN World Food Program did exactly that.
Yahoo Finance reports that on November fifteenth, twenty twenty one,
the UN's World Food Program did that. They published a
spending plan showing how the six point six billion dollars
(32:30):
would be used to provide food assistance to forty two
million people in forty three countries. The plan included three
point five billion for food procurement and deliverate, two billion
for cash and food voucher, seven hundred million to develop
country specific programs, and four hundred million dollars for Administration,
Oversight and Logistics. The head of the World Food Program
tweeted the link directly to Musk, adding you asked for
a clear plan and open books here it is now.
(32:53):
Despite this clear detailed plan that they released, Musk never
even reply or engaged further. It is worth noting that,
according to this piece, the response did not occur in
the same Twitter thread, which was a specific condition that
Musk outlined in his original challenge. So maybe he kind
(33:14):
of got off on a technicality.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
I guess that's such bs And it's like not surprising
that he would just ghost them on that, because if
you remember his fight with Zuckerberg that was supposed to happen,
where he just like talked about it a lot, but
then eventually just like it was clear that nothing was
going to happen. You know, he has a long history
(33:39):
of saying things and then not following through on them.
But this particular thing, not only did he not follow
rough and giving them the money, he wasted a tremendous
amount of staff time of people who are like working
hard to try to address world hunger with the limited
resources that they already have, which makes it particularly gross
(34:02):
and offensive. So yeah, maybe he got them on a technicality,
but like who cares about the technicality? You know, It's
like it's all just a game to him. He could
have just said no, Yeah, you could have just said no,
or he could have not said anything, or he could
have pushed back, or he could have engaged with the
(34:25):
Organs with the UN World Food Program offline and works
something out where he gave him a far lesser amount
but still did something good. And then he just like
disappeared on this you know, did yes, So who's even
talking about this technicality? His like reply, guy friends.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, it's funny because when I was looking into that claim,
I saw people saying he does do charitable things. He
was gonna give you the U bend that money, and
then other people would say he never actually did, and
they were like, well, he says that they needed to
to provide accounting for where the money was gonna go,
and it's like they did he ghosted them. Well he's
he didn't like the way that they put together their budget,
(35:08):
and it's like, well, okay, but he didn't give the money.
That's the whole point. Like, if you wanted to give
the money, he would have. He did it. What are
you even talking about.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So what's funny to me is that Elon Musk did
not dispute any of Joyce Carol Oates' claims about his
selfishness or lack of charity, or the idea that he
devalues every club that he joins, or any of that.
He just got hung up on disputing this. He doesn't
read claim. It's like he picked the most specific bit
out of her entire long insult and decided this is
(35:57):
the thing I can refute.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
And also that was the piece that was like parentheses. Yeah,
something about something about putting in parentheses makes it like
just penetrate extra deep.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yes. So Musk starts replying to posts about films and books,
you know, culture, to show that he is a cultured
person who knows about and enjoys culture. He replies to
someone's post about the Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow
with great movie, and later to somebody's post about the
film The Fifth Element, saying Fifth Element has great style.
(36:30):
Leon put it so well on Blue Sky that it
will be like his Joyce Carol Oates accused Elon Musk
of not knowing his shapes, and he just started replying
to posts about shapes with great shapes to prove otherwise.
He also tweeted about his love of the Iliad, saying
can't recommend the Iliad enough, and noted that the book
(36:51):
is best enjoyed as the Penguin audiobook version at one
point two to five speed. But then he actually posted
a link for the not the Iliad, So I don't know,
he's just like not reading these uncultured doesn't read charges
to me, no, And why would he know that?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Like it's best enjoyed at one point two to five speed,
Like what does that have to do with the text.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
So I honestly think that for a lot of people,
reading is just another thing to conquer. It's just another
proof point about how smart and accomplished you are. So
of course you want to consume it on fast mode
because the whole point is just like getting through, and
it's not about appreciating it or spending time with it
(37:37):
or wrestling with it or enjoying it. It's just about
finishing it. I was really struggling with this because the
recommendation of playing it on audiobook sped up. I can't
even make an analogy of why that is so weird
If I was like, Oh, what books do you like
to read? Oh, you got to listen to the Aliad
on two X speed. It's just such a weird thing
(37:58):
to say about a piece of art.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It really speaks more to his experience of reading it
or in this case, listening to it, than it does
about the work itself, which is like a weird way
to criticize a piece of literature, but totally makes sense
for a narcissist who doesn't believe that other people exist
(38:24):
in the world.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Some on Twitter even got served with sponsored posts on
the platform letting them know that Elon Musk actually does read,
with a list of his favorite books. This was the
sponsored ad on Twitter for Blinkist. When he's not building
rockets boring tunnels, but eath Los Angeles are sending cars
into space. Elon Musk reads a lot. Here are nine
(38:48):
non fiction books he thinks that we sh all should read.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
That is the saddest shit. And it's got a little
like a little like cartoon image of his face looking
thoughtful as perhaps she's just read something and it has
moved him.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
They got my man all etched, like in the Wall
Street Journal you know those like etches, they got them
all yeah, to make them look deep.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah yeah, to look deep exactly. And also, like in
this copy, which presumably came from his PR team, the
first two things. When he's not building rockets, like okay,
we're boring tunnels beneath Los Angeles, like specifically beneath Los Angeles.
That's just what he does. That's what the boring the
boring company has been doing for the past like thirty years,
(39:31):
just just digging tunnels beneath Los Angeles. Who's using these tunnels?
No one, No one's using these tunnles. They've not moved
a single passenger. But he's he's down there digging them.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Down there, boring. Yeah, how Elon does. Truly, I have
never seen a hit dog do more hollering in my life. Meanwhile,
I should say that while Elon Musk was raged tweeting
about how not mad he was, don't put in the
newspaper that I got mad because I did it. Joyce
ca well Oats was tweeting about how she was on
a return flight from a lovely literary festival in Charleston,
(40:05):
sitting next to a very cute dog like truly unbothered
all of this was going on. I mean, she's like
she's older, right, she's almost ninety.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
People of that age bracket just like do not give
a fuck. Like I try to just swear this podcast,
but like there's just no other way to say, they
do not give about fuck.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
No, She'll just eviscerate Elon Musk casually and then go
to the Charleston Literary Festival.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Right after, like, oh, look at this cute dog.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Basically, like literally, that's that is her life. So the
big question that I that I wanted to pose to
you into the listeners, do we think Elon Musk actually
reads good questions?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Listeners let us know. Email us at hello at tangote
dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
So I think it's debatable. Ronan Barrow, who has written
a lot about Elon Musk, has a great exploration of
the different science fiction pieces that Musk has. He said
that he likes and is inspired by, but hel rodin
Pharaoh points out that Elon Musk almost always seems to
take away the wrong thing from all of these texts
(41:10):
that he says are his favorites.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
He said that his hero is Douglas Adams, a writer
who skewered the hyper rich, and also Musk's own kind
of progress at any cost. Ethos Musk is also an
avowed fan of deis X, also one of my favorite
video games. It's a first person role playing game with
a heavy focus on ability enhancing body modifications, and he's
(41:32):
talked about it a lot when discussing his company, Neuralik,
which has that same focus. The plot of the game
turns on a manufactured plague designed to control the masses,
and during the pandemic, when Musk was embracing COVID denialism,
he actually changed his Twitter profile picture to an image
of the protagonist from the game. But deis X, like
(41:54):
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is a fundamentally anti
capitalist text in which the manufactured plague is the culmination
of years of unrestrained corporate power, and the villain of
the game is the world's richest man, who is a
media darling entrepreneur with global aspirations and political leaders under
(42:16):
his thumb.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
So, if I had to say what was going on,
I think it's a combination of when somebody says their
favorite book is Catcher in the Rye because that's the
only book that they read, because I read it, and
they had to read it in high school. And when
somebody hasn't read a particular book all the way through,
but they feel like they know enough about it, they've
gotten the gist enough to sort of claim that they've
read it. I'm not above this. That is like me
(42:39):
when I tell people, sure, I've read Infinite Jest, but
really I've just read Considered the Lobster, and I will
never read Infinite Jest. But I feel like I've gotten
the gist enough to be like, sure, I've read it.
