May 29, 2024 • 38 mins
Elon Musk has an interesting entourage (to say the least) and a penchant for bringing executives from one of his companies to another—often at the same time. In this special bonus episode of Elon, Inc., accompanying this Bloomberg feature, we turn to our panel of Max Chafkin, Dana Hull and Kurt Wagner, as well as special guest Katie Notopoulos, who covers tech culture for Business Insider. Together, they grapple with Musk’s cast of adjutants and why it’s important to know who they are.
Then we play a game we’re calling, “Elon High.” If we were going to give high school superlatives to these people (think most likely to succeed, class clown, biggest flirt), what would they be? Stick around for the categories invented by the panelists themselves.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, he's a legitimate, super genius, legitimate, he says.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
be different.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing enough.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
Anything he does, he's fascinating the people.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Welcome to Elon Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
I'm your host, Max Chapkin, and as promise, we're backquus
second time this week with a very special episode. We
talk all the time on this podcast about the ways
that Elon Musk runs his companies differently from what you
might think of as a normal business. It's not just
(01:14):
that he works crazy hours. It's not just that he
makes outrageous demands on his employees or carries his toddler
around like a good luck charm. It's also reflected in
the actual setup of these companies, the way that people
who work for Elon relate to one another. What it
is is everybody reports to Elon. Ultimately, he is the
sun and everybody around him revolves around him. And you know,
(01:37):
this has all kinds of implications for all of his companies,
none of which are normal. And happily Bloomberg just published
an infographic that kind of explains all of this. It's
a beautiful piece of reporting and visualization that lays out
the weird relationships that surround the thing that we have
been calling Elon Inc. The universe of Elon Musk's companies.
(01:59):
And you know, happily for us, two of the reporters
who put this together, the two lead reporters to put
this together, are regulars on this very podcast. Dana Hall,
Bloomberg's Elon Musk correspondent, is joining us to discuss it. Hello,
Dana hey Hey and Kurt Wagner are social media reporter
and regular on this show. Kurt, Welcome to Elon Inc.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
I wouldn't miss it. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And because this is a very special episode, we have
a very special guest, Katie at Topolus, who covers tech
and culture for business insiders. Here. Katie welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Thank you so much for having me. I like to
think of myself as the cat turd two of threats.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So Dana, let's start with you just tell us about
what this graphic is trying to accomplish. And for people
who haven't looked at it, you really should pause a
podcast and look at it, because it's an amazing sort
of picture, amazing visualization. It's constructed around a solar system.
Why a solar system, Dana.
Speaker 6 (02:57):
Yeah, So the idea for this was, like, you know,
people always asking how can Elon Musk run six companies simultaneously?
Who else works for him? Like, is there a way
that we could do like a visual representation of the
org chart at all of his companies? And I think
instead of thinking of it as like a linear org
chart like the people who run X or X dot
(03:18):
AI or SpaceX or Tesla, you really do have to
think of it as a solar system, with Elon as
like the very bright burning sun, and then this constellation
of companies around him that are kind of circling him.
And then around the companies you've got space junk, you've
got satellites, you've got meteors, you've got certain people that
kind of like bop around between the planets, and so
(03:39):
that was kind of our visual framework, and I think
it worked out really well. Anyone who's covered Elon for
a long period of time knows that there are certain
characters who just emerge over and over and over again.
And while some of these names might be familiar to listeners,
others are not, and you should really get to know
who they are.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Kurt, how did you you report through this? It's not
like you can just look this stuff up on the internet,
not like a normal company, Like how does anyone How
does a reporter or even like someone who works for
Elon musk figure out like who matters at a given
company or within this universe.
Speaker 7 (04:16):
It's a challenge because, as you point out, they don't
just simply say here's the executive team on a lot
of these websites, certainly not with X, which is what
I cover most closely. So I mean it really comes
down to like shoe leather reporting, right, like trying to
talk to people who are inside these companies, trying to
figure out, hey, you know, when a finance decision is
being made, like.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Where does that go to?
Speaker 7 (04:36):
Who's sort of the final you know, approver of that
or also just like following Elon's posts. Sometimes, you know,
he'll either post a photo or video and you'll see
people like lingering in the background and be like, oh wow,
I didn't realize that that person was like involved in
that thing or company, right, And so it's really just
good old fashioned reporting. And I think the challenge is
(04:57):
people move around often as we get through this cushion.
You'll like Tesla executives who are now over at X
or SpaceX, folks who are now at Boring Company or
whatever it may be. And so just sort of keeping
up to speed with like the who's there at that
moment can be really tough. But generally we have a
pretty good idea of you know, as Dana mentioned, who's
orbiting Elon at any given time.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Did you two have this like in your head already
before you worked on this project, and was it a
solar system or a different metaphor?
Speaker 6 (05:24):
I can speak for covering Tesla. I've always kept an
ORG chart because it changes so quickly. And you know what,
I think it's wild about Tesla. If you look at
their website, there's nothing about people. It's all about the products.
It's all about the cars or the robot or the
promise of autonomy or you know, the megapax, like there
is nothing about people on that website at all. And
(05:45):
Tesla has you know, over one hundred and twenty thousand
employees globally and they just have three named executive officers.
So just figuring out the delta like okay, like besides
the three named people on securities filings? Who else is
actually like running the show?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Is just this constant challenge. And you know, I think
any reporter who covers the company always kind of has
the ORG chart in mind. A lot of it is
like asking our sources that are still at the company,
like has the ORG chart change? Like what are you seeing?
Like I heard this executive left? Are they gone? Are
they back? Like are they on a leave of absence?
Like it's it's always very very fluid, and I think that, yeah,
(06:20):
like a solar system speaks to that.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
These names, like I'm guessing you don't you're not covering
elon mus day to day, so you don't know them all,
but I'm guessing many of them are familiar to you because,
like Kurt kind of hinted at this, a lot of
this stuff is like playing out on social media, Like
some of these relationships we know about because they're tweeting
at one another.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, exactly. You can see it play out.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
And there's also a little bit of an element of
like some of these figures have sort of moved from
one phase of his life or one company to another.
They sort of are intertwined. It's not just he has
a bunch of companies and these are the people that
work at them. Like there's sort of these satellite floaters
coming in. It's almost like sort of keeping track of
who's dating who on vander Pumper roles.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, I was just going to ask you, like, does
his sort of universe of influence look like a celebrities,
you know, universe of influence or does it look different
or just kind of curious how you think about the
Elon community compared to other similar communities of influence or whatever.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
So I think kind of the best real window into
this that we ever had was that moment during the
chancery court lawsuit when he was trying to get out
of buying Twitter, where all of a sudden all his
text messages were revealed and you got to kind of
see how he interacts with these other people that he
either works with or has a friendship with or a
(07:37):
quasi business relationship with, and how much like they suck
up to him, and like there's such a weird power
imbalance and dynamic. It's not exactly like a boss. It's
not exactly like a friend. There's a really weird like
sycophantic thing going on, and that kind of feels like,
you know what you might imagine from like Entourage or
(07:57):
something where like someone has these kind of yes men
and these hangers on.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
That list of text messages. As Kurt also knows, it's
like the Rosetta Stone of like, you know, if you
want to understand Elon, that that it has, it contains
like everything you need to know. I think, Kurt, I'm
curious if you ever get questions from like Twitter employees
asking like how to get in touch with various people
in Elon's orbit, Like do people who work for him
understand this empire?
Speaker 7 (08:22):
I don't think so, certainly, not off the top of
their heads. I think like at a certain level of
closeness to Elon, you know you probably obviously like the
higher up the food chain you are, the more exposure
you have to this kind of thing. But I think
like the everyday rank and file sort of employees. Certainly
at X, I don't think they're necessarily aware of the
you know, broad orbit here. And part of that is because,
(08:43):
like I can tell you, it was a little bit
hard to put together on our end, right, Like it
required like I said, like real reporting, real phone calls,
real going out and asking people is certainly with the
X side. I remember talking to folks like all right, well,
like who's in charge of product? And they were sort
of like, well, it's not like entire early clear, but
we think it's this person. But like sometimes decisions are
made over here. And so my point being is that
(09:06):
it's not a very transparent system, and I think some
of that is by design. I think some of that
is just what happens when you have six different companies
plus all of the extra you know, entourage that Elon
comes with on any given day. It's just like, this
is not a normal thing. And even other billionaires, like
I was thinking, okay, Mark Zuckerberg is another person I
(09:27):
covered very closely obviously as a huge you know, group
of advisors, people who are close to him, Like if
we were to do this with him, it would be
much easier, in part because he's.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Just running one company. He's running one.
