Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Let me tell you
we have a new star.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A star is born Elon pumped up on Mars Juthan Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
I feel for the guy. I would say ninety eight
percent really appreciate what he does. But those two percent
that are nasty, they are out in four fos. We
were meant for great things in the United States of America,
and Elon reminds.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Us of that we don't have a fourth branch of
governments called Elon musk Hey, Mac, David Papadopolis.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We're back here, We're back here, Elon Inc.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Again.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Another emergency episode.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I love it, two emergencies in one twenty four hour period.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
But we just figured here at Elon Inc. That it's
just happened in too fast and furious to not be
back in your feet again here on Friday, because you know,
after Max and Josh Green recorded early yesterday afternoon, the
hits just kept coming. You know, Max, The only thing
that I regret yesterday as I was watching this all
(01:22):
happen and go down, is that my desk in the office.
I only had one bag of popcorn with me that
was at least a five bagger.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You know, this has been disastrous for Elon Musk's businesses
as and Elon Inc. The conglomerate that is, the Elon
Musk companies. But for X, I gotta say a lot
of great content. I mean, I'm sure the traffic is
looking good. I think that the grock usage is undoubtedly
off the.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Charts until that license is pulled from them, which I
suspect to happen any minute. Man, it's got to be
you know, the numbers got to be way up, all right.
Any event. Bring our listeners up to speed on what
transpired after yesterday's recording.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, so when we recorded yesterday, we were in the
as you heard, you know, we were in the throes
of it. By the way, Dana Hall, who I am
dying to talk to, she's still out. She's on vacation
these past two days. So but anyway, we were reacting
in real time, and in that moment, you know, it
was really just unfolding. You had Trump, you know, giving
(02:25):
what I think in retrospect, I'm not sure if I
said this at the time, was like for Trump a
relatively gracious you know, Like obviously he was criticizing Musk,
he was saying, I wish he wouldn't attack the big
beautiful Bill, but he was also praising him, he was
thanking him. I got the sense that Trump was actually
(02:47):
attempting to kind of navigate what was sort of a
dicey situation where.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
His I think Max. I think someone had given him
a script that he was trying to stick to, and
he initially was, and then the more people were, more
questions he got, and the more they baited him, he
just threw the script out.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So he said a couple of things that I think
clearly got under Musk's skin. He suggested that Musk had
been upset about the EV tax credits, which is true,
must have been tweeting about the EV tax credits. Although
that made Musk mad. He's you know, and he started
and that's when the kind of back and forth started.
He also brought up Jared Isaacman.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I told you, Jeric isaacmanh you know, the the the
appointment to lead NATHA. Trump absolutely just flat outshad it. Basically,
we put a bullet in his head. We took him
out back and we decided, you know, this ain't happened.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
The thing that Trump said and he kind of almost implied,
and I have to go back and listen to the tape,
but he kind of almost implied there have been something
corrupt about having somebody this close, that it was inappropriate,
you know, and that combination of the the sort of
weirdness of having you know, a close ally of Elon
Musk in this position of power, on top of Isaacman's
(03:58):
you know, previous Democratic Party donations, it was too much.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Of course, the read through there is Elon Musk, I
Donald Trump. I'm saying, Elon Musk's guy is out. That
was my rethrup. But then the thing after that, it
escalated in this back and forth, you know, yeah, Musk
on X, Trump on truth and you.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Know, well, and the thing that happened so after Elon
Musk went on on X and said, you know, Trump
would never have been elected without me such ingratitude, which
of course is that's going to get under Donald Trump.
And you started to see this dynamic that I think
a lot of people had been had expected to play
out much sooner play out. You know, I feel like
(04:40):
there had been this kind of quiet uh, sort of
conversation going on between the like White House, the grizzled
Trump reporters and the grizzled Elon reporters. And you kind
of saw it in that conversation I hid with Josh Green.