I mean, I've gotten the gist.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
But the Elon's list of his science fiction that he loves.
They're good books, they're classic works, but they are like
intro to science fiction one oh one for somebody who's
supposed to be like Earth's sci fi genius. Come on,
it's just like not deep at all. It is like
(43:14):
entry level science fiction that he's even talking about sending
a side of the fact that he's like giving a
lot of it wrong.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, exactly. So I won't say that I don't believe
that Elon Musk has never read a book before, like
I believe he is someone with literacy, which is something
I am something I am not convinced of when it
comes to Trump, I don't. I am not convinced that
Trump is somebody who has literacy. But I don't even
think that Joyce Carol Oates literally meant that Elon Musk
(43:42):
does not read. Like whether or not he reads was
not the substance of her criticism. Him taking this one
specific bit and then taking it super literally. Honestly, it
kind of is.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Like what a non reader would do to me.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I think it says a lot that that's how he's
going about refuting all of this.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah. I think, yeah, he's just like really lashed onto
that one thing and is just like buying as to
refute it by demonstrating that he has read books.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, I just think that what she meant is that
he has not well read and that he isn't like
I believe. I agree with Joyce Carol Oates. I don't
think he's the kind of person who reads things and
takes lessons or messages or values from them the rest
the way the rest of us don't do. I think
there is an entire sub section of kind of tech
and business guys for whom reading is just another thing
(44:35):
to wield up people to prove how powerful and smart
and better than other people they are, like men who
keep that book The forty eight Laws of Power or
the Art of War on their shelves to look smart
and accomplished. By the way, Donald Trump has said Art
of Wars one of his favorite books. Guarantee you he
has not read it. Guarantee I have also not read it.
But I did listen to friend of the show Michael
(44:57):
Hobbs's podcast If Books Could Kill about it, and it's
all like about how to maneuver oxen in old timey
fifth century military tactics and shit that was Trump didn't
read that shit. It's just funny to me that toxic
men have held that book up, but they definitely have
not read as a book that makes them look like
(45:18):
powerful when really it's like, oh, what did you find
applicable to your current situation, like navigating your promotion at work?
The bit about how to maneuver oxen over snow? Like, like,
what were the takeaways here that you found so meaningful
and applicable to your current situation? You know, trying to
scheme on data in accounting to make your way up
(45:41):
in this real estate office.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Actually, like maybe one of the technological innovations of that
book was just the branding of it and like putting
basically the whole like so much of the whole message
like into the title, like where you can just read
the title and feel like you get just just project
your own preconceived ideas onto it and call it good enough.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Oh my god, no offense to men, because I know
you are one, But like the men who hold that
book the art of war up as a meaningful text
in their lives is like what war are you fighting?
Like genuinely, and it also reminds me of like, you know,
I know men who brag about how they only read
nonfiction or quote philosophy, which, let's be real, philosophy is
(46:30):
like self help for men, but they don't want to
call it self help like Jordan Peterson books and things
like that, as if reading nonfiction or like philosophy makes
you better or smarter, when in reality, everybody knows like
this is a proven thing. Reading fiction, certain types of fiction,
is linked to the ability to have empathy for others
and their experiences and creativity. Not to mention it's just pleasurable,
(46:51):
it's just fun. Yeah, I guess I just hate when
people put down the reading of others. You know that
all I read is like trashy fiction. Do you remember
the time that we were at the bar and our
friend Abby was talking about a fantasy book. I can't
remember the book, but it was about dragons.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
It was a book Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarrows, which
is like one of the most popular books to come
out in the past year. A lot of people read it.
It's like young adult. It's fiction. It's a little sexy,
but it's uh, you know, a lot of people enjoy it.
(47:31):
I read that book. It was a good book.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
So our friend Abby was telling us about reading that book,
and our bartender overheard it was like, oh, just trashy,
low brow fantasy for women. And I was like, oh,
I don't know, because all I read is smut and
like literally the reviews are like zero plot ten out
of ten, no whatsoever, ten out of ten.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Really, he wasn't wrong. The only incorrect word in that
set in his criticism was just like, yeah, it's trashy,
low brow science fiction, but like that's fine. People love it.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Oh yeah, Like I yeah, I guess, I just feel
like I don't know you you we've talked about this
how I did not read a ton for a long time.
I was in very long reading slump, and I was
gone to the beach and I brought the book The
New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander with me and that
that's a that's a meaty book. And I was like, oh,
I had just heard an interview with her about it.
(48:25):
I was like, I gotta read this book. And I
took this book in my carry on to the beach
and I did not crack. I did not like read
one sentence. And someone was like, oh, why didn't you
like get like just a trashy beach read. I thought, fiction,
that's right, And now I'm just getting a whole lot
more enjoyment out of the act of reading. And so
again no shade to nonfiction, because I definitely get a
(48:47):
lot of value out of it. I might even be
putting a little of it out into the world myself
one of these days.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Teaser teaser, Oh I believe that foreshadowing.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Oh it's a literal world. Yes it is very good,
very good. But like that that I realized I was
making reading. I was making reading something that I wasn't
looking forward to anymore. And reading a lot of like
thrillers and mysteries and smut was really getting me back
into the space. I'm just cracking open a book, which
now I do quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Yeah, I am. When I was a child I read
all the time, and lately for the past several years,
I just like not reading much and I don't know why,
and it kind of bums me out and I want
to read more.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
But uh, that book that that mean Bartender was shitting on.
I devoured that thing in like a week, Yeah, because
it was like dragon smut, but like whatever, it was
easy read, it was fun and it felt good to
read it.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
And so even though like you I am, I, if
you were to be asking me, like what kind of
things am I reading these days, it would be stuff
that I will be like in to tell you about.
Even still, if somebody told me that I did not
read and I was not a reader, I would not
feel the need to take out a paid ad trying
to convince them otherwise. Right, I would laugh because I
(50:13):
have degrees in literature, right, like, I am a student
of literature, and the student of literature in me loves
to see a little old lady writer completely body Elon
Musk with the power of the humanities. As Brandon Bishop
put it on Blue Sky, Joyce Carol Oath is demonstrating
the value of the humanities through public ownership of the
(50:33):
richest man on Earth. To wrap it up, like, what
I really love about this and why I wanted to
talk about it on the podcast, is that I think
it goes to show the power of words. Elon Musk
is the richest man on the planet. He is one
of the most powerful men on the planet, and here
he is being eviscerated by an almost ninety year old
writer who is just good at expressing herself with words.