Speaker 7 (09:38):
Business, like the six businesses thing is really what makes this,
I think, such a unique scenario and also makes it
hard to kind of understand the org chart from the
ground floor.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, just jumping on that. Are there legal or ethical
questions raised by this? The weirdness here? I mean the
fact that you potentially have, say, like a Tesla's a
public company, you potentially have a Tesla employer being dragged
off into some other part of Elon's empire, or being
asked to work on a maybe even a personal project
for him or something like that. Is that something that
(10:09):
creates pitfalls? Legal pitfalls, ethical pitfalls, that sort of thing.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
Oh, oh sure, I mean it's a big part of
the whole like fight over Musk's twenty eighteen compensation package, right,
Like you have shareholders and you know, smaller investors, a
lot of pension funds, being like, this is a part
time CEO, he has never paid full attention to our company,
and if anything, like he's just doing more and more
crazy things and starting newer and newer companies and like
(10:34):
borrowing Peter to pay Paul and like using Tesla resources
to help prop up his other companies. I mean, now
Tesla is advertising on X and you know, I think
the thing to remember is that Tesla is the only
public company out of the six. The other five are
all privately held, and so Tesla has to test to
disclose and its proxy all the ways in which these
(10:55):
companies relate, like they share the corporate jet, like they
share security, and so just the whole fact that that
Tesla resources are used for other parts of the empire
is a big concern. The question is, like, leney whatever,
do anything about it? So far, the board certainly hasn't.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
All right, Let's move on the Elon universe. As we're explaining,
it's a very complex cosmos, very hard for somebody who
isn't studying this closely to understand, which and you know,
that's a big problem because Elon is an important guy
with a lot of money. So it makes sense of this.
To get some more insight into this world, we're going
to use one of the great tools of American journalism,
(11:38):
the senior Superlative List. Now, for those of you who
have not gone to an American high school, or have
not watched a movie involving one, or just forgot what
it's like. Basically at the end of the year, a
committee of students puts together a yearbook, which is a
book with two covers on either side that has all
(12:00):
the names of the students and there's usually a several
page full color section in which the students vote on
who has the best hair, the best smile, and so on.
And so for this panel, we're all gonna pretend to
be editors of a high school yearbook and we're going
to choose the superlatives for the members of the Elon Universe. Now,
(12:22):
ahead of the show, just tell everyone, I asked everyone
to send me their senior superlatives for the for the
Elon Musk Universe. I've collected them here and I will
moderate this discussion and try to rain everybody in. And
before we do that, I need to ask, was anybody
on this panel a senior superlative? And if so, which
what was your superlative?
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Katie, I was, and I actually had two. I was
class clown and most funfilled.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
I was just the editor of the yearbook, so I
didn't get a superlative, but I put the yearbook together.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Well, Dan, that's great. I mean, I'm so happy that
you are here with us to keep me honest, Kurt.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yeah, this is sort of embarrassing, but you know why not.
Speaker 7 (13:08):
I got first place and third place in the Cutest
Couple competition. I got first place with my actual girlfriend
and I got third place with my best friend who
I spent a lot of time hanging out with and
we played football together, and apparently everyone thought we made
a nice couple as well. So I was taking home
(13:29):
multiple prizes, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, so mine was, like, I think it was best
all Around, which sounds like a really good category, but
I actually think it's like a maybe bit of a
burn and just because it's like you don't have anything
to offer. So anyway, we're gonna start with kind of
a classic, maybe not as classic as class clown, but
(13:52):
a classic senior superltive category. Life of the Party Katie
and Atopolas. Who is the life of the party in
Elon Musk's universe.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
I so my vote is for his brother, Kimball Musk,
and for a very straightforward reason, which is that he's
a chef and like I'm sure he throws a great party,
he can actually cook.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I mean, I completely agree with that.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
He also seems like he's a guy who loves to party.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
He likes some party. Dana, Kurt, what do we make
of Kimball? Do you how do you rate him on
the life of the party scale? And who was your
life at the party?
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I think that's a fun pick.
Speaker 7 (14:27):
I think my life of the party choice was Elon himself,
which was, to be clear, the only time I picked
Elon because I know we're mostly talking about his crew here.
It seems like Elon, you know, is maybe dabbling in
some extracurriculars.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
And I think.
Speaker 7 (14:42):
Kimball and Elon seem like, you know, two brothers who
tend to maybe get in trouble together from time to time,
and as far as long term consequences go, I'm not
sure that's best. But for one night life of the party?
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Dan? I know this has falls under the normal description
of your job, But who was your life of the party.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
Alex Spiro, Elon's lawyer, I mean, you know, like fast
talking New Yorker. I don't know. Maybe I think he
lives in Miami now, but he's at all these big trials,
right he defended Elon during the Pedo Guy trial. He
like is just front and center. He's always filing these
crazy motions late on a Friday night, Like I get
these pacer alerts and there's an alex Buro motion. And
(15:21):
if you're a guy like Elon Musk and you're involved
in a lot of litigation and you want to have
a hardcore litigation team, you kind of need like a
fun lawyer.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
These are all good choices. But this is grimes erasure. Everybody.
I think we all know. Okay, we did it. Okay,
let me compose myself. Everyone knows that Grimes is the
(15:51):
life of the party as well. All right, best dressed, Dana.
You had Franz von Holds, who sounds like a well
dressed guy, but remind us like who he is, and
you know kind of why you put him.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
Yeah, So, Franz is Tesla's chief designer. He lives in La.
I actually saw him in person recently. I flew down
to the Peterson Automotive Museum in la and it was
just such a wild seed. It was like a Sunday morning.
They were having this evy event at the museum on
the roof and Franz rolled up in his cyber truck
and emerged from the cyber truck wearing like a black
(16:27):
T shirt and jeans and like some kind of like
high end high top basketball shoes, and he had on
like eighty eater sunglasses and he was just mobbed by
people wanting his autograph. And it was kind of like
a good reminder that, like, you know, Elon obviously has
like tons of fans, but other people within his orbit
are sort of celebrities in their own right, and Franz
(16:48):
is definitely this way.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So we had some other good good picks here. Katie
had Linda Yakarino, who I want to save for our
next category. Kurt had May Musk, Elon Musk's mom, who's
a professional model, professionally well dressed. All right, this is
like I think my favorite category, school spirit. Kurt, most
school spirit? Who is your pick?
Speaker 7 (17:11):
I picked ex CEO Linda Yakarino as the most school spirit.
I think you see, you know, her out there pumping
up Elon, and I think you see her out there
pumping up X seemingly totally behind him and everything that
he says and tweets, like, she just seems like his
big cheerleader, right and if and if the school, if
(17:32):
we're at the School of Elon, I just get the
sense that Linda's is really bought in. It's interesting because
like he makes her job so hard, Like he tweets things,
he says things that make you know, selling X's business
so so so hard, and yet there she is rooting
him on at every step, and so I had to
give this to her.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
We have a little tabe of this. Let's let's let's
give it a listen X.
Speaker 8 (17:55):
We need to keep our minds open that it's developing
into this globebal town square that is fueled by free
expression where the public gathers in real time.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
You know, Linda, she's leading the fencing team pep rally,
She's there cheering on the math team. She is all
about X, and like, I have to think that's like
a self preservation tactic. But it does make me wonder,
like if this is a guide to like how you
if you like report up to Elon Musk. I guess
(18:29):
this is what you have to do.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
I think that the key to surviving at Musk's companies,
if you're up high is you either have incredibly deft
emotional intelligence and you know how to manage him with
like the right level of like synco fancy and like
obedience or you like somehow dodge him and you stay
out of his line of fire, which is not always easy.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
I mean, I think I had originally thought maybe someone else,
but I'm completely swayed by Kurt here. I'm voting Linda too.
