November 1, 2024 • 25 mins
Elon Musk has become one of Donald Trump’s most formidable — and vocal — allies. He’s spoken at Trump rallies, formed a pro-Trump PAC, and funneled more than $100 million into Trump and his allies’ campaigns. This political pivot stunned people who long thought of Musk as a hero of the green energy transition. So how did this happen?
In the first episode of Citizen Elon, host Max Chafkin explains the grievances, grudges and online influences that have shaped Elon Musk’s political ideology — and the ways his money and megaphone are shaping the race.
Read More: When Elon Musk Got Political
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey it's Sarah Holder. With just a few days to
go until the US presidential election, Elon Musk has become
one of the most vocal Donald Trump supporters online and off.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
There.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Take over e laid, Yes, take over.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
There's a lot of people out there who, uh, who need.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
To vote for President Trump. Okay, so the like, this
is a real battle. This is a real election battle.
So you need to get frands and family to vote.
Make sure they vote.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The tech ceo has spoken at Trump rallies and funneled
more than one hundred million dollars into getting Trump and
his allies elected. Musk has also created a pro Trump
pack that's giving away million dollar checks to randomly selected
swing state voters who sign a petition to support free
speech and the right to bear arms. Musk is the
(01:04):
richest man in the world with an extremely large megaphone.
It's not too surprising that he's entered the political arena,
but I think a lot of us have been really
curious about how he got here. When did this co
founder of an electric vehicle company turn into such a
big maga guy? What and who is shaping his stances
(01:26):
Our friends over at Elon Inc. Have answers to these
questions and more in their new limited series, Citizen Elon.
It's all about the ways Musk is using his wealth
and power to shape this year's election. Bloomberg's Max Chafkin,
who's been following Elon Musk for years, is your host,
and get ready because we're bringing you the first episode
(01:48):
right now. After that, you can head over to the
Elon ink feed for episode two, The Big Take. We'll
be back next.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Week, my fellow Americans. Mahallo.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
It's April twenty eleven White House Correspondence Dinner in DC,
a giant annual party for politicians and the press Corps.
President Barack Obama on stage, roasting himself, his colleagues, the press,
and the odd celebrity.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
As some of you heard, the State of Hawaii released
my official long form birth certificate. Anyway, Donald Trump, let's
say it tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
For months leading up to this, Donald Trump was going
on talk shows falsely claiming that Obama wasn't born in
the US, which, if that was true, would have made
him a wrongfully elected president. People believed it. The rumor
grew enough so that Obama had to weigh in.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
No one is happier, no one is prouder to put
this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. Obviously,
we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience.
Well seriously, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice
(03:19):
at the Steakhouse, the men's cooking team did not impress
the judges from Omaha Stakes. And you, mister Trump, recognized
that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And
so ultimately you didn't blame Little John or Meet Loaf.
(03:40):
You fired Gary Musick. And these are the kind of
decisions that would keep me up at night.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Omarosa Newman, she was actually also on the Apprentice, was
also at the Correspondent Center that night. Later in a
PBS documentary, she said that just.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Kept going and going, and he just kept hammering him,
and I thought, oh, Barack Obama starting something. I don't
know if he'll be able to finish.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Donald Trump went on to beat Hillary Clinton for the
job of president. He literally took over Obama's home and job.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to
President Trump. It's everyone who's ever doubted Donald, whoever disagreed,
whoever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become
the most powerful man in the universe.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Now fast forward a few more years. It's twenty twenty one.
Joe Biden's the President, and one afternoon on the White
House lawn, he signs an executive order saying that by
twenty thirty, half of all new cars sold would be electric.
It was a piece of Biden's big plan to prioritize
the climate to make evs that's electric vehicles, by the way,
(05:03):
a lot cheaper. This was new Biden all in on
EV's and the big automakers too.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
We are the United States of America. There's not a
single solitary thing, nothing beyond our capacity to get done.
I want to thank the CEOs of the automobile companies,
and I also want to thank all the auto workers.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
At the White House that day. Are members of Congress,
the UAW, United Auto Workers, and a bunch of big
wigs from the Big Three that's General Motors, Ford and
Stillantis better known as Chrysler. Right before putting pen to paper,
Biden invites his colleagues to come up and stand by
his side.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Come on, let's let the CEOs go too.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Let's let the CEOs through too.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
This is an executive or strength in America's leadership and
clean cars and trucks.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
And again, let me start up, I thanking.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The CEOs as well as the UAW approach you all
of me.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Why has happened?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Thank you. There is one guy who'd done more to
make evs happen than anybody in the Big three, who
was missing from the White House that day, noticeably so,
but he was watching. So on one hand, we've got
(06:23):
Barack Obama roasting Donald Trump and the fallout from that.
On the other, Joe Biden hyping up electric cars, separate
events ten years apart. What do they have to do
with each other? I think kind of a lot. I'm
Max Chafkin, a reporter with Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This is Citizen Elon.
(06:51):
This is a show about Elon Musk, someone I've spent
almost twenty years reporting on. For the longest time, Elon's
been a champion for electric cars, a champion for outer space,
and as of this summer, a champion for Donald Trump.