(50:56):
As Zarathustra put it on Blue Sky, Elon Musk is
in calculably richer, more famous, and more powerful than Joyce
Carol Oates. She has nothing that could hurt him except
the truth. And I would say that is a power
that we all have. We may not have their money,
we may not have the White House, we may not
have rockets, we may not own our own social media platforms,
(51:19):
but they do not own the truth that still belongs
to us, the writers, the readers, the little old ladies
who refuse to shut up. Joyce Carol Oates reminded him
and all of them that words still bite, they still sting,
they still cut through all the nonsense, and they still
hold the truth. And if we use them right, words
(51:40):
can still build a better world. With that, I will
leave you all with one of Joyce Carol Oates's posts
that I think that sums up my relationship with Twitter
and maybe even social media in general. Twitter is the
boat the boat owner pretends to enjoy until a hurricane
washes away not only the boat but the entire doc
that's it gone. Got a story about an interesting thing
(52:09):
in tech, or just want to say hi?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
You can read us at Hello at.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Tangody dot com.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody
dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
created by me Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio,
an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry
Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato is
our contributing producer. Edited by Joey pat I'm your host,
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
(52:34):
and review us on Apple Podcasts for more podcasts from
iHeartRadio check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this
is there are No Girls on the Internet. Christmas has
come early for me because Joyce Carol Oates. Yes that
Joyce Carol Oa is beefing with Elon Musk on Twitter. Mike,
(00:27):
I have a real thing with Joyce Carol Oates. Did
you know this about me?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I didn't actually merry Christmas? And what's up with your
saying with Joyce Carol Oates? How do you know her?
Why do you like her?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes? Mary, Happy Joyce Carol Oates beefing with Elon Musk
on Twitter to all that celebrate. So yeah, I took
a survey of Joyce Carol Oates's fiction when I was
in grad school. I also, independently from that, have followed
her pretty closely on social media for some time. So
her beefing with Elon Musk, it feels like this is
(01:00):
truly my time to shine. So let's back up a
little bit because we did a whole episode about another
one of my favorite Elon Musk beefs, Elon Musk's beef
with rapper Azalea Banks. That was probably my favorite celebrity
feud up until this point, other than perhaps the rapper
Iced Tea and Amy Mann, the folk singer. They had
(01:21):
a little bit of a Twitter beef that I love,
but I think the Elon Musk of it all kind
of illustrates what happens when somebody like Elon Musk comes
up against somebody that he is just inarguably outmatched by.
The Azalea Banks thing was a perfect example of what
I mean. Elon Musk is an unreliable narrator. Azalea Banks
(01:41):
is somebody who will literally say anything about anyone or anything.
Elon Musk thinks he's funny, loves to make it seem
like everybody thinks he's so funny. Haha. Azalia Banks, even
though she is who she is, she is actually funny
and can actually destroy somebody with words and can come
up with an insight like nobody's business, like she really is.
(02:03):
She's she's a lyricist at the end of the day.
So you know, Mike, you know me. You know that
I am not somebody who is prone to taking a
victory lap when I say something that's proven to be
one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Whatever you say, Boss, we're recording.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I can see your face as we're recording, and when
I was saying that, I got the sense that maybe
you didn't totally agree. But let's just say that's the
case for now.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Sure we can say that for the case of argument.
I mean it's uh, I guess yeah, we can say that.
You don't often like to take a victory let but
it has happened.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Oh I'll take it every now and then. And I'm
taking one right now because over a year ago, we
were doing an episode about a good read scandal in
the literary world, and in that episode, I said, this,
Joyce Carol o two, I have to say, is kind
of my like forever problematic shave. She's like the Avail
(03:00):
Banks of the book industry. Like nine times out of
ten she's super wrong, but when she is right, she
is so right. That's how I would describe her. I
cannot quit Joyce Carol Oates. She is my forever problematic fab.
I simply cannot believe how prescient that turned out to be.
Now that Joyce Carol Oates is also beefing with Elon
(03:21):
Musk on Twitter, just like Azalia Banks was.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It is a little uncanny. I mean, did you call
it or did you conjure this? Did you manifest this beef?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I willed this beef into existence. So as I said
that in that quote, I am like an og follower
of Joyce Carol Oates. Everybody's talking about Joyce Carol Oats
on social media now, but it's like that Bane quote,
you merely adopted Joyce Carol Oates's Twitter presence. I was
born in it, molded by it. Right. I have been
following this woman on Twitter for a very long time.
(03:54):
People might not realize how prolific of a Twitter history
Joyce Carol Oates actually has. She's been saying wild shit
on Twitter four years. Again, not unlike Azalea Banks, Joyce
Carol Oates is actually one of my favorite people to
follow on Twitter. Even though yes, she is very problematic.
I will get to that in a moment. She's also
kind of irreverent personality on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So I have to admit that I am not familiar
with her body of work on Twitter. How important is
it for me to understand what she's like on Twitter,
what she talks about there, to really appreciate this thing
that she's got going on with Elon It.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Is so important. It is key to understanding what's going
on here. So let's talk a bit about how Joyce
Carol Oates show has showed up on Twitter. She joined
Twitter back in twenty twelve at the urging of her
book publisher, and has been a prolific tweeter since then.
Some things that folks might have missed if they were
not following her as closely on Twitter as I was.
She went super viral in twenty twenty for posting a
(04:53):
picture of her foot covered in poison ivy that went viral.
She also hilariously replied to a picture of the director
Steven Spielberg posing next to a dead dinosaur from the
film Jurassic Park. She tweeted that picture and wrote so
barbaric that this should still be allowed, no conservation laws
and effect wherever this is. I loved this. There was
(05:15):
a whole flurry of questions about whether or not she
was kidding. Joanna Rothkopp over at Salon broke it down,
saying there are only three possibilities. One Oates was making
a joke five percent chance. Two Oates didn't click on
the photo and thought it was a picture of a
slaughtered elephant. Eighty percent chance or three. Oates thinks that
tricera top was murdered fifteen percent chance.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
That is delightful.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I honestly hope it's the last one. I hope that.
Oates was like, we have to save our triceratopsis.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I'm just glad that this somebody is finally speaking up
for the triceratopsins. There are so few of them left.
We need to stop this senseless triceratops murder.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You and Joyce Carol Oates are on the same page
about that one. She also made headlines pretty recently for
tweeting about how she thinks that Trump faked getting shot
in Butler, Pennsylvania. So she's really like got her finger
on the pull sometimes. Interestingly enough, when asked about it
in an interview, she said that showing up on Twitter,
she doesn't even do it to get more readers. When
asked about whether she was trying to reach new audiences
(06:17):
with potential readers on social media, she bluntly said, I
don't think of this at all.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Wow, So like what is she what she doing it for?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Then she's doing it for the love of the game, baby,
Like you gotta respect that. So the main comparison that
I see between Azalea Banks and Joyce Carol Oates is
that they are both women whose work and artistry I
have enjoyed. But there are also people who say things
that I deeply disagree with the majority of the time. However,
they are the kind of people who when they're right,
(06:47):
they're right like a broken clock. When they stumble upon
a truth, they really hit that truth and they do
not miss. And I had no idea how prescient that
comparison would become, because now a year after I made it,
Joyce Carol Oates is following in Azalea basis footsteps in
this beef with Elon Musk, and you know what, I
(07:08):
am here for it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah. But you know a lot of people have gotten
into Twitter spats with Elon Musk lately, or ex spats
or whatever we want to call them. What is it
about Joyce Carol Oates that like really pulls you in,
even though in your words you disagree with what she
says the majority of the time.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Oh, she is my problematic save as I said, Uh,
First of all, Joyce Carol Oates, like Azelia Banks, can
write her ass off. I read her short story which
I would say. It's probably one of her more famous works,
Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? When I
was young and it really made an impression on me.