And I think that like what really embodies the schools
the sort of the person who's like, these are the
best days of our lives, like remember this, like so exciting,
like you have to sign my yearbook, Like that's the
school streat. I think that there was this moment when
(19:10):
she sort of first took over.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
At X of like did she know what she was
getting into?
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Did she take this because she thought it was just
gonna be a fun job and now it's a nightmare?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Like does she regret this?
Speaker 5 (19:21):
And there were sort of reports that she was getting
text and phone calls from people she had worked with
back at NBC being like get out now before you
like ruin your reputation.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And then there were sort of more reporting that came out.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
It's like, no, she really is just like a true believer,
like she absolutely believes it. She's in like full you know,
full cent, she's she's in.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
These are the best years of our lives. Yeah, all right,
class clown Katie on top list class clown of her
of her senior class, who is a class clown of
Elon's senior class.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So I vote Grimes and hear me out.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
She is one of the few people in his orbit
who like she's not a business person, right, I mean,
she does have some business interests or whatnot, but like
she does have the freedom to kind of say.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Really wild weird.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Stuff, and I get the sense that she secretly like
does have a good sense of humor. Like she also
is the voice of a children's AI stuffed animal toy.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Called Groco Groc.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Also, okay, I guess I own a Grock.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
She couldn't bring it next time?
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, my kids love Groc.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
But I've I've spent a lot of time with Grok,
and I feel like I feel like her spirit in
that is humorous to me in a way that I
don't necessarily find some of his other business associates to
be humorous. And unfortunately I know that Elon himself I
think would love to be the glass clown.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
But sorry, buddy, what is it about Elon's humor?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
It's it's just sweaty, right, Like he misses the mark
it's like he thinks he's so funny, but it's kind
of just like warmed overifunny dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
He steals memes.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Is is a bude in the throat of a lot
of people that they just cancel, Like it's just annoying
that he does that and it's not funny, like and
it's kind of rude.
Speaker 9 (21:15):
Dan.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I mean, you and I of course have talked many
times about about Elon's humor, and have you noticed any
changes in the human like he's been. He's more on Twitter? Now,
what for you sticks out about Elon's humor.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
I mean others have meant to have said this before,
but he's really like a comedian kind of trying out
his bits. And like if you've listened to him long enough,
which you know, for better or worse, those of us
on this podcast do listen to him quite a lot,
Like he just recycles a lot of the same things,
like over and over again. It's almost like he's so
sleep deprived and he's running on empty so much that
(21:46):
like he just he forgets what he's saying is what
he said before.
Speaker 7 (21:50):
I've sort of described his humor as like middle school
humor before, right, like it feels like the kind of
thing that you know, there's like a lot of kind
of weird sex jokes and then a lot of weird
you know, like jokes about females and their bodies and things,
and it's like it feels like the kind of thing
that you know, a fourteen year old boy would do
(22:12):
to try and like impress his friends type of thing,
and it feels like he doesn't really deviate a ton
from that.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
All Right, So I know Kurt is the cutest couple
in this room, but I'm gonna ask Katie for her
cutest couple because it was a good one. Katie, cutest
couple in elon Land.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
It's got to be David Sachs and Jason Kalkanas. They
do the podcast together.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, these are the co hosts of the.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
All In Yeah, And you know, and I like watching them.
They sometimes will disagree and have little spats with each
other on Twitter, which I find charming. I mean, I
find I guess I should say I find not that
much about them charming, but together they're clearly they've got a.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Thing going on. They've got chemistry. You can't deny that.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Well, and they are both gonna come up individually later on,
So let's just keep moving. But but I totally agree
they have a wonderful banter. I was a little disappointed,
have to say, Kurt had Elon and may you know
Elon and his mom, which to me feels like a
cop out choice a little bit.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Well, they showed up at the met gala together. Is
that not cute? Or what? To you know? Bring your
mom to the met gala.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Next category we have is most likely to succeed Dana Hall.
Who is your most likely to succeed in Elon Lands?
Speaker 6 (23:37):
Well, this was an easy one for me. Gwen shotwell,
I mean, come on, the woman has been the number
two at SpaceX for all these years. She clearly knows
how to manage Elon. She's a survivor, she's incredibly respected.
She handles all the contracts with NASA and a Pentagon.
If Elon is like the bad dad or the scary
dad at the office, Gwen is like the good mom
(23:58):
and she clearly has his trust. And I mean, Max,
you and I got to interview her at the SpaceX
headquarters in La you know, several years ago, and you know,
for all of the talk about how Elon, there's like
sort of turnover in the executive ranks at Elon's companies.
I mean, Gwen, there's no turnover there. I mean she
has been at SpaceX since the beginning. She was like
(24:19):
the seventh employee, and she's gonna she's you know, I
think she's she's she's clearly the most successful.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
You know. This came up in the teacher's peck category.
I do think a large portion of most likely to
succeed in Elon Land is being willing to essentially defend
anything he does. Actually, we have some madio right here
of Gwen Shotwell talking to Forbes women.
Speaker 10 (24:42):
I also have learned that he's rarely wrong, even if
that's super irritating and it feels not right when you
first hear what he wants to go achieve, and so
if it doesn't sound like what you think we should
be doing, I always stop and think, Okay, we've been
through that before, think hard about what he's saying, what
(25:03):
he's trying to achieve, and figure out how to.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Make it work.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
It's very inspirational music in the background.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
I love that it feels like I'm like watching like
a nineties infomercial.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
All right, now, this this category so most likely to succeed.
That's always kind of like a fifty to fifty year.
You know, in some ways that's a compliment. In some ways,
you know, we're all on the yearbook committee sort of
making fun of you. The next few categories sort of
get into, i'd say less flattering categories. Teacher's pet, Katie,
who is your teacher's pet?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I mean it's got to be Jason, right.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That is the correct Let's listen for ourselves. Here's Jason
Calcanis talking with Lex Friedman.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
I have never seen an entrepreneur suffer more than him,
and you know he's been public about that, like you
do not want to be me. He has suffered for
those companies.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
He has suffered to get them where they are.
Speaker 9 (25:54):
It has not been easy.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
You see that he has this close friendship that has
gone on for a long time. But really, really where
those tweets that were revealed in the Delaware courts during
the X takeover, where he is he's saying wild stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I would jump on a ground for you yonde.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Did he.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
Wasn't he like you have my sword, like really dramatic,
like sycophantic things like and of course also like my
dream would be to be Twitter CEO, like also an ask,
but like it was just really like he's laying it
on Fish.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Oh kay, I can't help it. I have to play
another clip from the Freedman interview. This one's kind of
a personal interest, you know, off mic, A lot of
us will talk about who are our favorite journalists, and
right here we have Jason Calcanis talking about his favorite journalists.
Speaker 9 (26:45):
People were kind of a gas that he was asking
that such good questions and they're like, oh my god,
Elon's the best journalist on the planet. And it was
like anybody who knows Elon knows he has great questions.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I mean, I've been I used to.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Oh, wow, Katie.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
You're only you're only criticizing Jason Calcanus because you're worried
coming through that clip.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Okay. Now for most likely to be President, we have
Kurt Had, Jason's co host as your pick, David Sacks.
Why Kurt, I did?
Speaker 7 (27:16):
He just seemed of everyone in the university, seems the
most interested in politics and like having an influence over
geopolitical stuff. I don't know, it's like he seems to
want to be involved in all this stuff. He talks
about Russian and Ukraine all the time. He talks about
like other geopolitical issues on the All In pod, but
(27:38):
also on his Twitter account. And I was just like,
I was looking through the list of all these people,
and he seems the most in tune with what's going
on at least, like he likes to talk about what's
going on in the world. And I thought, if anyone
wants to be president, it's got to be this guy.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
He's he's hosting a big fundraiser for Trump. He and
his wife, that's right, hosting, So he's you know, he's
he is very interested in politics.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
With another All In co host we've not mentioned Schamath Pollopatia.