The Elon I've always known has been largely a political Now.
(07:14):
In the weeks leading up to the twenty twenty four election,
Elon's funneled more than one hundred million dollars into getting
Donald Trump elected. What I'd really like to understand is
what happened. Why is Elon suddenly so committed to Trump winning?
And if it works, if he successfully gets Trump elected,
(07:34):
what's in that for him? The first time I interviewed
Elon Musk was in two thousand and six. Tesla was
just a startup. Today it's the most valuable car company
in the world. You talk to CEOs normally and they're scripted,
they talk in soundbites, and Elon is the opposite. He'll
say whatever he wants, whatever's on his mind.
Speaker 7 (07:57):
It is a fixer opper of a planet, but eventual,
so you can transform Mars into an Earth like planet.
Speaker 6 (08:02):
How would you do that?
Speaker 7 (08:04):
You'd warm it up? The fast Way has dropped the
nuclear weapons over the polls. I actually have to say,
we have to keep it essays only questions. Everyone was
a slave everyone, well not everyone was a slave.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
No, everyone was a slave. We are all decided from slaves,
all of us.
Speaker 7 (08:21):
Yeah, just a question of when.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Of course, Elon could also be cold cruel. Looking back
on it now, I think maybe I was letting him
off too easily paying attention to his achievements and ignoring
his bad behavior. In terms of politics, Elon's always been
kind of a chameleon. When George W. Bush was president,
Elon didn't have much to say about climate change. He
(08:44):
drove a Porsche. When Barack Obama was president, Elon became
a green capitalist, ecologically conscious. He wanted a blanket America
with solar panels. His take on Trump running matched most
Democrats and moderate Republicans.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
You know, hopefully Trump doesn't forget the nomination of you know,
the Republican Party. That's because I think that's, yeah, that
wouldn't be good.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
And again, after twenty sixteen, Musk more or less got
on board with Trump, meetings with Steve Bannon, was on
advisory councils to the president. It was business as usual.
But then COVID came. It's something changed, especially after Biden
became president.
Speaker 8 (09:24):
You have to remember that, like, you know, Elon Musk
is a guy who can't get enough of the dopamine
feedback of people and crowds and adulation.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Dana Hall is another reporter here at Bloomberg. She also
covers Elon.
Speaker 8 (09:37):
Musk and during the pandemic we were all locked down
in our houses. And he was incredibly angry that Tesla's
factory in California was shut down because of COVID restrictions.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
On an ernie's call talking to investors, Elon called stay
at home orders in Alameda County, where Tesla's factories were
based fascist quote, this is not democratic, this is not freedom.
Give people back their goddamn freedom.
Speaker 8 (10:04):
And then you started seeing more tweets that were kind
of questioning, you know, the efficacy of vaccines, and just
like a little bit more COVID denihilism.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And then Danna said, by this point it was just
a hop, skip and a jump to much fringier conspiracy theories.
And then there was something else that happened during COVID,
something huge.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
But at some point Elon Musk became the richest person
in the world. And I think that once you're the
richest person in the world, you are emboldened to do
things that maybe you weren't before.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Let's go back to that summit. August twenty twenty one.
A month after that, Elon's at a tech conference. He's
on stage in front of an audience, and that snub
that he felt he's still thinking about it.
Speaker 7 (10:52):
You know, like Biden held this EB summit, didn't invite
Tesla and invited Jammed Forward, Chrysler, and UW maybe summit
on the White House.
Speaker 9 (11:05):
So you were pissed. So this has sound maybe a
little biased.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Eight months go by and Elon sits down for another
interview with the guys running a club for Tesla owners
in Silicon Valley. It's called the Tesla Owners Club of
Silicon Valley. And remember that White House snub. Elon is
still pissed off about it.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
Last year, President Biden held an EB summit where Tela
was explicitly not allowed to come. Now, Tela's made two
thirds of all electric vehicles in the United States. Deliberately
excluding us from an EV summit at the White House.
That tells you what you need to know.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
It's insane.
Speaker 7 (11:44):
Insane.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Fast forward another eighteen months. A year and a half later,
Elon's on stage at a New York Times event. He's
talking to the financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You've been very frustrated with the Biden administration, feeling like
they did not respect what you've created.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Have you forgotten yet about that White House snub? No,
neither has Elon.
Speaker 9 (12:09):
Well, I mean, without any doing nothing to provoke the
Biden administration. They held an electric vehicle summit at the
White House and specifically refused to let Tesla attend. We've
done nothing to provoke them. Then Biden went on to
add insult injury.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Elon says President Biden even singled out General Motors for
having quote led the ev Revolution.
Speaker 9 (12:33):
This was in the same quarter that Tesla made three
hundred thousand electric cars and GM made twenty six. Does
that seem fair to you?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Tesla actually sold three hundred and eight thousand cars that quarter.
Elon's under selling the number. And he's also right about
GM that they really did just sell twenty six. Something
important to note here is that Elon has never been
a fan of labor unions. That's putting it mildly. Joe Biden,
on the other hand, the opposite. Biden loves labor unions.