It's this kind of slow burned gothic horror. It's I
(07:53):
recommend it for anybody who likes kind of creepy short stories.
And so as we'll get to in a moment. Elon
Musk keeps sort of insulting Joyce Carol Oates. But Joyce
Carol Oates is like the Michael Jordan of literature. Like
you cannot insult her, you cannot like like the numbers
are there, the stats are there. She wrote her first
book in nineteen sixty three, when she was twenty six,
and since then she's written almost sixty novels. She does novels, novella's, plays,
(08:17):
you name it. She's also kind of known for the
sheer amount of writing that she does. She talks about
this a lot. How from eight am to one pm
every day she writes in she hand writes in cursive
every day, then again for two or three hours in
the evening. Like I can't express to you how much
Homegirl has a storied literary career. I'll put it to
(08:38):
you like this From nineteen ninety two to twenty fourteen,
Joyce Carol Oates published four books, and all four of
them were nominated for the Pulitzer. Like, this is a
woman who is about that written word.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
It's funny she It kind of sounds similar to Stephen King,
like another very prolific writer who is partly known for
just the sheer volume of stuff that he writes, and
also is used to be on Twitter a lot. But
I don't think he ever won a Pulitzer.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I love Stephen King as well. Can I tell you
a non sequard or fun fact about Stephen King that
blows my mind? Sure?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I would love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Stephen King was once so obsessed with Lou Bega's Mambo
Number five that his wife threatened to divorce him over it.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, I'm like running ba as a timeline in my mind.
I'm wondering if that was before or after he got sober?
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh what do you think?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, mom will number five it's still out there in culture,
tearing couples apart. Okay, so, but she's not Stephen King.
We're back to Joyce Carol Oates. She's written a ton,
sounds like she is very celebrated as a writer, So
what makes her problematic.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Let's just say that she doesn't always have great opinions
about everything, especially when it comes to topics like race.
And I wanted to mention this because I see a
lot of people sort of celebrating her. And to be clear,
I absolutely think that she should be celebrated for her
writing in the way that her command over the written word.
But I do think it's important to mention this because
she is a human and she's an almost ninety year
(10:12):
old woman, so's it should be kind of unsurprising that
not every take is a banger. Much like Azalia Banks,
you know, she's someone who is often wrong. She's often
tweeting things that are just flat out incorrect and not accurate,
but again broken clock. When she's right, she's right. In
that episode that I played a little bit from where
we first mentioned her, we were talking about the racial
(10:36):
climate in the literary world and this false attitude that
people of color are the sort of golden child of
publishing right now. In that episode, we talked about how
the thriller novelist James Patterson said that basically white men
cannot get writing jobs right now and Joyce Carol Oates
actually backed him up. She said, a friend who was
a literary agent told me that he cannot even get
(10:56):
editors to read first novels by young, white male writer,
no matter how good. They are, just not interested. This
is heartbreaking for writers who may in fact be brilliant
and critical of their own quote privilege. In an episode,
we talked about how just the facts and the stats
don't back up what she's saying. Publishing is still overwhelmingly
white and male. But I also wanted to include that because, like,
(11:19):
isn't that just the way it goes? Sometimes? Like Joyce
Carol Oates gets it so right when she is calling
out narcissistic men like Elon Musk or Donald Trump, who
she calls out a lot on Twitter. But I wouldn't
count on her for nuanced, thoughtful analysis of things like
race all the time, right, So I want to acknowledge that.
But also, the woman has a way with words, like
(11:41):
when she gets it right, she gets it so right.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
So this whole thing with Elon Musk, let's get into it.
How did that get started?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Well, it starts with Joyce Carol Oates. Joyce Carol Oates
in on X On November ninth, she tweeted quote, so
curious that such a wealthy man never pos anything that
indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what
virtually everyone appreciates scenes from nature, pet dog or cat,
(12:10):
praise for a movie, music, a book, parentheses, But doubt
he reads pride and of friends or relatives, accomplishment condolences
for someone who has died, pleasure in sports, acclaim for
a favorite team, references to history. In fact, he seems
totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have
(12:30):
access to more beauty and meaning in life than the
most wealthy person in the world. Now, come on, that
is some cold spot on shit to say about somebody.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, and she's really wielding punctuation in their like fucking
daggers and weapons. Yes, she's got a parenthetical, she's got
some stuffed quotes, she's got just devastating list item after
list items separated by semi colon.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Wow, it's like a goddamn ee commings poem as but
it also an insult. And I also think why it
works is because it's it leads with curiosity and also pity.
It's not a mean tweet. It's a true tweet. And
that's even worse.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah, I mean it's like a little mean like it's
it is curious, what is curious about this shell of
a person who is like so othered and lessered. But
it is phrased as as curiosity. It is a devastating
(13:41):
couple of words.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
This is basically Kenja Klamar saying Drake is not like us.
Like we take pleasure and sports, film, books, family, friends, nature,
even children understand and talk about and partake in these
simple pleasures that seemingly just accompany what it means to
be a full human. We talk about things that fill
us up. Elon Musk does seem like weirdly devoid of
(14:03):
these things. Even Donald Trump talks about how much he
likes Pavaratti.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
He loves Pavarotti.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
He loves Pavarotti. He really loves Pavarotti.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That's true. Yeah, it's like she's accusing Musk of being
something less than human, like a singular person who has
failed to appreciate the things that make all of the
rest of us human.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yes, and imagine being that kind of person against a
reality where you're also the world's wealthiest person. You have
access to every pleasure in the world at your fingertips,
and you're still so miserable. And I think that she's
absolutely right. You know, if what Musk spends his time
talking about and tweeting and amplifying on social media is
any indication, Joyce carolos is right. He is a supremely
(14:51):
joyless person because when you go to social media feeds,
it's all grievances and point scoring and dick swinging. He
treats his own daughter, Vivi, and who, by the way,
Joyce Carol Oates said, seems like a very nice girl,
very cruelly. His ex partners have all been very vocal
about his cruelness towards them. He does not seem like
a happy, full person. And I think that is the
(15:13):
thing that eviscerates Trump here. I always but if you
hear me say Trump, because in my mind they're the
same guy.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
No, they are a little bit different. Though. Trump likes Pavaratti.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Trump likes Pavaratti. Uh, let's see, I don't think Trump reads. Uh,
but yeah, Trump likes Pavaratti.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
You know, having done a fair bit of reading about Musk.
I don't even think that Elon Musk would disagree that
he is a supremely lonely person. He has said that explicitly.
He is described in interviews and to biographers the feelings
that he used to have as a child, kind of
staying up all night alone, and how even as an
(16:11):
adult now he hates the feeling of being in battalone.