I think it's like a five hundred thousand dollars a
plate dinner.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
You know, that might be a little above my budget.
Speaker 6 (28:12):
To be clear, Elon Musk has not endorsed anyone, and
he claims that he is not giving money to any candidates,
but he has left open the possibility of donating money
via a pack and he obviously, I mean he's he
is not a big fan of.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
President Joe Biden.
Speaker 6 (28:28):
I mean he's made that abundantly clear.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, And also possibility he saunters into this fundraiser in
early June with May Muskintoe or somebody else. Okay, last
of these categories. And I will say that Katie and
I were the only ones brave enough to answer this
question for biggest flirt, Katie, you had Alex Spiro, who
was was Dana's life of the party. Actually, you know what,
(28:57):
I'd like Dana to defend that. Why why do you
think why would Alex Spiro be the biggest flirt at
Elon Land?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Well, because if you're doing a jury trial, you've got
to be able to basically flirt with the jury to win, right,
So I could see that, you know, like you've got
to have a sort of amount of like confidence in
bravado at a real rapport with you know, with everyday
people to kind of sway them to your side. I could.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I could definitely see that. Is that enough for you?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I think so?
Speaker 5 (29:23):
And I mean he's also someone who he's unlike some
of the people who work for Elon Musk, where Elon
Musk is their sole boss, Like he has other clients.
He's bitping and bopping around with lots of people. You know,
Elon is just one of many of his clients, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
All right. So for our final segment, we are I've
asked everyone to come up with their own category that
wasn't on this list and and a nominee. So Katie,
why don't you go first? What was your imaginary category?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (29:53):
So mine was one that we did have in my
high school, which was most likely to stay past twelfth grade.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Which again is a little bit of an insult, I think.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I'd say a little bit.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
It's I think it's a mix of you either love
the school so much that like kind of like school spirit,
or like, buddy, I don't think you're gonna make.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It, but you can graduate.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
But I had Franz von Holtzausen, and the reason is
because he has been there a long time and I
can sort of see him being a lifer and holding on.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Like Matthew McConaughey and you know whatever. Moving Yeah, exactly,
all right, Kurt? What was your category?
Speaker 7 (30:31):
I had most likely to move your family to the
surface of Mars, And for that I had Steve Davis,
the president of the Boring Company, because you may recall,
shortly after Elon took over X, Steve moved his family
into X's office and literally like lived in the conference
room with his partner and their I believe newborn child
(30:56):
while they were transitioning from Twitter to X.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
And I just.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
Thought, if anybody's willing to move their family into a
you know, office cubicle, then they're probably willing to follow
Elon to the.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Surface of Mars. So Steve Davis wins that one.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Steve Davis is like a really interesting and sort of
important person in Elon Land who's been really close to him.
Is another probably another candidate. Frankly for Stay Pass twelfth grade,
worked with him very closely at SpaceX was involved a
Twitter boring company. I actually had him as my class
clown for because there was a time I think he
closed it, but he for a while he owned a
(31:31):
frozen yogurt shop in Washington, d C. Called Mister Yogato
for some reason, like in addition to all this other
stuff he was doing. So he's he's he's an interesting person.
My category was, which I think we may have had
in my yearbook, was worst case of senioritis. This is
someone who is not not putting in all the effort,
(31:52):
maybe not involved enough. And I picked Peter Teel because
we think of him as being a you know, really
important power broker. But if you look at this graphic,
he's just kind of like a little piece of space
garbage off to the far right corner. And and it's
it's a little bit surprising because of course Elon Musk
has really like moved to Peter Thiel's worldview. He's sort
of in almost every way they've they've like come together,
(32:15):
and he's like managed to somehow maybe lose some of
the luster. Maybe Elon's taken some of his thunder, Dana,
I'm gonna give you the last category. What was it?
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Well, of course my category was most dramatic.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
All right, let's listen to some tape that that helps
explain or maybe predicts the answer.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Look, I know I sometimes say or post strange things,
but that's just how my brain works. Do anyone have offended?
I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and
I'm sending people to Mars in our rocket ship. Did
you think I was also going to be a chill
normal dude.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Dana, couldn't have any been any other way.
Speaker 6 (32:53):
It really couldn't have been. But I actually thought you
were gonna play the clip from when he spoke a
due book and told Bob Iger and all the advertised
who were boycotting acts to go f themselves. I mean,
this is not a subtle person. And you know, this
is a guy who like fire. You know, he's laid
off or fired like thousands of people at Tesla over
the last month. In one case, he basically disbanded an
(33:15):
entire team and then started quietly hiring some people back.
He doesn't do anything subtle, and even his like emails
to his employees are like you've got to be totally
hardcore work all weekend, Like there's nothing, I mean everything,
Everything is always dramatic with him.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Can you when do you think this like Elon as
this like figure of cultural fascination, Like when did it
be in for like when did it start to really
feel like in your world like that he was somebody
who mattered just like beyond the companies and like like
what caused it?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
So that's a good question.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
I feel like for a while I sort of was
as someone who's not primarily interested in like cars or
space in I mean, I guess I'm interested in them existing,
but you know, in my coverage or whatnot, I wasn't
that you know, excited by him.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
But then I want to say, actually, like we just
played a clip.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
From when he was on Saturday Night Live, and I
feel like that sort of was right at a moment
where like something was turning with him where he was
going from like a guy who is a famous businessman
to like someone who kind of exists in pop culture
in a much much bigger and fascinating and weird way.
(34:34):
And I also think that the moment where he showed
up on the met gala with Grimes was that was
like that was sort of the damn breaking of like
this is just fun, Like this is now you are
a pop culture figure.
Speaker 7 (34:49):
Once he you know, decided once he became the richest
person in the world, and once she bought a website
that is all about influencing culture and shape being the
news and the facts.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
That people get.
Speaker 7 (35:03):
Like to me that obviously he was a well known,
of course, and very prominent person before that, but I
feel like to me that was more of the tipping
point was like suddenly he wasn't just this famous tech guy.
He was now the famous tech guy who owns the
distribution channel for what has created like a lot of
really important Internet moments right, which was Twitter. So to me,
(35:26):
like that purchase was what sort of you know, it's
not been two years or whatever. I think that purchase
is sort of what pushed him into this, Like, Okay,
we're not just looking at him as the cool iron
man guy. We're now looking at him in a very
different light because of the power that he has over speech.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (35:43):
I think that peak Elon may have been when he
hosted Saturday Night Live. And then now it's like he's
kind of on the downward slope in that when once
you become so powerful, then you have a target on
your back. And like the backlash is very real. People
used to hold him in very high esteem. There's now
like a real Elon backlash. You're seeing like bumper stickers
on Tesla's in the Bay Area that say things like
(36:05):
I bought my car before I knew Elon was crazy.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
You have people.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
Actively saying that they're voting no at the Tesla shareholder meeting.
I don't know if he inspires the same kind of like,
you know, feeling that he used to when he was
just like this guy trying to solve the problem of
climate change.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, and I mean that is I think ultimately like
why this graphic, why this discussion matters, Because as funny
as it is to like, you know, talk about who
is the biggest flirt in elon Land, it's also these
are the people that are causing this incredibly wealthy, incredibly
powerful person to do the things that he does. I mean,
(36:46):
they could even I mean, you know, David Sax could
be president.
Speaker 10 (36:49):
Y' all.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So that's why we're doing this, and I'm sure we
will revisit these topics again and again in the weeks
to come. Yeah, thank you, Katie not Topolas, thank you
so much for having me. Kurt Dana, thanks for being
on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
As always, absolutely thank you.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
This episode is produced by Stacey Wong, Naomi Shavan and
Rayhan Are Monsieur senior editors. The idea for this very
show also came from Rayhn Blake Maple's Handles Engineering, and
we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott and Antonia Mufarich.