(13:03):
He's called himself the quote most pro union president in history.
He made it a big part of his presidential campaign.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Can you give us any insight into why Tesla wasn't
included in this event?
Speaker 6 (13:14):
Well, we of course welcome.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
This is from a White House press briefing.
Speaker 10 (13:17):
So it's not because Tesla is a non union shop.
Speaker 11 (13:20):
Well, these are the three largest employers of the United Autoworkers,
So let dry your own conclusion.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Translation, Yes, which classic politics, right, But Elon didn't take
it that way. Biden doesn't have to include every automaker.
It's not like Toyota or Volkswagen were there either. But
Elon's reaction was personal. He couldn't seem to move beyond
his own feelings to see this as anything other than
(13:46):
a grievous insult. On the one hand, it's surprising to
see a busy CEO fixate like this. Doesn't he have
bigger things to worry about. Who cares about GM and Biden?
On the other hand, this is vintage Elon.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
You know, if he didn't like what you were doing,
or thought you were an idiot, or any one of
these sort of negative reactions to you.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Personally, this is Jim Cantrell. He was on the founding
team at SpaceX for a long time. He and Elon
worked closely together.
Speaker 6 (14:18):
He wouldn't come talk to you about it. He would
either call you an idiot, he would tell you you're wrong,
He would challenge you. He would yell at you, and
then later he'd just fire you.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Elon is indisputably really impressive. Jim agrees, but Jim also
could not take Elon's mood swings, and so he quit.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
By the way, that's a controversial topic that he.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Last year, the writer Walter Isaacson published a sprawling biography
of Elon's life. So far, Elon participated in the book's creation.
He talked to Isaacson, and when he talked about his
early days at SpaceX.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
He told Isaacson that I wasn't employee. And I don't
know why he says that.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
But I was, yeah, we're not sorry. I'm not trying
to litigate this. I just know I.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Understand it's a short point for me, so I am.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
This fixation on credit, this pettiness, it's also vintage Elon.
He actually got into it big time with Martin Eberhard,
the guy who started Tesla. Martin himself claimed that Elon
was taking up more than his share of credit for
the company. And even though these guys settled their lawsuit
in two thousand and nine, it's something Elon still brings
(15:35):
up all the time. I told jim My theory about
the correspondence dinner and the EV summit, and I asked him,
does he see the same parallels that I do.
Speaker 8 (15:46):
I do.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
Yeah, I think he and Trump probably feel a kinship.
There's a certain this resonates with what I understand of Elon.
There's a certain sort of sense of fairness and fair
play that, like Trump, he feels violated.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Where Jim's take diverge from mine was about Elon's feelings.
I just think Elon was hurt, and maybe justifiably hurt.
Like this guy revolutionized the electric vehicle industry, he spends
you know, a decade and a half not taken seriously
called a joke, and then the President of the United
(16:25):
States basically finally embraces it, like everything that Elon has
imagined is happening without him.
Speaker 6 (16:33):
Yeah, I'm going to tell you something that goes against
that theory. Elon, I don't think he was hurt by it.
I think he didn't really want to be part of
that crowd. I don't think he cared. There's a certain
rage in the Machine song, you know, you'll do what
(16:54):
I want to. I mean that if I had a
theme song for Elon, that would be it.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
That the conference was the summer of twenty twenty one.
Within a few months, the rage started to bubble up,
and it was a very specific, politically charged rage, usually
in tweet form, usually some right wing line about Biden
being too old, calling Biden quote a damp sock puppet
(17:19):
in human form, or saying Biden looks good for a
two hundred year old. When I read these, I could
tell that Elon was mad. What I couldn't tell is
where these insults, these specific words were coming from.
Speaker 11 (17:33):
NPC is the biggest one to me.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Ellie Reeve is a CNN correspondent. She spent the past
ten years or so covering the far right. In November
twenty twenty one, she noticed this tweet from Elon. It
was a random comment on a six month old video
where Biden was praising the Autoworkers Union. Elon responded to
that video by tweeting that Biden quote talk it's like
(18:00):
an NPC with a limited dialogue tree. That acronym is
what caught Ellie's attention.
Speaker 11 (18:07):
N PC from non player character, comes from a video
game world. It's like, you know, instead of the character
that you can play, it's this static character with no
interiority that gives you directions or something. And in the
four Chan world, that's their term for unthinking liberals.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Real quick. Four Chan was this free for all online
forum where people would share memes. It's also where a
lot of Donald Trump's early support comes from. You've probably
heard this term alt right that started on four Chan.
Back to Ellie and the NPCs, the tweet she noticed
it was basically Elon calling Biden a tool of the elite.
(18:47):
And I don't mean elite in the normal sense. I
mean it in the conspiratorial sense of an elite cabal,
probably Jewish, that is secretly out to get us. Ellie says,
NPC is a kind of act that would normally be
thrown around by neo Nazis, men's rights groups, proud boys
in cells.
Speaker 11 (19:06):
Elon Musk is a very powerful person.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
You know.