Like Josh Green has been high on this feud almost
from the beginning, because if you're if you've watch Donald Trump,
(05:01):
you know that he has this tendency to kind of
churn through people. You have the Josh said, you know,
on various podcasts that I've done with him to two
of these alpha guys, and and and then on the
other side you had the Elon Musk. Folks like me,
people who had followed Elon Musk had seen him kind
of you know, like sort of connect, maneuver his himself,
(05:22):
change his positions, you know, do pretty much every rhetorical
trick in the book to attain influence, saying hey, he's
gonna be able to do this, and and that that
second take seemed to hold sway for a while, but
you know, yesterday it all came crumbling down. David I wrote,
like a week ago, don't Berett bet on the Elon
Musk Donald Trump breakup? And I gotta tell you.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Now, are we gonna Are we gonna retract that? Now?
I suppose we don't.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
It sounded smart on Friday when they had that, when
they had that White House, uh press briefing, and and
and then of course now you know, not so smart.
But anyway, Trump, after we stopped taping, Trump went on
truth Social and said he would the best way to
reduce the deficit was to cancel all of Elon Musk's
(06:09):
government subsidies, kind of using a line that you had
seen some of the left leaning opponents of the Trump
administration pull out, like, hey, if you want to deal
with Doge, why don't you stop giving handouts to Elon Musk?
And Elon Musk went to went like it went ballistic.
He accused Trump essentially a pedophilia. He said that Trump
(06:31):
had been associated with Epstein, and the reason Epstein, more
information about Epstein hadn't come out was because Trump was
essentially covering.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It up, which we should be We should be clear
we have no evidence of any kind.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
No, Yeah, it seems like he was just shooting from
the hip. He suggested that Trump should be impeached and
replaced with JD. Vance. He also and I think in
a way. This was the most This was like the
craziest one. He said he was gonna unilaterally cancel the
Dragon spacecraft. The Dragon spacecraft is how the US government
(07:06):
gets to and from the International Space Station. We talked
about those astronauts, you know, being you know, whether or
not they were stranded up there, but the astronauts that
were up there, and they needed a SpaceX spacecraft to
bring them down. Musk was saying, fine, you don't like me,
you don't want to deal with me. Programs canceled. He tweeted,
go ahead, make my day. And then you saw people
(07:27):
in Trump world say, Harry totally. And he saw people
in Trump world of Steve Bannon suggesting the government should
nationalize SpaceX. And honestly, if that, if that dispute went
much further, I think you would have seen other folks
say that. You look at what conservative lawmakers. The problem
that Elon Musk has now is he he carved out
(07:48):
this like maximalist deficit hawk position, which I think he
could have, which I think would have been okay. It
would have been like a public negotiation with Trump over
what's in this tax bill. But he also talked like
a crazy person. So so it's very hard to take
his criticism seriously when he's also you know, hurling these
unfounded allegations about Jeffy the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
The whole thing, you know he came off in Yesterday's
a touch unhinged. I mean, I would say a touch,
you know, Max, to your point on the financial damage
that Trump can inflict on Musk and is honestly the
brtality of his empire. One only needs to think about
(08:31):
what the Trump administration right now is doing to an
institution like oh, say, Harvard, uh and to appreciate, you know,
the kind of you know, unconventional tactics they're willing to use.
And by the way, a brief parenthetical aside, I wonder
if Musk is going to start getting more of those
Musk and his team are going to start getting more
(08:52):
of those drug tests over there at space X. But
I will just say this though, Max. Here at the
time we're recording, just am noon on Friday, I notice
on my Bloomberg terminal that Tesla stock is bouncing back
a bit. Things have whided a little bit this morning.
Maybe maybe maybe they're gonna be kissing and making up soon.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Look, maybe my take from last week will along, I
do think, and you know, I'm like hesitant to make
this prediction just because I did not see this one coming.
You know, I really was surprised. I've covered Elon Musk
for a long time. Little of what he does surprises me,
but this did because it just seems so self destructive.