Our supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson. The Elonink theme is
written and performed by Takai Yasusawa and Alex Segiera. Brendan
(37:40):
Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is
the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. I'm Max Chafkin. If you
have a minute, rate and review our show, it'll help
other listeners find us and we will see you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
More than half the satellites in space are owned and
controlled by one man.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, he's a legitimate, super genius, legitimate, he says.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
be different.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
There is a reason the US government is so reliant
on him.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing enough.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
Anything he does, he's fascinating the people.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Welcome to Elon Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
I'm your host, Max Chapkin, and as promise, we're backquus
second time this week with a very special episode. We
talk all the time on this podcast about the ways
that Elon Musk runs his companies differently from what you
might think of as a normal business. It's not just
(01:14):
that he works crazy hours. It's not just that he
makes outrageous demands on his employees or carries his toddler
around like a good luck charm. It's also reflected in
the actual setup of these companies, the way that people
who work for Elon relate to one another. What it
is is everybody reports to Elon. Ultimately, he is the
sun and everybody around him revolves around him. And you know,
(01:37):
this has all kinds of implications for all of his companies,
none of which are normal. And happily Bloomberg just published
an infographic that kind of explains all of this. It's
a beautiful piece of reporting and visualization that lays out
the weird relationships that surround the thing that we have
been calling Elon Inc. The universe of Elon Musk's companies.
(01:59):
And you know, happily for us, two of the reporters
who put this together, the two lead reporters to put
this together, are regulars on this very podcast. Dana Hall,
Bloomberg's Elon Musk correspondent, is joining us to discuss it. Hello,
Dana hey Hey and Kurt Wagner are social media reporter
and regular on this show. Kurt, Welcome to Elon Inc.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
I wouldn't miss it. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And because this is a very special episode, we have
a very special guest, Katie at Topolus, who covers tech
and culture for business insiders. Here. Katie welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Thank you so much for having me. I like to
think of myself as the cat turd two of threats.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So Dana, let's start with you just tell us about
what this graphic is trying to accomplish. And for people
who haven't looked at it, you really should pause a
podcast and look at it, because it's an amazing sort
of picture, amazing visualization. It's constructed around a solar system.
Why a solar system, Dana.
Speaker 6 (02:57):
Yeah, So the idea for this was, like, you know,
people always asking how can Elon Musk run six companies simultaneously?
Who else works for him? Like, is there a way
that we could do like a visual representation of the
org chart at all of his companies? And I think
instead of thinking of it as like a linear org
chart like the people who run X or X dot
(03:18):
AI or SpaceX or Tesla, you really do have to
think of it as a solar system, with Elon as
like the very bright burning sun, and then this constellation
of companies around him that are kind of circling him.
And then around the companies you've got space junk, you've
got satellites, you've got meteors, you've got certain people that
kind of like bop around between the planets, and so
(03:39):
that was kind of our visual framework, and I think
it worked out really well. Anyone who's covered Elon for
a long period of time knows that there are certain
characters who just emerge over and over and over again.
And while some of these names might be familiar to listeners,
others are not, and you should really get to know
who they are.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Kurt, how did you you report through this? It's not
like you can just look this stuff up on the internet,
not like a normal company, Like how does anyone How
does a reporter or even like someone who works for
Elon musk figure out like who matters at a given
company or within this universe.
Speaker 7 (04:16):
It's a challenge because, as you point out, they don't
just simply say here's the executive team on a lot
of these websites, certainly not with X, which is what
I cover most closely. So I mean it really comes
down to like shoe leather reporting, right, like trying to
talk to people who are inside these companies, trying to
figure out, hey, you know, when a finance decision is
being made, like.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Where does that go to?
Speaker 7 (04:36):
Who's sort of the final you know, approver of that
or also just like following Elon's posts. Sometimes, you know,
he'll either post a photo or video and you'll see
people like lingering in the background and be like, oh wow,
I didn't realize that that person was like involved in
that thing or company, right, And so it's really just
good old fashioned reporting. And I think the challenge is
(04:57):
people move around often as we get through this cushion.
You'll like Tesla executives who are now over at X
or SpaceX, folks who are now at Boring Company or
whatever it may be. And so just sort of keeping
up to speed with like the who's there at that
moment can be really tough. But generally we have a
pretty good idea of you know, as Dana mentioned, who's
orbiting Elon at any given time.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Did you two have this like in your head already
before you worked on this project, and was it a
solar system or a different metaphor?
Speaker 6 (05:24):
I can speak for covering Tesla. I've always kept an
ORG chart because it changes so quickly. And you know what,
I think it's wild about Tesla. If you look at
their website, there's nothing about people. It's all about the products.
It's all about the cars or the robot or the
promise of autonomy or you know, the megapax, like there
is nothing about people on that website at all. And
(05:45):
Tesla has you know, over one hundred and twenty thousand
employees globally and they just have three named executive officers.
So just figuring out the delta like okay, like besides
the three named people on securities filings? Who else is
actually like running the show?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Is just this constant challenge. And you know, I think
any reporter who covers the company always kind of has
the ORG chart in mind. A lot of it is
like asking our sources that are still at the company,
like has the ORG chart change? Like what are you seeing?
Like I heard this executive left? Are they gone? Are
they back? Like are they on a leave of absence?
Like it's it's always very very fluid, and I think that, yeah,
(06:20):
like a solar system speaks to that.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
These names, like I'm guessing you don't you're not covering
elon mus day to day, so you don't know them all,
but I'm guessing many of them are familiar to you because,
like Kurt kind of hinted at this, a lot of
this stuff is like playing out on social media, Like
some of these relationships we know about because they're tweeting
at one another.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, exactly. You can see it play out.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
And there's also a little bit of an element of
like some of these figures have sort of moved from
one phase of his life or one company to another.
They sort of are intertwined. It's not just he has
a bunch of companies and these are the people that
work at them. Like there's sort of these satellite floaters
coming in. It's almost like sort of keeping track of
who's dating who on vander Pumper roles.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, I was just going to ask you, like, does
his sort of universe of influence look like a celebrities,
you know, universe of influence or does it look different
or just kind of curious how you think about the
Elon community compared to other similar communities of influence or whatever.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
So I think kind of the best real window into
this that we ever had was that moment during the
chancery court lawsuit when he was trying to get out
of buying Twitter, where all of a sudden all his
text messages were revealed and you got to kind of
see how he interacts with these other people that he
either works with or has a friendship with or a
(07:37):
quasi business relationship with, and how much like they suck
up to him, and like there's such a weird power
imbalance and dynamic. It's not exactly like a boss. It's
not exactly like a friend. There's a really weird like
sycophantic thing going on, and that kind of feels like,
you know what you might imagine from like Entourage or
(07:57):
something where like someone has these kind of yes men
and these hangers on.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
That list of text messages. As Kurt also knows, it's
like the Rosetta Stone of like, you know, if you
want to understand Elon, that that it has, it contains
like everything you need to know. I think, Kurt, I'm
curious if you ever get questions from like Twitter employees
asking like how to get in touch with various people
in Elon's orbit, Like do people who work for him
understand this empire?
Speaker 7 (08:22):
I don't think so, certainly, not off the top of
their heads. I think like at a certain level of
closeness to Elon, you know you probably obviously like the
higher up the food chain you are, the more exposure
you have to this kind of thing. But I think
like the everyday rank and file sort of employees. Certainly
at X, I don't think they're necessarily aware of the
you know, broad orbit here. And part of that is because,
(08:43):
like I can tell you, it was a little bit
hard to put together on our end, right, Like it
required like I said, like real reporting, real phone calls,
real going out and asking people is certainly with the
X side. I remember talking to folks like all right, well,
like who's in charge of product? And they were sort
of like, well, it's not like entire early clear, but
we think it's this person. But like sometimes decisions are
made over here. And so my point being is that
(09:06):
it's not a very transparent system, and I think some
of that is by design. I think some of that
is just what happens when you have six different companies
plus all of the extra you know, entourage that Elon
comes with on any given day. It's just like, this
is not a normal thing. And even other billionaires, like
I was thinking, okay, Mark Zuckerberg is another person I
(09:27):
covered very closely obviously as a huge you know, group
of advisors, people who are close to him, Like if
we were to do this with him, it would be
much easier, in part because he's.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Just running one company. He's running one.