Speaker 11 (19:10):
He's not a guy with a Twitter handle like this
guy can influence wars. Does Elon have the social skills
to actually lead a massive men I don't know, But
does he have enough of a network to spread these
ideas into like among people who are in the position
to truly affect how the government works? Like that's the
(19:33):
question for me.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Ellie's not alone on this one. And she's certainly not
the only person who's noticing Elon's changing politics.
Speaker 10 (19:41):
The first thing that I really noticed about Musk was
during the rise of the all Right.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Joe Novan is a sociologist. She specializes in disinformation, that's
people or groups who lie on purpose for political gain.
Speaker 10 (19:55):
He seemed to be very cued into the idea of
population collapse.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
In this idea, this is like the NPC thing. It
doesn't sound that bad on its face, but if you're
paying attention to the subtext, it's not just about babies.
Speaker 10 (20:10):
He seems to believe that the wrong kind of people
are the ones who are reproducing because white people are
not reproducing at the same rate as other people. He
does really get his hackles up about population collapse and
(20:32):
about this idea that white people might not be the
dominant culture going forward.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Right eugenics a discredited theory about selective breeding. By the way,
we invited Elon must to come talk to us or
to provide comment. He didn't respond. Another thing that Elon's
growing interested in, and I mean really interested in, is
free speech, specifically the idea that right wing guys on
(21:02):
the Internet are being suppressed by social media sites those
right wing guys, though I don't think they were really
paying attention to Musk, not yet Anyway. When did he
start mattering to them as a as a figure.
Speaker 10 (21:16):
Around the time he started to say that he should
just buy Twitter. That's when I first saw the far
right really starting to believe he was a mover and
that he was going to do something huge.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
After the attacks on the Capitol on January sixth, in
twenty twenty one, Twitter banned tens of thousands of accounts
associated with the right wing conspiracy theory known as QAnon.
They even van Donald Trump's account permanently for the role
he played in inciting violence. Then in March of twenty
twenty two, something happened that especially Claudilan's attention. Twitter suspends
(21:56):
this satirical newspaper, the Babylon Beat. They're like a right
wing version of The Onion. The Bee had tweeted about
a trans woman who was a White House staffer. They
called her Man of the Year. Twitter said that violated
its policy against hateful conduct. The bees owner refused to
take the tweet down. Musk hears about this from his
(22:17):
ex wife, Tallula Riley. She sends him a text A
few days later, quote, America is going insane, it says
the Babylon b suspension got crazy. Can you buy Twitter
and then delete it?
Speaker 7 (22:29):
Please?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Or can you buy Twitter and make it radically free speech?
And so he did.
Speaker 12 (22:36):
Welcome to Tucker Carlson said, a good news show. Don't
get those two often. It's April twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.
Elon Musk bought Twitter today. Unlike the leaders of Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon,
Elon Musk believes in free speech is the single biggest
political development since Donald Trump's election in twenty sixteen. It
(22:57):
is certainly the most threatening challenge to the corrupt and
incompetent leadership of this country.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
Now that I.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Remember watching this and rolling my eyes, I thought, Elon
Musk is no free speech savior. He's a business guy
who's just spent forty four billion dollars to buy Twitter.
Why would he mess with that. He's got other companies
to worry about. But now looking back, I think Tucker
(23:24):
really was seeing something, something seismic and inevitable. For years,
Elon and Trump have been marching in the same general direction,
which makes sense. They are a lot alike. They both
come from privileged backgrounds, They both grew up under hugely
accomplished fathers whose shadows they wanted out from under. They
(23:45):
both thought hard for their rightful place, not just to
be inside of the rooms where history happens, but to
be the ones in charge. But they never really made
it all the way through the door. To President Obama.
Trump was a punchline to President Biden. Elon was irrelevant.
There's something Jim told me, he's a guy who worked
at SpaceX with Elon, that I keep coming back to.
(24:08):
It's about that correspondent's dinner and the Evy Summit.
Speaker 6 (24:12):
It's a slight that tells you that they think they're
the parents sitting at the table and your child is
not invited. And I can see Elon wanting to just
destroy the table, burn it to the ground.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
What does Elon do right after closing the Twitter deal?
He reinstates Donald Trump's account. If you can't join them,
beat them, that's next time. Citizen Elon is produced by
Lina Mesitzi's Rayhon Armonci is our senior editor, Blake Maple's
(24:49):
handles engineering, and William Elstrom fact checking. Brendan Francis Newnham
is our executive producer, Sage Bauman is the head of
Bloomberg Podcasts. Big thanks to the Elon crew David Papadopolis,
Naomi Shaven, Magnus Hendrickson, Stacy Wong listen every Tuesday for
breaking Elon news, and thanks to our Bloomberg colleagues David Fox,
(25:11):
Julia Press, Dana Hull, Sarah Fryar, Kurt Wagner, Mark Millian,
Becca Greenfield, Margaret Sutherland, Alison Mobley, Jackie Kessler, Ariel Brown,
Chris Nescenzo, and Albert Hicks. An extra big thanks to
Brad Stone, editor of BusinessWeek, and Katie Boyce, executive editor
of Bloomberg Digital, for their unflagging support. Part two of
(25:32):
Citizen Elon comes out next week, and since we won't
know how this thing ends until after the election, that's
when you'll hear the last part of our series. I'm
Max Chafkin. If you have a minute, rate and review
our show, it'll help other listeners find us. Thanks again,
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey it's Sarah Holder. With just a few days to
go until the US presidential election, Elon Musk has become
one of the most vocal Donald Trump supporters online and off.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
There.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Take over e laid, Yes, take over.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
There's a lot of people out there who, uh, who need.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
To vote for President Trump. Okay, so the like, this
is a real battle. This is a real election battle.