He hates not having somebody to share a bed with
as an adult. Case in point, what do you think
that Elon Musk was doing the day before Joyce Carol
Oates tweeted all of this?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Any guesses maybe he was penning an apology to his
daughter and servying the landscape of philanthropies or charities that
could really use some support in these difficult economic times,
so that he could boost his fellow man and make
(16:44):
amends with those that he has harmed. Maybe that's what
he was doing.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Absolutely not. At four point thirty in the morning Musk time,
Elon Musk was up using groc to generate an AI
video of a beautiful woman making eye contact with him
and saying, oh, I will always love you. That's right.
He was using AI to make a lady say that
she will always love Elon like, I'm sorry, this is
(17:09):
some grim shit, even for Elon Musk. I actually debated
whether or not to put this in the episode because
I was like, this is just very sad, and I
almost feel sad bringing it up that when the day
before he was called out for being this miserable, joyless fuck.
He was up at four point thirty in the morning
using AI to imagine a woman saying I love you
(17:29):
because he doesn't have it in real life. That is
I'm sorry, that is very grim.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
It is very grim. But like, we only know that
he did that because he tweeted it. He wanted the
world to know that this simulated woman loves him.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You're absolutely right, he doesn't see how sad and pathetic
that makes him look, which is a whole other set
of questions I have about how he shows up. But also,
Joyce Carol Oates just really has his number as to
why he is the way that he is, and so
her post about him just like struck through the noise
and hit a nerve and went viral very quickly. As
(18:07):
of me writing this, it had five million views. So
I note, Joyce Carol Oates is verified with the blue
check mark. So I wonder if she's gonna get a
payout from X for generating engagement on the platform.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
What do you think, Oh, that's a good question. I mean,
I wouldn't count on it. I wouldn't count on it.
We know he doesn't like to pay in general. I
don't think she's going to get a check for this one.
But you know, maybe he liked it. I don't know
how did he respond on X after she posted this.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Not well, but it was in that classic Elon Musk
way where it's you know that meme. Don't print in
the newspaper that I got mad because I'm not mad.
I've not met. He called her tweet quote demonstrably false,
saying everything she's des inn or post about me can
be shown to be demonstrably false with a simple search.
(19:04):
He calls her lazy and a liar and an abuser
of Semi Collins, and goes on to say Oates is
a liar who delights in being mean, not a good human,
And then he has eating a bag of sawdust would
be vastly more enjoyable than reading the laboriously pretentious drivel
of Oats. I will say this. The Pulitzer Prize people
(19:25):
disagree on that one, so I don't know. I might
let them be the judge. Also, him saying that Joyce
Carol Oates's work is pretentious is a tell to me
that he has not read any of Joyce Carol Oates's work.
Because you could say a lot of things about Joyce
Carol Oates's writing style, no one would ever call it pretentious.
Her writing stylist would have meant to be very accessible
(19:47):
and tends to be pretty realistic for the most part. Like,
if you were trying to criticize Joyce Carol Oates's writing style,
you might say, if anything, you might say it's too mundane.
You would not say it's too pretentious. Anybody who says
that has not meant to any time reading Joyce Carol Oas.
You can not conduct me he's actually read any one
of her novels or short stories.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
No, I mean that's not shocking. He doesn't seem like
a big reader in general. He's probably not reading a
woman author for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yes, So where I come from, we have that phrase
A hit dog will holler you.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Do you know that phrase, Mike, I've heard it. I
don't approve of animal violence, but like I've heard it.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Unless it's a Trice seratops.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, kill them all like God stored out those dinos.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So Joyce Carol Oates basically said, a girl a hit
dog will holler. She's like, you know, it's funny. I
never said explicitly that I was talking about Elon Musk.
So she did quote tweet a tweet that was like
referencing him, But she is read that she never spelled
out that she was talking about Elon Musk. So funny
that he would have such a big reaction, because yeah,
(20:49):
hit dogs do holler. Joyce Carol Oates just really seems
to have Elon Musk's number. Here's what she said in
speculating about the wealthiest man in the world. I did
not actually stake any name. I was thinking of the emblematic,
the type of being that great wealth can make possible.
But such wealth must seem unreal or ironic. It is
(21:11):
impressive that Elon Musk allows critical commentary of himself on
X that is not usually a magnanimy of spirit commiserate
with the extreme type of non empathetic person. So basically
she's saying, well, I never said Elon Musk by name,
but it's I guess it's nice that he allows criticism
of himself on his platform, I should say. After she
(21:31):
pointed this out, lots of people jumped in to say, no,
Elon Musk actually does punish people who are critical of
him on X. There are critical complaints that he shadow
bands people who post things that are critical of him.
In a piece in The New York Times called they
criticized Musk on X, then their reach collapsed. Musk told
The New York Times that he might have kicked off
(21:52):
some critical users out of x's premium program, which boost
the visibility of paying subscribers. Doing so what effectively curtailed
their reach and prevent them from making any money on X.
We also already know that he has absolutely no problem
using X to publicly attack just regular people who are
critical of him on the platform. And I mean, this
just absolutely tracks what you know about Elon Musk. He
(22:15):
punishes people who are critical of him. He has no
problem amplifying the names of real just regular people who
talk about him, and those people get dog piled and
attacked and threatened. That is definitely his IMO. When this
was pointed out, Joyce Carol Oates said, now some observers
are commenting that X rated Twitter is actually censored to
a degree. My perspective is obviously limited for years half
(22:38):
hoping that my account would just vanish, and the time
spent drifting about the shoals of Twitter like frothy flotsam
might be freed for better use. Even that is poetic.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
But the woman can write, yes, that's some great pros. Absolutely. Yeah,
before this episode, you and I were talking a little
bit about how I was surprised that this was even
able to take off on Twitter because or excuse me,
on X because of his history of censoring his critics.
But you pointed out that her initial tweet did not
(23:10):
use his name, and I really have to wonder if
that was part of what allowed it to gain traction before,
and is you know some kind of like censorious intervention
could be put into effect.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I absolutely believe that had she used Elon Musk's name explicitly,
we would not even be making this episode. I believe that.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, I totally do too, But she didn't, either through
luck or design. And so here she is just lobbing
high level pros at him as like devastating insults. So
what else is she saying? About him.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
So there was this banger about how Musk has lived
a bunch of different places South Africa, Canada, and now
the United States. Wherever he goes he wants to leave.
That's because when he gets there, he has his own
self along and whatever club he's invited to join has
been devalued by the invitation. Eh.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Eh, demastating, devastating.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean that one is is like on like a
philosophical level, like a like he does all this traveling
because he's trying to escape himself and he cannot. So
everywhere he goes he has he has brought himself there
and so that experience is automatically devalued because he is
there because he is him.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Oh, she's really casting his life as like a Greek tragedy.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
But it is like, like, she's not wrong in pointing
this out that if money is commiserate with happiness, he
should be happy, he should be full, he should be nourished.
How does he spend his time up at four point
thirty in the morning using AI to invent women to
say I love you? Right? Like, she's not wrong. This
is something out of a Greek tragedy which elon Musk
(24:57):
wouldn't even fucking know because he's not gonna read it.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah yeah, And other than the companies that he owns,
I'm kind of struggling to think of any sort of
group or association or community that he is part of.