(09:38):
It's like it it does not help his company to
pick this kind of fight with Donald Trump, and I
think they're investors who are still hoping for some kind
of reconciliation. Actually, last night, amid the flurry of tweets,
some random Twitter user, you know, uh, sent a message
to Musk saying it might be a good idea to
take a couple of days and cool off.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And so was that random guy? Was that Bill Ackman?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, no, no, Bill Ackman was another one. You had
Kanye West, you had Bill Ackman, and this guy with
just a couple hundred Twitter followers. Musk responded, I think
he responded to Ackman as well, kind of saying sounds
like a good idea. So there was actually some sign
on Thursday night yesterday, as we're recording this, that that
that he might that he might try to walk this back.
(10:26):
There had been a signal from the White House that
they would be open to having a call with Elon Musk,
but then Trump told CNN no call. He also said
he's planning on selling the Tesla that he bought at
that White House event, And so the standoff continues. Although
I think Musk, you know, if he's trying to help
(10:46):
himself and his companies, will try to find a way
to de escalate. I think it's going to cost him
some humiliation. He's gonna have to eat crow. It's also
going to cost him, I would guess, a substantial campaign
contribution or a contribution to Donald Trump's super pack.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, because as much as Trump has to lose here, potentially,
I think it's pretty clear that it's a more dangerous
game for Musk. Musk has more to lose. Uh. And
I think we saw that pretty quickly in the first
several hours. I mean, he still is by far the
world's richest person, but you know, he personally saw his
(11:24):
wealth collapse thirty four billion dollars in four hours, Okay,
And in a scenario in which this thing just kept
ratcheting up and up and up, that number was just
going to keep cratering. It is off the front burner,
at least for the moment. Well, listen, we are definitely
going to be back in your feeds next Tuesday for
a regular weekly show, but in the intro MAAC anything,
(11:47):
our listeners should be, you know, alert for two things.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
One is the robotaxi launch supposedly is going to happen
as soon as next week. I we'll see, right it
wasn't shaping up to be some kind of blockbuster. We'll
see if they go through with it, if they try
to use it as a way to change the channel,
or if they decide, hey, you know better to delay this.
We have kind of excuse to delay it. Even the
(12:14):
other thing, and I think this is really important Tesla investors.
You know, I still think it's unthinkable that they would
replace Musk, And we've talked about this a lot, just
because of the way the shareholder bases, just because of
the way the board is constructed. They are going to
give him the benefit of the doubt to the extreme.
But in my own conversations with Tesla investors, including bulls,
(12:38):
you're hearing a change in tone, and you're seeing it
in some public comments as well, not like hey, we
need to get rid of Musk, but kind of a
return to where we were a few weeks ago when
they were asking him to return to his companies. I
think that we are not that far from more investors
sort of speaking out if this doesn't de escalate quickly,
(12:59):
because Tesla is just in an incredibly difficult position where
it's already alienated it's left wing fan base, it's in
danger of alienating its right wing fan base. So that's
something I'm gonna be watching this weekend if something big happens.
Of course, you know, David, you and I we're going
to do this again.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I mean I will if that happens, I will stop
for a few minutes watching and betting on this weekend's
horse races, and we'll do this, Max, We'll absolutely do this.
My parting shot is I think they need to bring
back the Twitter sitter and that would certainly help. Okay,
(13:37):
that would probably be a big help. Max Chaffkin, Thank.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
You, sir, Thank you, David so soon.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
This episode was produced by Magnus Hendrickson. Anna Mathurakus is
our editor. The elon ing theme is written and performed
by Taka Yathuzawa and Alex Sugujura. Brendan Francis Noona was
our executive producer and stage Bauman is the head of
Bloomberg Podcast. A big thanks to our supporters, Joel Webber
and Bradstone. I'm David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute,
(14:10):
rate and review our show, it'll help other listeners find us.
See you next week, if not before the