So you need to get frands and family to vote.
Make sure they vote.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The tech ceo has spoken at Trump rallies and funneled
more than one hundred million dollars into getting Trump and
his allies elected. Musk has also created a pro Trump
pack that's giving away million dollar checks to randomly selected
swing state voters who sign a petition to support free
speech and the right to bear arms. Musk is the
(01:04):
richest man in the world with an extremely large megaphone.
It's not too surprising that he's entered the political arena,
but I think a lot of us have been really
curious about how he got here. When did this co
founder of an electric vehicle company turn into such a
big maga guy? What and who is shaping his stances
(01:26):
Our friends over at Elon Inc. Have answers to these
questions and more in their new limited series, Citizen Elon.
It's all about the ways Musk is using his wealth
and power to shape this year's election. Bloomberg's Max Chafkin,
who's been following Elon Musk for years, is your host,
and get ready because we're bringing you the first episode
(01:48):
right now. After that, you can head over to the
Elon ink feed for episode two, The Big Take. We'll
be back next.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Week, my fellow Americans. Mahallo.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
It's April twenty eleven White House Correspondence Dinner in DC,
a giant annual party for politicians and the press Corps.
President Barack Obama on stage, roasting himself, his colleagues, the press,
and the odd celebrity.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
As some of you heard, the State of Hawaii released
my official long form birth certificate. Anyway, Donald Trump, let's
say it tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
For months leading up to this, Donald Trump was going
on talk shows falsely claiming that Obama wasn't born in
the US, which, if that was true, would have made
him a wrongfully elected president. People believed it. The rumor
grew enough so that Obama had to weigh in.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
No one is happier, no one is prouder to put
this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. Obviously,
we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience.
Well seriously, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice
(03:19):
at the Steakhouse, the men's cooking team did not impress
the judges from Omaha Stakes. And you, mister Trump, recognized
that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And
so ultimately you didn't blame Little John or Meet Loaf.
(03:40):
You fired Gary Musick. And these are the kind of
decisions that would keep me up at night.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Omarosa Newman, she was actually also on the Apprentice, was
also at the Correspondent Center that night. Later in a
PBS documentary, she said that just.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Kept going and going, and he just kept hammering him,
and I thought, oh, Barack Obama starting something. I don't
know if he'll be able to finish.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Donald Trump went on to beat Hillary Clinton for the
job of president. He literally took over Obama's home and job.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to
President Trump. It's everyone who's ever doubted Donald, whoever disagreed,
whoever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become
the most powerful man in the universe.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Now fast forward a few more years. It's twenty twenty one.
Joe Biden's the President, and one afternoon on the White
House lawn, he signs an executive order saying that by
twenty thirty, half of all new cars sold would be electric.
It was a piece of Biden's big plan to prioritize
the climate to make evs that's electric vehicles, by the way,
(05:03):
a lot cheaper. This was new Biden all in on
EV's and the big automakers too.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
We are the United States of America. There's not a
single solitary thing, nothing beyond our capacity to get done.
I want to thank the CEOs of the automobile companies,
and I also want to thank all the auto workers.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
At the White House that day. Are members of Congress,
the UAW, United Auto Workers, and a bunch of big
wigs from the Big Three that's General Motors, Ford and
Stillantis better known as Chrysler. Right before putting pen to paper,
Biden invites his colleagues to come up and stand by
his side.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Come on, let's let the CEOs go too.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Let's let the CEOs through too.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
This is an executive or strength in America's leadership and
clean cars and trucks.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
And again, let me start up, I thanking.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The CEOs as well as the UAW approach you all
of me.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Why has happened?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Thank you. There is one guy who'd done more to
make evs happen than anybody in the Big three, who
was missing from the White House that day, noticeably so,
but he was watching. So on one hand, we've got
(06:23):
Barack Obama roasting Donald Trump and the fallout from that.
On the other, Joe Biden hyping up electric cars, separate
events ten years apart. What do they have to do
with each other? I think kind of a lot. I'm
Max Chafkin, a reporter with Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This is Citizen Elon.
(06:51):
This is a show about Elon Musk, someone I've spent
almost twenty years reporting on. For the longest time, Elon's
been a champion for electric cars, a champion for outer space,
and as of this summer, a champion for Donald Trump.
The Elon I've always known has been largely a political Now.
(07:14):
In the weeks leading up to the twenty twenty four election,
Elon's funneled more than one hundred million dollars into getting
Donald Trump elected. What I'd really like to understand is
what happened. Why is Elon suddenly so committed to Trump winning?