I'm really coming up with nothing now.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So along those lines, she makes another really great point
about Elon Musk after her initial tweet. Truly, it was
out of curiosity why a person with unlimited resources exhibit
so little appreciation or even awareness of the things that
most people value as giving meeting to life. Just minimally
well to do people donate to charities, local museums and
libraries and alike. They support the commonwealth, and unlike the
(25:39):
very wealthy, these people pay high income taxes, because he
won't pay a lot of taxes. Now, this is something
that I have often wondered about too. People truly need
to understand how wealthy Elon Musk is. When folks say
things like, oh, there's no ethical billionaires, the reason why
they say that is because if you have a billion dollars,
you could meaningfully use your money to solve so many
(26:01):
of the world's most pressing and threatening issues that we
face as a as a people without ever really feeling
any kind of meaningful personal financial loss. So the fact
that that you do have a billion dollars and you're
not doing that, it kind of means you're an asshole.
And Elon Musk has five hundred billion dollars. Compare that
to somebody like Mackenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos's ex wife, who
(26:23):
has been steady given away nineteen billion of her thirty
five billion dollar net worth to HBCUs, shout out to
my mom's alma mater, Virginia State University, who she gave
money to recently, and cultural and advocacy organizations like the
African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, And according to Fortune,
she still has barely made a dent in her overall
(26:44):
network because of her Amazon shares. So for as much
money as she's given away, and she's given away nineteen
billion dollars of it already, it's basically a drop in
the bucket because she has so much money left. If
you're going to a billionaire, that's how you billionaire. You
foster culture, education and do what you can to use
some of that massive, massive, probably unethical wealth to make
(27:08):
the world betters for others, because you have already made
it yourself. You have won it, capitalism, You're done. Sledge
John's on Twitter put it really well. You can tell
Elon doesn't read or have any sense of his place
in history. If he did, he'd be competing with Carnegie, Rockefeller,
and Vanderbilt to slap his name on music halls, universities,
and libraries, among other public goods. But he doesn't.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
It's a good point. Yeah, he doesn't do that. And
those guys like Carnegie Rockefeller, these are not heroes of
the working class.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, I mean, Rockefeller was commissioning the muralist Diego Rivera
to paint a mural and Rockefeller Center. Now he did
end up canceling this mural because it included a portrait
of Lenin, so it didn't you know, He's still like
Rockefeller got a Rockefeller. But they he was using money
to contribute to the cultural conversation, like even the Sacklers,
(28:05):
you know, the people who gave us the opioid epidemic
to enrich themselves. These people are ghoules who should be
in prison, even they are propping up the art world
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, everything Elon does is just to enhance his own glory,
I mean exit at this point is just like a
pr hype machine for him personally, grockism machine to repeat
his worldview, where they've censored the output and readjusted it.
(28:36):
It's training to make sure that it is more right
wing and also producing the sorts of women that Elon
likes to see tell him that they love him. It's
not really these things are not benefiting society at large.
They're benefiting him as a person who owns them.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It's absolutely true. Where a lot of wealthy people, even horrible, despicable,
ghoulish wealthy people, still donate to cultural preservation. Elon Musk
his charitable spending mostly just goes back to you guess
did himself. When I was thinking about this episode, I
thought to myself, maybe it's possible that Elon Musk is
(29:16):
funding a lot of charitable causes and we just don't
hear much about them, right, Maybe he's doing this in secret,
doesn't want the acclaim. So I looked into it, and
it turns out that Elon Musk does donate via the
Musk Foundation, but per The New York Times, much of
the foundation's donations have gone to organizations linked back to Musk.
Himself or his businesses, and that the foundation has for
(29:37):
several years fallen short of the minimum required to give
away annually, potentially incurring tax penalties. So yeah, sorry, Joyce,
Carol Oates is right again. And I don't know, it's
just so obvious that Elon Musk clearly wants to be
loved by people. He wants people to think that he
is cool and funny and like in the culture, with
(29:59):
the culture. And I would think, you know, he probably
is somebody who could buy his way into being like
if he gave his money away to good causes, but
he doesn't. We were talking about this off Mike, that
you know, that story about how he tried to get
into that very exclusive, very famous nightclub in Berlin, Bernheim.
I always have to add this. I bring it up
(30:21):
just to have the ability to say that when we
were in Berlin, Mike, we didn't have any trouble getting
into Bernheim.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
No, we got right in. We waited in line. That
same bouncer who allegedly told Elon to take a hike
just let us right in, no problem.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
You know, my claim to fame is that everybody told us, oh,
you have to wear all black to get in there.
If you're not wearing all black, they won't let you in.
And I got in wearing a head to toe Crimson
and just sales right in. That is my favorite claim
to fame. I also love how Elon Musk spun not
getting in. He says, Oh, well, the reason why I
didn't get in is because I looked in and they
had a sign inside that said and I didn't like that.
(31:02):
And I told the bouncer that I hated that, and
we had a disagreement, and that's why I didn't even
want to go in. Yeah, right, buddy, Yeah, you stood
in line for an hour at a nightclub that you
didn't want to get into because when you got to
the front of the line, you saw that they had
a sign hanging inside that said peace. Sure. And I
feel like if he truly wanted to become the kind
of people that welcome him in at their nightclub, he could.
(31:25):
He could just do good things that people like. He
has the money, he has the resources to do so
many good things, and honestly, people like me, his biggest
critics would probably sort of begrudgingly like him if he
was actually using money to do good things for people
and culture. And not just enrich himself. But he doesn't. Instead,
(31:46):
it's like he does the opposite. For instance, in twenty twenty,
the UN told Elon must if they needed six billion
dollars to help forty two million people that they said
were literally going to die if they did not get help.
Elon said that he would give a UN World Food
Program the money if they could quote describe on this
Twitter thread exactly how the six billion would solve world hunger.
(32:08):
I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.
He followed it with the condition it must be open
source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money
is spent, and the UN World Food Program did exactly that.
Yahoo Finance reports that on November fifteenth, twenty twenty one,
the UN's World Food Program did that. They published a
spending plan showing how the six point six billion dollars
(32:30):
would be used to provide food assistance to forty two
million people in forty three countries. The plan included three
point five billion for food procurement and deliverate, two billion
for cash and food voucher, seven hundred million to develop
country specific programs, and four hundred million dollars for Administration,
Oversight and Logistics. The head of the World Food Program
tweeted the link directly to Musk, adding you asked for
a clear plan and open books here it is now.
(32:53):
Despite this clear detailed plan that they released, Musk never
even reply or engaged further. It is worth noting that,
according to this piece, the response did not occur in
the same Twitter thread, which was a specific condition that
Musk outlined in his original challenge. So maybe he kind
(33:14):
of got off on a technicality.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
I guess that's such bs And it's like not surprising
that he would just ghost them on that, because if
you remember his fight with Zuckerberg that was supposed to happen,
where he just like talked about it a lot, but
then eventually just like it was clear that nothing was
going to happen. You know, he has a long history
(33:39):
of saying things and then not following through on them.