Speaker 7 (09:38):
Business, like the six businesses thing is really what makes this,
I think, such a unique scenario and also makes it
hard to kind of understand the org chart from the
ground floor.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, just jumping on that. Are there legal or ethical
questions raised by this? The weirdness here? I mean the
fact that you potentially have, say, like a Tesla's a
public company, you potentially have a Tesla employer being dragged
off into some other part of Elon's empire, or being
asked to work on a maybe even a personal project
for him or something like that. Is that something that
(10:09):
creates pitfalls? Legal pitfalls, ethical pitfalls, that sort of thing.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
Oh, oh sure, I mean it's a big part of
the whole like fight over Musk's twenty eighteen compensation package, right,
Like you have shareholders and you know, smaller investors, a
lot of pension funds, being like, this is a part
time CEO, he has never paid full attention to our company,
and if anything, like he's just doing more and more
crazy things and starting newer and newer companies and like
(10:34):
borrowing Peter to pay Paul and like using Tesla resources
to help prop up his other companies. I mean, now
Tesla is advertising on X and you know, I think
the thing to remember is that Tesla is the only
public company out of the six. The other five are
all privately held, and so Tesla has to test to
disclose and its proxy all the ways in which these
(10:55):
companies relate, like they share the corporate jet, like they
share security, and so just the whole fact that that
Tesla resources are used for other parts of the empire
is a big concern. The question is, like, leney whatever,
do anything about it? So far, the board certainly hasn't.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
All right, Let's move on the Elon universe. As we're explaining,
it's a very complex cosmos, very hard for somebody who
isn't studying this closely to understand, which and you know,
that's a big problem because Elon is an important guy
with a lot of money. So it makes sense of this.
To get some more insight into this world, we're going
to use one of the great tools of American journalism,
(11:38):
the senior Superlative List. Now, for those of you who
have not gone to an American high school, or have
not watched a movie involving one, or just forgot what
it's like. Basically at the end of the year, a
committee of students puts together a yearbook, which is a
book with two covers on either side that has all
(12:00):
the names of the students and there's usually a several
page full color section in which the students vote on
who has the best hair, the best smile, and so on.
And so for this panel, we're all gonna pretend to
be editors of a high school yearbook and we're going
to choose the superlatives for the members of the Elon Universe. Now,
(12:22):
ahead of the show, just tell everyone, I asked everyone
to send me their senior superlatives for the for the
Elon Musk Universe. I've collected them here and I will
moderate this discussion and try to rain everybody in. And
before we do that, I need to ask, was anybody
on this panel a senior superlative? And if so, which
what was your superlative?
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Katie, I was, and I actually had two. I was
class clown and most funfilled.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
I was just the editor of the yearbook, so I
didn't get a superlative, but I put the yearbook together.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Well, Dan, that's great. I mean, I'm so happy that
you are here with us to keep me honest, Kurt.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yeah, this is sort of embarrassing, but you know why not.
Speaker 7 (13:08):
I got first place and third place in the Cutest
Couple competition. I got first place with my actual girlfriend
and I got third place with my best friend who
I spent a lot of time hanging out with and
we played football together, and apparently everyone thought we made
a nice couple as well. So I was taking home
(13:29):
multiple prizes, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, so mine was, like, I think it was best
all Around, which sounds like a really good category, but
I actually think it's like a maybe bit of a
burn and just because it's like you don't have anything
to offer. So anyway, we're gonna start with kind of
a classic, maybe not as classic as class clown, but
(13:52):
a classic senior superltive category. Life of the Party Katie
and Atopolas. Who is the life of the party in
Elon Musk's universe.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
I so my vote is for his brother, Kimball Musk,
and for a very straightforward reason, which is that he's
a chef and like I'm sure he throws a great party,
he can actually cook.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I mean, I completely agree with that.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
He also seems like he's a guy who loves to party.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
He likes some party. Dana, Kurt, what do we make
of Kimball? Do you how do you rate him on
the life of the party scale? And who was your
life at the party?
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I think that's a fun pick.
Speaker 7 (14:27):
I think my life of the party choice was Elon himself,
which was, to be clear, the only time I picked
Elon because I know we're mostly talking about his crew here.
It seems like Elon, you know, is maybe dabbling in
some extracurriculars.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
And I think.
Speaker 7 (14:42):
Kimball and Elon seem like, you know, two brothers who
tend to maybe get in trouble together from time to time,
and as far as long term consequences go, I'm not
sure that's best. But for one night life of the party?
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Dan? I know this has falls under the normal description
of your job, But who was your life of the party.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
Alex Spiro, Elon's lawyer, I mean, you know, like fast
talking New Yorker. I don't know. Maybe I think he
lives in Miami now, but he's at all these big trials,
right he defended Elon during the Pedo Guy trial. He
like is just front and center. He's always filing these
crazy motions late on a Friday night, Like I get
these pacer alerts and there's an alex Buro motion. And
(15:21):
if you're a guy like Elon Musk and you're involved
in a lot of litigation and you want to have
a hardcore litigation team, you kind of need like a
fun lawyer.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
These are all good choices. But this is grimes erasure. Everybody.
I think we all know. Okay, we did it. Okay,
let me compose myself. Everyone knows that Grimes is the
(15:51):
life of the party as well. All right, best dressed, Dana.
You had Franz von Holds, who sounds like a well
dressed guy, but remind us like who he is, and
you know kind of why you put him.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
Yeah, So, Franz is Tesla's chief designer. He lives in La.
I actually saw him in person recently. I flew down
to the Peterson Automotive Museum in la and it was
just such a wild seed. It was like a Sunday morning.
They were having this evy event at the museum on
the roof and Franz rolled up in his cyber truck
and emerged from the cyber truck wearing like a black
(16:27):
T shirt and jeans and like some kind of like
high end high top basketball shoes, and he had on
like eighty eater sunglasses and he was just mobbed by
people wanting his autograph. And it was kind of like
a good reminder that, like, you know, Elon obviously has
like tons of fans, but other people within his orbit
are sort of celebrities in their own right, and Franz
(16:48):
is definitely this way.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
So we had some other good good picks here. Katie
had Linda Yakarino, who I want to save for our
next category. Kurt had May Musk, Elon Musk's mom, who's
a professional model, professionally well dressed. All right, this is
like I think my favorite category, school spirit. Kurt, most
school spirit? Who is your pick?
Speaker 7 (17:11):
I picked ex CEO Linda Yakarino as the most school spirit.
I think you see, you know, her out there pumping
up Elon, and I think you see her out there
pumping up X seemingly totally behind him and everything that
he says and tweets, like, she just seems like his
big cheerleader, right and if and if the school, if
(17:32):
we're at the School of Elon, I just get the
sense that Linda's is really bought in. It's interesting because
like he makes her job so hard, Like he tweets things,
he says things that make you know, selling X's business
so so so hard, and yet there she is rooting
him on at every step, and so I had to
give this to her.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
We have a little tabe of this. Let's let's let's
give it a listen X.
Speaker 8 (17:55):
We need to keep our minds open that it's developing
into this globebal town square that is fueled by free
expression where the public gathers in real time.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
You know, Linda, she's leading the fencing team pep rally,
She's there cheering on the math team. She is all
about X, and like, I have to think that's like
a self preservation tactic. But it does make me wonder,
like if this is a guide to like how you
if you like report up to Elon Musk. I guess
(18:29):
this is what you have to do.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
I think that the key to surviving at Musk's companies,
if you're up high is you either have incredibly deft
emotional intelligence and you know how to manage him with
like the right level of like synco fancy and like
obedience or you like somehow dodge him and you stay
out of his line of fire, which is not always easy.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
I mean, I think I had originally thought maybe someone else,
but I'm completely swayed by Kurt here. I'm voting Linda too.