And if it works, if he successfully gets Trump elected,
(07:34):
what's in that for him? The first time I interviewed
Elon Musk was in two thousand and six. Tesla was
just a startup. Today it's the most valuable car company
in the world. You talk to CEOs normally and they're scripted,
they talk in soundbites, and Elon is the opposite. He'll
say whatever he wants, whatever's on his mind.
Speaker 7 (07:57):
It is a fixer opper of a planet, but eventual,
so you can transform Mars into an Earth like planet.
Speaker 6 (08:02):
How would you do that?
Speaker 7 (08:04):
You'd warm it up? The fast Way has dropped the
nuclear weapons over the polls. I actually have to say,
we have to keep it essays only questions. Everyone was
a slave everyone, well not everyone was a slave.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
No, everyone was a slave. We are all decided from slaves,
all of us.
Speaker 7 (08:21):
Yeah, just a question of when.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Of course, Elon could also be cold cruel. Looking back
on it now, I think maybe I was letting him
off too easily paying attention to his achievements and ignoring
his bad behavior. In terms of politics, Elon's always been
kind of a chameleon. When George W. Bush was president,
Elon didn't have much to say about climate change. He
(08:44):
drove a Porsche. When Barack Obama was president, Elon became
a green capitalist, ecologically conscious. He wanted a blanket America
with solar panels. His take on Trump running matched most
Democrats and moderate Republicans.
Speaker 7 (08:59):
You know, hopefully Trump doesn't forget the nomination of you know,
the Republican Party. That's because I think that's, yeah, that
wouldn't be good.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
And again, after twenty sixteen, Musk more or less got
on board with Trump, meetings with Steve Bannon, was on
advisory councils to the president. It was business as usual.
But then COVID came. It's something changed, especially after Biden
became president.
Speaker 8 (09:24):
You have to remember that, like, you know, Elon Musk
is a guy who can't get enough of the dopamine
feedback of people and crowds and adulation.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Dana Hall is another reporter here at Bloomberg. She also
covers Elon.
Speaker 8 (09:37):
Musk and during the pandemic we were all locked down
in our houses. And he was incredibly angry that Tesla's
factory in California was shut down because of COVID restrictions.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
On an ernie's call talking to investors, Elon called stay
at home orders in Alameda County, where Tesla's factories were
based fascist quote, this is not democratic, this is not freedom.
Give people back their goddamn freedom.
Speaker 8 (10:04):
And then you started seeing more tweets that were kind
of questioning, you know, the efficacy of vaccines, and just
like a little bit more COVID denihilism.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And then Danna said, by this point it was just
a hop, skip and a jump to much fringier conspiracy theories.
And then there was something else that happened during COVID,
something huge.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
But at some point Elon Musk became the richest person
in the world. And I think that once you're the
richest person in the world, you are emboldened to do
things that maybe you weren't before.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Let's go back to that summit. August twenty twenty one.
A month after that, Elon's at a tech conference. He's
on stage in front of an audience, and that snub
that he felt he's still thinking about it.
Speaker 7 (10:52):
You know, like Biden held this EB summit, didn't invite
Tesla and invited Jammed Forward, Chrysler, and UW maybe summit
on the White House.
Speaker 9 (11:05):
So you were pissed. So this has sound maybe a
little biased.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Eight months go by and Elon sits down for another
interview with the guys running a club for Tesla owners
in Silicon Valley. It's called the Tesla Owners Club of
Silicon Valley. And remember that White House snub. Elon is
still pissed off about it.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
Last year, President Biden held an EB summit where Tela
was explicitly not allowed to come. Now, Tela's made two
thirds of all electric vehicles in the United States. Deliberately
excluding us from an EV summit at the White House.
That tells you what you need to know.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
It's insane.
Speaker 7 (11:44):
Insane.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Fast forward another eighteen months. A year and a half later,
Elon's on stage at a New York Times event. He's
talking to the financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You've been very frustrated with the Biden administration, feeling like
they did not respect what you've created.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Have you forgotten yet about that White House snub? No,
neither has Elon.
Speaker 9 (12:09):
Well, I mean, without any doing nothing to provoke the
Biden administration. They held an electric vehicle summit at the
White House and specifically refused to let Tesla attend. We've
done nothing to provoke them. Then Biden went on to
add insult injury.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Elon says President Biden even singled out General Motors for
having quote led the ev Revolution.
Speaker 9 (12:33):
This was in the same quarter that Tesla made three
hundred thousand electric cars and GM made twenty six. Does
that seem fair to you?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Tesla actually sold three hundred and eight thousand cars that quarter.
Elon's under selling the number. And he's also right about
GM that they really did just sell twenty six. Something
important to note here is that Elon has never been
a fan of labor unions. That's putting it mildly. Joe Biden,
on the other hand, the opposite. Biden loves labor unions.
(13:03):
He's called himself the quote most pro union president in history.
He made it a big part of his presidential campaign.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Can you give us any insight into why Tesla wasn't
included in this event?
Speaker 6 (13:14):
Well, we of course welcome.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
This is from a White House press briefing.