But this particular thing, not only did he not follow
rough and giving them the money, he wasted a tremendous
amount of staff time of people who are like working
hard to try to address world hunger with the limited
resources that they already have, which makes it particularly gross
(34:02):
and offensive. So yeah, maybe he got them on a technicality,
but like who cares about the technicality? You know, It's
like it's all just a game to him. He could
have just said no, Yeah, you could have just said no,
or he could have not said anything, or he could
have pushed back, or he could have engaged with the
(34:25):
Organs with the UN World Food Program offline and works
something out where he gave him a far lesser amount
but still did something good. And then he just like
disappeared on this you know, did yes, So who's even
talking about this technicality? His like reply, guy friends.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, it's funny because when I was looking into that claim,
I saw people saying he does do charitable things. He
was gonna give you the U bend that money, and
then other people would say he never actually did, and
they were like, well, he says that they needed to
to provide accounting for where the money was gonna go,
and it's like they did he ghosted them. Well he's
he didn't like the way that they put together their budget,
(35:08):
and it's like, well, okay, but he didn't give the money.
That's the whole point. Like, if you wanted to give
the money, he would have. He did it. What are
you even talking about.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So what's funny to me is that Elon Musk did
not dispute any of Joyce Carol Oates' claims about his
selfishness or lack of charity, or the idea that he
devalues every club that he joins, or any of that.
He just got hung up on disputing this. He doesn't
read claim. It's like he picked the most specific bit
out of her entire long insult and decided this is
(35:57):
the thing I can refute.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
And also that was the piece that was like parentheses. Yeah,
something about something about putting in parentheses makes it like
just penetrate extra deep.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yes. So Musk starts replying to posts about films and books,
you know, culture, to show that he is a cultured
person who knows about and enjoys culture. He replies to
someone's post about the Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow
with great movie, and later to somebody's post about the
film The Fifth Element, saying Fifth Element has great style.
(36:30):
Leon put it so well on Blue Sky that it
will be like his Joyce Carol Oates accused Elon Musk
of not knowing his shapes, and he just started replying
to posts about shapes with great shapes to prove otherwise.
He also tweeted about his love of the Iliad, saying
can't recommend the Iliad enough, and noted that the book
(36:51):
is best enjoyed as the Penguin audiobook version at one
point two to five speed. But then he actually posted
a link for the not the Iliad, So I don't know,
he's just like not reading these uncultured doesn't read charges
to me, no, And why would he know that?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Like it's best enjoyed at one point two to five speed,
Like what does that have to do with the text.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
So I honestly think that for a lot of people,
reading is just another thing to conquer. It's just another
proof point about how smart and accomplished you are. So
of course you want to consume it on fast mode
because the whole point is just like getting through, and
it's not about appreciating it or spending time with it
(37:37):
or wrestling with it or enjoying it. It's just about
finishing it. I was really struggling with this because the
recommendation of playing it on audiobook sped up. I can't
even make an analogy of why that is so weird
If I was like, Oh, what books do you like
to read? Oh, you got to listen to the Aliad
on two X speed. It's just such a weird thing
(37:58):
to say about a piece of art.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It really speaks more to his experience of reading it
or in this case, listening to it, than it does
about the work itself, which is like a weird way
to criticize a piece of literature, but totally makes sense
for a narcissist who doesn't believe that other people exist
(38:24):
in the world.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Some on Twitter even got served with sponsored posts on
the platform letting them know that Elon Musk actually does read,
with a list of his favorite books. This was the
sponsored ad on Twitter for Blinkist. When he's not building
rockets boring tunnels, but eath Los Angeles are sending cars
into space. Elon Musk reads a lot. Here are nine
(38:48):
non fiction books he thinks that we sh all should read.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
That is the saddest shit. And it's got a little
like a little like cartoon image of his face looking
thoughtful as perhaps she's just read something and it has
moved him.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
They got my man all etched, like in the Wall
Street Journal you know those like etches, they got them
all yeah, to make them look deep.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah yeah, to look deep exactly. And also, like in
this copy, which presumably came from his PR team, the
first two things. When he's not building rockets, like okay,
we're boring tunnels beneath Los Angeles, like specifically beneath Los Angeles.
That's just what he does. That's what the boring the
boring company has been doing for the past like thirty years,
(39:31):
just just digging tunnels beneath Los Angeles. Who's using these tunnels?
No one, No one's using these tunnles. They've not moved
a single passenger. But he's he's down there digging them.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Down there, boring. Yeah, how Elon does. Truly, I have
never seen a hit dog do more hollering in my life. Meanwhile,
I should say that while Elon Musk was raged tweeting
about how not mad he was, don't put in the
newspaper that I got mad because I did it. Joyce
ca well Oats was tweeting about how she was on
a return flight from a lovely literary festival in Charleston,
(40:05):
sitting next to a very cute dog like truly unbothered
all of this was going on. I mean, she's like
she's older, right, she's almost ninety.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
People of that age bracket just like do not give
a fuck. Like I try to just swear this podcast,
but like there's just no other way to say, they
do not give about fuck.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
No, She'll just eviscerate Elon Musk casually and then go
to the Charleston Literary Festival.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Right after, like, oh, look at this cute dog.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Basically, like literally, that's that is her life. So the
big question that I that I wanted to pose to
you into the listeners, do we think Elon Musk actually
reads good questions?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Listeners let us know. Email us at hello at tangote
dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
So I think it's debatable. Ronan Barrow, who has written
a lot about Elon Musk, has a great exploration of
the different science fiction pieces that Musk has. He said
that he likes and is inspired by, but hel rodin
Pharaoh points out that Elon Musk almost always seems to
take away the wrong thing from all of these texts
(41:10):
that he says are his favorites.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
He said that his hero is Douglas Adams, a writer
who skewered the hyper rich, and also Musk's own kind
of progress at any cost. Ethos Musk is also an
avowed fan of deis X, also one of my favorite
video games. It's a first person role playing game with
a heavy focus on ability enhancing body modifications, and he's
(41:32):
talked about it a lot when discussing his company, Neuralik,
which has that same focus. The plot of the game
turns on a manufactured plague designed to control the masses,
and during the pandemic, when Musk was embracing COVID denialism,
he actually changed his Twitter profile picture to an image
of the protagonist from the game. But deis X, like
(41:54):
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is a fundamentally anti
capitalist text in which the manufactured plague is the culmination
of years of unrestrained corporate power, and the villain of
the game is the world's richest man, who is a
media darling entrepreneur with global aspirations and political leaders under
(42:16):
his thumb.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
So, if I had to say what was going on,
I think it's a combination of when somebody says their
favorite book is Catcher in the Rye because that's the
only book that they read, because I read it, and
they had to read it in high school. And when
somebody hasn't read a particular book all the way through,
but they feel like they know enough about it, they've
gotten the gist enough to sort of claim that they've
read it. I'm not above this. That is like me
(42:39):
when I tell people, sure, I've read Infinite Jest, but
really I've just read Considered the Lobster, and I will
never read Infinite Jest. But I feel like I've gotten
the gist enough to be like, sure, I've read it.
I mean, I've gotten the gist.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
But the Elon's list of his science fiction that he loves.