And I think that like what really embodies the schools
the sort of the person who's like, these are the
best days of our lives, like remember this, like so exciting,
like you have to sign my yearbook, Like that's the
school streat. I think that there was this moment when
(19:10):
she sort of first took over.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
At X of like did she know what she was
getting into?
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Did she take this because she thought it was just
gonna be a fun job and now it's a nightmare?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Like does she regret this?
Speaker 5 (19:21):
And there were sort of reports that she was getting
text and phone calls from people she had worked with
back at NBC being like get out now before you
like ruin your reputation.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And then there were sort of more reporting that came out.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
It's like, no, she really is just like a true believer,
like she absolutely believes it. She's in like full you know,
full cent, she's she's in.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
These are the best years of our lives. Yeah, all right,
class clown Katie on top list class clown of her
of her senior class, who is a class clown of
Elon's senior class.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So I vote Grimes and hear me out.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
She is one of the few people in his orbit
who like she's not a business person, right, I mean,
she does have some business interests or whatnot, but like
she does have the freedom to kind of say.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Really wild weird.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Stuff, and I get the sense that she secretly like
does have a good sense of humor. Like she also
is the voice of a children's AI stuffed animal toy.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Called Groco Groc.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Also, okay, I guess I own a Grock.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
She couldn't bring it next time?
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, my kids love Groc.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
But I've I've spent a lot of time with Grok,
and I feel like I feel like her spirit in
that is humorous to me in a way that I
don't necessarily find some of his other business associates to
be humorous. And unfortunately I know that Elon himself I
think would love to be the glass clown.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
But sorry, buddy, what is it about Elon's humor?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
It's it's just sweaty, right, Like he misses the mark
it's like he thinks he's so funny, but it's kind
of just like warmed overifunny dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
He steals memes.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Is is a bude in the throat of a lot
of people that they just cancel, Like it's just annoying
that he does that and it's not funny, like and
it's kind of rude.
Speaker 9 (21:15):
Dan.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I mean, you and I of course have talked many
times about about Elon's humor, and have you noticed any
changes in the human like he's been. He's more on Twitter? Now,
what for you sticks out about Elon's humor.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
I mean others have meant to have said this before,
but he's really like a comedian kind of trying out
his bits. And like if you've listened to him long enough,
which you know, for better or worse, those of us
on this podcast do listen to him quite a lot,
Like he just recycles a lot of the same things,
like over and over again. It's almost like he's so
sleep deprived and he's running on empty so much that
(21:46):
like he just he forgets what he's saying is what
he said before.
Speaker 7 (21:50):
I've sort of described his humor as like middle school
humor before, right, like it feels like the kind of
thing that you know, there's like a lot of kind
of weird sex jokes and then a lot of weird
you know, like jokes about females and their bodies and things,
and it's like it feels like the kind of thing
that you know, a fourteen year old boy would do
(22:12):
to try and like impress his friends type of thing,
and it feels like he doesn't really deviate a ton
from that.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
All Right, So I know Kurt is the cutest couple
in this room, but I'm gonna ask Katie for her
cutest couple because it was a good one. Katie, cutest
couple in elon Land.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
It's got to be David Sachs and Jason Kalkanas. They
do the podcast together.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, these are the co hosts of the.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
All In Yeah, And you know, and I like watching them.
They sometimes will disagree and have little spats with each
other on Twitter, which I find charming. I mean, I
find I guess I should say I find not that
much about them charming, but together they're clearly they've got a.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Thing going on. They've got chemistry. You can't deny that.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Well, and they are both gonna come up individually later on,
So let's just keep moving. But but I totally agree
they have a wonderful banter. I was a little disappointed,
have to say, Kurt had Elon and may you know
Elon and his mom, which to me feels like a
cop out choice a little bit.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Well, they showed up at the met gala together. Is
that not cute? Or what? To you know? Bring your
mom to the met gala.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Next category we have is most likely to succeed Dana Hall.
Who is your most likely to succeed in Elon Lands?
Speaker 6 (23:37):
Well, this was an easy one for me. Gwen shotwell,
I mean, come on, the woman has been the number
two at SpaceX for all these years. She clearly knows
how to manage Elon. She's a survivor, she's incredibly respected.
She handles all the contracts with NASA and a Pentagon.
If Elon is like the bad dad or the scary
dad at the office, Gwen is like the good mom
(23:58):
and she clearly has his trust. And I mean, Max,
you and I got to interview her at the SpaceX
headquarters in La you know, several years ago, and you know,
for all of the talk about how Elon, there's like
sort of turnover in the executive ranks at Elon's companies.
I mean, Gwen, there's no turnover there. I mean she
has been at SpaceX since the beginning. She was like
(24:19):
the seventh employee, and she's gonna she's you know, I
think she's she's she's clearly the most successful.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
You know. This came up in the teacher's peck category.
I do think a large portion of most likely to
succeed in Elon Land is being willing to essentially defend
anything he does. Actually, we have some madio right here
of Gwen Shotwell talking to Forbes women.
Speaker 10 (24:42):
I also have learned that he's rarely wrong, even if
that's super irritating and it feels not right when you
first hear what he wants to go achieve, and so
if it doesn't sound like what you think we should
be doing, I always stop and think, Okay, we've been
through that before, think hard about what he's saying, what
(25:03):
he's trying to achieve, and figure out how to.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Make it work.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
It's very inspirational music in the background.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
I love that it feels like I'm like watching like
a nineties infomercial.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
All right, now, this this category so most likely to succeed.
That's always kind of like a fifty to fifty year.
You know, in some ways that's a compliment. In some ways,
you know, we're all on the yearbook committee sort of
making fun of you. The next few categories sort of
get into, i'd say less flattering categories. Teacher's pet, Katie,
who is your teacher's pet?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I mean it's got to be Jason, right.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That is the correct Let's listen for ourselves. Here's Jason
Calcanis talking with Lex Friedman.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
I have never seen an entrepreneur suffer more than him,
and you know he's been public about that, like you
do not want to be me. He has suffered for
those companies.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
He has suffered to get them where they are.
Speaker 9 (25:54):
It has not been easy.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
You see that he has this close friendship that has
gone on for a long time. But really, really where
those tweets that were revealed in the Delaware courts during
the X takeover, where he is he's saying wild stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I would jump on a ground for you yonde.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Did he.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
Wasn't he like you have my sword, like really dramatic,
like sycophantic things like and of course also like my
dream would be to be Twitter CEO, like also an ask,
but like it was just really like he's laying it
on Fish.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Oh kay, I can't help it. I have to play
another clip from the Freedman interview. This one's kind of
a personal interest, you know, off mic, A lot of
us will talk about who are our favorite journalists, and
right here we have Jason Calcanis talking about his favorite journalists.
Speaker 9 (26:45):
People were kind of a gas that he was asking
that such good questions and they're like, oh my god,
Elon's the best journalist on the planet. And it was
like anybody who knows Elon knows he has great questions.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I mean, I've been I used to.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Oh, wow, Katie.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
You're only you're only criticizing Jason Calcanus because you're worried
coming through that clip.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Okay. Now for most likely to be President, we have
Kurt Had, Jason's co host as your pick, David Sacks.
Why Kurt, I did?
Speaker 7 (27:16):
He just seemed of everyone in the university, seems the
most interested in politics and like having an influence over
geopolitical stuff. I don't know, it's like he seems to
want to be involved in all this stuff. He talks
about Russian and Ukraine all the time. He talks about
like other geopolitical issues on the All In pod, but
(27:38):
also on his Twitter account. And I was just like,
I was looking through the list of all these people,
and he seems the most in tune with what's going
on at least, like he likes to talk about what's
going on in the world. And I thought, if anyone
wants to be president, it's got to be this guy.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
He's he's hosting a big fundraiser for Trump. He and
his wife, that's right, hosting, So he's you know, he's
he is very interested in politics.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
With another All In co host we've not mentioned Schamath Pollopatia.
I think it's like a five hundred thousand dollars a
plate dinner.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
You know, that might be a little above my budget.