Speaker 10 (13:17):
So it's not because Tesla is a non union shop.
Speaker 11 (13:20):
Well, these are the three largest employers of the United Autoworkers,
So let dry your own conclusion.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Translation, Yes, which classic politics, right, But Elon didn't take
it that way. Biden doesn't have to include every automaker.
It's not like Toyota or Volkswagen were there either. But
Elon's reaction was personal. He couldn't seem to move beyond
his own feelings to see this as anything other than
(13:46):
a grievous insult. On the one hand, it's surprising to
see a busy CEO fixate like this. Doesn't he have
bigger things to worry about. Who cares about GM and Biden?
On the other hand, this is vintage Elon.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
You know, if he didn't like what you were doing,
or thought you were an idiot, or any one of
these sort of negative reactions to you.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Personally, this is Jim Cantrell. He was on the founding
team at SpaceX for a long time. He and Elon
worked closely together.
Speaker 6 (14:18):
He wouldn't come talk to you about it. He would
either call you an idiot, he would tell you you're wrong,
He would challenge you. He would yell at you, and
then later he'd just fire you.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Elon is indisputably really impressive. Jim agrees, but Jim also
could not take Elon's mood swings, and so he quit.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
By the way, that's a controversial topic that he.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Last year, the writer Walter Isaacson published a sprawling biography
of Elon's life. So far, Elon participated in the book's creation.
He talked to Isaacson, and when he talked about his
early days at SpaceX.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
He told Isaacson that I wasn't employee. And I don't
know why he says that.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
But I was, yeah, we're not sorry. I'm not trying
to litigate this. I just know I.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Understand it's a short point for me, so I am.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
This fixation on credit, this pettiness, it's also vintage Elon.
He actually got into it big time with Martin Eberhard,
the guy who started Tesla. Martin himself claimed that Elon
was taking up more than his share of credit for
the company. And even though these guys settled their lawsuit
in two thousand and nine, it's something Elon still brings
(15:35):
up all the time. I told jim My theory about
the correspondence dinner and the EV summit, and I asked him,
does he see the same parallels that I do.
Speaker 8 (15:46):
I do.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
Yeah, I think he and Trump probably feel a kinship.
There's a certain this resonates with what I understand of Elon.
There's a certain sort of sense of fairness and fair
play that, like Trump, he feels violated.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Where Jim's take diverge from mine was about Elon's feelings.
I just think Elon was hurt, and maybe justifiably hurt.
Like this guy revolutionized the electric vehicle industry, he spends
you know, a decade and a half not taken seriously
called a joke, and then the President of the United
(16:25):
States basically finally embraces it, like everything that Elon has
imagined is happening without him.
Speaker 6 (16:33):
Yeah, I'm going to tell you something that goes against
that theory. Elon, I don't think he was hurt by it.
I think he didn't really want to be part of
that crowd. I don't think he cared. There's a certain
rage in the Machine song, you know, you'll do what
(16:54):
I want to. I mean that if I had a
theme song for Elon, that would be it.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
That the conference was the summer of twenty twenty one.
Within a few months, the rage started to bubble up,
and it was a very specific, politically charged rage, usually
in tweet form, usually some right wing line about Biden
being too old, calling Biden quote a damp sock puppet
(17:19):
in human form, or saying Biden looks good for a
two hundred year old. When I read these, I could
tell that Elon was mad. What I couldn't tell is
where these insults, these specific words were coming from.
Speaker 11 (17:33):
NPC is the biggest one to me.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Ellie Reeve is a CNN correspondent. She spent the past
ten years or so covering the far right. In November
twenty twenty one, she noticed this tweet from Elon. It
was a random comment on a six month old video
where Biden was praising the Autoworkers Union. Elon responded to
that video by tweeting that Biden quote talk it's like
(18:00):
an NPC with a limited dialogue tree. That acronym is
what caught Ellie's attention.
Speaker 11 (18:07):
N PC from non player character, comes from a video
game world. It's like, you know, instead of the character
that you can play, it's this static character with no
interiority that gives you directions or something. And in the
four Chan world, that's their term for unthinking liberals.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Real quick. Four Chan was this free for all online
forum where people would share memes. It's also where a
lot of Donald Trump's early support comes from. You've probably
heard this term alt right that started on four Chan.
Back to Ellie and the NPCs, the tweet she noticed
it was basically Elon calling Biden a tool of the elite.
(18:47):
And I don't mean elite in the normal sense. I
mean it in the conspiratorial sense of an elite cabal,
probably Jewish, that is secretly out to get us. Ellie says,
NPC is a kind of act that would normally be
thrown around by neo Nazis, men's rights groups, proud boys
in cells.
Speaker 11 (19:06):
Elon Musk is a very powerful person.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
You know.
Speaker 11 (19:10):
He's not a guy with a Twitter handle like this
guy can influence wars. Does Elon have the social skills
to actually lead a massive men I don't know, But
does he have enough of a network to spread these
ideas into like among people who are in the position
to truly affect how the government works? Like that's the
(19:33):
question for me.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Ellie's not alone on this one. And she's certainly not
the only person who's noticing Elon's changing politics.