They're good books, they're classic works, but they are like
intro to science fiction one oh one for somebody who's
supposed to be like Earth's sci fi genius. Come on,
it's just like not deep at all. It is like
(43:14):
entry level science fiction that he's even talking about sending
a side of the fact that he's like giving a
lot of it wrong.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, exactly. So I won't say that I don't believe
that Elon Musk has never read a book before, like
I believe he is someone with literacy, which is something
I am something I am not convinced of when it
comes to Trump, I don't. I am not convinced that
Trump is somebody who has literacy. But I don't even
think that Joyce Carol Oates literally meant that Elon Musk
(43:42):
does not read. Like whether or not he reads was
not the substance of her criticism. Him taking this one
specific bit and then taking it super literally. Honestly, it
kind of is.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Like what a non reader would do to me.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
I think it says a lot that that's how he's
going about refuting all of this.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah. I think, yeah, he's just like really lashed onto
that one thing and is just like buying as to
refute it by demonstrating that he has read books.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, I just think that what she meant is that
he has not well read and that he isn't like
I believe. I agree with Joyce Carol Oates. I don't
think he's the kind of person who reads things and
takes lessons or messages or values from them the rest
the way the rest of us don't do. I think
there is an entire sub section of kind of tech
and business guys for whom reading is just another thing
(44:35):
to wield up people to prove how powerful and smart
and better than other people they are, like men who
keep that book The forty eight Laws of Power or
the Art of War on their shelves to look smart
and accomplished. By the way, Donald Trump has said Art
of Wars one of his favorite books. Guarantee you he
has not read it. Guarantee I have also not read it.
But I did listen to friend of the show Michael
(44:57):
Hobbs's podcast If Books Could Kill about it, and it's
all like about how to maneuver oxen in old timey
fifth century military tactics and shit that was Trump didn't
read that shit. It's just funny to me that toxic
men have held that book up, but they definitely have
not read as a book that makes them look like
(45:18):
powerful when really it's like, oh, what did you find
applicable to your current situation, like navigating your promotion at work?
The bit about how to maneuver oxen over snow? Like, like,
what were the takeaways here that you found so meaningful
and applicable to your current situation? You know, trying to
scheme on data in accounting to make your way up
(45:41):
in this real estate office.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Actually, like maybe one of the technological innovations of that
book was just the branding of it and like putting
basically the whole like so much of the whole message
like into the title, like where you can just read
the title and feel like you get just just project
your own preconceived ideas onto it and call it good enough.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Oh my god, no offense to men, because I know
you are one, But like the men who hold that
book the art of war up as a meaningful text
in their lives is like what war are you fighting?
Like genuinely, and it also reminds me of like, you know,
I know men who brag about how they only read
nonfiction or quote philosophy, which, let's be real, philosophy is
(46:30):
like self help for men, but they don't want to
call it self help like Jordan Peterson books and things
like that, as if reading nonfiction or like philosophy makes
you better or smarter, when in reality, everybody knows like
this is a proven thing. Reading fiction, certain types of fiction,
is linked to the ability to have empathy for others
and their experiences and creativity. Not to mention it's just pleasurable,
(46:51):
it's just fun. Yeah, I guess I just hate when
people put down the reading of others. You know that
all I read is like trashy fiction. Do you remember
the time that we were at the bar and our
friend Abby was talking about a fantasy book. I can't
remember the book, but it was about dragons.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
It was a book Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarrows, which
is like one of the most popular books to come
out in the past year. A lot of people read it.
It's like young adult. It's fiction. It's a little sexy,
but it's uh, you know, a lot of people enjoy it.
(47:31):
I read that book. It was a good book.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
So our friend Abby was telling us about reading that book,
and our bartender overheard it was like, oh, just trashy,
low brow fantasy for women. And I was like, oh,
I don't know, because all I read is smut and
like literally the reviews are like zero plot ten out
of ten, no whatsoever, ten out of ten.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Really, he wasn't wrong. The only incorrect word in that
set in his criticism was just like, yeah, it's trashy,
low brow science fiction, but like that's fine. People love it.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Oh yeah, Like I yeah, I guess, I just feel
like I don't know you you we've talked about this
how I did not read a ton for a long time.
I was in very long reading slump, and I was
gone to the beach and I brought the book The
New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander with me and that
that's a that's a meaty book. And I was like, oh,
I had just heard an interview with her about it.
(48:25):
I was like, I gotta read this book. And I
took this book in my carry on to the beach
and I did not crack. I did not like read
one sentence. And someone was like, oh, why didn't you
like get like just a trashy beach read. I thought, fiction,
that's right, And now I'm just getting a whole lot
more enjoyment out of the act of reading. And so
again no shade to nonfiction, because I definitely get a
(48:47):
lot of value out of it. I might even be
putting a little of it out into the world myself
one of these days.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Teaser teaser, Oh I believe that foreshadowing.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Oh it's a literal world. Yes it is very good,
very good. But like that that I realized I was
making reading. I was making reading something that I wasn't
looking forward to anymore. And reading a lot of like
thrillers and mysteries and smut was really getting me back
into the space. I'm just cracking open a book, which
now I do quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Yeah, I am. When I was a child I read
all the time, and lately for the past several years,
I just like not reading much and I don't know why,
and it kind of bums me out and I want
to read more.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
But uh, that book that that mean Bartender was shitting on.
I devoured that thing in like a week, Yeah, because
it was like dragon smut, but like whatever, it was
easy read, it was fun and it felt good to
read it.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
And so even though like you I am, I, if
you were to be asking me, like what kind of
things am I reading these days, it would be stuff
that I will be like in to tell you about.
Even still, if somebody told me that I did not
read and I was not a reader, I would not
feel the need to take out a paid ad trying
to convince them otherwise. Right, I would laugh because I
(50:13):
have degrees in literature, right, like, I am a student
of literature, and the student of literature in me loves
to see a little old lady writer completely body Elon
Musk with the power of the humanities. As Brandon Bishop
put it on Blue Sky, Joyce Carol Oath is demonstrating
the value of the humanities through public ownership of the
(50:33):
richest man on Earth. To wrap it up, like, what
I really love about this and why I wanted to
talk about it on the podcast, is that I think
it goes to show the power of words. Elon Musk
is the richest man on the planet. He is one
of the most powerful men on the planet, and here
he is being eviscerated by an almost ninety year old
writer who is just good at expressing herself with words.
(50:56):
As Zarathustra put it on Blue Sky, Elon Musk is
in calculably richer, more famous, and more powerful than Joyce
Carol Oates. She has nothing that could hurt him except
the truth. And I would say that is a power
that we all have. We may not have their money,
we may not have the White House, we may not
have rockets, we may not own our own social media platforms,
(51:19):
but they do not own the truth that still belongs
to us, the writers, the readers, the little old ladies
who refuse to shut up. Joyce Carol Oates reminded him
and all of them that words still bite, they still sting,
they still cut through all the nonsense, and they still
hold the truth. And if we use them right, words
(51:40):
can still build a better world. With that, I will
leave you all with one of Joyce Carol Oates's posts
that I think that sums up my relationship with Twitter
and maybe even social media in general. Twitter is the
boat the boat owner pretends to enjoy until a hurricane
washes away not only the boat but the entire doc
that's it gone. Got a story about an interesting thing
(52:09):
in tech, or just want to say hi?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
You can read us at Hello at.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Tangody dot com.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody
dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
created by me Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio,
an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry
Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato is
our contributing producer. Edited by Joey pat I'm your host,
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
(52:34):
and review us on Apple Podcasts for more podcasts from
iHeartRadio check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
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