Speaker 6 (28:12):
To be clear, Elon Musk has not endorsed anyone, and
he claims that he is not giving money to any candidates,
but he has left open the possibility of donating money
via a pack and he obviously, I mean he's he
is not a big fan of.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
President Joe Biden.
Speaker 6 (28:28):
I mean he's made that abundantly clear.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, And also possibility he saunters into this fundraiser in
early June with May Muskintoe or somebody else. Okay, last
of these categories. And I will say that Katie and
I were the only ones brave enough to answer this
question for biggest flirt, Katie, you had Alex Spiro, who
was was Dana's life of the party. Actually, you know what,
(28:57):
I'd like Dana to defend that. Why why do you
think why would Alex Spiro be the biggest flirt at
Elon Land?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Well, because if you're doing a jury trial, you've got
to be able to basically flirt with the jury to win, right,
So I could see that, you know, like you've got
to have a sort of amount of like confidence in
bravado at a real rapport with you know, with everyday
people to kind of sway them to your side. I could.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I could definitely see that. Is that enough for you?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I think so?
Speaker 5 (29:23):
And I mean he's also someone who he's unlike some
of the people who work for Elon Musk, where Elon
Musk is their sole boss, Like he has other clients.
He's bitping and bopping around with lots of people. You know,
Elon is just one of many of his clients, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
All right. So for our final segment, we are I've
asked everyone to come up with their own category that
wasn't on this list and and a nominee. So Katie,
why don't you go first? What was your imaginary category?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (29:53):
So mine was one that we did have in my
high school, which was most likely to stay past twelfth grade.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Which again is a little bit of an insult, I think.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I'd say a little bit.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
It's I think it's a mix of you either love
the school so much that like kind of like school spirit,
or like, buddy, I don't think you're gonna make.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It, but you can graduate.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
But I had Franz von Holtzausen, and the reason is
because he has been there a long time and I
can sort of see him being a lifer and holding on.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Like Matthew McConaughey and you know whatever. Moving Yeah, exactly,
all right, Kurt? What was your category?
Speaker 7 (30:31):
I had most likely to move your family to the
surface of Mars, And for that I had Steve Davis,
the president of the Boring Company, because you may recall,
shortly after Elon took over X, Steve moved his family
into X's office and literally like lived in the conference
room with his partner and their I believe newborn child
(30:56):
while they were transitioning from Twitter to X.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
And I just.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
Thought, if anybody's willing to move their family into a
you know, office cubicle, then they're probably willing to follow
Elon to the.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Surface of Mars. So Steve Davis wins that one.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Steve Davis is like a really interesting and sort of
important person in Elon Land who's been really close to him.
Is another probably another candidate. Frankly for Stay Pass twelfth grade,
worked with him very closely at SpaceX was involved a
Twitter boring company. I actually had him as my class
clown for because there was a time I think he
closed it, but he for a while he owned a
(31:31):
frozen yogurt shop in Washington, d C. Called Mister Yogato
for some reason, like in addition to all this other
stuff he was doing. So he's he's he's an interesting person.
My category was, which I think we may have had
in my yearbook, was worst case of senioritis. This is
someone who is not not putting in all the effort,
(31:52):
maybe not involved enough. And I picked Peter Teel because
we think of him as being a you know, really
important power broker. But if you look at this graphic,
he's just kind of like a little piece of space
garbage off to the far right corner. And and it's
it's a little bit surprising because of course Elon Musk
has really like moved to Peter Thiel's worldview. He's sort
of in almost every way they've they've like come together,
(32:15):
and he's like managed to somehow maybe lose some of
the luster. Maybe Elon's taken some of his thunder, Dana,
I'm gonna give you the last category. What was it?
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Well, of course my category was most dramatic.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
All right, let's listen to some tape that that helps
explain or maybe predicts the answer.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Look, I know I sometimes say or post strange things,
but that's just how my brain works. Do anyone have offended?
I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and
I'm sending people to Mars in our rocket ship. Did
you think I was also going to be a chill
normal dude.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Dana, couldn't have any been any other way.
Speaker 6 (32:53):
It really couldn't have been. But I actually thought you
were gonna play the clip from when he spoke a
due book and told Bob Iger and all the advertised
who were boycotting acts to go f themselves. I mean,
this is not a subtle person. And you know, this
is a guy who like fire. You know, he's laid
off or fired like thousands of people at Tesla over
the last month. In one case, he basically disbanded an
(33:15):
entire team and then started quietly hiring some people back.
He doesn't do anything subtle, and even his like emails
to his employees are like you've got to be totally
hardcore work all weekend, Like there's nothing, I mean everything,
Everything is always dramatic with him.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Can you when do you think this like Elon as
this like figure of cultural fascination, Like when did it
be in for like when did it start to really
feel like in your world like that he was somebody
who mattered just like beyond the companies and like like
what caused it?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
So that's a good question.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
I feel like for a while I sort of was
as someone who's not primarily interested in like cars or
space in I mean, I guess I'm interested in them existing,
but you know, in my coverage or whatnot, I wasn't
that you know, excited by him.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
But then I want to say, actually, like we just
played a clip.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
From when he was on Saturday Night Live, and I
feel like that sort of was right at a moment
where like something was turning with him where he was
going from like a guy who is a famous businessman
to like someone who kind of exists in pop culture
in a much much bigger and fascinating and weird way.
(34:34):
And I also think that the moment where he showed
up on the met gala with Grimes was that was
like that was sort of the damn breaking of like
this is just fun, Like this is now you are
a pop culture figure.
Speaker 7 (34:49):
Once he you know, decided once he became the richest
person in the world, and once she bought a website
that is all about influencing culture and shape being the
news and the facts.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
That people get.
Speaker 7 (35:03):
Like to me that obviously he was a well known,
of course, and very prominent person before that, but I
feel like to me that was more of the tipping
point was like suddenly he wasn't just this famous tech guy.
He was now the famous tech guy who owns the
distribution channel for what has created like a lot of
really important Internet moments right, which was Twitter. So to me,
(35:26):
like that purchase was what sort of you know, it's
not been two years or whatever. I think that purchase
is sort of what pushed him into this, Like, Okay,
we're not just looking at him as the cool iron
man guy. We're now looking at him in a very
different light because of the power that he has over speech.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (35:43):
I think that peak Elon may have been when he
hosted Saturday Night Live. And then now it's like he's
kind of on the downward slope in that when once
you become so powerful, then you have a target on
your back. And like the backlash is very real. People
used to hold him in very high esteem. There's now
like a real Elon backlash. You're seeing like bumper stickers
on Tesla's in the Bay Area that say things like
(36:05):
I bought my car before I knew Elon was crazy.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
You have people.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
Actively saying that they're voting no at the Tesla shareholder meeting.
I don't know if he inspires the same kind of like,
you know, feeling that he used to when he was
just like this guy trying to solve the problem of
climate change.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, and I mean that is I think ultimately like
why this graphic, why this discussion matters, Because as funny
as it is to like, you know, talk about who
is the biggest flirt in elon Land, it's also these
are the people that are causing this incredibly wealthy, incredibly
powerful person to do the things that he does. I mean,
(36:46):
they could even I mean, you know, David Sax could
be president.
Speaker 10 (36:49):
Y' all.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So that's why we're doing this, and I'm sure we
will revisit these topics again and again in the weeks
to come. Yeah, thank you, Katie not Topolas, thank you
so much for having me. Kurt Dana, thanks for being
on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
As always, absolutely thank you.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
This episode is produced by Stacey Wong, Naomi Shavan and
Rayhan Are Monsieur senior editors. The idea for this very
show also came from Rayhn Blake Maple's Handles Engineering, and
we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott and Antonia Mufarich.
Our supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson. The Elonink theme is
written and performed by Takai Yasusawa and Alex Segiera. Brendan
(37:40):
Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is
the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. I'm Max Chafkin. If you
have a minute, rate and review our show, it'll help
other listeners find us and we will see you next week.
Host
David Papadopoulos
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