Speaker 10 (19:41):
The first thing that I really noticed about Musk was
during the rise of the all Right.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Joe Novan is a sociologist. She specializes in disinformation, that's
people or groups who lie on purpose for political gain.
Speaker 10 (19:55):
He seemed to be very cued into the idea of
population collapse.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
In this idea, this is like the NPC thing. It
doesn't sound that bad on its face, but if you're
paying attention to the subtext, it's not just about babies.
Speaker 10 (20:10):
He seems to believe that the wrong kind of people
are the ones who are reproducing because white people are
not reproducing at the same rate as other people. He
does really get his hackles up about population collapse and
(20:32):
about this idea that white people might not be the
dominant culture going forward.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Right eugenics a discredited theory about selective breeding. By the way,
we invited Elon must to come talk to us or
to provide comment. He didn't respond. Another thing that Elon's
growing interested in, and I mean really interested in, is
free speech, specifically the idea that right wing guys on
(21:02):
the Internet are being suppressed by social media sites those
right wing guys, though I don't think they were really
paying attention to Musk, not yet Anyway. When did he
start mattering to them as a as a figure.
Speaker 10 (21:16):
Around the time he started to say that he should
just buy Twitter. That's when I first saw the far
right really starting to believe he was a mover and
that he was going to do something huge.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
After the attacks on the Capitol on January sixth, in
twenty twenty one, Twitter banned tens of thousands of accounts
associated with the right wing conspiracy theory known as QAnon.
They even van Donald Trump's account permanently for the role
he played in inciting violence. Then in March of twenty
twenty two, something happened that especially Claudilan's attention. Twitter suspends
(21:56):
this satirical newspaper, the Babylon Beat. They're like a right
wing version of The Onion. The Bee had tweeted about
a trans woman who was a White House staffer. They
called her Man of the Year. Twitter said that violated
its policy against hateful conduct. The bees owner refused to
take the tweet down. Musk hears about this from his
(22:17):
ex wife, Tallula Riley. She sends him a text A
few days later, quote, America is going insane, it says
the Babylon b suspension got crazy. Can you buy Twitter
and then delete it?
Speaker 7 (22:29):
Please?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Or can you buy Twitter and make it radically free speech?
And so he did.
Speaker 12 (22:36):
Welcome to Tucker Carlson said, a good news show. Don't
get those two often. It's April twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.
Elon Musk bought Twitter today. Unlike the leaders of Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon,
Elon Musk believes in free speech is the single biggest
political development since Donald Trump's election in twenty sixteen. It
(22:57):
is certainly the most threatening challenge to the corrupt and
incompetent leadership of this country.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
Now that I.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Remember watching this and rolling my eyes, I thought, Elon
Musk is no free speech savior. He's a business guy
who's just spent forty four billion dollars to buy Twitter.
Why would he mess with that. He's got other companies
to worry about. But now looking back, I think Tucker
(23:24):
really was seeing something, something seismic and inevitable. For years,
Elon and Trump have been marching in the same general direction,
which makes sense. They are a lot alike. They both
come from privileged backgrounds, They both grew up under hugely
accomplished fathers whose shadows they wanted out from under. They
(23:45):
both thought hard for their rightful place, not just to
be inside of the rooms where history happens, but to
be the ones in charge. But they never really made
it all the way through the door. To President Obama.
Trump was a punchline to President Biden. Elon was irrelevant.
There's something Jim told me, he's a guy who worked
at SpaceX with Elon, that I keep coming back to.
(24:08):
It's about that correspondent's dinner and the Evy Summit.
Speaker 6 (24:12):
It's a slight that tells you that they think they're
the parents sitting at the table and your child is
not invited. And I can see Elon wanting to just
destroy the table, burn it to the ground.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
What does Elon do right after closing the Twitter deal?
He reinstates Donald Trump's account. If you can't join them,
beat them, that's next time. Citizen Elon is produced by
Lina Mesitzi's Rayhon Armonci is our senior editor, Blake Maple's
(24:49):
handles engineering, and William Elstrom fact checking. Brendan Francis Newnham
is our executive producer, Sage Bauman is the head of
Bloomberg Podcasts. Big thanks to the Elon crew David Papadopolis,
Naomi Shaven, Magnus Hendrickson, Stacy Wong listen every Tuesday for
breaking Elon news, and thanks to our Bloomberg colleagues David Fox,
(25:11):
Julia Press, Dana Hull, Sarah Fryar, Kurt Wagner, Mark Millian,
Becca Greenfield, Margaret Sutherland, Alison Mobley, Jackie Kessler, Ariel Brown,
Chris Nescenzo, and Albert Hicks. An extra big thanks to
Brad Stone, editor of BusinessWeek, and Katie Boyce, executive editor
of Bloomberg Digital, for their unflagging support. Part two of
(25:32):
Citizen Elon comes out next week, and since we won't
know how this thing ends until after the election, that's
when you'll hear the last part of our series. I'm
Max Chafkin. If you have a minute, rate and review
our show, it'll help other listeners find us. Thanks again,
Hosts And Creators
Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
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